It was a meagre enough life, on the grim edge of poverty, with scant margin for possibilities of sickness or mischance, but it had the frail audacious permanence of a bird's nest built on the edge of a cliff—a mere wisp of leaves and straw, yet so put together that the lives entrusted to it may hang safely over the abyss.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Eustachius de Fauconbridge, treasurer of the exchequer (saith Paris), chancellor of the exchequer (saith Textor and Cogshall), bishop of London, 1223, whilst at Chelmesforde he was giving holy orders, a great tempest of wind and rain annoyed so many as came thither, whereof it was gathered how highly God was displeased with such as came to receive orders, to the end that they might live a more easy life of the stipend appointed [428] to the churchmen, giving themselves to banquetting; and so with unclean and filthy bodies (but more unclean souls) presume to minister unto God, the author of purity and cleanness.
— from The Survey of London by John Stow

What was it which made me tremble and catch my breath as my eyes lit on the upright, fearless figure of the maiden who sat in the stern?
— from Sir Ludar A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess by Talbot Baines Reed

Arrived on the brow of the hill, we looked down on the romantic castle, and my eye lighted on the chapel roof.
— from A Ride on Horseback to Florence Through France and Switzerland. Vol. 2 of 2 Described in a Series of Letters by a Lady by Augusta Macgregor Holmes

Still followed by the detectives' motor cab, Don Luis returned to the Faubourg Saint-Germain; and it was then that an incident occurred which was to puzzle him greatly and throw a most extraordinary light on the article in the Echo de France .
— from The Teeth of the Tiger by Maurice Leblanc

" "Yes," the governor replied, "if every country in Christendom would unite against their common foe, and send a quota of ships and men, we would drive the Black Raven from the seas, and might even land on the Danish shores and give them a taste of the suffering they have inflicted elsewhere.
— from The Dragon and the Raven; Or, The Days of King Alfred by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

To continue, after a little go in with Samuel, he going up on the bridge, I looked about me to see who there was; and mine eye lighted on two girls, one of whom was sweet and pretty, talking to an old gentleman.
— from The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 23 by Robert Louis Stevenson

Few men of our times have shown a more active and powerful mind, a more earnest love of truth for truth's sake, than the author of this History,—and few men have had a wider or more thorough knowledge of the achievements of other scientific men.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 08, June 1858 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

] are most excellently lodged on the Altenburg.
— from Letters of Franz Liszt -- Volume 1 from Paris to Rome: Years of Travel as a Virtuoso by Franz Liszt

His estate and house were purchased by a gentleman of these parts, whose widow now enjoys them, and who hath improved them, particularly her gardens, with so elegant a taste, that the painter who would assist his imagination in the composition of a most exquisite landscape, or the poet who would describe an earthly paradise, could nowhere furnish themselves with a richer pattern.
— from The Works of Henry Fielding, vol. 11 A Journey From This World to the Next; and A Voyage to Lisbon by Henry Fielding

In the Arab architecture, the ornament usually becomes more choice, as it occupies a higher elevation; and the richest and most exquisite labours of the artist are lavished on the ceilings.
— from The Picturesque Antiquities of Spain Described in a series of letters, with illustrations representing Moorish palaces, cathedrals, and other monuments of art, contained in the cities of Burgos, Valladolid, Toledo, and Seville. by Nathaniel Armstrong Wells