The president went to a private safe, unlocked it and got out some letters and certain slips of paper.
— from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Charles Dudley Warner

When she heard the scraping of a chair and the sound of a pen scratching upon paper, she again turned and went back along the hallway to her own room.
— from Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life by Sherwood Anderson

This Cortes had readily foreseen, and purposely selected Umbria for that journey, to regain his friendship, and that he might forget the severe sentence which he had passed upon him.
— from The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2) Written by Himself Containing a True and Full Account of the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico and New Spain. by Bernal Díaz del Castillo

These edifices were all built of the whitest Pentelic marble, but have a pinkish stain upon them now.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

All day long the street opposite his magnificent hotel was crowded by the populace; the halt and the blind, women with sick babes in their arms, and persons suffering under every species of human infirmity, flocked to this wonderful doctor.
— from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay

And indeed the battle with Mardonius at Plataea shows us which of the two was right; for the Greeks there could scarcely deal with a small part of the Persian army, and what therefore could they have done with the whole?
— from Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4) by Plutarch

He who has been able to convince himself of the truth of the positions occurring in the Analytic will take pleasure in such comparisons; for they justly suggest the expectation that we may perhaps some day be able to discern the unity of the whole faculty of reason (theoretical as well as practical) and be able to derive all from one principle, which, is what human reason inevitably demands, as it finds complete satisfaction only in a perfectly systematic unity of its knowledge.
— from The Critique of Practical Reason by Immanuel Kant

The plate prevents air passing straight up the chimney over the coals, and compels it to find a way through the fire itself to replace the heated air rising up the chimney.
— from How it Works Dealing in simple language with steam, electricity, light, heat, sound, hydraulics, optics, etc., and with their applications to apparatus in common use by Archibald Williams

Floyd, Ordway and Pryor shall untill further orders form the crew of the Batteaux; the Mess of the Patroon La Jeunesse will form the permanent crew of the red Perogue; Corpl.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

Presently Bagstock uttered an ejaculation of satisfaction, and, picking something up, handed it to Simon Kenton.
— from The Pioneer Boys on the Great Lakes; or, On the Trail of the Iroquois by St. George Rathborne

The accurate and proper sense, underlying all these, I must endeavor to make clear to you.
— from Ariadne Florentina: Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving by John Ruskin

After proceeding southerly up the Rosebud for about seventy miles, Custer, at 11 p.m. on the night of the 24th, turned westerly towards Little Big Horn River.
— from Eleven Years in the Rocky Mountains and Life on the Frontier Also a History of the Sioux War, and a Life of Gen. George A. Custer with Full Account of His Last Battle by Frances Fuller Victor

The Master had thus a long start before his pursuers had the scent, and he must have travelled with surprising energy for a pedestrian so unused, since it was near noon before Mountain had a view of him.
— from The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 12 by Robert Louis Stevenson

I trust, sir, that a principle so unreasonable will never prevail.
— from Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 4 (of 16) by United States. Congress

A policeman strolled up and looked in at the door.
— from Leaves in the Wind by A. G. (Alfred George) Gardiner

Up, and within doors most of the morning, sending a porter (Sanders) up and down to several people to pay them money to clear my month's debts every where, being mighty desirous to have all clear so soon as I can, and to that end did so much in settling my Tangier accounts clear.
— from Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete 1666 N.S. by Samuel Pepys

He delegated the last duty to Captain Ball, who, with four ships, was to cruise off the island 117 in company with a Portuguese squadron under the Marquis de Niza.
— from The Boys' Nelson by Harold Wheeler

Harold doubted whether it would be possible to see the boat from shore, but in order to throw the Indians off the scent, should this be the case, he turned the boat's head to the south and paddled swiftly until it was perfectly dark.
— from True to the Old Flag: A Tale of the American War of Independence by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty