The foreigner and the merry damsel took their laughing leave and pursued the eastern road, which I had that day trodden; as they passed away the young man played a lively strain and the girl's happy spirit broke into a dance, and, thus dissolving, as it were, into sunbeams and gay music, that pleasant pair departed from my view.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

"I'm great," the Lion said—"I reign The monarch of the wood and plain!" The Elephant replied: "I'm great— No quadruped can match my weight!"
— from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

On every side, and far as the eye could see into the heavy distance, tall chimneys, crowding on each other, and presenting that endless repetition of the same dull, ugly form, which is the horror of oppressive dreams, poured out their plague of smoke, obscured the light, and made foul the melancholy air.
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

And he had for his companions in his philosophical studies, [425] his three brothers, Neocles, Chæredemus, and Aristobulus, who were excited by his exhortations, as Philodemus, the Epicurean, relates in the tenth book of the Classification of Philosophers.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

Standing before this abraded pile, the eye regarded its present usage, the mind dwelt upon its past history, with a satisfied sense of functional continuity throughout—a feeling almost of gratitude, and quite of pride, at the permanence of the idea which had heaped it up.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Then grew up whole forests of monasteries and temples, with an outburst of devilish art representing many-headed and many-eyed and many-handed idols on the walls, on books, on the roadside, with manifold charms and phrases the endless repetitions of which were supposed to have efficacy with the hypothetical being who filled the heavens.
— from The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji by William Elliot Griffis

A.E. Fletcher is editor of the London Daily Chronicle ; P.W. Clayden is prominent in the counsels of the London Daily News ; Professor James Stuart is Gladstone's great friend and editor of the London Star , William Byles is editor and proprietor of the Bradford Observer , Sir Hugh Gilzen Reid is a leading Birmingham editor; in short, this committee has secured if not the leading editors, certainly important and warm friends, representing the Manchester Guardian, the Leeds Mercury , the Plymouth Western News, Newcastle Leader , the London Daily Graphic , the Westminster Gazette , the London Echo , a host of minor papers all over the kingdom, and practically the entire religious press of the kingdom.
— from The Red Record Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States by Ida B. Wells-Barnett

The shop was once more a parlour: the empty resounding rooms again furnished up to the very garrets.
— from Cranford by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

I will teach them to think not of brotherhood but only that they are wolves for devouring, I will urge them to rise against this oppression and proclaim the eternal right of man to win his freedom!”
— from The Social Cancer: A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere by José Rizal

Nevertheless, something has been done and I will attempt to present as briefly as possible the essential results, following Thorndike’s convenient summary.
— from Culture & Ethnology by Robert Harry Lowie

Some kennels are, no doubt, more unhealthy and prone to engender rheumatic affections than others; but, by proper management, and avoiding as much as possible all exciting causes, their effects may, at least, be very much lessened, if not entirely obviated.
— from The Dog by William Youatt

Slaves are also a people that enjoy religious privileges.
— from American Negro Slavery A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime by Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

As for Zola, his literary views certainly became more liberal as he grew older; but at the period one has now reached he was in his most arbitrary and dogmatic mood, going so far as to suggest in a pamphlet that each régime must have its appropriate literature, that Naturalist literature alone was suited to the Republic, and that the Republic itself must prove Naturalist, or otherwise would assuredly collapse.
— from Émile Zola, Novelist and Reformer: An Account of His Life & Work by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

“Let your boy learn arithmetic, dear madam,” was his advice to the mother of a rich young heir: “he will not then be a prey to every rascal which this town swarms with.
— from Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. During the Last Twenty Years of His Life by Hester Lynch Piozzi

Real para que se custodien, á fin de que no perezcan con el tiempo estos egemplares, segun acaeció con los de la 1 a . edicion, ó se distribuyan desde allí por todo el Reyno.”
— from Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Spanish Language in the British Museum. Vol. 4 by Pascual de Gayangos

"Another two feet, and you can stand upright." He proceeded, grasped the hand which was extended to him in the impenetrable darkness, and panting, temporarily exhausted, rose upright beside Dr. Cairn, and stretched his cramped limbs.
— from Brood of the Witch-Queen by Sax Rohmer

What, for being a puritan? thy exquisite reason, dear knight.
— from A Life of William Shakespeare with portraits and facsimiles by Lee, Sidney, Sir

Soon, however, the apathy which invariably benumbs the faculties of a people too entirely relieved from the discipline and obligation of self-government, lapped in complete inactivity, moral, political, and intellectual,—these once stirring islanders.
— from Letters from High Latitudes Being Some Account of a Voyage in 1856 of the Schooner Yacht "Foam" to Iceland, Jan Meyen, and Spitzbergen by Dufferin and Ava, Frederick Temple Blackwood, Marquis of