A rosy cloud hangs over it.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

The pleasant vale of Damascus has been adorned in every age with a royal city: her obscure felicity has hitherto escaped the historian of the Roman empire: but Chosroes reposed his troops in the paradise of Damascus before he ascended the hills of Libanus, or invaded the cities of the Phoenician coast.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

The same argument, which would have been esteemed convincing in a reasoning concerning history or politics, has little or no influence in these abstruser subjects, even though it be perfectly comprehended; and that because there is required a study and an effort of thought, in order to its being comprehended: And this effort of thought disturbs the operation of our sentiments, on which the belief depends.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

He is, by the virtue of God, an arrant heretic, a resolute, formal heretic; I say, a rooted, combustible heretic, one as fit to burn as the little wooden clock at Rochelle.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

He was a real cabman.... He ought to have lived....” Iona is silent for a while, and then he goes on: “That’s how it is, old girl....
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

A recent copy had over two thousand lines of text.
— from The Online World by Odd De Presno

in his brief and reckless career, how often have I recalled that foolish act of his.
— from Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie

Again did the title of his book, "NEW ROME," flare before Pierre's eyes, and another reverie carried him off; he lived his book afresh even as he had just lived his life.
— from The Three Cities Trilogy: Rome, Volume 1 by Émile Zola

A correct and careful artist, and one of the best, next to Dupré and Rousseau, Cabat had opened a new path for landscape painting—a path in which it would not be very hard to discover the influence which this celebrated master of the landscape exerted over the earlier manner of his pupil, through his sympathetic understanding of his subjects and the grace and distinction of his art. II.—THE
— from Fromentin by Georges Beaume

Primo Hugo Willoughby eques Anglus & Richardus Chanceler has oras apperuerunt.
— from Thomas Hariot, the Mathematician, the Philosopher and the Scholar by Henry Stevens

Chakravarty and Ram Chandra had one thing in common—both knew the value of real-estate.
— from Fighting Germany's Spies by French Strother

A10-57 The weapon is a conventional revolver, with a rotating cylinder holding one to six cartridges.
— from Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by United States. Warren Commission

Beatrice had been a tangible person, restful, delightful, a real companion, his one resource against this madness.
— from The Tempting of Tavernake by E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

The Cambden and Amboy Railroad Company had only recently imported a locomotive from England.
— from What Jesus Taught by Osborne J. P. Widtsoe

If two hundred pounds weight attached to a certain machine will produce a result called motion, it does not necessarily follow that one hundred pounds will produce a result called half of a motion.
— from Absurdities of Immaterialism Or, A Reply to T. W. P. Taylder's Pamphlet, Entitled, "The Materialism of the Mormons or Latter-Day Saints, Examined and Exposed." by Orson Pratt

I followed the direction of his stick; the object it indicated was a red cloth hung out of an old window.
— from Four Meetings by Henry James

The continent generally, and Russia conspicuously, held opinions on neutral maritime rights similar to those of the United States.
— from Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 Volume 2 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan