Stumps thirty or forty years old, at least, will still be sound at the core, though the sapwood has all become vegetable mould, as appears by the scales of the thick bark forming a ring level with the earth four or five inches distant from the heart.
— from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

AS. rifelede (Lat. rugosus ), Eng.
— from A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580 by A. L. (Anthony Lawson) Mayhew

The affection with which Father Goriot regarded Eugene, by whom he seated himself at breakfast, the change in Goriot’s face, which as a rule, looked as expressionless as a plaster cast, and a few words that passed between the two, surprised the other lodgers.
— from Father Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

For to the enemies of Christ who are reproached with this, that Christ hath left them, turning to the Gentiles, [432] this speech is incongruously assigned, "Remember, Lord, the reproach of Thy servants," for such Jews are not to be styled the servants of God; but these words fit those who, if they suffered great humiliations through persecution for the name of Christ, could call to mind that an exalted kingdom had been promised to the seed of David, and in desire of it, could say not despairingly, but as asking, seeking, knocking, [433] "Where are Thine ancient compassions, [Pg 197] Lord, which Thou swarest unto David in Thy truth?
— from The City of God, Volume II by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

I wonder how long it is since these AEpyornises really lived.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

I dropped into the hollow, lifted the side of the tent, and there was Ben Gunn's boat—home-made if ever anything was home-made; a rude, lop-sided framework of tough wood, and stretched upon that a covering of goat-skin, with the hair inside.
— from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Looked at from this standpoint, I almost reached the conclusion that often the Negro boy's birth and connection with an unpopular race is an advantage, so far as real life is concerned.
— from Up from Slavery: An Autobiography by Booker T. Washington

Elsewhere, owing to the fact that there are but few interests to buy out, improvements of all kinds can go forward rapidly and scientifically: in London similar improvements can only be carried out if vested interests recognise the inevitable and accept terms which may seem ridiculous, but are no more so than those which a manufacturer often finds himself compelled to submit to, who sells for a ridiculously low price the machine which has cost a very large sum, for the simple reason that there is a far better one in the market, and that it no longer pays , in the face of keen competition, to work the inferior machine.
— from Garden Cities of To-Morrow Being the Second Edition of "To-Morrow: a Peaceful Path to Real Reform" by Howard, Ebenezer, Sir

Behind his strict regard for facts and the keen insight and large grasp of his subject, which, without his evident care for the graces, would have distinguished his work from the dry report of equally conscientious but less gifted men, was the lonely play of a really lofty imagination, and a noble human sympathy.
— from Ancestors: A Novel by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

In this epoch numerous and respectable labours of erudition, particularly philological and physical, proceeded from the circle of the savants “of the Museum,” as they entitled themselves, like the Parisians “of the Institute”; but the literary importance, which the Alexandrian and the Pergamene court-science and court-art 272 had in the better epoch of Hellenism for the whole Hellenic and Hellenising world, was never even remotely attached to the Romano-Alexandrian.
— from The Provinces of the Roman Empire, from Caesar to Diocletian. v. 2 by Theodor Mommsen

“All right: let him stay there,” replied the captain, when he had listened to the account of the doings of the new scholar.
— from Snug Harbor; or, The Champlain Mechanics by Oliver Optic

The Orphan, surmounting a rise, looked to the 85 southwest and saw something which almost caused his hair to rise, and raising hair was not the rule with him, which latter is mentioned to give proper emphasis to the seriousness of what he looked upon.
— from The Orphan by Clarence Edward Mulford

Where is so awful a responsibility laid upon them?
— from Critical, Historical, and Miscellaneous Essays; Vol. 4 With a Memoir and Index by Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron

Her friends refuse to have anything to do with the matter, a reputable lawyer tells her she has no case, but she persists and finds a lawyer who promises her the divorce, case or no case.
— from The Book Review Digest, Volume 13, 1917 Thirteenth Annual Cumulation Reviews of 1917 Books by Various

Been all round looking for minerals; got fired for it at one or two camps, and never struck anything worth speaking of.
— from Prescott of Saskatchewan by Harold Bindloss

And during those years the great principles of civil and religious liberty, which were then bound up with the maintenance of the Hanoverian dynasty upon the throne, were firmly established in England.
— from A Queen of Tears, vol. 2 of 2 Caroline Matilda, Queen of Denmark and Norway and Princess of Great Britain and Ireland by W. H. (William Henry) Wilkins