Under the lax moral life of the plantation, where marriage was a farce, laziness a virtue, and property a theft, a religion of resignation and submission degenerated easily, in less strenuous minds, into a philosophy of indulgence and crime.
— from The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois

They cut farther and farther back into the mountain mass until they dissected it, leaving instead of an upland plateau a region of ridges and sharp peaks.
— from Glacier National Park [Montana] by United States. Department of the Interior

The idea generally received is that this, as well as three smaller vortices among the Ferroe islands, “have no other cause than the collision of waves rising and falling, at flux and reflux, against a ridge of rocks and shelves, which confines the water so that it precipitates itself like a cataract; and thus the higher the flood rises, the deeper must the fall be, and the natural result of all is a whirlpool or vortex, the prodigious suction of which is sufficiently known by lesser experiments.”—These are the words of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2 by Edgar Allan Poe

The idea generally received is that this, as well as three smaller vortices among the Ferroe islands, “have no other cause than the collision of waves rising and falling, at flux and reflux, against a ridge of rocks and shelves, which confines the water so that it precipitates itself like a cataract; and thus the higher the flood rises, the deeper must the fall be, and the natural result of all is a whirlpool or vortex, the prodigious suction of which is sufficiently known by lesser experiments.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

But, as roarings of rather a suspicious nature had been heard during the evening, a good fire was made up for the night, so as to protect the sleepers with its crackling flames.
— from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

The populous city of Cairo affords a residence, or rather a shelter, for their indigent patriarch, and a remnant of ten bishops; forty monasteries have survived the inroads of the Arabs; and the progress of servitude and apostasy has reduced the Coptic nation to the despicable number of twenty-five or thirty thousand families; 148 a race of illiterate beggars, whose only consolation is derived from the superior wretchedness of the Greek patriarch and his diminutive congregation.
— 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 populous city of Cairo affords a residence, or rather a shelter, for their indigent patriarch, and a remnant of ten bishops; forty monasteries have survived the inroads of the Arabs; and the progress of servitude and apostasy has reduced the Coptic nation to the despicable number of twenty-five or thirty thousand families; a race of illiterate beggars, whose only consolation is derived from the superior wretchedness of the Greek patriarch and his diminutive congregation.
— 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

While we were doing this, for we were in a great hurry you may be sure, and all hands at work, as well at the stopping our leaks as repairing our rigging and sails, which had received a great deal of damage, and also in rigging a new main-top-mast and the like;—I say, while we were doing all this, we perceived a body of men, of near a thousand, move from that part of the army of the barbarians that lay at the bottom of the sandy bay, and came all along the water's edge, round the sand, till they stood just on our broadside east, and were within about half-a-mile of us.
— from The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton by Daniel Defoe

The former trouble may be avoided by having a relay of roosters and shutting each one up part of the time.
— from The Dollar Hen by Milo Hastings

In the big courtyard there was a block of hard stone scored with grooves and notches, where the troopers in some forgotten battle were said to have sharpened their swords; on the outside wall was a row of rings and stables where the same troopers had tethered their horses.
— from All Men are Ghosts by L. P. (Lawrence Pearsall) Jacks

By able and easy generalship is she here, with him of a race of rulers, aged sixty-five and terrible in his wrath, for her gentle orderly, her minion.
— from Three Heroines of New England Romance Their true stories herein set forth by Mrs Harriet Spoffard, Miss Louise Imogen Guiney, and Miss Alice Brown by Alice Brown

Think, as you speak, in favor of God and religion, of righteousness and sincerity, and you will be a man, and divine providence will be your prudence; you will perceive in others that one's own prudence is insanity.
— from Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence by Emanuel Swedenborg

It was a rain of rubies, and sapphires, and emeralds, and topazes.
— from The Light Princess by George MacDonald

The orders are read off, recorded, and sent to be filled, like lightning.
— from Looking Backward: 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy

You have no idea how hard it is to write, for there are so many things to say that one longs to be a Bernard Shaw and be able to say them all, and not be just plain Marjorie Crocker, who can only ramble on without any rhyme or reason, as she talks!
— from Over Periscope Pond Letters from Two American Girls in Paris October 1916-January 1918 by Esther Sayles Root