[Pg 121] but from the time when they proudly built a tower to heaven, a symbol of godless exaltation, the city or society of the wicked becomes apparent.
— from The City of God, Volume II by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

Hear me, then: I take that mast-head flame we saw for a sign of good luck; for those masts are rooted in a hold that is going to be chock a’ block with sperm-oil, d’ye see; and so, all that sperm will work up into the masts, like sap in a tree.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

Either he struck his head against something, or get wedged in the mud, or possibly the snake-bite paralyzed him.
— from She by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard

In order to be able to use a long-focus object-glass without a long focussing-tube, a system of glass reflecting prisms is sometimes employed, as in Fig.
— 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

Go, my son, since He hath sent thee back hither; comfort thy wife, who hath been still in tears, since thou departedst this life, and henceforth be a friend and servant of God.'
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

Newman scratched his head with a shout of great disappointment, and once more lifting up the mug, applied himself to the contents; smiling meanwhile, over the rim, with a grim and ghastly smile at Smike.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

According, therefore, as a smaller or greater proportion of it is in any one year employed in maintaining unproductive hands, the more in the one case, and the less in the other, will remain for the productive, and the next year's produce will be greater or smaller accordingly; the whole annual produce, if we except the spontaneous productions of the earth, being the effect of productive labour.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

They play at all sorts of games; they buy all sorts of horses; whether sound or unsound, provided they can manage to pay for them in their own base coin.
— from Manners, Customs, and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period by P. L. Jacob

translated, is, throw “a shout” or “good word.”
— from The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical and Andecdotal by John Camden Hotten

Ten minutes later she received another surprise; for David appeared washed, brushed, and in a suit of gray,--a personable gentleman, quite unlike the workman in the yard.
— from Work: A Story of Experience by Louisa May Alcott

“Meanwhile, Sire, I observe that a score of Gato’s soldiers are in the palace.
— from Lentala of the South Seas: The Romantic Tale of a Lost Colony by W. C. Morrow

Finally Thoreau, being then thirty-six years old, and always exceptionally clever with his hands, set his wits seriously at work upon knots, and by a stroke of good fortune (or a stroke of genius) hit upon one which answered his end; only to be told, on communicating his discovery to a third party, that he had all his life been tying "granny knots," never having learned, at school or elsewhere, the secret of a square one!
— from Journal 01, 1837-1846 The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume 07 (of 20) by Henry David Thoreau

He has copied the famous experiment of Pettenkofer, and discharged a stream of gas through the wall.
— from The Inferno by August Strindberg

The trees grew so closely on either side of the narrow path that hardly a glimpse of blue sky could be seen overhead, and not a shaft of golden sunlight was bold enough to shine down through the glossy pine needles, as both were thinking.
— from Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 15, April 12, 1914 by Various

The roads are in general kept in good repair, and near Paris and some other great towns they are paved in the centre.
— from A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium, during the summer and autumn of 1814 by Richard Boyle Bernard

Foure hundred Pages broughte in hys meate, all sonnes of greate Lordes, and placed it vppon a table in his greate Hall.
— from The pleasant historie of the conquest of the VVeast India, now called new Spayne atchieued by the vvorthy Prince Hernando Cortes, marques of the Valley of Huaxacac, most delectable to reade by Francisco López de Gómara

I have a strong suspicion that this funeral poem may have been learned by heart by succeeding generations of Boston scholars, as a sort of grammatical memory-rhyme—a mournful study, indeed.
— from Customs and Fashions in Old New England by Alice Morse Earle

"One cloudless Sabbath summer morn, the sun was rising high, When from my children on the green, I heard a fearful cry, As if some awful deed were done, a shriek of grief and pain, A cry, I humbly trust in God, I ne'er may hear again.
— from The Universal Reciter 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems by Various

The architects of this period were peculiarly fond of vegetation, which is a sign of gentleness and refinement of mind.
— from Venice by Dorothy Menpes

To have Lulie think I was babyish, and had to be sent for; to have our conversation broken off so suddenly, when it was becoming so pleasant; to leave a scene of gaiety before it was finished, and then, too, when the best part was coming, and, above all, to have my hated rival triumph in my humiliation, was enough to have crushed a stouter heart than mine.
— from Sea-gift: A Novel by Edwin W. (Edwin Wiley) Fuller