And yet, in the very midst of these terrors, I was placed in a situation so exquisitely ridiculous, that even then I had as strong a sense of its absurdity as I have now, and could no more help laughing than I can at any other comical incident, happening under circumstances the most favourable to its enjoyment.
— from American Notes by Charles Dickens

In this work there are seven short extracts relative to Glooskap given without reference to any book or author.
— from Algonquin Legends of New England by Charles Godfrey Leland

The American Sociological Society early recognized this fact and in 1909 appointed a Committee of Ten to report on certain aspects of the problem.
— from College Teaching Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College by Paul Klapper

Nacional's kind and simple soul, easily roused to anger, rose in rebellion at the sight of these rusty irons and green crosses.
— from The Blood of the Arena by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

Still, however, the sense of her own incurable unhappiness, her own irretrievable unworthiness, and the disgrace of having sullied the honour of her family, and given pain to such a brother, overwhelmed her with grief and confusion; while her reason, as it at intervals returned, served only to shew her the abyss into which she had fallen: and she sometimes even regretted those hours of forgetfulness, when she possessed not the power of steady reflection, and when the sad reality was obliterated by wild and imaginary horrors.
— from Emmeline, the Orphan of the Castle by Charlotte Smith

This system can arouse youth to the greatest pitch of zest in watching their own rapidly multiplying curves of growth in dimensions and capacities, in plotting curves that record their own increment in girths, lifts, and other tests, and in observing the effects of sleep, food, correct and incorrect living upon a system so exquisitely responsive to all these influences as are the muscles.
— from Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene by G. Stanley (Granville Stanley) Hall

He was clean shaven, slightly gray at the temples, with firm, square jaw, rather large mouth, prominent nose and eyes which seemed to see all things at once yet from which a smile seemed ever ready to leap forth.
— from The Boy Scouts of Woodcraft Camp by Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo) Burgess

From the opposite direction came a young fellow, with ruddy complexion, beaming face and springy step, en route to the railway station to take an early train for a neighboring town.
— from Tar Heel Tales by H. E. C. (Henry Edward Cowan) Bryant

A singular spiritual epidemic ran through Polar Finland three or four years ago, contemporary with the religious excitement in Norwegian Lapland, and partly occasioned by the same reckless men.
— from Northern Travel: Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland by Bayard Taylor