The name is also applied to a stone of loose consistence found in Tuscany, of which bricks may be made so light as to float in water, and of which the ancients are supposed to have made their floating bricks.
— from The New Gresham Encyclopedia. A to Amide Vol. 1 Part 1 by Various

If we dare compare the moral economy of an entire people to the physical economy of the individual, we should liken this period in the history of Mewar to intermittent pulsation of the heart—a pause in moral as in physical existence; a consciousness thereof, inertly awaiting the propelling power to restore healthful action to a state of languid repose; or what the Rajput would better comprehend, his own condition when the opiate stimulant begins to dissipate, and mind and body are alike abandoned to helpless imbecility.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

It appears that a sort of loafing, fuddled vagabond—a white man living amongst the natives with a Siamese woman—had considered it a great privilege to give a shelter to the last days of the famous Gentleman Brown.
— from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

Our adventurer would have willingly dispensed with this occasion of signalising himself, his talents being much better adapted to another sphere of life; nevertheless, he affected uncommon alacrity at the prospect of gathering laurels in the field, and subscribed to his fortune with a good grace; foreseeing, that even in a campaign, a man of his art and ingenuity might find means to consult his corporal safety, without any danger to his reputation.
— from The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete by T. (Tobias) Smollett

Chimney-tops form the staple of ammunition then, and stacks of loose brick and paving-stones, carefully hoarded in upper rooms as a prudent provision against emergencies.
— from How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. (Jacob August) Riis

He had a great number of pupils, of whom the most [432] eminent were Metrodorus, the Athenian, and Timocrates, and Sandes, of Lampsacus; who, from the time that he first became acquainted with him, never left him, except once when he went home for six months; after which he returned to him.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

Its masts, or rather the two spars which served to support his sails, formed above the deck, as we are told, a sort of large St. Andrew's cross, such being, according to him, the most convenient arrangement for working the leg of mutton or triangular sails which he used.
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

The world was not so stupid and blundering after all: now and then a stroke of luck came to the unluckiest.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

He had all sorts of prejudices and took all sorts of liberties.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Following this, on the attainment of his majority, and during the lifetime of his father, notwithstanding the most powerful and seductive efforts to attach him to the side of Great Britain, the more persevering from the great wealth, and the intellectual attainments of the young American—notwithstanding the importunities of misjudging friends and relatives, the incitements found in ties of consanguinity with some, and his intimate personal associations with many of the young nobility at that aristocratic seat of learning, and notwithstanding the blandishments of fashionable society—the love of country and the holy inspirations of patriotism, triumphed over all the arts that power could control, and those allurements usually so potent where youth is endowed with great wealth.
— from International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science - Volume 1, No. 6, August 5, 1850 by Various

This height showed Trieste and the Adriatic spread out like a map below, with hill and valley and dale waning faintly blue in the distance, and far away the Carnian Alps topped with snow.
— from The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton: The Story of Her Life. Volume II by W. H. (William Henry) Wilkins

It's clear he couldn't be satisfied till he fixed up a trap as sooner or later would hit me square in the face and break my nose.
— from Susan Clegg and Her Love Affairs by Anne Warner

I should imagine, reading the record of his journey as he prints it in his course from hollow tree or hollow ledge to other hollow trees and hollow ledges, that he had been awakened to a sense of loneliness and was seeking old friends in familiar haunts, with whom to talk over last year's cornfield raids and frogging parties in past summer nights—perchance to plan future campaigns.
— from In New England Fields and Woods by Rowland Evans Robinson

He imagined the First and the Third Persons of the Trinity seated royally but vaguely amid the clouds, all about them a splendor of light like that of sunset or dawn, melodious music faintly perceptible, exquisitely beautiful forms of angels rising on white wings, hovering obediently, fading obediently—but they themselves, the Lords of Life and of Death, the Masters of Time and Space, were two tangible concrete old men—two venerable wise old men—the ultimate strained extended conception of two powerful, honored, high-placed old men.
— from The Devil's Garden by W. B. (William Babington) Maxwell

Clubs had been formed time after time, each of a different nature; yet none of them could fulfill the need and they all sooner or later broke up.
— from The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 by Various

Sir Charles Dilke, in a general summary of colonial policy on this matter, writes:—"Colonial labour seeks protection by legislative means, not only against the cheap labour of the dark-skinned or of the yellow man, but also against white paupers, and against the artificial supply of labour by State-aided white immigration.
— from The Alien Invasion by W. H. (William Henry) Wilkins

Every law which ordains that the sovereign, at the expense of the public, shall take care of the wealth or possessions of any individual or a body, without this body or individual contributing to the common expenses, amounts to a subversion of law.
— from A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 09 by Voltaire