Finally, at the extreme end of the room, a simple bed of scarlet and yellow damask, without either tinsel or lace; having only an ordinary fringe.
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

The advantages obtained by the troops of Justinian were more frequent and splendid; but the forces of the great king were continually supplied, till they amounted to eight elephants and seventy thousand men, including twelve thousand Scythian allies, and above three thousand Dilemites, who descended by their free choice from the hills of Hyrcania, and were equally formidable in close or in distant combat.
— 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

We are, ourselves," the writer of the article proceeds to say, "the more anxious on this account, from the hope there is reason to entertain that these and other improvements in the neighbourhood will eventually lead to a draining of the great marsh at the east end of this town; for until that is done, it is utterly impossible that the place can be healthy at all seasons of the year.
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

We got over a paling of planks almost completely destroyed, and of which barricades had probably been made, and we crossed the extensive area of half-demolished houses which at that epoch encumbered the lower portions of the Rue Montmartre and Rue Montorgueil.
— from The History of a Crime The Testimony of an Eye-Witness by Victor Hugo

All these edifices, each of which one would have thought, it would have taken many generations to complete, were all finished during the most brilliant period of one man's administration.
— from Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4) by Plutarch

The influence of this is said to prevent his attempting to escape, even though set at liberty.
— from Omens and Superstitions of Southern India by Edgar Thurston

Warkworth has a famous one, consisting of a chapel hewn out of the rock, with an entrance porch, and a long, narrow room with a small altar at the east end, wherein the hermit lived.
— from English Villages by P. H. (Peter Hampson) Ditchfield

" Belisarius understood the suspicion, accepted the excuse, embarked at Ravenna his spoils and trophies; and proved, by his ready obedience, that such an abrupt removal from the government of Italy was not less unjust than it might have been indiscreet.
— 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

Riches are for spending, and spending for honor and good actions; therefore, extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion; for voluntary undoing may be as well for a man’s country as for the kingdom of heaven; but ordinary expense ought to be limited by a man’s estate, and governed with such regard, as it be within his compass, and not subject to deceit and abuse of servants, and ordered to the best show, that the bills may be less than the estimation abroad.
— from Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients by Francis Bacon

"A more favorable opportunity to arrive at truth seldom has been witnessed, but while we admire the distinguished piety and Christian feelings with which he so solemnly portrayed the doctrines of that institution, we do now assert , that the result of the same has tended more deeply to rivet our solid conviction, that the doctrines of said Society are at enmity with the principles and precepts of religion, humanity, and justice, and should be regarded by every man of color in these United States as an evil, for magnitude, unexcelled, and whose doctrines aim at the entire extinction of the free colored population and the riveting of slavery.
— from History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens by George Washington Williams

One by one several of the passengers offered me gifts, which they pressed upon me with an earnestness which would take no denial; these were certainly of an odd and varied kind, but each was given in simple good faith, with a kindly word, and a blessing, and that strange mixture of fear-meaning movements which I had seen outside the hotel at Bistritz—the sign of the cross and the guard against the evil eye.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker

As soon as they espied each other they rushed together and displayed the mortal hate they bore.
— from Four Arthurian Romances by Chrétien, de Troyes, active 12th century

Dated and signed at the end: “En Madrid, y Octubre de 1770, Pedro Bermudez Calderon” ff.
— from Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Spanish Language in the British Museum. Vol. 4 by Pascual de Gayangos

Now the French, when the German drive began, stood on this ridge some eight miles, rather less, perhaps, to the north of the town of Verdun; their line ran from the Meuse straight east along this ridge and then turned at right angles and came south along the eastern edge of the Meuse Hills and the shore of the Woevre Plain until it touched the river again at St. Mihiel, twenty miles to the south, where the Germans had broken through the Meuse Hills and reached the river.
— from They Shall Not Pass by Frank H. (Frank Herbert) Simonds

Fardale went at the enemy earnestly, but immediately after the first play the referee blew his whistle and set the cadets back for a foul.
— from Dick Merriwell's Trap; Or, The Chap Who Bungled by Burt L. Standish

Then the great wicket-keeper took off the pads and gloves, and the fieldsmen retired to posts at the extreme edge of the ground.
— from Mike by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

fireman had to be at the engine shed forty-five minutes, and the driver thirty minutes, before the time of the train starting; the fireman gets the stores necessary for the journey, such as oil, tallow, cotton waste, yellow grease, and perhaps fog signals, gets his lamps from the lamp room already trimmed—these are the head lamp, side lamp, water gauge lamp, tail lamp and hand lamp; he places the head lamp on the right hand side of the buffer plank, the side lamp on the left side of the tender, the gauge lamp close to the glass, the tail lamp behind the tender; he has to take his engine to be coaled (it used to be coke in my early days on the L. & N. W. R.), and fills his tender with water, and brings his engine over a pit, fills the axle-boxes of engine and tender; by this time the driver shows up, and goes under the engine and thoroughly examines every part of the gear; then he oils her, and both men sign on for the particular train that the engine's number is in line with, and run down the incline to Euston, where they hook on to their train and wait.
— from The Stoker's Catechism by W. J. Connor

M. Landgerbe adopts the extraordinary error of supposing that these preparations act with more force downwards than in any other direction.—
— from The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 13, No. 351, January 10, 1829 by Various