He it is who blights the Trees, spoils the Harvest, and commands the Imps and Goblins: He appears in the form of an old Man of majestic figure, with a golden Crown and long white beard: His principal amusement is to entice young Children from their Parents, and as soon as He gets them into his Cave, He tears them into a thousand pieces—The Rivers are governed by another Fiend, called "the Water-King:" His province is to agitate the deep, occasion ship-wrecks, and drag the drowning Sailors beneath the waves: He wears the appearance of a Warrior, and employs himself in luring young Virgins into his snare: What He does with them, when He catches them in the water, Reverend Ladies, I leave for you to imagine—"The Fire-King" seems to be a Man all formed of flames: He raises the Meteors and wandering lights which beguile Travellers into ponds and marshes, and He directs the lightning where it may do most mischief—The last of these elementary Daemons is called "the Cloud-King;" His figure is that of a beautiful Youth, and He is distinguished by two large sable Wings:
— from The Monk: A Romance by M. G. (Matthew Gregory) Lewis

Alas, things ain't what we should see If Eve had let that apple be; And many a feller which had ought To set with monarchses of thought, Or play some rosy little game With battle-chaps on fields of fame, Is downed by his unlucky star And hollers: "Peanuts!—here you are!" "The Sturdy Beggar" RESTITUTION, n.
— from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

With a torch in my hand, the light of which is not by any means a flickering one, I illuminate this nether world with beams that cut like blades.
— from Ecce Homo Complete Works, Volume Seventeen by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

I have sometimes since thought that his little or no resentment against me, for the answers it was known I drew up to his messages, might be the effect of professional habit, and that, being bred a lawyer, he might consider us both as merely advocates for contending clients in a suit, he for the proprietaries and I for the Assembly.
— from Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin

Two ladies from Albany are visiting here, the beautiful Abigail Mott, a Friend and a thorough-going Abolitionist and reformer, and Mrs. Worthington, a strict Methodist.
— from The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years by Ida Husted Harper

After describing his daily occupations with his family and neighbours, he writes: "The evening being come, I return home and go to my study; at the entrance I pull off my peasant-clothes, covered with dust and dirt, and put on my noble court dress, and thus becomingly re-clothed I pass into the ancient courts of the men of old, where, being lovingly received by them, I am fed with that food which is mine alone; where I do not hesitate to speak with them, and to ask for the reason of their actions, and they in their benignity answer me; and for four hours I feel no weariness, I forget every trouble, poverty does not dismay, death does not terrify me; I am possessed entirely by those great men.
— from The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

Some coffee drinkers have this preparation boiled as many as five times.
— from All About Coffee by William H. (William Harrison) Ukers

It’s a sad ending for poor little B. I’ll get to be a most awful frump in a year or two and come and see you in a mackintosh and a sailor hat tied on with a white china silk motor veil.
— from Bliss, and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield

The same notion of the propagation of the rice by a male and female power finds expression amongst the Szis of Upper Burma.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

Imagine to yourself the usual look of ruin and devastation 29 around and about a quarry worked by human hands, then in your thoughts conceive every chip to be a block, and every block a mass; add four times its size to every slab and post and pediment, and then turn a mighty torrent through the place and roll and twist and lift them up in wild confusion, end on end and on each other piled, till these wild waters have builded fantastic portals to temples more fantastic, and arched wild gorges with roofs of rock which seem to hang so lightly that a breath or footfall might bring them down with terrible crash, and then, dear friends, you may succeed in getting a faint idea of the wild and awful grandeur of the scene which now lay spread out before me.
— from Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey by Ingersoll Lockwood

You should be as much above false girlish petty scruples, as you will be and are above falsehood of another kind.
— from The Bertrams by Anthony Trollope

I haven't the least doubt but that we would be refreshed, bodily and mentally, and, for that matter, spiritually.
— from Four Girls at Chautauqua by Pansy

"One is for sorrow, and two are for joy, three must be a marriage, and four do bring good fortune, we do say in Norway," said Sanna.
— from Glimpses of Three Coasts by Helen Hunt Jackson

Charles was noble enough, without another word, to fling the club into the river: it was not fear of harm, but fear of sin, that made him trust himself defenceless to a brother, a twin-brother, in the dark: he could not be so base, a murderer, a fratricide!
— from The Twins: A Domestic Novel by Martin Farquhar Tupper

Meantime, while the special mission to France and England was getting ready to depart, an amateur diplomatist appeared in Brussels, and made a feeble effort to effect a reconciliation between the republic and the cardinal.
— from History of the United Netherlands, 1590-99 — Complete by John Lothrop Motley

Mingled with these grotesques are many sword and buckler combats, the bucklers being round and conical like a hat; I thought the first I noticed, carried by a man at full gallop on horseback, had been a small umbrella.
— from The Stones of Venice, Volume 1 (of 3) by John Ruskin

Faced by a heavy artillery, machine gun and rifle fire our troops, French and British alike, made a fine effort; the French especially got well into the Turks with the bayonet, and all along, excepting on our extreme left, our line gained ground.
— from Gallipoli Diary, Volume 1 by Ian Hamilton

"We 've marched and fought and got beaten, and marched and fought and got beaten again, and retreated and retreated until there is nothing left of us.
— from For Love of Country: A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution by Cyrus Townsend Brady

"Grandmother," interposed Isabel, vaguely startled, "please do not say anything that you would not say before a man;" and for an instant, amid the hush, the child and the woman looked at each other like two repellent intelligences, accidentally meeting out of the heavens and the pit.
— from The Mettle of the Pasture by James Lane Allen

Perceiving his intention, and determining, if possible, to prevent his retreat, the Arrapahoes having now rejoined us, we formed into one compact body and made a final and decisive charge, which proved irresistible.
— from Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet by Frederick Marryat