Devoid of eloquence or genius, Baroncelli was distinguished by a resolute spirit: he spoke the language of a patriot, and trod in the footsteps of tyrants; his suspicion was a sentence of death, and his own death was the reward of his cruelties.
— 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

I am plunged again in a sea of vexation, and the complaints in my stomach and bowels are returned; so that I suppose I shall be disabled from prosecuting the excursion I had planned—What the devil had I to do, to come a plague hunting with a leash of females in my train?
— from The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. (Tobias) Smollett

This name, which means raw in Persian, is given to a stuff made with cotton thread, which has not undergone any preparation; they manufacture also two other cotton stuffs: alatcha with blue and red stripes, and tchekmen , very thick and coarse, used to make dresses and sacks; if khàm is better at Khotan, alatcha and tchekmen are superior at Kashgar.
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Rustichello of Pisa

But the Countess was apparently unaware of having broken any rule; she sat at perfect ease in a corner of the sofa beside Archer, and looked at him with the kindest eyes.
— from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

The brass-hoof'd steeds tumultuous plunge and bound, And the thick thunder beats the labouring ground, Still slaughtering on, the king of men proceeds; The distanced army wonders at his deeds, As when the winds with raging flames conspire, And o'er the forests roll the flood of fire, In blazing heaps the grove's old honours fall, And one refulgent ruin levels all: Before Atrides' rage so sinks the foe, Whole squadrons vanish, and proud heads lie low.
— from The Iliad by Homer

"Now don't you be a rollin' stone, Benny.
— from Little Folks (September 1884) A Magazine for the Young by Various

When his companions insisted on passing two or three afternoons in the week at music-halls, drinking beer, smoking German tobacco, and looking at fat German women knitting, while an orchestra played dull music, Adams went with them for the sake of the company, but with no pretence of enjoyment; and when Mr. Apthorp gently protested that he exaggerated his indifference, for of course he enjoyed Beethoven, Adams replied simply that he loathed Beethoven; and felt a slight surprise when Mr. Apthorp and the others laughed as though they thought it humor.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams

he heard vigorously uttered by a round-shouldered, short, country gentleman, who had pomaded hair hanging on his embroidered collar, and new boots obviously put on for the occasion, with heels that tapped energetically as he spoke.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

you may go into this board and reap some transient pleasure."
— from Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel, Book I by Xueqin Cao

“Yes, we want to get something nice for Nan, something that she would never buy for herself and something that she will use all the time she is away, so that she will think of us often,” Bess added rather sadly, for she wasn’t quite reconciled yet to Nan’s going away without her.
— from Nan Sherwood's Summer Holidays by Annie Roe Carr

[34] Sir Peter Parker's breeches were carried away by a round shot at Fort Moultrie.
— from The Little Red Foot by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

As the captain pronounced the name of his hero, he struck his worn book a resounding slap, and his jaws clicked in emphasis of his statement.
— from The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty by Robert Shaler

Thus, if the innovator be a religious soul, grown conscious of some new spiritual principle, he will try to find support for his inspiration in some lost book of the law or in some early divine revelation corrupted, as he will assert, by wicked men, or even in some direct voice from heaven; no delusion will be too obvious, no re-interpretation too forced, if it can help him to find external support somewhere for his spontaneous conviction.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

As the anatomists say a man is only a spine, topp'd, footed, breasted and radiated, so the whole Western world is, in a sense, but an expansion of these mountains.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

[Pg 260] nesses of twenty, and cut out by a "ribbon saw."
— from Golden Lads by Arthur Gleason

The wildness that will be exhibited can soon be afterwards restrained so far as is necessary, and the dog who has been permitted to exert his powers when young will manifest his superiority in more advanced age, and in nothing more than his dexterity at the turn.
— from The Dog by William Youatt

There is scarce a sign of cloud in the warm sky, and all the crescent bay between me and the city takes colours which are perpetually changing into deeper tints of liquid blue and rare soft green, with flashes here and there of brown, and exquisite reflections which are but half seen before they yield to others no less beautiful.
— from Naples, Past and Present by Arthur H. (Arthur Hamilton) Norway

It is seaweed, deliciously prepared—not the common edible seaweed, but a rare sort, fine like moss.
— from Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan: First Series by Lafcadio Hearn