It may be day or night when the ceremony takes place, but, whatever the hour may be, a lamp having five, seven, nine, or eleven cotton wicks, must be burning in front of the astrologer.
— from Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 7 of 7 by Edgar Thurston

It is difficult to describe or to induce people to believe; but I felt as if the whole house was like a living organism slowly and imperceptibly digesting me by the action of some stupefying gastric juice.
— from The Hungry Stones, and Other Stories by Rabindranath Tagore

this speceis of bar are rearly as poor at this season of the year as the common black bear nor are they ever as fat as the black bear is found in winter; as they feed principally on flesh, like the wolf, they are most fatt when they can procure a sufficiency of food without rispect to the season of the year.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

benn bēn I. f. (±) prayer, request , Lk ; AO, 36b CP: compulsory service , LL 447 (v. 2·418, Fron.).
— from A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary For the Use of Students by J. R. Clark (John R. Clark) Hall

Their practices were declared to be corrupt, infamous, and dangerous; and a bill was ordered to be brought in for the relief of the unhappy sufferers.
— from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay

It's always difficult to be sure, of course, when a chap has dug himself in behind a Mephistopheles beard, but I fancy he flushed a trifle.
— from Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

There were also eunuchs who came to assume the patrol of the grounds and the direction of the defences; and they brought along with them a good many minor eunuchs, whose duty it was to look after the safety of the various localities, to screen the place with enclosing curtains, to instruct the inmates and officials of the Chia mansion whither to go out and whence to come in from, what side the viands should be brought in from, where to report matters, and in the observance of every kind of etiquette; and for outside the mansion, there were, on the other hand, officers from the Board of Works, and a superintendent of the Police, of the "Five Cities," in charge of the sweeping of the streets and roads, and the clearing away of loungers.
— from Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel, Book I by Xueqin Cao

She had not strength to repulse the hand which I pressed amorously upon her heart, and becoming bolder I fastened my burning lips upon her languid mouth.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

When I want Procomm to call a bulletin board, it first sends a sequence of Hayes commands to the Semafor modem.
— from The Online World by Odd De Presno

Waited on the Duke, after that walked with Sir W. Clerke into St. James’s Parke, and by and by met with Mr. Hayes, Prince Rupert’s Secretary, who are mighty, both, briske blades, but I fear they promise themselves more than they expect.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

You will not baptize with earthly waters one who has been bathed in fires from heaven.
— from The Works of Honoré de Balzac: About Catherine de' Medici, Seraphita, and Other Stories by Honoré de Balzac

By way of answer I looked at him in a fashion which I trust he understood, but before I could speak, Vrouw Botmar broke in, for, as usual, I had translated.
— from Swallow: A Tale of the Great Trek by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard

"Roughly, I suppose that the business brings in four or five thousand a year, and you've forty or fifty thousand pounds in what represents cash.
— from A Master of Deception by Richard Marsh

I have also known, particularly in obstinate autumnal Agues there , an Infusion of two Ounces of the best Bark in fine Powder, or two Ounces and a half in gross Powder, in a Quart of the best Brandy, for three or four Days (a small Wine Glass to be taken by grown Persons at the Distance of from four to six Hours) effectually and speedily terminate such intermittent Agues, as had given but little Way to the Bark in Substance.
— from Advice to the people in general, with regard to their health by S. A. D. (Samuel Auguste David) Tissot

Strange to say it is a Romanesque church erected at the time when what are regarded as the finest Gothic cathedrals were being built in France.
— from Cathedrals of Spain by John A. (John Allyne) Gade

] The Church returned good for evil, and permitted him to be buried in front of the high altar of Worcester cathedral.
— from The Leading Facts of English History by D. H. (David Henry) Montgomery

Had they stayed, it would have been to suffer persecution; the fate of all who then fought for England’s freedom, save the false ones and cravens, who cried “Quarter!”—on their knees, basely begged it from that loathsome monster of iniquity—the “Merry Monarch.”
— from No Quarter! by Mayne Reid

2: A man ought to bear bodily injury for his friend's sake, and precisely in so doing he loves himself more as regards his spiritual mind, because it pertains to the perfection of virtue, which is a good of the mind.
— from Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province by Thomas, Aquinas, Saint

The commons having granted the supplies, ordered a bill to be brought in for securing the freedom of parliaments, by limiting the number of officers in the house of commons, and it passed through both houses with little difficulty.
— from The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. Continued from the Reign of William and Mary to the Death of George II. by T. (Tobias) Smollett

'This speaks for itself,' said Bertram; 'but I fear something worse has happened.
— from Guy Mannering, Or, the Astrologer — Complete by Walter Scott