And Lakshmaṇ, with affection meet, Bowed down and clasped his mother's feet.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki

In all these epistles, blockhead, dunce, ass, coxcomb, were the best epithets he gave poor John.
— from The History of John Bull by John Arbuthnot

All show the brace in a form familiar since the Middle Ages, a shape common to both delineators and craftsmen of the Continent and the British Isles.
— from Woodworking Tools 1600-1900 by Peter C. Welsh

Thus the young ladies are as much ashamed of being cowards and fools as the men, and despise all personal ornaments, beyond decency and cleanliness: neither did I perceive any difference in their education made by their difference of sex, only that the exercises of the females were not altogether so robust; and that some rules were given them relating to domestic life, and a smaller compass of learning was enjoined them: for their maxim is, that among peoples of quality, a wife should be always a reasonable and agreeable companion, because she cannot always be young.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift

60 His march between Durazzo and Constantinople was harassed, without being stopped, by the peasants and soldiers of the Greek emperor; and the same faint and ambiguous hostility was prepared for the remaining chiefs, who passed the Adriatic from the coast of Italy.
— 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

On a ship between Dover and Calais a well-known author is conversing with an Englishman, who quoted the following proverb in a certain connection: " Du sublime au ridicule, il n'y a qu'un pas ."
— from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud

Why, why dost thou delay? Why is such baseness bedded in thy heart? Daring and hardihood why hast thou not, Seeing that three such Ladies benedight Are caring for thee in the court of Heaven, And so much good my speech doth promise thee?" Even as the flowerets, by nocturnal chill, Bowed down and closed, when the sun whitens them, Uplift themselves all open on their stems; Such I became with my exhausted strength, And such good courage to my heart there coursed, That I began, like an intrepid person: "O she compassionate, who succoured me, And courteous thou, who hast obeyed so soon The words of truth which she addressed to thee!
— from Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell by Dante Alighieri

Unluckily, there was a blunder at the very outset: the musicians became flurried; Master Simon was in a fever; everything went on lamely and irregularly until they came to a chorus beginning, “Now let us sing with one accord,” which seemed to be a signal for parting company: all became discord and confusion: each shifted for himself, and got to the end as well—or, rather, as soon—as he could, excepting one old chorister in a pair of horn spectacles bestriding and pinching a long sonorous nose, who happened to stand a little apart, and, being wrapped up in his own melody, kept on a quavering course, wriggling his head, ogling his book, and winding all up by a nasal solo of at least three bars’ duration.
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving

By degrees a circle of friends had formed around him, although it was never a very large one.
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

By oldest right, by the divine affinity of virtue with itself, I find them, or rather, not I, but the Deity in me and in them, both deride and cancel the thick walls of individual character, relation, age, sex and circumstance, at which he usually connives, and now makes many one.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson

So also in mammals, no more than a general relation between diet and caecal development can be shown to exist, although the large size of the single caecum of mammals is more closely associated with a herbivorous as opposed to a carnivorous, frugivorous, piscivorous or omnivorous diet than is the case in birds.
— from The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia Volume 1 of 28 by Project Gutenberg

Under these circumstances it appeared expedient to give to Mr. Poinsett the option either to return or not, as in his judgment the interest of his country might require, and instructions to that end were prepared; but before they could be dispatched a communication was received from the Government of Mexico, through its charge d'affaires here, requesting the recall of our minister.
— from State of the Union Addresses by Andrew Jackson

The æsthetic faculty may, indeed, be described as curiously capricious in its manifestations.
— from The Lost Atlantis and Other Ethnographic Studies by Wilson, Daniel, Sir

“I—I haven’t decided just what I’d best do after Christmas to keep up my reputation as the college beauty.”
— from Marjorie Dean, Marvelous Manager by Josephine Chase

To-day we must be doing," answered Curdie.
— from The Princess and Curdie by George MacDonald

They sayle in a little shippe with a prosperous winde, and securely at pleasure: the fruites and flowers fall downe vppon theyr hatches, and with great solace and pleasure they cut through by the seauen reuolutions with a merry winde, vntill the second mount bee discouered and come vnto .
— from Hypnerotomachia: The Strife of Loue in a Dreame by Francesco Colonna

Pan bread, or bread baked in tins, need a greater heat than batch bread, as pan-bread dough is of a lighter nature than batch-bread dough, and consequently requires more heat to keep it up.
— from The Bread and Biscuit Baker's and Sugar-Boiler's Assistant Including a Large Variety of Modern Recipes by Robert Wells

Baron Dangloss and Colonel Quinnox were beside the tall guard as he came forward to receive the commendations and apologies of Graustark's ruler and the warm promises of reward from the man he served.
— from Beverly of Graustark by George Barr McCutcheon