“Let me say, Mr. Chairman,” said one of the older brethren, “that I have heard of Birdy Edwards, and that he has the name of being the best man in the Pinkerton service.”
— from The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle

For a time nothing but eyes, and then he speaks of tentacles streaming out and parting the weed fronds this way and that.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine.
— from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Yet it is to be believed, that such a death of a religious man not only blotted out his offence, but even added to his merit; because it happened on account of his piety and his observance of the commands of Christ.
— from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England by Bede, the Venerable, Saint

It’s all very well for you; but for me, with a son to keep at the university, lads to be educated at the high school—how am I going to buy these dray-horses?” “Well, that’s what the land banks are for.”
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

Secondly, what place shall we assign to empirical psychology, which has always been considered a part of metaphysics, and from which in our time such important philosophical results have been expected, after the hope of constructing an a priori system of knowledge had been abandoned?
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

“Oh, I can walk now,” says Tom; and, supported by East and the housekeeper, goes to the sick-room.
— from Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes

That compact between France and Spain, to which the Two Sicilies acceded later, bore within it, in the then strained relations between England and Spain, the germ of the great wars between England and the House of Bourbon which issued in the creation of the British Empire and the independence of the United States.
— from The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

Carrying good victuals and Tom with me I to breakfast about 9 o’clock, and then to read again and come to the Fleete about twelve, where I found my Lord (the Prince being gone in) on board the Royall James, Sir Thomas Allen commander, and with my Lord an houre alone discoursing what was my chief and only errand about what was adviseable for his Lordship to do in this state of things, himself being under the Duke of Yorke’s and Mr. Coventry’s envy, and a great many more and likely never to do anything honourably but he shall be envied and the honour taken as much as can be from it.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

This Government has found occasion to express in a friendly spirit, but with much earnestness, to the Government of the Czar its serious concern because of the harsh measures now being enforced against the Hebrews in Russia.
— from History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, Volume 2 [of 3] From the Death of Alexander I until the Death of Alexander III (1825-1894) by Simon Dubnow

They were observed at Cross Lake and at Lake Winnepeg by Mr. Kennicott, at Big Island by Mr. Reid, at Fort Rae by Mr. Clarke, and at Fort Anderson and on the Lower Anderson River by Mr. MacFarlane, who also found them breeding even at this high latitude.
— from A History of North American Birds; Land Birds; Vol. 2 of 3 by Robert Ridgway

Mrs. Hammond began to be equally aware that her struggles were to no purpose; but she could not be equally patient.
— from Caleb Williams; Or, Things as They Are by William Godwin

10 Be still then, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, and I will be exalted in the earth.
— from The Book of Common Prayer and The Scottish Liturgy by Episcopal Church in Scotland

But now Heav'n let fall a gen'ral eye Of pity on him; the blest Gods persuaded Mercury, Their good observer, to his stealth; and ev'ry Deity Stood pleas'd with it; Juno except, green Neptune, and the Maid Grac'd with the blue eyes, all their hearts stood hatefully appaid
— from The Iliads of Homer Translated according to the Greek by Homer

They were seen by a swineherd in the forest, when he was in search of a lost swine, and he went to Bishop Ecgwine and told him.
— from Anglo-Saxon Literature by John Earle

An extraordinary concentration of effort, systematic, determined and sustained, is however required throughout all the nine Provinces of the Dominion, aiming at an unprecedented flow of contributions by the entire body of the believers, each according to his or her means, into the National Treasury; a marked increase in the number of pioneers; a much greater dispersion; a higher degree of austerity; a still nobler display of consecration—all of which must result in a speedy multiplication of Assemblies and groups, which constitutes the core of the Plan, and on which hinges its fortunes.
— from Messages to Canada by Effendi Shoghi

A child should be early accustomed to have confidence in himself.
— from Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia: Their Causes, Symptoms, & Treatment by Isaac George Briggs

The feeling thus eloquently expressed goes far to explain the harshness which Bunyan experienced at the hands of the administrators of justice at the crisis of his life at which we have now arrived.
— from The Life of John Bunyan by Edmund Venables

He hoped wildly that they were directing all their fire at him, that he was drawing it from the girl above but even as this hope mounted the skies coruscated again and he saw that the pinto was stopped, saw that Jane was slipping to the narrow trail, her body wedged between the cliff and the body of the horse.
— from The Last Straw by Harold Titus