Nevertheless, they are now fully convinced, that she hath more than sufficiently atoned for her indiscretion, by the barbarity of her husband, who hath not only secluded her from all communication with her friends and acquaintance, but even confined her to the west tower of your father's house, where she is said to be kept close prisoner, and subjected to all sorts of inconvenience and mortification.
— from The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete by T. (Tobias) Smollett

“There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil—a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.”
— from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The swans shook their heads, for what she beheld were the beautiful ever-changing cloud palaces of the "Fata Morgana," into which no mortal can enter.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

So bold men, who are tempted by every chance, have quite frequently, as we are assured, opened the holes excavated by the black man, and tried to rob the devil.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Although we must be extremely cautious in concluding that any organ could not have been produced by successive, small, transitional gradations, yet undoubtedly serious cases of difficulty occur.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

It was impossible to resist such friendly overtures, and slowly Rachel's coldness melted; into the beseeching eyes came a look of gratitude, the more touching for its wordlessness, and an irrepressible smile broke over her face in answer to the cordial ones that made the sunshine of her day.
— from Work: A Story of Experience by Louisa May Alcott

But external conditions, in respect to their furthering or hindering effects, can be more clearly recognized and estimated; and it is juster and more logical to name them first.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and controlled by the others.”
— from Life of James Buchanan, Fifteenth President of the United States. v. 2 (of 2) by George Ticknor Curtis

Just at bedtime Esau crawled into the tent saying that he had strained his back in lifting a stone: he was in such pain that he could hardly stand, and was 225 white and shivering.
— from Three in Norway, by Two of Them by Walter J. Clutterbuck

But Euripides cannot bear such restraint: he often evacuates the stage, and leaves it empty for others in succession.
— from Elements of Criticism, Volume III. by Kames, Henry Home, Lord

Time, under the name of Saturn, was pictured as the son of heaven; or Coelus by earth, called Terra, or Thea; he was represented as an inexorable divinity—naturally artful, who devoured his own children—who revenged the anger of his mother upon his father; for which purpose she armed him with a scythe, formed of metals drawn from her own bowels, with which he struck Coelus, in the act of uniting himself to Thea, and so mutilated him, that he was ever after incapacitated to increase the number of his children: he was said to have divided the throne with Janus king of Italy, his reign seems to have been so mild, so beneficent, that it was called the golden age ; human victims were sacrificed on his altars, until abolished by Hercules, who substituted small images of clay.
— from The System of Nature, or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World. Volume 2 by Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'

Next day, being drawn up in the same order, they fought a more important battle than could have been expected, considering the numbers engaged; for there were not more than three thousand infantry on each side, and about one hundred horse: but they were not only on an equality with respect to numbers, and the kind of arms which they used, but they also fought with equal spirit and equal hopes.
— from The History of Rome, Books 27 to 36 by Livy

Now both had been equally condemned in her as faults, and she fell back, as before, on the mere dull effort towards submission which had already carried her surely, if joylessly, over so many difficult years of her young life.
— from Hetty Gray Nobody's Bairn by Rosa M. (Rosa Mulholland) Gilbert

A motive for action must exist before either change will be made; but a thing cannot have considerably different values in two different uses at the same moment.
— from The Principles of Economics, with Applications to Practical Problems by Frank A. (Frank Albert) Fetter

Yet, as if there had not been administrative blunders enough committed in one year, the unlucky lean Englishman, with the black beard, who was the Earl's chief representative, contrived—almost before his master's back was turned—to draw upon himself the wrath of all the fine ladies in Holland.
— from History of the United Netherlands, 1587a by John Lothrop Motley

BESOBRASOW, ELIZABETH C. Democratic governments in Europe.
— from U.S. Copyright Renewals, 1963 January - June by Library of Congress. Copyright Office