If any one thing in my experience, more than another, served to deepen my conviction of the infernal character of slavery, and to fill me with unutterable loathing of slaveholders, it was their base ingratitude to my poor old grandmother.
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

In the High Street, indeed, necessity made people stir abroad on many occasions; and there would be in the middle of the day a pretty many people, but in the mornings and evenings scarce any to be seen, even there, no, not in Cornhill and Cheapside.
— from A Journal of the Plague Year Written by a Citizen Who Continued All the While in London by Daniel Defoe

She yearned for the strength which such a change would give,—even for a few hours to be in the midst of that bright life, and to feel young again.
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

O, hero, at thy lifeless feet Here with my boy I take my seat, As some sad mother of the herd, By the fierce lion undeterred, Lies moaning by the grassy dell Wherein her lord and leader fell.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki

It was only when he crawled to bed at night, or to breakfast in the morning, that she asserted herself to him in fleeting memories.
— from Martin Eden by Jack London

It should also be borne in mind, that the law may be true, but yet, owing to the geological record not extending far enough back in time, may remain for a long period, or for ever, incapable of demonstration.
— 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

The lightest part of the shadow will be in the middle, rather towards the side away from the light, generally speaking.
— from The Practice and Science of Drawing by Harold Speed

But he did not want to part from his brother in this mood; he wanted to talk to him on other subjects; throw a few shovelfuls of gossip on the unpleasant affair, see him under commonplace circumstances, sitting at his table, for instance—and why not eating and drinking?
— from The Red Room by August Strindberg

But, in the meantime, the unresting career of the law-courts, of commerce, and of the national senate, that cannot suspend themselves for an hour, reduce the case to this dilemma: If the Irish and the Germans in the United States adapt their general schemes of education to the service of their public ambition, they must begin by training themselves to the use of the language now prevailing on all the available stages of ambition.
— from The Collected Writing of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II by Thomas De Quincey

In this I consider he was quite justified, and you have no one but yourself to blame in the matter.
— from Mafeking: A Diary of a Siege by Frederick David Baillie

But if the modern theory be true, that when we speak (as we are forced to speak) of the relationships of plants, we use no metaphor, but state an actual fact; that the groups into which we are forced to arrange them indicate not merely similarity of type, but community of descent—then how wonderful is the kindred between the Spurge and the Hura—indeed, between all the members of the Euphorbiaceous group, so fantastically various in outward form; so abundant, often huge, in the Tropics, while in our remote northern island their only representatives are a few weedy Spurges, two Dog’s Mercuries—weeds likewise—and the Box.
— from At Last: A Christmas in the West Indies by Charles Kingsley

Through most of its range Smilisca baudini breeds in those months, but in some places where abundant rain falls in other seasons, the species breeds at those times.
— from Neotropical Hylid Frogs, Genus Smilisca by William Edward Duellman

Nevertheless he does read his English; he has, too, the fatal tendency to the bringing forth of Bills in the manner of Jove big with Minerva.
— from Complete Short Works of George Meredith by George Meredith

The Mint wall at Lincoln, the Jewry wall at Leicester, and the walls at Richborough and Colchester are built in this manner.
— from A Handbook of Pictorial History by Henry W. Donald

If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law.
— from The Women of The American Revolution, Vol. 2 by E. F. (Elizabeth Fries) Ellet

Yet they ring, almost, quite truly, Last (with care) for long; But in time must break, may shiver At a touch of wrong: Having seen what looked most real Crumble into dust; Now I chose that test and trial Should precede my trust.
— from Legends and Lyrics. Part 1 by Adelaide Anne Procter