as these people had been liberal with is with rispect to provision I directed the men not to croud their lodge surch of food in the manner hunger has compelled them to do at most lodges we have passed, and which the Twisted hair had informed me was disgreeable to the natives.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

Among other topics of discourse, that of the Belles Lettres was introduced, upon which his lordship held forth with great taste and erudition and discovered an intimate knowledge of the authors of antiquity, “Here's a book,” said he, taking one from his bosom, “written with great elegance and spirit; and, though the subject may give offence to some narrow-minded people, the author will always be held in esteem by every person of wit and learning.”
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

For, as I says to Biddy when the news of your being ill were brought by letter, which it were brought by the post, and being formerly single he is now married though underpaid for a deal of walking and shoe-leather, but wealth were not a object on his part, and marriage were the great wish of his hart—”
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

We watched the ghostly dancers spin To sound of horn and violin, Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.
— from Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

And I had fallen into a sort of trance, trying to picture what it would be like having the Bassett on the premises for the rest of my life and at the same time, if you follow me, trying not to picture what it would be like, when I charged into something which might have been a tree, but was not—being, in point of fact, Jeeves.
— from Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

And this is the moral of Proserpine’s tasting the pomegranate; and were it not for this, she must long ago have been carried up by Ceres, who with 417 her torch wandered the world over, and so the earth have been left without its spirit.
— from Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients by Francis Bacon

An’ th’ woman in th’ shop threw in a packet o’ white poppy an’ one o’ blue larkspur when I bought th’ other seeds.”
— from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Note 63 ( return ) [ The sacred wood, described with such sublime horror by Lucan, was in the neighborhood of Marseilles; but there were many of the same kind in Germany.
— 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

“I brought you—nay, it is strange, but knowest thou, Kallikrates, that thou liest at this moment upon the very spot where thy dead body lay when I bore thee back to those caves of Kôr so many years ago?
— from She by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard

So being much troubled I said to the men, 'My men, I know you are hard pressed, but listen while I tell you the prophecy that Teiresias made me, and how carefully Aeaean Circe warned me to shun the island of the blessed sun-god, for it was here, she said, that our worst danger would lie.
— from The Odyssey Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original by Homer

“And there ain’t nothing as can raise a woman’s tenderness and loyalty to a man,“ Greyson went on, ”like getting into a hard fix, and sho’ Burke Lawson was in a right bad fix.
— from The Man Thou Gavest by Harriet T. (Harriet Theresa) Comstock

But since a life of letters, being unnatural, cannot be lived without injury to the body, nor without increasing in many ways the natural infelicity of your mind, I regard it as my duty to explain to you the various difficulties attendant on the pursuit of that glory towards which you aspire, and the results that will follow success should you attain it.
— from Essays and Dialogues by Giacomo Leopardi

and but little water is added, so that it is strong, very strong, and one is soon made drunk.
— from By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories by Louis Becke

Only, toward the close of one of my watches, a blue light which I had never noticed came on beside the indicator dials, and I saw that we had covered 233 light-years, half the estimated distance to Rigel.
— from Out Around Rigel by Robert H. Wilson

It would have been little wonder, if, having so many opportunities, and playing the preceptor with her as I have done, I had been entangled before I was aware, and harboured a wish which I might not afterwards have had courage to subdue.
— from Caleb Williams; Or, Things as They Are by William Godwin

I am not ashamed to be little, when I see them so infamously great; neither do I know why the name of poet should be dishonourable to me, if I am truly one, as I hope I am; for I will never do any thing that shall dishonour it.
— from The Works of John Dryden, Now First Collected in Eighteen Volumes; Vol. 12 (of 18) by John Dryden

"And round about, in quaintest guise, Was carved—'Within this tomb there lies The fairest thing to mortal eyes.'" Farewell, sweet Isabella!—a wife at eight, a widow at twelve, and dead at twenty-two,—your life was indeed short, and, though not without happy days, sorrow blended largely with its joy!
— from St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 No 1, Nov 1877 by Various

And if you would just be so very obliging as to take my name to them, you might say that I come bearing letters which I am sure they will be very rejoiced to have the reading of.”
— from The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 12 by Robert Louis Stevenson