The confused beginnings of many birds' songs spread into the healthy air, and the wan blue of the heaven was here and there coated with thin webs of incorporeal cloud which were of no effect in obscuring day.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

The Second Protocol begins on the note of war, and its opening words are these: "It is indispensable for our purpose that as far as possible, wars should bring no territorial advantages.
— from The International Jew : The World's Foremost Problem by Anonymous

The king gave them a hundred tickals each, to bear their expenses, (twenty-five of which Dr. Sandford generously sent to Mr. Gouger, still a prisoner at Oung-pen-la,) boats, men, and a Burmese officer, to accompany them, though he ventured no farther than the Burman camp.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

They were taken to the guard-house of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and, later on, to the barracks of the Quai d'Orsay.
— from The History of a Crime The Testimony of an Eye-Witness by Victor Hugo

Table 4, above taken from the article on this subject by Hess and Fish (1914), brings out the details of the blood-picture.
— from Scurvy, Past and Present by Alfred F. Hess

Uplifting his axe, he hit the horned gentleman such a blow on the head as not only demolished him, but the treasure-seeker also, and caused the whole scene to vanish like magic.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Such late was Walsh — the Muse's judge and friend, Who justly knew to blame or to commend; To failings mild, but zealous for desert; The clearest head, and the sincerest heart.
— from The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems by Alexander Pope

It was at the beginning of this summer that Hannibal entered upon open war with Rome; started from New Carthage; and crossing the Iber, definitely began his expedition and march into Italy; while the Romans despatched Tiberius Sempronius to Libya with an army, and Publius Cornelius to Iberia.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius

I wished for riches, and here I am in despair at having lost the humble roof of bracken under shelter of which I could sleep in peace without anxiety as to the morrow, without troubling myself about the rain or the wind beating against the branches of the giant oaks.
— from The Wolf-Leader by Alexandre Dumas

This secretion constitutes the bulk of the semen.
— from Love: A Treatise on the Science of Sex-attraction for the use of Physicians and Students of Medical Jurisprudence by Bernard Simon Talmey

A minute more, and I would have sank helpless to the bottom of the sea, never to rise again.
— from The Country of the Dwarfs by Paul B. (Paul Belloni) Du Chaillu

Now there is but one true vine , and all its branches will bring forth the same "good fruits of righteousness" by which all shall be known.
— from The Spirit of God as Fire; the Globe Within the Sun Our Heaven by D. Mortimore

Their enemies—albeit fellow-countrymen and Americans —were inhuman and barbarous, and before putting himself in their hands again, he would submit to be hung by bushwhackers, or torn to pieces by blood-hounds.
— from Sword and Pen Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier by John Algernon Owens

He was in luck to-day, too: the business of the portrait had been carried through so smoothly, so easily.
— from Thorley Weir by E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson

And yet, sitting there beside his eccentric brother on that fallen tree, he had an extraordinary sense of rest.
— from The Freelands by John Galsworthy