After peace had been restored between us, the caziques, papas, and other chiefs, Cortes ordered the fragments of the idols we had destroyed to be carried away and burnt.
— from The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2) Written by Himself Containing a True and Full Account of the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico and New Spain. by Bernal Díaz del Castillo

There is ever a flaw, however, in the best laid of human plans, and the murderers of John Openshaw were never to receive the orange pips which would show them that another, as cunning and as resolute as themselves, was upon their track.
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

When I was seated, I said, “I come, as a true worshipper of the Gospel, to tell you in private something that, another time, I would say in public.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

I should have liked to take, the very next day, the good, the generous train at one twenty-two, of which never without a palpitating heart could I read, in the railway company's bills or in advertisements of circular tours, the hour of departure: it seemed to me to cut, at a precise point in every afternoon, a most fascinating groove, a mysterious mark, from which the diverted hours still led one on, of course, towards evening, towards to-morrow morning, but to an evening and morning which one would behold, not in Paris but in one of those towns through which the train passed and among which it allowed one to choose; for it stopped at Bayeux, at Coutances, at Vitré, at Questambert, at Pontorson, at Balbec, at Lannion, at Lamballe, at Benodet, at Pont-Aven, at Quimperle, and progressed magnificently surcharged with names which it offered me, so that, among them all, I did not know which to choose, so impossible was it to sacrifice any.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

Listening to them, the deacon imagined how it would be with him in ten years’ time, when he would come back from the expedition: he would be a young priest and monk, an author with a name and a splendid past; he would be consecrated an archimandrite, then a bishop; and he would serve mass in the cathedral; in a golden mitre he would come out into the body of the church with the ikon on his breast, and blessing the mass of the people with the triple and the double candelabra, would proclaim: “Look down from Heaven, O God, behold and visit this vineyard which Thy Hand has planted,” and the children with their angel voices would sing in response: “Holy God. . .”
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

So I to Westminster Hall, and in Chancery Row I saw about twenty of them who had been at White Hall with General Monk, who came thither this morning, and made a speech to them, and recommended to them a Commonwealth, and against Charles Stuart.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Thence away to boat again and landed her at the Three Cranes again, and I to the Bridge, and so home, and after shifting myself, being dirty, I to the ‘Change, and thence to Mr. Povy’s and there dined, and thence with him and Creed to my Lord Bellasses’, and there debated a great while how to put things in order against his going, and so with my Lord in his coach to White Hall, and with him to my Lord Duke of Albemarle, finding him at cards.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

The affairs of the community are adjusted by a caste council and there are, in most places, two hereditary officers called Kōlkaran and Kanakkan.
— from Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 7 of 7 by Edgar Thurston

I conveyed also a great lump of beeswax into the boat, which weighed about half a hundred-weight, with a parcel of twine or thread, a hatchet, a saw, and a hammer, all of which were of great use to us afterwards, especially the wax, to make candles.
— from The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

It is now known, says Dr. Parker, that in varying degrees there is a constant transit of fluid from the blood into the alimentary canal, and as rapid absorption.
— from Intestinal Ills Chronic Constipation, Indigestion, Autogenetic Poisons, Diarrhea, Piles, Etc. Also Auto-Infection, Auto-Intoxication, Anemia, Emaciation, Etc. Due to Proctitis and Colitis by Alcinous B. (Alcinous Burton) Jamison

2. No inference as to the antiquity of this Codex can be drawn from the Eusebian notation of Sections in the margin: that notation having been confessedly added at a subsequent date.
— from The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark by John William Burgon

Slow in their growth, they gradually approximate to a more perfect condition:—the variety 111 in the phenomena of nature call forth a variety of intellectual gifts;—the powers of analysis and combination are applied to the humbler labours of observation and experiment, and in the ordeal of rival inquiry truth is finally purified from error.
— from The Life of Sir Isaac Newton by David Brewster

So a' bade me lay more clothes on his feet; I put my hand into the bed, and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and so upward, and upward, and all was as cold as any stone.'
— from A Novelist on Novels by Walter Lionel George

why, the fellow's gone—gone as clean as a whistle, blow him!" than Lord St. Ulmer began to rattle out an absolute fusillade of excited cries and frightened queries and suggestions, all snarled up in one hopeless tangle of jumbled words, and to tug with all his force at the bell rope hanging beside his bed.
— from The Riddle of the Night by Thomas W. Hanshew

For all I know to the contrary, prominent hostesses along the Gold Coast of the United States—Bar Harbor to Palm Beach inclusive—may have been serving one lone vegetable as a separate course for years and years; but I feel sure that throughout the interior the disclosure will come as a pleasant surprise.
— from Europe Revised by Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury) Cobb

It was an age of spending rather than of creation, an age of architecture and trade in which the rich grew richer and the poor poorer and the soul and spirit of man decayed.
— from The Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

R65741, 1Aug50, Henry de Montherlant (A) SONGS OF CHALLENGE (an anthology) selected and arranged by Robert Frothingham.
— from U.S. Copyright Renewals, 1950 July - December by Library of Congress. Copyright Office

After the departure of Fischer, Koenig had to cook alone, and when he went on furlough, December 16th, Gantner and Rossion conducted the kitchen in the interim.
— from History of Company E of the Sixth Minnesota Regiment of Volunteer Infantry by Charles J. Stees