But man can and does select the variations given to him by nature, and thus accumulates them in any desired manner.
— 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

If it is tied up in a cloth and dipped in warm water to which soap and lime-juice has been added, and then carefully dried in the shade, it becomes very white, the weight not being altered.
— from Malay Magic Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula by Walter William Skeat

Within the hour we were fairly within the Straits of Gibraltar, the tall yellow-splotched hills of Africa on our right, with their bases veiled in a blue haze and their summits swathed in clouds—the same being according to Scripture, which says that “clouds and darkness are over the land.”
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

V. be in debt &c. adj.; owe; incur a debt, contract a debt &c. n.; run up a bill, run up a score, run up an account; go on tick; borrow &c. 788; run into debt, get into debt, outrun the constable; run up debts, run up bills (spend) 809.. answer for, go bail for.
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget

En cuanto a darle un golpe a traición, es cosa que no sé 203 hacer, ni está en mi natural, ni la señora lo consiente tampoco.
— from Doña Perfecta by Benito Pérez Galdós

Ay, that's the way; Dull not device by coldness and delay.
— from Othello, the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare

The one thing which is perfectly well established is this, that the 'central' convolutions, on either side of the fissure of Rolando, and (at least in the monkey) the calloso-marginal convolution (which is continuous with them on the mesial surface where one hemisphere is applied against the other), form the region by which all the motor incitations which leave the cortex pass out, on their way to those executive centres in the region of the pons, medulla, and spinal cord from which the muscular contractions are discharged in the last resort.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James

Therefore, on the 4th, I left City Point to visit Hunter's command, and determine for myself what was best to be done.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant

“Will you come and drink?” asked the scholar.
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

From what I have said, and from much more which a little reflection will suggest to you, you will see that without several circumstances turn out more favorable than has been stated, the machine will be clumsy and defective, and that it will cost much time to bring it to any tolerable degree of perfection, and that for me to interrupt the career of our business would be imprudent; I even grudge the time I have taken to make these comments on it.
— from The Life of George Stephenson and of his Son Robert Stephenson Comprising Also a History of the Invention and Introduction of the Railway Locomotive by Samuel Smiles

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties.
— from French Idioms and Proverbs A Companion to Deshumbert's "Dictionary of Difficulties" by de (Vinchelés Payen-Payne) V. Payen-Payne

Corpora sive rogus flamma, seu tabe vetustas Abstulerit, mala posse pati non ulla putetis; Morte carent animae domibus habitantque receptae.
— from Giordano Bruno by J. Lewis (James Lewis) McIntyre

"Case of belief in diphtheria?" queried Miss Bowyer, and without waiting for an invitation she calmly poured out a cup of coffee and drank it, standing.
— from The Faith Doctor: A Story of New York by Edward Eggleston

One of these—the Tooth-wort ( Lathræa squamaria ), of the order Orobanchaceæ —is [352] not only a parasite, deriving nourishment from the roots of trees, but is also a carnivorous species, feeding on minute animals which are captured and digested by its peculiar leaves; and therefore it may be conveniently considered here.
— from Field and Woodland Plants by William S. Furneaux

And then the Queen, Ned!—why, that pig-headed old woman will be blaming it on me, that there is nobody to prevent that detestable French King from turning Catholic and dragging England into new wars, and I shall not be able to go to any of the Court dances!
— from The Line of Love; Dizain des Mariages by James Branch Cabell

Comparing annual decomposition loss from a hot soil carrying 2 percent humus with annual decomposition loss from a cooler soil carrying 5 percent, roughly the same amount of organic matter will decay out of each soil during the growing season.
— from Organic Gardener's Composting by Steve Solomon