Fancied I could again distinguish a strip of land to the eastward, and one also to the westward, but could not be certain.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

“It’s not a wart,” returned Master Robert Mistricolle, “it is an egg which contains another demon exactly similar, who bears another little egg which contains another devil, and so on.”
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

I want you to be something infinitely closer and dearer and sweeter than a cousin, Janetta; will you forgive me all my errors and be my wife?"
— from A True Friend: A Novel by Adeline Sergeant

Even in his abused state of chains and darkness, a sort of greatness seems never to desert him.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

’Tis from high life high characters are drawn; A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn; A judge is just, a chancellor juster still; A gownman, learn’d; a bishop, what you will;
— from An Essay on Man; Moral Essays and Satires by Alexander Pope

Then, the fire being out and the storm spent, the voices and flying footsteps presently ceased, and darkness and stillness reigned again.
— from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

(3) Mechanics can ruin batteries in a number of undetectable ways: Take the valve cap off a cell, and drive a screw driver slantwise into the exposed water vent, shattering the plates of the cell; no damage will show when you put the cap back on.
— from Simple Sabotage Field Manual by United States. Office of Strategic Services

His cuirassiers are described as so many massy statues of steel, glittering with their scaly armor, and breaking with their ponderous lances the firm array of the Gallic legions.
— 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

Great mobility and activity on the part of the troops occupying these positions will be a strong element of security or of superiority over the enemy, since it renders possible rapid concentration at different and successive points of the front.
— from The Art of War by Jomini, Antoine Henri, baron de

It is in a good state of preservation, its lettering is clear and distinct, and so is the portrait engraved upon it of King Charles the Second who gave it to Governor John Winthrop.
— from Once Upon a Time in Connecticut by Caroline Clifford Newton

She went to market herself, she cooked and dusted and swept, and never missed mass of a morning.
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac

They let them eat the grass as it grows, all summer, and in the winter they feed them with what they have cut and dried and stored in the barn for them.
— from Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont by Jacob Abbott

The book bears the stamp of an evil time, when injustice and oppression were the order of the day, iii. 16, iv. 1, v. 8, government was corrupt and disorderly and speech dangerous, x. 20.
— from Introduction to the Old Testament by John Edgar McFadyen

Agatha and Grace might be cold and disagreeable, and sneer at her whenever she opened her lips, but Harold with his eager face and his odd fancies was quite different.
— from Unlucky: A Fragment of a Girl's Life by Caroline Austin

At Calais one gets into a sleeping-car and gets out of it at Cannes, after dining and sleeping comfortably.
— from Letters of Lord Acton to Mary, Daughter of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone by Acton, John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, Baron

The shoddy-grinders of the West Riding, who grind and break up rags in a machine called “a devil,” are subjected to what they term the shoddy fever, in consequence of the devil’s dust given off in the tearing process.
— from Curiosities of Civilization by Andrew Wynter

Curious auxiliary devils are shown, actively engaged in carrying the dead to torment; among them the remarkable group illustrated here.
— from Thames Valley Villages, Volume 1 (of 2) by Charles G. (Charles George) Harper