The walls that had been left with only the first dark coat of plaster, awaiting another season for the final decoration, showed their drapings of cobweb, and the names and pencilled scribblings with which the fancy of transient bushwhackers had chosen to deface them.
— from The Phantoms of the Foot-Bridge, and Other Stories by Mary Noailles Murfree

A little attention to cultivation procures a sufficiency of corn; the fields afford a rich pasturage for cattle; and the natives are plentifully supplied with excellent fish, both from the Gambia river and the Walli creek.
— from Life and Travels of Mungo Park by Mungo Park

There is, however, scarcely any disease from which even when most severe recovery so often takes place in childhood, and this not as persons so often imagine from some critical occurrence but by a process of gradual amendment.
— from The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases by Charles West

There were about ten of us who lined up to the purser's window of the little steamer which came along that night and purchased second-class passage.
— from The Trail of the Goldseekers: A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse by Hamlin Garland

He was a man of great energy and courage, and though not a professional soldier,—none of them were,—had the frontier American’s capacity for warfare.
— from The Columbia River: Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery, Its Commerce by William Denison Lyman

Upon the evenings of Sundays and holydays, the young people of each village and métairie repaired to the court-yard of the chateau, as the natural and proper scene for their evening amusement, and the family of the baron often took part in the pastime.
— from Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume I. by Walter Scott