In his later years, however, he perhaps wrote too much; his poetry, like his prose, becomes dull and unimaginative; and we miss the flashes of insight, the tender memories of childhood, and the recurrence of noble lines--each one a poem--that constitutes the surprise and the delight of reading Wordsworth.
— from English Literature Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World by William J. (William Joseph) Long

From his Welsh informant Shakspeare got Mab, which is simply the Cymric for a little child, and the root of numberless words signifying babyish, childish, love for children (mabgar), kitten (mabgath), prattling (mabiaith), and the like, most notable of all which in this connection is mabinogi, the singular of Mabinogion, the romantic tales of enchantment told to the young in by-gone ages.
— from British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions by Wirt Sikes

When we got the organ up at the Glen church old Elder Richards bounced up from his seat the minute the organist began to play and scuttled down the aisle and out of the church at the rate of no-man's-business.
— from Anne's House of Dreams by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

While he possessed such a physical constitution, as the result of nature and training, he surpassed still more in spiritual endowment.
— from Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) An Historical Narrative Originally Composed in Greek during the Reigns of Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus and Alexander Severus: and Now Presented in English Form by Cassius Dio Cocceianus

More than any other her wealth has been intrusted to the sea in war as in peace; yet of all nations she has ever been most reluctant to concede the immunities of commerce and the rights of neutrals.
— from The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

Yemanae, p. 94, Bonn, 1828,) Abrahah was an Abyssinian, the rival of Ariathus, the brother of the Abyssinian king: he surprised and slew Ariathus, and by his craft appeased the resentment of Nadjash, the Abyssinian king.
— 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

The weather was beautiful, and even with contrary wind, the Medway went steaming on her course at the rate of nine knots an hour.
— from Life in Mexico by Madame (Frances Erskine Inglis) Calderón de la Barca

In that short sentence is packed the essence of many other wise and drastic sayings, as, for instance, “The devil take the hindmost;” for, of course, if money talks, then the man without it must remain silent, and his place is at the tail of the procession, where the devil prowls about like a Cossack at the rear of Napoleon’s army.
— from The Sword Maker by Robert Barr

She has no very near relatives but there isn’t a young or a middle-aged man in this county who wouldn’t, in that case, adopt the relation of nearest male relation to her and send inconvenient billets-doux to you by the hands of insistent friends.”
— from Dorothy South: A Love Story of Virginia Just Before the War by George Cary Eggleston

It would seem with the force of fifty-five thousand regular troops, we are to conquer all the residue of North America; exterminate every tawny infidel this side of the Isthmus of Darien, and defend a seacoast many hundred miles in extent from the incursions of the enemy!
— from Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 4 (of 16) by United States. Congress

That is better than to sit arid and prosperous, when the brain stiffens with stupor, and the hand has lost its cunning, and to read old newspaper-cuttings, and long for adequate recognition.
— from The Upton Letters by Arthur Christopher Benson

In 1497 and 1498 John and Sebastian Cabot had tried to find a passage to Japan but they had seen nothing but the snowbound coasts and the rocks of Newfoundland, which had first been sighted by the Northmen, five centuries before.
— from The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem Van Loon

The plan was the imposition of the same rate of duty upon all articles, those not coming into competition with the products of the country and those coming into such competition, and the raising of no more revenue than should be necessary to meet the demands of the Government for constitutional purposes.
— from The Middle Period, 1817-1858 by John William Burgess

We shall, next year, hear more about the new Coinage, which was being coined at the rate of nearly 300,000 coins per diem.
— from Social England under the Regency, Vol. 2 (of 2) by John Ashton

The mother-woman exercises her right of choice as the representative of Nature.
— from Motherhood and the Relationships of the Sexes by C. Gasquoine (Catherine Gasquoine) Hartley