In the next chapter I shall discuss the complex and little known laws of variation.
— 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

How could I sit down to work!
— from White Nights and Other Stories The Novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Volume X by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

However frivolous a company may be, still, while you are among them, do not show them, by your inattention, that you think them so; but rather take their tone, and conform, in some degree, to their weakness, instead of {324} manifesting your contempt for them.
— from The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness Being a Complete Guide for a Gentleman's Conduct in All His Relations Towards Society by Cecil B. Hartley

These were calculated in some degree to abate the dangers of the day; a precaution the more necessary, as the conflict was to be maintained with sharp swords and pointed lances.
— from Ivanhoe: A Romance by Walter Scott

life, which Nicholas had laid upon him when they travelled from Yorkshire; and a confused and perplexed idea that his benefactor might have committed some terrible crime in bringing him away, which would render him liable to heavy punishment if detected, had contributed, in some degree, to reduce him to his present state of apathy and terror.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

Then, while I lifted up my soul in speechless, earnest supplication, some heavenly influence seemed to strengthen me within: I breathed more freely; my vision cleared; I saw distinctly the pure moon shining on, and the light clouds skimming the clear, dark sky;
— from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

Secondly, But this privilege, belonging only to the king's person, hinders not, but they may be questioned, opposed, and resisted, who use unjust force, though they pretend a commission from him, which the law authorizes not; as is plain in the case of him that has the king's writ to arrest a man, which is a full commission from the king; and yet he that has it cannot break open a man's house to do it, nor execute this command of the king upon certain days, nor in certain places, though this commission have no such exception in it; but they are the limitations of the law, which if any one transgress, the king's commission excuses him not: for the king's authority being given him only by the law, he cannot impower any one to act against the law, or justify him, by his commission, in so doing; the commission, or command of any magistrate, where he has no authority, being as void and insignificant, as that of any private man; the difference between the one and the other, being that the magistrate has some authority so far, and to such ends, and the private man has none at all: for it is not the commission, but the authority, that gives the right of acting; and against the laws there can be no authority.
— from Second Treatise of Government by John Locke

It came in sections during the next three weeks, each section headed by a donkey carrying a white man in new clothes and tan shoes, bowing from that elevation right and left to the impressed pilgrims.
— from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Take the yolks of six eggs, beat them well and add three cupfuls of sweet milk; take baker's bread, not too stale, and cut into slices; dip them into the milk and eggs and lay the slices into a spider, with sufficient melted butter, hot, to fry a delicate brown.
— from The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) Cooking, Toilet and Household Recipes, Menus, Dinner-Giving, Table Etiquette, Care of the Sick, Health Suggestions, Facts Worth Knowing, Etc., Etc. The Whole Comprising a Comprehensive Cyclopedia of Information for the Home by Hugo Ziemann

“Mr. Beechcroft always held that the Signorina di Orvieto was his true wife in the eyes of Heaven, for their marriage was only prevented by a most uncalled-for and unnatural threat of incurring her father’s dying curse it she dared to wed a Protestant.
— from The Stowmarket Mystery; Or, A Legacy of Hate by Louis Tracy

It is one thing to ride forty miles a day through the most singular scenery in the world, when a radiant sun brings out every feature of the country into startling distinctness, transmuting the dull tormented earth into towers, domes, and pinnacles of gleaming metal,—and weaves for every distant summit a robe of variegated light, such as the "Delectable Mountains" must have worn for the rapt gaze of weary "Christian;"—and another to plod over the same forty miles, drenched to the skin, seeing nothing but the dim, grey roots of hills, that rise you know not how, and you care not where,—with no better employment than to look at your watch, and wonder when you shall reach your journey's end.
— from Letters from High Latitudes Being Some Account of a Voyage in 1856 of the Schooner Yacht "Foam" to Iceland, Jan Meyen, and Spitzbergen by Dufferin and Ava, Frederick Temple Blackwood, Marquis of

Now they soon mark a ledge of rugged rock, Stretching near half across the river deep— Fit place to give unwary ships a shock, And cause their crews in sad despair to weep.
— from The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales in Verse Together with Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects by Thomas Cowherd

And the stream it flowed swift to the ocean—Well-guarded was Pelrapär, As children in swings delight them, and swing themselves to and fro, So swung the bridge, yet ropeless, youthful gladness it scarce might know!
— from Parzival: A Knightly Epic (vol. 1 of 2) by Wolfram, von Eschenbach, active 12th century

Only when the light grows dim above and a red sunset lends enchantment to the outlines of buildings seen against it, casting details and crude colouring into shade, does the High Street of Colchester look really picturesque; and that effect is the more impressive if one enters the town by the easternmost of the three bridges across the Colne.
— from Through East Anglia in a Motor Car by James Edmund Vincent

Without this I shall cause all the rest of the pontifical states to be occupied, I will have the eagles fixed up over the gates of all its cities and domains, and, as I have done for Benevento and Ponte Corvo, I shall divide the provinces possessed by the Pope into so many duchies and principalities, which I shall confer upon whomsoever I please.
— from World's Best Histories — Volume 7: France by François Guizot

There had before been propositions to fix the seat of government either at Philadelphia, or at Georgetown on the Potomac; and it was thought that by giving it to Philadelphia for ten years, and to Georgetown permanently afterwards, this might, as an anodyne, calm in some degree the ferment which might be excited by the other measure alone.
— from The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 9 (of 9) Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private by Thomas Jefferson