The forenoon was spent in choosing lacquer and porcelain.
— from A Diplomat in Japan The inner history of the critical years in the evolution of Japan when the ports were opened and the monarchy restored, recorded by a diplomatist who took an active part in the events of the time, with an account of his personal experiences during that period by Ernest Mason Satow

“You know nothing and you care less, as people say.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

While the men made bullets and the women lint, while a large saucepan of melted brass and lead, destined to the bullet-mould smoked over a glowing brazier, while the sentinels watched, weapon in hand, on the barricade, while Enjolras, whom it was impossible to divert, kept an eye on the sentinels, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, Bossuet, Joly, Bahorel, and some others, sought each other out and united as in the most peaceful days of their conversations in their student life, and, in one corner of this wine-shop which had been converted into a casement, a couple of paces distant from the redoubt which they had built, with their carbines loaded and primed resting against the backs of their chairs, these fine young fellows, so close to a supreme hour, began to recite love verses.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Excommunication, that is to say, in those places where Christianity was forbidden by the Civill Laws, a putting of themselves out of the company of the Excommunicate, and where Christianity was by the Civill Law commanded, a putting the Excommunicate out of the Congregations of Christians; who elected the Pastors and Ministers of the Church, (that it was, the Congregation); who consecrated and blessed them, (that it was the Pastor); what was their due revenue, (that it was none but their own possessions, and their own labour, and the voluntary contributions of devout and gratefull Christians).
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

That old gentleman that had just come looked all puzzled to death.
— from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The expression with which children look at people they are very fond of, of whom they are asking a favour.
— from Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

But if the spirit of religion join itself to the love of wonder, there is an end of common sense; and human testimony, in these circumstances, loses all pretensions to authority.
— from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume

Even Artabanus, king of the Parthians, who had always manifested hatred and contempt for Tiberius, solicited his friendship; came to hold a conference with his consular lieutenant, and passing the Euphrates, paid the highest honours to the eagles, the Roman standards, and the images of the Caesars.
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius

About ten years before the naval engagement at Salamis, Datis came, leading a Persian host by command of Darius, which was expressly directed against the Athenians and Eretrians, having orders to carry them away captive; and these orders he was to execute under pain of death.
— from Laws by Plato

The timber is Cottonwood principally, Elm Small ash also furnish a portion of the timber, The Clay of the bluffs appear much whiter than below, and Contain Several Stratums of Coal, on the hill Sides I observe pebbles of different Size & Colour—The river has been riseing for Several days, & raised 3 inches last night, at 12 oClock arrived at the forks of the Roche Johne & Missouri and formed a Camp on the point Soon after George Drewyer Came from Capt Lewis & informed me that he was a little way up the Roche johne and would join me this evining, I Sent a canoe up to Capt Lewis and proceeded measure the width of the rivers, and find the debth.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

Afterwards he had ranged the city like a prairie wolf, ranged it as though it had been an unpeopled desert, free to his stride.
— from The Branding Iron by Katharine Newlin Burt

By Horatio Alger, Jr., Author of “Joe’s Luck,” “Frank Fowler, the Cash Boy,” “Ragged Dick,” “Tom Temple’s Career,” “Luck and Pluck,” etc., etc. ILLUSTRATED.
— from Tom Thatcher's Fortune by Alger, Horatio, Jr.

The erstwhile proprietor of the company returns by Pullman car to New York, complains loudly about "poor business," a "sunken fortune," &c., and then prepares to take out another combination.
— from The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield by Edward Robins

From the Quincy Patriot , We recommend it (Parley's Cabinet Library) as peculiarly valuable to families.
— from Illustrative Anecdotes of the Animal Kingdom by Samuel G. (Samuel Griswold) Goodrich

"Suddenly, and without any preparation, down fell the black curtain like a pall, and the sobs and tears of the family broke forth.
— from Mexico and Its Religion With Incidents of Travel in That Country During Parts of the Years 1851-52-53-54, and Historical Notices of Events Connected With Places Visited by Robert Anderson Wilson

What the Argives first demanded was that they might be allowed to refer to the arbitration of some state or private person the question of the Cynurian land, a piece of frontier territory about which they have always been disputing, and which contains the towns of Thyrea and Anthene, and is occupied by the Lacedaemonians.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

The Comtesse Chantavoine looked at Philip, looked at Guida, and knew that here was the opening of the scroll she had not been able to unfold.
— from The Battle of the Strong: A Romance of Two Kingdoms — Volume 6 by Gilbert Parker

The red dust which still lay in the creases of his garment and in the curves of his soft felt hat, and left a dusty circle like a precipitated halo around his feet, proclaimed him, if not a countryman, a recent inland importation by coach.
— from A Sappho of Green Springs by Bret Harte