And what was marvellous therein above everything else was this, that incorporating, besides S. Reparata, other small churches and houses that were round it, in making the site, which is most beautiful, he showed so great diligence and judgment in causing the foundations of so great a fabric to be made broad and deep, filling them with good material—namely, with gravel and lime and with great stones below—wherefore the square is still called "Lungo i Fondamenti," that they have been very well able, as is to be seen to-day, to support the weight of the great mass of the cupola which Filippo di Ser Brunellesco raised over them.
— from Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 01 (of 10) Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi by Giorgio Vasari

Our recollections are unfortunately mingled with much that we deplore, and with many actions which we bitterly repent; still in the most chequered life I firmly think there are so many little rays of sunshine to look back upon, that I do not believe any mortal (unless he had put himself without the pale of hope) would deliberately drain a goblet of the waters of Lethe, if he had it in his power.’
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

For there are many of them broken and fallen into the vessel that the crown lieth in; for they break for dryness when men move them to show them to great lords that come thither.
— from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Mandeville, John, Sir

He describes, first of all, the family; secondly, the patriarchal stage, which is an aggregation of families; thirdly, the founding of regular cities, like Ilium; fourthly, the establishment of a military and political system, like that of Sparta, with which he identifies Argos and Messene, dating from the return of the Heraclidae.
— from Laws by Plato

Then he stood, poker clubbed, listening intent for the slightest movement.
— from The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

A question was started, how far people who disagree in a capital point can live in friendship together.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

When we cast lots, it fell to me to have my dwelling in the sea for evermore; Hades took the darkness of the realms under the earth, while air and sky and clouds were the portion that fell to Jove; but earth and great Olympus are the common property of all.
— from The Iliad by Homer

It helps the immoderate flowing of the menses in women, and the hæmorrhoids in men, it helps weakness of the stomach, and restores colour lost, it frees the body from crude humours, and strengthens the bladder, helps melancholy, and rectifies the distempers of the spleen.
— from The Complete Herbal To which is now added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs, with a display of their medicinal and occult qualities physically applied to the cure of all disorders incident to mankind: to which are now first annexed, the English physician enlarged, and key to Physic. by Nicholas Culpeper

Officers were appointed, the dead bodies were roughly buried, the camels collected, litters improvised for the wounded, the goat-skins filled with water.
— from The Truants by A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason

If Napoleon had had with him the two army corps left in France to overawe insurrectionary districts, who would have joined him in a week; and if at Ligny he had persevered in so smashing the Prussians as to leave them powerless—if these two "if's" had become realities, Napoleon must have driven Wellington back on Brussels.
— from The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Volume 2 by Stephen Lucius Gwynn

While Robert was watching Stirling, his brother Edward devastated the country round Carlisle, lording it for three days at the bishop's castle of Rose, and levying heavy blackmail on the men of Cumberland.
— from The History of England From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) by T. F. (Thomas Frederick) Tout

The records of the jail at this time, and until the year 1844, have not been kept, as we have said, with any precision, and, indeed, most of them are missing; but the excellent work performed by Mr. Coleman (in the execution of which he, as far as possible, employed convict labour) is, fortunately, to be seen in the map of the town and its environs surveyed by him in 1836, and lithographed in Calcutta the same year, a copy of which is given in Moor's Notices of the Indian Archipelago .
— from Prisoners Their Own Warders A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits Settlements Established 1825 by John Frederick Adolphus McNair

Far to the south ran the black and frowning coast, relieved here and there by white lines of foam creeping lazily in from the ocean, only to look darker as the surf melted from sight.
— from Six Prize Hawaiian Stories of the Kilohana Art League by W. N. Armstrong

Well, if you have, no argument is necessary to convince you that the “railway mail pay” rate on that cornfield line is from two to five times the rate paid for any other weight (tonnage) carried.
— from Postal Riders and Raiders by W. H. Gantz