And for the Heaven's wide circuit, let it speak The Maker's high magnificence, who built So spacious, and his line stretched out so far; That Man may know he dwells not in his own; An edifice too large for him to fill, Lodged in a small partition; and the rest Ordained for uses to his Lord best known.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton

“A CUPBOARD LOVE is seldom true; A love sincere is found in few.”
— from The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical and Andecdotal by John Camden Hotten

Mr. Crummles lived in St Thomas’s Street, at the house of one Bulph, a pilot, who sported a boat-green door, with window-frames of the same colour, and had the little finger of a drowned man on his parlour mantelshelf, with other maritime and natural curiosities.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

On the slope on the further side they could see the rye—some in stacks and sheaves here and there as though strewn about by the storm, and some freshly cut lying in swathes; the oats, too, were ripe and glistened now in the sun like mother-of-pearl.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

For the various localities, towns, or counties directly under the crown, Louis IX. settled the mode of levying taxes.
— from Manners, Customs, and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period by P. L. Jacob

And for the Heav’ns wide Circuit, let it speak The Makers high magnificence, who built So spacious, and his Line stretcht out so farr; That Man may know he dwells not in his own; An Edifice too large for him to fill, Lodg’d in a small partition, and the rest Ordain’d for uses to his Lord best known.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton

We had some difficulty in getting this case open without injury; but having at length accomplished the task, we came to a second, coffin-shaped, and very considerably less in size than the exterior one, but resembling it precisely in every other respect.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

"But, as this colossal lie is sure to bring out the truth in the most incontrovertible fashion, you need feel no scruples!
— from Pride: One of the Seven Cardinal Sins by Eugène Sue

But, even as the Britishism of Old Country liberals is strongly tinctured by devotion to ideals which Americans are wont to regard as theirs—ideals making for settled peace, industry, the uplift of the "common people," fair room and reward for those abilities which conspicuously serve the general welfare—so Sir Wilfrid and his compatriots acknowledge their Britishism to be acutely conscious of political kinship with the American people.
— from New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 April-September, 1915 by Various

The Chinese Court Language is said to be of this kind, invented and spoken by the Literati and Mandarines throughout the whole Empire of China , differing from all the other Languages spoken in it, and I conjecture it to be nothing else but the Names of the Character by which they write and express their meaning, arbitrarily imposed by them, as we in Europe set names to Arithmetical Figures, not as we pronounce Words written with a litteral Character.
— from Miscellanea Curiosa, Vol. 3 containing a collection of curious travels, voyages, and natural histories of countries as they have been delivered in to the Royal Society by Royal Society (Great Britain)

Nevertheless, the white population of Cuba lived in somewhat the same state of subconscious terror of the possibilities of a black uprising which tormented the planters in portions of the United States.
— from The History of Cuba, vol. 2 by Willis Fletcher Johnson

"A dinner-dress, pain brûlé brocade, mixed poult de soie , manteau de cour , lined ivory satin, trimmed with hand-worked embroidery of wild flowers on Brussels net, sixty-three pounds.
— from Vixen, Volume III. by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

Disregarding all the theory and argument about human will as opposed to cosmic law I say this, without any care at all who contradicts me: That whoever is near the hub of happenings is the agent of Universal Law, and can no more help himself than can the watch that tells the hour.
— from Affair in Araby by Talbot Mundy

I don't suppose Mr. Danby knows where you are or anything about you, and cares less, I should think.
— from Mrs. Severn: A Novel, Vol. 1 (of 3) by Mary Elizabeth Carter

chapter XXXII THE GREAT WHITE CLOUD, LEEDS I saw this extraordinary effect one day at Leeds.
— from Joseph Pennell's Pictures of the Wonder of Work Reproductions of a Series of Drawings, Etchings, and Lithographs, Made by Him about the World, 1881-1915, with Impressions and Notes by the Artist by Joseph Pennell

A similar coloured light is seen to pass through the edges of the fingers, when the open hand is opposed to the flame of a candle.
— from Zoonomia; Or, the Laws of Organic Life, Vol. I by Erasmus Darwin

In a previous volume dealing with another part of the country called London I showed to my own satisfaction, and, I believe, that of my readers, that long before there existed any London at all, except perhaps a village of a few fishermen with their coracles, Westminster or Thorney was a busy and crowded place of resort, through which the whole trade of the country north of the Thames passed on its way to Dover and the southern ports.
— from South London by Walter Besant