Though the upper part of Durnover was mainly composed of a curious congeries of barns and farm-steads, there was a less picturesque side to the parish.
— from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

He was explaining to Briggs, who shuffled about in his seat—why did Briggs shuffle about in his seat?—that he must have come out by the same train as Arbuthnot, and when Briggs, who said nothing, wriggled in apparent dissent, he undertook to prove it to him, and did prove it to him in long clear sentences.
— from The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim

It is inferred that whatever can in any way be relevant to our experience must be at least capable of being known by us; whence it follows that if matter were essentially something with which we could not become acquainted, matter would be something which we could not know to exist, and which could have for us no importance whatever.
— from The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell

Over and over again Dorian used to read this fantastic chapter, and the two chapters immediately following, in which, as in some curious tapestries or cunningly wrought enamels, were pictured the awful and beautiful forms of those whom vice and blood and weariness had made monstrous or mad: Filippo, Duke of Milan, who slew his wife and painted her lips with a scarlet poison that her lover might suck death from the dead thing he fondled; Pietro Barbi, the Venetian, known as Paul the Second, who sought in his vanity to assume the title of Formosus, and whose tiara, valued at two hundred thousand florins, was bought at the price of a terrible sin; Gian Maria Visconti, who used hounds to chase living men and whose murdered body was covered with roses by a harlot who had loved him; the Borgia on his white horse, with Fratricide riding beside him and his mantle stained with the blood of Perotto; Pietro Riario, the young Cardinal Archbishop of Florence, child and minion of Sixtus IV, whose beauty was equalled only by his debauchery, and who received Leonora of Aragon in a pavilion of white and crimson silk, filled with nymphs and centaurs, and gilded a boy that he might serve at the feast as Ganymede or Hylas; Ezzelin, whose melancholy could be cured only by the spectacle of death, and who had a passion for red blood, as other men have for red wine—the son of the Fiend, as was reported, and one who had cheated his father at dice when gambling with him for his own soul; Giambattista Cibo, who in mockery took the name of Innocent and into whose torpid veins the blood of three lads was infused by a Jewish doctor; Sigismondo Malatesta, the lover of Isotta and the lord of Rimini, whose effigy was burned at Rome as the enemy of God and man, who strangled Polyssena with a napkin, and gave poison to Ginevra d'Este in a cup of emerald, and in honour of a shameful passion built a pagan church for Christian worship; Charles VI, who had so wildly adored his brother's wife that a leper had warned him of the insanity that was coming on him, and who, when his brain had sickened and grown strange, could only be soothed by Saracen cards painted with the images of love and death and madness; and, in his trimmed jerkin and jewelled cap and acanthuslike curls, Grifonetto Baglioni, who slew Astorre with his bride, and Simonetto with his page, and whose comeliness was such that, as he lay dying in the yellow piazza of Perugia, those who had hated him could not choose but weep, and Atalanta, who had cursed him, blessed him.
— from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

4013 Strabo says that some persons called the citadel only by that name.
— from The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 1 (of 6) by the Elder Pliny

Elzbieta was one of the primitive creatures: like the angleworm, which goes on living though cut in half; like a hen, which, deprived of her chickens one by one, will mother the last that is left her.
— from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

[4] "Begleit-digen" compounded of "begleiten" and "beleidigen."
— from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud

I know how soon youth would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss offered, but one dreg of shame, or one flavour of remorse were detected; and I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution—such is not my taste.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë

It may readily be imagined I gave her every assurance on that head, and told her I loved her too dearly, and was too grateful for the extatic happiness she had taught me how to enjoy, for any chance of betrayal to take place through my indiscretion.
— from The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous

When we got fairly away from the cauldrons of boiling fire, we seemed to be in a gloomy desert, and a suffocatingly dark one, surrounded by dim walls that seemed to tower to the sky.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

Clermont Phalanx 13 1844-7. Colony of Bethel 11 1852.
— from History of American Socialisms by John Humphrey Noyes

And so Ned went about, posing as a brand snatched from the burning, to the amusement of one-half the town, the admiration of the other half, and the curiosity of both.
— from Philip Winwood A Sketch of the Domestic History of an American Captain in the War of Independence; Embracing Events that Occurred between and during the Years 1763 and 1786, in New York and London: written by His Enemy in War, Herbert Russell, Lieutenant in the Loyalist Forces. by Robert Neilson Stephens

The lifeboat remained alongside, and her crew, knowing well that a storm on the Goodwins is not to be trifled with, urged the sailors to come on board.
— from Stories of the Lifeboat by Frank Mundell

There are néere vnto, or not verie farre from the coasts of Britaine many faire Ilands, wherof Ireland with hir neighbors (not here handled) séeme to be the cheefe.
— from Chronicles (1 of 6): The Description of Britaine by William Harrison

[Pg 86] CHAPTER V. Ancient Capital of Norway.—Routes of Travel.—Rain!—Peasant Costumes.—Commerce of Bergen.—Shark's vs. Cod Liver Oil.—Ship-Building.—Public Edifices.—Quaint Shops.—Borgund Church.—Leprosy in Norway.—Sporting Country.—Inland Experiences.—Hay-Making.—Pine-Forest Experiences.—National Constitution.—People's Schools.—Girls' Industrial School.—Celebrated Citizens of Bergen.—Two
— from Due North; or, Glimpses of Scandinavia and Russia by Maturin Murray Ballou

But that sweet dove upon thy knee, he needeth not carnal only, but spiritual food.
— from The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade

The character of Being he describes, for the most part, in a series of negatives.
— from A Critical History of Greek Philosophy by W. T. (Walter Terence) Stace

Besides these sovereign tribunals, there is a council of the city of Batavia, consisting of nine burgomasters or aldermen, including a president, who is always a member of the Council of the Indies, and a vice-president.
— from A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time by Robert Kerr

If I find that I can't do anything else—if I find that a girl can only be as bright as a man until she reaches the marrying age, and then she just naturally stands still while he just naturally goes forward—why, then, I'll put an advertisement in the paper 'Husband Wanted.
— from Mary Minds Her Business by George Weston