For our physical life consists of a series of changes, for the most part periodically recurrent with slight modification after short intervals: and it is difficult to see why we should attach the idea of “disturbance” or “restoration of equilibrium” to any one among these normal processes rather than any other:— e.g. it is difficult to see why the condition of having expended energy should be regarded as a departure from equilibrium any more than the condition of having just taken in nutriment.
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick

reflected great credit on her entire engineering staff.
— from The Battle of the Falkland Islands, Before and After by Henry Edmund Harvey Spencer-Cooper

Amongst the crowds of homeless exiles endlessly streaming along the roads of this scourged and tortured country, or crouching amongst the wreckage of its ruined villages and battered towns, heads even younger than this boy's had displayed the tragic sign.
— from That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the Day by Richard Dehan

Never did you bestow on me a look, a word of kindness, far less make my heart leap with such joy as thrilled through my breast but now, when your words of sweet and gentle tenderness drew happy tears from my eyes, and which, still ringing in my ears, make me almost beside myself with gladness; and, amid the intoxicating delight which floats through my brain, comes the proud consciousness of having earned even so rich a reward by the deep, the passionate ardour of my love for you.
— from The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 3 of 6 by Eugène Sue

But events would not be retarded, and Orsino's own good qualities tended to hasten them, as they had to a great extent been the cause of his embarrassment ever since the success of his first attempt, in making him valuable as a slave to be kept from escaping at all risks.
— from Don Orsino by F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford

A witch could, by a cast of her evil eye, strike people to the ground, and by the same visual organ kill cattle.
— from The Mysteries of All Nations Rise and Progress of Superstition, Laws Against and Trials of Witches, Ancient and Modern Delusions Together with Strange Customs, Fables, and Tales by James (Archaeologist) Grant

You came out here expecting easy sailing, because you thought there was no one here to protect this horse.
— from The Man from Jericho by Edwin Carlile Litsey

When drawing near to the close of her earthly existence, she was asked if she had a desire to live longer; she replied, "No; she was like a ship long tossed at sea and about to land at a port of rest."
— from Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical Illustrating Principally the Revolutionary Period of Mecklenburg, Rowan, Lincoln and Adjoining Counties, Accompanied with Miscellaneous Information, Much of It Never before Published by C. L. Hunter