Women went about with oranges and ginger-beer, and there was a terrible consumption of nuts going on."
— from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The list closes with a commentator of no great originality perhaps, but gifted with admirable powers of lucid exposition.
— from The Art of War by active 6th century B.C. Sunzi

When I saw him afterwards, he said, ‘You should pray to God; for a good and holy man can offer no greater or more acceptable service to God than the oblation of himself—his soul.’
— from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay

When Baron Miklucho-Maclay was approaching a village on the Maclay Coast of New Guinea, one of the natives who accompanied him broke a branch from a tree and going aside whispered to it for a while; then stepping up to each member of the party, one after another, he spat something upon his back and gave him some blows with the branch.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

I had set the evening wholly—apart to consider seriously about it, and was all alone; for already people had, as it were by a general consent, taken up the custom of not going out of doors after sunset; the reasons I shall have occasion to say more of by-and-by.
— from A Journal of the Plague Year Written by a Citizen Who Continued All the While in London by Daniel Defoe

An’ then we lit the fuse ’n’ clumb out ’n’ got off ’bout fifty yards—’n’ forgot ’n’ left Tom Quartz sound asleep on the gunny sack.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

Only the king himself could, in case of need, give orders from his own palace to the oarsmen and soldiers, without the knowledge of anybody else.
— from The Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius Pollio

28 One body, which consisted of ten thousand men, was directed under the command of Nevitta, general of the cavalry, to advance through the midland parts of Rhaetia and Noricum.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

One body, which consisted of ten thousand men, was directed under the command of Nevitta, general of the cavalry, to advance through the midland parts of Rhætia and Noricum.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

But the large size of the cultures required for the counting of numerous groups of offspring in the adult state has deterred me from making such trials.
— from Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation by Hugo de Vries

It was a case of no go, or non-ego , as HEGEL might have called it.
— from Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 05, April 30, 1870 by Various

But here and there on the coast of New Guinea, or on the islands off it, were obvious Polynesian settlements of old times, and even on some isolated island a people quite pale skinned and Caucasian in appearance.
— from Pioneers in Australasia by Harry Johnston

Even the spiked wheels could obtain no grip on the hard, polished surface.
— from 'Midst Arctic Perils: A Thrilling Story of Adventure in the Polar Regions by Percy F. (Percy Francis) Westerman

Many of the children had never seen anything like it, and sat staring about them in mute admiration and expectancy; but the older ones criticised freely, and indulged in wild speculations as to the meaning of various convulsions of nature going on behind the curtain.
— from St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 by Various

Occasionally we heard Mr. or Mrs. Hopper in the lamp-lit sitting-room making brief comments on neighborhood gossip, or the crops, and then Mrs. Hopper would go on silently sewing, and "Pa," his white head bent over a "Farmer's Almanac," made long and painful calculations on a scrap of paper in which he seemed to get much mysterious assistance from the almanac.
— from A Village Ophelia and Other Stories by Anne Reeve Aldrich

The energetic crews of numerous gunboats of various nationalities stationed here at different times have beguiled their time by illuminating the bare cliffs with the names of their ships in large letters done in white paint.
— from Southern Arabia by Bent, Theodore, Mrs.

The magistrates of Catania applied to Signor M. Gemmellaro, in the hope that his local knowledge of Etna might enable him to point out some crevice or natural grotto on the mountain, where drift-snow was still preserved.
— from Principles of Geology or, The Modern Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants Considered as Illustrative of Geology by Lyell, Charles, Sir

The name of Gulf of the Louisiade was bestowed by Bougainville upon the whole of the space thus traversed by him, extending between Cape Deliverance and that portion of (what has since been determined to be) the coast of New Guinea of which he gives so glowing a description, and calls the Cul de Sac de l'Orangerie upon his chart.
— from Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By the Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During the Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries and Surveys in New Guinea, the Louisiade Archipelago, Etc. to Which Is Added the Account of Mr. E.B. Kennedy's Expedition for the Exploration of the Cape York Peninsula. By John Macgillivray, F.R.G.S. Naturalist to the Expedition. — Volume 1 by John MacGillivray