Customs of promiscuous sleeping arose in the earliest times, out of the necessities of existence in those primitive days, when a whole household lay down together on a common bed of rushes strewn on the floor of the room.
— from British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions by Wirt Sikes

These columns of pounds, shillings and pence are his figures, denoting the amount of the treasure, and this, at the bottom, is doubtless a reference to the place of concealment.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Had I finished the work, it was my purpose in the heat of the moment to have dedicated it to our then committee of public safety as containing the charts and maps, with which I was to have supplied the French Government in aid of their plans of invasion.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

But now the god, remote, a heavenly guest, In AEthiopia graced the genial feast (A race divided, whom with sloping rays The rising and descending sun surveys); There on the world's extremest verge revered With hecatombs and prayer in pomp preferr'd, Distant he lay: while in the bright abodes Of high Olympus, Jove convened the gods: The assembly thus the sire supreme address'd, AEgysthus' fate revolving in his breast, Whom young Orestes to the dreary coast Of Pluto sent, a blood-polluted ghost.
— from The Odyssey by Homer

When the Arabian conquerors had spread themselves over the East, and were mingled with the servile crowds of Persia, Syria, and Egypt, they insensibly lost the freeborn and martial virtues of the desert.
— 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

At the Peace of Nimeguen the injuries were not irreparable, but "the agricultural classes, commerce, manufactures, and the colonies had alike been smitten by the war; and the conditions of peace, so advantageous to the territorial and military power of France, were much less so to manufactures, the protective tariffs having been lowered in favor of England and Holland," [63] the two sea powers.
— from The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

It cannot be presumed, that all the Barbarians were at all times capable of perpetrating such amorous outrages; and the want of youth, or beauty, or chastity, protected the greatest part of the Roman women from the danger of a rape.
— 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

"To exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States; and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislatures of the States in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton

After Martin's flight from Nantes, a claim was made by the committee of public safety at Nantes for the Henriette.
— from No Surrender! A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth with one-half cup of powdered sugar and spread over the top.
— from Good Things to Eat, as Suggested by Rufus A Collection of Practical Recipes for Preparing Meats, Game, Fowl, Fish, Puddings, Pastries, Etc. by Rufus Estes

INSTANTANEOUS FROSTING To the white of an unbeaten egg add one and one-fourth cups of pulverized sugar and stir until smooth.
— from The International Jewish Cook Book 1600 Recipes According to the Jewish Dietary Laws with the Rules for Kashering; the Favorite Recipes of America, Austria, Germany, Russia, France, Poland, Roumania, Etc., Etc. by Florence Kreisler Greenbaum

The first, upon the ground that life and property were not safe under the existing provisional governments, divided the late rebel States into five military divisions, each to be under the command of a general officer who was to have the power to declare martial law and to have offenders tried by military commission, as the condition of public safety and order might seem to them to require.
— from McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. by Various

I am unwilling to leave this subject without a few words as to our remedy, especially as concerns our public schools and normal schools for girls.
— from Wear and Tear; Or, Hints for the Overworked by S. Weir (Silas Weir) Mitchell

It made a great sensation in the parish, it need not be said; and while the few people in Pierrepoint gave the curate a teapot, in Underwood there was a great agitation in the Sunday school and much collecting to buy a fine big Bible, with a great deal of gilding outside, for Miss Warrender, which was given to her at a tea in the schoolroom, with a speech from the rector, who was chary of public speaking, and had to be egged up to it by many little moral pricks from his wife.
— from A Country Gentleman and His Family by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant