This was his miracles; but these will come to be treated of afterwards in this book.
— from Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson

6th November Tuesday 1804 Fort Mandan last night late we wer awoke by the Sergeant of the Guard to See a nothern light, which was light, not red, and appeared to Darken and Some times nearly obscered, and open, many times appeared in light Streeks, and at other times a great Space light & containing floating Collomns which appeared opposite each other & retreat leaveing the lighter Space at no time of the Same appearence This morning I rose a Day light the Clouds to the North appeared black at 8 oClock the wind begun to blow hard from the N W. and Cold, and Continud all Day Mr. Jo Gravilin our ricare interpeter Paul premor, Lajuness & 2 french Boys, who Came with us, Set out in a Small perogue, on their return to the ricaree nation & the Illinois, Mr. Gravilin has instructions to take on the recarees in the Spring &c.—Continue to build the huts, out of Cotton Timber, &c. this being the only timber we have.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

He is a willing accomplice of that perversity in things who delights in another's discomfiture or in his own, and craves the blind tension of plunging into danger without reason, or the idiot's pleasure in facing a pure chance.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

The real cause I consider to be the one which was formally most kept out of sight.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

Another door opened noiselessly, and Mr Verloc immobilising his glance in that direction saw at first only black clothes, the bald top of a head, and a drooping dark grey whisker on each side of a pair of wrinkled hands.
— from The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad

I looked; and the unseen figure, which still grasped me by the wrist, had caused to be thrown open the graves of all mankind, and from each issued the faint phosphoric radiance of decay, so that I could see into the innermost recesses, and there view the shrouded bodies in their sad and solemn slumbers with the worm.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

Cosette took both the old man’s hands in hers.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

For Hesper beams amid the twilight shade, And soon shall Cynthia tremble o'er the tide, Gleam on these cliffs, that bound the ocean's pride, And lonely silence all the air pervade.
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

There was a corporeal humility in looking up at him; and a white man standing before him seemed a white flag come to beg truce of a fortress.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

As his body swung by that of his captor, the boy threw out his hands, clasping them about the left leg of the other and instantly locking his fingers.
— from The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies; Or, The Secret of the Lost Claim by Frank Gee Patchin

Quotations have already been made in these pages showing that this diary demonstrated authoritatively the fallacy of Bismarck’s claim to be the originator of the Empire.
— from The Young Emperor, William II of Germany A Study in Character Development on a Throne by Harold Frederic

Nor in those days were singers who happened to be English ashamed to call themselves by their own names.
— from The Mapleson Memoirs, 1848-1888, vol II by James Henry Mapleson

The mistake is a fatal one; for in binding the church they bind the only power that can stop the dry-rot which is slowly eating into the heart, not alone of Germany, but of all nations to-day.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 22, October, 1875, to March, 1876 A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science by Various

Lechford has given us a picture of a funeral in New England in the seventeenth century, which is full of simple dignity, if not of sympathy: "At Burials nothing is read, nor any funeral sermon made, but all the neighborhood or a goodly company of them come together by tolling of the bell, and carry the dead solemnly to his grave, and then stand by him while he is buried.
— from Customs and Fashions in Old New England by Alice Morse Earle

And why should Christ order his disciples to rejoice that their names were written in heaven, if God were changeable to blot them out again?
— from The Existence and Attributes of God, Volumes 1 and 2 by Stephen Charnock

We can perform what to our ignorant ancestors would have seemed to be miracles; we can actually make all sorts of new plants, which will continue to breed their own kind, and survive forever if we give them proper care.
— from The Book of Life by Upton Sinclair

When she took her opposite place in the carriage corner, the brightness in her face was so charming to behold, that on her exclaiming, 'What beautiful stars and what a glorious night!'
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens