First they peeped into the basket containing the eels and the sucking-pig; then they must needs pull out the pig and take it in their hands, and feel it, and touch it; and as they both wanted to hold it at the same time, the consequence was that they let it fall into the water, and the pig sailed away with the stream.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

On that very day came the English army after them to this river, and saw the smoke of their wigwams, and yet this river put a stop to them.
— from Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson by Mary White Rowlandson

But it was not till the fourth year that I could allow myself the least grain of this corn to eat, and even then but sparingly, as I shall say afterwards, in its order; for I lost all that I sowed the first season by not observing the proper time; for I sowed it just before the dry season, so that it never came up at all, at least not as it would have done; of which in its place.
— from The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Her husband was dead, and she had little regard for any body but her child; and, in short, having saved money for the journey, she contrived to enquire a direction to my father; and, telling her neighbours she was going to settle in Devonshire, she set out on her expedition.
— from Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

On the morrow, however, there was nothing in the papers concerning the event, and, in view of the flow of common, everyday things about, it now lost a shade of the glow of the previous evening.
— from Sister Carrie: A Novel by Theodore Dreiser

Also, that the soul is sensible, and that it is a spirit which is born with us; consequently it is a body and continues to exist after death; that nevertheless it is perishable.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

Contrast the ease and fullness with which a child notes all the salient traits of a story, with the labor and inadequacy of his observation of some dead and static thing where nothing raises a question or suggests alternative outcomes.
— from How We Think by John Dewey

So it occurred to General Funston; “Why not personate the reinforcements called for, the American officers to command the expedition assuming the rôle of captured American prisoners?”
— from The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 by James H. (James Henderson) Blount

A certain Person here in the same Isle constituted to exercise a kind of Royal Power, hapned to have Three Hundred Indians fall to his share, of which in Three Months, through excessive labour, One Hundred and Sixty were destroy'd, insomuch that in a short space there remained but a tenth part alive, namely Thirty, but when the number was doubled, they all perisht at the same rate, and all that were bestow'd upon him lost their lives, till at length he paid his last Debt to Nature and the Devil.
— from A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies Or, a faithful NARRATIVE OF THE Horrid and Unexampled Massacres, Butcheries, and all manner of Cruelties, that Hell and Malice could invent, committed by the Popish Spanish Party on the inhabitants of West-India, TOGETHER With the Devastations of several Kingdoms in America by Fire and Sword, for the space of Forty and Two Years, from the time of its first Discovery by them. by Bartolomé de las Casas

We first exist, continue to exist, are conscious of that existence, conscious of succession, thoughts, feelings, sensations, and so we get the idea of time.
— from Mental Philosophy: Including the Intellect, Sensibilities, and Will by Joseph Haven

What length of time was required to complete the erection and establishment of either city, we are not informed.
— from History of Greece, Volume 10 (of 12) by George Grote

no convenient term exists, and its occurrence in Insects is so partial, that the want need not be supplied at present .
— from The Structure and Life-history of the Cockroach (Periplaneta orientalis) An Introduction to the Study of Insects by L. C. (Louis Compton) Miall

We've got to blow the whole Greenmantle business so high that the bits of it will never come to earth again ...
— from Greenmantle by John Buchan

She must have possessed very strong traits of character to exercise as she did almost autocratic control over the fierce and wellnigh untamable Cherokees when she was known to sympathize with and befriend their enemies the white settlers.
— from Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 by Various

Sir James and Lady Merridik drove up in a cab that evening, at the hour when the miscellaneous members of the household were gathered in the hall before dinner.
— from Twos and Threes by G. B. (Gladys Bronwyn) Stern

"My worthy and noble friend, Ashpenaz, will now commence the examination; after which, if I think it expedient, I may ask a few questions myself."
— from The Young Captives: A Story of Judah and Babylon by Erasmus W. Jones

My son-in-law (number one, as I call him) Fulmer, which [79] married Lavy, is a Member of Parliament—he is put in by a great man, whose name I cannot mention; he tells us a good deal of what they do in the house—he says there are two sets on 'em in there, one is called the Eyes and the other the Nose—the Eyes is the government side, because they watch over the people; and the Nose is them as tries to smell out something wrong—Mr. Calcraft, Mr. Broom, and Mr. Denman, and them belongs to the Nose party.
— from The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures, Bons Mots, Puns, and Hoaxes of Theodore Hook by Theodore Edward Hook