This was a childish Amusement when I was carried away with outward Appearance, but you make a deeper Impression, and affect the secret Springs of the Mind; you charm the Fancy, sooth the Passions, and insensibly lead the Reader to that Sweetness of Temper that you so well describe; you rouse Generosity with that Spirit, and inculcate Humanity with that Ease, that he must be miserably Stupid that is not affected by you.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

About this date, February 16th, General Twiggs, Myers's father-in-law, had surrendered his entire command, in the Department of Texas, to some State troops, with all the Government property, thus consummating the first serious step in the drama of the conspiracy, which was to form a confederacy of the cotton States, before working upon the other slave or border States, and before the 4th of March, the day for the inauguration of President Lincoln.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

And by the same irregularity that the orbicular Light Y is by the Refraction of the first Prism dilated and drawn out into a long Image PT, the Light PQK which takes up a space of the same length and breadth with the Light Y ought to be by the Refraction of the second Prism dilated and drawn out into the long Image πqkp , and the Light KQRL into the long Image kqrl , and the Lights LRSM, MSVN, NVT, into so many other long Images lrsm , msvn , nvtτ ; and all these long Images would compose the four square Images πτ .
— from Opticks Or, A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light by Isaac Newton

[324] Mosques : The feature of an Infidel city that first struck crusader and pilgrim.
— from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri

Formerly imagined to be an abbreviation of argent, cant term for silver.
— from The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical and Andecdotal by John Camden Hotten

The trade had been half ruined; and then came the old, sad story, of masters reducing their establishments, men turned off and wandering about, hungry and wan in body, and fierce in soul, from the thought of wives and children starving at home, and the last sticks of furniture going to the pawnshop; children taken from school, and lounging about the dirty streets and courts, too listless almost to play, and squalid in rags and misery; and then the fearful struggle between the employers and men—lowerings of wages, strikes, and the long course of oft-repeated crime, ending every now and then with a riot, a fire, and the county yeomanry.
— from Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes

Your three female cousins are all, it is true, everything that is nice; and you will, when later on you come together for study, or to learn how to do needlework, or whenever, at any time, you romp and laugh together, find them all most obliging; but there's one thing that causes me very much concern.
— from Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel, Book I by Xueqin Cao

Although the oldest, Jo had the least self-control, and had hard times trying to curb the fiery spirit which was continually getting her into trouble; her anger never lasted long, and, having humbly confessed her fault, she sincerely repented, and tried to do better.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott

Armorel, for her part, when she returned to her own room, compared the first series of poems, as she had compared the second, with the manuscript book.
— from Armorel of Lyonesse: A Romance of To-day by Walter Besant

At the end of an hour the basalt gorge opened out to a wide steep slope of talus on which grew in clumps the first sage brush of the desert.
— from The Rules of the Game by Stewart Edward White

Earl H. Morris, who conducted the first scientific explorations of Aztec Ruins, excavated a number of these sites in 1938 and 1939.
— from Aztec Ruins National Monument, New Mexico by John M. Corbett

here Commence the French Settlements & here is a Magazine for Supplying the Forts on Lake Champlain.
— from Portage Paths: The Keys of the Continent by Archer Butler Hulbert

the poodle barked so cordially that François sagaciously inclined to the belief that he must have hit upon the poodle's name.
— from The Adventures of François Foundling, Thief, Juggler, and Fencing-Master during the French Revolution by S. Weir (Silas Weir) Mitchell