But when remote her chalky cliffs we lost, And far from ken of any other coast, When all was wild expanse of sea and air, Then doom'd high Jove due vengeance to prepare.
— from The Odyssey by Homer

The children were laid on the hands of a calf-headed image of bronze, from which they slid into a fiery oven, while the people danced to the music of flutes and timbrels to drown the shrieks of the burning victims.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

Methinks we march as Meleager did, Environed with brave Argolian knights, To chase the savage Calydonian 215 boar, Or Cephalus, with lusty 216 Theban youths, Against the wolf that angry Themis sent To waste and spoil the sweet Aonian fields.
— from Tamburlaine the Great — Part 1 by Christopher Marlowe

Oh!—to speak truth, and drop that tone of a false calm which long to sustain, outwears nature's endurance—I underwent in those seven weeks bitter fears and pains, strange inward trials, miserable defections of hope, intolerable encroachments of despair.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

They explained every thing by the language in use, without the least retrospect or allowance: and all names and titles from other countries were liable to the same rule.
— from A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. by Jacob Bryant

My pet had scarcely been there a bright week, as I recollect the time, when one evening after we had finished helping the gardener in watering his flowers, and just as the candles were lighted, Charley, appearing with a very important air behind Ada's chair, beckoned me mysteriously out of the room.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Here he seems to have ample matter of triumph; while he justly insists, that all our evidence for any matter of fact, which lies beyond the testimony of sense or memory, is derived entirely from the relation of cause and effect; that we have no other idea of this relation than that of two objects, which have been frequently conjoined together; that we have no argument to convince us, that objects, which have, in our experience, been frequently conjoined, will likewise, in other instances, be conjoined in the same manner; and that nothing leads us to this inference but custom or a certain instinct of our nature; which it is indeed difficult to resist, but which, like other instincts, may be fallacious and deceitful.
— from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume

From this disgust, his mind, by a natural transition, turned towards Sophia; her virtue, her purity, her love to him, her sufferings on his account, filled all his thoughts, and made his commerce with Lady Bellaston appear still more odious.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

Yet, if I come where ladies are, How sad soever I was before, Then is my sadness banish’d far,
— from The Angel in the House by Coventry Patmore

'Why, Sir, that may be true in cases where learning cannot possibly be of any use; for instance, this boy rows us as well without learning, as if he could sing the song of Orpheus to the Argonauts, who were the first sailors.'
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

The knowledge that things like these are as nothing to you, compared with love, stirs me to gratitude.
— from Roads from Rome by Anne C. E. (Anne Crosby Emery) Allinson

[104] humanity he had exercised towards his wife, mother, and his children, whose lives he had not only spared, but treated them with the greatest consideration and care, and had endeavored to make them happy; that he besought the gods to give victory to his arms, and make him monarch of the universe; that he thought it was not necessary to entreat him to revenge his murder, as this was the common cause of kings.”
— from The Boys' Book of Famous Rulers by Lydia Hoyt Farmer

Margaret Fuller, too, fervid, high aspiring, dominating soul, and brilliant talker: (“such a determination to eat this huge universe,” Carlyle’s comment upon her; disagreeable, conceited woman, Lowell’s and Hawthorne’s verdict).
— from The Connecticut Wits, and Other Essays by Henry A. (Henry Augustin) Beers

But it was impossible to take in every portion of this cathedral at once; and so our travellers went on to the cloisters, passing through a beautiful pointed doorway, richly carved, which leads to the chapter-house, now a receptacle for lumber, but containing the chest of the Cid, regarding which the old chronicle says: "He filled it with sand, and then, telling the Jews it contained gold, raised money on security."
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 05, April 1867 to September 1867 by Various

From the eleventh century, when Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and his Countess of beloved memory, the Lady Godiva, built their magnificent abbey, of which hardly a trace remains, the city had been noted for its religious edifices.
— from From Gretna Green to Land's End: A Literary Journey in England. by Katharine Lee Bates

For a wise purpose this promised land, the American continent, was long kept from the knowledge of men; and the hand of the Lord has been potent in directing its discovery and in the establishment of the nation of promise and destiny thereon.
— from The Vitality of Mormonism: Brief Essays on Distinctive Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by James E. (James Edward) Talmage

4. The carded wool, like a snowdrift, was piled at her knee.
— from Elementary Composition by George R. (George Rice) Carpenter

I had raised the rent of neither Mrs. Murphy, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Cawkins, Mrs. Trolley, Mrs. Karsen, Mrs. Le Maire, Mrs. Barber, Mrs. Sibley, Mrs. Carrot, Mrs. Mahoney, Mrs. Hopp, Mrs. Ranee, Mrs. Button, nor Charlie Wah Loo, anything like enough.
— from The Seven Ages of Man by Ralph Bergengren

These received stipends, and lodged where they could in the town; but in time these additional clergy also were organised into a corporation, and generally some benefactor was found to build them a quadrangle of little houses within, or hard by, the Close, and often to endow their corporation with lands and livings.
— from Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages Third Edition by Edward Lewes Cutts