The east was pink with the dawn and long streaks of light climbed into the sky where a few stars still shone.
— from Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life by Sherwood Anderson

But such experience will have been slowly gained at a later age during a long series of generations; and from what we know of inheritance, there is nothing improbable in the transmission of a habit to the offspring at an earlier age than that at which it was first acquired by the parents.
— from The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin

Their moral and political writings might have gradually unlocked the fetters of Eastern despotism, diffused a liberal spirit of inquiry and toleration, and encouraged the Arabian sages to suspect that their caliph was a tyrant, and their prophet an impostor.
— 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

Afterwards some of them were dissatisfied, and leaving Syracuse occupied Phocaeae, a quarter of the town of Leontini, and Bricinniae, a strong place in the Leontine country, and being there joined by most of the exiled commons carried on war from the fortifications.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

Among the odds and ends he discerned a little shining object, and picked it up.
— from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

The house was afterwards long in the occupation of her son-in-law, Mr. John Fennings Taylor, a gentleman well-known to Canadian M.P.'s during a long series of years, having been attached as Chief Clerk and Master in Chancery first to the Legislative Council of United Canada and then to the Senate of the Dominion.
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

O.M. Suppose I turn upon one of them a steam-jet during a long succession of hours.
— from What Is Man? and Other Essays by Mark Twain

Mrs. Medlock saw it as soon as she did and drew a long sigh of relief.
— from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

A letter of May 11, 1852, from one of them, Miss K. Jaggard, tells how they had lost sight of the Huxleys after their departure from Coventry; how they were themselves dispersed by death, marriage, or retirement; and then proceeds to draw a lively sketch of the long delicate-looking lad, which clearly refers to this period or a little later.
— from Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 1 by Thomas Henry Huxley

116 During a long session of Congress, as the first session of each Congress is sometimes called, assembled here from all parts of the Union, may be seen true and faithful representatives of every party, sect, faction and even fragments of all these parties and factions.
— from Mysteries of Washington City, during Several Months of the Session of the 28th Congress by Caleb Atwater

From the moment the doctor's carriage had stopped before the door, a little stream of callers, reporters, business friends, and others whom she knew nothing of, had thronged the place, unwilling to depart without some definite news of this unexpected illness, and all of them anxious to obtain a word or two with her.
— from The Governors by E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

She had worked herself from her unnatural calm almost into a state of hysterics as she displayed a little sore on her delicate white throat.
— from The Social Gangster by Arthur B. (Arthur Benjamin) Reeve

The herd raced forward over the rolling hills, and in what seemed a very short time we rushed down a long slope on to a wide flat, in which was a prairie-dog town of considerable extent.
— from American Big-Game Hunting: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club by Boone and Crockett Club

[10] the most powerful and best organized of the Indian tribes with a hatred for the French race and for the religion they professed, which during a long series of years wreaked itself in countless deeds of blood, and more than once brought the colony of New France to the verge of extinction.
— from Count Frontenac Makers of Canada, Volume 3 by William Dawson LeSueur

Since his father appointed him trustee of the estate, Lady Clifford is powerless to draw any large sums of money without his knowledge and consent.
— from Juggernaut by Alice Campbell

I have observed that in the phonograph the sounds which formerly appeared to me to be the same are easily distinguished when treated in the manner described in the second part of this work, where I describe at length some of my experiments with this wonderful machine.
— from The Speech of Monkeys by R. L. (Richard Lynch) Garner

Before landing they handed to Martyn a hundred pounds to be divided among the crew, and on the day after landing sent off a very handsome case of pistols to each of the officers.
— from In Greek Waters: A Story of the Grecian War of Independence by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

"Well, as I said, I always double a little slam on principle.
— from Murder at Bridge by Anne Austin