The day before this battle, the Epidaurians with all their forces invaded the deserted Argive territory, and cut off many of the guards left there in the absence of the Argive army.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

Suppose the soil dry, and the artillery capable of moving, the action would have begun at six o’clock in the morning.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

The destructive effects of inundations considered simply as a mechanical power by which life is endangered, crops destroyed, and the artificial constructions of man overthrown, are very terrible.
— from Man and Nature; Or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action by George P. (George Perkins) Marsh

The destructive effects of inundations, considered simply as a mechanical power by which life is endangered, crops destroyed, and the artificial constructions of man overthrown, are very terrible.
— from The Earth as Modified by Human Action by George P. (George Perkins) Marsh

To properly house all these people means the expenditure of a million dollars, and the annual cost of maintaining them will be $500,000.
— from Colony Treatment of the Insane and Other Defectives by P. L. (Patrick Livingston) Murphy

Thither too had come flights of Numidians and Moors in hopes of plunder; and Pompey's sons and Labienus had collected an army as numerous as that which had been defeated at Thapsus, and composed of materials far more dangerous and desperate.
— from Caesar: A Sketch by James Anthony Froude

And as they dipped and turned and careened over me, I came perilously near trying to fly myself.
— from The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp

If I were writing a novel, I should say that, at a late hour the next day, I listlessly drew aside the azure curtains of my couch, and languidly rang a silver bell which stood on my dressing-table, and received from a page dressed in an Oriental costume the notes and letters which had been left for me since morning, and the newspapers of the day.
— from If, Yes and Perhaps Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact by Edward Everett Hale

Mr. Smith had gone over to the stove suddenly—to turn a damper, apparently, though a close observer might have noticed that he turned it back to its former position almost at once.
— from Oh, Money! Money! A Novel by Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter