And when, as I have before related, a man armed with a dagger was discovered near him while he was sacrificing, he instantly ordered the heralds to convoke the senate, and with tears and dismal exclamations, lamented that such was his condition, that he was safe no where; and for a long time afterwards he abstained from appearing in public.
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius

Nay, I rather thrilled, Distrusting every light that seemed to gild The onward path, and feared to overlean A finger even.
— from Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Fathomless waste and fathomless darkness entered like twin shadows quenching the light of the sun, removing the ground underfoot, obliterating all overhead.
— from When the King Loses His Head, and Other Stories by Leonid Andreyev

Dull murmurs like these, which were now but faintly making themselves heard against the reputation of the Advocate, were destined ere long to swell into a mighty roar; but he hardly listened now to insinuations which seemed infinitely below his contempt.
— from Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland : with a view of the primary causes and movements of the Thirty Years' War — Complete (1609-15) by John Lothrop Motley

Oh, heavenly Joseph!' cried Corny, as I hurled him down upon his knees, 'that I 'd ever live to see the day!' 'What is his d——d name?' said the duke passionately.
— from Jack Hinton: The Guardsman by Charles James Lever

"Sometimes your words come back to me like a distant echo, like the sound of a bell carried on by the wind, and when I read passages about love in books, it seems to me that it is about you I am reading."
— from Sentimental Education; Or, The History of a Young Man. Volume 2 by Gustave Flaubert

A few days after he gave me the lines, now in all the gem-books, beginning,— "Was it the chime of a tiny bell That came so sweet to my dreaming ear— Like the silvery tones of a fairy's shell, That he winds on the beach so mellow and clear, When the winds and the waves lie together asleep, And the moon and the fairy are watching the deep— She dispensing her silvery light, And he his notes, as silvery quite, [228] While the boatman listens and ships his oar, To catch the music that comes from the shore?
— from Peter Parley's Own Story From the Personal Narrative of the Late Samuel G. Goodrich, ("Peter Parley") by Samuel G. (Samuel Griswold) Goodrich

Plants also played a very important role, and the herb-doctors devoted endless labor to searching for such plants.
— from A History of Science — Volume 2 by Edward Huntington Williams