I might hint that the hair of our hero was worn short, combed smoothly over his forehead, and surmounted by a conical-shaped white flannel cap and tassels—that his pea-green jerkin was not after the fashion of those worn by the common class of restaurateurs at that day—that the sleeves were something fuller than the reigning costume permitted—that the cuffs were turned up, not as usual in that barbarous period, with cloth of the same quality and color as the garment, but faced in a more fanciful manner with the particolored velvet of Genoa—that his slippers were of a bright purple, curiously filigreed, and might have been manufactured in Japan, but for the exquisite pointing of the toes, and the brilliant tints of the binding and embroidery—that his breeches were of the yellow satin-like material called aimable—that his sky-blue cloak, resembling in form a dressing-wrapper, and richly bestudded all over with crimson devices, floated cavalierly upon his shoulders like a mist of the morning—and that his tout ensemble gave rise to the remarkable words of Benevenuta, the Improvisatrice of Florence, “that it was difficult to say whether Pierre Bon-Bon was indeed a bird of Paradise, or rather a very Paradise of perfection.”
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

These they do not openly disregard, for conformity until absolutely intolerable is a law of Ydgrun, yet they have no real belief in the objective existence of beings which so readily explain themselves as abstractions, and whose personality demands a quasi-materialism which it baffles the imagination to realise.
— from Erewhon; Or, Over the Range by Samuel Butler

It was not so much what he said and did, but rather what he withheld, that marked him for her as by one of those signs of the highly curious that he was showing her on the underside of old plates and in the corner of sixteenth-century drawings: he indulged in no striking deflections from common usage, he was an original without being an eccentric.
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James

'Be quick, or it may be too late!' 'The mother,' said the woman, making a more violent effort than before; 'the mother, when the pains of death first came upon her, whispered in my ear that if her baby was born alive, and thrived, the day might come when it would not feel so much disgraced to hear its poor young mother named.
— from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Dans la Vestale j'ai compose un sujet romain, dans Ferdinand Cortez un sujet espagnol-mexicain, dans Olympic un sujet greco-macedonien, enfin dans Agnes de Hohenstaufen un sujet allemand: tout le reste ne vaut rien!'
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner

Dum stabunt montes, campis dum flumina current, Usque tuum toto carmen celebrabitur orbe.”
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki

For, seeing that He sometimes assigns fair fortune to the good and harsh fortune to the bad, and then again deals harshly with the good, and grants to the bad their hearts' desire, how does this differ from chance, unless some reason is discovered for it all?'
— from The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius

Then followed a complete account of our expedition, from the day of our departure from Cuba up to our arrival on the coast of Mexico, and the day the account was drawn up.
— from The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2) Written by Himself Containing a True and Full Account of the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico and New Spain. by Bernal Díaz del Castillo

But, at Brussels, the problem of the relations henceforth to exist between the sons of Victor Hugo and she whom they already called “our friend, Madame Drouet,” first came up for solution.
— from Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo Edited with a Biography of Juliette Drouet by Louis Guimbaud

The moon was shining, bright and clear, and all in the front of the house was illuminated almost as though by daylight I made out a dark figure crouching under the window, and held the revolver clenched and ready as I put up the sash.
— from A Frontier Mystery by Bertram Mitford

Please write to the following address for a title list or for information on a specific subject: USERDA—Technical Information Center P. O. Box 62 Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830 ISAAC ASIMOV received his academic degrees from Columbia University and is Associate Professor of Biochemistry at the Boston University School of Medicine.
— from Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 2 (of 3) Mass and Energy; The Neutron; The Structure of the Nucleus by Isaac Asimov

As Mr. Ainsworth’s positive and flat contradictions and his contemptible insinuation as to my labouring under a singular delusion have led some persons to form erroneous ideas and to draw false conclusions upon this question, I feel placed in a very serious position as regards my character for truthfulness and the condition of my intellect ; and I am therefore compelled in self-defence to place certain facts before the public to prove beyond the fear of contradiction that what I have asserted is the truth, and that it is Mr. Ainsworth who is labouring under a delusion , or has unfortunately lost his memory.
— from Cruikshank's Water Colours by William Harrison Ainsworth

The Dutch followed close upon their heels, shooting them, and with keen sabres cutting them down.
— from Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam by John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

The placing of an outside door, for common use, in a sitting-room, as is frequent at the West and South, is detrimental to health.
— from A Treatise on Domestic Economy; For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School by Catharine Esther Beecher

Why Permit Conditions to Continue as They Are?— When one faces the easily ascertained facts regarding venereal disease, it seems incredible that we, an intelligent people, can go on complacently handing our daughters and sisters over to the surgeon’s knife and a life of personal misery, and even in not a few instances to become mothers of incurably defective [Pg 191] children, yet the dire fact confronts us that we do.
— from Being Well-Born: An Introduction to Eugenics by Michael F. (Michael Frederic) Guyer

y a manera de pregones o pregoneros estan pregonando por espaçio de una ora como administrando les en lo que an de haçer tienē unas casillas pequeñas de adoratorios en que hincan muchas flechas que las ponen por de fuera como un eriso y esto haçen quando asperan tener guerra a el rededor de esta prouincia hacia las sierras ay grandes poblaçiones
— from The Coronado Expedition, 1540-1542. Excerpted from the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1892-1893, Part 1. by George Parker Winship

Have you not, then, perceived a drossy film collect upon its surface, after it had kept melting a while?
— from Evenings at Home; Or, The Juvenile Budget Opened by John Aikin