Our women too were in my eyes at least uncommonly graceful, alert, and modest to a degree of bashfulness; nor do I remember to have ever heard of an instance of incontinence amongst them before marriage.
— from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African Written By Himself by Olaudah Equiano

But upon the first calamity that afflicted the people after the stranger’s arrival, Daunus immediately reflected that he entertained a devoted person in his palace, an enemy to the gods, and one who had sacrilegiously wounded a goddess with his sword, whom it was impious but to touch.
— from Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients by Francis Bacon

Concerning the effeminates consecrated to the same Great Mother, in defiance of all the modesty which belongs to men and women, Varro has not wished to say anything, nor do I remember to have read anywhere aught concerning them.
— from The City of God, Volume I by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

His disordered imagination represented to him a crowd of persons stealing towards them beneath the cover of the bushes, lurking in every ditch, and peeping from the boughs of every rustling tree.
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

If any one thinks differently I resign to him my command.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

' 'Good friend,' the cock replied, 'upon my word, A better thing I never heard; And doubly I rejoice To hear it from your voice; And, really there must be something in it, For yonder come two greyhounds, which I flatter Myself are couriers on this very matter.
— from Fables of La Fontaine — a New Edition, with Notes by Jean de La Fontaine

M. and Madame Morin and their niece came at noon, and we spent the hour before dinner in reading the horoscope.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Under this impression, some one who observed the unseemly folly with which men promise themselves impunity on the ground that all will be included in this method of deliverance, is reported to have very happily remarked, that we should rather endeavour to live so well that we shall be all found among the number of those who are to intercede for th
— from The City of God, Volume II by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

Anne felt it keenly; but she told herself she was very glad and thankful that Gilbert had got so completely over his disappointment in regard to her.
— from Anne of the Island by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

In 1445, the year in which Diniz Dias is reported to have rounded Cape Verd, the Portuguese were the most daring seamen in Europe.
— from The African Colony: Studies in the Reconstruction by John Buchan

Young, strung like a harp, with a third of a mile start and able to speed like a deer, I ran the hunt out of sight in the first ten minutes.
— from The Black Lion Inn by Alfred Henry Lewis

Meanwhile various serious fires had occurred in the city, in spite of the extra precautions taken by the fire commissioners and the police, and Chief Tremblay of the fire department is reported to have demanded at the City Hall that he be given water, and to have stated that there was but enough water remaining in the reservoirs for one big fire.
— from Montreal, 1535-1914. Vol. 2. Under British Rule, 1760-1914 by William H. (William Henry) Atherton

Nothing has yet been discovered in relation to him which redounds to his credit in the smallest degree.
— from The Queen of Hearts by Wilkie Collins

So that I once more affirm, that if it were not done in respect to his Lady, who, no doubt, peruses him extreamly, it must naturally be the effect of Hypcrisie , for, to be squeamish in one place and not in another is Ridiculous, especially when one word is Innocent in its kind, and makes the sense, and the other when us'd makes it wretched Affectation, and almost Nonsence.
— from Essays on the Stage Preface to the Campaigners (1689) and Preface to the Translation of Bossuet's Maxims and Reflections on Plays (1699) by Thomas D'Urfey

In the year 1244, when he desired a supply from Parliament, the barons, complaining of the frequent breaches of the great charter, and of the many fruitless applications which they had formerly made for the redress of this and other grievances, demanded, in return, that he should give them the nomination of the great justiciary and of the chancellor, to whose hands chiefly the administration of justice was committed; and if we may credit the historian
— from The History of England, Volume I From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688 by David Hume

It is quite obvious what Abélard would conceive to be his duty in replying to Heloise.
— from Peter Abélard by Joseph McCabe

The librarian bent his brows over that mangled volume, listened severely to my abject narration and not until his eye-glasses hopped off his nose did I realize that he was convulsed with laughter.
— from Sigurd Our Golden Collie, and Other Comrades of the Road by Katharine Lee Bates

The denitrating treatment was introduced in the period 1888-90 and of course altogether changed the prospects of the industry; not only does it remove the high inflammability, but adds considerably to softness, lustre, and general textile quality.
— from Researches on Cellulose, 1895-1900 by C. F. (Charles Frederick) Cross

Judge Pyncheon’s duplicity is revealed to Holgrave by the medium of a daguerreotype.
— from The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne by Frank Preston Stearns