The mud spread in cross-form over the Place des Victoires, where stands the statue of Louis XIV.; it entered the Rue Saint-Honoré by the two mouths to the sewer in the Champs-Élysées, the Rue Saint-Florentin through the Saint-Florentin sewer, the Rue Pierre-à-Poisson through the sewer de la Sonnerie, the Rue Popincourt, through the sewer of the Chemin-Vert, the Rue de la Roquette, through the sewer of the Rue de Lappe; it covered the drain of the Rue des Champs-Élysées to the height of thirty-five centimetres; and, to the South, through the vent of the Seine, performing its functions in inverse sense, it penetrated the Rue Mazarine, the Rue de l‘Échaudé, and the Rue des Marais, where it stopped at a distance of one hundred and nine metres, a few paces distant from the house in which Racine had lived, respecting, in the seventeenth century, the poet more than the King.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

At least five thousand men sat on the hill-tops and watched three men with a revolver, cutlass, and two rifles drive off one hundred and ninety head of cattle; and I am inclined to think that most Central African warfare could be settled as easily.
— from From the Cape to Cairo: The First Traverse of Africa from South to North by Arthur H. (Arthur Henry) Sharp

Both the Bishop and the Admiral patted him on the head and said, ‘Charles will restore the old family’; by which I gather with some surprise that, even in these days of open house at Northiam and golden hope of my aunt’s fortune, the family was supposed to stand in need of restoration.
— from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson

Our success and the strength of our position depend on our having a national army, and it is necessary to maintain this advantage with the greatest care.
— from Recollections of the Private Life of Napoleon — Complete by Louis Constant Wairy

In the enclosure a fountain was erected, the ground having been bored to the depth of one hundred and nineteen feet, the main spring was tapped and a plentiful supply of water obtained.
— from Reminiscences of Tottenham by Harriet Couchman

How touching is this debasement of words in the course of time; it puts me in mind of the decay of old houses and names.
— from The Romany Rye A sequel to "Lavengro" by George Borrow

When a man has screwed himself up to proposing to a lady, it has taken a great deal out of him, and nature demands rest.
— from A Book of Ghosts by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

Antonio described the place as it then was, and the young lover fancied he could see the first, dearest object of his ardent nature wandering amid the cypresses which led in along avenue from the villa to the convent higher up the hill, or seated upon the terrace looking toward Naples and counting, with the painful longing which he felt in his own heart, the long hours which had to elapse ere they could meet again.
— from Leonora D'Orco: A Historical Romance by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

Not that either Dolph or Olive had any notion of being at all in love with each other.
— from The Brentons by Anna Chapin Ray

Still, it is the loggers toiling in the wilderness who feel the cold snaps most, for the man who labours under an Arctic frost must be generously fed, or the heat and strength die out of him, and, now and then, it happens that provisions become scanty when no canoe can be poled up the rivers, and the trails are blocked with snow.
— from The Greater Power by Harold Bindloss