On his walk he observed the girls from a long distance, though they had been so occupied with their difficulties of passage as not to notice him.
— from Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy

It is an error condemned by the Church to believe that a man is capable of attaining in this life such a degree of perfection, as not to be able to increase it; but it would be a deplorable illusion to make use of the language condemned by Saint Bernard; "I have done enough, I will remain as I am: neither become worse, nor better."
— from The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi by Candide Chalippe

states that they had an abundance of gold, bordering, as they did, on Phrygia, and nearly touching the valley of the Pactolus, so famous for its auriferous sands.
— from The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 6, March, 1885 by Various

'Tis also prov'd that the Sun, in it self, is not hot, nor partakes of any mix'd Quality: 'tis prov'd moreover, that the thickest and smoothest Bodies receive Light in the greatest degree of perfection; and next to them, the thicker which are not smooth, and those which are very thin receive no Light at all.
— from The Improvement of Human Reason Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan by Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Malik Ibn Tufayl

Already Strasbourg, Toul, and Metz have been called to endure this indiscriminate massacre, where there is no distinction of persons; and now the same fate is threatened to Paris the Beautiful, with its thronging population counted by the million.
— from Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 18 (of 20) by Charles Sumner

It is indeed no uncommon thing to meet with Men, who by the natural Bent of their Inclinations, and without the Discipline of Philosophy, aspire not to the Heights of Power and Grandeur; who never set their Hearts upon a numerous Train of Clients and Dependancies, nor other gay Appendages of Greatness; who are contented with a Competency, and will not molest their Tranquillity to gain an Abundance: But it is not therefore to be concluded that such a Man is not Ambitious; his Desires may have cut out another Channel, and determined him to other Pursuits; the Motive however may be still the same; and in these Cases likewise the Man may be equally pushed on with the Desire of Distinction.
— from The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 With Translations and Index for the Series by Steele, Richard, Sir

Moreover, inside those great spots certain other tracts are seen brighter than the surrounding region, and some of them very bright indeed, but the appearance of these, as well as of the darker parts, is always the same; there is no change of shape or brightness or depth of shadow, so that it becomes a matter of certainty and beyond doubt that their [24] appearance is owing to real dissimilarity of parts, and not to unevennesses only in their configuration, changing in different ways the shadows of the same parts according to the variations of their illumination by the Sun, which really happens in the case of the other smaller spots occupying the brighter portion of the Moon, for day by day they change, increase, decrease, or disappear, inasmuch as they derive their origin only from the shadows of prominences.
— from The Sidereal Messenger of Galileo Galilei and a Part of the Preface to Kepler's Dioptrics Containing the Original Account of Galileo's Astronomical Discoveries by Galileo Galilei

There was no fear of an enemy, no dread of plundering, and no terror of losing goods and life and limb; each man lived under his own vine and fig-tree, and that moreover (in comparison with other German lands) in joy and delight, so that I held this land for an earthly Paradise, though by nature it seemed rough as might be.
— from The Adventurous Simplicissimus being the description of the Life of a Strange vagabond named Melchior Sternfels von Fuchshaim by Hans Jakob Christoph von Grimmelshausen

The bottom of the ravine was marshy and somewhat difficult of passage, and near the river widened out and took the name of Boatswain's swamp.
— from Vermont riflemen in the war for the union, 1861 to 1865 A history of Company F, First United States sharp shooters by William Young Warren Ripley

We had been too much enamoured to listen to the dictates of prudence, and now the future opened a prospect to me, the background of which was darkened by images the most horrible that the imagination can conceive.
— from The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan by James Justinian Morier

These classes bear the Kamilaroi names, of unknown meaning, Ipai, Kumbo, Murri, and Kubbi; but the names of the two main divisions, or phratries, are not those of the Kamilaroi—DILBI and KUPATHIN.
— from The Euahlayi Tribe: A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia by K. Langloh (Katie Langloh) Parker