The dark pencilling of fatigue under her eyes, the morbid blue-veined pallour of the temples, brought out the brightness of her hair and lips, as though all her ebbing vitality were centred there.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

"It is enough to have opened any single description of a voyage among the savages of North America," says one of the most delightful philosophers of France, [8] "to know that the ordinary fate of prisoners of war is not only to be burnt alive and eaten, but first to be bound to a stake near a flaming bonfire and to be tortured there for several hours, by all the most ferocious and refined devices that fury can imagine.
— from On Love by Stendhal

Nor were her spirits cheered, when she considered how long it would probably be before she should see Valancourt, who might be stationed with his regiment in a distant part of France, and that, when they did meet, it would be only to lament the successful villany of Montoni; yet, still she would have felt inexpressible delight at the thought of being once more in the same country with Valancourt, had it even been certain, that she could not see him.
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

As, under any profound and comprehensive view of the gorgeous-composite feudal world, we see in it, through the long ages and cycles of ages, the results of a deep, integral, human and divine principle, or fountain, from which issued laws, ecclesia, manners, institutes, costumes, personalities, poems, (hitherto unequall'd,) faithfully partaking of their source, and indeed only arising either to betoken it, or to furnish parts of that varied-flowing display, whose centre was one and absolute—so, long ages hence, shall the due historian or critic make at least an equal retrospect, an equal history for the democratic principle.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

Moreover, the description required to express the thought will vary for different people, or for the same person at different times.
— from The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell

Philosophy alone can boast, (and perhaps it is no more than the boast of philosophy,) that her gentle hand is able to eradicate from the human mind the latent and deadly principle of fanaticism.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

M. du Bruel successively rose to be chief of bureau, director, councillor of state, deputy, peer of France and commander of the Legion of Honor; he received the title of count and entered one of the classes in the Institute.
— from Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z by Anatole Cerfberr

They take me for a dun, peer out from a coign of vantage.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

If they reasoned and resolved thus, victory and safety would certainly attend them: for it never happened that men who came to such a resolution, whether of deliberate purpose or from being driven to bay, were disappointed in their hope of beating their opponents in the field.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius

Swift at her call her husband scour'd away To wreak his hunger on the destined prey; One for his food the raging glutton slew, But two rush'd out, and to the navy flew.
— from The Odyssey by Homer

He feels as badly as I do, poor old fellow."
— from The Exploits of Elaine by Arthur B. (Arthur Benjamin) Reeve

Have you a lens, not a too powerful one?” Dennison produced one from a drawer, and his companion took it and proceeded to examine the marks.
— from The Cottage on the Fells by H. De Vere (Henry De Vere) Stacpoole

Always frugal in the employment of ornament in his text, the balladist never troubled to invent when he found a descriptive phrase or figure made and lying ready to his hand.
— from The Balladists by John Geddie

She added that she did not herself comprehend what was contained in the form of abjuration she had been made to sign, and that she would rather do penance once for all by dying to maintain the truth than remain any longer a prisoner, being all the while a traitress to it.” We will not stop to examine whether these two accounts, though very different, are not fundamentally reconcilable, and whether Joan resumed man’s dress of her own desire or was constrained to do so by the soldiers on guard over her, and perhaps to escape from their insults.
— from A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3 by François Guizot

This roominess, though it becomes filled with feces, and often with liquids, permits of sufficient space for even the daily passage of feces without dislodging the stored contents.
— from Intestinal Ills Chronic Constipation, Indigestion, Autogenetic Poisons, Diarrhea, Piles, Etc. Also Auto-Infection, Auto-Intoxication, Anemia, Emaciation, Etc. Due to Proctitis and Colitis by Alcinous B. (Alcinous Burton) Jamison

Understanding that the protestants had laid out all their brass money in purchasing great quantities of hides, tallow, wool, and corn, he assumed the despotic power of fixing the prices of these commodities, and then bought them for his own use.
— from The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. Continued from the Reign of William and Mary to the Death of George II. by T. (Tobias) Smollett

Mourning habits therefore, in consequence of a long system of etiquette, have become, in the opinion of the Quakers, but little better than disguised pomp , or fashionable forms .
— from A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 2 Taken from a View of the Education and Discipline, Social Manners, Civil and Political Economy, Religious Principles and Character, of the Society of Friends by Thomas Clarkson

Musicians, male and female dancers, players of farce and pantomime, jesters, buffoons, and gladiators, exhibited while the guests reclined at table.
— from The Old Roman World : the Grandeur and Failure of Its Civilization. by John Lord

If, however, you should urgently need me, call at the Hotel Cecil and ask for Captain Maltravers—and call in disguise, please; our friend the count is keen.
— from Cleek of Scotland Yard: Detective Stories by Thomas W. Hanshew

This epidemic, which was the subject of an altogether unusual amount of writing in Edinburgh [388] , partly on the supposition that relapsing fever was a “new disease,” proved once for all that one had not to go to Ireland for the engendering or making of a famine-fever.
— from A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 2 (of 2) From the Extinction of Plague to the Present Time by Charles Creighton