The King of the Mountain collects all the young male children of the country, and has them brought up for nine or ten years: "Dedens un lieu oscur: là les met-on toudis Aveukes males bestes; kiens, et cas, et soris, Culoères, et lisaerdes, escorpions petis.
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Rustichello of Pisa

And thou, highest perfection of excellence that can be desired, utmost limit of grace in human shape, sole relief of this afflicted heart that adores thee, though the malign enchanter that persecutes me has brought clouds and cataracts on my eyes, and to them, and them only, transformed thy unparagoned beauty and changed thy features into those of a poor peasant girl, if so be he has not at the same time changed mine into those of some monster to render them loathsome in thy sight, refuse not to look upon me with tenderness and love; seeing in this submission that I make on my knees to thy transformed beauty the humility with which my soul adores thee."
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

He drew up lists of the most incongruous things and was unhappy until he succeeded in establishing kinship between them all—kinship between love, poetry, earthquake, fire, rattlesnakes, rainbows, precious gems, monstrosities, sunsets, the roaring of lions, illuminating gas, cannibalism, beauty, murder, lovers, fulcrums, and tobacco.
— from Martin Eden by Jack London

The results of the various, unknown, or but dimly understood laws of variation are infinitely complex and diversified.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

He drew up lists of effective and fetching mannerisms, till out of many such, culled from many writers, he was able to induce the general principle of mannerism, and, thus equipped, to cast about for new and original ones of his own, and to weigh and measure and appraise them properly.
— from Martin Eden by Jack London

So, bring us now luego unas cuantas botellas, some bottles right away y en tanto que humedecemos and while we take a drop, la garganta, verdadera give us a true account relación haznos de un lance of a thing about which sobre el cual hay controversia. there’s a great deal of lather.
— from Don Juan Tenorio by José Zorrilla

If you want to discuss what I say, please don't bother to write it down until later on, I don't have any time to waste and I'll soon be leaving."
— from The Trial by Franz Kafka

He placed a difficult unanswered letter on the pile of unfinished work, that he might not fail to attend to it that afternoon.
— from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

I dreaded unspeakably lest others should begin to see what I saw.
— from The Dweller on the Threshold by Robert Hichens

"Your old friend, "D U L OCLE. "
— from My Recollections by Jules Massenet

From that distant unknown land of Death the spirits [134] of the dead relatives and friends of the dying man come in a long boat, so the Dyaks say, to take his soul away.
— from Seventeen Years Among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo A Record of Intimate Association with the Natives of the Bornean Jungles by Edwin Herbert Gomes

The age at which the external part of the bark begins to lose vitality, is considerably dependant upon luxuriance of growth, climate, and exposure; and the {156} period when this loss proceeds faster than the annual increase within, is altogether dependent on the vigour of the tree, not on the age, and never takes place till the timber is ripe for the dock-yard.
— from On Naval Timber and Arboriculture With Critical Notes on Authors who have Recently Treated the Subject of Planting by Patrick Matthew

Lorsqu'on dédie un livre, on prévoit l'heure où l'ami le prend, jette un
— from The Lake by George Moore

Old witch-like women and young girls passed, bent double under loads of peat or sea-weed, so heavy that were the same thing seen in Italy, English people would long since have filled columns of the Times with their sympathy.
— from Our Journey to the Hebrides by Joseph Pennell

deaths of sons, cases of. debtors, unfortunate lot of.
— from Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3: Essays and Miscellanies by Plutarch

Perhaps it is a praiseworthy striving for a permanent standard of value which accounts for the many attempts to draw up lists of the Hundred Best Books and of the Hundred Best Pictures.
— from Inquiries and Opinions by Brander Matthews