By day, one could admire the variety of its edifices, all sculptured in stone or wood, and already presenting complete specimens of the different domestic architectures of the Middle Ages, running back from the fifteenth to the eleventh century, from the casement which had begun to dethrone the arch, to the Roman semicircle, which had been supplanted by the ogive, and which still occupies, below it, the first story of that ancient house de la Tour Roland, at the corner of the Place upon the Seine, on the side of the street with the Tannerie.
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

What a struggle between the several kinds of trees must here have gone on during long centuries, each annually scattering its seeds by the thousand; what war between insect and insect—between insects, snails, and other animals with birds and beasts of prey—all striving to increase, and all feeding on each other or on the trees or their seeds and seedlings, or on the other plants which first clothed the ground and thus checked the growth of the trees! Throw up a handful of feathers, and all must fall to the ground according to definite laws; but how simple is this problem compared to the action and reaction of the innumerable plants and animals which have determined, in the course of centuries, the proportional numbers and kinds of trees now growing on the old Indian ruins!
— from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin

Then Stepan Nikiforovitch took the bottle and at once filled his glass again, which for some reason seemed to offend Ivan Ilyitch, especially as Semyon Ivanovitch Shipulenko, whom he particularly [41] despised and indeed feared on account of his cynicism and ill-nature, preserved a treacherous silence and smiled more frequently than was necessary.
— from Short Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Of these the Lygians are most numerous and extensive, and spread into several communities.
— from Tacitus on Germany by Cornelius Tacitus

But we are not so powerfully affected with any one impulse, unless it be one of a prodigious force indeed, as we are with a succession of similar impulses; because the nerves of the sensory do not (if I may use the expression) acquire a habit of repeating the same feeling in such a manner as to continue it longer than its cause is in action; besides, all the effects which I have attributed to expectation and surprise in Sect.
— from The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) by Edmund Burke

That learned Maronite was despatched, in the year 1715, by Pope Clement XI. to visit the monasteries of Egypt and Syria, in search of Mss.
— 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

As my machine sank among them I realized that it was fight or die, with good chances of dying in any event, and so I struck the ground with drawn long-sword ready to defend myself as I could.
— from A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

There were no longer sunsets or sunrises to look at, and scarcely ever any stars, it seemed to Sara.
— from A Little Princess Being the whole story of Sara Crewe now told for the first time by Frances Hodgson Burnett

“ Das Lied von der Erde ” (Song of the Earth), a symphony in six parts for tenor and contralto soli with orchestra, the text taken from The Chinese Flute , a collection of Chinese lyrics by Hans Bethge.
— from Philip Hale's Boston Symphony Programme Notes by Philip Hale

She had lived through no miserable experience; she had felt no desolating passion; her heart was all untried, and his evident affection stirred it softly, even before she understood her own feelings.
— from Miss Crespigny by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Imagine that family, who enjoys a steady income, shall we say in the neighbourhood of £5000 a year, enough to keep it in modest comfort, confronted with the sudden infatuation of one of its daughters for an unnamed person, met presumably in the East End where he was collecting copy.
— from A Novelist on Novels by Walter Lionel George

It would have been easy for Adolph to book as steward's assistant, or even as steward in some homeward bound ship, but no one seemed to need Kep's peculiar talents.
— from The Sauciest Boy in the Service: A Story of Pluck and Perseverance by Gordon Stables

But father is too busy now, for he is going to London again this evening, and so I shall have to take care of you until he comes back.
— from That Scholarship Boy by Emma Leslie

we directed the horses to be brought near camp this evening and secured in such manner that they may be readily obtained in the morning being determined to make an early start if possible.—Colter one of our hunters did not return this evening.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

All the men parading the corridors with banjos, bells, gongs, etc., and singing (if singing it can be called) at the top of their voices.
— from Letters of a Diplomat's Wife, 1883-1900 by Mary King Waddington

It is strange how vague are the ideas of some testators in this respect, and one recalls what Dr. Johnson said of a certain bequest to erect a hospital for “ancient maids” that the word maintain should be expunged and starve inserted, so insufficient were the funds.
— from The Romance of Wills and Testaments by Edgar Vine Hall

Now I am satisfied that our pilgrims are pleasant old people on shore; I am also satisfied that at sea on a second voyage they would be pleasanter, somewhat, than they were on our grand excursion, and so I say without hesitation that I would be glad enough to sail with them again.
— from The Innocents Abroad — Volume 06 by Mark Twain