Only a day or two before Jim’s arrival several heads of households in the very fishing village that was afterwards taken under his especial protection had been driven over the cliffs by a party of the Rajah’s spearmen, on suspicion of having been collecting edible birds’ nests for a Celebes trader.
— from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

North : “Brant against Flodden Hill,” explained by Nares from Ascham, “up the steep side;” cf. Brit.
— from A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580 by A. L. (Anthony Lawson) Mayhew

In war, an establishment of three or four times that expense becomes necessary for the defence of the state; and consequently, a revenue three or four times greater than the peace revenue.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

So saying he drew several English bank notes from his pocket-book, telling me they were the same I had given him in London six months ago.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

She coloured a little, and dropping her eyes, began nervously fingering her slender gold chain.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

[72] was to be sought in a direction east by north from Avacha, and in spite of the fact that they [Pg 130] were both familiar with Gvosdjeff's discovery of the American coast of Bering Strait (1732), and that their observations during the course of the winter had amply corroborated Bering's earlier opinion, they nevertheless allowed themselves to be prevailed upon to search first in a southeasterly direction for the legendary Gamaland.
— from Vitus Bering: the Discoverer of Bering Strait by Peter Lauridsen

And if a man may presage from her youth, her soul will one day be capable of very great things; and amongst others, of the perfection of that sacred friendship, to which we do not read that any of her sex could ever yet arrive; the sincerity and solidity of her manners are already sufficient for it, and her affection towards me more than superabundant, and such, in short, as that there is nothing more to be wished, if not that the apprehension she has of my end, being now five-and-fifty years old, might not so much afflict her.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Break not, O woman's-heart, but still endure; Break not, for thou art Royal, but endure, Remembering all the beauty of that star Which shone so close beside Thee that ye made One light together, but has past and leaves The Crown a lonely splendour.
— from Idylls of the King by Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron

Your sex is excluded by nature from the toils of government.
— 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

This reversed emotions, but not for long.
— from The Shame of the Cities by Lincoln Steffens

Death and the awful abode of lost souls, whither my weakness long ago had sent him—they had changed him for every other eye, but not for mine.
— from The King in Yellow by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

A possible cause of the choice of this bird is that it is one of the best-known species: for of all the {36} owls this one is quite peculiar in its habit of rather courting than flying from the haunts of man; for though it is in the ruins of temples it is also to be found in the thick foliage near villages and towns, and has even been noticed flying about in the very heart of Cairo in the Ezbekeir Gardens, as recorded by Mr. J. H. Gurney in his Rambles of a Naturalist —and the habit of attaching itself to human habitations is universal wherever it is met the world round.
— from Egyptian Birds For the most part seen in the Nile Valley by Charles Whymper

It consists of two large folios, embellished by numerous figures and landscapes, in the ancient arabesque.
— from The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical: A Cabinet for the Curious by Frank H. Stauffer

The Emperor urgently repeated his orders for removing the wounded quickly, then turned his horse in silence, and returned to his headquarters, the evening being now far advanced.
— from Recollections of the Private Life of Napoleon — Complete by Louis Constant Wairy

Although they were at liberty to elect plebeians, the choice fell on patricians alone—so powerful was the nobility still—and it was only when a second election became necessary for 304, that some plebeians were chosen—the first non-patrician magistrates that the Roman community had.
— from The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) by Theodor Mommsen

When from external objects he turns his view upon himself, on his own vital and intellectual faculties, he finds that he possesses a power of examining and analysing his own nature to a certain extent, but no farther.
— from Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy by John F. W. (John Frederick William) Herschel

We must make desperate efforts to reach the Kurdish encampment by nightfall; for during the last twenty-seven hours we had had nothing to drink but half a pint of tea, and our thirst by this time became almost intolerable.
— from Across Asia on a Bicycle The Journey of Two American Students from Constantinople to Peking by Thomas Gaskell Allen

Of all unrealities in the world nothing seemed so unreal to her as the idea that a refuge from trouble would ever be needful for the long young life that was in her heart and her thoughts.
— from It was a Lover and His Lass by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant