Each family, or rather each clan of them, lived apart in its own group of houses, from among which towers shot aloft for scores of yards into the air, dominating the humbler dwellings of the common burghers.
— from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri

For centuries Spain had been the centre of civilization, the seat of arts and sciences, of learning, and every form of refined enlightenment.
— from The Moors in Spain by Stanley Lane-Poole

Free as he was from all petty vanity, from every feeling of restless, egotistical ambition, still he felt a desire to be really useful, and not to leave inactive the abilities with which God had endowed him.
— from On War — Volume 1 by Carl von Clausewitz

This is the doctrine of the higher law; the doctrine of allegiance to God; a doctrine which appears in every form of religion ever taught in the world; a doctrine admitted by the greatest writers on the foundation of human law, from Cicero to Lord Brougham.
— from Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 3 (of 3) by Theodore Parker

Jerusalem is a city of contrasts, and differs widely from Damascus, not merely because it is a stone town in mountains, whilst the latter is a mud city in a plain, but because, while in Damascus Moslem religion and Oriental custom are unmixed with any foreign element, in Jerusalem every form of religion, every nationality of East and West, is represented at one time.
— from Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure by C. R. (Claude Reignier) Conder

Page 150 {150} 65 Ship Flag, Reign of George I. 66 Early form of Red Ensign.
— from The Flags of the World: Their History, Blazonry, and Associations by F. Edward (Frederick Edward) Hulme

Putnam, with true New England fertility of resource, extemporized rafts from the fragments of the vessel and got all his men ashore without the loss of a life.
— from Our War with Spain for Cuba's Freedom by Trumbull White

I recollect that at the close of the last session of Congress, I went over to Arlington, the estate formerly of Robert E. Lee, and I saw there the great National cemetery into which that beautiful place has been converted.
— from The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes by J. Q. (James Quay) Howard

"Then I'll go," said Lulu with satisfaction; for she was extremely fond of riding, especially when her steed was Rosie's pretty, easy-going pony, Gyp.
— from Elsie's Kith and Kin by Martha Finley

Stanley, ever fearful of rash experiments, warned him that a combination of black and white does not necessarily produce grey.
— from British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government, 1839-1854 by J. L. (John Lyle) Morison