He explains some texts of the Bible in his own fashion, and if he pleases the gapers around him they invite him to expound next Sunday, often in a tavern.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Something therefore was wanting as a succedaneum, especially in one or two of the more violent paroxysms of the siege, to keep up something like a continual firing in the imagination,—and this something, the corporal, whose principal strength lay in invention, supplied by an entire new system of battering of his own,—without which, this had been objected to by military critics, to the end of the world, as one of the great desiderata of my uncle Toby's apparatus.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

There were no red eyes, no signs of secretly indulged grief.
— from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

The final stage, the writing up of the definitions, was carried by a small staff, exclusively native speakers of Cebuano now resident in Cebu: Miss E. Agapay, of Malitbog, Leyte, but also a long time resident of Talibon, Bohol, and in Guihulngan, Negros Oriental; Nicolas Ampatin, of Malitbog, Leyte; Abel Angus, of Tudela, Camotes; José Dioko, of Malaboyoc, Cebu; Mrs. E. Emnace, of Dumanjug, Cebu; Atty. A. Estorco, of Guihulngan, Negros Oriental; Everett Mendoza, of Maasin, Leyte; Mrs. D. Ag.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

Let us evermore, amidst our jollity and feasting, set the remembrance of our frail condition before our eyes, never suffering ourselves to be so far transported with our delights, but that we have some intervals of reflecting upon, and considering how many several ways this jollity of ours tends to death, and with how many dangers it threatens it.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

We must suppose each new state of the instrument to be multiplied by the million; each to be preserved until a better is produced, and then the old ones to be all destroyed.
— 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

In the warmth and light of what she was looking at, of what to her was a manifestation, and entirely new side of God, how could one be discomposed?
— from The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim

In the sixteenth century, Liébault enumerated nineteen sorts of grapes, and Olivier de Serres twenty-four, amongst which, notwithstanding the eccentricities of the ancient names, we believe that we can trace the greater part of those plants which are now cultivated in France.
— from Manners, Customs, and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period by P. L. Jacob

Here a Saxon thane built a rude timber church which was supplanted by an early Norman structure of stone with round arches and curiously carved ornamentation.
— from English Villages by P. H. (Peter Hampson) Ditchfield

first inuasion earle Nonneus sustained, one which was appointed to defend those parties, an approoued capteine, & with continuall trauell in warres verie expert.
— from Holinshed Chronicles: England, Scotland, and Ireland. Volume 1, Complete by William Harrison

On the evening in question, I remember he told us we were not half thankful enough, nor proud enough, of the privilege of being Englishwomen, nor sensible of the blessings which from our very cradles that name conferred.
— from The Englishwoman in Italy Impressions of life in the Roman states and Sardinia, during a ten years' residence by Gretton, G., Mrs.

In her early life she had written several charming books—chiefly biographies of distinguished men whom she had known, and even now she occasionally put pen again to paper, and sent some delightful social essay or some pleasantly written critique to one or other of the Reviews of the day.
— from Vera Nevill Or, Poor Wisdom's Chance by Cameron, H. Lovett, Mrs.

He eyed me keenly, and said: “Had you come an hour later, you would have had a longer ride still, for we are even now setting out westward.
— from Sir Ludar A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess by Talbot Baines Reed

This staring announcement so alarmed him that he not only abandoned the plan for a ring-any sort of ring might be misconstrued, he saw-but in an excess of caution chose another establishment not so outspoken.
— from Merton of the Movies by Harry Leon Wilson

[105] some of her teeth, and every night screws off her leg—scarcely has her own nose, and by the course of nature ought to have kneeled in marble, or lifted up her arms in stone twenty years ago.
— from Munster Village by Hamilton, Mary, Lady

Since Gregg adopted an entirely new system of numbering, and since his survey was lost at an early date, it is impossible to locate by their description the sites of the lots granted in 1708 and after.
— from The Cultural History of Marlborough, Virginia An Archeological and Historical Investigation of the Port Town for Stafford County and the Plantation of John Mercer, Including Data Supplied by Frank M. Setzler and Oscar H. Darter by C. Malcolm Watkins

The elbows, not so oblique as in the Setter.
— from All About Dogs: A Book for Doggy People by Charles Henry Lane

We expressed no such opinion, and the language which you quote as ours is altered in its sense by the omission of a most important part of the sentence.
— from The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 1 by Jefferson Davis

England I see as a country, but the English nation seems obliterated.
— from Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Samuel Taylor Coleridge