To which the Emperor replied, “Return, and tell your lord that I am come to conquer him and all his land.” At this, Sir Gawain burned with anger, and cried out, “I had rather than all France that I might fight with thee alone!” “
— from The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights by Knowles, James, Sir

But of all names in the universe he had the most unconquerable aversion for T RISTRAM ;—he had the lowest and most contemptible opinion of it of any thing in the world,—thinking it could possibly produce nothing in rerum natura, but what was extremely mean and pitiful: So that in the midst of a dispute on the subject, in which, by the bye, he was frequently involved,——he would sometimes break off in a sudden and spirited E PIPHONEMA , or rather E ROTESIS , raised a third, and sometimes a full fifth above the key of the discourse,——and demand it categorically of his antagonist, Whether he would take upon him to say, he had ever remembered,——whether he had ever read,— or even 99 whether he had ever heard tell of a man, called Tristram, performing any thing great or worth recording? —
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Horses, I knew, were capable of travelling over exceedingly rough roads, and trained ones could even ascend staircases, but I now learned that horses can climb precipices.
— from Six Months at the Cape by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne

For the most part, the Garibaldians retired after each round, reappearing again to discharge their rifles from behind the shelter of walls and trees, while the Zouaves slowly advanced along the road, and began to deploy to the right and left wherever the ground permitted such a movement.
— from Sant' Ilario by F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford

Is it possible to conceive any savage Eastern race rushing across the Nile on its way westward, and carrying their rude arts with them, and continuing to practise them for four or five thousand years afterwards without change?
— from Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries: Their Age and Uses by James Fergusson

In another place: Sesostris, who is in the twelfth Dynasty of Africanus, and whose æra extends higher, than the Canon of Eusebius reaches, reigned according to Scaliger's computation in the 1392d year of the Julian Period.
— from A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) by Jacob Bryant

But reforms were also enacted in education, religious rights and tolerance, construction, farm policy and other areas.
— from Terrorists and Freedom Fighters by Samuel Vaknin

Their annual payment of cens et rentes rarely amounted to more than a very few dollars.
— from A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs: The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 by George McKinnon Wrong