Demonology in Europe was in fact essentially a Jewish science, for although a belief in evil spirits existed from the earliest times and has always continued to exist amongst primitive races, and also amongst the ignorant classes in civilized countries, it was mainly through the Jews that these dark superstitions were imported to the West, where they persisted not merely amongst the lower strata of the Jewish population, but formed an essential part of Jewish tradition.
— from Secret Societies And Subversive Movements by Nesta Helen Webster

375 In the meantime Indian Territory was ravaged alternately by contending factions and armed bodies, and thousands of loyal fugitives were obliged to take refuge in Kansas, where they were cared for by the government.
— from Myths of the Cherokee Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology by James Mooney

C H A P. XVI M Y father, as any body may naturally imagine, came down with my mother into the country, in but a pettish kind of a humour.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

He hath made many fruitless attempts to regain the confidence of Allworthy, or to ingratiate himself with Jones, both of whom he flatters to their faces, and abuses behind their backs.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

You see a pirate don’t have to do anything , Joe, when he’s ashore, but a hermit he has to be praying considerable, and then he don’t have any fun, anyway, all by himself that way.”
— from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Miss Bertram's engagement made him in equity the property of Julia, of which Julia was fully aware; and before he had been at Mansfield a week, she was quite ready to be fallen in love with.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

The actual summit, as I have mentioned, was a biggish clump of trees—firs mostly, with a few ashes and beeches.
— from The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

we owe the preservation of the perogue to the resolution and fortitude of Cruzatte The Countrey like that of yesterday, passed a Small Island and the enterence of 3 large Creeks, one on the Stard. & the other 2 on the Lard Side, neither of them had any running water at this time—Six good hunters of the party fired at a Brown or Yellow Bear Several times before they killed him, & indeed he had like to have defeated the whole party, he pursued them Seperately as they fired on him, and was near Catching Several of them one he pursued into the river, this bear was large & fat would way about 500 wt; I killed a Buffalow, & Capt.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

His sister, lady L..., for whom he had a great affection, desiring him to accompany her down to Bath for her health, he could not refuse her such a favour; and accordingly, though he counted on staying away from me no more than a week at farthest, he took his leave of me with an ominous heaviness of heart, and left me a sum far above the state of his fortune, and very inconsistent with the intended shortness of his journey; but it ended in the longest that can be, and is never but once taken: for, arrived at Bath, he was not there two days before he fell into a debauch of drinking with some gentlemen, that threw him into a high fever, and carried him off in four days' time, never once out of a delirium.
— from Memoirs of Fanny Hill A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) by John Cleland

That to suffer illusion is a bad thing might ordinarily be taken for an axiom, because ordinarily we assume that true knowledge and rational volition are possible; but if this assumption is denied, the value of retracting illusions is itself impeached.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

After the fetus is thus completely formed together with its umbilical vessels and placenta, it is now supplied with a different kind of food, as appears by the difference of consistency of the different parts of the white of the egg, and of the liquor amnii, for it has now acquired organs for digestion or secretion, and for oxygenation, though they are as yet feeble; which can in some degree change, as well as select, the nutritive particles, which are now presented to it.
— from Zoonomia; Or, the Laws of Organic Life, Vol. I by Erasmus Darwin

We should also get proof or otherwise, that we are interpreting her aright; for it is our desire not to record our feelings about Amy, but merely Amy’s feelings about herself; not to tell what we think happened, but what Amy thought happened.
— from Alice Sit-By-The-Fire by J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie

He was afterwards to become famous as the hero of a slander case which deluged England with pamphlets for and against, but for the present he had merely outraged the feelings of his fellow Schnorrers by budding out in a direction so rare as to suggest preliminary baptism.
— from The King of Schnorrers: Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Zangwill

The rail-road from Brussels to Malines had been completed for some time, and was expected to be finished as far as Antwerp by the end of another month, and to proceed from hence to Paris.
— from Journal of a Horticultural Tour through Germany, Belgium, and part of France, in the Autumn of 1835 To which is added, a Catalogue of the different Species of Cacteæ in the Gardens at Woburn Abbey. by James Forbes

The order was issued from Washington to intercept and arrest any of the Reyes party that might be found at any border points.
— from Uncle Sam, Detective by William Atherton DuPuy

—The hope of the Mormons that they might forever remain undisturbed by outsiders was soon dashed to earth, for hundreds of farmers and artisans belonging to other religious sects came to settle among them.
— from History of the United States by Mary Ritter Beard

"It's impossible the bagpipe could frighten anybody," said Miss Jacky, in a high key; "nobody with common sense could be frightened at a bagpipe."
— from Marriage by Susan Ferrier