The average American to-day, if told the Filipinos want independence, will give the statement about the same consideration Mr. McKinley did then, and if told that the desire among them for a government of their people by their people for their people has not been diminished since the late war by tariff taxation without representation, and the steady development of race prejudice between the dominant alien race and the subject one, he will begin to realize by personal experience how faintly the uttered longings of a whole people may fall on distant ears.
— from The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 by James H. (James Henderson) Blount

But for a glass or two of sherry, I don't think I could have had my mind so much upon the stretch as it has been.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

O no, the wary Nature sends a new troop of fairer forms, of lordlier youths, with a little more excess of direction to hold them fast to their several aims; makes them a little wrongheaded in that direction in which they are rightest, and on goes the game again with new whirl, for a generation or two more.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Through this window shone a mild light which silvered the foliage of two or three linden trees which formed a group outside the park.
— from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

2. 266, of a gallant whose devotion to a lady in such that he Salutes her pumps, Adores her hems, her skirts, her knots, her curls, Will spend his patrimony for a garter , Or the least feather in her bounteous fan.’
— from The Devil is an Ass by Ben Jonson

In the elasticity of her movements, the freshness and the unflagging eagerness which persisted in her face, and broke out in her smile and her glance, she would rather have passed for a girl of twenty, had it not been for a serious and at times mournful look in her eyes, which struck and attracted Kitty.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

Youth is the true Saturnian Reign, the Golden Age on earth again, when figs are grown on thistles, and pigs betailed with whistles and, wearing silken bristles, live ever in clover, and cows fly over, delivering milk at every door, and Justice never is heard to snore, and every assassin is made a ghost and, howling, is cast into Baltimost!
— from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

c. 15, this indulgence was a good deal abated, and it was enacted, "That no part of the duty called the old subsidy should be drawn back for any goods of the growth, production, or manufacture of Europe or the East Indies, which should be exported from this kingdom to any British colony or plantation in America; wines, white calicoes, and muslins, excepted.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

Some considerations on the act to prevent clandestine marriages in a letter from a gentleman of the Temple to the Lord B—p of L—. London, 1754. ——— The case of marriages between near kindred.
— from A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 3 of 3 by George Elliott Howard

Here the spirit of poetry, brooding in the mysterious lines of Dante, or echoing from past ages in the myths of the Greeks, took form and glowed on the walls in mighty cartoons to be made imperishable in fresco.
— from Fra Bartolommeo by Leader Scott

A dense multitude stood before the inn, looking with horror on the death flag, and watching for a glimpse of the fatal champion.
— from The Dead Boxer The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two by William Carleton

"How do you feel about going over the top?
— from Tom Slade, Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer by Percy Keese Fitzhugh

My limits do not allow me to quote further the fantastic account given of the farther process by which water and earth, plants, animals, and men sprang out of that desire of the One: "May I become many; may I grow forth."
— from Pantheism, Its Story and Significance Religions Ancient and Modern by J. Allanson (James Allanson) Picton

It was eighteen years since his young wife had died and left him with an infant daughter—this very Antonia, his stay and comfort now, his indefatigable helper, his Mercury, tripping with light foot between his lodgings and the booksellers or the newspaper offices, to carry his copy, or to sue for a guinea or two in advance for work to be done.
— from The Infidel: A Story of the Great Revival by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

These noisy birds were leaving their resting-places in the trees near by, and starting out to search for breakfast in the fields and gardens of the country.
— from Our Little Siamese Cousin by Mary Hazelton Blanchard Wade

I record this episode for the benefit of my readers who may be tempted to depend upon the seller’s opinion for a guarantee of the genuineness of their “finds.”
— from Old Glass and How to Collect it by J. Sydney Lewis

We can much more easily pardon tremendous severities inflicted for a great object, than an endless series of paltry vexations and oppressions inflicted for no rational object at all.
— from Critical, Historical, and Miscellaneous Essays; Vol. 4 With a Memoir and Index by Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron

The open hand, well warmed, should be laid flat and gently over the child's night-dress on the lower part of the chest and the pit of the stomach.
— from The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases by Charles West