The American and French entrenchments drew closer and closer to the British lines until they were only three hundred yards apart.
— from Lafayette, We Come! The Story of How a Young Frenchman Fought for Liberty in America and How America Now Fights for Liberty in France by Rupert Sargent Holland

Blows rained upon the young man's head but he burrowed close, shielding his face—and always his grip tightened—the finger ends drawing closer and closer together.
— from The Promise A Tale of the Great Northwest by James B. (James Beardsley) Hendryx

Is there anything extraordinary in a man objecting to his future wife dining in the country at a common inn with a notorious outcast from every decent club and circle in New York?”
— from The Fighting Chance by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

The clerics and their lay allies commonly tell us, that if we refuse to admit that there is good ground for expressing definite convictions about certain topics, the bonds of human society will dissolve and mankind lapse into savagery.
— from Essays Upon Some Controverted Questions by Thomas Henry Huxley

Some botanists believe that a pome consists of two to five drupe-like fruits, each drupe called a carpel, each of which contains one [59] or more seeds.
— from The Pears of New York by U. P. Hedrick

Mistah Sidney Effort, Marse Peter's overseer, rode all over de fields every day, cussin' an' crackin' his long blacksnake whip.
— from Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 1 by United States. Work Projects Administration

Thus, if one were a modern fool one might write a dirge with 'Huit francs et dix centimes' all chanted on one low sad note, and coming in between brackets for a 'motif, and with a lot about autumn and Death--which last, Death that is, people nowadays seem to regard as something odd, whereas it is well known to be the commonest thing in the world.
— from The Path to Rome by Hilaire Belloc

The difficulties in the syntax of the French participle in ant , which corresponds to ours in ing , are apparently as great in themselves, as those which the syntax of the English word presents; but they result from entirely different causes, and chiefly from the liability there is of confounding the participle with the verbal adjective, which is formed from it.
— from The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown

'Par les lettres que naguerre nous a écript le roy d'Angleterre, et ce que nous a dit son ambassadeur 172 étant lez nous, avons entendu la bonne affection qu'il nous porte à l'avancement de notre élection, et qu'il a écript bien affectueusement à notre Saint Père le pape de la vouloir favoriser et donner charge au Cardinal de Syon soy trouver de sa part à la journée de l'élection, pour y faire pour nous ce qu'il sera possible, et soubs espoir que avons notredit saint Père donnera ladite charge audit Cardinal de Syon, et la confidence que prendons qu'il nous servira bien en cest affaire, mandons au Foucker et à Villinger bailler à iceluy cardinal mil florins d'or pour l'ayder à ses dépens.
— from The First Governess of the Netherlands, Margaret of Austria by Eleanor E. Tremayne