These stairs were such as whereon Jacob saw Angels ascending and descending, bands Of guardians bright, when he from Esau fled To Padan-Aram, in the field of Luz Dreaming by night under the open sky And waking cried, This is the gate of Heaven.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton

Narcissa insisted on going home immediately: and, as I led her to the door, her noble admirer, with a look full of languishment, directed to her a profound bow, which stung me to the soul.
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

In these latter cir cumstances lies the imitative essence of the second image: for one leaf does not imitate another nor is each twin the other's copy.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

The hunters returned this evening having seen no tents or Indians nor any fresh sign of them; they killed two Mule deer, one common fallow or longtailed deer, 2 Buffaloe and 5 beaver, and saw several deer of the Mule kind of immence size, and also three of the Bighorned anamals.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

But yesterday, the same man-made forms of law declared it a crime punishable with $1,000 fine and six months' imprisonment to give a cup of cold water, a crust of bread or a night's shelter to a panting fugitive tracking his way to Canada; and every man or woman in whose veins coursed a drop of human sympathy violated that wicked law, reckless of consequences, and was justified in so doing.
— from The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years by Ida Husted Harper

202 Facsimile of Letter dated April 24, 1796.
— from Napoleon's Letters to Josephine, 1796-1812 For the First Time Collected and Translated, with Notes Social, Historical, and Chronological, from Contemporary Sources by Emperor of the French Napoleon I

‘And of them Dodson and Foggs, as does these sort o’ things on spec,’ continued Mr. Weller, ‘as vell as for the other kind and gen’rous people o’ the same purfession, as sets people by the ears, free gratis for nothin’, and sets their clerks to work to find out little disputes among their neighbours and acquaintances as vants settlin’ by means of lawsuits—all I can say o’ them is, that I vish they had the reward I’d give ‘em.’
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

was I her judge? Did any ceremonial form of law Doom her to not-being?
— from The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster

Nothing is more laughable than the fact that this man has received so much posthumous praise for strictly consequential reasoning; his pedantic style full of loud declamation about trifling matters being actually mistaken for such.
— from The Basis of Morality by Arthur Schopenhauer

I tried to bear everything patiently, and the only thing that threatened really to drive me to despair was a pianist in the room adjoining ours who during the livelong day practised Liszt's fantasy on Lucia di Lammermoor.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner

Quite through the streets, with silver sound, The flood of life doth flow; Upon whose banks, on every side, The wood of life doth grow.
— from Notes on the New Testament, Explanatory and Practical: Revelation by Albert Barnes

* * Particles of matter fitted by digestion, and their transmission through a living body, for immediate assimilation with it, or flakes of lymph detached from surfaces already organized, seem neither to exceed nor fall below that simplicity of structure which favours this wonderful development; and the supposition that, like morsels of a planaria, they may also, when retained in contact with living parts, and in other favourable circumstances, continue to live and be gradually changed into creatures of analogous conformation, is surely not so absurd as to be brought into comparison with the Metamorphoses of Ovid.
— from Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation by Robert Chambers

Hard water Streams which flow over limestone dissolve some of the stone, and the water becomes "hard."
— from Encyclopedia of Diet: A Treatise on the Food Question, Vol. 1 of 5 by Eugene Christian

No foot of land do I possess, No cottage in this wilderness, A poor, wayfaring man; I lodge awhile in tents below, Or gladly wander to and fro
— from The New Christianity; or, The Religion of the New Age by Salem Goldworth Bland

They could not afford the rent of the rooms on the Rue St. Nicholas d’Antin, and they found cheaper quarters in a flat just under the roof in an old house on the Rue Lamartine, and up six flights of long, dark stairs.
— from Camilla: A Tale of a Violin Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso by Charles Barnard

Old men and women formed no great danger to the future of Turkey, for they had already fulfilled their natural function of leaving descendants; still, they were nuisances and therefore should be disposed of.
— from Secrets of the Bosphorus by Henry Morgenthau

We must first notice that all the forms of learning displayed by the animal are present also in the human being.
— from Psychology: A Study Of Mental Life by Robert Sessions Woodworth

"Mr. Slater has advertised for our lost dog," his wife said, as she was departing.
— from Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Christmas Tree Cove by Laura Lee Hope

‘Come on now,’ he says, ‘Jim Faddo, away from the Book-in-Hand, and down to the beach under the sand-hills, and we’ll see man for man—though, come to think of it, y ‘are no man,’ he said—‘if ye’ll have the right to say when aw’m a King’s officer that you could fling foul words in the face of Lancy Doane.
— from There Is Sorrow on the Sea by Gilbert Parker