All my early lessons have in them the breath of the woods—the fine, resinous odour of pine needles, blended with the perfume of wild grapes.
— from The Story of My Life With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy by Helen Keller

And ye shall understand, that merchants that come from Genoa or from Venice or from Romania or other parts of Lombardy, they go by sea and by land eleven months or twelve, or more some-time, ere they may come to the isle of Cathay that is the principal region of all parts beyond; and it is of the great Chan.
— from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Mandeville, John, Sir

It is only the thinnest surface layer of law and custom, belief and sentiment, which can either be successfully subjected to [Pg 979] destructive treatment, or become the nucleus of any new growth—a fact which explains the apparent paradox that so many of our most famous advances in political wisdom are nothing more than the formal recognition of our political impotence.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

Our Lord Himself, He is the first receiver of our prayer, as to my sight, and taketh it full thankfully and highly enjoying; and He sendeth it up above and setteth it in the Treasure, where it shall never perish.
— from Revelations of Divine Love by of Norwich Julian

The effort appears, in other words, not as a fixed reaction on our part which the object that resists us necessarily calls forth, but as what the mathematicians call an 'independent {456} variable' amongst the fixed data of the case, our motives, character, etc.
— from Psychology: Briefer Course by William James

No delivery of any portion of said scrip shall be made until said company shall, at a special meeting duly authorized for the purpose, have assented to the provisions of this act, nor until said company shall have duly made and located their line of road as aforesaid, and shall have executed to the Commonwealth such further bond and mortgage, or other assurances of title on their franchise, railroad, or other property, as the attorney-general shall prescribe, for the further security of the Commonwealth; and said bond and mortgage, and other assurances, and all bonds, mortgages, or other assurances heretofore made to the Commonwealth by said company, shall have priority to and be preferred before any and all attachments or levies on execution heretofore or hereafter made.
— from Report of the Hoosac Tunnel and Troy and Greenfield Railroad, by the Joint Standing Committee of 1866. by Tappan Wentworth

But even the paltry range of temperatures so far recorded on our planet,—from 134 degrees above zero one day in California, to 90 degrees below zero one night in Siberia,—is by no means a fair statement of the extremes we are called upon to bear.
— from Reading the Weather by Thomas Morris Longstreth

"Any person who, under color of any State or local law, ordinance, police, or other regulation or custom, shall, in any State or district in which the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has been interrupted by the rebellion, subject, or cause to be subjected, any negro, mulatto, freedman, refugee, or other person, on account of race or color, or any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, or for any other cause, to the deprivation of any civil right secured to white persons, or to any other or different punishment than white persons are subject to for the commission of like acts or offenses, is to be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and be punished by fine not exceeding $1,000 or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both.
— from History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States by William Horatio Barnes

On the Finland Road, outside of Petrograd, the Red ragamuffins held a perpetual carmagnole, and all fugitives danced to their piping, and many paid for the music.
— from The Crimson Tide: A Novel by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

To-day there are thousands of trappers scattered over the United States, Canada, Alaska and Mexico and the catching of wild animals for profit is no longer considered to be an occupation fitting only for the savage, for there is scarcely a farmer, ranchman or other person whose calling brings him close to nature who is not more or less interested in the fur-bearing animals.
— from Science of Trapping Describes the Fur Bearing Animals, Their Nature, Habits and Distribution, with Practical Methods for Their Capture by Elmer Harry Kreps

And Racine, when he was first routed out of Port Royal, where he was educated, and presented to the whole Faubourg St. Germain, beheld his patron, La Rochefoucault, in the position of a disappointed man.
— from The Wits and Beaux of Society. Volume 1 by Philip Wharton