Once I got a fright, for, seeing Lord Godalming suddenly turn and look out of the vaulted door into the dark passage beyond, I looked too, and for an instant my heart stood still.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker

It is a rare privilege to watch the birth, growth, and first feeble struggles of a living mind; this privilege is mine; and moreover, it is given me to rouse and guide this bright intelligence.
— 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

Each gives what he can: the very cordwainers have behaved munificently; one landed proprietor gives a forest; fashionable society gives its shoebuckles, takes cheerfully to shoe-ties.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

Scandal-water , tea; from old maids’ tea-parties being generally a focus for scandal.
— from The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical and Andecdotal by John Camden Hotten

What most struck the poor monk was the fact that in spite of his strict fasting and great age, Father Ferapont still looked a vigorous old man.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Syracusan and Corinthian envoys were also dispatched to Lacedaemon and Corinth to get a fresh force sent over, in any way that might offer, either in merchant vessels or transports, or in any other manner likely to prove successful, as the Athenians too were sending for reinforcements; while the Syracusans proceeded to man a fleet and to exercise, meaning to try their fortune in this way also, and generally became exceedingly confident.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

What can be plainer than that the webbed feet of ducks and geese are formed for swimming?
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

The initiation of all wise or noble things, comes and must come from individuals; generally at first from some one individual.
— from On Liberty by John Stuart Mill

The midriff and heart-strings do burn and beat very fearfully, and when this vapour or fume is stirred, flieth upward, the heart itself beats, is sore grieved, and faints, fauces siccitate praecluduntur, ut difficulter possit ab uteri strangulatione decerni , like fits of the mother, Alvus plerisque nil reddit, aliis exiguum, acre, biliosum, lotium flavum .
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

But every day another young chap used to come a-riding—a fine young gentleman and well-to-do, but he was the same kidney as Master Dick, only he’d got a fine fortune, so his wild oats never got a chance to grow strong like Dick’s.”
— from The House of Arden: A Story for Children by E. (Edith) Nesbit

Suppose you had not been able to get any food for several days.
— from Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Management by Ontario. Department of Education

All tenderly Compiling in a game-bag the débris, He glides into the gloom and fades from sight.
— from Black Beetles in Amber by Ambrose Bierce

Let your cucumbers be small, fresh gathered, and free from spots; then make a pickle of salt and water, strong enough to bear an egg; boil the pickle and skim it well, and then pour it upon your cucumbers, and stive them down for twenty four hours; then strain them out into a cullender, and dry them well with a cloth, and take the best white wine vinegar, with cloves, diced mace, nutmeg, white pepper corns, long pepper, and races of ginger, (as much as you please) boil them up together, and then clap the cucumbers in, with a few vine leaves, and a little salt, and as soon as they begin to turn their colour, put them into jars, stive them down close, and when cold, tie on a bladder and leather.
— from American Cookery The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables by Amelia Simmons

Salt meat is not as good as fresh for soups, but it gives an higher flavor to the vegetables boiled with it.
— from Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 3 by Thomas Jefferson

Some of the phenomena developed in my dream-scenery, undoubtedly, do but repeat the experiences of childhood; and others seem likely to have been growths and fructifications from seeds at that time sown.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 353, March 1845 by Various

Supposing her to be a merchant vessel, she started in pursuit, fired a gun, and finally fired several guns.
— from Trial of the Officers and Crew of the Privateer Savannah, on the Charge of Piracy, in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York by A. F. (Adolphus Frederick) Warburton

It consisted of a boiler or steam generator and four fans supported between eight arms.
— from Animal Locomotion; or, walking, swimming, and flying With a dissertation on aëronautics by James Bell Pettigrew