Whether, like Renan, we look upon life in a more refined way, as a romance of the spirit; or whether, like the friends of M. Zola, we pique ourselves on our 'scientific' and 'analytic' character, and prefer to be cynical, and call the world a 'roman experimental' on an infinite scale,—in either case the world appears to us potentially as what the same Carlyle once called it, a vast, gloomy, solitary Golgotha and mill of death.
— from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James

If the river has got a mortgage on that island, it will foreclose, sure, pegs or no pegs.
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

So much was I interested in his bearing, so absorbed in divining his character by his looks and movements, I temporarily forgot M. Paul; in the interim a group came between that gentleman and me; or possibly his scruples might have received another and worse shock from my present abstraction, causing him to withdraw voluntarily: at any rate, when I again looked round, he was gone.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of the self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying soul.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I saw Anthony, Dayton, and the rebel bearer of the flag, in conversation, and the latter turn his horse to ride back, when I ordered Colonel McCoy to run to the station, and get a message over the wires as quick as possible to Memphis and Germantown, to hurry forward Corse's division.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

Were there no public institutions for education, a gentleman, after going through, with application and abilities, the most complete course of education which the circumstances of the times were supposed to afford, could not come into the world completely ignorant of everything which is the common subject of conversation among gentlemen and men of the world.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

Jupiter granted their request for protection, and decreed that for the future they should not go among men openly in a body, and so be liable to attack from the hostile Ills, but singly and unobserved, and at infrequent and unexpected intervals.
— from Aesop's Fables; a new translation by Aesop

She was therefore grieved and much displeased at so great a mutation of his affairs; and chiefly when she saw him marching among the multitude with the usual ensigns of royal authority, she was not able to conceal how miserable she was, by reason of the envy she had towards him; but she excited her husband, and desired him that he would sail to Rome, to court honors equal to his; for she said that she could not bear to live any longer, while Agrippa, the son of that Aristobulus who was condemned to die by his father, one that came to her husband in such extreme poverty, that the necessaries of life were forced to be entirely supplied him day by day; and when he fled away from his creditors by sea, he now returned a king; while he was himself the son of a king, and while the near relation he bare to royal authority called upon him to gain the like dignity, he sat still, and was contented with a privater life.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

I was highly entertained to see the gentlemen of the county gathering about my old friend, and striving who should compliment him most.
— from An Advanced English Grammar with Exercises by George Lyman Kittredge

They took the body of Ymer, carried it into the midst of Ginungagap and made of him the earth.
— from The Younger Edda; Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson

Nearly everything in Genesis, and much of the so-called history which follows, are but a recital of Assyrian, Babylonian, Chaldean and other legends.
— from The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidences of His Existence by John E. (John Eleazer) Remsburg

These greate Mayinges and Maygames, made by governors and masters of this citie, with the triumphant setting up of the greate shafte, (a principall May-pole in Cornhill, before the parish church of S. Andrew, therefore called Undershafte,) by meane of an insurrection of youthes against alianes, on May-day, 1517, have not beene so freely used as afore."
— from The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 19, No. 544, April 28, 1832 by Various

We have killed many Germans and many of our own homes were put into mourning.
— from My Austrian Love The History of the Adventures of an English Composer in Vienna. Written in the Trenches by Himself by Maxime Provost

At Granada and many other towns the Church processions have been given up; but at Seville the custom remains unchanged from the Middle Ages.
— from Things seen in Spain by C. Gasquoine (Catherine Gasquoine) Hartley

Sir Robert Peel, Lord Stanley, Sir James Graham, and most others who spoke on the Ministerial side spoke with one voice, in warning the House of Commons that if it claimed a right to touch any of the revenues of the Irish State Church in order to appropriate them for the general education of the Irish people, the result must be that the time would come when the Irish Church itself would no longer be held sacred against the desecrating hand of the modern reformer, would be treated as no longer necessary to the welfare of the Irish people, and would be severed from the State and left upon a level {247} with the Roman Catholic Church and the various dissenting denominations.
— from A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV by Justin H. (Justin Huntly) McCarthy

But her mind was in the background of her fevered senses, and when she looked in the glass and mused on uttering the word, 'Liar!' to the lovely image, her senses were refreshed, her mind somewhat relieved, the face appeared so sovereignly defiant of abasement.
— from Diana of the Crossways — Complete by George Meredith

The assemblage comprised His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief, staff, high military officers, and heads of departments, a guard of honour, Government and municipal officers, representatives of the native princes and nobility, and, in addition, a large concourse of the community.
— from Recollections of Thirty-nine Years in the Army Gwalior and the Battle of Maharajpore, 1843; the Gold Coast of Africa, 1847-48; the Indian Mutiny, 1857-58; the expedition to China, 1860-61; the Siege of Paris, 1870-71; etc. by Gordon, Charles Alexander, Sir

It became obvious, however, that units might be placed in circumstances in which they did not require their ambulances, and others in circumstances in which they required more than their share; and accordingly Surgeon-General Williams decided to park the whole of these motor ambulances in two garages, a major one at Heliopolis and a smaller one at Ghezira, near No. 2 General Hospital.
— from The Australian Army Medical Corps in Egypt An Illustrated and Detailed Account of the Early Organisation and Work of the Australian Medical Units in Egypt in 1914-1915 by P. E. (Percival Edgar) Deane

[5] CONTENTS I. Cave Explorations in the Ozark Region of Central Missouri Page Introduction 13 The Upper Current River 18 Shannon County 18 Bat Cave 18 Blue Spring, or Fishing Cave 18 Welch's Cave 18 Big Creek Cave 18 Texas County 19 Smith Caves 19 Saltpeter Cave 19 Dent County 20 Mammoth Cave 20 Guthoerl Cave 20 Short Bend Cave 20 Money Cave 21 Saltpeter Cave 21 Watson, Twin, or Onyx Caves 22 House mounds 22 Phelps County 22 Bates Cave 22 Another "Bates Cave" 23 Renaud Cave 23 Marsh Caves 23 Wild-hog Cave 23 Shelters 24 Phelps Cave 24 "Key Rocks" 24 Jones Cave 24 Yancy Mills Cave 24 Lane Mound 24 Cairns on Lost Hill, at mouth of Gourd Creek 24 Exploration of the Gourd Creek Cave 28 Onyx Cave 34 Goat Bluff Cave 35 Cairns at Sugar Tree Camp 40 Tick Creek Cave 41 Cave in Pool Hollow 41 House mounds near Rolla 41 House mounds near Dillon 42 House mounds near St. James 42 [6] Pulaski County 42 McWilliams Cave 42 Davis Caves 42 Berry Cave 43 Maxey Cave 43 Yoark Cave 43 Graves at Laughlin's 44 Kerr Cave 44 Sell Cave 45 Phillips Cave 51 Bell's Cave 51 Camp-ground Cave 51 Bucher Cave 51 Graves near McKennan's 52 Roubidoux Cave 52 Richland Cave 52 Rollins Caves 52 Mix Cave 53 Double Cave 54 Railroad Cave 55 Bat, or Page, Cave 55 Tunnel Cave 56 Brooks Cave 56 Riddle Cave 56 Lane's Cave 56 Dry Creek Cave 56 House mounds 56 Riden's Cave 57 Saltpeter Cave 57 Miller's Cave 57 Ramsey's Cave 81 Graham Cave 83 Pillman's, or Spring Creek, Cave 83 Woodland Hollow Cave 84 Walled graves at Devil's Elbow 84 Cairns on Helm's farm 87 Ash Cave 89 Clemmens Creek Cave 89 Camden County 89 Along the Niangua River 89 A fossil cave 91 Miller County 91 Wright Cave 92 Wilson Cave 94 Bagnell Cave 94 Bode Cave 94 Luckenhoff Cave 94 Jurggenmeyer Cave 94 Daerhoff Cave 95 Cave near mouth of Tavern Creek 95 Bat Cave 95 Grave at mouth of Saline Creek 95 Stark's Cave 96 House mounds 96 Cairns 96 [7] Maries County 96 Indian Ford Cave 96 Lackaye's Bluff Cave 97 Hurricane Bluff Cave 97 Stratman Cave 98 Osage County 98 River Cave 98 Rock-shelter 98 Steuffer Cave 99 Cairns 99 House mounds 99 "Indian Fort" 99 Cole County 100 Natural Bridge Cave 100 Morgan County 100 Speers Cave 100 House mounds 100 II.
— from Archeological Investigations Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 by Gerard Fowke

"You say you heard the man Wynne groaning and moaning on the garden pathway after he was shot, and then practically saw him die?"
— from The Riddle of the Frozen Flame by Mary E. Hanshew