It must be deep-rooted, so as to supply comedy with inexhaustible matter, and yet superficial, in order that it may remain within the scope of comedy; invisible to its actual owner, for the comic ever partakes of the unconscious, but visible to everybody else, so that it may call forth general laughter, extremely considerate to its own self, so that it may be displayed without scruple, but troublesome to others, so that they may repress it without pity; immediately repressible, so that our laughter may not have been wasted, but sure of reappearing under fresh aspects, so that laughter may always find something to do; inseparable from social life, although insufferable to society; capable—in order that it may assume the greatest imaginable variety of forms—of being tacked on to all the vices and even to a good many virtues.
— from Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic by Henri Bergson

The bride who was given away by her father, the M’Conifer of the Glands, looked exquisitely charming in a creation carried out in green mercerised silk, moulded on an underslip of gloaming grey, sashed with a yoke of broad emerald and finished with a triple flounce of darkerhued fringe, the scheme being relieved by bretelles and hip insertions of acorn bronze.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

Then, it was in the month of March, the days were growing longer, the winter was departing, the winter always bears away with it a portion of our sadness; then came April, that daybreak of summer, fresh as dawn always is, gay like every childhood; a little inclined to weep at times like the new-born being that it is.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

That the mantlings of peers whose arms have been matriculated since 1890 shall be either of the principal colour of the arms, lined with ermine, or of gules lined ermine (conformably to the Parliamentary Robe of Estate of a peer) as may happen to have been matriculated.
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

mosaic, tesselated, plaid; tortoise shell &c. n. spotted, spotty; punctated[obs3], powdered; speckled &c. v.; freckled, flea-bitten, studded; flecked, fleckered[obs3]; striated, barred, veined; brinded[obs3], brindled; tabby; watered; grizzled; listed; embroidered &c. v.; daedal[obs3]; naevose[obs3], stipiform[obs3]; strigose[obs3], striolate[obs3].
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget

[5] There is no expression in the German language exactly corresponding to stile empesé ; but the thing itself is all the more prevalent.
— from Essays of Schopenhauer by Arthur Schopenhauer

The Story of our Great Lakes E. Channing & M. F. Lansing Macmillan Co.
— from Boy Scouts Handbook The First Edition, 1911 by Boy Scouts of America

Like David before Goliath, little England confronted the bully of Europe where least expected, with menace to her great and growing empire of the West.
— from The Making of the Great West, 1512-1883 by Samuel Adams Drake

Hi An, a born gambler, like every Chinaman, had himself been speculating disastrously, and was unable to give any help.
— from Brown of Moukden: A Story of the Russo-Japanese War by Herbert Strang

Of course we must give Luigi every chance.
— from Those Extraordinary Twins by Mark Twain

¶ Although a wide variety of reading matter is provided, good literature, embodying child interests, has been considered of fundamental importance.
— from 'Round the Year in Myth and Song by Florence Holbrook

Gatien and Monsieur Gravier lavished every care, every servile attention on the handsome Countess.
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac

He greeted Lord Ernest cheerily enough, nodded to me in a not unfriendly way, and at once broke into exhortation: “It’s a very short life we live; man that is born of woman is of few days, and full of trouble.
— from Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (1 of 2) (2nd ed.) (1888) by William Henry Hurlbert

Dey tell me one man, Mr. Turner, give way his dog two or three days fore de earthquake come en dat dog get loose en come back de night of de shake.
— from Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves South Carolina Narratives, Part 1 by United States. Work Projects Administration

Around the sloping sides of the jewel, from left to right, runs the legend aelfred mec heht gewyrcan ( Alfred ordered me to be made ), in gold letters, exquisitely chiselled in open-work upon the band which encircles the enamel and its crystal covering.
— from Jewellery by H. Clifford (Harold Clifford) Smith

I observed, that if the men of substance were once banished from a Highland estate, it might probably be greatly reduced in its value; for one bad year might ruin a set of poor tenants, and men of any property would not settle in such a country, unless from the temptation of getting land extremely cheap; for an inhabitant of any good county in Britain, had better go to America than to the Highlands or the Hebrides.
— from Life of Johnson, Volume 5 Tour to the Hebrides (1773) and Journey into North Wales (1774) by James Boswell