Those who have been contented with humble grounds of expediency seem to have been few in number, and have recanted or are out of favor.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Gentleman of Elvas states that Guaxule was subject to the queen of Cofitachiqui, but this may mean only that the people of the two towns or tribes were in friendly allianc
— from Myths of the Cherokee Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology by James Mooney

When the armies drew near, the front of the Mahometan line appeared to a Roman eye more closely planted with spears and javelins; but the event of the action was not glorious on either side to the national troops.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

[292] Therewithal the queen, somewhat provoked, though all the other ladies laughed, said, "Dioneo, leave jesting and sing us a goodly one; else shalt thou prove how I can be angry."
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

looking on thee Full flashes on the soul the light of ages, Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee, To the last halo of the chiefs and sages Who glorify thy consecrated pages; Thou wert the throne and grave of empires; still, The fount at which the panting mind assuages
— from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron

The Governments of Europe seem to treat the press with the courtesy of the knights of old; they are anxious to furnish it with the same central power which they have found to be so trusty a weapon, in order to enhance the glory of their resistance to its attacks.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville

The water soon flowed into its bed again, but watching the ground on either side, the foresters pursued their way content with knowing that the trail lay beneath.
— from The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757 by James Fenimore Cooper

Your order stands before Europe the most gorgeous of existing spectacles; though you have of late years dexterously thrown some of the odium of your polity upon that middle class which you despise, and who are despicable only because they imitate you, your tenure of power is not in reality impaired.
— from Sybil, Or, The Two Nations by Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield

I am but a poor girl—” “Of Egypt,” said the judge.
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

This conflict of right and fact has been going on ever since the origin of society.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

When the girls attain a marriageable age they are placed in seclusion, under the charge of a governess, or else sent to one or other of the great convents in the Capital managed by French and Spanish nuns of the Sacré Cœur, Assumption, and Ursuline orders.
— from Cuba Past and Present by Richard Davey

Broken, incoherent incidents of crime and misery, of tortured agonies and hellish vengeance, would cross my sleeping imagination, amidst which one picture ever recurred,—it was of the negro as I saw him at Anticosti, crouching beast-like on the earth, and while he patted the ground with his hand, throwing a stealthy, terrified glance on every side to see that he was not observed.
— from Confessions Of Con Cregan, the Irish Gil Blas by Charles James Lever

And the intrepid Shortt moves up, Placing his guns on either side, To sweep coulee and dark ravine, And the Cut Knife Hill far and wide.
— from Canadian Battlefields, and Other Poems by J. R. (John Richardson) Wilkinson

So shamelessly had this been going on ever since the days of Pickwick , in so many outrageous ways [74] and with all but impunity, that a course repeatedly urged by Talfourd and myself was at last taken in the present year with the Christmas Carol and the Chuzzlewit pirates.
— from The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete by John Forster

This brave old code, like Argus, had a hundred watchful eyes, And ev'ry English peasant had his good old English spies, To tempt his starving discontent with fine old English lies, Then call the good old Yeomanry to stop his peevish cries, In the fine old English Tory times; Soon may they come again!
— from The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete by John Forster

and Mrs. Dr. Van Buren's constant exultation over the "splendid match," helped to keep up the glamour of excitement, so that her promise had never been revoked, and now he was there to claim it.
— from Ethelyn's Mistake by Mary Jane Holmes

Every glint of expression seemed to have left her features.
— from The Double Four by E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

It is for the government of each state to provide fully for the dissecting-rooms of the medical colleges, to deliver to them all who die in prisons and poor-houses.
— from The cremation of the dead considered from an aesthetic, sanitary, religious, historical, medico-legal, and economical standpoint by Hugo Erichsen

How little Grandall guessed, or even suspected, that at just this time he could not have come to a place more fraught with danger to himself will never be known.
— from The Auto Boys' Mystery by James A. (James Andrew) Braden

( us , meaning, I suppose, the Old -mannians,) 'to have been terminated by the final revelation of the Gospel, has been going on ever since the foundation of the Church, is going on still, and must continue to advance.
— from Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 1 by Thomas De Quincey