Did not the glance of his royal countenance, like concentrated sunbeams, kindle all hearts in an august Assembly; nay thereby in an inflammable enthusiastic France?
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

Leo was left for dead on the ground: on his revival from the swoon, the effect of his loss of blood, he recovered his speech and sight; and this natural event was improved to the miraculous restoration of his eyes and tongue, of which he had been deprived, twice deprived, by the knife of the assassins.
— 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

The Greek ecclesiastics were themselves the subjects of the civil magistrate: at the nod of a tyrant, the bishops were created, or transferred, or deposed, or punished with an ignominious death: whatever might be their wealth or influence, they could never succeed like the Latin clergy in the establishment of an independent republic; and the patriarch of Constantinople condemned, what he secretly envied, the temporal greatness of his Roman brother.
— 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

The master of the Roman world, who aspired to erect an eternal monument of the glories of his reign could employ in the prosecution of that great work, the wealth, the labor, and all that yet remained of the genius of obedient millions.
— 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

Attila had fondly or superstitiously believed, that Irnac, the youngest of his sons, was destined to perpetuate the glories of his race.
— 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

Porthos would have found it very difficult even to make him see that he was dying of hunger; he has gone on his road as inexorable as fate and we must seek him somewhere else.”
— from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

Lew Cheney, with whom I became acquainted—a shrewd, cunning negro, more intelligent than the generality of his race, but unscrupulous and full of treachery—conceived the project of organizing a company sufficiently strong to fight their way against all opposition, to the neighboring territory of Mexico.
— from Twelve Years a Slave Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River in Louisiana by Solomon Northup

The celebrated David Hume was one of those geographers of human reason who believe that they have given a sufficient answer to all such questions by declaring them to lie beyond the horizon of our knowledge—a horizon which, however, Hume was unable to determine.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

But these songs are generally of love or homely matter, and do not tend to inspire the listener with ambition to emulate the deeds of his fathers for the honour and glory of his race and country.
— from The Passing of the Turkish Empire in Europe by B. Granville (Bernard Granville) Baker

“Be brave,” she cried, “you yet may be our guest, Our haunted room was ever held the best.
— from The Antiquary — Complete by Walter Scott

Then if I trust to the ordinary Christmas Cards of commerce, I am often at a loss to select an appropriate recipient for a nestful of owls, or the picture of a Clown touching up an elderly gentleman of highly respectable appearance with a red-hot poker!
— from Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, January 3, 1891 by Various

Then there was a crushing grasp of hands, repeated after a pause, in testimony of ancient friendship, and Mr. Billings, returning to practical life, asked,— "Is that all your baggage?
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 52, February, 1862 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

The long-wished-for hour for the gratification of his revenge had come at last, and the first use which he made of his power when he was put in possession of it at Alexandria was to order his daughter to be beheaded.
— from History of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt by Jacob Abbott

We know what the pathetically sublime literature was which the drama gave to Athens; how poets of profound and capacious spirits, who had looked into themselves—and, so enlightened, had observed human life—were able, by taking for their subjects the strongly portrayed characters and the stern situations of the old Greek fable, to unite in their lofty and impressive scenes the truth of nature and the tender interests which endear our familiar homes, to the grandeur of heroic recollections, to the awe of religion, and to the pomp, the magnificence, and the beauty of a gorgeous yet intellectual art.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 by Various

Accius was the last, as he seems to have been the greatest, of his race.
— from Latin Literature by J. W. (John William) Mackail

It is later enhanced by the glimpse we get of his room—'extremely dennish, smitingly red as to walls, oppressive with plush upholstery.
— from Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories by H. G. (Harrison Griswold) Dwight

That was due partly to the conditions of modern warfare, which make it difficult for generals of high rank to get into direct personal touch with their troops, and to the masses of men engaged.
— from Now It Can Be Told by Philip Gibbs

Those who had erroneously and unjustly censured Johnston, convicted of their error by the grandeur of his revealed character, joined in the general lamentation over his loss, and malignity even was silenced by the devoted manner of his death.
— from The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 2 by Jefferson Davis