When we reflect on these facts, here given much too briefly, with respect to the wide, diversified, and graduated range of structure in the eyes of the lower animals; and when we bear in mind how small the number of all living forms must be in comparison with those which have become extinct, the difficulty ceases to be very great in believing that natural selection may have converted the simple apparatus of an optic nerve, coated with pigment and invested by transparent membrane, into an optical instrument as perfect as is possessed by any member of the Articulata class.
— 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

No lack of his that, with victorious force, His giant strides mark not his glory's course: Some god retains: our sovereign I might name; Himself no less than conqueror divine, Whom one short month made master of the Rhine.
— from Fables of La Fontaine — a New Edition, with Notes by Jean de La Fontaine

All have made this first attempt towards an approximation to a standing army; but, though the chiefs would make compensation to get rid of some particular service, they are very reluctant to renounce lands, by which alone a fixed force could be maintained.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

82 , 119 , 137 , 146 , 148 , 149 , 150 , 175 , 205 , 210 , 214 , 217 , 244 –5, 255 , 267 , 282 , 284 , 295 Go-cart on wheels as vehicle of god, 175 Gourd ( Lagenaria ) used in sorcery, 227 ; to ward off evil eye, 114 Grain, omens, 21 , 36 , 49 , 136 ; in fortune-telling, 283 ; mixed with meriah ashes, 204 ; representing goddess, 61 ; to appease evil spirit, 245 —— crop, omens from cattle, 60 Grāma dēvata (village deities), 14 , 22 , 27 , 145 , 151 , 283 ; Amba Bhavani, 281 –2; Ankalamma, 22 , 65 ; Ankamma, 285 ; Chaudēswari, 39 ; Chenchu Dēvudu, 286 ; Durgamma, 143 , 151 ; Ellamma, 41 , 137 ; Gangamma, 38 , 144 , 156 , 219 ; Gurumurthi, 254 ; Guttalamma, 155 ; Huligavva, 41 ; Karuppan, 153 ; Kodalamma, 36 , 304 ; Kolapuriamma, 283 ; Kolaramma, 103 ; Kulanthal Amman, 172 –3; Māgāli, 279 ; Māriamma, 37 , 144 , 146 , 148 , 151 , 176 , 214 ; Mashani Chendi, 236 ; Nukalamma, 15 ; Pīda, 175 ; Pōleramma, 35 , 283 , 285 ; Saptha Kannimar, 166 , 284 , 285 ; Sattāndi Amman, 103 ; Siddēdēvaru, 177 ; Yerakamma, 75 Grindstone in rain ceremony, 305 Gudigāra, 48 , 164 Guest, arrival, omens, 20 , 67 Gul bel ( Tinospora cordifolia ), 94 Gun fired off to accelerate childbirth, 54 Haddi, 83 , 106 Hair, burning, 53 , 115 ; offered to deity, 137 , 138 , 140 –1; to snakes, 135 ; shaving, 22 , 29 , 45 , 309 ; singeing as omen, 35 ; use in magic, 220 , 248 , 250 , 253 –5; worn as charm, 193 Hair-balls vomited by cows, 61 ——-marks (suli) in horses and cattle, 61 –5 Hamstringing of murderer’s corpse, 257 Hand, imprint against evil eye, 119 –20 Hanged person, bark of tree as charm, 194 Hanumān, 41 , 186 , 194 , 195 , 304 Hare, 24 , 85 Holeya, 28 , 38 , 297 , 299 Homicide, 199 –236; as thank-offering for recovery from illness, 208 ; for discovering treasure, 215 –21; to appease the earth spirit, 214 , 215 ; to cure possession by devil, 221 ; to ensure good crops, 199 –207; to get rid of concubine, 231 ; to get rid of sorcerer, 232 –4, 236 ; to increase fertility of the soil, 208 –9; to insure cattle against disease, 209 ; to propitiate [ 316 ] village deities, 214 ; to secure fœtus for sorcery, 224 –30; to stay epidemic, 235 –6 Hoofs burnt in lying-in chamber, 53 Hook-swinging, omens, 71 Horn burnt during eclipse, 44 ; in lying-in chamber, 53 Horoscope, 80 , 274 , 275 Horse, 29 , 62 , 64 , 82 , 166 , 186 –7 ——, images set up in fields, and at Aiyanar shrines, 166 –7 House occupation, omen, 44 , 59 House-building, omens, 33 , 39 –40, 70 Human (meriah) sacrifice, 199 –206 —— sacrifice, substituted ceremony, 205 –7, 212 Husband’s name, pronouncing unlucky, 20 Hyæna, 76 , 77 , 191 Idaiyan, 15 , 47 “Iguana” ( Varanus ), 16 , 71 , 100 , 132 , 220 Image reflected in oil, 45 , 55 ; cf.
— from Omens and Superstitions of Southern India by Edgar Thurston

But here, even in my grand room of state, there wasn’t anything in the nature of a picture except a thing the size of a bedquilt, which was either woven or knitted (it had darned places in it), and nothing in it was the right color or the right shape; and as for proportions, even Raphael himself couldn’t have botched them more formidably, after all his practice on those nightmares they call his “celebrated Hampton Court cartoons.”
— from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

All these I secured, together with several things belonging to the gunner, particularly two or three iron crows, and two barrels of musket bullets, seven muskets, another fowling-piece, with some small quantity of powder more; a large bagful of small shot, and a great roll of sheet-lead; but this last was so heavy, I could not hoist it up to get it over the ship’s side.
— from The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

That infernal Secretary stands between them and—people of merit.' 'If he could be got rid of?' said she, brightening a little, after more casting about.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

Great as are the differences between the breeds of the pigeon, I am fully convinced that the common opinion of naturalists is correct, namely, that all are descended from the rock-pigeon (Columba livia), including under this term several geographical races or sub-species, which differ from each other in the most trifling respects.
— 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

to gird round one's self, Jno. 21.7.
— from A Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament by William Greenfield

The music was quickening and broadening with a clear, glad reach of sound, and underneath it ran a swiftly echoing touch that bound the notes together and vibrated through them.
— from Unfinished Portraits: Stories of Musicians and Artists by Jennette Lee

We shall not exemplify this further, but will now point out the general relationship of sun worship to [Pg 74] the religious festivals and mythology of the Ancients.
— from The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races: An Interpretation by Sanger Brown

[167] "The best state of weather for a good run," says my correspondent, "is clear days, thawing fast in the daytime and freezing well at night, with a gentle west or northwest wind; though we sometimes have clear, fine, thawing days followed by frosty nights, without a good run of sap, I have thought it probable that the irregular flow of sap on different days in the same season is connected with the variation in atmospheric pressure; for the atmospheric conditions above mentioned as those most favorable to a free flow of sap are also those in which the barometer usually indicates pressure considerably above the mean.
— from Man and Nature; Or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action by George P. (George Perkins) Marsh

Gilbert reasoned on such knowledge as he had, and this did not include any notion of the secular changes in the declination.
— from William Gilbert, and Terrestial Magnetism in the Time of Queen Elizabeth A Discourse by Silvanus P. (Silvanus Phillips) Thompson

Like the obscure philosopher of early Greek speculation, he believed in the identity of contraries; like Plato, he was an idealist, and had all the idealist’s contempt for utilitarian systems; he was a mystic like Dionysius, and Scotus Erigena, and Jacob Böhme, and held, with them and with Philo, that the object of life was to get rid of self-consciousness, and to become the unconscious vehicle of a higher illumination.
— from A Critic in Pall Mall: Being Extracts from Reviews and Miscellanies by Oscar Wilde

The skirmish lasted four hours; after which they entered the town, not without very great resistance of such as were within, who defended themselves as long as possible, and many seeing the enemy in the town shut themselves up in their own houses and thence made several shots upon the pirates, who therefore threatened them, saying, ‘If you surrender not voluntarily, you shall soon see the town in a flame, and your wives and children torn in pieces before your faces.’ Upon these menaces, the Spaniards submitted to the discretion of the pirates, believing they could not continue there long.”
— from The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 3 by Frederick Whymper

And the hotels garnis rob one shamefully!"
— from Mlle. Fouchette: A Novel of French Life by Charles Theodore Murray

Let us look now, for a moment, at the grand requisites of style, Precision , Unity , and Strength .
— from Junius Unmasked Or, Thomas Paine the author of the Letters of Junius and the Declaration of Independence by Joel Moody

Misery alone, hardened veteran of many desert journeys that he was, had drunk his fill, and now his great reserve of strength showed plainly over the other beasts.
— from The Lost Explorers: A Story of the Trackless Desert by Alexander MacDonald

So he gave himself a little latitude, he let in an undercurrent of gentle reminiscence, of serious assurance as to the difference she had made.
— from Hilda: A Story of Calcutta by Sara Jeannette Duncan