A lovely violet growing upon one of those black slag-heaps of the mines would not have seemed more surprising.
— from The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle

What is accounted so great an advantage in the case of the English system of government at home has been its misfortune in India—that it grew up of itself, not from preconceived design, but by successive expedients, and by the adaptation of machinery originally created for a different purpose.
— from Considerations on Representative Government by John Stuart Mill

These day dreams appear in the period before puberty, often as early as the last years of childhood, continue into the years of maturity, are then either given up or retained through life.
— from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud

The number kept growing until one morning, at the end of two weeks, found by actual count 2,014 shivering creatures in line waiting their turn for a seat at his tables.
— from How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. (Jacob August) Riis

At this name the landlady was taken aback, and said, "Senor, the fact is I have no beds; but if his lordship the Judge carries one with him, as no doubt he does, let him come in and welcome; for my husband and I will give up our room to accommodate his worship."
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

We’ll be resolved he lives to govern us, Or dead, give’s cause to mourn his funeral, And leave us to our free election.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

At night he went to bed with his wife at the usual time, and when she thought that he had fallen asleep, she got up, opened the door, and then lay down again.
— from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm by Wilhelm Grimm

There was a family of Carters in Virginia who claimed close relationship with me; I was supposed to be a great uncle, or something of the kind equally foolish.
— from A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

In which I am well informed that they are not as they should be to make them knees, and I hope shall make good use of it to the King’s service.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Why, don't you see this gets us out of our difficulty?
— from The Talking Horse, and Other Tales by F. Anstey

Cooking is a sensual, grovelling utterance of feeling, you think?
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 59, September, 1862 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

Or go up on the hill by the race-course, the highest part near the sea, and sit down there on the turf.
— from Nature Near London by Richard Jefferies

I do not recollect that Bairnsfather ever gave us one, but they turn up from time to time in the pages of Punch .
— from A Padre in France by George A. Birmingham

“During the two and a half hours Wheeler was in Beccles, he made good use of eyes and ears, and his {45} report—based upon information given him by a carter whom the enemy had compelled to haul supplies from Lowestoft—was full of deepest interest and most valuable.
— from The Invasion of 1910, with a full account of the siege of London by William Le Queux

The general concurrence, the glorious union of all things prove the fact.
— from The Writings of Thomas Paine — Volume 1 (1774-1779): The American Crisis by Thomas Paine

[186] The main Page 52 [52] use of this Babylonian symbol seems to have been in the fractions, 60ths, 3600ths, etc., and somewhat similar to the Greek use of ο , for οὐδέν , with the meaning vacant .
— from The Hindu-Arabic Numerals by David Eugene Smith

Now there are ten great sermons in Acts, and I think if you get a good hold on these you will have a pretty good understanding of the book and how to preach.
— from Pleasure & Profit in Bible Study by Dwight Lyman Moody

"Oh, if only the seigneur of Plouernel grants us our lives, I would care little for that wealth that, for my sake, you bemoan."
— from The Pilgrim's Shell; Or, Fergan the Quarryman: A Tale from the Feudal Times by Eugène Sue

S. Michael's Mount is a grand upshoot of granite from the sea.
— from A Book of Cornwall by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould