The Jews meanwhile, long groaning under the weight of Roman taxation in Cyprus, as in Palestine, and overwhelmed with rage and despair, conspired together, and collecting into a formidable army slew, as it is stated, 250,000 men, a number which indicates how densely populated the 106 island must have been.
— from Cyprus: Historical and Descriptive by Franz von Löher

I will try and relate how, like the Lady of Shalott, when I first began to gaze upon the world of realities "the curse" came upon me.
— from The Wit of Women Fourth Edition by Kate Sanborn

They had to cross a bridge that groaned under the weight of rolling trains, and turned to the right down a path winding between the embankment on one side, and on the other thatched huts, and old sheds, and other houses less poverty-stricken, indeed, but closed and impenetrable after daybreak.
— from The Cathedral by J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans