'Such as we usually have,' replied one of the men, who had been seated in the hall, 'we kill our game with tolerable certainty.'
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

On each wing Uriel, and Raphael, his vaunting foe, Though huge, and in a rock of diamond armed, Vanquished Adramelech, and Asmadai, Two potent Thrones, that to be less than Gods Disdained, but meaner thoughts learned in their flight, Mangled with ghastly wounds through plate and mail.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton

I don’t wonder that the old gentleman wants to keep it from you.’
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

It should also be carefully inquired whether, after getting what they went after, they did not ask for still more and get that, too, even though it constituted a discrimination against the rest of the world.
— from The International Jew : The World's Foremost Problem by Anonymous

Faith, and Sanctity, are indeed not very frequent; but yet they are not Miracles, but brought to passe by education, discipline, correction, and other naturall wayes, by which God worketh them in his elect, as such time as he thinketh fit.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

But I must not give way to the temptation of enlarging on these topics.
— from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) by Edwin Abbott Abbott

An acclimatised Britisher, he had seen that summer eve from the footplate of an engine cab of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained from falling glimpses, as it were, through the windows of loveful households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly rural of happiness of the better land with Dockrell’s wallpaper at one and ninepence a dozen, innocent Britishborn bairns lisping prayers to the Sacred Infant, youthful scholars grappling with their pensums or model young ladies playing on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour reciting the family rosary round the crackling Yulelog while in the boreens and green lanes the colleens with their swains strolled what times the strains of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound with four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a sacrifice, greatest bargain ever.... (Renewed laughter.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

Aslak was a great friend of King Olaf, and the king settled him in South Hordaland, where he gave him a great fief, and great income, and ordered him in no respect to give way to Erling.
— from Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson

I have played a great deal during the last three days, and with right good will too.
— from The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Volume 01 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

and I went down to it quite in raptures; but it being excessively pretty, it was soon found necessary to be improved, and for three months we were all dirt and confusion, without a gravel walk to step on, or a bench fit for use.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Now strain and thicken the gravy, and after dishing up the ducks, pour it over them, garnishing with the pieces of turnip.
— from The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) Cooking, Toilet and Household Recipes, Menus, Dinner-Giving, Table Etiquette, Care of the Sick, Health Suggestions, Facts Worth Knowing, Etc., Etc. The Whole Comprising a Comprehensive Cyclopedia of Information for the Home by Hugo Ziemann

As they say happened at Syracuse, when Plato went there, and Dionysius was seized with a furious passion for philosophy, and so great was the concourse of geometricians that they raised up quite a cloud of dust in the palace, but when Plato fell out of favour, and Dionysius gave up philosophy, and went back again headlong to wine and women and trifles and debauchery, then all the court was metamorphosed, as if they all had drunk of Circe's cup, for ignorance and oblivion and silliness reigned rampant.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

"This gentleman wants to know your name, Lizzie," he said.
— from 'Lizbeth of the Dale by Mary Esther Miller MacGregor

To come away from all this stuff, which grieves a man in London—when the brisk air of the autumn cleared its way to Ludgate Hill, and clever 'prentices ran out, and sniffed at it, and fed upon it (having little else to eat); and when the horses from the country were a goodly sight to see, with the rasp of winter bristles rising through and among the soft summer-coat; and when the new straw began to come in, golden with the harvest gloss, and smelling most divinely at those strange livery-stables, where the nags are put quite tail to tail; and when all the London folk themselves are asking about white frost (from recollections of childhood); then, I say, such a yearning seized me for moory crag, and for dewy blade, and even the grunting of our sheep (when the sun goes down), that nothing but the new wisps of Samson could have held me in London town.
— from Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor by R. D. (Richard Doddridge) Blackmore

I can not precisely mark the extent of their views, but it appeared in general, that General Gates was to be exalted on the ruin of my reputation and influence.
— from The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 Commander in Chief of the American Forces During the War which Established the Independence of his Country and First President of the United States by John Marshall

To-day, because it is mid-winter, and the wind blows from the west, the sea is clearer than ever, and far down below will be discerned lazily swimming to and fro great reddish-brown or bright blue groper, watching the dripping sides of the rock in hope that some of the active, gaily-hued crabs which scurry downwards as you approach may fall in—for the blue groper is a gourmet , disdaining to eat of his own tribe, and caring only for crabs or the larger and more luscious crayfish.
— from By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories by Louis Becke

AND HOW A LITTLE GOSSIP WARMS THE AIR.
— from The Hoyden by Duchess

An express was at once sent off to cantonments for aid; and in the meantime the guard, with three guns, went out to attack the insurgents.
— from The History of the Indian Revolt and of the Expeditions to Persia, China and Japan, 1856-7-8 by George Dodd

They marched in fours towards the foot of the hill, but had to cross the Harrismith Railway two deep through a gap where the wire fences were cut with nippers.
— from Ladysmith: The Diary of a Siege by Henry Woodd Nevinson