It was noble sport galloping over the plain in the dewy freshness of the morning, but our part of the hunt ended in disaster and disgrace, for a wounded buffalo bull chased the passenger Bemis nearly two miles, and then he forsook his horse and took to a lone tree.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

But Commodus, from his earliest infancy, discovered an aversion to whatever was rational or liberal, and a fond attachment to the amusements of the populace; the sports of the circus and amphitheatre, the combats of gladiators, and the hunting of wild beasts.
— 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 proper estimates were to be submitted to him as soon as possible, and it would greatly facilitate his entering into definite arrangements with the workpeople, if he could be informed of the exact period at which the wedding ceremony might be expected to take place.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Father Sanchez visited Rizal in his exile in Dapitan, and helped him start a school for the Dapitan boys In Jesuit colleges they divide the boys into two groups or “empires,”—one Roman and the other Greek.
— from Rizal's own story of his life by José Rizal

For inasmuch as his essence excludes all imperfection, and involves absolute perfection, all cause for doubt concerning his existence is done away, and the utmost certainty on the question is given.
— from Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza

In the composition of his speeches he was an imitator of Thucydides, whom he equalled in dignity, and excelled in clearness.
— from The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3) Literally Translated, with Notes by Strabo

Old Mr. Brown turned up his eyes in disgust at the impertinence of Nutkin.
— from The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin by Beatrix Potter

This man is habitually engaged in digging a hole.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

It is never well to be hasty, especially in declining a good offer, and this, let me tell you, is such an one as you will not meet with every day, lovely and attractive in every way, as your daughters are.
— from Elsie's children by Martha Finley

And as he wandered he came to a wood, and he entered its darkness and solitude, for he had little fear of meeting any foe, all having fled far from the Danes, and only the churls remaining, and they would be more afraid of him than he need be of them.
— from Wulnoth the Wanderer: A Story of King Alfred of England by Herbert Inman

Although in this arduous pursuit, the Author of this work has experienced infinite difficulties and discouragements, yet is he rewarded by the consciousness that he was engaged in an undertaking in which the best interests of Society were involved:—that independent of the pecuniary benefits derived by the State, and the Proprietors of Commercial Property (which already have unquestionably been very extensive,) he has been instrumental in bringing forward a great preventive System, and by administering the Laws in conjunction with a very zealous, -246- able, and humane Magistrate, [66] in a manner rather calculated to restrain than to punish , [67] a multitude of individuals, together with a numerous offspring, are likely to be rendered useful members of the Body Politic, instead of nuisances in Society.—The advantages thus gained (although his labours have been in other respects gratuitous,) will abundantly compensate the dangers , the toils , and the anxieties which have been experienced.
— from A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis Containing a Detail of the Various Crimes and Misdemeanors by which Public and Private Property and Security are, at Present, Injured and Endangered: and Suggesting Remedies for their Prevention by Patrick Colquhoun

he exclaimed, in dismay, and hastily snatched a lance from one of the sleeping guards.
— from King Eric and the Outlaws, Vol. 3 or, the Throne, the Church, and the People in the Thirteenth Century. by Bernhard Severin Ingemann

They have endured infinite dangers and hardships.
— from Christopher Columbus and the New World of His Discovery — Volume 8 by Filson Young

If a small quantity only of blood has escaped, its diffusion and increase may be prevented by the bandage: but a cyst will nevertheless be formed in the cellular tissue; its parietes will communicate with the margins of the aperture in the artery, its cavity with the canal of the vessel; an aneurism of the false kind will be established, and will run the course of one arising spontaneously.
— from Elements of Surgery by Robert Liston

If a student in natural philosophy is in too great haste to classify and interpret, he misleads, for a while, his fellow-students (not a very large class); he vitiates the observations of a few successors; his error is discovered and exposed; he is mortified, and his too docile followers are ridiculed, and there is an end; but if a traveller gives any quality which he may have observed in a few individuals as a characteristic of a nation, the evil is not speedily or easily remediable.
— from How to Observe: Morals and Manners by Harriet Martineau

he exclaimed in despair almost comic.
— from Sophia: A Romance by Stanley John Weyman

Locating in Carson City, for more than a year he there worked in the timber region, and in 1876 he went to San Joaquin county, California, where he engaged in driving a team during the following winter.
— from Lyman's History of old Walla Walla County, Vol. 2 Embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties by William Denison Lyman

And very fortunate it was that I did not succeed, for my career with such assistance only as a scholarship would have given me, would have ended in debt and ignominy.
— from An Autobiography of Anthony Trollope by Anthony Trollope