Who then—oh, who, is like our God so great, Who makes the seed expand beneath the mountain's weight; Who for a swallow's nest leaves one old castle wall, Who lets for famished beetles savory apples fall, Who bids a pigmy win where Titans fail, in yoke,
— from Poems by Victor Hugo

Boundless extension of torment, incredible intensity of suffering, unceasing variety of torture—this is what the divine majesty, so outraged by sinners, demands; this is what the holiness of heaven, slighted and set aside for the lustful and low pleasures of the corrupt flesh, requires; this is what the blood of the innocent Lamb of God, shed for the redemption of sinners, trampled upon by the vilest of the vile, insists upon.
— from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

I was surprised on reading on the facade this inscription in letters of gold, “Suicide Bureau.”
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

Then the herald rode near, and saw written round about his helmet in letters of gold, “Sir Gareth of Orkney.”
— from The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights by Knowles, James, Sir

He excelled his teacher in intelligence and the performance of wonderful feats, such as the production from a little earth in a flower-pot of some marvellous flowering plants, on the leaves of which were written in letters of gold some verses to this effect: The clouds hide Mount Ch’in Ling.
— from Myths and Legends of China by E. T. C. (Edward Theodore Chalmers) Werner

To shew her taste in laying out ground, she seized into her own hand a farm of two hundred acres, about a mile from the house, which she parcelled out into walks and shrubberies, having a great bason in the middle, into which she poured a whole stream that turned two mills, and afforded the best trout in the country.
— from The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. (Tobias) Smollett

Neither the estates in Languedoc, or Gascony, shall be yours; you have dared to question my right,—now dare to question my power.
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

There is less of gross substance in them than in any other created thing,—mere water and outline, destined to perish at a touch, but seemingly never touching, for they float secure, finding no conceivable cradle so soft as this awful sea.
— from Oldport Days by Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Who is the boy?" "Pardon that I rise not, beausire, to reply to you," answered the serf, "but this right leg of mine will not bear me; and when the hand of sickness hold us down, good will must make shift in lieu of good service.
— from Wager of Battle: A Tale of Saxon Slavery in Sherwood Forest by Henry William Herbert

Snells should be three or four inches long, of good single gut, the shorter length for end fly.
— from Bass, Pike, Perch, and Others by James A. (James Alexander) Henshall

Pulling it out as quick as thought, he turned it over, and the secret of the derelict hull was disclosed; for there, printed in letters of gold, showing that the piece of wood was probably part of the stern of one of the vessel’s boats, as its shape also suggested, was the name “ Dragon —.”
— from Picked up at Sea The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek by John C. (John Conroy) Hutcheson

Some of them may account for its undoubted value in lithæmic or gouty states; but, at all events, they point to the need for a more exhaustive study both of this and of other methods of exclusive diet.
— from Fat and Blood An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria by S. Weir (Silas Weir) Mitchell

“If she is like other girls she will hesitate before marrying a penniless man.”
— from A Gray Eye or So. In Three Volumes—Volume I, II and III: Complete by Frank Frankfort Moore