His dress was a tunic of forest green, furred at the throat and cuffs with what was called minever; a kind of fur inferior in quality to ermine, and formed, it is believed, of the skin of the grey squirrel.
— from Ivanhoe: A Romance by Walter Scott

As incident to the undefined power of making war, an acknowledged prerogative of the crown, Charles II. had, by his own authority, kept on foot in time of peace a body of 5,000 regular troops.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton

His father made a great fortune by selling some kind of food in circular tins—most palatable, I believe—I fancy it is the thing the servants always refuse to eat.
— from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde

But the most honorable kind of following, is to be followed as one that apprehendeth to advance virtue and desert in all sorts of persons; and yet, where there is no eminent odds in sufficiency, it is better to take with the more passable, than with the more able; and, besides, to speak truth in base times, active men are of more use than virtuous.
— from Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients by Francis Bacon

The great advantage of this kind of fame is that to relate what one has seen, is much easier than to impart one's thoughts, and people are apt to understand descriptions better than ideas, reading the one more readily than the other: for, as Asmus says, When one goes forth a-voyaging He has a tale to tell .
— from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: the Wisdom of Life by Arthur Schopenhauer

He was also very wroth that they should go, to the extravagance of having the same meat both roasted and boiled at the same meal; for he considered an eatable which was steeped in the vapours of the kitchen, and which the skill of the cook rubbed over with many kinds of flavours, in the light of a monstrosity.
— from The Danish History, Books I-IX by Grammaticus Saxo

Year, together with his Domestick Servants and Followers, from whom he received as many Portions, besides what he had from his Slaves in Gold, Pearls, and Jewels, as the Chief Governor would have taken, and all that were constituted to execute any kind of Kingly Office followed in the same Footsteps; every one sending as many of his Servants as he could spare, to share in the spoil.
— from A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies Or, a faithful NARRATIVE OF THE Horrid and Unexampled Massacres, Butcheries, and all manner of Cruelties, that Hell and Malice could invent, committed by the Popish Spanish Party on the inhabitants of West-India, TOGETHER With the Devastations of several Kingdoms in America by Fire and Sword, for the space of Forty and Two Years, from the time of its first Discovery by them. by Bartolomé de las Casas

As soon as I had acquired a very imperfect knowledge of fingering I begged to be allowed to play overtures in the form of duets, always keeping Weber as the goal of my ambition.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner

But what come to me as clear as the daylight, it was when I was troubling over poor Bessy Fawkes, and it allays comes into my head when I'm sorry for folks, and feel as I can't do a power to help 'em, not if I was to get up i' the middle o' the night—it comes into my head as Them above has got a deal tenderer heart nor what I've got—for I can't be anyways better nor Them as made me; and if anything looks hard to me, it's because there's things I don't know on; and for the matter o' that, there may be plenty o' things I don't know on, for it's little as I know—that it is.
— from Silas Marner by George Eliot

This day I hear the Pope is dead;—[a false report]—and one said, that the newes is, that the King of France is stabbed, but that the former is very true, which will do great things sure, as to the troubling of that part of the world, the King of Spayne
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

But the coffin, filled with gravel, was laid up in the aisle, and kept open for inspection.
— from The Shepherd's Calendar. Volume I (of II) by James Hogg

It is not ours to separate The tangled skein of will and fate, To show what metes and bounds should stand Upon the soul's debatable land, And between choice and Providence Divide the circle of events; But lie who knows our frame is just, Merciful and compassionate, And full of sweet assurances And hope for all the language is, That He remembereth we are dust!
— from Poems of Nature, Poems Subjective and Reminiscent and Religious Poems, Complete Volume II of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier by John Greenleaf Whittier

They both told themselves that they were not likely to meet anything that would do them harm, but, all the same, neither of them could help wondering whether there would be any unpleasant kind of fish in the depths as they neared the lake.
— from Crown and Sceptre: A West Country Story by George Manville Fenn

she replied, with a kind of feverish impatience.
— from Nell, of Shorne Mills; or, One Heart's Burden by Charles Garvice

[Pg 422] in which many wild animals, especially rodents, cling to cover, and only venture on a dash across the open as a desperate measure—even then making for every stone or bunch of weeds which may give a momentary shelter—when we see this we are strongly tempted to ask whether such an odd kind of fear in us be not due to the accidental resurrection, through disease, of a sort of instinct which may in some of our ancestors have had a permanent and on the whole a useful part to play?
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2) by William James

There was a kind of fascination in adding hour to hour, and day to day, in this record of his new-born austerity.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867 A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics by Various

Near four hundred years ago, as your grace knoweth, there being ill blood betwixt John, King of England, and the King of France, it was decreed that two champions should fight together in the lists, and so settle the dispute by what is called the arbitrament of God.
— from The Prince and the Pauper, Part 4. by Mark Twain

She said she had knowledge of facts in writing that almost conclusively proved to her that Lee was an agent of the CIA.
— from Warren Commission (01 of 26): Hearings Vol. I (of 15) by United States. Warren Commission

The artful Guidobaldo had set up the Borgia arms and those of the King of France in conspicuous places in Urbino and throughout the various cities of his domain.
— from Lucretia Borgia According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day by Ferdinand Gregorovius