“I gathered finally that he was the son of a big chief, a sort of negro king of the region around Timbuctoo.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

There is a perfection which all knowledge ought to reach, and which our pupils ought also to attain, and not to fall short of, as I was saying that they did in astronomy.
— from The Republic by Plato

Then the Knight of the Redlands and Sir Gareth met with Sir Bors and Sir Bleoberis; and the Knight of the Redlands and Sir Bors smote together so hard that their spears burst, and their horses fell grovelling to the ground.
— from The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights by Knowles, James, Sir

He thought her so fair, so good; he spoke so lovingly of her charms, her sweetness, her innocence, that, in spite of my plain prose knowledge of the reality, a kind of reflected glow began to settle on her idea, even for me.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

In the 3rd row, insert 3 picots between the 8 double knots of the row above.
— from Encyclopedia of Needlework by Thérèse de Dillmont

So, when the end of March draws on, each householder betakes himself to the King of the Rain and offers him a cow that he may make the blessed waters of heaven to drip on the brown and withered pastures.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

much the fattest animale we have killed on the rout as this bear had got into the river before we killed her I had her toed across to the South Side under a high Bluff where formed a Camp, had the bear Skined and fleaced.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

I shouted out, and then fell on my knees on the rock and reached up my hands and prayed to them.
— from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

AND so this Lady Lile of Avelion took her this sword that she brought with her, and told there should no man pull it out of the sheath but if he be one of the best knights of this realm, and he should be hard and full of prowess, and with that sword he should slay her brother.
— from Le Morte d'Arthur: Volume 1 by Malory, Thomas, Sir

How could I think that just because a boy tags round after you from morning till night for the sake of being amused, that when he gets to be twenty-one he is going to keep on tagging round after you for the rest of his days?
— from Flamsted quarries by Mary E. (Mary Ella) Waller

The left wing of the royalist army, under the King of the Romans and his gallant son, was not so fortunate, for they met a determined resistance at the hands of Henry de Montfort.
— from The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The office which Fanny shared with that “old hag,” Mrs. Schwellenberg, was that of keeper of the robes, and she entered upon her new duties in the month Of July, 1786.
— from The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay — Volume 1 by Fanny Burney

Supposing the other not versed in any science of this kind, but acquainted with the traditions attached by the religion of dead nations to the figures they discerned in the sky: she will care little for arithmetical or geometrical matters, but will probably receive a much deeper emotion, from witnessing in clearness what has been the amazement of so many eyes long closed; and recognizing the same lights, through the same darkness, with innocent shepherds and husbandmen, who knew only the risings and settings of the immeasurable vault, as its lights shone on their own fields or mountains; yet saw true miracle in them, thankful that none but the Supreme Ruler could bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion.
— from The Eagle's Nest Ten Lectures on the Relation of Natural Science to Art, Given Before the University of Oxford, in Lent Term, 1872 by John Ruskin

Sam Smith was always known on the roads as Fighting Sam.
— from The Gypsies by Charles Godfrey Leland

"You are a teachable pupil," said Croesus, laying his hand on her head, "and as a reward, you shall be allowed either to visit Kassandane, or to receive Atossa in the hanging-gardens, every morning, and every afternoon until sunset."
— from An Egyptian Princess — Volume 04 by Georg Ebers

Rabbinical Judaism enforced this relentlessly in spite of the kindliness of the rabbis and their extreme indisposition to shed human blood.
— from A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; volume III by Henry Charles Lea

The absence of the other documents from the War Office is accounted for by the remarkable testimony of Benjamin F. Wade and Samuel Hunt (keeper of the records), as given on page 30, 45th Congress, 2d session, Mis.
— from A Military Genius Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland by Sarah Ellen Blackwell