To read writers whose lines express the utmost possible impurity so dexterously and cunningly that not a vulgar word is used, but rosy, glowing, suggestive language—authors who soften evil and show deformity with the tints of beauty—what is this but to take the feet out of the straight road into the guiltiest path of seduction? Very few realize the power of a diseased imagination to ruin a precious life.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden

It was no longer the brave, the gallant, the haughty earl of Essex, the favorite of the queen, the admiration of the ladies, the darling of the soldiery, the idol of the people;—no longer even the undaunted prisoner, pouring forth invectives against his enemies in answer to the charges against himself; loudly persisting in the innocence of his intentions, instead of imploring mercy for his actions, and defending his -478- -vol ii- honor while he asserted a lofty indifference to life;—it was a meek and penitent offender, profoundly sensible of all his past transgressions, but taught to expect their remission in the world to which he was hastening, through the fervency of his prayers and the plenitude of his confessions; and prepared, as his latest act, to perform in public a solemn religious service, composed for his use by the assistant clergy, whose directions he obeyed with the most scrupulous minuteness.
— from Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth by Lucy Aikin

It is possible that, in this latitude, he may have, a little, exceeded the utmost point reached by him on the Mississippi; and he hence confined his adventurous marches to Southern Missouri and Arkansas.
— from Scenes and Adventures in the Semi-Alpine Region of the Ozark Mountains of Missouri and Arkansas by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

The annexed wood-cut exhibits a longitudinal section of the glacier, in which this difference in the motion of the upper and lower portions of the mass is represented, the beds being almost horizontal in the upper snow-fields, while their lower portion slopes move rapidly downward in the névé region, and toward the lower end the upper portion takes the lead, and advances more rapidly than the lower.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 74, December, 1863 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

A little earlier than usual Paul closed his stand, and walked across the City Hall Park and up Chatham street to a store he had frequently seen.
— from Slow and Sure: The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant by Alger, Horatio, Jr.

As the old woodranger gave vent to this last exclamation, the unseen party who had been signalling to them from behind the big oak, suddenly stepped into view, holding both hands above his head in token of amity.
— from The Pioneer Boys on the Great Lakes; or, On the Trail of the Iroquois by St. George Rathborne

She was a good deal louder even than usual, partly as the result of this excitement, and partly as the result of absence from town; and she had also grown considerably {46} stouter.
— from A Valiant Ignorance; vol. 2 of 3 A Novel in Three Volumes by Mary Angela Dickens

He is represented (being doubtless drawn from life) as the harshest of landlords, exacting the utmost penny of rent, leaving his peasantry to squalor and disease, or driving them off his estates to escape the burden of the poor-rate, and astonished to find Swing and his bonfires starting up about him as his natural reward.
— from The Earl of Beaconsfield by James Anthony Froude

It proved its efficiency as a fighting machine in the Chino-Japanese War; while the Japanese troops that took part in the relief of the Peking Legations earned the unstinted praise of all the military experts who watched their behavior.
— from The Japan-Russia War: An Illustrated History of the War in the Far East by Sydney Tyler