Now I should be glad if you would, in my presence, pink some impertinent fellow into convulsions, without endangering his life, that I may have an opportunity of taking a good clever agony from nature: the doctor will direct you where to enter and how far to go, but pray let it be as near the left side as possible.”
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

479 When the two centurions are both on the field, the first elected commands the right of the maniple, the second the left: if both are not there, the one who is commands the whole.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius

Old as the world is, let it be always new to us as we are new to it.
— from Life's Enthusiasms by David Starr Jordan

With all these startling facts in her possession, Mary wrote to Elizabeth with an air of unsuspicious kindness, requesting her to come to her from Ashridge, informing her that malicious and ill-disposed persons accused her of favouring the late insurrection; but appearing not to believe it, and giving as a reason for her wishing her to be nearer, that the times were so unsettled that she would be in greater security with her.
— from Cassell's History of England, Vol. 2 (of 8) From the Wars of the Roses to the Great Rebellion by Anonymous

I hope the charges for artists living in Barbizon are not the same as those for an artist passing through, disguised as a tricycler.—But Siron’s, with its elegant waiter and prices, and its Exhibition open to the public, was not the Siron’s we had expected.
— from Our sentimental journey through France and Italy A new edition with Appendix by Joseph Pennell

From boyhood up he had loved lying in bed; and now that fate had allowed him to do this without incurring rebuke he objected to having his reveries broken up by officious relations.
— from Something New by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

So strangely it bow'd him, so wilder'd his brain, That now he stood, hatless, renouncing his reign; Now mutter'd of dust laid in blood; and now 'Twixt wonder and patience went lifting his brow.
— from Captain Sword and Captain Pen: A Poem by Leigh Hunt

From the alarming increase of the leak it became absolutely necessary to ascertain the full extent of the damage, in order that we might, if possible, repair it, so as not to prevent the further prosecution of the voyage, or at least to ensure our return to Port Jackson.
— from Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 — Volume 1 by Philip Parker King

The life of a man here, if life it be, and not the vain image of what might be a life, is a continual attempt to find his place, his centre of recipiency, and active agency.
— from A Dish of Orts : Chiefly Papers on the Imagination, and on Shakespeare by George MacDonald

Lots o’ bad land in between and no trail.”
— from The Mesa Trail by H. (Henry) Bedford-Jones

Crack in the Ice We sailed steadily and well the whole day, and now at last had to pass the difficult cape; but it was evening before we left it behind, and now the wind dropped so much that the whole double sail had to be hoisted again, and even then progress was slow.
— from Farthest North, Vol. II Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 by Fridtjof Nansen