So Slade said it was a pity to waste life on so small a matter, and proposed that the pistols be thrown on the ground and the quarrel settled by a fist-fight.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

Michaelmas was come, with its fragrant basketfuls of purple damsons, and its paler purple daisies, and its lads and lasses leaving or seeking service and winding along between the yellow hedges, with their bundles under their arms.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

[Lewis, July 5, 1806] July 5th 1806. Set out at 6 A.M.—steered N. 75 E. 61/2 M. passed a stout C. N Side at 21/2 M. another just above saw an old indian encampment of 11 lodges of bark and leather on S. side at 31/2 M. killed a deer.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

"I mean, that no man in his senses, would marry Lydia on so slight a temptation as one hundred a-year during my life, and fifty after I am gone."
— from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

“I love the look of snow,” said Aunt Julia sadly.
— from Dubliners by James Joyce

stitch, Holbein stitch, line, or stroke stitch, as it is sometimes called, and setting stitch, are all worked on one principle.
— from Encyclopedia of Needlework by Thérèse de Dillmont

But the revenge and ambition of Chosroes exhausted his kingdom; and the new levies of subjects, strangers, and slaves, were divided into three formidable bodies.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

"More likely offended," said Sandford, "at the manner in which that lady has spoken of her."
— from A Simple Story by Mrs. Inchbald

On his massive and saturnine face a look of sudden suspicion and enmity flashed for a moment.
— from Strictly Business: More Stories of the Four Million by O. Henry

"Steam has lowered our strength standards as it is, and presently labour will be called to do no more than press buttons in the midst of a roaring hell of machines.
— from The Spinners by Eden Phillpotts

Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best.—
— from Vassall Morton: A Novel by Francis Parkman

When at length they curved through the lawns of satin smoothness and Dick slowed down the car before the long white house, splendid in its simplicity, Maggie's excitement had added unto it a palpitant, chilling awe.
— from Children of the Whirlwind by Leroy Scott

Of course, legally to sell game, a license, which costs 2 l. 2 s. yearly, is required; but the street-seller laughs at the notion of being subjected to a direct tax; which, indeed, it might be impossible to levy on so “slippery” a class.
— from London Labour and the London Poor (Vol. 1 of 4) by Henry Mayhew

It is made of alternate layers of spider silk and earth, and is free for more than half its circumference, the remaining portion of the surface disc being attached to the side of the tube by a flexible hinge of silk.
— from Spiders by Cecil Warburton

The will directs that the interest of $10,000 of this sum shall be used in the support of lectures on scientific subjects and in the purchase of apparatus and collections illustrating the sciences; that the interest of $12,000 shall be used in the support of Sunday evening lectures on "The Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God as manifested in His Works," and that [205] the balance of $5,000 shall be used in the support of a school of design and in forming a gallery of fine arts.
— from A History of the City of Brooklyn and Kings County, Volume II. by Stephen M. Ostrander

He lived and died a bachelor, not relishing society in general, and liking only such shrewd acute friends as could track him in his subtleties, who had the grace to applaud him, and the wise policy of concealing their antagonisms.
— from English Lands, Letters and Kings, vol. 1: From Celt to Tudor by Donald Grant Mitchell