And yet we find, that during more than two hundred and fifty years that elapsed from the defeat of Varus to the reign of Decius, these formidable barbarians made few considerable attempts, and not any material impression on the luxurious and enslaved provinces of the empire.
— 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

My wife and family received me with great surprise and joy, because they concluded me certainly dead; but I must freely confess the sight of them filled me only with hatred, disgust, and contempt; and the more, by reflecting on the near alliance I had to them.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift

This day I put on first my fine cloth suit made of a cloak that had like to have been [dirted] a year ago, the very day that I put it on.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

That we might be ready to avail ourselves, as far as possible, of any shower which might fall we took off our shirts, to make use of them as we had of the sheets—not hoping, of course, to get more in this way, even under the most favorable circumstances, than half a gill at a time.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

The ascetic priest is the incarnate wish for an existence of another kind, [Pg 155] an existence on another plane,—he is, in fact, the highest point of this wish, its official ecstasy and passion: but it is the very power of this wish which is the fetter that binds him here; it is just that which makes him into a tool that must labour to create more favourable conditions for earthly existence, for existence on the human plane—it is with this very power that he keeps the whole herd of failures, distortions, abortions, unfortunates, sufferers from themselves of every kind, fast to existence, while he as the herdsman goes instinctively on in front.
— from The Genealogy of Morals The Complete Works, Volume Thirteen, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy. by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

In the former thoroughfare businessmen and travellers were making for comfortable hotels.
— from Sister Carrie: A Novel by Theodore Dreiser

It was a sight frighted my wife, but I put some balsam of Mrs. Turner’s to it, and though in great pain, yet went on with my business, and did it to my full content, setting every thing in order, in hopes now that the worst of our fears are over as to the plague for the next year.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

"You have my free consent—a small gift from such a mother to her injured child!—but do not tell me of it.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Thence to Westminster, to Sir R. Longs Office: and, going, met Mr. George Montagu, who talked and complimented me mightily; and long discourse I had with him, who, for news, tells me for certain that Trevor do come to be Secretary at Michaelmas, and that Morrice goes out, and he believes, without any compensation.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

"Much more fun!" cried Robert Gaston.
— from Six Girls and the Tea Room by Marion Ames Taggart

I won’t offer to reward you, for I know you didn’t do it for that; but I shall hereafter give you my full confidence, and trust you as I would myself.”
— from Julius, the Street Boy; or, Out West by Alger, Horatio, Jr.

The ‘Lament of Daphnis,’ the song of unrequited love, the bantering dialogues of the shepherds and their more formal contests in song, reappear in Latin tones and with some new associations of individual and national life, but in such a manner as to recall the memory of the Sicilian idyl rather than to suggest a new experience from life.
— from The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age: Virgil by W. Y. (William Young) Sellar

He paused a moment, before adding, in an explanatory way: [Pg 212] “My place, Los Andes, was a good twelve miles from Cartagena, and I had no English-speaking neighbors.
— from His Unknown Wife by Louis Tracy

Many of them attempted to lionise him, while others paid him the most fulsome compliments, both being things that he particularly disliked.
— from General Gordon A Christian Hero by Seton Churchill

These differences, to which we shall refer elsewhere, must have led to the most fatal consequences, had not the American commodore very wisely put out to sea.
— from The History of Duelling. Vol. 1 (of 2) by J. G. (John Gideon) Millingen

We owned our own cows, and built our own dairy and cheese factory, and made first-class cheese.
— from Perkins of Portland: Perkins The Great by Ellis Parker Butler

Between the varying pitch of their voices come 220 other nocturnes in monotones from creatures unknown to complete the gamut.
— from The Sea and the Jungle by H. M. (Henry Major) Tomlinson

In the Higher Agricultural School definite investigation should be made of all native plant and animal possibilities; there are no doubt many forms of plant life which could be improved under proper cultivation and made to yield desirable materials for commerce or for national use; it is quite possible that some of the native animals could be utilized if kept and bred; it is certain that harmful animals can be controlled or totally destroyed.
— from Liberia: Description, History, Problems by Frederick Starr