He came, and after flying back and forth past the hole a few times, made one dart at the snake and pulled him out dead.
— from Myths of the Cherokee Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology by James Mooney

I do not know whether the fault lay with her lowly birth, her lack of education, or my own doubt about the sincerity of my affections; but in any case when, in addition to the fact that I had my reasons for being jealous, they also tried to urge me to a formal engagement, this love affair came quietly to an end.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner

Marks of distinction added to signify illegitimacy are also compulsory and perpetual.
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

O.M. Why won't it? Y.M. Because it puts him in the attitude of always looking out for his own comfort and advantage; whereas an unselfish man often does a thing solely for another person's good when it is a positive disadvantage to himself.
— from What Is Man? and Other Essays by Mark Twain

It would mean that I would always be haunted by an intolerable sense of disgrace, and that those things that are meant for me as much as for anybody else—the beauty of the sun and moon, the pageant of the seasons, the music of daybreak and the silence of great nights, the rain falling through the leaves, or the dew creeping over the grass and making it silver—would all be tainted for me, and lose their healing power, and their power of communicating joy.
— from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde

We live in this world in order always to learn industriously, and to enlighten each other by means of discussion, and to strive vigorously to promote the progress of science and the fine arts.
— from The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Volume 01 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The sight of drink makes one dry, and the sight of meat increaseth appetite.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

The first arboreal man who added a little to the natural defences of any situation might stand in tradition as a god planting a garden; but even he would not be supposed able to devise any absolute means of defence against the subtlest of all the beasts.
— from Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway

I cannot close the chapter better than by entreating those, who are endeavouring to carry on any system of benevolence, to be very watchful in the management of details, and to strengthen themselves against any feelings of disgust and weariness which may encroach upon them, when their undertaking has lost the attraction of novelty.
— from The Claims of Labour: An essay on the duties of the employers to the employed by Helps, Arthur, Sir

But the sergeant merely ran because a brisk race was a most effective means of driving away the sleepy feeling which was fostered by the narcotic odours of the dug-out.
— from The Brown Brethren by Patrick MacGill

Hatred of their race and of their creed was intensified by a lurking fear that this despised yet proud nation might one day attain to supreme power.
— from History of the Jews, Vol. 2 (of 6) by Heinrich Graetz

Finally, I marked off dysteleology as the science of the aimless (vestigial, abortive, atrophied, and useless) organs and parts of the body.
— from Darwin and Modern Science by A. C. (Albert Charles) Seward

They paid 1,200,000 crowns a year regularly; they paid in five years an extraordinary subsidy of eight millions of ducats, and the States were roundly rebuked by the courtly representatives of their despot, if they presumed to inquire into the objects of the appropriations, or to express an interest in their judicious administration.
— from The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Complete (1555-66) by John Lothrop Motley

Tuneful strains were believed by the physicians of old to be uncongenial to the spirits of sickness; but among medicine-men of many American Indian tribes, harsh discordant sounds and doleful chants have long been a favorite means of driving away these same spirits.
— from Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery by Robert Means Lawrence

and other indications, it would seem that painting was a favourite mode of decoration among the Saxons; and if so, their interiors may have been more successful as works of art than their external architecture would lead us to expect.
— from A History of Architecture in All Countries, Volume 2, 3rd ed. From the Earliest Times to the Present Day by James Fergusson

My dear Mrs. Wheaton ,—I have been intending to write, ever since I was at Norton, and tell you how much I enjoyed being there, and returning to the spirit of my old days at the Seminary.
— from Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary by Daniel Dulany Addison

The immeasurable distance created by the millions of dollars and the social prestige of Belle Wellington and those like her, served to set them aloof from their countrymen and countrywomen.
— from Prince or Chauffeur? A Story of Newport by Lawrence Perry