Could it be possible, that they robbed and murdered one day, reveled the next, and rested themselves by turning meditative philosophers, rural poets, and seat-builders on the third?
— from The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville

The match flickers for a moment, and shows great mounds of dusty rags upon the ground; then dies away and leaves a denser darkness than before, if there can be degrees in such extremes.
— from American Notes by Charles Dickens

I saw somewhat had pleased him; and as soon as he had cast his Eye upon me, "Oho, Doctor, rare News from London , (says he); the Spectator has made honourable Mention of the Club (Man) and published to the World his sincere Desire to be a Member, with a recommendatory Description of his Phiz: And tho' our Constitution has made no particular Provision for short Faces, yet, his being an extraordinary Case, I believe we shall find an Hole for him to creep in at; for I assure you he is not against the Canon; and if his Sides are as compact as his Joles, he need not disguise himself to make one of us."
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

The dealers in the human article make scrupulous and systematic efforts to promote noisy mirth among them, as a means of drowning reflection, and rendering them insensible to their condition.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

It is a matter of deep regret that political differences should have run high in this place, and led to most discreditable and disgraceful results.
— from American Notes by Charles Dickens

Thereupon Quesada replied: ‘Must our deed remain unaccomplished because of this madman?’
— from The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 33, 1519-1522 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century by Antonio Pigafetta

One by one the mind of Doctor Reefy had made the thoughts.
— from Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life by Sherwood Anderson

When he was along in years, he married a young woman from Manila, and she became the mother of Don Rafael, the father of Crisostomo.
— from The Social Cancer: A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere by José Rizal

The object of the present Book is to examine the method of determining reasonable conduct which has been already defined in outline under the name of Egoism: taking this term as equivalent to Egoistic Hedonism, and as implying the adoption of his own greatest happiness as the ultimate end of each individual’s actions.
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick

Moreover, in some earlier forms of Reis’s transmitter, notably those with a vertical tympanum, the adjustment of the contact-points that controlled the current was a matter of delicacy requiring experience and practice, so that casual experimenters failed to obtain the results which Reis himself obtained; [11] they obtaining only a noisy [45] snarl where he obtained intelligible speech.
— from Philipp Reis: Inventor of the Telephone A Biographical Sketch by Silvanus P. (Silvanus Phillips) Thompson

Athlete and wit, whose genial tongue Cheered and refreshed but never stung; Maker of mirth and wholesome jokes; Fit mate of dear Rosina Vokes ; Creator, to our endless joy, Of priceless Arthur Pomeroy — Light lie the earth above his head Who lightened many a heart of lead; Courteous and chivalrous and gay, In very truth no common Clay.
— from Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 by Various

One of them drinks some of the water and spirts it into the air, making a fine spray in imitation of mist or drizzling rain.
— from Ancient Art and Ritual by Jane Ellen Harrison

To love and not be loved is a fate for which it seems no one can be blamed; to lose love and to change one’s loving belongs to a subtle interplay beyond analysis or control, but to be deceived or mocked or deliberately robbed of love, that at any rate is an abominable wrong.
— from First and Last Things: A Confession of Faith and Rule of Life by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

MOZ Mótt o di rimánd o , a quip or scoffe bandied too and fro.
— from Queen Anna's New World of Words; or, Dictionarie of the Italian and English Tongues by John Florio

"I perceive no reason why men of different religious persuasions should not sit upon the same bench, deliberate in the same council, or fight in the same ranks, as well as men of various religious opinions, upon any controverted topic of natural history, philosophy, or ethics."
— from Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 With His Letters and Journals by Thomas Moore

It used the new methods of determining reaction times, and testing the coordination of mind and body.
— from The Book of Life by Upton Sinclair

Anatomical means of differentiating robusta coffee from other species or groups, may be applied as distinctly helpful....
— from All About Coffee by William H. (William Harrison) Ukers

In asserting that Verrazzano made other voyages to America, Hakluyt is corroborated by the ancient manuscripts, to which the author of the memoirs of Dieppe refers, as mentioning that one Jean Verassen commanded a ship which accompanied that of Aubert to Newfoundland in 1508.
— from The Voyage of Verrazzano A Chapter in the Early History of Maritime Discovery in America by Henry Cruse Murphy