Partly to lessen the weight of this sacrifice to independence, and partly to exalt the higher grade of nobles, the princes of the blood-royal of Mewar were made to rank below the Sixteen, a fictitious diminution of dignity which, with similar acts peculiar to this house, enhanced the self-estimation of the nobles, and made them brave every danger to obtain such sacrifices to the ruling passion of the Rajput, a love of distinction.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

The confinement told upon their bodies and their spirits; still, they were superior men, and they made the best that was to be made of the circumstances.
— from Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain

Magic power which we should find it difficult to understand were we to read in a book these conversations which are made to be borne away and dispersed like smoke wreaths by the breeze beneath the leaves.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Now, lest I should be supposed more of a madman than I actually am, I will detail, as well as I am able, the considerations which led me to believe that an achievement of this nature, although without doubt difficult, and incontestably full of danger, was not absolutely, to a
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

But it did not seem to me to bear upon the question of his guilt or innocence.”
— from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

" She was trying to assume society manners, to be unconstrained and at her ease, and so seemed artificial and strange.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

The Emperor Claudius, hearing that one who had suppressed the urge while paying him court had suffered greatly thereby, “intended to issue an edict, allowing to all people the liberty of giving vent at table to any distension occasioned by flatulence:” Martial, too (Book XII, Epigram LXXVII), tells of the embarrassment of one who broke wind while praying in the Capitol, “One day, while standing upright, addressing his prayers to Jupiter, Aethon farted in the Capitol.
— from 1601: Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors by Mark Twain

After weighing one against the other all these complicated probabilities, the final conclusion at which we arrive is that there is nearly as much to be said on the one side of the question as on the other, and that we are not perfectly certain, whether, as Bockh and the majority of commentators, ancient as well as modern, are inclined to believe, Plato thought that the earth was at rest in the centre of the universe, or, as Aristotle and Mr. Grote suppose, that it revolved on its axis.
— from Timaeus by Plato

For besides that it is a disease very much to be feared in itself, it begins with me after a more sharp and severe manner than it is used to do with other men.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

On reaching Washington I immediately reported as ordered, but I had to await my turn, being put off from day to day, as there were so many on the list who preceded me.
— from A Soldier's Experience in Southern Prisons A Graphic Description of the Author's Experiences in Various Southern Prisons by Christian Miller Prutsman

I promise myself to be with thee next Thursday, the day after tomorrow.
— from Love Letters of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Volume 2 (of 2) by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Withal, Hazel knew Nelly Morrison to be a first-class stenographer, and found herself wondering how long it would take the managing partner to find occasion for raking her over the coals.
— from North of Fifty-Three by Bertrand W. Sinclair

Heroic plans in pleasure drowned, He thinks not of the Table Round; In lawless love dissolved his life, He thinks not of his beauteous wife: Better he loves to snatch a flower From bosom of his paramour, Than from a Saxon knight to wrest The honours of his heathen crest; Better to wreathe, 'mid tresses brown, The heron's plume her hawk struck down, Than o'er the altar give to flow The banners of a Paynim foe.
— from Tales and Legends of the English Lakes by Wilson Armistead

It is possible, given certain conditions, for men to be nearly absolutely free in speech, in movement, in conduct; enormously free, that is, as compared with our present conditions, in a Socialist State established upon the two great propositions I have formulated in Chapters III .
— from New Worlds For Old: A Plain Account of Modern Socialism by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

Rachel, however, at first indignantly refused to help one who had so basely betrayed and repudiated her; but when Eudossia fell on her knees, and passionately pleaded with her again and again to save the man they both loved, she relented, unable to struggle longer against the natural promptings of her own heart, in which her false lover's image was for ever enshrined.
— from Stories from the Operas by Gladys Davidson

Do you not promise them trentals and dirges, and masses for souls, and sell your prayers for money, and make them buy pardons, and trust to such foolish inventions of your imaginations?
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

One of these, chancing to take up Venice Preserved for the second time, admired the sublime friendship between Pierre and Jaffir, and fell to musing on the virtues of outlaws, the loyalty of the hulks, the honor of thieves, and the immense power that a few men can wield if they bring their whole minds to bear upon the carrying out of a single will.
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac

he inquired of Ned, motioning the boys to chairs.
— from Boy Scouts in the North Sea; Or, The Mystery of a Sub by G. Harvey (George Harvey) Ralphson

I am very sorry to have given so much trouble, but ‘The Single Eye’ will not suit my purpose at all.”
— from Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood by Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge