There is almost no end to the curious pranks played by lightning—some disastrous, some comical, and some benevolent, as when persons crippled with rheumatism, after having been knocked down and temporarily stunned by a stroke of lightning, have found themselves completely cured of their malady!
— from Meteorology: The Science of the Atmosphere by Charles Fitzhugh Talman

The sixteen cantonments were capable of providing for a number equal to the combined population of Arizona and New Mexico.
— from Winning a Cause: World War Stories by John G. (John Gilbert) Thompson

It was not exactly treachery to carry people off by force and extort a ransom from them, as the outlaws did.
— from Corleone: A Tale of Sicily by F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford

For, to approach at last the point: This honest fellow had long been in the custom of setting himself to sleep with tales, and so had his father before him; but these were irresponsible inventions, told for the teller’s pleasure, with no eye to the crass public or the thwart reviewer: tales where a thread might be dropped, or one adventure quitted for another, on fancy’s least suggestion.
— from Across the Plains, with Other Memories and Essays by Robert Louis Stevenson

Mr. Pryse has succeeded in getting from a variety of sources pretty nearly every thing that can possibly interest, inform, or amuse, in connection not only with the mineral springs, but also with the beautiful district in which they are situated.
— from Some Specimens of the Poetry of the Ancient Welsh Bards by Evan Evans

If the misplay consist of illegal continuance of tour, of course the penalty does not extend to the correct play which preceded it.
— from Croquet: As played by the Newport Croquet Club by Anonymous

But, as far as is known, Chess has never at any time been used for divination, and there are no traditions connecting it with prophesying, while from time immemorial cards have been used for fortune-telling by almost all nations, either through the complete pack of Tarots, or the Book of Thoth, their successors, the Playing Cards, or their predecessors, the divining arrows.
— from Prophetical, Educational and Playing Cards by Van Rensselaer, John King, Mrs.

The ideal is nought else than the culminating point of logic, in the same way as the beautiful is only the summit of the true.
— from Les Misérables, v. 5/5: Jean Valjean by Victor Hugo

And the Ideal is nothing else than the constant presence of this truth.
— from Music Talks with Children by Thomas Tapper