Great decrease in the earth’s apparent diameter, which now subtended from the balloon an angle of very little more than twenty-five degrees.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

As, however, this did not seem feasible, he would have liked to see Lohengrin spell-bound by some powerful motive, and prevented from getting away.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner

Men no sooner find their appetites unanswered than they complain the times are injurious.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

Your skill shall like a star i’ th’ darkest night, Stick fiery off indeed.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

Clay begged forgiveness and promised not to break faith again; and as he betook him to his bed, he said to himself: “It’s a steadfast little soul; whoever thinks he is doing the Duchess a kindness by intimating that she is not sufficient for any undertaking she puts her hand to, makes a mistake; and if I did not know it before, I know now that there are surer ways of pleasing her than by trying to lighten her labor when that labor consists in wearing herself out for the sake of a person she loves.”
— from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Charles Dudley Warner

Because of his very great love, he could not steal from this man, but from any other man, in any other camp, he did not hesitate an instant; while the cunning with which he stole enabled him to escape detection.
— from The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Then follows Cnidus, 157 which has two harbours, one of which is a close harbour, fit for receiving triremes, and a naval station for 20 vessels.
— from The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3) Literally Translated, with Notes by Strabo

No money; no credit; no support from Fred, who seems to turn steady all at once; notice to quit the old lodgings—staggerers, three, four, five, and six!
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

We again and again have occasion to observe how a symphony of Beethoven compels the individual hearers to use figurative speech, though the appearance presented by a collocation of the different pictorial world generated by a piece of music may be never so fantastically diversified and even contradictory.
— from The Birth of Tragedy; or, Hellenism and Pessimism by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

" They fly not at the "dully sound" of human footsteps; they ask no sympathy for regret which dare not tell the secret of its sorrow; but, with the gentle gait of old-world courtesy, they move aside, and when you depart resume occupation of ground which, for the sake of despairing wishes and memories of an uneffaced past, they may not quit.
— from Garden-Craft Old and New by John Dando Sedding

Shakespeare was never so highly appreciated, nor so famous; never reckoned so "clever," nor quoted so generally; scarcely heard of before, indeed, by some of the new philosophers.
— from The Siege of Kimberley Its Humorous and Social Side; Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902); Eighteen Weeks in Eighteen Chapters by T. Phelan

For the first time, Nature spread for him her great picture-book of field and forest and vineyard, while Abigail read to him the stories.
— from Joel: A Boy of Galilee by Annie F. (Annie Fellows) Johnston

The landlord, however, could not sleep for thinking of the table, and he remembered that there was in his lumber room an old table very like it, so he fetched it, and taking away the joiner's table, he left the other in its place.
— from Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm by Wilhelm Grimm

Notwithstanding the candle that is near setting fire to the hamper of jewels, we see through a breach in the thatch that this is a daylight picture; in so shattered a tenement, it is not easy to determine from what source the figures are illuminated.
— from Hogarth's Works, with life and anecdotal descriptions of his pictures. Volume 1 (of 3) by John Ireland

It is to the same kindness that I owe the opportunity of presenting the reader with something indisputably Fielding's and very characteristic of him, which Murphy did not print, and which has not, so far as I know, ever appeared either in a collection or a selection of Fielding's work.
— from The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon by Henry Fielding

Ay! and an English Cavalier too, a Nation so fond of all new Faces.
— from The Works of Aphra Behn, Volume II by Aphra Behn

"No, marm, she is not," replied Nellie, who had to speak for Dinah, because, though her mouth was very large, she could not speak for herself.
— from Dolly and I: A Story for Little Folks by Oliver Optic