The archbishop of Bourdeaux, a furious enemy of his king and country, was the first on the list; but his ambition was known; and his conscience obeyed the calls of fortune and the commands of a benefactor, who had been informed by a swift messenger that the choice of a pope was now in his hands.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

One hand extended outward and began to descend upon his head.
— from White Fang by Jack London

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man .
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

The Chinese trade, on which rested the economic prosperity of Manila, had once again been ruined.
— from A History of the Philippines by David P. Barrows

Daring and honest by nature, and outspoken to an extent which alarmed all respectabilities, with a constant fund of animal health and spirits which he did not feel bound to curb in any way, he had gained for himself with the steady part of the school (including as well those who wished to appear steady as those who really were so) the character of a boy with whom it would be dangerous to be intimate; while his own hatred of everything cruel, or underhand, or false, and his hearty respect for what he would see to be good and true, kept off the rest.
— from Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes

After the perpetration of all the Cruelties rehearsed in New Spain and other places, there came another Rabid and Cruel Tyrant to Panuco , who acted the part of a bloody Tragedian as well as the rest, and sent away many Ships loaden with these Barbarians to be sold for Slaves, made this Province almost a Wilderness, and which was deplorable, Eight Hundred Indians , that had Rational Souls were given in Exchange for a Burthen-bearing-Beast, a Mule, or Camel.
— from A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies Or, a faithful NARRATIVE OF THE Horrid and Unexampled Massacres, Butcheries, and all manner of Cruelties, that Hell and Malice could invent, committed by the Popish Spanish Party on the inhabitants of West-India, TOGETHER With the Devastations of several Kingdoms in America by Fire and Sword, for the space of Forty and Two Years, from the time of its first Discovery by them. by Bartolomé de las Casas

'Stranger,' said she, 'it seems to me that you like starving in this way—at any rate it does not greatly trouble you, for you stick here day after day, without even trying to get away though your men are dying by inches.' "'Let me tell you,' said I, 'whichever of the goddesses you may happen to be, that I am not staying here of my own accord, but must have offended the gods that live in heaven.
— from The Odyssey Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original by Homer

9 The usual story of the first creation of man, however, appears to be a Malay modification of Arabic beliefs.
— from Malay Magic Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula by Walter William Skeat

The Lacedaemonians have not only their old allies, but the Athenians and those who were at that time allies of Athens are added to them.
— from Anabasis by Xenophon

The young man who holds before his mental vision an ideal of the home he hopes some day to establish—in which a pure wife reigns as queen, sovereign of his life, and gently hovers over a brood of lusty boys and fair girls—cannot for a moment consider as a sane solution of his sexual problem, periodic visits to the house of ill fame or the periodic lapse into illicit intercourse with clandestines; nor can he expect to develop his powers, physically or intellectually to the highest possible degree if he permits himself to contract that habit [masturbation] which, step by step, undermines his development.
— from The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male by Winfield Scott Hall

We’d have had to swim the Athabasca anyhow, and I’d about as soon swim a train over a broad, steady river as to try to cross a rough mountain river with a loaded train, and maybe get a horse swept under a log-jam.
— from The Young Alaskans in the Rockies by Emerson Hough

in this experience the sensuous impulsion precedes the moral impulsion, he gives to the law of necessity a beginning in him, a positive origin, and by the most unfortunate of all mistakes he converts the immutable and the eternal in himself into a transitory accident.
— from Aesthetical Essays of Friedrich Schiller by Friedrich Schiller

Helen, too, was in the pictures—true, a vague, shadowy Helen, yet a Helen idealized and glorified by the remorseful repentance born of a bunch of worn little diaries.
— from The Road to Understanding by Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter

"I have been trying to set my mind on this," she answered, "but the devil is busy about me—and I cannot fix my thoughts on anything but—those ships——" Lady Sunderland, who had made a great clatter with her devotions at Whitehall, with the sole object of covering her husband's apostasy, but who had no real religion, knew not what to say.
— from God and the King by Marjorie Bowen

[1215] and that of terror from the trembling of the vocal organs and body.
— from The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin

They benefited by having to give instruction to others, and by learning to keep their tempers.
— from Ernest Bracebridge: School Days by William Henry Giles Kingston

The rumour circulated that Sir Austin Feverel, the recluse of Raynham, the rank misogynist, the rich baronet, was in town, looking out a bride for his only son and uncorrupted heir.
— from The Ordeal of Richard Feverel — Complete by George Meredith

Exceedingly careful, conscientious, and precise, he opposed all bold speculations, and was incapable of sympathy with mystical thinkers.
— from Recollections of a Long Life by John Stoughton