I may add, as an instance of this fact, and as a striking case of correlation, that in many pelargoniums the two upper petals in the central flower of the truss often lose their patches of darker colour; and when this occurs, the adherent nectary is quite aborted, the central flower thus becoming peloric or regular.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

The verisimilitude which is given to the pilgrimage of a thousand years, by the intimation that Ardiaeus had lived a thousand years before; the coincidence of Er coming to life on the twelfth day after he was supposed to have been dead with the seven days which the pilgrims passed in the meadow, and the four days during which they journeyed to the column of light; the precision with which the soul is mentioned who chose the twentieth lot; the passing remarks that there was no definite character among the souls, and that the souls which had chosen ill blamed any one rather than themselves; or that some of the souls drank more than was necessary of the waters of Forgetfulness, while Er himself was hindered from drinking; the desire of Odysseus to rest at last, unlike the conception of him in Dante and Tennyson; the feigned ignorance of how Er returned to the body, when the other souls went shooting like stars to their birth,—add greatly to the probability of the narrative.
— from The Republic by Plato

It would not be a matter personally indifferent to the rest of the country if any part of it became a nest of robbers or a focus of demoralization, owing to the maladministration of its police; or if, through the bad regulations of its jail, the punishment which the courts of justice intended to inflict on the criminals confined therein (who might have come from, or committed their offenses in, any other district) might be doubled in intensity or lowered to practical impunity.
— from Considerations on Representative Government by John Stuart Mill

Late at the office entering my Journall for 8 days past, the greatness of my business hindering me of late to put it down daily, but I have done it now very true and particularly, and hereafter will, I hope, be able to fall into my old way of doing it daily.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

The present definition is, that it is such as to constitute a manifest danger to a vessel seeking to enter or leave the port.
— from The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

Othowerus, Acolinillus, Otto, and Geffrey Magnaville, Earl of Essex, were four the first constables of this Tower of London, by succession; all which held by force a portion of land (that pertained to the priory of the Holy Trinitie within Aldgate); that is to say, East Smithfield, near unto the Tower, making thereof a vineyard, [65] and would not depart from it till the 2nd year of King Stephen, when the same was abridged and restored to the church.
— from The Survey of London by John Stow

I don't think that another directress in Villette would have dared to admit a "jeune homme" within her walls; but Madame knew that by granting such admission, on an occasion like the present, a bold stroke might be struck, and a great point gained.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

I was not invited any whither to dinner, though a stranger, which did also trouble me; but yet I must remember it is a Court, and indeed where most are strangers; but, however, Cutler carried me to Mr. Marriott’s the house-keeper, and there we had a very good dinner and good company, among others Lilly, the painter.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

My apprehension is, Mr. C.'s circumstances being such, lest it should end in his obtaining leave to part with his commission, which at all events is desirable to be made known to his connexions."
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

He married the daughter of Lourdois, the painting-contractor.
— from Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z by Anatole Cerfberr

[137] come to their laird whenever they are in need of land to plant on.
— from Savage Island: An Account of a Sojourn in Niué and Tonga by Basil Thomson

The graceful choice of language, the picturesque effect, the delicate keeping in the composition, and the finish given to all the details in strict conformity with the true spirit of the theme, impart to this ode or cancion a lyric beauty which must render it in all ages an object of admiration, not only to the lover, but to the critic of poetry.
— from History of Spanish and Portuguese Literature (Vol 1 of 2) by Friedrich Bouterwek

To this may be added the long annual inquiry in the House of Commons for ways and means, which has been a particular movement to set all the heads of the nation at work; and I appeal, with submission, to the gentlemen of that honourable House, if the greatest part of all the ways and means out of the common road of land taxes, polls, and the like, have not been handed to them from the merchant, and in a great measure paid by them too.
— from An Essay Upon Projects by Daniel Defoe

The Tale of the Man of Lawe; The Pardoners Tale; The Second Nonnes Tale; The Chanouns Yemannes Tale.
— from Chaucer's Works, Volume 3 (of 7) — The House of Fame; The Legend of Good Women; The Treatise on the Astrolabe; The Sources of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

The monk who accompanies Neroweg points out the passage to the troops of Louis the Pious.
— from The Carlovingian Coins; Or, The Daughters of Charlemagne A Tale of the Ninth Century by Eugène Sue

It is a grievous thing to love any one too much; a grievous, wasteful, paralyzing thing; a tumbling of the universe out of focus, a bringing of the whole world down to the mean level of one desire, a shutting out of wider, more beautiful feelings, a wrapping of one's self in a thick garment of selfishness, outside which all the dear, tender, modest, everyday affections and friendships, the wholesome, ordinary loves, the precious loves of use and wont, are left to shiver and grow cold.
— from The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight by Elizabeth Von Arnim

There are masquerades, theatricals; beautifyings of little Trianon, purchase and repair of St. Cloud; journeyings from the summer Court-Elysium to the winter one.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

The legend says that Sebert, King of the East Saxons, who died in 616, ordered Melitus, then Bishop of London, to perform the ceremony; but that St. Peter himself was beforehand with him, and consecrated it in the night preceding the day appointed by his Majesty for that purpose, accompanied by angels, and surrounded by a glorious appearance of burning lights.
— from Historical Description of Westminster Abbey, Its Monuments and Curiosities by Anonymous

Least of them all, was this one likely to publish her case to the world,—to shriek out her great and sudden woe in the ear of heaven and of her kind.
— from Jessamine: A Novel by Marion Harland