But that evening, Jo fancied that Beth's eyes rested on the lively, dark face beside her with peculiar pleasure, and that she listened with intense interest to an account of some exciting cricket-match, though the phrases, "caught off a tice," "stumped off his ground," and "the leg hit for three," were as intelligible to her as Sanscrit.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott

I should not have wondered by this time to find that they had their respective musical bands stationed on some eminent chip, and playing their national airs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants.
— from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

But just as the clavicle in the cat only tells of the existence of some earlier creature to which a collar-bone was useful, precedents survive in the law long after the use they once served is at an end and the reason for them has been forgotten.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes

I call Night C. as I did not get to it untill late at night, above the mouth of this Creek we camped, the wind being favourable, for the boat I Killed a fat Buffalow Cow, and a fat Buck elk, york my Servent Killed a Buck, the Huntes Killed 4 Deer, & the boat Crew killed 2 Buffalow Swiming the river, handsom Countrey of Plains, I saw many trovs of Buffalow & a Gangue of 30 or 40 Elk and othr Scattering elk &c. a find evening I hurt my hands & feet last night H2 anchor
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

I shall always consider the conduct of Mrs. Bridget (Lady Lyndon’s favourite maid at this juncture) as a masterpiece of ingenuity: and, indeed, had such an opinion of her diplomatic skill, that the very instant I became master of the Lyndon estates, and paid her the promised sum—I am a man of honour, and rather than not keep my word with the woman, I raised the money of the Jews, at an exorbitant interest—as soon, I say, as I achieved my triumph, I took Mrs. Bridget by the hand, and said, “Madam, you have shown such unexampled fidelity in my service that I am glad to reward you, according to my promise; but you have given proofs of such extraordinary cleverness and dissimulation, that I must decline keeping you in Lady Lyndon’s establishment, and beg you will leave it this very day:” which she did, and went over to the Tiptoff faction, and has abused me ever since.
— from Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

If they were extended to almost all sorts of goods, as at present, public warehouses of sufficient extent could not easily be provided; and goods of a very delicate nature, or of which the preservation required much care and attention, could not safely be trusted by the merchant in any warehouse but his own.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

When the vapour of sodium was treated in this way they found that the bright line in the flame of soda exactly coincided with a line in the Sun's spectrum.
— from The Beauties of Nature, and the Wonders of the World We Live In by Lubbock, John, Sir

Without force or opposition, it subdued the fierceness of pride and power; it obliged sovereigns to submit to the soft collar of social esteem, compelled stern authority to submit to elegance, and gave a dominating vanquisher of laws to be subdued by manners.
— from Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke by Edmund Burke

Our great English horse-ant is a moderate slaveholder; but the big red ant of Southern Europe carries the domestic institution many steps further.
— from Falling in Love; With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science by Grant Allen

If, instead of studying each colophon singly for the sake of the information it may give us as to the book which it completes, or for its own human interest,—if it chance to have any,—we compare the same printer’s colophons in successive books, and the colophons of different printers in successive editions; if we group those which have similar characteristics, and glance also at the books which have no colophons at all, or quite featureless ones, then [4] if there is anything to be learnt from colophons, we ought to be by way of learning it; and if there is only very little to be learnt, that also is a fact to be noted.
— from An Essay on Colophons, with Specimens and Translations by Alfred W. (Alfred William) Pollard

Though not so disputative as the man who repined because the very wife of his bosom was ceasing to contradict him, the Archdeacon wearied at times of speaking ex cathedra
— from Sister Gertrude: A Tale of the West Riding by D. F. E. Sykes

They were reinforced by the new invention of sympathetic electric control between clocks at the top and bottom of a mine, and had much better, though still unexpectedly large results—the mean density of the earth coming out, for them, 6·565."
— from New Theories in Astronomy by Willam Stirling

[240] “This disease, as it appears in jails and hospitals, has been well described by Sir John Pringle; and other authors have given accounts of it on board of ships, especially crowded transports and prison-ships, but I do not find that its originating in the families of the poor in great cities during the winter has been taken notice of.”
— from A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 2 (of 2) From the Extinction of Plague to the Present Time by Charles Creighton

Mirabeau spent a whole night with the cure of St. Eustache, confessor of the King and Queen, to persuade him to take the oath required by that constitution.
— from Court Memoirs of France Series — Complete by Various