Aunt Isabella sent papa a beautiful lock of his hair; it was lighter than mine—more flaxen, and quite as fine.
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

89 In the slow and painful steps of education, their characters and talents were unfolded to a discerning eye: the man , naked and alone, was reduced to the standard of his personal merit; and, if the sovereign had wisdom to choose, he possessed a pure and boundless liberty of choice.
— 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

All the houses in Peking are built like our woodsheds, directly on the ground, raised a few inches from actual contact with the earth by a stone floor.
— from Letters from China and Japan by Harriet Alice Chipman Dewey

[He hands the WORKMAN his medicine-case, portfolio, and box] Look out, don't crush the portfolio!
— from Uncle Vanya: Scenes from Country Life in Four Acts by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Men who their hands, with prayer and blessing, lay On Israel's ark of light.
— from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass

Strictly judged, most modern poems are but larger or smaller lumps of sugar, or slices of toothsome sweet cake—even the banqueters dwelling on those glucose flavors as a main part of the dish.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

But in the future part of this Discourse, designing to raise an edifice uniform and consistent with itself, as far as my own experience and observation will assist me, I hope to erect it on such a basis that I shall not need to shore it up with props and buttresses, leaning on borrowed or begged foundations: or at least, if mine prove a castle in the air, I will endeavour it shall be all of a piece and hang together.
— from An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1 MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2 by John Locke

The introduction of coffee into Paris by Thévenot in 1657—How Soliman Aga established the custom of coffee drinking at the court of Louis XIV—Opening of the first coffee houses—How the French adaptation of the Oriental coffee house first appeared in the real French café of François Procope—Important part played by the coffee houses in the development of French literature and the stage—Their association with the Revolution and the founding of the Republic—Quaint customs and patrons—Historic Parisian café's Page 91 CHAPTER XII Introduction of Coffee into North America Captain John Smith, founder of the Colony of Virginia, is the first to bring to North America a knowledge of coffee in 1607—The coffee grinder on the Mayflower—Coffee drinking in 1668—William Penn's coffee purchase in 1683—Coffee in colonial New England—The psychology of the Boston "tea party," and why the United States became a nation of coffee drinkers instead of tea drinkers, like England—The first coffee license to Dorothy Jones in 1670—The first coffee house in New England—Notable coffee houses of old Boston—A skyscraper coffee-house Page 105 CHAPTER XIII History of Coffee in Old New York The burghers of New Amsterdam begin to substitute coffee for "must," or beer, for breakfast in 1668—William Penn makes his first purchase of coffee in the green bean from New York merchants in 1683—The King's Arms, the first coffee house—The historic Merchants, sometimes called the "Birthplace of our Union"—The coffee house as a civic forum—The Exchange, Whitehall, Burns, Tontine, and other celebrated coffee houses—The Vauxhall and Ranelagh pleasure gardens Page 115 CHAPTER XIV Coffee Houses of Old Philadelphia Ye Coffee House, Philadelphia's first coffee house, opened about 1700—The two London coffee houses—The City tavern, or Merchants coffee house—How these, and other celebrated resorts, dominated the social, political, and business life of the Quaker City in the eighteenth century Page 125 CHAPTER
— from All About Coffee by William H. (William Harrison) Ukers

I troop forth replenish'd with supreme power, one of an average unending procession, Inland and sea-coast we go, and pass all boundary lines, Our swift ordinances on their way over the whole earth, The blossoms we wear in our hats the growth of thousands of years.
— from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

I'm a-goin' to build Vaughn & See's foundry an' agricultooral implement factory right down the creek there, an' put a big lot o' improved machinery in it; an' I'm a-goin' to send my pardner, John Hampden See, off next week to get the rest o' his edication where they sell the sort o' edication as is good fer him—not a lot o' words, but principles an' facts.
— from Harper's Young People, August 23, 1881 An Illustrated Weekly by Various

[Pg 390] in this manner they carry them from place to place under their arms, on their heads, or in the bottom of their canoes, often placing a banana leaf over them as a precaution against the scorching heat of the sun; in their houses they have two loops of cord hanging from a cane nearly at the top of the roof; the child is within these loops, and the whole swings backward and forward and lulls it to sleep.
— from Historical and descriptive narrative of twenty years' residence in South America (Vol 2 of 3) Containing travels in Arauco, Chile, Peru, and Colombia; with an account of the revolution, its rise, progress, and results by Stevenson, William Bennet, active 1803-1825

She says my manners are so pleasing, and besides, Lucien once told her she painted better than I did.
— from A Daughter of To-Day by Sara Jeannette Duncan

" "I know, I know, but what came next?" "At daybreak this morning the express reached Plessis, and by Louis' orders the news was at once brought to him.
— from The King's Scapegoat by Hamilton Drummond

The holy man was not forgotten; his vessel was soon full of smoking hot cakes of Indian corn, and one kinder than the others placed a brass lota of milk beside him.
— from The Heart of Denise, and Other Tales by S. (Sidney) Levett Yeats

It details a long series of prostrations and bowings, leading out and marshalling the various officers of the court and members of the imperial family.
— from The Middle Kingdom, Volume 1 (of 2) A Survey of the Geography, Government, Literature, Social Life, Arts, and History of the Chinese Empire and its Inhabitants by S. Wells (Samuel Wells) Williams

[Pg 357] the dairyman's acres were shared by some number of sheep, till every hillside pasture and broad level of the great valleys, rank with clover and herdsgrass, was cropped by its half hundred or hundreds of these unconscious inheritors of mixed or unadulterated blue blood of the royal Spanish flocks.
— from Vermont: A Study of Independence by Rowland Evans Robinson