He suddenly felt, felt by a kind of intuition, that this grand creature was not merely a being destined to perpetuate the race, but the strange and mysterious product of all our complicated desires which have been accumulating in us for centuries but which have been turned aside from their primitive and divine object and have wandered after a mystic, imperfectly perceived and intangible beauty.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

Reserving, therefore, for the reign of Constantine a more exact picture of the new empire, we shall content ourselves with describing the principal and decisive outline, as it was traced by the hand of Diocletian.
— 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

He tells me that the King is very kind to my Lord Sandwich, and did himself observe to him (Sir G. Carteret), how those very people, meaning the Prince and Duke of Albemarle, are punished in the same kind as they did seek to abuse my Lord Sandwich.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

And he is able to give an account of all them, how they come recommended, and more will be found to have been placed by the Prince and Duke of Albemarle than by the Duke of York during the war, and as no bad instance of the badness of officers
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

“Think of my mother!” shouted Mordaunt, as his horse plunged and darted off at full gallop.
— from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

With the feeling of indignation is joined a desire for vengeance, with the feeling of penitence a desire of atonement, the former tending towards an act of vengeance and the latter towards an act of expiation.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

143 Sir John Dalrymple, the putative father of a whining jesuitical piece, fallaciously called, “ The Address of the people of England to the inhabitants of America ,” hath, perhaps, from a vain supposition, that the people here were to be frightened at the pomp and description of a king, given, (though very unwisely on his part) the real character of the present one: “But” says this writer, “if you are inclined to pay compliments to an administration, which we do not complain of,” (meaning the Marquis of Rockingham’s at the repeal of the Stamp Act)
— from Common Sense by Thomas Paine

They did also vote this day thanks to be given to the Prince and Duke of Albemarle, for their care and conduct in the last year’s war, which is a strange act; but, I know not how, the blockhead Albemarle hath strange luck to be loved, though he be, and every man must know it, the heaviest man in the world, but stout and honest to his country.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

[A Second Home.] PIEDEFER (Abraham), descendant of a middle class Calvinist family of Sancerre, whose ancestors in the sixteenth century were skilled workmen, and subsequently woolen-drapers; failed in business during the reign of Louis XVI.; died about 1786, leaving two sons, Moise and Silas, in poverty.
— from Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z by Anatole Cerfberr

[Cousin Pons.] BAUDOYER (Madame), wife of the preceding and daughter of a cashier of the Minister of Finance; born Elisabeth Saillard in 1795.
— from Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z by Anatole Cerfberr

When the purpose and design of a statute is to regulate speech by reason of its content, special consideration or latitude is not afforded to the Government merely because the law can somehow be described as a burden rather than outright suppression.
— from Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Ruling by United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

It was black here in the lane, and now, possibly a distance of a hundred yards up from the street, Jimmie Dale’s fingers, feeling along the left-hand fence, came upon the latch of a small, narrow door—the courtyard’s access to the lane.
— from The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale by Frank L. (Frank Lucius) Packard

The court at Brussels, as well as the three councils, not only divided by internal dissensions, but in the highest degree—venal and corrupt; the regent without full powers to act on the spot, and the king at a distance; his adherents in the provinces few, uncertain, and dispirited; the faction numerous and powerful; two-thirds of the people irritated against popery and desirous of a change—such was the unfortunate weakness of the government, and the more unfortunate still that this weakness was so well known to its enemies!
— from History of the Revolt of the Netherlands — Volume 03 by Friedrich Schiller

Thirdly, to do no violence nor treason towards the holy Church, or to widows, or orphans, or strangers, seeing that the lord Emperor has been appointed, after the Lord and his saints, the protector and defender of all such.'
— from The Holy Roman Empire by Bryce, James Bryce, Viscount

He has advised me not to place any dependence on a man who has treated me as you have done.
— from Great Porter Square: A Mystery. v. 3 by B. L. (Benjamin Leopold) Farjeon

She seized a pen and dashed off a note to Lord Melbourne.
— from Queen Victoria by Lytton Strachey

She put her hand in her pocket, and drew out a tiny Bible, and wrote therein, before handing it to him, these words in pencil—"John Brier, a gift from his Teacher."
— from Clemence The Schoolmistress of Waveland by Retta Babcock

Hopeful had been born and brought up to early manhood in the town of Vanity, and he knew nothing better and desired nothing better than to lay out his whole life and to rest all his hopes on the things of the fair; on such things, that is, as houses, lands, places, honours, preferments, titles, pleasures, and delights of all sorts.
— from Bunyan Characters (2nd Series) by Alexander Whyte

Two four-hand sonatas, mentioned by his father (December 8, 1777), were probably intended for Wolfgang and his sister; Schiedenhofen heard them play a duet on August 15, 1777.
— from Life of Mozart, Vol. 1 (of 3) by Otto Jahn