His pathetic, and not inelegant, complaint may be read as the epitaph of his country.
— 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

If this was so, then Branca d’Oria lived long enough to read or hear that for thirty-five years his soul had been in Hell.—It is significant of the detestation in which Dante held any breach of hospitality, that it is as a treacherous host and not as a treacherous kinsman that Branca is punished—in Ptolomæa and not in Caïna.
— from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri

Now, in the ordinary course of things, and according to all authentic descriptions of high life, as set forth in books, Mrs. Wititterly ought to have been in her boudoir ; but whether it was that Mr. Wititterly was at that moment shaving himself in the boudoir or what not, certain it is that Mrs. Wititterly gave audience in the drawing-room, where was everything proper and necessary, including curtains and furniture coverings of a roseate hue, to shed a delicate bloom on Mrs. Wititterly’s complexion, and a little dog to snap at strangers’ legs for Mrs. Wititterly’s amusement, and the afore-mentioned page, to hand chocolate for Mrs. Wititterly’s refreshment.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

Your day is past, and night is comin’ on.’
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

Their glittering tents he passed, and now is come Into the blissful field, through groves of myrrh, And flowering odours, cassia, nard, and balm; A wilderness of sweets; for Nature here Wantoned as in her prime, and played at will Her virgin fancies pouring forth more sweet, Wild above rule or art, enormous bliss.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton

‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy and Mother of My Enemy,’ said the Cat, ‘it is I, for you have spoken a second word in my praise, and now I can sit by the warm fire at the back of the Cave for always and always and always.
— from Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling

‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy and Mother of my Enemy, said the Cat, ‘it is I; for you have spoken three words in my praise, and now I can drink the warm white milk three times a day for always and always and always.
— from Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling

There the companions of his fall, o'rewhelm'd With Floods and Whirlwinds of tempestuous fire, He soon discerns, and weltring by his side One next himself in power, and next in crime, Long after known in Palestine, and nam'd 80 Beelzebub.
— from The Poetical Works of John Milton by John Milton

There the companions of his fall, o'erwhelmed With floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire, He soon discerns; and, weltering by his side, One next himself in power, and next in crime, Long after known in Palestine, and named Beelzebub.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton

I late at the office, and then home to supper and to bed, being mightily troubled with a pain in the small of my back, through cold, or (which I think most true) my straining last night to get open my plate chest, in such pain all night I could not turn myself in my bed.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

"Glory and royal power are nothing in comparison with happy love," he murmured, turning back to look at the boat which held his friends.
— from The Usurper: An Episode in Japanese History by Judith Gautier

Since 1837, when it became a royal residence, many changes have taken place, and numerous improvements continue to be made.
— from Model Women by William Anderson

The face of the stranger, though I could not call it handsome, was very remarkable; its expression was the purest and noblest I could conceive, and it was made very beautiful by a look of such compassion as I never saw before.
— from J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

The mother died exactly at the time of the dissolution of the Parliament, and not in child-birth itself, but nearly four months after child-birth; and the little orphan, outliving the mother a short while, died at the age of five months.
— from The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 Narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of His Time by David Masson

It may perhaps be argued, that the indiscriminate admission of the trade of neutral vessels might tend to injure the British ships trading to this colony; but such a consequence, I think, may easily be averted, since the governor has power to prevent those ships from selling any such articles as he may deem it expedient to prohibit; and no injury could consequently be sustained, while it would hold out the necessity of selling the European goods at a reasonable rate, or the wants of the colony might be supplied from another market.
— from The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) by D. D. (David Dickinson) Mann

"Pretty average nice, I call 'em, for soft-fodder," he observed.
— from Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper: A Story of Cape Cod by James A. Cooper

It was singularly graceful and appropriate that the funeral discourse of the greatest American Novelist, should have been pronounced by the greatest American Poet—and should we say the greatest living poet who speaks the tongue of Milton and Shakspeare, who would dare to place another name in competition for the honor with that of Bryant ?
— from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXIII.—April, 1852.—Vol. IV. None by Various

But when, through the crime committed at Buffalo, everything came out so differently from that which the politicians expected, it seemed to the admirers of Roosevelt almost like the tragic hand of fate; he had done his best to attain on his own account the Presidency, and now it came to him almost as the gift of chance.
— from The Americans by Hugo Münsterberg

The hackney coaches moreover only ply till five o'clock, so if you go to a party at night, it costs you a scudo.
— from Letters of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy from Italy and Switzerland by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy

Falk was a Dane or perhaps a Norwegian, I can’t tell now.
— from Falk: A Reminiscence by Joseph Conrad