Progress; and that holy, sweet, and good thing, progress, they claimed in terrible wise, driven to extremities as they were, half naked, club in fist, a roar in their mouths.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

As, that the devil was the president; and that he sat in person in an elbow-chair at the upper end of the table; but, upon very strict enquiry, I find there is not the least truth in any of those tales, and that the assembly consisted in reality of a set of very good sort of people, and the fibs which they propagated were of a harmless kind, and tended only to produce mirth and good humour.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

Tribonian composed, both in prose and verse, on a strange diversity of curious and abstruse subjects: 73 a double panegyric of Justinian and the life of the philosopher Theodotus; the nature of happiness and the duties of government; Homer's catalogue and the four-and-twenty sorts of metre; the astronomical canon of Ptolemy; the changes of the months; the houses of the planets; and the harmonic system of the world.
— 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

General Slocum was ahead at Madison, with the Twentieth Corps, having torn up the railroad as far as that place, and thence had sent Geary's division on to the Oconee, to burn the bridges across that stream, when this corps turned south by Eatonton, for Milledgeville, the common "objective" for the first stage of the "march."
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

Indeed, every care was taken that no fire should approach the building; no lighted lamp was allowed in the precincts, and to have smoked a pipe inside those walls would have been punished with death.
— from Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway

How much do I wish it were in my power to discover the nature of the malady which thus maddens him and to offer or to procure alleviation to his sufferings!
— from Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

Among other things Mr. Turner making his complaint to me how my clerks do all the worke and get all the profit, and he hath no comfort, nor cannot subsist, I did make him apprehend how he is beholding to me more than to any body for my suffering him to act as Pourveyour of petty provisions, and told him so largely my little value of any body’s favour, that I believe he will make no complaints again a good while.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

In Physiologus , a Greek writing Page 195 {195} of early Christian times of about the date 140, which in the course of time has been translated into every tongue, mention is made of the panther, to which is there ascribed the gaily spotted coat and the pleasant, sweet-smelling breath which induces all other animals to approach it; the dragon alone retreats into its hole from the smell, and consequently the panther appears to have sometimes been used as a symbol of Christ.
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

Upon his knees Nicholas gave him this pledge, and promised again that he should rest in the spot he had pointed out.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

No valor, no heroism, no courage, no devotion could prevail against thirst, hunger, smallpox, pestilence, the fever of besieged towns, with the streets filled with unburied dead.
— from South American Fights and Fighters, and Other Tales of Adventure by Cyrus Townsend Brady

To the infantine grace of their charming faces, formerly so plump and rosy, but now pale and thin, had succeeded an expression of grave and touching sadness.
— from The Wandering Jew — Volume 10 by Eugène Sue

More incantations follow this proceeding, and then heavy stones and rocks are placed over the rain producer, and the inhabitants all wait for the rain, which, strange to say, generally comes.
— from The Savage South Seas by E. Way (Ernest Way) Elkington

When he 31 had finished I asked him if he thought God had heard his prayer and that his sins were forgiven, and he said “yes.”
— from How to bring men to Christ by R. A. (Reuben Archer) Torrey

The morbid but powerful attraction that horrible sights exert over a man urged Amedee Violette to this spot.
— from A Romance of Youth — Complete by François Coppée

"The maid will be at my office at eleven with the Duke of Perse and the house servants.
— from Truxton King: A Story of Graustark by George Barr McCutcheon

At Bath his great musical talents seem first to have been recognised—yet even there tardily, as he was for a long time engaged merely as a chorus singer, and was still miserably paid accordingly; though his salary was now raised to thirty [95] shillings a week.
— from Cornish Worthies: Sketches of Some Eminent Cornish Men and Families, Volume 2 (of 2) by Walter H. (Walter Hawken) Tregellas

And his ordinary day’s work was not of a very elevating character; he might have kept to that for years without acquiring much knowledge of his profession; and though he still was resolute to occupy no sham position, and determined that neither mother nor sisters should make sacrifices for him, Charlie felt no hesitation in making a brief and forcible statement to Mr Foggo on the subject.
— from The Athelings; or, the Three Gifts. Vol. 1/3 by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

When, at some ten of the clock the rooms in the lonely house had passed from gloaming to darkness, and the paraffin lamp glared smokily at the semi-grand piano and the horsehair sofa, the wild and noble outline of Connemara was still sharp, the gleam behind it still a harbourage for the daylight.
— from Some Irish Yesterdays by E. Oe. (Edith Oenone) Somerville