A strange, frolicsome, noisy little world was this school: great pains were taken to hide chains with flowers: a subtle essence of Romanism pervaded every arrangement: large sensual indulgence (so to speak) was permitted by way of counterpoise to jealous spiritual restraint.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

Beaumont and Fletcher, forgetting the deep meaning of life, strove for effect by increasing the sensationalism of their plays; Webster reveled in tragedies of blood and thunder; Massinger and Ford made another step downward, producing evil and licentious scenes for their own sake, making characters and situations more immoral till, notwithstanding these dramatists' ability, the stage had become insincere, frivolous, and bad.
— from English Literature Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World by William J. (William Joseph) Long

'I gather, my dear Mortimer,' pursued Eugene, as Lightwood stared at the obscene visitor, 'from the manner of Mr Dolls—which is occasionally complicated—that he desires to make some communication to me.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

He owes it to social life, which stores and preserves efforts as language stores thought, fixes thereby a mean level to which individuals must raise themselves at the outset, and by this initial stimulation prevents the average man from slumbering
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

This was why he had such good—though possibly such rather colourless—manners; this was why, above all, he could regard himself, in a greedy world, as decently—as in fact perhaps even a little sublimely—unselfish.
— from The Beast in the Jungle by Henry James

Of course, I should not have described it so well as you have; I am not educated," she added timidly, for she was still feeling a sort of respect for my pathetic eloquence and lofty style; "but I am very glad that you have been quite open with me.
— from White Nights and Other Stories The Novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Volume X by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Ma première expérience avec le site www.neuromedia.com.
— from Entretiens / Interviews / Entrevistas by Marie Lebert

ATHOM or ATHOM-RE, was the Chief and Oldest Supreme God of Upper Egypt, worshipped at Thebes; the same as the OM or AUM of the Hindūs, whose name was unpronounceable, and who, like the BREHM of the latter People, was "The Being that was, and is, and is to come; the Great God, the Great Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent One, the Greatest in the Universe, the Lord;" whose emblem was a perfect sphere, showing that He was first, last, midst, and without end; superior to all Nature-Gods, and all personifications of Powers, Elements, and Luminaries; symbolized by Light, the Principle of Life.
— from Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry by Albert Pike

Bronchoscopy, esophagoscopy, and gastroscopy; a manual of peroral endoscopy and laryngeal surgery, by Chevalier Jackson & Chevalier L. Jackson.
— from U.S. Copyright Renewals, 1962 January - June by Library of Congress. Copyright Office

He does not feed on the public; a great many of the public feed upon him; and, therefore, his practical experience a little staggers and perplexes Lenny Fairfield as to the gospel accuracy of his theoretical dogmas.
— from The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 by Various

What have you done?...'" The absence of all independence, of any passion even a little sincere, the complete submission of heart and mind to the old prescribed morality, the constant effort to realize mere personal ambitions—all of these are the reproaches that Gorky addresses to cultivated man, whose moral disintegration he proves has been produced by routine and prejudice.
— from Contemporary Russian Novelists by Serge Persky

It is true he died some years before the perfect organization of that tribunal; but, as he established the principles on which, and the monkish militia by whom, it was administered, it is doing him no injustice to regard him as its real author.—The Sicilian Paramo, indeed, in his heavy quarto, (De Origine et Progressu Officii Sanctae Inquisitionis, Matriti, 1598,) traces it up to a much more remote antiquity, which, to a Protestant ear at least, savors not a little of blasphemy.
— from The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic — Volume 1 by William Hickling Prescott

And now approach, and let me drop into your most private ear, a literary secret.
— from Private Letters of Edward Gibbon (1753-1794) Volume 2 (of 2) by Edward Gibbon

Consequently, let the complaining operator but employ the diligence inculcated in this article, to clean his plate thoroughly, so as to bring it to a perfectly even and level surface, and he will seldom be troubled with specks, clouds, dark patches, and the host of other obstacles which heretofore have tormented him.
— from American Hand Book of the Daguerreotype by S. D. (Samuel Dwight) Humphrey

Of all now present, and many others had sauntered up, possibly Exton and Lady Selina alone remained self-possessed.
— from Whitewash by Horace Annesley Vachell

Each layer probably marks a fresh surface, when the, now firmly cemented, particles existed as loose sand.
— from Volcanic Islands by Charles Darwin