mare ad barbaros, barbari ad mare , the barbarians drove them to the sea, the sea drove them back to the barbarians: our present misery compels us to cry out and howl, to make our moan to rich men: they turn us back with a scornful answer to our misfortune again, and will take no pity of us; they commonly overlook their poor friends in adversity; if they chance to meet them, they voluntarily forget and will take no notice of them; they will not, they cannot help us.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

We shall now endeavor, with clearness and precision, to describe the provinces once united under their sway, but, at present, divided into so many independent and hostile states.
— 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

I would nevertheless leave it to the Consideration of those who are the Patrons of this monstrous Tryal of Skill, whether or no they are not guilty, in some measure, of an Affront to their Species, in treating after this manner the Human Face Divine , and turning that Part of us, which has so great an Image impressed upon it, into the Image of a Monkey; whether the raising such silly Competitions among the Ignorant, proposing Prizes for such useless Accomplishments, filling the common People's Heads with such Senseless Ambitions, and inspiring them with such absurd Ideas of Superiority and Preheminence, has not in it something Immoral as well as Ridiculous 3 .
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

'I lay yo' my heart and soul we'll win for a' this: it's but bearing on one more week, and yo just see th' way th' masters 'll come round, praying on us to come back to our mills.
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

As his own position was not a very pleasant one until the matter was set at rest one way or other, he did so; and Miss Brass, plying her snuff-box at a most wasteful rate, corroborated his account.
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

helveing rock for 47 feet 8 Inches with a Cascade &c of 14 feet 7 Inches above the Shoot for a 1/4 mile I decended the Clift below this Cateract with ease measured the hight of the purpendicular fall of 47 feet 8 Inches at which place the river is 473 yards wide as also the hight of the Cascade &c. a continuel mist quite across this fall* after which we proceeded on up the river a little more than a mile to the largest fountain or Spring I ever Saw, and doubt if it is not the largest in America Known, this water boils up from under th rocks near the edge of the river and falls imediately into the river 8 feet and keeps its Colour for 1/2 a mile which is emencely Clear and of a bluish Cast, proceeded on up the river passed a Succession of rapids to the next great fall of 26 Ft. 5 I. river 580 yards wide this fall is not intirely perpdincular a Short bench gives a Curve to the water as it falls a butifull Small Island at the foot of this fall near the Center of the Channel Covered with trees, the Missouri at this fall is 36 yards wide, a Considerable mist rises at this fall ocasionally, from this pitch to the head of the rapids is one mile & has a fall of 20 feet, this is also a handsome Scenery a fall in an open leavel plain, after takeing the hight & measureing the river proceeded on, Saw a gange of Buffalow Swiming the river above the falls, Several of which was drawn in to the rapids and with dificuelty mad Shore half drowned, we killed one of those Cows & took as much meat as we wished.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

Villefort immediately rose from table and quitted the room upon the plea of urgent business; he soon, however, returned, his whole face beaming with delight.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

As she was also so white as not to be known as of colored lineage, without a critical survey, and her child was white also, it was much easier for her to pass on unsuspected.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

ting stylus, then, from the fact of its being at hand and of suitable shape was occasionally, perhaps often, used as a surgical instrument.
— from Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times by John Stewart Milne

A very fine bridge has been erected over the Green, now forming part of Union Street; the Palace Hotel overlooking the railway station and the surrounding buildings.
— from Life of a Scotch Naturalist: Thomas Edward, Associate of the Linnean Society. Fourth Edition by Samuel Smiles

They talk to me Of my discoveries, prate of undying fame Too late to help me.
— from Watchers of the Sky by Alfred Noyes

Once he has entered the "Strait Gate," [261] and his consciousness is awake on the first plane of Unity, [262] he becomes able [298] to read the Great Book of Nature, in which all vibrations are kept in potentiality; he can revive them by an effort of will, similar to that he makes in a waking state, when he wishes to bring back past impressions to his brain.
— from Reincarnation: A Study in Human Evolution by Théophile Pascal

Modena, who abandoned not only what other men hold dear,—home, fortune, peace,—but also endured, without the power of using the prime of his great artist-talent, a ten years' exile in a foreign land; his wife every way worthy of him,—such a woman as I am not.
— from Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Volume II by Margaret Fuller

But the difference between the powers of the lowest plant, or animal, and those of the highest, is one of degree, not of kind, and depends, as Milne-Edwards 97 long ago so well pointed out, upon the extent to which the principle of the division of labour is carried out in the living economy.
— from Autobiography and Selected Essays by Thomas Henry Huxley

While General Sheaffe was President of Upper Canada, an Act was passed to facilitate the circulation of the Lower Province Army Bills.
— from The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation Volume 1 by Charles Roger

Smith's tickets were for a ring-side box, a species of sheep pen of unpolished wood, with four hard chairs in it.
— from The Prince and Betty by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

Then a somewhat blurred voice said: "When a gentleman goes rowing—in a private boat—and is raided by a pair of unknown investigators—one of them wearing a Mother Hubbard— who strike matches in his face and make personal remarks—he naturally awaits their explanations."
— from Captivating Mary Carstairs by Henry Sydnor Harrison

It had indeed been already observed among the [pg 683] minority how monstrous it was to make the Pope “the principle of unity in the Church,” as the Schema puts it, and that the ancient Fathers speak indeed of an “exordium unitatis” established in the person of Peter, but had never called him, and still less the Bishop of Rome, the principle of ecclesiastical unity, which would be logically inconceivable.
— from Letters From Rome on the Council by Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger

He was paid off until the end of the week, which made a total period of one month at thirty dollars a week with no work and an interesting trip with all expenses to Cebu and back.
— from From Job to Job around the World by Alfred C. B. (Alfred Charles Benson) Fletcher