The Royal African Company has a Fort on a small Island call’d Bence Island, but ’tis of little Use, besides keeping their Slaves; the Distance making it incapable of giving any Molestation to their Starboard Shore.
— from A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the island of Providence, to the present time by Daniel Defoe

The Last Tournament Dagonet, the fool, whom Gawain in his mood Had made mock-knight of Arthur's Table Round, At Camelot, high above the yellowing woods, Danced like a withered leaf before the hall.
— from Idylls of the King by Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron

Its requirements and capacities here, are the same as those assigned by physiologists to everything that lives, grows, and multiplies.
— from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Other fragments of regiments and companies had also fallen into my division, and acted with it during the remainder of the battle.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

The gunner was released and consulted: he advised the captain to cut away the mast, in order to lighten her; this expedient was performed without success: the sailors, seeing things in a desperate situation, according to custom, broke up the chests belonging to the officers, dressed themselves in their clothes, drank their liquors without ceremony, and drunkenness, tumult, and confusion ensued.
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

This scientific "equity" stops immediately and makes way for the accents of deadly enmity and prejudice, so soon as another group of emotions comes on the scene, which in my opinion are of a much higher biological value than these reactions, and consequently have a paramount claim to the valuation and appreciation of science: I mean the really active emotions, such as personal and material ambition, and so forth.
— from The Genealogy of Morals The Complete Works, Volume Thirteen, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy. by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

‘It’s not worth the trouble,’ said the third; ‘let him live, he’ll go climbing higher up the mountain, and some cloud will come rolling and carry him away.’
— from Grimms' Fairy Tales by Wilhelm Grimm

Gregory watched the rapid and changing hues alternating on her cheek.
— from Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 by John Roby

“They say, on the other side, that a man may get through without disgrace, in Oxford or Cambridge, who doesn’t know how to spell English,” said the youth, with natural exasperation—and took a few long strokes which sent the boat flying across the summer ripples, and consumed his angry energy.
— from A Son of the Soil by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

Apparently resolving rather to die than to be hunted thus like a wolf, he halted suddenly, turned sharp round, and, crossing his arms on his bare chest, looked Dick full in the face as he came up.
— from The Wild Man of the West: A Tale of the Rocky Mountains by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne

His wooing growing more passionate, Tatiana declares, that she means to remain true to her husband, and refuses to elope with him, but feeling that she cannot resist him much longer, she flees, while Onegin rushes away, cursing himself and his whole life.
— from The Standard Operaglass Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas by Annesley, Charles, pseud.

The letter was accordingly handed to Cato, when, perceiving that it was a letter from Servilia to Cæsar, full of protestations of love to his deadliest enemy, he threw it at Cæsar in a great rage, and called him a drunkard.
— from The Anatomy of Suicide by Forbes Winslow

Distinctions of race and color have arisen afterward.
— from Foundations of World Unity by `Abdu'l-Bahá

She felt as a child opening the door of a dark room, and, clutching his arm, said: “Look!
— from Beyond by John Galsworthy

When the form of the boomerang—a missile instrument of barbaric nations, much the shape of the letter V with a rounded instead of acute bottom, which, on being thrown, slowly ascends in the air, whirling round and round, till it reaches a considerable height, and then returns until it finally sweeps over the head of the thrower and strikes the ground behind him—is taken into consideration, and the traditional returning power of the hammer is remembered in connection with it, the fylfot may surely be not inappropriately described as a figure composed of four boomerangs, conjoined in the centre.
— from The Masculine Cross A History of Ancient and Modern Crosses and Their Connection with the Mysteries of Sex Worship; Also an Account of the Kindred Phases of Phallic Faiths and Practices by Anonymous

After a recent unavoidable association with the border inhabitants of Western Missouri and Iowa, the vile scum which our own society, to apply the words of an admirable gentleman and eminent divine, [C] "like the great ocean washes upon its frontier shores," I can scarcely describe the gratification I felt in associating again with persons who were almost all of Eastern American origin,—persons of refined and cleanly habits and decent language,—and in observing their peculiar and interesting mode of life;—while every day seemed to bring with it its own especial incident, fruitful in the illustration of habits and character.
— from The Mormons: A Discourse Delivered Before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania by Thomas L. (Thomas Leiper) Kane