At Rome, and in the provinces, the duties of the subject, and the intentions of the governor, were proclaimed; and the civil jurisprudence was reformed by the annual edicts of the supreme judge, the praetor of the city.
— 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

The rate fell in the seventies, rose again in the eighties, the figure for 1882 being 29,101 persons, while it averaged over eighteen thousand per annum also for the next decade.
— from A History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States From the Earliest Beginning down to the Year 1848 by George T. (George Tobias) Flom

So up to my chamber, and put all my papers, at rights, and in the evening our maid Mary.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

They who have taken it on the left hand, they who have taken it on the right; they who call it black, they who call it white, alike employ it to their violent and ambitious designs, conduct it with a progress, so conform in riot and injustice that they render the diversity they pretended in their opinions, in a thing whereon the conduct and rule of our life depends, doubtful and hard to believe.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

This hath many long rough leaves lying on the ground, from among which rises up divers hard round stalks, very rough, as if they were thick set with prickles or hairs, whereon are set such like rough, hairy, or prickly sad green leaves, somewhat narrow; the middle rib for the most part being white.
— from The Complete Herbal To which is now added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs, with a display of their medicinal and occult qualities physically applied to the cure of all disorders incident to mankind: to which are now first annexed, the English physician enlarged, and key to Physic. by Nicholas Culpeper

"There are unceasing external forces, tending to bring the matter of which organic bodies consist, into that state of stable equilibrium displayed by inorganic bodies; there are internal forces by which this tendency is constantly antagonized; and the perpetual changes which constitute Life may be regarded as incidental to the maintenance of the antagonism....
— from Know the Truth: A Critique on the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation Including Some Strictures Upon the Theories of Rev. Henry L. Mansel and Mr. Herbert Spencer by Jesse Henry Jones

Thus those who were studying painting were examined at frequent intervals in the prices which all the leading pictures of the last fifty or a hundred years had realised, and in the fluctuations in their values when (as often happened) they had been sold and resold three or four times.
— from Erewhon; Or, Over the Range by Samuel Butler

That the peasants dwelling near it had a thorough respect for this tradition, was proved by [ Pg 100] the fact that all around the dangerous hole ‘the grass grew as thick and as rank as in the wilds of America or some unapproached ledge of the Alps.’
— from British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions by Wirt Sikes

Books remained as in the eighteenth century, the source of life, and as they came out--Thackeray, Dickens, Bulwer, Tennyson, Macaulay, Carlyle, and the rest--they were devoured; but as far as happiness went, the happiest hours of the boy's education were passed in summer lying on a musty heap of Congressional Documents in the old farmhouse at Quincy, reading "Quentin Durward," "Ivanhoe," and "The Talisman," and raiding the garden at intervals for peaches and pears.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams

"Alas!" said she, "who can but lament, that shall but rightly consider what a state and condition my poor relations are in, that yet remain in our sinful town?
— from The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan Every Child Can Read by John Bunyan

If thou couldst only install every flaming soul sent into the world as a completion of the republican antiques, in the office of under-clerk, custom-house collector, or warden of the treasury (as the people of Grand Cairo transform their ruins into stables and horse-troughs)!"
— from Hesperus; or, Forty-Five Dog-Post-Days: A Biography. Vol. I. by Jean Paul

They will only be right angles if the cell-wall is already practically solid, and in all probability (rigidity of the cell-wall not being quite attained) they will be somewhat greater.
— from On Growth and Form by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson

It sounds like z before e mute, as refuse , and before y final, as rosy ; and in those words, bosom , desire , wisdom , prison , prisoner , present , present , damsel , casement .
— from A Grammar of the English Tongue by Samuel Johnson

Lions, panthers, and other fierce beasts, he ran after in the Peridrome, and darted at them from above with never-failing effect, whether he aimed at the forehead or the heart.
— from The Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature and the Arts, July-December, 1827 by Various

And the others laughed, too, and began the long walk toward Hampton, as refreshed as if they were just starting out for the day.
— from Peggy Parsons, a Hampton Freshman by Annabel Sharp

Soon I heard the rattle of sabres on the road, and I took a candle to show a light to the men who were returning; and they soon appeared, carrying that inert, soft, long, sinister object which a human body becomes when life no longer sustains it.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

About 1870 they underwent a politico-religious revolution and introduced the hemp or “Riamba” cult, in accordance with which all the smokers of Riamba declare themselves friends, the duty of mutual hospitality is acknowledged, the sale of girls interdicted, etc.
— from The Races of Man: An Outline of Anthropology and Ethnography by Joseph Deniker

Let each man make the same resolve, and I trust we shall yet prove the pilgrim a lying prophet.’
— from The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 Volume 23, Number 5 by Various

9.) until which time they must kiss the rod as in the hand of God, and own and adore the holiness and sovereignty of that providence that hath subjected them under such a slavery; and are not to attempt a violent ejection or excussion, when either the thing attempted is altogether impracticable, or the means and manner of effectuating it dubious and unwarrantable, or the necessary concomitants and consequents of the cure more hurtful or dangerous than the disease, or the like.
— from A Hind Let Loose Or, An Historical Representation of the Testimonies of the Church of Scotland for the Interest of Christ. With the True State Thereof in All Its Periods by Alexander Shields