He stopped on the third landing, lighted a match, scanned the numbers over the row of dingy doors, and knocked at No. 17.
— from The King in Yellow by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

Philosophedom grumbles and croaks; buys, as we said, 80,000 copies of Necker's new Book: but Nonpareil Calonne, in her Majesty's Apartment, with the glittering retinue of Dukes, Duchesses, and mere happy admiring faces, can let Necker and Philosophedom croak.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

He who commits his decrepitude to the press plays the fool if he think to squeeze anything out thence that does not relish of dreaming, dotage, and drivelling; the mind grows costive and thick in growing old.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

As the last rays of daylight dwindled and disappeared, absolute blackness settled down on Treasure Island.
— from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

It is piquant to read another note written in this style of righteous indignation: Voltaire, the hardy Voltaire, whose pen is without bit or bridle; Voltaire, who devoured the Bible, and ridiculed our dogmas, doubts, and after having made proselytes to impiety, is not ashamed, being reduced to the extremity of life, to ask for the sacraments, and to cover his body with more relics than St. Louis had at Amboise.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

But the vigilant citizens improved the opportunity of the night; and the return of day discovered a new wall of six feet in height, rising every moment to fill up the interval of the breach.
— 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

Even if it should prove true, which I am far from believing to be the case, that the fossil elephants, rhinoceroses, elks, and bears do not differ further from the present existing species of the same genera than the present races of dogs differ among themselves, this would by no means be a sufficient reason to conclude that they were of the same species; since the races or varieties of dogs have been influenced by the trammels of domestication, which these other animals never did and indeed never could experience.”
— from Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution His Life and Work by A. S. (Alpheus Spring) Packard

At a funeral dance of the Latuka, an African tribe, "the women remained outside the row of dancers dancing a slow, stupid step, and screaming a wild and most inharmonious chant, whilst boys and girls in another row beat time with their feet."
— from The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day by Alexander Francis Chamberlain

And the extent of the revelation or discovery depends absolutely upon the intellectual and moral development of the person to whom, or by whom, the revelation or discovery is made.
— from The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents Dresden Edition—Twelve Volumes by Robert Green Ingersoll

While 'thus he was tossed betwixt the devil and his own ignorance,'[78] the happiness of the poor women whose conversation he had heard at Bedford, was brought to his recollection by a remarkable reverie or day dream:— 'About this time, the state and happiness of these poor people at Bedford was thus, in a dream or vision, represented to me.
— from Works of John Bunyan — Volume 01 by John Bunyan

Look at a marine-store dealer’s, in that reservoir of dirt, drunkenness, and drabs: thieves, oysters, baked potatoes, and pickled salmon—Ratcliff-highway.
— from Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People by Charles Dickens

At first I could distinguish the rattle of dishes downstairs, as Sallie cleared the table, and, a little later, heard Mrs. Bernard moving about uneasily in her room across the hall.
— from Gordon Craig, Soldier of Fortune by Randall Parrish

I know who did, and that she will be in the running on Derby Day after all.
— from Cleek of Scotland Yard: Detective Stories by Thomas W. Hanshew

"The responsibility of determining, declaring, and supporting such Civil and Military policy, and of directing the whole course of National affairs in regard to the Rebellion, must now be assumed and exercised by you, or our Cause will be lost.
— from Project Gutenberg Edition of The Memoirs of Four Civil War Generals by John Alexander Logan

We moved our camp to a delightful spot on the top of the hill, resumed our daily drills, and were once more under strict discipline.
— from Reminiscences of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Regiment by John G. B. (John Gregory Bishop) Adams