There were no signs of violence, no footmarks, no robbery, no record of strangers having been seen upon the roads.
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

V. Next, Marmion marked the Celtic race, Of different language, form, and face— Avarious race of man; Just then the chiefs their tribes arrayed, And wild and garish semblance made The chequered trews and belted plaid, And varying notes the war-pipes brayed To every varying clan; Wild through their red or sable hair Looked out their eyes with savage stare
— from Marmion: A Tale Of Flodden Field by Walter Scott

“The reel of silk has run smoothly enough so far; but I always knew there would come a knot and a puzzle: here it is.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë

sighing, pensive, sad, almost distracted, multa absurda fingunt, et a ratione aliena (saith [2519] Frambesarius), they feign many absurdities, vain, void of reason: one supposeth himself to be a dog, cock, bear, horse, glass, butter, &c. He is a giant, a dwarf, as strong as an hundred men, a lord, duke, prince, &c.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

[Clark, November 1, 1805] November 1st Friday 1805 a verry cold morning wind from N. E and hard Set all hands packing the loading over th portage which is below the Grand Shutes and is 940 yards of bad way over rocks & on Slipery hill Sides The Indians who came down in 2 Canoes last night packed their fish over a portage of 21/2 miles to avoid a 2d Shute.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

A few days afterward Colonel Capron also got in, with another small brigade perfectly demoralized, and confirmed the report that General Stoneman had covered the escape of these two small brigades, himself standing with a reserve of seven hundred men, with which he surrendered to a Colonel Iverson.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

And Mrs Verloc, hearing these words of commendation vouchsafed to her beloved dead, swayed forward with a flicker of light in her sombre eyes, like a ray of sunshine heralding a tempest of rain.
— from The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad

Four hundred of the bravest of the Heruli marched under the banner of the faithful and active Pharas; their untractable valor was more highly prized than the tame submission of the Greeks and Syrians; and of such importance was it deemed to procure a reënforcement of six hundred Massagetæ, or Huns, that they were allured by fraud and deceit to engage in a naval expedition.
— 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

And of all that range of sentiment he is the poet, a poet still alive, and in possession of our inmost thoughts—dumb inquiry over the relapse after death into the formlessness which preceded life, the change, the revolt from that change, then the correcting, hallowing, consoling rush of pity; at last, far off, thin and vague, yet not more vague than the most definite thoughts men have had through three centuries on a matter that has been so near their hearts, the new body—a passing light, a mere intangible, external effect, over those too rigid, or too formless faces; a dream that lingers a moment, retreating in the dawn, incomplete, aimless, helpless; a thing with faint hearing, faint memory, faint power of touch; a breath, a flame in the doorway, a feather in the wind.
— from The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry by Walter Pater

The relations of slavery had ramified themselves through all the relations of society.
— from Discussion on American Slavery by Robert J. (Robert Jefferson) Breckinridge

When he came in again ruddiness of sky had given place to the golden glow of sunrise and the morning sun tinted the mountain tops.
— from Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant by Mathew Joseph Holt

"Ye'll to the Prince Royal o' Scotland— Him the Southrons misca's 'Wales,'
— from Punch - Volume 25 (Jul-Dec 1853) by Various

Not in such rhodomontade of speech had Henry Morgan loved and won her, was the beginning of the chain.
— from Hearts of Three by Jack London

Even in the most refined of /salons/, he displayed his Rabelaisian manners and costume, and remained the typical author of the /Contes drolatiques/; but to maintain that he never knew women of the upper class or never even entered their society, involves a misapprehension of the facts.
— from Women in the Life of Balzac by Juanita Helm Floyd

When observers essayed to apply to the sun the same procedure which had proved so successful in regard to the moon, they encountered disastrous failures, partly because the base, even the largest practicable one, was found to be comparatively very small; partly because, when the sun shines, no star is visible near by from which to measure an angle; and also because the atmosphere is so disturbed by the rays of solar heat that, when seen through a large telescope, the sun's edge is quite tremulous.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 19, April 1874‐September 1874 by Various

John Mansel, Henry III.’s chancellor, is said by Matthew Paris to have held the revenues of seven hundred benefices, amounting to four thousand marks.
— from Parish Priests and Their People in the Middle Ages in England by Edward Lewes Cutts

Traces remained of emotionally-toned impressions acquired when she had walked about the city holding Edward's hand—of a long row of stately houses with forbidding fronts, set on a hillside, of a wide, tree-covered space where children were playing.
— from The Dwelling Place of Light — Volume 2 by Winston Churchill

He was accordingly transferred to land upon the 16th October; [207] and thus the Emperor of France, nay, wellnigh of Europe, sunk into the Recluse of St. Helena.
— from Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume V. by Walter Scott