Slaveholders, however, are not very ceremonious in approaching a slave; and my ignorance of the new material in shape of a master was but transient.
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

The second principle I shall take notice of is that of our adherence to general rules; which has such a mighty influence on the actions and understanding, and is able to impose on the very senses.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

A seasonable vision (for such are the manufacture of every religion) revealed the holy spot at the foot of the walls and the bottom of the harbor; and the mosch of Ayub has been deservedly chosen for the simple and martial inauguration of the Turkish sultans.
— 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

Language is eternally changing—so are manners; but an exploded custom or rite traced to its source, and maintained in opposition to climate, is a testimony not to be rejected.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

Any one who has witnessed Mr. Henry Irving’s scholarly and masterly impersonation of the character of Louis XI. has had an opportunity of recognising a phase of superstition which happily it were now difficult to find off the stage.
— from Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway

Thought deals not with bare things, but with their meanings , their suggestions; and meanings, in order to be apprehended, must be embodied in sensible and particular existences.
— from How We Think by John Dewey

Christian consideration for the helpless position of Miss Halcombe and Lady Glyde, and for the serious inconvenience which my sudden absence might inflict on them, alone prevented me from resigning my situation on the spot.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

After the conversion of the Imperial city, the Christians still continued, in the month of February, the annual celebration of the Lupercalia; to which they ascribed a secret and mysterious influence on the genial powers of the animal and vegetable world.
— 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

What I want is that you should kindly relieve me of my superfluity and make it over to Isabel.
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James

It did so without striking a blow, and vanished from the scene, a memorable illustration of the political nullity of the middle class in Berlin as compared with that of Paris.
— from A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878 by Charles Alan Fyffe

And since a great number of the Western farmers had simply taken up their lands, before they were thrown open to sale, and made improvements on them without procuring titles, they feared the enforcement of the federal law against them and clamored for a preëmption system which would secure them their land, when the day of sales did come, at the minimum price, $1.25 per acre.
— from Expansion and Conflict by William Edward Dodd

At each of your visits to your grandmother's I am put on trial—is it not so?—and infamous things are said about me in order to detach you from me.
— from Truth [Vérité] by Émile Zola

These and similar examples suffice to awaken doubts as to whether any teratological change really arises "spontaneously," especially when we learn how slight a mechanical irritation of the growing point may induce changes in the flower; e.g. Sachs [ 256 ] showed that a sunflower head is profoundly altered by pricking the centre of the torus, and Molliard got double flowers by mechanical irritation.
— from Disease in Plants by H. Marshall (Harry Marshall) Ward

The constitution of the expedition was as follows: A governor, lieutenant-governor, judge-advocate, commissary, and chaplain; a surgeon and two assistant surgeons; an agent for the transports; two hundred and twelve soldiers and mariners, including officers; their wives, numbering forty, and their children; five hundred and forty-eight male convicts, and two hundred and thirty female.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 20, October 1874‐March 1875 by Various

She walked by them and out of the door, stood a moment irresolutely on the porch, and then, as she caught sight of Cornelia Burt coming out of the dormitory just beyond, she hurried out to meet her.
— from Smith College Stories Ten Stories by Josephine Dodge Daskam by Josephine Daskam Bacon

They were, originally, an island belonging to Earl Goodwin, when a sudden and mighty inundation of the sea overwhelmed with light sand, 'where-with,' as an old writer hath it, 'it not only remayneth covered ever since, but is become withall a most dreadful gulfe and shippe swallower.'
— from The World of Waters Or, A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea by Osborne, David, Mrs. (Fanny)

We need not be discouraged so long as we see such a motto inscribed on the door of our Father's treasury—"He giveth more grace."
— from Notes on the Book of Leviticus by Charles Henry Mackintosh

He gave the money an angry look, as though scorning it, despite the hard work Nick may have done and sacrifices also made in order to build up that small amount.
— from The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey by Donald Ferguson