And whenever she saw a ragged child eying a window full of goodies, smiling even, while it shivered, she could not resist playing Santa Claus till her purse was empty, sending the poor little souls enraptured home with oranges and apples in either hand, and splendid sweeties in their pockets, for the babies.
— from Work: A Story of Experience by Louisa May Alcott

Never saw a real cannon, either,” answered O. D. “Can that stuff.
— from What Outfit, Buddy? by T. Howard (Thomas Howard) Kelly

First he says that his appeal is unnecessary: nec dubitans oro; sed flumine saepe secundo augetur remis cursus euntis aquae.
— from The Last Poems of Ovid by Ovid

Ere long we may be able to traverse a census in its details of record and deduction, and thus satisfy a reasonable curiosity, especially as to the last reported total after the carnage of the rebellion.
— from The Middle Kingdom, Volume 1 (of 2) A Survey of the Geography, Government, Literature, Social Life, Arts, and History of the Chinese Empire and its Inhabitants by S. Wells (Samuel Wells) Williams

My little band tumbled in toward ten o'clock, excitedly babbling a mess of statistics about reciprocating compound engines and watertight bulkheads, devil-fish and sky-scrapers and birds of paradise.
— from Dear Enemy by Jean Webster

Under this term I shall include not only the so-called "fine writing" but emotional passages in the language of the average man, dialogues from prose dramas, novels and short stories, and I shall also regard criticism, essays and works on science and philosophy highly charged with feeling as part of the province of the literature of ecstasy.
— from The Literature of Ecstasy by Albert Mordell

Suddenly, way back in his mind, Perfidion said, "By the way, Tom, I take it you're all set as regards costume, equipment and the like."
— from A Knyght Ther Was by Robert F. Young

Still lonely and magnificent in guilt, Splendid in scorn, rapt in a cloudy dream, He paused at last upon the Stygian silt, And raised calm eyes above the angry stream....
— from Ships in Harbour by David Morton

They were Page 173 [Pg 173] seen in the same streets, pampered, spirited, and richly caparisoned, enjoying a state far superior to the negroes, and appearing to look down on the fettered and burdened wretches they were passing, as on beings of an inferior rank in the creation.
— from An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans by Lydia Maria Child

Inevitable as was the disintegration of the original state and religion, continual efforts appear to have been made even in Babylonia itself, to check the growth of a debasing ritual and the constant increase of the gods and goddesses which were installed as the rulers of each new town that was founded on the plan of the metropolis.
— from The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations A Comparative Research Based on a Study of the Ancient Mexican Religious, Sociological, and Calendrical Systems by Zelia Nuttall