But that such a revolution of taste should be brought about by a few broad assertions, seems little less than impossible.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

He procured from Amsterdam three emeralds of extraordinary size and richness of colour, and had a turquoise de la vieille roche that was the envy of all the connoisseurs.
— from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Fire was first learned from lightning and the friction of trees, and cooking from the softening and ripening of things by the sun.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

p. 1598;) to which he adds a reason, most directly opposite to his conduct, that he preferred the salvation of souls and rule of faith to the goods of this transitory 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

24 The annals of China 25 illustrate the state and revolutions of the pastoral tribes, which may still be distinguished by the vague appellation of Scythians, or Tartars; the vassals, the enemies, and sometimes the conquerors, of a great empire; whose policy has uniformly opposed the blind and impetuous valor of the Barbarians of the North.
— 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 he, when he saw himself among Turnus' encircling thousands, ranks on this side and ranks on this of Latins, as a wild beast which, girt with a crowded ring of hunters, dashes at their weapons, hurls herself unblinded on death, and comes with a bound upon the spears; even so he rushes to his death amid the enemy, and presses on where he sees their weapons thickest.
— from The Aeneid of Virgil by Virgil

I know those who would be shocked by such a representation of Mr Elliot, who would have difficulty in believing it; but I have never been satisfied.
— from Persuasion by Jane Austen

From that claim of the professor's stretched a row of nuggets, clear from the Picket Post Mountains to Gold Hill.
— from Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail; Or, The Fugitive Professor by Burt L. Standish

A pair of sinewy arms reached out for her, groping in the strangling haze.
— from The Lady of Big Shanty by F. Berkeley (Frank Berkeley) Smith

In the light of the express restrictions of the Treaty of Washington as exemplified in the war between one of the parties to that treaty and a third party in 1898, the obligation imposed upon the United States, impliedly at any rate, by the sixth article of the mutual agreement of 1871 might be read: "The United States is bound not to permit Great Britain to make use of its ports or waters as the base of naval operations against the South African Republics, or for the purpose of the renewal or augmentation of military supplies."
— from Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War by Robert Granville Campbell

So the reality of what had been so long and often so lightly talked about by those who dared it, provoked it, or hoped for it, had come indeed; and a considerable portion of English society learned what it was to be novices in a religious system, hitherto not only alien and unknown, but dreaded, or else to have lost friends and relatives, who were suddenly transformed into severe and uncompromising opponents, speaking in unfamiliar terms, and sharply estranged in sympathies and rules of life.
— from The Oxford Movement; Twelve Years, 1833-1845 by R. W. (Richard William) Church

To call himself a man of progress was to declare himself a philosopher in all things and a puritan in politics; it declared him in favor of railroads, mackintoshes, penitentiaries, wooden pavements, Negro freedom, savings-banks, seamless shoes, lighting by gas, asphalt pavements, universal suffrage, and reduction of the civil list.
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac

And, seeking not for special signs Of favor, is content to fall Within the providence which shines And rains on all.
— from Barclay of Ury, and other poems Part 3 From Volume I of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier by John Greenleaf Whittier

On the steps are rows of purple, blue, and brown umbrellas; for there the sun blazes fiercely.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 24, October, 1859 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

She did not know, but, at the same time, felt firmly persuaded that her father had fully investigated the doings, character and family of her suitor, and would not have sanctioned a renewal of his addresses to her had he not been perfectly satisfied in every respect.
— from Edmond Dantès by Edmund Flagg

To do anything partially, is to give it a lick and a promise , as in painting or blacking.— To lick , to surpass a rival, or excel him in anything.—
— from The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by W. H. (William Henry) Smyth