After a triennial indulgence of lust, rapine, and cruelty, Verres, the tyrant of Sicily, could only be sued for the pecuniary restitution of three hundred thousand pounds sterling; and such was the temper of the laws, the judges, and perhaps the accuser himself, 183 that, on refunding a thirteenth part of his plunder, Verres could retire to an easy and luxurious exile.
— 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

After some compliments on both sides, the tour which Johnson and I had made to the Hebrides was mentioned.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

Several circular ointment boxes, some containing medicaments, are to be seen in the Naples Museum.
— from Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times by John Stewart Milne

Bread street, so called of bread sold there (as I said), is now wholly inhabited by rich merchants; and divers fair inns be there, for good receipt of carriers and other travellers to the city.
— from The Survey of London by John Stow

Over and over again Dorian used to read this fantastic chapter, and the two chapters immediately following, in which, as in some curious tapestries or cunningly wrought enamels, were pictured the awful and beautiful forms of those whom vice and blood and weariness had made monstrous or mad: Filippo, Duke of Milan, who slew his wife and painted her lips with a scarlet poison that her lover might suck death from the dead thing he fondled; Pietro Barbi, the Venetian, known as Paul the Second, who sought in his vanity to assume the title of Formosus, and whose tiara, valued at two hundred thousand florins, was bought at the price of a terrible sin; Gian Maria Visconti, who used hounds to chase living men and whose murdered body was covered with roses by a harlot who had loved him; the Borgia on his white horse, with Fratricide riding beside him and his mantle stained with the blood of Perotto; Pietro Riario, the young Cardinal Archbishop of Florence, child and minion of Sixtus IV, whose beauty was equalled only by his debauchery, and who received Leonora of Aragon in a pavilion of white and crimson silk, filled with nymphs and centaurs, and gilded a boy that he might serve at the feast as Ganymede or Hylas; Ezzelin, whose melancholy could be cured only by the spectacle of death, and who had a passion for red blood, as other men have for red wine—the son of the Fiend, as was reported, and one who had cheated his father at dice when gambling with him for his own soul; Giambattista Cibo, who in mockery took the name of Innocent and into whose torpid veins the blood of three lads was infused by a Jewish doctor; Sigismondo Malatesta, the lover of Isotta and the lord of Rimini, whose effigy was burned at Rome as the enemy of God and man, who strangled Polyssena with a napkin, and gave poison to Ginevra d'Este in a cup of emerald, and in honour of a shameful passion built a pagan church for Christian worship; Charles VI, who had so wildly adored his brother's wife that a leper had warned him of the insanity that was coming on him, and who, when his brain had sickened and grown strange, could only be soothed by Saracen cards painted with the images of love and death and madness; and, in his trimmed jerkin and jewelled cap and acanthuslike curls, Grifonetto Baglioni, who slew Astorre with his bride, and Simonetto with his page, and whose comeliness was such that, as he lay dying in the yellow piazza of Perugia, those who had hated him could not choose but weep, and Atalanta, who had cursed him, blessed him.
— from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

She went through the leafless woods, for that was the shortest way and the pleasantest—although she had thought little of pleasantness when she came out, but still it was good to hear the brittle twigs snap under her feet, and note the slight coating of frost that made the rims of the dead leaves beautiful—and it was hardly a surprise to her to hear a child's laugh ring out on the air at the very spot where, months before, she and Nora had found little Julian Brand.
— from A True Friend: A Novel by Adeline Sergeant

After a triennial indulgence of lust, rapine, and cruelty, Verres, the tyrant of Sicily, could only be sued for the pecuniary restitution of three hundred thousand pounds sterling; and such was the temper of the laws, the judges, and perhaps the accuser himself, that, on refunding a thirteenth part of his plunder, Verres could retire to an easy and luxurious exile.
— 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

At first the fall of the Fatimide Caliphate, and the subjection of the surrounding countries belonging to it, under the Abbasid or Sunnite Caliphs of Bagdad, set loose fanaticism which was felt by the Jewish congregations of Yemen.
— from History of the Jews, Vol. 3 (of 6) by Heinrich Graetz

Baumgartner seemed aware that he had been somewhat confidential on both subjects, and that either his contempt of human life, or his ambitions in the matter of psychic photography, would have been better kept to himself; but, on the other hand,
— from The Camera Fiend by E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

First there was the river Langchen Khanbab, flowing towards the west, with the opposite bank steep and precipitous, and with rocks piled up here and there, some yellow, some crimson, others blue, still others green, and some others purple.
— from Three Years in Tibet by Ekai Kawaguchi

We have [92] no outward atmosphere of religion to trust to; no wayside crosses to remind us of the sufferings which our sins caused our Blessed Saviour; no simple shrines to bid us remember to pray for our invisible brethren in purgatory; no street processions to bring vividly before our minds that our King is more than an earthly lord, and our Mother more than an earthly parent.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 17, April, 1873 to September, 1873 A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science by Various

On the other hand, the shaded half seems cut off by some transparent curtain, woven from the darkness of night.
— from Lillian Morris, and Other Stories by Henryk Sienkiewicz

To stop tipping in hotels, restaurants, cafés, dining cars, railroad stations and cars, sleeping cars or barber shops will be a long stride in the right direction, but the need of stopping tipping to messenger boys, janitors and other employees of apartment houses, maids and [132] waitresses in boarding houses, garbage collectors, mail carriers and policemen among government employees, trunk transfermen, guides, steamship employees and others too numerous to cite, is fully as urgent.
— from The Itching Palm: A Study of the Habit of Tipping in America by William R. (William Rufus) Scott

SCENE II [NOTE.—This should be a small set capable of being set quickly within that of the previous scene.]
— from Complete Plays of John Galsworthy by John Galsworthy

Sadu, caught off balance, spun sideways and fell heavily.
— from Warrior of the Dawn by Howard Browne