They traversed these somber galleries, waving lighted torches; they examined the smallest excavations; they sounded the shallowest depths, but all was dark and silent.
— from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

He wrote also either nothing or very little ( Troilus and Cressida and his part of Timon are the possible exceptions) in which there is any appearance of personal feeling overcoming or seriously endangering the self-control or 'objectivity' of the artist.
— from Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth by A. C. (Andrew Cecil) Bradley

After relating a rather equivocal adventure of a husband and wife, who implored Greatraks to cast out the devil of dissension which had crept in between them, St. Evremond thus sums up the effect he produced on the popular mind: “So great was the confidence in him, that the blind fancied they saw the light which they did not see—the deaf imagined that they heard—the lame that they walked straight, and the paralytic that they had recovered the use of their limbs.
— from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay

I think I have said enough to show the absurdity of that.
— from The City of God, Volume I by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

I can hardly wait for June to come I am so eager to speak to her and to my precious little sister.
— from The Story of My Life With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy by Helen Keller

The red-nosed Captain Timókhin, formerly Dólokhov’s squadron commander, but now from lack of officers a battalion commander, shyly entered the shed followed by an adjutant and the regimental paymaster.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

THE SHEPHERDS ENTERTAIN Then said the shepherds, "This is a comfortable company.
— from The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan Every Child Can Read by John Bunyan

It is curious to read such books calmly a long time afterwards, books which reflect so exactly the sentiments of a certain epoch.
— from George Sand: Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings by René Doumic

I will some day, as I promised, enlarge to you upon my Sister's excellencies; 'twill seem like exaggeration; but I will do it.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 5 The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, 1796-1820 by Charles Lamb

The coincidence that France is the only country where this system prevails, and is, at the same time, the only one where the population is decreasing, is striking enough to suggest a connection between the two phenomena.
— from Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, September 1899 Vol. LV, May to October, 1899 by Various

But Esther knew him at once; and more, as she met the frank, steadfast eyes that she had known and trusted so long ago, she trusted them at once again and perfectly.
— from A Red Wallflower by Susan Warner

There we stood, watching with straining eyes the shore, past which we were running, and at length the Land’s End came in sight.
— from Peter Trawl; Or, The Adventures of a Whaler by William Henry Giles Kingston

"No! I would almost as soon expect to see this old stone house playing at toss and catch."
— from Culm Rock The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught by Glance Gaylord

Behind her, two female slaves elevate the sistrum; whilst before her, and apparently between herself and her husband, are two altars occupied by round cakes and one crescent-shaped emblem.
— from Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism With an Essay on Baal Worship, on the Assyrian Sacred "Grove," and Other Allied Symbols by Thomas Inman