We have been so hotly engaged recently in discussing trade-schools and the higher education that the pitiable plight of the public-school system in the South has almost dropped from view.
— from The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois

It was a very strange thing, and not at all what she had ever read in any book, that they should twice have fallen in with unkind people.
— from Little Folks (September 1884) A Magazine for the Young by Various

Frank, as far as I saw, had everything requisite in surgical treatment, nursing, &c. He had watches much of the time.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

“How can you possibly think you have offended me?”—“Fear, madam,” says he, “easily runs into madness; and there is no degree of fear like that which I feel of offending you.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

Occidental society has evidently run in this direction into great abuses, complicating life prodigiously without ennobling the mind.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

—Well, Mr Bloom said, his eyes returning, if I can get the design I suppose it’s worth a short par.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

She had often heard that the English are a highly eccentric people, and she had even read in some ingenious author that they are at bottom the most romantic of races.
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James

He acknowledges that Lady Howard’s letter flung him into some perplexity: he immediately communicated it to Dame Green, who confessed it was the greatest shock she had ever received in her life; yet she had the art and boldness to assert, that Lady Howard must herself have been deceived: and as she had, from the beginning of her enterprise, declared she had stolen away the child without your knowledge, he concluded that some deceit was then intended him; and this thought occasioned his abrupt answer.
— from Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

or, 'What could it have been?' showed how evenly rationalism in her mind kept pace with romance.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics by Various

By this time most of the ships composing the squadron had either rendezvouzed in Monterey or Yerbabuena.
— from Los Gringos Or, An Inside View of Mexico and California, with Wanderings in Peru, Chili, and Polynesia by H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

France, in the reign of Louis the XIII., was governed by Richelieu; Spain, in that of Philip the IV., by Olivares; England by Buckingham; “and this,” adds the same historian, “Europe reckoned in those times amidst its unhappy destiny.”
— from The life and times of George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, Volume 2 (of 3) From original and authentic sources by Thomson, A. T., Mrs.

We must learn from the horse-breeder, who knows that the blood of a single horse, Eclipse, runs in the veins of the great majority of winners since his time.
— from Parenthood and Race Culture: An Outline of Eugenics by C. W. (Caleb Williams) Saleeby

It is strange how every relation in life assumes a different face as soon as a new person enters.
— from Venus in Furs by Sacher-Masoch, Leopold, Ritter von

In the course of the night Rosalie devoured the tale—the first she had ever read in her life—but she had only known life for two months past.
— from Albert Savarus by Honoré de Balzac

The inspirations of Ophelia surpassed anything she had ever read in fiction.
— from The Camp Fire Girls at Onoway House; Or, The Magic Garden by Hildegard G. Frey

The position of the City of Mexico near Lake Texcoco, which receives the waters of all the other lakes of the system, has ever rendered it liable to inundation, and to a saturated and unhealthy subsoil, conditions which, were it not for the healthy atmosphere of the bracing uplands whereon the valley is situated, would undoubtedly make for a high death-rate.
— from Mexico Its Ancient and Modern Civilisation, History, Political Conditions, Topography, Natural Resources, Industries and General Development by C. Reginald (Charles Reginald) Enock

His wig was set on wrong side foremost; the ends of his clerical cravat floated wildly, a yard long at least over his shoulders; his eyes rolled in frenzy; he swooned at the sight of the coffin; recovered convulsively; placed Marle's hand in the hand of Miss Grace (telling him that now one daughter
— from Rambles Beyond Railways; or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot by Wilkie Collins

But since God, in His great mercy revealed to my soul His exceeding riches in Christ, and gave to it more (Oh, how much more!) than He has taken away, they seemed as the Babylonish garment or wedge of gold, which ought not to be in the Israelites' possession.
— from A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller. Part 4 by George Müller