Think not, reader, that she thus bloomed and sparkled for the mere sake of M. Paul, her partner, or that she lavished her best graces that night for the edification of her companions only, or for that of the parents and grand-parents, who filled the carré, and lined the ball-room; under circumstances so insipid and limited, with motives so chilly and vapid, Ginevra would scarce have deigned to walk one quadrille, and weariness and fretfulness would have replaced animation and good-humour, but she knew of a leaven in the otherwise heavy festal mass which lighted the whole; she tasted a condiment which gave it zest; she perceived reasons justifying the display of her choicest attractions.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

Those Barbarians were unskilled in the methods of conducting a regular siege, which, even among the ancients, required some knowledge, or at least some practice, of the mechanic arts.
— 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

It was nothing but "haul down and clew up," until we got all the studding-sails in, and the royals, flying-jib, and mizen top-gallant sail furled, and the ship kept off a little, to take the squall.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana

lamparilya n a small kerosene or alcohol lamp without a chimney.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

"I mean it quite seriously," said K., "or at least, half seriously, as you do.
— from The Trial by Franz Kafka

There can be no question of an international law, except on the assumption of some kind of a law-governed state of things, the external condition under which any right can belong to man.
— from Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay by Immanuel Kant

any of the Happy Forgetters their brains are like the shrivelled kernel of a last year’s nut and give forth a sharp click when they move their heads suddenly with a jerk, as is often their wont, for they take great pride in proving to the listener that they deserve the name of Rattlebrain.
— from Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey by Ingersoll Lockwood

I haven't the smallest kind of a likeness of you.
— from Mrs. Red Pepper by Grace S. (Grace Smith) Richmond

Every man in the South was some kind of a “loyalist,” and most of them were also “disloyal,” according to the various poin
— from Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama by Walter L. (Walter Lynwood) Fleming

For that reason on the point we are now discussing, I believe the thing for Massachusetts to do is to try and get some kind of a law which will cover practically all industries.
— from Proceedings, Third National Conference Workmen's Compensation for Industrial Accidents by National Conference on Workmen's Compensation for Industrial Accidents

The whole scene kept our admiration long tasked, but untired.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 56, No. 345, July, 1844 by Various

TWO HUNDRED YEARS LATER, in 1550, the same kind of a laborer earned 4 pence in a day.
— from The Golden Censer Or, the duties of to-day, the hopes of the future by John McGovern

When he asked the passers-by to show him a lottery-office, he was told they were all closed, except the one under the portico of the Palais-Royal which was sometimes kept open a little later.
— from The Two Brothers by Honoré de Balzac

“There's a law about hectoring and insulting a female person on the street—some kind of a law—and we'll invoke it in this case,” Britt insisted.
— from When Egypt Went Broke: A Novel by Holman Day