From time to time a broad sheet of lightning opened the horizon in its whole width, darted like a serpent over the black mass of trees, and like a terrible scimitar divided the heavens and the waters into two parts.
— from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

Deceit and falsehood, whatever conveniences they may for a time promise or produce, are, in the sum of life, obstacles to happiness.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

He told us what had become of the eighty-three lost tragedies of �schylus; of the fifty-four orations of Is�us; of the three hundred and ninety-one speeches of Lysias; of the hundred and eighty treatises of Theophrastus; of the eighth book of the conic sections of Apollonius; of Pindar’s hymns and dithyrambics; and of the five and forty tragedies of Homer Junior.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

hundredmann m. centurion , Æ. hundredpenig m. contribution levied by the sheriff or lord of the hundred for the support of his office , TC 432; 433.
— from A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary For the Use of Students by J. R. Clark (John R. Clark) Hall

If there be heavy rain, and one of those on the lower ground injures some tiller of the upper ground, or some one who has a common wall, by refusing to give them an outlet for water; or, again, if some one living on the higher ground recklessly lets off the water on his lower neighbour, and they cannot come to terms with one another, let him who will call in a warden of the city, if he be in the city, or if he be in the country, a warden of the country, and let him obtain a decision determining what each of them is to do.
— from Laws by Plato

2. University, literary institution or seminary of learning ( of the highest class ).
— from A Dictionary of English Synonymes and Synonymous or Parallel Expressions Designed as a Practical Guide to Aptness and Variety of Phraseology by Richard Soule

But the gloom under which he has enveloped himself is, like that which just now obscures the sunlight of laughter over the House generally, only a temporary condition.
— from The Strand Magazine, Vol. 01, No. 03, March 1891 An Illustrated Monthly by Various

And for a long time Our Lady of Hal was surnamed Our Lady of the Hanged.
— from The Legend of Ulenspiegel, Volume 1 (of 2) And Lamme Goedzak, and their Adventures Heroical, Joyous and Glorious in the Land of Flanders and Elsewhere by Charles de Coster

Even so our Lord ordained that His Church, composed of many members, should be all united to one supreme visible Head, whom they are bound to obey.
— from The Faith of Our Fathers by James Gibbons

A Settlement soon discovers that simple people are interested in large and vital subjects, and the Hull-House residents themselves at one time, with only partial success, undertook to give a series of lectures on the history of the world, beginning with the nebular hypothesis and reaching Chicago itself in the twenty-fifth lecture!
— from Twenty Years at Hull House; with Autobiographical Notes by Jane Addams

Accompanied by the Duchesses of Cleveland and Bolton, and several other ladies of the highest rank, she was introduced by the Dukes of Richmond and St. Albans into the king's bedchamber, and flinging herself at his majesty's feet, addressed him in French, imploring his clemency for her husband.
— from Preston Fight; or, The Insurrection of 1715 by William Harrison Ainsworth

Deceit and falsehood, whatever conveniencies they may for a time promise or produce, are, in the sum of life, obstacles to happiness.
— from Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies by Samuel Johnson

To see your fly it must be held high enough to come between your eyes and the narrow swathe of light on the horizon.
— from The English Lakes by William T. Palmer

He settled into the depths of one of the old armchairs, Sid being in another, while Frank, who had succeeded to the sofa stretched out luxuriously on that, having ousted Tom, who, on a stool drawn up to the table, was making an ancient war map that was to be used in class the next day.
— from The Eight-Oared Victors: A Story of College Water Sports by Lester Chadwick