But he hath light of five Dutch men-of-war, and taken three, whereof one is sunk; which is very good newes to close up the year with, and most of our merchantmen already heard of to be safely come home, though after long lookings-for, and now to several ports, as they could make them.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

That the magistrates and principal inhabitants should pay a thousand crowns per month for the duke's table.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

This made him angry, and he said something profane about the church.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

For it had been respectable, covering by a decent reticence the problems that may arise in the practice of a secret profession and the commerce of shady wares.
— from The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad

She was reading "John Halifax," and instead of saying "Phineas Fletcher" she said Philip, and then colored to her forehead, and lost her place.
— from Work: A Story of Experience by Louisa May Alcott

The following copy of their lordships’ order, containing a list of all these nefarious projects, will not be deemed uninteresting at the present time, when, at periodic intervals, there is but too much tendency in the public mind to indulge in similar practices: “At the Council Chamber, Whitehall, the 12th day of July, 1720.
— from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay

Mature interests centre on soluble problems and tasks capable of execution; it is at such points that the ideal can be really served.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

A gold-headed cane, of rare Oriental wood, added materially to the high respectability of his aspect, as did also a neckcloth of the utmost snowy purity, and the conscientious polish of his boots.
— from The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The game of chess, the war-lord's tactical plan, the evolution of a geometrical theorem, the devising of a great business campaign, the elimination of waste in a factory, the dénouement of a powerful drama, the overcoming of an economic obstacle, the scheme for a sublime poem, and the convincing siege of an audience may—nay, indeed must—each be conceived in an image and wrought to reality according to the plans and specifications laid upon the trestle board by some modern imaginative Hiram.
— from The Art of Public Speaking by J. Berg (Joseph Berg) Esenwein

In the extreme south Port Arthur, though closely blockaded from the sea by the watchful Togo, was as yet open to communication by land, and no attempt had hitherto been made by the Japanese to secure a footing on the Liao-tung Peninsula.
— from The Japan-Russia War: An Illustrated History of the War in the Far East by Sydney Tyler

Closely hugging the banks, now stopping behind some projecting clump of bushes, now in some rock-formed nook, and now in the covert of some low-bending treetop, to give the keen-eyed hunter a chance to peer round or through these screening objects into the open spaces along the shore beyond, he slowly pushed along the canoe till the whole line of the cove was explored, and they reached the point corresponding to the one at which they commenced their look-out for game, and all without seeing a living creature.
— from Gaut Gurley; Or, the Trappers of Umbagog: A Tale of Border Life by Daniel P. (Daniel Pierce) Thompson

"No. I broke it in two so that it could be wrapped in the same parcel as the coat."
— from Swirling Waters by Max Rittenberg

Fresh from the degrading influences of the slave plantation and the coal mines, it was a rare privilege for me to be permitted to come into direct contact with such a character as General Armstrong.
— from Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization by Lyman Beecher Stowe

This informed us, but too clearly, that there were some pickpockets among the crowd, who had already made some fortunate strokes.
— from Travels in England in 1782 by Karl Philipp Moritz

So, leaning on Raeburn's arm, Marcella made her slow progress across the court of Brown's Buildings and through the gaping groups of children.
— from Marcella by Ward, Humphry, Mrs.

Mine lies between to-morrow morning, and one other morning some two days thereafter; and you might as soon persuade Atlas to change his place.
— from Queechy, Volume II by Susan Warner

Their journey home could not be made in small parties, as they carried large quantities of specie, and the road was infested by robbers.
— from Waterways of Westward Expansion - The Ohio River and its Tributaries by Archer Butler Hulbert