The process of wasting the surplus profits in competition and luxury was slow and protracted, and meanwhile productive industry languished and the workers waited in idleness and want for the surplus to be so far reduced as to make room for more production.
— from Equality by Edward Bellamy

Thoroughly acquainted with the personality of foreign rulers, related to the majority of those in Europe, knowing their degrees of national influence and personal power, familiar with the statesmen's position in Court and Legislature, associated more and more closely as the years went on with Queen Victoria's personal view of foreign policy, the Prince's position was one of very great indirect power.
— from The Life of King Edward VII with a sketch of the career of King George V by J. Castell (John Castell) Hopkins

It was so purty, I could 'a' listened all day—Sally puttin' on, an' tellin' 'er she'd send the carriage over fer 'er to spend the day, an' that Cynthia must be shore an' send in 'er cyard at the door
— from Pole Baker: A Novel by Will N. (Will Nathaniel) Harben

The second Portfolio is closed and laid away.
— from A Mortal Antipathy by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Babylon suffered in no way by her servitude, and far from its being a source of unhappiness to her, she actually rejoiced in it; she was rid of Nabonidus, whose sacrilegious innovations had scandalised her piety, and she possessed in Cyrus a legitimate sovereign since he had “taken the hands of Bel.”
— from History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) by G. (Gaston) Maspero

There was no breakfast for the poor state prisoners, in chains, and lying on the bare ground.
— from The Eureka Stockade by Raffaello Carboni

If the rain should persist in coming, a live coal is laid on a tile and placed in some open place, where it is implored to swallow the hateful rain.
— from The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 1 (of 2) by William Crooke

Across the "neutral ground," as the strip between the English and Spanish possessions is called, a line of sentry boxes extended, and red-coated British sentinels paced back and forth.
— from A Trip to the Orient: The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise by Robert Urie Jacob