It was the kind of game I hated but couldn't stop playing: lots of repetitive quests that weren't all that satisfying to complete, a little bit of player-versus-player combat (scrapping to see who would captain the ship) and not that many cool puzzles that you had to figure out.
— from Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

‘My secretary would have to make himself master of the foreign policy of the world, as it is mirrored in the newspapers; to run his eye over all accounts of public meetings, all leading articles, and accounts of the proceedings of public bodies; and to make notes of anything which it appeared to him might be made a point of, in any little speech upon the question of some petition lying on the table, or anything of that kind.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

And far, far away a scarcely perceptible line of the railway, running aslant, and on it the smoke of a train, but no sound was heard.
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Then I shall carry them across, and when I have fastened the links at both ends, I shall place layers of wood on them and a coating of earth on the top of that.
— from Anabasis by Xenophon

A soft golden light bathed with its fresh beam the bosom of the valley, except where a delicate haze, rather than a mist, still partially lingered over the river, which yet occasionally gleamed and sparkled in the sunshine.
— from Sybil, Or, The Two Nations by Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield

Elephants with standards precede; lines of infantry and guns are drawn up; while a numerous cavalcade surrounds his person.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

The little bodies that compose that fluid we call water are so extremely small, that I have never heard of any one who, by a microscope, (and yet I have heard of some that have magnified to ten thousand; nay, to much above a hundred thousand times,) pretended to perceive their distinct bulk, figure, or motion; and the particles of water are also so perfectly loose one from another, that the least force sensibly separates them.
— from An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1 MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2 by John Locke

I see, and sigh in seeing, in some distant, future age Your varnished shell reposing under glass upon a stage, The while some pundit lectures on the curios of the past,
— from Up in Maine: Stories of Yankee Life Told in Verse by Holman Day

You would never forgive yourself if she fell into a decline.” “Ailie throve pretty well on their dieting,” he pointed out; “and if she's going to fall into a decline, she's pretty long of starting.”
— from Bud: A Novel by Neil Munro

Take a two-ounce vial, and have some powdered litharge of lead, by some called gold or scale litharge; pound it fine in a Wedgewood mortar, and put in the vial about one scruple; pour on it about half an ounce of Beaufoy's acetic acid, but do not replace the cork or stopper, as the gas evolved is very active, and will burst the vial, placing the operator's eyes in jeopardy; agitate and allow it to stand some hours to settle, or leave it till next day, when it will be better for the purpose: then decant the clear part and throw the fæces away, return the solution into the bottle, and fill up with distilled water.
— from Notes and Queries, Number 178, March 26, 1853 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. by Various

Saturnia pyri , length of life of, 45 ; S. carpini, cocoon of; 94 .
— from Essays Upon Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems Authorised Translation by August Weismann

Now, Senhor Pedro, lead on."
— from A Lad of Grit: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea in Restoration Times by Percy F. (Percy Francis) Westerman

To go off with no object, without his books, without his Daryushka, without his beer, to break abruptly through the routine of life, established for twenty years—the idea for the first minute struck him as wild and fantastic, but he remembered the conversation at the Zemstvo committee and the depressing feelings with which he had returned home, and the thought of a brief absence from the town in which stupid people looked on him as a madman was pleasant to him.
— from The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Oh, he's the slowest donkey I ever saw, and I've seen some pretty lazy ones.
— from The Young Treasure Hunter; Or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska by Frank V. Webster

"Ah! that was hard," says Portia, leaning over her.
— from Portia; Or, By Passions Rocked by Duchess