A ring familiar from childhood: first the wire rustled against the wall, then a short plaintive ring in the kitchen.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Case Bottles fill’d with Powder, and small Shot, Slugs, and Pieces of Lead or Iron, with a quick Match in the Mouth of it, which being lighted without Side, presently runs into the Bottle to the Powder, and as it is instantly thrown on Board, generally does great Execution, besides putting all the Crew into a Confusion; but by good Providence, they had not that Effect here; the Men being in the Hold, and Black-beard seeing few or no Hands aboard, told his Men, That they were all knock’d on the Head, except three or four; and therefore, says he, let’s jump on Board, and cut them to Pieces.
— from A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the island of Providence, to the present time by Daniel Defoe

Just as in religious hysteria a single text becomes a whole creed to the exclusion of every other text, and instead of being itself subject to rational tests is made the sole test of the rationality of everything else, so in the case of the average Bolshevist of this type a single phrase received into the mind in a spasm of emotion, never tested by the usual criteria of reason, becomes not only the very essence of truth but also the standard by which the truth or untruth of everything else must be determined.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

CYRANO (just as he is about to pass, holds out his leg as if to show him something and stops him): In my leg--the calf--there is a tooth Of the Great Bear, and, passing Neptune close, I would avoid his trident's point, and fell, Thus sitting, plump, right in the Scales!
— from Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

Add to this, say they, the fact that people are not even agreed as to the nature of the criterion of truth; some say that man is the criterion, others that it is the senses which are so: one set places reason in the van, another class rely upon cataleptic perception.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

Without continuing the citation of cases, suffice it to say, the sin-atoning Gods of the orientals are reported as performing the same train of miracles assigned to Jesus Christ, such as performing astonishing cures, casting out devils, raising the dead, &c. Now, sadly warped indeed by education must be that mind which cannot see that if the account of such prodigies, reported in the history of Jesus Christ, can do anything towards proving him to have been a God, then the world must have been full of Gods long before his time.
— from The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors; Or, Christianity Before Christ by Kersey Graves

It would be the same with the Beauforts, in spite of his power and her popularity; not all the leagued strength of the Dallas connection would save poor Regina if there were any truth in the reports of her husband's unlawful speculations.
— from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

(β) The Epistle to Philemon has been strongly advocated by Wieseler [623] , 347 as the letter to which St Paul refers in this passage.
— from St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon A revised text with introductions, notes and dissertations by J. B. (Joseph Barber) Lightfoot

It soared far above the Pharisaic Judaism which St Paul refutes in the Epistle to the Galatians.
— from St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon A revised text with introductions, notes and dissertations by J. B. (Joseph Barber) Lightfoot

Finally, it is interesting to observe that according to the so-called ‘Laws of Henry I.’ tribal custom was still partly recognised in the method of dealing with the homicide of a kinsman.
— from Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law Being an Essay Supplemental to (1) 'The English Village Community', (2) 'The Tribal System in Wales' by Frederic Seebohm

The man on whom she principally relied in this hazardous expedition was a domestic named Apollodorus.
— from Cleopatra by Jacob Abbott

I was very busy talking to a person in the box, and, having been accustomed to hear and see partial riots in the pit, I paid no attention; never dreaming that my poor hat and feathers, and cloak, were the cause of the commotion, till an officer in the national guard very politely knocked at the door of the box, and told me I must either take them off or leave the theatre.
— from Court Memoirs of France Series — Complete by Various

Remorse for his amorous follies with Josephine, and horror at her crimes, had driven him to drown such painful remembrances in the bottle.
— from City Crimes; Or, Life in New York and Boston by George Thompson

In Negligent Lisping, this inability properly to imitate correct speech processes, results in the substitution of an incorrect sound for the correct one with consequent faulty formation of words.
— from Stammering, Its Cause and Cure by Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue

Lobo seems purposely to have introduced among these compositions, some pastoral romances in the Portuguese language; as if it were not as easy and even easier to ridicule pastoral poetry; or as if an exuberance of pastoral poetry were to be a proof that Portuguese literature could well dispense with the beautiful epic romance.
— from History of Spanish and Portuguese Literature (Vol 2 of 2) by Friedrich Bouterwek

And in order that thou mayest be certain and know that such promise remains irrevocably thine, I will die for it, and will give My body and blood for it, and will leave them both to thee as sign and seal, that by them thou mayest remember Me."
— from Works of Martin Luther, with Introductions and Notes (Volume I) by Martin Luther