He was rather alarmed; for he was not quite certain but that the distress of the agricultural interest, about which he had often heard a great deal, might have compelled the small boys attached to the soil to earn a precarious and hazardous subsistence by making marks of themselves for inexperienced sportsmen.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

With these hurried words, Mr. Bob Sawyer pushed the postboy on one side, jerked his friend into the vehicle, slammed the door, put up the steps, wafered the bill on the street door, locked it, put the key in his pocket, jumped into the dickey, gave the word for starting, and did the whole with such extraordinary precipitation, that before Mr. Pickwick had well begun to consider whether Mr. Bob Sawyer ought to go or not, they were rolling away, with Mr. Bob Sawyer thoroughly established as part and parcel of the equipage.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

So you see that even a princess is not always happy—especially if she forgets to keep her word; and the greatest misfortunes often happen to people just as they think they have obtained their heart’s desires!(1) (1) Madame d’Aulnoy.
— from The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

Note 98 ( return ) [ This union of the human soul with the divine aethereal substance of the universe, is the ancient doctrine of Pythagoras and Plato: but it seems to exclude any personal or conscious immortality.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

4, he will soon find that it was superabundantly fulfilled in the days of Herod, and that to such a degree, that the nation now at last seem sorely to repent of such their ancient choice, in opposition to God's better choice for them, and had much rather be subject to even a pagan Roman government, and their deputies, than to be any longer under the oppression of the family of Herod; which request of theirs Augustus did not now grant them, but did it for the one half of that nation in a few years afterward, upon fresh complaints made by the Jews against Archelaus, who, under the more humble name of an ethnarch, which Augustus only would now allow him, soon took upon him the insolence and tyranny of his father king Herod, as the remaining part of this book will inform us, and particularly ch.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

From whence it commeth to passe, that the Soveraign Power, which foreseeth the necessities and dangers of the Common-wealth, (finding the passage of mony to the publique Treasure obstructed, by the tenacity of the people,) whereas it ought to extend it selfe, to encounter, and prevent such dangers in their beginnings, contracteth it selfe as long as it can, and when it cannot longer, struggles with the people by strategems of Law, to obtain little summes, which not sufficing, he is fain at last violently to open the way for present supply, or Perish; and being put often to these extremities, at last reduceth the people to their due temper; or else the Common-wealth must perish.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

He, too, was a Whig, but was not supposed to entertain any political ambitions; nor did he; but after the fall of Monterey, his third battle and third complete victory, the Whig papers at home began to speak of him as the candidate of their party for the Presidency.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant

The King, a blunt, straightforward man, showed the Emperor a pity involuntarily cruel.
— from The History of a Crime The Testimony of an Eye-Witness by Victor Hugo

V. Obscure but important movements in the regions of eternal twilight, revolutions, of which history has been silent, in the mysterious depths of Asia, outpourings of human rivets along the sides of the Altai mountains, convulsions up-heaving r mote realms and unknown dynasties, shock after shock throb bing throughout the barbarian world and dying upon the edge of civilization, vast throes which shake the earth as precursory pangs to the birth of a new empire—as dying symptoms of the proud but effete realm which called itself the world; scattered hordes of sanguinary, grotesque savages pushed from their own homes, and hovering with vague purposes upon the Roman frontier, constantly repelled and perpetually reappearing in ever-increasing swarms, guided thither by a fierce instinct, or by mysterious laws—such are the well known phenomena which preceded the fall of western Rome.
— from The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Complete (1555-84) by John Lothrop Motley

The two queer species did not consent to stay until they were urged to do so by Madame Bodard, who probably thought she was paying her obligations to the surgeon by giving him something to eat, and pleasing her husband (with whom she appeared, I don’t precisely know why, to be coquetting) by inviting the lawyer.
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac

Meantime, growing more serious with each year, the slave trouble eliminated any possibility of amicable relations between the Spanish and English colonists.
— from The Building of Castello de San Marcos National Park Service Interpretive Series, History No. 1 by Albert C. Manucy

Those who send the Epistle are Paul and Timothy.
— from The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Philippians by Robert Rainy

‘I have spent the evening at Prince Razumowski’s, who, as you know, is a relative.
— from Anecdotal Recollections of the Congress of Vienna by La Garde-Chambonas, Auguste Louis Charles, Comte de

It may act balsamically and soothingly; and the idea of the olive saucer, green amongst the bright decanters, does approach, in some respect, towards the production of a pleasant association of ideas; but still the elevated and poetic feelings connected with the tree are remote and dim.
— from Claret and Olives, from the Garonne to the Rhone Notes, social, picturesque, and legendary, by the way. by Angus B. (Angus Bethune) Reach

The Chinese seem to entertain a particular aversion against sowing or planting on sloping ground and, accordingly, when such occurs, they level it into a number of terraces one rising above the other, which they support by stone walls, if the earth should not be thought sufficiently strong for the purpose.
— from Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey through the Country from Pekin to Canton by Barrow, John, Sir

Hoping to please their leader, the Camorrist followers began to dance in a circle around the pair, calling merrily upon the girl to redeem the invitation she had given; but Maliella, now somewhat alarmed by the situation in which her saucy audacity had placed her, still tried to escape from the inevitable embrace of the enamoured Rafaele, even though at the same time elated and pleased by th
— from Stories from the Operas by Gladys Davidson

In Rome, the great and wealthy sought the elevated and pleasanter faces of the hills, while the poorer people remained beneath.
— from Neæra: A Tale of Ancient Rome by Graham, John W. (John William), active 1886-1887