You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had seen grow up from a period when her notice was an honour, to have you now, in thoughtless spirits, and the pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble her—and before her niece, too—and before others, many of whom (certainly some ,) would be entirely guided by your treatment of her.—This is not pleasant to you, Emma—and it is very far from pleasant to me; but I must, I will,—I will tell you truths while I can; satisfied with proving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and trusting that you will some time or other do me greater justice than you can do now.”
— from Emma by Jane Austen

The notion of first and second or co-operative causes, which originally appears in the Timaeus, has likewise survived to our own day, and has been a great peace-maker between theology and science.
— from Timaeus by Plato

It is evident from these considerations, that the plurality of the Executive tends to deprive the people of the two greatest securities they can have for the faithful exercise of any delegated power, first, the restraints of public opinion, which lose their efficacy, as well on account of the division of the censure attendant on bad measures among a number, as on account of the uncertainty on whom it ought to fall; and, second, the opportunity of discovering with facility and clearness the misconduct of the persons they trust, in order either to their removal from office or to their actual punishment in cases which admit of it.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton

Swallows are often brought up in their nets out of the mudd from under water, hanging together to some twigg or other, dead in ropes, and brought to the fire will come to life.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

In the course of this lecture he undertook to account for the warmth of the fluid; and his ideas being perplexed with a great deal of reading, which he had not been able to digest, his disquisition was so indistinct, and his expression so obscure and unentertaining, that our hero seized the opportunity of displaying his own erudition, by venturing to contradict some circumstances of the doctor's hypothesis, and substituting a theory of his own, which, as he had invented it for the purpose, was equally amusing and chimerical.
— from The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete by T. (Tobias) Smollett

But the stubborn temper of the Egyptians maintained their opposition to the synod of Chalcedon, and the policy of Justinian condescended to expect and to seize the opportunity of discord.
— 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

officiate, serve, act; act one's part, play one's part; do duty; serve the office of, discharge the office of, perform the office of, perform the duties of, perform the functions of; hold an office, fill an office, fill a place, fill a situation; hold a portfolio, hold a place, hold a situation.
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget

To his vigilance Belisarius had intrusted this important charge and, after a bold attempt to scale the mountain, in which he lost a hundred and ten soldiers, Pharas expected, during a winter siege, the operation of distress and famine on the mind of the Vandal king.
— 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

The vandal and the fanatic have robbed us of many of these beautiful memorials, but of those which survive to our own day the earliest on the continent of Europe marks the last resting-place of Abbot Ysowilpe, 1231, at Verden, in Hanover.
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

It is a swift, resistless passion, that centres on one being above all others in the world, and says, ‘This one only do I love; this one possesses all my heart and soul!
— from The Devil-Tree of El Dorado: A Novel by Frank Aubrey

cried War, spying the officer on deck.
— from The Boy Scout Explorers at Treasure Mountain by Don Palmer

Mr. Trigg was in a small way a sort of Jekyll and Hyde, all pleasantness in one of his states and all black looks and truculence in the other; so that out of doors and at table we children would say to ourselves in astonishment, "Is this our schoolmaster?"
— from Far Away and Long Ago: A History of My Early Life by W. H. (William Henry) Hudson

As this was Sunday we rested ourselves and the horses; I make it a rule to fare better on Sunday than on other days so we had for breakfast damper, meat, and pigweed; for lunch, pea soup, and for dinner, cold rice and jam.
— from Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria In search of Burke and Wills by William Landsborough

Poor women cannot afford to have fancies; some prompt reality always startles them out of dream or superstition.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 64, February, 1863 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

[73] There was formerly a prison at Moorgate as well as at Ludgate; though Stephen means, I conceive, that the next time she would see him would be when attracted to that spot to see the operation of ducking performed on her as a scold .
— from A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 12 by Robert Dodsley

But the cat fearlessly wandered night and day through the neighbouring barley-field, in order to catch the mouse, while the others went there by stealth at a suitable time out of desire for food.
— from The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story by active 11th century Somadeva Bhatta

"You get up against the real thing when you strike a Wyoming sheriff," the other outlaw declared.
— from Boy Scouts on the Great Divide; Or, The Ending of the Trail by Archibald Lee Fletcher

Neither Lanier suspects the other of double dealing as to interests of either.
— from Oswald Langdon or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 by Levi Jackson Hamilton

I dare say the other one doesn't want to keep it for long.'
— from Ghost Stories of an Antiquary Part 2: More Ghost Stories by M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James