After a few other preliminaries, equally brief, and having settled the road each party should take to avoid suspicion, they separated.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

The minister replied, that in a moment like the present one, such scruples of conscience were unseasonable, and that it was his duty, by some striking action, to prove himself worthy the gracious pardon he had received, and at the same time remove every possible suspicion of his having any secret intelligence with the rebels.
— from The History of the Revolutions of Portugal by abbé de Vertot

And the dross shall become pure gold, seven times refined; even perfect spirit.
— from The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and of the new Gospel of Interpretation by Edward Maitland

Few people who have seen the buffalo only in captivity, few even of those who have hunted them on the level plains, have any idea of the agility of this clumsy, heavy creature, or of the disposition that it shows to reach elevated points, so difficult of access that a horse might find it a hard matter to climb them.
— from Musk-Ox, Bison, Sheep and Goat by George Bird Grinnell

Proper ventilation begins, ends, and forms the gist of almost every chapter in our hospital-manuals; and I think they should be excellent summer-reading, for a pleasant breeze seems to rustle every page, so earnestly is, first, pure air, second, pure air, and third, pure air, impressed upon the student, "line upon line and precept upon precept."
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

"Then send a couple of light squadrons to ravage Electoral Prussia," said Zagloba; "and summon volunteers there from among common people.
— from The Deluge: An Historical Novel of Poland, Sweden, and Russia. Vol. 2 (of 2) by Henryk Sienkiewicz