Last night we were all allarmed by a large buffaloe Bull, which swam over from the opposite shore and coming along side of the white perogue, climbed over it to land, he then alarmed ran up the bank in full speed directly towards the fires, and was within 18 inches of the heads of some of the men who lay sleeping before the centinel could allarm him or make him change his course, still more alarmed, he now took his direction immediately towards our lodge, passing between 4 fires and within a few inches of the heads of one range of the men as they yet lay sleeping, when he came near the tent, my dog saved us by causing him to change his course a second time, which he did by turning a little to the right, and was quickly out of sight, leaving us by this time all in an uproar with our guns in or hands, enquiring of each other the case of the alarm, which after a few moments was explained by the centinel; we were happy to find no one hirt.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

John Lydgate was an English poet who lived a generation later than Chaucer; in his Troy Book and other poems he probably borrowed from the sources used by Chaucer; he called himself "Chaucer's disciple."
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is nothing to go down these coulees; one just lets one's self slide down; but it is more difficult to get up again; one has to scramble up by catching hold of the hanging branches of the trees, and sometimes on all fours, by sheer strength.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

Knowing the Birds It is no easy matter, this trying to get to know the birds; but scouts are not looking for the easiest jobs, and it is great sport for them to follow some shy songster through the briery thicket until a really good look can be had, to sit stock still for half an hour to watch some unknown bird come home to her nest, or to wriggle on all fours through the grass to have a glimpse over the top of the knoll at the ducks in the pool beyond.
— from Boy Scouts Handbook The First Edition, 1911 by Boy Scouts of America

No! you did not believe birds could be so ugly, birds could have such hateful eyes, such splay feet, such blotchy beaks.
— from The American Egypt: A Record of Travel in Yucatan by Frederick J. Tabor Frost

How many times had he not listened, striving to hear, fearing atrocious quarrels, in despair at his inability to prove still useful by creating happiness.
— from The Three Cities Trilogy: Rome, Volume 2 by Émile Zola

The customer sent up by Constance had occupied the surface of her life for ten minutes, trying on hats; and during this time she was praying wildly that Mr. Scales might not go, and asserting that it was impossible he should go without at least asking for her.
— from The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett

Other ministers in later times may have attempted, now and then, to swerve from it in this direction and in that, and to cover their evasion of it by specious pleas, but the new doctrine set up by Canning has never since his time found avowed apostates among English statesmen.
— from A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV by Justin H. (Justin Huntly) McCarthy

There beside the glowing fire-place Sat Uraca, busy combing Her great fat and ugly pug-dog; Quickly she dismiss’d the latter, To attend to us instead, And my bed she soon got ready, Loosening first my espardillas, That uncomfortable foot-gear— Help’d me to undress, my stockings
— from The poems of Heine; Complete Translated into the original metres; with a sketch of his life by Heinrich Heine

Mr. Hamilton was at work on this subject, as a graduate student, but left Stanford University before completing his thesis.
— from Great Britain and the American Civil War by Ephraim Douglass Adams

the two little water colours of Devonshire, a boat with a brown sail and a small narrow piece of a street zig-zagging sharply up between crooked houses, by a Londoner—just to say how crooked everything was ... that thing in this month’s Studio was better than any of these ... her heart throbbed suddenly as she thought of it ...
— from The Tunnel: Pilgrimage, Volume 4 by Dorothy M. (Dorothy Miller) Richardson