The harder steel shot up skywards, And the softer steel penetrated earthwards.
— from Malay Magic Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula by Walter William Skeat

I felt all mine suddenly going away, as I was climbing over it.' By a remarkable coincidence, the other two had been visited with the same unpleasant sensation at that precise moment.
— from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Consider the wastes incidental to the crowding into cities, made necessary by competition and by monopoly railroad rates; consider the slums, the bad air, the disease and the waste of vital energies; consider the office buildings, the waste of time and material in the piling of story upon story, and the burrowing underground!
— from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Quote the king, "Nothing of thine can be other than goodly and pleasing; wherefore sing us such as thou hast."
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

While one man was beating off the swords, the waters stole up silently and took him.
— from The Danish History, Books I-IX by Grammaticus Saxo

They looked at the lion long and carefully, and asked Signer Faliero what great sculptor had been persuaded to waste his skill upon such a temporary material.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden

But, Mr. President, if a purpose to speak in perfect frankness and sincerity; if earnest understanding of the vast interests involved; if a consecrating sense of what disaster may follow further misunderstanding and estrangement; if these may be counted upon to steady undisciplined speech and to strengthen an untried arm—then, sir, I shall find the courage to proceed.
— from The Art of Public Speaking by J. Berg (Joseph Berg) Esenwein

It seems to me that the objection that nothing wholesome or good has ever had its growth in such unnatural solitude, and that even a dog or any of the more intelligent among beasts, would pine, and mope, and rust away, beneath its influence, would be in itself a sufficient argument against this system.
— from American Notes by Charles Dickens

The Houses are strong built, but homely, letticed like those of Lisbon , for the Admission of Air, without Closets, and what is worse, Hearths; which makes their Cookery consist all in frying and stewing upon Stoves; and that they do till the Flesh become tender enough to shake it to Pieces, and one Knife is then thought sufficient to serve a Table of half a Score.
— 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

There came a day when the entire force of Montmaure thrown, shock upon shock, against the barriers, burst a way in.
— from The Fortunes of Garin by Mary Johnston

Suddenly the lady springs up shrieking, and the polite and amiable monarch (apart from his Solomonic or Sultanic weaknesses, and the perhaps graver indifference with which he knowingly allowed France to go to the devil, Louis le Bien-Aimé was really le meilleur fils du monde ) does his best to console his beloved and find out the reason of her woes.
— from A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 To the Close of the 19th Century by George Saintsbury

Such was the doctor's complete stupidity, not to be comprehended by rational beings, that whenever he had a little money put aside he would shut up shop and take a holiday, so as to be able to devote all his days to research.
— from Juggernaut by Alice Campbell

Every evening the broods were driven in and shut up, so as to keep them from birds of prey, who, aloft in the branches, watched their easy victims, and would, if they could, have ended by destroying them.
— from Godfrey Morgan: A Californian Mystery by Jules Verne

"You're no longer a suitably unconditioned subject, after that last treatment you insisted on.
— from The Ego Machine by Henry Kuttner

[360] and, seeing us so active, they ceased for awhile.
— from Yr Ynys Unyg The Lonely Island by Julia de Winton

The general effects of this style are represented by a style now much in vogue, called antique, a reddish-brown morocco being stamped upon so as to produce a dark or black figure thereon; but the character of the ornaments are generally dissimilar.
— from A Manual of the Art of Bookbinding Containing full instructions in the different branches of forwarding, gilding, and finishing. Also, the art of marbling book-edges and paper. by James B. (James Bartram) Nicholson

It had been scarcely used since, and the lady's things—her favourite chair and her little work-table and her big basket—were still in their places as she had left them, waiting, Martha used to say, like the stores of linen, till the captain brought home his bride.
— from Two Maiden Aunts by Mary H. Debenham

Sinner succeeds unto sinner as the year follows year; the crop of gallows fruit increases day by day; but the criminals do not seem to become fewer.
— from The Chaplain of the Fleet by James Rice