When this was done, Captain Nemo and his men stood up; then they all approached the grave, sank again on bended knee, and extended their hands in a sign of final farewell. . . .
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne

Of Sextus, mildness and the pattern of a family governed with paternal affection; and a purpose to live according to nature: to be grave without affectation: to observe carefully the several dispositions of my friends, not to be offended with idiots, nor unseasonably to set upon those that are carried with the vulgar opinions, with the theorems, and tenets of philosophers: his conversation being an example how a man might accommodate himself to all men and companies; so that though his company were sweeter and more pleasing than any flatterer's cogging and fawning; yet was it at the same time most respected and reverenced: who also had a proper happiness and faculty, rationally and methodically to find out, and set in order all necessary determinations and instructions for a man's life.
— from Meditations by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

They should be told that the mystery of the Greek fire had been revealed by an angel to the first and greatest of the Constantines, with a sacred injunction, that this gift of Heaven, this peculiar blessing of the Romans, should never be communicated to any foreign nation; that the prince and the subject were alike bound to religious silence under the temporal and spiritual penalties of treason and sacrilege; and that the impious attempt would provoke the sudden and supernatural vengeance of the God of the Christians.
— 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

Well, very shortly I shall have to sidle up to Tom and break the news to him.
— from Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

" Just then it came into his mind that he would stoop under the table, and so creep to the door.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way.
— from Second Variety by Philip K. Dick

Then the cocoa-nuts would be ripe for picking, and her cousins (like all the natives, Ata had a host of relatives) would swarm up the trees and throw down the big ripe nuts.
— from The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset (William Somerset) Maugham

But the most interesting object of all was, perhaps, the open scrapbook, displayed in the midst of some theatrical duodecimos that were strewn upon the table; and pasted into which scrapbook were various critical notices of Miss Snevellicci’s acting, extracted from different provincial journals, together with one poetic address in her honour, commencing— Sing, God of Love, and tell me in what dearth Thrice-gifted Snevellicci came on earth, To thrill us with her smile, her tear, her eye, Sing, God of Love, and tell me quickly why.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

I saw a shape swim upward through that air.
— from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri

This young fellow, whom I take to be a natural son of the late Ellangowan, has gone about the country for some weeks under different names, caballing with a wretched old mad-woman, who, I understand, was shot in a late scuffle, and with other tinkers, gipsies, and persons of that description, and a great brute farmer from Liddesdale, stirring up the tenants against their landlords, which, as Sir Robert Hazlewood of Hazlewood knows—' 'Not to interrupt you, Mr. Glossin,' said Pleydell, 'I ask who you say this young man is?' 'Why, I say,' replied Glossin, '
— from Guy Mannering, Or, the Astrologer — Complete by Walter Scott

“It’s all right,” he cried; “they said they’d save us two trucks, and said we could come down Friday morning at 7 A. M.
— from Scott Burton, Forester by Edward G. (Edward Gheen) Cheyney

Wis 3:9 They that put their trust in him shall understand the truth: and such as be faithful in love shall abide with him: for grace and mercy is to his saints, and he hath care for his elect.
— from Deuterocanonical Books of the Bible Apocrypha by Anonymous

It will, however, only require a slight examination of the doctrines maintained by these learned and pious men, to satisfy us that they all along either assume the thing to be proved, or proceed upon suppositions quite inconsistent with the infinite power of the Deity—the only position which raises a question, and which makes the difficulty that requires to be solved.
— from The Fallen Star, or, the History of a False Religion by E.L. Bulwer; And, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil by Lord Brougham by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

The parlourmaid placed the spirit stand upon the table, and asked his lordship if he had any further orders.
— from The Pit Town Coronet: A Family Mystery, Volume 2 (of 3) by C. J. (Charles James) Wills

As numbers are simple up to ten, and then they begin to be compound, so in the universe the ten simple substances are followed by composite.
— from A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy by Isaac Husik

But that, besides occasional synods, ordinary synods be kept at set times, is most profitable, not only that they may discuss and determine the more difficult ecclesiastical causes coming before them, whether by the appeal of some person aggrieved, or by the hesitation or doubting of inferior assemblies (for such businesses very often fall out), but also that the state of the churches whereof they have the care, being more certainly and frequently searched and known, if there be anything wanting or amiss in their doctrine, discipline or manners, or anything worthy of punishment, the slothful labourers in the vineyard of the Lord may be made to shake off the spirit of slumber and slothfulness, and be stirred up to the attending and fulfilling more diligently their calling, and not suffered any longer to sleep and snore in their office; the stragglers and wanderers may be reduced to the way; the untoward and stiff-necked, which scarce, or very hardly, suffer the yoke of discipline, as also unquiet persons, who devise new and hurtful things, may be reduced to order: finally, whatsoever doth hinder the more quick and efficacious course of the gospel may be discovered and removed.
— from The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) by George Gillespie

On the 22d, we set up the tents and observatory, and began to send the several articles out of the ship which I wanted on shore.
— from A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 15 Forming A Complete History Of The Origin And Progress Of Navigation, Discovery, And Commerce, By Sea And Land, From The Earliest Ages To The Present Time by Robert Kerr

Any one giving a fee in a street-car would not be understood, and there are few things so unsympathetic to the American who travels in Europe as the way in which the lower classes look for an obolus in return for every trivial service or attention.
— from The Americans by Hugo Münsterberg