These gardens extended for several miles up the glen; beyond them the bank of the stream continued to be fringed with white sycamore, willow, ash, mulberry, poplar, and woods that love a moist situation," and so on, describing a style of scenery not common in Persia, and expressing diffusely (as it seems to me) the same picture as Polo's two lines.
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Rustichello of Pisa

Who will not be affected so in like case, or see those well-furnished cloisters and galleries of the Roman cardinals, so richly stored with all modern pictures, old statues and antiquities?
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

It was lifted right out of the water by some wondrous and mysterious power, and then started off twenty fathoms distant.
— from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

Beyond these are the Cattans, whose territories begin at the Hercynian Forest, and consist not of such wide and marshy plains, as those of the other communities contained within the vast compass of Germany; but produce ranges of hills, such as run lofty and contiguous for a long tract, then by degrees sink and decay.
— from Tacitus on Germany by Cornelius Tacitus

“Yes; you see what a multitude presents who have recognised the predominance of Moral Power,” said Morley.
— from Sybil, Or, The Two Nations by Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield

Mrs. Shaw had as strong wishes as most people, but she never liked to do anything from the open and acknowledged motive of her own good will and pleasure; she preferred being compelled to gratify herself by some other person's command or desire.
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

You know it is not my manner to speak any thing in the pulpit that is extraneous to my text and business; yet this I shall say, that it is not my opinion, fashion, or humour that keeps me from complying with what is required of us; but something which, after much prayer, discourse, and study yet remains unsatisfied, and commands me herein.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

The senate, with a melancholy pleasure, performed the last rites to that excellent prince, whom they had loved, and still regretted.
— 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

Here am I, a poor desolate widow, deprived of the best of husbands, my health gone in attending and nursing him, my spirits still worse, all my peace in this world destroyed, with hardly enough to support me in the rank of a gentlewoman, and enable me to live so as not to disgrace the memory of the dear departed—what possible comfort could I have in taking such a charge upon me as Fanny?
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

You'll be forgotten—as old debts By persons who are used to borrow; Forgotten—as the sun that sets, When shines a new one on the morrow; Forgotten—like the luscious peach That blessed the schoolboy last September; Forgotten—like a maiden speech, Which all men praise, but none remember.
— from Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 by George Saintsbury

We know, that, among suicides, women and men past a certain age almost never use fire-arms.
— from Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Then one, Uledi Manga, disgusted with the severe work and melancholy prospect before us, absconded with another box of ammunition.
— from In Darkest Africa, Vol. 1; or, The Quest, Rescue, and Retreat of Emin, Governor of Equatoria by Henry M. (Henry Morton) Stanley

We went into the room, keeping step with a march played by the band, which was placed in the corner.
— from Out of the Hurly-Burly; Or, Life in an Odd Corner by Charles Heber Clark

The same influence Christianity is even now exerting upon the hitherto unwritten languages of the American forest, of the islands of the Pacific, of the burning coasts of Africa, of the mountains of Kurdistan; and with the prospect of results still wider and more propitious.
— from Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations With a Sketch of Their Popular Poetry by Talvj

"No place smaller, nor less substantial would answer my purpose," Judith agreed, annexing Jane's humor.
— from Jane Allen, Center by Edith Bancroft

When Napoleon took possession of Borizoff the Jews were the only inhabitants who remained; and they, a scattered, wandering, and migratory people, without any attachment of soil or country, were ready to serve either the French or Russians, according to the inducements held out to them.
— from Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland, Vol. 2 (of 2) by John L. Stephens

A girl didn't want to read as if she was a minister preaching a sermon.
— from A Little Girl in Old Salem by Amanda M. Douglas