And now it was destructively funny to see them sniff suspiciously at a pail of water, and then put in their noses and try to take a bite out of the fluid, as if it were a solid.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

Not a doubt entered my mind that all the angels were grouped together, discussing this boy's case and observing the awful bombardment of our beggarly little village with satisfaction and approval.
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

I stay to supper there, when we converse and sometimes play; I then invariably take a book out of my pocket and read, as I used to do at Salzburg.
— from The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Volume 01 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

What the law really forbids, and the only thing it forbids, is the act on the wrong side of the line, be that act blameworthy or otherwise.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Still my husband, cap in hand, persisted in trying to accompany the alcalde, and seeing this my lady, filled with rage and vexation, pulled out a big pin, or, I rather think, a bodkin, out of her needle-case and drove it into his back with such force that my husband gave a loud yell, and writhing fell to the ground with his lady.
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

For when many people are troubled, he saw the threatening tribulation of the Church, and at once acknowledged himself a member of it, and said, "I shall rest in the day of tribulation," as being one of those who are rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation.
— from The City of God, Volume II by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

At Wagram, however, Napoleon threw a battery of one hundred pieces into the gap left by the withdrawal of Massena's corps, and thus held in check the Austrian center, notwithstanding their vigorous efforts to advance.
— from The Art of War by Jomini, Antoine Henri, baron de

Simon Eyre, 1459: he gave the tavern called the Cardinal’s Hat, in Lombard street, with a tenement annexed on the east part of the tavern, and a mansion behind the east tenement, together with an alley from Lombard street to Cornhill, with the appurtenances, all which were by him new built, toward a brotherhood of our Lady in St. Mary Woolnoth’s church.
— from The Survey of London by John Stow

Then Mr. Stryver turned and burst out of the Bank, causing such a concussion of air on his passage through, that to stand up against it bowing behind the two counters, required the utmost remaining strength of the two ancient clerks.
— from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

] THELUSSON, a banker, one of whose clerks was Lemprun before he entered the Banque de France as messenger.
— from Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z by Anatole Cerfberr

“The Bishop’s Coach” is set to a bit of old Plain-Chant, and I introduce a Fugue at the words “Sure as eggs is eggs.”’
— from The Poems and Verses of Charles Dickens by Charles Dickens

The Sioux at once went back to a band of one hundred and thirty warriors.
— from Pathfinders of the West Being the Thrilling Story of the Adventures of the Men Who Discovered the Great Northwest: Radisson, La Vérendrye, Lewis and Clark by Agnes C. Laut

There is nothing, then, more pernicious to health, than sitting, or sleeping in rooms where the air is loaded with the air breathed out of the lungs.
— from Letters to Persons Who Are Engaged in Domestic Service by Catharine Esther Beecher

"It is a great deal of money, Matthew, of course; but Mr. Pomeroy understands that he is to pay the amount back out of his salary."
— from A Secret of the Sea: A Novel. Vol. 1 (of 3) by T. W. (Thomas Wilkinson) Speight

A brief consideration of the principles of book-reviewing would establish the fact indisputably that the mentioning of a former book, some hint of familiarity with the author by open or covert allusion, is an integral and inevitable part of the review of a later book.
— from Laurence Sterne in Germany A Contribution to the Study of the Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Eighteenth Century by Harvey W. (Harvey Waterman) Hewett-Thayer

It began with scattered trees and bushes out on the prairie.
— from The Lost Gold of the Montezumas: A Story of the Alamo by William O. Stoddard

Let the eagle be removed, giving place to the foul vulture with vulgar beak and filthy claw,—how unlike that bird of Jove, with ample pinion, and those mighty pounces, holding the dread thunderbolt and better olive of peace!—and instead of these, let there be fetter and lash, borrowed from the plantation, which is the miniature of the broader plantation to which the Republic is reduced.
— from Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 06 (of 20) by Charles Sumner

cried Jerry, pointing to a bulky object on the station platform.
— from The Motor Boys on the Atlantic; or, The Mystery of the Lighthouse by Clarence Young

The chancel interrupts an "Annunciation," by Tintoretto's son, the angel being on one side and the Virgin on the other.
— from A Wanderer in Venice by E. V. (Edward Verrall) Lucas

Moreover, when he tells us in the passage quoted by Harvey [393] that not only the heat of the sun and of semen, but also the heat of other animal excretions possesses a "life-giving principle," the words appear to suggest not merely generation without sex, but the spontaneous generation either of parasites within the animal body, or of living things in matters cast off from it.
— from Harvey's Views on the Use of the Circulation of the Blood by John Green Curtis