I should have understood what we call a ghost, as well as I did the commonest object: which is another way of intimating that all my eye rested on struck it as spectral.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

Thus a man enjoying rest after fatigue is vaguely conscious of a strong clinging to his actual condition, and of a latent readiness to resist any impulse to change it.
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick

„ 20, „ 7, for the God of nature; he also tends, down to and most excellent, read the God of nature.
— from The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 1 (of 6) by the Elder Pliny

The place cards are usually put above the plate on the tablecloth, but some people put them on top of the napkin because they are more easily read.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post

The chances and accidents that attend military expeditions require great circumspection; and it is possible to provide for all of them with precision, provided that a man gives his mind to the conduct of his plan of campaign.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius

They were about to sit down to dinner when Monsieur Follenvie appeared, and in his grating voice announced: “The Prussian officer sends to ask Mademoiselle Elisabeth Rousset if she has changed her mind yet.”
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

“Merry elves, their morrice pacing To aërial minstrelsy, Emerald rings on brown heath tracing, Trip it deft and merrily.”
— from Myths of the Norsemen: From the Eddas and Sagas by H. A. (Hélène Adeline) Guerber

There are many epics, rhapsodies, and cantatas—and even a comic opera by Meilhat, music by Deffes, bearing the title, Le Café du Roi , produced at the Théâtre Lyrique, November 16, 1861.
— from All About Coffee by William H. (William Harrison) Ukers

There are many elevated rocks upon this cape, and possibly some one or other of them may have the shape of a heart.
— from Vitus Bering: the Discoverer of Bering Strait by Peter Lauridsen

The Expositor's Bible is based upon a more accurate text and more exact renderings of the New Testament than were available for previous works of exposition.
— from The Expositor's Bible: Index by S. G. (Samuel Gardiner) Ayres

{3} There are many English references to the custom of electing a Twelfth Day monarch by means of a bean or pea, and this “king” is mentioned in royal accounts as early as the reign of Edward II. {4} He appears, however, to have been even more popular in France than in England.
— from Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan by Clement A. Miles

But the suburbs round Paris are, I think, a yet more pleasing relief from the metropolis; they are more easily reached, and I know not why, but they seem more rural,—perhaps because the contrast of their repose with the stir left behind, of their redundance of leaf and blossom compared with the prim efflorescence of trees in the Boulevards and Tuileries, is more striking.
— from The Parisians — Complete by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

‘Mrs. Tibbs and Mr. Evenson!’ repeated everybody, as that unhappy pair were discovered: Mrs. Tibbs seated in an arm-chair by the fireplace, and Mr. Evenson standing by her side.
— from Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People by Charles Dickens

Barbers residing in towns hold no land to fall back upon, but their average monthly earnings range from five to seven rupees.
— from Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 3 of 7 by Edgar Thurston

Well, the emperor now must father this elf, For the army must ever recruit itself.
— from Wallenstein's Camp: A Play by Friedrich Schiller

It is in the case of Josiah Philips, which I find strangely represented by Judge Tucker and Mr. Edmund Randolph, and very negligently vindicated by Mr. Henry.
— from The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 6 (of 9) Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private by Thomas Jefferson

The export of electrical apparatus from this country amounts to more than three million dollars annually, and it is said that there are eight times as many electric railways in the United States as in all the rest of the world combined.
— from The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century. by Edward W. (Edward Wright) Byrn