Those light flakes which one traveller, a native of Rouen, had compared to a rain of cotton fell no longer.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

Most of them avoided resting on chairs during the hour of their "talk" in the Commissioner's office; they would sit around on the floor, leaning against something, or stand up by the walls, partially wrapt in their blankets.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

In our science, where the concept cause and effect is reduced to a relationship of complete equilibrium, and in which it seems desirable for the same quantum of force to be found on either side, all idea of a motive power is absent : we only apprehend results, and we call these equal from the point of view of their content of force....
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

It is difficult to accept reports of coffee accomplishing both a decrease in metabolism and an increase in body heat; but if the production of heat by the demethylation of caffein to form uric acid and a possible repression of perspiration by coffee be considered, the simultaneous occurrence of these two physiological reactions may be credited.
— from All About Coffee by William H. (William Harrison) Ukers

Page 8 My aim, after summarizing the sociology of the Chinese as a prerequisite to the understanding of their ideas and sentiments, and dealing as fully as possible, consistently with limitations of space (limitations which have necessitated the presentation of a very large and intricate topic in a highly compressed form), with the philosophy of the subject, has been to set forth in English dress those myths which may be regarded as the accredited representatives of Chinese mythology—those which live in the minds of the people and are referred to most frequently in their literature, not those which are merely diverting without being typical or instructive—in short, a true, not a distorted image.
— from Myths and Legends of China by E. T. C. (Edward Theodore Chalmers) Werner

And therefore by the aforesaid rule, of Cui Bono, we may justly pronounce for the Authors of all this Spirituall Darknesse, the Pope, and Roman Clergy, and all those besides that endeavour to settle in the mindes of men this erroneous Doctrine, that the Church now on Earth, is that Kingdome of God mentioned in the Old and New Testament.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

The Auld Farmer's New-Year-Morning Salutation To His Auld Mare, Maggie On giving her the accustomed ripp of corn to hansel in the New Year.
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns

A few moments’ scrambling brought them to the top of the ledge; the path then passed between a narrow defile, where only one could walk at a time, till suddenly they came to a rift or chasm more than a yard in breadth, and beyond which lay a pile of rocks, separate from the rest of the ledge, standing full thirty feet high, with its sides steep and perpendicular as those of a castle.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

As the law, on the one hand, allows certain harms to be inflicted irrespective of the moral condition of him who inflicts them, so, at the other extreme, it may on grounds of policy throw the absolute risk of certain transactions on the person engaging in them, irrespective of blameworthiness in any sense.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Sunset found Saladin Lord of Palestine, the Christian chivalry strewn in heaps upon the field, and the King of Jerusalem, the Grand Master of the Templars, and Raynauld of Chatillon, captives in the Sultan’s tent.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

We gather from the ancient records of Canterbury that, in 1544, it was decided “that during winter every dark-night the aldermen, common council, and inn-holders are to find one candle,
— from England in the Days of Old by William Andrews

They sprang to their feet and saw Lee coming through the woods on his white horse, Traveler, a roar of cheers greeting him as he advanced.
— from The Star of Gettysburg: A Story of Southern High Tide by Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler

They are so far from giving their Money to such Projects and Views, that they will not even give their Thoughts or their Time to them, lest they shou'd be mislead, into the Plague of reading, and thinking, and reasoning; of contriving the best Methods, of punishing the Idle, reclaiming the Vicious, or employing the Poor.
— from A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. In the Isles of St. Patrick's Church, Dublin, On that Memorable Day, October 9th, 1753 by Anonymous

A shoal runs off from it a long way to sea, and there are reefs of coral rocks on different parts of its coast.
— from Journal of a Voyage to Brazil And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 by Callcott, Maria, Lady

If this be the whole fruit of the victory, we say; if the generations of mankind suffered and laid down their lives; if prophets confessed and martyrs sang in the fire, and all the sacred tears were shed for no other end than that a race of creatures of such unexampled insipidity should succeed, and protract in saecula saeculorum their contented and inoffensive lives,—why, at such a rate, better lose than win the battle, or at all events better ring down the curtain before the last act of the play, so that a business that began so importantly may be saved from so singularly flat a winding-up.
— from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James

No great battles were fought, but there were several skirmishes, and much taking and retaking of castles and towns.
— from A Short History of Wales by Edwards, Owen Morgan, Sir

When we try to form a clearer image of the life of this tall archaic race of cromlech-builders, we can divine very much to fill the picture.
— from Ireland, Historic and Picturesque by Charles Johnston

In 1855 Mr. Browning was united in marriage to Miss Magdeline H. Norval, born in 1833, in Beauharnois, Quebec, a daughter of R. H. Norval, who came from Edinburgh when twenty-one years of age and remained thereafter a resident of Canada until his death in 1856.
— from Montreal from 1535 to 1914. Vol. 3. Biographical by William H. (William Henry) Atherton

Behind the coaches of the higher court-officials, the Xara cuirassiers, the crown-prince's own regiment; behind them, a regiment of colonials: Africans, black as polished ebony, with eyes like beads, their thick mouths thrust forwards, clad in the muslin-like snow of their burnouses; behind them, two regiments of hussars on heavy horses, in their long, green, gold-frogged coats and their tall busbies.
— from Majesty: A Novel by Louis Couperus

If what Goëthe maintained is literally true, and genuine authorship is the reflex of [Pg 83] consciousness upon outward life, then all its spontaneous products must have a vital element of human life, love, and truth, more or less congenial to all readers of candid, clear, and humane instincts: for we agree with a liberal and acute critic, when he says that the gift of literary genius ‘lies in the faculty of being happily inspired by a certain intellectual and spiritual atmosphere—by a certain order of ideas; of dealing divinely with these ideas, presenting them in the most effective and attractive combinations, making beautiful works of them.’
— from The Collector Essays on Books, Newspapers, Pictures, Inns, Authors, Doctors, Holidays, Actors, Preachers by Henry T. (Henry Theodore) Tuckerman