Otherwise we shall fail to express ourselves clearly and acceptably, and we may even succeed in saying the opposite of what we mean.
— from An Advanced English Grammar with Exercises by George Lyman Kittredge

Assonance, alliteration, the revival or adoption of obsolete and provincial words, the transplantation of phrases and idioms from the Greek and Latin languages, the employment of common words in uncommon senses, all are pressed into the service of adding distinction to his diction.
— from The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson by Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron

From indications afforded by the barometer, we find that, in ascensions from the surface of the earth we have, at the height of 1,000 feet, left below us about one-thirtieth of the entire mass of atmospheric air, that at 10,600 we have ascended through nearly one-third; and that at 18,000, which is not far from the elevation of Cotopaxi, we have surmounted one-half the material, or, at all events, one-half the ponderable, body of air incumbent upon our globe.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

"I am everywhere," answered the Voice, "but to the eyes of common mortals I am invisible.
— from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

Note 91 ( return ) [ By an act dated A.D. 1494, Sept. 6, and lately transmitted from the archives of the Capitol to the royal library of Paris, the despot Andrew Palæologus, reserving the Morea, and stipulating some private advantages, conveys to Charles VIII., king of France, the empires of Constantinople and Trebizond, (Spondanus, A.D. 1495, No. 2.)
— 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

His father was a Walachian, his mother a Greek: her unknown race might possibly ascend to the emperors of Constantinople; and the claims of the Walachians, with the surname of Corvinus, from the place of his nativity, might suggest a thin pretence for mingling his blood with the patricians of ancient Rome.
— 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

The eastern coast of Caledonia may be considered as a level and fertile country, which, even in a rude state of tillage, was capable of producing a considerable quantity of corn; and the epithet of cruitnich, or wheat-eaters, expressed the contempt or envy of the carnivorous highlander.
— 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

In songs, for instance, which express great vehemence of passion, the effect often chiefly depends on the forcible utterance of some one or two characteristic passages which demand great exertion of vocal force; and it will be frequently noticed that a song of this character fails of its proper effect when sung by a voice of sufficient power and range to give the characteristic passages without much exertion.
— from The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin

For as cupping-glasses take away the worst blood, so the ears of curious people attract only the worst reports; or rather, as cities have certain ominous and gloomy gates, through which they conduct only condemned criminals, or convey filth and night soil, for nothing pure or holy has either ingress into or egress from them, so into the ears of curious people goes nothing good or elegant, but tales of murders travel and lodge there, wafting a whiff of unholy and obscene narrations.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

This obstacle is removed by the employment of cod-liver oil.
— from Cooley's Cyclopædia of Practical Receipts and Collateral Information in the Arts, Manufactures, Professions, and Trades..., Sixth Edition, Volume I by Richard Vine Tuson

When he reached the Mission, he was tenderly cared for, and in a few weeks was enabled to resume those duties from which, as will be seen, not even the machinations of the Evil One could divert him.
— from Legends and Tales by Bret Harte

“Idiots and foolish people,” scoffed the high-class Athenian professor, adept in polite languages and fine phrasing and the elegancies of culture, and not neglectful of the profits to be got by professing them; “idiots and foolish people, who only amuse themselves to know the succession of kings, and establishing and declination of estates, and such-like trash of flim-flam tales.”
— from The Old Irish World by Alice Stopford Green

It is however very unstable, being exceedingly easily decomposed with the evolution of chlorine.
— from The Principles of Chemistry, Volume II by Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev

He said that France would not permit the employment of coercive measures against Switzerland, and that an opportunity of crossing the Rhine with two hundred thousand Frenchmen and of fighting in Germany would be all to the advantage of the President.
— from Memoirs of the Duchesse De Dino (Afterwards Duchesse de Talleyrand et de Sagan), 1841-1850 by Dino, Dorothée, duchesse de

Large trading operations involved the employment of capital, and capital could not be employed without interest.
— from Outlines of Jewish History from B.C. 586 to C.E. 1885 by Magnus, Katie, Lady

At this time, Van Helmont made a first step, by pointing out that the peculiar hissing and bubbling of a fermented liquid is due, not to the evolution of common air (which he, as the inventor of the term "gas," calls "gas ventosum"), but to that of a peculiar kind of air such as is occasionally met with in caves, mines, and wells, and which he calls "gas sylvestre.
— from Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of T. H. Huxley by Thomas Henry Huxley

The harness consists of small mails attached to lingoes with twines in the same way as the lower portion of the ordinary harness is prepared, but the mails are rounded off above the eye or centre hole without having the top hole for threading the upper portion of the harness to.
— from Jacquard Weaving and Designing by T. F. Bell

And Eve was created about the evening or close of the sixth day, while Adam was asleep.
— from Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1: Luther on the Creation by Martin Luther