But like the painters who, finding themselves unable to represent equally well on a plain surface all the different faces of a solid body, select one of the chief, on which alone they make the light fall, and throwing the rest into the shade, allow them to appear only in so far as they can be seen while looking at the principal one; so, fearing lest I should not be able to compense in my discourse all that was in my mind, I resolved to expound singly, though at considerable length, my opinions regarding light; then to take the opportunity of adding something on the sun and the fixed stars, since light almost wholly proceeds from them; on the heavens since they transmit it; on the planets, comets, and earth, since they reflect it; and particularly on all the bodies that are upon the earth, since they are either colored, or transparent, or luminous; and finally on man, since he is the spectator of these objects.
— from Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences by René Descartes

The fact was, as he had bought it himself, though he never said anything about it, it never entered into his head to suppose that Emmy should think anybody else was the purchaser, and as a matter of course he fancied that she knew the gift came from him.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

To get there myself with my gouvernante, I had the Alps to cross, and in a journey of two hundred leagues to drag after me all my baggage; I had also to pass through the states of several sovereigns, and according to the example set to all Europe, I had, after what had befallen me, naturally to expect to find obstacles in every quarter, and that each sovereign would think he did himself honor by overwhelming me with some new insult, and violating in my person all the rights of persons and humanity.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Was there ever so thirsty an elf?—
— from The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 3 (of 3) Everlasting Calerdar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac by William Hone

The roar of the working day drowns the voices of the elfin sprites that are ever singing their low-toned miserere in our ears.
— from The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow by Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome

In front of the embryonic shield there are either comparatively few or none of these cells present ( Ser.
— from The Works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume 1 (of 4) Separate Memoirs by Francis M. (Francis Maitland) Balfour

The steep sides threw the roar back and back again, and the echoes swelled to an earth-shaking blast of sound.
— from Astounding Stories, April, 1931 by Various

And while the great peninsula of the south of Asia was thus falling under the dominion of the English sea traders, an equally remarkable reaction of Europe upon Asia was going on in the north.
— from The Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

His reputation for charity was so exalted that a poor blind mendicant, to whom he gave gold in the streets of Rome, overjoyed at the acquisition of such a treasure, exclaimed, "Surely thou art either Christ or the Cardinal of Lorraine."
— from Henry IV, Makers of History by John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

A black, soggy exhaust-pipe stuck out of a hole in its side, like a nicotine-soaked pipe in an Irishman's mouth, and so natural and matter-of-fact was the entire structure that at evening, in the uncertain light, when the smoke was puffing out of its stack, and the dirty water running from its pipes, and the reflected fire from the engine's furnace blazed through the sunken eyes of the windows, begrizzled and begrimed, nothing was wanted but a little imagination to hear it cough and spit and give one final puff at its pipe and say: “Lu'd but o'ive wur-rek hard an' o'im toired to-day!”
— from The Bishop of Cottontown: A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills by John Trotwood Moore

Now that whole armies are to wield the rifled musket with its conical shot, one is surprized at the time which was permitted to elapse since that able experimenter so memorably expressed his convictions before the Royal Society, in 1746.”
— from The Evolution of Naval Armament by Frederick Leslie Robertson

Among the Russian children of the East Side, Tenth and Eleventh Wards, only 15 per cent of arraignments were on this complaint, indicating twice as many children without parental care among the colored as among the children of the Tenth and Eleventh Wards.
— from Half a Man: The Status of the Negro in New York by Mary White Ovington

He reached the city late in the evening, slept there, and early the next morning went out to Lancaster Station.
— from Anne: A Novel by Constance Fenimore Woolson