Yet in that long period, some strangers of merit have been converted to the Monophysite faith, and a Jew was the father of Abulpharagius, 130 primate of the East, so truly eminent both in his life and death.
— 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

Accordingly those that were sent brought word that he was in Dothan; wherefore Benhadad sent to that city a great army, with horses and chariots, to take Elisha: so they encompassed the city round about by night, and kept him therein confined; but when the prophet's servant in the morning perceived this, and that his enemies sought to take Elisha, he came running, and crying out after a disordered manner to him, and told him of it; but he encouraged him, and bid him not be afraid, and to despise the enemy, and trust in the assistance of God, and was himself without fear; and he besought God to make manifest to his servant his power and presence, so far as was possible, in order to the inspiring him with hope and courage.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

It was the original design to hold Atlanta, and by getting through to the coast, with a garrison left on the southern railroads, leading east and west, through Georgia, to effectually sever the east from the west.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant

The man with the ebony skin, the eyes of jade and the astrakhan cap bent over Raoul.
— from The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

To the extreme south the English were drawn by the ignis fatuus of expected support among the people.
— from The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

When Arakchéev, coming to him from the Emperor, said that Ermólov ought to be appointed chief of the artillery, Kutúzov replied: “Yes, I was just saying so myself,” though a moment before he had said quite the contrary.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

The eggs, six to eight in number, are white, sparsely spotted with red.
— from Birds of Britain by J. Lewis (John Lewis) Bonhote

And the earl said to Enid, "Alas, lady, what hath befallen thee?"
— from Bulfinch's Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch

The enemy surrounding the enclosure on three sides, brought a cross fire to bear on its defenders, and made frequent charges right up to the breastwork.
— from The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War by Winston Churchill

The Englishman said that English weather had one great fault—its sudden changes.
— from The Scrap Book, Volume 1, No. 5 July 1906 by Various

One of the guides remembered a cattle-track which, by a circuitous route, led back on the eastern side to Ekowe, and as the road they had arrived by was certain to be now ambushed, it was deemed advisable to make a dash at the kraal, and return with what spoil they could obtain in the new direction.
— from The Story of the Zulu Campaign by Edmund Verney Wyatt Edgell

We cannot pretend to say how many thousands or millions of years ago this epoch must have been; but we may be sure that earlier still the earth was even hotter, until at length we seem to see the temperature increase to a red heat, from a red heat we look back to a still earlier age when the earth was white hot, back further till we find the surface of our now solid globe was actually molten.
— from The Story of the Heavens by Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball

" The Englishman sought the entrance of the mansion and inquired for Señora Valentino.
— from The Bride of Mission San José: A Tale of Early California by John Augustine Cull

“And it came to pass, at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel ,” &c. 1 Kings xviii.
— from An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists, by the Rules of Evidence Administered in Courts of Justice With an Account of the Trial of Jesus by Simon Greenleaf

I imagine the whole of this capital, therefore—the principal one of the old palace,—to have been intended to signify, first, the formation of the planets for the service of man upon the earth; secondly, the entire subjection of the fates and fortune of man to the will of God, as determined from the time when the earth and stars were made, and, in fact, written in the volume of the stars themselves.
— from The Stones of Venice, Volume 2 (of 3), by John Ruskin