Danger and trouble—of the imminent kind, not the everyday sort that excites neither interest nor commiseration—run even this common clay into heroic moulds on occasion; occasions that help us to remember that the gap that separates the man with the patched coat from his wealthy neighbor is, after all, perhaps but a tenement.
— from How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. (Jacob August) Riis

He, however, declined the risk, declaring it was impossible to capture the schooner with boats, and as she was a remarkably fast sailer, she was sure to escape; should the enterprise not succeed, he would become known as the informer, and be no longer able to act as pilot in the Bahama Channel.
— from How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves Updated to 1900 by William Henry Giles Kingston

Most people would at once answer, the Phœnicians; but, in order to establish their claim, one of two things is necessary—either we must have some direct testimony that they erected these monuments, or we must be able to show that they erected similar tombs either near their own homes or elsewhere.
— from Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries: Their Age and Uses by James Fergusson

People in those days had larger minds than they ever seem to exhibit now.
— from Tales from the Telling-House by R. D. (Richard Doddridge) Blackmore

When a cat died the Egyptians shaved their eyebrows, not only to show grief at the loss of their loved one, but to avert subsequent misfortune.
— from Animal Ghosts; Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter by Elliott O'Donnell

"A series of great dislocations with upthrows on the east side traverse eastern North America from Canada to Alabama.
— from The Hudson Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention by Wallace Bruce

In the midst of these things, in the early spring, the Emperor Nicholas died,—died broken-hearted, a victim to his own pride; but the contest went on the same as ever.
— from Lord Palmerston by Anthony Trollope

The English seeing the enemy not inclined to advance, marched toward them in handsome array, and with repeated huzzas, occasionally stopping to recover their breath.
— from The Chronicles of Enguerrand de Monstrelet, Vol. 04 [of 13] Containing an account of the cruel civil wars between the houses of Orleans and Burgundy, of the possession of Paris and Normandy by the English, their expulsion thence, and of other memorable events that happened in the kingdom of France, as well as in other countries by Enguerrand de Monstrelet

He was not insensible to the silent anguish that Evelyn seemed to endure, nor to the bitter gloom that hung on the brow of Lady Doltimore.
— from Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron