The infantry of the Florentines were so much impeded by their arms and the water that they were not able to mount the banks of the river, whilst the cavalry had made the passage of the river more difficult for the others, by reason of the few who had crossed having broken up the bed of the river, and this being deep with mud, many of the horses rolled over with their riders and many of them had stuck so fast that they could not move.
— from The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

At the conclusion of the ceremonies, Beth retired to her room, overcome with emotion and lobster; but there was no place of repose, for the beds were not made, and she found her grief much assuaged by beating up pillows and putting things in order.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott

The slave doctor prescribes what mere experience suggests, as if he had exact knowledge; and when he has given his orders, like a tyrant, he rushes off with equal assurance to some other servant who is ill; and so he relieves the master of the house of the care of his invalid slaves.
— from Laws by Plato

Her experience had been of a kind to teach her, rightly or wrongly, that the doubtful honour of a brief transmit through a sorry world hardly called for effusiveness, even when the path was suddenly irradiated at some half-way point by daybeams rich as hers.
— from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

It took, among men of honor, the place of the public executions, the massacres in battle and siege, decimation of rebels and similar means of killing at the hands of others, which so often mar the historical records of western nations.
— from The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji by William Elliot Griffis

Mutes have no effect in the highest register of wind instruments.
— from Principles of Orchestration, with Musical Examples Drawn from His Own Works by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov

9 is remarkable because, according to Dr. Le Plongeon and others, as expounded in a work by Professor Wilson of the Smithsonian Institute, here we have the great Swastika, or sign, of "good luck to you "—the most ancient symbol of the human race of which there is any record.
— from Amusements in Mathematics by Henry Ernest Dudeney

Tulip understood the Reproach, and in Return began to applaud the Wisdom of old amorous Gentlemen, who turned their Mistress's Imagination as far as possible from what they had long themselves forgot, and ended his Discourse with a sly Commendation of the Doctrine of Platonick Love; at the same time he ran over, with a laughing Eye, Crastin's thin Legs, meagre Looks, and spare Body.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

Before he was twenty, he ran off with Miss Elers, a young lady of Oxford, to whom he was married at Gretna Green.
— from The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, Vol. 1 (of 2) or, Illustrations, by Pen And Pencil, of the History, Biography, Scenery, Relics, and Traditions of the War for Independence by Benson John Lossing

Hence, in his hour of sickness, in his hour of trial and need, the Almighty rewarded him for his natural good parts, and sent His angel to conduct him, by the simple means herein recorded, to the bosom of that holy religion, outside which there is nothing but bitterness and woe, and without which "it is impossible to please God.
— from The Cross and the Shamrock Or, How To Defend The Faith. An Irish-American Catholic Tale Of Real Life, Descriptive Of The Temptations, Sufferings, Trials, And Triumphs Of The Children Of St. Patrick In The Great Republic Of Washington. A Book For The Entertainment And Special Instructions Of The Catholic Male And Female Servants Of The United States. by Hugh Quigley

As the Greek Lexicon of Parkhurst gives it: Ἀρχὴ answers to the Hebrew rasit , or Wisdom ... and [at the same time] to the emblem of the female generative power, the arg or arca , in which the germ of nature [and of mankind] floats or broods on the great abyss of the waters, during the interval which takes place after every mundane [or racial] cycle. Archê (Ἀρχὴ) or Ark is also the mystic name of the Divine Spirit of Life which broods over Chaos.
— from The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2 of 4 by H. P. (Helena Petrovna) Blavatsky

It is the high rate of profits as well as the high rate of wages common in the country which prevents selling abroad.
— from Principles of Political Economy Abridged with Critical, Bibliographical, and Explanatory Notes, and a Sketch of the History of Political Economy by John Stuart Mill

He thought it must be Mara's fault; she didn't read right, or she told him just as he was going to say it, or she didn't tell him right; or was he a fool?
— from The Pearl of Orr's Island: A Story of the Coast of Maine by Harriet Beecher Stowe

But the mountains and all their dangers were happily passed, and the hospitable roof of warm–hearted George Hermann in the good city of Augsburg safely reached by the three travellers about the middle of the year 1551.
— from A Decade of Italian Women, vol. 2 (of 2) by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

It could scarcely be claimed that he was a farmer—indeed, in those days there was nothing to farm away up among those desolate hills—and therefore Stokoe made no attempt to pose as anything in the bucolic line; it was a pretty open secret that his real occupation was neither more nor less than smuggling.
— from Stories of the Border Marches by Jean Lang

And then he rode on, wiping the sweat from his brow and gazing back grimly into the night.
— from Wunpost by Dane Coolidge

In spite of tears, and shrieks, and struggles, they tore the babe from the mother's arms, and cast it on the lime ash floor; then they bore her away to their horses (for by this time she was senseless), and telling the others to sack the house, rode off with their prize to the valley.
— from Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor by R. D. (Richard Doddridge) Blackmore

The difficulty lies in the high rate of wages.
— from A First Year in Canterbury Settlement by Samuel Butler