A surprise, especially in the night time, was for the most part fatal to a Persian army.
— 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

Or if some person begins at the other end and measures E the interval by which the king is parted from the tyrant in truth of pleasure, he will find him, when the multiplication is completed, living 729 times more pleasantly, and the tyrant more painfully by this same interval.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

Thomas Trevelyan READING in Ovid the sorrowful story of Itys, Son of the love of Tereus and Procne, slain For the guilty passion of Tereus for Philomela, The flesh of him served to Tereus by Procne, And the wrath of Tereus, the murderess pursuing
— from Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters

but a year ago, I stood and watched the crimson sunset glow From the lone chapel on thy marshy plain:
— from Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

To my planet pale, 'Neath a ceiling of mist, in the lofty breeze, I set my sail.
— from The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire

Now the Midianites perceived beforehand how the Hebrews were coming, and would suddenly be upon them: so they assembled their army together, and fortified the entrances into their country, and there awaited the enemy's coming.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

Accordingly Cheirisophus and as many of the troops as were able got into cantonments there, while the rest of the soldiers—those namely who were unable to complete the march—had to spend the night out, without food and without fire; under the circumstances some of the men perished.
— from Anabasis by Xenophon

But we must tread lightly in these rarefied regions and get on to more practical concerns.
— from The Practice and Science of Drawing by Harold Speed

Frequently a shape so figures, sometimes a temperature, a taste, etc.; but for the most part temperature, smell, sound, color, or whatever other phenomena may vividly impress us simultaneously with the bulk felt or seen, figure among the accidents.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2) by William James

As who should say, I have bid you take heed that you do not lightly, and without due consideration, enter into a profession of Me and of My gospel; for he that without due consideration shall begin to profess Christ, will also without it forsake Him, turn from Him, and cast Him behind his back; and since I have even at the beginning, laid the consideration of the cross before you, it is because you should not be surprised and overtaken by it unawares, and because you should know that to draw back from Me after you have laid your hand to My plough, will make you unfit for the kingdom of heaven (Luke 9:62).
— from Works of John Bunyan — Volume 01 by John Bunyan

Toll for Entering Jerusalem Unexpected calm came to Palestine through the development of the maritime powers of Italy, which could fall on Hakim's dominions at will.
— from Peter the Hermit: A Tale of Enthusiasm by Daniel A. (Daniel Ayres) Goodsell

But, he adds, ‘it seems I judged too well of the world’; and he points his moral with a story of ‘the great Dr. Clarke,’ who, ‘unbending himself with a few friends in the most playful and frolicsome manner,’ saw Beau Nash in the distance, and was instantly sobered.
— from Views and Reviews: Essays in appreciation: Literature by William Ernest Henley

Once I caught his eye and I half expected him to speak, but he was too well-trained for that, and the meal proceeded in the same silence in which it had begun.
— from The Mayor's Wife by Anna Katharine Green

Her face suddenly betrayed the most piteous forlornness, and at the same time a touching appeal, as that of a child.
— from Magnhild; Dust by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

The origin of the story of the chimera is ascribed to a mountain in Lycia which had a volcano on its top and nourished lions; the middle part afforded pasture for goats, and the bottom was infested with serpents; according to Hesiod it had three heads, that of a lion, a goat, and a dragon.
— from Fictitious & Symbolic Creatures in Art With Special Reference to Their Use in British Heraldry by John Vinycomb