All the morning at the office busy, at noon to the ‘Change, and then went up to the ‘Change to buy a pair of cotton stockings, which I did at the husband’s shop of the most pretty woman there, who did also invite me to buy some linnen of her, and I was glad of the occasion, and bespoke some bands of her, intending to make her my seamstress, she being one of the prettiest and most modest looked women that ever I did see.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Three knights, in white garments and resplendent arms, either issued, or seemed to issue, from the hills: the voice of Adhemar, the pope's legate, proclaimed them as the martyrs St. George, St. Theodore, and St. Maurice: the tumult of battle allowed no time for doubt or scrutiny; and the welcome apparition dazzled the eyes or the imagination of a fanatic 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

The most devout worshipper of the national gods of ancient times could endure to see other gods than his worshipped in the next town or by a neighbouring nation.
— from Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay by Immanuel Kant

They were taught, as rapidly as feasible, to use and control their own bodies, and never did I see such sure-footed, steady-handed, clear-headed little things.
— from Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Reader, I think proper, before we proceed any farther together, to acquaint thee that I intend to digress, through this whole history, as often as I see occasion, of which I am myself a better judge than any pitiful critic whatever; and here I must desire all those critics to mind their own business, and not to intermeddle with affairs or works which no ways concern them; for till they produce the authority by which they are constituted judges, I shall not plead to their jurisdiction.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

Birds, the, offered by Abraham, not to be divided,—import of this, ii. 137 .
— from The City of God, Volume II by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

I began to rack my brains to find a way of carrying the idea into execution, and I conceived a hundred schemes, each one bolder than the other, but a new plan always made me give up the one I was on the point of accepting.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

[412] t usually revisit the glimpses of the moon at masquerades,—knights, crusaders, Plantagenet, Tudor and Stuart princes, queens and heroines; all mixed up with an incongruous ancient and modern canaille, a Tom of Bedlam, a Nicholas Bottom "with amiable cheeks and fair large ears," an Ariel, a Paul Pry, a Pickwick, &c., &c., not pacing on with some veri-similitude on foot or respectably mounted on horse, ass, or mule, but borne along most prosaically on wheels or in sleighs.
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

We would not have an old man like you disgraced and punished by your near relation; nor would we have him forget, like you, all ties of blood and nature.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

But he did lift a war for the Union to a war for freedom also, and so direct it that from the strife should emerge not the old, but a nobler nation.
— from The Negro and the Nation A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement by George Spring Merriam

The causes which have led to the development of morality in mankind, which have guided or Page 456 {456} impelled us all the way from the savage to the civilised state, will not cease to operate because a number of ecclesiastical hypotheses turn out to be baseless.
— from Essays Upon Some Controverted Questions by Thomas Henry Huxley

The princess, in court dress, was hurried into a carriage, with a single female attendant and two officers, being allowed neither a change of clothing, protection against the cold, nor money to procure needed conveniences on the road.
— from Historic Tales: The Romance of Reality. Vol. 07 (of 15), Spanish by Charles Morris

He ever looks for the disposition in us which will let Him, in accordance with His great purpose, pour on us His full-flowing tide of blessing, and nothing gladdens Him more than that, by humble acceptance of our assigned place, and persistent pleading, and trust that will not be shaken, we should make it possible for Him to see in us recipients of His mercy and healing grace.
— from Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. Mark by Alexander Maclaren

Lastly, and in worst error, the libraries of England being full of true and noble books—her annals of true and noble history, and her traditions of beautiful and noble—in these scientific times I must say, I suppose, “mythology”—not religion—from all these elements of mental education and subjects of serviceable art, he turns recklessly away to enrich the advertisements of the circulating library, to sketch whatever pleases his fancy, barefooted, or in dainty boots, of modern beggary and fashion, and enforce, with laboriously symbolical pathos, his adherence to Justice Shallow’s sublime theology that “all shall die.”
— from Arrows of the Chace, vol. 1/2 being a collection of scattered letters published chiefly in the daily newspapers 1840-1880 by John Ruskin

All who dwelt in the old towns of Bethlehem and Nazareth in Pennsylvania could listen and be truly cheered by the sound of the beautiful verses written for the night watchman by Count Zinzendorf.
— from Stage-coach and Tavern Days by Alice Morse Earle

They can go through the transaction of buying a newspaper, explaining each action involved, and making correct payment or exacting correct change.
— from Home Missions in Action by Edith H. (Edith Hedden) Allen

"I don't know whether you have ever thought of being a nurse," Mrs. Molyneux had added with Gwynneth's hand in hers; "but if you ever should—or if ever you want to do something, and don't know what else to do—I wish you would write to me, and let me be your friend."
— from Peccavi by E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung