The times were peaceable, and the German nobles in general had abandoned their inconvenient old castles, perched like eagles’ nests among the mountains, and had built more convenient residences in the valleys; still, the baron remained proudly drawn up in his little fortress, cherishing with hereditary inveteracy all the old family feuds, so that he was on ill terms with some of his nearest neighbors, on account of disputes that had happened between their great-great-grandfathers.
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving

Do not on any account part with the estate that has belonged to our family for so many generations.
— from The Aesop for Children With pictures by Milo Winter by Aesop

Now those that came guarded both the temple and the city, excepting what belonged to the palace, which Herod guarded with a few of his soldiers; and Phasaelus had the charge of the wall, while Herod, with a body of his men, sallied out upon the enemy, who lay in the suburbs, and fought courageously, and put many ten thousands to flight, some flying into the city, and some into the temple, and some into the outer fortifications, for some such fortifications there were in that place.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

Their own fear, folly, stupidity, to be deplored lethargy, is that which gives occasion to the other, and pulls these miseries on their own heads.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

The old Fairy fancied she was slighted, and muttered some threats between her teeth.
— from The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

What can all this mean except that we have in our hearts organs by means of which we can know God as certainly as we know material things through our familiar five senses?
— from The Pursuit of God by A. W. (Aiden Wilson) Tozer

Fountains I intend to be of two natures; the one that sprinkleth or spouteth water; the other, a fair receipt of water, of some thirty or forty foot square, but without fish, or slime, or mud.
— from Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients by Francis Bacon

My grandmother—whether because too old for field service, or because she had so faithfully discharged the duties of her station in early life, I know not—enjoyed the high privilege of living in a cabin, separate from the quarter, with no other burden than her own support, and the necessary care of the little children, imposed.
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

It was a new idea to her that any value was attached to old furniture, for Sara lived very much out of the world of fads and collectors.
— from Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

The Ottoman forces fall sullenly back from before the irresistible power of the Christian arms, leaving half their brethren slain upon the ground.
— from The Story of Malta by Maturin Murray Ballou

Lecamus, understanding the gesture, immediately said: "You have come to offer furs for sale, I suppose?" " Si ," replied the stranger in Italian, with an air of privity.
— from The Works of Honoré de Balzac: About Catherine de' Medici, Seraphita, and Other Stories by Honoré de Balzac

And Broome after quoting the whole description in his dedication of his own poems to Lord Townshend, observes, in the old fashioned fulsome strain, "This, my lord, is but a faint picture of the place of your retirement which no one ever enjoyed more elegantly."
— from Flowers and Flower-Gardens With an Appendix of Practical Instructions and Useful Information Respecting the Anglo-Indian Flower-Garden by David Lester Richardson

[Pg 100] doomed to die, is dominated in the Villes Tentaculaires by three or four figures standing like statues—the tamers of passions.
— from Émile Verhaeren by Stefan Zweig

Mackay sought in his pocket and produced the small corked bottle in which he carried his supply so that it might be preserved from damp, and Bentley, with a sigh of thankfulness, applied a light to a torch of fine fibrous sticks stuck in a crevice in the table.
— from The Lost Explorers: A Story of the Trackless Desert by Alexander MacDonald