We had slept at Mizoguchi, and ascended the right bank on horseback to Sekido, where without difficulty we induced the ferryman to put us across, and rode into the town of Fuchiû to visit a well-known Shintô [pg 161] temple.
— from A Diplomat in Japan The inner history of the critical years in the evolution of Japan when the ports were opened and the monarchy restored, recorded by a diplomatist who took an active part in the events of the time, with an account of his personal experiences during that period by Ernest Mason Satow

The horse neighed three or four times, and I waited to hear some answers in a human voice, but I heard no other returns than in the same dialect, only one or two a little shriller than his.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift

The one type of Negro stands almost ready to curse God and die, and the other is too often found a traitor to right and a coward before force; the one is wedded to ideals remote, whimsical, perhaps impossible of realization; the other forgets that life is more than meat and the body more than raiment.
— from The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois

But still there was a tumultuous noise among the Romans from the tower of Antonia, who loudly cried out upon all occasions to their own men to press on courageously, when they were too hard for the Jews, and to stay when they were retiring backward; so that here was a kind of theater of war; for what was done in this fight could not be concealed either from Titus, or from those that were about him.
— from The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Flavius Josephus

Why even those who hunt gazelles and hares and deer have a silvan deity who harks and halloos them on, for to Aristæus 96 they pay their vows when in pitfalls and snares they trap wolves and bears, 'For Aristæus first set traps for animals.'
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

redundant; too much, too many; exuberant, inordinate, superabundant, excessive, overmuch, replete, profuse, lavish; prodigal &c. 818; exorbitant; overweening; extravagant; overcharged &c. v.; supersaturated, drenched, overflowing; running over, running to waste, running down. crammed to overflowing, filled to overflowing; gorged, ready to burst; dropsical, turgid, plethoric; obese &c. 194. superfluous, unnecessary, needless, supervacaneous|, uncalled for, to spare, in excess; over and above &c. (remainder) 40; de trop[Fr]; adscititious &c. (additional) 37; supernumerary &c. (reserve) 636; on one's hands, spare, duplicate, supererogatory, expletive; un peu fort[Fr].
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget

Accepting the rough deific sketches to fill out better in myself, bestowing them freely on each man and woman I see, Discovering as much or more in a framer framing a house, Putting higher claims for him there with his roll'd-up sleeves driving the mallet and chisel, Not objecting to special revelations, considering a curl of smoke or a hair on the back of my hand just as curious as any revelation, Lads ahold of fire-engines and hook-and-ladder ropes no less to me than the gods of the antique wars, Minding their voices peal through the crash of destruction, Their brawny limbs passing safe over charr'd laths, their white foreheads whole and unhurt out of the flames; By the mechanic's wife with her babe at her nipple interceding for every person born, Three scythes at harvest whizzing in a row from three lusty angels with shirts bagg'd out at their waists, The snag-tooth'd hostler with red hair redeeming sins past and to come, Selling all he possesses, traveling on foot to fee lawyers for his brother and sit by him while he is tried for forgery; What was strewn in the amplest strewing the square rod about me, and not filling the square rod then, The bull and the bug never worshipp'd half enough, Dung and dirt more admirable than was dream'd, The supernatural of no account, myself waiting my time to be one of the supremes, The day getting ready for me when I shall do as much good as the best, and be as prodigious; By my life-lumps!
— from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

On pressing the outer foot the plate goes downward.
— from The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar by Maurice Leblanc

that, whether true or false, the necklace was nothing more that an object of parade, an emblem of senseless pride.”
— from The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar by Maurice Leblanc

And in this wise they talked on, fathoming the wishes of God, predicting His judgments, describing Him as interested in matters which assuredly concern Him but little.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

Of the latter place he says: "Once, as we judged upon the spot, this must have been a city of not less than twelve or fifteen thousand inhabitants.
— from Companion to the Bible by E. P. (Elijah Porter) Barrows

He writes: "There are no relics of ancient greatness in Káyalpattanam, and no traditions of foreign trade, and it is admitted by its inhabitants to be a place of recent origin, which came into existence after the abandonment of the true Káyal.
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 2 by Rustichello of Pisa

Comparatively few new farms have been broken in during the last twenty or thirty years; and too rarely it happens on the old farms that fresh ground is taken in from the pasture for cultivation.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 22, October, 1875, to March, 1876 A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science by Various

But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence, this change, inasmuch as it does away with illusion, is an absolute annihilation, or at least a reckless profanation; for in these days illusion only is sacred, truth profane .
— from The Essence of Christianity Translated from the second German edition by Ludwig Feuerbach

"Thy 'oroscope forewarns thee of a loss if thou lendest thy money.
— from Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 101, October 17, 1891 by Various

He is too old for the Navy, but why should he not learn the seaman's trade on the yacht?
— from Mary Gray by Katharine Tynan

'In the gayest moments, in the giddiest throng of fashion, the thoughts of the past will rise; the departed will be among us still.
— from Thackeray by Anthony Trollope

It is even now too often forgotten that all so-called ‘conductors’ of the electric force are only so in relation to ‘non-conductors,’ and that, strictly speaking, all things on earth are to some extent conductors and to some extent non-conductors.
— from Lightning Conductors: Their History, Nature, and Mode of Application by Anderson, Richard, F.C.S.

But though older far Than oldest yew,— As our hills are, old.— Worn new Again and again: Young as our streams After rain: And as dear As the earth which you prove That we love.
— from Poems by Edward Thomas

It held some three or four tapers, and was so placed to enable the priest to read his missal at early Mass on dark winter mornings.
— from The Shame of Motley: being the memoir of certain transactions in the life of Lazzaro Biancomonte, of Biancomonte, sometime fool of the court of Pesaro by Rafael Sabatini