Now it came to pass, in the year of Christ's Incarnation, 1252, that Alaü, Lord of the Tartars of the Levant, heard tell of these great crimes of the Old Man, and resolved to make an end of him.
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Rustichello of Pisa

One of them, on my appearing, raised her tall bony figure from her seat, not as if to welcome me—for she threw me no more than a brief glance of surprise—but simply to set about preparing the meal which Frome's absence had delayed.
— from Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

The only misfortune, as regards this class, was that it was very small.
— from A History of the Philippines by David P. Barrows

The greatness of England is now all collective: individually small, we only appear capable of anything great by our habit of combining; and with this our moral and religious philanthropists are perfectly contented.
— from On Liberty by John Stuart Mill

As for her toilette, that aerial toilette of muslin and ribbons, which seemed made of mirth, of folly, and of music, full of bells, and perfumed with lilacs had vanished like that beautiful and dazzling hoar-frost which is mistaken for diamonds in the sunlight; it melts and leaves the branch quite black.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Mr. David Hume related to me from Mr. Garrick, that Johnson at last denied himself this amusement, from considerations of rigid virtue; saying, 'I'll come no more behind your scenes, David; for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities.' 1750: AETAT. 41.]—In 1750 he came forth in the character for which he was eminently qualified, a majestick teacher of moral and religious wisdom.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

I was like a wild beast that had broken the toils, destroying the objects that obstructed me and ranging through the wood with a stag-like swiftness.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

In the poverty of the state, he presumed to borrow the superfluous ornaments of the churches: the desertion of the Manichæans was supplied by some tribes of Moldavia: a reënforcement of seven thousand Turks replaced and revenged the loss of their brethren; and the Greek soldiers were exercised to ride, to draw the bow, and to the daily practice of ambuscades and evolutions.
— 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

But the same is true of many a renowned philosophy.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

Our maps and tours contain much valuable data kindly supplied from the official maps and road-books of the League of American Wheelmen.
— from Harper's Round Table, February 4, 1896 by Various

And you, who say that it would be better to watch an anatomist at work than to see these drawings, you would be right, if it were possible to observe all the things which are demonstrated in such drawings in a single figure, in which you, with all your cleverness, will not see nor obtain knowledge of more than some few veins, to obtain a true and perfect knowledge of which I have dissected more than ten human bodies, destroying all the other members, and removing the very minutest particles of the flesh by which these veins are surrounded, without causing them to bleed, excepting the insensible bleeding of the capillary veins; and as one single body would not last so long, since it was necessary to proceed with several bodies by degrees, until I came to an end and had a complete knowledge; this I repeated twice, to learn the differences [59].
— from The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete by da Vinci Leonardo

What volumes of unwritten, unsuspected tragedies environ us, could we but pierce the outward mask and read the tablets of the heart!
— from Sketches in Crude-oil Some accidents and incidents of the petroleum development in all parts of the globe by John J. (John James) McLaurin

These were the careers that were open to me, and when I was hesitating, wondering if I should be able to buy up the old mills and revive the trade in Tinnick, my sister Eliza reminded me that there had always been a priest in the family.
— from The Lake by George Moore

By the Rev. John Fleetwood , D.D. Embellished with splendid Engravings, in outline, after the old Masters, and reprinted, without abridgement, from the best edition.
— from Heathen mythology, Illustrated by extracts from the most celebrated writers, both ancient and modern by Various

In the skeleton (Fig. 270) the formation of the scapula among other parts is curious; it is quite different from that of the other Mammals, and rather agrees with that of the reptiles and Amphibia.
— from The Evolution of Man by Ernst Haeckel

I then ordering a clear table and a bowl of punch, and having drank all the company's healths, began my narration, hoping to have finished it before bedtime; but they pressing me to be very particular, and frequently one or other requiring explanations upon particular facts, and then one making a remark upon something which another answered, and a third replied to, they got the talk out of my hands so long that, having lost themselves in the argument, and forgot what I said last, they begged my pardon and desired me to go on; when one, who in contemplation of one fact had lost best part of another, prayed me to go on from such an incident, and another from one before that; so that I was frequently obliged to begin half-way back again.
— from The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, Complete (Volumes 1 and 2) by Robert Paltock

The slaves, utterly confounded, stood gazing upon the scene, their open mouths and rolling eyes indicating the utmost wonder and astonishment.
— from Twelve Years a Slave Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River in Louisiana by Solomon Northup

Second: we must view our relationship to Christ as the betrothal and marriage of our soul to our Maker and Redeemer, who is also our Husband.
— from John the Baptist by F. B. (Frederick Brotherton) Meyer

The principles which they defend, the sentiments which they express, are those of Massachusetts, as recently asserted, almost unanimously, by her legislature.
— from The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume VII, Complete The Conflict with Slavery, Politics and Reform, the Inner Life, and Criticism by John Greenleaf Whittier