If the principal tower of Rochester Castle had suddenly walked from its foundation, and stationed itself opposite the coffee-room window, Mr. Winkle’s surprise would have been as nothing compared with the profound astonishment with which he had heard this address.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

As he forecast the enormous and tragic results of the return of that armed throng of reckless cattlemen he shuddered.
— from The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop by Hamlin Garland

The Orange River Colony has severe laws concerning the labor of the blacks, of a nature resembling our peonage laws in the Southern States.
— from Popular Law-making A study of the origin, history, and present tendencies of law-making by statute by Frederic Jesup Stimson

The señoras there display unwonted ardor, and, in decorating himself for these pretty partners, more than one rich cavalier has seen his fortune dissipated in a few nights.
— from The Pearl of Lima: A Story of True Love by Jules Verne

al one, for instance, of Ptolemy of Philadelphus, at Alexandria, about 270 B. C., then in the midst of his power and glory, in which there were chariots and cumbrous wagons drawn by elephants and goats, antelopes, oryxes, buffaloes, ostriches, gnus and zebras; then a tribe of the Scythians, when with many scores of oxen they were shifting their light, big round houses, made of felt cloth and mounted on road carts, to a new camping place; next a wild, mad dash of the Roman charioteers around the amphitheatre, or a triumphal march with chariots of carved ivory bearing aloft the ensigns of victory; and now an army of the ancient Britons driving through these same charioteers of Cæsar with their own rude chariots, having sharp hooks and crooked iron blades extending from their axles; now a "Lady's Chair" of the fourteenth century—the state carriage of the time—with a long, wooden-roofed and windowed body, having a door at each end, resting on a cumbrous frame without springs, and the axles united rigidly to a long reach; next comes a line of imposing clumsy state coaches of the sixteenth century, with bodies provided with pillars to support the roof, and adorned with curtains of cloth and leather, [Pg 429] but still destitute of springs; and here in stately approach comes a line of more curious and more comfortable "royal coaches" of the seventeenth century, when springs were for the first time introduced; and now rumbles forward a line of those famous old English stage coaches originated in the seventeenth century, which were two days flying from Oxford to London, a distance of fifty-five miles; but a scene in the next century shows these ponderous vehicles greatly improved, and the modern English stage mail-coaches of Palmer in line.
— from Inventions in the Century by William Henry Doolittle

In England and in Ireland the record of this terrible time makes us wonder how it was possible that any remnant of the old religion could have survived.
— from Breaking with the Past; Or, Catholic Principles Abandoned at the Reformation by Francis Aidan Gasquet

'I wonder,' mused John Herring, 'whether that old rascal can have stolen anything of value.
— from John Herring: A West of England Romance. Volume 1 (of 3) by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

"'Ah, fine place!' said the stranger, 'glorious pile—frowning walls—tottering arches—dark nooks—crumbling staircases—'" Little did poor Mr. Winkle think that within twenty-four hours his feeling of admiration for Rochester Castle would be turned into astonishment, for does not the chronicle say that "if the upper tower of Rochester Castle had suddenly walked from its foundation and stationed itself opposite the coffee-room window
— from A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land Together with Personal Reminiscences of the 'Inimitable Boz' Therein Collected by William R. (William Richard) Hughes

Our teachers of rhetoric could hardly say a better thing to-day.
— from English Lands, Letters and Kings, vol. 1: From Celt to Tudor by Donald Grant Mitchell

The tumult rose to one resounding crash, hesitated, subsided and died away.
— from John Henry Smith A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life by Frederick Upham Adams