He walked round to the other side, examined my work for a while, muttering to himself in a fault-finding tone.
— 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

Suddenly, during the nuptial mass, the beadle, by moving to one side, enabled me to see, sitting in a chapel, a lady with fair hair and a large nose, piercing blue eyes, a billowy scarf of mauve silk, glossy and new and brilliant, and a little spot at the corner of her nose.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

The pebbles of the sea-shore and of rivers suggest somewhat of the same difficulty [respecting their origin]; some explanation may indeed be found in the motion [to which these are subject] in flowing waters, but the investigation of the above fact presents more difficulty.
— from The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3) Literally Translated, with Notes by Strabo

My recollection of the old survey enables me to guess the relative position of the meanderings of the creek, and an occasional simple professional experiment to determine the distance gives my cr
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales With Condensed Novels, Spanish and American Legends, and Earlier Papers by Bret Harte

The Rochester Express, which stood nobly by her through this ordeal, said editorially: Miss Anthony had a loftier end in view than the making of a sensation when she registered her name and cast her vote.
— from The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years by Ida Husted Harper

In times of strong emotion mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are evanescent.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

By the second of the rules, annexed to the act of parliament, which imposed what is now called the old subsidy, every merchant, whether English or alien.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

But on this occasion she entirely misinterpreted what he had said.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

It gives the impression, too, of greater space; for it is not shut in on all sides, and the open slopes extend much further back before they reach the precipitous mountain-side.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 20, October 1874‐March 1875 by Various

He would address this deity in terms of strong endearment, magnify his or her powers, as the case may be, and belittle himself and his own worth.
— from The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria by Morris Jastrow

Or the one, say English, may be very sensitive to relative stresses , while in the other, say French, stress is a very minor consideration.
— from Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech by Edward Sapir

“Uncle might see us together, or somebody else might see us and tell him.
— from Ship's Company, the Entire Collection by W. W. (William Wymark) Jacobs

The glorious resistance of the past thus becomes an ignominious surrender and makes us shed tears of shame, even more bitter than those which we shed over our saddest memories.
— from The Schemes of the Kaiser by Juliette Adam

These doctors, who are they?— p. 96 ignorant quacks who, for their own selfish ends, make us believe that we are on the way to death when in reality we are in the enjoyment of health and strength.
— from Crying for the Light; Or, Fifty Years Ago. Vol. 3 [of 3] by J. Ewing (James Ewing) Ritchie

The old saying, "every man has his price," is true in this sense, that every machine will stand just so much and no more.
— from Crime: Its Cause and Treatment by Clarence Darrow

If we turn our eyes homeward and contemplate the many thousands of small efforts made in this country toward the alleviation of city children's misery, we can say truthfully that we in America are perhaps fully alive to the necessity which has prompted the people of Berlin to action; we only need to be reminded of Mayor Pingree's potato patches on empty city lots, our children's outing camps, our occasional children's excursions, and the like.
— from Three Acres and Liberty by Bolton Hall

Any other authorities of the Government would interpret the word "crimes," as here used, to cover only acts known as felonies or threats of violence, where the danger to law and order was too great to allow the accused to run at large, yet for over a hundred years Army officers, under the unwritten laws handed down from the Middle Ages, have interpreted this word to embrace every trifling offense for which a soldier is triable by court martial, even neglects and omissions, such as "Failure to attend roll-call" and "Neglect to clean arms"; that the article was mandatory—that no soldier could be tried by court martial until first confined in the guard-house, and [377] grave and serious courts have refused to enter upon the trial of such enlisted men unless previously confined.
— from My Story by Anson Mills

Fol.), where, with all its false quantities, it is ascribed to Ovid:— "Solacium est miseris socios habere poenarum."
— from Notes and Queries, Number 21, March 23, 1850 by Various