The little matter that Mr. Irwine had to attend to took him up the old stone staircase (part of the house was very old) and made him pause before a door at which he knocked gently.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

On the opposite side, still passing on towards the east, was the Jail.
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

Among early Christian maps, that of St. Sever, possibly of the eighth century, the Anglo-Saxon map of the tenth century, the Turin Map of the eleventh, and the Spanish map of the twelfth (1109), represent very crude and simple types of sketches of the world, in which within a square or oblong surrounded by the ocean a few prominent features only, such as the main divisions of countries, are attempted.
— from Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. With an Account of Geographical Progress Throughout the Middle Ages As the Preparation for His Work. by C. Raymond (Charles Raymond) Beazley

Your aunt talks of some seaside place on the Brittany or Normandy coast--some God-forsaken hole, where a man can't get a decent meal of meat.
— from The Last of Their Race by Annie S. Swan

20 At Montastruc page 105 have been picked up some fragments of red chalk, and in Mayenne of red iron ore, whilst in the cave of Spy was found a bone filled with a very fine red powder, and in that of Saltpêtrière some powder of the same kind was discovered preserved from destruction in a shell.
— from Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples by Nadaillac, Jean-François-Albert du Pouget, marquis de

They were marvellously simple, and believed that only some stray picture on their convent walls would remain to tell their story.
— from Heroes of Modern Europe by Alice Birkhead

If any of the strings or threads of sugar should pass over those parts where they are not required, so as to spoil the other decorations in the making of baskets or other orna [Pg 58] ments, it may be removed with a hot knife without breaking or injuring the piece.
— from How to Make Candy A Complete Hand Book for Making All Kinds of Candy, Ice Cream, Syrups, Essences, Etc., Etc. by Anonymous

gives (in highly condensed form) the substance of the teaching of some sixty philosophers on this subject, and since many of them were extremely confused, the chapter cannot, in the nature of things, be easy reading.
— from The Kingdom of God is Within You; What is Art? by Tolstoy, Leo, graf