For you see here, sir, green wood and dry, without any sort of selection, all that has come into my possession; insomuch that there are among the rest efforts even of his boyhood.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

the day, That will the workmen their long toil repay.— "Enough, enough!"
— from The Fables of La Fontaine Translated into English Verse by Walter Thornbury and Illustrated by Gustave Doré by Jean de La Fontaine

They rose expectant: eye and ear waited while the flesh quivered on my bones.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë

The Rathor exhausted every resource to gain access to the fair, and had once nearly succeeded in a surprise by escalade, having cut his way in the night through the forest in the western and least guarded acclivity: but, as the bard equivocally remarks, "though he cut his way through the jhal (brushwood), he could not reach the Jhalani ."
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

It is the Congress which has opened up the royal road to a better understanding between the rulers and the ruled, and the Anglo-Indian papers have planted themselves like thorns across the whole breadth of that road," etc., etc. Nabendu had an inward fear as to the mischief this letter might do, but at the same time he felt elated at the excellence of its composition, which he fondly imagined to be his own.
— from The Hungry Stones, and Other Stories by Rabindranath Tagore

nonplus, quandary, strait, pass, pinch, pretty pass, stress, brunt; critical situation, crisis; trial, rub, emergency, exigency, scramble. scrape, hobble, slough, quagmire, hot water, hornet's nest; sea of troubles, peck of troubles; pretty kettle of fish; pickle, stew, imbroglio, mess, ado; false position. set fast, stand, standstill; deadlock, dead set.
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget

“But does Maximilian go to Rome?” exclaimed Emmanuel.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

Chapter LXXI: Prospect Of The Ruins Of Rome In The Fifteenth Century.—Part I. Part II HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE Edward Gibbon, Esq.
— 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

For we may easily find, by a little experience, that when we view any object, however simple, our attention or memory is scarcely at any time so strong as to enable us, when we have turned our eyes away from it, to recollect exactly every part it consisted of, and to recall all the circular stances of its appearance; since, on examination, it will be discovered,
— from A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time by Robert Kerr

* New and thoroughly revised Editions; each Treasury complete in One compact Volume, fcp.
— from Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. by Thomas Forester

From this time, Hellas takes her place in history only as a minor portion of the Roman empire, even while, by an inward process, she is asserting her intellectual supremacy
— from Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 1 of 3 I. Prolegomena II. Achæis; or, the Ethnology of the Greek Races by W. E. (William Ewart) Gladstone

That rule endures, even though the Emu group now contains men and women of several distinct and different totem kins," that is to say, of different animal-named kins by descent .
— from The Secret of the Totem by Andrew Lang

He half thought he had won her ear; in another moment he felt sure he would have had her in his arms, sobbing her heart out—since she must cry—in the safe shelter of his breast; but at that moment the young butler, deceived by the low voices into thinking the room empty, entered briskly to fulfil his duties; and Toni sprang up before Andrews had time to advance round the big screen, which fortunately hid her from his eyes.
— from The Making of a Soul by Kathlyn Rhodes

Nowadays, a small sum of money is sufficient to give outward expression to our grief; but at these remote epochs each individual fashioned his own offering, chipped his own flint, and bore it himself to the grave of his friend.
— from Primitive Man by Louis Figuier

It is worth consideration whether the young horses could not be sent to the Regiments even earlier.
— from Cavalry in Future Wars by Friedrich von Bernhardi

By Mrs. Hardy ( Janet Gordon ), Author of 'The Spanish Inquisition,' 'Champions of the Reformation,' etc. etc. 15.
— from Everyday Objects; Or, Picturesque Aspects of Natural History. by W. H. Davenport (William Henry Davenport) Adams

I was consequently far from being surprised when, in a couple of weeks or so afterwards, a letter came from him to my address, which, owing to the careless omission of the private mark upon the envelope, I opened, and read enough to learn that, driven to desperation by the constant failures which he had experienced in all his endeavors to gain access to her in public or private, a failure which he was not backward in ascribing to her indisposition to see him, he had made up his mind to risk everything, even her displeasure; and, by making an appeal to her uncle, end the suspense under which he was laboring, definitely and at once.
— from The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katharine Green