He has the faculty of saying most provoking things, in that respect even excelling old Peter Tanner.
— 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

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

Countervening factors included the presence of Chinese agitation both Kuomintang and Communist in leadership, guerrilla operations throughout Southeast Asia, and the ruinous economic effects of American submarine and Fourteenth Air Force anti-shipping operations.
— from Psychological Warfare by Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger

The flag which should float from a church tower should have no more on it than the recognised ecclesiastical emblems of the saint to whom it is dedicated: the keys of St. Peter, the wheel of St. Catherine, the sword of St. Paul, the cross and martlets of St. Edmund, the lily of St. Mary, the emblem of the Holy Trinity, or whatever the emblem may be of the saint in question.
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

A negro and a white man were in the ring; everybody else outside.
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

[ It is remarkable that at the same time the tombs of the Roman emperors, even of Constantine himself, were violated and ransacked by their degenerate successor Alexius Comnenus, in order to enable him to pay the "German" tribute exacted by the menaces of the emperor Henry.
— 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

It is entirely convenient to refer every excrescence, or shrinking of parts, every watery suffusion, wart, discoloration, crumpling leaf, wilting, etc., to poison, and still more convenient to find the insect so atomic that it cannot be found, and thus to heap the multiform sins of the orchard on the scape-goat of a hypothetical insect.
— from Pleasant Talk About Fruits, Flowers and Farming by Henry Ward Beecher

Away over on the ragged eastern edge of the city it starts, out of a ferry-house or else upon the abrupt water-front with river waves slapping against the solid bulwark.
— from New York Sketches by Jesse Lynch Williams

I had then to prepare myself for the regular entrance examination of the department of logic.
— from Three Years in Tibet by Ekai Kawaguchi

The usual programme of handing tobacco round, examining each other's arms, was gone through.
— from Albania: A Narrative of Recent Travel by E. F. (Edward Frederick) Knight

Scarcely a man of them, except the slaves and robbers who had swelled their ranks, either escaped or was made prisoner.
— from Cicero Ancient Classics for English Readers by W. Lucas (William Lucas) Collins

The list contained names of many old citizens, and it was evident an effort had been made to recognize every element of Cleverdale.
— from The Cleverdale Mystery; or, The Machine and Its Wheels: A Story of American Life by W. A. Wilkins

" Or in English: "Gilbert the second, surnamed the Red, eighth Earl of Gloucester and seventh of Hertford, died the 7th of December, A.D. 1295.
— from Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire by H. J. L. J. (Henri Jean Louis Joseph) Massé

Jugglers indeed seldom exhibit anything that can appear wonderful to those acquainted with natural philosophy and mathematics; but these even often find satisfaction in seeing truths already known to them applied in a new manner; and they readily embrace every opportunity of having them further illustrated by experiments.
— from A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume 2 (of 2) by Johann Beckmann