Not a soul knew to whom it belonged, he said; and his money and time being both limited, he thought it better to take it home with him at once, than run into vain expenses there: because he was determined he would not leave it as he found it.
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The Romans, in vain, endeavored to reach their assailants; and numbers were wounded, as they tried to climb the heights, but few were killed--for they were so completely covered, by their armor and shields, that the Jewish missiles, thrown from a distance, seldom inflicted mortal wounds.
— from For the Temple: A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

We have a striving after originality that ends in eccentricity: writers were steeped in the great poets of the Augustan age: men of comparatively small creative imagination, but, thanks to their education, possessed of great technical skill, they ran into violent extremes to avoid the charge of imitating the great predecessors whom they could not help but imitate; hence the obscurity of Persius—the disciple of Horace—and of Statins and Valerius Flaccus—the followers of Vergil.
— from Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal by Harold Edgeworth Butler

The black boy went down with his master to the edge of the river, in vain entreating to be permitted to accompany him, and stood on [275] the brink of the water as John plunged his horse into the dark rolling stream.
— from Fern Vale; or, the Queensland Squatter. Volume 3 by Colin Munro

This romance in verse extends to forty-six cantos.
— from Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol. 3 A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer

The result is very effective; the flat mould-board offers the least possible resistance to the inversion of the soil, whereas the iron plough, with a curling mould-board, presses the crest of the furrow-slice into regularity of form, and gives a more finished appearance at the expense of much extra friction and labour for the horses.
— from Grain and Chaff from an English Manor by Arthur Herbert Savory

There are two other methods of travelling, namely, en poste , which, though rapid, is very expensive; the charge being, at least a horse, often more, for each person, and very little baggage being taken; and the other is in a diligence, which, as it travels night and day, would not do for us.
— from Travels in France during the years 1814-15 Comprising a residence at Paris, during the stay of the allied armies, and at Aix, at the period of the landing of Bonaparte, in two volumes. by Patrick Fraser Tytler

that is the question, which, for the rest, is very easy to answer.
— from The Wonders of Instinct: Chapters in the Psychology of Insects by Jean-Henri Fabre

These circumstances are held by Mr. Lynam to “render it very easy to protect the lowlands from all floods.”
— from Waterways and Water Transport in Different Countries With a description of the Panama, Suez, Manchester, Nicaraguan, and other canals. by J. Stephen (James Stephen) Jeans

Count Louis, in a frenzy of rage and despair, flew from rank to rank, in vain endeavouring to rally his terror-stricken troops.
— from PG Edition of Netherlands series — Complete by John Lothrop Motley