Here is a shop to which the recollections of my boyhood as well as present partialities give a peculiar magic.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The converse of taboo in Polynesia is ‘noa’ and allied forms which mean ‘general’ or ‘common’ ... “Various classes of taboo in the wider sense may be distinguished: 1. natural or direct, the result of ‘mana’ mysterious (power) inherent in a person or thing; 2. communicated or indirect, equally the result of ‘mana’ but ( a ) acquired or ( b ) imposed by a priest, chief or other person; 3. intermediate, where both factors are present, as in the appropriation of a wife to her husband.
— from Totem and Taboo Resemblances Between the Psychic Lives of Savages and Neurotics by Sigmund Freud

In fact, much the same sort of movement and mixture went on in old England as we find in older Herodotus, who also, in telling what had been, thought it well to take a woman's lot for his starting-point; though Io, as a maiden apparently beguiled by attractive merchandise, was the reverse of Miss Brooke, and in this respect perhaps bore more resemblance to Rosamond Vincy, who had excellent taste in costume, with that nymph-like figure and pure blindness which give the largest range to choice in the flow and color of drapery.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

The neighbourhood is deprived of the romance of me being athletic.
— from A Room with a View by E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster

Clean out , to ruin, or make bankrupt any one; to take all he has got, [120] by purchase, chicane, or force.
— from The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical and Andecdotal by John Camden Hotten

For me, the ransom of my bold attempt Shall be this cold corpse on the earth's cold face; But if I thrive, the gain of my attempt The least of you shall share his part thereof.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

Because, said Gymnast, they have no cooks to dress them; and, if they be not competently made ready, they remain red and not white; the redness of meats being a token that they have not got enough of the fire, whether by boiling, roasting, or otherwise, except the shrimps, lobsters, crabs, and crayfishes, which are cardinalized with boiling.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

When he heard the reason of my being at Trieste, and how I desired to return to my country, he assured me he would do all in his power to obtain me my wish.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Among these memorials the chief were the ruin of mankind by a flood; and the renewal of the world in one family.
— from A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. by Jacob Bryant

It must indeed be confess'd, that a Lampoon or a Satyr do not carry in them Robbery or Murder; but at the same time, how many are there that would not rather lose a considerable Sum of Mony, or even Life it self, than be set up as a Mark of Infamy and Derision?
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

'He carried his displeasure to extremity, and obliged her to go away with his aunt and him that very day, to her great regret; and as much to the regret of Mrs. Beaumont, and of the ladies her friends; who tenderly loved the innocent visionary, as sometimes they called her.
— from The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) by Samuel Richardson

The parliamentary authority declared in this ordinance, and acknowledged by the Puritans in 1646, the same as that maintained by the United Empire Loyalists of America one hundred and thirty years afterwards, in the American Revolution of 1776 (in a note) 88 -92 The Presbyterians in 1646 seek liberty of worship at Massachusetts Bay, but are punished for their petition to the Massachusetts Bay Government, and are fined and their papers seized to prevent their appeal to the Puritan Parliament 93 How their appeal to England was defeated 98 Further illustrations of the proceedings of the rulers of Massachusetts Bay as more intolerant and persecuting than anything ever attempted by the High Church party in Upper Canada 98 Colonial government according to Massachusetts Bay pretensions impossible
— from The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2. From 1620-1816 by Egerton Ryerson

How are we to reconcile the admiration of Balzac with the dislike of Flaubert, the raptures of M. Bourget and M. Barrès with the sniffs of Sainte-Beuve and M. Chuquet of the Institute?
— from Books and Characters, French & English by Lytton Strachey

As he passed along the side veranda the recollection of Mr. Byers and his mysterious flight occurred to him.
— from Openings in the Old Trail by Bret Harte

I have once before, I believe, given the history of a bear hunt in which our party participated while crossing the Kamchatka tundra ; but as that was a mere skirmish, which did not reflect any great credit upon the individuals concerned, I am tempted to relate one more bear adventure which befell us among the foot-hills of the Tigil mountains.
— from Tent Life in Siberia A New Account of an Old Undertaking; Adventures among the Koraks and Other Tribes In Kamchatka and Northern Asia by George Kennan

Where there were half a dozen sons in a knightly family, the eldest succeeded to the family estate and honours: of the rest, one might become a lawyer; another might have a religious vocation, and, as a secular priest, take the family living, or obtain a stall in the choir of the neighbouring monastery; a third might prefer the profession of arms, and enter into the service of some great lord or of the king, or find employment for his sword and lance, and pay for himself and the dozen men who formed the “following of his lance,” in the wars which seldom ceased in one part of Europe or another; another son might engage in trade, either in a neighbouring town or in one of the great commercial cities of the time, as Bristol, Norwich, or London.
— from Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages Third Edition by Edward Lewes Cutts

The residence of Major Bazelgette at the head of this street had been originally constructed by John Trider from the materials of the old {201} Government House which had been removed and the materials sold to make way for the foundation of the Province Building.
— from History of Halifax City by Thomas B. Akins

Jim went off again down the river, and Mr. Benedict and Harry busied themselves in cleaning the camp, and preparing Number Ten for the reception of Mr. Balfour and his boy, having previously determined to take up their abode with Jim for the winter.
— from Sevenoaks: A Story of Today by J. G. (Josiah Gilbert) Holland

But the register of my birth, and I somewhat hope my face, make me out exactly thirty.”
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac