To-day, to him gazing South with a new-born need stirring in his heart, the clear sky over their long low outline seemed to pulsate with promise; to-day, the unseen was everything, the unknown the only real fact of life.
— from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

It is an immense poem, twice as long as Paradise Lost , and longer by some two thousand lines than the Iliad; and before we begin the undoubted task of reading it, we must understand that there is no interesting story or dramatic development to carry us along.
— from English Literature Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World by William J. (William Joseph) Long

The Young Woman Traveling Alone In America, a young woman can go across every one of our thousands upon thousands of railed miles without the slightest risk of a disagreeable occurrence if she is herself dignified and reserved.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post

The levity of Jagat Singh, the inexperience of his successors Partap and Raj Singh, with the ungovernable temper of Rana Arsi, and the circumstances under which he succeeded to power, introduced a train of disorders which proved fatal to Mewar.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

When the Carthaginians began the fight with the Roman ships, they sailed round and round them using the oars rapidly and would make sudden dashes.
— from Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) An Historical Narrative Originally Composed in Greek during the Reigns of Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus and Alexander Severus: and Now Presented in English Form by Cassius Dio Cocceianus

Swimming in water it occurs in the crest of Stilwell, and a swan to which the unusual term of "rousant" is sometimes applied figures as Page 246 {246} the crest of Stafford: "Out of a ducal coronet per pale gules and sable, a demi-swan rousant, wings elevated and displayed argent, beaked gules."
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

In Scotland the phrase is “up a CLOSE ,” i.e. , a passage, out of the usual track, or removed from observation.
— from A Dictionary of Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words Used at the Present Day in the Streets of London; the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; the Houses of Parliament; the Dens of St. Giles; and the Palaces of St. James. by John Camden Hotten

Inside the great station, tides upon tides of rainbow-costumed natives swept along, this way and that, in massed and bewildering confusion, eager, anxious, belated, distressed; and washed up to the long trains and flowed into them with their packs and bundles, and disappeared, followed at once by the next wash, the next wave.
— from Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain

Perhaps the greatest enjoyment a day labourer—whose work commences at six in the winter mornings, and who may have to rise at half-past four and trudge off—can have, is a “quiet snooze” after the usual time of rising.
— from The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical and Andecdotal by John Camden Hotten

With three bills before Congress to exclude us from all hope of representation in the future, I thank God that two women of the nation felt the insult and decided to rouse the rest to use the only right we have in the government—the right of petition.
— from The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years by Ida Husted Harper

The usual time of rising was half-past seven or a little earlier.
— from In the Days of Queen Victoria by Eva March Tappan

Princess Marie Lichtenstein, in her ‘History of Holland House,’ tells us that one room of this splendid old mansion is believed to be haunted by Lord Holland, the first of his name, and the chief builder of Holland House.
— from The Ghost World by T. F. (Thomas Firminger) Thiselton-Dyer

We have never acquiesced in the aggressions of either, and therefore, upon their own reasoning, ought not to be liable to the operation of the principle for which they unjustly contend.
— from Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 4 (of 16) by United States. Congress

Though I waste half my realm to unearth Toad or rat, 't is well worth!"
— from The Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning Cambridge Edition by Robert Browning

With a heart full of sincerity, with a truly heroic patience, had Ferdinand brought about the religious peace of Augsburg, and afterwards, in the Council of Trent, laboured assiduously, though vainly, at the ungrateful task of reconciling the two religions.
— from The Thirty Years War — Volume 01 by Friedrich Schiller

When they reached the narrow path leading through the thicket, they had to walk in single file until they emerged from the wood and found themselves upon the old road running along the river bank.
— from Cruel As The Grave by Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

The old trapper volunteered to manage the most dangerous part of the undertaking, that of recovering our rifles.
— from Adventures in the Far West by William Henry Giles Kingston

It would be more amusing, to be sure, and more reputable, if they would take up the old republican cant and declaim about Brutus and Timoleon, the duty of killing tyrants and the blessedness of dying for liberty.
— from Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 1 by Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron

rang out now and then through the dusk, and far down the street and along the intersecting thoroughfares distant voices took up the ominous refrain,—"Kill the niggers!
— from The Marrow of Tradition by Charles W. (Charles Waddell) Chesnutt