Which then and there receives the stroke: as flies The fire when with the steel we hack the stone; Nor yet, because the force of steel's a-cold, Rush the less speedily together there Under the stroke its seeds of radiance hot.
— from On the Nature of Things by Titus Lucretius Carus

Embryology will often reveal to us the structure, in some degree obscured, of the prototypes of each great class.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

The leafless trees spread their fibrous branches against the pure sky; their intricate and pervious tracery resembled delicate sea-weed; the deer were turning up the snow in search of the hidden grass; the white was made intensely dazzling by the sun, and trunks of the trees, rendered more conspicuous by the loss of preponderating foliage, gathered around like the labyrinthine columns of a vast temple; it was impossible not to receive pleasure from the sight of these things.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

“There was a certain clan that had to provide the victim, and they used to sit in solemn council among themselves to choose him.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

Embryology will reveal to us the structure, in some degree obscured, of the prototypes of each great class.
— from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin

To us the sun is simply the orb of light, which, high above our heads, performs each day
— from Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome by E. M. Berens

To appeal to the spiritual discernment of a disbeliever in Divine illumination would be like expecting a man who is not of the mystical craft of the Masonic brotherhood to use the signs (if such there be) of a Freemason.
— from The Wave of Scepticism and the Rock of Truth by M. H. (Matthew Henry) Habershon

M. de Bois was fearful of touching upon the subject, it seemed so wholly to have vanished from her mind; yet his errand compelled him.
— from Fairy Fingers A Novel by Anna Cora Ogden Mowatt Ritchie

He passed through them and was marched from bureau to bureau, addressed by several officials in every tongue under the sun, it seemed to him, till they came to the right one, requested to record his name, age, and state of life in several ominous-looking books, and on each occasion was embraced and shaken hands with by the presiding genius of the bureau; at last he was brought into the presence of a gold-laced and highly decorated individual, who handed him a written document, very stiff and very long, and with this a knot of ribbon.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 21, April, 1875, to September, 1875 A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science by Various

From that time until their surrender in September, 1800, the French were in strict blockade, both by land and water.
— from The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, vol 1 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

If there be one State in the Union, Mr. President, (and I say it not in a boastful spirit,) that may challenge comparison with any other for a uniform, zealous, ardent, and uncalculating devotion to the Union, that State is South Carolina.
— from The American Union Speaker by John D. (John Dudley) Philbrick