‘Stand up and repeat “‘ Tis the voice of the sluggard ,”’ said the Gryphon.
— from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

at the pass of Collin's Creek we met two indians who were on their way over the mountain; they had brought with them the three horses and the mule that had left us and returned to the quawmash grounds.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

This has divers large, round, thin yellowish green leaves rising from the root, a little waved about the edges, every one standing upon a reasonably thick and long brownish footstalk, from among which rises up a pretty big stalk, about two feet high, with some such high leaves growing thereon, but smaller; at the top whereof stand in a long spike many small brownish flowers, which turn into a hard three square shining brown seed, like the garden Patience before described.
— from The Complete Herbal To which is now added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs, with a display of their medicinal and occult qualities physically applied to the cure of all disorders incident to mankind: to which are now first annexed, the English physician enlarged, and key to Physic. by Nicholas Culpeper

This faculty of laying up and retaining the ideas that are brought into the mind, several other animals seem to have to a great degree, as well as man.
— from An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1 MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2 by John Locke

Eight or ten months, then, after that which is related in the preceding pages, towards the first of January, 1823, on a snowy evening, one of these dandies, one of these unemployed, a “right thinker,” for he wore a morillo, and was, moreover, warmly enveloped in one of those large cloaks which completed the fashionable costume in cold weather, was amusing himself by tormenting a creature who was prowling about in a ball-dress, with neck uncovered and flowers in her hair, in front of the officers’ café.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

At that the others began to gibber in unison, also rising to their feet, spreading their hands and swaying their bodies in rhythm with their chant.
— from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

But though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants of the seas have ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and repelling; though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra incognita, so that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to discover his one superficial western one; though, by vast odds, the most terrific of all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters; though but a moment’s consideration will teach, that however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

But the crowning glory was the grotto, a tunnel decorated fantastically with shells and bits of looking-glass, which Pope dug under a road that ran through his grounds.
— from The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems by Alexander Pope

Anne caught it up all ready to take a bite when she remembered that the only place in Avonlea where strawberry apples grew was in the old Blythe orchard on the other side of the Lake of Shining Waters.
— from Anne of Green Gables by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

The fair widow knew of old that Colonel Killigrew's compliments were not always measured by sober truth; so she started up and ran to the mirror, still dreading that the ugly visage of an old woman would meet her gaze.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Mrs. Pepper looked at her anxiously; but Polly seemed as bright and healthy as ever, as she jumped up and ran to put the kettle on the stove.
— from Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney

[132] weekly on Sunday, and on the other festival days, publicly in the parish kirks, with the lessons of the New and Old Testament, conform to the order of the Book of Common Prayers: and, if the curates of the parishes be qualified, to cause them to read the same; and, if they be not, or if they refuse, that the most qualified in the parish use and read the same.
— from The History of the Reformation of Religion in Scotland With Which Are Included Knox's Confession and The Book of Discipline by John Knox

The next day, at nine o’clock Jules left home, hurried to the rue des Enfants-Rouges, went upstairs, and rang the bell of the widow Gruget’s lodgings.
— from The Thirteen by Honoré de Balzac

And, since many of the users of this work may be but readers of our current English, to whom an unknown letter or a foreign word is a particularly uncouth and repulsive thing, we shall here forbear the use of Saxon characters, and, in our explanations, not go beyond the precincts of our own language, except to show the origin and primitive import of some of our definitive and connecting particles, and to explain the prefixes and terminations which are frequently employed to form English derivatives.
— from The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown

Sir ,—Allow me to mention, under all reserve, that I frequently preach a sermon of Jeremy Taylor's , or the Judicious Hooker's, to my congregation, with excellent effect, and hitherto without any discovery on their part of the origin of the discourse.
— from Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 by Various

The brains of the living ungulates are (relatively to the size of the body) four to six times (in the highest groups even eight times) as large as those of their earlier Tertiary ancestors, the well-preserved skulls of which enable us to determine the size and weight of the brain.
— from The Evolution of Man by Ernst Haeckel

I dare not be a coward with my lips Who dare to question all things in my soul; Some men may find their wisdom on their knees, Some prone and grovelling in the dust like slaves; Let the meek glow-worm glisten in the dew; I ask to lift my taper to the sky As they who hold their lamps above their heads, Trusting the larger currents up aloft, Rather than crossing eddies round their breast, Threatening with every puff the flickering blaze.
— from Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works by Oliver Wendell Holmes