This writer adds that no other geographical enterprise, not even the charting of China by the Jesuits, Mackenzie's travels, or Franklin's expeditions, can in greatness or sacrifice be compared with the gigantic undertakings that were loaded upon Bering, and carried out by him.
— from Vitus Bering: the Discoverer of Bering Strait by Peter Lauridsen

I would have a Spectator wholly writ upon good Breeding: and after you have asserted that Time and Place are to be very much considered in all our Actions, it will be proper to dwell upon Behaviour at Church.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

Andrew Hale was a ruddy man with a big gray moustache and a stubbly double-chin unconstrained by a collar; but his scrupulously clean shirt was always fastened by a small diamond stud.
— from Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

unded by a complication of dangers, they laid down their arms and surrendered on condition of their lives being spared.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius

By nine o’clock in the morning, the room was filled to suffocation; Cheapside was blocked up by a crowd unable to gain admittance, and the greatest excitement prevailed.
— from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay

It was a still and beautiful night, the sky was unobscured by any cloud, and scarce a leaf of the woods beneath trembled in the air.
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

The affair could not be absolutely decided, but the presumption was in my favor; and the Count de la Roque, in sending us both away, contented himself with saying, “The conscience of the guilty would revenge the innocent.”
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

At length he was picked up by a Captain Morse, bound to Antwerp, who had nearly steered away, taking him for some fisherman's buoy floating in the sea.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

It appeared in uniform masses, as in the body of the Buddha or in the golden lakes of the Western Paradise; in minute diapers upon brocades and clothing, in circlets and undulating rays, to form the glory surrounding the head of Amitaba; in raised bosses and rings upon the armlets or necklets of the Bodhisattvas and Devas, and in a hundred other manners.
— from The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji by William Elliot Griffis

We are primordially illogical and hence unjust beings and can recognise this fact : this is one of the greatest and most baffling discords of existence.
— from Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

It would be not only unwise, but absolutely cruel, to enlighten her.
— from No Name by Wilkie Collins

What is called a smart shower, sweeps off a whole stand of hackney-coaches in a few seconds, and leaves a few leathern conveniences called cabriolets, so that your only alternative is that of being soaked to the skin, or pitched out, taken up, bled, and carried home in "a state of insensibility."
— from The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 12, No. 332, September 20, 1828 by Various

Crossing the Rangitata Suppose you were to ask your way from Mr. Phillips's station to mine, I should direct you thus: "Work your way towards yonder mountain; pass underneath it between it and the lake, having the mountain on your right hand and the lake on your left; if you come upon any swamps, go round them or, if you think you can, go through them; if you get stuck up by any creeks—a creek is the colonial term for a stream—you'll very likely see cattle marks, by following the creek up and down; but there is nothing there that ought to stick you up if you keep out of the big swamp at the bottom of the valley; after passing that mountain follow the lake till it ends, keeping well on the hill-side above it, and make the end of the valley, where you will come upon a high terrace above a large gully, with a very strong creek at the bottom of it; get down the terrace, where you'll see a patch of burnt ground, and follow the river- bed till it opens on to a flat; turn to your left and keep down the mountain sides that run along the Rangitata; keep well near them and so avoid the swamps; cross the Rangitata opposite where you see a large river-bed coming into it from the other side, and follow this river-bed till you see my hut some eight miles up it."
— from A First Year in Canterbury Settlement by Samuel Butler

Into this curious chamber of commerce, ushered by a Chinese boy, came Gregory Ballaston, the Englishman whom Wu Ling had rescued a short while ago.
— from Stolen Idols by E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

'Oh, dry up, Britt, and come to the point,' exclaimed the irritated Harvey, but Crowthar nodded in answer to Britt's remark.
— from Chatterbox, 1906 by Various

To this important duty we are urged by a consideration of the rapidity of its flight--the impossibility of its return--the bright examples of its proper use, which the records of inspiration furnish--the fatal consequences of squandering it away in useless, frivolous and criminal pursuits--the voice of reason--of conscience--of Providence--of Scripture--of disappointed infidelity and of triumphant faith--and the vast interests of eternity, with which the use of it is essentially connected.
— from Female Scripture Biography, Volume II Including an Essay on What Christianity Has Done for Women by F. A. (Francis Augustus) Cox

As the two monsters are so equally matched in strength, the struggle continues, with advantage to neither, until both are completely exhausted and fall down dead.
— from Cunnie Rabbit, Mr. Spider and the Other Beef: West African Folk Tales by Henry W. Ward

He becomes an unsocial being and ceases to contribute to the wealth, peace or establishment of society.
— from A Plea for the Criminal Being a reply to Dr. Chapple's work: 'The Fertility of the Unfit', and an Attempt to explain the leading principles of Criminological and Reformatory Science by James Leslie Allan Kayll