On the upper Nile isolated rocks and mountains cut the sky in pyramidal forms; on the lower Nile the mountain ranges run level along the horizon, and the constructed pyramids relieve the horizontal lines which are otherwise unbroken except by the palms.
— from My Winter on the Nile Eighteenth Edition by Charles Dudley Warner

Colegrove, who had a vast quantity of that semi-divine gift known as common-sense, was under no illusion respecting Alicia March's influence over her husband.
— from The Whirl: A Romance of Washington Society by Foxcroft Davis

Her "explained supernatural," tiresome as it may be to some of us nowadays, is really a marvel of patience and ingenuity: and this same quality extends to her plots generally.
— from The English Novel by George Saintsbury