The Emperor Kirjalax sent his men to him to ask if he would rather accept from the emperor six lispund of gold, or would have the emperor give the games in his honour which the emperor was used to have played at the Padreim.
— from Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson

They sprang upon their horses and rode away over the Fyrisvold.
— from The Younger Edda; Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson

Why is there education, there is education because the two tables which are folding are not tied together with a ribbon, string is used and string being used there is a necessity for another one and another one not being used to hearing shows no ordinary use of any evening and yet there is no disgrace in looking, none at all.
— from Tender Buttons Objects—Food—Rooms by Gertrude Stein

It was more than childish perversity, of course, or the unexpected confidence she had recently acquired, that made her insist; she had indeed noticed that Gregor needed a lot of room to crawl about in, whereas the furniture, as far as anyone could see, was of no use to him at all.
— from Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

As for the Parthians in Jerusalem, they betook themselves to plundering, and fell upon the houses of those that were fled, and upon the king's palace, and spared nothing but Hyrcanus's money, which was not above three hundred talents.
— from The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Flavius Josephus

The whole property brought in about three thousand francs; and though the amount varied with the season (as must always be the case in a vine-growing district), they were obliged to spare an unvarying twelve hundred francs out of their income for him.
— from Father Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

She attracted him more than he liked—and Miss Bingley was uncivil to her , and more teasing than usual to himself.
— from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Oh, I understand their hatred very well!
— from The Duel and Other Stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

He told him that he should try to do nothing to stain the whiteness of that apron, which symbolized strength and purity; then of the unexplained trowel, he told him to toil with it to cleanse his own heart from vice, and indulgently to smooth with it the heart of his neighbor.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

The son, inheriting his mother's belief, and having the deportment always before him, had lived and grown in the same faith, and now, at thirty years of age, worked for his father twelve hours a day and looked up to him with veneration on the old imaginary pinnacle.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

My mother used to have headaches, and, my word!
— from A Woman Perfected by Richard Marsh

His fine singing is, however, of little use to his pupils.
— from Erlach Court by Ossip Schubin

But of all the instances of error arising from this physical fancy, the worst is that we have before us: the habit of exhaustively describing a social sickness, and then propounding a social drug.
— from What's Wrong with the World by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

In the preface he tells us that he had begun to “set furth an herbal in latyn,” but that when he asked the advice of physicians, “their advise was that I shoulde cease from settynge out of this boke in latin till I had sene those places of Englande, wherein is moste plentie of herbes, that I might in my herbal declare to the greate honoure of our countre what numbre of sovereine and strang herbes were in England, that were not in other nations, whose counsell I have folowed, deferrying to set out my herbal in latyn, tyl that I have sene the west countrey, which I never sawe yet in al my lyfe, which countrey of al places of England, as I heare say, is moste richely replenished wyth al kindes of straunge and wonderfull workes and giftes of nature as are stones, herbes, [ Pg 82] fishes and metalles, when as they that moued me to the settyng furth of my latin herbal, hearde this so reasonable an excuse, they moved me to set out an herbal in Englishe as Fuchsius dyd in latine wyth the discriptions, figures and properties of as many herbes, as I had sene and knewe, to whom I could make no other answere but that I had no such leasure in this vocation and place that I am nowe in, as is neccessary for a man that shoulde take in hande suche an interprise.
— from The Old English Herbals by Eleanour Sinclair Rohde

Thus there are fears in the way, and many times after God has raised the soul up to hope, they fear the work is not genuine; they fear they shall fall into sin, and disgrace their p. 115 profession; and feeling the power of sin, and the weakness of their souls, they fear they shall at last fall away.
— from The Morning of Spiritual Youth Improved, in the Prospect of Old Age and Its Infirmities Being a Literal and Spiritual Paraphrase on the Twelfth Chapter of Ecclesiastes. In a Series of Letters. by J. (John) Church

And perceiving him to be so greatly deformed, as no man could be worse, in his opinion: without any consideration of his owne misshaping as bad, or rather more unsightly then hee; in a scoffing laughing humour, hee saide.
— from The Decameron (Day 6 to Day 10) Containing an hundred pleasant Novels by Giovanni Boccaccio

In tracing the causes why these University Tests have existed so long, it has been impossible to avoid incidentally producing the reasons why they should endure no longer.
— from British Quarterly Review, American Edition, Vol. LIII January and April, 1871 by Various

We were both looking seaward, far away over the great expanse of clear bright blue, to where a distant steamer was leaving a trail of smoke upon the horizon.
— from Her Majesty's Minister by William Le Queux