Paying the jail fee, and writing him a pass, underneath which was a note to Epps, requesting him not to whip him on his return, Wiley was sent back to Bayou Bœuf.
— from Twelve Years a Slave Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River in Louisiana by Solomon Northup

This was a note that effectually roused him from the lethargy of his sorrow; and the desire of taking vengeance on the oppressor, who had ruined his fortune, and made his nearest relations miserable, so entirely engrossed his thoughts, as to leave no room for other considerations.
— from The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete by T. (Tobias) Smollett

For they do not satisfy all the aims which are natural to every rational being, and which are determined a priori by pure reason itself, and necessary.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

Yet there are graves, whose rudely-shapen sod Bears the fresh footprints where the sexton trod; Graves where the verdure has not dared to shoot, Where the chance wild-flower has not fixed its root, Whose slumbering tenants, dead without a name, The eternal record shall at length proclaim Pure as the holiest in the long array Of hooded, mitred, or tiaraed clay!
— from The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes — Complete by Oliver Wendell Holmes

If any other persuasion were needed to induce the Marshal to take the western, and not the eastern, road to Oporto, it was the knowledge of the position of the enemy which he had attained by diligent cavalry reconnaissances.
— from A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. 2, Jan.-Sep. 1809 From the Battle of Corunna to the End of the Talavera Campaign by Charles Oman

He had to remember that he 99 was standing, not on a Liberation platform, but on the floor of the House of Commons, and that he was addressing not the eagerly responsive readers of the Nonconformist , but the cold and critical readers of journals of a very different type.
— from British Quarterly Review, American Edition, Vol. LIV July and October, 1871 by Various

Much work and no thanks; early rising, and, in return, late retiring; all day threshing corn, like the good-natured beast in the Bible, but no privileges granted, as there recorded--who can stand that?
— from Problematic Characters: A Novel by Friedrich Spielhagen

For [233] some time this shed answered the purpose; but as the railway works grew, and more men were employed, the attendance at the service increased, until at last it was absolutely necessary to erect rooms especially for the service.
— from The Quiver 12/1899 by Anonymous

Not only was their central government powerless to fulfil its obligations to other countries, or to pay its debts at home, or to enforce its authority, or to levy and collect taxes, or to provide securely 26 and properly for the maintenance of an army, a navy, a postal service or anything else of a national character or to do with certainty and authority any other of the things which a nation that expects respect may and must do, but it could not in any effective way regulate trade either with foreign countries or between the states.
— from The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct, Volume 1 (of 2) A Narrative and Critical History by George Cary Eggleston

What is dew? Says the physical geography at hand: “When at night the earth radiates the heat which it has received during the day, the surface becomes colder than the ground beneath or the air above.
— from Outings at Odd Times by Charles C. (Charles Conrad) Abbott

When the flower expands fully, we are not to expect rain for several hours; should it continue in that state, no rain will disturb the summer’s day.
— from Philosophy in Sport Made Science in Earnest Being an Attempt to Illustrate the First Principles of Natural Philosophy by the Aid of Popular Toys and Sports by John Ayrton Paris