A modern inquisitor would hear with surprise, that whenever an information was given to a Roman magistrate of any person within his jurisdiction who had embraced the sect of the Christians, the charge was communicated to the party accused, and that a convenient time was allowed him to settle his domestic concerns, and to prepare an answer to the crime which was imputed to him.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

During the night of the 16th and 17th February we had entered the second Mediterranean basin, the greatest depth of which was 1,450 fathoms.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne

When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em’ly
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

There was nothing much the matter with her, except that she had one of those little feminine ailments from which pretty women frequently suffer—slight anaemia, a nervous attack, etc. “No, doctor,” she said; “I shall never be able to understand a woman deceiving her husband.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

And the noble old Malesherbes, who defended Louis and could not speak, like a grey old rock dissolving into sudden water: he journeys here now, with his kindred, daughters, sons and grandsons, his Lamoignons, Chateaubriands; silent, towards Death.—One young Chateaubriand alone is wandering amid the Natchez, by the roar of Niagara Falls, the moan of endless forests: Welcome thou great Nature, savage, but not false, not unkind, unmotherly; no Formula thou, or rapid jangle of Hypothesis, Parliamentary Eloquence, Constitution-building and the Guillotine; speak thou to me, O Mother, and sing my sick heart thy mystic everlasting lullaby-song, and let all the rest be far!— Another row of Tumbrils we must notice: that which holds Elizabeth, the Sister of Louis.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

Notwithstanding this colonial modesty, the author shows throughout his book the impatience with which he endures the supremacy of the mother-country.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville

Thomas Taylor, the celebrated Platonist, who possessed an unusual acquaintance with the character of these ancient rites, asserts that they "obscurely intimated, by mystic and splendid visions, the felicity of the soul, both here and hereafter, when purified from the defilements of a material nature, and constantly elevated to the realities of intellectual vision." 14 Creuzer, 15 a distinguished German writer, who has examined the subject of the ancient Mysteries with great judgment and elaboration, gives a theory on their nature and design which is well worth consideration.
— from The Symbolism of Freemasonry Illustrating and Explaining Its Science and Philosophy, Its Legends, Myths and Symbols by Albert Gallatin Mackey

Henry rejoiced in my gaiety, and sincerely sympathised in my feelings: he exerted himself to amuse me, while he expressed the sensations that filled his soul.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

A woman with light hair, in a low dress by no means so fresh as it had been, and with a black mask on, through the eyelets of which her eyes twinkled strangely, was seated at one of the roulette-tables with a card and a pin and a couple of florins before her.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

He took them as a warning and, glancing back towards the house which the young woman had entered to see that he was not observed, he ran eagerly across the road.
— from Dubliners by James Joyce

But still the passionate desire to be a part of all of which she had read and dreamed, to see with her eyes, to hear with her ears, the sights and sounds of far lands, grew with her growth and strengthened with her strength.
— from The Crooked Stick; Or, Pollie's Probation by Rolf Boldrewood

"Who would have expected to see a Persian on the borders of Bosnia?
— from Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family or, A Residence in Belgrade and Travels in the Highlands and Woodlands of the Interior, during the years 1843 and 1844. by A. A. (Andrew Archibald) Paton

He was seizing with his ear the sound of Olenka's words, the flutter of her silver dress, and from sorrow moving his mustaches in such fashion as if he wished to frighten away Panna Syelavski with them.
— from The Deluge: An Historical Novel of Poland, Sweden, and Russia. Vol. 1 (of 2) by Henryk Sienkiewicz

If she could have done anything for him, or if she could have known from day to day how it was with him, even though she could not see him, or care for him, it would not have been so dreadful Graeme thought.
— from Janet's Love and Service by Margaret M. (Margaret Murray) Robertson

The features were of Scottish type, all the more so from being exaggerated by recent illness; but they were handsome enough to show that she must have been a bonnie lassie when her good looks were unimpaired.
— from The Three Brides by Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge

It was Philip's plan, who had engaged the seats, and promised himself an evening with Ruth, walking with her, sitting by her in the hall, and enjoying the feeling of protecting that a man always has of a woman in a public place.
— from The Gilded Age, Part 4. by Charles Dudley Warner

She was skilful with her needle, as at any work of her hands, and earned, by embroidering for two wholesale houses, enough to supplement sufficiently an income hardly large enough to pay their low rent.
— from The Wyndham Girls by Marion Ames Taggart