He called the knight an English clown, and, swearing he was the most untoward beast of a whole nation of mules, snatched up one of the candlesticks, which he launched at him with such force and violence, that it sung through the air, and, winging its flight into the ante-chamber, encountered the skull of his own valet, who with immediate prostration received the message of his master.
— from The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete by T. (Tobias) Smollett

Opposite to the place where they fixed their observatory was one of these icebergs, above three hundred feet high; its side toward the sea was nearly perpendicular, and a stream of water issued from it.
— from The Life of Horatio, Lord Nelson by Robert Southey

What you want, in fact, is a first-rate man for a fourth-rate fee, and that's exactly what you've got!”
— from The Forsyte Saga, Volume I. The Man Of Property by John Galsworthy

“'I have never yet toured Europe—and as a matter of fact, I don't know that I care to such an awful lot, as long as there's our own mighty cities and mountains to be seen—but, the way I figure it out, there must be a good many of our own sort of folks abroad.
— from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

If you have a visual image of your friend sitting in a chair which in fact is empty, you cannot locate the image in your body, because it is visual, nor (as a physical phenomenon) in the chair, because the chair, as a physical object, is empty.
— from The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell

"I need not say," said our leader, "that on the occasion of my last visit I exhausted every means of climbing the cliff, and where I failed I do not think that anyone else is likely to succeed, for I am something of a mountaineer.
— from The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle

Thus, when we are acquainted with an object which is the so-and-so, we know that the so-and-so exists; but we may know that the so-and-so exists when we are not acquainted with any object which we know to be the so-and-so, and even when we are not acquainted with any object which, in fact, is the so-and-so.
— from The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell

The yeomanry are precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do.
— from Emma by Jane Austen

But cold were the sensations excited by words, burning though they were, and describing the death and misery of thousands, compared to what I felt in looking on the corpse of this unhappy stranger.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

My cabbage, cauliflower, and ‘sparagus in the country, are as much superior in flavour to those that are sold in Covent-garden, as my heath-mutton is to that of St James’s-market; which in fact, is neither lamb nor mutton, but something betwixt the two, gorged in the rank fens of Lincoln and Essex, pale, coarse, and frowzy—As for the pork, it is an abominable carnivorous animal, fed with horse-flesh and distillers’ grains; and the poultry is all rotten, in consequence of a fever, occasioned by the infamous practice of sewing up the gut, that they may be the sooner fattened in coops, in consequence of this cruel retention.
— from The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. (Tobias) Smollett

If he chanced to enter her apartment at the time she was preparing to go out, “For whom,” he would say, in a tone of raillery, “is this detachment of warriors which I found in the court?
— from Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Complete Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan, First Lady in Waiting to the Queen by Mme. (Jeanne-Louise-Henriette) Campan

The German form is Schaf , which is found in Schaf -berg, the sheep’s hill; Schaf -hausen, the sheep’s house or dwelling; Schaf -en, the sheep’s isle; Schaf -stadt, the sheep’s place.
— from The Etymology of Local Names With a short introduction to the relationship of languages. Teutonic names. by Richard Morris

Perth, with its fair "Inches" lying on the brimming Tay, in the shadow of the wooded hills of Kinnoul and Moncrieff, delighted the royal strangers, and reminded Prince Albert of Basle.
— from Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen — Volume 1 by Sarah Tytler

A well-lubricated end of a large Davidson's syringe is inserted into the rectum, and with the hips of the baby brought to the edge of a basin (the heels held in the hands of the assistant), water is forced into the rectum.
— from The Mother and Her Child by William S. (William Samuel) Sadler

He used to stand by me and watch while I fished in the lagoon, and go shares in anything I caught.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

Placerville has little to recall its old-time sobriquet of Hangtown, by which it figures in Bret Harte's stories.
— from On Sunset Highways: A Book of Motor Rambles in California by Thos. D. (Thomas Dowler) Murphy

"From the way I feel I should say it was already caught," twinkled Betty, adding eagerly: "How long do you suppose we will have to wait, Grace?
— from The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point; Or a Wreck and a Rescue by Laura Lee Hope

I used to swear by walking, but the time has come when I find it very agreeable to slip into a cushioned seat, and be whirled where I would go.
— from Lady Cassandra by Vaizey, George de Horne, Mrs.