And now they were both in suspense about the public affairs, the Roman empire being then in a fluctuating condition, and did not go on with their expedition against the Jews, but thought that to make any attack upon foreigners was now unseasonable, on account of the solicitude they were in for their own country.
— from The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Flavius Josephus

Rajah Allang pretended to be the only trader in his country, and the penalty for the breach of the monopoly was death; but his idea of trading was indistinguishable from the commonest forms of robbery.
— from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

After dinner young Michell and I, it being an excellent frosty day to walk, did walk out, he showing me the baker’s house in Pudding Lane, where the late great fire begun; and thence all along Thames Street, where I did view several places, and so up by London Wall, by Blackfriars, to Ludgate; and thence to Bridewell, which I find to have been heretofore an extraordinary good house, and a fine coming to it, before the house by the bridge was built; and so to look about St. Bride’s church and my father’s house, and so walked home, and there supped together, and then Michell and Betty home, and I to my closet, there to read and agree upon my vows for next year, and so to bed and slept mighty well. 7th.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

As soon as her papa had tranquillized his mind by becoming this shorn lamb, and they had removed to a furnished lodging in Hatton Garden (where I found the children, when I afterwards went there, cutting the horse hair out of the seats of the chairs and choking themselves with it), Caddy had brought about a meeting between him and old Mr. Turveydrop; and poor Mr. Jellyby, being very humble and meek, had deferred to Mr. Turveydrop's deportment so submissively that they had become excellent friends.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

I was in front and Could only prosue the derection of the road by the trees which had been peeled by the nativs for the iner bark of which they Scraped and eate, as those pealed trees were only to be found Scattered promisquisley, I with great difficulty prosued the direction of the road one mile further to the top of the mountain where I found the Snow from 12 to 15 feet deep, but fiew trees with the fairest exposure to the Sun; here was Winter with all it's rigors; the air was Cold my hands and feet were benumed.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

Carthage would have trembled at the strange intelligence that the countries on either side of the equator were filled with innumerable nations, who differed only in their color from the ordinary appearance of the human species: and the subjects of the Roman empire might have anxiously expected, that the swarms of Barbarians, which issued from the North, would soon be encountered from the South by new swarms of Barbarians, equally fierce and equally formidable.
— 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

] whom I found to be a very pretty man and very knowing.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

If then I am compelled to doubt the theory, by which the choice of characters was to be directed, not only a priori, from grounds of reason, but both from the few instances in which the poet himself need be supposed to have been governed by it, and from the comparative inferiority of those instances; still more must I hesitate in my assent to the sentence which immediately follows the former citation; and which I can neither admit as particular fact, nor as general rule.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

A faint breeze, blowing lightly against their backs, changed its course suddenly and came whipping in from the west.
— from Warrior of the Dawn by Howard Browne

Fortunately for me my pan boiled up, and I had a good reason for rushing with it from the room.
— from A Retrospect by James Hudson Taylor

As for me I never had any hope at all; and when the roof went I felt that this was the end.
— from The Worst Journey in the World Antarctic 1910-1913 by Apsley Cherry-Garrard

I know marriage isn't a necessary goal, but most women, as well as most men, look forward to it at some time of life, and, as a rule, a woman is forced to take her choice of the two or three men that offer themselves, no matter what they are.
— from The Celebrity, Volume 02 by Winston Churchill

The sweet poison had entered, and every vein glowed with it for the first time in his life.
— from Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face by Charles Kingsley

Nothing wastes time like petty things; and so, I need something very great to fill my mind outside of this circle where I find the infinite.
— from Letters to Madame Hanska, born Countess Rzewuska, afterwards Madame Honoré de Balzac, 1833-1846 by Honoré de Balzac

She held her breath as the snake drew near, and watched it throw up its head again as if it was smelling something nice, while its forky tongue darted out greedily.
— from The Brown Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

“After the fete was over yesterday I spent the rest of the night in reading the reports sent me by the monks; in which I found that the only persons who have compromised themselves are poor gentlemen, artisans, as to whom it doesn’t signify whether you hang them or let them live.
— from Catherine De Medici by Honoré de Balzac

It attributes all the collision and inaptitude which it finds to the nature of things, and never suspects that the Devil goes around in the night, thrusting the square men into the round places, and the round men into the square places.
— from Gala-Days by Gail Hamilton

though I lost my way I found them not.
— from The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia by W. Somerset (William Somerset) Maugham