A stage-driver sat at one of the windows reading a penny paper of the day—the Boston Times —and presenting a figure which could nowise be brought into any picture of "Times in Boston" seventy or a hundred years ago.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

But when Herod had received this grant from Cæsar, and was come into this country, he procured skillful guides, and put a stop to their wicked robberies, and procured peace and quietness to the neighboring people.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

Thus, for instance, the truly philosophical combination of a bold, exuberant spirituality which runs at presto pace, and a dialectic rigour and necessity which makes no false step, is unknown to most thinkers and scholars from their own experience, and therefore, should any one speak of it in their presence, it is incredible to them.
— from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

At length his uncle asked him what he was determined to do, and he answered in the following words:—“Alas! sir, can it be a question what step a lover will take, when reason and passion point different ways?
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

The wakan repels all personification [Pg 196] and consequently it is hardly probable that it has ever been thought of in its abstract generality with the aid of such definite symbols.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim

Petitions were read, and proclamations, patents, and all manner of wordy, repetitious, and wearisome papers relating to the public business; and at last Tom sighed pathetically and murmured to himself, “In what have I offended, that the good God should take me away from the fields and the free air and the sunshine, to shut me up here and make me a king and afflict me so?” Then his poor muddled head nodded a while and presently drooped to his shoulder; and the business of the empire came to a standstill for want of that august factor, the ratifying power.
— from The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain

He set out at a very hasty pace through the fields, taking whatever roads and paths presented themselves to him, without perceiving that he was incessantly retracing his steps.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

It would require a pen powerful as the pencil of Salvator Rosa to paint the horrors which filled up the succeeding ten years, to which the author was an eye-witness, destined to follow in the train of rapine, and to view in the traces of Mahratta camps [39] the desolation 533 and political annihilation of all the central States of India, [40] several of which aided the British in their early struggle for dominion, but were now allowed to fall without a helping hand, the scapegoats of our successes.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

From the highest stories bullets were rained and pitch poured down on the gate; but those who were under fire, even had they wished could not withdraw, so powerfully were they pressed from behind.
— from The Deluge: An Historical Novel of Poland, Sweden, and Russia. Vol. 2 (of 2) by Henryk Sienkiewicz

He suddenly dropped The Young Christian and The Weekly Rambler , and purchased penny dreadfuls; and taking no further interest in the welfare of the heathen, saved up and bought a second-hand revolver and a hundred cartridges.
— from Novel Notes by Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome

To one who regards as true exercises of Christian religion the adoration of old clothes and wax dolls, or the thoughtless repetition of masses or rosaries, who believes in wonder-working relics, and purchases pardon for his sins by means of indulgence-money or Peter's pence, we willingly concede the claim to possess the "only saving religion"; but with such fetish-worshippers we will willingly submit to be ranked as "atheists.
— from Monism as Connecting Religion and Science A Man of Science by Ernst Haeckel

As the virtue of a violin is not in its carving or polish, but in the music it produces; as the virtue of medicine is not in its sweetness or its absence of bitterness, so the virtue of man has primarily nothing to do with rewards and penalties, pleasures or pains.
— from The Five Great Philosophies of Life by William De Witt Hyde

But a more accurate knowledge of the geological succession of the rocks, brought to light by the State Survey, has satisfied every geologist that the Falls would diminish gradually in height before they travelled back two miles, and in consequence of a gentle dip of the strata to the south, the massive limestone now at the top would then be at their base, and would retard, and perhaps put an effectual stop to, the excavating process.
— from Principles of Geology or, The Modern Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants Considered as Illustrative of Geology by Lyell, Charles, Sir

The scene of the morning was repeated; again Phillida prayed, again Wilhelmina was a little better, and ate a little broth from the hands of her good angel.
— from The Faith Doctor: A Story of New York by Edward Eggleston

Journeying now again about north-west, we reached a peculiar pointed hill with the Finke at its foot.
— from Australia Twice Traversed The Romance of Exploration, Being a Narrative Compiled from the Journals of Five Exploring Expeditions into and Through Central South Australia and Western Australia, from 1872 to 1876 by Ernest Giles

Nero, in his first distractions, upon receiving the fatal tidings of the revolt in Gaul, when reviewing all possible plans of escape from the impending danger, thought at intervals of throwing himself on the protection of the barbarous King Vologesus.
— from The Caesars by Thomas De Quincey

The work of translation was resumed, and Pope Paul I. records the removal in A. D. 761 of the bodies of over a hundred “martyrs, confessors, and virgins of Christ, with hymns and spiritual songs, into the city of Rome.”
— from The Catacombs of Rome, and Their Testimony Relative to Primitive Christianity by W. H. (William Henry) Withrow