am I melancholy enough? E. Know, Oh ay, excellent.
— from Every Man in His Humor by Ben Jonson

“It was this restlessness, this insecurity, perhaps, that drove me farther and farther afield in my exploring expeditions.
— from The Time Machine by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

Quitting Talbot abruptly, I made every effort to force my way into closer proximity with Madame Lalande.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

The troops of Sicily invested with the purple an obscure youth, whose inimitable beauty eluded, and it might easily elude, the declining art of the painters and sculptors of the age.
— 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

Atque aliquis interjuvenes miratus est, et verbum dixit, Non ego in caelo cuperem Deus esse, Nostram uxorem habens domi Hero.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

During my stay in America I made every endeavor to discover the amount of the public expenditure in the townships and counties of the principal States of the Union, and I readily obtained the budget of the larger townships, but I found it quite impossible to procure that of the smaller ones.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville

The needed uniformity in movement and accent is most easily effected by rhythmical beats; and as these beats are more distinctly heard, and also blend more agreeably with the tones of the voice if they are musical sounds, a rude form of instrumental music arises.
— from Music in the History of the Western Church With an Introduction on Religious Music Among Primitive and Ancient Peoples by Edward Dickinson

But he is known to have been with the young king at Westminster on October 5th, as indeed Mr Eyton elsewhere observes (p. 151).
— from Feudal England: Historical Studies on the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries by John Horace Round

Knowing the absolute certainty of a magnetic and electrical connection between the sun and the earth, as evidenced by the reflected energy of sun-spots, auroras, etc., and that no known cause except electricity could account for some, at least, of the cometic phenomena, it seemed that any comprehensive law must at all events include this mode of energy as an effective cause, and that if the law be uniform in its application, it must equally exclude all others which may be either antagonistic or not necessary.
— from The Source and Mode of Solar Energy Throughout the Universe by Isaac W. (Isaac Winter) Heysinger

The Gosport affords us an instance more exquisite even than the passage above named in the Coventry, of the use of this melting and dewy blue, accompanied by two distances of rain-cloud, § 25.
— from Modern Painters, Volume 1 (of 5) by John Ruskin

“I may go with you to a racetrack, I may sit by your side for days in an automobile, I may even eat your luncheon and drink your aunt’s St. Galmier, but I may not ask you to accompany me a hundred yards from my hotel to a pier.
— from Cynthia's Chauffeur by Louis Tracy

And in such a scarcity both of those, that were worthily called away when they were fit, and of such as unwisely part from thence, before they be ready, I dare now bolden myself, when the best be gone, to do some good among the mean that do tarry, trusting that my diligence shall deal with my disability, and the rather because the desire of shooting is so well shot away in me, either ended by time or left off for better purpose.
— from A Letter Book Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing by George Saintsbury