Many of the doctrines and miraculous events which have always been assigned a divine emanation by the disciples of the Christian faith, are, by these scientific and historical disclosures, shown to be explainable upon natural grounds, and to have exclusively a natural basis.
— from The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors; Or, Christianity Before Christ by Kersey Graves

It is true that I have thought more, and that my day dreams are more extended and magnificent; but they want (as the painters call it) keeping ; and I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavour to regulate my mind.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

But this morning, it really does seem not life but a play, and it did amuse me enormously to watch the W’s.
— from Howards End by E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster

When Lord Lyttelton's Dialogues of the Dead came out, one of which is between Apicius, an ancient epicure, and Dartineuf, a modern epicure, Dodsley said to me, "I knew Dartineuf well, for I was once his footman.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

Beth played her gayest march, Amy threw open the door, and Meg enacted escort with great dignity.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott

No class of man can understand better than you, that families may not choose to publish their disagreements and misfortunes, except on the last necessity.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

The time he had mentioned was more than out, and he lived in a little street near the Veterinary College at Camden Town, which was principally tenanted, as one of our clerks who lived in that direction informed me, by gentlemen students, who bought live donkeys, and made experiments on those quadrupeds in their private apartments.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

The season was now far advanced, the troops dispersed through the country, and possessed with the idea of being suffered to remain inactive during the rest of the year; circumstances which tended to retard and discourage any military enterprise; so that it was generally thought most advisable to be contented with defending the suspected posts: yet Agricola determined to march out and meet the approaching danger.
— from The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus by Cornelius Tacitus

Ha, my friend, said he, I prithee do so, and for thy pains I will give thee my codpiece (budget); take, here it is, there are six hundred seraphs in it, and some fine diamonds and most excellent rubies.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

Did a man ever speak in a natural voice—neither blustering, nor displaying his cleverness, nor being simply a lustful slave?
— from The Tunnel: Pilgrimage, Volume 4 by Dorothy M. (Dorothy Miller) Richardson

Being now reduced to a state of solitude which I did not like, I became a great frequenter of the playhouses, which indeed was always my favourite diversion; and most evenings passed away two or three hours behind the scenes, where I met with several poets, with whom I made engagements at the taverns.
— from Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 by Henry Fielding

He certainly might have heard Mr. Elton speak with more unreserve than she had ever done, and Mr. Elton might not be of an imprudent, inconsiderate disposition as to money matters; he might naturally be rather attentive than otherwise to them; but then, Mr. Knightley did not make due allowance for the influence of a strong passion at war with all interested motives.
— from Emma by Jane Austen

The days that followed are like a good dream to me, for we came on all the way without challenge and with no adventure, even round Gaspe, to Louisburg, thirty-eight days after my escape from the fortress.
— from The Seats of the Mighty, Complete by Gilbert Parker

The diaphragm lies usually transversely to the longitudinal axis of the body, but gets a much more oblique arrangement in the Cetacea and the Sirenia, whose needs demand a more expanded chamber for the lungs.
— from Mammalia by Frank E. (Frank Evers) Beddard

I looked around me despairingly, and my eye alighted on the holland covering.
— from The Little White Bird; Or, Adventures in Kensington Gardens by J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie

We had disqualified ourselves by our economies to such an extent before the outbreak of the great Civil War that this conflict became one of the most deadly and most expensive in the history of the world.
— from Defenseless America by Hudson Maxim

It is difficult to resist the [pg 230] impression that in another hundred years,—perhaps again from the standpoint of new and definitely accepted mechanical explanations,—people will regard our developmental mechanics, cellular mechanics, and other vital mechanics much in the same way as we now look on Vaucanson's duck.
— from Naturalism and Religion by Rudolf Otto

Much had been done and much endured before that time came.
— from Ralph the Heir by Anthony Trollope

By traveling on horseback through the country, and down the Illinois, I have conceived a different and more exalted opinion of this communication, and of the country, than I had before, while I am convinced that it will be attended with a much greater expense to open it than I had supposed.
— from Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft