What may be called a 'textual' inspiration for selecting the right reading is requisite for the very same reason, neither more nor less, which supposes any verbal inspiration originally requisite for constituting a right reading.
— from Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 1 by Thomas De Quincey

Mary was turned sixteen; and vague ideas of romance sometimes fitted through her young brain.
— from Rachel Gray: A Tale Founded on Fact by Julia Kavanagh

But if there were such a vague indifference, or rather if we were to choose without having anything to prompt us to the choice, chance would then be something actual, resembling what, according to Epicurus, took place in that little deviation of the atoms, occurring without cause or reason.
— from Theodicy Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil by Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von

I had never lived in a world that might have prepared me for such things; in Gwent—in my day, at all events—there was no such phenomenon as this sudden and violent irruption of red brick in the midst of a green field; and thus when I came round the corner of a peaceful lane and saw in the midst of elms and meadows this staring spectacle, I was as aghast as Robinson
— from Far Off Things by Arthur Machen

It was true, he said, that in respect of food, nursing, etc., no comparison could be drawn, as either the circumstances differed, or the system adopted varied in our respective countries in a greater or less degree, but we could not expect the Swiss Government to adapt {124} itself to the idiosyncracies of the soldiers of any one nationality; we must be prepared to judge by results.
— from The British Interned in Switzerland by Henry Philip Picot

I hardly know what swelled to my throat as I read her letter: such a vehement impatience of restraint and steady work; such a strong wish for wings—wings such as wealth can furnish; such an urgent thirst to see, to know, to learn; something internal seemed to expand bodily for a minute.
— from The Life of Charlotte Brontë — Volume 1 by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Suddenly the head of a column came in sight and very near to us, and at once the head files of this regiment sent a volley into our regiment.
— from Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 As Private, Sergeant and Lieutenant in the Sixty-First Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry by Charles A. Fuller

Now this second title, which confounded the poor Cambrians, was a grand expedient of the author’s, to excite the attention of the Londoners, who naturally associated it with the hero of the celebrated Scotch novel; the bait was immediately swallowed, and that tale, an awkward and most weak attempt to imitate the “Great Unknown,” and by far the worst article in the book, actually sold a volume, in other respects well deserving the attention of the public.
— from The Adventures and Vagaries of Twm Shôn Catti Descriptive of Life in Wales: Interspersed with Poems by T. J. Llewelyn (Thomas Jeffery Llewelyn) Prichard