In one place we met with the belief of a day of judgment; insomuch that they were marvellously displeased at the Spaniards for discomposing the bones of the dead, in rifling the sepultures for riches, saying that those bones so disordered could not easily rejoin; the traffic by exchange, and no other way; fairs and markets for that end; dwarfs and deformed people for the ornament of the tables of princes; the use of falconry, according to the nature of their hawks; tyrannical subsidies; nicety in gardens; dancing, tumbling tricks, music of instruments, coats of arms, tennis-courts, dice and lotteries, wherein they are sometimes so eager and hot as to stake themselves and their liberty; physic, no otherwise than by charms; the way of writing in cypher; the belief of only one first man, the father of all nations; the adoration of one God, who formerly lived a man in perfect virginity, fasting, and penitence, preaching the laws of nature, and the ceremonies of religion, and that vanished from the world without a natural death; the theory of giants; the custom of making themselves drunk with their beverages, and drinking to the utmost; religious ornaments painted with bones and dead men’s skulls; surplices, holy water sprinkled; wives and servants, who present themselves with emulation, burnt and interred with the dead husband or master; a law by which the eldest succeeds to all the estate, no part being left for the younger but obedience; the custom that, upon promotion to a certain office of great authority, the promoted is to take upon him a new name, and to leave that which he had before; another to strew lime upon the knee of the new-born child, with these words: “From dust thou earnest, and to dust thou must return;” as also the art of augury.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

The open beams had been hand-adzed at Jake Offutt's car-body works, the hinge; were of hand-wrought iron, the wainscot studded with handmade wooden pegs, and at one end of the room was a heraldic and hooded stone fireplace which the club's advertising-pamphlet asserted to be not only larger than any of the fireplaces in European castles but of a draught incomparably more scientific.
— from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

Once he thought he heard something call, and stopped; but it was only the baying of a dog from the Red Farm, and he went on, muttering strange sixteenth-century curses, and ever and anon brandishing the rusty dagger in the midnight air.
— from The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde

We should spend enough money to hire the best teaching force possible—the best organizing and directing ability in the land, even if we have to strip the railroads and meat trust.
— from Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois

He knew them to be his wife’s brothers, one a dragoon, the other a musketeer, so that he ran away immediately to save himself; but the two brothers pursued so close that they overtook him before he could get to the steps of the porch, when they ran their swords through his body and left him dead.
— from The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

Be not weary, sirs, of listening to these digressions; my sorrow is not one of those that can or should be told tersely and briefly, for to me each incident seems to call for many words.” To this the curate replied that not only were they not weary of listening to him, but that the details he mentioned interested them greatly, being of a kind by no means to be omitted and deserving of the same attention as the main story.
— from The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Complete by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Not because he did not wish very much to escape, but he was afraid that this might be only another device by which the Fairy of the Desert was trying to deceive him.
— from The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

n. certainty Diewyllys, a. intestate Dif, n. a cast off, ejection Difa, n. extermination Difâd, n. an exterminating: a. destitute of good Difaddeu, a. without remission Difael, a. profitless Difaeth, a. without nourishment Difai, a. blameless, faultless Difalch, a. void of pride Difam, a. motherless Difan, a. spotless, unspotted Difancoll, a. total loss Difaniad, n. a vanishing Difant, n. a vanished state Difanu, v. to vanish Difanw, a. evanescent Difanwl, a. not exact Difar, a without wrath Difarf, a. beardless, shaved Difariaeth, a. without mischief Difarn, a. void of judgement Difarw, a. deathless, immortal Difas, a. not shallow Difaswedd, a. without levity Difechni, a. not having bail Difedydd, a. unbaptized Difeddiant, a. unpossessed Difeddw, a. sober Difefl, a. void of reproach Difeio, v. to exculpate Difeiriad, n. a repenting Difenwad, n. a contemning Difenwi, v. to contemn Difenwyd, a. unblest; joyless Difesur, a. immeasurable Difeth, a. infallible, certain Difiad, n. annoyance Difilain, a. not ferocious Difin, a. edgeless Difio, v. to fling; to annoy Difiog, a. annoying; wild Diflaen, a. without point Diflaen, n. beard of a dart: a. without a point Diflan, a. without lusture; fading Diflanedigaeth, n. disappearance Diflaniad, n. a vanishing Diflanol, a. evanescent Diflant, n. evanescence Diflanu, v. to vanish away Diflas, a. tasteless; disgusting Diflasdod, n. disgust, insipidity Diflasiad, n. a disgusting Diflasu, v. to disgust; to become disgusted Diflin, a. not tired, unwearied Diflisg, without shell; unpeeled Diflodau, a. destitute of flowers Diflwng, a. not sullen Difoes, a. void of manners Difoiwyno, v. to constuperate Difr, n. a cast; a metre Difrad, a. not treacherous Difradw, a not defective Difraint, a. not privileged Difraisg, a. not bulky or large Difrau, a. not fragile or brittle Difraw, a. fearless; careless Difrawd, n. dispersion; waste; devastation Difrawu, v. to grow careless Difrawwch, n. unconcern Difreg, a. of frailty Defreinio, v. to disfranchise Difri, a. undignified, ignoble Difrif, a. serious, sedate Difrig, a. not having tops Difrisg, a. trackless Difro, a. exile: n. an exile Difrodaeth, n. extravagance Difrodi, v. to make havoc Difrodiad, n. a washing Difrwysg, a. not inebriated Difrycheulyd, a. immaculate Difryd, having no mind; listless Difrydaeth, n. inattention Difrys, a. not in haste Difryw, a. not luxuriant Difuchedd, a. immoral Difudd, a. gainless, not profitable Difurn, a. free from evil design Difwng, a. unwavering Difwlch, a. breachless Difwriad, a. undesigned Difwrw, a. improvident Difwyn, a. unenjoyed Difydr, a. without meter Difyfyr, a. uncontemplated Difygwth, a. void of threatening Difyngiad, a. void of stammering Difyn, n. a fragment Difyniad, n. a cutting to pieces Difynio, v. to carve, to mince Difyr, a. diverting, amusing Difyredigaeth, n. amusement Difyrgar, a. tending to divert Difyriad, n. a diverting Difyru, v. to divert, to amuse Difyrus, a. divertive; amusing Difyrwch, n. diversion, play Difysgu, v. to unmix, to separate Difyw, a. lifeless, inanimate Diffaeth, n. a wilderness; an outcast; a waif: a. unfruitful, barren, foul Diffawd, n. a misfortune: a. unfortunate, luckless Diffeithder, n. foulness Diffeithfa, n. foul ground Diffiethiad, n. a laying waste Diffeithio, v. to lay waste Diffeithwch, n. a wilderness Differ, n. defence, guard Differiol, a. defensive Differu, v. to defend, to guard Differyd, v. to defend, to ward Difflais, a. not ravaged Diffodd, n. what is extinct; v. to extinguish Diffoddi, v. to extinguish Diffoddiad, n. extinction Diffordd, a. pathless Diffred, v. to protect Diffrediad, n. protection Diffreidiad, n. a protector Diffreidio, v. to protect Diffreidiog, n. a guardian Diffrwyn, a unbridled Diffrwyth, a. fruitless; feeble Diffrwytho, v. to make abortive Diffryd, v. to protect Diffuant, a. unfeigned Diffur, a. without perception Diffwyn, n. defence, guard Diffwys, n. a precipice Diffydd, a. faithless, infidel Diffyg, n. defect, failure.
— from A Pocket Dictionary: Welsh-English by William Richards

But the daughter of Antipater by Cypros was Cypros, whom Alexas Selcias, the son of Alexas, married; they had a daughter, Cypros; but Herod and Alexander, who, as we told you, were the brothers of Antipater, died childless.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

C , the lower stratum of decayed and blackened sticks and branches of all descriptions lying in every direction: this layer extended as far as it was pierced in the examination, viz., about four feet, but was evidently of greater depth.
— from The Lake Dwellings of Ireland Or ancient lacustrine habitations of Erin, commonly called crannogs. by W. G. (William Gregory) Wood-Martin

“Oh, I know that,” said Aunt Laura, “but on a day like this it would have been rather a delicate compliment.
— from The Young Physician by Francis Brett Young

A little further and they made out a homestead, standing on a slope beyond the high precipitous banks of a dry river.
— from John Ames, Native Commissioner: A Romance of the Matabele Rising by Bertram Mitford

The generalizations which can be collected on the subject from direct observation, even such as Kepler's law, are mere approximations; the planets, owing to their perturbations by one another, do not move in exact ellipses.
— from A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive by John Stuart Mill

"We figured on the bastards to carry the bodies out and dump them.
— from D-99: a science-fiction novel by H. B. (Horace Bowne) Fyfe

Mrs. Knolles, whose harmonious draperies of black and yellow seemed to call for the brush of a daring painter, sat at the further end of the table next to the window, on her left at the end of the table Arkright, whom you would never have taken for an author, since his motto was what a Frenchman once said to a young painter who affected long hair and eccentric clothes: " Ne savez-vous pas qu'il faut s'habiller comme tout le monde et peindre comme personne? "
— from Overlooked by Maurice Baring

Victurnien went soon afterwards, but not before others had guessed his ecstatic condition; his face wore the expression peculiar to happy men, something between an Inquisitor's calm discretion and the self-contained beatitude of a devotee, fresh from the confessional and absolution.
— from The Jealousies of a Country Town by Honoré de Balzac

I heeded nothing if I could but read Berni or Burchiello or Aretine during the sermon in church: nor did I hear any part of the service with greater joy than when 'twas said 'Ite missa est.'
— from The Adventurous Simplicissimus being the description of the Life of a Strange vagabond named Melchior Sternfels von Fuchshaim by Hans Jakob Christoph von Grimmelshausen

Æ′thrioscope (Gr. aithrios , clear, cloudless), an instrument (devised by Sir John Leslie) for measuring radiation towards a clear sky, consisting of a metallic cup with a highly-polished interior of paraboloid shape, in the focus of which is placed one bulb of a differential thermometer, the other being outside.
— from The New Gresham Encyclopedia. A to Amide Vol. 1 Part 1 by Various

A great bowl of scarlet carnations gleamed from a dark corner, set against the background of a deep brown wall.
— from Anna the Adventuress by E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim