After several other dispositions, the builder delivers over the galley to the contractor as complete: but he, among other faults and objections, observes the lion is not gilt, on which the builder or one of his assistants, runs to the head, and dipping a mop in the excrement, thrusts it into the face of the lion.
— from 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose

'It's writing and accounts, no worse?' 'Writing and accounts all day, and music in the evening only now and then.'
— from Celt and Saxon — Complete by George Meredith

She is sure, she says, that intelligent persons cannot understand that pressure upon public servants which alone drives any man into the employment of a double.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 23, September, 1859 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

They all know in the depth of their hearts that the deed which is to be done is disgraceful, that participation in it lowers and defiles a man in the eyes of a few men, whose opinion they already value.
— from The Kingdom of God is Within You / Christianity and Patriotism / Miscellanies by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

Now he asked, "Just what do you believe to be the plans of the two Mimics who are now masquerading as Dorothy and me in the Emerald City?"
— from The Magical Mimics in Oz by Jack Snow

He had already done as much in those early years as many men do in a lifetime.
— from At Large by Arthur Christopher Benson

They gather the blossoms as innocently, and they smile back at the smiling heavens as unashamedly as does any maiden in the East.
— from Quaint Korea by Louise Jordan Miln

Were it not for the mysterious spirit of “los antiguos,” which seems to fill the whole country, the landscape to a less enthusiastic explorer must appear dreary and melancholy in the extreme.
— from The Ancient Cities of the New World Being Travels and Explorations in Mexico and Central America From 1857-1882 by Désiré Charnay