There is no law to compel the workpeople to be such, but most of them are so, and great is the comfort of the wives and families in consequence, as most people are fully aware of the fact that the worst thing a working-man can do with his money is to spend it in the gin-palace or the public-house.
— from Bessbrook and Its Linen Mills: A Short Narrative of a Model Temperance Town by J. Ewing (James Ewing) Ritchie

Pearls are found in China, and Marco Polo speaks of a salt lake, supposed now to be in Yunnan, which produced them in such quantity that the fishery in his day was farmed out and restricted lest they should become too cheap and common.
— from The Middle Kingdom, Volume 1 (of 2) A Survey of the Geography, Government, Literature, Social Life, Arts, and History of the Chinese Empire and its Inhabitants by S. Wells (Samuel Wells) Williams

[96] are French in composition, and most probably in execution, as is also the presbytery, in which both the arrangement and the details of the bays recall those of the lateral façades of Bourges.
— from Gothic Architecture by Edouard Corroyer

Sense experience manifests itself throughout as fuller in content and more plastic; and so the chief point of support is found within it, and, though in different ways, the whole of life is organised from it.
— from Life's Basis and Life's Ideal: The Fundamentals of a New Philosophy of Life by Rudolf Eucken

If men’s opinions may be taken, the ladies will look as handsome in stuffs as in brocades; and since all will be equal, there may be room enough to employ their wit and fancy, in choosing and matching patterns and colours.
— from Ireland in the Days of Dean Swift (Irish Tracts, 1720 to 1734) by Jonathan Swift