And when you have got to this height you find [a great lake between two mountains, and out of it] a fine river running through a plain clothed with the finest pasture in the world; insomuch that a lean beast there will fatten to your heart's content in ten days.
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Rustichello of Pisa

It is fit for serene days, and graceful gifts, and country rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecution.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson

As a general thing, the women wear handkerchiefs tied about their heads, but if chance has thrown in their way a fiery red ribbon, or a cast-off bonnet of their mistress' grandmother, it is sure to be worn on such occasions.
— from Twelve Years a Slave Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River in Louisiana by Solomon Northup

138 maie auaile to , maye avayle for; recouerie , recoverye.
— from The Choise of Valentines; Or the Merie Ballad of Nash His Dildo by Thomas Nash

"As for Reinaldos," replied Don Quixote, "I venture to say that he was broad-faced, of ruddy complexion, with roguish and somewhat prominent eyes, excessively punctilious and touchy, and given to the society of thieves and scapegraces.
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

The Athenians brought up to them a ship of ten thousand talents burden furnished with wooden turrets and screens, and fastened ropes round the piles from their boats, wrenched them up and broke them, or dived down and sawed them in two.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

A poor soul gone to heaven: and on a heath beneath winking stars a fox, red reek of rapine in his fur, with merciless bright eyes scraped in the earth, listened, scraped up the earth, listened, scraped and scraped.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

Then I double-locked the door and felt rather reassured; now, at any rate, nobody could come in.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

But since Grecian affairs are much better known to us than Assyrian, and those who have diligently investigated the antiquity of the Roman nation's origin have followed the order of time through the Greeks to the Latins, and from them to the Romans, who themselves are Latins, we ought on this account, where it is needful, to mention the Assyrian kings, that it may appear how Babylon, like a first Rome, ran its course along [Pg 220] with the city of God, which is a stranger in this world.
— from The City of God, Volume II by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

Katy considered and finally returned reluctantly.
— from Chicken Little Jane on the Big John by Lily Munsell Ritchie

The facts were as follows: Rantoul, Rufus Choate, and Caleb Cushing were trustees in a scheme, in which Webster, Cass, and a few others were also concerned, to get control of the headwaters of the Mississippi, saw the lumber, and float it down to markets in the rapidly growing cities and towns of the Middle West.
— from The Wisconsin Magazine of History, Volume 1, 1917-1918 by Various

Equally amenable to Laws, Human and Divine—To rear and govern a Family rightly, requires Sound Judgment—Relative Mental Capacity of the Sexes not yet fairly tested—Comparisons—Christianity has done much, yet much remains to be done—Right in Each Other's Property—Men juster than the Laws—Query—Justice should be even-handed—A United Head—Women trained to perpetuate the Wrongs of their Sex CHAPTER VII.
— from Woman: Man's Equal by Thomas Webster

On the 22nd March Hope Grant was ordered to proceed to Kursi, a small town about twenty-five miles off between the Sitapur and Fyzabad roads, reported to be occupied in force by the enemy.
— from Forty-one years in India: from subaltern to commander-in-chief by Roberts, Frederick Sleigh Roberts, Earl

The remaining four injunctions may be read by similarly utilising the words in the bottom row with those in the second, third, fourth, and fifth rows respectively: LABYRINTHUS A DIVO BERNARDO COMPOSITUS QUO BENE VIVIT HOMO DICERE SCIS DICIT SCIT AUDIT
— from Mazes and Labyrinths: A General Account of Their History and Development by W. H. Matthews

--The various cuts of veal, together with their uses, are arranged for ready reference in Table I. Therefore, so that the housewife may become thoroughly familiar with these facts about veal, she is urged to make a careful study of this table.
— from Woman's Institute Library of Cookery Volume 3: Soup; Meat; Poultry and Game; Fish and Shell Fish by Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

I have got a first rate recollekshun, but no memory—I can recolleckt distinctly ov loseing a 10 Dollar bill onse, but cant remember whare, to save mi life.
— from Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things by Josh Billings