Mere life is a luxury, and the color of the grass, of the flowers, of the sky, the wind in the trees, the outlines of the horizon, the forms of clouds, all give a pleasure as exquisite as the sweetest music to the ear famishing for it.
— from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Charles Dudley Warner

That man is a lawyer ( a general, a priest, an Englishman, etc.).
— from French Conversation and Composition by Harry Vincent Wann

But to deny that pleasure is a good and pain an evil is a grotesque affectation: it amounts to giving "good" and "evil" artificial definitions and thereby reducing ethics to arbitrary verbiage.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

“But you shall,” cried she, in a great rage; “for I’ll be in as great a passion as ever I please, without asking your leave: so don’t give yourself no more airs about it.
— from Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

Yet there have been and still are geometricians and philosophers, and even some of the most distinguished, who doubt whether the whole universe, or to speak more widely the whole of being, was only created in Euclid's geometry; they even dare to dream that two parallel lines, which according to Euclid can never meet on earth, may meet somewhere in infinity.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Summer squashes almost in their golden blossom; cucumbers, now evincing a tendency to spread away from the main stock, and ramble far and wide; two or three rows of string-beans and as many more that were about to festoon themselves on poles; tomatoes, occupying a site so sheltered and sunny that the plants were already gigantic, and promised an early and abundant harvest.
— from The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

What wonderful combinations of beauty, and grandeur, and power, at every winding of that noble river!
— from Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie

Someone was mounting with an excessively cautious and patient step, for usually the crazy stairs that led up to this garret room of the Rafferty house creaked and groaned a protest at every footfall.
— from The Night Horseman by Max Brand

You bin a man out West, as good a pioneer as ever was on the border.
— from Northern Lights, Volume 1. by Gilbert Parker

But when he did come here, he showed what a strong Quaker he was, going sometimes to hear the tinker, and at others to hear Master Gaystone, who is as great a Presbyterian as ever lived.
— from The Coming of the King by Joseph Hocking

If you can not sing, or do not choose to, say so with seriousness and gravity, and put an end to the expectation promptly.
— from How to Behave: A Pocket Manual of Republican Etiquette, and Guide to Correct Personal Habits Embracing an Exposition of the Principles of Good Manners; Useful Hints on the Care of the Person, Eating, Drinking, Exercise, Habits, Dress, Self-culture, and Behavior at Home; the Etiquette of Salutations, Introductions, Receptions, Visits, Dinners, Evening Parties, Conversation, Letters, Presents, Weddings, Funerals, the Street, the Church, Places of Amusement, Traveling, Etc., with Illustrative Anecdotes, a Chapter on Love and Courtship, and Rules of Order for Debating Societies by Samuel R. (Samuel Roberts) Wells

If you cannot sing, or do not choose to, say so with seriousness and gravity, and put an end to the expectation promptly.
— from Martine's Hand-book of Etiquette, and Guide to True Politeness by Arthur Martine

I sought Simon in the stable-yard, and found him as grim and platonic as ever.
— from The Weapons of Mystery by Joseph Hocking

Previous to the earthquake of 1822, these vast roof-plains were cultivated as gardens, and presented an extent of airy bowers as large, if not as magnificent, as the renowned Hanging Gardens of ancient Babylon.
— from The Lands of the Saracen Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain by Bayard Taylor

Which I now introdooces to you a gent who is liable to be as good a preacher as ever thumps a Bible—your old pard, Short Creek Dave.”
— from Sandburrs by Alfred Henry Lewis