The last exception is necessity, poverty, want, hunger, which drives men many times to do that which otherwise they are loath, cannot endure, and thankfully to accept of it: as beverage in ships, and in sieges of great cities, to feed on dogs, cats, rats, and men themselves.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

A sky-blue coat, with short and broad skirts and low cape, exposed a long, thin neck, and longer and thinner legs, to the worst animadversions of the evil-disposed.
— from The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757 by James Fenimore Cooper

—Interview at Abo, in Finland, between Alexander, Bernadotte, and Lord Cathcart (English ambassador).
— from Napoleon's Letters to Josephine, 1796-1812 For the First Time Collected and Translated, with Notes Social, Historical, and Chronological, from Contemporary Sources by Emperor of the French Napoleon I

[248] accepit L c, Edd.; accipit B H
— from De Officiis by Marcus Tullius Cicero

ꝓ lo ſolle et ꝓ iL vento anno [ 110 ] li capili negriſſimi fina a La cinta et anno dague cortelli lanſe fornite de oro targoni facine arponi et rete da peſcare come Rizali le ſue barche ſonno corno le noſt e At noon on Friday, March 22, those men came as they had promised us in two boats with cocoanuts, sweet oranges, a jar of palm-wine, and a cock, 209 in order to show us that there were fowls in that district.
— from The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 33, 1519-1522 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century by Antonio Pigafetta

——And besides, added Eugenius, it would not answer the intention, which is the extreme neatness and elegance of the prescription, which the Faculty hold to be half in half;——for consider, if the type is a very small one (which it should be) the sanative particles, which come into contact in this form, have the advantage of being spread so infinitely 282 thin, and with such a mathematical equality (fresh paragraphs and large capitals excepted) as no art or management of the spatula can come up to.——It falls out very luckily, replied Phutatorius, that the second edition of my treatise de Concubinis retinendis is at this instant in the press.——You may take any leaf of it, said Eugenius ——no matter which.——Provided, quoth Yorick, there is no bawdry in it.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

I have hinted this little concerning burlesque, because I have often heard that name given to performances which have been truly of the comic kind, from the author's having sometimes admitted it in his diction only; which, as it is the dress of poetry, doth, like the dress of men, establish characters (the one of the whole poem, and the other of the whole man), in vulgar opinion, beyond any of their greater excellences: but surely, a certain drollery in stile, where characters and sentiments are perfectly natural, no more constitutes the burlesque, than an empty pomp and dignity of words, where everything else is mean and low, can entitle any performance to the appellation of the true sublime.
— from Joseph Andrews, Vol. 1 by Henry Fielding

722 Then a lake called Elæa, and the island of Strato; 723 next Saba 724 a port, and a hunting-ground for elephants of the same name.
— from The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3) Literally Translated, with Notes by Strabo

A child was in the road, a little child eating a slice of bread and butter.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

[1] desde que nos alcanzaron a ver, [2] y cuando nos acercamos a la casa estaban aún indecisas entre el susto y la alegría, pues por nuestra demora y los disparos que habían oído suponían que habíamos corrido peligros.
— from Heath's Modern Language Series: The Spanish American Reader by Ernesto Nelson

If faith and hope and love often kindle into activity, and hallow these instruments by which and through which they act, it is not the less true, that, apart from these,—as constituting the same indivisible mind—faith and hope and love cannot exist: and not only so; but when faith is languid, and hope faint, and love expiring, these faculties themselves shall often in their turn initiate the process which shall revive them all; some outward object, some incident of life, some "magic word," some glorious image, some stalwart truth, suddenly and energetically stated, shall, through the medium of the senses, the imagination, or the intellect, set the soul once more in a blaze, and revive the emotions which it is at other times only their office to express.
— from The Eclipse of Faith; Or, A Visit to a Religious Sceptic by Henry Rogers

“Eh?” “I say a fine chance for a lion,” cried Emson again.
— from Diamond Dyke The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure by George Manville Fenn

At last came evening, and his brother, who had been begging in another part of the town, came home again.
— from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle

As we arrived at Fort Johnston late in the evening, I elected to sleep on board, and was much gratified to find that two couples of married German missionaries, not content with having monopolized the only two cabins, had rigged up a large canvas enclosure and were sleeping on deck.
— from From the Cape to Cairo: The First Traverse of Africa from South to North by Arthur H. (Arthur Henry) Sharp

Thus we have at least three periods—that of the old synagogue represented by the lintel, which is similar to the lintels of Galilean {46} synagogues, that of a later Christian erection, and finally the Moslem mosque, built probably where the apse of the chapel would have been placed.
— from Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure by C. R. (Claude Reignier) Conder

It was a strange 125 meal, reminding me of stories I had read as a boy, of Louis XV dining in public at Versailles, with a roomful of visitors from foreign courts looking on; whispering behind fans and lace cuffs; exchanging awestruck glances at the splendor of the service, the richness of the food, and the sight of majesty fulfilling a need common to all humankind.
— from Faery Lands of the South Seas by James Norman Hall

Annie herself, however, refused to consent to this: of course no satisfactory reason could be alleged for any such delay; and she said as frankly as a little child, "Edward and I have loved each other almost from the very first; there is nothing for either of us to do in life but to make each other happy; and we shall not leave papa and mamma: so why should we wait?"
— from Saxe Holm's Stories First Series by Helen Hunt Jackson

The sister of the hero, a good, kind, prosperous, society woman, asks him with sincerity: “But do you believe it possible that a woman who has lived such a life can ever again be really elevated, morally re-instated, and restored to the nobility of womanhood?”
— from Josephine E. Butler: An Autobiographical Memoir by Josephine Elizabeth Grey Butler

The distance over the mountain is 12 miles, and but one house, a log cabin, empty and forlorn, almost hidden in a dark cove, is to be seen.
— from The Heart of the Alleghanies; or, Western North Carolina by Wilbur Gleason Zeigler