But as new eases cluster around the opposite poles, and begin to approach each other, the distinction becomes more difficult to trace; the determinations are made one way or the other on a very slight preponderance of feeling, rather than of articulate reason; and at last a mathematical line is arrived at by the contact of contrary decisions, which is so far arbitrary that it might equally well have been drawn a little farther to the one side or to the other, but which must have been drawn somewhere in the neighborhood of where it falls.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes

PG Editor's Note: Misspellings, inventive punctuation and lack of punctuation along with variable capitalization, and not entirely clear abbreviations have been left as is.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

The rights awarded to the Federal Government for purposes of obvious national importance are definite and easily comprehensible; but those with which this last clause invests it are not either clearly appreciable or accurately defined.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville

Hundred , thousand , million were originally nouns, but are now equally common as adjectives.
— from An Advanced English Grammar with Exercises by George Lyman Kittredge

This is a natural enough conclusion, and the Australians have not failed to draw it.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

The external is therefore evil rather than good to early apprehension—a sentiment which still survives in respect to matter; for it takes reflection to conceive that external forces form a necessary environment, creating as well as limiting us, and offering us as many opportunities as rebuffs.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

"I am not exactly clothed and in my right mind, but perhaps I'll do."
— from The Gay Cockade by Temple Bailey

We are not effusive, Cuthbert and I, but I think him one of the best fellows in the world.
— from A True Friend: A Novel by Adeline Sergeant

In 1787 the Ohio Land Company, a New England concern, acquired a million and a half acres on the Ohio and began operations by planting the town of Marietta.
— from History of the United States by Mary Ritter Beard

In short, the more you stir it the more it won’t exactly remind you of gales from Araby the Blest; than which a more delightful country, only not to be found on any atlas as Nicholas ever cast a glance at the map, however large.
— from Old Friends: Essays in Epistolary Parody by Andrew Lang

Owing to the limitations of its peculiar labor the South was disabled from adapting itself, as the North had just done, to changing circumstances and new economic conditions, and so was deprived of participation in the benefits of a high tariff.
— from Modern Industrialism and the Negroes of the United States The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 12 by Archibald Henry Grimké

Both Miss Dimmont and Dr. Chauncey Wilson are life-like, although not engaging, characters, and the doctor, in particular, although we do not think highly of his science, is a vigorous and consistent creation.
— from Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 by Various

The Irish Question is, then, in that aspect which must be to Irishmen of paramount importance, the problem of a national existence, chiefly an agricultural existence, in Ireland.
— from Ireland In The New Century by Plunkett, Horace Curzon, Sir

His manner as a speaker was very impressive, and the rich stores of his mind, and his ready and natural eloquence commanded attention.
— from The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 2 (of 7) by Arthur Thomas Malkin

But Lesher would not go alone, and off they started at noon, each carrying a good supply of food with him, and also a pistol and some ammunition.
— from The Rover Boys on Land and Sea: The Crusoes of Seven Islands by Edward Stratemeyer