I have the following answer: 'DEAREST MADAM, 'I am utterly confounded, and must plead guilty to all your just reproaches.
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

How (you ask, unwillingly) can a man perform a mental stocktaking?
— from Literary Taste: How to Form It With Detailed Instructions for Collecting a Complete Library of English Literature by Arnold Bennett

This was, in fact, the view of the old advocates of continuous matter, who uniformly admitted that the parts of an unbroken continuum are merely potential , and form a potential multitude.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 20, October 1874‐March 1875 by Various

As Asaph says, I must begin somewhere, so I shall begin with the Saturday morning of last April when Jim Campbell, my publisher and my friend—which is by no means such an unusual combination as many people think—sat on the veranda of my boathouse overlooking Cape Cod Bay and discussed my past, present and, more particularly, my future.
— from Kent Knowles: Quahaug by Joseph Crosby Lincoln