Besides, I may be of service, since you can hypnotise me and so learn that which even I myself do not know.”
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker

I do not propose to take any part in the present discussion, but it may be of some service to historical students for me to
— from Notes and Queries, Vol. IV, Number 97, September 6, 1851 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. by Various

You must know best what will be its effect; but had I not seriously, and from my heart believed it might be of service, might lessen her regrets, I would not have suffered myself to trouble you with this account of my family afflictions, with a recital which may seem to have been intended to raise myself at the expense of others.
— from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

His head, mouth, and nostrils reached the ground long before his legs and knees could do so, and Ajax shouted to Polydamas saying, "Think, Polydamas, and tell me truly whether this man is not as well worth killing as Prothoenor was: he seems rich, and of rich family, a brother, it may be, or son of the knight Antenor, for he is very like him.
— from The Iliad by Homer

"But it may become one," said Felix.
— from Through Night to Light: A Novel by Friedrich Spielhagen

Beneath the eye a spot of white downy feathers, with a dusky border above and below; there is a little difference between this and Illiger's bird, but it may be only sexual.
— from Zoological Illustrations, Volume 2 or, Original Figures and Descriptions of New, Rare, or Interesting Animals by William Swainson

But I must be off,” said this sprightly lady, and Helen was presently again alone, with a delicate disappearing odour of jessamine and her reflections.
— from The Simple Adventures of a Memsahib by Sara Jeannette Duncan

But it must be over soon."
— from Helena by Ward, Humphry, Mrs.

Not knowing but it might be on some low detached isle, dangerous to approach while dark, we hauled the wind, and spent the night standing off and on, or rather driving to and fro; for we had but very little wind.
— from A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 14 by Robert Kerr

The down current is not nearly as strong as the up current, but it may be of such force that if there be no throat to the fireplace (see fig.
— from Chimneys & Fireplaces They Contribute to the Health Comfort and Happiness of the Farm Family - How to Build Them by Ara Marcus Daniels

The catechist was cross-examined; he said the gentleman had been put across some time before in Mr. Bruce of Sumburgh’s schooner, the only link between the Fair Isle and the rest of the world; and that he held services and was doing “good.”
— from The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 16 by Robert Louis Stevenson

An efficient motor for locomotion purposes must not only give out in mechanical work as nearly as possible as much as the electrical energy put in, but it must be of small weight, because it has to propel itself along with the vehicle, and every pound weight of the motor represents so many foot pounds of energy used in its own propulsion; thus, if a motor weighed 660 pounds, and were traveling at the rate of 50 feet per minute, against gravitation, it would expend 33,000 foot pounds per minute in moving itself, and although this machine may give 2 horse power, with an efficiency of 90 per cent.
— from Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 by Various

Dryden's bosom, it must be owned, seems to have afforded him no such means of information; the licence of his age, and perhaps the advanced period at which he commenced his literary career, had probably armed him against this more exalted strain of passion.
— from The Dramatic Works of John Dryden, Volume 1 With a Life of the Author by Walter Scott

But it may be objected, supposing that he is inaccurate in statements which refer back, can he not be in the right in a case where he comes back, so to speak, straight from visiting Titian and writes down his observation about the master's actual age?
— from Giorgione by Herbert Frederick Cook