And the poison-tree of Borneo loses its venom, Everything that is venomous loses its venom, By virtue of my use of the Prayer of the Magic Bezoar-Stone .”
— from Malay Magic Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula by Walter William Skeat

This fictitious life we have been leading is very elegant, no doubt, and gives one material for just criticisms, but, strictly between us, I think it dreadfully tiresome.
— from Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 22, November, 1878 by Various

End of Project Gutenberg's Mimi's Marriage, by Lidia Ivanovna Veselitskaya *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIMI'S MARRIAGE *** *****
— from Mimi's Marriage by Lidiia Ivanovna Veselitskaia

Keith rode, grasping the rein of the woman's horse in his left hand, and bending low in vain effort at picking a path.
— from Keith of the Border: A Tale of the Plains by Randall Parrish

The best years of his youth had been lost in vain effort, and some of the bitterness of early opposition that success might have purged still lingered in his spirit.
— from Cleo The Magnificent; Or, The Muse of the Real: A Novel by Louis Zangwill

CHAPTER IV THE MURDERED MAN There may be folk in the world to whom the finding of a dead man, lying grim and stark by the roadside, with the blood freshly run from it and making ugly patches of crimson on the grass and the gravel, would be an ordinary thing; but to me that had never seen blood let in violence, except in such matters as a bout of fisticuffs at school, it was the biggest thing that had ever happened, and I stood staring down at the white face as if I should never look at anything else as long as I lived.
— from Dead Men's Money by J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

It will not be reasonable immediately to abandon the small Remains of Christianity in the Moluccos , and the Hopes of regaining what has been lost, in vain endeavour’d for so many Years, at the Expence of so many Millions of Money, so many Lives, and the Honour of European Nations, by turning our Backs upon so holy an Undertaking.
— from The Discovery and Conquest of the Molucco and Philippine Islands. Containing their History, Ancient and Modern, Natural and Political: Their Description, Product, Religion, Government, Laws, Languages, Customs, Manners, Habits, Shape, and Inclinations of the Natives. With an Account of many other adjacent Islands, and several remarkable Voyages through the Streights of Magellan, and in other Parts. by Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola