For since his salad days he could not call to mind any woman he had ever been acquainted with who could be capable of calling up such a suggestion.
— from The Heath Hover Mystery by Bertram Mitford

At a very early age I remember realising in a quite impersonal and kindly way the existence of that stupidity, and its tremendous influence in the world; while there grew up in me, as in the parallel case of Caliban upon Setebos, a vague sense of a ruling power, wilful and freakish, and prone to the practice of vagaries—“just choosing so:” as, for instance, the giving of authority over us to these hopeless and incapable creatures, when it might far more reasonably have been given to ourselves over them.
— from The Golden Age by Kenneth Grahame

By D. DALZIEL , Editor of the Chicago News Letter. Scene — Interior of King Alton Hilderbrandt’s Palace in the City of Chicago, U. S. America.
— from A Parody on Princess Ida by D. (Davison) Dalziel

It seemed a sorrowful thing that at six years old the ceremonies of court usage should already have been so deeply ingrained; but in an age when babes were betrothed in their very cradles, the prince knew even less of the joys of life than the peasant.
— from The King's Scapegoat by Hamilton Drummond

Unless," he prudently added, "yer a friend of the comical old chap up stairs, and want to pay his debts."
— from Round the Block: An American Novel by John Bell Bouton

It seemed impossible that the most hardened wretch could be capable of criminality upon such a divine morning; and I enthusiastically aired my moral philosophy, much to the amusement of Mrs. Sanderson, who jestingly replied, as we turned from a long avenue into the principal business street of Pasadena—"As usual, my dear, you have caught entirely the local spirit of your environments.
— from Mariposilla: A Novel by Mary Stewart Daggett