I got out the dining-table, and tried to throw water upon the roof by standing on a chair placed upon it, but I only expended the little water that remained in the boiler, without reaching the fire.
— from Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie

The black outer-coating of the bricks was removed, and they appeared with a cheerful, blushing face streaked with white: the old bronze lions of the knocker were gilt handsomely, the railings painted, and the dismallest house in Great Gaunt Street became the smartest in the whole quarter, before the green leaves in Hampshire had replaced those yellowing ones which were on the trees in Queen's Crawley Avenue when old Sir Pitt Crawley passed under them for the last time.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Note 1 ( return ) [ This execution upon Joab, as a murderer, by slaying him, even when he had taken sanctuary at God's altar, is perfectly agreeable to the law of Moses, which enjoins, that "if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor to slay him with guile, thou shalt take him from mine altar that he die," Exodus 21:14.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

The Rev. Clement Perot undertook this difficult task, and fulfilled their wishes with a zeal, prudence, and devotedness, above all praise.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

“Pictures and books are fine for those that have the time to study 'em, but they don't shoot out on the road and holler 'This is what little old Zenith can put up in the way of Culture.'
— from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

I reaped little or no advantage by what I had, and my expenses seemed nothing less to me for having the more to spend; for, as Bion said, the hairy men are as angry as the bald to be pulled; and after you are once accustomed to it and have once set your heart upon your heap, it is no more at your service; you cannot find in your heart to break it: ‘tis a building that you will fancy must of necessity all tumble down to ruin if you stir but the least pebble; necessity must first take you by the throat before you can prevail upon yourself to touch it; and I would sooner have pawned anything I had, or sold a horse, and with much less constraint upon myself, than have made the least breach in that beloved purse I had so carefully laid by.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

v 1 [A; c1] put up a business.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

the Indians whome I have asked in what direction the traders go when they depart from hence, allways point to the S. W. from which it is prosumeable that Nootka cannot be their distination, and from Indian information a majority of those traders annually visit them about the beginning of April and remain Some time and either remain or revisit them in the fall of which I cannot properly understand, from this Circumstance they Cannot Come directly from the U States or Great Brittain, the distance being to great for them to go and return in the ballance of a year.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

3.° Caballuco, para un asunto que no había manifestado.
— from Doña Perfecta by Benito Pérez Galdós

But it is a custom, a low and a paltry custom, picked up by low and paltry spirits who have no sense of honor, no regard to decency, but are forced to substitute some rhapsody of nonsense to supply the vacancy of good sense.
— from The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness Being a Complete Guide for a Gentleman's Conduct in All His Relations Towards Society by Cecil B. Hartley

Much obscurity and many apparent contradictions prevent us fully understanding Erasmus’s early life, and in particular the portion spent by him in the cloister.
— from The Eve of the Reformation Studies in the Religious Life and Thought of the English people in the Period Preceding the Rejection of the Roman jurisdiction by Henry VIII by Francis Aidan Gasquet

His coolie picked up the shafts and set off on a run.
— from Anthony the Absolute by Samuel Merwin

Carts pass up and down the brae every few minutes, and there comes an occasional gig.
— from A Window in Thrums by J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie

nodded Ben, as the captain proceeded: "Unless you all desire to visit the Museum of Natural History, we may go on the grand canal again.
— from Hans Brinker; Or, The Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge

They are already beginning to fail in many parts of the world, or to the same effect, are mined and brought to market at such increasing cost, and applied to so many new purposes day by day, that in a few years the price will place them entirely beyond the reach of commercial purposes upon the ocean.
— from Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post by Thomas Rainey

These seventy men, if the annual contingent is equally divided throughout the squadron, will consist pretty uniformly of men belonging to all three terms of their service, and will not include more than eight reserve men, so that there will be at most twenty recruits amongst them, whilst the remainder will consist half of men in their third year and half of men in their second year; but these seventy men are led by three officers, generally all on the active list, who in turn are supported by eight non-commissioned officers and one trumpeter, who also mostly belong to the active list.
— from Cavalry in Future Wars by Friedrich von Bernhardi

Absent good unable to counterbalance present uneasiness.
— from An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1 MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2 by John Locke

'—'Aye, Miss, well they might,' said Nanny; 'that very afternoon John was gone to see a cousin that keeps a pawnbroker's shop in Thieving Lane; and as he was sitting in a little room behind the counter, that, it seems, shuts in with glass doors, who should he see through the window but Mrs. Prinks come in; she brought my lady's diamond necklace, and pledged it for a hundred and twenty, or a hundred and thirty guineas, I am not sure which he told me, for I have the saddest memory: but it is no matter for that, John was strangely confounded, as you may think, but resolved to see into the bottom; and when Mrs. Prinks was got into the coach, popped up behind it, and got down when it stopped, which was at the sign of the Hand and Tipstaff in Knaves Acre; so that this money was raised to get somebody that was arrested out of the bailiffs hands, for John said it was what they call a spunging-house that Mrs. Prinks went into.
— from The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless by Eliza Fowler Haywood

In 1914 we were not surprised at the courage, persistence, unflagging energy and solidarity with suffering of the Parisians.
— from Paris Vistas by Helen Davenport Gibbons

By HENRY W. PRESCOTT, Ph.D., Professor of Classical Philology, University of Chicago.
— from The Doctrine of Evolution: Its Basis and Its Scope by Henry Edward Crampton