I still remember that I felt I was doing a thing which I had no right to undertake: I felt quite an amateur at the work.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner

He pardoned more than forty men who merited death, as they were needed to work the ships, and so that he might not excite hard feelings by the severity of the punishment.”
— from The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 33, 1519-1522 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century by Antonio Pigafetta

So home to dinner; and then with my wife to Cooper’s, and there saw her sit; and he do do extraordinary things indeed.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

The gentle lady, having welcomed him and made much of him and heard from him what had betided him, chid him amain of that which he would have done against the will of his kinsfolk; but, seeing that he was e'en resolved upon this and that it was agreeable to the girl also, she said in herself, 'Why do I weary myself in vain?
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

The scouting party before alluded to had visited several localities, and opinions were divided as to which was the best point to settle down.
— from A History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States From the Earliest Beginning down to the Year 1848 by George T. (George Tobias) Flom

It would be nothing unusual if he got his skull cracked in the melee—in which case they would report that he had been drunk and had fallen down, and there would be no one to know the difference or to care.
— from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

He learned his lessons perfectly; he was second in his class, was reserved with Dardanelov, and the whole class firmly believed that [pg 582] Kolya was so good at universal history that he could “beat” even Dardanelov.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

When a child is admitted to be the offspring of certain parents and is acknowledged by them, but there is need of a decision as to which parent the child is to follow—in case a female slave have intercourse with a male slave, or with a freeman or freedman, the offspring shall always belong to the master of the female slave.
— from Laws by Plato

We stopped here to dinner, and then went on to Kirschentheur, a small village lying at the foot of the Löbel, one of the chain of Alps which we had seen in the morning, and over which the high road from Carinthia to Carniola passes.
— from Journal of a Tour in the Years 1828-1829, through Styria, Carniola, and Italy, whilst Accompanying the Late Sir Humphrey Davy by J. J. Tobin

The birds, however, because they have wings, seem to have lost the sense of such insecurity, often placing their nests as if they expected the nests themselves to take wings and fly to safety when the rains descend and the winds come.
— from Winter by Dallas Lore Sharp

The Wind-mother and Water-mother are [Pg xxx] similar deities, and the wood-nymphs and water-nymphs are their daughters.
— from The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country by W. F. (William Forsell) Kirby

Sir 39:29 Fire, and hail, and famine, and death, all these were created for vengeance; Sir 39:30 Teeth of wild beasts, and scorpions, serpents, and the sword punishing the wicked to destruction.
— from Deuterocanonical Books of the Bible Apocrypha by Anonymous

Many of the newspapers of the day mentioned the expedition, with some criticisms upon its object, and prophesied an ill termination to its exertions: and at length, when the ship arrived by which she had expected a long despatch, and there was none, and the letter was read from Mr. Herbert’s agent, as we have before recorded, wherein he stated broadly that there was bad news from India—the poor girl’s brain reeled under the shock of having her worst fears confirmed.
— from Tippoo Sultaun: A tale of the Mysore war by Meadows Taylor

The doors are first scrupulously barred to exclude the evil eye, and a fire is invariably lighted before the Amhára will venture to appease his hunger—a superstition existing, that without this precaution, devils would enter in the dark, and there would be no blessing on the meat.
— from The Highlands of Ethiopia by Harris, William Cornwallis, Sir

He said the spot wuz dry and there wuz some hemlock and pine trees standin’ on one end on’t, and under ’em wuz a carpet of the rich brown leaves and pine needles that Whitfield thought would be beautiful for little Delight to play in.
— from Samantha at Coney Island and a Thousand Other Islands by Marietta Holley

And from the raft itself came a slowly swelling volume of sound, the urge and voice and exultation of red-blooded men a-thrill with the glory of this day and the wild freedom of their world.
— from The Flaming Forest by James Oliver Curwood

It is certain that of the warp of descent and the woof of intermarriage there is woven a tissue out of which small and rude but close and compact communities are formed.
— from Liberalism by L. T. (Leonard Trelawny) Hobhouse