It hardly becomes so young a man as I am to talk much about farming to you, who are most of you so much older, and are men of experience; still, I have interested myself a good deal in such matters, and learned as much about them as my opportunities have allowed; and when the course of events shall place the estate in my hands, it will be my first desire to afford my tenants all the encouragement a landlord can give them, in improving their land and trying to bring about a better practice of husbandry.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

It is difficult to check this rule, because our knowledge of the liveries in use in early days is so meagre and limited; but in the few instances of which we now have knowledge we look in vain for a repetition of the colours worn by the retainers as liveries in the mantlings used.
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

The message was delivered in such manner and language as incensed Frémont and caused him to peremptorily refuse.
— from Explorers and Travellers by A. W. (Adolphus Washington) Greely

“How could you do it?” said Melvin, at last.
— from Making the Nine by Albertus T. (Albertus True) Dudley

Hitherto the only spores known are of uniform size, and there is no evidence that there was any differentiation into small (male) and large (female) spores such as were found in some of the Lepidodendrons.
— from Ancient Plants Being a Simple Account of the past Vegetation of the Earth and of the Recent Important Discoveries Made in This Realm of Nature by Marie Carmichael Stopes

The soldier is always a large consumer of this article, and spends a good deal of his time daily in striking matches and lighting his pipe; he was not, however, to be defeated by the absence of matches: some ingenious man had discovered that the thin sticks of cordite out of the cartridges made an excellent spill for lighting cigarettes or pipes at the fire, and, until the practice was peremptorily stopped, it became quite a fashionable pursuit.
— from Two Years on Trek: Being Some Account of the Royal Sussex Regiment in South Africa by Louis Eugène Du Moulin

The creator of slave-morality was one who, out of the poverty of his soul, transfigured all he saw and heard, and declared it smaller, meaner, and less beautiful than it appeared to the creator of the master values.
— from Nietzsche: His Life and Works by Anthony M. (Anthony Mario) Ludovici

I am grieved that you should contemplate my departure in so melancholy a light, but I shall always revere the affection which prompts your anxiety, and magnifies the evil.
— from Private Letters of Edward Gibbon (1753-1794) Volume 2 (of 2) by Edward Gibbon

—I say,—the Master continued,—that I had rather be in the company of those who believe more than I do, in spiritual matters at least, than of those who doubt what I accept as a part of my belief.
— from Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works by Oliver Wendell Holmes

You are, I hear, a man of scientific attainments, and I dabble in science myself a little."
— from The Sauciest Boy in the Service: A Story of Pluck and Perseverance by Gordon Stables

He, therefore, ever anew repeats His invitation, ever anew founds it upon the fact, that He delights in showing mercy and love to those who have forsaken Him.
— from Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 by Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

"I was about to remark," he said, emboldened by this token of favour, "that there is nothing I delight in so much as listening to the voice of nature—that is human nature."
— from An Algonquin Maiden: A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada by G. Mercer (Graeme Mercer) Adam