What a dear old pensioner you are!'
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

And when old Aunt Christina MacAllister heard of it—she was the one brought me round when I nearly died of pneumonia you know—she was a wonder—no doctor was a patch on her—they don't hatch her breed of cats nowadays, let me tell you—she said she could have saved him with her grandmother's remedy if she'd been there.
— from Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

I am, therefore, induced to address you in this form the inquiry whether, to stop the further effusion of blood and devastation of property, you are willing to make a temporary suspension of active operations, and to communicate to Lieutenant-General Grant, commanding the armies of the United States, the request that he will take like action in regard to other armies, the object being to permit the civil authorities to enter into the needful arrangements to terminate the existing war.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

This, as the reader has seen from one end to the other, was as groundless as the dreams of philosophy: Yorick, no doubt, as Shakespeare said of his ancestor——“ was a man of jest, ” but it was temper’d with something which withheld him from that, and many other ungracious pranks, of which he as undeservedly bore the blame;—but it was his misfortune all his life long to bear the imputation of saying and doing a thousand things, of which (unless my esteem blinds me) his nature was incapable.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Spectral Animals—The Chained Spirit—The Gwyllgi, or Dog of Darkness—The Legend of Lisworney-Crossways—The Gwyllgi of the Devil’s Nags—The Dog of Pant y Madog—Terrors of the Brute Creation at Phantoms—Apparitions of Natural Objects—Phantom Ships and Phantom Islands 167 [ Pg xii] CHAPTER IV.
— from British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions by Wirt Sikes

‘It was clear enough, as I have told you, years before YOU ever saw her—and why, in the mysterious dispensations of Providence, you ever did see her, is more than humanity can comprehend—it was clear enough that the poor soft little thing would marry somebody, at some time or other; but I did hope it wouldn’t have been as bad as it has turned out.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Yet it was her fault not to see that I did take them Young man play the foole upon the doctrine of purgatory Young fellow, with his hat cocked like a fool behind
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

On hearing his professions of an earnest desire of peace, you cannot but suppose, either that his reason must hold an absolute sway over his passion, or that he deceives himself." Travels , i. 241.
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

Among the rest, by his abominable industry and destructive genius, he assisted in the fatal and infamous production of the monster Minotaur, that devourer of promising youths.
— from Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients by Francis Bacon

A false application of the name and maxims of antiquity was the source of the hopes and disappointments of Petrarch; yet he could not overlook the difference of times and characters; the immeasurable distance between the first Cæsars and a Bohemian prince, who by the favor of the clergy had been elected the titular head of the German aristocracy.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

The following bag limits are greatly needed, forthwith: Gray Squirrel, none per day, or per year; duck (except wood-duck), ten per day, or thirty per season; ruffed grouse, four per day, twelve per season; hare and rabbit, four per day, or twelve per season.
— from Our Vanishing Wild Life: Its Extermination and Preservation by William T. (William Temple) Hornaday

“In fact,” said Parson Foster, “the Devil himself gave it to Paracelsus; Paracelsus to the emperor; the emperor to the courtier; the courtier to Baptista Porta; and Baptista Porta to Dr. Fludd, a doctor of physic, yet living and practising in the famous city of London, who now stands tooth and nail for it.”
— from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay

Her clothes were so well-worn, and her grooming was so meticulous, her accent so clean and crisp, her manner so devoid of patronage, yet subtly remote, her controlled heart so kind that she perennially fascinated the buxom, rather sloppy, preternaturally acute, and wholly unaristocratic young ladies of the East Side.
— from Black Oxen by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

‘I thought,’ cried he, ‘that you had left off fishing, and that you lived upon the interest of the money you got for your pearls and diamonds; or, perhaps, you are going out for pleasure.
— from The Juvenile Lavater; or, A Familiar Explanation of the Passions of Le Brun Calculated for the Instruction & Entertainment of Young Persons; Interspersed with Moral and Amusing Tales by George Brewer

And the curious thing is that, given the degree of practice, you will measure ill or well with the eye in proportion to the quantity of life in you.
— from The Eagle's Nest Ten Lectures on the Relation of Natural Science to Art, Given Before the University of Oxford, in Lent Term, 1872 by John Ruskin

Now—won't you drive on, please?" "Yes, if you'll let me—just once— once to live on all those months!
— from Red Pepper's Patients With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular by Grace S. (Grace Smith) Richmond

J. H. "What do our pattern young men say?" sneered Leicester.
— from The Man Who Rose Again by Joseph Hocking

The Albumen process is the one by which probably the greatest number of blocks are made in this country, and, when carried to a high degree of perfection, yields some very pleasing results which, though inferior to swelled Gelatine, are better than the Bitumen.
— from A Handbook of Illustration by A. Horsley (Alfred Horsley) Hinton