“It may be so, lad,” muttered the scout, when he had ended; “for desperate fevers are not to be treated like a toothache.
— from The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757 by James Fenimore Cooper

We have, during the last week, heard language applied to Mr. Fessenden and Mr. Trumbull, for instance, which was fit only for a compound of Benedict Arnold and John Morrissey, and all their colleagues have been warned beforehand, that if they pleaded their oaths as an excuse for differing from anybody who happened to edit a newspaper, they would be held up to execration as knaves and hypocrites.
— from The Life of Lyman Trumbull by Horace White

The girls used to make a cut in their chins between the lip and the chin, and put in a piece of wood, changing it every few days for a piece a little larger until the opening was stretched like a second mouth.
— from Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin by Mary F. Nixon-Roulet

Yes, there was something!--and something which, like an exquisite fluttering bird, had just escaped from Douglas Falloden, and would now, he supposed, forever escape him.
— from Lady Connie by Ward, Humphry, Mrs.

The Northern States have reason to be very thankful for their more equable system, for the motive power its reservoirs furnish, and for exemption from disastrous floods, as well as from cyclones and tornadoes.
— from The Bay State Monthly — Volume 1, No. 4, April, 1884 by Various

Each flower droops from a tiny stalk.
— from Flowers, Shown to the Children by C. E. Smith

MONGAN, ELIZABETH. Fragonard, drawings for Ariosto, by Elizabeth Mongan, Philip Hofer & Jean Seznec.
— from U.S. Copyright Renewals, 1973 January - June by Library of Congress. Copyright Office

A rotating drum holding from eight to eighteen bushels (the larger sizes look like a squat, fat, oversized oil drum) is suspended above the ground, top-loaded with organic matter, and then tumbled every few days for a few weeks until the materials have decomposed.
— from Organic Gardener's Composting by Steve Solomon

Who can eat fire, drink fire, and lie down in the midst of flames of fire?
— from Works of John Bunyan — Complete by John Bunyan

When I mentioned to an acquaintance in Portland my purpose to spend some days at Aurora, he replied, "Oh, yes—Dutchtown; you'll feed better there than any where else in the state;" and on further inquiry I found that I might expect to see there also the best orchards in Oregon, the most ingenious expedients for drying fruits, and an excellent system of agriculture.
— from The Communistic Societies of the United States From Personal Visit and Observation by Charles Nordhoff

Conflicting emotions fought desperately for ascendency.
— from Story of Chester Lawrence Being the Completed Account of One who Played an Important Part in "Piney Ridge Cottage" by Nephi Anderson