When sporting on the mud, the pectoral fins are used like legs, upon which they move very quickly; but nothing can exceed the instantaneous movement by which they disappear.
— from Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 — Volume 2 by Philip Parker King

My printed copy of this play shows it to have run to the twentieth edition, which, for an unreading land like Spain, is an enormous sale.
— from The great Galeoto; Folly or saintliness two plays done from the verse of José Echegaray into English prose by Hannah Lynch by José Echegaray

The old manuscript which had fallen into my hands in such a peculiar way, I begged from the parish of Winkelsteg, so that I might give it to the world as a legacy—as the witness of a poor, yet rich and fruitful and unselfish life lived in the solitude of the forest.
— from The Forest Schoolmaster by Peter Rosegger

'No one could expect you to care much for a useless log like me.
— from The Misses Mallett (The Bridge Dividing) by E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young

When all was secure, he glanced at the ghastly white face, with beads of perspiration on the forehead and upper lip, laid his finger on the pulse, and said: "We will have a little more whiskey.
— from If, Yes and Perhaps Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact by Edward Everett Hale

358 Hither came, therefore, to leaven the ordinary frivolities, learned professors from Australasian universities, legal luminaries, judges, the Q.C. and the rising barrister, mercantile magnates, statisticians of world-wide fame, even, indeed, Sir Gregory Gifford, also Sir Harold Harfager, an ex-Proconsul of our Indian empire.
— from The Ghost Camp; or, the Avengers by Rolf Boldrewood

Members falling around us like leaves in wintry weather.
— from Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 105 December 16, 1893 by Various