(although this remark does not apply to such a smart fellow as you) if Nature had not made that provision for each sex in the credulity of the other, which sees good qualities where none exist, good looks in donkeys' ears, wit in their numskulls, and music in their bray, there would not have been near so much marrying and giving in marriage as now obtains, and as is necessary for the due propagation and continuance of the noble race to which we belong.
— from The History of Pendennis by William Makepeace Thackeray

This allusion to death and inebriety prompted a sprightly young Yorkshirewoman, with the country gift for yarn-spinning, to tell a tale of something that had happened to her cousin, who gave lessons in domestic economy at a London Board School.
— from Paris Nights, and Other Impressions of Places and People by Arnold Bennett

Jeems was a-gwine along de path by de graveyard late in de evenin', an' bless de Lo'd, all of a sudden he looked up, an' dar was a painter crouchin' down befo' 'im, a-pattin' de ground wid his tail, an' ready to spring.
— from Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales "The fiddle and the bow," "The paradise of fools," "Visions and dreams" by Robt. L. (Robert Love) Taylor

A circular door, about the size of a crown piece, slightly [389] concave on the outside and convex within, is formed of more than a dozen layers of the same web which lines the interior, closely laid upon one another, and shaped so that the inner layers are the broadest, the outer being gradually less in diameter, except towards the hinge, which is about an inch long; and in consequence of all the layers being united there, and prolonged into the tube, it becomes the thickest and strongest part of the structure.
— from Insect Architecture by James Rennie

Amhyrst, Rev. H. G., Lafayette, Ind. Dishonesty; embezzlement; falsifying.
— from Crimes of Preachers in the United States and Canada by M. E. Billings

There is a great clearness of the atmosphere sometimes; sometimes a subdued, gray light is diffused everywhere.
— from The Recreations of a Country Parson by Andrew Kennedy Hutchison Boyd

General Ludlow is doing excellent work in the matter of bringing Havana out of the unhealthful condition it was in when he took command, and it is a work that will take many months of hard labor and in which, in all probability, many lives will be sacrificed.
— from Scribner's Magazine, Volume 26, July 1899 by Various