It brings me twopence a sheet, and I can often do from fifteen to twenty sheets in a day.”
— from Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Illustrated by Arthur Conan Doyle

h , v. it behoves, MD; birrþ ,
— from A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580 by A. L. (Anthony Lawson) Mayhew

I bared my head to the rushing wind, which bathed my brow in delightful coolness.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

"That I believe," said Sancho; "and they would be great fools if they did or thought otherwise; once more I say, see to my feeding and my Dapple's for that is the great point and what is most to the purpose; and when the hour comes let us go the rounds, for it is my intention to purge this island of all manner of uncleanness and of all idle good-for-nothing vagabonds; for I would have you know that lazy idlers are the same thing in a State as the drones in a hive, that eat up the honey the industrious bees make.
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Her teacher gives her a new object, for instance, a pencil, first lets her examine it, and get an idea of its use, then teaches her how to spell it by making the signs for the letters with her own fingers: the child grasps her hand, and feels her fingers, as the different letters are formed; she turns her head a little on one side like a person listening closely; her lips are apart; she seems scarcely to breathe; and her countenance, at first anxious, gradually changes to a smile, as she comprehends the lesson.
— from American Notes by Charles Dickens

Her face was exceedingly round, red, and full; and the same peculiarity, or rather want of peculiarity, attached itself to her countenance, which I before mentioned in the case of the president—that is to say, only one feature of her face was sufficiently distinguished to need a separate characterization: indeed the acute Tarpaulin immediately observed that the same remark might have applied to each individual person of the party; every one of whom seemed to possess a monopoly of some particular portion of physiognomy.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

I'll put in bail, my liege.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

If a man has plenty of money, he ought to invest something in everything that appears to promise success, and that will probably benefit mankind; but let the sums thus invested be moderate in amount, and never let a man foolishly jeopardize a fortune that he has earned in a legitimate way, by investing it in things in which he has had no experience.
— from The Art of Money Getting; Or, Golden Rules for Making Money by P. T. (Phineas Taylor) Barnum

This is because minds like these know definitely and clearly what they wish to express—whether it be in prose, in verse, or in music.
— from Essays of Schopenhauer by Arthur Schopenhauer

Perhaps I did her injustice; but my knowledge of Southerners made it difficult for me to feel otherwise.
— from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself by Harriet A. (Harriet Ann) Jacobs

The exceptional character of its productions agrees exactly with its exceptional isolation by means of a very deep arm of the sea.
— from Darwinism (1889) An exposition of the theory of natural selection, with some of its applications by Alfred Russel Wallace

The corpse of a pretty little girl, dressed in white, her head wreathed in flowers, was brought in a coffin with no cover, accompanied by a few poor, sad friends, when a rock tablet was raised by means of ropes drawn through iron rings, and the child’s body thrown into a deep pit—the coffin being taken away, which could be used again in bringing many more poor children for burial.
— from Petals Plucked from Sunny Climes by A. M. (Abbie M.) Brooks

He ran for the outer gate while I brandished my weapon after him.
— from Margaret Sanger: an autobiography. by Margaret Sanger

Father, what aileth thee?— Yet I shed no tear, nor answered I— all that day, nor the following night,— until another sun arose over the world.— As soon as a little gleam of light ( un poco di raggio ) began to creep— into the doleful prison, and I saw in four faces my own very image, both my hands through pain I bit;— and they, thinking that I did it for wish of food, instantly arose,— and said: Father, far less painful will it be to us— if thou eatest of us; thou didst dress— [us with] this miserable flesh, do thou take it off.— I then calmed myself, not to make them more wretched.— That day and the next we all lay silent:— alas!
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 08, October, 1868, to March, 1869. by Various

And I believe most constantly in my heart, and with my mouth I confess one holy and catholic church visible, without which there is no salvation; and therefore I acknowledge the bishop of Rome to be supreme head on earth, whom I acknowledge to be the highest bishop and pope, and Christ's vicar, unto whom all christian people ought to be subject.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

Why should they not have a cherry, or a gooseberry, as well as bigger children?' "Indeed, the freedom with which Dr. Johnson condemns whatever he disapproves, is astonishing; and the strength of words he uses would, to most people, be intolerable; but Mrs. Thrale seems to have a sweetness of disposition that equals all her other excellences, and far from making a point of vindicating herself, she generally receives his admonitions with the most respectful silence.
— from Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) Edited with notes and Introductory Account of her life and writings by Hester Lynch Piozzi

Emilia Wyndham or Paul Ferroll , both emphatically novels of their day, and that no short one; and in the latter case, if not in the former, books deserving to be read at intervals by more than the bookworm.
— from A History of Nineteenth Century Literature (1780-1895) by George Saintsbury

He was no specialist: he did not write from a specialist's point of view, and too often when documentary evidence and thought were unable to solve a difficulty he solved it by means of his fancy, a faculty which was however in his case radiant with gleams of insight.
— from The Philosophy of Giambattista Vico by Benedetto Croce