I am also afraid that thou wilt abhor my ill fortune, and judge me also myself worthy of all sorts of calamity for begetting such children; while yet I ought rather to be pitied, who have been so affectionate a father to such wretched sons; for when I had settled the kingdom on my former sons, even when they were young, and when, besides the charges of their education at Rome, I had made them the friends of Caesar, and made them envied by other kings, I found them plotting against me.
— from The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Flavius Josephus

Original I had seated myself on a half-sunken tombstone, and was musing, as one is apt to do at this sober-thoughted hour, on past scenes and early friends—on those who were distant and those who were dead—and indulging in that kind of melancholy fancying which has in it something sweeter even than pleasure.
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving

I sent my Swiss servant back to Paris, keeping only my faithful Spaniard, who on this occasion travelled with me, seated behind my chaise.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

There may not, however, be any present, beside those very ideas, that are thus collected by a kind of magical faculty in the soul, which, though it be always most perfect in the greatest geniuses, and is properly what we call a genius, is however inexplicable by the utmost efforts of human understanding.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

the Stone on the edge of the river continue to form verry Considerable rapids, which are troublesom & dificuelt to pass, our toe rope which we are obliged to make use of altogether broke & we were in Some danger of turning over in the perogue in which I was, we landed at 12 and refreshed the men with a dram, our men are obliged to under go great labour and fatigue in assending this part of the Missouri, as they are compelled from the rapidity of the Current in many places to walk in the water & on Slippery hill Sides or the Sides of rocks, on Gravel & thro a Stiff mud bear footed, as they Cannot keep on Mockersons from the Stiffness of the mud & decline of the Slipy.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

"Surely ye are our kinsmen on my father's side, and ye pray that with kindly hearts we succour your evil plight.
— from The Argonautica by Rhodius Apollonius

In that city was the first siege of the King of Mancy, for it is a fair and plenteous of all goods.
— from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Mandeville, John, Sir

"I would it could keep our master from getting us into another coil this day.
— from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

This is a very common process used for all kinds of melodic figures, in particular those in the very high register.
— from Principles of Orchestration, with Musical Examples Drawn from His Own Works by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov

They have, in Massachusetts, at a place called Andover, a kind of minister factory, where each professor takes an oath once in five years—that time being considered the life of an oath—that he has not, during the last five years, and will not, during the next five years, intellectually advance.
— from The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents Dresden Edition—Twelve Volumes by Robert Green Ingersoll

In former times the religion of Buddha was unknown in this country, but in the fourth of the years ta ming , in the reign of Hiao wou ti of the Soung dynasty ( A.D. 458), five pi khieou or missionaries, from the country Ki pin, went to Fusang and there diffused the Buddhist faith.
— from The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 5, Primitive History The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 5 by Hubert Howe Bancroft

Another member of our little society had a very fair voice and good knowledge of music, for in the days of his boyhood he had sung in the choir of a Welsh cathedral; since that time he had practised as a medical man and driven a tramcar.
— from With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train by Ernest Nathaniel Bennett

A particular kind of manufacture fails: those who have been used to work at it, can, for some time, work at nothing else.
— from Life of Johnson, Volume 3 1776-1780 by James Boswell

I walked into the ruined garden, and there found a plain little girle, kinswoman of Mr. Falconbridge, to sing very finely by the eare only, but a fine way of singing, and if I come ever to lacke a girle again I shall think of getting her.
— from Diary of Samuel Pepys — Volume 38: September 1665 by Samuel Pepys

He was exactly the kind of man for Broughton's “set,” so that he soon made his acquaintance, and was presented by him to Lady Broughton as a most agreeable fellow, and something very distinguished in his own country.
— from Confessions Of Con Cregan, the Irish Gil Blas by Charles James Lever

Suddenly I saw a scuffle between the midshipman and the tindal, 25 a stout, dark-faced young Bengalee, with a jaunty skull-cap and frock, whom Snelling had probably helped along with a touch of a rope's end, and in a moment two or three more of them were upon him, while the reefer drew his dirk, and sung out to me, scarce before I was with him, the Lascars rolling into the lee-scuppers at two kicks of my foot.
— from The Green Hand: Adventures of a Naval Lieutenant by George Cupples

page 57 p. 57 THE KINE OF MY FATHER The kine of my rather, they are straying from my keeping; The young goat’s at mischief, but little can I do: For all through the night did I hear the Banshee keening; O youth of my loving, and is it well with you?
— from The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems by Dora Sigerson Shorter

This last petition to the Court, I may bequeath the keeping of my Fort
— from Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, Vol. 07 of 10 by John Fletcher

I, for my part, hold that I am not, but in myself; and of that other life of mine which lies in the knowledge of my friends, to consider it naked and simply in itself, I know very well that I am sensible of no fruit nor enjoyment from it but by the vanity of a fantastic opinion; and when I shall be dead, I shall be still and much less sensible of it; and shall, withal, absolutely lose the use of those real advantages that sometimes accidentally follow it.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Volume 11 by Michel de Montaigne