The spirit which burns within us, is a porter’s knot, on which to rest the heavy load of worldly cares and troubles; and when that spirit fails us, the burden is too heavy to be borne.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

Let me play the fool; / With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come, / And let my liver rather heat with wine / Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

He merely snuggled the closer to his friend, in a luxury of warm contentment, and drifted blissfully out of consciousness into a deep and dreamless sleep that was full of serenity and peace.
— from The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain

These humiliated outcasts had the frowsy and unbrushed and apologetic look of wet cats, and their eyes were glazed with drowsiness, their bodies were adroop from crown to sole, and all kind-hearted people refrained from asking them if they had been to Bayreuth and failed to connect, as knowing they would lie.
— from What Is Man? and Other Essays by Mark Twain

We are freed from base anthropomorphic views of God and His government of the universe; and from Jewish Mythology we rise to higher conceptions of an infinitely wise and beneficent Being, hidden from our finite minds, it is true, in the impenetrable glory of Divinity, but whose Laws of wondrous comprehensiveness and perfection we ever perceive in operation around us.
— from Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism With an Essay on Baal Worship, on the Assyrian Sacred "Grove," and Other Allied Symbols by Thomas Inman

This Tyrant from Mechuacam arrives at Xalisco , a Country abounding with People very fruitful, and the Glory of the Indians in this respect, that it had some Towns Seven Miles long; and among other Barbarisms equal to what you have read, which they acted here, this is not to be forgotten, that Women big with Child, were burthen'd with the Luggage of Wicked Christians, and being unable to go out their usual time, through extremity of Toil and Hunger, were necessitated to bring them forth in the High-wayes, which was the Death of many Infants.
— from A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies Or, a faithful NARRATIVE OF THE Horrid and Unexampled Massacres, Butcheries, and all manner of Cruelties, that Hell and Malice could invent, committed by the Popish Spanish Party on the inhabitants of West-India, TOGETHER With the Devastations of several Kingdoms in America by Fire and Sword, for the space of Forty and Two Years, from the time of its first Discovery by them. by Bartolomé de las Casas

And thus, as a good lady wrote to me once, though the problem stands yet unsolved, more perplexing than ever; though the bright spots in the dreary picture be too often bright only by comparison, and many of the expedients hit upon for relief sad makeshifts, we can dimly discern behind it all that good is somehow working out of even this slough of despond the while it is deepening and widening in our sight, and in His own good season, if we labor on with courage and patience, will bear fruit sixty and a hundred fold.
— from How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. (Jacob August) Riis

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come; And let my liver rather heat with wine Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

It was Dick who managed to make gloriously drunk a telegraph-clerk in a palm hut far beyond the Second Cataract, and, while the man lay in bliss on the floor, possessed himself of some laboriously acquired exclusive information, forwarded by a confiding correspondent of an opposition syndicate, made a careful duplicate of the matter, and brought the result to Torpenhow, who said that all was fair in love or war correspondence, and built an excellent descriptive article from his rival's riotous waste of words.
— from The Works of Rudyard Kipling: One Volume Edition by Rudyard Kipling

" It provides further that such persons shall, upon making proof of the fact, "be placed on the list of invalid pensioners of the United States, and be entitled to receive for such total inability to procure their subsistence by daily labor $12 per month; and such pension shall commence from the date of the filing of the application in the Pension Office, upon proof that the disability then existed, and continue during the existence of the same in the degree herein provided: Provided , That persons who are now receiving pensions under existing laws, or whose claims are pending in the Pension Office, may, by application to the Commissioner of Pensions, in such form as he may prescribe, receive the benefit of this act.
— from A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents Volume 8, part 3: Grover Cleveland, First Term by Grover Cleveland

We have heard of her in the Gilsland ground, where they would all the sooner see a the young lad of Whitburn crippled and a mere misery to see or hear.”
— from Grisly Grisell; Or, The Laidly Lady of Whitburn: A Tale of the Wars of the Roses by Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge

Where it is not liked other wines can always be ordered.
— from Through Portugal by Martin A. S. (Martin Andrew Sharp) Hume

From the southern side of the citadel, we looked down into the gorge which supplies Kiutahya with water--a wild, desert landscape of white crags and shattered peaks of gray rock, hanging over a narrow winding bed of the greenest foliage.
— from The Lands of the Saracen Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain by Bayard Taylor

I'm the bloo-eyed lynx of Whiskey Crossin', an' I weighs four thousand pounds!
— from Wolfville Days by Alfred Henry Lewis

An amazing instance of the receptivity and adaptability of the American attitude is seen in the fact that the outsides of the tramway-cars in at least one Western city are fitted with hooks for bicycles, so that the cyclist is saved the unpleasant, jolting ride over stone pavements before reaching suburban joys.
— from The Land of Contrasts: A Briton's View of His American Kin by James F. (James Fullarton) Muirhead

The suites-de-luxe comprised up to twelve rooms, the largest of which covered an area of 247 square feet.
— from Albert Ballin by Bernhard Huldermann

Children in the kindergarten or at home will watch with delight the lively occupants, which cut all sorts of queer capers for their amusement, and older people may read some of nature's choicest secrets through the glassy sides of the little water world.
— from Cornell Nature-Study Leaflets Being a selection, with revision, from the teachers' leaflets, home nature-study lessons, junior naturalist monthlies and other publications from the College of Agriculture, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1896-1904 by New York State College of Agriculture

She looked neither to the right nor to the left, but passed on with inflexible gaze and hasty steps, like one who crosses a plank over some awful chasm.
— from Wylder's Hand by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu