Thomas D'Urfey was a licentious writer of plays and songs, whose tunes Charles II would hum as he leant on their writer's shoulder.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

But the question is not quite so easy when we proceed to ask whether these principles are three or one; whether, that is to say, we learn with one part of our nature, are angry with another, and with a third part desire the satisfaction of our natural appetites; or whether the whole soul comes into play in each sort of action—to determine that is the difficulty.
— from The Republic by Plato

They went along a little walk on planks, under a sunny, red brick wall.
— from The Tale of Benjamin Bunny by Beatrix Potter

They went a long way, on purpose to find a man who would not be a confederate.
— from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Their band of 80 Lodges were on plum Creek a fiew miles to north.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

From its summit there fluttered a little wisp of pink, showing up hard and bright against the grey rocks behind.
— from A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

Wherefore, madam, believing you will not omit this so necessary feature in the education of your children, who yourself have tasted its sweetness, and are of a learned extraction (for we yet have the writings of the ancient Counts of Foix, from whom my lord, your husband, and yourself, are both of you descended, and Monsieur de Candale, your uncle, every day obliges the world with others, which will extend the knowledge of this quality in your family for so many succeeding ages), I will, upon this occasion, presume to acquaint your ladyship with one particular fancy of my own, contrary to the common method, which is all I am able to contribute to your service in this affair.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Page 286, “o*” changed to “of” (long Birthwort, of) Page 290, “spiri*” changed to “spirit” (pour this spirit) Page 291, “i*” changed to “it” (close stopped till it) Page 291, the “t” for “let” (the last word on page 291) is present as the first letter on page 292.
— from The Complete Herbal To which is now added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs, with a display of their medicinal and occult qualities physically applied to the cure of all disorders incident to mankind: to which are now first annexed, the English physician enlarged, and key to Physic. by Nicholas Culpeper

Living with opulent people, and in a situation different from that I had chosen, without keeping a house as they did, I was obliged to imitate them in many things; and little expenses, which were nothing to their fortunes, were for me not less ruinous than indispensable.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The world is too much with us; late and soon, / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; / Little we see in Nature that is ours.
— 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.

And left we our pleasant England, with all her contentments with intention and purpose to avayle ourselves of white ragges?"
— from British Flags: Their Early History, and Their Development at Sea With an Account of the Origin of the Flag as a National Device by William Gordon Perrin

George Frederick Cooke, whose life was one perpetual debauch, and whose career on the stage extended from 1801 to 1812, when he died at Boston, did not, I think, appear at Drury Lane.
— from Haunted London by Walter Thornbury

With the exception of The Hermit and the following exquisite stanza [AD] of Retirement , there is little worthy of particular notice in the minor poems of Beattie.
— from The Poetical Works of James Beattie by James Beattie

The fact is, the man’s entire life was one perpetual drama.
— from The Trial of Oscar Wilde, from the Shorthand Reports by Charles Grolleau

Grey is wood ash, mixed with lime white, or powdered gypsum.
— from Forged Egyptian Antiquities by T. G. Wakeling

There was a most excessive plenty of all sorts of fruit, such as apples, pears, plums, cherries, grapes; and they were the cheaper because of the wants of the people; but this made the poor eat them to excess, and this brought them into surfeits and the like, which often precipitated them into the plague.
— from History of the Plague in London by Daniel Defoe

These several sets of historical passages (or, of Visions , to speak in the language of the book itself) he carefully analyzed and compared; shewed, from circumstances, not imagined, but found, in the history, their mutual relation and correspondency; and established his conclusions, as he went along, not in a loose way of popular conjecture, but in the strictest forms of Geometric reasoning.
— from The Works of Richard Hurd, Volume 5 (of 8) by Richard Hurd

Not to speak of the inappreciable value of letters to individual and social man, the monuments which they raise to a nation's glory often last when others perish, and seem especially appropriate to the glory of a Republic whose foundations are laid in the assumed intelligence of its citizens, and can only be strengthened and perpetuated as that improve."
— from Something of Men I Have Known With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective by Adlai E. (Adlai Ewing) Stevenson

We aal come from ta same first paarents; put tat will be a fery long way off, pefore ta clans cot tokether.
— from Malcolm by George MacDonald