“Then,” I said, “you have been making a miscalculation, and the letter is not upon the premises, as you suppose.”
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2 by Edgar Allan Poe

Still the ground is, they will, if they be of spirit, seek to free themselves from scorn, which must be either by virtue or malice; and, therefore, let it not be marvelled, if sometimes they prove excellent persons; as was Agesilaüs, Zanger, the son of Solyman, 458 Æsop, Gasca president of Peru; and Socrates may go likewise amongst them, with others.
— from Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients by Francis Bacon

It grows on the rocks that are often moistened at the least, if not overflowed with the sea water.
— 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

A sack that has no opening suggests more and the loss is not commensurate.
— from Tender Buttons Objects—Food—Rooms by Gertrude Stein

It seems to be a set-lock; and you no sooner touch with the weight of a hair one of the quills, than the tail leaps up in a most surprising manner, and the laugh is not on your side.
— from Riverby by John Burroughs

She recalled the third time she had seen him, the morning at the Lilacs in Newport, that had left upon her the curious sense of having looked on a superimposed portrait.
— from Project Gutenberg Complete Works of Winston Churchill by Winston Churchill

"Lo! many things have happened since Siyâla played with Âtma--what a bully thou wast in those days to poor little me; and thou lookst it now, thou sister of the veil!--for did we not drink milk together out of one vessel and under one veil, see you, before I drifted to the temple--and so hitherward?
— from A Prince of Dreamers by Flora Annie Webster Steel

Neither is it that the scientific sense in us refuses to admit willingly and reverently the name of God, as a point in which the religious and the scientific sense may meet, as the least inadequate name for that universal order which the intellect feels after as a law, and the heart feels after as a benefit.
— from St. Paul and Protestantism, with an Essay on Puritanism and the Church of England by Matthew Arnold

The National Collection of Microbes at the Lister Institute now contains eight hundred different specimens.
— from Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, 1920-11-17 by Various

There is a telegraphy of souls, as well as of hearts and minds, and the lesson is never to believe your ears.
— from The Black Colonel by James Milne

Among articles in periodicals may be mentioned H. W. Horwill, The Problem of The House of Lords, in Political Science Quarterly , March, 1908; E. Porritt, The Collapse of the Movement against the Lords, in North American Review , June, 1908; ibid., Recent and Pending Constitutional Changes in England, in American Political Science Review , May, 1910; J. L. Garvin, The British Elections and their Meaning, in Fortnightly Review , Feb., 1910; J. A. R. Marriott, The Constitutional Crisis, in Nineteenth Century , Jan., 1910.
— from The Governments of Europe by Frederic Austin Ogg