A third time, at the lord's masque, it dropt all my wire and my ruff with wax candle, that I could not go up to the banquet.
— from Epicoene; Or, The Silent Woman by Ben Jonson

(e) Electric Motors Electric motors (including dynamos) are more restricted than the targets so far discussed.
— from Simple Sabotage Field Manual by United States. Office of Strategic Services

While these troubles were harassing me, I dismissed all my work-girls, who had always been a great expense, and replaced them with workmen and some of my servants.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

The cabinet, or ministry, included Don Apolinario Mabini, secretary of state; Don Teodoro Sandico, secretary of interior; General Baldomero Aguinaldo, secretary of war; General Mariano Trias, secretary of treasury; Don Engracio Gonzaga, secretary of public instruction and agriculture.
— from A History of the Philippines by David P. Barrows

From whose most cruel and most impious dominion a man is liberated when he believes on Him who has afforded an example of humility, following which men may rise as great as was that pride by which they fell.
— from The City of God, Volume I by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

The patience with which she endures the hardships that poverty brings with it, and the eagerness she shows to become a Christian, are such that they fill me with admiration, and bind me to serve her all my life; though the happiness I feel in seeing myself hers, and her mine, is disturbed and marred by not knowing whether I shall find any corner to shelter her in my own country, or whether time and death may not have made such changes in the fortunes and lives of my father and brothers, that I shall hardly find anyone who knows me, if they are not alive.
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

This happy Man is dismissed, and my Lord can turn himself to a Business of a quite different Nature, and offhand give as good an Answer as any great Man is obliged to.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

The mind is delighted as much by eloquence as beauty.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

Marius surveyed by a calm and real, although peculiar light, what passed before his eyes, even the most indifferent deeds and men; he pronounced a just criticism on everything with a sort of honest dejection and candid disinterestedness.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Poor William, sound in morals, free from vice, no dandy, a quiet, bookish, self-denying mortal, was yet, when he took holy orders and quitted his chambers at Cambridge, as much in debt as many a scamp of his college.
— from Wylder's Hand by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

The clammy huskiness which had loaded my tongue, and made it cleave to the roof of my mouth, instantly departed; and my whole mind returned to my control as if beneath the command of some almighty voice.
— from Confession; Or, The Blind Heart. A Domestic Story by William Gilmore Simms

"You see," Hector went on, "I must let you both know that my mother is dead against my having Annie.
— from Far Above Rubies by George MacDonald

Thanks to fortunate manoeuvres, incessant diplomacy, and more incessant platitudes, they were received into what they called—they too—real society, in the houses of Jewish bankers, Venezuelan dukes, and vagrant arch-dukes, and in the houses of very old ladies, crazed over literature, panderism, and the Academy.
— from A Chambermaid's Diary by Octave Mirbeau

My mother is dead, and my father unmentionable, to save you from the agonies of a tactless question.”
— from Twos and Threes by G. B. (Gladys Bronwyn) Stern

In his four great novels, Roderick Random , Peregrine Pickle , Ferdinand Count Fathom , and Humphrey Clinker , he has employed as many incidents, developed as many striking situations, and utilised as many happily conceived accidents of time and place, as Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Henry Mackenzie, and Mrs. Radcliffe put together.
— from Tobias Smollett by William Henry Oliphant Smeaton

If his conversation attracted many, it drove away many, and silenced more.
— 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

Must I do as much for a man I loathe.
— from Wayfaring Men: A Novel by Edna Lyall

And all these monuments I designed, and made sketches of them, which were approved by his Highness; and a royal rescript was made to me, signed by the President of the Ministry, Prince Andrea Corsini, ordering me to execute these works.
— from Thoughts on Art and Autobiographical Memoirs of Giovanni Duprè by Giovanni Duprè