In 1866 the only carriage road of the island, which connects Messina with Palermo, was hardly made use of by travellers, and even now the most important mines of sulphur and salt communicate with the seashore only by mule-paths; and the inhabitants are actually opposed to the construction of roads, from fear of their interfering with the existing modes of transport.
— from The Earth and its inhabitants, Volume 1: Europe. Greece, Turkey in Europe, Rumania, Servia, Montenegro, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. by Elisée Reclus

Isabel had flashing vistas of small groups of men and women, distinguished socially as well as mentally, that entertained each other, or met at a new club through which Mrs. Hofer whisked her one night,—a club where the best of Bohemia met the more intellectual members of society; and she knew that in these groups she might find also the higher class business and professional men, and a few of leisure that enjoyed life without either dancing or drinking.
— from Ancestors: A Novel by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

He told her how long he had been a professor, what pains he had taken, what hazards he had run, in his youthful days, to get to meetings; how, when the ways were forelaid and passages stopped, he swam through rivers to reach a meeting; and now, said he, that I am grown old in the profession of religion, and have long been an instructor and encourager of others, that I should thus shamefully fall short myself, is matter of shame and sorrow to me.
— from The History of Thomas Ellwood Written By Himself by Thomas Ellwood