Up, and dispatched several businesses at home in the morning, and then comes Sympson to set up my other new presses [These presses still exist, and, according to Pepys’s wish, they are placed in the second court of Magdalene College in a room which they exactly fit, and the books are arranged in the presses just as they were when presented to the college.—M. B.] for my books, and so he and I fell in to the furnishing of my new closett, and taking out the things out of my old, and I kept him with me all day, and he dined with me, and so all the afternoon till it was quite darke hanging things, that is my maps and pictures and draughts, and setting up my books, and as much as we could do, to my most extraordinary satisfaction; so that I think it will be as noble a closett as any man hath, and light enough—though, indeed, it would be better to have had a little more light.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

DEAR PHILLIPS, When I wrote you by last post, I did not imagine I should be tempted to trouble you again so soon: but I now sit down with a heart so full that it cannot contain itself; though I am under such agitation of spirits, that you are to expect neither method nor connexion in this address—We have been this day within a hair’s breadth of losing honest Matthew Bramble, in consequence of a cursed accident, which I will endeavour to explain.—In crossing the country to get into the post road, it was necessary to ford a river, and we that were a-horseback passed without any danger or difficulty; but a great quantity of rain having fallen last night and this morning, there was such an accumulation of water, that a mill-head gave way, just as the coach was passing under it, and the flood rushed down with such impetuosity, as first floated, and then fairly overturned the carriage in the middle of the stream—Lismahago and I, and the two servants, alighting instantaneously, ran into the river to give all the assistance in our power.—Our aunt, Mrs Tabitha, who had the good fortune to be uppermost, was already half way out of the coach window, when her lover approaching, disengaged her entirely; but, whether his foot slipt, or the burthen was too great, they fell over head and ears in each others’ arms.
— from The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. (Tobias) Smollett

While settling this point, she was suddenly roused by the sound of the door bell, and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its being Colonel Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before called late in the evening, and might now come to enquire particularly after her.
— from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I, indeed, for this reason chiefly, sent away the women, that they might not commit any folly of this kind.
— from Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates by Plato

This yer’s my nicest chicken.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Mysticism, as its meditative nature comports, is never so pernicious, nor can it be brought so easily round to worldliness again.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

Mr. Nickleby closed an account-book which lay on his desk, and, throwing himself back in his chair, gazed with an air of abstraction through the dirty window.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

milisya n collective term for Filipino recruits during World War I. -nu n member of the Filipino militia.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof , from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior.
— from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume

Truly, his one son was a chip off the old block, and Peter Winn had no meek notions concerning the intrinsic value of said old block.
— from The Night-Born by Jack London

In Rosenberg’s Karufa list (12) we find such characteristically Indonesian words as ulu , hair; mata , eye; uhru , mouth; taruya , ear; nima , hand; ora , sun; uran , moon; niyu , coconut.
— from Pygmies & Papuans: The Stone Age To-day in Dutch New Guinea by A. F. R. (Alexander Frederick Richmond) Wollaston

Of course, a man may not choose his wife, his mother does that for him, he may not even see her, but he can, and very naturally often does, ask questions about her.
— from A Woman In China by Mary Gaunt

Oh, Adam, this boy, this chief, the Earl of March, now crowned King Edward, made but one reply, 'This Robin Hilyard must be a wise man,— show me his house.'
— from The Last of the Barons — Volume 03 by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

It would have been no disgrace to them to yield allegiance to a conqueror, but the white men never conquered them, and therefore the tribute which they pay annually in the form of taxes is an ever-recurring dishonour.
— from The Fijians: A Study of the Decay of Custom by Basil Thomson

Money now coming in, he went at once, and paid his good friends Coleman and Grace what they had so nobly lent him.
— from The Life of Benjamin Franklin With Many Choice Anecdotes and admirable sayings of this great man never before published by any of his biographers by M. L. (Mason Locke) Weems

d the room; and when worn down by the fatal distemper, a prey to the most corroding grief, a victim to the sharpest and most intolerable pains, she made no complaint; but mildly answered all my questions by some short sentence, without entering into any detail.
— from Solitude With the Life of the Author. In Two Parts by Johann Georg Zimmermann

“Now we can explain how your brother came to be captured by the Germans, and how under his direction we stole the other ‘U-13’ and escaped from Helgoland.” 252 “If what you say is true, young man,” put in the officer, “the anticipated court martial may never convene.” “We can prove it!”
— from Boy Scouts in the North Sea; Or, The Mystery of a Sub by G. Harvey (George Harvey) Ralphson

"When I regained my senses I found myself lying in Sandwell Hall, with doctors bandaging my wounds, and then I learned that we had been rescued just in time, and that my nine comrades had all escaped the fate they had faced with dogged disregard for their own safety, and such noble devotion to their Queen."
— from The Great War in England in 1897 by William Le Queux

Mrs. Mortimer,—as we must now call her whom we have already known as Mrs. Slingsby, Mrs. Torrens, and Mrs. Fitzhardinge,—arrived in London two days after the scene which took place between her daughter and herself in the Rue Monthabor at Paris.
— from The Mysteries of London, v. 4/4 by George W. M. (George William MacArthur) Reynolds