It is, of course, a matter of necessity in such cases to have the cracks and fissures, and especially the seam where the case and the lid join, hermetically caulked.
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Rustichello of Pisa

As for the thoughts of many other objects external to me, as of the sky, the earth, light, heat, and a thousand more, I was less at a loss to know whence these came; for since I remarked in them nothing which seemed to render them superior to myself, I could believe that, if these were true, they were dependencies on my own nature, in so far as it possessed a certain perfection, and, if they were false, that I held them from nothing, that is to say, that they were in me because of a certain imperfection of my nature.
— from Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences by René Descartes

Mortified as I was at his behavior, and resolved as I had been to dismiss him when I entered my offices, nevertheless I strangely felt something superstitious knocking at my heart, and forbidding me to carry out my purpose, and denouncing me for a villain if I dared to breathe one bitter word against this forlornest of mankind.
— from Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street by Herman Melville

My object now in sending a staff officer is not so much to suggest operations for you, as to get your views and have plans matured by the time everything can be got ready.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant

My object now in sending a staff-officer to you is not so much to suggest operations for you as to get your views, and to have plans matured by the time every thing can be got ready.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

Believe me or not, I say it was outrageously heartrending.
— from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

If we had been engaged in any exercise peculiar to my own nation I should, of course, have looked after Pesca carefully; but as foreigners are generally quite as well able to take care of themselves in the water as Englishmen, it never occurred to me that the art of swimming might merely add one more to the list of manly exercises which the Professor believed that he could learn impromptu.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

In this analysis of the operations of the Automaton, we have purposely avoided any allusion to the manner in which the partitions are shifted, and it will now be readily comprehended that this point is a matter of no importance, since, by mechanism within the ability of any common carpenter, it might be effected in an infinity of different ways, and since we have shown that, however performed, it is performed out of the view of the spectators.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

Her brother was called Montellato, and he it was who tried to assassinate me one night in St. Mark’s Square, as I was leaving the Ridotto.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

May I have a horse to drive to town this afternoon?" asked mother one noon in summer.
— from Prince and Rover of Cloverfield Farm by Helen Fuller Orton

I know not what is the measure of necessity in such a case, and it appears indeed to be a very delicate question.
— from Italian Hours by Henry James

Mad or not, I set myself to work with a zeal which few scientific students have ever equalled.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 03, January, 1858 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

"In the month of November I spent the 1st, 2d, and 3d at Pittsford, the 4th, 5th, and 6th at Mendon and Lima.
— from Memoir of Rev. Joseph Badger Fourth Edition by E. G. (Elihu Goodwin) Holland

But whether fortune befriend me in this rough method, or not, I should like to submit to those of whom I am potential, but of whom I may not be an actual, colleague, and to others who may be interested in this most important problem--how to get the Education Act to work efficiently--some considerations as to what are the duties of the members of the School Boards, and what are the limits of their power.
— from Science & Education: Essays by Thomas Henry Huxley

Even a barometer which had hung near the closet had been wrenched away, as I could tell by the broken brass gimbals still fast to the brass supports; but this was a matter of no importance, since I had noticed another in good order in the cabin—to say nothing of the fact that my powerlessness to make any provision against bad weather made me indifferent to warnings of coming storms.
— from In the Sargasso Sea A Novel by Thomas A. (Thomas Allibone) Janvier

"As the young man was then about to move away, I asked him his name, as he had greatly drawn out my heart towards him, and I felt that if I could be his friend, and the friend of the wise young man of Nazareth, I should be perfectly happy and have no other desire—save, indeed, to live till the Messiah came, that I might behold him, and lay my head upon his sacred bosom.
— from The Prince of the House of David by J. H. (Joseph Holt) Ingraham

The recent assaults on and murders of Negroes in Springfield, Ohio, and Springfield, Ill., are not different in spirit from those in the South; and though there were plenty of indictments, the leader of the latter mob was acquitted on his trial—a result which was reflected in the famous Cairo mob of 1909.
— from The Southern South by Albert Bushnell Hart

"You're sure to be recognized, and then, what about me?" "Oh, no, I shan't.
— from The Brother of Daphne by Dornford Yates

Did I follow my own impulse, or did I speak in my own name, I should hold other language; to you I should not speak at all; I would address myself only to God; I would pray him to let fall the fire of Heaven to consume you, and to consume with you the house into which you have entered in abandoning the church.
— from The Reign of Mary Tudor by James Anthony Froude