Joe put his mouth into the forms of returning such a highly elaborate answer, that I could make out nothing of it but the single word “Pip.”
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

I should cut my own nose off in not doing the best I could at it.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

A man that has lost a friend and patron may flatter himself that all his grief arises from generous sentiments, without any mixture of narrow or interested considerations: but a man that grieves for a valuable friend, who needed his patronage and protection; how can we suppose, that his passionate tenderness arises from some metaphysical regards to a self-interest, which has
— from An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume

Were I to give my own Notions of it, I would deliver them after Plato's manner, in a kind of Allegory, and by supposing Humour to be a Person, deduce to him all his Qualifications, according to the following Genealogy.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

He prayed a lot, but I couldn't make out nothink on it.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

—The only instances of the existence of this curious variation (Fig. 290) which have come under my own notice occur in the coats of two families of the name Page 179 {179} of Buxton, the one being obviously a modern grant founded upon the other.
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

The military or naval object is in this case paramount, and the inhabitants can not, consistently with it, be admitted to the government of the place, though they ought to be allowed all liberties and privileges compatible with that restriction, including the free management of municipal affairs, and, as a compensation for being locally sacrificed to the convenience of the governing state, should be admitted to equal rights with its native subjects in all other parts of the empire.
— from Considerations on Representative Government by John Stuart Mill

Thinking there might be something in the scheme, he provided the required capital, chartered a steamer, the America , and authorised Baron Overbeck to proceed to Brunai to endeavour, with Colonel Torrey's assistance, to induce the Sultan and his Ministers to transfer the American cessions to himself and the Baron, or rather to cancel the previous ones and make out new ones in their favour and that of their heirs, associates, successors and assigns for so long as they should choose or desire to hold them.
— from British Borneo Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo by Treacher, W. H. (William Hood), Sir

A few days later Miss Anthony received the following from Mrs. Caroline E. Merrick, of New Orleans: "... I feel defrauded that I never knew you until last year.
— from The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years by Ida Husted Harper

"Yes," said I; "but you remind me of no one I ever saw there."
— from Arms and the Woman by Harold MacGrath

May observed no one in the Chapel; she saw nothing but the written words in the massive Prayer-book on the desk before her; and when at last the service was over, she came out looking neither to right nor left, and was startled to find herself emerging into the fresh air with Boreham by her side, claiming her company back to the Lodgings.
— from The New Warden by Ritchie, David G. (David George), Mrs.

Truly, then, one should study Occult Philosophy before one begins [pg 585] to seek for and verify the mysteries of Nature on its surface alone, as he alone “who knows the truth about the qualities of Nature, who understands the creation of all entities ... is emancipated” from error.
— from The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 of 4 by H. P. (Helena Petrovna) Blavatsky

It must of necessity occur in a work of this nature that the review should be very brief, yet we have touched on the different classes of their works.
— from The Prehistoric World; Or, Vanished Races by Emory Adams Allen

If it consists wholly or in part of a diseased or decomposed, or putrid or rotten, animal or vegetable substance, whether manufactured or not, or, in the case of milk, if it is the produce of a diseased animal.
— from Food Adulteration and Its Detection With photomicrographic plates and a bibliographical appendix by Jesse P. (Jesse Park) Battershall

In urging this the Suprema, in a consulta of November 15, 1610, admitted that these troubles arose from the aggressions of the tribunals and their unnecessary multiplication of nominal officials; it had recently issued three cartas acordadas on the subject and had written to all the bishops asking reports of such excesses so as to remedy them.
— from A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 1 by Henry Charles Lea

When dragging a sledge, their breath streams forth like smoke, which is soon transformed into a mass of needles of ice, almost hiding their mouths from view.
— from The Siege and Conquest of the North Pole by George Bryce