I answered he could speak for himself, but not for me; that I had come to offer to buy with cash a fair proportion of his bullion, notes, and bills; but, if they were going to fail, I would not be drawn in.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

The transports were assembled, not at Brest, but in the ports to the southward as far as the mouth of the Loire.
— from The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

p. 233 CANZONET I have no store Of gryphon-guarded gold; Now, as before, Bare is the shepherd’s fold.
— from Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

I chose the osier specially, there is not a bad bit in the basket.
— from Round about Bar-le-Duc by Susanne R. (Susanne Rouviere) Day

He objected to profane swearing; he was a strict Sabbatarian; he had honoured his father and his mother and had erected a monument over their grave which added another fear of death to the beholder; he neither thieved nor murdered, nor followed in the footsteps of Don Juan, nor in those of his own infamous namesake; and being blessed in the world's goods, coveted nothing possessed by his neighbour—not even his wife, for his neighbours' wives could not compare in wifely meekness with his own.
— from Far-away Stories by William John Locke

It was his habit to boast that he knew nothing about books; but in their presence he shrank, feeling that they were greater than he, which was, there is little doubt, a sign of grace.
— from Phoebe, Junior by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

I heard at once of the new and beautiful building; I think I was the first college graduate who walked on the floor of the present Academy Hall.
— from The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. by Various

"I'll run to the inn," said Nick, "and be back in ten minutes."
— from Project Gutenberg Complete Works of Winston Churchill by Winston Churchill

“It is nothing else,” said the engineer: “it is light bottled up in the earth for tens of thousands of years; light, absorbed by plants and vegetables, being necessary for the condensation of carbon during the process of their growth, if it be not carbon in another form,—and now, after being buried in the earth for long ages in fields of coal, that latent light is again brought forth and liberated, made to work, as in that locomotive, for great human purposes.”
— from Knowledge for the Time A Manual of Reading, Reference, and Conversation on Subjects of Living Interest, Useful Curiosity, and Amusing Research by John Timbs