Thus they all worked on, encompassed by the vast flat mead which extended to either slope of the valley—a level landscape compounded of old landscapes long forgotten, and, no doubt, differing in character very greatly from the landscape they composed now.
— from Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy

If you were here right now, dear doctors, I could show you my comrade, summoned to this room in the very body by the flames of hate against news from the front and against the indifference of the hinterland.
— from Men in War by Andreas Latzko

In many cases, no doubt, death is caused by premature weaning owing to a second conception, but there is no doubt that a number of weakly children are brought into the world through the physical incapacity of the Fijian mother for bearing healthy children in quick succession.
— from The Fijians: A Study of the Decay of Custom by Basil Thomson

I never did delight in cooking.
— from Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 by United States. Work Projects Administration

There is no 'Decoration Day' in Canada, but if there were, surely this woman is entitled to the laurel wreath.
— from Our Intellectual Strength and Weakness A Short Historical and Critical Review of Literature, Art and Education in Canada by John George Bourinot

How long this will last in the years now before us, it is impossible to say, for the nation drags down its Church to its own level; but still the National Church has the same sort of influence over the nation that a periodical has upon the party which it represents, and my own idea of a Catholic's fitting attitude towards the National Church in this its supreme hour, is that of assisting and sustaining it, if it be in our power, in the interest of dogmatic truth.
— from Apologia pro Vita Sua by John Henry Newman

I call him bankrupt in the courts of song Who hath her gold to eye and pays her not, Defaulter do I call the knave who hath got Her silver in his heart, and doth her wrong.
— from Canzoni & Ripostes Whereto are appended the Complete Poetical Works of T.E. Hulme by T. E. (Thomas Ernest) Hulme

Water, of course, I never dared drink in China.
— from A Woman In China by Mary Gaunt

Yes, I guess there is no doubt dad is crazy sometimes, but let me chaperone him through a few foreign countries and he will stand without hitching all right.
— from Peck's Bad Boy Abroad Being a Humorous Description of the Bad Boy and His Dad in Their Journeys Through Foreign Lands - 1904 by George W. (George Wilbur) Peck

And now, dear Doctors, in closing our important correspondence, permit me to render my heart-felt thanks for your kindness to me, and for the benefit received from your invaluable treatment.
— from The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English or, Medicine Simplified, 54th ed., One Million, Six Hundred and Fifty Thousand by Ray Vaughn Pierce