"I oushter hev been the contentedest woman alive, but I warn't, for you see I'd worked at millineryin' before I was married, and had an easy time on't, Afterwards the children come along pretty fast, there was sights of work to do, and no time for pleasuring so I got wore out, and used to hanker after old times in a dreadful wicked way.
— from Work: A Story of Experience by Louisa May Alcott

"Nothing will be of any use that he does not enjoy.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

People were gathered over all upon the house-tops.
— from Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson

They settled on the ground and began blowing one another until they had blown all their feathers off, and their swan's down slipped from them like a shirt.
— from Grimm's Fairy Stories by Wilhelm Grimm

Then Balin looked into a fair little garden, and under a laurel tree he saw her lie upon a quilt of green samite and a knight in her arms, fast halsing either other, and under their heads grass and herbs.
— from Le Morte d'Arthur: Volume 1 by Malory, Thomas, Sir

I liked the woman very well and stroked her under the chin, but could not find in my heart to offer anything uncivil to her, she being, I believe, a very modest woman.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

the most respectable women are the most oppressed; and, unless they have understandings far superiour to the common run of understandings, taking in both sexes, they must, from being treated like contemptible beings, become contemptible.
— from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects by Mary Wollstonecraft

This matter has no practical value for us, on the one hand, because the trick is always involved with lively and obvious efforts, and on the other, because cases are hardly thinkable in which a man will produce artificial pallor in the court where it can not be of any use to him.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross

* *—that Don Joaquin was killed owing to another mistake of the Americans, but one impossible to be avoided, as upon the approach of the boats, Don Joaquin, with a hatchet tied edge out and upright to his hand, was made by the negroes to appear on the bulwarks; whereupon, seen with arms in his hands and in a questionable attitude, he was shot [pg 263] for a renegade seaman; * * *—that on the person of Don Joaquin was found secreted a jewel, which, by papers that were discovered, proved to have been meant for the shrine of our Lady of Mercy in Lima; a votive offering, beforehand prepared and guarded, to attest his gratitude, when he should have landed in Peru, his last destination, for the safe conclusion of his entire voyage from Spain; * * *—that the jewel, with the other effects of the late Don Joaquin, is in the custody of the brethren of the Hospital de Sacerdotes, awaiting the disposition of the honorable court; *
— from The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville

Howbeit not yet was it ordained for the heroes to set foot on Achaea, until they had toiled even in the furthest bounds of Libya. (ll. 1228-1250)
— from The Argonautica by Rhodius Apollonius

“Then jump out and unharness this horse.
— from Try and Trust; Or, Abner Holden's Bound Boy by Alger, Horatio, Jr.

During the last American war, he of course adhered to the English, on an understanding that he should be protected; in return for which the Americans of course burnt his house, and destroyed his property.
— from Sketches in Canada, and rambles among the red men by Mrs. (Anna) Jameson

But Beauregard's struggle on that second day was rendered hopeless from the outset by irresistible odds of numbers, and after a heroic resistance he withdrew his army and retired in good order and unmolested to his strongly fortified position at Corinth.
— from The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct, Volume 1 (of 2) A Narrative and Critical History by George Cary Eggleston

“Could I be of any use to him, my dear Doctor?” he asked.
— from The History of Pendennis by William Makepeace Thackeray

all he had, as they were no more of any use to him.
— from The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, vol. 3 (of 4) part 2 (of 2) by Valmiki

[Pg 91] them when they were together, and that it was only when he found one alone underground that he was brave enough to do so.
— from Among the Night People by Clara Dillingham Pierson

Therefore I went straight on and up the hill; and here and there on the road grew blades of grass undisturbed in the repose and hush that the road had earned from going up and down the world; for you can go by this road, as you can go by all roads, to London, to Lincoln, to the North of Scotland, to the West of Wales, and to Wrellisford where roads end.
— from The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories by Lord Dunsany

Andrews sent over a letter of atturney under their hands & seals, to recovere what they could of M r .
— from Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' From the Original Manuscript. With a Report of the Proceedings Incident to the Return of the Manuscript to Massachusetts by William Bradford

Because two men agree not to drink it, have they a right to impose the same obligation on an unwilling third? Have those who never enter a public-house, and by their position in life never need to enter it, a right, if they are [Pg 140] in a majority, to close its doors against those who use it?
— from The Map of Life Conduct and Character by William Edward Hartpole Lecky