It may be said that when a man covenants that it shall rain to-morrow, or that A shall paint a picture, he only says, in a short form, I will pay if it does not rain, or if A does not paint a picture.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes

[134] The offences which the Aztecs punished with slavery were the following: firstly, failure on the part of any relation of a person convicted of high treason, to give timely information of the plot to the proper authorities, provided he or she had knowledge of it, the wives and children of the traitor being also enslaved; secondly, the unauthorized sale of a free man or woman or of a free child kidnapped or found astray, the kidnapper fraudulently asserting such person to be a slave, or such child to be his own; thirdly, the sale or disposal, by a tenant or depositary, of another's property, without the permission of the owner or his representative, or of a proper legal authority; fourthly, hindering a collared slave from reaching the asylum of the sovereign's palace, provided it was the act of one who was not the owner or the owner's son; fifthly, stealing things of value, or being an inveterate thief; sixthly, stealing from a field a certain number of ears of corn or of useful plants, exception being made to this law when the act was committed by a child under ten years of age, or when the stolen property was paid for; seventhly, the impregnating, by a free man, of another's female slave, if the woman died during her pregnancy, or in consequence of it.
— from The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 2, Civilized Nations The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 2 by Hubert Howe Bancroft

As I rejoiced in this sense of release, I recalled what James R. Osgood, one of the princes among publishers, had once said to me, and for the first time I fully grasped his meaning.
— from Recollections of a Varied Life by George Cary Eggleston

[180] Jefferson displayed a liberal attitude toward the claims of the Transylvania proprietors; and Patrick Henry openly stated that, in his opinion, "their claim would stand good."
— from The Conquest of the Old Southwest; the romantic story of the early pioneers into Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, 1740-1790 by Archibald Henderson

But at the exact moment when our men, springing out of the ditches, began their advance towards the wood, the enemy's artillery, shortening its range, began to pour a perfect hail of shrapnel on our line.
— from In the Field (1914-1915): The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry by Marcel Dupont

Their alumni scatter far and wide immediately after graduation, and even those of them who may feel drawn to a life of scholarship or letters find little to attract them at the home of their alma mater , and seek by preference the larger cities, where periodicals and publishing houses offer some hope of support in a literary career.
— from Initial Studies in American Letters by Henry A. (Henry Augustin) Beers

Almost all dwellings are constructed of bamboo and lightest woods, one story high, with screens of paper as partitions: houses of stone are feared, the people preferring to take their chances on a great fire than on an earthquake.
— from Great Disasters and Horrors in the World's History by Allen Howard Godbey

A fruitful vine when grown a lass, Prune and please her; Old, she's a heavy charge, alas!
— from The Punster's Pocket-book or, the Art of Punning Enlarged by Bernard Blackmantle, illustrated with numerous original designs by Robert Cruikshank by C. M. (Charles Molloy) Westmacott

The duchess-regent, who, par sottise , as Commines unceremoniously expressed it, had put herself into Lodovico’s power, now saw her truest counsellor dying in prison at Pavia, her own son used as a tool, and her unworthy favourite driven out of Milan; and when she tried [208] to leave the country she was herself detained in the castle of Abbiategrasso, a prisoner, though the word itself was not uttered in her presence, and she was allowed to see her children occasionally.
— from Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent (vol. 2 of 2) by Alfred von Reumont