I then made up many packages of rubies, emeralds, rock crystal, ambergris, and precious stuffs, and bound them upon my raft, being careful to preserve the balance, and then I seated myself upon it, having two small oars that I had fashioned laid ready to my hand, and loosed the cord which held it to the bank.
— from The Arabian Nights Entertainments by Andrew Lang

“By choosing two of the greatest personages of Rome, especially rich men— this was the return the Holy Father looked for.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

But of all names in the universe he had the most unconquerable aversion for T RISTRAM ;—he had the lowest and most contemptible opinion of it of any thing in the world,—thinking it could possibly produce nothing in rerum natura, but what was extremely mean and pitiful: So that in the midst of a dispute on the subject, in which, by the bye, he was frequently involved,——he would sometimes break off in a sudden and spirited E PIPHONEMA , or rather E ROTESIS , raised a third, and sometimes a full fifth above the key of the discourse,——and demand it categorically of his antagonist, Whether he would take upon him to say, he had ever remembered,——whether he had ever read,— or even 99 whether he had ever heard tell of a man, called Tristram, performing any thing great or worth recording? —
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

1835 Mr. —— Jenery 10 To J. Burton. l. s. d. Reparing of Towo Tables & Muex Stand 0 4 0 Aultern of 2 Blines & Toulroler 0 1 0 Botal jock braket & seter jobs ( et cetera ) 0 4 0 Newpot board Barers & scirtin &c. stapel 0 5 0 Locks to Cubard dowrs & Esing do laying down flour cloth & fiting up Top of Butt 0 7 0 Fixing Lether to Dowrs in parlor & Cuting of sheters in first flour 0 4 0 1 Blin 2 par of Roler End & Rack puleys fixing of certin Laths in Largin of ole of washing stand & 2 holefass 0 2 10 Fixing webbin to Stand and fixing Legs to washing stule 0 1 6 Fiting up front of Dustbin & Cubbard on Landing altern lock of seler dowr 0 2 0 1 11 4 [Pg 125] Government is that power which one part of speech has over another, in directing its mood, tense, or case.
— from The Comic English Grammar: A New and Facetious Introduction to the English Tongue by Percival Leigh

No less than five different methods for rotatory motion are described in the patent, the fifth commonly known as the "sun and planet wheels," of which Watt writes to Boulton, January 3, 1782, I have tried a model of one of my old plans of rotative engines, revived and executed by Mr. Murdoch, which merits being included in the Pg. 158 specification as a fifth method; for which purpose I shall send a drawing and description next post.
— from James Watt by Andrew Carnegie

Olympian herself, supremely, divinely Olympian, she had arrived, could only have arrived, for the one person present of really equal race, our young man’s late converser, whose flattering demonstration might now stand for one of the odd extravagant forms taken by nervous impatience.
— from The Finer Grain by Henry James

Nature made the mountains, you may say, for the special purpose of regenerating effete remnants of civilizations.
— from The Crest-Wave of Evolution A Course of Lectures in History, Given to the Graduates' Class in the Raja-Yoga College, Point Loma, in the College-Year 1918-19 by Kenneth Morris

Leaves: narrow-linear, acutely acuminate, with the point often recurved, entire, rather thick, narrowed into a short petiole, two to four inches long; fruit unknown.
— from The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 by Ernest Favenc

Before the entrance at that point, the emperor put on richly embroidered robes, lighted tapers, and then followed the clergy into the church, to take his 49 stand at the east end of the south aisle.
— from Byzantine Churches in Constantinople: Their History and Architecture by Alexander Van Millingen

Outside an old rickety "store" (this term includes any conceivable kind of retail shop in America), I saw a notice: " Henry T. Hodges, Justice of the Peace; Dry Goods Store; General Merchandise; Post Office; Real Estate; Refreshments ."
— from Across America by Motor-cycle by C. K. Shepherd