I had my mission of mercy to fulfil, and my bag of precious publications ready on my lap.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

In September he wrote to a friend: “As I am trying to get up a good reputation here, I stay at my post pretty regularly, occasionally making a cheap excursion.
— from The Life of Bret Harte, with Some Account of the California Pioneers by Henry Childs Merwin

A Stroke of Business "None o' your Larks" An Affront to the Service "Not up to his Business" George du Maurier Feline Amenities The New Society Craze A Pictorial Puzzle Refinements of Modern Speech "Reading without Tears" The Height of Impropriety
— from Social Pictorial Satire by George Du Maurier

Now, too, is the time for employing another and an equally fertile and interesting mode of propagation; that by means of offsets, suckers, cuttings, partings, &c. Now, in short, most of the fibrous-rooted perennial plants (regardless of Mr. Malthus’s principles of population) put forth more offspring than the ground which they occupy can support; and unless the Government under which they live were to provide them with due means of colonization, they would presently over-run and destroy each other, until the whole kingdom, which now belongs to them jointly, became the exclusive property and possession of some one powerful but worthless family among them: as we see on lands that are left to themselves, and suffered to lie waste: whatever variety of plants may spring up spontaneously upon them during the first season or two, at the end of three or four years all is one unbroken expanse of rank unproductive grass.
— from Mirror of the Months by P. G. (Peter George) Patmore

There are many things which my intellectual laziness prevents my examining, which I feel sure, if I did examine, would produce positive results on my mind; but phrenology does not seem to me one of these.
— from Records of Later Life by Fanny Kemble

As we left the room I caught up some pale pink roses on my table.
— from Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

and p. int. are substituted in his later paper for pars anterior and pars posterior, respectively, of M. adductor longus et brevis.
— from Variation in the Muscles and Nerves of the Leg in Two Genera of Grouse (Tympanuchus and Pedioecetes) by E. Bruce Holmes

It was lectured upon by Professor Buff in Giessen twice, by Professor Böttger both in Frankfort and in Stettin; by Professor H. Pick, by Professor Osann of Würtzburg, by Professor Paul Reis of Mainz, and by others.
— from Philipp Reis: Inventor of the Telephone A Biographical Sketch by Silvanus P. (Silvanus Phillips) Thompson

Our expectations for the future, Condorcet held, may be reduced to these three points: the destruction of inequality among nations; the progress of equality among the people of any given nation; and, finally the substantial perfecting (perfectionnement réel) of man.
— from Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3), Essay 3: Condorcet by John Morley

Not that cats aren't nice in their way; but when ladies in fascinating frocks, with hair beautifully dressed, suddenly develop a striking family likeness to Persian pussies robbed of milk, it does have a quaint effect on the nerves.
— from The Heather-Moon by A. M. (Alice Muriel) Williamson