The inhabitants most religiously eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, hot cross-buns on Good Friday, and roast goose at Michaelmas; they send love-letters on Valentine’s Day, burn the Pope on the Fifth of November, and kiss all the girls under the mistletoe at Christmas.
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving

That little picture is the argument in which Cicero ( who was on terms of personal intimacy with the prosecutor, as well as with his gallant client ) firmly questions—yet questions with the most exquisite urbanity—the rather exorbitant pretensions of Sulpicius, the “learned conveyancer and special pleader,” to a higher consideration than “ought to be, or could be,” allowed to the instruction, the knowledge of many sorts (geographical, historical, administrative, tactical, and technical—ay, strategical even—and of characters; of general statistics; of actual local supplies; of incidental resources, material and moral), and to the professional industry, to the labors, the wounds, the dangers, to say nothing of the valor and the genius of a patriotic and public-spirited soldier, who had led armies to victory, had stormed great strongholds, and had not only defended the frontier of the empire, but enlarged it, with every circumstance of legitimate splendor and honorable success.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 15, Nos. 85-90, April 1872-September 1872 A Monthly Magazine by Various

Use a wooden skewer to remove every particle of sediment that may lodge in the spouts or creases of the pots.
— from Miss Parloa's Young Housekeeper Designed Especially to Aid Beginners; Economical Receipts for Those Who Are Cooking for Two or Three by Maria Parloa

Few men have the power of will to hold themselves to the rigid, exacting plan of study that he imposed upon himself.
— from The Chautauquan, Vol. 04, April 1884, No. 7 by Chautauqua Institution

This seigniorage was abolished by Charles II., but restored by an Act of George III., which required every pound of silver to be coined into 66 shillings instead of 62—the extra four shillings to go to defray the expenses of the establishment.
— from The Strand Magazine, Vol. 01, Issue 02, February 1891 An Illustrated Monthly by Various

Even should it not be Aveline, I would do much; but I would risk liberty and life, and run every prospect of suffering the same fate, for the sake of rescuing her.
— from The Golden Grasshopper: A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham by William Henry Giles Kingston

It might be possible to go through the islands at a reasonable expense, provided one spoke the language necessary at the various ports with ease, and had the time and patience to bargain and shop indefinitely; provided, also , one could beat against the tide which sweeps the American toward the “Gran Hotel.”
— from Gardens of the Caribbees, v. 2/2 Sketches of a Cruise to the West Indies and the Spanish Main by Ida May Hill Starr