We would better understand each other thoroughly so as to save time and not go over old ground.
— from The Enchanted Barn by Grace Livingston Hill

In consultation with Vocco she did what she could, through the city Prefect in charge of Rome during the Emperor’s absence, and through other officials, to make sure that any new governor of Britain would be fully informed of the secret instructions which Aurelius had given Opstorius concerning Almo.
— from The Unwilling Vestal by Edward Lucas White

The strongest things—” There he stopped, and I saw why: strongest things are not generally of quickest growth!
— from The Flight of the Shadow by George MacDonald

"Well," says I, "you ain't all in, are you?" Her under lip starts to pucker up at that, and them hungry eyes gets foggy; but she takes a new grip on herself, makes a bluff at grinnin', and says, throaty like, "It's no use pretending any longer, I—I'm a failure!" Say, that makes me feel like an ice cream sign in a blizzard.
— from Side-stepping with Shorty by Sewell Ford

So, one day, he called Mick aside, an' sed to him, "Mick," sez he, "you see things are not goin' on wid me as they ought to go; an' to be plain an' honest wid you, Mick, I think that child o' yours is the cause uv it.
— from The Fairy Mythology Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries by Thomas Keightley

Was it strange that a nation guilty of such enormities should lack the moral courage, the sound heart and core of integrity, necessary to withstand the impact of another nation goaded by the spectacle of those iniquities to righteous indignation?
— from Spain by Frederick A. (Frederick Albion) Ober

Under the feudal law, a serf, owing service to a noble guilty of treason, became, because of his master's guilt, released from such service.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 69, July, 1863 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various