For my part, I was always a bungler at all kinds of sport that required either patience or adroitness, and had not angled above half an hour before I had completely “satisfied the sentiment,” and convinced myself of the truth of Izaak Walton’s opinion, that angling is something like poetry—a man must be born to it.
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving

Hence many were respited from execution, but, though they were not put to death, as much as possible was done to render their lives miserable, many of them having their ears cut off, their noses slit, their right eyes put out, their limbs rendered useless by dreadful dislocations, and their flesh seared in conspicuous places with red-hot irons.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

The separation of one portion of a composition from another; the proper classification and division of the subjects; the precise meaning of every word and sentence; the relation each part bears to previous or following parts; the connection of one portion and separation of others—all depend upon punctuation.
— from The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness Being a Complete Guide for a Gentleman's Conduct in All His Relations Towards Society by Cecil B. Hartley

After a few other preliminaries, equally brief, and having settled the road each party should take to avoid suspicion, they separated.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

In a similar vein has the celebrated John Bunyan, the author of the " Pilgrim's Progress " proceeded in his " Temple of Solomon Spiritualized " to refer every part of that building to a symbolic meaning, selecting, however, the church, or congregation of good men, rather than the individual man, as the object of the symbolism.
— from The Symbolism of Freemasonry Illustrating and Explaining Its Science and Philosophy, Its Legends, Myths and Symbols by Albert Gallatin Mackey

Another method is as follows:— Take parings of nails, hair, eyebrows, saliva, etc. of your intended victim (sufficient to represent every part of his person), and make them up into his likeness with wax from a deserted bees’ comb.
— from Malay Magic Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula by Walter William Skeat

Accordingly, the question arises whether the English heir or successor to real estate presents the same analogies to the Roman heres as the executor.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes

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

Before the Revolution of 1688, metaphysics ruled without experimental psychology, and in these curious paragraphs of Baxter we see the effect: since the Revolution experimental psychology without metaphysics has in like manner prevailed, and we now feel the result.
— from The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 4 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Percy Bysshe Shelley , the renowned English poet, was born at Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex, August 4, 1792, and was drowned off the coast of Italy, July 8, 1822.
— from Through the Year with Famous Authors by Mabel Patterson

—"It is the idea which always makes me so anxious, Schillie, to retain every possible memorial of our civilized life.
— from Yr Ynys Unyg The Lonely Island by Julia de Winton

Mais avec la Noblesse, de ma part je suis tout resolu et prest, et n’y veux espargner aucune chose, et le plustost sera le meilleur.
— from The Wars of Religion in France 1559-1576 The Huguenots, Catherine de Medici and Philip II by James Westfall Thompson

No less esteemed are the small Guatemalan earthen figures, painted in natural colors, representing the various trades and occupations of the people, which may be said to rival European productions of the same character.
— from The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 1, Wild Tribes The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 1 by Hubert Howe Bancroft

All of the more important authors described in the last three chapters survived the Rebellion except Poe, who died in 1849, Prescott, who died in 1859, and Thoreau and Hawthorne, who died in the second and fourth years of the war, respectively.
— from Initial Studies in American Letters by Henry A. (Henry Augustin) Beers

So the Rev. E. P. Roe is your favourite novelist there; a thousand of his books are sold for every two copies of the works of Henry Fielding?
— from Letters on Literature by Andrew Lang