And, forsooth, to encourage me, pulled out his own standing pego.
— from The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous

Whereupon, he had a mind, for the jest’s sake, to show them to the contrary; and having, for this occasion, made a muster of all his wits, wholly to employ them in the service of profit and gain, he set a traffic on foot, which in one year brought him in so great riches, that the most experienced in that trade could hardly in their whole lives, with all their industry, have raked so much together.—[Diogenes Laertius, Life of Thales, i. 26; Cicero, De Divin., i. 49.]—That which Aristotle reports of some who called both him and Anaxagoras, and others of their profession, wise but not prudent, in not applying their study to more profitable things—though I do not well digest this verbal distinction—that will not, however, serve to excuse my pedants, for to see the low and necessitous fortune wherewith they are content, we have rather reason to pronounce that they are neither wise nor prudent.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

“Sire,” said Villefort, “the suddenness of this event must prove to your majesty that the issue is in the hands of Providence; what your majesty is pleased to attribute to me as profound perspicacity is simply owing to chance, and I have profited by that chance, like a good and devoted servant—that’s all.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

Inwardly taken, provokes urine, breaks the Stone, cleanses the reins and bladder, cutteth and cleanses the lungs of tough flegm, the juice dropped into the eyes, clears the sight, into the ears, mitigates pain and noise there; the head bathed with the juice mixed with vinegar, takes away the pains thereof: outwardly in pultisses, it assuages swellings in the privities and elsewhere.
— from The Complete Herbal To which is now added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs, with a display of their medicinal and occult qualities physically applied to the cure of all disorders incident to mankind: to which are now first annexed, the English physician enlarged, and key to Physic. by Nicholas Culpeper

hotô gar an hekastos prôtô peritychê didaskalô, toioutos egeneto, mê perimeinas mêden eti par' allou mathein.
— from Galen: On the Natural Faculties by Galen

Indeed I might have shewn them his letter to me, as a full confutation of his to them; but I saw no probability of engaging them in my behalf: and so thought it signified little, as I was to go away so soon, to enter more particularly into the matter with them; and besides, I saw they were not inclinable to let me stay longer, for fear of disobliging him so I went to bed, but had very little rest: and they would make their servant-maid bear me company in the chariot five miles, early in the morning, and she was to walk hack.
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

As I therein explained my purpose, yesterday I made a demand on General Hardee for the surrender of the city of Savannah, and to-day received his answer--refusing; copies of both letters are herewith inclosed.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

Let me seek, then, a spot not far from a populous city—whose vicinity, also, will best enable me to execute my plans.”
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

And now all being pretty well, I took boat, and over to Southwarke, and took boat on the other side the bridge, and so to Westminster, thinking to shift myself, being all in dirt from top to bottom; but could not there find any place to buy a shirt or pair of gloves, Westminster Hall being full of people’s goods, those in Westminster having removed all their goods, and the Exchequer money put into vessels to carry to Nonsuch; but to the Swan, and there was trimmed; and then to White Hall, but saw nobody; and so home.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

"Therefore," he goes on, "if your Majesty do at any time find it fit for your affairs to employ me publicly upon the stage, I shall so live and spend my time as neither discontinuance shall disable me nor adversity shall discourage me, nor anything that I do give any new scandal or envy upon me."
— from Bacon by R. W. (Richard William) Church

We have no more space to expose Mr. Parton's blunders and sophistry.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 05, March, 1858 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

It must remain to his biographers to explain more precisely the extraordinary contrast between the errors we have indicated and the recovery we have now to trace.
— from The Battle of the Marne by G. H. (George Herbert) Perris

Phra Sucharit, the Siamese ruler, was unfamiliar with warfare but encouraged his people to a spirited resistance, hoping that relief would be afforded by the annual floods, coming in the wake of the rains; the enemy merely patrolled the waters in hundreds of boats and, as they subsided, threw up new earthworks even nearer the walls.
— from Siam: Land of Free Men by H. G. (Herbert Girton) Deignan

16 The extensor muscles preponderate in mass and weight over the flexors, but this is readily accounted for by the fact, that the extensors, when limbs are to be straightened, always work at a mechanical disadvantage.
— from Animal Locomotion; or, walking, swimming, and flying With a dissertation on aëronautics by James Bell Pettigrew

there were standing at the foot of her bed the empty milk pot with the butter bowl inside, the black cherries on the wooden plate, and six new pieces of silver in the pocket of her apron.
— from The Lilac Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

He was invited to their place in the fall when the hunting season opened, and spent the evening most pleasantly and satisfactorily with his fiancée in a corner of the drawing-room.
— from Van Bibber and Others by Richard Harding Davis

Collections were made all over England, and large sums raised, and the Parliament gave £10,000, which enabled the trustees to entertain many poor people that offered, and to make provision for their transportation and maintenance till they could provide for themselves.
— from Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe Founder of the Colony of Georgia, in North America. by Thaddeus Mason Harris

That you may see I study nothing more in this Solitude than to oblige you; I've resolv'd to employ most part of my time in complying with that Request you've often made me, of giving you a particular account of all that has happen'd to me in my Life; tho' I fear I shall lose part of that Esteem which you have hitherto preserved for me, by acquainting you with some Passages of it, which yet I hope have nothing in 'em so ill, that the kindness of a Friend mayn't find out something in the Circumstances of the Story to Excuse: For tho' perhaps I have not always been so nicely cautious as a Woman in strictness ought, I have never gone beyond the bounds of solid Virtue.
— from Olinda's Adventures: or the Amours of a Young Lady by Catharine Trotter