Whenever they met they were sure to have a most unpleasant dispute before they parted.
— from The Tale of Kiddie Katydid by Arthur Scott Bailey

If this circumstance is not attended to the size of the hole decreases, so that when a new chisel of the proper size is introduced it will not pass down to the bottom of the hole, and much unnecessary delay is occasioned in enlarging it.
— from Water Supply: the Present Practice of Sinking and Boring Wells With Geological Considerations and Examples of Wells Executed by Ernest Spon

Eloquent, emphatic, and unruffled, patient, experienced and resourceful, the intellectual and dialectical superior of the oldest parliamentarian in the House and the wisest tactician on either side, a survivor from Mr. Gladstone's last cabinet and Mr. Gladstone's most brilliant discovery, Mr. Asquith exacted, even from those who resisted him in the Liberal League days, a blind loyalty which carried him through four years of the hottest and most unintermittent domestic fighting in English political history; it carried him, with closed ranks, into the war and through nearly two and a half years of the war, though many felt in their hearts that, by the policy which made war possible, he had betrayed liberalism and that, by the unheralded formation and dissolution of the [107] first coalition, he had betrayed the liberal party.
— from While I Remember by Stephen McKenna

All Greek saints are painfully ugly, but the hermits are much uglier, dirtier, and older than the rest; they must have been very fusty people besides, eating roots, and living in holes like rats and mice.
— from Visits to Monasteries in the Levant by Robert Curzon

Arouse yourself to meditate, as much upon the promises of God, which ought to serve as ladders to raise us up to heaven, and make us despise this transitory and fading life, as upon threatenings, which may well induce us to fear his judgments.
— from Letters of John Calvin, Volume II Compiled from the Original Manuscripts and Edited with Historical Notes by Jean Calvin

Now Puss in Boots has this peculiarity, that out of France, or rather out of the region influenced by Perrault's version of the history, a moral usually does inform the legend of the Master-Cat, or master-fox, or master-gazelle, or master-jackal, or master-dog, for each of these animals is the hero in different countries.
— from Popular Tales by Charles Perrault

Ethelwyn had intended to have a most unhappy day, so after her mother and Beth went, she lay face down in the hammock with a very damp ball of a handkerchief squeezed up tightly against her eyes.
— from What Two Children Did by Charlotte E. (Charlotte Elizabeth) Chittenden

They had already made up dresses for half mourning, of white and black.
— from The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay — Volume 3 by Fanny Burney

The designer thus has a most useful device with which to increase the apparent height of an object that, for structural or other reasons, must in reality not have great height.
— from Industrial Arts Design A Textbook of Practical Methods for Students, Teachers, and Craftsmen by William H. (William Harrison) Varnum