Here it is necessary only to state that though the book has been several times reprinted in India and once in this country, the obvious difficulties of such an undertaking have hitherto prevented any writer better qualified than myself from attempting to prepare an annotated edition.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

C. 2, 41, 8, despairing of their lives, they either bewailed their own death, or strove to interest people in their parents.
— from A Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges by George Martin Lane

She had found an opportunity of mentioning this to her father, and perhaps Caleb's were the only eyes, except the lawyer's, which examined the stranger with more of inquiry than of disgust or suspicion.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

27 The first date at which the Zohar is definitely known to have appeared is the end of the thirteenth century, when it was committed to writing by a Spanish Jew, Moses de Leon, who, according to Dr. Ginsburg, said he had discovered and reproduced the original document of Simon ben Jochai; his wife and daughter, however, declared that he had composed it all himself.
— from Secret Societies And Subversive Movements by Nesta Helen Webster

Plato also was born not much later, who far outwent the other disciples of Socrates.
— from The City of God, Volume II by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

“At any rate, it is safer to leave people to their own devices on such subjects.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Saturn claims dominion over this herb, yet I wonder why it may not be applied to the privities in a Priapism, or continual standing of the yard, it being very beneficial to that disease; I suppose, my author’s judgment was first upon the opposite disposition of Saturn to Venus in those faculties, and therefore he forbade the applying of it to those parts, that it might not cause barrenness, or spoil the spirit procreative; which if it do, yet applied to the privities, it stops its lustful thoughts.
— 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

He advertised me but the other day of some pleasant green lanes which he had found out for me, knowing me to be a great walker , in my own immediate vicinity—who have haunted the identical spot any time these twenty years!
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

“Have now another plain fact: any man of mechanical talents may from the writings of Paracelsus or Jacob Behmen produce ten thousand volumes of equal value with Swedenborg’s, and from those of Dante or Shakespeare an infinite number.
— from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake

We seem to hear the merry sound of the horns, the ring of hoofs, and the rattle of harness, as the coach, with its passengers and piled baggage, clatters along a broad high road or draws up at the open door of some old-fashioned English inn.
— from How the World Travels by Alice A. Methley

"It won't make any difference what anyone thinks or does or says.
— from George Loves Gistla by James McKimmey

The pure air, just mist-veiled in the morning coolness, shows the landscape around to its utmost advantage; the omnipresent dome of St. Peter’s basilica clears the line of the blue horizon; the wide purple plain is crossed here and there by dust-whitened roads and arched aqueducts, as by the gigantic bones of a decayed and now powerless monster; the distant hills, darkened at their base by chestnut woods, and dotted with white villas, as with the loosened beads of a string of pearls, throw bluer shadows on the dusky, olive-spotted expanse: and we pause, and wonder whether, after all, things looked so very unlike this on the dawning day when the Christians bore the happy Cecilia to her first resting-place.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 14, October 1871-March 1872 A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science by Various

"And won't you give us that other delicious one?" said Mrs. Hancock, plastering the cards down.
— from Arundel by E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson

As the old darkey once said, "De mule warn't born fer to hurry; not even a torpedo would make him move one step farster!"
— from The Human Side of Animals by Royal Dixon

One of these men is fair and the other dark, one stout and the other slim, one strong and the other weak.
— from The Wisdom of Father Brown by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

So in 1234 Don Jaime decreed from his capital of Zaragoza that no subject of his should sit down to a meal of more than one dish of stewed, and one of roast meat, unless it were dried and salted.
— from The Year after the Armada, and Other Historical Studies by Martin A. S. (Martin Andrew Sharp) Hume

The "country girl" is Peggy Thrift, the orphan daughter of Sir Thomas Thrift, and ward of Moody, who brings her up in the country in perfect seclusion.
— from Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol. 1 A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer

Prompted by the formidable perspicacity of the Parisian half-breed, who spends her days stretched on a sofa, turning the lantern of her detective spirit on the obscurest depths of souls, sentiments, and intrigues, she had decided on making an ally of the spy.
— from Poor Relations by Honoré de Balzac