It was evident how little the women were used to the sight of anything tolerable, by the effect which a man of decent appearance produced.
— from Persuasion by Jane Austen

In making this and the subsequent bars, we recommend turning the needle round and holding it as it were the reverse way, so that the eye not the point passes first under the threads; strange as it may seem, it is easier in this manner to avoid splitting the threads.
— from Encyclopedia of Needlework by Thérèse de Dillmont

The king had us told that since the king of Spagnia desired to be his friend, he was very willing to be his, and said that we could take water and wood, and trade at our pleasure.
— from The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 33, 1519-1522 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century by Antonio Pigafetta

what food Will he convey up thither, to sustain Himself and his rash army; where thin air Above the clouds will pine his entrails gross, And famish him of breath, if not of bread?
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton

And ye shall understand that the soldan is lord of five kingdoms, that he hath conquered and appropred to him by strength.
— from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Mandeville, John, Sir

When Jarvis Street was opened up through the Secretary's park-lot, the family residence of his son Mr. Samuel Peters Jarvis, a handsome structure of the early brick era of York, in the line of the proposed thoroughfare, was taken down.
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

Ferguson told us that the silver cross which the good archbishop wore at his girdle was seized and thrown into the Seine, where it lay embedded in the mud for fifteen years, and then an angel appeared to a priest and told him where to dive for it; he did dive for it and got it, and now it is there on exhibition at Notre Dame, to be inspected by anybody who feels an interest in inanimate objects of miraculous intervention.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

Antidote to Frauds and Lies, Wine, that mounts us to the Skies, May thy Father Noah’s Brood Like him drown, but in thy Flood. Speak, so may the Liquid Mine Of Rubies, or of Diamonds shine. Bottle, whose Mysterious Deep Do’s ten thousand Secrets keep, With attentive Ear
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

But, after thinking the matter over, Bob was forced to come to the conclusion that he might as well try to hit upon the best plan for pulling the earth up to the sun, for the one was, to him, almost as hard a feat to accomplish as the other.
— from Go-Ahead; Or, The Fisher-Boy's Motto by Harry Castlemon

A contract was made, accordingly, for the cutting and preparing of a considerable quantity of this wood, which was to be ready for delivery in the course of three months, when it was understood that the schooner was to return and take it in.
— from The Crater; Or, Vulcan's Peak: A Tale of the Pacific by James Fenimore Cooper

These may considerably diminish the positive results of a victory gained with the main body of the Army, but they cannot make this first use of it impossible; at least cases of that kind, if conceivable at all, must be so uncommon that they should have no appreciable influence on theory.
— from On War — Volume 1 by Carl von Clausewitz

If I told her to walk upon the table, she would take off her shoes, climb up, and walk cautiously upon it; if told to eat the chair, after a minute's hesitation as to the best manner of complying with the order, she would take it up and pretend to devour it.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 01, April to September, 1865 A Monthly Eclectic Magazine by Various

II Then came the proof of the genius, the cynicism and the insight of the leviathan newspaper-proprietor who had invented the dodge of inviting his readers to risk a shilling and also to buy a coupon for the privilege of supplying a missing word, upon the understanding that the shillings of those who supplied the wrong word should be taken for ever away from them and given to those who supplied the right word.
— from These Twain by Arnold Bennett

With us, the tenet still obtains in all its ancient strength; the throne is never vacant.”
— from The Princess Dehra by John Reed Scott

His votaries are numerous, for the sagacity of the fox has passed into a proverb, and these people hope by prayers and gifts to move the fox-god to bestow upon them the shrewdness of the symbol.
— from Round the World by Andrew Carnegie

This inheritance is at bottom indistinguishable from the philosophic inheritance, for is there not religion, in, for instance, the Cartesian idea of God, which unifies the two substances and guarantees with its truth the certainty of our knowledge?
— from Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept by Benedetto Croce