Citations:was


 * 1678 — John Bunyan. The Pilgrim's Progress.
 * When at the first I took my pen in hand Thus for to write, I did not understand That I at all should make a little book In such a mode; nay, I had undertook To make another; which, when almost done, Before I was aware, I this begun.
 * And thus it was: I, writing of the way And race of saints, in this our gospel day, Fell suddenly into an allegory About their journey, and the way to glory, In more than twenty things which I set down.
 * Now was I in a strait, and did not see Which was the best thing to be done by me: At last I thought, Since you are thus divided, I print it will, and so the case decided.


 * 1843 — Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol.
 * Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner.
 * And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.
 * But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!