Your mere puny stripling, that winced at the least flourish of the rod, was passed by with indulgence.—Irving
To empty here, you must condense there.—Emerson.
The peasants take off their hats as you pass; you sneeze, and they cry, "God bless you!" The thrifty housewife shows you into her best chamber. You have oaten cakes baked some months before.—Longfellow
Uses of it.
92. The pronoun it has a number of uses:—
(1) To refer to some single word preceding; as,—
Ferdinand ordered the army to recommence its march.—Bulwer.
Society, in this century, has not made its progress, like Chinese skill, by a greater acuteness of ingenuity in trifles.—D. Webster.
(2) To refer to a preceding word group; thus,—
If any man should do wrong merely out of ill nature, why, yet it is but like the thorn or brier, which prick and scratch because they can do no other.—Bacon.