A fuerza de bayonetazos!...
— from Novelas Cortas by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón

What past consecutive causes, before rising preapprehended, of accumulated fatigue did Bloom, before rising, silently recapitulate?
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

A few days before, Birdie's papa had told him that the green balls on the rose-bushes had beautiful flowers shut up within them, but the little boy found it hard to believe, for he was so young that he did not remember how pretty the roses had been the summer before.
— from The Story of My Life With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy by Helen Keller

The body-guard of the Dey of Algiers, we remember, consisted of two men, who always came in with military precision just after the hero, and placed themselves in a formal manner at fixed distances behind him, like two sentries.
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

I really believe that I have nothing less than a five dollar bill, even there.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

Their route lay near the dairy from which they had started with such solemn joy in each other a few days back, and as Clare wished to wind up his business with Mr Crick, Tess could hardly avoid paying Mrs Crick a call at the same time, unless she would excite suspicion of their unhappy state.
— from Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy

The Apparitor gazed and listened—all was quiet—slowly he thrust forward his hand through the hemp, and, separating the dense mass of stalks, swam through the greenery as a fisherman dives beneath the water.
— from Pan Tadeusz Or, the Last Foray in Lithuania; a Story of Life Among Polish Gentlefolk in the Years 1811 and 1812 by Adam Mickiewicz

A few days before their contract was up, Warren said: “How'd ye like to renew for a month?”
— from Rolf in the Woods by Ernest Thompson Seton

That thou may’st better know the truth of what I hereby painfully certify, the saints and Fra Jose (who will not let me tell a lie, because he in a manner holds my pen) can witness, that about four days before we left Madrid, as we went to church, and I was about, while ascending the steps, to dole alms to a mendicant woman wrapt in a mantle, who held up a naked child for the receiving of charity, your daughter twitched my sleeve, while she whispered, ‘Madam, she cannot be mother to that child, for she is covered, and her child is naked.
— from Melmoth the Wanderer, Vol. 4 (of 4) by Charles Robert Maturin

Rising decisively, Ellen took from the mahogany secretary the letter she had received a few days before from Thomas’s daughter and reread it meditatively.
— from The Wall Between by Sara Ware Bassett

This letter printed in the Hamburg paper was to explain the snuff-box, which Jacobi had sent to Gleim a few days before, and the desire is also expressed to spread the order.
— from Laurence Sterne in Germany A Contribution to the Study of the Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Eighteenth Century by Harvey W. (Harvey Waterman) Hewett-Thayer

A few days brought him to Stirling; and wishing to remain near the most constant residence of his noble friend, he requested that, instead of being restored to Scone, he might be installed in the vacant monastery of Cambus-Kenneth.
— from The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter

It was supposed to announce a death the morning before it occurred, or, at most, a few days before.
— from Welsh Folk-Lore a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales by Elias Owen

This all pleased Jim very much, and was amusement for Daniel; but at the same time I was decidedly regretting with Mr. Melody that his good fellows the Indians, in their visit to York, should have got their eyes open to so much of the dark side of civilization, which it might have been better for them that they never had seen.
— from Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium; Vol. 2 (of 2) being Notes of Eight Years' Travels and Residence in Europe with his North American Indian Collection by George Catlin

These flowers are packed in baskets or boxes in bunches, a dozen blossoms in each bunch, and four dozen bunches in each basket.
— from A Book of Cornwall by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

The second occasion was a few days before the fatal accident occurred, when one of the Lions bit him slightly on the wrist.
— from The Old Showmen and the Old London Fairs by Thomas Frost