they're made o' purpose for folks as want to send out a little carguy; light, an' take up no room,–you may pack twenty pound so as you can't see the passill; an' they're manifacturs as please fools, so I reckon they aren't like to want a market.
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

E io: <a lor, che lamentar li fa si` forte?
— from Divina Commedia di Dante: Inferno by Dante Alighieri

We don’t manage well, somehow.” “Oh, it’s all right,” he said with a little cough, looking at her from under his brows.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

The Danish king now ruled only over a land consisting largely [Pg 382] of moor, marsh, and dunes, apparently worthless for any purpose.
— from How it Works Dealing in simple language with steam, electricity, light, heat, sound, hydraulics, optics, etc., and with their applications to apparatus in common use by Archibald Williams

As far as Lily could learn, this had hitherto been Mr. Gryce's only occupation, and she might have been pardoned for thinking it not too hard a task to interest a young man who had been kept on such low diet.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Kealakekua Bay is a little curve like the last kink of a snail-shell, winding deep into the land, seemingly not more than a mile wide from shore to shore.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

Victor's poetry became remarkable in La Muse Française and Le Conservateur Littéraire , the odes being permeated with Legitimist and anti-revolutionary sentiments delightful to the taste of Madam Hugo, member as she was of the courtly Order of the Royal Lily.
— from Poems by Victor Hugo

Then suddenly a little cry like the mewing of a cat was heard throughout the silent house.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

This moving scene was completed by the entrance of Grieve himself, who falling on his knees before the count, ‘Behold (said he) a penitent, who at length can look upon his patron without shrinking.’
— from The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. (Tobias) Smollett

The canoe was at last carefully lifted into the water; Alick took the steering-oar, and each of us three a paddle.
— from Snow Shoes and Canoes Or, The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory by William Henry Giles Kingston

With tremendous force he descended with his head upon the bar of the grate, and thence to the hearthstone; there, breathless, powerless, and to all outward seeming a livid corpse, lay the devil's cast-off servant, the red blood trickling fast from ears, nose, and mouth.
— from The Cock and Anchor by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

He drank it gratefully, then settled back in his chair with a little contented laugh.
— from Highacres by Jane Abbott

A lizard crawls lazily up the whitewashed wall.
— from Fairy Tales from Brazil: How and Why Tales from Brazilian Folk-Lore by Elsie Spicer Eells

The value of training for the man or woman who shall take charge of a large city library is now so firmly established that no one thinks of discussing the question.
— from A Library Primer by John Cotton Dana

To which that poor young lady, having her face overspread with blushes and confusion, answered, in a stammering voice, “I am sure, madam, I shall always think the honour of your ladyship's company——” “I hope, at least,” cries Lady Bellaston, “I interrupt no business.”—“No, madam,” answered Sophia, “our business was at an end.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

But when I got to shore pap wasn’t in sight yet, and as I was running her into a little creek like a gully, all hung over with vines and willows, I struck another idea: I judged I’d hide her good, and then, ’stead of taking to the woods when I run off, I’d go down the river about fifty mile and camp in one place for good, and not have such a rough time tramping on foot.
— from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain