At present, her magic touch had brought me up to bursting point, she threw a leg over me, and raising her body, said she would help herself this time.
— from The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous

In this way, for two consecutive summers I used to sit in the heat of our Combray garden, sick with a longing inspired by the book I was then reading for a land of mountains and rivers, where I could see an endless vista of sawmills, where beneath the limpid currents fragments of wood lay mouldering in beds of watercress; and nearby, rambling and clustering along low walls, purple flowers and red.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

I early accustomed myself to look for the hand of God in the minutest occurrence, and to learn from it a lesson of morality and religion; and in this light every circumstance I have related was to me of importance.
— from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African Written By Himself by Olaudah Equiano

Numerous ships were put in commission, and letters of marque and reprisal were issued by the Admiralty against Spain.
— from How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves Updated to 1900 by William Henry Giles Kingston

His eye wandered all round the little room with quick uneasy glances, very different from those frank and jovial looks with which he is accustomed to welcome you to a leg of mutton; and Rosa, from the other end of the table, and over the flowers, entree dishes, and wine-coolers, telegraphed him with signals of corresponding alarm.
— from A Little Dinner at Timmins's by William Makepeace Thackeray

Then Lunev looked at the open till—gold and silver coins shone back at him, packets of paper money met his eyes; he trembled with joy, hastily caught a packet, then a second and a third, stuffed them under his shirt, and looked once more anxiously round.
— from Three Men: A Novel by Maksim Gorky

—Take a lump of magnesia, and rub it wet over the spot; let it dry; then brush the powder off, and the spot will disappear.
— from Mrs. Hale's Receipts for the Million Containing Four Thousand Five Hundred and Forty-five Receipts, Facts, Directions, etc. in the Useful, Ornamental, and Domestic Arts by Sarah Josepha Buell Hale

This is not all; increasing the velocity we complete the revolution, and repeat it to the foot of the tower, where I come standing, red with vexation (the idea of a lady of my age rolling down the side of a house), my temperate zone stomach quite upset.
— from Arqtiq: A Study of the Marvels at the North Pole by Anna Adolph

A layer of mud and rubble is sandwiched between the two walls.
— from Armenia, Travels and Studies (Volume 2 of 2) The Turkish Provinces by H. F. B. (Harry Finnis Blosse) Lynch

Philosophers, experimentalists, lawyers, in their several ways, have commonly the reputation of being, at least on moral and religious subjects, hard of belief; because, proceeding in the necessary investigation by the analytical method of verbal inference, they find within its limits no sufficient resources for attaining a conclusion.
— from An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent by John Henry Newman

[50] The correspondent of The Gentleman's Magazine [1792, p. 214] who subscribes himself SCIOLUS furnishes the following supplement:— 'A lady of my acquaintance remembers to have heard her uncle sing those homely stanzas more than forty-five years ago.
— from Life of Johnson, Volume 4 1780-1784 by James Boswell

`Down the hill we rode as hard as we could go, formed in a semicircle behind the larger herd of magnificent antelopes—and, aided by the dogs, with shouts and cries drove them along the stream towards the Gap; as we came near the opening they appeared inclined to halt and turn like sheep about to be driven into the butcher's yard; and it was all we could do to prevent them from bolting past us; but, at length, one made a rush at the opening and, the rest following, they were soon all on the other side of the frontier and inhabitants of New Switzerland.'
— from Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss