The guests without reserved cards should arrive first in order to find good places; then come the reserved seat guests; and lastly, the immediate members of the families, who all have especial places in the front pews held for them.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post

But all that would not have mattered; every one knows what authors’ prefaces are like, though, I may observe, that considering the lack of culture of our audience and the irritability of the back rows, all this may have had an influence.
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

No sooner did the creature find itself at liberty than it made off as fast as its lame legs would take it.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

There, again, lay the illuminated manuscript on a table.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Mr. Bruff did not, at that time, feel himself at liberty to inform me of the motives which had privately influenced Rachel and Godfrey Ablewhite in recalling the marriage promise, on either side.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

At least, that is my opinion.'
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

I determined to stroll home in the purer air by the most roundabout way I could take; to follow the white winding paths across the lonely heath; and to approach London through its most open suburb by striking into the Finchley Road, and so getting back, in the cool of the new morning, by the western side of the Regent's Park.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Scarcely had they time to complete this work before the West Saxons attacked them; and though at the first they seem to have had the best of the battle, they were in the end compelled to retreat, and leave the invaders masters of the field.
— from History of the Anglo-Saxons, from the Earliest Period to the Norman Conquest Second Edition by Thomas Miller

It is evidently erroneous to regard these as organs exclusively employed in opening and shutting the wings, as we see that in the present insect, which does not require them for that purpose, they are larger than in many of the flying earwigs.
— from An Elementary Manual of New Zealand Entomology Being an Introduction to the Study of Our Native Insects by G. V. (George Vernon) Hudson

Your right honorable friend I trust will not be offended if I call him mine—I am sure you will not when I term you such—I have settled it for a long time in my own mind that without a representation in the supreme legislature, there cannot be that union between the head and the members as to produce a healthful constitution of the whole body.
— from Copy of Letters Sent to Great-Britain by His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, the Hon. Andrew Oliver, and Several Other Persons by Thomas Hutchinson

he said, “beyond telling you at least that in my opinion, which after all is only my opinion, it is in joy that you, almost above everyone I know, will ripen and bear fruit.
— from The Angel of Pain by E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson

The fellow was a long time in making out his position, fixing his eyes upon every face one after the other; but at last, not judging it advisable to get up in the midst of such a grand company, he reburied himself in his bed, and closed the curtains.
— from Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency — Complete by Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de

Only instead of being made of one flat piece of wood, a large toboggan is made of several strips fastened together so it will not so easily break.
— from The Curlytops and Their Playmates; Or, Jolly Times Through the Holidays by Howard Roger Garis

Piccolomini now drew up three hundred of his Italians, picked veterans all, and led them in marching order to Mansfeld.
— from History of the United Netherlands from the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce — Complete (1584-86) by John Lothrop Motley

Time and rest will effect a perfect cure; at least, that is my opinion.”
— from Daddy's Girl by L. T. Meade

Both streams run from west to east across the plain of Damascus, which owes to them much of its fertility, and lose themselves in marshes, or lakes, as they are called, on the borders of the great Arabian desert.
— from The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia Volume 1 of 28 by Project Gutenberg