" This second message was only a very earnest request to Doctor Mosgrave to pay an immediate visit to Audley Court on a matter of serious moment.
— from Lady Audley's Secret by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

I heard from Portsmouth yesterday, and as I am to send them more clothes, they cannot be expecting a very early return to us.
— from The Letters of Jane Austen Selected from the compilation of her great nephew, Edward, Lord Bradbourne by Jane Austen

Captain Wentworth made a very early return to Mr Musgrove's civility, and she was all but calling there in the same half hour.
— from Persuasion by Jane Austen

Cut your stripes diagonally, across the web of the stuff, and very even; run them together, lay the cord or bobbin along the stripe, on the wrong side, 5 m/m. from the edge, fold the edge over, and tack the cord lightly in.
— from Encyclopedia of Needlework by Thérèse de Dillmont

'For what am I summoned hither?' said the Daemon, in a voice which sulphurous fogs had damped to hoarseness— At the sound Nature seemed to tremble: A violent earthquake rocked the ground, accompanied by a fresh burst of Thunder, louder and more appalling than the first.
— from The Monk: A Romance by M. G. (Matthew Gregory) Lewis

Under the predecessors of Constantine, No bilissimus was a vague epithet, rather than a legal and determined title.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

“In that case he would have done wrong, and I should not have regretted him,” answered Varenka, evidently realizing that they were now talking not of her, but of Kitty.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

In such a country as ours the responsibilities of the teacher are only equalled by his opportunities; for the child is in his hands during the most impressionable years of life; and those years will have been wasted, and worse than wasted, unless they have fitted the child to face the world with resourcefulness, intelligence, and vital energy, ready to wrest from his environment, by enlarging and otherwise transforming it, those educative influences which are still to be had for the seeking, but are no longer automatically supplied.
— from What Is and What Might Be A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular by Edmond Holmes

The establishment of the house of industry at Munich has been a means of affording very essential relief to many distressed families, and single persons in indigent circumstances, who, otherwise, most probably never would have received any assistance.
— from Essays; Political, Economical, and Philosophical — Volume 1 by Rumford, Benjamin, Graf von

'No, Madame, I will not go with you,' I said, disengaging my hand with a violent effort, receding two or three steps.
— from Uncle Silas: A Tale of Bartram-Haugh by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Branching off from the New Cut, on either side, are numerous narrow streets,—or rather lanes, of a very equivocal reputation; their chief characteristics being houses of ill-fame, gin-shops, beer-shops, marine-store dealers, pawnbrokers, and barbers' establishments.
— from The Mysteries of London, v. 2/4 by George W. M. (George William MacArthur) Reynolds

"It's a very extraordinary revelation that has just been made to us," said Dr Marjoribanks.
— from The Perpetual Curate by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

Now, whilst all these things that I have been trying to say have reference to Christian people at all stages of their spiritual history, they have a very especial reference to those in the earlier part of Christian life.
— from Expositions of Holy Scripture Second Corinthians, Galatians, and Philippians Chapters I to End. Colossians, Thessalonians, and First Timothy. by Alexander Maclaren