It seemed a little harsh and rough at first; but already custom, by the authority of his Plutarch, has overcome that novelty.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

They had no sooner arrived at this point, than a most violent and startling knocking was heard at the door; it was not an ordinary double-knock, but a constant and uninterrupted succession of the loudest single raps, as if the knocker were endowed with the perpetual motion, or the person outside had forgotten to leave off.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

Rilla remembered Jem's admiration of the curve of Miss Oliver's brow and chin, and she shuddered.
— from Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

I found him sitting in a snug corner of the hall, consulting his memorandum book, and curling up viciously at the corners of the lips.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Let us go on: Mrs. Wadman sat in expectation my uncle Toby would do so, to almost the first pulsation of that minute, wherein silence on one side or the other, generally becomes indecent: so edging herself a little more towards him, and raising up her eyes, sub blushing, as she did it——she took up the gauntlet——or the discourse (if you like it better) and communed with my uncle Toby, thus: The cares and disquietudes of the marriage state, quoth Mrs. Wadman, are very great.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Benjamin F. Butler presented an able and exhaustive minority report which closed with the following declaration: "Therefore, because the fine has been imposed by a court of the United States for an offense triable by jury, without the same being submitted to the jury, and because the court assumed to itself the right to enter a verdict without submitting the case to the jury, and in order that the judgment of the House of Representatives, if it concur with the judgment of the committee, may, in the most signal and impressive form, mark its determination to sustain in its integrity the common law right of trial by jury, your committee recommend that the prayer of the petitioner be granted.
— from The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years by Ida Husted Harper

You have been always called a merciful man, partner. DOGBERRY.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

The Infantry Brigade , also, can detach Battalions equally self-contained; and the Artillery Brigade can allot a Section of its Ammunition Column to any Battery which it may be desirable to detach.
— from Organization: How Armies are Formed for War by Hubert Foster

Doctor Don Francisco La Sande, born at Caceres in Estremadura, and Oidor of Mexico, took possession of this government on the 24th of August 1575.
— from An Historical View of the Philippine Islands, Vol 1 (of 2) Exhibiting their discovery, population, language, government, manners, customs, productions and commerce. by Joaquín Martínez de Zúñiga

Mr. E. G. Schmitt was at that time the American vice-consul at Santiago, and he lost no time in demanding that he should be allowed to see the prisoners, in order to obtain from them information which should enable him to protect those who might be American citizens, and also whatever rights the ship should chance to have.
— from Cuba: Its Past, Present, and Future by A. D. (Arthur D.) Hall

She heard her name paged by a corridor-crier and was called to the telephone, where her husband's voice told her that there was a big upset at the office and he dared not leave.
— from We Can't Have Everything: A Novel by Rupert Hughes

At least I don't know about merry exactly, but all comfortable.
— from The Trial of William Tinkling Written by Himself at the Age of 8 Years by Charles Dickens

I had got her into the boat—a good boat, a capital boat—but getting in myself, we overturned.
— from Complete Short Works of George Meredith by George Meredith

So that each ovum when impregnate should be considered not as descended from its ancestors, but as being a continuation of the personality of every ovum in the chain of its ancestry, which every ovum it actually is quite as truly as the octogenarian is the same identity with the ovum from which he has been developed.
— from Life and Habit by Samuel Butler

The western part of Ecuador is traversed from north to south by a chain of the Andes, forming a double ridge of colossal summits; the valley between which, constitutes a table-land of about twenty-five miles in width, and from nine thousand to nine thousand five hundred feet in height.
— from Great Events in the History of North and South America by Charles A. (Charles Augustus) Goodrich