This was he who came to my very bed, and looked about lest any one should lay snares for me!
— from The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Flavius Josephus

He is, we shall suppose, my son or brother, or is united to me by a long and familiar acquaintance.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

Afraid to be alone like a child of two.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

The administration of Valerian was distinguished by a levity and inconstancy ill suited to the gravity of the Roman Censor .
— 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

My mind had become so completely possessed by the imaginary scenes and characters connected with it that I seemed to be actually living among them.
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving

That the negro, José, eighteen years old, and in the personal service of Don Alexandro, was the one who communicated the information to the negro Babo, about the state of things in the cabin, before the revolt; that this is known, because, in the preceding midnight, he use to come from his berth, which was under his master's, in the cabin, to the deck where the ringleader and his associates were, and had secret conversations with the negro Babo, in which he was several times seen by the mate; that, one night, the mate drove him away twice; * * that this same negro José was the one who, without being commanded to do so by the negro Babo, as Lecbe and Martinqui [pg 260] were, stabbed his master, Don Alexandro, after he had been dragged half-lifeless to the deck; * * that the mulatto steward, Francesco, was of the first band of revolters, that he was, in all things, the creature and tool of the negro Babo; that, to make his court, he, just before a repast in the cabin, proposed, to the negro Babo, poisoning a dish for the generous Captain Amasa Delano; this is known and believed, because the negroes have said it; but that the negro Babo, having another design, forbade Francesco; * * that the Ashantee Lecbe was one of the worst of them; for that, on the day the ship was retaken, he assisted in the defense of her, with a hatchet in each hand, with one of which he wounded, in the breast, the chief mate of Amasa Delano, in the first act of boarding; this all knew; that, in sight of the deponent, Lecbe struck, with a hatchet, Don Francisco Masa, when, by the negro Babo's orders, he was carrying him to throw him overboard, alive, beside participating in the murder, before mentioned, of Don Alexandro Aranda, and others of the cabin-passengers; that, owing to the fury with which the Ashantees fought in the engagement with the boats, but this Lecbe and Yan survived; that Yan was bad as Lecbe; that Yan was the man who, by Babo's command, willingly prepared the skeleton of Don Alexandro, in a way the negroes afterwards told the deponent, but which he, so long as reason is left him, can never divulge; that Yan and Lecbe were the two who, in a calm by night, riveted the skeleton to the bow; this also the negroes told him; that the negro Babo was he who traced the inscription below it; that the negro Babo was the plotter from first to last; he ordered every murder, and was the helm and keel of the revolt; that Atufal was his lieutenant in all; but Atufal, with his own hand, committed no murder; nor did the negro Babo; * * that Atufal was shot, being killed in the fight with the boats, ere boarding; * * that the negresses, of age, were knowing to the revolt, and testified themselves satisfied at the death [pg 261] of their master, Don Alexandro; that, had the negroes not restrained them, they would have tortured to death, instead of simply killing, the Spaniards slain by command of the negro Babo; that the negresses used their utmost influence to have the deponent made away with; that, in the various acts of murder, they sang songs and danced—not gaily, but solemnly; and before the engagement with the boats, as well as during the action, they sang melancholy songs to the negroes, and that this melancholy tone was more inflaming than a different one would have been, and was so intended; that all this is believed, because the negroes have said it.—that of the thirty-six men of the crew, exclusive of the passengers (all of whom are now dead), which the deponent had knowledge of, six only remained alive, with four cabin-boys and ship-boys, not included with the crew; * *—that the negroes broke an arm of one of the cabin-boys and gave him strokes with hatchets.
— from The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville

Nor did she do otherwise than as she had promised, but left in his bed chamber a very beautiful daughter and her brother, a lad, and pretended that she herself was compelled to go out to a temple to offer up her vows.
— from The Satyricon — Complete by Petronius Arbiter

The lecture, occupying an entire evening, was given before a large audience in Rand's Hall, Troy, and cordially received.
— 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

But as long as selection is rapidly going on, there may always be expected to be much variability in the structure undergoing modification.
— from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin

"B'jiminey, we're generaled by a lot 'a lunkheads.
— from The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War by Stephen Crane

They came ambling and stumbling, tumbling and capering, kilting their gowns for leap frog, holding one another back, shaken with deep false laughter, smacking one another behind and laughing at their rude malice, calling to one another by familiar nicknames, protesting with sudden dignity at some rough usage, whispering two and two behind their hands.
— from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

" We kept walkin on, an' havin soa mich to luk at, we went a long way withaat callin, but at last aw sed, "Wod ta like a plain sooart ov a shop or mun we goa to a showy spot?" "Aw care nowt abaat it whether its plain or net if ther's summat fit to feed a true born Englishman throo Yorksher, but tha'll ha thi wark set to find a place here'at isnt showy—in fact as far as aw can judge, it's moor show nor owt else
— from Seets i' Paris Sammywell Grimes's trip with his old chum Billy Baccus, his opinion o' th' French, and th' French opinion o' th' exhibition he made ov hissen by John Hartley

They come to you so quietly and so gently, and sit by your bed and look at you, and their faces shine like the moon and their eyes like stars, and their thoughts are prayers and their smiles God's blessing.
— from The Youth of the Great Elector by L. (Luise) Mühlbach

[“Who is surprised to see a swollen goitre in the Alps?” —Juvenal, xiii. 162.] than I regret that my duration shall not be as long and entire as that of an oak.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Moreover, we had been so accustomed to discover creatures that were new to us, both at land and at sea, that we did not think this to be any other than an odd sort of eel that we never had seen before, yet which we could not but think more resembled a snake than an eel.
— from Mythical Monsters by Charles Gould

Thaine leaned back in his buggy and looked at Leigh with the same impenetrable expression on his countenance that was always there when she was present.
— from Winning the Wilderness by Margaret Hill McCarter

Colonel Mannheim blinked and looked at the ceiling.
— from Anything You Can Do ... by Randall Garrett

The dissyllable termination, which the critick rightly appropriates to the drama, is to be found, though, I think, not in Gorboduc, which is confessedly before our author; yet in Hieronymo[17] of which the date is not certain, but which there is reason to believe, at least, as old as his earliest plays.
— from The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes, Volume 05 Miscellaneous Pieces by Samuel Johnson

As the boys entered the store the cat raised its back, its tail became as large as a rolling pin, and the cat began to spit, while the old groceryman held up both hands and said: IMG “Don't shoot, please, but one of you go behind the counter and take what there is in the cash drawer, while the other one can reach into my pistol pocket and release my pocketbook.
— from Peck's Bad Boy Abroad Being a Humorous Description of the Bad Boy and His Dad in Their Journeys Through Foreign Lands - 1904 by George W. (George Wilbur) Peck