After enjoying our first movements, and being excited into sufficient consistency, he proceeded to fuck dear Ellen; even he had some difficulty in entering, notwithstanding the libations I had previously poured into her, but being once fairly hilted, he declared it was one of the tightest little cunts it had ever been his good fortune to fuck.
— from The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous

The maid Nan is a little apt to drink, if she can get at liquor; and Mrs. Jewkes happened, or designed, as is too probable, to leave a bottle of cherry-brandy in her way, and the wench drank some of it more than she should; and when she came in to lay the cloth, Mrs. Jewkes perceived it, and fell a rating at her most sadly; for she has too many faults of her own, to suffer any of the like sort in any body else, if she can help it; and she bid her get out of her sight, when we had supped, and go to bed, to sleep off her liquor, before we came to bed.
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

She said 'twould have been easier if she could have.
— from Pollyanna by Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter

If I had had breath enough, I should certainly have protested against this indecent way of speaking of an eminent philanthropic character.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

'Twas not my business to question one of my father's customers; but had I been bold enough I should certainly have asked him if 'twas not true, as I do suspect, that he had some part in the death of your uncle; for you must not forget, Master Gilbert, that the matter was never very clearly explained to us.
— from The Golden Galleon Being a Narrative of the Adventures of Master Gilbert Oglander, and of how, in the Year 1591, he fought under the gallant Sir Richard Grenville in the Great Sea-fight off Flores, on board her Majesty's Ship the Revenge by Robert Leighton

Though he obtained the huge majority of affirmative votes to be expected in such cases, he found that these pen-and-ink signatures were no more serviceable than his soldiers.
— from The Hispanic Nations of the New World: A Chronicle of Our Southern Neighbors by William R. (William Robert) Shepherd

Assuming it to be earlier, it still can hardly be carried back beyond the year 800.
— from Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries: Their Age and Uses by James Fergusson

If de mother carries dat child more on de left en high up dat baby will be a boy en if she carries hit more ter de middle dat will be a girl.
— from Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves Kentucky Narratives by United States. Work Projects Administration

She might, of course, as he had originally suggested, sell or at least pawn her telescope, but even if she could have brought herself to that, she could not have got it away from him, for he had annexed it from the first moment and sat peering out of it from the vantage-point of his bedroom lattice.
— from Jinny the Carrier by Israel Zangwill

It would have been easier if she could have set her father down as a mere boor, without refinement or intelligence; but there was one item in her impression of him which she could not reconcile with a want of culture.
— from Brooke's Daughter: A Novel by Adeline Sergeant

As soon as he discovered from my letter that such was the case, he came to give himself up and to clear you; and as he knew little of the means to be employed in such cases, he at first sought me at the hotel where I had ordered the letters to be addressed, and was thence directed to my father's London house.
— from The Convict: A Tale by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

But even in such cases, he deals with objective facts,—which often, in the midst of a bull campaign, behave in a most surprising and disconcerting manner!
— from Social Value: A Study in Economic Theory, Critical and Constructive by Benjamin M. (Benjamin McAlester) Anderson