There busy at my chamber with Mr. Yeabsly, and then with Mr. Lewes, about public business late, and so to supper and to bed. 17th.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

You know you might fall sick,' said Mr Boffin. 'Don't deny it, Mrs Higden, in your obstinacy; you know you might.' Old Betty laughed, and said that she would take the letter and be thankful.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

His manner was perhaps the more seductive, Because he ne'er seem'd anxious to seduce; Nothing affected, studied, or constructive Of coxcombry or conquest: no abuse Of his attractions marr'd the fair perspective, To indicate a Cupidon broke loose, And seem to say, 'Resist us if you can'- Which makes a dandy while it spoils a man.
— from Don Juan by Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron

I hear that Martha is in better looks and spirits than she has enjoyed for a long time, and I flatter myself she will now be able to jest openly about Mr. W. The spectacles which Molly found are my mother's, the scissors my father's.
— from The Letters of Jane Austen Selected from the compilation of her great nephew, Edward, Lord Bradbourne by Jane Austen

Here and there, on the surface, floated, blushing like a strawberry, the scarlet heart of a lily set in a ring of white petals.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

And this baneful lurking gangrene is most quickly spread by luxury and superstition, the sure dregs of ambition.
— from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects by Mary Wollstonecraft

When I come to Hampton Court I find Sir T. Ingram and Creed ready with papers signed for the putting of Mr. Gawden in, upon a resignation signed to by Lanyon and sent to Sir Thos.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Mr. Beebe laughed and suggested that she should settle the question for herself.
— from A Room with a View by E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster

They’ve all bolted long ago!” said the soldier, laughing for some reason and shaking himself free.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

16 Marcellianus, rules as independent tyrant over Dalmatia, III. vi. 7 ; won over by Leon and sent to Sardinia against the Vandals, III. vi. 8 ; destroyed by treachery, III. vi. 25 Marcellus, commander of auxiliaries, III. xi. 6 ; on the left wing at the battle of Tricamarum, IV. iii. 4 ; commander-in-chief of Roman forces in Numidia, IV. xv.
— from History of the Wars, Books III and IV The Vandalic War by Procopius

‘What the devil beest looking at?’ said the Squire.
— from A Group of Noble Dames by Thomas Hardy

Secreted by two friendly oaks that spread their low boughs over her, Salome had seen his anxious face peering around for the intruder, and when he abandoned the search and disappeared, she smothered a bitter laugh, and strove to stanch the blood that trickled from the gash by binding her handkerchief over it.
— from Vashti; Or, Until Death Us Do Part by Augusta J. (Augusta Jane) Evans

"He wore his hair and beard long, and seemed to stoop badly, or was round-shouldered, but the form otherwise was the same, so were the eyes and shape of the head, and he had a round gold filling the size of a pin's head in one of the front teeth.
— from Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer; Or, The Stranger in Camp by Prentiss Ingraham

Illinois: Enact a Bayne law, and stop the sale of all native wild game, regardless of source, and regardless of the gay revelers of Chicago.
— from Our Vanishing Wild Life: Its Extermination and Preservation by William T. (William Temple) Hornaday