Master Bates felt it so; and again said, 'What do you mean?' The Dodger made no reply; but putting his hat on again, and gathering the skirts of his long-tailed coat under his arm, thrust his tongue into his cheek, slapped the bridge of his nose some half-dozen times in a familiar but expressive manner, and turning on his heel, slunk down the court.
— from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

I told him if they continued to think thus meanly of us that they might rely on it that no whitemen would ever come to trade with them or bring them arms and amunition and that if the bulk of his nation still entertained this opinion I still hoped that there were some among them that were not affraid to die, that were men and would go with me and convince themselves of the truth of what I had asscerted.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

At this his interlocutor, smiling mockingly above the bristling bow of his necktie, switched the conversation into French.
— from The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad

This was the beginning of his nature study.
— from Lineage, Life and Labors of José Rizal, Philippine Patriot by Austin Craig

It is true that if they had both been in tears by her side because of her naughtiness, she would not have cared a straw; but now her own forlorn condition somehow helped her to understand their grief at having lost her, and not only a great longing to be back in her comfortable home, but a feeble flutter of genuine love for her parents awoke in her heart as well, and she burst into real tears—soft, mournful tears—very different from those of rage and disappointment to which she was so much used.
— from A Double Story by George MacDonald

The bolt of heaven never strikes the daughters of millionaires; Miss Macrae was indifferent to a wetting, and nobody cared tremulously about Blake.
— from The Disentanglers by Andrew Lang

"But Australia is to be our home now," said Mr. Hume cheerfully.
— from Jean, Our Little Australian Cousin by Mary F. Nixon-Roulet

There is no use of our powers, however free, no use of Reason itself (which must create all its judgements 156 a priori from common sources) which would not give rise to faulty attempts, if every subject had always to begin anew from the rude basis of his natural state, and if others had not preceded him with their attempts.
— from Kant's Critique of Judgement by Immanuel Kant

Unconsciously Patsy had stepped back onto her native sod and her tongue fairly dripped with irony.
— from Seven Miles to Arden by Ruth Sawyer

Curious, too, are the intensifications of foot-consciousness throughout the early years of childhood, whenever children have the exceptional privilege of going barefoot, or have new shoes.
— from Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 Erotic Symbolism; The Mechanism of Detumescence; The Psychic State in Pregnancy by Havelock Ellis