of the guard reported the absence of our Indian Canoe, on enquiry we found that those who came in it last evening had been negligent in securing her and the tide in the course of the night had taken her off; we sent a party down to the bay in surch of her, they returned unsuccessfull, the party also who went up the river and Creek in quest of the meat were ordered to lookout for her but were equally unsuccessfull; we ordered a party to resume their resurches for her early tomorrow; this will be a very considerable loss to us if we do not recover her; she is so light that four men can carry her on their sholders a mile or more without resting; and will carry three men and from 12 to 15 hundred lbs.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

Pao Ch'in also and a few other waiting-maids, whom the Chia consort had originally taken along with her into the palace, knocked their heads before dowager lady Chia, but her ladyship lost no time in raising them up, and in bidding them go into a separate suite of rooms to be entertained; and as for the retainers, eunuchs as well as maids-of-honour, ladies-in-waiting and every attendant, there were needless to say, those in the two places, the Ning mansion and Chia She's residence, to wait upon them; there only remained three or four young eunuchs to answer the summons.
— from Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel, Book I by Xueqin Cao

The City clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already—it had not been light all day—and candles were flaring in [Pg 7] the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air.
— from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

No hands but hers must touch and garnish those little limbs; no dress or frill must touch them that had not wearied her fingers; no voice but hers could coax him off to Dreamland, and she and he together spoke some soft and unknown tongue and in it held communion.
— from The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois

I thought it was the office reeling, and not I, as one of the clerks caught hold of me.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Of course, Winnie was independent, and need not care for the opinion of people that she would never see and who would never see her; whereas poor Stevie had nothing in the world he could call his own except his mother’s heroism and unscrupulousness.
— from The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad

I never certainly could hear of its sitting in my time at Pumpernickel.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

A fat unwieldy king, who perceived his subjects approaching with this intention, while he chanced to be taking his walks abroad, has been sometimes seen to waddle as fast as his legs could carry him out of their way, in order to escape the importunate and not wholly disinterested expression of their homage.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

Neither a religious sense of a certain moral validity in the previous union nor a conscientious wish for candour could hold out against it much longer.
— from Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy

Even the fleeting and incapable Aerschot was obliged to simulate adhesion; even the brave Champagny, cordial hater of Spaniards, but most devotedly Catholic, "the chiefest man of wysedome and stomach at that tyme in Brussels," so envoy Wilson wrote to Burghley, had become "Brabantized," as his brother Granvelle expressed himself, and was one of the commissioners to invite the great rebel to Brussels.
— from The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Complete (1574-84) by John Lothrop Motley

Nevertheless I will certainly call him out here to the light.
— from The Clouds by Aristophanes

But Mr. Gibney was not to be deceived, and after furnishing them with a supply of water in cocoanut calabashes, he ordered them to their own side of the island.
— from Captain Scraggs; Or, The Green-Pea Pirates by Peter B. (Peter Bernard) Kyne

She beckoned Tom to follow her, and they were presently in the little room which she could call her own.
— from Miser Farebrother: A Novel (vol. 1 of 3) by B. L. (Benjamin Leopold) Farjeon

Coquenard was not less affected by it on her part, for she added, “My cousin will not return if he finds that we do not treat him kindly; but otherwise he has so little time to pass in Paris, and consequently to spare to us, that we must entreat him to give us every instant he can call his own previous to his departure.”
— from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

Rollo, the celebrated Danish hero, (whose stature is said to have been so gigantic, that no horse could carry him) on becoming a feudatory of the French crown, was required, in conformity with general usage, to kiss the foot of his superior lord; but he refused to stoop to what he considered so great a degradation; yet as the homage could not be dispensed with, he ordered one of his warriors to perform it for him.
— from The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 12, No. 328, August 23, 1828 by Various

The other and more scientific methods of extracting the precious metal from its matrices, such as lixiviation or leaching, by means of solvents (chlorine, cyanogen, hyposulphite of soda, etc.), will be more fully described later on.
— from Getting Gold: A Practical Treatise for Prospectors, Miners and Students by J. C. F. (Joseph Colin Francis) Johnson

Chandler could help only up to a point, and then two execs, working through the bodies of one of the Hawaiians and the pilot of a Piper Tri-Pacer who had flown in some last-minute test equipment—and remained as part of the labor pool—laboriously worked on the final tests.
— from Plague of Pythons by Frederik Pohl

Colonel Carroll had only twenty-five men left, with Captain Quarles in direct command, but he stood firm and held his ground like a soldier.
— from Red Eagle and the Wars With the Creek Indians of Alabama. by George Cary Eggleston