" It was so simple that it was told in five minutes, and then Lady Audley retired into her bed-room, and curled herself up cozily under the eider-down quilt.
— from Lady Audley's Secret by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

His closing exclamation is jerked out of the venerable gentleman by the suddenness with which Mr. Squod, like a genie, catches him up, chair and all, and deposits him on the hearth-stone.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

"That is not sitting," she said, and tried to curl herself up cross-legged; "I can't dangle down my legs."
— from Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe by Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge

But, fortunately, Madame Duval has received very little encouragement to proceed in her design; for she has been informed, that, as she neither heard the voice, nor saw the face of the person suspected, she will find difficulty to cast him upon conjecture, and will have but little probability of gaining her cause, unless she can procure witnesses of the transaction.
— from Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

I bounded towards it, and ere thought could either prompt or check, I had caught Arowhena to my heart and covered her unresisting cheek with kisses.
— from Erewhon; Or, Over the Range by Samuel Butler

I -STEMS a. Masculines and Feminines caedēs , f., slaughter hostis , m., enemy urbs , f., city cliēns , m., retainer Stems caedi- hosti- urbi- clienti- Bases
— from Latin for Beginners by Benjamin L. (Benjamin Leonard) D'Ooge

I was just locking my door when Cecilia, half undressed, came in to say that Bellino begged me to take him to Rimini, where he was engaged to sing in an opera to be performed after Easter.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

The corporal had unwarily conjured up the Spirit of calculation with his wand; and he had nothing to do, but to conjure him down again with his story, and in this form of Exorcism, most un-ecclesiastically did the corporal do it.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Her incapacity to recognise change made her children conceal their views from her as Archer concealed his; there had been, from the first, a joint pretence of sameness, a kind of innocent family hypocrisy, in which father and children had unconsciously collaborated.
— from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Although the progress of civilization has undoubtedly contributed to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have been less favorable to the virtue of chastity, whose most dangerous enemy is the softness of the mind.
— 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

254 For various reasons the road was not constructed, but Congress was several times memorialized to take the desired action 255 and in 1844 the Senate Committee on Roads and Canals, having under consideration a bill to extend the highway to Alton, made a favorable recommendation and pointed out the fact that the consent of the states affected was a necessary preliminary before actual construction could begin.
— from The postal power of Congress: A study in constitutional expansion by Lindsay Rogers

this old woman seems so sure that she can hold us captive.
— from Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies; Or, The Missing Pearl Necklace by Alice B. Emerson

In attempting to explain or account for them it is useless to take refuge in the hazy definitions of the old psychologists, or to imagine that the secret is bound up in the vital processes which occupy the biologist and physiologist, interesting and important as those studies are; even the neurologist can help us comparatively little—he can tell us all about diseases of the nervous system and how they manifest themselves, and his labor has earned for him the gratitude of mankind; but he cannot tell us how thinking is accomplished, nor what thought is; he cannot tell the cause of so normal and easily observed a phenomenon as ordinary sleep, much less of the new faculties which are developed in somnambulism.
— from Telepathy and the Subliminal Self by R. Osgood (Rufus Osgood) Mason

The latter, whom the Emperor had threatened to divorce, having won over to her side a considerable portion of the army, had compelled her unpopular consort to sign an act of abdication in 1762.
— from The Prose Tales of Alexander Pushkin by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

Caroline "was glad to see them" (an unmitigated fib), hoped they were well, hoped Mrs. Sykes's cough was better (Mrs. Sykes had had a cough for the last twenty years), hoped the Misses Sykes had left their sisters at home well; to which inquiry the Misses Sykes, sitting on three chairs opposite the music-stool, whereon Caroline had undesignedly come to anchor, after wavering for some seconds between it and a large arm-chair, into which she at length recollected she ought to induct Mrs. Sykes—and indeed that lady saved her the trouble by depositing herself therein—the Misses Sykes replied to Caroline by one simultaneous bow, very majestic and mighty awful.
— from Shirley by Charlotte Brontë

Esmeralda threw herself upon the dainty couch, and Barker “covered her up” carefully; but as soon as she had left the room, Esmeralda threw the things off, and rose and paced to and fro like a caged wild animal.
— from Just a Girl by Charles Garvice

"Providing he does not nightly change his quarters like Oliver Cromwell—not so much to avoid enemies, as to calm his uneasy conscience." "Well, we shall be no worse than before; we shall have tried to restore our wonted quietude, and, if we fail, we can say, like Francis I. at Pavia, ' All is lost except our honor .'"
— from Willis the Pilot : A Sequel to the Swiss Family Robinson Or, Adventures of an Emigrant Family Wrecked on an Unknown Coast of the Pacific Ocean by Adrien Paul

It was a consolation to Corona to reflect upon the extreme improbability of the story; for when the diplomatist was gone, her husband dwelt upon it—whether because he could not conceal his unsatisfied curiosity, or from other motives, it was hard to tell.
— from Saracinesca by F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford

Come, His universe, Come, crown me Him a king!
— from Religious Poems, Selected by Various

At the château he usually came to my bedroom an hour before dinner to set out my evening dress, and was pretty sure, when this was done, to put his head in my little salon and ask if I needed anything.
— from The Adventures of François Foundling, Thief, Juggler, and Fencing-Master during the French Revolution by S. Weir (Silas Weir) Mitchell