The dog crouched low and poised; Peter slipped in and around feeling for a light-switch.
— from History Repeats by George O. (George Oliver) Smith

I hop out of the carriage like a parched pea, scorning equally the step and Frank's hand extended to help me.
— from Nancy: A Novel by Rhoda Broughton

I believe, then, that what seems to the criminal lawyers and passionate philanthropists self-evident, is in truth an illusion, springing from a very shallow kind of impatience, heated in some of them by the addition of a cynical contempt for human nature and the worth of human existence.
— from On Compromise by John Morley

When a Catholic becomes clay, let a priest perform such ceremonies as his creed demands, and let him picture the delights of purgatory for the gratification of the living.
— from The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents Dresden Edition—Twelve Volumes by Robert Green Ingersoll

Then Shack came in a little, chose a place where [Pg 173] there was a small gap, the trio "hit her up," and went through the crowd like a particularly powerful snow-plough.
— from At Start and Finish by William Lindsey

During the Commonwealth Levisham and Pickering parishes seem to have been joined from 1653 to 1661.
— from The Evolution of an English Town by Gordon Home

In its modern Page 309 application, however, this generic term has its subdivisions, and includes les choristes proper, who boast musical attainments, and are obedient to the rule of a chef d'attaque , or head chorister; les accessoires , performers permitted speech of a brief kind, who can be entrusted upon occasion with such simple functions as opening a door, placing a chair, or delivering a letter, and who correspond in many respects with our actors of utility; les figurants , the subordinate dancers led by a coryphée ; and lastly, les comparses , who closely resemble our supernumeraries, and are engaged in more or less numbers, according to the exigencies of there presentation.
— from A Book of the Play Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character by Dutton Cook

“Ye can't bring him up on sugar and crackers, like a Polly,” persisted Sam.
— from Openings in the Old Trail by Bret Harte