A house in which no one ever dined at home unless there was "company"; a door-bell perpetually ringing; a hall-table showered with square envelopes which were opened in haste, and oblong envelopes which were allowed to gather dust in the depths of a bronze jar; a series of French and English maids giving warning amid a chaos of hurriedly-ransacked wardrobes and dress-closets; an equally changing dynasty of nurses and footmen; quarrels in the pantry, the kitchen and the drawing-room; precipitate trips to Europe, and returns with gorged trunks and days of interminable unpacking; semi-annual discussions as to where the summer should be spent, grey interludes of economy and brilliant reactions of expense—such was the setting of Lily Bart's first memories.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

In the meantime the patient died, and his uncle apostrophized the corpse in these words: "Happy art thou Ben Dama that thy body is pure and thy soul departed in purity, as thou hast not transgressed the words of thy fellow rabbis" (Abodah Zarah, 27.
— from Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ by Aaron Bernstein

No one may cross a race in which a miner is sluicing without going some distance above him, up stream; if he does he incurs a penalty of as much tin sand as the race contains at the moment, payable to the owner of the race.
— from Malay Magic Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula by Walter William Skeat

Wednesday 1804 I went with ten men to a Creek Damed by the Beavers about half way to the Village, with Some Small willow & Bark we mad a Drag and haulted up the Creek, and Cought 318 fish of different kind i'e Peke, Bass, Salmon, perch, red horse, Small Cat, and a kind of perch Called Silverfish, on the Ohio.—I cought a Srimp prosisely of Shape Size & flavour of those about N. Orleans & the lower party of the Mississippi in this Creek which is only the pass or Streight from Beaver Pond to another, is Crouded with large Mustles Verry fat, Ducks, Pliver of different Kinds are on those Ponds as well as on the river in My absence
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

The herb pulegium, when dried and hanging up in a house, blossoms on the very day of the winter solstice, and bladders burst in consequence of their being distended with air 330 .
— from The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 1 (of 6) by the Elder Pliny

Fanny's colour grew deeper and deeper; and her uncle, perceiving that she was embarrassed to a degree that made either speaking or looking up quite impossible, turned away his own eyes, and without any farther pause proceeded in his account of Mr. Crawford's visit.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

He did all he undertook seriously and devotedly.
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

On reaching the settlement, the feathers, still wrapped in the deerskin, are hung up in a small, round hut built for this special purpose near the edge of the dance ground ( detsănûñ′lĭ ) and known as the place “where the feathers are kept,” or feather house.
— from Myths of the Cherokee Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology by James Mooney

She walked out directly, as her uncle recommended, and followed his advice throughout, as far as she could; did check her tears; did earnestly try to compose her spirits and strengthen her mind.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Their wave-scooped basins were set with purple starfish and filled with green and pink anemones, and beaded many deep with mussels of amethyst and jet that glittered in the clear beryl waters; and, above the jeweled basins, like fabled beasts of old, lay the sea-lions, uncouth forms, flippered, reversed in shape, with throats like the caves of Æolus, hollow, hoarse, discordant; and higher up, on every jutting bench and shelf, in every weathered rift, over every jog of the ragged cliffs, to their bladed backs and pointed peaks, swarmed the sea-birds, webfooted, amphibious, [Pg 61] shaped of the waves, with stormy voices given them by the winds that sweep in from the sea.
— from Summer by Dallas Lore Sharp

Did Alexander hang up Aristotle, did he molest him?”
— from Amenities of Literature Consisting of Sketches and Characters of English Literature by Isaac Disraeli

He’s got a passel of dogs; and he und’stands handlin’ ’em.
— from Buff: A Collie, and Other Dog-Stories by Albert Payson Terhune

I at once experience a curious and unbearable feeling of discomfort, a horrible unnerving sensation, as though I were struggling with all my might, against a mysterious and irresistible influence.
— from Afloat (Sur l'eau) by Guy de Maupassant

So we got on very well together; but the third man, the old gentleman in the tight pantaloons, seemed rather distant and haughty, until I slid into the subject of the Duke of Exmoor and his ancestry.
— from The Wisdom of Father Brown by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

The mate’s reply was gasped out rather than spoken, and he turned as pale as death as he uttered the words.
— from The Cruise of the Snowbird: A Story of Arctic Adventure by Gordon Stables

"When were you discharged?" asked his uncle.
— from Luke Walton by Alger, Horatio, Jr.

Mr. Jay (who lives by supplying the newspapers with short paragraphs relating to accidents, offenses, and brief records of remarkable occurrences in general—who is, in short, what they call a penny-a-liner) told his landlord that he had been in the city that day and heard unfavorable rumors on the subject of the joint-stock banks.
— from The Queen of Hearts by Wilkie Collins