When the truth-telling accents of the elderly gentleman were hushed, I drew a long breath and looked round the room, striving with the best energy of my imagination to throw a tinge of romance and historic grandeur over the realities of the scene.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

I was the first man that jumped on the deck; and, looking from the shrouds onward, according to my dream, I descried a little boat at some distance; but, as the waves were high, it was as much as we could do sometimes to discern her; we however stopped the ship's way, and the boat, which was extremely small, came alongside with eleven miserable men, whom we took on board immediately.
— from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African Written By Himself by Olaudah Equiano

So out to the ‘Change, and did a little business, and then home, where they two musicians and Mr. Cooke come to see me, and Mercer to go along with my wife this afternoon to a play.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Mr Sampson at length released from the custody of Mrs Wilfer's eye, now drew a long breath, and made the original and striking remark that there was no accounting for these sort of presentiments.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

She drew a long breath and flung her head up proudly, courage and determination tingling over her like an electric shock.
— from Anne of Green Gables by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

At nightfall we went to the ball, at which the fandango might be danced ad libitum by a special privilege, but the crowd was so great that dancing was out of the question.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

So to my office and did a little business, and then to my aunt Wight’s to fetch my wife home, where Dr. Burnett did tell me how poorly the sheriffs did endeavour to get one jewell returned by Turner, after he was convicted, as a due to them, and not to give it to Mr. Tryan, the true owner, but ruled against them, to their great dishonour.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Took boat and down to Greenwich, Cocke and I, he home and I to the office, where did a little business, and then to my lodgings, where my wife is come, and I am well pleased with it, only much trouble in those lodgings we have, the mistresse of the house being so deadly dear in everything we have; so that we do resolve to remove home soon as we know how the plague goes this weeke, which we hope will be a good decrease.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

With the property that I have in the city let Lycon pay all the people of whom I have borrowed anything since his departure; and let Bulon and Callinus join him in this, and also in discharging all the expenses incurred for my funeral, and for all other customary solemnities, and let him deduct the amount from the funds which I have left in my house, and bequeathed to them both in common.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

Thence walked to my wife, and so set out for home in our coach, it being very cold weather, and so to the office to do a little business, and then home to my wife’s chamber, my people having laid the cloth, and got the rooms all clean above-stairs to-night for our dinner to-morrow, and therefore I to bed. 9th.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

And, in the quiet of a hospital room, Walter Harkness, drew a long breath and whispered: "Schwartzmann!
— from Astounding Stories, August, 1931 by Various

Presently I discerned a ledge bottom and the side against the hill was also ledge.
— from The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit by Ralph Waldo Trine

Dorothy drew a long breath, as though she had done away with wavering, and was now resolved to speak.
— from From Kingdom to Colony by Mary Devereux

In Arabia Petraea, when a wind, powerful enough to scour down below the ordinary surface of the desert and lay bare a fresh bed of stones, is followed by a sudden burst of sunshine, the dark agate pebbles are often cracked and broken by the heat; and this is the true explanation of the occurrence of the fragments in situations where the action of fire is not probable.
— from The Earth as Modified by Human Action by George P. (George Perkins) Marsh

Jumper drew a long breath and settled his long hind feet for a great jump, hoping to so take Whitey the Owl by surprise that he might be able to get away.
— from Whitefoot the Wood Mouse by Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo) Burgess

In the strength imparted by this consciousness, she drew a long breath, and called for help.
— from Jessamine: A Novel by Marion Harland

The other drew a long breath, and a smile rested on his lips.
— from A Romany of the Snows, vol. 3 Being a Continuation of the Personal Histories of "Pierre and His People" and the Last Existing Records of Pretty Pierre by Gilbert Parker

Ted rested a sunburnt hand on each of his knees, drew a long breath, and remarked fervently— "Ye mun be wonderful house-proud, Miss Heptonstall.
— from North, South and Over the Sea by M. E. Francis

To make Johnson call a doer ‘a ligneous barricado,’ and its knocker and bell its ‘frappant and tintinnabulant appendages,’ is neither just nor humorous; and we are surprised that a writer who has given such extraordinary proofs of his talent for finer ridicule and fairer imitation, should have stooped to a vein of pleasantry so low, and so long ago exhausted; especially as, in other passages of the same piece, he has shown how well qualified he was both to catch and to render the true characteristics of his original.
— from Rejected Addresses; Or, The New Theatrum Poetarum by Horace Smith