—Well, says the citizen, what’s the latest from the scene of action? What did those tinkers in the city hall at their caucus meeting decide about the Irish language? O’Nolan, clad in shining armour, low bending made obeisance to the puissant and high and mighty chief of all Erin and did him to wit of that which had befallen, how that the grave elders of the most obedient city, second of the realm, had met them in the tholsel, and there, after due prayers to the gods who dwell in ether supernal, had taken solemn counsel whereby they might, if so be it might be, bring once more into honour among mortal men the winged speech of the seadivided Gael.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

Their ears were astonished by the harsh and unknown sounds of the Germanic dialect, and they ingeniously lamented that the trembling muses fled from the harmony of a Burgundian lyre.
— 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

So the Court broke up, and my father and Mr. Shepley and I to Gorrum’s to drink, and then I left them, and to the Bull, where my uncle was to hear what he and the people said of our business, and here nothing but what liked me very well.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

'We have not so much dust as that in London,' replied Fagin, pointing from Noah's shoes to those of his companion, and from them to the two bundles.
— from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

But the real remained,—the real , like the flat, bare, oozy tide-mud, when the blue sparkling wave, with all its company of gliding boats and white-winged ships, its music of oars and chiming waters, has gone down, and there it lies, flat, slimy, bare,—exceedingly real.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

But I say Toby, when one runs over the catalogue of all the cross-reckonings and sorrowful Items with which the heart of man is overcharged, 'tis wonderful by what hidden resources the mind is enabled to stand out, and bear itself up, as it does, against the impositions laid upon our nature.—'Tis by the assistance of Almighty God, cried my uncle Toby, looking up, and pressing the palms of his hands close together—'tis not from our own strength, brother Shandy—a centinel in a wooden centry-box might as well pretend to stand it out against a detachment of fifty men.—We are upheld by the grace and the assistance of the best of Beings.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

He may linger a few hours, but will not live out the day, and there is little chance of his again recovering consciousness.
— from Through the Fray: A Tale of the Luddite Riots by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

"I take it they are in the safe in his bedroom," replied the detective, "and that is locked all right.
— from The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer

The king was naturally displeased at this insolent language towards one of his servants, a man who has filled an eminent station, and done services, for a suggestion intended to benefit the revenue.
— from Constitutional History of England, Henry VII to George II. Volume 2 of 3 by Henry Hallam

Toby Clark’s arrest was a huge sensation in Riverdale for a day, and then it lost its novelty.
— from Phoebe Daring: A Story for Young Folk by L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

For then, and not till then, did I discover, to my sorrow, that a rugged portion of a rock projected over the entrance to the aperture to which I wished to descend, and that, in leaping, I [222] would require to go beyond it in order to reach the landing underneath.
— from Life of a Scotch Naturalist: Thomas Edward, Associate of the Linnean Society. Fourth Edition by Samuel Smiles