At last moved to have Lord Bruncker desired to return, which he did, and I read the petty warrants all the day till late at night, that I was very weary, and troubled to have my private business of my office stopped to attend this, but mightily pleased at this falling out, and the truth is [Sir] W. Pen do make so much noise in this business of his, and do it so little and so ill, that I think the King will be little the better by changing the hand.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

‘What do you say, Daisy?’ inquired Steerforth, laughing, and resigning his seat.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Such dangers as on seas are often seen, And oft befall to miserable men, Or come, your shipping in our ports to lay, Spent and disabled in so long a way?
— from The Aeneid by Virgil

“This is the declaration day; I shall lose again.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

harp on the same string; drag its slow length along, drag its weary length along.
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget

V. be long &c. adj.; stretch out, sprawl; extend to, reach to, stretch to; make a long arm, "drag its slow length along."
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget

To the Assembly nevertheless he went, as if in spite of Destiny itself; spoke, loud and eager, five several times; then quitted the Tribune—for ever.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

After a time Klaus said, “Did it sound like any of your men?
— from Second Variety by Philip K. Dick

If there be no end to avarice and ambition, there is doubtless no more in desire; it still lives after satiety; and ‘tis impossible to prescribe either constant satisfaction or end; it ever goes beyond its possession.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Heurnius: datur in sero lactis, aut vino.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

We rode on—the diabolical instrument squealing louder and louder—until the path ended in a cleared space amidst the brushwood, with a small one-story wattled house in the centre, having a little piazza in front, with a yard or two at each end, shut in with wooden blinds, sadly bleached by the weather.
— from The Cruise of the Midge (Vol. 2 of 2) by Michael Scott

After so long a passage, with our port almost in sight, and our voyage nearly ended, to be compelled to remain longer in our close prison, and creep like a "Wounded snake, dragging its slow length along," winding, day after day, through the sinuosities of this sluggish Mississippi, was enough to make us ship-wearied wretches verily, "To weep our spirits from our eyes."
— from The South-West, by a Yankee. In Two Volumes. Volume 1 by J. H. (Joseph Holt) Ingraham

When we drop it, so long as we drop it for what it is worth, which is nothing in the case of the spade in question, we have dropped it entirely.
— from As a Matter of Course by Annie Payson Call

he said; "I will never do it so long as breath is in my body."
— from Beacon Lights of History, Volume 3 part 1: The Middle Ages by John Lord

But the gloomy, anxious day dragged its slow length along with nothing more momentous than fitful bursts of bickering, spiteful firing, breaking out from time to time on different parts of the long line, where the men's nerves got wrought up to the point where they had to do something to get the relief of action.
— from Si Klegg, Book 2 Thru the Stone River Campaign and in Winter Quarters at Murfreesboro by John McElroy

An almost continuous string of Washoeites stretched "like a great snake dragging its slow length along" as far as the eye could reach.
— from Crusoe's Island: A Ramble in the Footsteps of Alexander Selkirk With Sketches of Adventure in California and Washoe by J. Ross (John Ross) Browne

"Then give me all!" cried the Khan; "I will drink it standing like a kafir Feringhee—may their sisters be defiled, ay, and their mothers too!
— from Confessions of a Thug by Meadows Taylor

"Speak out then," returned the man, sullenly; "though I don't know why the deuce I should let a man I never saw before come up and question me in this way."
— from Sybil Chase; or, The Valley Ranche: A Tale of California Life by Ann S. (Ann Sophia) Stephens

I am perfectly aware that if I did my duty I should lead an entirely different life; but I don't; I go on weakly, day after day, year after year, leading a perfectly useless existence, surrounded by wholly artificial duties, and now these same artificial duties keep me from performing my real duty--which, just now, seems to me to go and see poor little Gusta."
— from The Turn of the Balance by Brand Whitlock

Which in our less expressive English we might render— At thy lord's door, in slumbers light and blest, Maida, beneath this marble Maida, rest: Light lie the turf upon thy gentle breast.
— from Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 by Harriet Beecher Stowe