My master heard me with great appearances of uneasiness in his countenance; because doubting, or not believing, are so little known in this country, that the inhabitants cannot tell how to behave themselves under such circumstances.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift

Oliver was sitting alone in this dismal den, one night, by a sage-brush fire, writing poetry; he was very fond of digging poetry out of himself--or blasting it out when it came hard.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

The colonel had the defect of never believing a single word said to him by a woman; so that when the old maid brought Pierrette on the scene, and told him she had gone to bed before midday, he concluded that Sylvie had locked her up by way of punishment and out of jealousy.
— from Pierrette by Honoré de Balzac

Had I not seen you before, I might have dreamed of nothing but a stern and dire revenge.
— from What Will He Do with It? — Complete by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

Colonel R.H. Vetch ( Dictionary of National Biography ) admirably sums up Napier's character by recording of him that "his disregard of luxury, simplicity of manner, careful attention to the wants of the soldiers under his command, and enthusiasm for duty and right won him the admiration of his men.
— from Twenty-One Days in India, or, the Tour Of Sir Ali Baba K.C.B.; and, the Teapot Series by George Aberigh-Mackay

Before trying to explain the process by which he reached his results it may be well to give his own account of the discovery of Neptune by a similar method: [39] “Neptune has proved a planet of surprises.
— from Biography of Percival Lowell by A. Lawrence (Abbott Lawrence) Lowell

While thus solitary, his castle was attacked in the dead of night, by a small party of Indians, who set fire to it.
— from Life of Joseph Brant—Thayendanegea (Vol. II) Including the Border Wars of the American Revolution and Sketches of the Indian Campaigns of Generals Harmar, St. Clair, and Wayne; And Other Matters Connected with the Indian Relations of the United States and Great Britain, from the Peace of 1783 to the Indian Peace of 1795 by William L. (William Leete) Stone

To Tell the Hour of the Day or Night by a Suspended Quarter.
— from Home Entertaining: Amusements for Every One by William Eastman Chenery

But the commons were rising apace; and in a century had grown to that height, that on the accession of the Scotch family, the point of time when the new king dreamed of nothing but absolute sovereignty 14 , they were now in a condition to assert the public liberty, and, as the event shewed but too soon, to snatch the sceptre itself out of their king’s hands.
— from The Works of Richard Hurd, Volume 4 (of 8) by Richard Hurd

"And then," he droned, "I looked up the 'Dictionary of National Biography,' and some encyclopedias.
— from Enoch Soames: A Memory of the Eighteen-Nineties by Beerbohm, Max, Sir