Health, youth, honor, all the shy delicacies of the young body, the heart, virginity, modesty, that epidermis of the soul, are manipulated in sinister wise by that fumbling which seeks resources, which encounters opprobrium, and which accommodates itself to it.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

’Tis since the earthquake now eleven years; And she was wean’d,—I never shall forget it—, Of all the days of the year, upon that day: For I had then laid wormwood to my dug, Sitting in the sun under the dovehouse wall; My lord and you were then at Mantua: Nay, I do bear a brain.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

My wife.... gave me hopes of her being with child, but on the last day of the year....
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

The rich and guilty province was oppressed by the Imperial ministers, who had a visible interest to multiply the number of the accomplices of Gildo; and if an edict of Honorius seems to check the malicious industry of informers, a subsequent edict, at the distance of ten years, continues and renews the prosecution of the which had been committed in the time of the general rebellion.
— 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

N one of those sober and rather melancholy days in the latter part of autumn when the shadows of morning and evening almost mingle together, and throw a gloom over the decline of the year, I passed several hours in rambling about Westminster Abbey.
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving

The owners of a vessel buy up incredible quantities of "old junk," which the sailors unlay, after drawing out the yarns, knot them together, and roll them up in balls.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana

The Beltane fires seem to have been kindled also in Ireland, for Cormac, “or somebody in his name, says that belltaine, May-day, was so called from the ‘lucky fire,’ or the ‘two fires,’ which the druids of Erin used to make on that day with great incantations; and cattle, he adds, used to be brought to those fires, or to be driven between them, as a safeguard against the diseases of the year.”
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

1862.—In December of this year went down to the field of war in Virginia.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

The reader will find at the end of this chapter all the prices of wheat which have been collected by Fleetwood, from 1202 to 1597, both inclusive, reduced to the money of the present times, and digested, according to the order of time, into seven divisions of twelve years each.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

For instance, some rather troublesome legal business connected with Nelly's marriage, and the reinvestment of a small sum of money, had descended on the young wife almost immediately after George's departure.
— from Missing by Ward, Humphry, Mrs.

It is remarkable that there were two days of the year set apart in this place for festivals, called Ἀναγωγια and Καταγωγια, at which time Venus was supposed to depart over the sea , and after a season to return.
— from Tradition, Principally with Reference to Mythology and the Law of Nations by Arundell of Wardour, John Francis Arundell, Baron

The dowry of the young Princess is settled at two hundred and fifty thousand francs, with twenty-five thousand francs pin-money.
— from Memoirs of the Duchesse de Dino (Afterwards Duchesse de Talleyrand et de Sagan), 1836-1840 by Dino, Dorothée, duchesse de

In a day or two you will be yourself, and look at it in a different light.
— from Bart Ridgeley A Story of Northern Ohio by A. G. (Albert Gallatin) Riddle

And, frankly speaking, the two youths could expect more trouble before they sat down on the Yank-held base at Port Moresby.
— from Dave Dawson on Guadalcanal by Robert Sidney Bowen

The liquor ran down over the yellow hide.
— from The Giants From Outer Space by Robert W. Krepps

Heliobas pressed his whole weight heavily down on the young man's prostrate body, while with both hands he held him by the shoulders, and gazed with terrific meaning into his fast-paling countenance.
— from A Romance of Two Worlds: A Novel by Marie Corelli

"What on earth has brought you up to town on the hottest day of the year?
— from Herb of Grace by Rosa Nouchette Carey

It was not the most encouraging day of the year.
— from Sonnie-Boy's People by James B. (James Brendan) Connolly

It may be remembered, that at the very instant the knight parted from good Dr. Wilbraham at the door of the young lady's apartment in the palace at Richmond, a letter was put into the clergyman's hands, to be delivered to the heiress of De Grey, for such was the style of the address.
— from Darnley; or, The Field of the Cloth of Gold by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James