Pepys, the Executor, to dinner, where some ladies and my father and mother, where very merry, but methinks he makes but poor dinners for such guests, though there was a poor venison pasty.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Makakuput gánì ug kwarta gastúhun dáyun, Whenever she lays her hands on money, she spends it right away.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

It was dark around her, dark as in those days when she lay hidden in the bulb.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

Serenely pointing to a fourth bed, she intimated that it was to be mine; then, having extinguished the candle and substituted for it a night-lamp, she glided through an inner door, which she left ajar—the entrance to her own chamber, a large, well-furnished apartment; as was discernible through the aperture.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

When they had gone to rest, about the middle of the night there were thunderstorms and earthquakes, and suddenly they were all driven divers ways, shooting like stars to their birth.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

“She can go and dine where she likes,” shouted several voices.
— from Father Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

One is reminded of the writer who endeavoured to turn Wilhelm Meister into ridicule, and of the epigram which that attempt suggested to Goethe, ending:— "Hat doch die Wallfisch seine Laus." THREE ENRAGED MUSICIANS.
— from History of the Opera from its Origin in Italy to the present Time With Anecdotes of the Most Celebrated Composers and Vocalists of Europe by H. Sutherland (Henry Sutherland) Edwards

We start fair; for though I have had the advantage of a first acquaintance, you are much the handsomer man of the two; and that goes for a great deal with some ladies, though not perhaps with Alicia Barton.”
— from Tales and Novels — Volume 02 Popular Tales by Maria Edgeworth

There was an oppressive pause now, during which she looked at him wistfully, hoping he might at the last moment ask her that, which he waited to give her a final opportunity of asking him.
— from Philip Winwood A Sketch of the Domestic History of an American Captain in the War of Independence; Embracing Events that Occurred between and during the Years 1763 and 1786, in New York and London: written by His Enemy in War, Herbert Russell, Lieutenant in the Loyalist Forces. by Robert Neilson Stephens

The dread words sound like a wail, The song of the waits, and the clash of the bells, Ring like death-bed dirges or funeral knells, In the pauses of the gale.
— from Literary Byways by William Andrews

I wonder if she guesses what she could make me do when she looks up at me with that innocent baby face of hers?'
— from Vestigia. Vol. II. by George Fleming

[pg 060] Abolish Dirt We should like to see one generation brought up to hate dirt.
— from Is The Bible Worth Reading, and Other Essays by L. K. (Lemuel Kelley) Washburn

"You can't tell!" said the deputy, who spoke little, but who, when he did, invariably opposed the magistrate's views.
— from The Hollow Needle; Further adventures of Arsene Lupin by Maurice Leblanc

Moreover, her observation of their young host at Delmonico's and in the spacious box at the Academy of Music, where they had privacy and ease, and murmured words could pass without making neighbours more given up to the stage turn their heads—her consideration of Henry Burrage's manner, suggested to her that she had measured him rather scantily the year before, that he was as much in love as the feebler passions of the age permitted (for though Miss Chancellor believed in the amelioration of humanity, she thought there was too much water in the blood of all of us), that he prized Verena for her rarity, which was her genius, her gift, and would therefore have an interest in promoting it, and that he was of so soft and fine a paste that his wife might do what she liked with him.
— from The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) by Henry James

At once, [pg. 51] the smaller part of the community will retreat to their holes, while numbers of the larger dogs will squat, like the first, at their doors, and unite in the barking.
— from Palmer's Journal of Travels Over the Rocky Mountains, 1845-1846 by Joel Palmer