A minute since, Mr. Franklin had rung furiously for a little light refreshment.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Folding his opera hat, he sat down, drew out his lavender gloves in the old way, and took up his glasses for a long look round the house.
— from The Forsyte Saga, Volume I. The Man Of Property by John Galsworthy

While he was yet upon his knees petitioning the God of battles for a little longer respite from that doom which was to overwhelm devoted Poland, Thaddeus Sobieski, panting with heat and toil, flew into the room, and before he could speak a word, was clasped in the arms of the agitated Stanislaus.
— from Thaddeus of Warsaw by Jane Porter

Soon after this, she lay down for a long, long rest.
— from Among the Pond People by Clara Dillingham Pierson

Above this dam he made a beautiful lake, and below it two cascades; and these, uniting a few yards below the falls, formed a lovely little river to irrigate the barren, uncultivated valley, and these two hills he enclosed in a ring fence, and built himself a retreat on the dam, which he widened to two acres by accumulating above it all the soil which had to be removed to make a channel for the river and the irrigation canals.
— from Albert Savarus by Honoré de Balzac

A constant stream of fire ran from the rims of the great wheels, and to this day I shudder when I reflect on that, my first and last locomotive ride.
— from Capturing a Locomotive: A History of Secret Service in the Late War. by William Pittenger

The well-kept pleasure-ground, and the excavation of a hollow for a little lake, recalled to me but too strongly the castle where you, my dear! are now living, to be able to look at it without emotion.
— from Tour in England, Ireland, and France, in the years 1826, 1827, 1828 and 1829. with remarks on the manners and customs of the inhabitants, and anecdotes of distiguished public characters. In a series of letters by a German Prince. by Pückler-Muskau, Hermann, Fürst von

Chinese literature is said to possess numerous fictions in that form; but it is not to be regretted that modern novelists, whose name is more than legion, pass it by in favor of direct narrative; for, under the best arrangement, a number of letters can give but a series of views, telling the principals' tale in a broken, sketchy fashion, and leaving little room for the fortunes of second-rate people, who are not always the lowest company in the novel.
— from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. VII, December 1850, Vol. II by Various

At last the ladies withdraw, the men are left to themselves, and you feel a little less restrained.
— from Friend Mac Donald by Max O'Rell