The weather was hot, and the swamp fairly stunk with the putrid flour and fermenting sugar and molasses; I was so much exposed there in the hot sun, pushing forward the work, that I got a touch of malarial fever, which hung on me for a month, and forced me to ride two days in an ambulance, the only time I ever did such a thing during the whole war.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

In the middle stood a long table, part of which was covered with a cloth which looked as if it had been in use for a month, and at the other end of the room somebody was washing certain earthenware dishes in a dirty pan.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

It should not be regarded as “pseudo-rhachitic,” but as typically scorbutic, from a microscopic as well as a macroscopic viewpoint.
— from Scurvy, Past and Present by Alfred F. Hess

[HEDDA listens for a moment at the door.
— from Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen

“I took the imp for a Mingo, as I'm a miserable sinner!”
— from The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757 by James Fenimore Cooper

Hecaton could not for a moment approve of Scaevola's act, which I cited a moment ago; for he openly avows that he will abstain from doing for his own profit only what the law expressly forbids.
— from De Officiis by Marcus Tullius Cicero

For then the Marches, Laurences, Brookes and Bhaers turned out in full force and made a day of it.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Both looked at one another for a minute and waited.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

After the Speaker had told us the dissatisfaction of the House, and read the Report of the Committee, I began our defence most acceptably and smoothly, and continued at it without any hesitation or losse, but with full scope, and all my reason free about me, as if it had been at my own table, from that time till past three in the afternoon; and so ended, without any interruption from the Speaker; but we withdrew.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

"Yes, I've learned to check the hasty words that rise to my lips, and when I feel that they mean to break out against my will, I just go away for a minute, and give myself a little shake for being so weak and wicked," answered Mrs. March with a sigh and a smile, as she smoothed and fastened up Jo's disheveled hair.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

As she came in to supper that night, her mother lifted the kettle that hung by a hook over the smoky fire and made a pot of tea.
— from Our Little Irish Cousin by Mary Hazelton Blanchard Wade

At times the opening of a furnace-door shot broad bars of light across the sluggish stream and into the branches of dripping and drift-encumbered trees; at times the looming smoke-stacks sent out a pent-up breath of sparks that illuminated the inky chaos for a moment, and then fell as black and dripping rain.
— from A First Family of Tasajara by Bret Harte

The arrival of these weather-beaten ships thus brought the assurance that the armies and the civilian populations could be supplied with food and materials, and that the seas could be kept open for the transportation of American troops to France.
— from The Victory At Sea by Burton Jesse Hendrick

For a moment, as if his thoughts were far elsewhere, he played with a morsel of sewing-silk which he had picked up from the floor.
— from Earl Hubert's Daughter The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century by Emily Sarah Holt

It only delayed things for a minute at the most, but precious young lives were rendered safe from accident.
— from The Boy Scouts for Home Protection by Robert Shaler

[249] say nothing of their fathers and mothers and brothers—all talked and laughed at once, each trying to be first to kiss and hug the one returning traveler, before bestowing almost as cordial a welcome on all the others.
— from The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch by Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter

But my cozen Pepys and I had much discourse alone: and he do bewail the constitution of this House, and says there is a direct caball and faction, as much as is possible between those for and those against the Chancellor, and so in other factions, that there is nothing almost done honestly and with integrity; only some few, he says, there are, that do keep out of all plots and combinations, and when their time comes will speak and see right done, if possible; and that he himself is looked upon to be a man that will be of no faction, and so they do shun to make him; and I am glad of it.
— from Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete 1667 N.S. by Samuel Pepys

We had a mixed fry, and macaroni, and ravaioli , and a melon, one course after another, just like signori.
— from Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 by Various

“Was not Mr. Marsden rather startled?” “He was inclined to be angry with Godfrey, but I sent the boy off to Scarborough for a month; and he is never hasty to me, only tiresome—you can't imagine how tiresome.” “Is it the statistics?” “Worse than that.
— from Afterwards, and Other Stories by Ian Maclaren