I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was “mamaliga,” and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call “impletata.”
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker

This manoeuvre was successful, and I soon received a communication from my old friend Kustner to say that the production of Rienzi was fixed for a very early date at the Berlin Court Theatre, and at the same time expressing the hope that I would conduct my work in person.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner

The inspiration of his pilgrimage had left him for awhile, and he felt old, forlorn, and very empty. 'Do not sit under that gun,' said the policeman loftily.
— from Kim by Rudyard Kipling

But there was time at least for a very energetic discussion between the two young men.
— from A True Friend: A Novel by Adeline Sergeant

There could be no doubt of his obtaining leave of absence immediately, for he was still only a midshipman; and as his parents, from living on the spot, must already have seen him, and be seeing him perhaps daily, his direct holidays might with justice be instantly given to the sister, who had been his best correspondent through a period of seven years, and the uncle who had done most for his support and advancement; and accordingly the reply to her reply, fixing a very early day for his arrival, came as soon as possible; and scarcely ten days had passed since Fanny had been in the agitation of her first dinner-visit, when she found herself in an agitation of a higher nature, watching in the hall, in the lobby, on the stairs, for the first sound of the carriage which was to bring her a brother.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

From a very early date the successful merchant has bought dignity and social consideration by investing his savings in an estate.
— from The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century by R. H. (Richard Henry) Tawney

Their offspring were directly affected by the hereditary enthralment, to which Abel fell a victim even during the life-time of his parents.
— from The Vitality of Mormonism: Brief Essays on Distinctive Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by James E. (James Edward) Talmage

The portion of Ethiopia which lay nearest to Egypt had been from a very early date penetrated by Egyptian influence.
— from Ancient Egypt by George Rawlinson

These form a class of society which has existed from a very early date, and enjoy certain privileges.
— from The War in the East: Japan, China, and Corea by Trumbull White

He followed the progress of the British arms with a minute and intelligent attention which from a very early date communicated itself to his son; and the hearty patriotism of Lord Macaulay is perhaps in no small degree the consequence of what his father suffered from the profane and rapacious sansculottes of the revolutionary squadron.
— from Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay. Volume 1 by George Otto Trevelyan

This is not a kind of social perfection which philanthropists to come will feel any very eager desire to assist in realising....
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 64 No. 396 October 1848 by Various

Now, forasmuch as very excellent declaration is made in this tome of all the Articles and chief points of Christian Religion, Doctrine, and Faith; and also therein are found necessary Rules, Questions and Answers, many fair Histories, all sorts of Learnings, Comforts, Advices, Prophecies, Warnings, and Admonitions: I have therefore thought it a thing fitting to dedicate the same to your Highnesses, Graces, Honours and Worships, etc., as special favourers, protectors, and defenders of the Doctrines which God, through Luther, hath cleared again, to the end that by diligent reading therein, you may be president, and give good examples to others, to your subjects, citizens, etc., diligently to love, to read, to affect the same, and to make good use thereof, as being fragments that fell from Luther’s Table, and therewith may help to still, to slake, and to satisfy the spiritual hunger and thirst of the soul.
— from Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther by Martin Luther

It is enough to say that from a very early date, primitive man began to regard the soul or life as something bound up with the breath, something which could go away from the body at will and return to it again, something separable and distinct, yet essential to the person, very vaguely conceived as immaterial or shadowy, but more so at a later than at an earlier period.
— from The Evolution of the Idea of God: An Inquiry Into the Origins of Religions by Grant Allen

Its use in New England in connection with Epigma repens dates from a very early day, some claiming that the first Pilgrims so used it, in affectionate memory of the vessel and its English flower association.
— from Poems of Nature, Poems Subjective and Reminiscent and Religious Poems, Complete Volume II of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier by John Greenleaf Whittier

This was a possible state of affairs, no doubt, in many European and Asiatic valleys; and in many such valleys, as in the case of the Swiss lake-dwellings, men settled from a very early date indeed; but nowhere, of any countries now known to us, were these favourable conditions found upon such a scale, and nowhere did they hold good so surely year in and year out as in Egypt and in the country between the upper waters of the Euphrates and Tigris and the Persian Gulf.
— from The Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells