There was no doing it in the night, for there was no getting a light by easy friction then; to have got one I must have struck it out of flint and steel, and have made a noise like the very pirate himself rattling his chains.
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Chief Inspector Heat had had a disagreeably busy day since his department received the first telegram from Greenwich a little before eleven in the morning.
— from The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad

Meg sighed, and turned to the frost-bitten garden again; Jo groaned, and leaned both elbows on the table in a despondent attitude, but Amy spatted away energetically; and Beth, who sat at the other window, said, smiling, "Two pleasant things are going to happen right away: Marmee is coming down the street, and Laurie is tramping through the garden as if he had something nice to tell."
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott

Jo groaned and leaned both elbows on the table in a despondent attitude, but Amy spatted away energetically, and Beth, who sat at the other window, said, smiling, "Two pleasant things are going to happen right away.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Somebody found fault with writing verses in a dead language, maintaining that they were merely arrangements of so many words, and laughed at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, for sending forth collections of them not only in Greek and Latin, but even in Syriac, Arabick, and other more unknown tongues.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

The stormy weather and the lateness of the hour (11 to 12 o'clock) might perhaps account for the native lanterns which were hung about the grounds having ceased to give any light, but even under those circumstances it is a little suspicious that the guard should have neglected to replace the burnt out candles.
— from A Diplomat in Japan The inner history of the critical years in the evolution of Japan when the ports were opened and the monarchy restored, recorded by a diplomatist who took an active part in the events of the time, with an account of his personal experiences during that period by Ernest Mason Satow

“I hold him for too honourable a man,” said Sister Marie, “to have confessed so great a lie; but even should he have done so, bring him here before me, and I will prove the contrary of what he says.”
— from The Tales of the Heptameron, Vol. 3 (of 5) by Marguerite, Queen, consort of Henry II, King of Navarre

Gedge and Lying Bill exchanged reminiscences.
— from White Shadows in the South Seas by Frederick O'Brien

Greek and Latin, but especially physics, the humanities, and literature enlisted all my ambitions, and the little weekly paper which was read at the meetings of our secret society occupied me more than was in due measure perhaps.
— from The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I by William James Stillman

His "supple genius," as Louis Blanc expresses it, was probably appreciated by Morris, who was kept well informed as to the secrets of the Committee of Public Safety.
— from The Life Of Thomas Paine, Vol. 2. (of 2) With A History of His Literary, Political and Religious Career in America France, and England by Moncure Daniel Conway

Henry Dunbar opened this locket, which contained the miniature of a beautiful girl, with fair rippling hair as bright as burnished gold, and limpid blue eyes.
— from Henry Dunbar: A Novel by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

but we also impress upon him that in order to justify this statement he must commence to toss at least 1024 times, for in no less number can all the contingencies of gain and loss be exhibited and balanced.
— from The Logic of Chance, 3rd edition An Essay on the Foundations and Province of the Theory of Probability, With Especial Reference to Its Logical Bearings and Its Application to Moral and Social Science and to Statistics by John Venn

Would any one find fault with the introduction of the works of Raphael into this country, as if their being done by an Italian confined the benefit to a foreign country, when all the benefit, all the great and lasting benefit, (except the purchase-money, the lasting burden of the Catalogue, and the great test of the value of Art in the opinion of the writer), is instantly communicated to all eyes that behold, and all hearts that can feel them?
— from The Collected Works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 01 (of 12) by William Hazlitt

On one occasion he anchored in a gale and lay buffeting enormous seas for eight long days.
— from A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. by Clayton Edwards