The essential requirements were, a clear view of the heavens in the meridian, firm ground, a spot secluded enough not to attract attention from inquisitive idlers, and proximity to the telegraph office, or end of the telegraph line.
— from The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. II., No. 1, April, 1890 by Various

The corpulent and jovial proprietor informs us that these rooms are filled to overflowing with both gay and serious students every night in the week, and that here, notwithstanding the ofttimes boisterous merriment, questions of grave import are often discussed, together with all the current topics of interest; and that speeches are made brilliant enough for publication in the daily papers.
— from Odd Bits of Travel with Brush and Camera by Charles M. (Charles Maus) Taylor

I wish you’d go and say something extra nice to them.”
— from Chicken Little Jane on the Big John by Lily Munsell Ritchie

A block or two further up, for instance, the street was torn up for some new underground enterprise (Lewis S. Palmer, as a matter of fact, had floated a company to run a new subterranean line across New York, and had been paid a million and a half dollars for the loan of his credit); and while the cars, which will certainly not cease running till the last trump has been sounded several times, passed over spindle-shanked iron girders and supports, shaken every now and again by the blasting of the rock below, thousands of workmen were toiling day and night deep down in the earth, loading the baskets of the cranes with the splinters of the riven rocks, or giving the larger pieces into the embrace of huge iron pincers that tackled them as a spider tackles a fat fly, and, rising aloft with them above street level, took them along the ropes of their iron web, over the heads of passengers and vehicles, for the carts which waited for them.
— from The Relentless City by E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson