Mortimer, in spite of all the arts of the chemist, placidly refreshes himself with a glass of Madeira, and remains unconscious of the Document which engrosses the general attention, until Lady Tippins (who has a habit of waking totally insensible), having remembered where she is, and recovered a perception of surrounding objects, says: 'Falser man than Don Juan; why don't you take the note from the commendatore?'
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

To his friend, the Rev. Jos. H. Twichell, he wrote: “That good and unoffending lady, the Empress, is killed by a madman, and I am living in the midst of world-history again.
— from What Is Man? and Other Essays by Mark Twain

The alteration was occasioned by the great and unexpected length to which the conference had been protracted.
— from History of the Nineteenth Army Corps by Richard B. (Richard Biddle) Irwin

With her lace-bordered mantle and her low, stringed bonnet she had assuredly given a unique lustre to the congregation at chapel.
— from The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett

A massive old wicker-cradle constituted the body, which, from a slight inequality in the wheels, had got an uncomfortable ‘lurch to port,’ while the rumble was supplied by a narrow shelf, on which her foot-page sat dos à dos to herself—a position not rendered more dignified by his invariable habit of playing pitch-and-toss with himself, as a means of distraction in travel.
— from Lord Kilgobbin by Charles James Lever

They were struck with the beauties of the ancient buildings; but, ignorant how to preserve a just mean, and giving an unbounded liberty to their fancy in heaping ornament upon ornament, they made the whole a heap of confusion and irregularity.
— from Life and Correspondence of David Hume, Volume 1 (of 2) by John Hill Burton

Most naturalists are now agreed that both the Gallinazo and Urubu lay their eggs in clefts of the rock, holes in the ground, or in hollow trees, as such spots afford the best protection against the inclemency of the weather.
— from Cassell's Book of Birds, Volume 2 (of 4) by Alfred Edmund Brehm

What Elysium-like dreams employ the languid fancy—and what a world of impossibilities gather around us, like tangible and familiar things.
— from Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXV, No. 3, September 1849 by Various