Before her mother had done speaking, Totty had given her answer in an unmistakable manner, by knitting her brow, setting her tiny teeth against her underlip, and leaning forward to slap Hetty on the arm with her utmost force.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

the wild Hysop grows here and in all the country through which we have passed for many days past; tho from big Dry river to this place it has been more abundant than below, and a smaller variety of it grows on the hills, the leaves of which differ considerably being more deeply indented near it's extremity.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

If you can get him away it will be a good thing.
— from Lady Susan by Jane Austen

Good Hope and in Australia, which support such an astonishing number of species, many European plants have become naturalised.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

She's a triumph of your art and of her dressmaker's; but if you suppose for a moment that she doesn't give herself away in every sentence she utte
— from Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw

I hope he comes to you in good health, and in spirits as good as a first return to Godmersham can allow.
— from The Letters of Jane Austen Selected from the compilation of her great nephew, Edward, Lord Bradbourne by Jane Austen

For some reason I felt sorry for myself, for my grandfather and for the Armenian, even for the girl herself, and I had a feeling as though we all four had lost something important and essential to life which we should never find again.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Chesterfield caricatures this fault in the following letter, written as a warning to his son, to guard him against its glaring faults: “ My Lord : I had , last night, the honor of your Lordship’s letter of the 24th; and will set about doing the orders contained therein ; and if so be that I can get that affair done by the next post, I will not fail for to give your Lordship an account of it, by next post .
— from The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness Being a Complete Guide for a Gentleman's Conduct in All His Relations Towards Society by Cecil B. Hartley

I did not want to go home, and I had nothing to go for.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

In the case of a Buddha, who on good historical authority is said to have been able to recall all past existences from the lowest to the highest, this evolutionary process seems to have reached completion.
— from The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. (Walter Yeeling) Evans-Wentz

My face grew hotter, and I stammered foolishly as I answered her that I begged she would call me by what name she pleased, but that if it pleased my Captain to call me Ralph, then Ralph I was ready to be.
— from Marjorie by Justin H. (Justin Huntly) McCarthy

"I don't know what you are driving into, understand me, but if you think you could get brogus at me just because I am ten minutes late once in a while, y'understand, let me tell you I am catching a twelve o'clock train from Mount Vernon last night, and not alone I am talking myself blue in the face to that feller Gurin, y'understand, but when I got home already I couldn't get to sleep till I told the whole thing to my Minnie yet."
— from Abe and Mawruss: Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter by Montague Glass

Rich it is with goodly houses and its ancient churches; I say not stately churches, because our forefathers loved better to beautify the religious houses than their parish churches—yet many goodly monuments are erected in them to the memories of dead worthies.
— from London by Walter Besant

Cadogan's recommending good humour, as if it were quite in our own power to attain it.
— from Life of Johnson, Volume 5 Tour to the Hebrides (1773) and Journey into North Wales (1774) by James Boswell

There were also two telegraph forms, and these gave her an idea.
— from The Green Rust by Edgar Wallace

"Maitland got only one of my guns," he announced ironically.
— from The Brass Bowl by Louis Joseph Vance

It was a fearful sea for us men to find ourselves in the midst of, after having looked at it from a great height, and I felt at the beginning almost as though I should have been safer on the wreck than in that boat.
— from Heroes of the Goodwin Sands by Thomas Stanley Treanor

when he doesn't go to walk with Violette, he is at home; at any rate, he must go home, and I will wait for him."
— from The Flower Girl of The Château d'Eau, v.2 (Novels of Paul de Kock Volume XVI) by Paul de Kock

And my health is good here, as it never was there.
— from The Letters of Ambrose Bierce, With a Memoir by George Sterling by Ambrose Bierce

Dad gave a lurch, and a great heave, as if at the removal of a rope that had all but strangled him.
— from The Mysterious Rider by Zane Grey