On the other hand, supposing that you had had a very experienced cook and waitress; dinner would, of course, not have been bungled, but it would have lacked something, somewhere, if you added nothing of your own personality to its perfection.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post

Suddenly he noticed that the fish had a very extraordinary look, and, changing his mind, he let it go in the waters of the Hung Chiang, afterward telling his mother what he had done.
— from Myths and Legends of China by E. T. C. (Edward Theodore Chalmers) Werner

(From it she thought she clearly heard a voice, even the accents of her husband calling her when night was wrapping the earth with darkness; and on the roof the lonely owl in funereal strains kept oft complaining, drawing out into a wail its protracted notes.)
— from The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson by Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron

I also remember hearing from him a very enthusiastic appreciation of my personality as a conductor.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner

What changes this produced, will be read in its proper place: all that is needful to be added to the anecdote, is this——That whatever effect it had upon my uncle Toby, ——it had a vile effect upon the house;——and if my uncle Toby had not smoaked it down as he did, it might have had a vile effect upon my father too.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

So Bathsheba promised him to afford him her assistance very earnestly, and to bring this marriage about, because the king would be willing to gratify him in such a thing, and because she would press it to him very earnestly.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

Honeycomb 8 , a Gentleman who, according to his Years, should be in the Decline of his Life, but having ever been very careful of his Person, and always had a very easy Fortune, Time has made but very little Impression, either by Wrinkles on his Forehead, or Traces in his Brain.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

, long kiss of love, which quickly lighted up our lust; she was as eager as myself, and we had another vigorous encounter, ending in all the agonies of delight, as before.
— from The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous

May not these fathers and mothers, think you, be sorrowful and heavy-hearted when they see an unknown fellow, a vagabond stranger, a barbarous lout, a rude cur, rotten, fleshless, putrified, scraggy, boily, botchy, poor, a forlorn caitiff and miserable sneak, by an open rapt snatch away before their own eyes their so fair, delicate, neat, well-behavioured, richly-provided-for and healthful daughters, on whose breeding and education they had spared no cost nor charges, by bringing them up in an honest discipline to all the honourable and virtuous employments becoming one of their sex descended of a noble parentage, hoping by those commendable and industrious means in an opportune and convenient time to bestow them on the worthy sons of their well-deserving neighbours and ancient friends, who had nourished, entertained, taught, instructed, and schooled their children with the same care and solicitude, to make them matches fit to attain to the felicity of a so happy marriage, that from them might issue an offspring and progeny no less heirs to the laudable endowments and exquisite qualifications of their parents, whom they every way resemble, than to their personal and real estates, movables, and inheritances?
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

Why, he drinks you with facility your Dane dead drunk; he sweats not to overthrow your Almain; he gives your Hollander a vomit ere the next pottle can be filled.
— from Othello by William Shakespeare

He was much perturbed by a proposal to allow no chess on Sundays, and jokingly threatens a rider that smoking too shall be forbidden, except to those who undertake to sit silent for an hour in religious contemplation, and that, as further penance for the members, one of them shall "read twelve minutes every hour alta voce e con declamazione a parliamentary speech from Mr Plumpton or Sir Robert Inglis or a chapter from the second volume of Tancred by D'Israeli."
— from The Life of Mazzini by Bolton King

He is a rash man indeed, little conversant with human nature, and especially has he a very erroneous estimate of the character of the people of this country, who supposes that a feeling of this kind is to be trifled with or despised ."
— from A Letter to the Hon. Samuel A. Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. by Franklin Dexter

The resurrectionists, however, cut off the head, and veterinary experts confirmed the previous suspicions.
— from Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign by John Ashton

W. The Cromdale had a very exciting experience, and Captain E. H. Andrew wrote the following account to the secretary of the London Shipmasters’ Society:— We left Sydney on 1st March, and having run our easting down on the parallel of 49° to 50° S., rounded the Horn on 30th March without having seen ice, the average temperature of the water being 43° during the whole run across.
— from The Colonial Clippers by Basil Lubbock

The Senate had acclaimed Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy; and Italy was indeed almost built, it lacked only Rome and Venice.
— from The Three Cities Trilogy: Rome, Complete by Émile Zola

But hate, remember, is a hard and very efficient task-master, and I hate that man, Nicolaes, almost as much as I hate the Prince of Orange.
— from The Laughing Cavalier: The Story of the Ancestor of the Scarlet Pimpernel by Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness

The residence of Mr. Jones, at “The Cedars,” has a very extensive prospect, and is embellished by highly cultivated gardens of several acres, loaded with fruits and flowers; and also, by an interesting apiary, aviary, and poultry establishment, where hundreds of domestic fowls, of the finest varieties, revel in prosperity.
— from Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXVII, No. 3, September 1850 by Various