‘Miss Grey,’ said she, one evening, a month before the all-important day, as I was perusing a long and extremely interesting letter of my sister’s—which I had just glanced at in the morning to see that it contained no very bad news, and kept till now, unable before to find a quiet moment for reading it,—‘Miss Grey, do put away that dull, stupid letter, and listen to me!
— from Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

This day churched, her month of childbed being out Those absent from prayers were to pay a forfeit To be so much in love of plays Took occasion to fall out with my wife very highly Took physique, and it did work very well
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Then, with a confidential wink, a dropping of the voice, and an impressive laying of his hand on my arm; 'Look here; there's one thing in this world which isn't ever cheap.
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

The fairest towns that ever the sun rose upon, are now no more; the names only are left, and those (for many of them are wrong spelt) are falling themselves by 24 “ piece-meals to decay, and in length of time will be forgotten, and involved with every thing in a perpetual night: the world itself, brother Toby, must—must come to an end.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Thus the Sacred Marriage of the Sun and Earth, personated by the priest and his wife, is celebrated as a charm to ensure the fertility of the ground; and for the same purpose, on the principle of homoeopathic magic, the people indulge in licentious orgy.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

It began in a Woman's Club in London on a February afternoon—an uncomfortable club, and a miserable afternoon—when Mrs. Wilkins, who had come down from Hampstead to shop and had lunched at her club, took up The Times from the table in the smoking-room, and running her listless eye down the Agony Column saw this: To Those Who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine.
— from The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim

Himself is poor; penniless, had not a 'Financier's widow in Lorraine' offered him, though he was turned of fifty, her hand and the rich purse it held.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

The women rob an occasional clothes-line when no one is looking, or steal the pail and scrubbing-brush with which they are set to clean up in the station-house lodging-rooms after their night’s sleep.
— from How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. (Jacob August) Riis

There in the midst of that miry avenue, when I looked out the coach window into the windows of your soul,—then it was, my knight—" "Then?"
— from A Volunteer with Pike The True Narrative of One Dr. John Robinson and of His Love for the Fair Señorita Vallois by Robert Ames Bennet

I believe that with such a view as the one we have in Constantinople and with the climate we enjoy, business here will never reach the intensiveness of business in London or in New York, despite the fact that geographically speaking Constantinople commands a more important economic position than any other city in the world being as it is astride two continents.
— from Speaking of the Turks by Mufti-zada, K. Ziya, bey

Logan's division was in line of battle.
— from Three Years in the Service A Record of the Doings of the 11th Reg. Missouri Vols. by D. McCall

“One swallow of this and you enter the white devil’s heaven,” he snarled, tiptoeing toward the cabin in which lay the injured leader of the Chinese runners.
— from The Bungalow Boys in the Great Northwest by John Henry Goldfrap

Hence, on our way to the metropolitan church, we pass by the basin which forms the haven of Trani, a basin which reminds us of the cala which is all that is left of the many waters of Palermo.
— from Sketches from the Subject and Neighbour Lands of Venice by Edward A. (Edward Augustus) Freeman

I look on them as indications of public opinion, and not sources thereof—not the wind, but only the vane which shows which way it blows.
— from Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 3 (of 3) by Theodore Parker

Cover’d with shame I speak it, age severe Old worn-out vice sets down for virtue fair; With graceless gravity, chastising youth, That youth chastised surpassing in a fault, Father of all, forgetfulness of death: As if, like objects pressing on the sight, Death had advanced too near us to be seen: 610
— from Young's Night Thoughts With Life, Critical Dissertation and Explanatory Notes by Edward Young

Into the lonely world, which henceforth contained no hand that she could clasp in love or friendship.
— from The Duchess of Rosemary Lane: A Novel by B. L. (Benjamin Leopold) Farjeon

The bridge is 12,608 feet in length (or about two miles and a half), the track being 212 feet above the water with 165 feet clear above the tide in the centre span.
— from The Hudson Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention by Wallace Bruce