I was prevented from getting there, in time to hear these Little Warblers, or to report upon this novel kind of vocal entertainment: novel, at least, to me: but I found in a large open space, each society gathered round its own banners, and listening in silent attention to its own orator.
— from American Notes by Charles Dickens

She was on the right scent, beyond a question—but here came her difficulty,—how to cut this knot of villainy, even now that it lay plainly before her!
— from Shoulder-Straps: A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 by Henry Morford

We college-poets trot, you know, on very easy nags; it hath been, time out of mind, part of the poet's profession to celebrate the actions of heroes in verse, and to sing the deeds which you men of war perform.
— from Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges by William Makepeace Thackeray

The present fashion pleases me exceedingly: it is a kind of very elegant negligé , one portion of the hair is gathered upon the top of the head and falls down in rich curls; the rest is in plaits, which hang about the neck and over the shoulders.
— from The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 Devoted to Literature and National Policy by Various