I could not spend much time with him, but prayed him come with his brother, who was with him, to dine with me to-day; which he did do and I had a great deal of his good company; and a most excellent person he is as any I know, and one that I am sorry should be lost and buried in a little country town, and would be glad to remove him thence; and the truth is, if he would accept of my sister’s fortune, I should give L100 more with him than to a man able to settle her four times as much as, I fear, he is able to do; and I will think of it, and a way how to move it, he having in discourse said he was not against marrying, nor yet engaged.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

I—’ The little attorney burst into a loud laugh, and returning the card to the lame man, informing him it was all a mistake, whispered to Mr. Pickwick as the man turned away in dudgeon, that he was only a bail.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

The following works must be manufactured in the United States in order to secure copyright: ( a ) All "books" in the English language and books in any language by a citizen or domiciled resident of the United States must be printed from type set within the limits of the United States, either by hand or by the aid of any kind of type-setting machine, or from plates made within the limits of the United States from type set therein or, if the text of such books be produced by lithographic process or photo-engraving process, then by a process wholly performed within the limits of the United States; and the printing of the text and binding of the book must be performed within the limits of the United States.
— from Copyright: Its History and Its Law by R. R. (Richard Rogers) Bowker

The leaf became broader and broader; close by it came a bud; and one morning, when the stork flew over it, the bud opened in the warm sunshine, and in the centre of it lay a beautiful infant, a little girl, just as if she had been taken out of a bath.
— from The Sand-Hills of Jutland by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

Two years went slowly by, and the jailer had put Arnaux in a new loft and brought in another lady Pigeon.
— from Animal Heroes by Ernest Thompson Seton

Dunning stood behind his master’s chair, with a stern face of disapproval, yet trying hard by winks and nods to indicate the course which ought to be pursued, until Gervase threw himself back in his chair, almost kicking over the table with the corresponding movement of his legs, and bursting into a loud laugh.
— from The Cuckoo in the Nest, v. 1/2 by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

Yes, it was a clever thing, undoubtedly, to split a lion in two, from the tip of its nose to the extremity of its tail, with one stroke of a penknife—” At this climax I could contain myself no longer, and burst into a loud laugh as I perceived that Peterkin had spent the night, as I myself had done, in hunting—though, I confess, there was a considerable difference in the nature of our achievements, and in the manner of their accomplishment.
— from The Gorilla Hunters by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne

The last vase had been filled, the last wreath hung; and Sophia looked at her beautiful hands, marked with the rim of the scissors, and stained with leaves and berries, in a little affected distress.
— from The Squire of Sandal-Side: A Pastoral Romance by Amelia E. Barr

[I-2] The learning of the masses consisted not in the acquisition of knowledge, but in the blind and meaningless repetition of prescribed maxims, in forms of rhetoric, in anything except that which would enlighten the mind and impart true wisdom; it was, in short, a systematic course of leading men as far as possible away from the known, and leaving them lost and bewildered in a labyrinth of uncertainty and doubt.
— from The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 5, Primitive History The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 5 by Hubert Howe Bancroft

LADIES' ARMS BORNE IN A LOZENGE.
— from Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. by Various

Our fleet would then seem to threaten New York, and we should find, on our arrival, pilots for different destinations, and the necessary signals and counter signs.~{3} If Rhode Island should be the proper point of attack, of which I have no doubt, we would steer southward towards evening, and, putting about during the night, land at Block Island, and lay siege to Newport.
— from Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette by Lafayette, Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier, marquis de

Bottesford Moors, Kirton-in-Lindsey. LADIES' ARMS BORNE IN A LOZENGE. (Vol.
— from Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. by Various