‘You may be able to confirm what I have said, Mr. Traddles,’ observed Miss Lavinia, evidently taking a new interest in him, ‘of the affection that is modest and retiring; that waits and waits?’
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

It made laws, executed them and interpreted them; it laid and collected taxes, defined and punished crime, maintained and used military force, and dictated such measures as it thought necessary and proper for the accomplishment of its varied ends.
— from The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois

Happy, oh happy, shalt thou be, Let them but clasp that slender wrist; [56] These bracelets are a mighty charm, They keep a lover ever true, And widowhood avert, and harm, Buy them, and thou shalt never rue.
— from Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan by Toru Dutt

If it were discovered that wretched echoes of a past life could be actually heard by putting one's ear long enough to a tomb, and if ( per impossibile ) those echoes could be legitimately attributed to another mind, and to the very mind, indeed, whose former body was interred there, a melancholy chapter would indeed be added to man's earthly fortunes, since it would appear that even after death he retained, under certain conditions, a fatal attachment to his dead body and to the other material instruments of his earthly life.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

Each summer she managed to be home long enough to assist with the canning, pickling and preserving.
— from The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years by Ida Husted Harper

On one occasion Malm saw a young fish raise and depress the lower eye through an angular distance of about seventy degrees.
— 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

if I could mount up as well as I can get down, I had been long ere this above the sphere of the moon with Empedocles.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

On the whole, it is our business to move onward, steadily, but quietly, obstructing others as little as possible, yielding a little to this man’s prejudices, and that man’s desires, and doing everything in our power to make the journey of life easy to all our fellow-travellers as well as to ourselves.
— from Evenings at Home; Or, The Juvenile Budget Opened by John Aikin

“Away we go, my lads,” exclaimed Terence, as he gave a strong shove against the iceberg with a boarding-pike; and with a cheer, which, perilous as was our adventure, we could not repress, we began vigorously to ply our paddles.
— from Peter the Whaler by William Henry Giles Kingston

This conveyance will be less embarrassing than a litter, which is liable often to break.
— from The True History of the State Prisoner, commonly called the Iron Mask Extracted from Documents in the French Archives by Dover, George Agar Ellis, Baron

We have seen something of Philip’s dealings with his greater tenants-in-chief; but such achievements as the conquest of Normandy and Anjou and the victory of Bouvines were but the fruits of years of diplomacy, during which the royal power had permeated the land, like ether the atmosphere, almost unnoticed.
— from Europe in the Middle Ages by Ierne L. (Ierne Lifford) Plunket

Keeping company with them long enough to ascertain their course and approximate numbers, the captain then hastened on, anchoring in Plymouth on the 7th of July.
— from The Life of Nelson, Volume 2 The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

We have in preparation and nearly completed, a building large enough to accommodate our present members.
— from History of American Socialisms by John Humphrey Noyes

The Bible contains long lists of genealogies, chapters which contain little else than a description of temple furniture, stories of simple human [pg 456] life, and details of national history.
— from A History of the Reformation (Vol. 1 of 2) by Thomas M. (Thomas Martin) Lindsay

Perhaps by making dinner last twice as long, eating twice as much, and doing everything on the scale of two to one, we might adapt ourselves to our environment in time, grow twice as big."
— from Certain Personal Matters by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

When a boat is big enough to be a small yacht, and the half-deck forward covers a cuddy large enough to afford sleeping accommodation to the crew, the case is different, and the half-deck becomes a decided advantage.
— from Sailing by E. F. (Edward Frederick) Knight