‘I feel a great delicacy, gentlemen, in coming for’ard,’ said the man in the long coat, ‘having the misforchune to be a coachman, and being only admitted as a honorary member of these agreeable swarrys, but I do feel myself bound, gentlemen—drove into a corner, if I may use the expression—to make known an afflicting circumstance which has come to my knowledge; which has happened I may say within the soap of my everyday contemplation.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

Or any better interpretation may be given, so long as the reference to this city is maintained.
— from The City of God, Volume II by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

James Crawley, when his aunt had last beheld him, was a gawky lad, at that uncomfortable age when the voice varies between an unearthly treble and a preternatural bass; when the face not uncommonly blooms out with appearances for which Rowland's Kalydor is said to act as a cure; when boys are seen to shave furtively with their sister's scissors, and the sight of other young women produces intolerable sensations of terror in them; when the great hands and ankles protrude a long way from garments which have grown too tight for them; when their presence after dinner is at once frightful to the ladies, who are whispering in the twilight in the drawing-room, and inexpressibly odious to the gentlemen over the mahogany, who are restrained from freedom of intercourse and delightful interchange of wit by the presence of that gawky innocence; when, at the conclusion of the second glass, papa says, "Jack, my boy, go out and see if the evening holds up," and the youth, willing to be free, yet hurt at not being yet a man, quits the incomplete banquet.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

“But why not?” “Understand, my dear, that if a young man does not set to work directly, but through women, he must be good for nothing!
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

I went down to my boat, got the water out of her, got her afloat, loaded all my cargo in her, and then went home again for more.
— from The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Let no august Senator disdain the work: Mayor Bailly, Generalissimo Lafayette are there;—and, alas, shall be there again another day!
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

For my own part, I am far less surprised that there are still some facts remaining undiscovered by men of the equestrian order, and even those among them who have attained senatorial rank, than that the love of luxury has left anything unascertained; the impulse of which must be great indeed, and most powerfully felt, when the very forests are ransacked for their ivory and citron-wood 3279 , and all the rocks of Gætulia are searched for the murex and the purple.
— from The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 1 (of 6) by the Elder Pliny

Again, the lover may be generally noted or seen following the beloved (this is his regular occupation), and whenever they are observed to exchange two words they are supposed to meet about some affair of love either past or in contemplation; but when non-lovers meet, no one asks the reason why, because people know that talking to another is natural, whether friendship or mere pleasure be the motive.
— from Phaedrus by Plato

The cuttings must be well watered and carefully weeded from time to time, and in the winter must be given slight protection by fronds of bracken or boughs of evergreens laid lightly over them.
— from Roses and Rose Growing by Rose Georgina Kingsley

‘It as only last week that Nobley said to me, “By Gad, Wolf, I’ve got a living to bestow, and if you had but been brought up at the University, strike me blind if I wouldn’t have made a parson of you!”
— from Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

He advised making up for the poverty of the material by great thoughtfulness in the design: “The more and the more mysteriously you interweave your sprays and stems, the better for your purpose, as the whole thing has to be pasted flat upon a wall and the cost of all this intricacy will but come out of your own brain and hand.”
— from William Morris: Poet, Craftsman, Socialist by Elisabeth Luther Cary

"Think of all the places that must be guarded.
— from The Boy Scout Aviators by George Durston

why, he'll kill me, by God, he will, he'll crush me like some fly; why, he's got a fist—why, you kindly look yourself what a fist he's got; why, he's simply got a fist like Minin Pozharsky's.
— from The Torrents of Spring by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

The old man was tickled at this observation, and consented to all I asked, and next morning Boghos gave it me in writing, as follows: “Commodore, “Alexandria, Jan. 10, 1841.
— from The War in Syria, Volume 2 (of 2) by Charles Napier

Perhaps, however, a little space may be given to those peculiarities which, in both characters, left a permanent impression on the College as a whole, especially since they exhibit traits of an almost opposite description, yet united to produce a great result.
— from A Short History of Newnham College, Cambridge by Alice Gardner

It required much coaxing during the first half-day of riding to bring Diablo within speaking distance of the other men, but gradually he discovered that they could do him no harm so long as the gentle voice of Hunter was near him; thereafter he was entirely amenable to reason.
— from Bull Hunter by Max Brand