Humphry going down stairs to fetch up a bottle of wine, my uncle congratulated his sister upon having such a reformer in the family; when Mrs Tabitha declared, he was a sober civilized fellow; very respectful, and very industrious; and, she believed, a good Christian into the bargain.
— from The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. (Tobias) Smollett

Waiting there until he was joined by the Macedonians under Chrysogonus, he started with his whole army, and on the sixth day’s march arrived at Larisa; and thence by a rapid night march he came before daybreak to Meliteia, Meliteia. and placing scaling ladders against the walls, attempted to take the town by escalade.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius

“I had forgotten that it would make us conspicuous,” he said, more to himself than to me, I thought; and he glanced through the cabin as though he looked for some peril.
— from Blindfolded by Earle Ashley Walcott

I'd ha' give something if Mr. Undershell could ha' shown I was wrong; but there was very little doubt in my mind what it was all along.
— from Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 107, October 6, 1894 by Various

A little presence of mind, and a set of men unintoxicated, could have saved the boat.
— from Diary in America, Series Two by Frederick Marryat

Something fell on his arm with a heavy, aching blow that left it numb and limp, and at the same moment an excruciating spasm of self-pity swept upward from his soul, as he saw, as in a red mist, uplifted, clenched hands struggling to meet him.
— from Mightier than the Sword by Alphonse Courlander

His carefully-arranged hair and whiskers, his well made unpretentious clothes, his spotless linen, would have done credit to an archbishop.
— from Charlotte's Inheritance by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

O mother unhappy in your life, what most hated and most unutterable calamity has some destiny again sent against thee!
— from The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. by Euripides

"They are wiping it out in blood there," she said softly to herself, "the wrongs of Bulungan, what my unhappy country has suffered from the orang blanda ."
— from The Argus Pheasant by John Charles Beecham

He made us come; he said it would be easier to know I was over here, and it would be better for him at the hospital—‘les sœurs sont bonnes,’ Jean said over and over.
— from The House of Fulfilment by George Madden Martin

Lars caught the drift of this: "It is religion that makes us cheerful," he said.--"Yes, when it is not desponding; but have you never seen that there is a religion that makes everything so gloomy, that the world itself is like a prison?"
— from The Fisher Girl by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson