Thence home, in my way meeting Mr. Rawlinson, who tells me that my uncle Wight is off of his Hampshire purchase and likes less of the Wights, and would have me to be kind and study to please him, which I am resolved to do.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

[148] almost out of existence by the introduction of Chinese learning through Chinese letters, the women of Japan, not only in their homes and conversation, but in the poetry and lighter literature of the country, preserved a strain of pure and graceful Japanese, and produced some of the standard works of a distinctly national literature.
— from Japanese Girls and Women Revised and Enlarged Edition by Alice Mabel Bacon

All the novels, poetry, and light literature of the world, which form the general staple of female reading, are based upon aristocratic institutions, and impregnated with aristocratic ideas; and women among us are constantly aspiring to foreign and aristocratic modes of life rather than to those of native, republican simplicity.
— from The Chimney-Corner by Harriet Beecher Stowe

It abounds in our second and third-rate magazines, and, with some few honourable exceptions, has infected all the periodical and light literature of the day.
— from A Book About Words by G. F. (George Frederick) Graham

As the shadows gathered about the expiring days of the eighteenth century, it was clear to be seen that slavery, as an institution, had rooted itself into the political and legal life of the American Republic.
— from History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens by George Washington Williams

What was the spectacle to which they were looking forward with so much glee—which had brought forth young delicate girls, and tender mothers, into the streets at so early an hour—which, as the day advanced toward ten o’clock of the morning, was tempting forth laced cloaks, and rapiers, and plumed hats, and here and there, in the cumbrous carriages of the day, the proud and luxurious ladies of the gay metropolis?
— from The Knights of England, France, and Scotland by Henry William Herbert

It was the custom at night executions to place a lighted lantern on the breast of the victim as a target for the men.
— from The House of the Combrays by G. Lenotre

Once more, he prints a long list of the spirits of light which Palladians recommend for evocation, and this list is a haphazard gleaning among the eighty-four genii of the twelve hours given in Lévi’s interpretation of the “Nuctemeron according to Apollonius.”
— from Devil-Worship in France; or, The Question of Lucifer by Arthur Edward Waite

She came of poor people,—of people who had no friends,—of disgraced people; and Lady Lufton ought to feel that such a marriage would be a terrible misfortune and a terrible crime.
— from The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope