Now, Tom was not fond of quarrelling, unless it could soon be put an end to by a fair stand-up fight with an adversary whom he had every chance of thrashing; and his father's irritable talk made him uncomfortable, though he never accounted to himself for the feeling, or conceived the notion that his father was faulty in this respect.
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

Then, turning round as if I wished to resume my slumbers, I remained very quiet until I could suppose them fast asleep; at all events, if they did not sleep, they were at liberty to pretend to do so.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

"Louis Lambert," as a whole, is now quite unreadable; it contains some admirable descriptions, but the "scientific" portion is mere fantastic verbiage.
— from The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 by Various

Rex igitur filii sui prosperitate gauisus, qui eciam diatim de bono i n melius gradatim ascendit, aliquo tempore uite sue metas distulit naturales: iubilus quoq ue in corde senis conceptus languores seniles plurimu m mitigauit.
— from Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem with a Discussion of the Stories of Offa and Finn by R. W. (Raymond Wilson) Chambers

It will not have escaped the reader's attention that many of the features which I have noticed as common to the religions of Eastern Asia—such as the worship of nature spirits and ancestors—are not peculiar to those countries but are almost, if not quite, universal in certain stages of religious development.
— from Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 1 by Eliot, Charles, Sir

Its dew is poison; and the hopes that quicken Under its chilling shade, though seeming fair, Are flowers which die almost before they sicken.'
— from The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 2 by Percy Bysshe Shelley

She’s been crouching out here in the hall all night, not venturing even to ask a question, until I caught sight of her eyes—she loves Lydia too!
— from The Squirrel-Cage by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

In spite of his effort to ask the question unconcernedly I could see that my uncle was tremendously interested.
— from The Last Cruise of the Spitfire; or, Luke Foster's Strange Voyage by Edward Stratemeyer

It was late in the afternoon when I arrived at Waterloo—too late, I knew, to catch Sir Robert Gordon at his office; I therefore slung my chest on top of a cab, and ordered the driver to take me to a certain quiet and unassuming but comfortable hotel near the Embankment, where I proposed to take up my quarters until I could see my way a little more clearly.
— from Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun: A Story of the Russo-Japanese War by Harry Collingwood