This is quite true—witness my own dear Benson in our early days; her greatest delight was to have me the instant B. retired, and she avowed that nothing could give her greater pleasure.
— from The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous

I will therefore give it as my opinion that your army and Canby's should be reinforced to the maximum; that, after you get Wilmington, you should strike for Savannah and its river; that General Canby should hold the Mississippi River, and send a force to take Columbus, Georgia, either by way of the Alabama or Appalachicola River; that I should keep Hood employed and put my army in fine order for a march on Augusta, Columbia, and Charleston; and start as soon as Wilmington is sealed to commerce, and the city of Savannah is in our possession.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

I took pussy to my own room, and spread a clean towel on the floor.
— from Cranford by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Marya Petrovna looks timidly at his handsome, passionless, wooden face and waits for him to begin to talk, but he remains absolutely silent and absorbed in thought.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

As soon as they possessed a more equal field, Julian, who, with his light infantry, had led the attack, darted through the ranks a skilful and experienced eye: his bravest soldiers, according to the precepts of Homer, were distributed in the front and rear: and all the trumpets of the Imperial army sounded to battle.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

They could be detected as lethal robots as soon as they were seen.
— from Second Variety by Philip K. Dick

Namúga ang mga prísu kay natúlug ang bantay, The prisoners escaped because the guard fell asleep. bantaybantay, — sa balutbut, talikud various species of colorful fish that lurk in the reefs and snap at prey: e.g. Diploprium bifascatium .
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

A little sandalwood and cuscus (grass) roots are sometimes added to the pyre.
— from Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 7 of 7 by Edgar Thurston

Odds my Life—I am not sorry that He has run out of the course a little—for my Part, I hate to see dry Prudence clinging to the green juices of youth—'tis like ivy round a sapling and spoils the growth of the Tree.
— from The School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan

At last he pushed back with a sigh of repletion, and smiled across at his mother.
— from The Bondboy by George W. (George Washington) Ogden

He put his questions rapidly and sharply, as though at a Court-martial.
— from The Street Called Straight by Basil King

A few hungry ranchers are selling at fourteen cents cash at the warehouse, but I look for better prices later.
— from McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. by Various

Most readers will agree, that taking the European populations in bulk, without regard to the production of genius (for men of genius are always a very minute fraction of a nation), the European populations which they are accustomed to regard as standing at the head in the general diffusion of character, intelligence, education, and well-being, are all included in the first twelve or thirteen nations, which are the same in both lists though they do not follow the same order.
— from The Case for Birth Control: A Supplementary Brief and Statement of Facts by Margaret Sanger

You would hardly believe me, if I were to tell how quickly the baby prince got rid of his ailments, and grew fat, and rosy, and strong, and how he had two rows of ivory teeth in less time than any other little fellow, before or since.
— from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

He detected the habit of doing so in his own mind, and he had sufficient firmness and resolution, as soon as he had detected that habit, vigorously to set about rooting it out.
— from Charles Tyrrell; or, The Bitter Blood. Volumes I and II by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

Mr. Robinson rose as soon as he heard his voice, and took him into the house, and requested him to take something to eat, and go to rest till daylight, promising to start with him back to Manchester by the earliest conveyance.
— from Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again A Life Story by Joseph Barker

But worn out by his unwearied obstinacy in everlastingly thwarting my tastes, my inclinations, my ways of living, everything that concerned myself only; revolted at seeing a younger man than myself insist with all his might on governing me like a child; chilled by his readiness in giving his promise and his negligence in keeping it; tired of so many appointments which he made and broke, and of his fancy for repairing them by new ones to be broken in their turn; provoked at waiting for him to no purpose three or four times a month on days which he had fixed, and of dining alone in the evening, after going on as far as St. Denis to meet him and waiting for him all day,—I had my heart already full of a multitude of grievances."
— from Rousseau (Volume 1 and 2) by John Morley