The Alert was a favorite ship with all owners, officers, and men who had anything to do with her; and I may add almost all who heard her name asked if that was the ship the man went in who wrote the book called "Two Years before the Mast"; and thus we feel, with you, no doubt, a sort of sympathy at her loss, and that, too, in such a manner, and by wicked acts of our own countrymen.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana

I lit a candle, and started toward the stairs, and met a burglar coming out of a room with a basket of tinware, which he had mistaken for solid silver in the dark.
— from The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories by Mark Twain

The wall being old, the bricks I held by gave way, just as I was taking a spring to get up; and down came I, and received such a blow upon my head, with one of the bricks, that it quite stunned me; and I broke my shins and my ancle besides, and beat off the heel of one of my shoes.
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

Hastily snatching up the lighted candle, I hurried to the staircase; about midway a body was lying quite across the stairs.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

If the church really believed that God would let them into an experience where sonatas and minuets and bridal marches and "Mondnacht" and the "Etude in C sharp minor" would be heard all the time, and free of charge, all the bishops and the big preachers and little evangelists and exhorters and ministers would be besieged by a grand eager throng of people, crying with one accord, "What must I do to be sanctified?"
— from The Heart-Cry of Jesus by Byron J. (Byron Johnson) Rees

A bandage is swathed about her waist, and she is treated with a cosmetic ( bĕdak ) manufactured from tĕmu kuning , which is pounded small (and mixed as before with garlic, black pepper, and vinegar), and applied every morning and evening for the first three days.
— from Malay Magic Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula by Walter William Skeat

He had neither eloquence nor imagination; but substituted in their stead a miserable, affected, bombastic style, which, until other circumstances gave him consequence, drew on him general ridicule.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

——I would as soon set about making a black-pudding by the same receipt.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

You will smile at my allusion, but I will disclose a secret.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Hiram coincided so heartily at that moment in this vigorous expression of adverse opinion, that but for Gwen he could have pulled out his pocket-knife on the spot and made a brief end of a life long failure.
— from Babylon, Volume 3 by Grant Allen

Now mayst thou see that many are worse than they seem, and many are better than they seem, and namely among those that have the habit of holiness.
— from The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises by Rolle, Richard, of Hampole

The river has seven mouths, small and marshy all but the middle one, on which is the port of Barbarikon (Shâhbandar, Haig, page 31) whence the merchants’ wares are carried up by river to the capital Minnagar (near Shâhdâdpur, Haig, page 32), which is ruled by Parthians who constantly expel one another (chapter 39).
— from History of Gujarát Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Volume I, Part I. by James M. Campbell

At first I thought it a hard case to be shoved on the shelf at my age, but I don't think so now—I'm quite satisfied."
— from Poor Jack by Frederick Marryat

It must have been after the first storm, for the snow bank in front of the cabin door was not high enough to keep out a little sunbeam that stole down the steps and made a bright spot upon our floor.
— from The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate by Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

They’re his mother’s pearls,” she added mysteriously, and bowed her head to Ruth’s ear.
— from The World's Illusion, Volume 2 (of 2): Ruth by Jakob Wassermann

People out of breath come dashing into the station, and make a bee-line for the ticket office regardless of all obstacles.
— from Toronto by Gaslight: The Night Hawks of a Great City As Seen by the Reporters of "The Toronto News" by Toronto News

I Wish I was Single Again , metre as below, 5: A married man's repentance: his first wife died— I married me another,
— from A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-Songs by Hubert G. (Hubert Gibson) Shearin