Mr Wegg, looking back over his shoulder as he pulls the door open by the strap, notices that the movement so shakes the crazy shop, and so shakes a momentary flare out of the candle, as that the babies—Hindoo, African, and British—the 'human warious', the French gentleman, the green glass-eyed cats, the dogs, the ducks, and all the rest of the collection, show for an instant as if paralytically animated; while even poor little Cock Robin at Mr Venus's elbow turns over on his innocent side.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

When my floor was dirty, I rose early, and, setting all my furniture out of doors on the grass, bed and bedstead making but one budget, dashed water on the floor, and sprinkled white sand from the pond on it, and then with a broom scrubbed it clean and white; and by the time the villagers had broken their fast the morning sun had dried my house sufficiently to allow me to move in again, and my meditations were almost uninterupted.
— from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

Nor ought you to wonder at such a mishap; for one of the symptoms and accidents of fear is, that it often opens the wicket of the cupboard wherein second-hand meat is kept for a time.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

When the Boat drew nigh, (they say,) it was judged from the Number of Men in her, that they were Pyrates, and being hailed, answered, Defiance ; at which the Commander snatched a Musquet from one of his Men, and fired, asking them at the same Time, whether they would stand by him, to defend the Ship?
— from A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the island of Providence, to the present time by Daniel Defoe

[830] 1827. ... before your sight A most familiar object of our days, 1814.
— from The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 5 (of 8) by William Wordsworth

I can't say as much for our own Churches.”
— from Over the Sliprails by Henry Lawson

He is accompanied by performers who must be Levites; and yet the Saxon illuminator was so used to see a mime form one of a minstrel band, that he has introduced one playing the common feat of tossing three knives and three balls.
— from Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages Third Edition by Edward Lewes Cutts

We discover then that, no Spaniard being forthcoming for the service, this worthy seaman with the unique pigtail and a very high character for courage and steadiness had been selected as messenger for one of these missions inland which have been mentioned.
— from Within the Tides: Tales by Joseph Conrad

The second part, after a short allegro movement for orchestra, opens with a contralto solo (“Of [126] wasted Fields and plundered Flocks”) which prepares the way for a concerted number for solos and chorus (“And now the Moon her Orb has hid”), describing the magical arts which Merlin employed to thwart the Baron.
— from The Standard Cantatas: Their Stories, Their Music, and Their Composers A Handbook by George P. (George Putnam) Upton

Using the ugly things as models, he began to paint on the shield a monster formed out of all the creatures, with eyes and legs everywhere.
— from The Silent Readers: Sixth Reader by Ethel Maltby Gehres

And such sinners shall find their speed in the Publican's prayer, far otherwise than the Publican sped himself; it will happen unto them much as it happened unto the vagabond Jews, exorcists, who took upon them to call over them that had evil spirits, the name of the Lord Jesus; that were beaten by that spirit and made fly out of that house naked and wounded.
— from Works of John Bunyan — Complete by John Bunyan

“I’ll go,” offered Genevieve, with the result that she and McGuire flew out of the room at the same time.
— from The Mystery of the Sycamore by Carolyn Wells