I had perception enough to know that my mother was the victim always; that she was afraid to speak to me or to be kind to me, lest she should give them some offence by her manner of doing so, and receive a lecture afterwards; that she was not only ceaselessly afraid of her own offending, but of my offending, and uneasily watched their looks if I only moved.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

The same good-will that made me think of offering up half an hour's amusement to Mr.... when out of place—operates more forcibly at present, as half an hour's amusement will be more serviceable and refreshing after labour and sorrow, than after a philosophical repast.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Put three Frenchmen into the deserts of Libya, they will not live a month together without fighting; so that you would say this peregrination were a thing purposely designed to give foreigners the pleasure of our tragedies, and, for the most part, to such as rejoice and laugh at our miseries.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

The military force of the Turks and their allies marched in seven equal and artificial divisions; each division was formed of thirty thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven warriors, and the proportion of women, children, and servants, supposes and requires at least a million of emigrants.
— 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

You could not light upon a sweeter thing: A body slight and round and like a pear In growing, modest eyes, a hand a foot Lessening in perfect cadence, and a skin As clean and white as privet when it flowers.
— from The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson by Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron

When I looked back the blue spirit was towering up and stretching and rolling away like a cloud, and instantly I thought of the name of it—SMOKE!—though, upon my word, I had never heard of smoke before.
— from Eve's Diary, Complete by Mark Twain

I then sent for Mercer, and began to teach her “It is decreed,” which will please me well, and so after supper and reading a little, and my wife’s cutting off my hair short, which is grown too long upon my crown of my head, I to bed.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Thence to the coach to my wife, and so home, and there with W. Hewer to my office and to do some business, and so set down my Journall for four or five days, and then home to supper and read a little, and to bed.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

The same good-will that made me think of offering up half an hour’s amusement to Mr. *** when out of place—operates more forcibly at present, as half an hour’s amusement will be more serviceable and refreshing after labour and sorrow, than after a philosophical repast.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

He was so funny playing about the room, hanging by his toes from the screen and rolling around like a ball, that the lady could do nothing but watch him when he was out of the cage.
— from Little Mitchell: The Story of a Mountain Squirrel by Margaret Warner Morley

If you happened by mischance to have accepted an appointment to serve and represent a lunatic, and you discovered that you had done so, there were only two things to do, either to hold on, or "to chuck it.
— from The Mating of Lydia by Ward, Humphry, Mrs.

I hope that you'll stop and rest as long as you like;" and faintly blushing she shied away from the open purse and hurried out of the room.
— from The Devil's Garden by W. B. (William Babington) Maxwell

After supper and reading a little, and my wife's cutting off my hair short, which is grown too long upon my crown of my head, I to bed.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys by Samuel Pepys

The Spider halted under a lamp-post to stare at Ravenslee a little anxiously.
— from The Definite Object: A Romance of New York by Jeffery Farnol

I see thou art implacable, more deaf 960 To prayers than winds and seas; yet winds to seas Are reconciled at length, and sea to shore: Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages, Eternal tempest never to be calmed.
— from An Introduction to the Prose and Poetical Works of John Milton Comprising All the Autobiographic Passages in His Works, the More Explicit Presentations of His Ideas of True Liberty. by John Milton

“Former lovers in making out their title-deeds of the heart to their successors always reserve at least a narrow pathway across a corner.”
— from Sketches in Crude-oil Some accidents and incidents of the petroleum development in all parts of the globe by John J. (John James) McLaurin

Body and soul so mysteriously meeting, Strange friend and friend; Hand clasped in hand so mysteriously faring, Say what and why all this dreaming and daring, This sowing and reaping and laughing and weeping, That ends but in sleeping— Only one meaning, only—the End.
— from The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems by Richard Le Gallienne