They will wish, and seek for the opportunity, which in the change, weakness and accidents of human affairs, seldom delays long to offer itself.
— from Second Treatise of Government by John Locke

This conduct provoked me almost to madness, but my surprise was indeed great when, at the breakfast table, she asked me whether I would let her dress me up as a girl to accompany her five or six days later to a ball for which a neighbour of ours, Doctor Olivo, had sent letters of invitation.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

But, child as I was, I could perceive that their faces were pale with an unwonted look of anxiety, and I saw them look under the bed, and about the room, and peep under tables and pluck open cupboards; and the housekeeper whispered to the nurse: "Lay your hand along that hollow in the bed; someone did lie there, so sure as you did not; the place is still warm."
— from Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

But on one occasion, when Arthur had been behaving particularly ill, and Mr. Huntingdon and his guests had been particularly provoking and insulting to me in their encouragement of him, and I particularly anxious to get him out of the room, and on the very point of demeaning myself by a burst of uncontrollable passion—Mr. Hargrave suddenly rose from his seat with an aspect of stern determination, lifted the child from his father’s knee, where he was sitting half-tipsy, cocking his head and laughing at me, and execrating me with words he little knew the meaning of, handed him out of the room, and, setting him down in the hall, held the door open for me, gravely bowed as I withdrew, and closed it after me.
— from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

The scalp dance ended, and according to custom a second dance was appointed to be held seven days later, to give the other warriors also a chance to boast of their own war deeds.
— from Myths of the Cherokee Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology by James Mooney

Sir D. Lyndesay, The Monarchy, bk.
— from A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580 by A. L. (Anthony Lawson) Mayhew

" It was several days later that John walked up to the Judge's house to ask for the privilege of teaching the Negro school.
— from The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois

I sat down, lighted the candle, and began thinking.
— from Short Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

En cuántas partes se divide la tierra?
— from A First Spanish Reader by Erwin W. (Erwin William) Roessler

Surveys for an extension of the Sukkur-Sibi desert line to Pishin were made whilst that line was under construction, and early in 1880 the Government gave directions that the extension was to be proceeded with; though they decided that the route to be taken from Sibi should be through the Hurnai Pass in preference to the Bolan route, the former being regarded as preferable for the broad-gauge line (5 ft. 6 in.) with which the "Kandahar State Railway," as it was to be called, would be provided.
— from The Rise of Rail-Power in War and Conquest, 1833-1914 by Edwin A. Pratt

Sam could count seven distinct legs twined round him and at least as many arms.
— from Three Men and a Maid by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

"Thou, like a sleeping, faithless sentinel, Didst let them pass unnotic'd, unimprov'd.
— from The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown

Mark sat down, listening to this alluring song, absorbing the scents and sounds.
— from Brothers: The True History of a Fight Against Odds by Horace Annesley Vachell

When first Georges, Sieur de la Truaumont, of an ancient Norman family, late a captain of "La Garde de Monsieur" and formerly of the Regiment de Roncherolles, had broached to the Prince Chevalier de Beaurepaire the suggestion that he should place himself at the head of the Norman plot for deposing King Louis, he had also indicated to him a number of persons of whom he might make use.
— from Traitor and True: A Romance by John Bloundelle-Burton