I knew she had enough to sadden her life, without having my troubles to bear.
— from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself by Harriet A. (Harriet Ann) Jacobs

There were not so many papers about, as I should have expected to see; and there were some odd objects about, that I should not have expected to see,—such as an old rusty pistol, a sword in a scabbard, several strange-looking boxes and packages, and two dreadful casts on a shelf, of faces peculiarly swollen, and twitchy about the nose.
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

" Bathsheba was in a very peculiar state of mind, which showed how entirely the soul is the slave of the body, the ethereal spirit dependent for its quality upon the tangible flesh and blood.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

But when the Sheriff saw his enemy thus slipping betwixt his fingers he grew mad with his rage, so that his head swam and he knew not what he did.
— from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

As for the latter's sailing, it was so wild and intermittent, and she hung each time so long in irons, that she certainly gained nothing, if she did not even lose.
— from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

She accordingly rose in the dead of night, and taking a lamp in one hand and a dagger in the other, stealthily approached the couch where Eros was reposing, when, instead of the frightful monster she had expected to see, the beauteous form of the god of Love greeted her view.
— from Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome by E. M. Berens

He was to show how eager the States had been to have Leicester for their absolute governor—which was perfectly true—and how anxious the Earl had been to decline the proffered honour—which was certainly false, if contemporary record and the minutes of the States-General are to be believed.
— from PG Edition of Netherlands series — Complete by John Lothrop Motley

Slim found Lightning nearby, grazing on a patch of grass that somehow had escaped the searing rays of the July sun.
— from Slim Evans and His Horse Lightning by Graham M. Dean

Lord Warburton would do as well as Mr. Rosier—especially as she seemed quite to like him; she had expressed this sentiment to Isabel without a single reservation; she had said she thought his conversation most interesting—he had told her all about India.
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 2 by Henry James

Ages and ages seemed to pass as Ned, shivering and pale, strained his eyes to see the block of wood appear again.
— from Harper's Round Table, July 30, 1895 by Various

She seemed so pleased, so happy even, that she should see you again!
— from L'Abbe Constantin — Volume 3 by Ludovic Halévy

Shaken from its hinges by the blows of the iron bars that Eidiol and Guyrion and Rustic the Gay wielded with energy, the door soon fell over and Anne rushed into the arms of her father and brother; but looking around as if missing someone she had expected to see, she asked with fear: "And my mother?
— from The Iron Arrow Head or The Buckler Maiden: A Tale of the Northman Invasion by Eugène Sue

[301] Sometimes a violent desire to see her again would seize me in the midst of my part, and I would glance furtively towards the haunted spot, half expecting to see her, but I never saw her again from that day to this.
— from Tales of the Wonder Club, Volume I by M. Y. Halidom

Lapierre could not feel otherwise than highly flattered by the way the stranger referred to his establishment, but he was wholly at a loss to understand how the fame of the Royal Oak, and more especially of the Saturday night suppers, had extended to so great a distance as Nashville.
— from The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales by John Charles Dent

People have imagined that an inevitable nuisance of the past ought also to be a deliberately chosen nuisance of the present: a line of argument which appears to me to be similar to that of a man, who, because the people of Lisbon used, in the days of my grandfather, to practise a very primitive system of sewerage, should recommend that the inhabitants of modern London should habitually empty their slops on to the heads of passers-by.
— from Belcaro; Being Essays on Sundry Aesthetical Questions by Vernon Lee