Two furnishing tradesmen at Brassing, whose bills had been incurred before his marriage, and whom uncalculated current expenses had ever since prevented him from paying, had repeatedly sent him unpleasant letters which had forced themselves on his attention.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

While He waited for the opportunity of satisfying his unwarrantable lust, every day increased his coldness for Matilda.
— from The Monk: A Romance by M. G. (Matthew Gregory) Lewis

He Who, scanning his unwedded life, Thanks Heaven, with a conscience free, ’Twas faithful to his future wife.
— from The Angel in the House by Coventry Patmore

I threw myself on the bed, and remained there, almost stunned, for more than six hours, until Laura’s return from the convent with twenty napkins entirely soaked.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

An ideal chief of staff, he utterly lacked the decision necessary for a commander-in-chief.
— from Napoleon's Letters to Josephine, 1796-1812 For the First Time Collected and Translated, with Notes Social, Historical, and Chronological, from Contemporary Sources by Emperor of the French Napoleon I

Sometimes he smiled, and it was good to see; but when he straightened himself up like a liberty-pole, and the lightning begun to flicker out from under his eyebrows, you wanted to climb a tree first, and find out what the matter was afterwards.
— from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

As soon as he had agreed to escort his sister abroad, it was remarked that he ceased shaving his upper lip.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

He pulled it back towards him, and stood behind it on the steps higher up, leaving the staircase below clear for Westray’s escape.
— from The Nebuly Coat by John Meade Falkner

Them country niggers swing me so hard us land in the corner with a wham.
— from Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. Texas Narratives, Part 2 by United States. Work Projects Administration

The rider was a very young man, with large fiery black eyes, thin and martially-expressive features, and a small mustache shading his upper lip.
— from Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 by Various

While at home he was always dull and sorrowful; he usually lay in a sleeping posture, and frequently uttered long and mournful groans.
— from Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match by Francis C. (Francis Channing) Woodworth

John Gore straightened where he stood, his upper lip stiffening and his teeth pressing grimly against each other.
— from Mad Barbara by Warwick Deeping

His style is generally simple, sometimes harsh, usually laconic, although when he enters upon philosophical reflections it becomes animated, energetic, and copious.
— from Lives of Eminent Zoologists, from Aristotle to Linnæus with Introductory remarks on the Study of Natural History by William MacGillivray

Each day he lay in fear and suspense, hiding under logs and underbrush; and by night he stumbled on toward home.
— from The Man with the Iron Hand by John Carl Parish

At this point the bandage was removed from his eyes and he scrambled down a hilly path to the shore, where he was locked up in a small stone hut until late in the afternoon, when—blindfolded again—he was led over the beach to a sampan and taken off to a junk, one of three which were getting under way—a huge, dirty craft, like that in which he had sailed on his outward trip.
— from The North Pacific: A Story of the Russo-Japanese War by Willis Boyd Allen

What Ben Jonson said of Coryat might be stretched to describe the average Elizabethan: "The mere superscription of a letter from Zurich sets him up like a top: Basil or Heidelberg makes him spinne.
— from English Travellers of the Renaissance by Clare Howard