Ay, marry, sir, now it begins to work.
— from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare

“How can you be dull at a ball?” “Why should not I be dull at a ball?” inquired Anna.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

But at drawing, his hand swung naturally in big, bold lines, rather lax, so that it was cruel for him to pedgill away at the lace designing, working from the tiny squares of his paper, counting and plotting and niggling.
— from The Rainbow by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

And shall not I, by mightiest desire, In living shape that sole fair form acquire?
— from The Birth of Tragedy; or, Hellenism and Pessimism by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

This is a place that sits near in by the water-side, and looks across the Hope to the town of the Queensferry.
— from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

I am a man quite unaccustomed to observe; and I cannot but believe that the observation of several people, of different ages and positions, all too plainly tending in one direction (and that so natural), is better than mine.’
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

But the messenger succeeded nevertheless in bringing together several hundred young girls of extraordinary beauty, and sent them to the capital.
— from Famous Assassinations of History from Philip of Macedon, 336 B. C., to Alexander of Servia, A. D. 1903 by Francis Johnson

In either case, Hellenic or American, we look upon generations totally different in circumstance from those which came before them,—generations, freed not only from the despotic tutelage of Nature, (from whom they exact tribute, instead of, as formerly, paying it to her,) but also from the still more galling tutelage of ignorance and of the social necessities imposed by ignorance,—generations which, in either the ancient or modern instance, stand representatively for the whole race, and by necessity, since they only could fairly be said, unimpeded by external conditions, perfectly to represent themselves.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 65, March, 1863 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

And now, that the Fiction might follow Nature, continued he--" fictio sequitur naturam ,"--it behooved them to lay hold of said Yule-hens, by direct personal distraint.
— from The Campaner Thal, and Other Writings by Jean Paul

Colonel Elliot has found no such place; nor can I find it in the Registrum Magni Sigilli , nor in Blaeu’s map of 1600–54.
— from Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy by Andrew Lang

"I see Your Majesty comprehends me," he said, continuing; "yet to further persuade your court, and especially the fair and high-born lady, whose guest, with all my unworthiness, I am, from believing me moved in this matter by disrespect for their sovereign, I say next, if by prostration I made myself a Roman, the act would be binding on the tribe whose Sheik I am by lawful election.
— from The Prince of India; Or, Why Constantinople Fell — Volume 01 by Lew Wallace

Connect the posterior ends of the side cuts by cutting across the skull near its base.
— from Taxidermy without a Teacher Comprising a Complete Manual of Instruction for Preparing and Preserving Birds, Animals and Fishes by Walter Porter Manton

live thy fill Of that fair life, wherein thou seest no ill But fear of that fair rest I hope to win One day, when I have purged me of my sin.
— from Adventures Among Books by Andrew Lang

It might have been old Moll’s ravings, it might have been the stirrings of religious troubles that had started the apprehension; but there it was, something not immediate but delayed, a presentiment too vague even to be discussed.
— from The Child of the Moat: A Story for Girls. 1557 A.D. by I. B. (Ian Bernard) Stoughton Holborn