I understood him to mean if we were to take advantage of their coming to divert if possible the thoughts of the unhappy husband and wife from each other and from themselves; so on nodding acquiescence to him he asked them what they had seen or done.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker

Sir Clement very much approved of the proposal; and we then went into the house, where he had a very grave reception from Mrs. Mirvan, who is by no means pleased with his visit, and a look of much discontent from Madame Duval, who said to me in a low voice, “I’d as soon have seen Old Nick as that man, for he’s the most impertinentest person in the world, and isn’t never of my side.” The Captain is now actually occupied in contriving some scheme, which, he says, is to pay the old Dowager off; and so eager and delighted is he at the idea, that he can scarcely restrain his raptures sufficiently to conceal his design even from herself.
— from Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

On the other hand this, as destroying the element of surprise, would have made his strategy of no avail, so that the whole question is beset with difficulties.
— from Peter and Wendy by J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie

At that time, William Nelson, an officer of the navy, had been commissioned a brigadier-general of volunteers, and had his camp at Dick Robinson, a few miles beyond the Kentucky River, south of Nicholasville; and Brigadier-General L. H. Rousseau had another camp at Jeffersonville, opposite Louisville.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

The chief topic was the question of the suitability of Nanao as a substitute for Niigata.
— from A Diplomat in Japan The inner history of the critical years in the evolution of Japan when the ports were opened and the monarchy restored, recorded by a diplomatist who took an active part in the events of the time, with an account of his personal experiences during that period by Ernest Mason Satow

Dorothy saw at once that this was true, so she only nodded and went on eating her bread.
— from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

Most of the primitive beliefs and superstitions of Nepal and Tibet were absorbed in the ever hungry and devouring system of Buddhistic scholasticism.
— from The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji by William Elliot Griffis

By this means I shall take care, that my metropolis totter'd not thro' its own weight;—that the head be no longer too big for the body;—that the extremes, now wasted and pinn'd in, be restored to their due share of nourishment, and regain with it their natural strength and beauty:—I would effectually provide, That the meadows and corn fields of my dominions, should laugh and sing;—that good chear and hospitality flourish once more;—and that such weight and influence be put thereby into the hands of the Squirality of my kingdom, as should counterpoise what I perceive my Nobility are now taking from them.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

There was also that young and charming Vicomte d’Escoubleau, of whom we have just spoken, one of the heroes of the siege of Lérida, where they delivered the assault in silk stockings, with violins at their head. D’Escoubleau, surprised one night at his cousin’s, the Duchesse de Sourdis’, was drowned in a quagmire of the Beautreillis sewer, in which he had taken refuge in order to escape from the Duke.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

No. 5 is clamorously called for.[Footnote: One does not wish to be tedious; or, if one has a gift in that way, naturally one does not wish to bestow it all upon a perfect stranger, as 'the reader' usually is, but to reserve a part for the fireside, and the use of one's most beloved friends; else I could torment the reader by a longer succession of numbers, and perhaps drive him to despair.
— from Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 1 by Thomas De Quincey

On examining spectroscopically the gas obtained by the action of the emanation on water, after the removal of the ordinary gases, a most surprising result was observed—the gas showed a brilliant spectrum of neon, accompanied with some faint helium lines.
— from Alchemy: Ancient and Modern Being a Brief Account of the Alchemistic Doctrines, and Their Relations, to Mysticism on the One Hand, and to Recent Discoveries in Physical Science on the Other Hand; Together with Some Particulars Regarding the Lives and Teachings of the Most Noted Alchemists by H. Stanley (Herbert Stanley) Redgrove

I wish I could describe to you the impression that they can make upon the opening mind of a country boy, who, knowing as yet nothing of the little great world around him, stands in the yawning silence of night and beholds the illimitably great world above him, looking deeper than thought can go into the shining vistas of the universe, and overwhelmed with the wonder of those marshaled suns.
— from Astronomy with an Opera-glass A Popular Introduction to the Study of the Starry Heavens with the Simplest of Optical Instruments by Garrett Putman Serviss

We sort of nosed around to find the switch
— from Catty Atkins, Sailorman by Clarence Budington Kelland

I am certain I shall have strength enough to carry my system of nomenclature at least as far, as to exclude people's individual names.
— from Hortus Inclusus Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston by John Ruskin

Rolf's crime, however, was that in coming home from one of these expeditions, his crew having fallen short of victual, Rolf landed with them on the shore of Norway, and in his strait, drove in some cattle there (a crime by law) and proceeded to kill and eat; which, in a little while, he heard that King Harald was on foot to inquire into and punish; whereupon Rolf the Ganger speedily got into his ships again, got to the coast of France with his sea-robbers, got infestment by the poor King of France in the fruitful, shaggy desert which is since called Normandy, land of the Northmen; and there, gradually felling the forests, banking the rivers, tilling the fields, became, during the next two centuries, Wilhelmus Conquaestor, the man famous to England, and momentous at this day, not to England alone, but to all speakers of the English tongue, now spread from side to side of the world in a wonderful degree.
— from Early Kings of Norway by Thomas Carlyle

Was it the tall, strong one named Atiba?
— from Caribbee by Thomas Hoover

Some portions were formed like large mushrooms; others appeared like the brain of a man, having stalks or necks attached to them; but the most common kind was a species of branching coral, and some portions were of a lovely pale-pink colour, others were pure white.
— from The Coral Island by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne