I shall require at least that space of time to find an efficient substitute for M. Emanuel.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

There are about 30 English Men in all, Men who in some Part of their Lives, have been either privateering, buccaneering, or pyrating, and still retain and love the Riots, and Humours, common to that sort of Life.
— from A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the island of Providence, to the present time by Daniel Defoe

To judge whether such retaliations are likely to produce such an effect, does not, perhaps, belong so much to the science of a legislator, whose deliberations ought to be governed by general principles, which are always the same, as to the skill of that insidious and crafty animal vulgarly called a statesman or politician, whose councils are directed by the momentary fluctuations of affairs.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

He thought there must be about four or five people seated round a long table that took up most of the space, but his attention was caught and held by a tall man with close-cropped hair and a short, pointed, naval-looking beard, who sat at the head of the table with papers in front of him.
— from The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

Nevertheless, it is veriform, that because Mammona doth not supergurgitate anything in my loculs, that I am somewhat rare and lent to supererogate the elemosynes to those egents that hostially queritate their stipe.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

“I am a mortal,” Scrooge remonstrated, “and liable to fall.”
— from A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas by Charles Dickens

vi. 21): "They use skins for clothing, or the short rhenones, and leave the greatest part of the body naked."
— from The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus by Cornelius Tacitus

The knowledge that her mother had a fault like hers, and tried to mend it, made her own easier to bear and strengthened her resolution to cure it, though forty years seemed rather a long time to watch and pray to a girl of fifteen.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

The old woman trembled with joy at this prospect of getting fifty crowns a month, but she was still suspicious, fearing some trick, and she remained a long time with the lawyer asking questions without being able to make up her mind to go.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

The child of an earlier generation, I was capable of reading verses in my youth, and even now can do so, retaining at least that faculty of a dead world, just as the last Pict held the secret of "brewing the ale from the heather bell."
— from Hamewith by Charles Murray

She rested a long time under the overhanging branches of a large tree—how long she did not know.
— from Janet; or, The Christmas Stockings by Louise Élise Gibbons

The last, a lymphatic, puffy sort of a person at the best, seemed really a little touched, and he either actually brushed a tear from his eye, or he affected so to do.
— from Jack Tier; Or, The Florida Reef by James Fenimore Cooper

"Well, we won't wait on nobody," she said positively, as she rose and left the room to give the signal.
— from Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice

"Oo, but—a year, say." "Rather a long time," said Coote.
— from Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

"What is thy name, good fellow?" said Robin at last to the Miller, who stood gaping and as though he were in amaze.
— from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

"Your cousin is safe in the hospital at Interlaken," said Ralph, addressing Lord Tamerton with marked constraint.
— from Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 147, August 12, 1914 by Various