During the time I was sitting down and not sleeping, I employed myself in repeating all the English poetry and Latin speeches I had learnt, and sometimes I even attempted to sing the sea songs of which I had been so fond—“Cease, rude Boreas,” “One night it blew a hurricane,” “Come, all ye jolly sailors bold,” “Here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Bowling,” and many others; but my voice was evidently not in singing trim, and I failed to do what Orpheus might have accomplished, to charm the rats from their hiding-places.
— from Dick Cheveley: His Adventures and Misadventures by William Henry Giles Kingston

He accounts for so unusual a circumstance by the fact, that elevated positions are less subject to the effects of fire or floods than their valleys or flanks, and attributes the general want of vegetable mould over the colony chiefly to the ravages of the former element, whereby the growth of underwood, so favourable in other countries to the formation of soil, is wholly prevented.
— from Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Complete by Charles Sturt

Nuncomar not only adhered to the original charges, but, after the fashion of the East, produced a large supplement.
— from Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) by Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron

Such conferences of inquiry, wonder, and regret, began to arise daily, in the ancient little town of Haxey, as Toby advanced further into the spirit and essence of witch-knowing; but the erring philosopher, at length, set the whole village into uproar by telling no less-beloved a personage than Dame Deborah Thrumpkinson, herself, that he believed she was a witch,—nay the queen and ring-leader of all the witches in the Isle of Axholme,—and, to complete his madness, Toby actually strove to eject the venerable old woman from his cottage!
— from Wise Saws and Modern Instances, Volume 2 (of 2) by Thomas Cooper

H2 anchor LUPTON'S GUEST: A MEMORY OF THE EASTERN PACIFIC A long sweeping curve of coast, fringed with tall plumed palms casting wavering shadows on the yellow sand as they sway and swish softly to the breath of the brave trade-wind that whistles through the thickly-verdured hummocks on the weather side of the island, to die away into a soft breath as, after passing through the belt of cocoanuts, it faintly ripples the transparent depths of the lagoon—a broad sheet of blue and silver stretching away from the far distant western line of reef to the smooth, yellow beach at the foot of the palms on the easternmost islet.
— from The Ebbing Of The Tide South Sea Stories - 1896 by Louis Becke

Just stick fresh nibs in all the Export pens, and look sharp about it, too.”
— from My Friend Smith: A Story of School and City Life by Talbot Baines Reed

It was intended that the two columns should join at Los Santos or Almendralejo, in the Estremaduran plain, and lay siege at once to Badajoz, the enemy’s most formidable stronghold.
— from A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. 4, Dec. 1810-Dec. 1811 Massena's Retreat, Fuentes de Oñoro, Albuera, Tarragona by Charles Oman

They all evinced the most natural solicitude, that everything proper and lawful should be done.
— from The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy by John Galt