Sir Reverence , a corruption of the old phrase, SAVE YOUR REVERENCE , a sort of apology for alluding to anything likely to shock one’s sense of decency.
— from The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical and Andecdotal by John Camden Hotten

“Got a drop or two of petrol still, you see,” he remarked.
— from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

When to our prayers she yields, this glorious park to contemplate, No mortal must e'er be allowed these grounds to penetrate.
— from Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel, Book I by Xueqin Cao

“At the old place, Signor?” “Yes,” replied the black domino, cutting into a cross-path, and disappearing.
— from Olla Podrida by Frederick Marryat

Our Will is therefore, and We charge, That incontinent this Our Proclamation seen, ye pass to the Market Cross of Edinburgh, and all other Places needful, and there, in Our Name and Authority, make Publication hereof, that none pretend Ignorance.
— from British Royal Proclamations Relating to America, 1603-1783 by Great Britain. Sovereign

Every one knows that the end is drawing near, and imitates the Pharaoh to whom the oracle promised six years of life, and who convicted it of falsehood and made them twelve by carousing during the night also.
— from Cleopatra — Volume 08 by Georg Ebers

All her power was but the shadow of her husband’s royal sun, and vanished when the orb prematurely set; yet she had all gifts of person in her favour, and a sleek smoothness of manner that seemed to the superficial formed to win; but the voice was artificial, and the eye cold and stealthy.
— from The Last of the Barons — Complete by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

You tried by borrowing money of George De Witt, you tried by going to that old palsied shipbuilder, you tried at Parson Tyll's, you tried, I don't know how at last, and you got the money; but yet you couldn't escape me.
— from Mehalah: A Story of the Salt Marshes by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

It is a fashionable neologism, and gives expression to certain rather meagre ideas relative to our present society: you must use it, if you want to describe a woman who is all the rage.
— from Analytical Studies by Honoré de Balzac