By degrees, however, as some of it cleared away through the open door, an assemblage of heads, as confused as the noises that greeted the ear, might be made out; and as the eye grew more accustomed to the scene, the spectator gradually became aware of the presence of a numerous company, male and female, crowded round a long table: at the upper end of which, sat a chairman with a hammer of office in his hand; while a professional gentleman with a bluish nose, and his face tied up for the benefit of a toothache, presided at a jingling piano in a remote corner.
— from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

In those famous days every gazette had a victory in it, and the two gallant young men longed to see their own names in the glorious list, and cursed their unlucky fate to belong to a regiment which had been away from the chances of honour.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

There we sat up to our knees in the sea, the water covering every rib and plank, so that to our downward gazing eyes the suspended craft seemed a coral boat grown up to us from the bottom of the ocean.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

The Kāppiliyans say that they migrated with the Urumikkārans from the banks of the Tungabadra river, because the Tottiyans tried to ravish their women.
— from Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 7 of 7 by Edgar Thurston

The quartet of trombones and tuba is not often employed in close four-part harmony; the third trombone and the tuba usually form the bass in octaves, and the three upper parts are generally allotted to the two remaining trombones reinforced by a trumpet or two horns in unison, so as to obtain a perfect balance of tone: [ Listen ] I have often adopted the following combination of brass instruments, and consider it eminently satisfactory: 2 horns and tuba to form the bass in octaves, the three other parts given to the trombones: (beautiful full resonance).
— from Principles of Orchestration, with Musical Examples Drawn from His Own Works by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov

Nor can that now be alleged, which they used formerly to boast of, that there were not among the plebeians qualified persons for curule magistracies.
— from The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 by Livy

“Ha! ha!” cried Daggoo, all at once, from his now quiet, swinging perch overhead; and looking further off from the side, we saw an arm thrust upright from the blue waves; a sight strange to see, as an arm thrust forth from the grass over a grave.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

Then, traversing with the decided step of one who remembered the way well, several dark and dirty streets—much dirtier than usual, for the best public thoroughfares remained uncleansed in those times of terror—he stopped at a chemist's shop, which the owner was closing with his own hands.
— from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

From March 21st in this year, and onward for six weeks, the paper appears printed on blue sheets of the kind of material that used formerly to be seen on the outsides of pamphlets and magazines and Government "Blue-books."
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

If undertakings like these have been accomplished in the compass of a few years by the authority of single members of our Confederation, can we, the representative authorities of the whole Union, fall behind our fellow servants in the exercise of the trust committed to us for the benefit of our common sovereign by the accomplishment of works important to the whole and to which neither the authority nor the resources of any one State can be adequate?
— from State of the Union Addresses (1790-2006) by United States. Presidents

It is therefore unnecessary for the boats to be rowed either way.
— from Practical Exercises in Elementary Meteorology by Robert DeCourcy Ward

Here, then, is the true task of the parent; to use, for the benefit of his child, that deliberate sense of right, which, in his own case, comes frequently too late for action.
— from First Love: A Novel. Vol. 1 of 3 by Mrs. (Margracia) Loudon

“Are you engaged?” “Just keep spierin'.” “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” “You are a gay deceiver.” “My heart is yours.” “How are your poor feet?” By the hour could Kate sustain such sparkling flirtations, or at least till a “Kiss me, dearest” turned up from the bottom of the poke, and then she slapped his face for him.
— from Bud: A Novel by Neil Munro

In Peru, as in China, instead of the living beings that they used formerly to bury with the dead, they now placed statuettes of men and women with him in his tomb to represent his wives and his servants.
— from Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Native Religions of Mexico and Peru by Albert Réville

Moreover, the sentences of the local tribunals used formerly to be drawn up in Turkish and Greek; but nowadays, although the vernacular be modern Greek throughout the island, no judicial award, or any other official [Pg 182] document, must be written out in Greek, but merely in Turkish; a fact at once perplexing to both parties at suit, as also to the judicial and other administrative offices.
— from The Cretan Insurrection of 1866-7-8 by William James Stillman

On leaving us, he renewedly thanked us for The Book , and the next day he left by diligence coach for Damascus.
— from The Women of the Arabs by Henry Harris Jessup

In Edinburgh the rise in the burials at Greyfriars churchyard was in the weeks ending 5th and 12th April, making them about a half more than usual for the brief period.
— from A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 2 (of 2) From the Extinction of Plague to the Present Time by Charles Creighton

These he “traced up from the beginning accurately one after another” (παρηκολουθηκότι ἄνωθεν πᾶσιν ἀκριβῶς καθεξῆς).
— from The Lost and Hostile Gospels An Essay on the Toledoth Jeschu, and the Petrine and Pauline Gospels of the First Three Centuries of Which Fragments Remain by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

My four friends ain't what they used for to be, an' 'cos I ain't got enough of 'em.
— from The Unclassed by George Gissing