For aught Georgiana knew, it might be a pavilion among the clouds.
— from Mosses from an Old Manse, and Other Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne

We felt an irrepressible curiosity to witness this interview, although it is hard to tell why, at this instant, for we knew it must be a painful one.
— from Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People by Charles Dickens

Along the pavement, a curious crowd was loitering, kept in motion by a policeman, but staring at the house as though they expected to read the solution of the mystery in its inexpressive front.
— from That Affair at Elizabeth by Burton Egbert Stevenson

Hence it is that whoever wishes to raise history to a level with other branches of knowledge, is met by a preliminary obstacle; since he is told that in the affairs of men there is something mysterious and providential, which makes them impervious to our investigations, and which will always hide from us their future course.
— from History of Civilization in England, Vol. 1 of 3 by Henry Thomas Buckle

In it, pupils studying balance taxied madly across the turf, striving to keep its misshapen body at proper angle—an impossibility.
— from A Viking of the Sky: A Story of a Boy Who Gained Success in Aeronautics by Hugh McAlister

“Well, Katharine, it may be a pity; but it is not especially dear to either of you.
— from Kingsworth; or, The Aim of a Life by Christabel R. (Christabel Rose) Coleridge

From the waist a peculiar apron-like object is suspended, which reaches to the knees; it may be a part of the costume or a priestly symbol.
— from Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans Second annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880-81, pages 179-306 by William Henry Holmes

If they fell in with a creature of the kind, it might be a [pg 297] bird or a butterfly, they would say, “That is papa,” and offer him a coco-nut.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 08 of 12) by James George Frazer