"As she spoke, she dashed the contents of the water-jug she held ... right into the dark corner by the clock."  From The Duchess Lass by Caroline Masters, 1896.

From Robert Greene: His Life and Works by Nikolai Storozhenko, 1881.

Momus suggests that there are "few tales which would not be improved by the addition of the phrase 'suddenly, a shot rang out.'"
Decide for yourself as we alter the opening lines of . . .

Barefoot by Elin Hilderbrand

Three women step off a plane.  It sounded like the start of a joke.  Suddenly, a shot rings out.

(Thanks, June!)

An illustration from a 1900 issue of The Lady's Realm magazine.  The caption reads: "Something appeared at the window."

From Wehman Bros.' New Book of One Hundred and Fifty Parlor Tricks and Games, 1905.

From The Silence of Dean Maitland by Maxwell Gray, 1896.

Masquers from The National and Domestic History of England by William Hickman Smith Aubrey, 1878.

An illustration from a 1900 issue of The Lady's Realm magazine.

[For HBG2 and the Disneyland Haunted Mansion pop-up ghosts.]

"Be the elephant you wish to see in the room." —Jacob Wren (via Gary Barwin)

Here's a precursor to that Fawlty Towers scene about life in California: "You can swim and sunbathe, and then after lunch, drive up into the mountains and ski."  From Roughing It by Mark Twain.

From Southerly Busters by Ironbark, 1878.

An illustration from A Journey Round the World by Carl Marr (1888).

"Ate her cake and drank her tea in a fairyland of enchantment," from Bushigrams by Guy Newell Boothby, 1897.

From A Tramp Abroad by Samuel Clemens.

"Saint Satan," from The New Hyperion by Edward Strahan, 1875.

Here's a precursor to Meher Baba's "Don't worry, be happy," from Southerly Busters by Ironbark, 1878.

"It bears repeating that no time map, however elegant or compelling, can ever claim to be exclusive or definitive, especially in a society as dynamic as Rome's was in the half millennium before the birth of Christ."