The pipe with solemn interposing puff, Makes half a sentence at a time enough; The dozing sages drop the drowsy strain, Then pause, and pufföand speak, and pause again.

-Cowper,William
  Poems,'Conversation', l.245^8.

So in all humours sportively I range; My muse is rightly of the English strain, That cannot long one fashion entertain.

-Drayton, Michael
  Ideas Mirrour,'To the Reader ofThese Sonnets'.

A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

-Eliot, George pseudonym of  MaryAnn Evans
  Daniel Deronda, bk.2, ch.15.

Beneath the strain of expectation even the little iced sugar cakes upon the tea-table looked green with worry.

-Firbank, (ArthurAnnesley) Ronald
  The Flower Beneath the Foot, ch.3.

O that the spirit could remain tinged but untarnished by its strain!

-Lowell, RobertTraill Spence,Jr
  'Waking Early Sunday Morning'.

The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting, from the truth of description and the sentiment, is denied to me.

-Scott, Sir Walter
  OnJaneAusten. Journal,14 Mar.