I did think him kind; and as to distrusting him, or his advice, or his address, I should almost as soon have thought of distrusting the Bible.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

It’s a sad ending for poor little B. I’ll get to be a most awful frump in a year or two and come and see you in a mackintosh and a sailor hat tied on with a white china silk motor veil.
— from Bliss, and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield

There is a large element of hazard in these matters, and a second hazard, that of our own death, often prevents us from awaiting for any length of time the favours of the first.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

"You will all agree," said he, "that our chief danger consists in the sly and treacherous manner in which the enemy approaches us.
— from Aesop's Fables by Aesop

The heat of the wine made her into a Bacchante, hard to appease; but when I could do no more I told her to leave me alone, and she had to obey.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Come here a bit,” said she, assuming a soft high tone of voice.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

We greeted each other, and after shaking hands took our seats.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant

My mother would just about as soon have thought of anticipating the discovery of the open Polar Sea, by a trip thither, as going out to visit on Saturday.
— from Beulah by Augusta J. (Augusta Jane) Evans

went by, and again she heard the opening and shutting of a door, and men's footsteps on the landing.
— from The Heart of a Woman by Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness

She saw that the best thing to do was to get the visitors away, and she hurried them off as quickly as possible, going with them herself in order to prevent bloodshed on the way, for they wanted to fight every one they met.
— from The White Queen of Okoyong: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism and Faith by W. P. (William Pringle) Livingstone

An inquiry after Denbigh was instituted, and while they were waiting his appearance, a servant handed the old man a note.
— from Precaution: A Novel by James Fenimore Cooper

Hieronymus Dungersheim of Leipzig was later to raise his voice in a protest of this sort, addressed to Luther, which may be considered as an echo of the feeling awakened in the minds of many by the news of Luther’s marriage and as such may serve as a striking historical testimony: “O unhappy, thrice unhappy man!
— from Luther, vol. 2 of 6 by Hartmann Grisar

"The country rings," said Mildred, again taking the more cheerful hue of her lover's hopes, and following out, with an affectionate sympathy, his tone of thought, "with anticipation of victory from Gates's southern march."
— from Horse-Shoe Robinson: A Tale of the Tory Ascendency by John Pendleton Kennedy

With Maud he was not so reticent, and after supper he told of the success at the land-office, and the use he had made at Mora's request of part of the recovered treasure.
— from A Fortune Hunter; Or, The Old Stone Corral: A Tale of the Santa Fe Trail by John Dunloe Carteret

Before I had time to make any answer, she had taken out of a casket that stood beside us, a scroll of parchment, bound with a silk ribbon, which she immediately put into my hands, and— “To-morrow,” said she, “Valerius, our fate, they tell us, must at length be determined;—if we share the fate of Tisias, the last gift of Tisias shall be yours.
— from Valerius. A Roman Story by J. G. (John Gibson) Lockhart

Harold looked at him and laughed, then picked up a menu card and studied it until he calculated that the young man whom he had addressed as Archie should have thrown off so much of his smile as would enable him to speak.
— from A Gray Eye or So. In Three Volumes—Volume II by Frank Frankfort Moore

And say, when you look around and see how these old vines hang down, you'd almost believe we were making our way through some tropical forest like lots of men we've read about."
— from The Boy Scouts Under Fire in Mexico by John Henry Goldfrap