Mrs. Martin had told her one day (and there was a blush as she said it,) that it was impossible for any body to be a better son, and therefore she was sure, whenever he married, he would make a good husband.
— from Emma by Jane Austen

He lived eight years in the log hut first erected and built a stone structure in 1855.
— from A History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States From the Earliest Beginning down to the Year 1848 by George T. (George Tobias) Flom

We are all born, as Schiller says, in Arcadia.
— from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Counsels and Maxims by Arthur Schopenhauer

Bathsheba was brimming with agitated bewilderment, and she said, in half-suspicious accents of feeling, "Can it be!
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

A good, generous prayer it was, and went into details: it pleaded for the church, and the little children of the church; for the other churches of the village; for the village itself; for the county; for the State; for the State officers; for the United States; for the churches of the United States; for Congress; for the President; for the officers of the Government; for poor sailors, tossed by stormy seas; for the oppressed millions groaning under the heel of European monarchies and Oriental despotisms; for such as have the light and the good tidings, and yet have not eyes to see nor ears to hear withal; for the heathen in the far islands of the sea; and closed with a supplication that the words he was about to speak might find grace and favor, and be as seed sown in fertile ground, yielding in time a grateful harvest of good.
— from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

She had suffered for the very faithfulness with which she had carried out her part of the tacit compact, but the part was not a handsome one at best, and she saw it now in all the ugliness of failure.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

The theatre comes afterward; then a table at the Midnight Frolic—of course, mother will be along there, but she will serve only to make things more secretive and brilliant as she sits in solitary state at the deserted table and thinks such entertainments as this are not half so bad as they are painted, only rather wearying.
— from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott (Francis Scott) Fitzgerald

In a certain convent there were eight large dormitories on one floor, approached by a spiral staircase in the centre, as shown in our plan.
— from Amusements in Mathematics by Henry Ernest Dudeney

My indigestion reminded me of a witty saying of a man who was not much in the habit of uttering many of them; I mean M. de Maisonrouge, who was taken home one day almost dying from a severe attack of indigestion: his carriage having been stopped opposite the Quinze-Vingts by some obstruction, a poor man came up and begged alms, saying, “Sir, I am starving.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

[Pg 31] and but a single shirt in tatters.”
— from The Man from Mars: His Morals, Politics and Religion by William Simpson

Another tells us of adult uncles and nieces sleeping in the same room close to each other; another of the uncles and nieces sleeping in the same bed together; another of adult brothers, and sisters sleeping in the same room with a brother and his wife just married; many tell us of adult brothers and sisters sleeping in the same beds; another tells us of rooms so filled with beds that there is no space between them, but that brothers, sisters, and parents crawl over each other half naked in order to get to their respective resting-places; another of its being common for men and women, not being relations, to undress together in the same room, without any feeling of its being indelicate; another of cases where women have been delivered in bed-rooms crowded with men, young women, and children; and others mention facts of these crowded bed-rooms much too horrible to be alluded to.
— from The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign Why It Exists, and How It May Be Extinguished by Henry Charles Carey

I mean soon to have a publishing organ completely devoted to my views, and then, if you will look out sharp for the best American books and serial stories, I think we could put a good deal of money into your hands in return for judgment, expedition, and zeal."
— from Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 by Various

She touched a bell as she said in an odd manner of inflecting, 'But you are late!'
— from Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories by H. G. (Harrison Griswold) Dwight

"The elevator is worked by the weight of water; this necessitates there always being a sufficient supply in the tank at the top of the incline, which is pumped by a 12-horse-power steam pump from a large tank at the foot.
— from Picturesque Quebec : a sequel to Quebec past and present by Le Moine, J. M. (James MacPherson), Sir

The double-aisled choir is garnished with sculptured stalls of the fifteenth century, and, separated from its aisles by a stone screen, is of much larger proportions 347 than the nave, and likewise of a later epoch of building.
— from The Cathedrals of Northern France by M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield

[Pg 373] "You are better, Ann," she said, in a low, gentle voice.
— from Autobiography of a Female Slave by Martha Griffith Browne

I keep asking her for the name of the man, or some indication of how it came about, but all she says is: "Nobody—nobody!"
— from The Works of John Galsworthy An Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy by John Galsworthy