But rys, and lat us soupe and go to reste;' 944 And he answerde him, `Do we as thee leste.' With al the haste goodly that they mighte, They spedde hem fro the souper un-to bedde; And every wight out at the dore him dighte, And wher him liste upon his wey him spedde; But Troilus, that thoughte his herte bledde 950 For wo, til that he herde som tydinge, He seyde, `Freend, shal I now wepe or singe?' Quod Pandarus, `Ly stille and lat me slepe, And don thyn hood, thy nedes spedde be; And chese, if thou wolt singe or daunce or lepe; 955 At shorte wordes, thow shal trowe me.
— from Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer

The three men brought the carriage up quietly, and took out of it a little man, stout, short, elderly, and commonly dressed in clothes of a dark color, who ascended the ladder very carefully, looked suspiciously in at the window of the pavilion, came down as quietly as he had gone up, and whispered, ‘It is she!’
— from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

There was a time when the very idea that such a man as Lord Merton should ever be connected with Lord Orville would have both surprised and shocked me; and even yet I am pleased to hear of his repugnance to the marriage.
— from Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

She was not adored, like Margaret; she was not looked up to and respected, as was the Honorable Edith Gore; she was nobody's pet, as the little Ladies Blanche and Rose Amberley had been ever since they set foot in the school; but she was everybody's friend and comrade, the recipient of everybody's confidences, the sharer in everybody's joys or woes.
— from A True Friend: A Novel by Adeline Sergeant

It seemed to him that he had sinned against his own life, which he had ruined, against the world of lofty ideas, of learning, and of work, and he conceived that wonderful world as real and possible, not on this sea-front with hungry Turks and lazy mountaineers sauntering upon it, but there in the North, where there were operas, theatres, newspapers, and all kinds of intellectual activity.
— from The Duel and Other Stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

At last Mother said to me: "Child, don't bother.
— from The Hungry Stones, and Other Stories by Rabindranath Tagore

Perhaps there was a little more space in there than usual today, but if so it was not immediately obvious, especially as the main difference was the presence of a man sitting by the open window with a book from which he now looked up.
— from The Trial by Franz Kafka

Well, Val was a perfect fool on the subject of Sig, and when he heard of the gambling debts he said a lawyer might straighten the affair out.
— from Melomaniacs by James Huneker

She felt as a young Christian maiden, a prisoner of Nero's day, might have felt if told she was to be flung to a lion miraculously subdued by the influence of Christianity.
— from The Second Latchkey by A. M. (Alice Muriel) Williamson

"Can you strike a light, and let me see you, Donal?" said Arctura.
— from Donal Grant by George MacDonald

Juvenal in Piccadilly and The Excellent Mystery are two fierce social satires and, like most satires, they are the product of the corruption they pillory.
— from Reviews by Oscar Wilde

Scarcely had they reached the water than a low moaning sound was heard in the rigging, and the sails flapped heavily against the mast.
— from Mark Seaworth by William Henry Giles Kingston

There was in it a shadow of reproach, and such warmth of communicative cordiality as left me speechless.
— from St. Ives: Being the Adventures of a French Prisoner in England by Robert Louis Stevenson

On a little mound, shaded by a semicircle of huge trees, sat the Outlaws of Human Reason.
— from Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

Returning to his mother’s home at Lansingburg, Melville soon began the writing of ‘Typee,’ which was completed by the autumn of 1845.
— from Typee: A Romance of the South Seas by Herman Melville