Besides Fidelio they could produce nothing save Die Schweizerfamilie, a fact about which this great singer complained, as this was one of her first parts sung in early youth, for which she was hardly any longer suited, and which, in addition, she had played ad nauseam.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner

A student had pawned a New Testament with a Jew for a paltry sum of money, and when he came to [474] redeem it, the pawnbroker, having in the meantime read it and become a Christian, gave the student a hundred Louis d'or as a token of gratitude because he had through this book come to a saving knowledge of Christ.
— from Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ by Aaron Bernstein

It was an inspiring spot and, as she had promised a new lecture for the Slayton Bureau, she decided to remain and write it here.
— from The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years by Ida Husted Harper

For instance, one day, after she had passed a number of men, several of whom had paid her the not unusual compliment of wishing she was their sweetheart, one of the lingerers added, 'Your bonny face, my lass, makes the day look brighter.'
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Another school of thought holds that it was pure coincidence; that all suns have planets as naturally and as inevitably as cats have kittens.
— from Triplanetary by E. E. (Edward Elmer) Smith

And so hours pass and not a move.
— from Kora in Hell: Improvisations by William Carlos Williams

News had reached Albuquerque that Yusaf Adil Sháh had prepared a number of fire-ships, which he intended to send down the river to set fire to the Portuguese fleet.
— from Rulers of India: Albuquerque by H. Morse (Henry Morse) Stephens

It is possible that German boys do not cause so much anxiety to their masters as English boys, and that work was not carried on at such high pressure as nowadays; it is quite certain that no master of an English public school could pursue his work continuously, year after year, as these old Germans seem to have done, without breaking down in health.
— from Bach by C. F. Abdy (Charles Francis Abdy) Williams

In at the play-house just at six he pops, And never quits it till the curtain drops, Is never absent on the author's night , Knows actresses and actors too—by sight; So humble, that with Suett he'll confer, Or take a pipe with plain Jack Bannister; Nay, with an author has been known so free, He once suggested a catastrophe— In short, John dabbled till his head was turn'd: His wife remonstrated, his neighbours mourn'd, His customers were dropping off apace, And Jack's affairs began to wear a piteous face.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 4 Poems and Plays by Charles Lamb

She was defying James Hattersley and setting his prediction at naught.
— from A Book of Ghosts by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

And so Janet, her father's especial favourite and standby, had come, and she had played, and not a word whispered except to Hilda.
— from These Twain by Arnold Bennett

With this he had been accustomed to turn those who offended him into any shape he pleased; and now that he had lost it he could only transform himself.
— from Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales by Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing