But if all I have said be not enough to turn thee from thy vile purpose, thou must seek some other instrument for thy dishonour and misfortune; for such I will not consent to be, though I lose thy friendship, the greatest loss that I can conceive.” Having said this, the wise and virtuous Lothario was silent, and Anselmo, troubled in mind and deep in thought, was unable for a while to utter a word in reply; but at length he said, “I have listened, Lothario my friend, attentively, as thou hast seen, to what thou hast chosen to say to me, and in thy arguments, examples, and comparisons I have seen that high intelligence thou dost possess, and the perfection of true friendship thou hast reached; and likewise I see and confess that if I am not guided by thy opinion, but follow my own, I am flying from the good and pursuing the evil.
— from The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Complete by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

I recognized him also.” M. Madeleine resumed in, a very low voice:— “You are sure?” Javert began to laugh, with that mournful laugh which comes from profound conviction.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

My ink, as I observed, had been gone some time, all but a very little, which I eked out with water, a little and a little, till it was so pale, it scarce left any appearance of black upon the paper.
— from The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

But, according to you, she ate very little for supper, and yet the symptoms do not develop until early the next morning!
— from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

When I found in La Plata the tooth of a horse embedded with the remains of Mastodon, Megatherium, Toxodon, and other extinct monsters, which all co-existed with still living shells at a very late geological period, I was filled with astonishment; for seeing that the horse, since its introduction by the Spaniards into South America, has run wild over the whole country and has increased in numbers at an unparalleled rate, I asked myself what could so recently have exterminated the former horse under conditions of life apparently so favourable.
— from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin

Ah, well, it was a very long time since one became a lamp and the other a watchman.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

“O! Master, this vest all stained with wine; of course, a gentleman in Master’s standing never wears a vest like this.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Mr. Thornton moved slightly away, lifted his eyebrows a very little, and then replied: 'I take the risk.
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

I did my own OCR, which joined many of the line-end hyphenated words automatically, but which still resulted in a very large number of nearly identical (to other OCR scans) errors.
— from A Complete Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms or, Synonyms and Words of Opposite Meaning by Samuel Fallows

On either side, the banks of the Medway, covered with cornfields and pastures, with here and there a windmill, or a distant church, stretched away as far as the eye could see, presenting a rich and varied landscape, rendered more beautiful by the changing shadows which passed swiftly across it as the thin and half-formed clouds skimmed away in the light of the morning sun.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

That paper happened, fortunately, to be Liberal in politics, and indeed to be, on just occasion, a valiant log-roller.
— from The Marbeck Inn: A Novel by Harold Brighouse

It will produce, Mr. Young says, a very large sum, and I wish to lend it to you, either all or as much as will make you quite comfortable—you must not refuse.
— from Wylder's Hand by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

But it is also apparent that this village represents the beginning of the process which in time produces a village like Zuñi or Taos.
— from Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1891-92, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896, pages 179-262 by Cosmos Mindeleff

No title could have been more attractive in the eyes of De Coucy; and skipping a very little of his text, where his remembrance of the language failed him, he went on to read.
— from Philip Augustus; or, The Brothers in Arms by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

Several times he opened his lips to ask a question, but it was apparent that the person at the other end of the line had a great deal to say and very little time to say it, and it was only after repeated attempts that he managed to get in a word or so edgewise.
— from Baby Mine by Margaret Mayo

A very long chapter might be written upon the views advanced by different writers as to the circulation of Insects.
— from The Structure and Life-history of the Cockroach (Periplaneta orientalis) An Introduction to the Study of Insects by L. C. (Louis Compton) Miall

Even written as it is by a Spaniard, and for Spaniards, allowing as we must for Spanish impulsiveness and grandiloquence, which says a great deal to express a very little, we cannot but believe that the work is deeply significant.
— from Leon Roch: A Romance, vol. 1 (of 2) by Benito Pérez Galdós

As we left the river and came into a very beautiful prairie, Brother William Smith killed a very large deer, which made us some very nourishing soup, and added to our comfort considerably.
— from Life of Heber C. Kimball, an Apostle The Father and Founder of the British Mission by Orson F. (Orson Ferguson) Whitney

Don Tadeo shrugged his shoulders, and Valentine looked at him with surprise.
— from The Adventurers by Gustave Aimard