This morning, came Tannoos Shidiak, accompanied by a young emir, saying, that they had knowledge of our attempt to liberate Asaad, through the medium of the emir A. "It will not do," said he, "you will not accomplish your object so."
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

It was George Ballmer, a young English sailor, who was prized by the officers as an active lad and willing seaman, and by the crew as a lively, hearty fellow, and a good shipmate.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana

He was seized with a sort of convulsion, he threw himself against the back of the chair as though to gain breath, letting his arms fall, and allowing Marius to see his face inundated with tears, and Marius heard him murmur, so low that his voice seemed to issue from fathomless depths: “Oh! would that I could die!” “Be at your ease,” said Marius, “I will keep your secret for myself alone.”
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

They would sleep with all their clothes on, including their overcoats, and put over them all the bedding and spare clothing they owned; the children would sleep all crowded into one bed, and yet even so they could not keep warm.
— from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

“We see light again, since his Serenity has been appointed, your excellency,” said Timókhin timidly, and continually turning to glance at his colonel.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

He looked the last man on earth to be a budding author; yet Eversedge Sibley had caught sight of a paper-wrapped 66 roll of manuscript.
— from Where the Path Breaks by A. M. (Alice Muriel) Williamson

"I 've been troubled with headache and sleeplessness lately, myself, and I 've struck a remedy that beats anything you ever saw; knocks a headache, and makes you sleep like an infant.
— from Checkers: A Hard-luck Story by Henry Blossom

I make no doubt, it will be to your lasting Honour, that such a Voyage was undertaken from Bristol at your Expence; since it has given the Publick a sufficient Evidence of what may be done in those Parts, and since the Wisdom of the Nation has now agreed to establish a Trade to the South-Seas, which, with the Blessing of God, may bring vast Riches to Great Britain .
— from A Cruising Voyage Around the World by Woodes Rogers

"He don't take after his pa, then; Mr. Isaac was as nice, quiet-mannered a boy as you ever see, when he used to go with Mr. Frank.
— from The Story of the Big Front Door by Mary Finley Leonard

“The man from whom you borrowed all your equipment,” Sandy corrected between his teeth.
— from Black Treasure Sandy Steele Adventures #1 by Robert Leckie

The kingdom of Wurtemberg, therefore, appears to have been, as yet, eminently successful in reconciling a recognition of the right to relief with economy in its distribution.
— from Statement of the Provision for the Poor, and of the Condition of the Labouring Classes in a Considerable Portion of America and Europe Being the preface to the foreign communications contained in the appendix to the Poor-Law Report by Nassau William Senior

An air prisoner is always more noticeable than the batches of infantry who come back to our lines after one of our attacks, but there was something unusual in the sight of seventy-three Germans led by a young English soldier from the zone of fire in this latest fighting.
— from From Bapaume to Passchendaele, 1917 by Philip Gibbs