He fears he will be caught lagging through the day; he fears to approach the gin-house with his basket-load of cotton at night; he fears, when he lies down, that he will oversleep himself in the morning.
— from Twelve Years a Slave Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River in Louisiana by Solomon Northup

“May I beg you to come as near half-past six to my little dwelling, as possible, Miss Matilda?
— from Cranford by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

The old sails were sent down, and three new topsails, and new fore and main courses, jib, and fore-topmast staysail, which were made on the coast, and never had been used, were bent, with a complete set of new earings, robands and reef-points; and reef-tackles were rove to the courses, and spilling-lines to the top-sails.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana

Since the first joy from Mr. Crawford's note to William had worn away, she had been in a state absolutely the reverse; there had been no comfort around, no hope within her.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Come, Ayrton, Neb, Herbert, Captain Harding, Mr. Spilett, every one of us must turn to at our work to-day!
— from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

No relief, and no credit, and no help from anybody.
— from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

As they were, like some other committees, extremely dull and prolix in debate, this history may pursue the footsteps of Newman Noggs; thereby combining advantage with necessity; for it would have been necessary to do so under any circumstances, and necessity has no law, as all the world knows.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

Besides, nobody at Yverdon had shown me more constant attention, nor had so prodigally bestowed upon me praises and flattery as this banneret.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“It is strange that you should be bound to Smyrna for more cargo, and not have the wherewithal to purchase it with!
— from Picked up at Sea The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek by John C. (John Conroy) Hutcheson

By nine o’clock Edward Carleton seemed to be in better spirits, and to be resting more comfortably, and neither Henry Carleton, nor, for that matter, Doctor Morrison himself, retired with any thought of an immediate turn for the worse.
— from The Carleton Case by Ellery H. (Ellery Harding) Clark

[Pg 139] up, not to where they may ‘see the promised land,’ but to secure for them and their children a nobler heritage than Joshua ever saw or Moses ever dreamed of.”
— from Mr. Oseba's Last Discovery by George W. (George William) Bell

And with what a courtly air now he led her to a chair, and bent over her, and lifted up her face, and held it tenderly between both his hands!
— from The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale by Frank L. (Frank Lucius) Packard

He would make such a capture as never had been made before.
— from The City of Pleasure: A Fantasia on Modern Themes by Arnold Bennett

A second time his glance sweeps the tennis courts, and now his brow grows dark; Hescott is not here, either.
— from The Hoyden by Duchess

38 Freeman’s Oath Reproduced from “The Book of General Lawes and Libertyes concerning the Inhabitants of the Massachusetts”-–1648 By the courtesy of Henry Edwards Huntington 39 In 1643, the Colonies of Massachusetts-Bay, New Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven, concluded a Confederacy by which they entered into a solemn compact to afford each other mutual advice and assistance on all necessary occasions, whether offensive, defensive, or prudential.
— from Oaths of Allegiance in Colonial New England by Charles Evans

Before the war began, the authors of works on commerce and navigation had urged the Parliament to enforce these claims, even in the Mediterranean against France, and for the same reasons that were formerly used by Sir Walter Raleigh.
— from The Sovereignty of the Sea An Historical Account of the Claims of England to the Dominion of the British Seas, and of the Evolution of the Territorial Waters by Thomas Wemyss Fulton

He is called a new Heracles, because of the legend that Heracles triumphed over fifty virgins in a single night; no doubt the poet alludes to some exploit of the kind here.
— from The Eleven Comedies, Volume 2 by Aristophanes

The contest against Napoleon had been waged by German patriots not only to overcome a foreign foe but to break the tyrant at home.
— from Our Foreigners: A Chronicle of Americans in the Making by Samuel Peter Orth