Suddenly the schooner in front of me gave a violent yaw, turning, perhaps, through twenty degrees; and almost at the same moment one shout followed another from on board; I could hear feet pounding on the companion ladder and I knew that the two drunkards had at last been interrupted in their quarrel and awakened to a sense of their disaster.
— from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Their neck is long, and exceedingly slender, from eighteen inches to two feet is a very common length, and I killed one, where the distance from the shoulder to the extremity of the head was no less than three feet ten inches.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

The piece purchased was west of the city limits, and I kept it until 1886 when I had almost forgotten that I was the owner.
— from Sixty Years in Southern California, 1853-1913 Containing the Reminiscences of Harris Newmark by Harris Newmark

But I haven't any, dear, and I'll tell you every one of them, and, rather than see a tear in your dear eyes, I would tell John Lenox that I never wanted to see him again; and I don't know what you have been thinking, but I haven't thought so at all" (which last assertion made even Mrs. Carling laugh), "and I know that I have been teasing and horrid, and if you won't put me in the closet I will be good and answer every question like a nice little girl."
— from David Harum A Story of American Life by Edward Noyes Westcott

Oh, yes, I once went to chemistry lectures, and I know.
— from The Wizard's Son, Vol. 2 (of 3) by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

After wandering about for some time without any settled purpose, I began to feel a certain longing after I knew not what, an inward yearning which I would fain have satisfied; at last, just as I was passing the shop of an Italian restaurant which sent forth a most seductive odour of fried fish, the happy thought struck me that I perhaps was hungry.
— from The French in Algiers The Soldier of the Foreign Legion; and The Prisoners of Abd-el-Kader by Clemens Lamping

With a certain literary aspirant I know, writing is even more like flirting than that,—an artful folly with literature which will never rise to the dignity of a wedding sacrifice.
— from The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance by Paul Elmer More

It seems to me almost incredible that he can have come away, so soon from his country dwelling, which he so much preferred to our city life; and I keep believing that he is merely some pleasing apparition, presently to vanish from our sight amongst those clouds which he is blowing from his cigar."
— from The Serapion Brethren, Vol. I. by E. T. A. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus) Hoffmann

Their neck is long, and exceedingly slender; from eighteen inches to two feet is a very common length, and I killed one, where the distance from the shoulder to the extremity of the head was no less than three feet ten inches.
— from The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket Comprising the details of a mutiny and atrocious butchery on board the American brig Grampus, on her way to the South Seas, in the month of June, 1827. by Edgar Allan Poe

Don't you think people can leave an influence, Kit?"
— from The Buccaneer Farmer Published in England under the Title "Askew's Victory" by Harold Bindloss

I was afraid to put it back then, because the fellows talked about my changed looks, and I knew if the money turned up they would suspect me.
— from Jack Chanty: A Story of Athabasca by Hulbert Footner

I am but a subordinate, Captain Ludlow, and I know my duty too well not to be silent in a squall, and I hope too well not to know how to speak when my commander wishes the opinions of his officers at a council; and therefore mine, just now, is perhaps different from that of some others in this ship, that I will not name, who are good men, too, though none of the oldest."
— from The Water-Witch; Or, the Skimmer of the Seas: A Tale by James Fenimore Cooper