So when you see me ready in my room, and this will be whilst the sentry is having his supper, put out the candle on the table: you can easily manage to do so whilst snuffing it.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Now as soon as a part of the wall was battered down, and certain of the towers yielded to the impression of the battering rams, those that opposed themselves fled away, and such a terror fell upon the tyrants, as was much greater than the occasion required; for before the enemy got over the breach they were quite stunned, and were immediately for flying away.
— from The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Flavius Josephus

Mr. Reynolds, who was afterwards knighted, and certainly the most elegant painter of his day, was a pretty dexterous courtier of the wit tribe; and it was through this gentleman, who painted a piece of me, Lady Lyndon, and our little Bryan, which was greatly admired at the Exhibition (I was represented as quitting my wife, in the costume of the Tippleton Yeomanry, of which I was major;
— from Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

Here am I, the confidant of these two young people and the mediator of their affection.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

In the case of the two younger girls the entire dress was of one material.
— from Malay Magic Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula by Walter William Skeat

What had come over this thrilling young lady-killer?
— from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Charles Dudley Warner

When you want to go visiting, or attend church, or the theatre, you never look up at the clouds to see whether it is likely to rain or not—you look at the almanac.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

The soul which three times in succession has chosen the life of a philosopher or of a lover who is not without philosophy receives her wings at the close of the third millennium; the remainder have to complete a cycle of ten thousand years before their wings are restored to them.
— from Phaedrus by Plato

The third continuation of the third year of the Historisches Taschenbuch (or Historical Pocket-book), of Frederick von Raumer published by Brochkaus of Leipzig, has just made its appearance.
— from The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 by Various

Her lord, painted at the same time by Lawrence, as waving his sabre in front of Bareacres Castle, and clothed in his uniform as Colonel of the Thistlewood Yeomanry, was a withered, old, lean man in a greatcoat and a Brutus wig, slinking about Gray's Inn of mornings chiefly and dining alone at clubs.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Inventing means that you are clever in combining certain movements, devices and chemicals in a new way to produce a certain result which may or may not have been done before, and so it is the new combination of things that you really get a patent on.
— from Inventing for Boys by A. Frederick (Archie Frederick) Collins

No harm can come of that; then you’re free to go home.
— from The Poacher's Wife by Eden Phillpotts

Anyone willing to act as mother's help, and put her hand to anything her employer does, and is, moreover, capable of teaching the young people of the family, would be sure to get on well in a colony.
— from The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 by Various

“If you cannot help it,” replied Mrs. Breynton, quietly, “then it is no fault of yours, but in every way a suitable and praiseworthy condition of things that you should keep your room looking as I would be ashamed to have a servant’s room look, in my house.
— from Gypsy Breynton by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

I assure you I have no more claim on them than your butler, and when Miss Virginia grows up, I dare say she will be pleased to have pretty things to wear.
— from The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde