This humiliation would arise from a feeling of duty, and she honoured me by supposing that I had as high principles as herself.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

As he propounded this question, which Kit’s mother echoed, somebody in a room near at hand, uttered a great shriek, and a stout lady in a white dress came running to the door, and supported herself upon the bridegroom’s arm.
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

I let her go on till her rage was somewhat exhausted, and then, having thrown her divining apparatus into the fire, I looked at her in pity and anger, and said that we must part the next day, as she had narrowly escaped killing me.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Unable to endure such misery and being less courageous than his wife, my grandfather, in despair at seeing his sick wife deprived of all care and assistance, hanged himself.
— from The Social Cancer: A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere by José Rizal

And therewithal she turned her from the window, and Sir Beaumains rode awayward from the castle, making great dole, and so he rode here and there and wist not where he rode, till it was dark night.
— from Le Morte d'Arthur: Volume 1 by Malory, Thomas, Sir

Meg, who went shopping in the afternoon and got a 'sweet blue muslin', had discovered, after she had cut the breadths off, that it wouldn't wash, which mishap made her slightly cross.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

40 Shee therefore wrought upon that part of you Which is scarce lesse then soule, as she could do, And so hath made your beauty, Vertue too.
— from The Poems of John Donne, Volume 1 (of 2) Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts by John Donne

Perhaps the sticks had been previously used to beat the Death, and so had acquired the fertilising power ascribed to the effigy.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

She walked by this institution several times hesitating, but, finding herself unobserved, faltered past the screen door and stood humble waiting.
— from Sister Carrie: A Novel by Theodore Dreiser

" Mrs. Duncan was at first very much alarmed when Tom started to tell her of the accident, but she soon calmed down as the lad went more into details and stated how comparatively out of danger her husband now was.
— from Tom Swift and His Motor-Boat; Or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa by Victor Appleton

He now has to drop and secure his oar, turn round on his centre half way, seize his harpoon from the crotch, and with what little strength may remain, he essays to pitch it somehow into the whale.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

He told them of the loss of the money to which he had looked for the power to aid them; reminded them that there was neither employment nor subsistence enough on the land—not even if his mother and he were to live like the rest of them, which if necessary they were quite prepared to do; and stated his resolve to part with the remnant of it in order to provide the means of their migrating in a body to Canada, where not a few old friends were eager to welcome them.
— from What's Mine's Mine — Complete by George MacDonald

You may be interested to hear that he has been in hiding on your run for several days, and so have I, within fairly easy reach of him.
— from Stingaree by E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

Peer was carried down the stairs on a stretcher, and the green-painted box on wheels opened its door and swallowed him up; and they would not even let her go with him.
— from The Great Hunger by Johan Bojer

“‘I employed what I thought was an experienced detective, and set him to work on this case; he either would not, or could not, see or believe anything that pointed to any one else as the guilty party but Miss Bramlett.
— from The White Rose of Memphis by William C. (Clark) Falkner

" Nevers echoed him, astonished: "My daughter, in your arms?" Lagardere came quite close to the duke and showed him the bundle cradled in his elbow.
— from The Duke's Motto: A Melodrama by Justin H. (Justin Huntly) McCarthy

"The girl's face preserved its respect with difficulty as she heard the last part of the sentence, but she replied to What she understood to be a warning by saying: "Miss Vessy, I never tell anybody tales."
— from The Entailed Hat; Or, Patty Cannon's Times by George Alfred Townsend

I don't mean one of those good boys that you read of in Sunday-school books—the impossible kind—who lives like a saint every day and says his prayers and retires like a gentleman at night: but one of those lusty, growing young devils, born with a spring in his back, who howls out the first year, sleeps out the second, and by the time of the third is ready to chase the cat around and fight brave battles with the hen folks.
— from Jack Ballington, Forester by John Trotwood Moore