What did I care how that weight caused the line to cut into my ankles?
— from Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey by Ingersoll Lockwood

But, you see, though I had the mansion house And traveling passes and local distinction, I could hear the whispers, whispers, whispers, Wherever I went, and my daughters grew up With a look as if some one were about to strike them;
— from Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters

A little after dark last evening a violent storm arrose to the N. E. and shortly after came on attended with violent Thunder lightning and some hail; the rain fell in a mere torrant and the wind blew so violently that it was with difficulty I could have the small canoes unloaded before they filled with water; they sustained no injury.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

Mr. Cradlebaugh, who served a term as a Federal Judge in Utah and afterward was sent to Congress from Nevada, tells in a speech delivered in Congress how these leaders next proceeded: “They professed to be on good terms with the Indians, and represented them as being very mad.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

He found a difficulty in collecting his thoughts and bringing them to bear on Mamma Valerius' "good genius," on the Angel of Music of whom Christine had spoken to him so strangely, on the death's head which he had seen in a sort of nightmare on the high altar at Perros and also on the Opera ghost, whose fame had come to his ears one evening when he was standing behind the scenes, within hearing of a group of scene-shifters who were repeating the ghastly description which the hanged man, Joseph Buquet, had given of the ghost before his mysterious death.
— from The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

I had not much difficulty in convincing him that if he had the means of settling in Australia he was much more likely to prosper there than by continuing in service in this country.
— from Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover by Anonymous

For some time, wandering through the swathed and darkened departments, I could hear the brooms at work.
— from The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

And on the end of it these words were written, “Thou who shalt enter me, beware that thou be in steadfast belief, for I am Faith; and if thou doubtest, I cannot help thee.”
— from The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights by Knowles, James, Sir

It may be in a great strait, and not know what to do: I cannot help that.
— from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

Can't you make them do?" "I can hold them crumpled up in my hand, so no one will know how stained they are.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

From my door I could hear the roar of curling stones at Rashie-bog, which is almost four miles nearer Thrums.
— from The Little Minister by J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie

It had a state, a dignity, a smoothness, a polish, which I should not know where to match, and when the superb coach drove into the ring to convey the lady performers to the scene of their events, there was a majesty in the effect which I doubt if courts have the power to rival.
— from Complete Project Gutenberg William Dean Howells Literature Essays by William Dean Howells

Twitchell was showing the fans down in Cincinnati how to play right field.
— from Won in the Ninth The first of a series of stories for boys on sports to be known as The Matty Books by Christy Mathewson

Fortune had always played into his hands, he said, and I had no little difficulty in convincing him that matters had passed from his hands into mine.
— from Project Gutenberg Complete Works of Winston Churchill by Winston Churchill

From the distance I could hear the rumble of the guns and the murmur of a great army moving, but the church itself was as silent as the dead and filled with the ghosts of yesterday.
— from The Great White Army by Max Pemberton

The bucks and beaux all gathered round that radiant creature, whose insolence charmed them more than the amiability of other women, and who could keep them all at a distance, yet draw them as the magnet draws iron; could have them fluttering about her and following her from room to room, yet never say too kind a word or return too ardent a glance.
— from Mohawks: A Novel. Volume 2 of 3 by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

That burning grip held Maurice prisoner all the way downstairs; it chained him to the child until they reached the street.
— from The Vehement Flame by Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

This is a comparatively large amount of arsenic sulphide, and the depilation is considerably hastened; the skins indeed are unhaired after passing through this round, i.e. after about 10 days' liming.
— from Animal Proteins by Hugh Garner Bennett

In a narrative of this kind, resting upon a great number of voluminous details, I cannot hope to have wholly escaped error, and wherever I have misconceived or misstated a fact, it will give me pleasure to correct the record.
— from Chancellorsville and Gettysburg Campaigns of the Civil War - VI by Abner Doubleday

As to the ransacking and cowing of Harts-bane, I say that I am sackless therein, because the man is but a ruffler and a man of violence, and hath cowed many men of the Dale; and if he gainsay me, then do I call him to the Holm after this war is over; either him or any man who will take his place before my sword.’
— from The Roots of the Mountains Wherein Is Told Somewhat of the Lives of the Men of Burgdale, Their Friends, Their Neighbours, Their Foemen, and Their Fellows in Arms by William Morris