Chapter 20 A Catastrophe WE lay three days in New Orleans, but the captain did not succeed in finding another pilot; so he proposed that I should stand a daylight watch, and leave the night watches to George Ealer.
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

What do I not owe you!
— from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Shall we say that we have discovered in no other creature but man the use of a reasonable soul?
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

But it appeared to her she had done something; she had tasted of the delight, if not of battle, at least of victory; she had done what was truest to her plan.
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James

When Armies fight, there is on one side, or both, a running away; yet when they do it not out of trechery, but fear, they are not esteemed to do it unjustly, but dishonourably.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

715 For though a man forbede dronkenesse, He nought for-bet that every creature Be drinkelees for alwey, as I gesse; Eek sith I woot for me is his distresse, I ne oughte not for that thing him despyse, 720 Sith it is so, he meneth in good wyse.
— from Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer

O great Don Fum, Master of all Masters, what do I not owe thee for having made known unto me the existence of this wonderful World within a World!
— from Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey by Ingersoll Lockwood

The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.'
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

Does it not often seem as if a malicious demon ruled the world?
— from Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine by Berthold Auerbach

Unfortunately for our country, it embraces two distinct forms of society, of dissimilar, if not of antagonistic character.
— from The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 3, March, 1864 Devoted to Literature and National Policy by Various

By this arrangement the heaven was divided into two domains, two factions; and the analogy of human ideas already opened a vast field to the errors of imagination; but the mistake and the illusion were determined, if not occasioned by a particular circumstance.
— from The Ruins; Or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires and the Law of Nature by C.-F. (Constantin-François) Volney

The division is naturally one of intense interest.
— from The Mother of Parliaments by Harry Graham

As the pilgrims passed that old Lepers’ Hospital, founded by Lanfranc in 1084, on this breezy and healthful hillside, whence rose the sweet smell of the herbs for which Harbledown (== Herbal down) has [Pg 185] derived its name, one of the brethren of this charitable foundation would come out and sprinkle them with holy water, presenting the shoe of Saint Thomas to be kissed, and praying them for the love of God and the Blessed Martyr to give something towards the support of the poor lepers of Saint Nicholas.
— from The Dover Road: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike by Charles G. (Charles George) Harper

"Oh, Wilton," she said, "what do I not owe you!"
— from The King's Highway by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

“I desire it, not only for what you are, but for what you have been—have always been, let them say what they will!”
— from The Maids of Paradise by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

That performances were given there before the close of the year is at least indicated by an order of the Privy Council dated October 29, 1587: A letter to the Justices of Surrey, that whereas the inhabitants of Southwark had complained unto their Lordships declaring that the order by their Lordships set down for the restraining of plays and interludes within that county on the Sabbath Days is not observed, and especially within the Liberty of the Clink, and in the Parish of St. Saviours....
— from Shakespearean Playhouses A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration by Joseph Quincy Adams

As an exhibition of national military capacity and a revelation of our prodigious possibilities of armed resistance, it taught the world the advisability and indeed the absolute necessity of letting the United States alone, as the one unassailable and defensively irresistible nation on earth.
— from The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct, Volume 1 (of 2) A Narrative and Critical History by George Cary Eggleston