You say with us, no doubt, if somebody must escape, let it be any one but he.’
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

On the other hand, those who would resolve all moral determinations into sentiment, may endeavour to show, that it is impossible for reason ever to draw conclusions of this nature.
— from An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume

Not until the lapse of almost twelve years, to wit, in January last, in the Washington police office, did I set my eyes upon his face again.
— from Twelve Years a Slave Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River in Louisiana by Solomon Northup

The Mysteries of Dionysus in Syria, more especially, were not simply of a theological character.
— from The Symbolism of Freemasonry Illustrating and Explaining Its Science and Philosophy, Its Legends, Myths and Symbols by Albert Gallatin Mackey

One day I saw my elder brother, and my sister's son Satya, also a little older than myself, starting off to school, leaving me behind, accounted unfit.
— from My Reminiscences by Rabindranath Tagore

I believe,” said I. “I'll tell you,” replied he, “what will do it still more effectually—a halter!
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

I did not breathe a word, of course, but neither did I stop my ears.
— from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

‘“I could see directly I set my eyes on him what sort of a fool he was,” gasped the dying Brown.
— from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o'er the scene fain to absorb it all, Faces, varieties, postures beyond description, most in obscurity, some of them dead, Surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of ether, odor of blood, The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms, the yard outside also fill'd, Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some in the death-spasm sweating, An occasional scream or cry, the doctor's shouted orders or calls, The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the glint of the torches, These I resume as I chant, I see again the forms, I smell the odor, Then hear outside the orders given, Fall in, my men, fall in; But first I bend to the dying lad, his eyes open, a half-smile gives he me, Then the eyes close, calmly close, and I speed forth to the darkness, Resuming, marching, ever in darkness marching, on in the ranks, The unknown road still marching.
— from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Or like an old smoked wall, on which the rain Ran down in streaks! MOS: Excellent!
— from Volpone; Or, The Fox by Ben Jonson

However, before going to bed I look out over the country, and when I lie down I strain my ear to catch a sound.
— from Critical Studies by Ouida

"I don't agree with you, Phil," the girl said, picking up the thread of their conversation where they had dropped it some minutes earlier.
— from Mavericks by William MacLeod Raine

[Pg 23] The next year—the winter of '72 and '73—this herd, during its southward migration, extended as far west as Fort Lyon, or some seventy miles farther west than its route of previous years.
— from American Big-Game Hunting: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club by Boone and Crockett Club

He has often done it, sometimes making extra effort with his steamer in order to accommodate me.
— from Ten years of missionary work among the Indians at Skokomish, Washington Territory, 1874-1884 by Myron Eells

Nor, must I confess, did I see many examples of compassion to the unfortunate.
— from Gold by Stewart Edward White

He is honoured by the two following anecdotes, which I quote from Lacordaire's "Introduction to Entomology," the only general treatise at my disposal: "Clairville," says the author, "records that he saw a Necrophorus vespillo, who, wishing to bury a dead Mouse and finding the soil on which the body lay too hard, proceeded to dig a hole at some distance in soil more easily displaced.
— from The Wonders of Instinct: Chapters in the Psychology of Insects by Jean-Henri Fabre

My dear, it scares me even to write it, all alone in this empty house.
— from The Window at the White Cat by Mary Roberts Rinehart

It has not come easily, nor do I shut my eyes in the least to the results which must follow.
— from Initials Only by Anna Katharine Green