A hypochondriacal tendency had shown itself in the banker's constitution of late; and a lack of sleep, which was really only a slight exaggeration of an habitual dyspeptic symptom, had been dwelt on by him as a sign of threatening insanity.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

That she did sit near the players of the Duke’s house; among the rest, Mis Davis, who is the most impertinent slut, she says, in the world; and the more, now the King do show her countenance; and is reckoned his mistress, even to the scorne of the whole world; the King gazing on her, and my Lady Castlemayne being melancholy and out of humour, all the play, not smiling once.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

A man of weak will, who had brought himself to take the three thousand so insultingly offered by his betrothed, could not, we are told, have set aside half and sewn it up, but would, even if he had done so, have unpicked it every two days and taken out a hundred, and so would have spent it all in a month.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“I daresay she has, I have seen her weep myself; but I like the way in which she has chosen the being who delivered me from her chains as a protector.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Swart Amiral is here, he of the pistol that missed fire; young Cecile Renault, with her father, family, entire kith and kin; the widow of d'Espremenil; old M. de Sombreuil of the Invalides, with his Son,—poor old Sombreuil, seventy-three years old, his Daughter saved him in September, and it was but for this.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

Prudent and honorable statesmanship would therefore have given her the benefit of the doubt, and claimed against her nothing but the damage she had herself caused.
— from The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes

Now to return again to Giltspurre street, where I first began with this suburb, there standeth the parish church of St. Sepulchre in the Bayly, as is before showed; from this street to Turnagaine lane, by Hosiar lane, Cow lane, and Holdborn conduit, down Snore hill to Oldborne bridge, and up Oldborne hill, by Gold lane on the right hand, and Lither lane beyond it, to the bars; beyond the which bars on the same side is Porte pool, or Grayes inn lane, so called of the inn of court, named Grayes inn, a goodly house there situate, by whom built or first begun I have not yet learned, but seemeth to be since Edward III.’s time, and is a prebend to Paule’s church in London.
— from The Survey of London by John Stow

Whatever things that dear child has all along a fancy for, do send her round a few even as often as you can by some one or other!"
— from Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel, Book I by Xueqin Cao

"I dare say," he says at last, "that even such a wretched mite of a bird as you must have been meant for some good purpose.
— from Little Folks (September 1884) A Magazine for the Young by Various

Yet I did still hold in substance all that I had said against the Church of Rome in my Prophetical Office.
— from Apologia pro Vita Sua by John Henry Newman

In fact, he confessed that he would have done so himself if he had been in Abner's place."
— from The Touch of Abner by H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody

"The last came near costing me very dear," said he; "it was laid half way down to the Black Man's; you know, William, the great rock which looks like a giant sitting down; I had climbed, on my knees, and I had only one more step to take, when a great big wave—a coward!—behind struck me, and would have carried me away if I had not clung with all my might to the great Black Man." "Foolish child," said the mother, "could you not foresee the return of the tide?" "Not at all, not at all.
— from Two Festivals by Eliza Lee Cabot Follen

“He's divorced,” said Howard.
— from A Modern Chronicle — Complete by Winston Churchill