“I believe you, St. John; for I am sure you are incapable of wishing any one ill; but, as I am your kinswoman, I should desire somewhat more of affection than that sort of general philanthropy you extend to mere strangers.”
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë

My principal endeavour was to learn the language, which my master (for so I shall henceforth call him), and his children, and every servant of his house, were desirous to teach me; for they looked upon it as a prodigy, that a brute animal should discover such marks of a rational creature.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift

Thanks more particularly to my friend Sulzer, the Cantonal Secretary, whom my wife at first despised so much on account of his title which she misunderstood, and who, although he was far from well-off himself, thought it only natural that he should help me, however moderately, out of my difficulties, we soon succeeded in making our little place look so cosy that my simple Zurich friends felt quite at home in it.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner

om any number: and yet it is made up only of that simple idea of an unit repeated; and repetitions of this kind joined together make those distinct simple modes, of a dozen, a gross, a million.
— from An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1 MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2 by John Locke

She guessed that he was too shy to come up to her, and that she would have to devise some means of approach which should not appear to be an advance on her part.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Pierre’s subjection consisted in the fact that he not only dared not flirt with, but dared not even speak smilingly to, any other woman; did not dare dine at the Club as a pastime, did not dare spend money on a whim, and did not dare absent himself for any length of time, except on business—in which his wife included his intellectual pursuits, which she did not in the least understand but to which she attributed great importance.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

The lingering, the unwilling soul, The dismal summons must obey; And bid a long, a sad farewell, To the pale lump of lifeless clay.
— from Model Women by William Anderson

It seemed as if she could have listened for ever, but was unable to reply during several minutes of agitated silence, till at length, with a strong effort, she said in faltering accents, yet with some of her usual vivacity— "You said this once before, and I never forgot it.
— from Modern Flirtations: A Novel by Catherine Sinclair

Under what circumstances do such modes of agamic multiplication, variously modified among parasites, occur?
— from The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2) by Herbert Spencer

At last, in the distance, she made out a dim light and hurried on toward it.
— from The Blue Grass Seminary Girls' Vacation Adventures Or, Shirley Willing to the Rescue by Carolyn Judson Burnett

[Pg 31] Christopher Langman , late Mate of the late Ship called the Nottingham , of the Burden of about 120 Tons, whereof John Dean was Master, Nicholas Mellon Boatswain, and George White Sailor, all belonging to the said Ship, do severally make Oath as followeth, viz.
— from A True Account of the Voyage of the Nottingham-Galley of London, John Dean Commander, from the River Thames to New-England by White, George, sailor on the Nottingham galley

If things are to go on in this way, it is just as likely as any thing in the world that we shall have the Pope of Rome and all his cardinals down among us before we know it, letting folks out of purgatory, selling indulgences to commit sin, and doing so many other awful things!"
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 11, April, 1870 to September, 1870 by Various

I will think the matter over to-night, and try to devise some means of accomplishing our object.
— from Pride: One of the Seven Cardinal Sins by Eugène Sue

Incipit [liber de simplicibus medicinis ordine alphabetico qui appellatur] “Circa Instans” Platearii.
— from The Old English Herbals by Eleanour Sinclair Rohde