The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was for ever before my eyes, and I raved incessantly concerning him.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

"Frightened of everything and everybody but my dear, noble, handsome husband," she said.
— from Lady Audley's Secret by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

The last seven years of his life were embittered by much ill success in his struggles with the Aetolians; and by seeing Philip V., of whose presence in the Peloponnese he was the main cause, after rendering some brilliant services to the league, both in the Peloponnese and the invasion of Aetolia, develop some of the worst vices of the tyrant; and he believed himself, whether rightly or wrongly, to be poisoned by Philip’s order: “This is the reward,” he said to an attendant when he felt himself dying, “of my friendship for Philip.”
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius

I do not know whether I ever before mentioned to you my feelings on this subject, but I will not leave the country without confiding them, and I trust you will not esteem them unreasonable.
— from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

In order to form a judgment of the difference which exists between me and Gibbon, I will content myself with remarking, that throughout he has committed an anachronism of thirty years, from whence it follows, that he assigns to the reign of Constantius many events which took place during that of Constantine.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

It is true, he would joyfully have borne my expenses: but my affection was as free from meanness as his own; and I made a determination the most solemn, never to lessen its dignity by submitting to pecuniary obligations.
— from Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

This letter he early bid me give his father, And threaten’d me with death, going in the vault, If I departed not, and left him there.
— from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Lady Belmont, who was firmly persuaded of her approaching dissolution, frequently and earnestly besought me, that if her infant was a female, I would not abandon her to the direction of a man so wholly unfit to take the charge of her education: but, should she be importunately demanded, that I would retire with her abroad, and carefully conceal her from Sir John, till some apparent change in his sentiments and conduct should announce him less improper for such a trust.
— from Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

The two are so different that they should not easily be mistaken the one for the other.
— from On War — Volume 1 by Carl von Clausewitz

“‘Why should an exception be made in her favor?’
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

Let the experiment be made.
— from Practical Education, Volume II by Richard Lovell Edgeworth

We here present a specimen of a series of engravings executed by Mr. Vizetelly, for a work projected by the late Mr. Bogue, and yet unpublished.
— from A Treatise on Wood Engraving, Historical and Practical by Henry G. (Henry George) Bohn

The main principles of the art, indeed, were well known in the West long before colour prints were produced in Japan, and there is some reason to suppose that the [Pg ix] Japanese may have founded their methods in imitating the prints taken from Europe by missionaries.
— from Wood-Block Printing A Description of the Craft of Woodcutting and Colour Printing Based on the Japanese Practice by F. Morley (Frank Morley) Fletcher

And I cannot help thinking that this performance must have been far more artistic, as regards costume, than Garrick’s mounting of Shakespeare’s own play on the subject, in which he himself appeared in a nondescript fancy dress, and everybody else in the costume of the time of George the Third, Richmond especially being much admired in the uniform of a young guardsman.
— from Intentions by Oscar Wilde

“I didn’t say so to papa,” said Norah, taking her mother’s arm on the way back to the house, “but the bad result of the acting, in my opinion, will be the familiarity it is sure to encourage between Magdalen and Francis Clare.”
— from No Name by Wilkie Collins

‘ Qui a l’or et l’argent du ciel pour couverture Et du grand Océan le saphir pour tombeau, Embaumé d’un renom et los illustre et beau, Marrannes, n’a besoin de vostre sepulture. ’—
— from The Life and Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Volumes 1 and 2 by Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq

[787] once launched the heavenly bodies into space and still guides them in their courses; the ethnographer has studied the peculiarities of the races, he has met with widely-different conformations, and believes himself sufficiently authorized to deny the unity of the human family; in a word, they conclude that nothing exists but matter, that God is a myth, and the soul "the dream of a dream."
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 11, April, 1870 to September, 1870 by Various

While she was there, either by means of the air or the water, or perhaps both, she had got quite rid of the complaint, and there is no doubt but that, had she remained there a fortnight longer, the cure would have been radical.
— from Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete by Aaron Burr