“No, for I should cause her too great a sorrow; she loves you dearly, and cherishes the locket which contains your likeness.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Conscious always of this basilisk attention, she would writhe under it, half-flattered, half-puzzled, and Monsieur would follow her sensations, sometimes looking appallingly acute; for in some cases, he had the terrible unerring penetration of instinct, and pierced in its hiding-place the last lurking thought of the heart, and discerned under florid veilings the bare; barren places of the spirit: yes, and its perverted tendencies, and its hidden false curves—all that men and women would not have known—the twisted spine, the malformed limb that was born with them, and far worse, the stain or disfigurement they have perhaps brought on themselves.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

When Becky told her father, in strict confidence, how Tom had taken her whipping at school, the Judge was visibly moved; and when she pleaded grace for the mighty lie which Tom had told in order to shift that whipping from her shoulders to his own, the Judge said with a fine outburst that it was a noble, a generous, a magnanimous lie—a lie that was worthy to hold up its head and march down through history breast to breast with George Washington’s lauded Truth about the hatchet!
— from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

My uncle Toby loved the man in return, and what attached him more to him still, was the similitude of their knowledge.—For Corporal Trim, (for so, for the future, I shall call him) by four years occasional attention to his Master's discourse upon fortified towns, and the advantage of prying and peeping continually into his Master's plans, &c. exclusive and besides what he gained Hobby-Horsically, as a body-servant, Non Hobby Horsical per se;—had become no mean proficient in the science; and was thought, by the cook and chamber-maid, to know as much of the nature of strong-holds as my uncle Toby himself.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott's novels and all Byron's poems!–then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life.
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

If there had been any great honours or splendours in the family I should certainly have made the most of them: they would have been quite in my line.
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James

The information pleased me, and I was very glad to have been prevented by Henriette from joining Therese in Naples, as I had intended, for I should certainly have fallen in love with her again, and God knows what the consequences might have been.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

[4064] Admonish thy friend in secret, commend him in public.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

I took it to my counsel, who promised to appeal the same day, which he did not do, while he appropriated to his own use the money assigned by me for the costs of an action which, if there had been justice in France, I should certainly have gained.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

My uncle Toby loved the man in return, and what attached him more to him still, was the similitude of their knowledge.——For Corporal Trim (for so, for the future, I shall call him), by four years occasional attention to his Master’s discourse upon 69 fortified towns, and the advantage of prying and peeping continually into his Master’s plans, &c., exclusive and besides what he gained Hobby-Horsically , as a body-servant, Non Hobby Horsical per se ;——had become no mean proficient in the science; and was thought, by the cook and chamber-maid, to know as much of the nature of strongholds as my uncle Toby himself.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

[157] very curious paper might be made by any one who, after an absence of some years from Ireland, should chronicle his new impressions of the country, and compare them with his old ones.
— from Nuts and Nutcrackers by Charles James Lever

The folks in Strikehigh City had all lived queer lives, but I rather guess that, in some ways, Jack Haines had lived one of the queerest.
— from The Crime and the Criminal by Richard Marsh

She was small, almost childish in stature, with a thin, erect little figure, and a pale oval face, framed in short, curly hair, and at first sight people always called her plain: "an insignificant, puny little thing"—that was what they said until they saw her eyes—and they were the most wonderful and spirituelle eyes in the world.
— from Mollie's Prince: A Novel by Rosa Nouchette Carey

He was carried away by the feelings it inspired: and nobly so, for alas for that man who professes to be in love and is not carried away by his feelings; in such case, he has no feelings worth speaking of!
— from The Maid of Maiden Lane by Amelia E. Barr

This we tried to do and in the second assault the men, led by some of the most daring wisely broke and made a dash for the first fence and over it half across the open field of the triangle to the second fence when we were recalled to the first behind which most had stopped and opened fire, including Stetson, Captain Hiram R. Steele and others.
— from Personal Recollections and Civil War Diary, 1864 by Lemuel Abijah Abbott

In Sweden, as I said before, neither the magpie nor its eggs are ever touched, whilst Mr. Hewitson, writing of Norway, says: "The magpie is one of the most abundant, as well as the most interesting of the Norwegian birds; noted for its sly, cunning habits here, its altered demeanour there is the more remarkable.
— from Mamma's Stories about Birds by Mary Elizabeth Southwell Dudley Leathley

She did not mean to use the word “fail” if she could help it.
— from Mary and I: Forty Years with the Sioux by Stephen Return Riggs

But if she chose to stay for it she could have dinner—and a good one—on condition that she washed up afterwards.
— from The Price of Love by Arnold Bennett

She recognized the two figures instantly, she caught her breath—“It is He!”
— from The Ship of Coral by H. De Vere (Henry De Vere) Stacpoole