Formerly, if your boat got away from you, on a black night, and broke for the woods, it was an anxious time with you; so was it also, when you were groping your way through solidified darkness in a narrow chute; but all that is changed now—you flash out your electric light, transform night into day in the twinkling of an eye, and your perils and anxieties are at an end.
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

A boy is stuck in front of your eyes, but what is he doing here, what is his rôle ?—you don't want to give a single thought to the question.
— from The Bet, and other stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

21 “Make an image of wax in the form of your enemy; take it in your right hand at night, and hold your chain of beads in your left hand.
— from Omens and Superstitions of Southern India by Edgar Thurston

Oh, Sir!-thus situated, how comfortless were the feelings of your Evelina!
— from Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

If I were asked: "What is now the chief and fundamental fact of your existence?"
— from The Bet, and other stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Accordingly, when the army had supped, he summoned this young man to his tent, who was full of youthful enthusiasm, and had been trained from boyhood in the art of war, and put under his command a hundred cavalry and the same number of infantry.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius

“So,” he muttered, “black and blue; no bones broken, though no fault of yours, eh? my young cherub, if it wasn't.
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales With Condensed Novels, Spanish and American Legends, and Earlier Papers by Bret Harte

ALL is over, my dearest Sir; and the fate of your Evelina is decided!
— from Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

Fine words and dainty-wrought phrases from the ladies now, one or two of them being, in other days, pupils of that poor ass, Lille, himself; and I marked how that Jonson and Shaxpur did fidget to discharge some venom of sarcasm, yet dared they not in the presence, the queene's grace being ye very flower of ye Euphuists herself.
— from 1601: Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors by Mark Twain

You ought to know better than that, a fellow of your experience!”
— from New Grub Street by George Gissing

[53] EYES INSIDE There's cadence a real movement to the worlds the gaze inside a flicker of your eyes.
— from Whispers by Paul Cameron Brown

It is true that the courtier's pen of Brantôme ascribes to her all the freshness of youth even at the close of the reign of Henry the Second.
— from History of the Rise of the Huguenots Vol. 1 by Henry Martyn Baird

The folly of youthful Extravagance.
— from The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant Being a collection of select pieces from our best modern writers, calculated to eradicate vulgar prejudices and rusticity of manners, improve the understanding, rectify the will, purify the passions, direct the minds of youth to the pursuit of proper objects, and to facilitate their reading, writing, and speaking the English language with elegance and propriety by John Hamilton Moore

How his voice rolled out and up from under those grand old trees; how distinctly every word fell on your ear, as distinctly as though you and he had been together in a little room alone, and he had song it for you.
— from Four Girls at Chautauqua by Pansy

Your experience last night should have convinced you of the futility of your efforts, but I see you are as stubborn as ever.”
— from The Gray Phantom by Herman Landon

"I will explain myself, sir," the Count continued, and, turning to Natah Otann, "you will do me the justice to allow that I have scrupulously kept the promise I made you; in spite of the grief and disgust I felt, I did not fail once; you ever found me cold and calm at your side.
— from The Prairie Flower: A Tale of the Indian Border by Gustave Aimard

“You’re not to mind them—that’s precisely my argument; not to mind what they say about yourself any more than what they say about your friend or your enemy.”
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James