When luck-bringing Hermes came, swift messenger from my father the Son of Cronos and the other Sons of Heaven, bidding me come back from Erebus that you might see me with your eyes and so cease from your anger and fearful wrath against the gods, I sprang up at once for joy; but he secretly put in my mouth sweet food, a pomegranate seed, and forced me to taste against my will.
— from Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica by Hesiod

I have grated upon my good friends for three reprieves for you and your coach-fellow, Nym; or else you had look'd through the grate, like a geminy of baboons.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

I was very far then from expecting the change you have just informed me of; namely, that four years afterwards, this colossus of power would be overthrown.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

I just looked him over a bit, and then I said calmly, 'The only brother I ever had, MR. Fiske, was buried fifteen years ago, and I haven't adopted any since.
— from Anne's House of Dreams by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

“I will carry your message,” said he, “but I pity you; for you are going into their nets again, and will end in utter ruin.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

A few years ago it had sufficed her: she had taken her daily meed of pleasure without caring who provided it.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Oh, how wild is the longing that I have for you at this moment; and this nectar I have spoken of, from whom else could I care for it, could I endure it even, whilst from you what mad delight!
— from The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous

So they, with bitter wrath, were fighting continually with one another at that time for ten full years, and the hard strife had no close or end for either side, and the issue of the war hung evenly balanced.
— from Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica by Hesiod

I should like to do as much for you another time!”
— from Holiday House: A Series of Tales by Catherine Sinclair

And mesquite will ever be Growing green down on the Gila; There's a home for you and me.
— from Cowboy Songs, and Other Frontier Ballads by Various

A few years ahead of these amateurs, that is to say in 1905, J. A. Fleming, of England, invented the vacuum tube detector, but ten more years elapsed before it was perfected to a point where it could compete with the crystal detector.
— from The Radio Amateur's Hand Book A Complete, Authentic and Informative Work on Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony by A. Frederick (Archie Frederick) Collins

And Frank, who had become riotous, said to me: "You see, old fellow, you are about to marry a girl with a pedigree, and I another without one."
— from Cæsar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century by Ignatius Donnelly

Here is her address; you can go and see her for yourself," and she wrote on a piece of note-paper the address, which was somewhere in the direction of Maida Vale.
— from The Threatening Eye by E. F. (Edward Frederick) Knight

I am sending the car for you, and await in eagerness once again to kiss your dear hands.—Your devoted sister, Alec.”
— from Rasputin the Rascal Monk Disclosing the Secret Scandal of the Betrayal of Russia by the Mock-Monk Grichka and the Consequent Ruin of the Romanoffs. With official documents revealed and recorded for the first time. by William Le Queux

I should have been glad to have added a more remarkable letter from Lady Hungerford, who was locked up by her husband in a country house for four years, and “would have died for lack of sustenance,” “had not,” she wrote, “the poor women of the country brought me, to my great window in the night, such poor meat and drink as they had, and gave me for the love of God.”
— from History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. III by James Anthony Froude

Who is satisfied with the doctrine of election and predestination as taught but a few years ago?
— from Personal Experience of a Physician by John Ellis

It was conducted with ability, but it failed to command public support, and after a few years, and the loss of a great deal of money, the old Whig organ sank altogether.]
— from The Greville Memoirs, Part 2 (of 3), Volume 3 (of 3) A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 by Charles Greville

Momma’d take care of the baby for you and welcome.
— from The Squirrel-Cage by Dorothy Canfield Fisher