"O God, if my life is to be long, let me live to bless and comfort––" At that moment Maggie felt a startling sensation of sudden cold about her knees and feet; it was water flowing under her.
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

The trader to whom he gave it might lock it in his strong box and have it guarded by a troop of soldiers, but the charmed metal flew back to its old master.
— from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay

I long to see you all, and in spite of my nonsense am, as ever, your loving Amy." "Paris" "Dear Girls,— "In my last I told you about our London visit,—how kind the Vaughns were, and what pleasant parties they made for us.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott

The fact was, that at taw, prison-bars, or boxing, I was at the head of the school, but could not be brought to excel in the classics; and after having been flogged seven times, without its doing me the least good in my Latin, I refused to submit altogether (finding it useless) to an eighth application of the rod.
— from Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

I felt keenly for the poor body-starved theory-burdened soul, and though I was under no delusion as to the assistance I got in my Latin, I could not make up my mind to get rid of him.
— from My Reminiscences by Rabindranath Tagore

I long to see you all, and in spite of my nonsense am, as ever, your loving... AMY PARIS Dear girls, In my last I told you about our London visit, how kind the Vaughns were, and what pleasant parties they made for us.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

"Then," said the King, "my love for her is so great that if all the leaves on the trees had tongues, they should not gainsay it; my life is set upon the search for her.
— from Grimm's Fairy Stories by Wilhelm Grimm

All the afternoon finishing of the character, which I did and gave it my Lord, it being very handsomely done and a very good one in itself, but that not truly Alphabetical.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

One of the most obvious and immediately useful services of the geologist in most localities is the collection and preservation of well samples for purposes of identification and correlation of rock formations, and as a guide to further drilling.
— from The Economic Aspect of Geology by C. K. (Charles Kenneth) Leith

Any “exclusive” item of news I got in my letters I published through the spook-board, and left it to Father Time and the Turkish post to bring corroboration.
— from The Road to En-Dor Being an Account of How Two Prisoners of War at Yozgad in Turkey Won Their Way to Freedom by E. H. (Elias Henry) Jones

Surely this question is of the first importance to humanity!" "I grant it, my lord, if by humanity you mean the human individual.
— from Donal Grant by George MacDonald

“That is what you want, gentlemen,” he observed, with a deep sigh; “your gain is my loss, I am a ruined man.”
— from Ronald Morton; or, the Fire Ships: A Story of the Last Naval War by William Henry Giles Kingston

There is the Rhododendron, for instance, a plant of the same natural family with the Laurel and the Azalea, and looking more robust and woody than either: it once grew in many localities in this region, and still lingers in a few, without consenting either to die or to blossom, and there is only one remote place from which any one now brings into our streets those large luxuriant flowers, waving white above the dark green leaves, and bearing "just a dream of sunset on their edges, and just a breath from the green sea in their hearts."
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 62, December, 1862 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

Perhaps if that due quantity of electrical fire so obstinately retained by glass, could be separated from it, it would no longer be [Pg 371] glass; it might lose its transparency, or its brittleness, or its elasticity."
— from Benjamin Franklin; Self-Revealed, Volume 2 (of 2) A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own Writings by Wiliam Cabell Bruce

“Then,” rejoined the incorrigible fellow, “if you will not give it me, lend it me, and you may believe I will return it on any day you fix.”
— from Liverpool a few years since: by an old stager by James Aspinall