He would brighten up sometimes upon the 'old days of the India House,' when he consorted with Woodroffe, and Wissett, and Peter Corbet (a descendant and worthy representative, bating the point of sanctity, of old facetious Bishop Corbet), and Hoole who translated Tasso, and Bartlemy Brown whose father (God assoil him therefore) modernised Walton—and sly warm-hearted old Jack Cole (King Cole they called him in those days), and Campe, and Fombelle—and a world of choice spirits, more than I can remember to name, who associated in those days with Jack Burrell (the bon vivant of the South Sea House), and little Eyton (said to be a facsimile of Pope—he was a miniature of a gentleman) that was cashier under him, and Dan Voight of the Custom House that left the famous library.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

Little had Alfred Layton ever suspected that, while seeking to gain May's affection, he was winning another heart; little knew he that in that atmosphere of love his deep devotion made, she—scarcely more than a child—lived and breathed, mingling thoughts of him through all the efforts of her mind, till he became the mainspring of every ambition that possessed her.
— from One Of Them by Charles James Lever

You are not possessed of sufficient resolution to stand at the helm of a government; but you have genius, a good heart, and learning enough, sufficient to secure a tranquil passage through life.
— from The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts by August Wilhelm Iffland

"I believe I said that you were the most beautiful woman I had, at least, ever spoken to," he said.
— from By Right of Purchase by Harold Bindloss

'Tis but the idle prating of a lovesick girl, who should have a lover, ere she try to steal a nest in the heart of one of her own sex.
— from The Heart's Highway: A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

“Lord Eglintoune said to Boswell, whose lively imagination formed many schemes, but whose indolence hindered him from executing them, ‘Jamie, you have a light head, but a heavy a——.’” “Lord Eglintoune said to Boswell, who was maintaining that by habit he would acquire the power of application to business, ‘Application must be an original vigour of mind.
— from Boswelliana: The Commonplace Book of James Boswell, with a Memoir and Annotations by James Boswell

Swain might have a legal excuse, since the daughter of the house invited him to a meeting; but if we go over the wall, we're trespassers pure and simple.
— from The Gloved Hand by Burton Egbert Stevenson

He thinks it is such a disgrace that even if he were not a humpback he says he would never marry to transmit this stain to the future Torquilstones—and if Robert ever marries any one without a pedigree enough to satisfy an Austrian prince, he will disown him and leave every sou to charity."
— from Red Hair by Elinor Glyn

She looked at him a little eagerly, saw that there was nothing in his eyes that she needed, nodded two or three times and shrugged her shoulders.
— from Scandal: A Novel by Cosmo Hamilton

It also made such a ferment in his own household, where he had a wife and mother-in-law and little son, that he had to leave his home and lodge elsewhere so that he might not "pollute" them, as they would express it, by eating with them.
— from India and the Indians by Edward Fenton Elwin