He had a little country house, with a spare room, which he begged me to accept, as he said he was only too proud that the duke should know him as my best friend.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

He was reviewing a novel which described how a village schoolmistress refused the man whom she loved and who loved her, a man both wealthy and intellectual, simply because marriage made her work as a schoolmistress impossible.
— from The Duel and Other Stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Yet everything was clear as day: that officer, he knew about him, he knew everything perfectly, he had known it from Grushenka herself, had known that a letter had come from him a month before.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

For Mrs J. R., who had never been wont to do too much at home as Miss B. W., was under the constant necessity of referring for advice and support to a sage volume entitled The Complete British Family Housewife, which she would sit consulting, with her elbows on the table and her temples on her hands, like some perplexed enchantress poring over the Black Art.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

I could not say No when he asked me, but he knows nothing more of it.
— from The Letters of Jane Austen Selected from the compilation of her great nephew, Edward, Lord Bradbourne by Jane Austen

Hother received him with the friendliest face and the kindliest words, and conquered him as much by his gentleness as he had by his skill.
— from The Danish History, Books I-IX by Grammaticus Saxo

I intend (I mention it to you in the strictest secrecy) to write a mass here; all my best friends advise my doing so.
— from The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Volume 01 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Let us halt a moment before this symptom of highest culture, I call it the pessimism of strength.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

What happened to Joseph during his sickness at the inn, with the curious discourse between him and Mr Barnabas, the parson of the parish CHAPTER XIV.
— from Joseph Andrews, Vol. 1 by Henry Fielding

when about to enter Heaven, heard a cry of anguish rising from the earth beneath her, and, moved by pity, paused as her feet touched the glorious threshold.
— from Myths and Legends of China by E. T. C. (Edward Theodore Chalmers) Werner

To spoil her acting may be easy
— from Zanoni by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

The leader of the band caught the sound, signalled to his men; twenty instruments rose as one to twenty mouths; the snare-drum rattled, the big drum crashed, the leader lifted his baton high over his head, and music burst from twenty brazen throats: “Glory!
— from The Gentleman from Indiana by Booth Tarkington

"And what then?" asked Salisbury, "did thy son learn anything concerning those secret conferences?" "No way was open to him," answered Monteagle, "but he thought it best to lay the matter before me; the more so that Winter and the other have returned to London."
— from The Fifth of November A Romance of the Stuarts by Charles S. Bentley

Many of its houses, as may be seen in an old picture of the city, were surrounded by fields or gardens; and life to its inhabitants must have been comparatively rural.
— from Shakespeare's England by William Winter

He is aware that he is taking the young fellow at a disadvantage by his abrupt method; but, being a lawyer, he is not nice as to the means of gaining an advantage.
— from The Duchess of Rosemary Lane: A Novel by B. L. (Benjamin Leopold) Farjeon

It was half a mile before he found a landing.
— from The Man from the Bitter Roots by Caroline Lockhart

Was not I swooped down on by him and married by force, after he had seen a carved likeness of me and been overcome by love?
— from The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story by active 11th century Somadeva Bhatta

The only persons I knew in Newcastle, before I gave the Safety-lamp to the Coal-owners, were Dr. Headlam and Mr. Bigge, so that friends I had none; and the few persons with whom I had a slight acquaintance, and who were civil to me before I discovered the Safety-lamp, became my enemies.
— from The Life of Sir Humphrey Davy, Bart. LL.D., Volume 2 (of 2) by John Ayrton Paris

“There, we have cut off quite half a mile by coming up here.”
— from Three Boys; Or, The Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai by George Manville Fenn

Next day I saw them together,—the stranger and one of the gamblers: Picturesque rascal he was, with long black hair and moustaches, Black slouch hat drawn down to his eyes from his villanous forehead: On together they moved, still earnestly talking in whispers, On toward the forecastle, where sat the woman alone by the gangway.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 35, September, 1860 A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics by Various