Detailed instructions were added relative to the address of a reply, which, although they betrayed the intervention of several hands, and made it difficult to arrive at any very probable conclusion in reference to her place of concealment, made it at least not unlikely that she had written from that spot where she was stated to have been seen.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Well, when I make up my mind to hit a man, I don’t plan out a love-tap; no, that isn’t my way; as long as I’m going to hit him at all, I’m going to hit him a lifter.
— from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

Although I could not at first precisely ascertain to what degree the occurrence had affected me, I determined at all events to conceal the matter from my wife, until further experience should discover to me the extent of this my unheard of calamity.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

“I have a most insatiate desire to prove myself more and more worthy of you.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

The lack of historical allusion makes it difficult to precisely date the writing, however, using other pseudepigraphical works as a reference, it was probably written a few hundred years before the birth of Christ.
— from The First Book of Adam and Eve by Rutherford Hayes Platt

Fie upon him, untrue knight to his lady, that so noble a knight as Sir Tristram is should be found to his first lady false, La Beale Isoud, Queen of Cornwall; but say ye him this, said Sir Launcelot, that of all knights in the world I loved him most, and had most joy of him, and all was for his noble deeds; and let him wit the love between him and me is done for ever, and that I give him warning from this day forth as his mortal enemy.
— from Le Morte d'Arthur: Volume 1 by Malory, Thomas, Sir

"If you really have a method, I don't think any price would be too great," the psychist offered.
— from The Marching Morons by C. M. (Cyril M.) Kornbluth

While I was fearing it, it came, But came with less of fear, Because that fearing it so long Had almost made it dear.
— from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete by Emily Dickinson

While they pay a certain mock homage to a wealthy immigrant, when they have a motive in doing so, they secretly are more inclined to look on him as a well-fledged goose who has come to America to be plucked.
— from Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie

I replied, No: but the sultan then informed me that this officer, who was one of his own guards, had attended me in disguise during my whole visit to the diamond mines; and that he was perfectly satisfied of my honourable conduct.
— from Tales and Novels — Volume 02 Popular Tales by Maria Edgeworth

It was clear that his duty was to disenchant her as speedily as possible, seeing that the discovery of the hopelessness of her attachment might, if delayed, cause her no little unhappiness.
— from Matt: A Story of A Caravan by Robert Williams Buchanan

I spent a wakeful hour at midnight, in distinguishing its reverberations, and rejoiced to find that my former awe and enthusiasm were reviving.
— from Junior High School Literature, Book 1 by William H. (William Harris) Elson

Hitherto I have played for amusement, and because I liked to exercise my limbs, and to show the others that I could run faster and was stronger than they were; but in future I shall have a motive in doing so, and will strive to be worthy of my father."
— from At the Point of the Bayonet: A Tale of the Mahratta War by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

This, however, also makes it difficult and wellnigh impossible to discover what were the components which originally went to make up Luther’s mentality before it had been seared by the errors and inward commotion of his later passionate life.
— from Luther, vol. 6 of 6 by Hartmann Grisar

[238] Development advances from the unconscious organic ‘I’ to the clear conscious ‘I,’ and to the conception of the ‘not-I.’ The infant probably has cœnæsthesis even before, in any case after, its birth, for it feels its vital internal processes, shows satisfaction when they are in healthy action, manifests its discomfort by movements and cries, which are also only a movement of the respiratory and laryngeal muscles, when any disturbances [252] appear there, perceives and expresses general states of the organism, such as hunger, thirst and fatigue.
— from Degeneration by Max Simon Nordau

rriving at Administration Circle, the car entered a vast excavation half a mile in diameter, possibly a thousand feet high at the dome.
— from Astounding Stories, August, 1931 by Various

The policy of Charles, so far as he had any policy apart from Hyde, varied between the encouragement of friendly overtures from supporters of different complexions at home, and a somewhat damaging cultivation of foreign alliances, which were delusive in their proffered help, and might involve dangerous compliance with religious tenets abhorred in England.
— from Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon — Volume 02 by Craik, Henry, Sir

Perhaps the oldest evidence we have for opinion about the later relations of Helen and Menelaus, is derived from Pausanias’s (174.
— from Helen of Troy by Andrew Lang

If in either of these Papers, or elsewhere, I have been betrayed into some levities—not affronting the sanctuary, but glancing perhaps at some of the out-skirts and extreme edges, the debateable land between the holy and the profane regions—(for the admixture of man's inventions, twisting themselves with the name of religion itself, has artfully made it difficult [Pg 268] to touch even the alloy, without, in some men's estimation, soiling the fine gold)—If I have sported within the purlieus of serious matter—it was, I dare say, a humour—be not startled, Sir—which I have unwittingly derived from yourself.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 1 Miscellaneous Prose by Charles Lamb