The many differences springing up between myself and Master Thomas, owing to the clear perception I had of his character, and the boldness with which I defended myself against his capricious complaints, led him to declare that I was unsuited to his wants; that my city life had affected me perniciously; that, in fact, it had almost ruined me for every good purpose, and had fitted me for everything that was bad.
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

This thought blunts my teeth, paralyses my jaws, cramps my hands, and robs me of all appetite for food; so much so that I have a mind to let myself die of hunger, the cruelest death of all deaths."
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

The second of the three arguments, ‘that the just does not aim at excess,’ has a real meaning, though wrapped up in an enigmatical form.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

Thénardier instantly reappeared behind him and remained motionless in the half-open door, visible only to his wife.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

M. Grimm gave me a letter to her, so I drove there, the purport of the letter being chiefly to recommend me to the Duchesse de Bourbon, who when I was last here [during Mozart's first visit to Paris] was in a convent, and to introduce me afresh to her and recall me to her memory.
— from The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Volume 01 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

He had found out, at Yarmouth, some foreign dealers who knew that country, and they had drawn him a rude map on paper, which he could very well understand.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Oh, how Mr. Pickwick cursed that horse: he had eyed the noble animal from time to time with looks expressive of hatred and revenge; more than once he had calculated the probable amount of the expense he would incur by cutting his throat; and now the temptation to destroy him, or to cast him loose upon the world, rushed upon his mind with tenfold force.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

The Ethiopian however, perceiving that they had come as spies, spoke to them as follows: "Neither did the king of the Persians send you bearing gifts because he thought it a matter of great moment to become my guest-friend, nor do ye speak true things (for ye have come as spies of my kingdom), nor again is he a righteous man; for if he had been righteous he would not have coveted a land other than his own, nor would he be leading away into slavery men at whose hands he has received no wrong.
— from The History of Herodotus — Volume 1 by Herodotus

We shall have a rare month of it, said my father, turning his head from Obadiah, and looking wistfully in my uncle Toby's face for some time—we shall have a devilish month of it, brother Toby, said my father, setting his arms a'kimbo, and shaking his head; fire, water, women, wind—brother Toby!—'Tis some misfortune, quoth my uncle Toby.—That it is, cried my father—to have so many jarring elements breaking loose, and riding triumph in every corner of a gentleman's house—Little boots it to the peace of a family, brother Toby, that you and I possess ourselves, and sit here silent and unmoved—whilst such a storm is whistling over our heads.—
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

In the United States the word “mad” is supplemented with a vulgar meaning similar to our Cockneyism WILD ; and to make a man mad on the other side of the [341] Atlantic is to vex him, or “rile” his temper—not to render him a raving maniac, or a fit subject for Bedlam.
— from The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical and Andecdotal by John Camden Hotten

Mayhap some day they’ll find her, and reward me for bringin’ her up a good gal,—that’s what I allus tell her.”
— from Matt: A Story of A Caravan by Robert Williams Buchanan

“Sawney for ever!” repeated the hostler, and reminded Mackenzie, that he had promised him half a guinea.
— from Tales and Novels — Volume 01 Moral Tales by Maria Edgeworth

“What a strange-looking cane you have, sir!” said a little girl, who was one of the party, and who had entwined her arm round Margrave’s.
— from A Strange Story — Complete by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

"For goodness' sake, Nan Sherwood, I wonder you don't have a record made of that question and then turn it on every five minutes or so," said Bess,
— from Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach; Or, Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves by Annie Roe Carr

“I am sure I shall, for one,” said I, “I have heard and read much of the beauties of the ‘sunny South,’ but I find it difficult to imagine anything more exquisitely beautiful than many scenes which I have witnessed at home when Nature has been in her happier moods.”
— from Under the Meteor Flag: Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War by Harry Collingwood

The deformity, the grotesque violation of good taste, suddenly struck that handsome and robust man, for he had sold youth and manhood to an unfortunate woman who had believed it possible to still love and be loved.
— from The art of taking a wife by Paolo Mantegazza

"Then he put his arms round my neck, and kissed me so hard, that it made his dear little nose
— from The Little Nightcap Letters by Aunt Fanny

you have another reason? Mr. G. I have, and it's a clincher; but I positively refuse to give it.
— from The Exhibition Drama Comprising Drama, Comedy, and Farce, Together with Dramatic and Musical Entertainments by George M. (George Melville) Baker

[14] I felt sorry for the poor horse, and reproached myself for not having tarried at the last post station.
— from The Land of the Long Night by Paul B. (Paul Belloni) Du Chaillu

Western Sahara mostly low, flat desert with large areas of rocky or sandy surfaces rising to small mountains in south and northeast World the greatest ocean depth is the Mariana Trench at 10,924 m in the Pacific Ocean Yemen narrow coastal plain backed by flat-topped hills and rugged mountains; dissected upland desert plains in center slope into the desert interior of the Arabian Peninsula Zambia mostly high plateau with some hills and mountains Zimbabwe mostly high plateau with higher central plateau (high veld);
— from The 2007 CIA World Factbook by United States. Central Intelligence Agency