St. Austin implores the grace of God to deliver him from this sort of weakness, and says, he gave consent to those things in his sleep which he should abominate awake, and laments exceedingly so great a regaining weakness.
— from Letters of Abelard and Heloise To which is prefix'd a particular account of their lives, amours, and misfortunes by Héloïse

Several times he found himself staring at an item, but thinking of something else.
— from Sister Carrie: A Novel by Theodore Dreiser

It is, indeed, the bourn beyond which we are not to pass, and which the law of nature has set as a limit, not to be exceeded; but it is, withal, a privilege she is rarely seen to give us to last till then.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

But she hardly spoke again; and Dixon's report to Mrs. Shaw was, that 'she doubted whether Miss Hale heard a word of what she said, though she talked the whole time, in order to divert her attention.'
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Tony—ods-heart, where’s Tony?—Tony’s an honest fellow, but he spits after a bumper, and that’s a fault.
— from The Way of the World by William Congreve

I received him in the convent garden, the walls of which he scaled, and at last I was so unfortunate as to become pregnant.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

One of these gentlemen—a little, shrivelled-up Frenchman—from his solemn aspect and attenuated figure, would have made no bad representative of him who sat upon the pale horse.
— from Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie

His eyes grew angry; he shrugged his shoulders, and answered: “An engagement that will prevent my taking you to see the house!”
— from The Forsyte Saga, Volume I. The Man Of Property by John Galsworthy

So Robin took his sword again and buckled it at his side; then he bent his stout back and took the Friar upon it.
— from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

To his surprise and astonishment, his uncle was regarding him with eyes that were neither cold nor stern, but almost tender and yearning.
— from Culm Rock The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught by Glance Gaylord

She sings a "requiescat" for the soul of her dear bird, and recounts all his pretty ways— "Sometyme he wolde gaspe When he sawe a waspe; A fly or a gnat He wolde flye at that; And prytely he wold pant When he saw an ant; Lord, how he wolde pry After the butterfly!
— from History of English Humour, Vol. 1 With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour by A. G. K. (Alfred Guy Kingan) L'Estrange

Gilbert gratefully caught at the invitation; and Mr. Ferrars gave him some advice as to his reading and self-discipline, speaking to him as gently and tenderly as Albinia herself.
— from The Young Step-Mother; Or, A Chronicle of Mistakes by Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge

But since all agreed with what he had said, and all ought to stand up for him, he would not be detained long.
— from Mother by Maksim Gorky

XI If, however, the wish is to secure a horse adapted to parade and state processions, a high stepper and a showy (1) animal, these are qualities not to be found combined in every horse, but to begin with, the animal must have high spirit and a stalwart body.
— from On Horsemanship by Xenophon

"Thank you, Mr. Duncan," was all she said in recognition of his service as a maker of griddle cakes.
— from A Captain in the Ranks: A Romance of Affairs by George Cary Eggleston

"How is your bear, father Kirila Petrovitch?" asked Anton Pafnoutitch, being reminded by these words of his shaggy acquaintance and of certain pleasantries of which he had once been the victim.
— from The Prose Tales of Alexander Pushkin by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

He may have to wait long, and very likely pass out of this world, before he see any abatement in the triumph of disorder and irreligion.
— from The Oxford Movement; Twelve Years, 1833-1845 by R. W. (Richard William) Church

The dinner-table had scarcely an absentee, and was far more lively than it had ever been yet.
— from Bluebell A Novel by Huddleston, G. C., Mrs.

The smaller cutter with an officer, his second, and a boat's crew, I proposed should remain with the stores, and in charge of my charts and books for a few weeks longer than the two months; and then go to Port Jackson also, should no vessel arrive before that time.
— from A Voyage to Terra Australis — Volume 2 Undertaken for the purpose of completing the discovery of that vast country, and prosecuted in the years 1801, 1802 and 1803, in His Majesty's ship the Investigator, and subsequently in the armed vessel Porpoise and Cumberland schooner by Matthew Flinders