His delight at the prospect of a speedy deliverance made Thor wish to reward the enchantress forthwith, and knowing that nothing could give greater pleasure to a mother than the prospect of seeing a long-lost child, he proceeded to tell her that he had recently crossed the Elivagar, or ice streams, to rescue her little son Orvandil (germ) from the frost giants’ cruel power, and had succeeded in carrying him off in a basket.
— from Myths of the Norsemen: From the Eddas and Sagas by H. A. (Hélène Adeline) Guerber

Henry’s inner life had long laid open to her—his intellectual confusion, his obtuseness to personal influence, his strong but furtive passions.
— from Howards End by E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster

After a world of trouble he succeeded about sunset in catching hold of the cow, which he brought back to the house of his master.
— from Folk-Tales of Bengal by Lal Behari Day

She required a great deal of amusement, and, like a deep old soldier, pretended, in consulting her own inclinations, to be devoting herself to her child.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

I congratulated him on his good fortune, which he protested should never make him forget his friends; and, towards morning, we betook ourselves to rest.
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

I could have overlooked what passed in secret, but I was deprived of my gondola.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

He said it came up sometimes in the night and woke him by passing its clammy hand over his face, but it did him no hurt; it only wanted sympathy and notice.
— from The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories by Mark Twain

I am not as was Hercules the stout, 300 That to the seaventh iournie ° could hould out; I want those hearbe's and rootes of Indian soile ° , That strengthen wearie members in their toile ° — Druggs and Electuaries of new devise ° , 304 Doe shunne my purse, that trembles at the price ° .
— from The Choise of Valentines; Or the Merie Ballad of Nash His Dildo by Thomas Nash

But empiricism, in compensation, holds out to reason, in its speculative interests, certain important advantages, far exceeding any that the dogmatist can promise us.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

If I can hear of him as alive and on his way home I will put up with the waste you suitors will make for yet another twelve months.
— from The Odyssey Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original by Homer

I can have only a few more years here now when you will take my place and keep up my name.
— from Gallegher and Other Stories by Richard Harding Davis

“But I guess I can hold out through the seventh, if you don’t mind.”
— from Weatherby's Inning: A Story of College Life and Baseball by Ralph Henry Barbour

So far, however, as Hammurabi is concerned, he only refers to a duality—Anu and Bel—which, for him, comprises all the other gods.
— from The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria by Morris Jastrow

'Tis all the same, in countries here, Or where Pacific billows roar, We roved in want, and woe and fear Along the Mississippi shore.
— from The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

He succeeded in carrying her off, and married her in spite of her family, whose resentment he braved with impunity, notwithstanding all their efforts to cause his destruction: fortunately for him, brother Gaspard, who was the uncle of the duke d’Aveiro, and the favourite of John the Vth, was particularly his friend, and sent him off immediately; first to London, and afterwards to Vienna, as secretary to the embassy.
— from The History of the Revolutions of Portugal by abbé de Vertot

"Husband," said I, catching hold of his arm, "I had really forgotten that the child was not my own;" and then the word consumptive struck like a fearful knell upon my heart.
— from Cora and The Doctor; or, Revelations of A Physician's Wife by Madeline Leslie

“Monseigneur,” he said coldly, “I came here on a misunderstanding.”
— from The Quest of Glory by Marjorie Bowen

Thus the residence of a chief, who is rich in cattle, has often several of these—I must say hideous adornments.
— from Richard Galbraith, Mariner; Or, Life among the Kaffirs by E. W. (Emma Watts) Phillips

I can truly affirm, I never deceived anybody in my life, excepting (which I confess has often happened undesignedly) by speaking plainly; as Earl Stanhope used to say (during his ministry) he always imposed on the foreign ministers by telling them the naked truth, which, as they thought impossible to come from the mouth of a statesman, they never failed to write informations to their respective courts directly contrary to the assurances he gave them: most people confounding the ideas of sense and cunning, though there are really no two things in nature more opposite: it is, in part, from this false reasoning, the unjust custom prevails of debarring our sex from the advantages of learning, the men fancying the improvement of our understandings would only furnish us with more art to deceive them, which is directly contrary to the truth.
— from Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) by Lewis Melville