“That you may have less difficulty in believing this boast, of my present perfect indifference,” she continued, “I will farther tell you, that there was a period in the early part of our acquaintance, when I did like him, when I was very much disposed to be attached to him—nay, was attached—and how it came to cease, is perhaps the wonder.
— from Emma by Jane Austen

Everybody will feel an interest in dear little Helen; everybody will want to do something for her; and, if she becomes an ancient, gray-haired woman, she is still sure of being thoughtfully cared for.
— from The Story of My Life With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy by Helen Keller

When their father came the second time, Maggie said to him, "Oh, father, Philip Wakem is so very good to Tom; he is such a clever boy, and I do love him.
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

Nor did Israel scape Th' infection, when their borrowed gold composed The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan, Likening his Maker to the grazed ox— Jehovah, who, in one night, when he passed From Egypt marching, equalled with one stroke Both her first-born and all her bleating gods.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton

Wherefore, to the end that the unright of Fortune may by me in part be amended, which, where there is the less strength to endure, as we see it in delicate ladies, hath there been the more niggard of support, I purpose, for the succour and solace of ladies in love (unto others [1] the needle and the spindle and the reel suffice) to recount an hundred stories or fables or parables or histories or whatever you like to style them, in ten days' time related by an honourable company of seven ladies and three young men made in the days of the late deadly pestilence, together with sundry canzonets sung by the aforesaid ladies for their diversion.
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

But when its level is high in a nation we admire the system, for we see it not only guiding a people and binding them together for national effort, but affording the greatest freedom of thought and action for those who in daily life habitually act in harmony with the General Will.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

‘Most certainly not,’ answered Stan, going on with his digging, and the dragon, in dread lest he should fulfil his threat, tried what bribes would do, and in the end had again to promise seven sacks of ducats before Stan would agree to leave the brook alone and let him carry the water into the house.
— from The Violet Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

Wen he went, he allers 'membered me in de letters he used to write his grandma.
— from Iola Leroy; Or, Shadows Uplifted by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

However, he now despised himself even more as a fool than as a coward for having given up Bertha, and not being of the type who trouble to conceal their feelings in domestic life, he openly and frankly showed to the unfortunate Mary that he knew he had made an irrevocable mistake.
— from Bird of Paradise by Ada Leverson

"I do like him," Dick assented.
— from The High School Boys in Summer Camp by H. Irving (Harrie Irving) Hancock

But now expeditions cost money, armies soldiering for months in distant lands had to be fed and maintained, ships had to be built, equipment and machines provided.
— from The Grandeur That Was Rome by J. C. (John Clarke) Stobart

It was curious to Hale, moreover, to observe how June's instinct deftly led her to avoid the mistakes in dress that characterized the gropings of other girls who, like her, were in a stage of transition.
— from The Trail of the Lonesome Pine by Fox, John, Jr.

Bligh divided it with its entrails into eighteen portions, which were impartially distributed amongst the crew, Bligh himself, in drawing lots, having nothing but the beak and claws.
— from Pioneers in Australasia by Harry Johnston

I did love him."
— from He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope