Her Ladyship, our old acquaintance, is as much at home at Madras as at Brussels in the cantonment as under the tents.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Many a Hare and many a Mouse died.
— from The Aesop for Children With pictures by Milo Winter by Aesop

610 Shift your view, and turn your curiosity so as to look inwards: if you delight to study the history of evils, you have copious material at home, "as much as there is water in the Alizon, or leaves on the oak," such a quantity of faults will you find in your own life, and passions in your soul, 239 and shortcomings in your duty.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

This day by God’s mercy I am 29 years of age, and in very good health, and like to live and get an estate; and if I have a heart to be contented, I think I may reckon myself as happy a man as any is in the world, for which God be praised.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

In this work, however, there is a decided tendency (which indeed displays itself in most of the leading anthropological works, as, for example, in those by Dr. Frazer) to regard men, or at any rate primitive men, as having a mind absolutely homogeneous, and therefore as thinking, feeling, and acting in the same way under all conditions alike.
— from The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. (Walter Yeeling) Evans-Wentz

My office was under his in the old War Department, and one day I sent my aide-de-camp, Colonel Audenried, up to him with some message, and when he returned red as a beet, very much agitated, he asked me as a personal favor never again to send him to General Belknap.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

The little puss seems already to have airs enough to make a husband as miserable as it's a law of nature for a quiet man to be when he marries a beauty.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

The birds sweetly sing as they soar in the sky, And the squirrels frisk in the branches high; And it makes me as happy and merry as they To roam in the woods on a bright autumn day.
— from Little Folks (September 1884) A Magazine for the Young by Various

Yes; has not wine an effect the contrary of that which I was just now describing,—first mellowing and humanizing a man, and then filling him with confidence, making him ready to say or do anything? 'Certainly.'
— from Laws by Plato

The character of Sir John Maclean, as he attained manhood, and entered into the active business of life, has been drawn with great felicity by the author of "The Memoirs of Lochiel."
— from Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. Volume II. by Thomson, A. T., Mrs.

They had taken up such a grand position last term, and talked so magnificently about honour, and morality, and the credit of the school, that it was a sad come-down now to have to admit they had all been wrong, and still more that they had all been fools.
— from The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's: A School Story by Talbot Baines Reed

Hedges of scarlet hibiscus flamed ten feet high, clusters of purple bougainvillea poured down from cottage-porches, while oleander in radiant bloom formed a hedge twenty feet high for as much as half a mile at a stretch.
— from The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries by Francis Rolt-Wheeler

He remembered commandeering the fisherman's boat, and rowing himself out, taking a tape to measure, and how, after much application of the tape, he had satisfied himself that there was enough arable land in the island for a garden; he had walked down the island certain that a quarter of an acre could grow enough vegetables to support a hermit, and that a goat would be able to pick a living among the bushes and the tussocked grass: even a hermit might have a goat, and he didn't think he could live without milk.
— from The Lake by George Moore

Mr. Akeley had a machine and our plan of action was simple.
— from In Africa: Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country by John T. (John Tinney) McCutcheon

Later, after the first day's battle, in spite of some high velocities from long-range guns, the streets and squares were filled with soldiers, and Arras was tumultuous with the movement of men and horses and mules and wagons.
— from From Bapaume to Passchendaele, 1917 by Philip Gibbs

Then: "I thought I saw a lady of my acquaintance here a moment ago," I said.
— from The Devil Doctor by Sax Rohmer

and he said, "Yes, my boy, I am going to leave you;" he said, "I am very bad, Jackey; you take the books, Jackey, to the captain, but not the big ones, the Governor will give anything for them;" I then tied up the papers; he then said, "Jackey, give me paper and I will write;" I gave him paper and pencil, and he tried to write, and he then fell back and died, and I caught him as he fell back and held him, and I then turned round myself and cried: I was crying a good while until I got well; that was about an hour, and then I buried him; I digged up the ground with a tomahawk, and covered him over with logs, then grass, and my shirt and trousers; that night I left him near dark; I would go through the scrub, and the blacks threw spears at me, a good many, and I went back again into the scrub; then I went down the creek which runs into Escape River, and I walked along the water in the creek very easy, with my head only above water, to avoid the blacks, and get out of their way; in this way I went half a mile; then I got out of the creek, and got clear of them, and walked on all night nearly, and slept in the bush without a fire; I went on next morning, and felt very bad, and I spelled for two days; I lived upon nothing but salt water; next day I went on and camped one mile away from where I left, and ate one of the pandanus fruits; next morning I went on two miles, and sat down there, and I wanted to spell a little there, and go on; but when I tried to get up, I could not, but fell down again very tired and cramped, and I spelled here two days; then I went on again one mile, and got nothing to eat but one nonda; and I went on that day and camped, and on again next morning, about half a mile, and sat down where there was good water, and remained all day.
— from Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By the Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During the Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries and Surveys in New Guinea, the Louisiade Archipelago, Etc. to Which Is Added the Account of Mr. E.B. Kennedy's Expedition for the Exploration of the Cape York Peninsula. By John Macgillivray, F.R.G.S. Naturalist to the Expedition. — Volume 2 by John MacGillivray