“Oh! it was a happy time, its combinations of solitude and incest, combined with my lusty youth, for I was only nineteen years old at that time, made me be constantly at her call, and she never went away before her excessive lust had been satisfied for the moment.
— from The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous

“Poor creature!” said Mrs. Bird, compassionately, as the woman slowly unclosed her large, dark eyes, and looked vacantly at her.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

It is there believed also that, however much it may be crushed, a snake will not die entirely until it thunders.
— from Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway

The child is supposed to be pure and innocent, and whoever says otherwise may be condemned as a shameless blasphemer of the tender and sacred feelings of humanity.
— from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud

Whether they were above my uncle Toby ’s reason——or contrary to it 127 ——or that his brain was like damp timber, and no spark could possibly take hold——or that it was so full of saps, mines, blinds, curtins, and such military disqualifications to his seeing clearly into Prignitz and Scroderus ’s doctrines——I say not—let schoolmen—scullions, anatomists, and engineers, fight for it among themselves—— ’Twas some misfortune, I make no doubt, in this affair, that my father had every word of it to translate for the benefit of my uncle Toby, and render out of Slawkenbergius ’s Latin, of which, as he was no great master, his translation was not always of the purest——and generally least so where ’twas most wanted.—This naturally open’d a door to a second misfortune;——that in the warmer paroxysms of his zeal to open my uncle Toby ’s eyes——my father’s ideas ran on as much faster than the translation, as the translation outmoved my uncle Toby ’s——neither the one or the other added much to the perspicuity of my father’s lecture.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

I put on my best clothes, and the white tunic fell in graceful folds over my hips.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

"Thou shouldst have told me that sooner," said the scholar, "for I should then have left thee shut up, but my head shall stand fast for all thou canst do; more persons than one must be consulted about that."
— from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm by Wilhelm Grimm

My friend, Emilia, was “blue cloud;” my little Donald, “frozen face;” young C——, “the red-headed woodpecker,” from the colour of his hair; my brother, Chippewa, and “the bald-headed eagle.”
— from Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie

However, it must be noted, that Josephus seems to have understood it otherwise than we generally do, that the shadow was accelerated as much at first forward as it was made to go backward afterward, and so the day was neither longer nor shorter than usual; which, it must be confessed agrees best of all to astronomy, whose eclipses, older than the time were observed at the same times of the day as if this miracle had never happened.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

His belief that he was wise and strong enough to give such guidance may be called an illusion, if any [Pg 170] one thinks it worth while.
— from The Marquis D'Argenson: A Study in Criticism Being the Stanhope Essay: Oxford, 1893 by Arthur Ogle

"There was no sign of any more beans coming and I had more than enough to carry."
— from The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton by E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

Two or three miles might be walked, and yet only half the distance might be covered as the crow flies.
— from The Fiery Totem A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West by C. F. Argyll Saxby

Although the horizon may be clear at present, yet I consider that the prospect of the United States is anything but cheering.
— from Diary in America, Series Two by Frederick Marryat

But the coffee must be of the best, no chicory as you hope for salvation; the rolls must be crisp and light and fresh, as they always are in Paris and Vienna; the butter must be pure and sweet.
— from The Feasts of Autolycus: The Diary of a Greedy Woman by Elizabeth Robins Pennell

This morning being calm and Clear I had the remainder of our baggage embarked in the six small canoes and maned them with two men each.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

in my case, night and day are the same—I may be called at any hour; therefore, the longer you favour me with your company, my friends, the better I shall like it, you may depend.”
— from Soyer's Culinary Campaign: Being Historical Reminiscences of the Late War. With The Plain Art of Cookery for Military and Civil Institutions by Alexis Soyer

The next thing he did was to send for me; and in great alarm and flurry I put on my best clothes, and hired a fashionable hairdresser, and drank half a gallon of ale, because both my hands were shaking.
— from Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor by R. D. (Richard Doddridge) Blackmore