[The Illustrations, designed by Frank T. Merrill , drawn, engraved, and printed under the supervision of George T. Andrew .] Page They all drew to the fire, mother in the big chair, with Beth at her feet Frontispiece.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott

They stretched him on the ground and untied him, but still he did not awake; however, they rolled him back and forwards and shook and pulled him about, so that after some time he came to himself, stretching himself just as if he were waking up from a deep and sound sleep, and looking about him he said, "God forgive you, friends; ye have taken me away from the sweetest and most delightful existence and spectacle that ever human being enjoyed or beheld.
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Studies of feeble-minded families and groups, as The Kallikak Family by Goddard, The Jukes by Dugdale, and The Tribe of Ishmael by M'Culloch, have shown how mental defect enters as a factor into industrial inefficiency, poverty, prostitution, and crime.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

Note 24 ( return ) [ Omnes conveniunt; et bis sex nobiliores, Quos genus et gravitas morum decorabat et aetas, Elegere duces.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

Repaire me now, for now mine end doth haste, I runne to death, and death meets me as fast, And all my pleasures are like yesterday; 5 I dare not move my dimme eyes any way, Despaire behind, and death before doth cast Such terrour, and my feeble flesh doth waste By sinne in it, which it t'wards hell doth weigh; Onely thou art above, and when towards thee 10 By thy leave I can looke, I rise againe; But our old subtle foe so tempteth me, That not one houre my selfe I can sustaine; Thy Grace may wing me to prevent his art, And thou like Adamant draw mine iron heart.
— from The Poems of John Donne, Volume 1 (of 2) Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts by John Donne

For my own part, I had vibrated all my life between Drumble and Cranford, and I thought it was quite possible that all Mr Peter’s stories might be true, although wonderful; but when I found that, if we swallowed an anecdote of tolerable magnitude one week, we had the dose considerably increased the next, I began to have my doubts; especially as I noticed that when his sister was present the accounts of Indian life were comparatively tame; not that she knew more than we did, perhaps less.
— from Cranford by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

This one-sidedness is more definitely expressed and exists in a higher degree in one person than in another; so that it may be better supplemented and neutralised in each individual by one person than by another of the opposite sex, because the individual requires a one-sidedness opposite to his own in order to complete the type of humanity in the new individual to be generated, to the constitution of which everything tends….
— from Essays of Schopenhauer by Arthur Schopenhauer

As by miracle thou didst restore me to health in my childhood—when, offered by my weeping mother to thy protection, I raised my dead eyelids, and could straightway walk to the threshold of thy shrine to thank God for the life returned me—so by miracle thou wilt return us to the bosom of our country.
— from Pan Tadeusz Or, the Last Foray in Lithuania; a Story of Life Among Polish Gentlefolk in the Years 1811 and 1812 by Adam Mickiewicz

From that day Farsetti became my determined enemy, and let no opportunity slip of convincing me of his hatred.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

It seems most probable that such a man did exist, and that, possessing knowledge as much above the comprehension of his age, as that possessed by Friar Bacon was beyond the reach of his, he was endowed by the wondering crowd with the supernatural attributes that Spenser has enumerated.
— from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay

Neither the buckets of water which were so liberally poured over me by the midshipmen, under the facetious appellation of “blowing the grampus,” nor any expostulation or punishments inflicted on me by the first lieutenant, could rouse my dormant energies after the first half of the watch was expired.
— from Frank Mildmay; Or, the Naval Officer by Frederick Marryat

Of all the tribes that were opposed to him, Cæsar considered that the Belgæ, the people who lived in what is now Belgium, were the bravest and the most dangerous enemies against whom he must fight.
— from A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. by Clayton Edwards

It reads: It appears that a Mr. Daniel Edwards, an English merchant of Smyrna, brought with him to this country a Greek of the name of Pasqua, in 1652, who made his coffee; this Mr. Edwards married one Alderman Hodges's daughter, who lived in Walbrook, and set up Pasqua for a coffee man in a shed in the churchyard in St. Michael, Cornhill, which is now a scrivener's brave-house, when, having great custom, the ale-sellers petitioned the Lord Mayor against him as being no freeman.
— from All About Coffee by William H. (William Harrison) Ukers

The old philosopher wished to compose his mind and shake off this terror, so as to put this vast power to some new test, to subject it to more decisive experiments and obtain answers to certain questions, the truth of which should do away with every sort of doubt.
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac

I do not believe in the crèche or the municipal milk depôt except as stop-gaps, or as object-lessons for those who imagine that the slaughtered babies are not slaughtered but die of inherent defect, and that therefore infant mortality is a beneficent process.
— from Parenthood and Race Culture: An Outline of Eugenics by C. W. (Caleb Williams) Saleeby

Really he is an excellent lover; he doesn't say too much or too little, and he lets me do exactly as I like.
— from Dodo: A Detail of the Day. Volumes 1 and 2 by E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson

It was the English army that was the most dangerous enemy; and it was the flanking position of Portugal that rendered the French movements toward the south of Spain hazardous or impracticable.
— from A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. 2, Jan.-Sep. 1809 From the Battle of Corunna to the End of the Talavera Campaign by Charles Oman