She was delighted with the prospect of having me all to herself for the whole night, naively telling me that I gave her so much more pleasure than Harry did, that I seemed to fill her whole body with a joy almost too intense, and now that she was to have me every night, she hoped her aunt would stay away for a month.
— from The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous

If I did not want her to hate me I felt that I must either not see her at all or treat her more gently for the future.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

“Come to me—come to me entirely now,” said he; and added, in his deepest tone, speaking in my ear as his cheek was laid on mine, “Make my happiness—I will make yours.”
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë

I shall not mention, here, the name of this man; for it might, even now, subject him to persecution, although the offenses were committed more than twenty years ago.
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

If the wolf gnaw my entrails, none shall hear me groan."
— from Pausanias, the Spartan; The Haunted and the Haunters An Unfinished Historical Romance by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

With a cunning movement, Ellak now seized his short sword, but just when he lifted his arm, his antagonist's mace came down slowly but heavily on his head.
— from Ekkehard: A Tale of the Tenth Century. Vol. 1 (of 2) by Joseph Victor von Scheffel

Meanwhile Megaera, more eager now she has got her way, and revelling in this widespread
— from Claudian, volume 1 (of 2) With an English translation by Maurice Platnauer by Claudius Claudianus

But the steward has yet another card to play; moreover, so many enemies now surround him that his life is probably forfeited anyhow, so he will tell the truth.
— from Browning's Heroines by Ethel Colburn Mayne

"There is no land like England," he said, "there are no such meadows elsewhere, no such hedgerows, no such birds, and no such soft fleeced white clouds in the blue sky."
— from His Grace of Osmonde Being the Portions of That Nobleman's Life Omitted in the Relation of His Lady's Story Presented to the World of Fashion under the Title of A Lady of Quality by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Thereupon, after the uncovering of that work, which did not prove to be of that excellence which many expected, Niccolò set himself to execute a picture in oils, in which he painted the Martyr S. Prassedia squeezing a sponge full of blood into a vessel; and he finished it with such diligence that he recovered in part the honour that he considered himself to have lost in painting the escutcheons described above.
— from Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi by Giorgio Vasari

Her manner evinced no surprise; her stolidity was grateful to him.
— from A Dozen Ways Of Love by L. (Lily) Dougall

Back in the mid- eighties, Nomura Securities had unsheathed its financial sword and totally controlled the Eurobond markets for about a fortnight.
— from The Samurai Strategy by Thomas Hoover