Furthermore, what the Manichees had criticised in Thy Scriptures, I thought could not be defended; yet at times verily I had a wish to confer upon these several points with some one very well skilled in those books, and to make trial what he thought thereon; for the words of one Helpidius, as he spoke and disputed face to face against the said Manichees, had begun to stir me even at Carthage: in that he had produced things out of the Scriptures, not easily withstood, the Manichees' answer whereto seemed to me weak.
— from The Confessions of St. Augustine by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

Confused, but sensible that something might depend on his presence of mind, he commanded himself, and was silently attentive.
— from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

I believe the exercise, occasioned by those jaunts, was of service to my sister Liddy, whose appetite and spirits begin to revive—Mrs Tabitha displayed her attractions as usual, and actually believed she had entangled one Mr Maclellan, a rich inkle-manufacturer, in her snares; but when matters came to an explanation, it appeared that his attachment was altogether spiritual, founded upon an intercourse of devotion, at the meeting of Mr John Wesley; who, in the course of his evangelical mission, had come hither in person—At length, we set out for the banks of Lough-Lomond, passing through the little borough of Dumbarton, or (as my uncle will have it) Dunbritton, where there is a castle, more curious than any thing of the kind I had ever seen.
— from The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. (Tobias) Smollett

"Confute me," he concluded, "by proofs of Scripture, or else by plain just arguments: I cannot recant otherwise.
— from On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle

A dark little man he certainly was; pungent and austere.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

And now I will not have you say that justice is duty or advantage or profit or gain or interest, for this sort of nonsense will not do for me; I must have clearness and accuracy.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

I would not have exchanged my happy condition for that of the greatest monarch upon earth.
— from Letters of Abelard and Heloise To which is prefix'd a particular account of their lives, amours, and misfortunes by Héloïse

When he came up to the giant he made several strokes at him, but could not reach his body, but wounded his thighs in several places; and at length, putting both hands to his sword and aiming with all his might, he cut off both his legs.
— from The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

I might have chanced that way!
— from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete by Emily Dickinson

“One day we see a brilliant young officer of high society, at the very outset of his career, in a cowardly underhand way, without a pang of conscience, murdering an official who had once been his benefactor, and the servant girl, to steal his own I.O.U. and what ready money he could find on him; ‘it will come in handy for my pleasures in the fashionable world and for my career in the future.’
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

But when Morgan he cut it, Nellie she lit out too."
— from Final Proof; Or, The Value of Evidence by Rodrigues Ottolengui

The occupants were strangers, and had been making use of a telescope, which from their point of view was a spyglass—that is to say, an instrument that was used by a spy—while they might have come from the Austrian side before ascending the hill.
— from George Alfred Henty: The Story of an Active Life by George Manville Fenn

Perhaps, upon the whole, he said to himself, it was his own ill luck and sense of defeat which made her corner, with its cushions and comforts, her properly attentive maid, and her cold weather sables expressive of a fortune too colossal to be decent.
— from The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett

46 To you I must address my request to express to the poor Empress, as well as to the family, my heartfelt condolence.
— from The Letters of Queen Victoria : A Selection from Her Majesty's Correspondence between the Years 1837 and 1861 Volume 3, 1854-1861 by Queen of Great Britain Victoria

We might have carpeted the church entirely with asters, if we had wanted to; as it was, we had great garlands of them twined over the chancel rail and swinging among the ferns and goldenrod; really, I never saw so many flowers at one time in my life.
— from Peggy by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

He stepped into an open cab, made his conductor sit beside him to answer questions, bade the driver go fast (he had a particular aversion to slow driving) and rolled, in all probability through a dusty suburb, to the goal of his pilgrimage.
— from The American by Henry James

In the great hall, even the Commodore felt the mood of old Shirley and the presence of a life that all seemed natural enough, but that must have come a good ways out of the past.
— from Virginia: the Old Dominion As seen from its colonial waterway, the historic river James, whose every succeeding turn reveals country replete with monuments and scenes recalling the march of history and its figures from the days of Captain John Smith to the present time by Frank W. Hutchins

If the King of France took into his head to choose his august partner from among his subjects, the administration could not even tell him the number of white lambs from whom he could make his choice.
— from The Physiology of Marriage, Part 1 by Honoré de Balzac