This year, in my case, reader, was the one which we have now reached; though it stood, I confess, as a parenthesis between years of a gloomier character.
— from Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey

It is a good way round from the West Cliff by the Drawbridge to Tate Hill Pier, but your correspondent is a fairly good runner, and came well ahead of the crowd.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker

I to the Chapel a little, but hearing nothing did take a turn into the Park, and then back to Chapel and heard a very good Anthem to my heart’s delight, and then to Sir G. Carteret’s to dinner, and before dinner did walk with him alone a good while, and from him hear our case likely for all these acts to be bad for money, which troubles me, the year speeding so fast, and he tells me that he believes the Duke of York will go to sea with the fleete, which I am sorry for in respect to his person, but yet there is no person in condition to command the fleete, now the Captains are grown so great, but him, it being impossible for anybody else but him to command any order or discipline among them.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

You should know too that liberty preserved by your efforts will easily recover for us what we have lost, while, the knee once bowed, even what you have will pass from you.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

O dear Madam!” answers Honour, “you must not tell me that, when your ladyship is in this taking, and when there hath been such a preamble between your ladyship and Madam Western.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

Then the doctor, a young man, not quite a Nihilist perhaps, but you know, eats with his knife ... but a very good doctor.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

I agree with you that this discussion by two soldiers is out of place, and profitless; but you must admit that you began the controversy by characterizing an official act of mine in unfair and improper terms.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

Though your body be confined And soft love a prisoner bound, Yet the beauty of your mind Neither check nor chain hath found.
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving

You have already divined my plan; but you may well ask how could I hope to pass myself off as the Emperor.
— from The Adventures of Gerard by Arthur Conan Doyle

As quick as thought, the promises of President Brigham Young flashed through my mind; also the promise of Dr. Willard Richards, in which he told me, in the name of the Lord God of Israel, that though men should seek my life, yet I should return in safety to the bosom of the Saints, having done good and honor to myself and the Church and Kingdom of God.
— from Life of a Pioneer: Being the Autobiography of James S. Brown by James S. (James Stephens) Brown

You will perceive that the minister chose to leave the adjustment of the terms to be settled at Paris, between yourself and the King's ministers.
— from The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 3 (of 9) Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private by Thomas Jefferson

"You," he said, "are a very young man for your present position, but you will soon be marked for destruction."
— from My Memories of Eighty Years by Chauncey M. (Chauncey Mitchell) Depew

This path brought you at last to a stile.
— from Nanny Merry or, What Made the Difference? by Anonymous

"Its bad enough to have little victuals and no wages, but as for being burned to death—Benjamin, put a pillion behind your saddle, and I'll go to Lymington with you.
— from The Children of the New Forest by Frederick Marryat

I’m afraid as you are from the Impossible World you’ll have to get a Pass before you can come into the City—but that’ll be all right.
— from Knock Three Times! by Marion St. John Webb

The eyes often seem much engorged, and the white part become yellow, as indeed the skin does over the whole body, owing to derangement of the bile, and alteration in the character of the blood.
— from The Matron's Manual of Midwifery, and the Diseases of Women During Pregnancy and in Childbed Being a Familiar and Practical Treatise, More Especially Intended for the Instruction of Females Themselves, but Adapted Also for Popular Use among Students and Practitioners of Medicine by Frederick Hollick

It is the merest poetry; but you are so romantic, you excuse me."
— from J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 The Haunted Baronet (1871) by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Some are of a pure, brilliant yellow; others yellow, mottled and spotted with green; others take a tawny orange, and again a faded brown.
— from Palmetto-Leaves by Harriet Beecher Stowe