The idea so possessed my mind, that a thrill of fear ran through me, and I wished to exchange the ghastly image of my fancy for the realities around.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Luckily my wound was only a slight one, and after binding it up as well as I could, I walked on for the rest of the day, till I reached a cave at the foot of a mountain, where I passed the night in peace, making my supper off some fruits I had gathered on the way.
— from The Arabian Nights Entertainments by Andrew Lang

"Oh! pray, Miss Margaret, let us know all about it," said Mrs. Jennings.
— from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

For the lusts, pleasures, and profits of this world; in the enjoyment of which I did then promise myself much delight; but now every one of those things also bite me, and gnaw me like a burning worm.
— from The Pilgrim's Progress from this world to that which is to come Delivered under the similitude of a dream, by John Bunyan by John Bunyan

I was not in the least sensible of the progressive motion made in the air by the island.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift

'Friend Homer,' then we say to him, 'if you are only in the second remove from truth in what you say of virtue, and not in the third—not an image maker or imitator—and if you are able to discern what pursuits make men better or worse in private or public life, tell us what State was ever better governed by your help?
— from The Republic by Plato

Here 's the cursed day To prompt my memory; and here 't shall stick Till of her bleeding heart I make a sponge To wipe it out.
— from The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster

I tried to get out of it, but because I wanted to help little children (I built this parish house for the young people, making my people support it for their sake), and she knew it, with infinite patience and constant humor and courtesy she kept forcing me, until gradually she landed me in the Presidency of the Juvenile Protective Association, utterly ignorant of what I was to do or what was to be done.
— from Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati by Warren Crocker Herrick

Without knowing how Philippe might manage to kill her, she felt certain that whenever he suspected her of pregnancy her doom would be sealed.
— from The Two Brothers by Honoré de Balzac

Secret agents were employed in many European capitals in the endeavor to discover the true sentiments of the powers most interested, so that in case unhappy Spain seemed in a way to secure an ally, prompt measures might be taken to head off the threatened blow by a sudden coup d'etat , in which our good friend Great Britain stood ready to do her part.
— from Miss Fairfax of Virginia: A Romance of Love and Adventure Under the Palmettos by St. George Rathborne

I clean, of course, my room in part, make my bed, help to clear away things after meals, &c., and am quite accustomed to do without servants for anything but cooking.
— from Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands by Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge

"Mademoiselle," Carter said gently under cover of the general buzz of excited comment aroused by the picture, "mademoiselle, M. Delmotte is destined to a high place among the great men of the world.
— from Trusia: A Princess of Krovitch by Davis Brinton

O Solomon, mine ancestor, why did you not prevent me making such an egregious fool of myself?
— from Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face by Charles Kingsley

For God being King of the Jews, and his Lieutenant being first Moses, and afterward the High Priest; if the people had been permitted to worship, and pray to Images, (which are Representations of their own Fancies,) they had had no farther dependence on the true God, of whom there can be no similitude; nor on his prime Ministers, Moses, and the High Priests; but every man had governed himself according to his own appetite, to the utter eversion of the Common-wealth, and their own destruction for want of Union.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

All other papistry, monasteries, mass, indulgences, and intercessions for the dead, are pertinaciously adhered to.”
— from A History of the Reformation (Vol. 2 of 2) by Thomas M. (Thomas Martin) Lindsay

At the outset, in the discussions preliminary to the first issue of paper money, Mirabeau and others who had favored it had insisted that patriotism as well as an enlightened self-interest, would lead the people to keep up the value of paper money.
— from Fiat Money Inflation in France: How it Came, What it Brought, and How it Ended by Andrew Dickson White