Now Giacomino had in his house an old serving-wench and a serving-man, Crivello by name, a very merry and obliging person, with whom Giannole clapped up a great acquaintance and to whom, whenas himseemed time, he discovered his passion, praying him to be favourable to him in his endeavour to obtain his desire and promising him great things an he did this; whereto quoth Crivello, 'Look you, I can do nought for thee in this matter other than that, when next Giacomino goeth abroad to supper, I will bring thee whereas she may be; for that, an I offered to say a word to her in thy favour, she would never stop to listen to me.
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

If they are mystics, distrusting thought and craving the largeness of indistinction, they may embrace this alleged nothingness with joy, even if it seem positively painful, hoping to find rest there through self-abnegation.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

"Will Demi lie still like a good boy, while mamma runs down and gives poor papa his tea?" asked Meg, as the hall-door softly closed, and the well-known step went tiptoeing into the dining-room.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott

Left thus alone, absolutely destitute and friendless I began then to feel most bitterly the severity of this separation, the scene of which had passed in a little room in the inn; and no sooner was her back turned, but the affliction I felt at my helpless strange circumstances, burst out into a flood of tears, which infinitely relieved the oppression of my heart; though I still remained stupified, and most perfectly perplexed how to dispose of myself.
— from Memoirs of Fanny Hill A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) by John Cleland

He brooded over the matter, and one day, meeting a Paniyan, promised him ten rupees if he would kill the woman.
— from Omens and Superstitions of Southern India by Edgar Thurston

28 The indigent and solitary prince prepared, however, to sustain his formidable adversary; but if his courage were equal to the peril, his strength was inadequate to the contest.
— 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

Brown paper parcel here, that’s all—other luggage gone by water—packing-cases, nailed up—big as houses—heavy, heavy, damned heavy,’ replied the stranger, as he forced into his pocket as much as he could of the brown paper parcel, which presented most suspicious indications of containing one shirt and a handkerchief.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

“The king and queen and many of the court do start even in this hour, to go to your valley to pay pious homage to the waters ye have restored, and cleanse themselves of sin, and see the place where the infernal spirit spouted true hell-flames to the clouds—an ye listen sharply ye may hear me wink and hear me likewise smile a smile, sith ’twas I that made selection of those flames from out our stock and sent them by your order.”
— from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

This therefore is the privilege of the people in general, above what any private person hath; that particular men are allowed by our adversaries themselves (Buchanan only excepted) to have no other remedy but patience; but the body of the people may with respect resist intolerable tyranny; for when it is but moderate, they ought to endure it.
— from Second Treatise of Government by John Locke

To carry out the vine-simile, I might as well add at once that, in the end, the parasitical plant has triumphed, and stifled the sterner growth.
— from Sea and Shore A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" by Catherine A. (Catherine Ann) Warfield

As Belloc wrote in a beautiful epitaph— "He frequently would flush with fear when other people paled, He Tried to Do his Duty . . .
— from Gilbert Keith Chesterton by Maisie Ward

If he declined to write that letter it might be the worse for him and everybody else in the long run; if he did write the letter it might possibly prove harmful to Beatrice.
— from The Slave of Silence by Fred M. (Fred Merrick) White

[no formal leadership]; other minor parties Macau there are no formal political parties, however, there are civic associations that, for purposes of legislative voting, join together to form political blocs Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Democratic Alternative or DA [Vasil TUPURKOVSKI, president]; Democratic Union for Integration or DUI (also BDI)
— from The 2003 CIA World Factbook by United States. Central Intelligence Agency

His troubles began in Plymouth, where the wife of the pastor preferred his teachings to those of her husband.
— from The Beginnings of New England Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty by John Fiske

He was then, for the first time, employed in a diplomatic mission to Berlin, where he so far insinuated himself into the good graces of their Prussian Majesties that the King admitted him to the royal table, and on the parade at Potsdam presented him to his generals and officers as an aide-de-camp ‘du plus grand homme que je connais; whilst the Queen gave him a scarf knitted by her own fair hands.
— from Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud (Being secret letters from a gentleman at Paris to a nobleman in London) — Complete by Lewis Goldsmith

“But now, when papa paid him that twenty thousand dollars,” Carin insisted.
— from Annie Laurie and Azalea by Elia Wilkinson Peattie

Lines 1-134 Neoptolemus having filched the Bow of Philoctetes, Philoctetes prays him to restore it.
— from Specimens of Greek Tragedy — Aeschylus and Sophocles by Sophocles

A single officer of cossacks, however, on patrole, presented himself to their view.
— from History of the Expedition to Russia Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 by Ségur, Philippe-Paul, comte de