The individual's self-consciousness—his conception of his rôle in society, his "self," in short—while not identical with his personality is an essential element in it.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

I asked C—— C—— whether I could read it; she handed it to me, and I saw that he begged her to speak to me in his behalf.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

He saw Mrs. Fitzdottrel once before he went, and upon returning immediately seeks her out.
— from The Devil is an Ass by Ben Jonson

"Well, it's only a bit of fun," he said to himself, faintly conscious that to common sense there was something lacking, and still more obviously something redundant in the nature of this girl who had drawn him to her which made it necessary that he should assert mere sportiveness on his part as his reason in seeking her—something in her quite antipathetic to that side of him which had been occupied with literary study and the magnificent Christminster dream.
— from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

Yet he was received in society here; he was even welcome in the family of my talented friend, the prosecutor.”
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"I am sure you did not read it," said he; "or you would think nothing of it!"
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

He dwelt at a distance of three-quarters of an hour from the city, far from any hamlet, far from any road, in some hidden turn of a very wild valley, no one knew exactly where.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

He used them as creatures of an inferior race; in short, he gaffles his four animals, and makes murderers of them; out of cowards fitly manufacturing bravos.
— from The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville

She had no temptation for such an action: as to the bauble on which the chief proof rests, if she had earnestly desired it, I should have willingly given it to her; so much do I esteem and value her."
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

But I'll put up with it no longer!" Knowing very well that he did not harass the other women of the farm as he harassed her out of spite for the flooring he had once received, she did for one moment picture what might have been the result if she had been free to accept the offer just made her of being the monied Alec's wife.
— from Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy

He had been occupied for over an hour in making things ready for her, and he now had his reward in seeing her look right and left, as she slipped her cloak from her shoulders, with evident satisfaction, although she said nothing.
— from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf

‘Well,’ said the undertaker’s wife, when Oliver had finished his supper: which she had regarded in silent horror, and with fearful auguries of his future appetite: ‘have you done?’
— from Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress. Illustrated by Charles Dickens

The smallpox of 1667-68 had among its numerous victims one of the king’s mistresses, the beautiful Frances Stewart, duchess of Richmond, residing in Somerset House, who caught [Pg 454] the disease in March 1668 and was “mighty full of it.”
— from A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 2 (of 2) From the Extinction of Plague to the Present Time by Charles Creighton

Speaking of that, colonel, if, since I came by this road, it should have been stopped up by a landslide, we should cut, in such a case, a sorry figure!
— from A Romance of the West Indies by Eugène Sue

'Go back and reread it,' said he, 'and come and talk it over with me to-morrow evening.'
— from The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly by Charles James Lever

But the marines said they never acknowledged it, and the one who had a German accent intimated that gratitude was not a virtue of any Roman (I suppose he meant Latin) people.
— from Spanish Prisoners of War (from Literature and Life) by William Dean Howells

Clive thought she had, and in determining the point there can be no doubt whatever that (as he himself writes, "with a thorough knowledge of this country's Government, and of the genius of its people, acquired by two years' experience") one of the chief factors which weighed with him was his conviction that the people themselves "would rejoice in so happy an exchange as that of a mild for a despotic Government."
— from India Through the Ages: A Popular and Picturesque History of Hindustan by Flora Annie Webster Steel

I smell a rat , I see him brewing in the air, but I shall yet nip him in the bud .
— from Higher Lessons in English: A work on English grammar and composition by Brainerd Kellogg

"It is a wonderful thing," says Drummond, "to start from the civilisation of Europe, pass up these mighty rivers, and work your way alone and on foot, mile after mile, month after month, among strange birds and beasts and plants and insects, meeting tribes which have no name, speaking tongues which no man can interpret, till you have reached its sacred heart and stood where white man has never trod before."
— from A Book of Discovery The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest Times to the Finding of the South Pole by M. B. (Margaret Bertha) Synge

While it is an excellent pasture plant for stock, they do not relish it so highly as some other pasture plants; when forming seed, it is least valuable for horses, owing to the extent to which it salivates them.
— from Clovers and How to Grow Them by Thomas Shaw