So, at least, the sailors swore.
— from The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville

"Hark ye, Teresa," replied Sancho, "I am glad because I have made up my mind to go back to the service of my master Don Quixote, who means to go out a third time to seek for adventures; and I am going with him again, for my necessities will have it so, and also the hope that cheers me with the thought that I may find another hundred crowns like those we have spent; though it makes me sad to have to leave thee and the children; and if God would be pleased to let me have my daily bread, dry-shod and at home, without taking me out into the byways and cross-roads—and he could do it at small cost by merely willing it—it is clear my happiness would be more solid and lasting, for the happiness I have is mingled with sorrow at leaving thee; so that I was right in saying I would be glad, if it were God's will, not to be well pleased."
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

But let me change this theme which grows too sad, And lay this sheet of sorrows on the shelf; I don't much like describing people mad, For fear of seeming rather touch'd myself— Besides, I 've no more on this head to add; And as my Muse is a capricious elf, We 'll put about, and try another tack With Juan, left half-kill'd some stanzas back.
— from Don Juan by Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron

So at last to sleep.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

This was he who took care of my sleep, and secured me from fear of danger, who comforted me under the trouble I was in upon the slaughter of my sons, and looked to see what affection my surviving brethren bore me!
— from The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Flavius Josephus

He improved Newcomen's engine by cutting off the steam after the piston had completed a quarter or a third of its stroke, and letting the steam already in the chamber expand and drive the piston the remaining distance.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden

It might have moved a very hard and worldly heart to see the young and beautiful creature, whose certain misery they had been contriving but a minute before, throw her arms about her father’s neck, and pour forth words of tender sympathy and love, the sweetest a father’s ear can know, or child’s lips form.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

My Dear Mr. Hitz, I hardly know how to begin a letter to you, it has been such a long time since your kind letter reached me, and there is so much that I would like to write if I could.
— from The Story of My Life With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy by Helen Keller

When the canoe was swamped by the waves—as, soon after leaving the ship, I realized must inevitably be the case—the chief motioned me to get on his back, and when I had [77] done so, began to swim for shore.
— from Among the Head-Hunters of Formosa by Janet B. Montgomery McGovern

The moon went down, slow sailing from my sight, And left the stars to watch away the night.
— from Maurine and Other Poems by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Hunt stands hat in hand (he and Sir Francis Burdett sport “favours”); the Radical reformer is backed by his colours, his flag proclaims “Universal Suffrage and Liberty;” the standard is surmounted by a cap of liberty.
— from A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering in the Old Days Showing the State of Political Parties and Party Warfare at the Hustings and in the House of Commons from the Stuarts to Queen Victoria by Joseph Grego

The Child-heart is so strange a little thing— So mild—so timorously shy and small.— When grown-up hearts throb, it goes scampering Behind the wall, nor dares peer out at all!—
— from A Child-World by James Whitcomb Riley

For what seemed a long time Shane did not move.
— from Where the Sun Swings North by Barrett Willoughby

And it is of the essence of self-sacrifice, and therefore of heroism, that it should be voluntary; a work of supererogation, at least towards society and man; an act to which the hero or heroine is not bound by duty, but which is above though not against duty.
— from Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays by Charles Kingsley

His excellent workmanship and skill in composition was such as led the sculptors of the fifteenth century to consider this innovation upon the old simplicity an improvement.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 398, December 1848 by Various

Let me assume the thing actually over—as it at any moment may be—and I become good again for something at least to somebody.
— from The Wings of the Dove, Volume II by Henry James

I n 1918, PROFESSOR W.M.F. PETRIE concluded a brief article on "History in Tools" with a reminder that the history of this subject "has yet to be studied," and lamented the survival of so few precisely dated specimens.
— from Woodworking Tools 1600-1900 by Peter C. Welsh