Some of them had not the slightest notion, although they had stones in their hands, but chancing on some one who was better informed, I was told by him that 'the clerks of the market were treating the army most scandalously.'
— from Anabasis by Xenophon

She now appeared to him in the disguise of a shepherd, and informed him that he was in his native land; that his father Laertes, bent with sorrow and old age, had withdrawn from the court; that his son Telemachus had grown to manhood, and was gone to seek for tidings of his father; and that his wife Penelope was harassed by the importunities of numerous suitors, who had taken possession of his home and devoured his substance.
— from Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome by E. M. Berens

Moreover, he charged a discreet servant of his that he should study, by such means as seemed to him best, to ride with Messer Ruggieri on such wise that he should not appear to have been sent by the king, and note everything he should say of him, so as he might avail to repeat it to him, and that on the ensuing morning he should command him return to the court.
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

The three important factors, school, newspaper, and theater, have reached an extraordinary degree of power.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross

Although Pyotr Stepanovitch had at the meeting invited Liputin to go with him to Kirillov’s to make sure that the latter would take upon himself, at a given moment, the responsibility for the “Shatov business,” yet in his interview with Kirillov he had said no word about Shatov nor alluded to him in any way—probably considering it impolitic to do so, and thinking that Kirillov could not be relied upon.
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

They said further; that they were the plague of their father, since they should now add to his former affliction for Joseph, this other affliction for Benjamin.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

And to show that a great many things may be, and have been, of which our nature could not sound the reason and causes, he proposes to them certain known and undoubted experiments, wherein men confess they see nothing; and this he does, as all other things, with a curious and ingenious inquisition.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

What am I to say now about the hair and nails?
— from The City of God, Volume II by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

This continued during the life of Herod; but when Philip, who was [tetrarch] after him, took the government, he made them pay some small taxes, and that for a little while only; and Agrippa the Great, and his son of the same name, although they harassed them greatly, yet would they not take their liberty away.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

I intend to return them to you to-morrow, or rather on the beginning of next week; and as they were taken particular care of, I hope they shall not appear to have suffered any injury.
— from Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville by Mary Somerville

It was a small nook among the hills, with a gray precipice behind, the stern front of which was relieved by the pleasant foliage of many creeping plants that made a tapestry for the naked rock, by hanging their festoons from all its rugged angles.
— from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne

As for Lady Conyngham, she looks bored to death, and she never speaks, never appears to have one word to say to the King, who, however, talks himself without ceasing.
— from The Greville Memoirs, Part 1 (of 3), Volume 1 (of 3) A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV by Charles Greville

He came down the steps now and took her hand.
— from Mr. Pat's Little Girl: A Story of the Arden Foresters by Mary Finley Leonard

Liberality and generosity of feeling is the surest test of a gentleman; but, in addition to those of training and of a favourable association, except in very peculiar cases, they are apt to require some strong natural advantages, to help out the tendencies of breeding and education.
— from A Residence in France With an Excursion Up the Rhine, and a Second Visit to Switzerland by James Fenimore Cooper

Accordingly he left at Puebla de Senabria his guns and about 2,000 men, the skeletons of many ruined regiments, under General Martin La Carrera, while with the 6,000 infantry that remained he resolved to cross the Sierra Negra and throw himself into the upper valley of the Sil.
— from A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. 2, Jan.-Sep. 1809 From the Battle of Corunna to the End of the Talavera Campaign by Charles Oman

That he was "actuated merely by motives of self-aggrandisement," is surely not apparent; though he might be more partial to Spain than we may think right, or even though he might have some bias towards the religion of Rome.
— from Constitutional History of England, Henry VII to George II. Volume 1 of 3 by Henry Hallam

Lucy says nothing, attending to his [Pg 118] wants solicitously. ]
— from Why Marry? by Jesse Lynch Williams