By that stupidity I only wanted to put myself into an independent position, to take the first step, to obtain means, and then everything would have been smoothed over by benefits immeasurable in comparison....
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"Come back to me," said the old man, "at the end of a week; let me feel that comfort when you say good-by on your wedding-day."
— from How It All Came Round by L. T. Meade

The peculiar type of brain, the scientific turn of mind, and the education which make an efficient detective, naturally render long preliminary service as a policeman abhorrent to the men who make the best detectives.
— from The Secret Toll by Paul Thorne

Once I saw the old man, at the end of a long corridor.
— from The Magician's Show Box, and Other Stories by Lydia Maria Child

Don't you see that this consideration, and this alone, made it possible for an impertinent outsider like Curtis to offer his services as de Courtois's substitute, while my misguided daughter was equally prepared to accept them?" "Ah!" The eyelids shut tightly once more, and the Earl, feeling rather irritated and disturbed by this unpleasing habit, shifted his chair noisily.
— from One Wonderful Night: A Romance of New York by Louis Tracy

,” shouted the old man; and the evidence commenced.
— from The Lady of Blossholme by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard

The Mogul Government uniformly sold the opium monopoly, and the East India Company did likewise.
— from Poison Romance and Poison Mysteries by C. J. S. (Charles John Samuel) Thompson

He embraced me, however, with some reluctance and more austerity; and when this ceremony was performed, during which I trembled, I was removed by a domestic, and conducted to an apartment where I was treated like the son of a grandee; in the evening I was visited by my father and mother; they shed tears over me as they embraced me, but I thought I could perceive they mingled the tears of grief with those of fondness.
— from Melmoth the Wanderer, Vol. 1 (of 4) by Charles Robert Maturin

We did this, but the attendants of the three elevators all denied having brought anyone up to Mr. Gately’s offices since the old man and the elderly lady who had been mentioned by Jenny.
— from The Man Who Fell Through the Earth by Carolyn Wells

Did she think of me and the effect this unlooked-for death would have upon my feelings?
— from The House of the Whispering Pines by Anna Katharine Green