Upon the whole, as a community between man and man so entire as to include everything possible, and thus to have all things that man can possess in common, is very difficult, so is it particularly so with respect to property; and this is evident from that community which takes place between those who go out to settle a colony; for they frequently have disputes with each other upon the most common occasions, and come to blows upon trifles: we find, too, that we oftenest correct those slaves who are generally employed in the common offices of the family: a community of property then has these and other inconveniences attending it.
— from Politics: A Treatise on Government by Aristotle

We, Sir, we, are guided entirely by the statement of our client.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

I broke the seal with a great effort—so great a one that I was a long time coming to it; took the unopened missive at last up to my room and only attacked it just before going to bed.
— from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

We saw, also, a line of rifle-pits in the rear, commanding the rear of the levee, and still beyond, winding along the foot of the bluff, a road worn by long use deep into the side-hill, and with the side next us strengthened with a good earthwork, affording a covered line of communication in the rear.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

[214] pitying her forlorn condition, he raised her in his arms, and succeeded, with a great effort, in reaching the opposite shore.
— from Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome by E. M. Berens

All of which is perhaps but a gracefully devious way of saying that Henrietta Stackpole was a good example, in “The Portrait,” of the truth to which I just adverted—as good an example as I could name were it not that Maria Gostrey, in “The Ambassadors,” then in the bosom of time, may be mentioned as a better.
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James

There isn’t, on earth, a living soul to care if I die,” he added, drawing his breath hard, and speaking with a great effort,—“I shall be kicked out and buried like a dog, and nobody’ll think of it a day after,— only my poor wife!
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

One meets along the mountain roads long wagons loaded with hay, drawn by two cows at a slow pace or held back by them in going down the slopes with a great effort of their heads, which are yoked together.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

None but French silks worn; and good English cloth, forsooth, is too coarse for their fine backs!
— from Darnley; or, The Field of the Cloth of Gold by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

The Blackcap prefers the underwood, particularly where higher trees stand solitary; it also nests in gardens, even in the public gardens of large towns, where it feeds on all kinds of insects, and so it serves wood and garden equally well.
— from Birds useful and birds harmful by Ottó Herman

'Because if you don't scatter, and haven't got soldiers who are good enough to act when scattered, you will all get destroyed in a lump together.'
— from Ian Hamilton's March by Winston Churchill

The house is remarkable, as having been built by Lady James, the friend and correspondent of Sterne, who also greatly embellished the park and pleasure grounds.
— from Survey of the High Roads of England and Wales. Part the First. Comprising the counties of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hants, Wilts, Dorset, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. etc. by Edward S. Mogg

As in Magdeburg, at least in those days, the art of theatrical criticism was but slightly developed, this universal satisfaction was a great encouragement, and at the end of the first three months of my Magdeburg conductorship I felt sustained by the flattering and comforting assurance that I was one of the bigwigs of opera.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner

He would take [Pg 37] a short walk, and go early to bed.
— from A Man from the North by Arnold Bennett

These successes were a great encouragement to the Carolinians.
— from Revolutionary Reader: Reminiscences and Indian Legends by Sophie Lee Foster

Almost everybody knew that she was a gambler, except her husband.
— from Wyllard's Weird: A Novel by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

“Until the last ray of light disappears he is at his easel,” said a young student whom a gay escapade had temporarily banished to the fifth floor.
— from Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 by Various

Several witches at Gateshead examined, and carried to Durham for trial; "a grave for a witch."
— from A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 by Wallace Notestein