You have heard I am in a large way of business here—that I am Mayor of the town, and churchwarden, and I don't know what all?”
— from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

They at once retorted, "Nay, what do you mean by dragging one of the bravest and best men in Rome to a cruel and illegal death?"
— from Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4) by Plutarch

En los días sucesivos Rey hizo conocimiento con varias personas de la población y visitó el Casino, trabando amistades con algunos individuos de los que pasaban la vida en las salas de aquella corporación.
— from Doña Perfecta by Benito Pérez Galdós

I have hitherto purposely omitted to speak of the eye , which has so great a share in the beauty of the animal creation, as it did not fall so easily under the foregoing heads, though in fact it is reducible to the same principles.
— from The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) by Edmund Burke

I. What reason shall I assign, O Brutus, why, as we consist of mind and body, the art of curing and preserving the body should be so much sought after, and the invention of it, as being so useful, should be ascribed to the immortal Gods; but the medicine of the mind should not have been so much the object of inquiry while it was unknown, nor so much attended to and cultivated after its discovery, nor so well received or approved of by some, and accounted actually disagreeable, and looked upon with an envious eye by many?
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth by Marcus Tullius Cicero

Your mother will see this as clearly as I do, when you tell her.”
— from A Room with a View by E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster

Let’s see, for the first course, we had a hog, crowned with a wine cup and garnished with cheese cakes and chicken livers cooked well done, beets, of course, and whole-wheat bread, which I’d rather have than white, because it puts strength into you, and when I take a crap afterwards, I don’t have to yell.
— from The Satyricon — Complete by Petronius Arbiter

The man's whole future hung on my lips—and he knew it by this time as certainly as I did!
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

" "It is a deplorable condition," said the New Yorker, "that exists in the South, but—" "I am from Indiana, sir," said the tall man, taking another chew; "and I don't think you will condemn my course when I tell you that the colored man in question had stolen $9.60 in cash, sir, from my own brother.
— from Waifs and Strays Part 1 by O. Henry

In the specimens described by Millin and Tochon, the cavity of the jars is narrow and conical from above downwards, the mouth being wide, and the interior becoming more and more tapering and contracted as it descends downwards.
— from Archæological Essays, Vol. 2 by James Young Simpson

24 “Take us hundreds of miles out of our way and through a country almost impassable,” Dick objected.
— from Dick Kent with the Malemute Mail by M. M. (Milo Milton) Oblinger

Gavin Ord, however, saw the thing as clearly as in daylight—a woman's fair head with great sodden leaves about it and streaming black hair caught up upon the ripples.
— from The Lady Evelyn: A Story of To-day by Max Pemberton

Here villages were more frequent, but the houses had not the same air of thrift and comfort as in Dalecarlia.
— from Northern Travel: Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland by Bayard Taylor

“If she wrote me, the letters might give them a clew, and I don’t write HER because I don’t want her to know all my troubles until they’re over.
— from The Amateur by Richard Harding Davis

I think he saw the truth as clearly as I did myself, for he spoke with more than common softness when he answered.
— from John Splendid: The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn by Neil Munro

But, madam, replied Sir George, her enemies will not take the pains to examine her reasons for this conduct— True, sir, resumed Arabella; for she was in danger of seeing a prince, who loved her, put to a cruel and infamous death upon a public scaffold; and she did not resolve to fly with him, till all her tears and prayers were found ineffectual to move the king her brother to mercy.
— from The Female Quixote; or, The Adventures of Arabella, v. 1-2 by Charlotte Lennox