After playing for three hours and losing all the time, he stopped play and came to condole with me on my heavy loss.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

They had a lurid altercation, in which they damned each other's souls with frequence.
— from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane

Who told thee that thy heart and life agree together? Ignor.
— from The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan Every Child Can Read by John Bunyan

All in turn had a look at the puzzle, but nobody succeeded in solving it.
— from Amusements in Mathematics by Henry Ernest Dudeney

Quesnel the ancient domain of her late father, where, having given Annette a marriage portion, she settled her as the housekeeper, and Ludovico as the steward; but, since both Valancourt and herself preferred the pleasant and long-loved shades of La Vallee to the magnificence of Epourville, they continued to reside there, passing, however, a few months in the year at the birth-place of St. Aubert, in tender respect to his memory.
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

So the Mole and Rat turned to, quietly and manfully, and while the Rat saw to the horse, and lit a fire, and cleaned last night’s cups and platters, and got things ready for breakfast, the Mole trudged off to the nearest village, a long way off, for milk and eggs and various necessaries the Toad had, of course, forgotten to provide.
— from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Whisper it not, and I will tell; with a treacherous hook and line, as the fowl floated on the sea.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

I wanted to catch a picture of him in my fingers, and I touched him as lightly as I would cobwebs; but lo, his fat body revolved, stiffened and solidified into an upright position, and his tongue gave my hand a lick!
— from The World I Live In by Helen Keller

According to him, as long as you had powder enough, you could use anything as a projectile.
— from An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet by Arnold Henry Savage Landor

He was aware that should he venture to cut down the trees, the noise would betray him, he determined therefore to vent his rage against the flowers, so waiting till it was dark, he climbed over the hedge, and like a wild-boar, rooted up some, broke others, and trampled upon every flower.
— from The Greek Romances of Heliodorus, Longus and Achilles Tatius Comprising the Ethiopics; or, Adventures of Theagenes and Chariclea; The pastoral amours of Daphnis and Chloe; and the loves of Clitopho and Leucippe by of Emesa Heliodorus

Perhaps they had already landed at some port in France?
— from Paris Vistas by Helen Davenport Gibbons

His wife combed his hair and tied his cravat, turning him about like a child going to a distribution of prizes.
— from The Fortune of the Rougons by Émile Zola

Just as her patience was wearing to a thread the hack arrived, looking as black and glossy as if some one had been all this time polishing it for the occasion.
— from Dotty Dimple Out West by Sophie May

The hillside above looked as unstable as ever, but no fresh land-slips were visible, and even if they occur hereafter, as is to be expected, the canal has space to accommodate considerable
— from Down Under with the Prince by Everard Cotes

He perhaps should have perceived it, but I could understand that he could not believe that his treasure had at last after all these years been given to him for so brief a moment.
— from The Dark Forest by Hugh Walpole

“I was not speaking of you—and after all, it’s but a fable,” said Lauderdale; “most history is fable, you know; it’s no actual events, (which I never believe in, for my part,) but the instincts o’ the human mind that make history—and that’s how the Heros and Leanders are aye to be accounted for.
— from A Son of the Soil by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

The head of the family is the head as long as he lives and all his descendants are mere sons and daughters.
— from Rural Life and the Rural School by Joseph Kennedy

"These old-timers tried to talk me out of my determination to have a look around in the town where so many of the men of the construction gangs were being killed off—for I wanted to see what thorough out-and-out bad men looked like.
— from Taking Chances by Clarence Louis Cullen