All I can say is, that I felt my tone of mind a lowering at the time.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

For the first time since my entrance into Radcliffe I had the opportunity to make friends with all my classmates, and the pleasure of knowing that they regarded me as one of themselves, instead of thinking of me as living apart and taking no interest in the everyday nothings of their life, as I had sometimes feared they did.
— from The Story of My Life With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy by Helen Keller

He went up to the old man and, looking at his mournful, mocking face and at the pipe, muttered: “And life has grown worse, grandfather.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

For who will suffer it to be said that the demons have made known the calumnious fictions of the poets concerning the immortal gods, and also the disgraceful mockeries of the theatres, and their own most ardent lust after, and most sweet [Pg 338] pleasure in these things, whilst they have concealed from them that Plato, with the gravity of a philosopher, gave it as his opinion that all these things ought to be removed from a well-regulated republic; so that the good gods are now compelled, through such messengers, to know the evil doings of the most wicked beings, that is to say, of the messengers themselves, and are not allowed to know the good deeds of the philosophers, though the former are for the injury, but these latter for the honour of the gods themselves?
— from The City of God, Volume I by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

The only metals are lead and iron; but their ores, especially the latter, are abundant.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

“Well, why not?” demanded the old man, a little aggressively.
— from Pollyanna by Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter

Anatole kissed the old man, and looked at him with curiosity and perfect composure, waiting for a display of the eccentricities his father had told him to expect.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

The old man always looked at her a little with his fine dry smile while he smoothed down the shawl spread across his legs.
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James

“Then how do you think of making a living at Rome?”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

There was something in his manner and dress, although both conformed to local prejudices and customs, that denoted a type of man a little above the average social condition of One Horse Gulch.
— from Gabriel Conroy by Bret Harte

" "No, to be sure, sir," the old man answered, looking admiringly at the banker, and sighing plaintively.
— from Henry Dunbar: A Novel by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

In time of peril humanity always reveals these extravagant contrasts, and Boccaccio, with the true instinct of the artist, set his tales of merriment and licentiousness against the background of a city perishing of plague.
— from Leaves in the Wind by A. G. (Alfred George) Gardiner

One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra; and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole army.
— from The Scrap Book, Volume 1, No. 6 August 1906 by Various

He always managed to oblige me and look after my interests and my rights in any legal dispute of mine, or when I had reason to fear annoyance on the part of my husband.
— from Court Memoirs of France Series — Complete by Various

The old men again looked at each other, and it was quite apparent that, as both of them had been in previous councils, they had a secret intelligence, to which their companion was yet a stranger.
— from The Bravo: A Tale by James Fenimore Cooper

The system adopted by S. Patrick in Ireland was that of making as little alteration as he could in the customs of the people, except only when such customs were flatly opposed to the precepts of the gospel.
— from A Book of Cornwall by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

"I'm sure I don't know, John," the old man answered, looking about.
— from Helen of the Old House by Harold Bell Wright

Since they have driven me into the mountains they owe me a living, and I'm going to collect it."
— from Ted Strong in Montana Or, With Lariat and Spur by Edward C. Taylor