exclaimed Harcourt Talboys; "you are mad, or else you are commissioned by your friend to play upon my feelings.
— from Lady Audley's Secret by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

I told him he had taken a very unlikely way to prevail upon me; for, of all things in the world, I hated fine speeches and compliments; and so—and so then I found there would be no peace if I did not stand up.
— from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

“Would you be so good,” said the lady, “as to pick up my fan that has fallen behind the sofa?”
— from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

When you can spare two or three brace of partridges, send them over by the stagecoach, and tell Gwyllim that she forgot to pack up my flannel and wide shoes in the trunk-mail—I shall trouble you as usual, from time to time, till at last I suppose you will be tired of corresponding with Your assured friend, M. BRAMBLE CLIFTON, April 17.
— from The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. (Tobias) Smollett

Seeing my condition, he took pity upon me, for I was covered with mud and paler than death, and asked me whether I had seen anyone in the place.
— from The Satyricon — Complete by Petronius Arbiter

So to the Temple and by water home, and so walk upon the leads, and in the dark there played upon my flageolette, it being a fine still evening, and so to supper and to bed.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

C H A P. LV I F any thing in this world, which my father said, could have provoked my uncle Toby, during the time he was in love, it was the perverse use my father was always making of an expression of Hilarion the hermit; who, in speaking of his abstinence, his watchings, flagellations, and other instrumental parts of his religion—would say—tho’ with more facetiousness than became an hermit—“ That they were the means he used, to make his ass (meaning his body) leave off kicking.”
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

If any thing in this world, which my father said, could have provoked my uncle Toby, during the time he was in love, it was the perverse use my father was always making of an expression of Hilarion the hermit; who, in speaking of his abstinence, his watchings, flagellations, and other instrumental parts of his religion—would say—tho' with more facetiousness than became an hermit—'That they were the means he used, to make his ass (meaning his body) leave off kicking.'
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

The able superintendent of all outdoor concerns, a domestic chargé-d'affaires, who had for years filled the position under my father, remained at the head of all things.
— from Glories of Spain by Charles W. (Charles William) Wood

and then I took the tobacco out of my pocket, and threw it into the fire, and put the pipe under my foot, ‘ ashes to ashes, dust to dust. ’
— from The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature by William James

Mr. Perris tells us of the affairs of the great British companies—the Armstrong-Whitworth Corporation, the Vickers, the John Brown, the Cammell-Laird and the Coventry Arms Company, with their allies, tentacles and satellites feeding the patriotism, under many flags, of nearly half the globe.
— from The Unpopular Review Vol. I January-June 1914 by Various

"I am very well satisfied to keep the planks under my feet and wait for something to turn up."
— from A Voyage with Captain Dynamite by Charles Edward Rich

He was not allowed to accompany us to school and scarcely ever left the yard, but Matt Gallagher in some way discovered my deep affection for this pet and thereafter played upon my fears with a malevolence which knew no mercy.
— from A Son of the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland

This, and the improvement that took place in fire arms in the next forty years, gave room for speculation as to whether cavalry would play as important a part in the future as it had done in the past, under Marlborough, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, and Wellington.
— from Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 by Various

General Grant assumed the direction of the Army of the Potomac under most favorable auspices.
— from A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee by John Esten Cooke

But this is a point that I, the Professor, understand, my friends, or ought to, certainly, better than you do.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 22, August, 1859 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

I have been contemplating their behaviour, their conversation, their over-ready acquiescences, to my declarations in thy disfavour; their free, yet affectedly-reserved light manners: and now that the sad event has opened my eyes, and I have compared facts and passages together, in the little interval that has been lent me, I wonder I could not distinguish the behaviour of the unmatron-like jilt, whom thou broughtest to betray me, from the worthy lady whom thou hast the honour to call thy aunt: and that I could not detect the superficial creature whom thou passedst upon me for the virtuous Miss Montague.
— from Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 6 by Samuel Richardson