Then, after some days, during which he had let furnish the newly-married pair with all that was necessary or agreeable to them, he deemed it time to gladden their mothers with the good news and accordingly calling his lady and Cavriuola, he said to the latter, 'What would you say, madam, an I should cause you have again your elder son as the husband of one of my daughters?'
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

"Madier," said he, "nearly two hundred years ago the Prince de Condé, ready to give battle in this very Faubourg St. Antoine, where we now are, asked an officer who was accompanying him, 'Have you ever seen a battle lost?'—'No, sire.' 'Well, then, you will see one now.
— from The History of a Crime The Testimony of an Eye-Witness by Victor Hugo

Again you encounter steps as the symbol of the sexual act.
— from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud

Yet ere she ate the balm he brought, On Lakshmaṇ and her lord she thought.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki

Did you ever see a crocodile overcome?’ inquired my aunt.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

For I am very sure that I had done no terrible or incurable injury to any one of you, either separately, as individuals, or to your city as a whole; nor had I uttered any disparaging word, but I had even praised you, as I thought I was bound to do, and had bestowed on you certain advantages, as was natural for one who desires, as far as he can, to benefit many men.
— from The Works of the Emperor Julian, Vol. 2 by Emperor of Rome Julian

This, however, our author has attempted; and though, in doing this, the exuberances of fancy and imagination are conspicuous, and some may entertain doubts, concerning the solidity of some of his conjectures, yet, even such are forced to allow that many parts of the author's scheme are probable, and deserving the highest attention.
— from A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. by Jacob Bryant

Did you ever see anything so beautiful?”
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Did you ever see an Indian with a foot like that?" Indignation enabled Aunt Caroline to disclaim acquaintance with any Indian feet whatever.
— from The Window-Gazer by Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

Thus they helpt him when all y e world faild him, and with this means he went againe to y e ships, and stayed his small ship & some of his men, & bought provissions and fited him selfe; and it was y e only foundation [96] of his after course.
— from Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' From the Original Manuscript. With a Report of the Proceedings Incident to the Return of the Manuscript to Massachusetts by William Bradford

Have you ever set a light to that inert mass of enthusiasm that lies within you?
— from Expositions of Holy Scripture Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and First Book of Samuel, Second Samuel, First Kings, and Second Kings chapters I to VII by Alexander Maclaren

Did you ever see a potter at work on a piece of clay making a vessel of it?
— from Adventures in the Land of Canaan by R. L. (Robert Lee) Berry

No my compleat master, but to Iigge off a tune at the tongues end, canarie to it with the feete, humour it with turning vp your eie: sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the throate: if you swallowed loue with singing, loue sometime through: nose as if you snuft vp loue by smelling loue with your hat penthouselike ore the shop of your eies, with your armes crost on your thinbellie doublet, like a Rabbet on a spit, or your hands in your pocket, like a man after the old painting, and keepe not too long in one tune, but a snip and away: these are complements, these are humours, these betraie nice wenches that would be betraied without these, and make them men of note: do you note men that most are affected to these? Brag.
— from Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare

Yet, every spring, about the time when the tourists began to prowl round, the little goldfish were to be seen again, ready for bread-crumbs and bugs of suicidal tendencies.
— from The Lure of the Mask by Harold MacGrath

Did you ever see a steamboat?”
— from The Battle Ground by Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

"Did you ever see a Queerbodies' puzzle when it was finished?"
— from As the Goose Flies by Katharine Pyle

"Edward, did you ever see anything finer?" "Never!
— from Elsie's New Relations What They Did and How They Fared at Ion; A Sequel to Grandmother Elsie by Martha Finley