It seems (although Mr. Pyncheon had some hesitation in referring to stories so exceedingly absurd in their aspect) that the popular belief pointed to some mysterious connection and dependence, existing between the family of the Maules and these vast unrealized possessions of the Pyncheons.
— from The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

But that is why I have come to you now, in order that you may speak to him on my behalf; for I am young, and also I have never seen nor heard him; (when he visited Athens before I was but a child;) and all men praise him, Socrates; he is reputed to be the most accomplished of speakers.
— from Protagoras by Plato

So home, it raining terribly, but we still dry, and at the office late discoursing with Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Batten, who like a couple of sots receive all I say but to little purpose.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Had I approached my discovery in a more noble spirit, had I risked the experiment while under the empire of generous or pious aspirations, all must have been otherwise, and from these agonies of death and birth, I had come forth an angel instead of a fiend.
— from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

In September, when all our singers had returned from their summer holidays, I resumed the rehearsals of Tannhauser with great earnestness.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner

I don’t know why I’m so happy: I remembered this morning that it was my name-day, and I suddenly felt glad and remembered my childhood, when mother was still with us.
— from Plays by Anton Chekhov, Second Series by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

So long as he only knows that environment through his physical nature, he should study himself in relation to things; this is the business of his childhood; when he begins to be aware of his moral nature, he should study himself in relation to his fellow-men; this is the business of his whole life, and we have now reached the time when that study should be begun.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

sir,' I said, 'how I regret that Mrs. Wenham and myself had not accepted Mrs. Crawley's invitation to sup with her!'" "She asked you to sup with her?"
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

A thrill of satisfaction swept her in reflecting that her ability to reason was thus active.
— from Beauchamp's Career — Volume 6 by George Meredith

Each in his time had fought,--now against the Cossacks, now against the Turks, now against Tartars; there were some who still held in remembrance the Swedish wars.
— from The Deluge: An Historical Novel of Poland, Sweden, and Russia. Vol. 1 (of 2) by Henryk Sienkiewicz

In truth, aside from officers and soldiers who may be now living and still holding in remembrance the kind and skilful nursing which she gave them personally while wounded or sick, I know of only four persons whose positions made them fully cognizant of the heroism, devotion, and self-sacrifice which she brought to the discharge of her duties.
— from Memories A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War by Fannie A. Beers

The certainty with which she had immediately recognised the symptoms of a disease, which in most cases can only be caught from children, could not fail to impress me strangely.
— from My Life — Volume 2 by Richard Wagner

Shortly, he is raised to the throne; he becomes Emperor.
— from Memoirs of the life, exile, and conversations of the Emperor Napoleon. (Vol. IV) by Las Cases, Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné, comte de

He has been a soldier for upwards of sixteen years; but the sailor still predominates in his nature; while his similes have invariably reference to matters connected with ships and the sea.
— from Wanderings in India, and Other Sketches of Life in Hindostan by John Lang

The person at the other end repeats the word and the girl is sure she had it right the first time.
— from The Book of Business Etiquette by Nella Braddy Henney

"I hold," said he, in reply to strictures of Mr. Phillips upon the President at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Society in 1862; "I hold that it is not wise for us to be too microscopic in endeavoring to find disagreeable and annoying things, still less to assume that everything is waxing worse and worse, and that there is little or no hope."
— from William Lloyd Garrison, the Abolitionist by Archibald Henry Grimké