Although confined in a cage, I was content with my lot, but if I must become a slave, I could not wish for a nobler mistress than one who has shown so much constancy, and from this moment I swear to serve you faithfully.
— from The Arabian Nights Entertainments by Andrew Lang

I was at my wit’s end where to get the money, but a sudden idea came to me.
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Slow though the process of selection may be, if feeble man can do much by artificial selection, I can see no limit to the amount of change, to the beauty and complexity of the coadaptations between all organic beings, one with another and with their physical conditions of life, which may have been effected in the long course of time through nature's power of selection, that is by the survival of the fittest.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

“You have no idea, my friend, how my bones ache since I came here.
— from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

Similarly in the island of Kadiak, off Alaska, a woman about to be delivered retires to a miserable low hovel built of reeds, where she must remain for twenty days after the birth of her child, whatever the season may be, and she is considered so unclean that no one will touch her, and food is reached to her on sticks.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

I was at my wits’ end where to get the money, but a sudden idea came to me.
— from Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Illustrated by Arthur Conan Doyle

We have convinced ourselves by this time that a man may be a sage in celestial physics and a poor creature in the purchase of seed-corn, or even in theorising about the affections; that he may be a mere fumbler in physiology and yet show a keen insight into human motives; that he may seem the "poor Poll" of the company in conversation and yet write with some humorous vigour.
— from Impressions of Theophrastus Such by George Eliot

Do you suppose that the great mass of the members of that church suppose in their hearts that their fellow members, brothers and sisters in church communion, are living consistently—I don't mean in things only, but in heart—that they are living really godly lives?
— from Godliness : being reports of a series of addresses delivered at James's Hall, London, W. during 1881 by Catherine Mumford Booth

"Ay, mother, I understand it well; and though there is something in the thought that stirs my blood and sets it coursing through my veins in indignation -- for I see not by what right the English king lays claim to our fair lands -- still I know that conquest gives to the conqueror a right, and that if he chose to march against us with his armies, he might well find us too much weakened by our petty feuds to resist his strong veterans.
— from The Lord of Dynevor: A Tale of the Times of Edward the First by Evelyn Everett-Green

Nobody ever dared tell me before, and so it came as an unpleasant surprise.
— from Rick Dale, A Story of the Northwest Coast by Kirk Munroe

“So long as you and Mr. Bowater are satisfied, I care for little else,” said Archie.
— from The Three Brides by Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge

Mr. Morton, the father, had died in debt and distress, and the eldest son had been thankful for a clerkship in the office of Mr. Burford, a solicitor in considerable practice, and man of business to several of the county magnates.
— from That Stick by Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge

The Indian, who appeared to comprehend these signs perfectly, answered by making a graceful, undulating motion with his right hand, not unlike the wriggling movement made by a snake in crawling.
— from The Young Trail Hunters Or, the Wild Riders of the Plains. The Veritable Adventures of Hal Hyde and Ned Brown, on Their Journey Across the Great Plains of the South-West by Samuel Woodworth Cozzens

"I believe it to be my property—that I have succeeded to it, with my brother and sister, in consequence of the death of my father.
— from Mildred Arkell: A Novel. Vol. 2 (of 3) by Wood, Henry, Mrs.

Make the mixture boil, and skim it clean.
— from The Art of Cookery Made Easy and Refined by John Mollard