I prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service: This day my sister should the cloister enter, And there receive her approbation; Acquaint her with the danger of my state; Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

I'm sure I never grudge a meal of vittles or a hand's turn to such as she is, though she does beat all for dependin' on her neighbors.
— from Work: A Story of Experience by Louisa May Alcott

Lady Brackenstall thinks that they were themselves so disturbed by the death of Sir Eustace that they did not ransack the house, as they would otherwise have done.”
— from The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

"I hold thou art in the right of it, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "and I will take thy advice as to accompanying the princess before going to see Dulcinea; but I counsel thee not to say anything to any one, or to those who are with us, about what we have considered and discussed, for as Dulcinea is so decorous that she does not wish her thoughts to be known it is not right that I or anyone for me should disclose them."
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

The life of such an one, death can never surprise as imperfect; as of an actor, that should die before he had ended, or the play itself were at an end, a man might speak.
— from Meditations by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

I have not ascertained that either they themselves demanded a triumph, nor that such was conferred on them by the senate; nor is any cause assigned for the honour being either overlooked or not hoped for. As far as I can conjecture at so great a distance of time, when a triumph had been refused to the consuls Horatius and Valerius, who, in addition to the Æquans and Volscians, had gained the glory of finishing the Sabine war, the consuls were ashamed to demand a triumph for one half of the services done by them; lest if they even should obtain it, regard of persons rather than of merit might appear to have been entertained.
— from The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 by Livy

"My companions," said he, on the morning of the combat, "maintain your ranks, receive on your bucklers the first arrows of the Pagans, and prevent their second discharge by the equal and rapid career of your lances."
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

After a fortnight I left Schwetzingen, leaving some of my belongings under the care of Veraci the poet, telling him I would call for them some day; but I never came, and after a lapse of thirty-one years Veraci keeps them still.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Shortly after that we heard an uproar in the study, Dr. Bentley's voice in trumpet notes and yells of rage from Robbie.
— from Ann and Her Mother by O. Douglas

And the dupes Quite chortled such a sight to see; The smug Director brought to book Near to the Dividend Tree! NEW NURSERY RHYME.
— from Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 105, September 9, 1893 by Various

The boy, we are told, soon died, but the girl lived to marry a man of Lynn."
— from Through East Anglia in a Motor Car by James Edmund Vincent

Other aviators in lighter machines now hovered over the submarine, dropping bombs on the works above water, with the purpose of rendering the lost vessel absolutely useless to the Turks.
— from Our Young Aeroplane Scouts in Russia; or, Lost on the Frozen Steppes by Horace Porter

The Seignior de Beauvoir wrote to the Duchess, claiming all the estates of Tholouse, and of his brother St. Aldegonde, as his reward for the Ostrawell victory, while Noircarmes was at this very moment to commence at Valenciennes that career of murder and spoliation which, continued at Mons a few years afterwards, was to load his name with infamy.
— from The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Complete (1555-84) by John Lothrop Motley

Their characters have been sketched, not according to subsequent developments, but as they appeared at the opening of this important epoch.
— from The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Complete (1555-66) by John Lothrop Motley

This is another of those species discovered by J. K. Townsend along the Columbia River, of which he wrote to Audubon (1841): “I shot this pair of birds near Fort Vancouver, on the 28th of May, 1835.
— from Life Histories of North American Wood Warblers, Part One and Part Two by Arthur Cleveland Bent

A manuscript play has been submitted to Mr. Dangle, who reads this stage direction, “ Bursts into tears and exit ,” and naturally asks, “What is this, a tragedy?” “No,” explains Mr. Sneer, “that’s a genteel comedy, not a translation—only taken from the French: it is written in a style which they have lately tried to run down; the true sentimental and nothing ridiculous in it from the beginning to the end. . . .
— from The Connecticut Wits, and Other Essays by Henry A. (Henry Augustin) Beers