Knut Hamsun

“ Talk to Oline, stand up and argue with Oline! Was never a man could do it but to his cost. Never in life would she give in, and never her match for turning and twisting heaven and earth to a medley of seeming kindness and malice, poison and senseless words. This to her face now: Brede making as if 'twas himself was bringing Axel home!
"What I was going to say," she begins: "They gentlemen came up to Sellanraa that time; did you ever get to show them all those sacks of stone you'd got, eh, Brede?" ”

“ For a long while, Inger could not do enough in the way of showing her husband how good and useful she could be. She would say to him now, as in the old days: "You're working yourself to death!" Or again: "'Tis more than any man can stand." Or again: "Now, you're not to work any more; come in and have dinner—I've made some wafers for you!" And to please him, she said: "I should just like to know, now, what you've got in your mind with all that wood, and what you're going to build, now, next?"
"Why, I can't say as yet," said Isak, making a mystery of it. ”

“ Sivert called after him.
"No," said his father, and walked on.
Swelling with mystery, full of pride; with a little lift and throw from the knee at every step, so emphatically did he walk. So a brave man might walk to death and destruction, carrying no weapon in his hand.
The boys came up with the horse, saw the machine, and stopped dead. It was the first mowing-machine in the wilds, the first in the village—red and blue, a thing of splendour to man's eyes. And the father, head of them all, called out, oh, in a careless tone, as if it were nothing uncommon: "Harness up to this machine here." ”