(ll. 414-447) When the piercing power and sultry heat of the sun abate, and almighty Zeus sends the autumn rains 1312 , and men's flesh comes to feel far easier,—for then the star Sirius passes over the heads of men, who are born to misery, only a little while by day and takes greater share of night,—then, when it showers its leaves to the ground and stops sprouting, the wood you cut with your axe is least liable to worm.
— from Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica by Hesiod

As I later learned, they had been to the subterranean vaults in which the eggs were kept and had transported them to the incubator, which they had then walled up for another five years, and which, in all probability, would not be visited again during that period.
— from A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

In choice of subject, as in all besides, the Concert of the Pitti Palace is typical of all that Giorgione, himself an admirable musician, touched with his influence; and in sketch or finished picture, in various collections, we may follow it through many intricate variations—men fainting at music, music heard at the pool-side while people fish, or mingled with the sound of the pitcher in the well, or heard across running water, or among the flocks; the tuning of instruments—people with intent faces, as if listening, like those described by Plato in an ingenious passage, to detect the smallest interval of musical sound, the smallest undulation in the air, or feeling for music in thought on a stringless instrument, ear and finger refining themselves infinitely, in the appetite for sweet sound—a momentary touch of an instrument in the twilight, as one passes through some unfamiliar room, in a chance company.
— from The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry by Walter Pater

He generally arrived in London (like the influenza) from the Continent, only he arrived unheralded by the Press; and his visitations set in with great severity.
— from The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad

I say nothing of them: for although I lay listening to this concert for three or four days, I don’t think I heard it for more than a quarter of a minute, at the expiration of which term, I lay down again, excessively sea-sick.
— from American Notes by Charles Dickens

In the ripeness of years they passed from earth in as beauteous peace as the sun sets, and upon a tablet above the resting-place of their ancestors there are inscribed lines like these:— “Here sleeps by her husband the purest and noblest lady God e’er loved, yet the high and gentle deeds of her chaste sweet life sleep not, but live and grow, and so will do so long as earth is earth.”
— from A Lady of Quality Being a Most Curious, Hitherto Unknown History, as Related by Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff but Not Presented to the World of Fashion Through the Pages of The Tatler, and Now for the First Time Written Down by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The air castles got awfully wobbly, and it looked like they were going to cave in on us.
— from Her Prairie Knight by B. M. Bower

Lil smoothed my remarks over, and fielded a dozen more, and it looked like the objections would continue all afternoon and all night and all the next day, and I felt woozy and overwrought and miserable all at the same time, staring at Lil and her harried smile and her nervous smoothing of her hair over her ears.
— from Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow

Philosophy is such an impertinently litigious lady, that a man had as good be engaged in lawsuits as have to do with her.
— from The Life of Sir Isaac Newton by David Brewster

There was a thick bit of a wood behind the stackyard at the big house, and as I lay listening to the sounds of the early morning there came often of late this clear melody, not loud but sweet and thrilling, as I had heard Ronny McKinnon whistle and Dan too, and the words of that tune are not to be talked about; but when I went quietly to the planting one morning there was only the little moving of birds in the greyness of the morning and the stillness of the wood.
— from The McBrides A Romance of Arran by John Sillars

A rush of feet down the corridor roused me, and I lay listening to the sound of blows.
— from The Road to En-Dor Being an Account of How Two Prisoners of War at Yozgad in Turkey Won Their Way to Freedom by E. H. (Elias Henry) Jones

Arriving in Liverpool late that evening they put up at a hotel for the night and early the following morning sought out the Albatross and went aboard.
— from The Boy Allies with Uncle Sam's Cruisers by Clair W. (Clair Wallace) Hayes