In Ely place, Baggot street, Duke’s lawn, thence through Merrion green up to Holles street a swash of water flowing that was before bonedry and not one chair or coach or fiacre seen about but no more crack after that first.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

Then Heaven decrees, in peace to end my days And steal myself from life by slow decays!
— from The Odyssey by Homer

There is no great harm in the fact that a man's bodily strength decreases in old age, unless, indeed, he requires it to make a living.
— from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Counsels and Maxims by Arthur Schopenhauer

When at last Toad had talked himself to a standstill, there was silence for a while; and then the Rat said, ‘Now, Toady, I don’t want to give you pain, after all you’ve been through already; but, seriously, don’t you see what an awful ass you’ve been making of yourself?
— from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Renaldo, who was with difficulty restrained from interposing in behalf of the clergyman against such odds, no sooner perceived this apparition, than, supposing her to be some distressed damsel, his Quixotism awoke, he descended in an instant, and rushed into the house, among those that pursued the fair phantom.
— from The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete by T. (Tobias) Smollett

Some slain before, some dying, some their friends O'erborne i' th' former wave.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

He looked at the princess, who had been so dear to him a minute before, and he did not like the manner in which she welcomed this Vassenka, with his ribbons, just as though she were in her own house.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

They were both portraits of herself, but subtly distinguished from each other.
— from The Emancipated by George Gissing

The old whale was lying almost motionless, and his eye could be seen distinctly.
— from The Strife of the Sea by T. Jenkins (Thornton Jenkins) Hains

Many of the slave families, especially Mrs. Callaway's family, were given the privilege of earning money by selling different products.
— from Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves Georgia Narratives, Part 1 by United States. Work Projects Administration

“You can see why the counts who lived here spread their power and their name by slow degrees over the whole of this country,” Will said, as they gazed down on it.
— from Linnet: A Romance by Grant Allen