It was hard upon high noon; and Ahab, seated in the bows of his high-hoisted boat, was about taking his wonted daily observation of the sun to determine his latitude.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

Here 's an example for extortion: what moisture is drawn out of the sea, when foul weather comes, pours down, and runs into the sea again.
— from The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster

Come to the Shepherds, then, if you would see Things deep, things hid, and that mysterious be. {306} When they were about to depart, one of the Shepherds gave them a note of the way.
— from The Pilgrim's Progress from this world to that which is to come Delivered under the similitude of a dream, by John Bunyan by John Bunyan

And yet, Augustus, committing the most inward secrets of his affairs to Lucius Piso, who conquered Thrace, never found him faulty in the least, no more than Tiberias did Cossus, with whom he intrusted his whole counsels, though we know they were both so given to drink that they have often been fain to carry both the one and the other drunk out of the Senate: “Hesterno inflatum venas ut semper, Lyaeo.”
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

His lustre is like the rays of dawn or of the sun, and resembles the lightnings of the rain-cloud; but his track and his fellies are black, and his steeds make black furrows.
— from A History of Sanskrit Literature by Arthur Anthony Macdonell

In the mean time, the people of Damascus, when they were informed of the destruction of the Romans, set about the slaughter of those Jews that were among them; and as they had them already cooped up together in the place of public exercises, which they had done out of the suspicion they had of them, they thought they should meet with no difficulty in the attempt; yet did they distrust their own wives, which were almost all of them addicted to the Jewish religion; on which account it was that their greatest concern was, how they might conceal these things from them; so they came upon the Jews, and cut their throats, as being in a narrow place, in number ten thousand, and all of them unarmed, and this in one hour's time, without any body to disturb them.
— from The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Flavius Josephus

And when reason, which works with equal truth, whether she be in the circle of the diverse or of the same—in voiceless silence holding her onward course in the sphere of the self-moved—when reason, I say, is hovering around the sensible world and when the circle of the diverse also moving truly imparts the intimations of sense to the whole soul, then arise opinions and beliefs sure and certain.
— from Timaeus by Plato

That had begun to operate in the very hour of first meeting her in Bath; that had returned, after a short suspension, to ruin the concert; and that had influenced him in everything he had said and done, or omitted to say and do, in the last four-and-twenty hours.
— from Persuasion by Jane Austen

One or two of the tradespeople even darted out of their shops and went a little way down the street before me, that they might turn, as if they had forgotten something, and pass me face to face,—on which occasions I don't know whether they or I made the worse pretence; they of not doing it, or I of not seeing it.
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The man directly paid him down the money, and the count, with a bursting heart, darted out of the shop.
— from Thaddeus of Warsaw by Jane Porter

This is a definite, and may be a desirable, object, of the same nature as the Navigation Act; and it is much to be wished, that this object, and not the interests of farmers and landlords, should be the ostensible, as well as the real, end which we have in view, in all our inquiries and proceedings relating to the trade in corn.
— from The Grounds of an Opinion on the Policy of Restricting the Importation of Foreign Corn Intended as an appendix to "Observations on the corn laws" by T. R. (Thomas Robert) Malthus

His conductress explained to him that these were the spirits of drowned men who had not had Christian burial--one must beware of them, for dead ones of this sort are malignant.
— from Weird Tales from Northern Seas by Jonas Lie

A formidable revolt of the Gauls, the following winter, destroyed one of the six divisions of the Roman army, and imperiled another, commanded by Quintus Cicero, brother of the orator.
— from A Manual of Ancient History by M. E. (Mary Elsie) Thalheimer

Their name was Whitmore, and they had lived all their lives in a poor cove up beyond the Valley’s head where the barren rocklands came down out of the skies.
— from Tharon of Lost Valley by Vingie E. (Vingie Eve) Roe

Later, I met Mr. Choreman, who told me that he had put the spoons there because I was too nice a little girl to eat as Billy did, or to dip out of the same pan.
— from The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate by Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

These are ticklish times, Bicknell; the Government have just cheated this country,—they 'd scarcely risk the hazard of a civil war for an old usurer,—old Hickman would be left to his remedies in Banco or Equity; and who knows what might turn up one day or other to strengthen the honest cause?”
— from The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Charles James Lever

It was a day or two after the conversation between Marie and Miss Ophelia, that Tom, Adolph, and about half a dozen others of the St. Clare estate, were turned over to the loving kindness of Mr. Skeggs, the keeper of a depot on —— street, to await the auction, next day.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

The eye seemed to take in and absorb these details before one realised the brilliancy of the complexion, the delicate outline of the short nose, the fine grey eyes, perhaps a shade too light in color, but relieved by heavy dark lashes, and the almost faultless curve of the upper lip.
— from The Tree of Knowledge: A Novel by Reynolds, Baillie, Mrs.

Through the open door one of the sledge-dogs had thrust his head and shoulders.
— from Back to God's Country and Other Stories by James Oliver Curwood