My tongue’s benumbed; a subtle fire Through all my body inly steals; Mine eyes in darkness reel and swim; Strange murmurs drown my ears; With dewy damps my limbs are chilled; An icy shiver shakes my frame; Paler than ashes grows my cheek; And Death seems nigh at hand.” 3 Is it not wonderful how at the same moment 23 soul, body, ears, tongue, eyes, colour, all fail her, and are lost to her as completely as if they were not her own?
— from On the Sublime by active 1st century Longinus

She leaned back far to look up where the fireworks were and she caught her knee in her hands so as not to fall back looking up and there was no-one to see only him and her when she revealed all her graceful beautifully shaped legs like that, supply soft and delicately rounded, and she seemed to hear the panting of his heart, his hoarse breathing, because she knew too about the passion of men like that, hotblooded, because Bertha Supple told her once in dead secret and made her swear she’d never about the gentleman lodger that was staying with them out of the Congested Districts Board that had pictures cut out of papers of those skirtdancers and highkickers and she said he used to do something not very nice that you could imagine sometimes in the bed.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

And should some great court-lady say, the Prince Hath picked a ragged-robin from the hedge, And like a madman brought her to the court, Then were ye shamed, and, worse, might shame the Prince To whom we are beholden; but I know, That when my dear child is set forth at her best, That neither court nor country, though they sought Through all the provinces like those of old That lighted on Queen Esther, has her match.' Here ceased the kindly mother out of breath; And Enid listened brightening as she lay; Then, as the white and glittering star of morn Parts from a bank of snow, and by and by Slips into golden cloud, the maiden rose, And left her maiden couch, and robed herself, Helped by the mother's careful hand and eye, Without a mirror, in the gorgeous gown; Who, after, turned her daughter round, and said, She never yet had seen her half so fair; And called her like that maiden in the tale, Whom Gwydion made by glamour out of flowers
— from Idylls of the King by Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron

now I try to say to myself, and sometimes when I am not torturing myself do really and sincerely say, ‘What a beginning, what a wonderful beginning!’
— from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde

In almost no time his flowing reasonings carried him to the point of even half believing he was doing Roxy a splendid surreptitious service in selling her “down the river.”
— from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain

Every sound was hushed, every voice was silent, on both sides reigned a deep religious and solemn silence.
— from The History of a Crime The Testimony of an Eye-Witness by Victor Hugo

There seems to be a notion that the work of a great artist like Plato cannot fail in unity, and that the unity of a dialogue requires a single subject.
— from Phaedrus by Plato

"Of course, they do report a sea serpent now and then.
— from The Rover Boys in Business; Or, The Search for the Missing Bonds by Edward Stratemeyer

All things are still, And everywhere doth rest alone seem sweet.
— from Matins by Francis Sherman

Alexander had been deeply reflective as she sat with her lovely chin resting on one hand, listening to the low-pitched voice in which her lover was pleading his cause.
— from A Pagan of the Hills by Charles Neville Buck

Disposed round a space some fifty yards square, were many palm posts staked firmly in the earth.
— from Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I by Herman Melville

As M. Dantès read a shadow suddenly fell on the page of his book, and quickly looking up he saw his daughter Zuleika standing beside him; tears were in her eyes and a look of melancholy rested upon her countenance.
— from Edmond Dantès by Edmund Flagg