I am an officer; but, how I wish I could fish a bit of old-fashioned beef in the forecastle, as I used to when I was before the mast.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

The will was holograph, for Mr. Utterson though he took charge of it now that it was made, had refused to lend the least assistance in the making of it; it provided not only that, in case of the decease of Henry Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L., L.L.D., F.R.S., etc., all his possessions were to pass into the hands of his “friend and benefactor Edward Hyde,” but that in case of Dr. Jekyll’s “disappearance or unexplained absence for any period exceeding three calendar months,” the said Edward Hyde should step into the said Henry Jekyll’s shoes without further delay and free from any burthen or obligation beyond the payment of a few small sums to the members of the doctor’s household.
— from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Lion and the Bear saw him, but not being able to get up, said, “Woe be to us, that we should have fought and belabored ourselves only to serve the turn of a Fox.”
— from Aesop's Fables Translated by George Fyler Townsend by Aesop

For one fishhook or one knife, those people gave 5 or 6 chickens; for one comb, a brace of geese; for one mirror or one pair of scissors, as many fish as would be sufficient for x men; for a bell or one leather lace, one basketful of potatoes [ batate ].
— from The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 33, 1519-1522 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century by Antonio Pigafetta

Slade was frequently arrested by order of the court w
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

Oh, how much finer and better our orchestra might be if the Archbishop only chose!
— from The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Volume 01 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

He was about to give up in despair, leaving the vision of his life unrealized, when in a dream he was bidden to carve his Madonna from a block of oak wood which was destined for the fire.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden

He was drunk, but spoke fluently and boldly, only occasionally losing the thread of his sentences and drawling his words.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The opposite views, according to the most accepted notions, are indeed common views; and if one does not stand firmly and bravely on one's legs, one has nothing to give, and it is perfectly useless to stretch out one's hand either to protect or to support others....
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

His 313 father, Arsi, being out on a hunting excursion in the forest of Ondua, with some young chiefs of the court, in pursuit of the boar entered a field of maize, when a female offered to drive out the game.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

The French resolution to depend upon commerce-destroying 335 Consequent effect upon naval war and upon the control of the sea 336 Resulting dispositions of French and British navies 337 Inefficient character of the blockade of Brest 338 Conditions of the maritime problem before Great Britain stated 339 Measures proper to be adopted 340 Mutual relations of the elements of a defensive system 341 Two aspects under which the military value of Brest should be considered [Pg xx] 342 Description of the port and its surroundings 342 Strategic importance of the winds 344 Anchorages available to the British fleets as bases of operations against Brest 344 Theory of the Brest blockade 345 Fitness of the British bases relative to this theory 345 Policies of St. Vincent, Howe, and Bridport 346 Causes leading to the Irish expedition of 1796 347 Preparations for the expedition 348
— from The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, vol 1 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

But sudden, an unfathered flame, And broken out of night, she shone, She, without body, without name, In days forgotten and foregone; And heaven rang round her as she came Like smitten cymbals, and lay bare, Clouds and great stars, thunders and snows, The blue sad fields and folds of air, The life that breathes, the life that grows, All wind, all fire, that burns or blows, Even all these knew her: for she is great; The daughter of doom, the mother of death, The sister of sorrow; a lifelong weight That no man's finger lighteneth, Nor any god can lighten fate, A landmark seen across the way Where one race treads as the other trod; An evil sceptre, an evil stay, Wrought for a staff, wrought for a rod, The bitter jealousy of God.
— from Atalanta in Calydon by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Then again we picked our dangerous road over cobbles and small stones that rolled away under our horses’ feet and bumped off over the precipice nearby.
— from Beasts, Men and Gods by Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski

Inside of the chariot was a starched prim personage, with a look somewhat between a lady’s companion and a lady’s maid; and two pampered curs, that showed their ugly faces, and barked out of each window.
— from Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists by Washington Irving

Without manifesting too much joy, you must assume an expression of frank and cordial satisfaction, in again meeting with the friends and brethren of our tribe."
— from The Flying Horseman by Gustave Aimard

The vision reappeared, gliding forward as before out of obscurity.
— from Brothers: The True History of a Fight Against Odds by Horace Annesley Vachell

I finally alighted beside one of these ponds, which was so large, indeed, that the colonists would have called it a lagoon; this one being high above the river channel, on a verdant plain.
— from Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia, in Search of a Route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria (1848) by T. L. (Thomas Livingstone) Mitchell

The first of these, which carry away the perspiration from the body, are very fine, the end away from the surface being coiled up in such a way as to form a ball or oval-shaped body, constituting the perspiration gland.
— from The Art of Living in Australia Together with Three Hundred Australian Cookery Recipes and Accessory Kitchen Information by Mrs. H. Wicken by Philip E. Muskett

She pirouetted to the middle of the floor in her inimitable fashion and began one of the utterly original, graceful dances for which she was famed on the campus.
— from Marjorie Dean at Hamilton Arms by Josephine Chase