For one, I used to lounge up the rigging very leisurely, resting in the top to have a chat with Queequeg, or any one else off duty whom I might find there; then ascending a little way further, and throwing a lazy leg over the top-sail yard, take a preliminary view of the watery pastures, and so at last mount to my ultimate destination.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

Le Chirurgien, qui consulte, pretend, par le moyen d'une petite canulle, de pouvoir baptiser immediatement l'enfant, sans faire aucun tort a la mere.—Il demand si ce moyen, qu'il vient de proposer, est permis & legitime, & s'il peut s'en servir dans les cas qu'il vient d'exposer.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

I feel we ought to have tried to, just for a time at least.
— from The Garden Party, and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield

Their frontier cities might pay homage to Chosroes or Cæsar, the legions of Rome might once and again flash across their highland wastes; but such impress was faint and transitory, and left the Arabs unmoved.
— from The Moors in Spain by Stanley Lane-Poole

Conceive what this hole must have been like when full of flame and thunder and lightning.
— from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

I Set out early with 16 men and 3 Canoes for the Elk, proceed up the River three miles and thence up a large Creek from the right about 3 miles the hite of the tide water drew up the Canoes and all hands went out in three different parties and brought in to the Canoe each Man a quarter of Elk, I Sent them out for a Second load and had Some of the first Cooked against their return, after eateing a harty diner dispatched the party for a third and last load, about half the men missed their way and did not get to the Canoes untill after Dark, and Serjt.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

This theory, hardened and sharpened under the hammer-blow of historical knowledge" (read The Transvaluation of all Values ), "may some time or other, perhaps in some future period,—1890!—serve as the axe which is applied to the root of the 'metaphysical need' of man,—whether more as a blessing than a curse to the general welfare it is not easy to say; but in any case as a theory with the most important consequences, at once fruitful and terrible, and looking into the world with that Janus-face which all great knowledge possesses."
— from Ecce Homo Complete Works, Volume Seventeen by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

On the evening of the day on which I had seen Miss Scatcherd flog her pupil, Burns, I wandered as usual among the forms and tables and laughing groups without a companion, yet not feeling lonely: when I passed the windows, I now and then lifted a blind, and looked out; it snowed fast, a drift was already forming against the lower panes; putting my ear close to the window, I could distinguish from the gleeful tumult within, the disconsolate moan of the wind outside.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë

Two barrels were there, half buried in the sand, but still firmly attached to a large chest, which, sustained by them, had floated to the moment when it stranded on the beach.
— from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

The apostles were all Galileans; they had not been at the great Jewish schools; they had seen Jesus; they remembered his words; they were good and pious folk, at times a little solemn and simple-hearted.
— from The Apostles by Ernest Renan

Anyhow, I want to get away from present company for a time at least.
— from A Chicago Princess by Robert Barr

But there were four other men at the table besides himself, two being servants of the farm, and two acknowledged lovers of the young ladies--very bold fellows as may well be supposed; for to marry a she-lion or a demoiselle bear would have been a light undertaking compared to wedding one of the Miss Ramleys.
— from The Smuggler: A Tale. Volumes I-III by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

Magee looked at the broad acreage of the mayor's face, at the ancient lemon of Max's, at Bland's, frightened and thoughtful, at Hayden's, concerned but smiling.
— from Seven Keys to Baldpate by Earl Derr Biggers

"I thought," he answered, "that I'd walk over to the Dickerson farm and take a look at the improvements.
— from Ann Boyd: A Novel by Will N. (Will Nathaniel) Harben

Our wreathèd feathers are thin and light When the wind blows keen through the wintry night:
— from A Reading Book in Irish History by P. W. (Patrick Weston) Joyce

No theory of Christ's life and death but that He was born for us, and died for us, either explains the facts and the apostolic language concerning them, or leaves them invested with their full power to melt our hearts and mould our lives.
— from Expositions of Holy Scripture Second Corinthians, Galatians, and Philippians Chapters I to End. Colossians, Thessalonians, and First Timothy. by Alexander Maclaren