but now she was shut up day and night in a steel cage like an animal; she was used to the light, but now she was always in a gloom where all objects about her were dim and spectral; she was used to the thousand various sounds which are the cheer and music of a busy life, but now she heard only the monotonous footfall of the sentry pacing his watch; she had been fond of talking with her mates, but now there was no one to talk to; she had had an easy laugh, but it was gone dumb now; she had been born for comradeship, and blithe and busy work, and all manner of joyous activities, but here were only dreariness, and leaden hours, and weary inaction, and brooding stillness, and thoughts that travel by day and night and night and day round and round in the same circle, and wear the brain and break the heart with weariness.
— from Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 2 by Mark Twain

"Ei, qui est in campo, divus Augustus addidit mirabilem usum ad deprehendendas solis umbras, dierumque ac noctium ita magnitudines, strato lapide ad magnitudinem obelisci, cui par fieret umbra, brumæ confectæ die, sexta hora; paulatimque per regulas (quæ sunt ex die exclusæ) singulis diebus decresceret ac rursus augesceret: digna cognitu res et ingenio fœcundo.
— from Walks in Rome by Augustus J. C. (Augustus John Cuthbert) Hare

She recollected—a dark recollection it was—some weeks that she had spent with him in a great town somewhere, when she had had no maid to dress her or take care of her; when she had been shut up, day and night, in a high garret-room, without a carpet, with a bare uncurtained bed, and scarcely any other furniture; when he went out early every morning, and often forgot to return and give her her dinner during the day, and at night, when he came back, was like a madman, furious, terrible, or—still more painful—like an idiot, imbecile, senseless.
— from Shirley by Charlotte Brontë

The chanting of the coral reef far out at sea, unceasing, day and night, is the song the sirens sang to strong Ulysses, in the dream dreamed for all ages by the old Greek poet, long ago.
— from In the Strange South Seas by Beatrice Grimshaw

Shut up day and night in a great room to which no one had admittance, he lived over with delight the vast poem of the creation of the world.
— from The Surprises of Life by Georges Clemenceau

And this—and this is such a break down, my blunders and their consequences have been so unspeakably dreadful, and now instead of suffering, dying—as I felt I ought—it has only made me just like other women, for I know I could not live without him, and then all the rest of it must come for his sake.”
— from The Clever Woman of the Family by Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge