And there were voices in all his dreadful heads which uttered every kind of sound unspeakable; for at one time they made sounds such that the gods understood, but at another, the noise of a bull bellowing aloud in proud ungovernable fury; and at another, the sound of a lion, relentless of heart; and at another, sounds like whelps, wonderful to hear; and again, at another, he would hiss, so that the high mountains re-echoed.
— from Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica by Hesiod

At noon eat the second of the two cygnets Mr. Shepley sent us for a new-year’s gift, and presently to my chamber again and so to work hard all day about my Tangier accounts, which I am going again to make up, as also upon writing a letter to my father about Pall, whom it is time now I find to think of disposing of while God Almighty hath given me something to give with her, and in my letter to my father I do offer to give her L450 to make her own L50 given her by my uncle up L500.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

It is so useful for a young boy to be able to make sketches in water colours of all the pretty places he goes to; some of them are really quite clever at it before they leave.
— from Little Folks (September 1884) A Magazine for the Young by Various

For with the first warm kisses of the rain The winter’s icy sorrow breaks to tears, And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the rabbit peers From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie, And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs p. 189
— from Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

To reason from analogy, we daily behold the varied and beautiful tribes of vegetables springing up, flourishing, adorning the fields for a short time, and then fading into dust, to make way for their successors.
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving

Soon after the registration, he had to stand up for a little while; the doctor in a white apron, with a towel round his waist, walked across the waiting-room.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Complaining of fatigue she soon retired to rest, and Emily withdrew to her own room, when she understood from Annette, her aunt's woman, that Cavigni was nearly right in his conjecture concerning the musician, who had awakened the violin with so much taste, for that he was the son of a peasant inhabiting the neighbouring valley.
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

Had it pleased heaven To try me with affliction, had they rain'd All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head, Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips, Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes, I should have found in some place of my soul A drop of patience; but, alas, to make me A fixed figure for the time of scorn To point his slow unmoving finger at!
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

Monsieur, the King's elder Brother, has set up for a kind of wit; and leans towards the Philosophe side.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

Then Bjorn stood up, fell at the king's feet, held his foot, and said, "All is in your power, sire, and in God's!
— from Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson

The manner in which the relative rights and duties of master and apprentices were discharged, was watched and examined with the same unfavourable feelings as if there had existed a design to make the apprenticeship a cover for the revival of slavery—an object which, even had there been persons wicked enough to have desired it, could never have been accomplished.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 374, December, 1846 by Various

In the poplar, the brush is unusually vertical, and little divergent; the reverse in the beech: in the palm, a pencil has proceeded straight up for a certain distance, radiates there, and turns outwards and downwards; and so on.
— from Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation by Robert Chambers

In reference to the instructions under the first of these heads, it is to be observed that even with such unusual facilities as some of the older missionaries possess who speak the dialect, and are often familiar with the localities they visit, the resource indicated cannot be counted upon as available.
— from The Englishman in China During the Victorian Era, Vol. 1 (of 2) As Illustrated in the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., D.C.L., Many Years Consul and Minister in China and Japan by Alexander Michie

Raskolnikov leapt from the sofa, stood up for a few seconds and sat down again without uttering a word.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

and there we saw sheep feeding in the distance, and men mowing who leaned on their scythes to see us pass, and even saluted us from afar.
— from The Hidden Children by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

Stuart will have a lot of pine and spruce sawed up for arrows, and you must get all the goose and turkey feathers you can, and bring them over too, and he will tell us about arrow-making.
— from Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 An Illustrated Weekly by Various

They were so unsteady on their feet that no man of them stood up for a second blow.
— from The Harbor Master by Theodore Goodridge Roberts

"I was set up from all eternity, and of old before the earth was made.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 11, April, 1870 to September, 1870 by Various

Therefore, we students had porridge twice a day, with a herring in between, except when we were saving up for a book.
— from Bog-Myrtle and Peat Tales Chiefly of Galloway Gathered from the Years 1889 to 1895 by S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett

And this word, which she used formerly as a matter of habit, at this hour acquired a profound significance, lengthening out and prolonging itself, as if it expressed the gift of her whole being.
— from Doctor Pascal by Émile Zola