[626-660] seventh summer now declines since Troy's overthrow, while we pass measuring out by so many stars the harbourless rocks over every water and land, pursuing all the while over the vast sea an Italy that flies us, and tossing on the waves.
— from The Aeneid of Virgil by Virgil

Indeed, in the whole of the Trobriands there are perhaps only one or two specially fine armshells and shell-necklaces permanently owned as heirlooms, and these are set apart as a special class, and are once and for all out of the Kula.
— from Argonauts of the Western Pacific An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea by Bronislaw Malinowski

Never mind—I think 'Tis writ on this"—and with a wink Which darkened half the earth, he drew Another denarius to view, Its shining face attentive scanned, Then slipped it into the good man's hand, Who with great gravity said: "Wait While I retire to question Fate." That holy person then withdrew His scared clay and, passing through The temple's rearward gate, cried "Shoo!" Waving his robe of office.
— from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

I am hard to wake, odd times."
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

For the wonted prophetic voice of my guardian deity on every former occasion, even in the most trifling affairs, opposed me if I was about to do any thing wrong; but now that has befallen me which ye yourselves behold, and which any one would think, and which is supposed to be the extremity of evil; yet neither when I departed from home in the morning did the warning of the god oppose me, nor when I came up here to the place of trial, nor in my address when I was about to say any thing; yet on other occasions it has frequently restrained me in the midst of speaking.
— from Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates by Plato

I am the woman of this village.' '
— from Kim by Rudyard Kipling

Shadows like dancing couples flitted across the windows of the lodge.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Those were open to only an elect few who had already attained to a "perfect development"—of villany.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

58 On the failure of the conspiracy, the Earl of Gowrie, who had come to be regarded with distrust by both parties, was tried at Stirling and executed almost beneath the walls of the castle.
— from Stirling Castle, its place in Scottish history by Eric Stair-Kerr

But it was the duty of the parent to watch over the child, and to show her, that on one side were only infantine vanities and chimerical hopes, on the other, liberty, peace of mind, affluence, social enjoyments, honourable distinctions.
— from The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay — Volume 1 by Fanny Burney

Well, for a time he were all right, a-fixin’ up his house, a-buildin’ new barns and hen-coops and fences and the like, and I’ve heerd tell that the house where he kep’ his pigs were better than any dwellin’-house in that region, and the whole place were the wonder of the country roundabout; but arter he had fixed his house all up like a ship, with little staterooms all through the upper part of it, and had got everythin’ inside and out in shipshape order, and there weren’t nothin’ else he could think of for to do, he gits terribly homesick and discontented, and times when he’d come to the city for to collect his sheer of the profits of ships as he had a interest in, he’d sit for hours on the wharf a-watchin’ the vessels on the river, and it were like drawin’ teeth for to git him to leave and go up to his home.
— from Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 by Various

At the time of the war of the Revolution the county of Rowan embraced all that beautiful and agricultural region extending from the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, eastwardly, to where the Yadkin river loses its name in the great Peedee; comprising a territory equal in extent to several of the States of the American Union, and presenting a varied topography, unsurpassed for bold mountain scenery and lovely landscapes spreading over the charming champaign country lying between the Yadkin and Catawba rivers.
— from Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical Illustrating Principally the Revolutionary Period of Mecklenburg, Rowan, Lincoln and Adjoining Counties, Accompanied with Miscellaneous Information, Much of It Never before Published by C. L. Hunter

Man is what he was when the Greek pitched his tent by the side of the much-sounding sea, and before the walls of Troy; when Alexander sighed for fresh worlds to conquer; when the young Hannibal vowed deathless hate to Rome; when the rude ballad of “Chevy Chase,” sung in baronial hall, stirred men as if it were the sound of a trumpet; when Nelson swept the seas, and when Wellington shattered the mighty hosts of France.
— from About London by J. Ewing (James Ewing) Ritchie

This situation may have no terrors for the thoughtless; but it evidently introduces something deeper than Nature and something higher than God, depriving these words of the best sense in which a philosopher might care to use them.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

At daybreak they were on their feet again, feeling better after the long night's rest, and happy at the thought that this day's walk would take them to home and safety.
— from A Roving Commission; Or, Through the Black Insurrection at Hayti by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

These are invaluable for their own purposes, but those purposes are distinctly subsidiary to war on the great scale, and by themselves alone do not decide campaigns.
— from Story of the War in South Africa, 1899-1900 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

Sultan did not stir and only blinked at the two, as they followed the long middle path and then went over to the bench that stood between the raspberry bushes.
— from German Fiction by Gottfried Keller