A sovereign social network
powered by Bitcoin

Jove lifts the golden balances, that show The fates of mortal men, and things below: Here each contending hero’s lot he tries, And weighs, with equal hand, their destinies. Low sinks the scale surcharged with Hector’s fate; Heavy with death it sinks, and hell receives the weight.

Twelve gone for ever.

Soon all the boats but Starbuck’s were dropped; all the boat-sails set—all the paddles plying; with rippling swiftness, shooting to leeward; and Ahab heading the onset. A pale, death-glimmer lit up Fedallah’s sunken eyes; a hideous motion gnawed his mouth.

He spoke with the diffidence of a man who knew how slight a thing would overset the delicate organisation of the mind, and yet with the confidence of a man who had slowly won his assurance out of personal endurance and distress. It was not for his friend to abate that confidence. He professed himself more relieved and encouraged than he really was, and approached his second and last point. He felt it to be the most difficult of all; but, remembering his old Sunday morning conversation with Miss Pross, and remembering what he had seen in the last nine days, he knew that he must face it.

“I must keep an opportunity for retreat.”

[186] [ So practised a washerwoman as our authoress doubtless knew that by this time the web must have become such a wreck that it would have gone to pieces in the wash.]

Moby-Dick — Chapter 78: The Sphynx

But they were entirely ignorant of what had passed; and their raptures continued, with little intermission, to the very day of Lydia’s leaving home.

What god, O muse, assisted Hector’s force With fate itself so long to hold the course? Phœbus it was; who, in his latest hour, Endued his knees with strength, his nerves with power: And great Achilles, lest some Greek’s advance Should snatch the glory from his lifted lance, Sign’d to the troops to yield his foe the way, And leave untouch’d the honours of the day.

A Tale of Two Cities — Chapter 54: Book Third: --the Track of a Storm (part 19/24)

“Romantic art begins with its climax.”

[185] [ Penelope having been now sufficiently whitewashed, disappears from the poem.]

“I do not think so. I do not think,” said Doctor Manette with the firmness of self-conviction, “that anything but the one train of association would renew it. I think that, henceforth, nothing but some extraordinary jarring of that chord could renew it. After what has happened, and after his recovery, I find it difficult to imagine any such violent sounding of that string again. I trust, and I almost believe, that the circumstances likely to renew it are exhausted.”

“Be dumb, man! Stand by the braces! Hard down the helm!—brace up! Shiver her!—shiver her!—So; well that! Boats, boats!”

Had she known that her sister sought to tear her from such prospects and such realities as these, what would have been her sensations? They could have been understood only by her mother, who might have felt nearly the same. Lydia’s going to Brighton was all that consoled her for the melancholy conviction of her husband’s never intending to go there himself.

Are you a believer in ghosts, my friend? There are other ghosts than the Cock-Lane one, and far deeper men than Doctor Johnson who believe in them.

The hours went on as he walked to and fro, and the clocks struck the numbers he would never hear again. Nine gone for ever, ten gone for ever, eleven gone for ever, twelve coming on to pass away. After a hard contest with that eccentric action of thought which had last perplexed him, he had got the better of it. He walked up and down, softly repeating their names to himself. The worst of the strife was over. He could walk up and down, free from distracting fancies, praying for himself and for them.

[184] [ Ulysses bedroom in the mind of the writer is here too apparently down stairs.]

“He is heading straight to leeward, sir,” cried Stubb, “right away from us; cannot have seen the ship yet.”