Date: 1851

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it...

— Melville, Herman (1819-1891)

Date: 1855, 1856

"As his foot pressed the half-damp, half-dry sea-mosses matting the place, and a chance phantom cat's-paw--an islet of breeze, unheralded, unfollowed--as this ghostly cat's-paw came fanning his cheek, his glance fell upon the row of small, round dead-lights, all closed like coppered eyes of the c...

— Melville, Herman (1819-1891)

Date: 1860

"The peculiarities of his father and mother were very irksome to him now they were laid bare of all the softening accompaniments of an easy prosperous home, for Tom had very clear prosaic eyes not apt to be dimmed by mists of feeling or imagination."

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)