Billy Budd — Vocabulary
Herman Melville
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There was no moon as yet; a haze obscured the star-light.8 more

Coke and Blackstone hardly shed so much light into obscure spiritual places as the Hebrew prophets.8 more

To resist him would be mutiny.17 more

He seemed unmindful of the circumstance that to his bluff company such remote allusions, however pertinent they might really be, were altogether alien to men whose reading was mainly confined to the journals.†7 more

Years, and those experiences which befall certain shrewder men subordinated life-long to the will of superiors, all this had developed in the Dansker the pithy guarded cynicism that was his leading characteristic.†7 more

And before a court less arbitrary and more merciful than a martial one,10 more

...with the off-hand unaffectedness of natural regality, he seemed to accept the spontaneous homage of his shipmates.6 more

And yet his mention is less a narration than a reference, having to do hardly at all with details.†8 more

And they can really form no conception of an unreciprocated malice.†5 more

Disturbed by the excited manner he had never before observed in the Indomitable's Captain, and as yet wholly ignorant of the affair, the prudent Surgeon nevertheless held his peace, only again looking an earnest interrogation as to what it was that had resulted in such a tragedy.†5 more

With minds less stored than his and less earnest, some officers of his rank, with whom at times he would necessarily consort, found him lacking in the companionable quality, a dry and bookish gentleman, as they deemed.†8 more

No sooner did the Commander observe who it was that deferentially stood awaiting his notice, than a peculiar expression came over him.4 more

As one of a boarding-party from the Agamemnon he had received a cut slantwise along one temple and cheek, leaving a long scar like a streak of dawn's light falling athwart the dark visage.†6 more

...had been already tried by a summary court and condemned to death;6 more

It was noted at the time and remarked upon afterwards, that in this final scene the good man evinced little or nothing of the perfunctory.10 more

But it was only a partial and anonymous account that Billy gave, the unfounded scruples above referred to preventing full disclosure to anybody.†6 more

And yet, more likely, if satire it was in effect, it was hardly so by intention, for Billy, tho' happily endowed with the gayety of high health, youth, and a free heart, was yet by no means of a satirical turn.†4 more

Now envy and antipathy, passions irreconcilable in reason, nevertheless in fact may spring conjoined like Chang and Eng in one birth.†2 more

The perplexity he evinced proceeded less from aught touching the man informed against—as Claggart doubtless opined—than from considerations how best to act in regard to the informer.†1 more

Was he absorbed in taking in all the bearings of the event and what was best not only now at once to be done, but also in the sequel?†3 more