The Marching Morons by C. M. Kornbluth

Ryan-Ngana sighed and stretched. He had to go and run the San Francisco subway. Summoned early from the Pole to study Barlow, he’d left unfinished a nice little theorem. Between interruptions, he was slowly constructing an n-dimensional geometry whose foundations and superstructure owed no debt whatsoever to intuition.

A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay

He remained beside her for a long time, on his knees. He wept—but, between his fits of weeping, he raised his head from time to time, and listened to the distant drum beats.

The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle

It was a fact that our Indians had shown in many ways of late that they were weary of their journey and anxious to return. We realized that Zambo spoke the truth, and that it would be impossible for him to keep them.