Our subject was an infant in arms when he lost his father, an officer who died just as he was about to be court-martialled for gambling away the funds of his company, and perhaps also for flogging a subordinate to excess (remember the good old days, gentlemen).
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

No one will confess the errors he was taught in his school days No one can show a dead man a good time One could do a man no graver injury than to call him a dancer Platitudes by which anguished minds are recalled to sanity Priests, animated by an hypocritical mania for prophecy Propensity of pouring one’s personal troubles into another’s ear Putting as good a face upon the matter as I could Religions responsible for the most abominable actions Remarkable resemblance to each other are the Bible and Homer Rumor but grows in the telling and strives to embellish Russia there is a sect called the skoptzi See or hear nothing at all of the affairs of every-day life
— from The Satyricon — Complete by Petronius Arbiter

Well trained in lore of time and place, And search the eastern region; through Groves, woods, and hills thy way pursue.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki

Struck by the spectacle of a devotion which could receive none of the brilliant recognitions that reward a soldier, the Emperor resolved to create an order to requite civil services, just as he had already created the Legion of honor to reward the military.
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac

The decks had none of that creamy purity which Cowes expects, but were rough and grey, and showed tarry exhalations round the seams and rusty stains near the bows.
— from The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers

Refugees who have arrived since the engagement report the enemy’s loss as greater than mentioned in my first report.
— from The Negro in the American Rebellion: His Heroism and His Fidelity by William Wells Brown

Gregory sighed heavily, threw a last look up at the window, and seeing that everything remained the same there, he mustered up resolution enough to lie down on the fatal plank.
— from Vaninka Celebrated Crimes by Alexandre Dumas

"And you, sir, go with my lieutenant and these three men, and show them every room there is"; then he murmured in the lieutenant's ear,
— from The Strand Magazine, Vol. 05, Issue 27, March 1893 An Illustrated Monthly by Various

There was a blinding flash, a cry of victory from her, and we looked, and saw the Efrite reduced to a heap of ashes on the floor at her feet.
— from Sindbad the Sailor, & Other Stories from the Arabian Nights by Anonymous

The round part is smooth, but on both ends as it were there is a module from which on all sides there extend radii to the outer edge, which corresponds with the radii.
— from De Re Metallica, Translated from the First Latin Edition of 1556 by Georg Agricola

The public, however, appears to have been surfeited by such prodigality; for Dr Burney observes, "at this time"—about 1737—"the rage for operas seems to have been very much diminished in our country; the fact was, that public curiosity being satisfied as to new compositions and singers, the English returned to their homely food, the Begger's Opera and ballad farces on the same plan, with eagerness and comfort."
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843 by Various