His care in leaving Prince Schwarzenberg and Reynier on the Bug, while Macdonald, Oudinot, and Wrede guarded the Dwina, Victor covered Smolensk, and Augereau was between the Oder and Vistula, proves that he had neglected no humanly possible precaution in order to base himself safely; but it also proves that the greatest enterprises may fail simply on account of the magnitude of the preparations for their success.
— from The Art of War by Jomini, Antoine Henri, baron de

I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years’ dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another tempestuous term.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

As a sick man frets, raves in his fits, speaks and doth he knows not what, the devil violently compels such crazed souls to think such damned thoughts against their wills, they cannot but do it; sometimes more continuate, or by fits, he takes his advantage, as the subject is less able to resist, he aggravates, extenuates, affirms, denies, damns, confounds the spirits, troubles heart, brain, humours, organs, senses, and wholly domineers in their imaginations.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

I partly surmise also, that this wicked charge against whalers may be likewise imputed to the existence on the coast of Greenland, in former times, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg, which latter name is the one used by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great work on Smells, a text-book on that subject.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

Several of the names are the most illustrious of Rome and the ecclesiastical state: Malatesta, Polenta, della Valle, Cafarello, Savelli, Capoccio, Conti, Annibaldi, Altieri, Corsi: the colors were adapted to their taste and situation; the devices are expressive of hope or despair, and breathe the spirit of gallantry and arms.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

Or di` a fra Dolcin dunque che s'armi, tu che forse vedra' il sole in breve, s'ello non vuol qui tosto seguitarmi, si` di vivanda, che stretta di neve non rechi la vittoria al Noarese, ch'altrimenti acquistar non saria leve>>.
— from Divina Commedia di Dante: Inferno by Dante Alighieri

Hams are working on real-time digitized voice communications, still-frame (and even moving) graphics, and live multiplayer games.
— from The Online World by Odd De Presno

In the meanwhile, I amused myself by examining the wonders of the new world into which I had so abruptly immerged: on a small table before me, was deposited a remarkably constructed night-cap; I examined it as a curiosity: on each side was placed une petite cotelette de veau cru, sewed on with green-coloured silk (I remember even the smallest minutiae), a beautiful golden wig (the duchesse never liked me to play with her hair) was on a block close by, and on another table was a set of teeth, d’une blancheur eblouissante.
— from Pelham — Complete by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

FOOTNOTES: [3] Relatio ad Reges , by Alphonsus de Vargas (Caspar Schoppe), 1636, p. 40.
— from A Candid History of the Jesuits by Joseph McCabe

“You and I and Mr. Kinglake,” she says to Lord Houghton, p. 17 “are all that are left of the goodly band that used to come to St. John’s Wood; Eliot Warburton, Motley, Adelaide, Count de Verg, Chorley, Sir Edwin Landseer, my husband.”
— from A. W. Kinglake: A Biographical and Literary Study by William Tuckwell

The ships of the Danish Vikings constantly swarmed at the mouth of the Thames.
— from An Account of the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland, and Ireland by Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae

Oof ve ged to Honturas, und Downsent don'd show oop, den ve can send him some caplegrams und say vere ve vas, und vy.
— from Motor Matt's Submarine; or, The Strange Cruise of the Grampus by Stanley R. Matthews

Tanning says of the tobacco of Colombia: "The Cumanacoa, Tobacco de la Cueva, de los Misones, de la Laguna de Valencia cura seca and Caraco, de la Lagunade Valencia cura negro, de Oriluca, de Varinos cura seca, de Casovare, de Baylodores, de Rio Negro en Andull, are equal to the tobacco of the Brazils.
— from Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce by E. R. Billings

From a wooded bank, some thirty or forty rods from this building, Dick Venner could see the interior of the chamber, and watch the master as he sat at his desk, the light falling strongly upon his face, intent upon the book or manuscript before him.
— from Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works by Oliver Wendell Holmes

The little town of Monaco consists of half a {317} dozen very clean streets and a big new cathedral in the Romanesque style.
— from The Motor Routes of France To the Châteaux of Touraine, Biarritz, the Pyrenees, the Riviera, & the Rhone Valley by Gordon Home