In the time of Louis XIV. or of Frederick, it was possible to form lines of battle almost as regular as the geometrical figures, because armies camped under tents, almost always closely collected together, and were in presence of each other several days, thus giving ample time for opening roads and clearing spaces to enable the columns to be at regular distances from each other.
— from The Art of War by Jomini, Antoine Henri, baron de

Agnostic substantialism like that of Mr. Spencer, whose Unknowable is not merely the unfathomable but the absolute-irrational, on which, if consistently represented in thought, it is of course impossible to count, performs the same function of rebuking a certain stagnancy and smugness in the manner in which the ordinary philistine feels his security.
— from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James

It has been calculated that what with salvos, royal and military politenesses, courteous exchanges of uproar, signals of etiquette, formalities of roadsteads and citadels, sunrises and sunsets, saluted every day by all fortresses and all ships of war, openings and closings of ports, etc., the civilized world, discharged all over the earth, in the course of four and twenty hours, one hundred and fifty thousand useless shots.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Moral:—— Sunday, October 20.—The blessedness of eventide, the satisfaction after long and hard day's work; delicious feeling of rest and contentment; soothing is such solitude.
— from Woman's Endurance by A. D. (August D.) Luckhoff

The savage solitude of the higher regions was a great contrast to the wealth of the chapel of the Ochava, full of relics in golden vessels and caskets of enamel and precious marbles, to the quantities of pearls and emeralds in the magnificent treasury, heaped up as though they had been peas, and to the elegant luxury of the wardrobe, full of rare and costly stuffs and vestments exquisitely embroidered with every colour of the rainbow.
— from The Shadow of the Cathedral by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

As a boy he was always fond of reading, and chose such books as referred to natural history.
— from Lives of Illustrious Shoemakers by W. E. (William Edward) Winks

With a feeling of renewed apprehension, connected, she knew not why, with Ranulph, Eleanor beheld her relatives descend from the carriage; and, in the hope of gaining some clue from their gestures to the subject of their conversation, [268] she watched their motions as narrowly as her situation permitted.
— from Rookwood by William Harrison Ainsworth

Let it be distinctly understood that you teach '[ Kirkham's ] philosophical grammar , founded on reason and common sense,' and you will pass for a very learned man, and make all the good housewives wonder at the rapid march of intellect, and the vast improvements of the age."— Ib. , p. 141.
— from The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown

This offering can be made with greater ease than the sacrifice of a pig, but the frequency of rainbows at certain seasons will keep them pretty closely to their devotions.
— from The Inhabitants of the Philippines by Frederic H. Sawyer

Hers was that order of mind which can never give ostensible adhesion to a creed whilst morally unconvinced; never accept that refuge of the weak from the torment of doubt, in abdicating the functions of reason and conscience, shifting the onus of responsibility on to others, and agreeing to believe, as it were, by proxy.
— from Famous Women: George Sand by Bertha Thomas

Bell and Curtiss, with three others, formed in 1907, the Aerial Experimental Association at Bell's country house in Canada, which was fruitful of results, and Curtiss scored several notable triumphs with the craft they designed.
— from The Age of Invention: A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest by Holland Thompson