I do not defend this practice of letter-opening in private life, except in cases of the most urgent necessity: when we must follow the examples of our betters, the statesmen of all Europe, and, for the sake of a great good, infringe a little matter of ceremony.
— from Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

You wish your mistress gentle—she is gentle; and then you wish her proud like Emilie in Corneille, and although these qualities are probably incompatible, instantly she appears with the soul of a Roman.
— from On Love by Stendhal

At court, and in the castles of the great nobles, where the pomp and state of a court was emulated, Norman-French was the only language employed; in courts of law, the pleadings and judgments were delivered in the same tongue.
— from Ivanhoe: A Romance by Walter Scott

LETTER LIX - EVELINA IN CONTINUATION.
— from Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

Olive drab drill, inside seams reinforced with leather, eyelets in crown for ventilation, detachable ties.
— from Boy Scouts Handbook The First Edition, 1911 by Boy Scouts of America

There is something mysterious in his descent from men of royal siege; in his wanderings [188] in vast deserts and among marvellous peoples; in his tales of magic handkerchiefs and prophetic Sibyls; in the sudden vague glimpses we get of numberless battles and sieges in which he has played the hero and has borne a charmed life; even in chance references to his baptism, his being sold to slavery, his sojourn in Aleppo.
— from Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth by A. C. (Andrew Cecil) Bradley

LETTER LII - EVELINA IN CONTINUATION.
— from Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

51 Ac latissime quidem patens hominibus inter ipsos, omnibus inter omnes societas haec est; in qua omnium rerum, quas ad communem hominum usum natura genuit, est servanda communitas, ut, quae discripta [43] sunt legibus et iure civili, haec ita teneantur, ut sit constitutum legibus ipsis, [44] cetera sic observentur, ut in Graecorum proverbio est, amicorum esse communia omnia.
— from De Officiis by Marcus Tullius Cicero

The du Lac Sevres and the Trevenna George II plate were out; so was the van der Luyden "Lowestoft" (East India Company) and the Dagonet Crown Derby.
— from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

LETTER LV - EVELINA IN CONTINUATION.
— from Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

Her exceptionally fine harbor is already beginning to be recognized by commerce, and though the city may never rival Cleveland or Buffalo, the time may come when Erie will take rank as only second to them on Lake Erie, in commercial importance.
— from Peculiarities of American Cities by Willard W. Glazier

But the most ordinary cause of a single life, is liberty, especially in certain self-pleasing and humorous minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as they will go near to think their girdles and garters, to be bonds and shackles.
— from The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral by Francis Bacon

By the President of the United States of America. Whereas, an insurrection against the Government of the United States has broken out in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and the laws of the United States for the collection of the revenue cannot be efficiently executed therein conformably to that provision of the Constitution which requires duties to be uniform throughout the United States: And whereas a combination of persons engaged in such insurrection have threatened to grant pretended letters of marque, to authorize the bearers thereof to commit assaults on the lives, vessels, and property of good citizens of the country lawfully engaged in commerce on the high seas, and in waters of the United States: And whereas an Executive Proclamation has been already issued, requiring the persons engaged in these disorderly proceedings to desist therefrom, calling out a militia force for the purpose of repressing the same, and convening Congress in extraordinary session to deliberate and determine thereon: Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln , President of the United States, with a view to the same purposes before mentioned, and to the protection of the public peace and the lives and property of quiet and orderly citizens pursuing their lawful occupations, until Congress shall have assembled and deliberated on the said unlawful proceedings, or until the same shall have ceased, have further deemed it advisable to set on foot a blockade of the ports within the States aforesaid, in pursuance of the laws of the United States and of the laws of nations in such cases provided.
— from Trial of the Officers and Crew of the Privateer Savannah, on the Charge of Piracy, in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York by A. F. (Adolphus Frederick) Warburton

He said to me, "My young friend I was very much interested in that story last evening; it clinched the sermon.
— from Recollections of a Long Life: An Autobiography by Theodore L. (Theodore Ledyard) Cuyler

Many are the pleasant hours we spent together, but to my sorrow she graduated at an early age, and a few months later embarked, in company with her parents, a younger brother and sister and an aunt, Mrs. Cammack, upon a vessel called the Home for Charleston, South Carolina, where they had planned to make their future residence.
— from As I Remember Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century by Marian Gouverneur

I could not: should it move To life eternal, I could love.
— from The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 by Robert Herrick

How sorely his temper was tried by the late events is clear from the recital of the Duchesse d'Abrantès, who relates that her husband, when ordered to seize English residents, found the First Consul in a fury, his eyes flashing fire; and when Junot expressed his reluctance to carry out this decree, Napoleon passionately exclaimed: "Do not trust too far to my friendship: as soon as I conceive doubt as to yours, mine is gone."
— from The Life of Napoleon I (Complete) by J. Holland (John Holland) Rose

He was not the less emphatic in complaining of it to his friends.
— from Alexander Pope by Leslie Stephen

In barrier-reefs it has long been remarked with surprise that the passages through the reef exactly face valleys in the included land, even in cases where the reef is separated from the land by a lagoon-channel so wide and so much deeper than the actual passage itself, that it seems hardly possible that the very small quantity of water or sediment brought down could injure the corals on the reef.
— from Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage Round the World of H.M.S. Beagle Under the Command of Captain Fitz Roy, R.N. by Charles Darwin

Massolia (Marseilles), before the Punic wars was a strong fortified city, and was largely engaged in commerce.
— from The Old Roman World : the Grandeur and Failure of Its Civilization. by John Lord