Ramusio goes on to explain the light regarding the first part or prologue of Marco Polo's book that he had derived from a recent piece of luck which had made him partially acquainted with the geography of Abulfeda, and to make a running commentary on the whole of the preliminary narrative until the final return of the travellers to Venice:— "And when they got thither the same fate befel them as befel Ulysses, who, when he returned, after his twenty years' wanderings, to his native Ithaca, was recognized by nobody.
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Rustichello of Pisa

He had caught the words "expectant method," and rang chimes on this and other learned phrases to accompany the assurance that Lydgate "knew a thing or two more than the rest of the doctors—was far better versed in the secrets of his profession than the majority of his compeers.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

Animals play a considerable part in the mythological and religious conceptions of the Veda.
— from A History of Sanskrit Literature by Arthur Anthony Macdonell

One night, he made a rough calculation of the number of hides that could be stowed in the lower hold, between the fore and main masts, taking the depth of hold and breadth of beam, (for he always knew the dimension of every part of the ship, before he had been a month on board,) and the average area and thickness of a hide; he came surprisingly near the number, as it afterwards turned out.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana

v 1 [b(1)] make a rectangular corner on the edge, end of.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

At the same moment-- A revolutionary committee of the Réunion brings to the general council crosses, suns, chalices, copes, and quantities of other ornaments of worship, and a member of this committee observes that several of these effects belong to individuals of the Jewish race.
— from Secret Societies And Subversive Movements by Nesta Helen Webster

Note 44 ( return ) [ A separate history of the conquest of Syria has been composed by Al Wakidi, cadi of Bagdad, who was born A.D. 748, and died A.D. 822; he likewise wrote the conquest of Egypt, of Diarbekir, &c. Above the meagre and recent chronicles of the Arabians, Al Wakidi has the double merit of antiquity and copiousness.
— 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

I foresee that every morning a regular crowd of them, provided with quarter-roubles from the editorial office, will be flocking round me to seize my ideas on the telegrams of the previous day.
— from Short Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“I here unite under one heading two animals of very diverse nature and race, but which from some gross resemblances, probably helped by an equivoque in the language, are closely affiliated in the Hindoo myth … a reddish colour of the skin, want of symmetry and ungainliness of form, strength in hugging with the fore paws or arms, the faculty of climbing, shortness of tail(?), sensuality, capacity of instruction in dancing and in music, are all characteristics which more or less distinguish and meet in bears as well as in monkeys.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki

We fell to talking upon the subject, and when I left he gave me a reprinted copy of the work which brought the revolution about.
— from Erewhon; Or, Over the Range by Samuel Butler

With sage-like modesty and mildness, the poet stated the pressing need for adopting new educational methods, and showed them to be by no means in opposition to the Mosaic and Rabbinic conception of the Jewish faith.
— from The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) by Nahum Slouschz

She has black slaves in gold mines and rubber camps of the interior, and white slaves on the coast who have been brought from every country of the world with promises of marriage or respectable employment.
— from Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, Vol. 2. No. 17, February, 1921 America's Magazine of Wit, Humor and Filosophy by Various

While speaking of the labors of the missionaries in the East, I should do great injustice to Catholics not to speak of their efforts to improve the moral and religious condition of the people in these distant countries.
— from The Progress of Ethnology An Account of Recent Archaeological, Philological and Geographical Researches in Various Parts of the Globe, Tending to Elucidate the Physical History of Man by John Russell Bartlett

Make a raw custard of the rest of the milk, the eggs and the sugar.
— from Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea by Marion Harland

I was making a rapid calculation of the arc that I would describe in my flight, when the horse met his crisis with a masterly device that I could not have imagined.
— from Men, Women, and Boats by Stephen Crane

There are some who deem death also an hallucination, and the apparent annihilation of matter consequent upon it merely a reflex confirmation of the truth that there is no matter, only spirit; and it may well be that as the world grows in faith, death will disappear in that we shall cease to think we see matter.
— from The Opinions of a Philosopher by Robert Grant

"These people," says Percy, "have a great reverence to the Sunne above all other things; at the rising and setting of the same they lift up their hands and eyes to the Sunne, making a round Circle on the ground with dried Tobacco; then they begin to pray, making many Devillish Gestures with a Hellish noise, foming at the mouth, staring with their eyes, wagging their heads and hands in such a fashion and deformitie as it was monstrous to behold.
— from The Birth of the Nation, Jamestown, 1607 by Sara Agnes Rice Pryor

It looks like a collar formed of esses; but it is not clear whether it was meant to do so, or was merely a rich collar of twisted gold links.
— from Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. by Various

When I heard this I was glad, for I determined after the Pope had done what he had come to do, to fall upon my knees before him, and make a regular complaint of the treatment I had received, to tell him of the cheating at cards of the rector, and to beg him to make the ould thaif give me back my pack again.
— from The Romany Rye by George Borrow

Many a rare copy of the Holy Scriptures, many a highly learned piece of writing was sent out into the world from this hermitage, telling of the industry and learning of the pious monks.
— from Legends of the Rhine by Wilhelm Ruland