Rather they have been poor chroniclers for the public; but their official reports, hidden away in government archives, are rich in their thorough investigations, oftentimes more nearly perfect and complete than the equivalents in our own language, where it takes no long argument to prove that great attention given to the public and popular account, has been at the expense of the similar qualities in the official report; while many expeditions, American and British, have not been under official patronage at all, which has seldom been the case with Russian research.
— from Vitus Bering: the Discoverer of Bering Strait by Peter Lauridsen

Though his own subjectivity will assuredly play a considerable part in such an encounter, transferring to his chance acquaintance qualities he may not possess, and connecting this personality in some purely imaginative manner with thoughts derived from [Pg 115] study, or impressions made by nature; yet the stranger will henceforth become the meeting-point of many memories, the central figure in a composition which derives from him its vividness.
— from New Italian sketches by John Addington Symonds

In the mean time you do not lose much; though the Parliament is met, no politics are come to town; one may describe the House of Commons like the price of stocks—Debates, nothing done.
— from Letters of Horace Walpole — Volume I by Horace Walpole

One may talk scandal over kettle-drums, and go to morning performances at the theatre, but one may not play at cards till after dinner.
— from Some Private Views by James Payn

If to these authorities we add that of [198] Malpighius, who perceived the chicken in the cicatrice, immediately after the egg was laid by the hen, we cannot doubt, but that the fœtus is formed immediately after copulation; consequently, we must not pay any credit to what Harvey says on the parts increasing one after the other by juxta-position, since they are all existent from the first, and gradually expand until the whole is complete.
— from Buffon's Natural History, Volume 03 (of 10) Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c. by Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de

Frobisher, after regarding the recumbent form for a long minute or more, silently tiptoed away to his post of observation, having reached which, he extinguished the lantern, making sure, first of all, that his matches were ready to hand in his pocket, so that the light might not prove a convenient target for any prowling sharpshooter of the enemy.
— from A Chinese Command: A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas by Harry Collingwood

That Michel Nôtredame promised a crown to each of Catherine de Medici's three sons, and that Sully's preceptor foretold in detail that Minister's career, were held to be facts as certain as that La Rivière cast the horoscope of the thirteenth Louis while the future monarch lay in his cradle.
— from The Man in Black by Stanley John Weyman

"I have been posting myself in my new profession, and conclude that the prospects for grain and live stock are encouraging," he said.
— from The Mistress of Bonaventure by Harold Bindloss

The following most necessary points are cited to aid the student in making observations: Date of arrival and whether in large flocks, pairs, or singly; where found most abundantly; upon what do they feed at the different [12] seasons; what are their songs and calls at different seasons; when and where do they make their nests; of what are they made and by which bird or both; how long does it take, and when is the first and last egg laid; how long does it take them to hatch, and do both birds or only one incubate them; upon what are the young fed at different ages; how long do they remain in the nest, and do they return after once leaving; how long before they are able to feed themselves, and do they remain with [13] their parents until they migrate.
— from Bird Guide: Land Birds East of the Rockies, from Parrots to Bluebirds by Chester A. (Chester Albert) Reed

In various parts of America, remains are found which place beyond a doubt the ancient existence of a people more numerous, powerful, and civilized than the present race of Indians; but the indications of this departed people are not such as to bespeak their having been of very remote antiquity: the ruined cities of Central America, concealed by the forest growth of centuries, and the huge mounds of earth [224] in the Valley of the Mississippi and upon the table-lands of Mexico, their dwellings and mausoleums, although long swept over by the storm of savage conquest, afford no proofs of their having existed very far back into those dark ages when the New World was unknown to Europe.
— from The Conquest of Canada, Vol. 1 by George Warburton