And rainfall is not abundant in the plains, but rather on the mountains or close to mountains, for the reason that the vapour which [230] is set in motion at sunrise in the morning, leaves the earth, and drives the air before it through the heaven in whatever direction it inclines; then, when once in motion, it has currents of air rushing after it, on account of the void which it leaves behind.
— from The Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius Pollio

And as it happened that in the story, which he was constantly called on to repeat, of the magnificence of the Great Can, he would speak of his revenues as amounting to ten or fifteen millions of gold; and in like manner, when recounting other instances of great wealth in those parts, would always make use of the term millions , so they gave him the nickname of MESSER MARCO MILLIONI: a thing which I have noted also in the Public Books of this Republic where mention is made of him.[6] The Court of his House, too, at S. Giovanni Chrisostomo, has always from that time been popularly known as the Court of the Millioni.
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Rustichello of Pisa

It was a delicate move to get the right wing of the Army of the Potomac from its position south of the North Anna in the presence of the enemy.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant

For any form existing in lesser numbers would, as already remarked, run a greater chance of being exterminated than one existing in large numbers; and in this particular case the intermediate form would be eminently liable to the inroads of closely allied forms existing on both sides of it.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

The spring is the pleasantest of the seasons; and the young of most animals, though far from being completely fashioned, afford a more agreeable sensation than the full-grown; because the imagination is entertained with the promise of something more, and does not acquiesce in the present object of the sense.
— from The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) by Edmund Burke

The additional securities to republican government, to liberty and to property, to be derived from the adoption of the plan under consideration, consist chiefly in the restraints which the preservation of the Union will impose on local factions and insurrections, and on the ambition of powerful individuals in single States, who may acquire credit and influence enough, from leaders and favorites, to become the despots of the people; in the diminution of the opportunities to foreign intrigue, which the dissolution of the Confederacy would invite and facilitate; in the prevention of extensive military establishments, which could not fail to grow out of wars between the States in a disunited situation; in the express guaranty of a republican form of government to each; in the absolute and universal exclusion of titles of nobility; and in the precautions against the repetition of those practices on the part of the State governments which have undermined the foundations of property and credit, have planted mutual distrust in the breasts of all classes of citizens, and have occasioned an almost universal prostration of morals.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton

The early story is simpler and shows less deliberate artifice, though even then Miss Keller was prematurely conscious of style, but the art of the later narrative, as in the passage about the sea, or the passage on the medallion of Homer, is surely a fulfilment of the promise of the early story.
— from The Story of My Life With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy by Helen Keller

These Chinese are not accurate in their pronunciation.
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales With Condensed Novels, Spanish and American Legends, and Earlier Papers by Bret Harte

Either from want of interest in the officers entrusted with the execution of those ordinances, or from some other cause, they appear to have been universally neglected; and in the progress of all those governments, military exercises seem to have gone gradually into disuse among the great body of the people.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

Nor, again, is the popular idea that a mushroom which will skin easily is wholesome altogether based on fact.
— from Cooley's Cyclopædia of Practical Receipts and Collateral Information in the Arts, Manufactures, Professions, and Trades..., Sixth Edition, Volume II by Richard Vine Tuson

said Glaucon: for the two rewards I understand; but the penalty, of which you speak, and have named as in the place of a reward, I do not understand.—Then you do not understand, I said, the reward of the best, for the sake of which the most virtuous rule, when they are willing to rule.
— from Plato and Platonism by Walter Pater

However, I am now so depressed that I have not an idea to put to paper—my hand feels like lead—and yet it is an unpleasant numbness; it does not take away the pain of Existence.
— from Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends by John Keats

I am not of those who believe that God permits good to come to mankind through one channel only, and I doubt not that now and in times past the thinkers whom your Highness follows have done much to raise the condition of their fellows; but I would have you observe that, where they have done so, it has been because, at bottom, their aims coincided with the Church's.
— from The Valley of Decision by Edith Wharton

It was understood that now, as in the past, he was supposed to make himself "useful" by way of paying his shot; and as he had never been known to be any other thing than useless, it was evidence rather of the easy good nature than the perspicacity of his associates that he never had actually lacked food and shelter in that place.
— from Jan: A Dog and a Romance by A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

Not only do they correspond in all cases where such agreement is natural, as in the proper services for the great feasts and fasts, but in such purely arbitrary arrangements as the reading of the book of Genesis, instead of the Gospels, on the week days of Lent; of the Acts all the time between Easter and Pentecost 97 ; and the selection of St. Matthew's history of the Passion alone at the Liturgy on Good Friday 98 .
— from A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, Vol. I. by Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener

The tests referred to were carried out during 1908, and although great advances have been made since that time in the preparation of concrete paints, the tests have, nevertheless, afforded information of a valuable nature as indicating the proper methods to follow in the painting of cement, as well as suitable materials to use in the manufacture of cement paints.
— from Paint Technology and Tests by Henry A. (Henry Alfred) Gardner

No, no; to my homely sense of man's life and employment there was nothing alluring in the prospect of watching over the golden tree in the garden, with a "woe to the Argus if Mercury once lull him to sleep!"
— from The Caxtons: A Family Picture — Volume 18 by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

He left a card on Mrs. Garrick, and "wished some endeavours of his could enable her to support a loss which the world cannot repair;" while he wrote those well-known words, which Mrs. Garrick had engraved on her husband's memorial monument in Lichfield Cathedral, and which form an inscription more appropriate than that on the Abbey tomb:—"I am disappointed by that stroke of death, which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure."
— from The Story of Westminster Abbey by Violet Brooke-Hunt

As a consequence certain nations become increasingly dissatisfied with their place in the world, and naturally, and in the present circumstances wisely, prefer the risks and costs of war to their present position.
— from American World Policies by Walter E. (Walter Edward) Weyl