I struggled, then, with all my strength, and doubtless opposed, weak as I was, a long resistance, for I heard him cry out, ‘These miserable Puritans!
— from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

It was Sunday, a day on which all persons, save criminals, are exempt from arrest; but, nevertheless, the following adventure befell me: I was dressed magnificently, and was driving home in my carriage, with my negro and another servant seated behind me; and just as we entered Pall Mall I heard a voice crying, “Good night, Seingalt.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

And if Professor Toussenel is correct, this plague is nothing compared to the scourge that will strike our descendants once the seas are depopulated of whales and seals.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne

[298] By these three men, then, when a son Isaac was again promised to Abraham by Sarah, such a divine oracle was also given that it was said, "Abraham shall become a great and numerous nation, and all [Pg 146] the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him."
— from The City of God, Volume II by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

On such a drop of water as this!” “I want to tell you,” broke in the captain, who had come to hold all those places in great affection, “that you can’t call this a drop of water.
— from The Reign of Greed by José Rizal

The eight oars fell into the sea simultaneously without splashing a drop of water, and the boat, yielding to the impulsion, glided forward.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

This position, naturally a strong and defensible one, was also strongly intrenched.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant

He was an excellent Husbandman, but had resolved not to exceed such a Degree of Wealth; all above it he bestowed in secret Bounties many Years after the Sum he aimed at for his own Use was attained.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

In this situation a good vessel will ride out a very heavy gale of wind without shipping a drop of water, and without any further attention being requisite on the part of the crew.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

I used to say of her that she was generally slut and drunkard; occasionally, whore and thief.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

“Do sit down, and have a cigar,” said my unknown host cheerily, and he took up a large silver box from a side table whereon was set a decanter of whisky, a syphon of soda water and four glasses upon a beautiful old tray of Georgian silver.
— from The Stretton Street Affair by William Le Queux

To do this, however, would be to bring the obnoxious Constitution actually into force, and would mean, so to speak, a declaration of war against Prussia.
— from Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire by James Wycliffe Headlam

Don't you often find, Aunt Sallie," asked Uncle Toby, "that you forget to shut a door or window, and later in the night get up to close it?"
— from The Curlytops and Their Playmates; Or, Jolly Times Through the Holidays by Howard Roger Garis

No human being ever collected so many of the good sayings and doings of women as you, Eusebius.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 by Various

For since the property of all has become vested in the king no person takes care of anything so that in every place the spoil and devastations of war appear and nowhere is anything repaired.
— from History of Gujarát Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Volume I, Part I. by James M. Campbell

Who could ever have supposed that such a depth of wickedness and depravity could be found in such a weak and helpless child; that so venomous a principle, so corrupt a heart, lay hid in a babe apparently so harmless? Who could possibly have believed this, had not man himself, by his sinful and abominable life, by the imaginations of his thoughts (being “only evil continually,” and desperately bent on what is bad), of his own will brought it to light, and expressed, from his childhood, what was before concealed as in a seed?
— from True Christianity A Treatise on Sincere Repentence, True Faith, the Holy Walk of the True Christian, Etc. by Johann Arndt

And yet we are told that we must believe such a doctrine or we are to be eternally damned!
— from The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents Dresden Edition—Twelve Volumes by Robert Green Ingersoll

Along the coast from Guayaquil, Ecuador, to Coquimbo, Chili, a distance of more than two thousand miles, stretches a desert on which a drop {436} of rain never fell.
— from The Capitals of Spanish America by William Eleroy Curtis

Shortly after the resolutions of the committee were passed, the same person who superseded the suspended and defunct officer was again nominated to succeed him by reason of the expiration of his term; and this nomination was confirmed.
— from Presidential Problems by Grover Cleveland