Banyan-Day , a day on which no meat is served out for rations; probably derived from the BANIANS , a Hindoo caste, who abstain from animal food.
— from The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical and Andecdotal by John Camden Hotten

Such also was the ambition of others upon the like occasion, as appeareth by that very sharp wars and of a long continuance have been made of old betwixt some residentiary kings in Cappadocia upon this only debate, of whose name a certain herb should have the appellation; by reason of which difference, so troublesome and expensive to them all, it was by them called Polemonion, and by us for the same cause termed Make-bate.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

The piety of these men made them objects of abhorrence to the Danes, who, wherever they went singled out the christian priests for destruction, of whom no less than 200 were massacred in Scotland.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

The excise officer, who had not slept at home that night, but at a lady friend’s, dashed out with nothing on but his nightshirt, and running into the crowd shouted frantically: “Save yourself, if you can!”
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

A devil, a born devil, on whose nature Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains, Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost; And as with age his body uglier grows, So his mind cankers.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

In this respect, however, Osiris was nothing to St. Denys, of whom no less than seven heads, all equally genuine, are extant.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

Know therefore that I shall provide for you all in common what is for your good, and particularly for thyself what shall make thee famous; for that child, out of dread of whose nativity the Egyptians have doomed the Israelite children to destruction, shall be this child of thine, and shall be concealed from those who watch to destroy him: and when he is brought up in a surprising way, he shall deliver the Hebrew nation from the distress they are under from the Egyptians.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

Slower and slower went the circling hands until the thousands one seemed motionless and the daily one was no longer a mere mist upon its scale.
— from The Time Machine by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

O! know sweet love I always write of you, And you and love are still my argument; So all my best is dressing old words new, Spending again what is already spent: For as the sun is daily new and old, So is my love still telling what is told.
— from Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare

The American beggar, feeling himself a proud and free citizen, addresses himself familiarly to anyone; but the English beggar, feeling himself a despised outcast, will not speak except in want, or when he is first spoken to.
— from Beggars by W. H. (William Henry) Davies

He still continued in the same condition, not much changed physically, but in a state of mental torpor, the duration of which no one was able to foretell.
— from The Living Link: A Novel by James De Mille

Within this island the depth of water no where exceeds nine fathom: The best anchoring is in a sandy bay, which lies just within the south head, in five and four fathom, bringing a high tower or rock, which lies without the head, in one with the head, or just shut in behind it.
— from A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 13 by Robert Kerr

Tell me how I kin git rid er dis yer ole witch w'at 's be'n ridin' me so ha'd.' "'In de fus' place,' sez de cunjuh man, 'dis ole witch nebber comes in her own shape, but eve'y night, at ten o'clock, she tu'ns herse'f inter a black cat, en runs down ter yo' cabin en bridles you, en mounts you, en dribes you out th'oo de chimbly, en rides you ober de roughes' places she kin fin'.
— from The Conjure Woman by Charles W. (Charles Waddell) Chesnutt

The farmhouse was excellently chosen, Merton thought, being the neat, unpretentious abode of honest, hard-working people; but the hotel, some distance off, was not so grand, he thought, as Baird’s new play seemed to demand.
— from Merton of the Movies by Harry Leon Wilson

[Pg 96] SOME DRAWINGS OF WIGGLE No. 22, OUR ARTIST'S IDEA, AND NEW WIGGLE, No. 23.
— from Harper's Young People, December 6, 1881 An Illustrated Weekly by Various

The rules of the verb, above all, were complicated by the exigencies of etiquette to a [172] degree of which no idea can be given in any brief statement….
— from Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation by Lafcadio Hearn

"Oh, it's not because of what my father did or did not do," said Graham impatiently; "nor is it because of what I've done or left undone, nor of what they think I would do or would not do if they kindly permitted me to enlist.
— from The Call of the South by Robert Lee Durham

He would take it—perhaps wrapped in paper, but still inverted, and apparently the most innocent object possible—to the spot selected, deposit it, right side up—which would reverse the inner tube and set up the action—in some quiet corner, behind a door or what not, and make his own escape, while the explosion tore down walls and—if the experiment were lucky—scattered the flesh and bones of unsuspecting people.
— from Chronicles of Martin Hewitt by Arthur Morrison

THE SEA A VAST AQUARIUM No results of investigation in natural history have been more amazing than those that show the marvelous richness of the sea in plant and animal life—not merely at its warm margin, but far out in the centre of what the ancients used to call "the desert of waters"; not only at its surface, but in its profoundest depths, and under the polar ice as well as amid the tropics.
— from Zoölogy: The Science of Animal Life Popular Science Library, Volume XII (of 16), P. F. Collier & Son Company, 1922 by Ernest Ingersoll