I purposely kept aloof from politics, would take no part, and remember that on the day of the election in November I was notified that it would be advisable for me to vote for Bell and Everett, but I openly said I would not, and I did not.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

The circuit of the sacred enclosure contained within it a village with a magnificent grove, which also extended beyond it; other sacred enclosures contain the oracle, and what belongs to the worship of the god.
— from The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3) Literally Translated, with Notes by Strabo

There were acquaintances at other gates who had to move aside and let them pass: at the gate of the Home Close there was half the dairy of cows standing one behind the other, extremely slow to understand that their large bodies might be in the way; at the far gate there was the mare holding her head over the bars, and beside her the liver-coloured foal with its head towards its mother's flank, apparently still much embarrassed by its own straddling existence.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

We quarter the cabbage head, and either boil it or steam it.
— from Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome by Apicius

All venison is melancholy, and begets bad blood; a pleasant meat: in great esteem with us (for we have more parks in England than there are in all Europe besides) in our solemn feasts.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

The ‘paglietti’ who abound in Naples only live by cheating, and especially by imposing on strangers.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

If I had even been his friend, well and good: the artful indiscretion of the true friend is intelligible to everybody; but I only saw Pechorin once in my life—on the high-road—and, consequently, I cannot cherish towards him that inexplicable hatred, which, hiding its face under the mask of friendship, awaits but the death or misfortune of the beloved object to burst over its head in a storm of reproaches, admonitions, scoffs and regrets.
— from A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Iurevich Lermontov

Ah Sin does not vote even once; Patrick O’Flannigan does as often as that, and is capable of doing even better if occasion should require.
— from The American Missionary — Volume 34, No. 09, September, 1880 by Various

They were near enough to make it certain that one shot would take deadly effect; but instead of shooting one Indian, I trained the gun so that I might quickly choose among the three.
— from Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail by Howard R. (Howard Roscoe) Driggs

There is hot dry muzzle, elevated temperature, full, accelerated pulse, and excited breathing, impaired or suspended appetite and rumination, with more or less costiveness, suppression of urine, and a lessened yield of milk, which may be entirely suppressed in the affected quarter.
— from Special Report on Diseases of Cattle by Dr. (Benjamin Tilghman) Woodward

[43] According to Smith’s Dict. of Gr. and Roman Antiquities (s.v. lorica ), the Greek ‘thorax’, [61] called στάδιος, from its standing erect by its own stiffness, was originally of leather, before it was constructed of metal.
— from The Evolution of Culture, and Other Essays by Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers

The Canongate and High-street lead up to the esplanade of the Castle from the east, but its other sides are precipitous and inaccessible, a deep valley skirting it on the north, while the south end of the old town fills the other side.
— from Glances at Europe In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. by Horace Greeley