If you would appreciate the quality of that childhood, picture to yourself a bare house with an open fire and plenty of books, but little else of comfort.
— from Outlines of English and American Literature An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived by William J. (William Joseph) Long

I have pored over blue books long enough to know that this is a place which earned a most unenviable notoriety during the recent troubles, and is described as "a stronghold of piracy, lawlessness, and disaffection."
— from The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither by Isabella L. (Isabella Lucy) Bird