We quietly and deliberately destroyed Atlanta, and all the railroads which the enemy had used to carry on war against us, occupied his State capital, and then captured his commercial capital, which had been so strongly fortified from the sea as to defy approach from that quarter.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

Anna had grown deadly pale and cast down her eyes, while the bridegroom looked from one to the other without understanding the reason for this sudden coldness, and the cook hastily dropped the crust as if it were poisoned.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

I could not go to the play-table for some time afterwards for Lady Lyndon and I had an argument on transubstantiation, which lasted for three hours; in which she was, as usual, victorious, and, in which her companion, the Honourable Miss Flint Skinner, fell asleep; but when, at last, I joined Sir Charles at the casino, he received me with a yell of laughter, as his wont was, and introduced me to all the company as Lady Lyndon’s interesting young convert.
— from Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

This put me in mighty good heart, and then we go to Sir W. Pen, who is come back to-night from Chatham, and did put him into the same condition, and then comforted him.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

And since the serpent coiled about the chalice had dropped his poison in the wine of Cana, analysts were instantly active in the effort to preserve the poison and to pour away the wine.
— from Eugenics and Other Evils by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

The movement was slow and stately, through masses of people on the pavements, under the gaze of other thousands on the housetops; but neither the banners, nor the music, nor the pomp, nor the king himself, though fully exposed to view, amused or deceived the people; for at the right and left of the carriage walked Lugo, Alvarado, Avila, and Leon; next, Olmedo, distinguishable from the native clergy by his shaven crown, and the cross he carried aloft on the shaft of a lance; after him, concluding the procession, one hundred and fifty Spaniards, ready for battle.
— from The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico by Lew Wallace

That Midhat Pasha, who was the author of this scheme, may have had some serious end in view is not impossible; but with the mass of Palace-functionaries at Constantinople it was simply a device for embarrassing the West with its own inventions; and the action of men in power, both great and small, continued after the constitution had come into nominal existence to be exactly what it had been before.
— from A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878 by Charles Alan Fyffe

They were so convinced, and they come here now, for a redemption of this pledge.
— from Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts Relative to the Marshpee Tribe Or, the Pretended Riot Explained by William Apess

In such cases, and in such cases alone, the Church holds that she has at least the right to say that such a theory should not be proclaimed to be true until there is sufficient proof for it to satisfy the scientific world that the point has been demonstrated.
— from Science and Morals and Other Essays by Windle, Bertram Coghill Alan, Sir

Through Bernard’s associations he learned that the United States Signal Corps needed a light-weight, transportable teleprinter for tactical field use, and he asked his father if he could show the progressive stop printer to the Signal Corps at their Chicago headquarters.
— from Printing Telegraphy... A New Era Begins by Edward E. Kleinschmidt

A census was taken by these officers, every five years, of the number of the people, the amount of their fortunes, the number of slaves, &c. After this census had been taken, a sacrifice was made of a sow, a sheep, and a bull—hence called suove-taurilia .
— from Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology For Classical Schools (2nd ed) by Charles K. (Charles Knapp) Dillaway