No army can be efficient unless it be a unit for action; and the power must come from above, not from below: the President usually delegates his power to the commander-in-chief, and he to the next, and so on down to the lowest actual commander of troops, however small the detachment.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

If a chief imposed a fine, it was paid because the people universally dreaded his ghostly power, and firmly believed that he could inflict calamity and sickness upon such as resisted him.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

These were the words upon whose mystical meaning I had so long pondered, rejecting the explanations of the priesthood, until Death himself resolved for me the secret.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

The main building was large enough to accommodate the minister and three or four members of what he delighted to call "the staff," a military term picked up during his campaigns in China.
— from A Diplomat in Japan The inner history of the critical years in the evolution of Japan when the ports were opened and the monarchy restored, recorded by a diplomatist who took an active part in the events of the time, with an account of his personal experiences during that period by Ernest Mason Satow

Tavia could not attend to the problem under discussion, her mind being centered upon what was going to happen when Miss Olaine got back to her desk.
— from Dorothy Dale's Promise by Margaret Penrose

Now, if that poor unknown devil had ever turned up and——" He stopped short.
— from In and Out by Edgar Franklin

Let him turn the Palace upside down hunting for bombs; harass ladies-in-waiting whose lovers he suspected of being hired assassins; hound musicians into whose instruments he imagined firearms had been built; the emperor's private kitchen would have to be off limits.
— from Ministry of Disturbance by H. Beam Piper

In none of the pueblos within the limits of the provinces under discussion has there been found any evidence of the existence of underground cellars; the rooms that answer such purpose are built on the level of the ground.
— from A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1886-1887, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 3-228 by Victor Mindeleff

Toby thought of the six pea-nuts which he had bought with the penny Uncle Daniel had given him; and, amidst all his homesickness, he could not help wondering if Uncle Daniel ever made himself sick with only six pea-nuts when he was a boy.
— from Harper's Young People, December 14, 1880 An Illustrated Monthly by Various

Nerio had separated himself from the rest of the party unperceived, disguised himself, and gained the tomb before the arrival of Michael, who thus became the murderer of his sister’s lover.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 by Various

This change in proteid material continues with the application of prolonged heat, until the proteid, under dry heat, is converted into a dark brittle mass, wholly insoluble and indigestible.
— from Encyclopedia of Diet: A Treatise on the Food Question, Vol. 3 of 5 by Eugene Christian