to rift an oak

In April, 1868, a mob destroyed the Roman Catholic and (English) Protestant churches at Fengshan, in Formosa, the exciting cause being a report that the missionaries were administering a poisonous drug in secret doses to win Formosa converts.

Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius, To cut the head off and then hack the limbs, Like wrath in death and envy afterwards; For Antony is but a limb of Caesar: Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.

Out of the corner of my eye I notice a grizzled old black lady with a chinful of hair wistfully studying the phone in my hand and give her a thumbs-up sign that I'm almost through.