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More "Explanation" Quotes from Famous Books



... explanation. If you can find a better, do: but remember always that it must include an answer to - "How did the stones ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley

... contrast to Miss Lucy, a classical work, executed in collaboration with his friend the Rev. William Young, otherwise Parson Adams. The two friends contemplated a series of translations of all the eleven comedies of Aristophanes; adorned by notes containing "besides a full Explanation of the Author, a compleat History of the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Greeks particularly of the Athenians"; and in June they inaugurated their scheme with the work in question, a translation ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... Alice's first love. Let that secret still be kept; relieve Alice's mind from the apprehension of learning that the man who betrayed her yet lives: he will not live long! I leave time and method of explanation to your own judgment and acuteness. Now for Evelyn." Here Maltravers stated generally the tone of the letter he had ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IX • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... no end to the variety of these apparently capricious phenomena, which some have explained by supposing the colored branches to be affected with partial disease that hastens their maturity: but this can hardly be admitted as the true explanation, as such appearances exist when no other symptoms of malady can ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... which sounded like that of a bullying old barrister, cross-examining a hesitating witness in court; so Nellie, therefore, gathered increased confidence as she caught his glance, to proceed with her explanation ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson

... and soon to be known as the "Auchterarder Creed." At next meeting of Presbytery (February 12, 1717) Mr Craig came back, representing that he was troubled with scruples anent the paper he had subscribed, that he had done so hastily, and that he now wished to explain his explanation. The Presbytery, after hearing him, resolved to declare his license null and void, and in the end he had to appeal to the Assembly. The Assembly of 1717 was somewhat startled at the theological language ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... and we shall get the explanation. If she is still in the town she cannot escape, for my men ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... moral of my story: The thing I had in view was to shew the temper of the world in the whole of this affair.—For you must know, that so long as this explanation would have done the parson credit,—the devil a soul could find it out,—I suppose his enemies would not, and that his friends could not.—But no sooner did he bestir himself in behalf of the midwife, and pay the expences of the ordinary's ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... and therefore repudiates the interpretation which seemed to make all improvement hopeless. Why, then, distinguish the 'check' as something apart from the instinct? If, in any case, we accept this explanation, does not the theory become a 'truism,' or at least a commonplace, inoffensive but hardly instructive? Does it amount to more than the obvious statement that prudence and foresight are desirable ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... want you,' said Rosalie; and calling her sister to the window, she whispered an explanation in her ear; upon which the latter consented ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... a satisfactory explanation," said Mrs. Hewel, tearfully. "Dear Lady Mary, having so inadvertently anticipated Peter's letter, there is only one thing left for me to do. I must at least leave you and Sir Timothy in peace to read it. ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

... and there is a romantic story of Sir William Davenant having requited a like obligation under which he lay to Milton himself. More to his honour this than to have been the offspring of Shakespeare, but one tale is no better authenticated than the other. The simplest explanation is that twenty people were found more hated than Milton: it may also have seemed invidious to persecute a blind man. It is certainly remarkable that the authorities should have failed to find the hiding-place of so recognizable a person, ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett

... my nerves," he declared. "Does it seem likely that Sandy should chuck his luncheon without a word of explanation, come out and get his coat and hat and walk off? And, besides, where was he all the time we were ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the Mussulmans, the cry which resounded through Islam when the same city was taken by the Christians, the spirit which armed England to support French Huguenots and which armed Spain to support French Leaguers, all spring from motives which lie on the surface. Nor need we seek for any explanation but such as lies on the surface for the natural wish for closer union which arose among Germans or Italians who found themselves parted off by purely dynastic arrangements from men who were their countrymen in every thing else. Such a feeling has to strive with the counter-feeling which ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... June 26: "It shall be as you request and the suffrage amendment be third in order as certified by me to the various county clerks." When the tickets were printed, however, it was placed at the end of the list and thus necessarily at the end of the whole ticket, making it a conspicuous mark. The explanation given was that Governor Budd had directed the amendments to be placed on the ballot in the same order as they had appeared in his proclamation. As this had not been issued until July 20, a month after the official request of the ladies ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... old man uppermost in my own mind, even if he were not the one whom Miss Graham had seen on the bridge. This date—strange to say—was the same significant one already noted on the floor of the bungalow—a fact which I felt merited an explanation if any one about me ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green

... upon him. She must have been surprised, but she began without explanation running to him and kissing ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... lumber-jack's rather independent enthusiasm, and the too great familiarity, which loses his respect. He never replied directly to an objection or a request, but listened to it non-committally; and later, without explanation or reasoning, acted as his judgment dictated. Even Shearer, with whom he was in most intimate contact, respected this trait in him. Gradually he came to feel that he was making a way with his men. It was a status, not assured as yet nor even very ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... Fanny," resumed Mrs. Hungerford; "it is not necessary that your explanation should be public, though I am persuaded ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... of the men in advance, for they did not draw rein until a hundred yards beyond the camp. Suddenly the two halted, and half-facing around, waited until Brush and Ruggles joined them. The explanation of the guide showed that his plan had been rightly interpreted ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... may be necessary in explanation of the term communities. I mean by it, smaller communities, or associations. There have been, and still are, many whole nations which might be called vegetable-eating communities; but of such it is not my ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... was." Never in his reading of the Gospel had he lost sight of its beginning, and he read these words, as he had others, in its light. He turned back and read the opening verses of the first chapter to Winifred in explanation of the glory to be given back, and the very fact of its being asked for, as though having been surrendered for the time, shed a light upon passages poorly understood before, which had shown clearly His humanity and His subjection ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock

... large corporate coalitions are commonly ascribed by their promoters, and by sympathetic theoreticians of the ancient line, to economies of production made practicable by a larger scale of production; an explanation which is disingenuous only so far as it needs be. What is more visibly true on looking into the workings of these coalitions in detail is that they are enabled to maintain prices at a profitable, indeed at a strikingly profitable, level by such ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... and to guess he had never known but one way to take anything—which was just as it came. "Oh well, you'll see what you'll make of it," the girl returned; and she would give for the present no further explanation of her somewhat chilling speech. In spite if it however she professed an interest in Mr. Flack's announced undertaking—an interest springing apparently from an interest in the personage himself. The man of wonderments and measurements we have smuggled into ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James

... only the best," Mildred Caniper said, doing her duty by him, and the next moment she caught the full shaft of Miriam's unwary glance which was bright with the conviction that her father's desertion needed no more explanation. ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young

... a veteran of the open. Before leaving the depot, Priest unearthed a number of bundles, "little things that might come in handy," among which was a sack of salt and two empty oak barrels. The latter provoked an inquiry from Joel, and an explanation was forced at ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams

... sketches the main outlines of a complex emotional state which is of fundamental importance in sexual psychology; the second, by bringing together evidence from widely different regions, suggests a tentative explanation of facts that are still imperfectly known; the third attempts to show that even in fields where we assume our knowledge to be adequate a broader view of the phenomena teaches us to suspend judgment and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... command in military affairs should have to be given to the senior auditor, it ought not to be with limitations. Likewise the Audiencia should assume the functions of the governor. Accordingly, I give a statement of that which has happened, as I am looking to the future. An explanation of the said decree is needed to determine whether, when the governor is absent from the city without leaving the jurisdiction, he shall have authority to appoint whomsoever he chooses, or if the decree must necessarily be carried out. The decree states that, in case the governor ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various

... Sylvestre's brother, and try to seem easy and natural. And who knows? Perhaps it would not be impossible to be as a sister to him, now that she was so lonely in the world; to rely upon his friendship, even to ask it as a support, with enough preliminary explanation for him not to accuse her of any after-thought ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti

... shocked, had scarcely power to beg an explanation of these words, and, when she did, her aunt absolutely refused to give it, though, by her severe looks, and half sentences, she appeared anxious to impress Emily with a belief, that she was well informed of some degrading circumstances of her conduct. Conscious innocence ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... the plan; carry him only where it is convenient for you to do so, and not wherever it pleases him. For as soon as he is no longer deceived by the senses, his attempts arise from another cause. This change is remarkable and demands explanation. ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... bone of our bone. But we shut our eyes. I have heard of well-to-do folk in the parish who, giving of their abundance to foreign missions, deny that there is distress here at home. The most charitable explanation of that falsehood is to suppose that across their secluded gardens and into their luxurious rooms, or even to their back-doors, an average English cottager is too proud to go. Yet it is hard to understand ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... sort of warning or explanation, or making any regular preliminary demands, just quit, it upset matters considerably. A little girl waist-maker may appear to be a very insignificant member of the community, but if you multiply her by four thousand, her absence makes ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry

... thing they would do it. He was to hear all that was said and then to give a decision on the community's behalf to the officials who might attend. "So," said the old man to the Tokyo official and the guncho, "if you convince me you have convinced the village." And after two hours' explanation they convinced him! ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... the other hand, is (the power itself being assumed, though not comprehended, ut qui datur, non intelligitur) to unfold or spread it out: ex implicito planum facere. In the present instance, such an explanation would consist in the reduction of the idea of Life to its simplest and most comprehensive form or mode of action; that is, to some characteristic instinct or tendency, evident in all its manifestations, and involved in the idea itself. This assumed as existing in ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... The educated Greeks before had had this same feeling, and had indulged in much speculation as to the moral nature of man. Many educated Romans now turned to the Greek philosophers for some more philosophical explanation of the great mystery of ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... painful to her to do so, but in a much lesser degree than heretofore. She would have to endure certain obvious, though groundless, inferences from which her delicacy would shrink. But she was free to marry him now, and that made all the difference as to the explanation she would have to give. A little courage was all that was needed, just enough to make a small sacrifice for him. She would certainly have that amount. The other had been too ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... "there is—there must be some one near us, a child lost on the moor, or forgotten by its mother. I hear it crying close to us. Say you hear it too. No, no, it is not the old sound. Don't think that. It can't be. There's a natural explanation of this—I'll swear there is. Come ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... agreed that until an answer should be received both parties should observe the truce. The king met the demands for the maintenance of the old faith, the restoration of the liberties of the Church, and the dismissal of ministers like Cromwell by a long explanation and defence of his political and religious policy, and the messengers returned to announce that the Duke of Norfolk was coming for another conference. Many of the leaders argued that the time for peaceful remonstrances ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... the form of the Morris step needs little explanation and description, for the steps are few and simple. With an eye upon the foregoing notes and, it is hoped, a personal memory of the experiment as recommended, the learner will readily grasp ...
— The Morris Book • Cecil J. Sharp

... continental countries specie payments were suspended. In a word, the possibility of war had thrown the delicately poised credit system of the commercial world out of gear; the declaration of war had brought it to a standstill. Into an explanation of its working it is not possible to enter; it is sufficient for our immediate purpose to realise that the foreign exchange machinery by which the supply of commodities from other countries becomes practicable on a large scale was for a time altogether unworkable. London ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... clothes into his trunks. It was twelve o'clock before he went down, and found his brother and Traquair still at the table arranging an itinerary; he surprised them by saying that he too was coming; and without further explanation set to work to eat. James had heard that there were salt-mines in the neighbourhood—his proposal was to start, and halt an hour or so on the road for their inspection; he said: "Everybody'll ask you if you've ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... encouragement to sloth, thriftlessness, etc. One of our chief national faults is our hypocritical desire to suppress the truth on the pretext that to admit it would encourage sin, whereas the real explanation is that we are afraid of the truth. I will not be guilty of that fault. I do like to look a fact in the face without blinking. I am fully persuaded that, per head, there is more of the virtues in the unsuccessful majority than in ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett

... is, Monsieur, that if you insist on maintaining, in this conversation, the relations between a superior and a subordinate, I can give you no further explanation. But if you would be so good as to allow me for a moment to forget your position, if you would agree to talk to me as man to man, I should tell you that this was a fault of youth, regrettable, no doubt, but explained by the profound boredom which exudes from the very paving-stones ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux

... MS. and forgotten to rearrange them when done. Thus the series of pages were reversed; and, so reversed, were set up in type by a matter-of-fact compositor. Mr. Dobell at once accepted this happy explanation; which—as Mr. Quiller Couch points out—has the advantage of being a 'blunder just so natural to Goldsmith as to be almost postulable.' One or two of the variations of Mr. Dobell's 'find'—variations, it should be added, antecedent to the first ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... right, though it lacked but three days of the opening of the college. Already his own university had felt the first wave of the incoming class, a class that would doubtless contain four times as many students as the total membership of St. George's Hall. Instinctively he searched his mind for an explanation of this lack of growth in an institution that numbered nearly one hundred years of life. What was the defect? Where was the remedy? He jumped at once to the conclusion that both were discoverable, and dimly foresaw that the discovery ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... "When husband and wife are of the same surname, their children do not do well and multiply." The prohibited degrees were more distant than among us. It was a horror of incest that had led to the general custom all over Polynesia of exchanging children for adoption. Only this explanation could reconcile it with the almost superstitious love the Polynesian father and mother have for children. Their feeling surpasses the parental affection prevailing in the remainder of the world, yet adoption is a stronger bond than blood. No child ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... a mere invention, but rests on some mythological explanation of natural phenomena, I think more than probable, as it is found all over the world with few variations. As every Aryan branch retains the story, or traces of it, there can be no doubt that the belief in ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould

... Violet, looking seriously into her mother's face, and apparently surprised that she should need any further explanation, "I have told you truly who she is. It is our little snow-image, which Peony and I have been making. Peony will tell you so, as well ...
— The Snow-Image - A Childish Miracle • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... The explanation, though unsatisfactory, was by no means an improbable one, and we thought it better to accept it with a laugh. Bill, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... Through thy favour, O Janardana, I have become competent to discourse on what is beneficial (for the world). Why, however, O holy one, dost thou not thyself discourse to Pandu's son upon all that is good? What explanation hast thou to give in respect of this? Tell me quickly, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... So I dissembled. I adapted my conversation to his capabilities. I learned to talk of lawn tennis, cricket, politics, even cookery. Only on one occasion did I betray myself. With self-abasement I was asking for an explanation of the electric telegraph. He gave me a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 13, 1890 • Various

... impudence of the recruits. They will come tonight!" I did not believe we would. In my freshness I did not believe that any commander of troops would deliberately break up a ball, and humiliate brave soldiers. I thought my explanation to the commander that we had an engagement, would be sufficient, that he would see that it was impossible to hurry matters. We had been to a good deal of expense, and it was our duty, after accepting ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck

... the work was given to the publisher, Beethoven included in the title an admonitory explanation which should have everlasting validity: "Pastoral Symphony: more expression of feeling ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven

... The following explanation of a few of the terms employed to designate parts of Gothic architecture, may, perhaps, prove acceptable to some of your readers. Having felt the need of such assistance in the course of my own reading, &c. &c.—I extracted them from an expensive work on the subject, and have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various

... that both in this play and elsewhere passages occur in Day which seem to have been borrowed or stolen from or by other writers, such as Dekker and Samuel Rowley; but a charitable and not improbable explanation of this has been found in the known fact of his extensive and intricate collaboration. The Isle of Gulls, suggested in a way by the Arcadia, though in general plan also fantastic and, to use a much abused but decidedly convenient word, pastoral, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... entertainment, given by Mr. Keytel, and nearly every one came to it. It was quite a new thing to them and was a great success. There were many miscellaneous pictures followed by the story of Robinson Crusoe, which was much enjoyed. Mr. Keytel worked the lantern, Graham gave the explanation. ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow

... crackers down, sir!" said the captain, sternly. "I am glad your uncle started this subject, for it was time we had an explanation. Do you know that with his interest at the Admiralty and mine you could be entered on board ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn

... creditable explanation that we can give of the Militarist's objection to having this matter discussed at all, is the evident impression that such discussion will discourage measures for self-defence; the Militarist does not believe that a people desiring to understand these things and interested in the development ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell

... great hope rising within her at these words. "Oh, and you believe they are not!" His explanation seemed so simple, so inspiring. And above and beyond that, he was sure. Conviction rang in every word. Had he not, she remembered, staked his career by disagreeing with his father? Yes, and he had been slow to condemn; he had seen their side. It was they who condemned ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... was affectionate, but she had not much penetration even where he was concerned, and she did not grasp how much was at stake. She thought indeed that he should be able to give it up all at once. He was tender with her, but he wished often that she could understand him without explanation on his part. Many a time he took out the little bottle with a reckless hand, but conquered himself. He got most help, perhaps, from the honest, cheerful eye of Medallion and the stumbling timorous affection of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... shine. Real team play is impossible at this time, since in honor each prefers himself. Any scepticism upon this point will be dispelled by listening to the modest aspirants for office when the positions in a football game are being assigned. The explanation for this lies partially in the instinct of rivalry, which arrays individual against individual, all through the early years of life. When the social feeling which welds individuals into groups becomes strong, rivalry will appear between gangs and ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux

... he obtained an explanation of the matter. The youth of the night before was near the door and his companion was now wearing the head phone and tapping the keys of the apparatus, listening and ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... the name of Don Tomas. There was a good deal of mystery about his character and position, nobody being able to explain who he was, whence he came, or what was the source of his influence; and it was rather a curious circumstance that I should learn the explanation of what had so much puzzled me in South America, at a solitary ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... were offered at L5 sterling each to purchasers or to tenants at a renewable lease of ten shillings per annum, but it was not until about the year 1782 that any effectual measures were taken for the settlement of the grant, the explanation probably being that Mr. Simonds and his partners were too much engaged in securing their own lands from forfeiture to pay much attention to those of Col. Kemble. However on the arrival of the Loyalists a number of lots were speedily disposed of and by the efforts of Ward Chipman, ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... the explanation of the history of societies is to be found in the human mind. The world at first is felt rather than thought; this is the condition of savages in the state of nature, who have no political organisation. ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... time of need, whereas, for one, I can safely say that I left her because I was convinced that she never, from the Reformation downwards, had been a true Church. Pray excuse this digression, which I do not mean by way of controversy, but merely of explanation. ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby

... speak French or German fluently and a great number English as well. Then, too, the many and varied races that have united and intermingled to form the Russian race may offer an equally satisfactory explanation. ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... wagon-trail in that empty land, unvisited and unknown, requires explanation. In the first place, it was not really a road. It was a trail, and in places barely that. But, sixteen years before, a road had been cleared through the forest by some people who believed there was oil ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... engaged in plotting, whose system it is to conceal their hand until the decisive moment, the prince kept silence—but not from cowardice. In these crises he was always the soul of the conspiracy; recoiling from no danger and ready to risk his own head; but from a sort of royal dignity he left the explanation of the enterprise to his minister, and contented himself with studying the new instrument ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... long in ascertaining a possible explanation of my depression, for, though we were plainly visible from the bridge of the aero-submarine and to the hundreds of men who swarmed her deck, the ship passed directly above us, not five hundred feet from the water, and ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... cool under the circumstances, proving him to be a man of nerve. Really our hero was more disturbed than his companion. The latter made no answer to the man's declaration, but quietly waited for a further explanation, and ...
— A Successful Shadow - A Detective's Successful Quest • Harlan Page Halsey

... in July, 1861, when Grant entered Missouri, and about a month later the astonishing news reached his headquarters that President Lincoln had appointed him a Brigadier General of Volunteers. The explanation of this unexpected honor was that the Illinois Congressmen had included his name with seven others on a list of possible brigadiers, and the President had appointed four of them without further evidence of their ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill

... in his usual garb and style, was seated in my private room at the hotel. His explanation of his sudden and opportune appearance was simplicity itself, for, finding that he could get away from London, he determined to head me off at the next obvious point of my travels. In the disguise of a workingman he had sat in the cabaret waiting ...
— The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax • Arthur Conan Doyle

... wanted you. Landoire did not come when I touched the bell. I thought it was broken, and ordered him to get it repaired. I suppose the bell-hanger was doing it when you saw him, for you know the wire passes through the cabinet." I was satisfied with this explanation, though I was not deceived, by it. For the sake of appearance he reproved Landoire, who, however, had done nothing more than execute the order he had received. How could he imagine I would submit to such treatment, considering that we had been friends ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... custom to climb down chimneys and enter houses by way of the fireplaces. Perhaps the men who built those houses had outgrown their own love for toys, and were indifferent whether Santa Claus called on their children or not. Whatever the explanation might be, the poor children were forced to bear the burden ...
— The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus • L. Frank Baum

... interruption is caused by a cart coming down to the water's edge; and this object is serviceable as beginning another system of curves leading out of the picture on the right, but so obscurely drawn as not to be easily represented in outline. As it is unnecessary to the explanation of our point here, it has been omitted in the larger diagram, the direction of the curve it begins being indicated by ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... claimed that he had received his ideas from his uncle Laelius. In 1562 he published anonymously an explanation of the first chapter of the Gospel of St. John, which, contained the entire program of Unitarianism. In 1578 he followed an invitation of Blandrata to oppose non-adorantism (the doctrine that Christ must not be adored) as taught ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... agreed to keep the haunting strictly to ourselves, and my impression was, and still is, that I had not left Ikey, when he helped to unload the cart, alone with the women, or any one of them, for one minute. Nevertheless, as I say, the Odd Girl had "seen Eyes" (no other explanation could ever be drawn from her), before nine, and by ten o'clock had had as much vinegar applied to her as would ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens

... will choose between making explanation to the post-office authorities or calling at 3:30 P. m. to-morrow on A. Jones, Ad-Visor, Astor ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... ever dreamed of. To put it together again would have taxed the ingenuity of the same fabricator—no wonder that it was beyond the power of Jacky altogether. But this mattered nothing to the "little darling," as he did not understand his father's learned explanation of the uses of the instrument. To do Mr Sudberry justice, he had not expected that his boy could understand him; but he was aware that if he, Jacky, did not get a compass as well as the rest of them, there would be no peace in the ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... of unnecessary illustrations: it is as great a fault to supply the reader with too many as with too few; having given him at most two, it is better to let him read slowly and think out the rest for himself than to surfeit him with an abundance of explanation. Hood ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler

... she said, coming forward into the half light of the lower deck. "Any explanation of my presence here will be given to the captain, ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... asked Mr. Woodward for an explanation," continued the accountant, "but he has been absent yesterday and today. However, as you will see, no explanation can possibly cover the facts disclosed. There is a clear case ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston

... appealing in it. So he waited till the young lady, turning to him for some response, discovered her error, and disengaged herself with a face of mingled horror and amusement. Even then he had no inspiration. To speak of the mistake in tones of compliment would have been grossly out of place; an explanation was needless; and to her murmured excuses, he could only bow silently. She flitted into the cabin, and he walked away, leaving the Indians to stagger ashore as they might. His arm seemed still to sustain that elastic weight, and ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells

... moment of the desertion of the ship, this fellow had started plundering, and that the captain, in an attempt to preserve discipline, had struck him down with a hatchet or some other heavy weapon. It seemed more probable than any other explanation, and yet it did not entirely satisfy me either. But the ocean is full of mysteries, and we were content to leave the fate of the dead seaman of the Brazilian brig to be added to that long list ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... determined before the world began. Now lest the afflictions that attend the gospel should, by its raging among these Ephesians, darken the glory of these things unto them; therefore he makes here a brief repetition and explanation, to the end they might be supported and made live above them. He also joins thereto a fervent prayer for them, that God would let them see in the spirit and faith, how they, by God and by Christ, are secured ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... of expression employed even in their ordinary tasks. Shrines and crosses are found everywhere—upon inaccessible hill-tops and in the depths of mines. As we ride along the dusty road our eyes rest suddenly upon a cross set by the way-side, apparently without any explanation of its presence at that spot. We turn to our mozo, or servant, who himself is only a more or less intelligent peon, and ask him the reason. "Senor," he will make reply, "may God preserve you: ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... his wife guilty, before she had offered any explanation of the tragic doings at the Villa, and his impulse was to dishonour her before her whole household. The spirit of duplicity, which had haunted their married life, during eighteen random years of misunderstanding, distaste and estrangement, still ruled them both—but ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... sleep the breezes that kissed them. And she thrust out her hands with a gesture of hopelessness and raised a cry of protest. It could not all end thus. But her voice choked beneath the silent trees. Thrice did she implore the Paradou to answer her, but never an explanation fell from its lofty branches, not a leaf seemed to be moved with pity for her. Then she resumed her weary wandering, and felt that she was entering into the fatal sternness of winter. Now that she had ceased to rebelliously ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... manner to the children, on the contrary, he could find no plausible explanation. Her love for them was unmistakable. Yet what was the meaning of the compassionate manner with which she treated them, talked to them, spoke of them, until it nearly drove him frantic? She often treated the healthy, merry older boy as if he was ill and needed comfort, and the pretty infant ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... In further explanation of Major Anderson's removal from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, it is proper to state that after my answer to the South Carolina "commissioners" the War Department received a letter from that gallant officer, dated on the 27th of December, 1860, the day after ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... exactly as the cheap criminal lawyer does today, but with the added advantage that their activities were controlled neither by a proper public sentiment nor by the usual discipline of better colleagues. Unhappily we are not yet far enough removed from just this perversion to need further explanation of the method. Indictments were fought for the reason that the murderer's name was spelled wrong in one letter; because, while the accusation stated that the murderer killed his victim with a pistol, it did not say that it was by the discharge of said pistol; and ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White

... Three thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. No contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance in weakening government. Seas roll, and months pass, between the order and the execution; and the want of a speedy explanation of a single point is enough to defeat a whole system. You have, indeed, winged ministers of vengeance, who carry your bolts in their pounces to the remotest verge of the sea. But there a power steps in ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... dismayed when she saw me there; so she had had no idea that I was on the same track. But nothing could be more convincing than this journey of hers that neither she nor Foster really believed in Olivia's death. That was as clear as day. But what explanation could I give to myself of those letters, of Olivia's above all? Was it possible that she had caused them to be written, and sent to her husband? I could not even admit such a question, without a sharp sense of ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... spirit, when the discovery of fossils began to provoke thought, these were declared to be "models of his works approved or rejected by the great Artificer," "outlines of future creations," "sports of Nature," or "objects placed in the strata to bring to naught human curiosity"; and this kind of explanation lingered on until in our own time an eminent naturalist, in his anxiety to save the literal account in Genesis, has urged that Jehovah tilted and twisted the strata, scattered the fossils through ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... he answered. "I've a feeling from the first, that the lad's innocent enough. But it's a queer thing—and it's terribly against him. And—what possible explanation can there be?" ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher

... the laugh. She did not understand what was in Bessie's mind; what she had said seemed so simple to her that it required no explanation. And now her mind was bent entirely upon the problem of getting Dolly back to her friends, in order that John might turn back to her and forget the American girl whose appeal to him had lain chiefly in the fact that she was so different from the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart

... listening Sweetwater hoped that Dr. Heath would ignore the suggestion thus conveyed and decline the explanation it apparently demanded. But the impression made by the gentleman's good looks had been too strong for this coroner's proverbial caution, and, handing over the slip of a note which had been found among Miss Challoner's effects by her father, he ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... been used for centuries and changed frequently. Their use is too well known to need explanation. They are conveyed by flags, semaphores, balls, guns, lights, rockets, bells, horns, whistles, &c., and half a century since were carried on with incredible ability. It may be also observed that signal officers of those days became subsequently the elite of the navy; signal-officer ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... Tony's first word of explanation was instantly submerged beneath a chorus of voices; the excited crowd surged around Terry, as voluble of gesture as ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson

... became still more attached to his favourite. His discontented spirit made him irritable under every disappointment, and vindictive towards those by whom his wishes were opposed: he detested alike explanation and remonstrance, and from De Luynes he never encountered either the one or the other. Under the remonstrances of his mother he became sullen; to the arrogant assumption of the Princes and the Marechal d'Ancre he opposed an apathetic silence ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... took herself off without giving any further explanation, without even telling her husband of the vague plans she was forming. Beneath her crushing contempt he had grown calm again. Why should he spoil his life of egotistical pleasure by resisting that ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... talked of little else but the coming run. But this especial season she had not appeared amongst her fellow-kind. The fleet and the canneries knew nothing of her, and when I enquired of her tribes-people they would reply without explanation, "She not ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson

... 'thy Help' of the preposition, and is somewhat lax in rendering the 'for' of the second clause by the neutral 'but.' It is probably better to read, as the Revised Version, with most modern interpreters, 'Thou art against Me, against thy Help,' and to find in the second clause the explanation, or analysis, of the destruction announced in the first. So we have here the wail of the parental love of God over the ruin which Israel has brought on itself, and that parental love is setting forth Israel's true condition, in the hope that they may discern it. Thus, even the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... dialect As may the minds of listless men affect: It seems a novelty, and yet contains Nothing but sound and honest gospel strains. Wouldst thou divert thyself from melancholy? Wouldst thou be pleasant, yet be far from folly? Wouldst thou read riddles, and their explanation? Or else be drowned in thy contemplation? Dost thou love picking meat? Or wouldst thou see A man in the clouds, and hear him speak to thee? Wouldst thou be in a dream, and yet not sleep? Or wouldst thou in a moment laugh and weep? Wouldest thou lose thyself and catch no ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan

... of the ram, properly cleaned, to his wife, who was also well skilled in this art, for her examination; when, having for a short time examined the secret marks, she smiled, and threw the oracle down on the table. Her husband, dissembling, earnestly demanded the cause of her smiling, and the explanation of the matter. Overcome by his entreaties, she answered: "The man to whose fold this ram belongs, has an adulterous wife, at this time pregnant by the commission of incest with his own grandson." The husband, ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... Bancroft pronounces this "fact to be indisputable," though he acknowledges that "the testimony respecting this expedition is confused and difficult of explanation." Sebastian Cabot wrote "A Discourse of Navigation," in which the entrance of the strait leading into Hudson's Bay was laid down with great precision "on a card, drawn by his own hand."—Ortelius, Map of America in Theatrum Orbis Terrarum; Eden and Willis, p. 223; Sir H. ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... on the party in the Legislature which was denominated Federal was very considerable. Believing that the existing differences between the two nations still admitted of explanation and adjustment, they strenuously opposed all measures which were irritating in their tendency or which might be construed into a dereliction of the neutral character they were desirous of maintaining, but they gave all their ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... the other of the bystanders, doubtful at first whether or not they were all in a conspiracy to mock her. Her good sense told her that this was wellnigh impossible, and she finally came to the conclusion that sheer ignorance was the only explanation. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... of these shapeless unspoken doubts," Gilbert said to himself. "I will see John Saltram to-day, and there shall be an explanation between us. I will be his dupe and fool no longer. I will ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... of Lance and Cup. Well known as Life Symbols. The Samurai. Four Symbols also preserved as Suits of the Tarot. Origin of Tarot discussed. Probably reached Europe from the East. Use of the Symbols in Magic. Probable explanation of these various appearances to be found in fact that associated group were at one time symbols of a Fertility cult. Further ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... from him some facts as to the history of the villa was received with a grave and frigid repellence that baffled us; and we were forced to say addio with our hunger for some explanation of the events of ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram

... with a resolution of the previous day the Rev. R. R. Gurley, Secretary of the American Colonization Society, was invited to address the convention. He endeavored to offer an acceptable explanation of the Society, and to advocate its principles. But the Colored people, almost to a man, were opposed to colonization; and most of the anti-slavery societies regarded colonization as impracticable and hurtful to the cause of emancipation. William Lloyd ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... character of the leaves made them susceptible to magnetic influence; but as rosin is a non-conductor of electricity, of course this hypothesis likewise proved untenable. At last Dr. Asa Gray brought forward the only sensible explanation: inasmuch as both surfaces of the rosin-weed leaf are essentially alike, there being very nearly as many stomata on the upper side as on the under, both surfaces are equally sensitive to sunlight; therefore the leaf twists ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... neither complaint nor explanation. All she wished was to quit the asylum as soon as she was restored to health, and prove to her husband, by her future conduct, the sincerity of her reformation. When she became convalescent, by the advice of Doctor Beddington, she walked in a garden appropriated for the exercise of the more harmless ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat

... Devanne was informed of the pillage of his castle, he said to himself: It was Velmont who did it, and Velmont is Arsene Lupin. That theory explained everything, and there was no other plausible explanation. And yet the idea seemed preposterous. It was ridiculous to suppose that Velmont was anyone else than Velmont, the famous artist, and club-fellow of his cousin d'Estevan. So, when the captain of the gendarmes arrived to investigate the ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc

... inform their children on this subject, generally begin too late. Familiar conversational explanation, begun as soon as there is reason to apprehend danger, and judiciously pursued, is perhaps the most ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott

... I thought he would never go through with it," said an old woman half to herself, who was sitting near me. I involuntarily looked my desire of explanation. ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... The 16th century had commenced before France began to acquire anatomical distinction in the names of Jacques Dubois, Jean Fernel and Charles Etienne; and even these celebrated teachers were less solicitous in the personal study of the animal body than in the faithful explanation of the anatomical writings of Galen. The infancy of the French school had to contend with other difficulties. The small portion of knowledge which had been hitherto diffused in the country was so inadequate to eradicate the prejudices of ignorance, that it was either difficult ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... becoming a good third baseman. The New York team of 1887 demonstrated the odd fact that a man who seemed entirely unable to play second base, could yet play third in good style, while another who was but an average third baseman could take care of second equal to any one. The explanation probably lies in the fact that the positions require men of different temperaments. At second base a player of nervous tendency grows anxious waiting for the ball to come, and by the time it reaches him is unable to get it in his hands, while at third base, where ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward

... controversy between the two Houses of Congress over the first section of the Tenure-of-Office Bill while that bill was pending, and to avoid defeat on the first vote taken, which was inevitable on that Article—and also to explain, so far as any explanation is possible, the zig-zag method of conducting the ballot—skipping all the first ten Articles and going down to the bottom of the list for the first vote, with the promise of then going back to the first Article and continuing to the end. but, instead, skipping that for the second ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross

... 'but surely that young Prince was murdered by his uncle in the Tower!'—'It is supposed so,' said the engaging young man; 'and my brother was killed in that gloomy prison; but I escaped—it don't matter how, at present—and have been wandering about the world for seven long years.' This explanation being quite satisfactory to numbers of the Irish people, they began again to shout and to hurrah, and to drink his health, and to make the noisy and thirsty demonstrations all over again. And the big chieftain in Dublin began ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... the canoe might remain unnoticed at present, it was impossible that anybody could pass out of the cove without seeing her. In such a case, there would be nothing for it but a race—a race for which Erica and Oddo held themselves prepared, without any mutual explanation; for they dared not speak. The faintest whisper would have crept over the smooth water to the ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau

... clear again. An eternal enigma herself, woman is eternally in love with enigmas. Like a child, she loves any one who will show her the 'works' of existence, and she is still in that inquisitive stage when one imagines that the inside of a doll will afford explanation of its fascinating exterior. It is no use telling her that analysis can never explain the mystery of synthesis. Like an American humourist, she still ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... should have time to prepare myself; I believe it, for I shall be worn to death by melancholy." M. de Choiseul appeared much affected; he praised my zeal, and said that he had already perceived some indications of what I told him; that he would not mention my name, but would try to draw from her an explanation. I don't know what he said to her; but, from that time, she was much more calm. One day, but long afterwards, Madame said to M. de Gontaut, "I am generally thought to have great influence, but if it were not for M. de Choiseul, I should not be able to obtain a ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe

... then east again, all along the under-side of Europe. Then south again, God knows how far.' The explanation did not enlighten Bessie in the least, but she held her tongue and looked to Dick's patch till ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... hand upon it, and saying,—'With your leave, my dear, I'll have a look at this,' forcibly wrested it from me, and, drawing a chair to the table, composedly sat down to examine it: turning back leaf after leaf to find an explanation of what he had read. Unluckily for me, he was more sober that night than he usually ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... they never returned. Morley's influence over his wife must have been greater even than any of us thought to induce her to desert her father and Hephzy without even a written word of explanation or farewell. It is possible that she did write and that her husband destroyed the letter. I am as sure as Hephzy is that Ardelia did not know what Morley had done. But, at all events, they never came back to Bayport and within the week the truth became known. Morley had speculated, had lost and ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... that Catholic, feudal mode of thought, of that knight-errantry and priestdom, which were being inculcated through literature and the pictorial arts. . . . For when the artists of the Middle Ages were recommended as models . . . the only explanation of their superiority that could be given was that these men believed in that which they depicted. . . . Hence the artists who were honest in their devotion to art, and who sought to imitate the pious distortions of those miraculous pictures, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... This explanation is necessary, because the stock criticism of Poe's poetry condemns it as vague, indefinite, and devoid of thought or ethical content. These are precisely its limitations, but hardly its faults, since the poet attained with marvelous art the very effects ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... round with scowling face at his companions. "Yes; what was that?" they echoed, and then made a rush for the manipulator of the black box, which they evidently took for some instrument of the black art. The photographer stood serenely innocent, and winked at the zaptieh to give the proper explanation. He was equal to the occasion. "That," said he, "is an instrument for taking time by the sun." At this the box went the round, each one gazing intently into the lens, then scratching his head, and casting a bewildered look ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... background as silent as a bronze statute until the little ceremony was over. If she was impressed by the strangeness of it all, she gave no sign. For so many of the customs of her husband's alien race were strange to her that she had long ago ceased to wonder or desire any explanation. Now at a sign from Mordecai, she took away the bowl of water, and, filling a plate with the savoury stew, took it to the corner of the hut, here, crouched upon the blankets, she ate her supper, quite content to watch the white strangers from ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger

... an explanation," cried Dale, laughing. "Somebody. Yes, you must be right. Somebody with feet and hands, like ourselves. Can you ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... others in, in the hope that I might be of some assistance," he ventured to explain to her in a low murmur, feeling that at last here was some one to whom an explanation of his presence in this Romish house was due. "I hope they won't ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... "crores of gold." Dow says, in a note at the bottom of the page, "ten millions," which is the explanation of the word "crore." Mr. Gibbon says rashly that the sum offered by the Brahmins was ten millions sterling. Note to Mill's India, vol. ii. p. 222. Col. Briggs's translation is "a quantity of gold." The treasure found in the temple, "perhaps in the image," according to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... the position of adduction, inversion, and greater flexion. Similarly, if he is confined to bed, he lies on the sound side, and the affected limb sinks by gravity so as to lie over the normal one in the position of adduction, inversion, and flexion. Koenig's explanation accords with the fact that in the exceptional cases which begin with adduction and inversion we have usually to deal with a severe type of the disease, associated with grave osseous lesions—precisely those cases in which the patient is compelled ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... than in the history of the relations of the Europeans and the American Indians. The Phoenician factory, it is true, fostered the development of the Mediterranean civilization, while in America the trading post exploited the natives. The explanation of this difference is to be sought partly in race differences, partly in the greater gulf that separated the civilization of the European from the civilization of the American Indian as compared with that which parted the early Greeks and the Phoenicians. But the study of the destructive ...
— The Character and Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin • Frederick Jackson Turner

... his life's happiness and, incidentally, to save him from bankruptcy. But gradually the poison begins to work, supplemented as it is by the suspicions and discontent of his subjects. At last he summons up courage to ask an explanation—to beg her to assure him that the charges against her are as ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... Lord Lidhurst had proposed it, he had never thought of accepting the honour; and that he should, in all probability, not appear at the ball, because he was anxious to stay as much as possible with Lord Lidhurst, whose indisposition increased instead of abating. Lord Glistonbury, after this explanation, came in high spirits, and with much satisfaction in his countenance and manner, said he was happy to hear that his Sigismunda was to have Mr. Vivian for her Tancred. So far all was prosperous to ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... fell he was dismayed by his weariness, and could not understand it. For a little while he ransacked his dulled wits to find the explanation, and when he had fixed Prebol for the night, with medicine, water, and a lamp handy to matches, he told ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears

... was fully explained, Mr. Dubranfaut's laboratory is connected with these works, and having inspected the working part of the establishment Mr. G. then took me there, and introduced me to that gentleman, with whom I passed the remainder of the afternoon, receiving a full explanation of his new process, which is this:—a solution of hydrate of barytes is made in boiling water—the saccharine solution to be treated is heated to the same degree, and the two mixed together in the proportions of 46 parts of hydrate of barytes to every ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... that of St. Mark is found only in the statement that Cappello was a procurator of the church: there is no word touching either on the faith or hope of the deceased; and the only sentence which alludes to supernatural powers at all, alludes to them under the heathen name of fates, in its explanation of what the Admiral Cappello would have accomplished, "nisi fata Christianis ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... her that he did not expect a reply; but now he tortured himself with the belief that silence on her part could have only one explanation. Either she pitied him, and would write to prevent his despair, or she was indignant, and would tell him so, or else she held him in such contempt that she would not trouble herself to take the ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... generally believed that an old hunter named Shipman, who lived in Cooperstown during Fenimore Cooper's boyhood, suggested to the novelist the picturesque character of Leather-Stocking. The persistence of this tradition requires some explanation, for it is not strikingly confirmed by what Cooper himself had to say of the matter. In the preface of the Leather-Stocking Tales, written after the series was complete, he said: "The author has often been asked if he had any original in his mind for ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... more wearisome than these? Would all Chiavari assembled on Wimbledon make up a drearier discord than a ministerial explanation? In all your experience of bad music, do you know anything to equal a Foreign Office despatch? and we are without a remedy against these. Bring up John Bright to-morrow for incessantly annoying the neighbourhood ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... exhibited by the Galapagos Islands, which contain little groups of plants and animals peculiar to themselves, but most nearly allied to those of South America, have not hitherto received any, even a conjectural explanation. The Galapagos are a volcanic group of high antiquity and have probably never been more closely connected with the continent than they ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... with two wooden armchairs, and a bit of carpet over the flags in the centre, and a rug before the fire. Margaret did not inquire why it smelt of tobacco, nor did Mrs Protheroe think it necessary to give any explanation why she went up herself at half-past seven to answer the bell at the area; nor did she say anything then of the office messenger from Somerset House, who often found this little room convenient for his evening pipe. ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... and after two or three thousand years found themselves in possession of a language and of ideas which they could trace back historically to a certain date, but which, at that date, seemed, as it were, fallen from the sky, without any explanation of their origin and previous growth, what would they say if suddenly the existence of an English language and literature were revealed to them, such as they existed in the eighteenth century—explaining all ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller

... would include all animate and inanimate existences. The word adi following implies heaven and all unseen entities. Avyaktamuktakesa is a periphrasis for jiva; avyaktam aspashtam yathasyattatha muktah bhanti tirohitam nitya-muktatwama sya is the explanation offered. This is, no doubt correct. The sense then is that all this has flowed from Maheswara and exists for being enjoyed ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... forces and that her mobilization was therefore directed against us also. The Russian Government, who knew from our repeated statements what mobilization on our frontiers meant, did not notify us of this mobilization, nor did they even offer any explanation. It was not until the afternoon of July 31 that the emperor received a telegram from the czar in which he guaranteed that his army would not assume a provocative attitude toward us. But mobilization on our frontiers had been in full swing since the night of July 30-31, and France, though ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... aesthetic feeling in its relation to sensations and ideas which must be taken into account in any explanation; its objectification in them and the universality of this connection. Expression is embodiment. We find gayety in the colors of the painting, joy in the musical tones, happiness in the pictured face, ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... single in some of the photographs and double in others. Investigation proved that the lines were doubled at regular intervals of about two days, and that they appeared single in the interim. The explanation was not far to seek. It is known that all stars which are approaching us have their spectral lines shifted, by virtue of their motion of approach, toward the violet end of the spectrum, and that, for ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss

... between them. Rawdon muttered some excuses about an engagement, squeezing hard the timid little hand which his sister-in-law reached out to him. Her imploring eyes could read nothing but calamity in his face, but he went away without another word. Nor did Sir Pitt vouchsafe her any explanation. The children came up to salute him, and he kissed them in his usual frigid manner. The mother took both of them close to herself, and held a hand of each of them as they knelt down to prayers, which Sir Pitt read to them, and to the servants in their Sunday suits ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... deeper scarlet than usual, he judged that he was far from sober, and did not doubt but that the next morning, when he came to the use of his reason, he would be sensible of his injustice, and apologize for his box of the ear. But no apology coming all day, Franklin at last ventured to request an explanation, or rather, to ask what he had best do ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... circumstances which had at first escaped his observation, he thought I had not treated her well. He wished to know whether he was right in inferring that I meant to cast a reproach upon her memory, and a disrespect upon her family. It was due to the uniform he wore, to demand this explanation. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... had instead boldly resurrendered himself, declaring the obligation no longer binding, and notifying Hamilton of his intention to go away with the purpose of returning and destroying him and his command. Clark laughed heartily when this explanation brought out Beverley's tender interest in Alice; but he sympathized cordially; for he himself knew what ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... was his practice never to accept the obvious but to search diligently for the hidden motive behind every deed, good or bad, Little Calamity gave considerable thought to the matter and at last believed that he had arrived at the only possible explanation of the Kid's conduct. "Boss," said he that evening, "did you bet any ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan

... son, the truthful explanation of original sin. It will teach you your duty, which is, to keep away from women. To follow this bent is fatal. All children born by those means are ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... a symptom in many nervous diseases, organic and functional, and its presence is often difficult of explanation. The following are recent examples: Kustermann reports a case of acute myelitis in which there was profuse perspiration above the level of the girdle-sensation and none at all below. Sharkey reports a case ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... for the different states. The density map should always be compared with the proportionate map to get a correct view of the actual situation. If this is not done, confused ideas will result. On the density maps if a county has a much heavier shading than surrounding ones, a city is probably the explanation. The reverse may be true on the proportionate maps where the lighter shading may indicate the presence of numbers of whites in some city, as in Montgomery County, Alabama, ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey

... things—a lot of them going into the country and buying deserted farms. It was wonderful what they did with this land upon which the old stock New Englander had not been able to live. But of course in part explanation of this, you must remember that these New England villages have long been drained of their best. In many cases only the maim, the halt, and the blind are left and these stand no more chance against the modern pioneer than they would against ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton

... sufficed of explanation: joy took the place of despair, exultation of tears, and the minstrel, Anselm, heard, with feelings of emotion difficult to describe, that the wretched man whom he had saved from starvation was the ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... was through the sense of hearing. He had been deceived so many times that he suspected his fancy was playing with him again, but the faint tip, tip continued until such explanation was amiss. ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... forgiveness; to the lighted mind and the lighted soul; and then to the uprooting of evil and the planting of good in the soil of his life. And so through Saul Kane we see John Masefield and have an explanation of that subtle yet revolutionary change in his life and his poetry, pregnant with illustrations that, to quote another English poet, Noyes, "Would make the ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger

... Wordsworth, The Prelude; Cowper, Lines on his Mother's Picture; Swinburne, Ode to his Mother; J. G. Holland, Kathrina; William Vaughan Moody, The Daguerreotype; Anna Hempstead Branch, Her Words.] A little poem by Sara Teasdale, The Mother of a Poet, gives a poetical explanation of this type of woman, in whom all the turbulence of the poet's spiritual inheritance is hushed before it is transmitted to him. Such a mother as Byron's, while she appeals to certain novelists as a means of intensifying the poet's adversities, [Footnote: See H. E. Rives, The Castaway (1904); ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... are convinced that its theological notions are fit only to confuse our ideas; they change every thing into mystery: they explain difficult things by things that are impossible. Is it a satisfactory explanation of phenomena, to attribute them to unknown agents, to invisible powers, to immaterial causes? Does the human mind receive much light by being referred to the depths of the treasures of divine wisdom, to which, we are repeatedly told, it is vain ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... upon it. In that case the remedy for the waste is superior adjustment of the present system to itself. On the other hand, if the waste is the result of friction generated within the system, there must be some change in the system before it can be eliminated. The latter explanation seems to tally with the facts more thoroughly than does the former. Certainly, the unrest, bitterness and general sabotage which are encountered throughout the industrial order would point to the conclusion that the economic system is generating its ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing

... history of Italian literature which shall deal with the evolution of the Arcadian drama still remains to be written. The treatment of it in Symonds' Renaissance is decidedly inadequate, and even as far as it goes not altogether satisfactory. The explanation of this is, that the most important works fall outside his period; the Aminta and the Pastor fido are admirably treated in the volumes dealing with the counter-reformation, but these are of the nature of an appendix, and formed no part of his original plan. Tiraboschi's ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... so kind! She has not mentioned his name, but she sighed so deeply when she saw my pale and sunken countenance, that I threw myself into her arms and cried like a child. We had no need of other explanation: those tears spoke at once my confession and my repentance. No letter from him for several days! Surely he is not ill! how miserable that ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... trusted me hitherto, so trust me still, and wait for an explanation of my peculiar behaviour in going away without bidding you good-by, till the proper time comes—which must come one day, for our master said, more than once, that there was nothing covered which should not be revealed, neither hid that should not be known. I feel sure therefore, of being allowed ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... by later growth. The convex pileus usually becomes plane or expanded as it grows. If the convexity is greater it is said to be campanulate (Fig. 245), conical hemispherical, etc., terms which need no explanation. The pileus is umbilicate when it has an abrupt, sharp depression at the center (Fig. 241), infundibuliform when the margin is much higher than the center, so that the cap resembles a funnel (Fig. 244), and depressed ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson

... adjusting them on his nose as steadily as he could, said gravely, "This must be looked to!" He continued to stare at the wash of water during the remainder of our perilous and rough transit without vouchsafing any explanation of his meaning, but after we had safely landed he replaced his spectacles, first in their huge shagreen case, and next in his pocket, with an air which seemed to say, "The danger is now ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... appear, they are well aware that its utility must depend upon a variety of small circumstances, to which writers of theories often neglect to advert. At the hazard of being thought tedious, those must be minute in explanation who desire to be generally useful. An old French writer,[77] more remarkable for originality of thought, than for the graces of style, was once reproached by a friend with the frequent repetitions which were to be found in his works. "Name ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... unexplained the feature of the Angiosperms which chiefly concerns us. This is that most of them shed the whole of their leaves periodically, as the winter approaches. No such trees had yet been known on the earth. All trees hitherto had been evergreen, and we need a specific and adequate explanation why the earth is now covered, in the northern region, with forests of trees which show naked boughs and branches during a part ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe

... rivers by which he came up, the land through which he passed, ages and ages since, have been all swept away; and he has never found his way back to his native salt-water, but lives on in a strange land, degraded in form, dwindling in numbers, and now fast dying out. The explanation may be strange: but it is the only one which I can offer to explain the fact—which is itself much more strange—of the burbot being found ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... the root of the fundamental difference between Military and Naval strategy, and affords the explanation of much strategical error and confusion, which has arisen from applying the principles of land warfare to the sea without allowing for the antagonistic conditions of the communications and operations against ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett

... item. Eager to get results, we plunged into our work with the valor of ignorance, the result being that Drew was shot down in one of his first encounters, escaping with his life by one of those more than miracles for which there is no explanation. That I did not fare as badly or worse is due solely to the indulgence of that godfather of ours, already mentioned, who watched over my first flights while ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall

... dreams, which is saying a good deal. Perhaps lunatics are only people who are perpetually asleep and dreaming with one part of their brains while the other parts are awake. They certainly behave as if that were the matter, and it seems a rational explanation of ordinary insanity, curable or incurable. Did you ever talk to a lunatic? On the subject on which he is insane he thinks and talks as you do when you are dreaming; but he may be quite awake and sensible ...
— The Little City Of Hope - A Christmas Story • F. Marion Crawford

... were all going in the same direction and Abel, as soon as he saw who approached, left his mother, went over a convenient gate upon their right and hastened up a hedge. Thus he always avoided his father, and when blamed for so doing, would silently endure the blame without explanation or any offer of excuse. Raymond had seen him thus escape on more than one occasion, and the incident, clashing at this moment upon his own thoughts, prompted him to a definite and unusual thing. The opportunity was good; Sabina walked alone, and if she rebuffed ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... came and went, you might have taken them for a company of ants moving camp. But my uncle never wholly recovered from the shock of their first freight, to see man by man cross the court with a stout coffin on his back and above each coffin a pack of straw: nor was he content with Fra Basilio's explanation that the brethren slept in these coffins by rule and ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... age than man, because she generally becomes settled and automatic much more rapidly than the latter. No doubt these phenomena are partly due to the defective mental education of women, but this explanation is insufficient. Here again we must distinguish the phylogenetic disposition of woman from the effects of education during ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... upon a point of honor. Cannot Mr. Cilley assign some reason for not receiving at Mr. Graves's hands Colonel Webb's communication, or make some disclaimer which will relive Mr. Graves from his position?" Mr. Jones replied: "While the challenge is impending, Mr. Cilley can make no explanation." Mr. Wise said: "The exchange of shots suspends the challenge, and the challenge is suspended for explanation." Mr. Jones thereupon went to Mr. Cilley, and after ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... cried, "this has gone too far not to have a full explanation. Has—has Mr. Millard done aught to betray the United States? For ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham

... them from the left hand. For this reason I have placed the first desk against the pier, the reader's seat being westward of it. A difficulty now arises. It is stated in the Accounts that ten banchi are paid for, but all the catalogues mention only nine. I suggest that the explanation is to be found in the fact that ten pieces of furniture do occur between the pier and the wall, the first of which is a shelf and desk, and the last a seat only. This arrangement is to be seen at Cesena and in the Medicean Library at Florence. The room being 34 ft. ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark

... in endorsing the proceedings of this court, and my treatment of Afghans generally, were so adversely and severely criticized by party newspapers and periodicals, and by members of the Opposition in the House of Commons, that I was called upon for an explanation of my conduct, which was submitted and read in both Houses of Parliament by the Secretary of State for India, Viscount Cranbrook, and the Under-Secretary of State for India, the Hon. E. Stanhope. In the Parliamentary records of February, 1880, ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... appear to me. My poor little, quiet Miny, with his headache and 'epuisements, and Cocchio, and coverlid of cygnet's down, that had no dealings but with a little spy-abb'e at Rome, a civil whisper with Count Lorenzi,(947) or an explanation on some of Goldsworthy's absurdities, or with Richcourt about some sbirri,(948) that had insolently passed through the street in which the King of Great Britain's arms condescended to hang! Bless me! how he is changed, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... here interrupted and confounded, so that one rank would be collected from the name of the occupation, and another rank, much higher, from the splendor of the domestic mnage. I warn the reader, therefore, (or, rather, my explanation has already warned him,) that he is not to infer, from any casual indications of luxury or elegance, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... to the Factbook as new entities. In addition, the European Union has been included as an "Other" entity at the end of the listing. The European Union continues to accrue more nation-like characteristics for itself and so a separate listing was deemed appropriate. A fuller explanation may be found under the European ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... urged upon me by counsel for the airline in their closing submissions, namely, that if the alteration was intentional then it was not accompanied by the normal realignment of the aircraft's heading so as to join up with the new waypoint. As I say, I think this latter omission is capable of explanation but it is a material fact in favour of the Navigation Section which I cannot disregard, and it is the single reason why I refrain from making a positive finding that the alteration of the waypoint ...
— Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster • Sir Owen Woodhouse, R. B. Cooke, Ivor L. M. Richardson, Duncan

... in assigning of reasons and explaining the manner of operation. These are not at that open defiance with their senses, with the former: they can endure to hearken to their information a little more patiently; but will by no means admit of their reports in the explanation of things; nor be prevailed on by probabilities, which would convince them that things are not brought about just after the same manner that they have decreed within themselves that they are. Would it not be an ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke

... to a charge of sixpence for the catalogue, visitors were required to pay one shilling for admission to the exhibition. In explanation of this charge, the following curious advertisement preceded the list of pictures: 'As the present exhibition is a part of the institution of an academy supported by royal munificence, the public may naturally expect the liberty of ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... cried Gabriel. Of course, there was no time for explanation, and ten minutes more saw us at the foot of the mountain. "Not a word, but do as I do," again said my companion. We followed his example by unsaddling our animals and taking off the bridles, with which we whipped them. The poor things, though tired, galloped to the south, as if they ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... reproaching the supposed Sebastian for disowning his friend, as long as he was within hearing. When Viola heard herself called Sebastian, though the stranger was taken away too hastily for her to ask an explanation, she conjectured that this seeming mystery might arise from her being mistaken for her brother; and she began to cherish hopes that it was her brother whose life this man said he had preserved. And so indeed it was. The ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... she looked intently at Jack, as if determined to put him on his honor without further explanation. He took her hand and assisted her into the car. As he did so she felt the assurance that Jack Kimball ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose

... would be better to postpone that explanation," says he; "but I sympathize with your state of mind, Shorty. However, what's done is done, and meanwhile the Baron ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... thirty-five years younger than both the parents; and one or two instances of numerous families where marriage did not take place till the age of forty. Physiologists have long observed this singular fact, and it has sometimes been explained by saying, if indeed it be an explanation, that Nature, in these cases, unwilling to be cheated out of her rights, endeavors to make up in energy and activity what has ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott

... German that she had been able to go on reading it by herself, and thus in a few years she had become familiar with some of the masterpieces of its literature. But the sisters were most astonished when they found her reading Italian one day—Dante, too, which was too hard for them. The explanation of this was that for some years the Catholic priest in her native village had been a good-natured Tuscan who had been glad to exchange Italian for ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}

... Miss Philadelphia to her house, would not think of sending her invitation without also leaving her card. Good form demands that a visit be paid before issuing a first invitation. Sometimes a note of explanation is sent asking that the formality be waived, but it is never disregarded, except in the case of an invitation from an older lady to a young girl. Mrs. Worldly, for instance, who has known Jim Smartlington always, might, instead of calling on Mary Smith, to ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... guest right for three days and if I return after this, ye are free to spill my blood.' Then we passed the night as before; and when the time of departure drew near, I bethought me that Al Maamun would assuredly question me nor would ever be content save with a full explanation: so I said to her, 'I see thee to be of those who delight in singing. Now I have a cousin, the son of my father's brother, who is fairer than I in face and higher of rank and better of breeding; and he is the most intimate of Allah's creatures with Isaac.' ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... his daughter she stated that her father had left a great many papers, most of which were still in her possession, and on receiving from the interpreter an explanation of our purpose she readily gave permission to examine and make selections from them on condition that the matter should be kept secret from outsiders. A day was appointed for visiting her, and on arriving we found her living in a comfortable ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... which made my heart give a sudden leap and set it throbbing light and quick in my throat, for the belief came to me that the stranger was none other than Danvers Carmichael, though any reasonable explanation for his being abroad alone at such an hour and going toward Stair was far from clear to me. My first thought was to call out to him, but a bit of caution held me back, and upon thinking it over ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane

... place, and finding the spectacle repeated, the curiosity of the humane Caliph, was excited to learn the cause of such treatment. Mr. Rarey had not yet been born; but the Arab knows, and always has known, how to subdue and to control his steed with equal skill, without resort to severity. The explanation of this afterwards appears in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... author of the letter was a certain Henry Goring, a gentleman known to be in attendance upon the last of the Stuarts. The preface gives a commonplace explanation of how the letter fell into the hands of the editor through a similarity of names. Apparently the pamphlet was thought seditious because it eulogized the Young Chevalier, hinting how advantageous it would be to have him on the throne. As the secret journey progresses, the ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... infer that the lawfulness of teaching any religious formulary in a rate school would thus depend exclusively on local circumstances, and would accordingly be so decided by the Education Department in case of dispute, I was informed in explanation that 'their lordships'' letter was intended to convey to me that no general rule, beyond that stated in the first paragraph of their letter, could at present be laid down by them; and that their decision in each particular case must depend on ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley

... of a theoretical formulation, but a situation forced upon us by the logic of events. It is as logical, however, and as irrevocable, as tho produced by deductive reasoning. An explanation of a statement made earlier in the paper as to the relative teaching abilities of elementary, secondary, and higher teachers, can now be seen in the periods of development ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... seeking too carelessly for shade and, according to Cash's record, "getting it in his mouth, tongue, feet & all over body." Bud liked it—all except the blistering heat and the "side-winders" and other rattlers. He did not bother with trying to formulate any explanation of why he liked it. It may have been picturesque, though picturesqueness of that sort is better appreciated when it is seen through the dim radiance of memory that blurs sordid details. Certainly it was not adventurous, as men have ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... him work himself into a passion, until he declared that he had other reasons more important than the ten shillings a week for wishing to have Mr. Lennox staying in the house. This statement caused Kate just a pang of uneasiness, and she begged for an explanation. Partly to reward her for having backed him up in the discussion, and through a wish to parade his own far-seeing views, he declared that Mr. Lennox might be of great use to them in their little business if he were so inclined. Kate could ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore

... then he followed its strokes with a corresponding motion of his head; then his left arm moved to the same tune; and finally, he deliberately placed his fist upon the anvil, and in a second it was smitten to a jelly. The only explanation he could afford was that he felt an impulse to do it; that he knew he should be disabled; that he saw all the consequences in a misty kind of manner; but that he still felt a power within, above sense and reason—a morbid impulse, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... Chris, but he had slipped away at the first words of the explanation. Soon he reappeared with an armful of dry wood. His face was still ashen, but ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... for a couple of nights. Jocelyn himself entertained the coroner. He seemed particularly anxious that nothing in the way of scandal should appear, though he really had no cause for anxiety, since a man who takes the risk of scrambling down a mountain-side with his gun loaded, supplies an obvious explanation ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young

... impossible places, screamed out their shrill war-alarm, and made the valley ring with their wild outcries. It was war, and war alone, and we were too deep down in the valley to make our voices heard in explanation. Fortunately, they had burned off the long grass to a great extent. It only here and there hid them from us. Selecting an open spot, we spent a night regarded by all around us as slave-hunters, but were undisturbed, though ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... to take a surly pleasure in giving answers that were like riddles. But Margaret saw that he would like to be asked for the explanation. ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... not looking beyond their own [9] system or their own time, drew on their wits for an explanation which would show that the law as they found it was reasonable. Gaius said that it was unjust that the fault of children or slaves should be a source of loss to their parents or owners beyond their own bodies, and Ulpian reasoned that a fortiori this was true of things ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

... working having thus been given, I wish now to lay before you an explanation of the method of working and bringing the coal to the surface. It may not be uninteresting to mention how many men are employed in this work, as the number is very large. Coal was not formerly excavated by ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness

... is unnecessary to state, the guardians of this child find it expedient to intrust it to others to bring up. The good account which they have heard of you has led them to select you for that charge. No further explanation is necessary, except that it is by no means their intention to make this a service of charity. They, therefore, inclose a certificate of deposit on the Broadway Bank of five hundred dollars, the ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... exhibits the human feeling and sentiment intertwined with it.(348) He regards the Hebrew idea of election as merely the theocratic mode of representing their own good success in that region of circumstances which was not in human power.(349) His explanation of miracles has been already stated: the course of nature seems to him to be fixed and immutable; and he argues that interference with its course is not a greater proof of Providence than a ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... corrected by editors; and it is evident that there would be little trouble in altering all such lines wherever they occur: or they may be explained away, as for instance in the second cited, 'fire' doubtless is sometimes pronounced as a dissyllable. Yet to attempt correction or explanation wherever such lines occur would be ill-spent labour. A very impressive line in the ...
— The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] - Introduction and Publisher's Advertising • William Shakespeare

... fact he seemed determined to drown himself in the well, saying that he was dishonoured. While we were trying to console him, the Mudalyar came forward, caught hold of his hands, and besought him to sit down and calmly listen to his explanation, assuring him that he was not a liar, and that his copy was perfectly accurate. But the astrologer would not be satisfied; he supposed that all this was said simply to console him; and cursed himself and his fate most horribly. However, in a few minutes ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... City, on July 4, over the city hall, county court-house, theatre, cooperative store, Deseret News office, tithing office, and President Taylor's residence, to show the Mormon opinion that the Edmunds law had destroyed liberty. When a committee of non-Mormon citizens called at the city hall for an explanation of this display, the city marshal said that it was "a whim of his," and the mayor ordered the flag raised to its ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... While this explanation was being made, the brigantine had already got steerage way upon her, aided by the steady application of the sweeps, and her sharp bow was headed off shore. Nothing on the sea, unless it were a steamer, could hold speed with these fly-aways, which were built for ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... bestows. He who has had raptures will, I am sure, understand it well; to him who has not had that experience, it must appear folly. And, indeed, it may well be so; for if a person like myself should speak of a matter of this kind, and give any explanation at all of that for the description of which no words ever can possibly be found, it is not to be wondered at that I may ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... stooped to survey as much of my person as possible—my thick and clumsy shoes, my rough stockings, the old, cord breeches that disfigured me, hideous in themselves and rendered more so by numerous darns and ill-contrived patches. Here then, as it seemed, was the explanation for the brutality, surliness and odious familiarity I had been subjected to; for my voice and manner being out of all keeping with my appearance, I must naturally become an object of suspicion, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... came on, he reverted to the past. "I have a tale to relate," he said, "and much explanation to give concerning the past; perhaps you can assist me to curtail it. Do you remember your father? I had never the happiness of seeing him, but his name is one of my earliest recollections: he stands written in my mind's tablets as the type of all that was gallant, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... out, on reaching the coast was treacherously attacked at a disadvantage. Ample opportunity was given for explanation and apology for the insult. Neither came. A force was then landed. After an arduous march over a rugged and difficult country, the forts from which the outrages had been committed were reduced by a gallant assault and were destroyed. Having thus ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... this unlooked-for explanation of the rupture between Milvain and his friend. That they had not seen each other for some months she knew from Jasper himself but no definite cause had ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... the idea of any one's faith being troubled by a fact of which the explanation is so obvious, but in truth my brother was seriously and painfully shocked. The teacher to whom he applied for a solution of the difficulty was not a man of any real power, and reported my brother to the rector for having ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... not been out of town," he replied, "I would have come to see you sooner." And this honest explanation I accepted. ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... place I must change the order of words, and set active for passive and again-ward. And in some place I must set a reason for a word and tell what it meaneth. But for all such changing the meaning shall stand and not be changed."[43] An explanation like ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos

... more ample explanation will have to be given of the word 'supervision'; and I thought that this was just one of the points on which we could carry on ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet

... added a few words of explanation. "The senator who educated Rosie proved a villain. When she acted as Juliet at the Capitol, fashionable society gave hearty approval of her rare abilities. Rosie's genius, like a shooting star, flashed across the sky and then ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... the publication of the book and the imprisonment of the Iron Mask! Everything was now explained: Louis XIV., foreseeing that the secret might be noised abroad, had built and named that castle so as to offer the quidnuncs a natural explanation of the ancient mystery. The Hollow Needle! A castle with pointed bell-turrets standing on the bank of the Creuse and belonging to the King. People would at once think that they had the key to the riddle and ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... mountains of New Hampshire, to see the grand ranges disappearing behind a thick curtain of smoke, which, daily growing denser, at last almost completely blots out Nature's pictures, so there is no use in undertaking excursions for the sake of fine views. The explanation is invariably "fires in the Canada woods"; and here, in this "cool, sequestered vale", we have an opportunity of seeing forest fires before we take our departure for other fields of observation. After sunset we are ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase

... the beautiful painted glass windows, which were brought partly from Saint-Maur, Saint-Etienne-des-Tonneliers, and Saint-Martin-sur-Renelle. The following is an explanation: In the first chapel, a Transfiguration, to the left on entering. In the next chapel a holy Family. This chapel contains also a beautiful small marble statue of Saint-Louis, and a bas-relief, by Jadoulle, representing Tobit burying the dead. The firsts chapel to the right, ...
— Rouen, It's History and Monuments - A Guide to Strangers • Theodore Licquet

... "The explanation was simple. The whim had suddenly seized her to go to New Orleans; and she had gone without leave-taking or warning. It was no unusual incident in her wandering life, and her speedy return was due only to the fact that she found the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... or to benefit unborn posterity; and yet knows himself for a piece of unsurpassed fragility and the creature of a few days. His sight, which conducts him, which takes notice of the farthest stars, which is miraculous in every way and a thing defying explanation or belief, is yet lodged in a piece of jelly, and can be extinguished with a touch. His heart, which all through life so indomitably, so athletically labours, is but a capsule, and may be stopped with a pin. His whole body, for all its savage energies, its leaping and ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... mysteriously forth into the dark courtyard, took him by the button, and laid a demonstrative finger on his chest; but there his ideas or his courage failed him; he would shufflingly excuse himself and return to his position by the fire without a word of explanation. 'The good man was growing old,' said Mr. Archer with a suspicion of a shrug. But the good man had his idea, and even when he was alone the name of Mr. Archer fell from his lips continually in the course ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... out of the gate with a pack at his back and a rifle on his shoulder; others were gathering about him, shaking him by the hand, as if taking leave. I thought it a strange thing that a man should set out alone and on foot for the prairie. I soon got an explanation. Perrault—this, if I recollect right was the Canadian's name—had quarreled with the bourgeois, and the fort was too hot to hold him. Bordeaux, inflated with his transient authority, had abused him, and received a blow in return. The men then sprang at each other, and grappled ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... taste," and to admit that the savage has "as much right to his taste," as we have. The more I think of it, the more I am amazed at this unjust and idiotic discrimination against the esthetic faculty—a discrimination for which I can find no other explanation than the fact already referred to, that most men of science know so much less about matters of beauty than about everything else in the world. They labor under the delusion that the sense of beauty is one of the earliest products of mental evolution, whereas ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... conditions she liked, all but the going away; she could not tell to what sort of confinement that might amount. He flies off wholly, and denies all treaty upon her least scruple, and will not be asked the explanation of what he has proposed: so that she bends like a slave for a little empire over him; and to purchase the vanity of retaining him, suffers herself to be absolutely undone. She submits; and that very day she had leave ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... instinctively hostile to changes and progress. 5. THE MORALITY OF CROWDS. The morality of crowds, according to the suggestions under which they act, may be much lower or much higher than that of the individuals composing them—Explanation and examples— Crowds rarely guided by those considerations of interest which are most often the exclusive motives of the isolated individual—The moralising role ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon

... thoughts to David Drennen and yet they came naturally as an old knowledge set aside, half forgotten, ultimately vividly recalled. He loved Ygerne; she must love him. Therein alone could lie the explanation of his presence here and of hers. When he had quitted his dugout this evening there had been more than determination in his heart; there had ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... dissembled. I adapted my conversation to his capabilities. I learned to talk of lawn tennis, cricket, politics, even cookery. Only on one occasion did I betray myself. With self-abasement I was asking for an explanation of the electric telegraph. He gave me ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 13, 1890 • Various

... clothes to the laundry before ten o'clock on Saturdays,'' while in another place a Chinese servant left the morning after a card party at which much money had changed hands, stating to his mistress in explanation, "Me Clistian; me no stay in heathen house!'' The Chinese Christian does not content himself with church attendance once a week when the weather is pleasant or an attractive theme is announced. He does not find himself in vigorous health for an evening entertainment, ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... of dominant and mysterious ideas, we shall do well to consider the forms that the idea of fatality has taken, and for ever is taking: for fatality even to-day still provides the supreme explanation for all that we cannot explain; and it is to fatality still that the thoughts of the ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... any department afford any explanation of this wonder we call nature, or aid the mind in arriving at correct notions concerning it. To copy here and there a line or a trait is no explanation; but to translate nature into another language—to bridge it to us, to repeat in some sort the act of creation ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... true explanation," replied the priest placidly; "but you said that nobody could connect the four things. The true tale, of course, is something much more humdrum. Glengyle had found, or thought he had found, precious stones on his estate. Somebody had bamboozled him with those ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... this way, as if it were something requiring explanation that a bird should sing? You seem to have forgotten that everybody sings, or almost everybody. Think of the insects,—the bees and the crickets and the locusts, to say nothing of your intimate friends, the mosquitoes! ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey

... kind of you, Mrs. Cardew, to call me Catharine, but I have no explanation. I could not give one to save my life, unless ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford

... have become as common as binary stars. Alternating personalities turned up constantly, even among one's friends. The facts seemed certain, or at least as certain as other facts; all they needed was explanation. ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... amanuensis; he had quarrelled with Cibber; it is natural to suppose that he told his story in his own way; and it is certain that he was not "a very sturdy moralist." [The quotation is from Johnson's Works, ix. 116.] This explanation appears to me very satisfactory. It is, however, to be observed, that the story told by Johnson does not rest solely upon my record of his conversation; for he himself has published it in his Life of Hammond [ib. viii. 90], where he says, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... off again, and he recovered, though but slowly, and when he came to be a little better, he told me I had given him a mortal wound with my tongue, and he had only one thing to ask before he desired an explanation. I interrupted him, and told him I was sorry I had gone so far, since I saw what disorder it put him into, but I desired him not to talk to me of explanations, for that would ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... understand, were wrapped up in a small bag or case of wash-leather) the diamonds which Mrs. Engledew had entrusted to him, showed them to Dimambro, and asked his opinion as to how they could best be reset. It is not material to this explanation to repeat what Dimambro said on that matter—suffice it to say that Dimambro gave an expert opinion, that Mr. Herapath once more pocketed the diamonds, and soon afterwards left the House of Commons for his estate ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher

... was illuminated with tenderness. He put down his pen and stared in front of him. What he wanted and what she wanted was a holiday. They had been too long here in this place. That was what he needed, that was the explanation of his headaches, of his tempers, ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... nearest thing which they could even twist or twine into "the inimy" was a poor old man with a pair of "arm-oil" crutches. Jimmy having been severely questioned as to the sincerity of his motive in "hevin' t'sowgers aht," the poor old fellow whom they had fallen upon came in for a turn; but the only explanation he could give was that they had been holding a Ranters' camp-meeting, and that he, not being able to get away as rapidly as he could have wished had been left behind. Now they did make a fool of Jim o'th' Kiers, they ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... much he, and therefore his party, suspected, and now she had reasons for wishing him away. Not daring to show symptoms of restlessness, she offered him the chance of recovering himself on the crutches of an explanation. He accepted the assistance, praising his wits for their sprightly divination, and went through a long-winded statement of his views for the welfare of Italy, quoting his favourite Berni frequently, and forcing the occasion for that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... to order "drinks" for everybody, insists upon the party taking "consommations"—he loves saying this word—at his expense. The Countess at first objects, as also does Madame METTERBRUN; but, on PULLER'S explaining that he belongs to "The Two-with-you Society," they accept this explanation as utterly unintelligible but perfectly satisfactory; and so, accepting PULLER'S al fresco hospitality, we form a cheerful group round two tables put together for our accommodation. PULLER'S hospitality has taken ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various

... modification of the claws of the front tarsi, which are very strongly developed, and differ somewhat in shape in the different species. It has usually been supposed that these claws were for the purpose of grasping prey, but Professor Mik offers the more satisfactory explanation that they are for the purpose of grasping the Cicadellids, and holding them ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various

... was of the reality of the amazing sight he had just witnessed through his binoculars, yet for a long moment he remained silent and staring, utterly at a loss for any rational explanation of the remarkable apparition. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... his disposal in black and white. He had placed in the little box with the breastpin a piece of paper on which he had given expression to his feelings in verse. Hitherto it had remained unnoticed and fluttered to the ground. Picking it up, he introduced his suit, after a brief explanation, by reading aloud the lines which he had composed in Brussels to accompany his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... "stay a bit. No use of such questions as that but to produce ill-feeling. The captain has said too much or he has said too little, and I'm bound to say that I require an explanation of his words. You don't, you say, like this ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the office at 3. Loch, with whom I had some conversation at Guildhall, told me he had heard the explanation Melville intended to give of the matter of prime cost, and he thought it satisfactory. Wortley said Arbuthnot by no means thought it satisfactory, but was to put the questions. Wortley said Arbuthnot told him the Duke had read the evidence and was himself satisfied ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)

... ever since the opening of the war been trying to induce the Government to build some iron-clads after a pattern designed by Ericsson, and which afterwards became known as the "monitor" pattern. Their labors at Washington met with little success. After a long explanation of the plan before the wise authorities of the Naval Board, Capt. Ericsson was calmly dismissed with the remark, "It resembles nothing in the heavens above, or the earth beneath, or the waters under the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... lately read a short paper to the French academy on the species of fish called pogonias, in which he particularly adverted to the noise by which they make themselves heard, even under water. However difficult the explanation of this phenomenon, there can be no doubt of its existence; the evidence of it adduced by M. Cuvier being perfectly satisfactory. The silurus, a large and ravenous fish, which abounds in the Danube, gives daily proof ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various

... how to do this. There were questions she was eager to ask, for his strange, exuberant happiness under the circumstances were hard to understand, even after Dr. Ackley's explanation. She had never seen religion produce any such results. Uncle Lusthah seemed to her very sincere and greatly sustained in his faith, but he had always been to her a sorrowful, plaintive figure, mourning for lost kindred whom slavery had scattered. Like the ancient prophets ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... in its transmission through the solution of sulphate of quinine, the power of producing the blue fluorescent light. Sir David Brewster also worked at the subject; but to Professor Stokes we are indebted not only for its expansion, but for its full and final explanation. ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... of the American diplomat at a private dinner is the truest defence and explanation of America's delay in coming into the war that I remember to have read. The scene is set in the high light of excitement, and the rhetorical phrasing of the speech would do credit ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... he looked again at the circular pit with its brilliantly tinted sides. The answer perplexed him, and he waited anxiously for an explanation. ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer

... that a sufficient explanation?" asked Miriam, with a smile from which the sculptor involuntarily turned away his eyes. "Does ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... "Lepine, that is the explanation! It is not for war they prepare; it is in terror they withdraw their fleets into mid-ocean and throw cordons of soldiers about their forts! At this moment, in spite of their bold front, the Emperor ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... in every sense chief division of the work, the necessities for explanation and allowance cease altogether. The thirty-seven plays of the ordinary Shakesperian canon comprise the greatest, the most varied, the most perfect work yet done by any man in literature; and what is more, the ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... him," was Ike's explanation to The Kid, nodding his head toward Shock. "So I'd advise that you hitch on to the preacher here for a period. Give him the job of windin' ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor

... brief analysis may show the ends which Sloyd is destined to accomplish, and upon the value of those ends no explanation is required. Habits of industry, patience and perseverance are inculcated. The child learns to know his own power and how best to use it. His tastes are cultivated and he learns to love work and understand the true dignity of labour. Such results are ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll

... case-from his tunic, and extracted another cigarette. 'It seems a bit funny, doesn't it? but I don't pretend to offer an explanation. By the way, will he be well enough to go back to duty when ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking

... the operation are there painted are far too rosy. The practitioner who has before him the task of satisfying a client as to what will or what will not be the results of an operation he has suggested will do well to weigh each side of the argument carefully, and endeavour in his explanation ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks









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