"Explanation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a personal interview between President Lincoln and ourselves at Washington City, but with this explanation we are ready to meet any person or persons that President Lincoln may appoint at such place ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... of society. We trust that the reader has already perceived that, despite his early circumstances, his manner and address were not such as to unfit him for a lady's love. The comparative refinement of his exterior is easy of explanation, for he possessed a natural and inborn gentility, a quick turn for observation, a ready sense both of the ridiculous and the graceful; and these are materials which are soon and lightly wrought from ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his opponents to attack him on his record, they dodged the trap gingerly, all save Callan. Callan didn't walk, he rushed into it, sending a scathing letter to Perkins on that gentleman's Senatorial record. Perkins' reply and explanation came as a counter blow. The fire was tempered out of Callan's letter. Callan had permitted Perkins to select the fighting ground, and Perkins had ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... their commissions. The duke of Marlborough was so deeply affected by this reflection, that though he suppressed his resentment in the house, he took the first opportunity to send lord Mohun to the earl with a message, importing, that he should be glad to come to an explanation with his lordship about some expressions he had used in that clay's debate; and desiring his company to take the air in the country. The earl understood his meaning; but could not conceal his emotion from the observation of his lady, by whose means ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... religious reasons suggests an explanation of many acts that to an outsider seem inexplicable, not to say unreasonable. The selection of farm sites at considerable distances from the dwelling, the reluctance to leave the region of one's birth, the unwillingness ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... 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
... explanation of the attitudes assumed in hip disease is that given by Koenig. If the patient walks without crutches, as he is usually able to do at an early stage of the disease, the attitude of abduction, eversion, and slight flexion enables him to save the limb to the utmost ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... 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 |
