"Explain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of a literature irreparably attacked in its organism, weakened by the age of ideas, overworn by the excess of syntax, sensible only of the curiosity which fevers sick people, but nevertheless hastening to explain everything in its decline, desirous of repairing all the omissions of its youth, to bequeath all the most subtle souvenirs of its suffering on its deathbed, is incarnate in Mallarmé in most consummate and ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... the good of humanity, he is expected to make some prefatory apology. He is supposed to address a public who all of a sudden have become intensely moral and extremely sensitive in their modesty. Why things are thus I cannot explain. They are so, nevertheless. From the time that the celebrated Astruc wrote his treatise on female diseases, near the end of the seventeenth century,—who felt compelled by the extreme modesty of the people in this particular—but who, outside of medicine, were about as virtuous as the ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... let him explain the inner workings of his device—and killed him. My orders were to destroy the machine. I disobeyed them. Utilizing the machine to make good my escape, I left Hungary and returned to the United States. The citation which you have seen ...
— Rex Ex Machina • Frederic Max
... "Let me explain," said Barry. "Mr. Rowland and his daughter are on leave from their own hospital which they have set up in France. Miss Vincent is from the base ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... explain by and by, my dear," he said. "Follow me, now, and learn another lesson in Fernley geography; I was keeping it for a surprise some day, but never mind. Where is ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... as the only food, in the following sense. The cow gives milk. The milk gives butter. The butter is used in Homa. The Homa is the cause of the clouds. The clouds give rain. The rain makes the seed to sprout forth and produce food. Nilakantha endeavours to explain this in a spiritual sense. There is however, no need of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... wandered instantly to other thoughts. It was natural that he should exercise a fascination proportionally strong upon women. He begged, you will remember, from women only, and was never refused. Without wishing to explain away the charity of those who helped him, I cannot but fancy he may have owed a little to his handsome face, and to that quick, responsive nature, formed for love, which speaks eloquently through all disguises, and can stamp an impression in ten minutes' talk or an ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Here he omitted, there he expanded. He enriched "Orosius" by a sketch of the new geographical discoveries in the North. He gave a West-Saxon form to his selections from Baeda. In one place he stops to explain his theory of government, his wish for a thicker population, his conception of national welfare as consisting in a due balance of the priest, the thegn, and the churl. The mention of Nero spurs him to an outbreak on the abuses ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... harness. Another had been attended to by a burying-party, who had thrown some earth over him but his last bed-clothes were too short, and his legs stuck out stark and stiff from beneath the gravel coverlet. It was a great pity that we had no intelligent guide to explain to us the position of that portion of the two armies which fought over this ground. There was a shallow trench before we came to the cornfield, too narrow for a road, as I should think, too elevated for a water-course, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... important defences of ports, mines, and dirigible torpedoes. All the details of the story were suggestive: the 'small local company'; the 'engineer from Bremen' (who, I wondered, was he?); the few shares held by von Brning, enough to explain his visits; the stores and gear coming from ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... Buddhism and Christianity, while abolishing animal sacrifices, were ready to sanction old religious customs: both countenanced the performance before an image or altar of a ritual including incense, flowers, lights and singing. This recognition of old and widespread rites goes far to explain the extraordinary similarity of Buddhist services in Tibet and Japan (both of which derived their ritual ultimately from India) to Roman Catholic ceremonial. Yet when all allowance is made for similar ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... comprising our tennis squad all knew me well and felt at perfect liberty to ask me as many questions as they could think up. I was besieged with requests to explain why Jones missed a forehand drive down the side-line, or Smith couldn't serve well, or Brown failed to hit the ball at all. Frankly, I did not know, but I answered them something at the moment and said to myself it was time I learned some fundamentals ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... monks! He had to stop to explain what a monk was, and when he described the solitude of the ancient monastery, and its walled gardens full of flowers and old simples to be used for healing, and the wise monks walking in the silence and the sun, the boys stared a little helplessly, but still ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... flour annually, and this quantity would require 5,625,000 bushels of wheat. Add to this the large quantity of seed required for sowing an increased breadth of land, and the portion of the crop kept for domestic use, and the result will be sufficient to explain the reason why so little wheat has been exported from Michigan this season. There are about 50,000 families in this State who depend on agriculture for subsistence; all of these had suffered more or less inconvenience from failure of the wheat crop, and the high price of flour for the last ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... Newcastle is still capable of these transports of enthusiasm. I rather think that the local patriotism which distinguished so many of our cities fifty years ago is now, in these days of incessant intercommunication, merged in the larger patriotism of the nation. Be this as it may, I must explain that my dissertation on the manner in which Newcastle received the British Association in 1863 is merely intended to account for the fact that, as a result of that meeting, I suffered from a serious illness, brought on by anxiety and overwork. I found that reporting, when ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... cunning to defend her, and revealed by her deeds the mischance which she durst not speak plainly out. For she took the royal robes off her husband and dressed him in filthy garments, bringing him other signs of grief also, to explain the cause of her mourning; for the ancients were wont to use such things in the performance of obsequies, bearing witness by their garb to the bitterness of their sorrow. Then said Germ: "Dost thou declare to me the death of Kanute?" (2) And Thyra said: "That is proclaimed by ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... can just condescend. I say, Phoebe, I have a great curiosity to understand the Zend. I wish you would explain ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... explain, I will illustrate the suggestions by an example. Let us suppose that the human time-binding capacities or energies in the organic chemistry correspond to radium in the inorganic chemistry; being of course of different dimensions and of absolutely different character. ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... congress, and was subsequently a senator. He died at Madrid on the 14th of January 1901. Long before his death he had become alienated from the advanced school of Catalan nationalists, and endeavoured to explain away the severe criticism of Castile in which his Historia de Cataluna y de la Corona de Aragon (1860-1863) abounds. This work, like his Historia politica y literaria de los trovadores (1878-1879), is inaccurate, partial and unscientific; but both books are attractively written and have ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... drawn on board, the custom-house officers, much to my disquiet, began to search my trunk. I had nothing with me which was dutiable, but my grandfather's presentation sword was hidden in the trunk and its presence there and prospective use would be difficult to explain. It was accordingly with a feeling of satisfaction that I noticed on a building on the end of the pier the sign of our consulate and the American flag, and that a young man, evidently an American, was hurrying from it toward the ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... partly to converse on this plan with Washington, and later with the cabinet of Versailles, that he insisted upon having a conference with the general- in-chief, and returning to France before the winter. He was even summoned to explain himself on this subject with a committee from the congress, who adopted the plan in principle, but decided that General Washington should be first consulted. The latter expressed his objections in a public ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... Welcome, Vikings and Norsemen! Blow, northern blasts, the invaders' keels to Scotland's shore! Randolph and other heroes will be on the beach to give the foemen a welcome! His lordship has no sooner disappeared behind the trees of the forest, but Lady Randolph begins to explain to her confidante the circumstances of her early life. The fact was, she had made a private marriage, and what would the confidante say, if, in early youth, she, Lady Randolph, had lost a husband? In the cold bosom of ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Bobbie was quick to explain. "We're some of the boys," he said. "There's about fifty more of us, and pretty near fifty girls, too, over in ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... Castlewood; and leaving him, for twelve hours, to consider this astounding news (so the poor dying lord said), disappeared with his papers in the mysterious way in which he came. Esmond knew how, well enough: by that window from which he had seen the Father issue:—but there was no need to explain to my poor lord, only to gather from his parting lips the words which he would soon be able to ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... manner seem to me an essential adjunct to the personality of a teacher of little children: courtesy, repose, vitality. Repose and vitality explain themselves; by courtesy I specifically do not mean the habit of mind which contents itself with drilling the children in "Good-mornings" and in hat-liftings. I mean the attitude of mind which recognises in the youngest, commonest child the potential dignity, majesty, ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... great difficulty in speaking to him. Having said the usual things he was very obviously expecting me to go, but I did not want him to begin by thinking that I was a saint, though why I imagined that he was in any danger of thinking so I cannot explain. He had, however, said so much about work and the great care I must take in avoiding men who distracted me from my duty, that I thought I had better tell him that I ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... peculiarities to the devil with so much mental fervour as to forget Schomberg's existence, till he grabbed my arm urgently. "Well, you may think and think till every hair of your head falls off, captain; but you can't explain it in any ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... thirty minutes he stormed a fort manned by seven hundred, and captured the entire garrison killing five hundred and taking one hundred prisoners while he sustained a loss of only twenty killed and sixty wounded. It is unnecessary to explain that the bulk of the slain were colored soldiers. Making due allowance for the heat of battle, history can considerately veil closer scrutiny into the realities wrapped in the exaggerated boast ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... for saving labour; but I see I need not explain anything to you; you can think of nothing but your thirty pounds a year; so, Mr. What's-your-name, draw up the agreement ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... chemical agent by which the stomach dissolves the food, is probably obtained from muriate of soda, which is common salt contained in the blood. Isn't that interesting? And it says that pleasure—not excitement, you know—is the result of the action of living organs, and it goes on to explain it. Shall I read ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... inconsiderable bathing suits. He could scarcely follow the chain of events, so illogical were they, and indeed made little effort to do so. He felt far above the audience that cackled at these dreadful buffooneries. One subtitle read: "I hate to kill him—murder is so hard to explain." ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... influences of ignorance, curiosity and the claims of self. No wholesome counter-balance of knowledge is given, no attempt is made to invest the subject with dignity or to place it in relation to the welfare of others and to universal law. Mr. Lyttleton contends that this alone can explain the peculiarly brutal attitude towards "outcast" women which is a sustained cruelty to be discerned in no other relation of English life. To quote him again: "But when the victims of man's cruelty are not birds or beasts but our own countrywomen, ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... commonest and most popular of mascots. Therefore the marines would usually disdain any one of these. If any of them should happen to be accepted as a mascot, there would be some wonderful story to explain why it was the most remarkable monkey, goat, or lion cub ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... the arches were added afterwards would explain why the westernmost of them cuts off the top of ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
... Lize is old and wrinkled, for I've seen her, but all the same I can't realize it. That heavy-set woman down there is not Lize. My Lize is slim and straight. This woman whom you know has stolen her name and face, that's all. I can't explain exactly what I feel, but Lee Virginia means more ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... have chosen satin-wood and tapestry instead of willow and cretonne. The same way about Cristina. If Ethan and I are to save and earn this lovely place, as you offered, we cannot afford more than one maid. You understand what I am trying to explain, don't you?" ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... the distribution of pens for the next day; at other times they remain during the hour, attending to such exercises as the superintendent may plan. The design, however, and nature of this whole arrangement I shall explain ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... Peterson was Number One—Shanklin most of all. Slavens passed his hand with tentative pressure over the soiled bandage which bound his brow, feeling with finger and thumb along the dark stain which traced what it hid from sight. Shanklin! That would explain some things, many things. Perhaps ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... blanching comes the cold-dip. For the benefit of new canning and drying enthusiasts, let me explain that by "cold-dip" we mean plunging the product immediately into a pan of very cold water or holding it under the cold-water faucet until the product is thoroughly cooled. Do not let the product stand in cold water, as it would ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... the church, the Capuchin stood lost in thought; and to explain his reverie, we must throw some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... next few days in a state of restlessness, because Aggy said he'd explain when the news would do us good. One thing made the cow-punch ready for gun practice right off, Mr. Troy was a slippery cuss, and he had rather ki-boshed Jack Hunter's girl. He hung around her, fetched and carried, nailed up greens for her and all ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... usually are who judge from general principles. It was not, indeed, to be credited," continued Mrs. Hungerford, "that a man of his character and understanding should act merely from caprice. What the nature of the duty may be, whether relating to his duty as a public or a private man, he did not explain—the latter, I fear: I apprehend some engagement, that will prevent his return to England. In this case he has done most honourably, at whatever risk or pain to himself, to avoid any attempt to engage your affections, my dear; and you have, in these trying ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... me explain by examples. My party's in power in the city, and it's goin' to undertake a lot of public improvements. Well, I'm tipped off, say, that they're going to lay out a new park ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt
... big event of that show day was the temple! Of course it was, for Solomon had made it the biggest and finest thing in the kingdom. Even if he hadn't told her she would have seen that. And there was but one way to explain it: Solomon's God, to whom the temple had been built, was the secret of Solomon's glory and power. That was the impression ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... is difficult to explain the bold introduction of so important an insertion, unless we attribute it to the over-wisdom of some modern printer, who regarded Edward III. as the only excellent and redoubted ...
— Iron Making in the Olden Times - as instanced in the Ancient Mines, Forges, and Furnaces of The Forest of Dean • H. G. Nicholls
... from which issued the sacred fire. Immediately under the frame on the ground was placed a knife and a bundle of splints, which were kept in readiness for the infliction of the cruelties which I shall endeavor to explain. ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... time, and in its first stages lies within the reach of our observation. The portion of the sentence, moreover, which is inflicted in our sight, comes through the regular operation of law. The disuse of any personal faculty, surely, though gradually, takes the faculty away. Those who explain away the positive doctrines and facts of the Gospel, delight in representing that God does everything by the instrumentality of law. It is superstition, they say, to suppose that he will put forth his hand to arrest the mighty machinery of nature, with a view ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... in defending his children, as he paternally called Rose and Blanche, and yet the apprehensions of the marshal with regard to the coldness of his daughters, were unfortunately justified by appearances. As he had told his father, unable to explain the sad, and almost trembling embarrassment, which his daughters felt in his presence, he sought in vain for the cause of what he termed their indifference. Now reproaching himself bitterly for not concealing from them his grief at the death of their mother, he feared ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Milton, placed the expanded volume on the back of her head; and forthwith, slowly and with difficulty, as a child might, she read two lines of blank verse, which I and all immediately verified! Now, I state a fact which I cannot explain; for I myself had not seen the lines, so my own brain was not read: neither could Mr. Vernon nor any one else have been concerned in the matter. I believe this sort of thing to be well-known to spiritualists, and they may, for aught I know, refer it to angelic or necromantic ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... to lose it again," said her father, and then went on hurriedly to explain. "The guard says he saw a trunk here only a little while ago that answers our description, but now it's gone. He remembers seeing a suspicious looking man hanging around, and it's barely possible that the ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... been our purpose to literally explain, in detail, the methods of applying vibratory motion in the treatment of paralysis for popular experiment, since to be successful one should become an expert, not only in this mechanical treatment, but also in the diagnosis of the various forms of paralysis, as well as familiar with their causes, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... was also positive that Winn had been on board the ill-fated craft. He was certain that Reward died at his post of duty, though of Don Blossom's fate he knew nothing. How he himself had escaped he could not explain, for he remembered nothing after the shock ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... made to explain the inexplicable victory of the coup d'etat in a hundred ways. A true balance has been struck between all possible resistances, and they are neutralized one by the other: the people were afraid of the bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie were afraid of the people;—the ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... I am guilty of quite arbitrarily discovering a reason to explain the mystery of Baron Bjelke's sudden change from the devoted friend and servant of Gustavus III of Sweden into his most bitter enemy. That speculation is quite indefensible, although affording a possible ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... Before we explain this, kindly understand that we are speaking only of those arts which require hand work—and not of such arts as singing, dancing, or musical composition which could more properly be called artistic activities. We are referring only to those arts which depend for ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... that I learned to guess more of what was inside them than their bony structures! I sketched the tutor while he was examining Francesca and I knew that there were no abysmal depths of ignorance that could appall him where she was concerned. He couldn't explain the situation at all, himself. If there was anything that he admired and respected in woman, it was a well-stored, logical mind, and three months' tutoring of Francesca had shown him that her mental machinery was of an obsolete pattern and that it was not even in good working ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... quite understand, Jeff; you explain to me," answered Caroline Darrah in the kind and respectful voice that she always used to these family servants, which they understood perfectly and in which they took a ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... said, "Now tell me; are they sleeping among the Trojan troops, or do they lie apart? Explain this that ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... hands; but the other only held up his left, his right being helpless. They knew there was nothing to say. They were fairly caught. They were poaching. The tall lumberman had seen the axe flung. Their case was a black one; and any attempt to explain could do no less than make it worse. They did not even dare to look at each other, but kept their narrow, beady eyes fixed on ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... believe that even he could have solved it, except that he had at his disposal two mathematical engines of great power—the Cartesian method of treating geometry, and his own method of Fluxions. One can explain the elliptic motion now mathematically, but hardly otherwise; and I must be content to state that the double fact is true—viz., that an inverse square law will move the body in an ellipse or other conic section with the sun in ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... who travels in Time," the child replied. "I am one, and you are one, but everybody isn't one. I can't explain, so you'd better not waste time asking questions if you want to travel. I can't wait ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... time to leave that tale alone, and to cease to class under the title of religious suggestion two orders of facts completely distinct—superficial and momentary modifications, and constitutional modifications so profound that science cannot explain them. I repeat: to make of an hysterical patient one whose equilibrium is perfect ... is a thing more difficult than ...
— Lourdes • Robert Hugh Benson
... President Hardouin thus opened the debate: "Gentlemen, there is no need to explain the situation, we ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... stars in the constellation of the Little Bear. The literal translation is: "the Guards, when night comes on, are near the arm on the side to the west, and when dawn breaks they are on the line under the arm to the northeast," etc. What Columbus meant I cannot explain. Neither Navarrete nor the ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... Kate, Seth, Ethel, Edwin. Great varieties of riddles, known as Buried Cities, Hidden Towns, &c., are formed on this principle, the words being sometimes placed so as to read backwards, or from right to left. The example given will, however, sufficiently explain the mode ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... to take her up to Dublin along with my wife," said Tom, "and send her down by the next train. I'd explain the whole thing to you if I had time, but I haven't. All I can tell you is that I'll most likely lose L1,000 a year if I ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... turned serenely and recognized her, the young man walking off in embarrassment. The woman was Izz Huett, whose interest in Tess's excursion immediately superseded her own proceedings. Tess did not explain very clearly its results, and Izz, who was a girl of tact, began to speak of her own little affair, a phase of ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... pointed out that the therapeutic effects described in the Gospels might also be understood as effects of suggestion by word and tactual impressions, produced especially on hysterics, epileptics, paralytics, and psychasthenics. Such rationalistic interpretations could also explain in the same way through the suggestive influence in the minds of the sick, those cures which Christ effected through others without being present himself. Here belongs perhaps the cure of the servant of the centurion in Capernaum or the cure of the daughter of ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... can never expect to reveal its need to, or be understood by one of the fungus order. We must work and wait, and expect to be misunderstood every day of our lives. We may be in order and in perfect harmony to some higher law, the relation of which to ourselves it is impossible to explain to our brother, our sister, or our friend. There would be no individual life, if there were no separate harmonies and methods of action. You need, my friend, more of woman's sphere to help you to live in strength and ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... explain this latter epithet in a note: "The moss of Switzerland, as well as that of the Tyrol, is remarkable for a bright smoothness approaching to the appearance of enamel." And yet was no one, or both, of the following passages floating ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various
... to confine herself to one village; and it is rather hard to explain how any lower creature, that obviously cannot reason, could have possessed this knowledge. Perhaps it was because she had learned that a determined hunt, with many beaters and men on elephants, invariably followed her killings. It was always well to travel just ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... explain with a considerable degree of accuracy the object of this ripening. The process is really a fermentation comparable to the fermentation that takes place in a brewer's malt. The growth of bacteria during the ripening produces ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn
... madame de Bearn, delayed this (to me) important day till the end of the month of April, 1770. On the evening of the 21st the king, according to custom, announced a presentation for the following day; but he durst not explain himself more frankly; he hesitated, appeared embarrassed, and only pronounced my name in a low and uncertain voice; it seemed as tho' he feared his own authority was insufficient to support him in such a measure. This I did not learn till some time afterwards; ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... one moment more attention I will claim, And crave indulgence while I here explain, That "character" is used in a Pickwickian sense— So truth and justice need not ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... his lot with the Mexicans; but now it was impossible to do so. The frenzied population would have seized any white man they came upon, outside the walls of the palace, and would have carried him to the altars of their gods. It would be hopeless to endeavor to explain that he was of another race. All white men would be alike, ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... nearly out of their wits,—and was kind enough to promise me that, if it would be agreeable to me, the whole of his people should assist my prize crew to work the ship. This suggestion, however, did not happen to be agreeable to me, so I was compelled to explain, as politely as I could phrase it, that my duty compelled me not only to decline his magnanimous offer, but to secure the whole of his crew, officers and men, below, and also to remove all arms of every description from the ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... not stir, and after another period of five minutes dinner was announced. It may be as well, perhaps, to explain, that the soup had been on the table for the last quarter of an hour or more, but that after placing the tureen on the table, the dignified gentleman downstairs had come to words with the cook, and had refused to go on further with the business of the night until that ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... reflections, that this was caused by Gilbert's absence. But when she had to walk home alone from prayer meetings and A.V.I.S. pow-wows, while Diana and Fred, and many other gay couples, loitered along the dusky, starlit country roads, there was a queer, lonely ache in her heart which she could not explain away. Gilbert did not even write to her, as she thought he might have done. She knew he wrote to Diana occasionally, but she would not inquire about him; and Diana, supposing that Anne heard from him, volunteered no information. Gilbert's mother, who was a gay, frank, light-hearted lady, but not ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... meanings scattered throughout the poem. They elude the ordinary reader by their abstraction and delicacy of distinction, but they are far from vague. It was his design to write prose metaphysical essays on the nature of Man, which would have served to explain much of what is obscure in his poetry; a few scattered fragments of observations and remarks alone remain. He considered these philosophical views of Mind and Nature to be instinct with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... of the fact that the Japanese were among the Allies, the Chinese had not any strong tendency to take sides against Germany. The English, French and Russians had always desired the participation of China (for reasons which I shall explain presently), and there appears to have been some suggestion, in the early days of the war, that China should participate in return for our recognizing Yuan Shi-k'ai as Emperor. These suggestions, however, fell through owing to the opposition of Japan, ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... specimens of the songs sung on such an occasion. In particular, it is practically certain that vi. 13-vii. 9 is the song which accompanied the "sword-dance" (as the last words of vi. 13 should probably be translated) performed by the bride on the eve of her wedding day. This would explain the looseness of the arrangement, no special attempt being made to unify the songs, though it may be conceded that the noble eulogy of love in viii. 6, 7, as it is the finest utterance in the book, was probably intended as a ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... organization will explain the "degree, priority and place" of those who are to be responsible for the administration and ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... the dressing-table, which was now stripped of its pretty things in silver and tortoise-shell, a letter addressed in my grandmother's handwriting caught my eye. It must have come since I went out; and there must be something in it to explain our sudden departure. ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... This difference between the two forms has attracted the attention of various botanists, and that of Sprengel, in 1793, who, with his usual sagacity, adds that he does not believe the existence of the two forms to be accidental, though he cannot explain their purpose. (1/15. 'Das entdeckte Geheimniss der Nature' page 103.) The pistil of the long-styled form is more than twice as long as that of the short-styled, with the stigma rather smaller, though ...
— The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species • Charles Darwin
... vileness which characterized the events of those terrible days. The attitude of misunderstanding on the part of the majority of her own comrades toward Czolgosz almost drove her to desperation. Stirred to the very inmost of her soul, she published an article on Czolgosz in which she tried to explain the deed in its social and individual aspects. As once before, after Berkman's act, she now also was unable to find quarters; like a veritable wild animal she was driven from place to place. This terrible persecution and, especially, the attitude ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... evidently working beneath the myriad wrinkles of her face, and her little eyes began to blink. Good gracious! it was her benefactress! Heaven, then, had hearkened to her prayers! And without seeking to explain the story about the children, she plunged into a whining tale, with a ceaseless rush of words. Several of her teeth were missing, and she could be understood with difficulty. The gracious God had sent every affliction on her head, she declared. The gentleman lodger had gone away, and she had only ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... contempt in Zehru's ringing voice. "I will explain some of the things that puzzle you. There is no reason why I should trouble myself to do so, yet it may while away the tedium of the short wait yet remaining before my apparatus becomes charged to the required point. Listen carefully, Earthling, for at best ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... behind him the eunuch, to the great satisfaction of the princess, who hoped to make him the mediator between her and her beloved. Nor was she mistaken. When unfolding to him the whole of her adventures with Eusuff, he agreed to be the bearer of a letter, and explain to him the cause of his needless suspicion. Having swam the lake with the fair Aleefa's packet wrapped in his clothes upon his head, the faithful Ah in twenty days reached the city of Sind, and demanding an audience in private, which was readily granted, delivered ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... one who is never free from apprehension. Yet for him that look of hers had a quality unique, a quality that he had never found in another, but which he was completely unable to define. He wanted acutely to explain to himself what it was, and he ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... Explain the operation of the governor in controlling the compressor when a main reservoir pressure of ninety ...
— The Traveling Engineers' Association - To Improve The Locomotive Engine Service of American Railroads • Anonymous
... province where he might gather a golden harvest and come home to live in splendor, like Lucullus. He had failed, defeated by a mere plebeian whom his brother-patricians had stooped to prefer to him. Were the secret history known of the contest for the consulship, much might be discovered there to explain Cicero's and Catiline's hatred of each other. Cicero had once thought of coalescing with Catiline, notwithstanding his knowledge of his previous crimes: Catiline had perhaps hoped to dupe Cicero, and had been himself outwitted. He intended to stand again for the year 62, but evidently ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... sleep with us to-night. Oh," he went on, misinterpreting the boy's glance behind him (he was really seeking for Tilda, to explain), "there's always room for one or two more at Inistow: that's what you might call our motto; and the Old Woman dotes on children. She ought to—havin' six of her own, besides ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... too, and maybe don't like to ride in a freight car, so it's getting tame," Bunny said. And perhaps this did explain it. ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... ceremonies. And in the second place, the Shadow was so rigidly bound by his own narrow and insular set of ideas, that he couldn't understand the difficulty Felix felt in throwing himself into them. Over and over again, when Felix asked him to explain some word or custom, he would repeat, with naive impatience, "Why, Korong is Korong," or "Tula is just Tula; even a child must surely know what Tula is; much more yourself, who are indeed Korong, and who have come from the sun to ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... the end of two years. These conclusions were combated by Castlereagh and Vansittart, who afterwards, in 1811, succeeded in carrying several counter-resolutions, of which the general effect was to explain the admitted rise in the price of gold, for the most part by the exclusion of British trade from the continent, and the consequent export of the precious metals in lieu of British manufactures. The last resolution, while ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... be necessary to explain to those who are unacquainted with Dick's earlier adventures, that the clothes in which he was originally introduced were jocosely referred to by him as gifts from the illustrious personages whose names ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... though they readily occurred to him in the first and last parts of his life, were, I am afraid, for a long time forgotten; at least they were, like many other maxims, treasured up in his mind rather for show than use, and operated very little upon his conduct, however elegantly he might sometimes explain, or however ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... increasingly attractive. The secret of this unflagging and ever increasing interest, is found in the large place, given the Bible in all her teaching work. It has been a daily text book in the school room. On the Sabbath, her opportunity to read and explain it to all the people of the community, as superintendent of the Sunday school, has been even greater than that of some of the ministers in charge, when the latter was only a monthly visitor, while she ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... returned from Paris was that there had existed an attachment between Thomasin and Wildeve, which his mother had at first discountenanced, but had since, owing to the arguments of Thomasin, looked upon in a little more favourable light. When she, therefore, proceeded to explain all he was ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... suggests the existence of some radical disease, and when one assumes such to be the case, one cannot be accused of borrowing trouble, I shall, consequently, start from such an assumption, and make an attempt to explain contemporary American problems as in part the result of the practice of an erroneous democratic theory. The attempt will necessarily involve a brief review of our political and economic history, undertaken ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... stories. The popularity of these early tales in their day encouraged me to go on, and a little later to set up in more permanent and wholesale business as a novelist. To certain of these stories of my apprenticeship I have appended dates to explain allusions in the text. Other stories there are here, that are of recent production, and by these I am willing to be judged. The variety in subject, manner, date, location, makes proper to them the title I have chosen—a good word with a savor of human history and an odor of the New World about it; ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... on with this story any longer, I have written it to its positive finish to amuse you, my dearest wife. I have told it very ill, it may form, when we meet, a subject for an evening's conversation, when I can fill up gaps, explain incongruities, but ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... nowhere in sight; she must have reached the turning. His mission had succeeded, but he felt no elation. Round the corner, he picked up his convoy, and, with the perambulator hoisted on to the taxi, journeyed on at speed. He had said he would explain in the cab, but the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... letter to Tanqueray to congratulate him on his book and to explain why she had not come to his birthday party. It was simply impossible to get off now. Papa, she said, couldn't be left for five minutes, not even ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... appears, from Wodrow (Hist. of the Sufferings of the Ch. of Scot., vol. i. p. 213, Glasg. 1829), that when Mr. Macward understood that what had given offence was the use he had made, in his sermon, of the words "protest" and "dissent," he did not hesitate to explain he did not mean thereby a legal impugning of the acts, or authority of parliament, but "a mere ministerial testimony" against what he conceived to be sin. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... Reformatus, Dec. 4. and 11 1689. The Oxford editor of Burnet's History expresses his surprise at the silence which the Bishop observes about Walker. In the Burnet MS. Harl. 6584. there is an animated panegyric on Walker. Why that panegyric does not appear in the History, I am at a loss to explain.] ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... very far away are in Dongola, more than a hundred miles from Sarras. The railway there is forty miles long, and has been much annoyed by the Dervishes, who are very glad to turn the rails into spears. The telegraph wires are also much appreciated thereby. Now, if you will kindly turn round, I will explain, also, what we see upon the ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... defraying the expense of defending the society, and of supporting the dignity of the chief magistrate, must make up for the deficiency of many particular branches of revenue. The sources of this general or public revenue, I shall endeavour to explain in ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... silent I shall explain a plan," Henri said in a cautious tone. "She will make soup, with help which we shall find. And if coming in for refreshments a soldier shall leave a letter for me it is natural, is ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... sparrows were making an unusually loquacious preparation for their dormitories, that the little birds were singing their evening hymns, and exhort, thereupon, your unwilling nestlings to a rival performance of the verses of Dr. Watts? You ought to be prepared to explain, also, for the benefit of any sucking Socrates, why it is that these feathered choristers have their "revival seasons," and are terrible backsliders during the moulting period. When you looked out ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... cases, such as those described in Chapter VIII, where we concluded that there were psychoses resembling stupors superficially. It seemed likely that these patients were absorbed in their own thoughts, rather than being in a condition of mental vacuity. It is not difficult to explain the objective resemblance. All evidence of emotion (apart from subjective feeling tone which the subject may or may not report) is an expression of contact with the outer world. There must be externalization ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... "I can explain it," said Harold Bird. "They got the houseboat around the mud bars, but the force of the current, combined with the current in the bayou, swung the craft up against this bank. Then they had ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... unlimited means in his hand—which is better. One's time on earth is an uncertain quantity, but about the long reach of millions there is no doubt. The introduction of a pure form of Christianity into this continent is a dream for a youthful enthusiast, and I have been trying to explain to you why Holroyd at fifty-eight is like a man on the threshold of life, and better, too. He's not a missionary, but the San Tome mine holds just that for him. I assure you, in sober truth, that he could not manage to keep this out of a strictly business conference upon the finances of Costaguana ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... form, carry away with him from his public school? He may know that certain facts are told in one Gospel and not in another; that there are certain inconsistencies in the accounts given by the different Synoptic Gospels of the same miracle, or what is apparently the same miracle. He may be able to explain the parables more fully than their author ever meant them to be explained; he may have at his fingers' ends St Paul's journeys and even have been thrilled by St Paul's shipwreck, but he will probably have missed the meaning of the good news for himself and the power ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... agent to account for it. The least of living things is so wonderful, the phenomena it exhibits are so fundamentally unlike those of inert matter, that we invent a word for it, vitality; and having got the word, we conceive of a vital force or principle to explain vital phenomena. Hence vitalism—a philosophy of living things, more or less current in the world from Aristotle's time down to our own. It conceives of something in nature super-mechanical and super-chemical, though ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... They were "away," the porters said, and they continued to be "away,"—it was the formula, he learnt, for arrest; others were evasive, a few showed themselves extraordinarily anxious to inform him about things, to explain themselves and things about them exhaustively. One young student took him to various meetings and showed him in great detail the scene of the recent murder of the Grand Duke Sergius. The buildings opposite the old French cannons were still under ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... we have to recite would tedious prove By declaration; therefore, in, and feast: To morrow the performance shall explain, What Words conceal; till then, Drums speak, Bells ring, Give plausive welcomes ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... curiously narrow reading of contemporary history. Did Austria lose Sadowa, or was the French Empire ruined at Sedan, in consequence of the passion of either of those Governments for legislative innovations; or must we not rather, in order to explain these striking events, look to a large array of military, geographical, financial, diplomatic, and dynastic considerations and conditions? If so, what becomes of the moral? England is, no doubt, the one great civilised power that has escaped an organic or structural ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... guilty,' but he seems to be a well-meaning man. I don't know his reasons; probably he don't understand the case. I should like to have the foreman tell the evidence over, so as if he don't see it clear, he can ask questions, and we can explain." ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... loving and terrible, powerless and almighty. In her everything is always present. Past or Future she knows not. The present is her Eternity. She is kind. I praise her with all her works. She is wise and still. No one can force her to explain herself, or frighten her into a gift that she does not give willingly. She is crafty, but for a good end; and it is best not to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... return to our subject. The go-between should tell the woman about the obedience and love of the man, and as her confidence and affection increase, she should then explain to her the thing to be accomplished in the following way. "Hear this, Oh beautiful lady, that this man, born of a good family, having seen you, has gone mad on your account. The poor young man, who is tender ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... I have given will give no great aid and comfort to the enemy. On the contrary, I can imagine that they will give him considerable discomfort. I suspect that Hitler and Tojo will find it difficult to explain to the German and Japanese people just why it is that "decadent, inefficient democracy" can produce such phenomenal quantities of weapons and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... I did not care to intrude my personal matters, so I did not mention the cause or explain the nature of my mission in the West. "I suppose that you rarely came into our county either, but went down the Shenandoah when you journeyed to Washington?" I said simply, "I myself have never met ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... point beyond which no persuasion on Lady Bolsover's part could make her go. Much against her will she had been taken to the trial of the highwayman, and that she was ashamed of being there was shown by her eager desire to explain her presence to the man who had come to her rescue in the crowd. It would probably have annoyed Lady Bolsover considerably had she known that her niece thought more of this man during the next few days than of all the eligible gallants who had been ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... (which puts an end to any fantastic theory of barbarian "conquest"), let us set out to explain that state of affairs which a man born, say, a hundred years after the last of the mere raids into the Empire was destroyed under Radagasius, would have observed ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc |
