"Explanatory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Roger, but who fortunately did not know me; it was M. Edgar de Meilhan, the poet, whose talents I admire, and whose acquaintance I had long desired; judging from his conversation he must be quite an original character. But he was accompanied by one of those explanatory gossips who seem born to serve as cicerones to the entire world, and render useless ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... Miss Kilburn, feeling how far from satisfactory the Victory was, and formulating an explanatory apology to the ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... permitted himself to unbend a trifle under the influence of a hospitable tender of home-made cherry-bounce, "strong enough to walk from here to Colbury," according to the sheriff's appreciative phrase. He was a portly man, with a rolling, explanatory cant of his burly head and figure toward his interlocutor as he talked. His hair stood up in two tufts above his forehead, one on each side, and he had large, round, grayish eyes and a solemn, pondering expression. To Meddy, ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... and make a few in any way you like best; whether dry raillery, upon the style and way of commenting of trivial critics; or humourous, upon the authors in the poem; or historical, of persons, places, times; or explanatory, or collecting the parallel passages of the ancients. Adieu. I am pretty well, my mother not ill, Dr. Arbuthnot vexed with his fever by intervals; I am afraid he declines, and we shall lose a worthy man: I am ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... little respect of symbolism, which is often of the highest use in religious art, and in some measure is allowable in all art. In the works of almost all the greatest masters there are portions which are explanatory rather than representative, and typical rather than imitative; nor could these be parted with but at infinite loss. Note, with respect to the present question, the daring black sunbeams of Titian, ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... meantime Gaspar Mendez was slowly recovering the injuries he had received, and was of course expected to give a more explanatory account of what had happened to him after he left Forni on his way to Alessandro Malfi's. That he had been robbed as well as wounded was already known—his brother and sister having found his pockets empty and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... towards that light, brilliant, sportive vein of humour in which he afterwards wrote "What the Bee is to the Flowret," &c., and other similar compositions. I now give Moore's first sonnet, including its footnote, reminding us of the child's usual explanatory addition to his first drawing of some amorphous animal—"This is a horse!" or "a bear!" as the case may be. Neither the metre nor the matter would prepare us for the height to which the writer afterwards scaled "the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... acquaintance could be properly cemented. Hitherto the Marchesino had felt quite at ease with his new friends. But hitherto he had been, as it were, merely at play with them. The interlude of fever had changed his views and enlarged his consciousness. And Emilio was no longer at hand to be explanatory ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... soon aware of the vastly different feelings with which they themselves watched the proceedings. Cotherstone was eager and restless; he could not keep still; he moved his position; he glanced about him; he looked as if he were on the verge of bursting into indignant or explanatory speech every now and then—though, as a matter of fact, he restrained whatever instinct he had in that direction. But Mallalieu never moved, never changed his attitude. His expression of disdainful, contemptuous watchfulness ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... men and women engaged upon them, for the very good reason that no such things went on. Men slaving at their gardens he might see, and women weary at their washing and mending, amid scenes of little dignity and much poverty and makeshift untidiness; but that was all. The coherent and self-explanatory village life had given place to a half blind struggle of individuals against circumstances and economic processes which no child could possibly understand; and it was with the pitiful stock of ideas to be derived from these conditions that the coal-carter passed out of childhood, ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... description of a writing perfectly clear, a system of terminology is adopted which is invariable. That is, the same terms are always employed in indicating the same parts of a letter. These are simple, and for the most part self-explanatory, so that no effort is required ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... a fashionable word for getting rid, by rude or any means, of any person whose company is not agreeable. The art of cutting is reduced to a system in London; and an explanatory treatise has been written on the subject for the edification of the natives.{1} But I am so bewildered to think what can have detained Sparkle, and deprived us of his company, that I scarcely know how to think for a moment on any ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... it surprising to find him naively admitting that "this unexpected event hastened my return home." Imagination can easily round out the picture,—the rising in terror, the overturning of the chair, the seizing of cocked hat and gold-headed cane, the few explanatory words to the astonished innkeeper, the hurried departure, and the progress, perchance at a more rapid gait than usual, to the sleeping quarters in another section of the town. Arrived there, safe in the refuge of his commodious bed-room, sage argument would follow in the effort to attain ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... think of putting. Obviously, this appeal to his intellect weakened the self-imposed guard on his lips. There is excellent authority for the belief that Desdemona loved Othello for the dangers he had passed, and did with greedy ear devour his discourse, yet it may well be conceded that an explanatory piquancy would have been added to ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... comprising the "Histories" or "Chronicle Plays" of Shakspeare; carefully expurgated and revised, with Explanatory Notes. Expressly adapted for the Use of Schools, Colleges, and the Family Reading-Circle. By John W.S. Hows, Author of "The Shakspearian Reader," etc. New York. D. Appleton & Co. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... her work first or last. When in the fourth century men refined upon the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and Arians and semi-Arians would be telling us how these things could be, the unity of GOD in three Persons; to come round to the simplicity of the Athanasian doctrine, and to disown the several explanatory statements which, offering to explain, explained away, was the Church's work. I am not sure that since the clays of the Arian dispute, a more important question has arisen than that which seems likely to be ere long forcing itself upon us, of the Inspiration ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... however, to his consternation, were the massive, but timeworn, iron gates of a park, which Dick did not doubt was the one in which he had spent the previous night. But it was impossible to go further in his present plight, and he boldly approached the restaurant. As he was preparing to make his usual explanatory signs, to his great delight he was addressed in a quaint, broken English, mixed with forgotten American slang, by the white-trousered, black-alpaca coated proprietor. More than that—he was a Social Democrat and an enthusiastic lover of America—had he not been to "Bos-town" and ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... note had been introductory and not explanatory, Miss Thomson could not guess the cause of the unexpected visit. She, however, kindly welcomed Miss Melville, and asked her to sit down, which Jane did with an ease and youthful dignity that was as suitable to her time of life as Miss ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... enough to frighten all honest men. Here, again, all our hopes from that quarter are overthrown. The king is indignant, and I am in despair. He has written to one of his friends, in whom I have great confidence, a man of courage and devoted to us, an explanatory letter, which seems to me neither an explanation nor an excuse. The man is a volcano which would set an empire on fire; and we are to trust to him to put out the conflagration which is devouring us. He will have a great deal to do before we can feel confidence in him again. ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... little book, I am inclined to add a few explanatory words as to the use I have made of historical personages. The origin of the whole story was probably Freytag's first series of pictures of German Life: probably, I say, for its first commencement was a dream, dreamt some ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in America, it is not improbable that in a few ages the nation which may be in possession of the most extensive and best cultivated sugar islands, subject to a proper policy,[71] will take the lead at sea." Men of all schools concurred in this general view, which is explanatory of much of the course pursued by the British Government, alike in military enterprise, commercial regulation, and political belligerent measures, during the approaching twenty years of war with France. It underlay ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... herein by Lincoln are so thoroughly characteristic of the man, and are in themselves so completely self-explanatory, that it requires no comment to enable the reader fully to understand and appreciate them. It will be observed that the philosophical admonitions in the letter to his brother, Johnston, were written on the same sheet with the letter to ...
— Lincoln Letters • Abraham Lincoln
... of Leon Gautier's "CHANSON DE ROLAND," contains a vast amount of explanatory notes, grammatical and historical, to which ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... considerably at the failure of caricature to achieve, as yet, a high destiny in America—a failure which might supply an occasion for much explanatory discourse, much searching of the relations of things. The newspaper has been taught to flourish among us as it flourishes nowhere else, and to flourish moreover on a humorous and irreverent basis; yet it has never taken to itself this helpful ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... fact of a new inmate cheerfully, as if she knew all about it. Of course she could not ask any of her nieces to visit her while the green room was occupied; and as they were all rather large, interfering, managing women, perhaps the old lady was not very sorry. Mr Wentworth himself was still less explanatory. When Mr Wodehouse said to him, "What is this I hear about a brother of yours?—they tell me you've got a brother staying with you. Well, that's what I hear. Why don't you bring him up to dinner? Come to-morrow;" the Perpetual Curate calmly answered, "Thank you; but there's no brother of mine ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... out on my asking him if he were going to the Decoration Day services. He said that the sight of the first great battlefield deprived him of the power of believing in a life hereafter. He was not very explanatory, but as I understood it the overwhelming presence of death had extinguished his faith in immortality; the dead riders were just like ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... years ago musical scholars and critics began to illuminate the musical darkness of New York with lecture-recitals explanatory of the more abstruse German operas. Previous to this era no one had ever thought, for instance, of unfolding the story, or the "Leit motive" (if there happened to be any!), in "The Bohemian Girl," "Maritana," or "Martha." These and many other delightful but thoroughly third-class works unfolded ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the hero of the 'Faery Queene.' In his explanatory letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, Spenser says, 'I chose the historye of King Arthure, as most fitte for the excellency of his person, being made famous by many mens former workes, and also furthest from the daunger of envy, and suspicion of ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... ordinary reader, to require repetition here. The major explained all the military points very clearly, did full justice to the perseverance and daring of the provincials, as he called his enemies—for, an American himself, he would not term them Americans—and threw in as many explanatory remarks as he could think of, by way of vindicating the "march in, again." This he did, too, quite as much out of filial piety, as out of self-love; for, to own the truth, the captain's mortification, as a soldier, was so very evident as to give ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... 'They were Russians in disguise. Some cannon have been taken, which were cast at St. Petersburg; and, besides, there is a portfolio of state papers found on a Cossack, habited as a Turkman, which betrays all. The documents are to be published in numbers, with explanatory commentaries. Consul-General Laurella writes from Damascus that the Eastern question is more alive than ever. We are on the eve of ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... thought it proper to lay before you a communication of the 11th instant from the minister plenipotentiary of Great Britain to the Secretary of State, relative to the commerce of the two countries, together with their explanatory correspondence and the Secretary of State's letter to me on ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... drawing attention to their peculiarities, had expressed his opinion that these poems were the remains of a distinct type of early Indian literature, where verses forming the central, and illuminating, point of a formal ceremonial recital had been 'farced' with illustrative and explanatory prose passages; the form of the verses being fixed, that of the prose being varied at ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... Creek, and, although I'm an expert swimmer, I guess I'd be there now if it hadn't been for my crew. You see the water was just deep enough so's to be over my head when I tried to wade out, and just shallow enough"—he gave his body an explanatory pat—"so that whenever I tried to swim out ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... enormous snakes exist in Ethiopia: and Bosman informs us that entire men have been found in the gullet of serpents on the Gold coast. In the "Oriental Annual" is the following narrative, explanatory of a well-known picture by W. Daniell: "A few years before our visit to Calcutta," says the writer, "the captain of a country ship while passing the Sunderbunds sent a boat into one of the creeks to obtain some fresh fruits, which are cultivated by the ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... eo ... transfigeret, 'was on the point of transfixing.' The clause of result ut ... transfigeret is explanatory of in eo. ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... Court were of the most elaborate character: a full account of them is given in the K[o]ji Kongen,—with explanatory illustrations. On the evening of the seventh day of the seventh month, mattings were laid down on the east side of that portion of the Imperial Palace called the Seir-y[o]den; and upon these mattings were ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... person appeared to cause him much annoyance, and he was continually alluding to them in a sort of half explanatory, half apologetic strain, which, when I first heard it, impressed me very painfully. I soon, however, grew accustomed to it, and my uneasiness wore off. It seemed to be his design rather to insinuate than directly to assert that, physically, he had not always been ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... account of the losses you have suffered through your beneficence to the Harrels, and the explanatory one of the calumnies you have sustained from your kindness to the Belfields, I related with the plainness which alone I thought necessary to make them felt. I then told the high honour I had received, in meeting with no other ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... limits of twelve lines. Modern poetry has its own merits, but the conveyance of information is not, generally speaking, one of them. What would Virgil have thought of authors publishing poems with explanatory notes (to illustrate is a different matter), as if they were so many books of conundrums? Indeed this vice is of very ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... with an explanatory forefinger upheld. "Three generations ago two men made a verbal agreement in respect to the estate of the Val d'Erraha. To-day no one knows what that agreement was. It may have been the ordinary 'rotas' of Minorca. It may not. ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... tempted to quote from Mr. Lindsay's explanatory note which accompanied three of these poems when they were first printed in ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... a harsh factional light. As a matter of fact, in his introduction to the Keys, which are entitled Lemuel Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. Compendiously Methodized, For Publick Benefit: With Observations and Explanatory Notes Throughout (1726), Curll flatters Swift as possessing "the true Vein of Humour and polite Conversation" (I, 4). Regarding the Travels, he observes, "The Town are infinitely more eager after them than they were after ...
— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous
... and ugly object, all detail dies, and our apprehension of it dies also. Our mood changes; instead of observing and criticising, we become soothed, contemplative, dreamy. It is the carrying of this profound feeling into a colour-scheme by means of chiaroscuro, so that it is no longer learned and explanatory, but deeply sensuous and emotional, that is the gift to art which found full voice with Giorgione, and which in one moment was recognised and welcomed to the exclusion of the older manner, because it touched the chord which vibrated through the ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... of the present century—quite in Pedgift's style. But perhaps Mr. Armadale would prefer hearing about Mrs. Mandeville? Unfortunately, there was nothing to tell. There had been no quarreling, and not a farthing left unpaid: the lodger had gone, and there wasn't an explanatory circumstance to lay hold of anywhere. It was either Mrs. Mandeville's way to vanish, or there was something under the rose, quite undiscoverable so far. Pedgift had got the date on which she left, and the time of day at which she ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... characterizes the vegetable world necessarily follows. This we find to be the case with all forced vegetables; and the mildness of the radish of hastened growth, when contrasted with the highly pungent and almost acrid flavour of the slowly and gradually advanced one, may be adduced as explanatory of this observation. Hence, it is practically well known to manufacturers, that the indigo plant, however fine and luxuriant, as is the natural result of much rain, is very deficient in produce, and a similar loss ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... father and other relations at Hamilton, 30th September, 1853, is of a somewhat apologetic and explanatory cast. Some of the friends had the notion that he should have settled somewhere, "preaching the simple gospel," and converting people ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... unrecorded in Acts, owing to its private nature as preparing the way for public developments—-with which Acts is mainly concerned. In that case it would fall shortly before the Relief visit, to which there may be tacit explanatory allusion, in Gal. ii. 10 (see further PAUL); and it will be shown below that such a conference of leaders in Gal. ii. 1 ff. leads up excellently both to the First Mission Journey ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... 1740, says that these two poems are justly admired by foreigners as well as Englishmen, and have therefore been translated into all the modern languages. This volume contains, among other things, "An Examination of Milton's Style"; "Explanatory and Critical Notes on Divers Passages of Milton and Shakspere"; "The Resurrection," a blank verse imitation of "Lycidas," "Comus," "L'Allegro" and "Il Penserosa," and the "Nativity Ode." Peck defends Milton's rhymed poems against Dryden's strictures. "He was both a perfect master ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... articles of the treaty above mentioned, the said Hastings did send to the Council of Calcutta (now consisting of Edward Wheler and John Macpherson, Esquires) two different copies of the said treaty, with explanatory minutes opposed to each article; and that the minute opposed to the third ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Letters in the [C/]egiha Language. 750 pp. folio. This material is in hands of the printer, and will form Part I, Vol. 6, Contributions to North American Ethnology. It comprises 70 stories and myths and 300 letters, each with interlinear translation, explanatory notes, and ...
— Catalogue Of Linguistic Manuscripts In The Library Of The Bureau Of Ethnology. (1881 N 01 / 1879-1880 (Pages 553-578)) • James Constantine Pilling
... subjective necessity, even if made out, could not be sufficient to prove—or even to render probable—an objective existence. And with regard to the further argument that the fact of our theistic aspirations points to God as to their explanatory cause, it became necessary to observe that the argument could only be admissible after the possibility of the operation of natural causes [in the production of our theistic aspirations] had been ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... grasped general, descriptive, narrative, explanatory material, complex sentences will allow the covering of a wide field, or a long time, in short order by condensing facts into the ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... that the half-breed did not understand, and the doctor added a few explanatory words in French. The man on the floor groaned and struggled until he was red ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... of Congress in unwavering serenity. On the last day of the session, Congress surrendered and sent to him both the Confiscation Act and the explanatory resolution. Thereupon, he indulged in what must have seemed to those fierce hysterical enemies of his a wanton stroke of irony. He sent them along with his approval of the bill the text of the veto message he would have sent had they refused to do what ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... universal benevolence and love of peace. Nor are his Prussian Majesty's present ministers at all disinclined to the same system. Their ostentatious preamble to certain late edicts demonstrates (if their actions had not been sufficiently explanatory of their cast of mind) that they are deeply infected with the same distemper of dangerous, because plausible, though trivial ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... common. The translation under consideration is entitled "Priapeia, or the Sportive Epigrams of divers Poets on Priapus: the Latin text now for the first time Englished in verse and prose (the metrical version by Outidanos) [Good for Nothing], with Introduction, Notes, Explanatory and Illustrative and Excursus, by Neaniskos [a young man]," whose name, we need ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... volume of the Business Boys' Library, is to give a series of first lessons on forms of government and principles of law. This is done by means of a very slight framework of imagination, a large amount of anecdote and illustration, a singularly lucid explanatory style, and a fullness of knowledge that 'backs' the narrative with manifest strength. The Travelling Law School is a fictitious body, taken about from place to place; all the objects and experiences encountered on the journey being ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... feel at liberty to change them, in the correspondence of Dr. North, for more popular language; and, having retained them thus far, it did not seem desirable to explain them elsewhere. Nor was I willing to deface the pages of the work with explanatory notes. The fact is, the technical terms alluded to, are, after all, very few in number, and may be generally understood by the connection in which ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... which they fly.[325] The sculpture is surrounded by a frame arched at the top and inclosed by an architrave with battlemented cornice. The whole forms a happily conceived little monument; it is probable that it was originally accompanied by an explanatory inscription. ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... aspiration, and intended sacrifice of the mortal self to an ideal, transmuted their sex-nature from the physical to the spiritual, then indeed, we have an approach to a mighty truth, which is at once both explanatory and satisfying. St. Catherine is referred to as "the mystic bride;" and Jesus Christ, to whom she was "espoused" (using the terminology which the Church prefers, as suggesting a less physical union than the word ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... There was an explanatory inscription, and the artist had pictured the terrible deity sitting upon a throne of state, gorgeously arrayed in gold and jewels, and watching with a smile of serene satisfaction the sacrifice of some unfortunate ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... A new explanatory statute was accordingly drawn up, requiring the clergy to take the oath of abjuration before the 23d of March, 1710, under the penalties of transportation for life, and of high-treason if ever after found in the country. This bill, then, ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... He added the explanatory sentence in order to clear the ground, as it were, for the strange and horrible story he had to tell, but its effect was curious in the extreme. The girl's white face blanched to that wan hue which personal ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... he announced his discovery of the 'Magnetization of Light and the Illumination of the Lines of Magnetic Force.' This title provoked comment at the time, and caused misapprehension. He therefore added an explanatory note; but the note left his meaning as entangled as before. In fact Faraday had notions regarding the magnetization of light which were peculiar to himself, and untranslatable into the scientific language of the time. Probably no other philosopher of his day would have employed the ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... kitchen-table, patting up another barm-cake. She had a hand even lighter than Dinah's with flour and pastry. . . . The two captains had moved on to the gate of Home Parc, and she could still espy them past the edge of the window. She saw Captain Hunken draw his hand horizontally with a slow explanatory gesture and then drop it abruptly ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... the doctrine of mineral metamorphism is now exciting very general attention, we subjoin a few explanatory observations by the 'New Philos. Journ.', Jan., 1848: "In its widest sense, mineral metamorphism means every change of aggregation, structure, or chemical condition which rocks have undergone subsequently to their ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... selected the following volume, which we hope will prove acceptable until a greater variety can be added. With sentiments of high consideration and esteem, we subscribe ourselves your brethren in the New and Everlasting Covenant, BRIGHAM YOUNG, PARLEY P. PRATT, JOHN TAYLOR.' From this book—by no means explanatory to myself of the New and Everlasting Covenant, and not at all making my heart an understanding one on the subject of that mystery—a hymn was sung, which did not attract any great amount of attention, and ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... has favored me with a letter of Mr. Coleridge to herself, explanatory of his political principles, when he had receded in a good measure from the sentiments pervading his "Conciones ad Populum." This letter was written at a later period, but is made to follow the preceding, to preserve a ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... that God took a handful of dust and breathed upon it and it became man, is no harder to realise than that solar rays falling upon that dust should produce humanity and all the various phantasmagoria of life. If anything, it is more explanatory. It leaves us with an inspiring ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... of nature leads the intelligent to desire to know why the cleaved rock shows its sharp divisions as if cut by a knife, why yellow light gives such strangeness of tints, and thus draws on my pupil to larger explanatory studies. So ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... improvement and the widening of our spheres, and made numerous suggestions which she judged calculated to advance us in those respects. She recommended selections from Robert Browning to be read at our meetings, and she sent us some copies of explanatory and critical essays to be used in connection with them. She also in March sent us a copy of another lecture about the modern drama which she had herself written and delivered before her current literature ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... kept in view the presence of his daughter, and chose subjects and a character of language that should not offend a lady. On almost any other occasion Dick would have enjoyed the scene. Van Tromp's egotism, flown with drink, struck a pitch above mere vanity. He became candid and explanatory; sought to take his auditors entirely into his confidence, and tell them his inmost conviction about himself. Between his self-knowledge, which was considerable, and his vanity, which was immense, he had created a strange hybrid animal, ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Carrier, though slow to understand the full drift of his meaning, eyed him in such a serious manner, that he was obliged to be a little more explanatory. ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... Psalm-Book in the possession of the American Antiquarian Society there is written in the distinct handwriting of Isaiah Thomas these explanatory words:— ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... depicting, in the darkest colours, the sufferings he must endure if he survived the attempt to reach Quebec. It affected young Burr very sensibly, insomuch that he shed tears. But his destiny was fixed. He wrote, however, a respectful letter to his uncle, explanatory of his reasons for accompanying the army, and expressive of his gratitude for the kindness ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... tractata: et ita, quae cuivis exposita sunt et in medio quodammodo posita, quasi vacua et a nemine occupata.' And that this is the true meaning of communia is evidently fixed by the words ignota indictaque, which are explanatory of it; so that the sense given it in the commentary is unquestionably the right one. Yet, notwithstanding the clearness of the case, a late critick has this strange passage: 'Difficile quidem esse ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... well as information I have derived, and it cannot easily be obliterated from my recollection; but I at the same time must observe, that I have no very great relish for London as a continual residence. When you arrive in the country I will try if I cannot be as explanatory and amusing. At all events I expect you will ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... came a long, explanatory letter. The story, however, is itself so clear and easy to understand (as is all the work of this master), that the accompanying ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... quoted here for the purpose of further elucidating the views of Engels and as further explanatory of the position assumed by him in the last part of ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... new edition of him, from manuscripts and old editions, with various readings, conjectures, remarks on his language, and the changes it had undergone from the earliest times to his age, and from his to the present: with notes explanatory of customs, &c., and references to Boccace, and other authours from whom he has borrowed, with an account of the liberties he has taken in telling the stories; his life, and an ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... speech. A little dinner wouldn't make a big talk, and what we want is the big talk, at present, if we don't lay up a cent. My notion was that pretty soon after Lent, now, when everybody is feeling just right, we should begin to send out our paragraphs, affirmative, negative, and explanatory, and along about the first of May we should sit down about a hundred strong, the most distinguished people in the country, and solemnize our triumph. There it is in a nutshell. I might expand and I might expound, but that's the sum and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... as a social problem, the emphasis must be upon the human life cycle during the functional-reproductive period. Other biological data than that which concerns this period is merely introductory or explanatory. The extent to which the sociological problem involved is linked up with general biological considerations like natural selection, adaptation and specialization will be summarized in a ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... Frederick was deliberating whether he should, or should not, go out. His own letter from Luke Roy had been in substance the same as that which Luke had written to his father. It was neither more explanatory, nor less so. Luke Roy was not a first-hand at epistolary correspondence. John had been attacked and killed for the sake of his gold, and the attackers and the gold had been taken hold of by the law; so far it said, and no further. That the ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... famous gift of his sons to the beggars of the Hegira or some other great tradition of the generosity of Ali, set to verse for the special behoof of his brotherhood by some needy poetaster like the famous Nazir of Agra. He is followed by another who chants in deep bass tones a legend explanatory of the virtues of the great saint of Baghdad. But Ali is the favourite of the beggar-tribe, because forsooth the beggar runs no risk in singing his praises. If one glorify the other three Khalifas in a Sunni quarter, it is well with one, but not so in an area devoted ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... loveliness with their eyes; her coming flooded their bosoms with renewed hope. She continued speaking. Her English was not at all fluent, and she was often compelled to make it clear with expressions in her own tongue and with explanatory gestures. But to Miles and Ward, who knew nothing of temple training, her speaking English ...
— The Heads of Apex • Francis Flagg
... at a party,' said Maurice; then remembering that this might not be explanatory, he added, 'He shines most when at ease, and every year since his marriage has ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of judgment which comes with the riper years—nobody ever could have remained as Britishly bumptious, or as bumptiously British as Dickens was in his younger days when he first came to pay us a visit—taking also into consideration the fact that a certain explanatory softening of earlier criticisms was politic, that the novelist found a city far more to his taste in 1868 than he had found in 1842 is not for a moment to be questioned. Also, at the time he came to New York from Boston, he was naturally in a rather placid and contented ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... Frederick Pollock) which was styled Leading Cases done into English, by an Apprentice of Lincoln's Inn. It appealed only to a limited public, for it is actually a collection of sixteen important law-cases set forth, with explanatory notes, in excellent verse imitated from poets great and small. Chaucer, Browning, Tennyson, Swinburne, Clough, Rossetti, and James Rhoades supply the models, and I have been credibly informed that the law is as good ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... of the Interior and a copy of a letter of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, explanatory of said ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... the title; though I was not pleased with the other, explanatory of it; Or—The Accomplished Fools. But when I heard it was written by Sir Richard Steele, and that Mr. Addison had given some hints towards it, if not some characters—"O, dear Sir," said I, "give us your company to this play; for the ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... condition above mentioned viz: being satisfied that the evidence would warrant commitment for trial etc. yet in coming to that conclusion they are I think bound to hear no ex parte evidence alone but matter explanatory to guide their judgment; for even tho' satisfied with their authority so to do, they are not required "to deliver up any person so charged if for any reason they shall deem it inexpedient ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... sweet call to the worship of the Savior of the human race. The services of the church were usually held in the native language. The hymns were sung to French tunes, which were then the most popular. At the beginning, translations from the French of a portion of Scripture were read and some explanatory remarks ...
— Among the Sioux - A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas • R. J. Creswell
... even-numbered, two are taken ( ** ); if odd one ( * ); and thus the four lines will form a scheme say * * * * * * This is repeated three times, producing the same number of figures; and then the combination is sought in an explanatory table or, if the practitioner be expert, he pronounces off-hand. The Nights speak of a "Takht Raml" or a board, like a schoolboy's slate, upon which the dots are inked instead of points in sand. The moderns use a "Kura'h," or oblong die, upon whose sides the dots, odd and even, are marked; ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... complete in its way, as it contains nursery songs to the number of 77, game-rhymes, and jingles. To the student we commend the sensible introduction, and the explanatory notes. The volume is superbly printed on soft, thick paper, which it is a pleasure to touch; and the borders and pictures are among the very best specimens we have seen of the Gaskin ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... arrival home of the company, a beautiful set of flags was received by Mayor Cranston, a gift from Rhode Islanders residing in California to the color company of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, and were accompanied by the following explanatory letter: ...
— History of Company F, 1st Regiment, R.I. Volunteers, during the Spring and Summer of 1861 • Charles H. Clarke
... or other, but it is impossible to determine what the nature of it was, or who was the sufferer by it. I do not like to do it, but I feel compelled to request that the next time anything happens to one of Mr. Bloke's friends, he will append such explanatory notes to his account of it as will enable me to find out what sort of an accident it was and whom it happened to. I had rather all his friends should die than that I should be driven to the verge of lunacy again in trying to cipher out the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... it there was such candour in her voice, such content in her smiling and courageous eyes, that Edward could not fail to comprehend her message to him. Down in some very secret part of his soul he felt for the first time the real force of the great explanatory truth ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... mules, he's a hired man that the old gentleman's had for twenty years. He was out on the frontier once and knows all about it, and there ain't nothing he can't drive"—turning of the bacon here, Leff absorbed beyond explanatory speech—"They got four horses, two to ride and two extra ones, and a cow. I don't see how they're goin' to keep up the pace with the cow along. The old gentleman says they can do twenty to twenty-five miles a day when the road's good. ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... various cities pillaged. After his retirement he began an illustrated history of ancient and modern art, in which he had the co-operation of several skilful engravers. He died at Paris on the 27th of April 1825, leaving the work unfinished. It was published posthumously, with an explanatory text by Amaury Duval, under the title Monuments des arts du dessin chez les peuples tant anciens que modernes, recueillis par Vivant Denon (4 vols, fol., Paris, 1829). Denon was the author of a novel, Point de lendemain (1777), of which further editions ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... of Maid Marian, and others, whose names are not mentioned. The whole is only supposed to be a rehearsal prior to the representation of the piece before the king, and in the course of it Skelton and Sir John Eltham have various critical and explanatory interlocutions. Skelton, it will be observed, also undertakes the duty of interpreting the otherwise "inexplicable dumb-show." The old copy is not divided into ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... offer, at the outset, a few words explanatory of the nature and object of this book. The author feels that its aim is novel, is daring, and will perhaps subject him to criticism. He therefore make his plea, pro domo ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... regarded as one of the interesting features of the book—-and the scores of the model games of 1894, etc. A new chapter is "The Reference Guide," devoted to statistics valuable as references. In addition to which is the new code of rules which went into effect in April, 1895, and the editorial explanatory appendix, revised by President Young of the League; the whole making the GUIDE the model base ball manual of the period, the book being of special value, alike to the amateur class of the base ball fraternity, as to the class of professional ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... most enthusiastic ovation on rising to address the gathering, acknowledged his gratitude to the public of Bombay who proved their appreciation of his work by their presence there that evening, and the fact that they had subscribed Rs. 50,000 for the occasion. He then gave a brief explanatory account of the nature and scope of his work, which he had planned and carried out alone for many years amidst many and varied difficulties. He gave an exposition by the aid of one of the delicate instruments of his own invention of how plants respond ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... edition are rich and varied. The material, comprising the Introduction and also the explanatory notes to the recipes are interesting, copious and well-authenticated. The editor reveals himself to be a better scholar, well-read in the classics, than a practical cook, well-versed in kitchen practice. Frequently, for instance, ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... Rashi's explanatory note is this: "Shake off the salt from the flesh and it becomes fit only for dogs. The soul is the salt which preserves the body; when it departs, ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... next literary labour was the editorship of the Works of John Dryden, with Notes. Critical and Explanatory, and a Life of the Author: the chief aim of which appears to be the arrangement of the "literary productions in their succession, as actuated by, and operating upon, the taste of an age, where they had so predominating an influence," ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... the expression 'Bible-men,' I remember, struck me at the time, but Hamilton made some explanatory reply, for the quiet force of the soft voice had a certain persuasiveness about it without the aid of his gesture, although the smoke was so thick that we could not see whether he carried the instruments ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... sovereign will and pleasure; that the Union was meant for perpetuity, and that Congress might attempt to preserve it, but only by conciliation; that "the sword was not placed in their hands to preserve it by force;" that "the last desperate remedy of a despairing people" would be "an explanatory amendment recognising the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States." The American Union he called "a confederacy" of States, and he thought it a duty to make the appeal for the amendment "before any of these States should separate themselves from the Union." ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... great reluctance, to give them, in his answer, the appellation of the parliament of England.[**] But it appeared afterwards, by a letter which he wrote to the queen, and of which a copy was taken at Naseby, that he secretly entered an explanatory protest in his council book; and he pretended, that though he had called them the parliament, he had not thereby acknowledged them for such.[***] This subtlety, which has been frequently objected to Charles, is the most noted of those very few instances from which the enemies of this ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... who studies a man during life, and finds something in him which cannot be due to this life, might reasonably admit that it arises from what occult science describes, if by doing so an explanatory light is thrown on what ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... early coffee houses. The fifth stanza of the edition of 1667, inimical to the French, was omitted when the broadside was amended and reprinted in 1672, the year that England joined with France and again declared war on the Dutch. The following verses with explanatory ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... of causation in this case, as we intimated at first, is necessarily incomplete. But some things, probably explanatory, stand out very clearly. Heredity is moderately defective. Inez was the outcome of an unfortunate pregnancy and was a poorly developed infant. She suffered early from a number of illnesses, which, however, left no perceptible physical defects. Her unusual relationship to the other children, ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... of his beloved country! What but a diligent investigation of the cutlerian process could have prompted the illustration of practical knowledge of the Birmingham and Sheffield artificers contained in the following exquisitely explanatory line. But—pray ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... strange action gaining brief eminence by their repeated statements of what they had witnessed and their varied surmises. The role of commentator, if mysterious human action be the text, is always popular, and as this explanatory class are proverbially gifted in conjecture, there were many theories of explanation. Some of the guests had already the good taste to prepare for departure, and when Dr. Mark appeared from the ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... parallels of 34. 30. S. and 32. S., and between the meridians of 149. 29. 30. E. and 143. 30. E. a space of nearly one thousand miles. I shall hasten to lay before your excellency the journals, charts, and drawings, explanatory of the various occurrences of our diversified route; amply gratified if our exertions should appear to your excellency commensurate with your expectations, and the ample means which your care and ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... into forms with which his readers are, to some extent, familiar. Byron seasoned his Oriental tales with phrases and imagery borrowed from the East; but whatever scenic or characteristic effects might have thus been produced are seriously marred by the explanatory notices and erudite references to authorities that are appended to the text. This fashion of garnishing with far-fetched outlandish words, in order to give the requisite flavour of time or place, was peculiar to the new romantic school of his era; it was the poetical dialect of ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... always has his owner's interest at heart and displays a commendable discretion in limiting the depredations practiced by the cable company. For instance, the man Peasley might have omitted the word knifed; also the explanatory words, argument boat fare, and the word mate. Though regretting Noah's demise most keenly, as business men we are not cable-gramically interested in the means employed to accomplish his removal. Neither do ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... father himself took her to town to place her in the convent. They stopped at an inn in the St. Gervais quarter, where, at their supper, they used painted plates that set forth the story of Mademoiselle de la Valliere. The explanatory legends, chipped here and there by the scratching of knives, all glorified religion, the tendernesses of the heart, and ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... this two days later—for instance, on Tuesday, when she at last received a letter from Morris Townsend. It was an epistle of considerable length, measuring five large square pages, and written at Philadelphia. It was an explanatory document, and it explained a great many things, chief among which were the considerations that had led the writer to take advantage of an urgent "professional" absence to try and banish from his ...
— Washington Square • Henry James |
