"Account for" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... even when given to them by my word of mouth, I will hand over the $500. If they can cause invisible agencies to perform in open daylight many of the things which they pretend to accomplish by spirits in the dark, I will promptly pay $500 for the sight. In the mean time, I think I can reasonably account for and explain all pretended spiritual gymnastic performances—throwings of hair-brushes—dancing pianos—spirit-rapping—table-tipping—playing of musical instruments, and flying through the air (in the dark,) and a thousand other "wonderful manifestations" which, like most of the performances ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... purse of gold," added the other. "Here is my pocketbook to begin with, and I will open an account for ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... a loss to account for this; but it is easily explained on the above principles. To teach a child to read, before his mind is capable of understanding, or of reiterating the ideas conveyed by the words he is reading, is to train him to this habit of reading mechanically;—that ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... portraiture of himself; and this opinion received some probability from the fact, that the peripatetic disputant had employed many of the arguments which Urban had himself used in his discussions with Galileo. The latest biographer of Galileo[33] regards this motive as necessary to account for "the otherwise inexplicable change which took place in the conduct of Urban to his old friend;"—but we cannot admit the truth of this supposition. The church had been placed in hostility to a powerful and liberal party, which ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... say you informed me of his behavior? Because how otherwise could I account for my knowledge? He would know I should never have thought of opening or looking at ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... ledger labelled "1906" and ran through it rather carefully. The total expenditure that year had come to something over one hundred and ten thousand dollars. Forty thousand of this had been Beatrice's own income, and there had been no attempt to account for it: it was all under the heading, "Drafts, checks, and letters of credit forwarded to Beatrice Blaine." The dispersal of the rest was rather minutely itemized: the taxes and improvements on the Lake Geneva estate had come to ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... wish that we could," said La Touche; "but you are known to be on board, and we should have to account for you; so I'm afraid you must exercise the philosophy you speak of." Imitating the Frenchman, I shrugged my shoulders, as if I was perfectly resigned to my fate. I made no remark about the English frigate ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... he thought of himself and Stumpy and the parrot, the poor lonely three, there amid the sleepless clamour of the rapids, lamenting their vanished comrades. A chill that was more than the approaching autumn twilight could account for settled upon his heart. ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the wily controversialist. "How do you account for this, then?" He drew from his pocket a printed leaflet. "Take a peek at those figures. Fewer deaths in the Rookeries this last week than in any ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Oscillations in the Level of the Alps and lower Country required to explain the Formation and Denudation of the Loess. More rapid Movement of the Inland Country. The same Depression and Upheaval might account for the Advance and Retreat of the Alpine Glaciers. Himalayan Mud of the Plains of the Ganges compared to European Loess. Human Remains in Loess near Maestricht, and their ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... indicates that his accounts were in unsatisfactory shape, and that he had no means of his own, while his rather surprising selection for the office of "governor" of the larger ship, after the unpleasant experience with him as treasurer-agent, is difficult to account for, except that he was evidently an active opponent of Cushman, and the latter was just then in disfavor with the colonists. He was evidently a man in the prime of life, an "Independent" who had the courage of his convictions if little discretion, and much of that ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... I believed, by means of some English five-pound notes which Bindo had sent me from Stettin, and which I had cashed in Dresden. If these had been stolen—as most probably they had been—then it would well account for the sudden appearance of Mr. Upton and his very charming wife, who had come holiday-making to Germany. Upton had, in his turn, sent information to his superior officer, Inspector Dyer, who had come ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... ratio to the quantity of the ingredient? These effects, of which we could quote several cases much more violent than Mr. Tennyson's, puzzle us exceedingly; but a learned friend, whom we have consulted, has, though he could not account for the phenomenon, pointed out what he thought an analogous case. It is related of Mr. Alderman Faulkner, of convivial memory, that one night when he expected his guests to sit late and try the strength of his claret and his head, he ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... gas, etc., are constant associates of the petroleum of springs or wells, and this escape of gas and oil has been going on in some localities, without apparent diminution, for two or three thousand years. We can only account for the persistence of this flow by supposing that it is maintained by the gradual distillation of the carbonaceous masses with which such evolutions of gas or of liquid hydro-carbons are always connected. If it were true that carbureted hydrogen and petroleum are produced only from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... do, this book tells me, and so plain. It shew me first that I was a wretched, ruined sinner, and what would become of me if I died in that state, and then when I was day and night in dread of God's calling me to account for my wickedness, and did not know which way to look for my deliverance, reading over and over again those dreadful words, "depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire," then it revealed to me how Jesus Christ had consented to ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... had said nothing, here intervened. "How you do run on," he said crossly. "You talk too much, my wife. We haven't to account for ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... have noticed that squirrels also frequently drop nuts in open land, which will still further account for the oaks and walnuts which spring up in pastures; for, depend on it, every new tree comes from a seed. When I examine the little oaks, one or two years old, in such places, I invariably find the empty acorn from which ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... down to business" very quickly after his graduation, and now at the end of another four years he was private secretary to Jim Weeks. That of course wasn't luck. The fact that Jim had fallen in love with Ethel Harvey thirty years before might account for his friendly interest in her son, but it would not explain Harvey's position of trust. He knew that he could not hold it a day except by continuing to be the most ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... hours until I would tell them good-bye and go home, when they would go away too. I suppose the ignorant girl, having foundation enough from my frequent visits there, which were most often alone, made up the rest to account for my never seeming to like company out there. The fervent "Good Lord" with which the tale was received by the other servants, and the full credence they gave it, might have proved unpleasant if further circulated; and I believe some members ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... Eva, "Mr. Locke and I are at a loss to account for Mr. Flint's disappearance! I told the gardeners, and they have hunted for him all over the estate and beyond, but he has disappeared as completely as though the ground ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... of 1883 stipulates that if the husband receives the income of the wife's separate property and she offers no objection, he can not be made liable to account for his use of it for more than one year previous to the date of the complaint or of her death. By an act of 1889, the husband is required to list the property of the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... the true confession of sin, was because they had not been warned, or had not taken the alarm, to flee from the wrath to come. What dread, terror, or frightful apprehension can there be put into a revelation of sin, where there is no sense of a day of judgment, and of our giving there unto God an account for it. (Matt ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... seemed no crime to his base and vicious heart. He merely regarded it as a clever trick; dangerous perhaps, but not dangerous to him; for deeply steeped as he was in numerous villainies he had never yet been called to account for any one of his misdeeds, and long immunity had rendered him utterly hardened and callous to any sentiment of ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... how can you account for the writing, which is identical? Even if we say that the signature is wrong, still we cannot account for the rest unless you wrote it. It is very romantic, and all that, to say that somebody imitated your handwriting in the body ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... right away." He rang the bell and asked Barrymore whether he could account for our experience. It seemed to me that the pallid features of the butler turned a shade paler still as he ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... furniture of the narrow chamber of death we had just visited weighed six millions of francs in ounces and carats alone, without a penny thrown into the account for the costly workmanship bestowed upon them! But we followed into a large room filled with tall wooden presses like wardrobes. He threw them open, and behold, the cargoes of "crude bullion" of the assay offices of Nevada faded out of my memory. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... are wrong. You have never had a meal in the kitchen, you have never received wages, you have never had to account for money spent. I have never scolded you because one thing or the other was not to my liking. And do you consider my work: to reckon and to brace, to ease off and call out 'Present arms,' count herrings and ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... at the farmer with astonishment. He did not remember to have seen him before; and he could not account for the interest he manifested ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... then, instead of taking advantage of it so as to gain to the southward, I put the schooner's head the other way, so as to keep as near as I could to the spot where I heard the voice, reducing her sail so as just to stem the tide. I cannot now account for my anxiety, which, under the circumstances, I most certainly never should have felt, unless it was that Providence was pleased to interpose on this occasion more directly than usual. I could not leave the deck; I waited for daylight with great impatience, and as the day dawned I had my telescope ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... himself and Spenser alone excepted—had begun to write. English poetry was about to wake from the long night that lies between the age of Chaucer and the age of Shakespeare. But it was not yet fully awakened. And the want of a full and free life in creative art goes far to account for the shortcomings of ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... the houseboaters were going to contact the barber, they would naturally try to choose a time when they could see him alone. Maybe there had been an earlier contact, and the barber had told them he would be alone today. That might account for the houseboat's ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... satisfied that there does not exist an unsatisfied demand on the theatre, or a possibility of Mr. Kemble being involved in the risk of a shilling. Mr. Hammersley, or such person as Mr. Kemble and Mr. Sheridan shall agree on, to be Treasurer, and receive and account for the whole receipts, pay the charges, trusts, &c.; and, at the close of the season, the surplus profits to the proprietors. A clause in case of death, or sale, to give the refusal to ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... in mind, nothing less than the attainment of a wonderful degree of spiritual consciousness could account for her marvelous power of description, and her ready ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... is now ascertained that in presence of a considerable proportion of water, wheat flour under the influence of heat undergoes a low degree at least of lactic fermentation, which will account for the souring of the ordinary samples when exposed to warm or humid climates. The same result will inevitably follow from their careless exposure in the holds of vessels. That this is particularly the case with many of ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... sudden change in Hylda. What did it mean? Cairo—why should Cairo have waked her so? Suddenly she recalled certain vague references of Lord Windlehurst, and, for the first time, she associated Hylda with Claridge Pasha in a way which might mean much, account for much, in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... up some kind of tale as best she could to account for her bruised forehead, and fell dangerously ill. An abscess formed in the head. The doctor—Bianchon, I believe—yes, it was Bianchon—wanted to cut off her hair. The Duchesse de Berri's hair is not more beautiful than Claudine's; she would not hear of it, she told Bianchon in confidence that she ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... not speak of Brougham, then the most conspicuous advocate of Whiggism. He published in 1843 a Political Philosophy, which, according to Lord Campbell, killed the 'Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.' No such hypothesis is necessary to account for the death of a society encumbered by a 'Dictionary of Universal Biography.' But the book was bad enough to kill, if a collection of outworn ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... My lady was of the old nobility,—grand, compose, gentle, and stately in her ways. Miss Galindo must always have been hurried in her manner, and her energy must have shown itself in inquisitiveness and oddness even in her youth. But I don't pretend to account for things: I only narrate them. And the fact was this:—that the elegant, fastidious countess was attracted to the country girl, who on her part almost worshipped my lady. My lady's notice of their daughter made her parents ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... According to Ptolemy's theory the sun and the moon moved in circular orbits around the earth in the centre. The explanation of the movements of the planets he found to be more complicated, because it was necessary to account for the fact that a planet sometimes advanced and that it sometimes retrograded. The ancient geometers refused to believe that any movement, except revolution in a circle, was possible for a celestial body: accordingly a contrivance ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... that time was very memorable, and God turned it to good account for higher ends. I often tell it as "the miracle of the speaking bit of wood"; and it has happened to other Missionaries exactly as to myself. While working at the house, I required some nails and tools. Lifting a piece of planed wood, I penciled ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... schooner was continually haunting me. Being unable also to account for our not having fallen in with the "Lady Alice" made me feel far from happy. Medley tried to cheer me up by suggesting that she had probably sailed for the westward, and that we should find her by-and-by in that direction. ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... "It is impossible to account for the first case of which I have spoken. But, as the cow in that case was put into a sale-stable in New York while waiting for the boat,—though there were no cattle then present,—yet I have supposed it not unlikely that ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... any introduction, and in a way that somewhat puzzled Middleton himself, they had become acquainted. It was so unusual that a young English girl should be wandering about the country entirely alone—so much less usual that she should speak to a stranger—that Middleton scarcely knew how to account for it, but meanwhile accepted the fact readily and willingly, for in truth he found this mysterious personage a very likely and entertaining companion. There was a strange quality of boldness in her remarks, almost of brusqueness, ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the vaulting of what is now the vestry was still standing, that it had been injured by the settlement above-mentioned—in fact that its removal and the erection of the dividing wall took place in the time of Archbishop Lee. His direction for repairs may also account for the presence of limestone in the north wall of the Chapter-house, and for the propping of the vault at the west end of the crypt.[116] As has already been shown, the history of the vestry is bound up with that of the Chapter-house. At what period services ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
... I had seen the clandestine courtship between Harry Liscom and Harriet Jameson going on. We could scarcely help it. We kept wondering why neither Caroline Liscom nor Mrs. Jameson seemed aware of it. Of course, Mrs. Jameson was so occupied with the village welfare that it might account for it in her case, but we were surprised that Caroline was so blinded. We both of us thought that she would be very much averse to the match, from her well-known opinion of the Jamesons; and it proved that she was. Everybody talked so much about Harry and ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... in the history of the English Morris, which by this time may be called impossible to account for with any exactitude, is that in the elder days the Mummers and their plays, the Robin Hood games and other ancient diversions with their characters and customs, became allied—or rather mixed up—with the Morris-men, upon May-day and occasions of festivity such as ...
— The Morris Book • Cecil J. Sharp
... one day expressed to Pike, the Editor of the Tidborough County Times. He was taken into the County Times office by business connected with an error in the firm's standing account for advertisement notices and, encountering Pike outside his room, entered with ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... age, if only moderately prepossessing. All this had the women to complain of in him before the cataclysm that, for the time at least, had played havoc with his good looks. All this he knew and bore with philosophic and whimsical stoicism. But all this and more could not account for the phenomenon of averted eyes and constrained, if not freezing, manner when, in the dusk of the late autumn evening, issuing suddenly from his quarters, he came face to face with a party of four ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... flowed free in its own unconscious abundance: where conscious deliberate workmanship was needed, "the forthright craftsman's hand," there alone he was lax and irresponsible. In Shakspeare's case we can often account for similar incongruities by the constraint of the old plot which he was using; but Scott was making his own plots, or letting them make themselves. "I never could lay down a plan, or, having laid it down, I never could adhere ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... leaving the colony in 1850. It has been considered expedient to exclude a few individuals which have not had the advantage of a direct comparison with authentic specimens, either at Calcutta or in England. This will account for the omission of a number that have appeared in other catalogues, but of which many, though ascertained to exist, have not been submitted to this rigorous process ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... almost naked, excepting the head, which every negro swathes during the night with as much flannel and as many handkerchiefs as he can command. By the way, they all slept on their faces—I wonder if this will account for their flat noses. ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... extraordinary Encouragement to one of my Acquaintance to go over with him, that was a great Master of this Science. But notwithstanding all that can be said that relates to this Subject, there are so many Incidents attending Malt-liquors, that it has puzled several expert Men to account for their difference, though brewed by the same Brewer, with the same Malt, Hops and Water, and in the same Month and Town, and tapp'd at the same time: The Beer of one being fine, strong and well Tasted, while the others have not had any worth ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... the crystalline spheres was not more at variance with the correct motion of the stars and planets, than the moon theory of the tides. In their dilemma to account for the retrograde motions of the planets, they denominated them wanderers, stragglers, because they would not march with the "music of the spheres." In the moon theory of the tides the lunar satellite is made to pull and push at one and the same time, which is entirely ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... the French at a serious disadvantage. They could not compete with the English in the matter of prices. The English trader could give the Indian for his furs two or three times as much merchandise as the French could offer him. To account for this commercial discrepancy there were several reasons. The cost of transportation to and from France was high—approximately twice that of freighting from London to Boston or New York. Navigation on the St. Lawrence was dangerous in those days before buoys and beacons came to mark the shoal ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... of the times, the evident insufficiency or partiality of the historians of that age, and the interest of Henry VII to destroy all records that gave authority to the House Of York and their title, account for our wanting ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... said Jessie; "tell Mr Slick that story, for it's a true one, and I should like to hear what he thinks of it, or how he can account for it." ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... on that point. She was always depressed by the Colonel's grandiloquence, which he usually reserved for The Greenbush and the town-meeting, without being able to account for it. ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... did not know what to say, and neither was he able to account for so much forbearance on the part of the cowboys. He looked to see them pull their revolvers; but instead of doing that they drew chairs up beside their sick comrade and waited to see what was going to happen ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... Chirsty, "to be the factor at the Spittal's lassie. The factor has a grand garden, and that would account for such ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... to examine the kitchen more closely. A very careful survey produced no results and he could find nothing that the carpenters were not able to account for. There was no evidence of any struggle. A sheep might as easily have been killed in the chamber as a man; but he judged the blood to be human and Halfyard had made one discovery of possible importance. The timbers of the kitchen door were ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... of the many deficiencies which the reader will discover in this book is attributable to the Editor. These, however, it is his duty to account for, and he will do it ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... to explain many things, which, although not new to you, you have probably never tried to account for before. ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... Id., p. 1084.] Mr. Davis noted by his indorsement on the paper that the previous returns showed a larger force present for duty. [Footnote: Id., p. 1086.] He however added that the language "relied on as effectives" might account for the difference. But when on the 21st Beauregard, in the dispatch proposing that Lee should send part of his army to Salisbury, N. C., said, "Hardee and myself can collect about 15,000 exclusive of Cheatham ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... do you think?" she asked anxiously. "How can you account for his strangeness—his ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... night. The names of the gentlemen who knock in are entered by the porter in a book kept for that purpose, and the next morning it is carried to the dean and censors, who generally call upon the parties so offending to account for being out of college at so late an hour. A frequent recurrence of this practice will sometimes draw from the dean a very ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... learning proved an enveloping, protecting cloak to these mendicant and pilgrim authors. The dispersion of the Jews, their international commerce, and the desire to maintain their academies, stimulated a love for travel, made frequent journeyings a necessity, indeed. In this way only can we account for the extraordinarily rapid spread of Jewish literature in the middle ages. The student of those times often chances across a rabbi, who this day teaches, lectures, writes in Candia, to-morrow in Rome, next year in Prague or Cracow, and so Jewish literature is ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... Morland," I replied drily. "I don't think we're here to glaze matters over. We've got to face things, and one of these things is that Holgate hasn't worried us since he got possession. How are you going to account for that, save ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... Jewish captives. As he suffered himself to be initiated into the Mysteries of Egypt during his visit to that country, it is not unlikely that he may have sought a similar initiation into the masonic Mysteries. This would account for the many analogies and resemblances to Masonry that we find in the moral teachings, the symbols, and the peculiar organization of the school of Pythagoras—resemblances so extraordinary as to have justified, or at least ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... reverence due to morality, virtue, decency, and justice. It is surprising to observe the warmth with which they unanimously reproved whatever seemed inconsistent with them, and called the poet to an account for it, notwithstanding his having a well-founded excuse, as he had given such sentiments only to persons notoriously vicious, and actuated ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... accurate or inaccurate knowledge, we may confidently conclude where two spellings of a word exist, and are both employed by persons who generally write with precision and scholarship, that there must be something to account for this. It will generally be worth your while to inquire into the causes which enable both spellings to hold their ground and to find their supporters, not ascribing either one or the other to mere carelessness or error. It will in these cases often be found ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... wooed, and won in a week. In later life he tried in a most amusing way to account for this rashness, and to find reasons of settled gravity for the happy inspiration of his heart. He cites the evidence of Judge Sedgwick, of Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Wolcott, of the Rev. Dr. Smith, and others, to the wisdom of his choice. But it does not appear that he consulted them beforehand. If love ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... creation. They go back to the time when we were all monkeys. They insist that man was originally created with a kind of Darwinian tail, and that in the process of evolution this caudal appendage was removed and created into woman. This might better account for those Caudle lectures which woman is in the habit of delivering, and some color is given to this theory, from the fact that husbands even down to the present day seem to inherit a general disposition to ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... should come to him from a supernatural witness, who could not be cross-questioned or called upon to give material proof. This was the readiest as well as the most picturesque method of begetting in him that condition of doubt, real or affected, which was necessary to account for his behaviour. But to have shown us in action the matter of the Ghost's revelation would have been hopelessly to ruin its effect. A repetition in narrative of matters already seen in action is the grossest of technical blunders.[6] Hamlet senior, in ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... for and against Italy, Mary asks Shelley to let her know distinctly his wish in the matter, as she can be well anywhere. One strong reason for their going to Italy is that Alba, as Allegra was then called, should join her father. Evidently the embarrassment was too great to settle how to account for the poor child longer in England; and had not she a just ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... subsequently wrote: "I know the existence of the conspiracy is denied, but how account for the conduct of Napoleon after his return save from the supposition that he was fettered by the engagements he had made in his exile?... He threw himself entirely into the arms of that party to which he had hitherto evinced the ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... planted on his head; the pillar at which he was scourged; and, above all, they showed the cross on which he suffered, and which was dug out of the earth in the reign of those princes, who inserted the symbol of Christianity in the banners of the Roman legions. Such miracles as seemed necessary to account for its extraordinary preservation, and seasonable discovery, were gradually propagated without opposition. The custody of the true cross, which on Easter Sunday was solemnly exposed to the people, was intrusted to the bishop of Jerusalem; and he alone might gratify ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... against Bludworth for his want of resolution during the crisis,(1310) and when Michaelmas-day arrived, and he was about to go out of office, he was called to account for his conduct. In anticipation of lord mayor's day he wrote to Joseph Williamson, afterwards Secretary of State, bespeaking his favour and support. He professed not to live by popular applause (he said), but he needed and desired the support and esteem of government, "having had the misfortune ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... "we must account for this little race. There's Judy. Run on ahead and tell anyone you meet—tell them we're coming," she ended foolishly to Bobbie. ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... than average, perhaps—ninety-eight six in his studies, including elementary astrophysics. He speaks brilliantly, composes poetry, even invents little gadgets. He's a genius, maybe, but not a mutant.' Then I asked myself, 'how do you account for the cat?'" ...
— When I Grow Up • Richard E. Lowe
... never heard any queer noises when they lived at the place before they sold it to me," answered Grandpa Ford. "But your mother and I have heard many strange noises, and we can't account for them. ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... two mornings, the Soobhi Kazim and the Soobhi Sadig, the false and the real daybreak. They account for this phenomenon in a most whimsical manner. They say that as the sun rises from behind the Kohi Qaf (Mount Caucasus), it passes a hole perforated through that mountain, and that darting its rays through it, it is the cause of the Soobhi Kazim, or this temporary ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... irresistibly raised of other points beyond it. When we try to imagine the last instant of time, we can not help conceiving another instant after it. Nor is there any necessity to assume, as is done by a modern school of metaphysicians, a peculiar fundamental law of the mind to account for the feeling of infinity inherent in our conceptions of space and time; that apparent infinity is sufficiently accounted for by simpler and universally ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... inaccuracies being found in the September return previously received, it was sent back to Lieut.-Colonel Proctor, at Fort George, for correction. This circumstance and the distance of the place, account for the delay which has occurred in complying, in the present instance, with the commands of his royal ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... foundation, excludes the possibility of this scientific question, for according to it the crime is the product of the fiat of the human will. And if that is admitted as a fact, there is nothing left to account for. The manslaughter was committed, because the criminal wanted to commit it; and that is all there is to it. Once the theory of a free will is accepted as a fact, the deed depends on the fiat, the voluntary determination, of the criminal, and all ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri
... apartment above that in which Henry VII. undoubtedly slept may, it appears to the present writer, have been occupied by Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII., who, it is well known, accompanied him on, at least, one pilgrimage to Walsingham. As she also was Queen Elizabeth, this may account for the tradition, ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... no doubt that the things he hunts for are possessed of supernatural powers; and the theory of a brownie in the house, with a special grudge against Jonathan, would perhaps best account for the way in which they elude his search but leap into sight at my approach. There is, to be sure, one other explanation, but it is one that does not suggest itself to him, or appeal to him when suggested by me, so there is no need ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... apparently, by a desire to put himself on the level of the general public, and of their ideas. This, at least, is how one explains to oneself various remarks in his prefaces, journals, and note-books. This may account for the moral allegories which too weirdly haunt some of his short, early pieces. Edgar Poe, in a passage full of very honest and well-chosen praise, found fault with the ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... married. But thirty or forty years ago, young men used to rush by blind instinct into the toils of matrimony—because they couldn't help themselves. Such Laodicean luke-warmness betokens in the class which exhibits it a weakening of impulse. That weakening of impulse is really the thing we have to account for. ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... absolutely penniless," said Errington, smiling gravely. "Even if I were," he continued, with unusual animation, "do you think me capable of rebuilding my fortune on your disgrace? or of inventing some elaborate lie to account for the possession of that unlucky will? No amount of riches could repay me for either. I dare say the temptation you describe was irresistible to a nature like yours, and I dare say too the punishment of your self-condemnation is bitter enough. Now you must reflect that your duty is to keep ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... was Adam's second wife was a common Rabbinic speculation. Certain commentators on Genesis adopted this view, to account for the double account of the creation of woman, in the sacred text, first in Genesis i. 27, and second in Genesis xi. 18. And they say that Adam's first wife was named Lilith, but she was expelled from Eden, and after her expulsion Eve was created. Abraham ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... the complicated incidents which occurred on this tour, would occupy a large space. I therefore pass it all over, with the remark, that in this interview with Mr. Wordsworth, the subject of the "Lyrical Ballads" was mentioned but once, and that casually, and only to account for its failure! which Mr. W. ascribed to two causes; first the "Ancient Mariner," which, he said, no one seemed to understand; and secondly, the unfavorable notice of most ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... practical and useful, with a court and its proper officers. Let every large unrepresented estate be placed in the hands of a temporary administrator, who should be a practical and honest man, and held to a strict account for all properties entrusted to his keeping, and who should act also as guardian to the slaves belonging to the estate. Then enforce the collection of a tax; and if the owner comes forward within sixty days, pays ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... but not so very long ago. I recollect that there was talk of a probable extension, the time that new revivalist was having the house built, and that must account for the few windows toward this end on the left. They've got a first-rate place to shoot from, but what astonishes me is that Mayo should want to make a stand when he must know that we'll get him sooner ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... coast and tourism, both based abroad, account for Antarctica's limited economic activity. Antarctic fisheries in 2005-06 (1 July-30 June) reported landing 128,081 metric tons (estimated fishing from the area covered by the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... disputing over it ever since and picking his parents' histories and genealogies to bits, to find the cause. Their inquiries do not help us much. The father drove a cab; the mother was a charwoman and came of a consumptive family. But these facts will not quite account for a magic shadow. The birth took place on the night of a new moon, down a narrow alley into which neither moon nor sun ever penetrated beyond the third-storey windows—and that is why the parents were so long in discovering ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... had got to the door and stood up. All was dark within, so that I could distinguish nothing by the eye. As for sounds, there was the steady drone of the snorers and a small occasional noise, a flickering or pecking that I could in no way account for. ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the spot where I was. It was so long since I had heard from Mr. Thorold! I had told him he must not write to me; but at the same time he had said that he would, and that he would enclose a letter to my father. Neither letter had come. It was easy to account for; he might not have had a chance to write; or in the confusions at home, his despatch might have been detained somewhere; it might reach me after a long interval, or it might never reach me! There was nothing strange about it; there was something trying. The ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... told M. Vandeloup she had poured half the contents of one bottle into the other. Would not this account for the bottle ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... ceased to be a possession of the Dukes of Brittany in the reign of Richard II., but there had evidently been sufficient time to allow French ideals to percolate into the minds of the men of Richmond, for how otherwise can we account for this strange familiarity of shops with a sacred building which is unheard of in any other English town? Where else can one find a pork-butcher's shop inserted between the tower and the nave, or a tobacconist ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... sparkled in a cluster between the branches of my pine tree. They made me think of the circlet which Tintoret's Venus swoops down with over the head of the ruddy Bacchus and rose-white Ariadne. Those, also, I said to myself ill-humouredly, were probably stage jewels.... I cannot account for the sudden train of associations this word evoked: sweeping, magnificent gestures, star-like eyes, and a goddess' brows shining through innumerable years; a bar or two of melodious ritornello; an ineffable sense of poetry and ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... then, ensures favour; and on the other hand its neglect entails punishment. When Apollo sends a plague upon the Greek fleet the most natural hypothesis to account for his conduct is that he has been stinted of his due meed of offerings; "perhaps," says Agamemnon, "the savour of lambs and unblemished goats may appease him." Or again, when the Greeks omit to sacrifice before building the wall around their fleet, they are punished ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... suddenly became aware that he was no longer gaining nearly as rapidly as before upon the chase; indeed there were moments when he doubted whether he was gaining at all. For a few minutes he was puzzled how to account for this—for the breeze was still as fresh as ever, indeed he was rather inclined to believe that, if anything, it was slightly freshening—but presently, as he watched the canoe, he detected a kind of rhythmical glinting appearance on each side of her; ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... enthusiasm in this society branching out in so many practical directions, absorbed for a time the energies of the Illinois women. Our membership reached 400. This may account for the apparent lethargy of the Suffrage Association during the years of 1877-78. Caroline F. Corbin dealt an effective blow in her novel, entitled "Rebecca; or, A Woman's Secret." Jane Grey Swisshelm, with trenchant pen, wrote earnest strictures ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... American Citizen, and millionaire, lay upon the broad of his back, staring up at the cloudless blue above, and despite heart break, and a certain Haunting Shadow, felt singularly content, which feeling he was at some pains with himself to account for. ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... contemporary documents the members of the Secret Tribunals were frequently referred to under the name of Rose-Croix.[323] Now, since, as we have seen, the degree of the Rosy Cross is said to have been brought to Europe by the Templars, this would account for the persistence of the name in the Vehmgerichts as well as in the Rosicrucians of the seventeenth century, who are said to have continued the Templar tradition. Thus Templarism and Rosicrucianism appear to have been always closely connected, a fact which is not surprising ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... Laws may explain the inorganic world; the biological Laws may account for the development of the organic. But of the point where they meet, of that strange borderland between the dead and the living, Science is silent. It is as if God had placed everything in earth and heaven in the hands of Nature, but reserved ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... you a bad trick if she can, just as a woman would upon the earth. Also I hear of you sometimes from Miss Ogilvy or, rather, her speerit, for she is as fond of you as ever, so fond that I think you must have mixed up together in a previous life, because otherwise there is nothing to account for it. She tries to protect you from Eleanor the indignant, with whom she has, I gather, ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... was at once admitted into the presence of the local potentate. Jorce, looking smaller and more like a fairy changeling than ever, was evidently pleased to see Lucian, but a look on his dry, yellow face indicated that he was somewhat puzzled to account for the visit. However, preliminary greetings having passed, Lucian did not leave him long ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... account for it, but it seems to me I take the road each morning with a livelier mind and keener curiosity. If you were to watch me narrowly these days you would see I am slowly shedding my years. I suspect that some one of the clear hill streams ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... in opposition to almost all that political economy has yet produced, his writing has drawn to him very unusual notice. The increasing interest in social questions, and the general lack of economic training, which prevents a right estimate of his reasoning by people in general, sufficiently account for the wide attention ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... Army and could not find a job until he was offered a mastership at a public school. The school rather than Jimmy has my sympathies. There was nothing peculiarly alluring about this philanderer to account for the devastating magnetism which he exerted upon the female heart. To describe all this orgy of caresses could hardly have been worth anyone's time and trouble; certainly it was not worth Mr. MAIS'S. I say this with all the more assurance because, greatly as I dislike the main ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 22, 1920 • Various
... reaching the Louvre alone. Marcel, who had repainted the picture ten times, and minutely gone over it from top to bottom, vowed that only a personal hostility on the part of the members of the jury could account for the ostracism which annually turned him away from the Salon, and in his idle moments he had composed, in honor of those watch-dogs of the Institute, a little dictionary of insults, with illustrations of a savage irony. This collection gained celebrity and ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... her to account for something she had promised. She hid her face in the pillow, and pulled the quilt over her head. Her heart throbbed till the bed itself ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... at the achievements of another, which, from their apparent facility, might have been its own. It is indeed strange that the simple mechanism thus explained should have been unobserved or misunderstood so long; and nothing can account for it but the imperceptible lightness as well as the strength of the chains which authority ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... these last days? She has been quite offended by it, I can tell you. It's always being said that you are sure to come today; and when the day goes by and you come not, she pouts and looks vexed, and casts about for all manner of reasons to account for it. You had better not be too slack, or you will offend ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... shall receive and record memberships, receive and account for all moneys of the Association and shall pay all bills approved by the President or the Secretary. He shall give such security as the Board of Directors may require or may legally be required, shall invest life memberships or other ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... all uncharitableness!" but, in solitude, the good and benevolent dispositions with which our self-love no longer interferes have room to expand and ripen without being cramped by opposing interests: this will account for many seeming discrepancies in character. There are also some men in whom old age supplies the place of solitude, and Rousseau's antagonist and mental antipodes, Voltaire, is of this order. The pert, the malignant, the arrogant, the lampooning ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... it possible?" exclaimed I, with a warmth I could not repress. "The duchess," resumed madame de Mirepoix, "says he is an ill-bred and ungrateful man, and the countess insists upon it he is a downright pedant." 'Shameful, indeed," cried I; "but can you, my dear friend, account for the ill-nature with which these ladies speak of poor Rousseau?" "Oh! Yes," replied the marechale, "their motives are easily explained, and I will tell you a little secret, for the truth of which I can vouch. Madame de Luxembourg had at ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... myself to discuss this matter with you any further, Mr. Hodder. I feel too deeply—too strongly on the subject. I do not pretend to account for this astonishing transformation in your opinions. Up to the present I have deemed St. John's fortunate—peculiarly fortunate, in having you for its rector. I am bound to say I think you have not considered, in this change of attitude on your part, those who ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... respect to the interpretation that was sure to be put upon that expression by the hearer and the reader. The strain of their position in all these respects made Newman and his allies no exemplary school. Their example has been, perhaps rightly, held to account for something that was often under the evil name of sophistry suspected and disliked in Mr. Gladstone himself, in his speeches, his writings, and even ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... speak of the Inquisition, she knew little about its properties; but a sudden tremor passed through her frame as the name was mentioned, which she could not herself account for. ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat |
