"Account for" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to pervade all interstellar space, vibrations in which are assumed to account for the transmission of light ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... do not disquiet yourself. You will be furnished with all necessary papers, so that you can account for all your life during the twenty-five years you spent ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... the less serious diseases[34] that these cunning folk were consulted. They were called upon often indeed—if one fragmentary evidence may be trusted—to diagnose the diseases and to account for the deaths of domestic animals.[35] It may very easily be that it was from the necessity of explaining the deaths of animals that the practitioners of magic began to talk about witchcraft and to throw out a hint that some witch was at the back of the matter. It would be in line with their ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... he confided his doubts about his paper on Dreams. He cannot account for them, hence he has offered merely an hypothesis, ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... next moment, she throws me into despair. These nuns are very skilful in education—at least they are said to be so. The doctors give me hope, too. You see, her poor mother was very unhappy at the time of her birth—delirious, indeed: that may account for it. I often fancy that it is the constant excitement which her state occasions me that makes me love her so much. You see she is one who can never shift for herself. I must get money for her; I have left a little already with the superior, and I would not touch it to save myself from famine! If ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... an intimate friendship with the poet. For the latter's edification the spirit expounds the problem: Why from the same parents, children grow up different in disposition, talent and career, a problem just as interesting to the twentieth as the thirteenth century. We account for the difference according to the principles of variation, heredity and environment, but to stellar influence intent upon securing the fulfillment of the law of individuality, was the difference attributed by the ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... account for my dreaming of him. He stuck in my sleep, cornerwise, and I couldn't get him out. He was always flitting about me, dancing round me, and peeping in over my hammock, though I woke and dozed off again fifty times. At last, when I opened my eyes, there he really was, looking ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens
... close to him now, as if to catch the scent of some disturbing influence which might account for such incoherence; but Amidon's breath was ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... of his books, of the close connection between mind and body; but seems to think that the fact is sufficiently brought out by text-books on psychology that some kind of dualism or parallelism is absolutely necessary to be held in order to account for the content of consciousness. What exact meaning and province should be assigned to psychology is to-day a matter of serious dispute. Textbooks of the nature of William James's Principles of Psychology present a double aspect of the subject-matter as well as of its mode of treatment. ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... somewhere, I give you warning, where he deems no trail shall be left behind him. But I promise you, whatever be your own wish, I shall follow him into the last corner of the earth, but he shall see me and give account for this! There is none of us he has not deceived, utterly, and like a black-hearted villain. He shall account for it, though ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... remained throughout his life a Quaker not only in dress and speech but in belief and character, yet with his quietness and quaint simplicity was blended no severity nor gloom. He had a great love of fun, which alone can account for his mischievous habit of teasing, and for his keeping such pets as the little bantam rooster that aroused the household each morning with its crowing, and the parrot "Charlie" that swore when excited, stopped the horses in the street with its cries of "whoa," and nipped the ankles of unwary ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... his dues; he resolved to injure him more materially. About a month after his unlucky lawsuit, Nagendra learnt quite by accident that one of his estates named Lakhimpur had been notified for sale for arrears of land revenue amounting to Rs. 197 odd. The Naib (manager), on being asked to account for this, laid all the blame on the ryots, who, he said, would not be made to pay their rent and thus deprived him of the means of satisfying the Government demand. Nagendra rebuked him for gross negligence and failing to report the matter, ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... out and invited him to dinner. He accepted, quite disarmed by my friendly manner. On the way I led him unsuspectingly to a police station. He was surrounded by several officers whom I had previously selected for their ferocious appearance. Under their formidable gaze, Jatinda agreed to account for his mysterious conduct. ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... sharp correspondence between Shirley and the Governor of Canada touching the Acadian priests. Thus, Shirley writes: "I can't avoid now, Sir, expressing great surprise at the other parts of your letter, whereby you take upon you to call Mr. Mascarene to account for expelling the missionary from Minas for being guilty of such treasonable practices within His Majesty's government as merited a much severer Punishment." Shirley a Galissoniere, 9 Mai 1749. Shirley writes to Newcastle that the Acadians "are ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... searchers. We did listen, but all that we heard was a faint far distant moan, which Dicky tried to make me believe was the wind in a ventilating shaft. We could also hear a prolonged thumping very close to us, but that we could each account for personally. And ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Carrelles is at six leagues from Mayenne, in the canton of Gorron. Margaret's first husband, the Duke of Alencon, held various fiefs in this part of Maine, which would account for the incident related in the story coming to ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... with Ellen's dismissal, but on finding it clear, as Theobald said—everything was always clear with Theobald—that Ernest had not been in the house all the morning, and could therefore have known nothing of what had happened, he was acquitted on this account for once in a way, without a stain upon his character. Perhaps Theobald was in a good temper; he may have seen from the paper that morning that his stocks had been rising; it may have been this or twenty other things, but whatever it was, he did not scold so much as Ernest had expected, and, seeing the ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... at all." His genius 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
... has been said to account for the cat's love of study when the theatre was vacated by the pupils, and upon this particular occasion, taking little heed of Mr Morris, Tom went on investigating with his nose till he had reached the end of one series of desks, and, bounding across ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... would have me that I made no difficulty of complying with his desire. Two days after this, I was very much surprised at perceiving such a melancholy in his countenance, and alteration in his behavior, as I could no way account for; but, by importunity, at last I got from him that cardinal Wolsey, for what reason he knew not, had peremptorily forbid him to think any more of me: and, when he urged that his father was not displeased with it, the ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... I am sorry to say, I have an appointment at eight o'clock, and I must just take facts as I find them to-night, without trying to account for them; which, indeed, would make no difference in determining how to act as things stand—the ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... vision of majesty and delight, but to Amanda a virtuous censor, necessarily to be obeyed, yet whose presence made the summer day intolerable. Even her purple cap-ribbons bespoke terror to the evil-doer, and her heavy face was set, as a judgment, toward the doom of the man who knew not how to account for his actions. She began speaking again, and Amanda involuntarily gave a little start, as at a ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... all—flirtation. Philandering, and especially philandering of the Platonic and ultra-sentimental order, is almost the one human pastime of which its votaries never seem to tire; and its constant ministrations to human vanity may serve, perhaps, to account for their unwearied absorption in its pursuit. Sterne's first love affair—an affair of which, unfortunately, the consequences were more lasting than the passion—took place immediately upon his leaving Cambridge. To relate it as ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... that her face was lighted with an altogether new beauty; he noticed the deep glow upon her cheek, the brilliancy of her eye, the slight quiver of her lip. But he saw all this as one sees things in a half-trance, without attempting to account for them; the door between his soul and his senses ...
— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... time or opportunity to overpower you. And I suppose I need not remind you of what your fate will be in that case. Therefore, think well over the matter, and do nothing that you may afterward regret. You should be easily able to concoct a story to account for your present plight that should satisfy those who may find you in the morning, without referring to us. And now we will leave ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... was a devilish queer dream, wasn't it? You'll account for it by telling me I'd been so pestered with the story of the banker's murder that I naturally had nightmare; perhaps, too, that my digestion was out of order. Call it a nightmare, call it dyspepsia, if you like. I don't, because—— But you'll see ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... but affected young lady I mentioned to have seen, in Lord Orville's party, at the Pantheon? How little did I then imagine her to be his sister! yet Lady Louisa Larpent is the very person. I can now account for the piqued manner of her speaking to Lord Merton that evening, and I can now account for the air of displeasure with which Lord Orville marked the undue attention of ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... gone did Hugh wonder how he had unearthed him here in the Northborough Hotel. He had meant to ask him—he had asked him actually, and the General had not explained. But it did not matter, after all. Some coincidence, some easily understandable explanation, of course, would account for it. ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... but for the barrier in the shape of a theological seminary, or a hod-carrier but for the barrier of learning how. As it was, I could draw my pay for husking corn on Saturday night, and begin accumulating salary as a schoolmaster on Monday. The plan was simplicity itself, and that may account for ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... as if puzzled, and then said in a half shame-faced way, 'Mrs. Warrington, there is some truth in that remark of yours. Some subtle, inexplicable change that I cannot account for has come over me. Even as Samson's strength lay in his hair, do you think my reason lay ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... was reflecting upon the awful event of the morning, her attention was drawn from the subject by a low whispering sound. Aware that the teachers and servants were retired to rest, she could not account for the circumstance; she now heard doors slowly opening, and was persuaded that different persons were passing her room. Alarmed, but at the same time collected, she cautiously opened her own door; and perceiving a glimmering light proceed from the chamber where ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... offspring-assuming an original environment favorable for such transformation. Some criterion besides the mere external and accidental "struggle for existence" and "survival of the fittest" must be furnished to account for a progressive evolution. Does the phrase "survival of the fittest" say much more than that those who happen to survive are the fittest, or that their survival proves their fitness? But that survival itself is valuable: that it is better to be alive than dead; that existence ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... Hopkins was in a state of amazement; and Millicent, if she did not swoon, seemed to herself in a trance. Neither of them could see in the cause anything to account for the effect. How could a merchant prince quail before so flimsy a piece of paper? Mr. Sterling explained. Mr. Hopkins begged the matter might not be made public,—above all things, that legal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... sundry Italians."[307] Anthony Munday apologizes for his "simple translation" of Palmerin d'Oliva by remarking that "to translate allows little occasion of fine pen work,"[308] a comment which goes far to account for the doubtful quality of his productions ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... I shall not rest in my grave for chagrin. I was vexed to the soul I had not seen you sooner; I determined to cultivate your friendship with the enthusiasm of religion; but thus has Fortune ever served me. I cannot bear the idea of leaving Edinburgh without seeing you. I know not how to account for it—I am strangely taken with some people, nor am I often mistaken. You are a stranger to me; but I am an odd being: some yet unnamed feelings, things, not principles, but better than whims, carry me farther than boasted ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... forced from its original home by pressure from outside. Perhaps it is simplest to suppose that the Wiradjeri have gradually forced their way in, wedge fashion, between the different sections, and either swallowed up the intervening members or driven them before them; this would account for the existence of the anomalous groups ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... the one hand," exclaimed Willis, "and on the other robbing Indians. How do you account for it?" ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... account for that their Conduct, but that Theocritus happen'd not to make any true Female Characters, nor to introduce any such of the Fair-Sex, as would shine in Pastoral, and they pretend to nothing farther ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... was told long ago by our Northern forefathers who brought it with them in their dragon ships when they crossed the North Sea to settle in England. In those days men were apt to invent stories to account for things about them which seemed peculiar, and loving the sea as they did, it is not strange that they had remarked the peculiarity of the ocean water and had found a reason why it is so different from the water in the ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... searching for her after midnight, perhaps to find her strayed beyond the park, out upon the solitary heath. She knew most of the stars, not by their astronomical names indeed, but by names she had herself given them. She had tales of her own, fashioned in part from the wild myths of the aborigines, to account for the special relations of such as made a group. She would weave the travels of the planets into the steady history of the motionless stars. Waning and waxing moons had a special and strange influence upon her. She would dart out of doors the moment she saw the new moon, and give a wild ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... most of the Subalterns sat upon him with sofa cushions to find out why he had not said that acting was his strong point, he answered very quietly: "I don't think you ever asked me. I used to act at Home with my sisters." But no acting with girls could account for The Worm's display that night. Personally, I think it was in bad taste. Besides being dangerous. There is no sort of use in playing with fire, even ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... little chap up in her arms and carried him away. It was evident she was fond of him, which might account for her having stolen him, as it appeared she had; also for her jealousy. What would be the end of the muddle? Rodney asked himself. He thought of the stake and the frenzied villagers dancing around the fire with blood-curdling yells. Would he be able to endure the ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... In No. 19 of "The Medley," the writer calls "The Examiner" to account for writing Abigail Masham, spinster. She was then Mrs. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... first puzzled to account for this behaviour of the king, but from the conversation I had with the guide, I had afterwards reason to believe, that Mansong would willingly have admitted me into his presence at Sego, but was apprehensive he might not be able to protect me against the blind and inveterate malice of the moorish ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... thoughts pitch and jostle against each other as in the dark. The whole play is an unruly chaos of strange and forbidden things, where the ground rocks under our feet. Shakspeare's genius here took its full swing, and trod upon the farthest bounds of nature and passion. This circumstance will account for the abruptness and violent antitheses of the style, the throes and labour which run through the expression, and from defects will turn them into beauties. "So fair and foul a day I have not seen," etc. "Such welcome and unwelcome news together." "Men's lives are like the flowers in ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... impossible to get her across the stream at any place nearer than the "big bridge;" he would not take her that way and make up a false story to account for his lateness at school, and he could not leave her alone or take her ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... not given up all hopes of her even yet," answered Harry; "though I cannot account for her not ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... mystery of the Trinity. And St. Peter, in the vision of the sheet, learned that God is no respecter of persons or of nationalities. In such cases the highest intuitions or revelations, which the soul can in its best moments just receive, but cannot yet grasp or account for, make a language for themselves, as it were, and claim the sanction of external authority, until the mind is elevated so far as to feel the authority not less Divine, but no longer external. We ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... in the meanwhile, when she tried to account for its loss to Rosenthal, never caused him the slightest concern. She, of course, could concoct some story which they would finally believe. If not, they could deduct the value of the lace ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... for the Father to entertain. It is too insolvent a state of things for any one with any self-respect to entertain, and is universally scouted. But, it is so amazing how any people can have come to a total smash, that everybody feels bound to account for it specially. One of the Fathers says, 'Gaming table.' Another of the Fathers says, 'Speculated without knowing that speculation is a science.' Boots says 'Horses.' Lady Tippins says to her fan, 'Two establishments.' ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... How could we account for that? Had the story of this room's ill-acquired fame acted hypnotically on her, or had she stumbled upon the open door in front and been glad of any refuge where her misery might find a solitary termination? Closely scanning her upturned ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... the Wickershams, with whom Ferdy had quarrelled, had gone back to England, and had acquired a reputation as an expert. By one of the fortuitous happenings so hard to account for, about this time Keith wrote to Rhodes, and Rhodes consulted Matheson, who knew the properties. Ferdy had incurred the Scotchman's implacable hate, and the latter was urged on now by a double motive. To Rhodes, who was bored ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... caused a sense of alienation between him and his. When the first greetings were over, nothing came readily to follow. The wave had broken on the shore, and there was not another behind it. Things did not, however, go badly; for the father when disappointed always tried to account for everything to the advantage of the other; and on his part, Walter did his best to respond to his father's love-courtesy. He was not of such as keep no rule over themselves; not willingly would he allow ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... to our young hero, and it was hard for him to hear his father so criticised. He supposed they must have lived extravagantly, since it was so constantly charged by those about him, and he felt puzzled to account for his father's leaving nothing. When, after two months, his uncle and aunt, who had deliberated upon what was best to be done, proposed to him to go to New York and try to earn his own living, he caught ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... hands, that all the visions, and other tracts of that way of writing, with a very great number of the most exquisite pieces of wit and raillery throughout the Lucubrations are entirely of this Gentleman's composing: which may, in some measure, account for that different Genius, which appears In the winter papers, from those of the summer; at which time, as the Examiner often hinted, this friend of Mr. STEELE ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... verification of which powers are required far beyond anything which I have gained so far. Of them, I can say only that they are consistent with what I do know, and in many cases are necessary as hypotheses to account for what I have seen. They came to me, along with the rest of the Theosophical system, upon the authority of these mighty Teachers. Since then I have learnt to examine for myself by far the greater part of what I was told, and I have found the information given to me to be correct in every ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater
... information with the deepest anxiety. The idea is growing daily stronger that some disaster must have overtaken him, and that he has been cut off from communication with Havana; otherwise no one can account for the fact that no news of any kind has been ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 59, December 23, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... had to sally out to hunt horses, hoping at the same time to come across a deer, but that hope was not realised. As I got far from camp in the midst of the tall pines and the unbroken snow sheet, I suddenly became aware of a whispering sound, which I could not at first account for, as I did not believe in fairies. Standing perfectly still, I perceived that it was produced by the friction of the snowflakes upon the pine needles. It was a weird, ghost-like language which I had never ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... we have been trained from childhood by the atmosphere in which we live. It is this very unconsciousness and universality of the impulse we obey which makes it hard to analyse. Contemporary history is difficult to write; to define the spirit of the age in which we live is still more difficult; to account for 'impressions which owe all their force to their identity with themselves' is most difficult of all. We must be content to feel, and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... lining of a coat, or in a great circular pocket made for the purpose. It was such an one that, nigh on a hundred years ago, Mr. Scrope caught red-handed one day on his rented salmon water near Melrose. The man was a guileless creature from Selkirk, too innocent, it appeared, to be able to account for the salmon flies in the inside of his dilapidated hat, or for the 10 lb. salmon reposing ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... to prepare her lesson, fills me with shame, as it shows such an absolute lowering of the high standard of honour which we have always tried to maintain. I ask each of you now, do you know who is the owner of this book, or can you account for ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... Mlle. Vauquier. But it does not account for the lace coat in which the girl went away. She must have returned to her room to fetch that after you had gone ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... Mr. Ladley: he was smiling, as if amused. It made me angry. "And what's more," I flashed, "if he has a cut on his wrist, he put it there himself, to account for ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... as it would be for a nightingale or a thrush not to carol to its mate. The same faculty creates the same necessity in our days, and its exercise by young children, when accidentally isolated from the teachings and influence of grown companions, will readily account for the existence of all the diversities of speech on our ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... of the strange structures on Easter Island have had, then, communications with the rearers of Tiahuanaco by land, then we may easily account for the many coincidences which exist between the laws, religious rites, sciences,—astronomical and others,—customs, monuments, languages, and even dresses, of the inhabitants of this Western continent, and those of Asia and Africa. Hence the similarity of many Asiatic and American notions. Hence, ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... relate anything favourable to the missionaries, I invariably intend to do so, which will account for the introduction of the following: A few days since, I paid a visit to one of their settlements, and noticed a remarkably fine native woman attending as a servant. She was respectably dressed, and in every respect (except complexion) she was similar to a European. ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... our special reporter with some interesting and significant facts in connection with the last Cabinet Council. Lord SALISBUY arrived early, walking over from the Foreign Office under cover of an umbrella. The fact that it was raining may only partly account for this manoeuvre. Lord CROSS arrived in a four-wheeled cab and wore his spectacles. Lord KNUTSFORD approached the Treasury walking on the left hand side of the road going westward, whilst Lord CRANBROOK deliberately chose the pavement on the other side of the way. This is regarded as indicating ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... assume, lies hard and fast, but, when he fancies that all that is left him will be to reap the reward of his mendacity, behold, he will succumb in the very place where such an accident is likely to be most closely analyzed. Assuming even that he may be in a position to account for his syncope by illness or the stifling atmosphere of the locality, he has none the less given rise to suspicion! He has lied incomparably, but he has counted without nature. Here is the pitfall! Again, a man off his guard, from an unwary disposition, may delight ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... Fareham gratis: and being there, and lying on the bed of the good old lady her entertainer, the dear girl took occasion to rip open the mattress, and steal a cash-box, with which she fled to London. How would you account for the prodigious benevolence exercised towards the interesting young French lady? Was it her jetty ringlets or her charming face?—Bah! Do ladies love others for having faces and black hair?—she said SHE WAS A RELATION ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... highly dependent on oil revenues, which account for roughly 90% of export earnings, more than 50% of the federal budget revenues, and around 30% of GDP. Tax collection-Venezuela's primary source of non-oil revenue-is expected to surpass $23 billion in 2006, exceeding the yearend collection ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... the big, gray City Prison, the detective tried vainly to account for Josephine Burden's appearance in the case. That only the most urgent reason would bring her to the Tombs at this critical stage of the case, was self-evident. The newspapers were devoting columns to it. The more enterprising yellow journals, whose investigations were conducted independent ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... my daughter," said the old doctor mildly. "Who indeed can account for the vagaries of ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... and, more than that, how it is that she is acquainted with my name and address, and perfectly familiar with Grace's papers and Grace's affairs. These things are a puzzle to a person of my average intelligence. Can your clever friend, the doctor, account for them?" ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... unsupported, without companions into a hostile world, and for that very reason claimed little of the general attention of mankind. For the sudden changing of Mrs. Tebrick into a vixen is an established fact which we may attempt to account for as we will. Certainly it is in the explanation of the fact, and the reconciling of it with our general notions that we shall find most difficulty, and not in accepting for true a story which is so fully proved, and that not by one witness but by a dozen, all respectable, ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... the receiver of the praises of Ennodius and Cassiodorus, should have been a professed votary of the old Paganism. It is not the theological treatises coming from a man in his position which are hard to account for; it is the apparently non-Christian ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... colonists, men and women, kept very quiet, and the sailors, under Cornelys Jensen, acted with untiring zeal. I must say to his credit that Jensen proved a cool hand in the midst of a misfortune which must have come as a special misfortune to himself. It is a curious fact, and I know not how to account for it, unless by the smart knock on my head and the confusion of events that followed upon it, but all memory of what I had seen and heard In Jensen's cabin had slipped from my mind. No—I will not say all memory. While I ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... national passion for the brightness of newness interfering to defeat any benison which the gods might be disposed to pronounce upon them. Spotlessness, I know, is not a characteristic of our politics, though it is said that whitewashing is, which may account for this ceaseless paint-pot renovation of our public buildings. In a world lit only by the moon, our Capitol would be a paragon of beauty, and the spring whitewashing could also be endured; but under our blazing sun and merciless sky it parches ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... land of the horse") is unknown, though it presumably was near Raith Cremthainn. The story was probably told to account for the name of the field. It has been noticed that the Latin Lives are less rich in details as to names of places and people than the Irish Life. This is an indication of a later tradition, when the recollection of names had become vague, or, rather, when names which had been of interest ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... our eyes, that in the age of ourselves and our fathers, when it pleased God to call the Church of Rome to account for their degenerate manners and ceremonies, and sundry doctrines obnoxious and framed to uphold the same abuses; at one and the same time it was ordained by the Divine Providence that there should attend withal a renovation and new spring of all other knowledges. And on the other side ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... this time, just this once. Twice my landlady had asked me with her eyes for payment, and I was obliged to hang my head and slink past her with a shamefaced air. I could not do it again: the very next time I met those eyes I would give warning and account for myself honestly. Well, any way, things could not last ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... much account For heft or looks, but one of them sort Thet kin fetch a herd at his darn'd heels With a toss of his horns or a mite of a snort, Fur a fight or a run; an' thar wus I, Pressin' clus to the steel of his heavin' flank, An' cussin' an' shoutin'—while overhead The moon in the ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... cholera epidemics of 1839 and 1867, and that in the intervals the same localities yielded the majority of cases of small-pox, fever, and of an anthrax, a very special eruptive epidemic attended by carbuncles. Hence, while we are unable either to account for the cause or to prevent the periodic recurrence of epidemics, the sanitarian has learnt that it is possible to mitigate the severity of the visit; and that, whether these evils arise from the occult causes to which I have alluded, or from other causes, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... suddenly and Yarrow had nothing to prove that he had had his money. So the next time he picked a young man to keep it for him. Then this one absconded. Some of the gentlemen of the town became so interested that they took up a collection and started an account for him in the Bank of Columbia. He must have been quite a figure in his day, for his portrait was painted by James Alexander Simpson, and is now owned by Mr. E. M. Talcott, who ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... upon the borders of Mexico. As soon, however, as the Mexicans heard that the Texans, in spite of the law of nations, had sent an expedition to Santa Fe, at the very time that they were making overtures for peace and recognition of their independence, they called upon Bustamente to account for his culpable want of energy. Believing himself secure against any revolution, the president answered with harsh measures, and the soldiery, now exasperated, put Santa Anna at their head, forcing him to re-assume ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... 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 was adverse to its interests. The dogmas ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... this, and afterwards I asked Eustace to account for the strange dislike. He told me that the dogs at the store had run yelping after the buggy on that fatal drive, and this and the melancholy howl of the dingoes had always been supposed to be the cause of the special form of delirious fancy ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and this, according to their demerits, will immerse them from the ankles to the mouth; but the righteous will be screened by the shadow of the throne of God. The judge will be seated in the clouds, the books open before him, and everything in its turn called on to account for its deeds. For greater dispatch, the angel Gabriel will hold forth his balance, one scale of which hangs over Paradise and one over hell. In these all works are weighed. As soon as the sentence is delivered, the assembly, in a long file, will pass over the bridge Al-Sirat. It is as ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... visitors intrude, I might have time for taking measures to protect myself. It, by the way, also occurred to me that a wall might guard me from the cold wind which blew in at the mouth of the cavern. I, therefore, shaking off my drowsiness by an impulse I can scarcely now account for, built a wall of all the stones and earth and bits of wood I could heap together, nearly two feet high, reaching from the fire to one side of the cavern. I then carefully examined my rifle, and placing it by my side, lay down alongside my wall with my feet towards ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... Halifax was yet in its infancy and in a comparatively defenceless state; Louisbourg and Quebec were supporting the French on the St. John and he had neither the men nor the money to oppose their proceedings. It seems, too, that he had been called to account for the large expenditure he had made in Nova Scotia. In his letters to the Lords of Trade he expresses himself as distracted between his desire to lessen expenses and his fears of losing the province. He was ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... Bramante, as we have proved elsewhere, drew and built simultaneously in different manners, and though in Lombardy there is no building by him in his classic style, the use of brick for building, in that part of Italy, may easily account for ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... Williams well remembered the interview between his father and the Arab camel owner, who told several conflicting stories by way of preliminary to the confession of the actual facts, in order to account for the non-arrival of the stones at Alexandretta, the sea coast town from whence they were to be ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... Blythedale, but not to have heard of him since they had parted at Newark, he to guard the king to Oxford, Sir Harry to join Lord Astley, and he much feared that the old knight had been killed at Stowe, in the fight between Astley and Brereton. This would account for nothing having been heard from him about Emlyn, but Colonel Harford promised, if any opportunity should offer, to communicate with Lady Blythedale, whom he believed to be living at Worcester; and he patted Emlyn on the head, called her a little loyal ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... foul, which it now most certainly is, for I am writing anything but "Newton Forster," and which will account for this rambling, stupid chapter, made up of odds and ends, strung together like what we call "skewer pieces" on board of a man-of-war; when the wind is foul, as I said before, I have, however, a way of going a-head by getting up ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... say that many of the etymologies given in Irish sources are pure invention, stories being often made up to account for the names, the real meaning of which was unknown to the mediaeval ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... account for this variation of mood. "We have been invited to dine at the house on the beach to-morrow. I would not have accepted, but papa . . . we seemed to think it a duty. Of course the invitation extends to you. We fancy you do not greatly enjoy dining ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Mann's description of Connecticut progress (318) to be correct, how do you account for the legislature following ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... edition of the Acts of the Apostles, in English, and from the careful manner in which it was preserved, and the security of its hiding place, he seemed to set great store by it. I tried to surmise how such a volume could have come into his possession, and could only account for it by supposing it had washed up on the beach; but then, if so, why such reverential care of the book. Missionaries, say you. Well, a missionary would scarcely provide himself with copies of the English scripture for distribution ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... comes to it through this Introduction, will note two points to qualify his appreciation of the book as a specimen of Hazlitt's critical writing, and a third that helps to account for its fortune in 1817. It was the work of a man in his thirty-eighth year, and to that extent has maturity. But it was also his first serious essay, after many false starts, in an art and in a style which, later on, he brilliantly ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... teaching of experience in reference to the material of which the world is posed; that we must not look for any other mode of the origination of events than that which is determined by the unalterable laws of nature; and finally, that we not employ the hypothesis of a cause distinct from the world to account for a phenomenon or for the world itself—are principles for the extension of speculative philosophy, and the discovery of the true sources of the principles of morals, which, however little conformed to in the present day, are undoubtedly correct. At the same ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... first triumph of it was the power of foretelling the future. Eclipses were perceived to recur in cycles of nineteen years, and philosophers were able to say when an eclipse was to be looked for. The periods of the planets were determined. Theories were invented to account for their eccentricities; and, false as those theories might be, the position of the planets could be calculated with moderate certainty by them. The very first result of the science, in its most imperfect stage, was a power of foresight; and this was possible before any one ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... dew of Hermon; refreshing us into temporary forgetfulness of the undoubted fact that the visitors who had been angling on the lake had met, even on the previous day, with bitter disappointment. The boats had not been able to account for more than perhaps a brace each of four or five ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... Staunton is unquestionably right in supposing that one part of Evans's speech is spoken aside to his opponent, and the other part aloud. It is impossible else to account for the sudden change of tone. It might have been conjectured that, being a parson, he wished to appear peacefully minded, and therefore made his offers of reconciliation aloud and his menaces in an under tone, but Caius's reply shews that it was the threat which ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... sister. But during the whole time, his chief wish, his longing desire, was to finish the interview, and get out of that horrid room. He felt that he was mastered and cowed by the creature whom he had so despised, and he could not account for the feeling. Why did he not dare to answer her? She had told him he would have her money: she had said it would come to him as a matter of course; and it was not the dread of losing that which prevented ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... and after morning service a group of men gathered about the church porch to discuss the events of the night before. In the evening the parlor of the Flying Horse was full of dalespeople, and many a sapient theory was then and there put forth to account for the extraordinary coincidence of the presence of Paul Ritson at the fire and his alleged departure by the ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... Climates don't change all at once, but here's this place boiling over, as one might say, with plenty now, while a few years ago we were only able to grow enough to feed the insects and blight. How do you account for that?" ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... I neither heard nor saw anything of it, only as I afterward examined the marks it had left behind it. This leads me to suppose that I was a good deal confused at the time, though I was not aware of it. Indeed, I have an impression of seeming to turn somersets in my descent, and this may account for it. But, for the honor of France, I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... rapped out: "I can believe that! But if you were not asleep, how do you account for your ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... 1. Account for the production of some of our greatest religious literature in prison or in exile. Give other instances than the one mentioned ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... Alice becoming a victim to the infamous pursuit of Henry Lovell. But again, what could they mean by his (the gentleman, whoever he was,) being in Mrs. Tracy's clutches? I vainly racked my brain to form some conjecture which would account for the different parts of this short conversation. Poor Mrs. Hatton must have thought me apt to be silent, not only in a carriage, but out of one, too, if she judged by my taciturnity on this occasion. When the waiter came in to fetch the tea-things away, I asked him if he knew of any person ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... which the Secretary of the Interior is directed to issue to McGarrahan. By this provision the title of the New Idria Mining Company, which has long contested with McGarrahan the title to a large part of this property, is established and that company is relieved from any responsibility to account for the profits made in mining. On the other hand, the United States waives all benefit of judicial proceedings which have resulted in its favor and gives Mr. McGarrahan an opportunity de novo to try all such questions; and the decision, if in his favor, is not only to restore to him all the lands ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... parenthetically I want to enter a warning. You may say, if this notion of the rivalry of nations is false, how do you account for the fact of its playing so large a part in ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... member of any civilised society finds them here when he is born, he grows up with them, generally accepting them without question, or effecting certain modifications in the form in which he continues to hold them. If we treat religion as a hypothesis, advanced as other hypotheses are advanced, to account for a certain class of facts, then we can safely say that religion is one of the earliest in the history of human thought. And its antiquity and universality preclude us from seeking an explanation of its origin in the mental life of civilised humanity. Whether the religious hypothesis ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... and highly cultivated voices were so plentiful that even in comparatively small towns there were to be found Opera Companies consisting of excellent singers, we may well ask ourselves how this remarkable change for the worse has come about. People have attempted to account for it in various ways. Up to the middle of the last century women were forbidden by Ecclesiastical Law to take part in Church music. The voices of boys being available only for a very short time, means were taken to prevent their voices from breaking, and thus a class of male soprani and contralti ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... is in rather a curious state of health," he said slowly. "To tell you the truth, I scarcely know how to account for ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... could see nobody; she then examined a small closet which adjoined the chamber and looked under the bed, not knowing but that some person might be concealed there—but she could uncover nothing to account for the noise which she had heard. It then occurred to her to open the door of her chamber; but as she was about to do so, an appalling ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... Removal—Some Possibilities under the Constitution, 28 Mich. L. Rev., 870-907 (May 1930). Is impeachment the only way in which Congress, or either house thereof, is constitutionally entitled to call the President to account for his conduct in office? Cf. George Wharton Pepper, Family Quarrels, The President, the Senate, and the House (New York, 1931), 138 ff.; and Corwin, The President, Office and ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... with it grave problems of social organization and social welfare, which it is not the place here to discuss. But whatever be the difficulties of the wage system it has certain practical merits of workableness which account for its progress and dominance.[2] The larger the market and the longer the waiting period in industry, the greater the element of uncertainty and financial risk. Under the wage contract the employer, as the one best prepared ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... most difficult things to account for in regard to this codex is the immense number of numeral characters it contains, many of which appear to have no reference to day ...
— Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices • Cyrus Thomas
... "That's easy to account for," says I, "when you happen to know that you've got two million sweat-glands working all at once. If every one of your perspiratory ducts, which are a quarter of an inch long, was placed end to end, they would reach a ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... dare he, I ask myself, be so defiant, so death-inviting? The spectacle of him makes me doubt all the schools of the metaphysicians and the realists. No philosophy has a leg to stand on that does not account for Mulligan Jacobs. And all the midnight oil of philosophy I have burned does not enable me to account for Mulligan Jacobs . . . unless he be insane. And then I ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... Janice," assented the emissary, "and I would I'd had the wit to tell him so. 'T is my intention some day to call him to account for his words." ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... started in surprise, and gazed long before she recognized the features of her hostess; for the dame of Longueville had been still, when Sibyll was a child at the court, renowned for matronly beauty, and the change was greater than the lapse of years could account for. The lady smiled sadly: "Yes, you marvel to see me thus bent and faded. Maiden, I lost my husband at the battle of St. Alban's, and my three sons in the field of Towton. My lands and my wealth have been confiscated to enrich new men; and to one of them—one of the enemies ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not misunderstand one another," he said. "The explanation of your conduct in the other room is only one of the explanations which you owe me. You have something else to account for. Let us begin with that, if ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... reason would then be of no other use to him but to throw him on the ground. The same happens with beasts; nor will it avail anything to object that they reason as well as men, for this objection does not in the least weaken my proof; and their reasoning can never serve to account for the motions we admire most in them. Will any one affirm that they know the nicest rules of mechanics, which they observe with perfect exactness, whenever they are to run, leap, swim, hide themselves, double, use shifts to avoid pursuing hounds, or to make use of the strongest part of their bodies ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... legend, he was always setting the example. We know from Xenophanes, Plato, and St. Augustine how men's consciences were tormented by this unceasing contradiction: this overgrowth of myth on the stock of an idea originally noble. It is thus that I would attempt to account for the contradictory conceptions of ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... with cold and trembling with terror, until the morning was considerably advanced, when he was discovered by some of the servants, who released him from the guardianship of his surly captor. Without waiting to account for the extraordinary circumstances in which he had been found, he bolted into the house, rushed up to his bed-chamber, and, locking the door, threw himself into a chair, overwhelmed with shame ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... serf-owners. My object in mentioning the incidents is to show how a brutal proprietor—and it must be admitted that they were not a few brutal individuals in the class—could maltreat a priest without much danger of being called to account for his conduct. Of course such conduct was an offence in the eyes of the criminal law; but the criminal law of that time was very shortsighted, and strongly disposed to close its eyes completely when the offender was an influential ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... distance, still perplexed and thoughtful, but refraining from the least attempt to account for her very unusual behaviour. What she did not choose to tell him he would not ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... on to the beach, and began throwing pebbles carelessly into the plashing water. 'Yes,' he went on in his internal colloquy, 'I can only account for my incredible stupidity in this matter by supposing that it depends somehow upon some incomprehensible hereditary leaning in the Le Breton family idiosyncrasy. It's awfully unlike me, I will do myself ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... more evident, the case of the piano, on which her hand rests. But she seems to feel the pulsation of the air itself. When the organ was played for her in St. Bartholomew's, the whole building shook with the great pedal notes, but that does not altogether account for what she felt and enjoyed. The vibration of the air as the organ notes swelled made her sway in answer. Sometimes she puts her hand on a singer's throat to feel the muscular thrill and contraction, and from this she gets genuine pleasure. No one knows, however, just what her sensations are. ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... momentous truth should solemnly impress the whole country. If we might regard our country as personated in the spirit of Washington, if we might consider him as representing her, in her past renown, her present prosperity, and her future career, and as in that character demanding of us all to account for our conduct, as political men or as private citizens, how should he answer him who has ventured to talk of disunion and dismemberment? Oh how should he answer him who dwells perpetually on local interests, and fans every kindling flame of local prejudice? How should ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... even though one be quite free from melancholy one's self, there is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account for are a genuine portion of reality; and they may after all be the best key to life's significance, and possibly the only openers of our eyes to the ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... success with his life. Parthia was thus left without a general of approved merit, for Sillaces, the second in command during the war with Crassus, had in no way distinguished himself through the campaign. This condition of things may account for the feebleness of the efforts made in B.C. 52 to retaliate on the Romans the damage done by their invasion. A few weak bands only passed the Euphrates, and began the work of plunder and ravage, in which they were speedily disturbed by Cassius, who easily drove them back over the river. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... before his death spoke to his son Isaac, he to his son Jacob, and Jacob in turn to his sons, words admonishing them to walk in the ways of the Lord, so Moses also did not depart from this world without previously calling Israel to account for their sins, and admonishing them to observe the commandments of the Lord. Moses' speech of admonition had a greater effect than the revelation of the Decalogue upon Mount Sinai, for whereas Israel, shortly after they had said on Sinai, "We shall do according as we have heard," transgressed ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... influence, all the clashes of will with destiny, of desire with convention, that have led to the crisis depicted. Fra Lippo Lippi gives no consecutive history of his life, only such snatches of it as partially account for his present mad freak, but the strife between his own nature and instinct on the one hand and the conventions and traditions of religious art on the other could hardly be more vividly presented. In a Balcony, the one drama in Men and Women, has but ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... perplexity. For all these reasons, when he and she and John, at towards nine o'clock of a winter evening went to London, and began driving from London Bridge, among low-lying water-side wharves and docks and strange places, Bella was in the state of a dreamer; perfectly unable to account for her being there, perfectly unable to forecast what would happen next, or whither she was going, or why; certain of nothing in the immediate present, but that she confided in John, and that John seemed ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... we must go back and describe a little scene at Framley, which will account for his Lordship's ill-humour and suspicions, and explain how it came to pass that he so snubbed his mother. This scene took place about ten days after the evening on which Mrs. Robarts and Lucy were walking ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... with half the difficulty. You manage nearly everything now your father is getting blind, so you need hardly take the trouble of altering the figures in the banker's book, and some slight hint about taking a new farm would naturally account for the old man's drawing out four or five hundred. ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... three of the party have their eyes inflamed and Sweled in Such a manner as to render them extreamly painfull, particularly when exposed to the light, the eye ball is much inflaimed and the lid appears burnt with the Sun, the cause of this complaint of the eye I can't account for. from it's Sudden appearance I am willing to believe it may be owing to the reflection of the ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... 1849 the wolves were supposed to have been particularly ravenous, for thus alone did people account for the mysterious ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... fertilization. It was thought it thus gathered fertility by feeding deeply in the subsoil, and through the plant food thus gathered, the root system of the plants were so strengthened in the cultivated surface section of soil as to account for the increased production in the plants that followed clover. According to this view, the stems and leaves of the plants were thus equally benefited and, consequently, when these were plowed under where they had grown ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... observation in Europe and in America of the details of drainage operations, with a somewhat critical examination of published books and papers on all topics connected with the general subject, the author has endeavored to turn the leisure hours of a laborious professional life to some account for the farmer. Although, as the lawyers say, the "presumptions" are, perhaps, strongly against the idea, yet a professional man may understand practical farming. The profession of the law has made some valuable contributions to agricultural literature. Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... of happy mind-wanderings, other thoughts intruded. This little bedroom affected her singularly and she was at a loss to account for the fact. It did not seem that she was actually afraid to be there, for she was glad. Fear of Durade and his gang recurred, but she believed that the time of her deliverance was close at hand. Possibly Durade, ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... occurred to him to end it, since to live on was futile. On the contrary, now that his life had become a torture to him, he considered that it was his duty to devote it to others, putting his own happiness aside. Without being able to account for it, he had a vague desire to throw up everything and go to St. Petersburg where he could renew his connection with "the party" and rush headlong to death. This was a fine, lofty thought, so he believed, and the knowledge that it was his lessened his grief, and even gladdened ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... greater than in the west in 1993-94, eastern GDP per capita nonetheless remains well below preunification levels; it will take 10-15 years for the eastern states to match western Germany's living standards. The economic recovery in the east is led by the construction industries which account for one-third of industrial output, with growth increasingly supported by the service sectors and light manufacturing industries. Eastern Germany's economy is changing from one anchored on manufacturing to a more service-oriented economy. Western Germany, with three times the ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... adapted to domestic use, as to supersede all other modes of producing domestic light; we can already suppose, some centuries afterwards, the heads of a whole Society of Antiquaries half turned by the discovery of a pair of patent snuffers, and by the learned theories which would be brought forward to account for the form and purpose of so singular ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... of newspapers he had with him did not seem to interest him much. He was more than ever puzzled to account for the continued silence of Natalie. Each morning he had been confidently expecting to hear from her—to have some explanation of her sudden departure—but as the days went by, and no message of any sort arrived, his wonder became merged in anxiety. It seemed so strange that she ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... undeveloped stalk, is accordingly due to no vital principle in the seed, but to the complexity or entanglement of the molecules wrapped up in their integumentary environment. And this, or some similar fortuitous entanglement of molecules, should account for all life-manifestations, as well as all life-tendencies, in nature. These molecular entanglements should, therefore, be infinite in number, as well as in fortuitous complexity, to account for all the myriad ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... the three of us, you an' me an' Mr. Trenholme, we account for both gates an' the best part of two miles of ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... of our country, this was the only time at which my life was in danger from my fellow-creatures. Indeed, so little risk do travelers run in the United States, that no one born there ever dreams of any to be encountered on the road, and I can only account for this occurrence by supposing that the inhabitants of the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... varies with the design of the screw, and that with a given screw the speed of the wake (which decides the point of no apparent slip) varies with the type of ship and with the position of the screw with respect to the hull. Remembering these disturbances, it is not improbable that it may be possible to account for or explain what at first sight may appear departures from the curve. The diameters of the screws in the table are not compared with the diameters given by the method explained by Mr. Froude in his paper last year, for there are differences in the slips, the proportions of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... acknowledges the superiority of the other, such radical differences of opinion, on points which would essentially influence the course of the government, were supposed to exist between the secretaries, as, in a great measure, to account for this unextinguishable enmity. These differences of opinion were, perhaps, to be ascribed, in some measure, to a difference in the original structure of their minds, and, in some measure, to the difference of the situations in which ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... not account for the dust; it hasn't been stirred for a twelve-month;' and after a pause, she added, a thin moisture glistening in her eyes, 'I have not yet thanked you, sir, for saving Phyllis and the children from the clutches of that ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... enough to make it probable that Britain was once covered partly by an ice-sheet, as Greenland is now, and partly, perhaps, by an icy sea. But, to make assurance more sure, let us look for new facts, and try whether our ice-dream will account for them also. Let us investigate our case as a good medical man does, by "verifying ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... became known to a few of his friends that I had been seen in company with the collier's daughter. I endured all, and was willing to endure more. He seemed to have a peculiar dislike of Evelina's father, as also to her. This I could not account for. ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... certain sort, stationery and stamps should be practically unknown. Grandmother had used the last sheet of paper and the last envelope when she ordered the bolt of brown alpaca, and with stern suspicion held Rosemary to account for every penny with which ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... Elaine," she went on steadily, "and after her hard year, I'm delighted that she can have an outing up here with the rest of us. It isn't anything I'm ashamed of, and it isn't anything you've a right to call me to account for. I don't care any the less for you because ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... entered so deeply into the scientific mind that the science of physics cannot be understood unless we know something about the properties attributed to the ether. The ether was invented to explain the phenomena of light, and to account for the flow of energy across empty space. Light takes time to travel. We see the sun at any moment by the light that left it 8 minutes before. It has taken that 8 minutes for the light from the sun to travel that 93,000,000 miles odd which separates it from our ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... seems to be too loose. Now, that twenty-one acres I had, it was full of leaf-mold. It was six inches deep and had been accumulating for ages. I couldn't account for it only that it was too loose, and I had to work it down with other crops before I ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... a little distressed to find that the three ships from which he had parted company at Ferro had not yet arrived. His own voyage ought to have taken far longer than theirs; they had now been nine weeks at sea, and there was nothing to account for their long delay. When at last they did appear, however they brought with them only a new complication. They had lost their way among the islands and had been searching about for Espanola, finally making a landfall there on the coast of Xaragua, the south-western province of the island, where ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... first, saw a friar, and rushed in again laughing, and waited till he was out of sight. Soon after they set off, this gentleman was thrown from his horse and ducked in a pool; so the "Jettatura" was fulfilled. But my daughters thought his bad seat on horseback enough to account for his fall without the ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville |
