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Elucidate   Listen
verb
Elucidate  v. t.  (past & past part. elucidated; pres. part. elucidating)  To make clear or manifest; to render more intelligible; to illustrate; as, an example will elucidate the subject.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Elucidate" Quotes from Famous Books



... have done injustice to Mr. Tylor, by supposing him to have overlooked Strachey's account of the Virginian god Ahone. He did not overlook Ahone, but mistrusted Strachey. In an excursus on Ahone, in the new edition of 'Myth, Ritual, and Religion,' I have tried my best to elucidate the bibliography and other aspects of Strachey's account, which I cannot regard as baseless. Mr. Tylor's opinion is, doubtless, different, and may prove more persuasive. As to Australia, Mr. Howitt, our best authority, continues to disbelieve in the ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... "I'll elucidate, Carl, though it's scarcely a matter for advertisement," went on the other. "Hasn't it occurred to you that Malone and I started life in very similar fashion? Each of us came raw and uninitiated from the country. Each of us brought rugged physiques ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... important passage is also one of great difficulty, for it is full of technical terms and allusions which would need a small treatise to elucidate properly. For example, it seems to imply the doctrine of two Logoi that Clement of Alexandria was accused of teaching, and which is found in certain Hellenistic writings. The "Body of Light" is the Astroeides in which the "Adept" can cross the "Fate-Sphere," the "Midst," the regions ...
— The Gnosis of the Light • F. Lamplugh

... no. Indeed, the best benefit often comes from the opportunity of testing our own opinion and finding it valid. Sometimes the very statement of the case is enough to prove it one thing or the other. An advantage is reaped from a sympathetic listener, even although our friend be unable to elucidate the matter by his special sagacity or experience. Friends in counsel gain much intellectually. They acquire something approaching to a standard of judgment, and are enabled to classify opinions, and to make up the mind more accurately and securely. Through talking a subject over with another, ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black

... arrival in America. We doubt not but that the details of that narration were related, nay, perhaps even written, by the general himself. We shall therefore quote some extracts from it without hesitation, which, placed as notes, will completely elucidate the text ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... I hastened to elucidate. "It is lest they should employ force and compel you at once to enter into this union that I counsel you to offer no resistance. Beg for a little time, vaguely suggesting that you are not indisposed ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... and fear, and his ultimate despair? His duty called him to America. He had been in this city, and had frequently passed the door of the house in which his wife, at that moment, resided. Her father had not remitted his exertions to elucidate this painful mystery, but they had failed. This disappointment hastened his death; in consequence of which, Louisa's father became ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown

... yet An effluence ampler shall beget, And power beyond your play— Shall quell the shades you fail to rout, Yea, searching every secret out Elucidate your ray. ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville

... to clear away prejudices, explain principles, advocate cardinal political truths, and lift the whole subject out of the dense region of faction and into the calm and clear sphere of reason and truth. Accordingly, Hamilton, Madison, Jay, and others, by public discussion sought to elucidate and vindicate the Constitution: by conversation, correspondence, in the committee room and the assembly, through reference to the past, analysis of the present, anticipations of the future, John Jay, directly and indirectly advocated ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... five men have died in vain, something that has filled my thoughts, sleeping and waking, for more than half a year. What you have told me throws a good deal of light upon the mystery which I came to this cursed country to elucidate, but it also deepens the darkness which still envelops ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... desirable results of reading. As for writing anything, or things—good gracious! no, I should think not indeed! It is true, if you allude to the mechanical process of caligraphy, here is close to my elbow a big book, in which I enter all passages I meet with in my various readings tending to elucidate obscure parts of the Bible: I do not mean disputed points of theology, mysteries, or significations more or less mystical, but simply any notices whatever which I meet with relating to the customs of the Jews, their ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... change his Dialect from century to century; he cannot help it though he would. The authentic Church-Catechism of our present century has not yet fallen into my hands: meanwhile, for my own private behoof I attempt to elucidate the matter so. Man's Unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his Greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite. Will the whole Finance Ministers and Upholsterers and Confectioners ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... due to De Morgan himself and others to Mrs. De Morgan. In the present edition those due to the former are signed A. De M., and those due to Mrs. De Morgan appear with her initials, S. E. De M. For all other footnotes the present editor is responsible. In preparing them the effort has been made to elucidate the text by supplying such information as the casual reader might wish as he passes over the pages. Hundreds of names are referred to in the text that were more or less known in England half a century ago, but are now forgotten ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... disposition to be easily pleased. His philosophy of life, under an appearance of careless gayety, was, perhaps, in reality deeper than that of my learned friend Mr. Mackay; for whilst the elderly scholar was laboring painfully and thanklessly to elucidate the past, the young artist was enjoying the present in his own way, and looking forward hopefully to the future. The buoyancy of spirits that George Leslie had in those days is an excellent gift for a young artist, because it carries him merrily over the difficulties ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... purity's and honor's sake. But why multiply reasons? There was justification enough; and true love knows nothing of justification. He loved her, then; and now, did she love him? This was the real problem—the mystery of a maiden's heart, which all Solomon's wisdom and Bacon's logic fail to elucidate. Drayton did what he could. Once he came to her with the news that he must be absent from an excursion which they had planned, and he saw genuine disappointment darken her sweet face, and her slender ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne

... are regretted when they become more enlightened on the subject. And now"—a mirthful gleam in her brown eyes—"let me add that I cheerfully accept the last-named subject assigned me, and will do my best to elucidate it for the benefit of the club at our ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... substances came the turn of fermentation. This brought them to acids—and the law of equivalents once more confused them. They tried to elucidate it by means of the atomic theory, ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... writing, or from one of the same period of his life. For example, the comparison of St. John and the 'synoptic' Gospels, or of the Gospel of St. John with the Revelation of St. John, will tend rather to confuse than to elucidate the meaning of either." (pp. 382-3.)—But really, in reply, it ought to suffice to point out that the result of the Church's experience for 1800 years has been the very opposite of the Professor's. "The idea of a SPIRIT from whom they proceeded," is, ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... subscribers look anxiously for your answers to numerous questions put for the elucidation of apparent, scientific mysteries, I have thought that perhaps a statement in plain language of experiments made at various times, to elucidate this subject, might, in conjunction with a diagram, serve to explain even to those who have not made a special study of science a few of the interesting phenomena ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various

... brief view of the subject, is sufficient to elucidate the manner in which, according to Horne Tooke's principles, the ten parts of speech are reduced to one. But I am, by no means, disposed to concede, that this is the true principle of classification; nor that it is any more ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... to all on board. Fortunately, however, the bank was but a narrow ridge, and the next sea carried the little vessel safely across it, and out of danger. Much speculation, however, was excited by this unlooked-for mishap, but a careful examination of the ship's position on the chart failed to elucidate the mystery: the part of the bay where the Sumter had struck being marked as clear ground. It was fortunate, at all events, that the vessel escaped clear, for within the next hour and a half the tide fell five feet, which with so heavy a load as that on board the Sumter could not but have ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... rational remedies, it is first necessary to elucidate the causes of inefficiency; and to expect a brain which is out of order to function in an orderly manner simply because it is supplied with one of the substances necessary to its normal functioning (regardless of whether a deficiency ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs

... a prodigious history of habits, food, migrations, modes of capture, times and ways of spawning, and anatomical details; but it is not here that we can elucidate or even illustrate this astonishing Ichthyology. It is not always easy to understand—but the obstacle lies often, I take it, in our own ignorance. The identification of species is not always plain, for here as elsewhere Aristotle did not reckon with a time or place where the familiar ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... is an extension of Aristotle's theory, lineally descended from that of Lessing, which professes to elucidate this difference and must be taken account of, inasmuch as it represents the modern popular view. Professor Butcher, in his edition of the "Poetics," concludes, on the basis of a reference in the "Politics" implying that the Katharsis of enthusiasm ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... and variety of the published commentary which accompanied the revolt, perhaps a highlighting of Clive's Case would be the most efficient way to elucidate some of the major difficulties involved. After addressing herself to "the Favour of the Publick," with encouragement from her friends,[14] Mrs. Clive strikes the key note of her essay: injustice and oppression, specifically seen in the cartel's threat to "Custom," an iterative ...
— The Case of Mrs. Clive • Catherine Clive

... kinds of the external impression. Thus, what is vulgarly called sight is the simple sensation of light,—and hearing is merely the sensation of sound. This would be all very true,—but it does not appear to elucidate the subject; nor, by any ingenuity of such speculation, could we be enabled to know more concerning these senses than when we called them sight and hearing. In the same manner it would appear, that the course of inquiry, respecting our moral feelings, ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie

... book, and have read it with great interest. (476/1. "Influence of the Mind upon the Body. Designed to elucidate the Power of ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... upon an evil policy which I propose to elucidate hereafter, the Government of the Republic first set itself to oppose the alliance with Russia, preferring an alliance with Germany; later, this Government saw in the Russian alliance nothing but a means to gain public applause, to acquire popularity. Now that the strength and worth of this alliance ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam

... work the plates are used simply to illustrate and elucidate the text, and the information furnished in the latter is minute and accurate, and stated in well-polished Latin. As the author proceeds, he finds it necessary to disagree with Galen, and the reasons for ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae

... wanted to follow him, and go to the Queen; my father-in-law prevented me, and ordered me to leave the minister to elucidate such an important affair, observing that it was an infernal plot; that I had given Boehmer the best advice, and had nothing more to do with the business. Boehmer never said one word to me about the woman De Lamotte, and her name was mentioned for the first ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... analogy of Great Britain, and from the subsequent history of the Irish. Now a rough view of even the British characteristics is all that has been attempted in the present chapter. No historic events have been narrated, except so far as they elucidate some national or local habit; and no such habits and customs have been noted unless they could be referred to some particular branch of our populations; for the object has been specification rather than generalization, ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham

... of its manifestations, to conceive that in that fact any reason was to be found why a less nice conduct in such matters should be expected of her! And yet, for reasons which it would take a volume to elucidate, so it is, that in the countries where art is deemed to be most at home, and where it is in the largest degree the occupation of large sections of the people, it is deemed that a less strict rule with reference to the matters ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... extensions, from those in my book Amusements in Mathematics, each work being complete in itself, I have thought it would help the reader who happens to have both books before him if I made occasional references that would direct him to solutions and analyses in the later book calculated to elucidate matter in these pages. This course has also obviated the necessity of my repeating myself. For the sake of brevity, Amusements in Mathematics is throughout referred to ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... Sort of pedantick Ignorance and Folly, has made that dark and obscure, which it was intended to elucidate, and unhappily puzzled and perplexed a great many more, than it has ever instructed. Every attempt to make English easy must be fruitless, that is not formed upon a different Plan, and such is the following short System of ...
— A Short System of English Grammar - For the Use of the Boarding School in Worcester (1759) • Henry Bate

... tracing the career of the erring philosophers, or the wilful cheats, who have encouraged or preyed upon the credulity of mankind, it will simplify and elucidate the subject, if we divide it into three classes: — the first comprising alchymists, or those in general who have devoted themselves to the discovering of the philosopher's stone and the water of life; the second comprising astrologers, necromancers, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... every difficulty, and the panacea for every evil existing in modern civilization. Political and social, religious and civil, mental and moral government, according to him, hinged upon the study and knowledge of the different organs of the human brain, and he labored incessantly to elucidate and illustrate this subject, upon which he thought the salvation of the world depended. For a number of years I enjoyed the privilege of his friendship, and I have had innumerable opportunities of hearing his system explained by himself; but as I was never able to get beyond a certain ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... that laugh'd to death. This is the traditional end of l'unico Aretino. On hearing some ribald jest he is said to have flung himself back in a chair and expired of sheer merriment. Later days elucidate his fate by declaring that overbalancing himself he broke his neck on the marble pavement. Sir Thomas Urquhart, the glorious translator of Rabelais, is reported to have died of laughter on hearing of the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... assistance of notes could derive but little benefit therefrom, as the greatest part that they read would be unintelligible to them. Whereupon I shook hands with him, and on departing said that there was no part of Scripture so difficult to understand as those very notes which were intended to elucidate it, and that the Almighty would never have inspired His saints with a desire to write what was unintelligible to the great ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... leave it doubtful whether it was simply a league of three kindred tribes, offensive and defensive, or a systematic confederacy like that of the Iroquois. That which is true of the latter was probably in a general sense true of the former, so that a knowledge of one will tend to elucidate the other. ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... elucidate mine own—I mean the first, the head and front of this offending phalanx—mine own, par excellence, 'An Authors Mind:' such in sooth it shall be found, for richer or poorer, for better or for worse; not of selfish, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... mode of arriving at the history of slavery prior to the first census, in 1790, appears to be to commence at that date and go forward, and afterwards employ the information so obtained in endeavouring to elucidate the operations of the ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... within five minutes he was at the door of No. Eleven once more. Let it not be imagined that he had not weighed the possible consequences of thrusting himself in this fashion into Hilton Fenley's private affairs. Although the man had summoned the assistance of Scotland Yard to elucidate the mystery of his father's death, that fact alone could not secure him immunity from the law's all-embracing glance. Winter agreed with Furneaux that the profession of a private banker combined with company promotion is too often ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy

... twentieth century, like the German wars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was carefully planned and prepared by the military rulers of Prussia. To elucidate its origins and causes will be the work of many long years. Yet enough is known to make it certain that this last and greatest war conforms to the old design. The Prussians have always been proud of their doctrine of war, and have explained it to the world with ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh

... Mr Bruce that she had had tea with the minister, he held up his hands in the manner which commonly expresses amazement; but what the peculiar character or ground of the amazement might be remained entirely unrevealed, for he said not a word to elucidate the gesture. ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... with large spots of various hues, which frequently proclaimed the agency of fire. An electrical machine, an air-pump, the galvanic trough, a solar microscope, and large glass jars were conspicuous amidst the mass of matter. More than one hole in the carpet could elucidate the ultimate phenomena of combustion,—especially a formidable aperture in the middle of the room, where the floor had also been burned by spontaneous combustion; and the horrible wound was speedily enlarged by rents,—for ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... been said, and to elucidate what is to follow, we will pause a moment to learn what is meant ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield

... hand the confusions of sacred and profane; the origins of the Mysteries; the beginnings of the Gods in a mental condition long left behind by Greece when the Hymns were composed; all these matters need elucidation. I have tried to elucidate them as results of evolution from the remote prehistoric past of Greece, which, as it seems, must in many points have been identical with the historic present of the lowest contemporary races. In the same way, if dealing with ornament, ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang

... as he entered. On matters of detail he was increasingly obliging, but the bearing of Graham on the great issues that were evidently being contested so closely beyond the sound-proof walls that enclosed him, he would not elucidate. He evaded, as politely as possible, every question on the position of affairs in ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells

... into the real state of things, or the real causes of the admitted misery of the people; but in order to write what will be most productive to themselves—not with the philanthropic or patriotic motive of endeavouring to elucidate a subject of so much importance; but with the determination to compile as many pages as they can, in as short a given period as possible. They draw the most absurd caricatures; and, pandering to the prevailing public opinion, they relate only what tends to strengthen it in its errors, and to misdirect ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... man writes a monograph when he proposes to elucidate a special point, a single fact, or a limited body of facts, for example the whole or a portion of the life of an individual, a single event or a series of events between two dates lying near together. The types of possible subjects of a monograph cannot be enumerated, for the subject-matter ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois

... false grammar embraced in the following work, will go far to sustain this opinion. There have been, however, several excellent scholars, who have thought it an object not unworthy of their talents, to prescribe and elucidate the principles of English Grammar. But these, with scarcely any exception, have executed their inadequate designs, not as men engaged in their proper calling, but as mere literary almoners, descending for a day from their loftier purposes, to perform a service, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... lunch thoughtful and dispirited, wondering why there were so many absurdities in life that he could neither elucidate nor controvert. He decided not to say anything to Aunt Charlotte about Lubin's magpie sciolisms, lest he should provoke a further outburst of the discussion they had held in the morning; he had had the best of that, anyhow, and did not care to compromise his victory by dragging in extraneous ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... CHINANGLI point, as Pauthier has shown, to T'SI-NAN FU, the chief city of Shan-tung. The second city is called in the G. Text and Pauthier's MSS. Candinfu, Condinfu, and Cundinfu, names which it has not been found possible to elucidate. But adopting the reading Tadinfu of some of the old printed editions (supported by the Tudinfu of Ramusio and the Tandifu of the Riccardian MS.), Pauthier shows that the city now called Yen-chau bore under the Kin the name of TAI-TING FU, which may fairly thus be recognised. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... servants were having supper in the kitchen. They are innocent. Well, we'll see what the inquest reveals. Something may be found before then likely to elucidate the mystery. But here comes Mallow. He questioned Jennings also, so you can question him if ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume

... judging you!" her husband said. Rachael answered only by a rather faint negative; she would not elucidate further. This was one of the things she could never tell Warren, a thing indeed that she would hardly admit to her ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... illuminated Free Trade, I now proceed to elucidate Protection. You see when we reach Protection, the boot is on the other leg; you make the conundrums then, and the other man tries to guess them. There are many kinds of protection; there's the kind which ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various

... the foundation. The pleasant market garden of Mr. Roake covers the actual ground on which the Abbey stood. The workmen frequently turn up broken tiles and human bones, and there is no doubt that by digging deeper much would be discovered that might elucidate the history of the past. At the farther end of the market garden a vault has been discovered which is of considerable length and breadth; but the water rises so high in it (except after a long continuance of dry weather has sealed the land springs) ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... that it did not even occur to him to speculate on the happy circumstance that the mysteriously appearing desk had brought its own scientific explanation with it. The title of the paper told him that its sheets would elucidate the apparently supernatural phenomenon, and all he did was to plunge breathlessly ahead in his eager reading. The article was short, about seven typewritten sheets. He took out his pencil and followed through the mathematical ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer

... d'Enghein, and which the Duke of Rovigo positively declared to have been, from first to last, a contrivance of his,[23] we must pass over in comparative silence; as the subject is one which it is impossible to elucidate, and which we could not hope to discuss with any profit in the short space which remains to us. If noticed at all in this volume, we have unfortunately mislaid the reference to it; and in a work which is without an index, and which has been compiled with a total disregard to chronological ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... precis of the truth about the Victorian age, for the shortest precis must fill innumerable volumes. But, in the lives of an ecclesiastic, an educational authority, a woman of action, and a man of adventure, I have sought to examine and elucidate certain fragments of the truth which took my fancy and lay ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... are natural. It can now be seen, from the origin of the spiritual atmosphere most closely encompassing the spiritual sun, that everything belonging to it is in its essence such as the sun is in its essence. The angels, by means of their spiritual ideas, which are apart from space, elucidate this truth as follows: There is only one substance from which all things are, and the sun of the spiritual world is that substance; and since the Divine is not in space, and is the same in things ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg

... him, was not yet made. The clear distinction between spontaneous and sudden changes, as compared with the ever-present fluctuating variations, is only of late coming into recognition by agriculturists. Innumerable minor points which go to elucidate the breeders' experience, and with which we are now quite familiar, were unknown in Darwin's time. No wonder that he made mistakes, and laid stress on modes of descent, which have since been proved to be of minor importance ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... how the hydrometer, or its use, in unexperienced hands may be baffled, they both distinguish and explain the value of its application; they do more—they elucidate the doctrine of fermentation, and illustrate the goodness of Providence, who has made nothing in vain, but provided nature with its own resources for conducting every operation in the great plan of the universe with uniform and ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger

... detective is a mysterious way. Far be it from us to presume to point it out, or elucidate or expound it in any degree. We can only give a vague, incomplete, it may be even incorrect, view of what the man in grey did and achieved, nevertheless we are bound to record what we know as to this officer's proceedings, ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... description the members of the Senate. Third. The time within which the power is to operate, "during the recess of the Senate," and the duration of the appointments, "to the end of the next session" of that body, conspire to elucidate the sense of the provision, which, if it had been intended to comprehend senators, would naturally have referred the temporary power of filling vacancies to the recess of the State legislatures, who are to make the permanent appointments, and not to the recess ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... Robinson breaks off, with some reflections to which the recital had given rise. Though diligent search has been made to elucidate the obscurity in which the preceding events are involved, but little information has been gained. All that can be learned with certainty is her final separation from the Prince of ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... addressed to the Provincial Governors, enjoining them to prohibit such indecent scenes in future. Thereupon the parish priests simply showed their contempt for the civil authorities by simulating their inability to elucidate to the native petty governors the true intent and meaning of the order. At the same time, the Archbishop of Manila issued instructions on the subject to his subordinates in very equivocal language. The native ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... learned, lest the nations say we are not civilized and deny us the wealth, respect, and especially the equality we covet!" The latter were humbly seeking after the truth, either because they could better elucidate the Talmud, or because, as they held, it was their truth, of which the nations had deprived them during their long exile.[43] They were unlike their German brethren in another respect. Almost all of them were "self-made men," autodidacts in the truest sense. ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin

... the newspapers contained a paragraph which may possibly elucidate the above mystery, and to the ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... windows of the antique mansion, recovered her exhausted spirits, and dissipated, in some degree, the terrors which hovered about her mind. She endeavoured to reason coolly on the events of the past night, but reason could not elucidate them. Not the least noise had been heard since she last returned to her chamber: she therefore expected to discover no traits which might tend to a disclosure of those mysteries. She consoled herself only with a fixed determination ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... here was some mystery which he had yet to elucidate, the links in the chain were visible up to a point, but he then became baffled by the incontestable fact that Denzil had seen Amaryllis that evening for ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn

... Thermae were devoted, serves in no small degree to a complete understanding of the problems involved in the perfecting of the bath in modern times. So also with regard to the Hammam of the East, an acquaintance with its plan and working is equally instructive. But to fully elucidate the history of thermo-therapeutic architecture would require a volume of itself, since the many questions that present themselves to the student of ancient baths cannot be properly understood without considerable and lengthy description. ...
— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop

... end of this somewhat complex discussion, we return to the position which was affirmed at its beginning. The primary task of a philosophy of natural science is to elucidate the concept of nature, considered as one complex fact for knowledge, to exhibit the fundamental entities and the fundamental relations between entities in terms of which all laws of nature have to be stated, and to secure that ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead

... denounced the section of the bill which provided for its enforcement by the military. He said: "There it is; words can not make it plainer; reason can not elucidate it; no language can strengthen it or weaken it, one way or the other. There is the question whether a military man, educated in a military school, accustomed to supreme command, unaccustomed to the administration of civil ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... it seemed needful to say about the mechanism of perception, in order to understand the slight disturbances of this mechanism that manifest themselves in sense-illusion. It may be added that our study of these illusions will help still further to elucidate the exact nature of perception. Normal mental life, as a whole, at once illustrates, and is illustrated by, abnormal. And while we need a rough provisional theory of accurate perception in order to ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully

... substratum of the province it became more evident than ever that not a trace remained, and a new soil of unknown formation had certainly taken the place of the old sandy sea-bottom. As it altogether transcended the powers of those on board to elucidate the origin of this catastrophe, it was felt to be incumbent on them at least to ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... have been careful to insert and elucidate the anomalous plurals of nouns and preterites of verbs, which in the Teutonick dialects are very frequent, and though familiar to those who have always used them, interrupt and embarrass the learners of ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson

... A familiar incident may elucidate this contrast in the operations of nature, may render plain the manner in which a process of intellectual improvements, the reverse of that which nature pursues, is by reason introduced. There never perhaps existed ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... shy at first on both sides; but it gradually became more frank and cordial. Fairthorn had an object not altogether friendly in encouraging this intimacy. He thought, poor man, that he should be enabled to extract from Sophy some revelations of her early life, which would elucidate, not in favour of her asserted claims, the mystery that hung upon her parentage. But had Dick Fairthorn been the astutest of diplomatists, in this hope he would have been equally disappointed. Sophy had nothing to communicate. ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... been treated by many, but out of the numerous ideas that have been brought to bear upon it, the writers have failed to elucidate the question fully, probably owing to the fact that in most parts they were themselves dubious as to the real cause. Last year W.S. gave a lengthy description in the Building News, in which he classified blistering and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various

... bones of Rufus are in one of these chests, and that the so-called Rufus tomb in the retro-choir is the burial place of some great ecclesiastic. Such at any rate is the opinion of Dean Kitchin, who has done so much to elucidate the past history of the ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath

... One crack of Mr. Gladstone's whip put a hundred Liberal members to flight—members whom these noble women had spent years in educating. I never visited the House of Commons that I did not see Miss Becker and Miss Biggs trying to elucidate the fundamental principles of just government to some of the legislators. Verily their divine faith and patience merited more worthy action on the ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... which those present might desire. This deviation from the formality of a regular lecture was attended with the happiest results. Edinburgh always supplies a highly-intelligent audience, and the cleverest and brightest were ready with their questions. I was thus enabled to elucidate the lecture and to expand many of the most interesting points connected with the moon's surface, such as might formerly have appeared obscure. These questioning lectures gave the highest satisfaction. They satisfied myself as well as the audience, ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... consistent and therefore self-sustaining. To such general remarks in regard to campaigns, sieges, and battles as may seem to me appropriate to the scope and object of my work, I shall append or insert, from time to time, the evidence of reliable actors in those affairs, as well to elucidate obscurity ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... dwell for a few moments on the representations of the sacred and mysterious plant, guarded by celestial genii, that Assyrian bas-reliefs so often display. Up to the present time no text has been found to elucidate the meaning of the symbol, and we have to deplore a want, that no doubt will one of these days be met by the discovery of new documents. But the study of these figured monuments alone renders it impossible to doubt the high importance of this representation of the sacred plant. Whether ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... help to elucidate this matter if we regard it from another point of view. According to Hobbes, 'Liberty is the absence of all impediments to action that are not contained in the nature and intrinsical qualities of the agent.' Now, if we accept this definition, ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes

... hoary with age? Do they die a natural death, and do the survivors then clean out the bodies? Or is the population being reduced at the expense of sound and healthy insects? It is not easy to elucidate the matter, since the atrocities are commonly perpetrated in the night. But, finally, with vigilance, on two occasions, I surprise the beetles at their work ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... which there entered such grave thought, would have had no suspicion of what was going on within him. Only occasionally did his lips move; at other times he raised his head and fixed his gaze upon some point of the wall, as though there existed at that point something which he wished to elucidate or interrogate. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... instant I was seated, the same noise was repeated with increased violence; I entered the room a second time, and a second time saw the bell-rope in rapid motion. I then examined every corner of the room, without discovering the least trace by which I might elucidate this singular appearance. I again grasped the rope, and again it was motionless: I sat two or three minutes in the room, I believe, during which every thing was perfectly quiet. I returned to my room, when scarcely had I seated myself, ere the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... and the Government of the United States agreed, therefore, two years ago that a survey of the disputed territory by a joint commission would be the measure best calculated to elucidate and solve the questions at issue. The President proposed such a commission and Her Majesty's Government consented to it, and it was believed by Her Majesty's Government that the general principles upon which the commission was to be guided in its local operations ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... did not guess, on her part, the ominous prophecy contained for her in her husband's little speech, which her kind old Abbe Duret, if he had been alive, would not have failed to elucidate. Little La Baudraye had detected in Dinah's eyes, when she glanced at the journalist returning the ball of his jests, that swift and luminous flash of tenderness which gilds the gleam of a woman's eye when prudence is cast to the winds, and she ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... Monarch, but abhorred in him the royal assassin; adding that no laws, human or divine, no institutions, no supremacy whatever, could authorize a parent to stain his hands in the blood of his children. These anecdotes are sufficient both to elucidate the inveteracy of the favourite, the abject state of the heir to the throne, and the incomprehensible infatuation of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... anything in a liquid state was alike delectable to me, and while I drank, I had a sense of having become somehow mysteriously connected with the book of revelations. "We used to think," Grandma proceeded mildly to elucidate, "that it had ought to be took externally, but husband, he was painin' around one time, and nothin' didn't seem to do him no good, and so we ventured some of it inside of him, and he didn't complain no more for a great while afterwards." I appreciated ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... MY DAVE—BUT JUMP!" meant much to them but failed to elucidate the fact that they were referring to the gift of a flatboat, canvased for a swimming booth which David had had moored at the foot of the bridge during the dog days of the previous summer so that they might have a joyous dip in the ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... and re-explain, for a quarter of an hour, and invariably without success. It might be a mere pun; Mrs. Poppleton no more understood the nature of a pun than of the binomial theorem. But worse was when the jest involved some allusion. When I heard Poppleton begin to elucidate, to expound, the perspiration already on his forehead, I looked at him with imploring anguish. Why would he attempt the impossible? But the kind fellow couldn't disregard his wife's request. Shall I ever forget her. ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... Mr. Gubb. "Lesson Nine of the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency's Correspondence School of Deteckating gives the full rules and regulations for to elucidate the mystery of threatening letters, scurrilous letters, et cetery. Now, is this a threatening letter or ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler

... and Zarathustra rejoiced at his words and their refined reverential style. "Who art thou?" asked he, and gave him his hand, "there is much to clear up and elucidate between us, but already methinketh pure clear day ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... assailed by these feelings of doubt. Barraclough had been caught and there the matter ended. But in his own mind it refused to end. Why hadn't Barraclough put up a fight and how had Barraclough grown funny lines round his eyes? These were mysteries which for his own peace he was bound to elucidate. ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... have been quite ready to explain everything, for she had nothing to conceal and the subject would have done as well as any other to display her feminine charm, but I did not interrupt, because I have observed that when a thorough woman of business undertakes to elucidate a point of law, she does it so much in the manner of Mrs. Nickleby that she not infrequently leaves it more obscure than she finds it. Mery did not expressly say she was a woman of business, she, in fact, disclaimed any such pretension, but she did it with a delightful mock modesty that forbade ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... of Rites is edited by the eminent philologist, Mr. Horatio Hale, who has done so much to elucidate the whole subject of Indian ethnography and migrations, with the argument derived from language in connection with established tradition; and especially to disentangle Iroquois history from its complications with the legends of ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton

... that the Pope and the Fathers of the Council were bestowing all their care on one subject which happened to be more prominently before the public, they were, on the contrary, laboring with the greatest pains to elucidate every subject as it came up for consideration. As has been seen, the most important schema on Catholic faith had been already very carefully discussed. On the 18th of March a second discussion took place in the ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... been oppressed by a curious restlessness," she says to Dora; "and, when you left me this afternoon, your vague promises of being able to elucidate the terrible secret that is weighing us down made me even more unsettled. I did not ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"

... me your full attention, and don't be a ninny. It is no joking matter, but one upon which I am very serious and anxious, as I believe there is something attached to this quest which is really worth a little trouble to elucidate." ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... benefit from Scripture, as the greatest part would be unintelligible to them; whereupon I shook hands with him, and on departing said that there was no part of Scripture so difficult to understand as those very notes which were intended to elucidate it, and that it would never have been written if not calculated of itself to illume the minds of all classes ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... this central standpoint for viewing the field of knowledge and the meaning of life. The answer to the complexity of the problem of existence is to be found in something which gathers up under a larger and more significant meaning the results of knowledge and life. This volume will attempt to elucidate this all-important point of view—a point of view which is so needful in our days of specialisation and of material interests. It may be, and Eucken and his followers believe it is, that the destiny of the nations of the world ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones

... feelings of Doctor Pormont, was one,—related of him when he was lecturer at a popular London institution. A subject had been placed on the anatomist's table, for the purpose of allowing the lecturer, to elucidate to the young students, the advantages of a post mortem examination, in the determination of diseases. The lecturer dissected as he proceeded, and was particularly clear and luminous. He even threw light on the previous habits of the deceased, and showed at what period ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... distinguishing characteristics, in one fell swoop, through many stages, only to reappear at last in the upper type, and only between infancy and manhood, and only in one sex. This argument is overwhelming, and the present purpose is to elucidate it by more ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various

... appear to have been correct; for in a Sydney Gazette of the 25th of October, of the same year, we have the following account of the apprehension and surrender of some others of this banditti, and of an unsuccessful attempt to take Michael Howe, which will tend to elucidate the ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... confounding, as Dugdale and his followers had done, Beatrix Lady Talbot with Donna Beatrix, daughter of John, King of Portugal, to whom Thomas FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel, was married, 26th Nov., 1405. What I now wish to learn is, whether anything has since been discovered to elucidate further the pedigree of Lady Talbot? It is evident that she was of Portuguese origin; and it may be inferred from the quarterings on her seal, as shown in a manuscript in the British Museum (1st and 4th arg., ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 • Various

... minutiae: but personally, I confess, I am no enemy even to a meticulous exactness, which alone can save us from an incurious and slipshod rhetoric! . . . And what, then, are the points of scholarship which it has been your endeavour to elucidate? Have you followed in the steps of the lamented Professor Drybones of Chicago, who died before he could prove, by a complete enumeration of all the instances in Greek literature, that [Greek text] is never the first word of ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley

... methods the verdict is reached. If the jury ask for further instructions, they file back into the court-room and the judge proceeds to elucidate the hidden mystery of the law in much the same manner he did in his charge. They return again not satisfied, and take ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells

... substitution of construction for inference in the realm of mathematical philosophy may serve to elucidate the uses of this maxim. Take first the case of irrationals. In old days, irrationals were inferred as the supposed limits of series of rationals which had no rational limit; but the objection to this procedure was that it left the existence of irrationals ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell

... order to elucidate problems of this sort, as well as to determine what elements of truth, if any, there are in the theories of the alchemists, that The Alchemical Society was founded in 1912, mainly through my own efforts ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove

... highest of all authority, that thorough knowledge of the lowest details is necessary and full expression of them right, even in the highest class of historical painting; that it will not take away from, nor interfere with, the interest of the figures; but, rightly managed, must add to and elucidate it; and, if further proof be wanting, I would desire the reader to compare the background of Sir Joshua's "Holy Family," in the National Gallery, with that of Nicolo Poussin's "Nursing of Jupiter," in the Dulwich Gallery. The first, owing to ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... initiations always ended, referred to the glad exit of the patriarchal family from their floating prison into the blooming world. The advocates of this theory have laboriously collected all the materials that favor it, and skilfully striven by their means to elucidate the whole subject of ancient paganism, especially of the Mysteries. But, after reading all that they have written, and considering it in the light of impartial researches, one is constrained to say that ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... was everywhere known as a debater of singular skill. His mind was fertile in resources. He was master of logic. No man perceived more quickly than he the strength or the weakness of an argument, and no one excelled him in the use of sophistry and fallacy. Where he could not elucidate a point to his own advantage, he would fatally becloud it for his opponent. In that peculiar style of debate, which, in its intensity, resembles a physical contest, he had no equal. He spoke with extraordinary readiness. There was ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... the following digression are so intimately connected with the first establishment of the Portuguese in India, as to justify its introduction in this place, which will greatly elucidate the narrative of Castaneda; and its length did not admit of being inserted in the form of notes. It is chiefly due to the ingenious and Reverend James Stanier Clarke, in his Origin and Progress of Maritime Discovery, extracted ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr



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