"Excusable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... folders, booklets and other printed matter that does little more than bewilder the man who gets it. Others make the mistake of not putting anything in with the letter to help the prospect buy. Neither mistake is excusable, if the writer will only analyze his proposition and his prospect, consider what the man at the other end will want to know—then ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... His curiosity was excusable, for he had recognized, or thought he had recognized, these birds as "moas" belonging to the species of "dinornis," which many naturalists class with the extinct birds. This, if Paganel was right, would confirm the opinion of Dr. Hochstetter and other travelers on the present existence ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... have told you, pointing out that the affair had been quite harmless, though appearances were certainly against me. He left the house and returned later on. He had seen Gustave. The engagement, of course, was off. My escapade was looked upon as excusable. I was young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, and permission was graciously given me to see my late fiancee. This I did, and, I am happy to say, she not only forgave ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... accepted eagerly by the editor, who was bitterly hostile to the Church—caused a stir in ecclesiastical circles and plunged the unwise lad into a sea of trouble. The essay in general might have been excusable on its distinct merits and the really profound scholarship exhibited in its composition. But when the boy, a candidate for holy orders, and almost on the eve of his ordination, seized upon the famous statement of Jesus in which ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the highest degree of vexation, which I need not set out to you better than by the plain matter of fact, which I heartily wish I had told you long since; and nothing hindered me but a certain mauvaise honte which you are reasonable enough to forgive, as very natural, though not very excusable where there is nothing to be ashamed of; since I can only accuse myself of too much good-nature, or at worst too much credulity, though I believe there never was more pains taken to deceive any body. In short, a ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... her particularity rather a vice than a virtue. So it is that, as love gilds all defects, lack of love sees nothing but defect in what is truly estimable. Notwithstanding the sugar-tongs, Zachariah—excusable, perhaps, this time, considering the warmth of the speech he was making against the late war—pushed them aside, and helped himself after the usual fashion. A cloud came over Mrs. Zachariah's face; she compressed her lips in downright ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... from England with the Russian seamen, described in the German papers as a formidable fleet, has also created some alarm among the ill-informed. Harassed and torn as this country has been, it is perhaps excusable that the people should be fearful and nervous to excess, as to the situation of the small ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... hard enough on snobbishness. Were it a disease, it might be excusable as being at times unavoidable; it is nothing of the sort, it is a deliberate thing that undermines society more than anything; it is entirely spontaneous, and flourishes in every community, from the Church to the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... the ravages of the wolf, he is as gentle as a lamb, except when opposed to his natural enemy; and it is only in England that the guardian of the sheep occasionally injures and worries them, and that many can be found bearing the mark of the tooth. This may he somewhat excusable (although it is often carried to a barbarous extent) in the drover's dog; but it will admit of no apology in the shepherd's dog. It is the result of the idleness of the boy, or the mingled brutality ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... Lancaster found what he believed was the flaw that was blocking progress. The man had used a simplified quantum mechanics without correction for relativistic effects. That made for neater mathematics but overlooked certain space-time aspects of the psi function. The error was excusable, for Sophoulis had not been familiar with the Belloni matrix, a mathematical tool that brought order into what was otherwise incomprehensible chaos. Belloni's work was still classified information, being too useful, in the design ...
— Security • Poul William Anderson
... goblin. There was something, it must be acknowledged, that did not exactly accord with his notions of strict veracity, in the joke the knight had passed upon him of his being a dead man; but several old friends present, who had served in the wars, assured him that every stratagem was excusable in love, and that the cavalier was entitled to especial privilege, having lately served ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... crushed for the evening by the polite sentence, Very likely. At the Cambridge meetings, the trial to the nerves, as Mr. Watson thinks, was even more severe. There was not the spell of common reverence for a great man, in whose presence a modest reticence was excusable. You were expected to speak out, and failure was the more appalling. The contests between Stephen and Harcourt were especially famous. Though, says Mr. Watson, your brother was 'not a match in adroitness and chaff' for ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... the fact that the Empress was willing to disobey her august spouse by wearing clothes made of prohibited material, and that a colonel was willing to slip contraband into my coach without my knowledge, the trick which I had played seemed to me to be excusable. In any case, since it was June, the soakingaking which I had caused these Mainz officials to undergo would do no harm except to their clothes. When I was far from Mainz, I could still hear the sound of drums, and I learned afterwards ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... Zinzendorf's "Church within the Church" idea, compelled hundreds who longed to join their ranks as members to remain outside the Church. In Germany this policy succeeded; in England, where a State Church existed, it may have been excusable; but in America, where a State Church was unknown, it was senseless ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... fatrasie of all sorts of things, exceedingly delightful to fit tastes. But Two Tears Ago (1857), though containing some fine and even really exquisite things, shows a relaxing hand on the crudity and promiscuousness which had been excusable in his two first books and had been well restrained in Hypatia and Westward Ho! by central and active interests of story and character. "Spasmodic" poetry, the Crimean War, Pre-Raphaelitism, Tractarianism, the good and bad sides of science, and divers other things make a mixture ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... their firm determination, if they must fall, at least to fall with honour. He applies this as a general contrast between the French and English national characters; a contrast which betrays a partiality for his own nation, certainly excusable in a poet, especially when he is backed with such a glorious document as that of the memorable battle in question. He has surrounded the general events of the war with a fulness of individual, characteristic, and even sometimes comic features. A heavy Scotchman, a hot Irishman, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... duty so far, he argued, and he was doing his duty when fortune went against him, and he was made a prisoner, so to a certain extent his changing sides might be considered excusable. He had had little else but rough usage and discomfort since he went to sea, and the offers now made to him by Sir Henry were full of promise, which he knew the baronet was too true to hold out ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... and evening were somewhat tame when you consider the manner in which she was billed. Calico did his part with only a few excusable blunders, and she was so pleased that he got the apples and sugarplums which ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... stenographers and clerks took care of the detail of the business of Conward & Elden. And Dave had established his ability as an office manager. His fairness, his fearlessness, his impartiality, his courtesy, his even temper—save on rare and excusable occasions—had won from the staff a loyalty which Conward, with all his abilities as a good mixer, ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... But they are not the methods appropriate to more advanced countries, and our Socialists will be unnecessarily retrograde if they allow the prestige of the Bolsheviks to lead them into slavish imitation. It will be a far less excusable error in our reactionaries if, by their unteachableness, they compel the adoption of violent methods. We have a heritage of civilization and mutual tolerance which is important to ourselves and to the world. Life in Russia has always been fierce and cruel, to a far greater ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... broad white morning and find a large vermilion General staring under the staring sun. I do not blame them at all for clamouring for the schoolboy's detention in prison; I dare say a little detention in prison would do him no harm. Still, I think the immense act has something about it human and excusable; and when I endeavour to analyse the reason of this feeling I find it to lie, not in the fact that the thing was big or bold or successful, but in the fact that the thing was perfectly useless to everybody, including the person who ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... from improvidence, which he so deeply deplored, still exists, and is even more widely spread. It is not merely the artizan who spends all that he earns, but the classes above him, who cannot plead the same excuse of ignorance. Many of what are called the "upper" classes are no more excusable than the "lower." They waste their means on keeping up appearances, and in ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... before the eyes of the governor of the fort. They were pierced with a thousand blows of stilettos, such as I sent you and the representatives of the French people cause it to be printed, that if they believed this fact for an instant, they were excusable. I know well there are societies where it is said, "Is ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... works? He was, I think, among the very greatest of the historians, and yet one seldom hears his name. A New England man by birth, and writing principally of the early history of the American Settlements and of French Canada, it is perhaps excusable that he should have no great vogue in England, but even among Americans I have found many who have not read him. There are four of his volumes in green and gold down yonder, "The Jesuits in Canada," and "Frontenac," but there are others, all of them well ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... an account of the whole affair to the pope, and the society for the propagation of the christian faith. The society soon pronounced, that the ceremonies were idolatrous and intolerable, and the pope confirmed the sentence. In this both the society and the pope were excusable, as the matter had been misrepresented to them; for the enemies of Ricci had affirmed the halls, in which the ceremonies were performed, to be temples, and the ceremonies ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... own citizens, chiefly of the richest class. For their benefit does this act exclude the whole American people from competition in the purchase of this monopoly and dispose of it for many millions less than it is worth. This seems the less excusable because some of our citizens not now stockholders petitioned that the door of competition might be opened, and offered to take a charter on terms much more favorable to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... Harleian Catalogue, and those not compiled by Johnson, but by Oldys), a very small part of it relates to the person who is the subject of the book; and, in that, there is such an inaccuracy in the statement of facts, as in so solemn an authour is hardly excusable, and certainly makes his narrative very unsatisfactory. But what is still worse, there is throughout the whole of it a dark uncharitable cast, by which the most unfavourable construction is put upon almost every circumstance in the character and conduct of my illustrious friend[91]; who, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... is that amount of excuse for them. Besides, they ate the birds, though they destroyed the broods. Yet, as they always say, "We don't know no law here," it may be suspected that they do know there really is one. These men do a partly excusable wrong. But what about those who ought to know better? In the summer of 1907 an American millionaire's yacht landed a party who shot as many brooding birds on St. Mary island as they chose, and then left the bodies to rot ...
— Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... affection you wish to be exclusively bestowed upon yourself. In this case, there is a strong temptation to display the failings of the dreaded rival, or, at the best, to feel no regret at their chance display. Under such circumstances, even the excusable jealousy of affection passes over into the vice of envy. The connection between them is, indeed, dangerously close; but it is easy to trace the boundary line, if we are inclined to do so. Jealousy is contented with the affection and admiration of those it loves and respects; ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... quite true that he was not hurt; it was equally true that he knew that this stranger might have hurt him severely had he chosen to do so, and have been entirely excusable for doing it too. ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... with that, setting her mouth hard. It was evident that she was firm in her decision. I suggested mildly that the girl had never been taught, and had always had so much money that she was excusable for not knowing how to do all these little things which the Linnville girls had ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... herself opposed to reason, so much the worse for religion. She is thereby virtually surrendering at discretion, since to appeal to her only other resource—revelation—is to beg the whole subject in dispute. Similarly, the worse and still less excusable is it for science to declare herself irreconcileable with religion, for she, too, is thereby slighting reason. It is only by forsaking the single guide in whom she professes to trust, and blindly giving herself up to angry ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... to believe that a train is going direct to the place appointed to it in Bradshaw, until they have been verbally assured upon the point by two guards, six porters, and a newspaper boy. Nevertheless, Elisabeth's ignorance—though perhaps excusable, considering her sex—was anything but bliss to poor Christopher, and her good-natured carelessness hurt him none the less for her not knowing that ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... opposers are influenced in their conduct by the basest of principles; one-sixth act through ignorance, united with vice, and one-sixth are wholly ignorant and cannot be morally accountable, if their want of information is in any way excusable. But what may be still more startling, about one-fourth of the whole are members of the various churches, yea, even men of this class are found in sacerdotal robes. This fact came within my knowledge long since. I felt it my duty to publish the same, but delayed, till I should ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... this young man. He is my son, and, when he heard his mother's name aspersed, his anger got the better of his discretion. Is it not true," continued she, turning to a woman who had been most vociferous in her maledictions, "is it not true, dear friend, that a son is excusable who grows indignant when he hears his mother accused of deeds the very thought of which would fill her with horror? Perhaps you, too, have a son that loves you, and who, knowing you to be a good and pious woman, would never suffer any man to ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... unreasonably censured in Rome; only, amidst the censure the fact should not have been concealed, that the perversity of the government was the prime occasion of this venturesome project of the general, and, if it did not justify it, rendered it at least excusable. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... consoling; but all that time Mr. Warren and the party in front had been forgotten. Perhaps it was excusable in two young persons thus situated, and who had now known each other a week, to think more of what was just then passing in the wagon, than to recollect the tribe that was marching down the road, ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... as to fix upon the publishers, the charge of treasonable practices, and that it was only the apprehensions that had been in Canada entertained, of the effects of the publication of the paper in the Canadien, that might have made it excusable to resort to means, not strictly justifiable in law, for suppressing anticipated mischief. The truth was simply that a stupid old man, filled with the most violent prejudices, against change of any sort, had ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... cock-stand will be evident enough; forcing nature only tends to after enervation, and should only be resorted to on some special occasion when one really wishes to prove himself a champion in the arena of Love. Then it may be excusable. ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... has got enough to fill him up for some long time," answered Laurence, with excusable pride. "But who speaks?—The voice is like ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... cart passed from under their feet, they resolutely affirmed their innocence: for the general opinion was that a good Papist considered all lies which were serviceable to his Church as not only excusable but meritorious. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... meet events as they might arise, and began to plot the means of obtaining more Pottawattamie scalps. Let not the refined reader feel disdisgust at this exhibition of the propensities of an American savage. Civilized life has had, and still has, very many customs, little less excusable than that of scalping. Without dragging into the account the thousand and one sins that disgrace and deform society, it will be sufficient to look into the single interest of civilized warfare, in order to make out our case. In the first place, the noblest strategy of ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... sympathies; with, too, the greatest respect for my friend Mrs. Tarbell, in admiration for whose talents and determination I yield to nobody, I feel it my duty to say to you that this accident having happened through the negligence, excusable perhaps, but still the negligence,—carelessness, haste, if you will,—of Mrs. Stiles,—and that this was the case I shall show you in a moment,—Mrs. Stiles and her counsel, neither of them being for a single instant ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... have been times lately when I've been afraid he'd kill somebody—in this squabble of ours, you know. He has been going armed—which was excusable enough, under the circumstances—and night before last, when we were walking up-town together, I had all I could do to keep him from taking a pot-shot at a fellow who, he thought, was following us. I don't know but I'm taking all sorts of an unfair advantage of him, ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... object, that things of this nature ought not to he translated, must arraign the versions of Juvenal Suetonius, etc., but what Suetonius thought excusable in History, any sober man will think much more allowable in Satyr: Nor can this be offensive to good-manners, since the gross part here is the displaying of vices of that dye, that there's an abhorrence even in nature from 'em; nor is ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... intended to inflict any serious injury upon him; he had, indeed, acted solely in self-defence in taking the fellow's revolver away from him; and as to the violence that had accompanied the act—well he himself considered it perfectly excusable under the circumstances; and so, he believed, would any unprejudiced person. Nevertheless, he regretted the incident; he would much rather that it had not happened; and while dismissing the subject from ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... allusion in the Origin of Species is so far from prominent and so incidental that it was excusable to assume that Darwin had not touched upon the descent of man in this work. It was solely the desire to have his mass of evidence sufficiently complete, solely Darwin's great characteristic of never publishing till he had ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... as we are aware, not taken in the least by surprise; but it was quite necessary that she should seem to be so taken. This is a little artifice which is excusable in almost any lady at such a period. "Sir Peregrine," she said, "you do not mean more than the love of a ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... second place I want you to give me a brandy and soda. I got here rather late last night with one or two other Cambridge men, and one of them took us to a man's rooms in Brazenose, and we had a rather wet night of it. Not the proper thing, of course, but excusable just now." ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... might have for the asking. But how fares it otherwise with thee? Art not tired? With me, who am an old campaigner, our tramp should be a trifle, and yet I confess my limbs are not as supple as in the morning. Thou wert excusable shouldest thou ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... the person I met last night." But life is too short for the pen-phrases which would crowd upon us from every quarter, if we did not set our face against all that is under the surface of things, unless, that is to say, the going beneath the surface is, for some special chance of profit, excusable or capable ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... American man, in white flannels with a red guide-book protruding from his pocket, was comfortably stretched in a lounging chair engaged with a cigarette and a copy of the Paris Herald. He glanced up with a yawn—excusable under the circumstances—but as his eye fell upon the letter ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... absorbed by the danger of losing the last hold upon Alice, that he forgot his most excusable anger against the vindictive woman who still lingered, enjoying her victory. He sank into a chair, buried his face in his hands, and for some time neither looked up nor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... them a method of economizing energy in shifting trunks. It should be noted that this friend of mine was not trying to "kill time;" for, like all genuine humanitarians, he of course regards that tragic process as the least excusable of murders. He was entirely happy for two hours in that railway station. But—having packed his guide-book in a trunk—it was not until he reached Darmstadt, some days later, that he discovered that several of the very greatest works of Holbein are now resident ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... at the old game from this hillock of abstinence—it is not an eminence like those occupied by the twelve and fifteen year boys—looking back at the old game from this slight elevation, it is perhaps excusable for a man who put in twenty years at the old game to set the old game off against the new game and make up a debit and credit account just ...
— The Old Game - A Retrospect after Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon • Samuel G. Blythe
... of adopting one of the most widely spoken national languages is considered and rejected. The previous projects are reviewed, and that of Sotos Ochando is recommended as the best. The a posteriori principle is rejected and the a priori deliberately adopted. This is excusable, owing to the fact that most projects hitherto had been a priori. The philosopher Charles Renouvier gave proof of remarkable prescience by condemning the a priori theory in an article in La Revue, 1855, in which he forecasts the ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... allowing her offspring to enter the world unclothed — obviously not her fault, though she is capable of just such negligence. Fortunate are the baby doves when their lazy mother scatters her makeshift nest on top of one that a robin has deserted, as she frequently does. It is almost excusable to take her young birds and rear them in captivity, where they invariably thrive, mate, and live happily, unless death comes to one, when the other often refuses food and grieves its ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... down to the city limits, pressed three wagons (those deep box-wagons in use in Baltimore) into service, drove to the Quartermaster's Department in South Gay Street, represented myself as Acting Quartermaster (which was a little out of "plumb" but excusable by the emergency) and drew three wagon loads of aerated bread and coffee, drove back to camp, turned the kettles up and had the men banqueting inside of two hours. Inefficiency was surely our Commissary's ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... story Elijah Westlake Bemis is not shown often in a heroic light. Yet he had in his being the making of a hero, for he was brave. And heroism, after all, is only effective reliance on some virtue in a crisis, in spite of temptations to do the easy excusable thing. And when Lige Bemis sneaks through this story in unlovely guise, remember that he has a virtue that once ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... like he was used to East, and the next one wanting to set up drinks for him and telling him she knowed all there was to know about gun-handling and how at lion-hunting she was just hell! I guess he was more'n half excusable, that young feller was, for looking like he couldn't be counted on for telling for certain on which end of him ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... not born for three years afterwards. But vanity is the weakness of your sex,—and these are mere foibles that I have related to you, and, provided she never molested me, I should look upon them as follies very excusable ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... Testament. From these Scandinavian sources we have received the heritage which has grown into our magnificent language and literature, but we trouble our heads little about them and leave them to foreigners to study. Ignorance may perhaps be excusable; what is wholly inexcusable is the habit of some Englishmen of criticising and censuring the work of foreigners which they dislike because they cannot understand it. There is a certain section of the English people who seem to think that it shows patriotism and a becoming national pride ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... righteous. A man who styles himself devout resembles a commoner who styles himself a marquis; he arrogates to himself a quality he does not possess. He thinks himself more worthy than his neighbour. One can forgive such foolishness in women; their frailty and their frivolity render them excusable; the poor creatures pass from a lover to a director in good faith: but one cannot pardon the rogues who direct them, who abuse their ignorance, who establish the throne of their pride on the credulity of the sex. They resolve ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... him and would willingly have given a part of his wages rather than this disgrace had happened; for there is a pride amongst old Voyagers which makes them consider the state of being frost-bitten as effeminate and only excusable in a Pork-eater or one newly come into the country. I was greatly fatigued and suffered acute pains in the knees and legs, both of which were much swollen when we halted a little above the ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... traces or traditions among the existing generation in the land, pointing to a high antiquity," he is inclined to consider it a town of modern origin, in fact the growth of the Egyptian pilgrimage. His error is excusable. He was a passing traveller; and I well remember that for a whole year the true name of a hill immediately behind our house at Damascus remained unknown to me: we had called it after our own fashion, and the term had at once ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... come? A man's material body will be to his consciousness at death no more than the old garment he throws aside at night, intending to put on a new and a better in the morning. To desire to keep the old body seems to me to argue a degree of sensual materialism excusable only in those pagans who in their Elysian fields could hope to possess only such a thin, fleeting, dreamy, and altogether funebrial existence, that they might well long for the thicker, more tangible bodily being in which they had experienced the pleasures of a tumultuous life on the upper world. ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... barbarian dialect of the Genovesi, Ligorno; and hence our word Leghorn. It is excusable that we should have taken St. George from Genoa, but not that we should have stolen ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... pretense of the Persies, as they published it abroad.] These noble men, to make their conspiracie to sem excusable, besides the articles aboue mentioned, sent letters abroad, wherein was conteined, that their gathering of an armie tended to none other end, but onlie for the safegard of their owne persons, and to put some better gouernment in the commonwealth. For whereas taxes and tallages were dailie ...
— Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9) - Henrie IV • Raphael Holinshed
... said Nick, with a little excusable profanity; "he went in at one end of such a warren and came out at another. I waited for him in two streets until an officious person chanced along and threatened to take me before the Alcalde. What ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... they might, in New England, go to Bryant, to Emerson, to Hawthorne; and it is more than excusable that those who were endeavouring to refine the very crude community in the midst of which they were anxiously holding up the agate lamp of Psyche, should see nothing to applaud in the vague and shadowy rhapsodies then being issued by a dissipated hack in Philadelphia. What the New England ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... the light," I said, "for I don't feel in the least faint." That was a fib, because when you are as miserable as I was at that minute your heart feels cold and heavy, as though it could hardly go on beating. But I felt that if ever a fib were excusable, that one was. "I'm a little tired, though," I went on. "None of us got to bed till after three last night; and this day, though very nice of course, has been rather long. I think, if you don't mind, Aunt Lil, I'll go straight to my room ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... its hood, it glances above it into the air, and claps its self-congratulating wings, answered nevertheless somewhat disdainfully, that it was impossible for man, in his mortal state, to comprehend such things; and that the astonishment he feels at them, though doubtless it would be excusable under other circumstances, must rest satisfied with the affirmations ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... and, in fact, tormenting the poor woman's memory in such a way as to indicate something very like spite. Now this is not fair; and Mr. White's general fairness on other subjects makes his proceeding the less excusable in this case. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... for involuntary acts of harm, they are either such as are excusable or such as are not: under the former head come all errors done not merely in ignorance but from ignorance; under the latter all that are done not from ignorance but in ignorance caused by some passion which is neither natural nor fairly attributable ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... was stern: but there was need of sternness. Moral life and death were in the balance. If the Scots people were to be told that the crimes which roused their indignation were excusable, or beyond punishment, or to be hushed up and slipped over in any way, there was an end of morality among them. Every man, from the greatest to the least, would go and do likewise, according to his powers ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... sitting bound hand and foot in the booking office, addressing an amused audience in a strain of perhaps excusable exasperation, which however merely served to impress the Ashditch officials with a growing sense of their address in capturing so dangerous a lunatic. In the middle of this entertaining scene the London express steamed in, and Mr Beveridge, courteously thanking the station-master ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... attention to commercial concerns, in which he appears to take great interest; and seems to have quite forgotten his original situation and the object of his residence in the islands, finding the avocations of a ruler more to his taste than those of a preacher. This would be excusable, if his talents were of a nature to contribute to the instruction and happiness of the people; if he understood the art of polishing the rough diamond, to which the uncorrupted Sandwich Islander may aptly be compared, so as to bring out its intrinsic value, and to ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... creature called a Sovereign, whether King, Sultan, or Sophy, who thinks himself, either by divine or human right, vested with an absolute power of destroying his fellow-creatures; or who, without inquiring into his right, lawlessly exerts that power. The most excusable of all those human monsters are the Turks, whose religion teaches them inevitable fatalism. A propos of the Turks, my Loyola, I pretend, is superior to your Sultan. Perhaps you think this impossible, and wonder who this Loyola is. Know then, that I have ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... their 'Mutual Friends.' One thing, indeed, was in the Hatfield man's favour; his lately cocky and contemptuous competitors had been 'weeded out' by a fortuitous series of adverse circumstances, including what SOLLY, in a spirit of cynical but excusable elation, subsequently called 'that beneficent disease, the Influenza.' The Irish Contingent, which not long ago looked dangerous, had become so thoroughly demoralised by mutual hostilities and disputes between them and their backers, that there was not a single 'Paddy' prepared ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... imperial autocracy. I cannot regard it as a wise plan if, owing to dislike of its defects, the Republic should be transformed into an Imperial autocracy. Owing to various unavoidable reasons, it is excusable in spite of violent opposition to adopt temporarily autocratic methods in a republican country. But if the plan proposed by present-day critics be put into effect, that on the promise of a constitution we should agree to the adoption of a monarchy, then the promise must be definitely ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... opportunity of mentioning the manner in which those letters got abroad, which the author was ashamed of as very trivial things, full not only of levities, but of wrong judgments of men and books, and only excusable from the youth and inexperience of the ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... and they had a long talk, which ended in the mate's returning to his duty. The captain had broken through a custom, which is a part of the common-law of a ship, and without reason; for he knew that his mate was a sailor, and needed no help from him; and the mate was excusable for being angry. Yet he was wrong, and the captain right. Whatever the captain does is right, ipso facto, and any opposition to it is wrong, on board ship; and every officer and man knows this when he ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... did not for a moment entertain the idea of imposing upon future generations, through the extraordinary sanctions of the Constitution, their views upon any special subject of ordinary legislation. Such a proceeding would have seemed to them far more monstrous, and far less excusable, than that tyranny of George III and his Parliament which had given rise to the ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin
... however, were more pliant than these, and were prepared "to follow the great bell-wether," lead he where he might, through flowery meads, or thickets and brakes. Even the amiable Wilberforce, who had hitherto thought that the conduct of Hastings was in part justifiable, and in part excusable; and Dundas, who had recently asserted that it was highly meritorious, and deserving the thanks of the court of Directors, now voted against him; and the motion was carried by one hundred and nineteen against seventy-nine. At this point, the prosecution of Hastings was stopped ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... daughter was regarded not only as a virtuous but as a generous deed, which is intelligible if the reason was that there would be fewer mouths to fill in the tribe." This explains the murders in question but does not show them to be excusable; it explains them as being due to the vicious selfishness and hard-heartedness of parents who would rather kill their infants than restrain their sexual appetite when they had all the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... beauty which sickness may destroy to-morrow; can such a vile, degraded creature, fully aware too of her degradation—for if you had been ignorant of it and less devoted, you would have been more excusable—can the intended victim to suicide and hell hope to be the wife ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... English Poets, or the description of Winterslow and its neighbourhood in the "Farewell to Essay-writing," or "On a Landscape of Nicolas Poussin" in the Table-Talk. Read these pieces and nothing else, and an excusable impression might be given that the writer was nothing if not florid. But turn over a dozen pages, and the most admirable examples of the grave and simple manner occur. He is an inveterate quoter, ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... of that ill-fated monarch,—and they assuredly were not small,—no one would now think this absurd invective to be even an excusable exaggeration. It misses the true mark altogether, and is the expression of a strongly imaginative mind, which has seen something that it did not like, and is unable in consequence to see anything that has any relation to it distinctly or correctly. But with ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... in the way that marked his peculiar character; Berthier, by a melancholy countenance, by lamentations, and even tears; Lobau and Caulaincourt, by a frankness, which in the first was stamped by a cold and haughty roughness, excusable in so brave a warrior; and which in the second was persevering even to obstinacy, and impetuous even to violence. The emperor repelled their observations with some ill-humour; he exclaimed, addressing ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... unceremoniously entered, curiosity aided in inducing her to remain. Perhaps a vague, but a very natural, expectation that she was again to dismiss the commander of the Coquette, had its influence on her first decision. In order that the reader may judge how far this boldness was excusable, we shall describe the ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... Some were quarantined in, and the others out. Judge Wyatt had installed himself in a hotel and telegraphed the Dowager to keep Patty at St. Ursula's during the holidays. Poor Patty had been happily packing her trunk when the news arrived; and as she unpacked it, she distributed a few excusable tears ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... univers. of Cambridge and London stationers, about printing of the Bibles."[54] Gross and numerous indeed were the errors of the corrupt bible text of that age, and far exceeding even the blunders of monkish pens, and certainly much less excusable, for in those times they seldom had a large collection of codices to compare, so that by studying their various readings, they could arrive at a more certain and authentic version. The paucity of the sacred volume, ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... the too great severity of their husbands, and that they are not treated by their husbands with sufficient kindness. But if a husband delight in having his wife with him, if he treat her kindly and perform the duties of a husband, she is then less excusable. Hence, it is this most heinous ingratitude of the people that is here expressed, and set in opposition to the infinite mercy and kindness of the Lord." For a still better insight into the meaning of the first half of this verse, we subjoin the paraphrasis by Manger: "Seek thee a wife ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... them seriously. He held that all system was but logical infatuation; that the only pardonable follies were those which were frankly avowed; and that only a pedant could clothe his imagination in geometrical theories. In general, pedantry to his eyes was the least excusable of vices; he understood it to be the pretension of tracing back phenomena to first causes, "as if," said he, "there were any 'first causes,' or chance admitted of calculation!" This did not prevent him however from expending much logic to demonstrate that there was no such thing as logic, ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... my friends, you are all good company this morning. Mr. Vincent is excusable, because he is in love; and Belinda is excusable, because—because—Mr. Hervey, pray help me to an excuse for Miss Portman's stupidity, for I am dreadfully afraid of blundering out the truth. But why do I ask you to help ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... long time which was excusable as she was somewhat confused. First she seized a cord, then a pitchfork, then a chair. For an instant she thought of lowering the cow to the bottom of the well so that poor Ourson might have a drink of fresh warm milk. At last she found the ladder before her eyes, almost in ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... anticipate spurious publications by a comprehensive and authentic one, is almost as great an evil: it is giving a body to scattered atoms; and such an act in one's old age is declaring a fondness for the indiscretions of Youth, or for the trifles of an age which, though more mature, is only the less excusable. it is most true, Sir, that, so far from being prejudiced in favour of my own writings I am persuaded that, had I thought early as I think now, I would never have appeared as an author. Age, frequent illness and pain, have given me ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... class numerals to the top of the University flag-pole, and left it to sweep the skies with the halyards cut. A Western sharpshooter was enlisted from the ranks of the Law Department and the offending emblem was brought down on the second shot, to the great satisfaction of the "laws." Less excusable was the method the class of 1902 took to immortalize its victory over the "laws" by painting the class numerals prominently on the soft sand-stone of the Law Building, of which traces remain to this day for those who know where ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... "It is excusable in a woman, who is doubtless beautiful, since she is the wife of Messer Tito," said a young French envoy, smiling and bowing to Tito, "to think that her affections must overrule the good of the State, and that nobody is to be beheaded who is anybody's cousin; but such a view is ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... living, had the custom, at a very old age, after having made good cheer, to precipitate themselves into the sea from the top of a certain rock, assigned for that service. Pain and the fear of a worse death seem to me the most excusable incitements. ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... come and be among her own people. Those who have failed to appreciate her can hardly be blamed, as it is owing entirely to their deficiency; but the cavillers—those who have ears and hear not—are less excusable. Almost a recluse,—declining even an interview with her publishers,—in ill-health, in poverty, and with waning youth, she poured out her precious ointment from alabaster boxes, and there were not wanting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... cant and narrow-mindedness of the bigots whose ignorance of the sacred writings is so dense that they confound the Jewish Sabbath (i.e. the Saturday) with the English Sunday; misunderstand (which in their ignorance of Hebrew may be excusable) the directions to his own people of the Jewish law-giver,—and ignore (which is absolutely inexcusable) the dictates of common sense, and the plain directions of our Saviour and of the Gentile Apostle. The strong common sense of ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... exaggerations, while few had leisure to attempt a serious refutation, and while the facts upon which any deliberate opinion must have been based, had not been sufficiently tested by experience, the time has now arrived when it is no longer excusable to submit in silence to the reproaches of ignorance or malice. It is proper, however, to remark, as well in extenuation of those who have assailed our country, as in the support of the confidential denial, which I feel authorized to make to their assertions, ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... a brilliant nor original observation, but, under the circumstances, excusable, for the nonchalant person in the plaid suit was Emeline Bascom's brother-in-law, the genius, the "inventor," the one person whom he hated—and feared—more than anyone else in the ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... translate the terms of whig politics into classical Latin, would be as difficult as it might be for a whig himself to give a consistent account of those politics from the year 1688. Natural, however, and excusable, as this ignorance might be, to myself it was intolerable and incomprehensible. Already, at fifteen, I had made myself familiar with the great English poets. About sixteen, or not long after, my interest in the story of Chatterton had carried me over the whole ground of the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... the sunny persuasiveness of that first faint glimmering of a smile in the baby face of the original Polly. His subjugation, moreover, having hitherto proved beneficial in its results, he was the more excusable, to-day, for letting himself be swept along by the impetus of his ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... sight of his own figure in one of the long mirrors—his shabby, ill-fitting clothes looked so sadly out of place amidst all this magnificence—and for the first time in his life he felt ashamed of his poverty. Highly unphilosophical this, but surely excusable in so young a man as our hero. With a natural desire to improve his forlorn appearance if he could, he unpacked the scanty supply of clothing that his faithful Pierre had put up for him—hoping that he might come across something a little less thread-bare ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... creature, only wanting a wife to complete him. For a man like that to go on running about would never do. Soberly—no! It would soon be getting ridiculous. He has been no worse than other men, probably better—infinitely more excusable; but now we have him, and it was time we should. I shall see her and study her, sharply, you may be sure; though I fancy I can rely on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... am going to write too flighty: but, by my faith, I have conceived such a profound reverence for her sense and judgment, that, far from thinking the man excusable who should treat her basely, I am ready to regret that such an angel of a woman should even marry. She is in my eye all mind: and were she to meet with a man all mind likewise, why should the charming qualities she is mistress of be endangered? Why should such an angel be plunged ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... first-rate unconventional work of art is not a straw better than a conventional one, and to become slightly light-headed about either is not only permissible but seemly. Nevertheless, to go silly over a mediocre innovation is far more excusable than to be taken in by its equivalent in a familiar style. While to rave about Messrs. Wells, Moore and Galsworthy seems to me shocking. Surely there can be no difficulty about treating these writers as ordinary citizens ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... and again the hawsers twanged, and now they twanged at will, for with such a stream running it was excusable for even such a worthy officer as Jerry Rolfe to put something down to natural causes. And incessantly the rats gnawed, gnawed, and ripped at the wood beneath them until even that sound helped to ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... really ended with that inning, for Scranton made five runs, having a nice little batting bee of their own for a change. In the ninth the visitors got a man on first through a juggle on the part of Hobson on second, though Julius was really excusable, for the ball came down to him with terrific speed, and though he knocked it down he could not recover in time to get it across the infield so as to cut off ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... jealousies and ambitions by conduct more despicable than ever. Nauplia was the seat of civil war between two military factions, whose joint contempt of the worthless Government would have been, at any rate, excusable, had not the interests of the whole nation been thereby injured. The triumvirate was driven from the town, and taking refuge in a little island in the Bay of Nauplia, wrote in despair to Lord Cochrane, asking him to come to its aid and devise some ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... must be acknowledged, it is more excusable than another, which, I fear, has sometimes had an equal influence on the mind—I mean so great a love of sway, as to induce her to give the preference to a person of weak intellectuals, in hopes of holding, uncontrolled, the reins ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... impossible to express the corporeal agony, yet some notion of it may be conceived from the effect it had upon my mind. I felt that I hated the whole world, kin or no kin; that theft was a virtue, murder excusable, and cannibalism any thing but disgusting; from which the inference may be safely drawn, viz, that ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... word! Really, Jupille, what are you thinking of? And I a professor, too! Thirty years ago it would have been excusable, but to-day! Besides, Sidonie expects me home ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... possibility—suggested by Palliser—that actual crime had been or might be committed. They had heard unpleasant stories of private lunatic asylums and their like. Things to shudder at might be going on at the very moment they spoke to each other. Under this possibility, no supineness would be excusable. Efforts to trace the missing man must at least be made. Efforts were made, but with no result. Painful as it was to reflect on the subject of the asylums, careful private inquiry was made, information was quietly collected, there were even visits to gruesomely ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of themselves. Burlingham had brought back to them vividly the girl's simplicity and sweetness that had won their hearts, even the hearts of the women in whom jealousy of her young beauty would have been more than excusable. Anstruther began to get out the supper dishes and Mabel slipped away toward the forward deck. "When the child comes in," pursued Burlingham, "I want to see you people ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... slender, and delicate in appearance, a man of honor and true courage, who would fight a duel for a yes or a no, had never yet fought upon a battle-field, though he wore in his button-hole the cross of the Legion of honor. He was, as you perceive, one of the blunders of the Restoration, perhaps the most excusable of them. The youth of those days was the youth of no epoch. It came between the memories of the Empire and those of the Emigration, between the old traditions of the court and the conscientious education of the bourgeoisie; between religion and fancy-balls; between two political ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... as the cheeky and deplorable little Bear began to climb his leg. "You little divil," he growled, "I'll break your cussed neck"; but he did not. He lifted the nasty, sticky little beast and fondled him as usual, while Jill, no worse—even more excusable, because less trained—suffered all the terrors of his wrath and was double-chained to the post, so as to have no further chance ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton
... notice them. Women seemed to be going in and coming out of such places in draggle-tailed processions in those wicked days; but now I only once saw women drinking in a public house. It was a Saturday night, when, if ever, it may be excusable to anticipate the thirst of the morrow, for all through the Sunday idleness it cannot be slaked enough. It was a hot night, and the bar-room door stood open, and within, fronted by a crowd of their loudly talking, deeply drinking ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... wanted. His spirits rose with their usual elasticity as soon as he was out of Centre Street, and he insisted on giving Philip and his friends a royal supper at Delmonico's, an excess which was perhaps excusable in the rebound of his feelings, and which was committed with his usual reckless generosity. Harry ordered, the supper, and it is perhaps needless to say, that Philip paid ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... read of Russian dukes marching with the Tartars at the head of their drujinas, and of supplying them with infantry. In 1276 Boris of Rostof and others, followed Mangou Khan in the war against the tribes of the Caucasus, and helped to sack the town of Dediakof in Daghestan. This was excusable, because the enemy was an alien; but what can be thought of Prince Andrew, the unworthy son of Alexander Nevski, who, in 1281, induced the Tartars to aid him in pillaging Vladimir, Souzdal, Mourom, Moscow, and Pereiaslaf, and led in profaning churches and convents? In 1284, when two descendants ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... belonged to the "good people," and, on the whole, lived up to their reputation. But in Malvina, side by side with much that is commendable, there appears to have existed a most reprehensible spirit of mischief, displaying itself in pranks that, excusable, or at all events understandable, in, say, a pixy or a pigwidgeon, strike one as altogether unworthy of a well-principled White Lady, posing as the friend and benefactress of mankind. For merely refusing to dance with ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... experience or knowledge of the world, you would have realised that the owner of that voice possessed neither or else was a very great and convincing actress. Mere print cannot excuse him, perhaps, but I give you my word he was as a matter of fact excusable, since he was a bachelor. Most men are very susceptible to the human voice, especially to the female human voice, and it has always been a matter of the deepest wonder to me that the men who do not hear a lovely one once in the year are most under the dominion of their females. I mean, of course, ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... which no debutante or dandy should ever dream of going out to dine. Not that Mr. Mahaffy's book can be said to be, in any sense of the word, popular. In discussing this important subject of conversation, he has not merely followed the scientific method of Aristotle which is, perhaps, excusable, but he has adopted the literary style of Aristotle for which no excuse is possible. There is, also, hardly a single anecdote, hardly a single illustration, and the reader is left to put the Professor's abstract rules into practice, without either the examples or the warnings ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... whether we provide it for them or not, it is no reason why we should set it before the young whose appetites are yet unvitiated and lure them to excesses. It does not make a free indulgence in wine and brandy any the more excusable because ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... who read the Bible and believed only the parts that didn't hurt their sensitive feelings; the young men who lived fast lives and sowed wild oats because a wicked and false public sentiment made them think it was excusable and perhaps necessary; and all other men and women who lived as they pleased, regardless of God and eternity—when all these shall appear before the judgment seat of Christ He will look upon them all alike, and with a smile of gracious pardon will ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... once know a descendant of theirs, in their own country who was overcome by red wine. "It was perfectly excusable," he said, for he had never tasted it before—or since! He was a fine, tall man called Callum Bhouie, from his yellow hair when he was a youth; he was old when I knew him—six feet two and thin as a rake and strong, with the face of Wellington and an eye like ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... I s'wow! Bank Holiday to-morra, and I'd clean forgot it! . . . But, with the Lord's Sabbath standin' 'pon its head, 'tis excusable. The children, now—out an' runnin' the town in the Sunday clothes with never a thought o' breakfast; and how I'm to get their boots an' faces clean in time for Chapel, let ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... shades of guilt," she said. "Crimes, offences, misdeeds, call them as you please, are not absolutely unpardonable; in some respects they are excusable, if not justifiable. Do you ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... that she did think so, glad that the peeress's intense and excusable interest in herself kept her from being ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... stupidly took up the same idea from a map saying 'Zambesi' (eastern branch), believing that the map printer had some authority for his assertion. My first crossing was thus as fruitless as theirs, and I was less excusable, for I ought to have remembered that while Chambeze is the true native name of the northern river, Zambesi is not the name of the southern river at all. It is a Portugese corruption of Dombazi, which we adopted rather than introduce confusion ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... that, AFTER the angel had fled through the midst of heaven, preaching the gospel to those that dwell on the earth? (Rev 14:6-10). They that received the mark of the beast at first, before this angel came forth, are when compared with these, excusable (Rev 13:16,17): Wherefore, they are not threatened with that smoking wrath, as are these which ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... right, all right," said Mr. Dickerson. "I don't blame you. I think you're perfectly excusable to feel the way you do. But some time, when I get a chance, I should like to tell you about it, and put it to ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... I should, of course, not have been excusable if I had failed in any case vigorously to carry out my instructions. But every time I plainly saw matters getting worse and worse; and I should have failed of my duty also if I had not so informed the President and ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... paternal nose without awakening any suspicions. Now, young man, was I presumptuous in affecting providential airs toward you? But why this gloom and silence? I, who expected you to burst with delight, to shout with joy, to cut capers, and give vent to many other manifestations totally excusable in the first moments of rejoicing over your sudden transformation from a poor notary clerk into a millionaire! Why don't you answer me? Heavens! I fear his sudden happiness has bereft him of ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... into the presence of the commander in chief, he pretended to be very much frightened; and he would have been excusable if he had been really frightened, for in that little performance of his he had run a great many risks. After asking a few questions of this pretended traitor Washington told the guards to withdraw, and ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... typographical errors exposed in those pages, where they are least to be expected, and are least excusable, opens up some curious considerations. It may surely be believed that, between the compositors who put the types together and the correctors of the press, the printing of the Bible has generally been executed with more than average care. Yet the editions ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... which stands for dishonesty of another sort (and much more excusable) is Gascon. The Gascons are the natives of Gascony, a province in the south of France. It is proverbial among other Frenchmen that the Gascons are always boasting, and even in English we sometimes use the word Gascon ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... quarter of a million is soon thrown out, folded, and piled ready for distribution. But imagine what a loss of one minute means! Truly the agitation of the officials at an awkward pinch is singularly excusable, and many a hard word is levelled at pertinacious talkers who insist on thrusting themselves upon the House at a time when the country is waiting with wild eagerness for momentous tidings. The long line of carts waits in the street, the speedy ponies ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... John Evelyn, two centuries ago wrote some amusing words on this subject. After quoting the witty saying of Malvezzi,—"I vestimenti negli animali sono molto securi segni della loro natura, negli nomini del lor cervello,"—he goes on to say, "Be it excusable in the French to alter and impose the mode on others, 'tis no less a weakness and a shame in the rest of the world, who have no dependence on them, to admit them, at least to that degree of levity as to turn into all their shapes without discrimination; so as when the freak takes our ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... should have destroyed it on the spot. Macrinus here tried to excuse the spy, by remarking that this zealous official had only tried to set his services in a favorable light. The falsehood could not be approved, but was excusable. But he had scarcely finished speaking, when his opponent, the praetor, Lucius Priscillianus, observed, with a gravity he ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... squeamish stomachs will neither suffer them to drink pure wine, nor their intemperance to drink moderately. Therefore they make use of this expedient, to the end that it may render the desire they have of drinking plentifully more excusable. So they take all the strength from the wine, leaving the palatableness still: as we use to deal with those with whose constitution cold water does not agree, to boil it for them. For they certainly take off all the strength from the wine, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... be angry, Mrs. Haydon; it was excusable, I am sure, if you had just received these London letters," ...
— Kate's Ordeal • Emma Leslie
... appeared, to make the appearance of this little work, at least excusable; what more may be necessary to establish its claim to be read must depend ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... process of laying, and hens have no business to stand in the way of Easter. The most tedious hours of my boyhood were spent in waiting for a hen to get off her nest. No use to scare her off, for then she will get mad, and just as like as not take the egg with her. Indeed, I think the boy is excusable for his haste if his brother has a dozen eggs and ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... execution.] [281]" * * * Impelled by a very common and, perhaps, excusable curiosity, I rode out with some friends one day to witness the execution of a mestizo soldier for murder. The parade ground of Bagumbayan was the theater of this tragic comedy, for such it may be trully called, and never did I experience such a revulsion of feeling as ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... thing; he believed them, and always spoke in the first person, saying, I, I, I—I will have it so; I know it;—I, I—which puts one in mind of a school-boy toning out before his mistress's knees, I by itself I. Yet there is one piece of pride which may be thought excusable; and {97}that is, that honest exultation of heart which every public performer feels from the approbation of his auditors; gratefully does he acknowledge their indulgence, and with sincerity declares that the utmost ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... epidemical pestilence, which is equally fatal to its objects, though they fall with a multitude. Besides, they ought to consider a remark, somewhere made by Cyprian,[36] that persons who sin through ignorance, though they cannot be wholly exculpated, may yet be considered in some degree excusable; but those who obstinately reject the truth offered by the Divine goodness, are ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... of God, so that he directs their malice to whatever end he pleases, and uses their crimes for the execution of his judgments. The modesty of those who are alarmed at the appearance of absurdity, might perhaps be excusable, if they did not attempt to vindicate the Divine justice by a pretence utterly destitute of any foundation in truth. They consider it absurd that a man should be blinded by the will and command of God, and afterwards be punished for his blindness. They therefore evade the difficulty, by alleging ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... for him to interpose, and undertook, not indeed to vindicate the action, for breach of trust has always something criminal, but to extenuate it by an apology. Having advanced what cannot be denied, that moral obliquity is made more or less excusable by the motives that produce it, he inquires what evil purpose could have induced Pope to break his promise. He could not delight his vanity by usurping the work, which, though not sold in shops, had been shown to a number more than sufficient ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... publication Shenstone has opened his idea on its poetical characteristic. "I dare say it must be very incorrect; for I have added eight or ten stanzas within this fortnight. But inaccuracy is more excusable in ludicrous poetry than in any other. If it strikes any, it must be merely people of taste; for people of wit without taste, which comprehends the larger part of the critical tribe, will unavoidably despise it. I have been at some pains to recover myself from A. Phi**** misfortune ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... less certainly ready for them than the sea is for the tribute of a river, will the reform designed be a really progressive step in the civilization of Europe? Prussia says—decidedly so; because it will demolish an infamous privilege. She affirms that an institution which might have been excusable under a landgrave, with a few thousand acres of territory, is inconsistent with the dignity and, to quote continental phraseology, the mission of a first-class state. Here again the reasoning is incontrovertible. Of one other thing, moreover, we may feel perfectly sure, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... half concealed beneath grass, sand, and leaves, what I took to be a death adder, which I summarily shot. Then it became apparent that the dogs had blundered, for the reptile was a lizard. The mistake in identity, was, however, excusable, for in size, shape, colouring, and marking it so closely resembled an adder that I was not readily convinced to the contrary. Placing the two pieces into which the shot had divided the creature in juxtaposition, I sympathised with the dogs more strongly, feeling certain ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... colored man for mental work of a high order. Thomas Jefferson's remark that no colored man could probably be found who was capable of taking in and comprehending Euclid, and that none had made any contribution to the civilization of the world through his art, would perhaps appear somewhat excusable when viewed in the light of the prevailing conditions in his day, and on which, of course, his judgment was based; but even at that time Jefferson knew something of the superior quality of Benjamin Banneker's mental equipment, for ...
— The Colored Inventor - A Record of Fifty Years • Henry E. Baker
... story. When I had finished Hephzy nodded understandingly. She did not say "I told you so," but if she had it would have been quite excusable. ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... had on all occasions sought the simple and natural meaning of the Biblical text. That he clothed the Song of Songs, in part at least, in a mantle of allegory, is excusable, since he was authorized, nay, obliged, to do so by tradition. In the Proverbs this manner is less tolerable. The book is essentially secular in character; but Rashi could not take it in this way. To him ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... did not, nor yet hurried. She made her smile explain to whoever was looking on that a person was excusable for making this sort of mistake, that it hurt nobody, that one need not and did not care; that she was sure they did not like her any less for it; they would not if they knew how void of offense toward them all was her ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... Constantinople should not be allowed to fall into Russian hands. The occupation of Egypt in 1882 without doubt introduced a new and very important element into the discussion. The most serious as also the least excusable mistake in British Near-Eastern policy of recent years has been the occupation of Cyprus, which burthened us with a perfectly useless possession, and inflicted a serious blow on our prestige. Sir Edward Grey's recent diplomatic success is in a large measure due to the fact that all the Powers ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... this lesson, and Nature is right. It is the province of Science to vindicate Nature here at any hazard. But in blaming Theology for its intolerance, it has been betrayed into an intolerance less excusable. It has pronounced upon it too soon. What if Religion be yet brought within the sphere of Law? Law is the revelation of time. One by one slowly through the centuries the Sciences have crystallized into geometrical ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... own safety. If we except his usurpation of the crown, he must be allowed a prince of great justice, which most writers affirm to have been always unblemished, except in that single instance: for, as to his treatment of the bishops and the Earl of Chester, it seems very excusable by the necessity of the time; and it was the general opinion, if he had not used that proceeding with the latter, it would have cost him his crown. Perhaps his injustice to the Empress might likewise admit a little extenuation. Four kings successively had sat on the throne without ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... borrowed the ironing board and not have detailed the accompanying facts would have been a heinous crime and would have exempted any person from loaning it. Under such circumstances it would have been perfectly excusable to send ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... the Pink, for the Pink had been brought up daintily, and appreciated the tops of fresh eggs. On this occasion Mrs. Dove herself brought up Primrose's letter. Letters came so seldom to the girls that Mrs. Dove felt it quite excusable to gaze very hard at the inscription, to study the name of the post town which had left its mark on the envelope, and lingering a little in the room, under cover of talking to Jasmine, to watch Primrose's face as she opened ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... indifferent whether of the two it was, provided that hic not., that the game of the muss is honest, healthful, ancient, and lawful, a Muscho inventore, de quo cod. de petit. haered. l. si post mortem. et Muscarii. Such as play and sport it at the muss are excusable in and by law, lib. 1. c. de excus. artific. lib. 10. And at the very same time was Master Tielman Picquet one of the players of that game of muss. There is nothing that I do better remember, for he laughed heartily when his fellow-members of the aforesaid ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... administering advice and assistance; restraining them from those excesses which they sometimes commit, when, driven by hunger, they attack provision-carts, bakers' shops, or the houses of farmers who are known to possess a stock of meal or potatoes. God knows, it is an excusable kind of robbery; yet it is ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... The girl's mother even excused his conduct by saying that he was ambitious to get ahead in the army. Like most of her sex in Germany she has been reared to venerate the uniform so much that anything done by the man who wears it is quite excusable. Indeed, Marie's mother still listens with respectful approval at Kaffeeklatsch to Fritz's mother when she boasts of what her son is doing as a major ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... "An excusable error," quoth Adrian, smiling back, "for one of your seals bear unmistakably the arms of Cochrane of the Shaws, doubtless some ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle |
