"Extenuate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a stupendous autobiography, and made me forget that writing was a new art, to me, and that I was rather old to try my hand at a new art. My memory suddenly began to seem not so bad after all. For weeks I had hesitated between Othello's "Nothing extenuate, nor write down aught in malice," and Pilate's "What is truth?" as my guide and my apology. Now I saw that both were too big for my modest endeavor. I was not leaving a human document for the benefit of future psychologists and historians, ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... terrible blow, made all the harder by the fact that she was proving herself such a different girl from the one I loved—so different, in fact, that, despite what I had heard, I couldn't quite believe it of her, and found myself seeking to extenuate and even justify her conduct. While I was doing this, they came within hearing, and Lord ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... of a grim humor peculiarly his own, and partly to extenuate his severity toward the youth, had sent to his niece all the city papers containing unfavorable references to Haldane, and to her mind the associations created by those disgraceful scenes were still inseparable from ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... She trembled and shed tears during the reading of the indictment, and, in a low voice, pleaded guilty. On being asked why sentence of death should not be passed against her, she replied meekly, "I can much aggravate, but nothing extenuate my fault. I desire mercy, and that the lords will intercede for me with the king." Sentence of death was ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... that are usually made, we may observe in general, that, as they consist in comparing the iniquitous practice of slavery with other iniquitous practices in force among other nations, they can neither raise it to the appearance of virtue, nor extenuate its guilt. The things compared are in these instances both of them evils alike. They call equally for redress[098], and are equally disgraceful to the governments which suffer them, if not encourage them, to exist. ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... It has been objected that her ready avowal of weakness as common to all her sex is the undramatic epigram of a satirist, awkwardly ventriloquizing through the mechanism of a tragic puppet; but it is really quite in keeping with the woman's character to enlarge and extenuate the avowal of her own infamy and infirmity into a sententious reflection on womanhood in general. A similar objection has been raised against the apparent change of character implied in the confession made by the hero to the duke elect, at the close of the play, that he and his brother ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... was all her visitor's; there was no emotion—that was excluded by the plan, to say nothing of conditions more primal. Rose had from the first a glimpse of her mother's plan. It was to mention nothing and imply nothing, neither to acknowledge, to explain nor to extenuate. She would leave everything to her child; with her child she was secure. She only wanted to get back into society; she would leave even that to her child, whom she treated not as a high-strung and heroic daughter, a creature of exaltation, of devotion, but as a new, ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... whose criticism of this play is extraordinarily brilliant, does his best to extenuate the stiffness of it. But to my own ear, as I read it again after a quarter of a century, there rise the tones of the stilted, the unsmiling, the essentially provincial and boringly solemn society of Christiania as it appeared to a certain young pilgrim in the early seventies, condensing, as it then ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... those of Uncle Elkins; he would abide on that level where he found himself on his recovery, and make no effort to lift his wife to that he had renounced. She was a child of Nature. He would learn life anew of her; but he failed of success in all his undertakings. Shall a man attempt to extenuate his failures? It seemed new to him; he acknowledged it in open court, that from the day of his entrance into Dalton to the day he left it, he was under some enchantment there. And if an insane man is not to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... greatest sinner who repents shall be forgiven, and, indeed, is more acceptable in the eyes of Heaven than him who has never erred. Far be it from me to attempt to exculpate you in your own eyes, or extenuate your former criminality. You have sinned deeply, so deeply that you may well shrink aghast from the contemplation of your past life—may well recoil in abhorrence from yourself—and may fitly devote yourself to constant prayer and acts of penitence. But having cast off your iniquity, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Democrates extended his hand again. "You are a worthy daughter of Athens. In years to come they will name you with King Codrus who sacrificed his life for the freedom of Attica, for have you not sacrificed what should be dearer than life,—the fair name of your husband? But courage. Your patriotism may extenuate his crime. Only the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... endeavour to enable you to form an impartial judgment of the police of Paris, by exhibiting it with all its perfections and imperfections. Borrowing the language of MERCIER, I shall trace the institution through all its ramifications, and, in pointing out its effects, I shall "nothing extenuate, nor ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... best part of an hour—all he had never dared to say, more almost than he had ever dared to think. He did not spare himself. The tragic history of O Hara San he gave in all its pitifulness without attempting to extenuate or shield himself in any way; he sketched frankly the girl's loneliness and childish ignorance, his own casual and selfish acceptance of the sacrifice she made and the terrible catastrophe that had ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... swearer, or a habitual talker of obscenity, because he has been guilty of using such expressions when intoxicated, than he can be termed an idiot, because, when intoxicated, he has spoken nonsense. If, therefore, the defender can extenuate the guilt of his intoxication, he hopes that its consequences will be numbered rather among his misfortunes than faults; and that his Reverend Brethren will consider him, while in that state, as acting from a mechanical impulse, and as incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong. For the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... enterprise to a head and floating it to a creditable finish. It is a precipitate of the partisan animosity that inspires both parties and holds them to their duty of self-sacrifice and devastation, and at its best it will chiefly serve as a cloak of self-righteousness to extenuate any exceptionally profligate excursions in the conduct ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... affections might be soothed, that in an unguarded moment he induced the inconsiderate Maria to betray, we will not say the confidence of her friend, but such facts as could only have come to her knowledge by the intimacy of unaffected association. If there were any thing to extenuate this breach of decorum by Maria, it was the manner in which it was effected. Miss Osgood had just returned from one of her frequent visits to the villa of Mr. Henley, when Delafield made his customary morning call: the ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... the most, if not all, as well in the Indies, as in Spain, finde, it agreeth well with them. He of Merchena had no ground in saying, that it did cause Opilations. For, if it were so, the Liver being obstructed, it would extenuate its subject; and by experience, we see to the contrary, that it makes fat; the reason whereof I shall shew hereafter. And this shall suffice for the ...
— Chocolate: or, An Indian Drinke • Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma
... imperfect means at his disposal he did such scouting as he could, and if his fiery and impetuous spirit led him into a position which cost him so dearly it is certainly more easy for the critic to extenuate his fault than that subsequent one which allowed the abandoned guns to fall into the hands of the enemy. Nor is there any evidence that the loss of these guns did seriously affect the fate of the action, for at those other parts of the field ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had done so good an action in coming as almost to extenuate his previous arbitrary conduct to nothing, went home; and Giles was left alone to the suspense of waiting for a reply from the divinity who shaped the ends of the Hintock population. By this time all the villagers knew of the ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... from Philip. Philip was sullen, James jovial. Both were equally ferocious. James II. was an easy-minded tiger; like Philip II., his crimes lay light upon his conscience. He was a monster by the grace of God. Therefore he had nothing to dissimulate nor to extenuate, and his assassinations were by divine right. He, too, would not have minded leaving behind him those archives of Simancas, with all his misdeeds dated, classified, labelled, and put in order, each in its compartment, like poisons in the cabinet of a chemist. To set the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... been married, never was a housekeeper, and had no house fitting for a man of his birth to reside in, as his mansion in the country had been burnt down within two years. These reasons appeared to his judges to aggravate rather than extenuate his offence; and after a long reprimand for having deserted his tenants and neighbours, they heavily fined him in one ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... great things which the Lord hath done for your Honours, hath gone forth into many Lands, and it becometh us least of any either to smother or extenuate the same; We desire to be enlarged in the admiration of the Power & Mercie of God the Author, & to diminish nothing of that praise that is due unto you as Instruments. When the Lord set your Honours upon the Bench ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale, that sweeps from the north, will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... to extenuate the errors of Madame de Longueville, moral or political, it has been the author's endeavour to reconcile the apparent contradictions in her character, imputed in the passage above cited, by assigning the different incidents, ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... as they do wonderfully together, were printed at Aix under the eye of her enemies, in a volume where, as I shall presently prove, an attempt was made to extenuate the guilt of Girard, and fasten the reader's gaze on every point likely to tell against Cadiere. And yet the editor could not help inserting depositions like these, which bear with crushing weight on the man he ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... which have been exercised on the Aborigines of America, the wrong and outrage heaped on them from the days of Montezuma and Guatimozin, to the present period, while they excite sympathy for their sufferings, should extenuate, if not justify the bloody deeds, which revenge prompted the untutored savages to commit. Driven as they were from the lands of which they were the rightful proprietors—Yielding to encroachment after encroachment 'till ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... daughter; and, convinced of the inutility of the efforts he had already made to cure her of her passion for Don Rafael— by representing the latter as unworthy of her—he had altogether changed his tactics in that regard. He now endeavoured to extenuate the faults of the Colonel; and, in the place of an accuser, ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... the plaudits of mankind, that became the inspiration of this work—his story of devotion, valor and patriotism; of unmurmuring sacrifice; worthy the pens of the mighty, but which the historian, as best he may will tell: "NOTHING extenuate, nor set down ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... of the corn and cotton which gladdened the heart and filled the purse. It was this gigantic iniquity which created that arrogant class who have exhausted the catalogue of violence to obtain power and the lexicon of sophistry for arguments to extenuate the exceeding heinousness of crime. How could it be otherwise? To tell a man he is free when he has neither money nor the opportunity to make it, is simply to mock him. To tell him he has no master ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... mischief for the rule of the EMPRESS of INDIA. So the SENAPATTI must be got rid of at earliest possible moment, and in most absolutely complete fashion. Arbitrary this; tyrannical perhaps; unjust possibly. None of GORST's business to defend or extenuate it. All he could say was it is not a new thing; done wherever British flag waves under foreign skies; in New Zealand with the Maori King; in South Africa with CETEWAYO; in Egypt with ARABI; in the Soudan with ZEBEHR. "In India," said GORST, leaning his elbow lightly on the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 27, 1891 • Various
... But, Lionel, there is no time to be lost, as Mr Selwyn, the lawyer, is coming here at one o'clock, and before he comes I wish you to read over Lady R—'s confession, if I may so call it, which will explain the motives of her conduct towards you. I am afraid that it will not extenuate her conduct, but recollect that she has now made all the reparation in her power, and that we must forgive as we hope to be forgiven. Sit down and read these papers, while I unpack one or two of my ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... which, in the course of a few years, erected eighteen different models of religion, [63] and avenged the violated dignity of the church. The zealous Hilary, [64] who, from the peculiar hardships of his situation, was inclined to extenuate rather than to aggravate the errors of the Oriental clergy, declares, that in the wide extent of the ten provinces of Asia, to which he had been banished, there could be found very few prelates who had preserved the knowledge of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... warmly supported the accused. The compassion which on these and all other occasions was manifested by Mr. Burke for the sufferings of those public delinquents, the zeal with which he advocated their cause, and the eagerness with which he endeavoured to extenuate their criminality, have received severe reprehension, and in particular when contrasted with his subsequent conduct in the ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... hands, and he then turned against Matilda. When Stephen had shaken off the chains with which he was loaded in Bristol Castle, the Bishop summoned a council at Westminster, on his legatine authority; and there "by great powers of eloquence, endeavored to extenuate the odium of his own conduct"; affirming that he had supported the Empress, "not from inclination, but necessity." He then "commanded on the part of God and of the Pope, that they should strenuously assist the King, appointed by the will of the people, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... retreat but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged, their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable; and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come! It is in vain to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, 'Peace, peace,' but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field. What is it that ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... would have been continually quarrelling with Rachel; but, happily, she was one of those women with whom it is impossible to quarrel. With her broad mantle of charity, she was always seeking to cover up and extenuate the defects of her sister-in-law, though she could not help ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger
... Our Brethren the Roman Catholics, whose interests they put on the same foot with their own: And some of Cromwell's officers took posts in the army raised against the Prince of Orange.[5] These proceedings of theirs they can only extenuate by urging the provocations they had met from the Church in King Charles's reign, which though perhaps excusable upon the score of human infirmity, are not by any means a plea of merit equal to the constancy and sufferings of the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... aunt. "Whatever happens, it is best that we should be together." The girl was so agitated, fearing that in some way her adventures might be discovered, that she had no occasion to feign alarm. Mrs. Whately sought only to soothe and quiet, also to extenuate her son's words. "I don't suppose we truly realize yet, as Madison does, what war means," ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... holding a hank of gray wool for Ma Pettengill to wind. While this minor war measure went forward the day's mail came. From a canvas sack Lew Wee spilled letters and papers on the table. Whereupon the yarn was laid by while Ma Pettengill eagerly shuffled the letters. She thought fit to extenuate this eagerness. She said if people lived forever they would still get foolishly excited over their mail; whereas everyone knew well enough that nothing important ever came in it. To prove this she sketched a rapid and entirely unexciting summary of the ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... Ben Jonson,' I am sure," replied Alice. "If her pale ghost could have blushed, I think it would, at such lofty and exquisite praise. For my part, I could say, 'Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, nor set down ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... nowise apprehended, that any personal connection of ours with Teufelsdrockh, Heuschrecke or this Philosophy of Clothes, can pervert our judgment, or sway us to extenuate or exaggerate. Powerless, we venture to promise, are those private Compliments themselves. Grateful they may well be; as generous illusions of friendship; as fair mementos of bygone unions, of those nights and suppers of the gods, when, lapped in the symphonies and harmonies ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... Hemjunah, "your politeness cannot extenuate, though it may gloss over, my imprudence; and by delaying to unfold my little history to you, my crime may seem more black while hidden than ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... "what do you make of that? That's worth coming up for. That ought to extenuate a good deal." James was quick to ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... the subject of the Horatii and Curiatii, the fierce young hero, who had overcome the Curiatii one after another (instead of being congratulated by his sister for his victory, being upbraided by her for having slain her lover), in the height of his passion and resentment kills her. If anything could extenuate so brutal an action, it would be the doing of it on a sudden, before the sentiments of nature, reason, or manhood could take place in him. However, to avoid public bloodshed, as soon as his passion is wrought to its height, he follows his sister the whole length of the ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... idiosyncrasies of temperament and character, but also, in some sort of way, to justify what was positively bad. Thus his book contains the germs of that Byronic egotism which later became the fashion all over Europe. It is also, in parts, a morbid book. Rousseau was not content to extenuate nothing; his failings got upon his nerves; and, while he was ready to dilate upon them himself with an infinite wealth of detail, the slightest hint of a reflection on his conduct from any other person filled him with an agony and ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... suspected Thompson of being a Victorian reactionary of ultra-montane mould, the Catholic public feared him for his art. It was a wild unfettered thing which took strange liberties with Catholic pieties and could not be trusted to run in divine grooves. One can afford to extenuate the attitude of reserve. It was a period when brilliant heterodoxies and flaunting decadence were in the air. The fact is, that critics and public delivered Thompson over to the Catholics; and the Catholics would have nothing to do with him. Canon Sheehan ...
— The Hound of Heaven • Francis Thompson
... our virtues and our vices depend more upon circumstances than upon ourselves, and there are no circumstances which operate so powerfully upon us as government and climate. Let it not be supposed that, in the above assertion, I mean to extenuate vice, or imply that we are not free agents. Naturally prone to vices in general, circumstances will render us more prone to one description of vice than to another; but that is no reason why we should not be answerable for it, since it is our duty to guard against ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... persisted in the same positive asseverations, Stanley was committed to custody, and was soon after examined before the council.[*] He denied not the guilt imputed to him by Clifford; he did not even endeavor much to extenuate it; whether he thought that a frank and open confession would serve as an atonement, or trusted to his present connections and his former services for pardon and security. But princes are often apt to regard great services as a ground ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... perhaps, it will be found on the closest inspection to deserve. Though it may be conceded to him, that criminal individuals are not more numerous in the Society Islands, than among other people, yet it is obvious, that the discovery of the universal prevelancy of vice does not warrant any person to extenuate its malignity in any particular instances where ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... placed the fore finger of his right hand to his lip, cast a look of inquiry at the bystanders, and then said he knew it would be no easy matter to apologize to ladies for so singular a transgression, but how his treating could extenuate an insult offered to another party, he could not exactly see. "By my word as a man of standing, I have spent much sweat and labor in getting the little Fortune has favored me with, and it seems to me that he who needs it most had better ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... What knowes the Lawes That theeues do passe on theeues? 'Tis very pregnant, The Iewell that we finde, we stoope, and take't, Because we see it; but what we doe not see, We tread vpon, and neuer thinke of it. You may not so extenuate his offence, For I haue had such faults; but rather tell me When I, that censure him, do so offend, Let mine owne Iudgement patterne out my death, And nothing come in partiall. Sir, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... perfect. It is a portion of the duke's life which cannot be entirely passed over in silence, since it must be conceded, that much of his unpopularity may be traced to this source. Neither the court nor the people of England are so ascetic as not to extenuate the indiscretions of royalty; but this charitable estimate of misgivings does not extend to approbation of any culpable dereliction of social and moral duties. The fact of his royal highness having a large family, by a lady now no more, is too well known to be concealed; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - No. 291 - Supplement to Vol 10 • Various
... they thus fixed in the wild elements of unsettled opinion a recognised standard of generosity and of justice. Their deeds became the theme of the poets, who sought to embellish their virtues and extenuate their offences. Thus, certain models, not indeed wholly pure or excellent, but bright with many of those qualities which ennoble a national character, were set before the emulation of the aspiring and the young:—and the traditional fame of a Hercules or a Theseus ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... softening influence of no other sorrows or experiences than those recorded in these leaves. If I did any wrong, as I may have done much, I did it in mistaken love, and in my want of wisdom. I write the exact truth. It would avail me nothing to extenuate it now. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... those of the very first order, owe immensely to the form, the art, the stereotyped metres, and stock figures they find ready to hand. The form is suggestive,—it invites and aids expression, and lends itself readily, like fashion, to conceal, or extenuate, or eke out poverty of thought and feeling in the verse. The poet can "cut and cover," as the farmer says, in a way the prose-writer never can, nor one whose form is essentially ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... altogether unmerited popularity as a preacher. As he is, perhaps, though a burning and a shining light, not "one of the fixed," we shall take this opportunity of discussing his merits, while he is at his meridian height; and in doing so, shall "nothing extenuate, nor ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... is not the most favourable to accuracy of detail:—Notwithstanding the purest intentions and the most scrupulous regard to truth, much will remain, for candour to extenuate and information to supply. Impressed with this sentiment, and feeling the importance of the subject, the Editor has waited till the season of tranquility, and now presents to the public eye, the produce ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones
... he must forget, as much as he can, the sweet melodies and the sweeter women who are sinking into oblivion together. He must accept life as a Grand Piano tuned by a new sort of Tuning Master, and unless he can dance to its music he is a misfit. That is what my friend said to extenuate her. She fitted into this kind of life splendidly. He was in the other groove. She loved light, laughter, wine, song, and excitement. He, the misfit, loved his books, his work, and his home. His greatest joy would have been to go with ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... princely, but sanguine friend has been with me again and again. My time is expired and I find a relief beyond measure, for he has fully convinced me that no act of mine can mar the eternal counsel, or in the smallest degree alter or extenuate one event which was decreed before the foundations of the world were laid. He said he had watched over me with the greatest anxiety, but, perceiving my rooted aversion towards him, he had forborne troubling me with his presence. But now, seeing that I was certainly ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... unmasked by others, or by myself, is it not equally true that I have been playing false, and am now punished for it? What do the world care for your having returned to truth? You have offended by deceiving them, and that is an offence which your repentance will not extenuate." It was but too true, I had brought it all on myself, and this reflection increased my misery. For my dishonesty, I had been justly and severely punished: whether I was ever to be rewarded for my subsequent honesty still remained to be proved; ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... to extenuate my culpability towards you. I entreat your pardon for my fault. I desire you, if you please, to keep this transaction secret, in order that the world shall not have any opportunity to speak of an affair which ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... savoured of contempt of court, Hinted of disrespect toward the Bench, That I should chuckle when your pitch was short Or smile to see you in the sanded trench; But Golf (so I extenuate my sin) Brings all men level, like the greens they putt on; One common bunker makes the whole world kin, And Bar may scrap with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... excuse the poor lady's fall; nothing can do that; because virtue is, and ought to be, preferable to all considerations, and to life itself. But, methinks, I love this dear lady so well for the sake of her edifying penitence, that I would fain extenuate her crime, if I could; and the rather, as in all probability, it was a first love on both sides; and so he could not appear to her as a ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... endowed with it: Dulcisonum reficit tristia corda melos, Eobanus Hessus. Many other properties [3473]Cassiodorus, epist. 4. reckons up of this our divine music, not only to expel the greatest griefs, but "it doth extenuate fears and furies, appeaseth cruelty, abateth heaviness, and to such as are watchful it causeth quiet rest; it takes away spleen and hatred," be it instrumental, vocal, with strings, wind, [3474]Quae, a spiritu, sine manuum dexteritate gubernetur, &c. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... wasn't well when she went away," he whispered, turning his shoulder to the men and his face to Philip. He talked in a low voice, just above the rumble of the wheels, trying to extenuate Kate's fault and ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... They may extenuate, but can they ac quit? Would any society be tolerable, young man, where the ministers of justice are to be opposed by men armed with rifles? Is it for this that I have tamed the ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Baltimore and Catholic colonists of Maryland who in 1648 first proclaimed on these shores the glorious principle of universal toleration, while the Puritans were persecuting in New England and the Episcopalians in Virginia. 'Nothing extenuate nor aught set down in malice,' should be the rule of our souls. Humanity means eternal Progress, and its path ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... teaching is about the best antidote I have seen to much of the poison circulating about in magazines and alluring ignorant, unsound people with the specious name of philosophy. And he is always fair, and credits his opponents with all that can possibly be imagined to extenuate the injury they are doing by ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... common with all his fellow creatures, he deserves censure for some part of his conduct in life, so candour, and indeed common integrity, enjoin it upon us to accompany that acknowledgment with all such circumstances, and the reasonings upon them that occur to us, as may serve to extenuate the criminality of those acts, and to show that his misconduct was the natural, or rather the necessary and inevitable result of the circumstances to which he was exposed, and nothing more than the every-day issues of human infirmity. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... than does good gardening, and the householder, having begun so rightly, has now nothing to do to complete the main fabric of his garden but to carry this flow of natural draperies on round the domicile's back and farther side and forward to its front again. Thus may he wonderfully extenuate, even above its reach and where it does not conceal, the house's architectural faults, thus winsomely enhance all its architectural charm; like a sweet human mistress of the place, putting into generous shadow all the ill, and into open sunshine ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... said Reginald. "If anything can extenuate killing a fellow-creature, it is that. Are you quite positive—But perhaps I have no right ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... times before his death, that he received his wound from Savage; nor did Savage at his trial deny the fact, but endeavoured partly to extenuate it, by urging the suddenness of the whole action, and the impossibility of any ill design, or premeditated malice; and partly to justify it by the necessity of self-defence, and the hazard of his own life, if he had lost that opportunity of giving the thrust: he observed, that neither reason ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... and courageous. It would, indeed, be difficult to deny or extenuate the appalling truth of Mr. Sinclair's ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... What's open made to justice, That justice seizes: what know the laws That theives do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant, The jewel that we find, we stoop and take't, Because we see it; but what we do not see 25 We tread upon, and never think of it. You may not so extenuate his offence For I have had such faults; but rather tell me, When I, that censure him, do so offend, Let mine own judgement pattern out my death, 30 And nothing come in partial. ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... any member of a family conceives it his duty to sit continually in the censor's chair, and weigh in the scales of justice all that happens in the domestic commonwealth, domestic happiness is out of the question. It is manly to extenuate and forgive, but a crabbed and ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... absolved by the Church on the performance of some good deed; or that the monks should dare to shelter or to gloss over those sins which their priestly duty bound them to condemn, because forsooth some wealthy baron could spare a portion of his broad lands or coffered gold to extenuate them. But this forms one of the dark stains of the monastic system; and the monks, I am sorry to say, were more readily inclined to overlook the blemish, because it proved so profitable to their order. And thus it was, that the proud and noble monastery of St. ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... I have ever since found so important. He knew the great aim of life; he saw things in their true light, and taught me to see them also; he called things by their proper names; and while he could make ample allowance for the faults of others, he never attempted to extenuate his own errors; nor did he mistake vice for virtue, or the semblance of virtue for the reality. From the companionship of such a person I could not fail to reap much benefit. I did not enjoy it long. We afterwards met under very different circumstances in a far-off region, ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... features, wonderfully idyllic, with great beauty of scene and circumstance? And will you please to observe that almost all that is ugly is in the whites? I'll apologise for Papa Randal if you like; but if I told you the whole truth—for I did extenuate there!—and he seemed to me essential as a figure, and essential as a pawn in the game, Wiltshire's disgust for him being one of the small, efficient motives in the story. Now it would have taken a fairish dose to disgust Wiltshire.—Again, the idea of publishing the Beach substantively ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... existence—in the lives of the poor houseless wretches who traverse the streets, when reason is well-nigh benighted; when the horrible promptings of despair can, alone, be listened to; and when vice itself assumes the aspect of virtue. Pardon what I have said, Madam. I do not desire to extenuate my guilt—far less to defend it; but I would show you, and such as you—who, happily, are exempted from trials like mine—how much misery has to do with crime. And I affirm to you, on my own conviction, that she who falls, because she has not strength granted her to struggle ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Thrale on July 10, 1780:—'Last week I saw flesh but twice and I think fish once; the rest was pease. You are afraid, you say, lest I extenuate myself too fast, and are an enemy to violence; but did you never hear nor read, dear Madam, that every man has his genius, and that the great rule by which all excellence is attained and all success procured, is to follow genius; and have you not observed in all our conversations that ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... into the disposition requisite for your purpose; though they may not have assented to, or even stated distinctly in their own minds, the proposition which it was your business to establish. Thus if a sophist has to defend one who has been guilty of some serious offense, which he wishes to extenuate, though he is unable distinctly to prove that it is not such, yet if he can succeed in making the audience laugh at some casual matter, he has gained practically the same point. So also if any one has pointed ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... directly with each separate human soul. But neither must we forget that the creative purpose, as he conceives it, fulfils itself equally through good and evil; so that he does not shrink from the contemplation of evil or by any means always seek to extenuate it. He thinks of it philosophically as a condition of good, or again, as an excess or a distortion of what is good; but he can also think of it, in the natural sense, as a distinct mode of being which a bad man may prefer for its own sake, as a good man prefers its opposite, ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... a proud little creature you were, Olive," he said, trying to extenuate his shabby conduct, "and that there was no chance of your listening to me if you found out Tom was a tradesman. What does it matter about the shop? Tom is as good a chap as ever breathed, and Susan is the best-hearted woman in the world." But I ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... state to you, Susan, that my parentage is as obscure as it well can be; and secondly, that the early part of my life was as vicious. I may, indeed, extenuate it when I enter into an explanation, and with great justice: but I have now only stated the facts generally. If you wish me to enter into particulars, much as I shall blush at the exposure, and painful as the task ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... therfor in this cause doth saye. He that hathe obserued the whole lawe / and dothe offend in one / is made giltye of all. Which sayinge truly is harde and sharpe / but most true / and teachith all men that they shuld not extenuate synne. But this place of Iames / is not to be vnderstonded / as thoughe that all synnes wer equall ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr
... reproaches, and her animated behaviour, that all his resolution forsook him, and he found himself not only incapable of obstructing her retreat, but even of uttering one syllable to deprecate her wrath, or extenuate the guilt of his own conduct. The nature of his disappointment, and the keen remorse that seized him, when he reflected upon the dishonourable footing on which his character stood with Emilia, raised such perturbation in his mind, that his silence was succeeded by a violent fit of distraction, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... always careful to shew in the virtuous a disapprobation of the wicked; he carries his persons indifferently through right and wrong, and at the close dismisses them without further care, and leaves their examples to operate by chance. This fault the barbarity of his age cannot extenuate; for it is always a writer's duty to make the world better, and justice is a virtue independant on time ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... philosophy, nothing at all. They sought their code of morality in the Bible, and there imagined they found this hapless race condemned to perpetual slavery; and thought nothing remained for them but to lighten the chains of their fellow Christians, after having made them such. This I neither "extenuate" nor "set down in malice," but merely record the fact. At the same time it is but justice to record also a singular instance of moral delicacy distinguishing this settlement from every other in the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... some reason or other to give for, or excuses to palliate. Men plead want to extenuate theft, and strong provocations to excuse murders, and many a lame excuse they will bring for whoring; but this sordid habit even those that practise it will own to be a crime, and make no excuse for it; and the most I could ever hear a man say for it was ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... a measure of this spirit, and is grieved at his heart, when he calls to mind his shameful denials of his Lord. If any, who think themselves his disciples are blind to their faults, or little affected with them—ready to excuse or extenuate them, especially if hidden from the world; or feel reluctant to take shame to themselves, when they have fallen, it nearly concerns them to examine the grounds of their hope toward God; there is reason to fear that ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... precedent; and we foresee an inundation of blood and abomination if they be not awed or ridiculed into silence. We have quietly submitted to these inflictions from two or three distinguished writers, whose talents may extenuate, though they cannot justify, such outrages upon feeling. When regular artists and professors conduct us into their dissecting room, the skill with which they anatomise may reconcile us to the offensiveness of the operation; but ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... an old friend of mine." Isabel cared little more for him than for the tapestry that she held in her hand; but it was true that he was an old friend and that with her husband she felt a desire not to extenuate such ties. He had a way of expressing contempt for them which fortified her loyalty to them, even when, as in the present case, they were in themselves insignificant. She sometimes felt a sort of passion of tenderness for memories which had no other merit than that they belonged ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... sin in itself should also be considered. It is no trifling affair. From the habit of observing only its outward effects, we overlook its rancorous principle. The propensity to extenuate sin arises from ignorance of its vileness. We judge of every thing by comparison, and self-flattery always renders the comparison favorable to ourselves. But small and large are terms which, though ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... hundreds of thousands, who, in Africa, would have perished forever, but who are now civilized and Christianized. Satan would be glad, I think, to see American slavery come to an end. We have no right to go and steal people in order to convert them; the salvation of these slaves will not, in one iota, extenuate the guilt and punishment of those who were engaged in the slave-trade. But "the wrath of men shall praise Thee." In the writings of anti-slavery men I do not remember to have met with cordial acknowledgments of what religion ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... Divine understood the trend of her thoughts. He tried to find some excuse for his cowardly act; but with the realization of the true cowardliness and treachery of it that the girl didn't even guess he understood the futility of seeking to extenuate it. He saw that the chances were excellent that after all he would be compelled to resort to force or threats to win ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... hard, hard as steel. Appearances seem against Neale. I don't seek to extenuate them. But I know men. Neale might have fallen—it seems he must have. These are terrible times. In anger or drink Neale might have struck this woman.... But ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... tending to illustrate the moral and political characters of three nations. To which is added, a correct Engraving of Dartmoor Prison, representing the Massacre of American prisoners. Written by himself." "Nothing extenuate, or set ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... as for myself; but I cannot act for him; and hence I must be, and I am, debased, contaminated by the union, both in my own eyes and in the actual truth. I am so determined to love him, so intensely anxious to excuse his errors, that I am continually dwelling upon them, and labouring to extenuate the loosest of his principles and the worst of his practices, till I am familiarised with vice, and almost a partaker in his sins. Things that formerly shocked and disgusted me, now seem only natural. I know them to be wrong, because reason and God's word declare them to be so; but I am gradually ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... over and over again by the prophets as to happen. The natural consequence of this conviction in the minds of those nations, would be a revulsion of the feelings to the opposite extreme. They would exaggerate the merits, and extenuate the demerits of "God's servant." They would reflect with astonishment and commiseration on their past sufferings. "We considered them," they might exclaim, "as a God- abandoned race, and devoted to wretchedness by him for having crucified their king. But instead ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... Report of the 20th instant in regard to Judgment on the arrested Raths has been received. But do you think I don't understand your Advocate fellows and their quirks; or how they can polish up a bad cause, and by their hyperboles exaggerate or extenuate as they find fit? The Goose-quill class (FEDERZEUG) can't look at facts. When Soldiers set to investigate anything, on an order given, they go the straight way to the kernel of the matter; upon which, plenty of objections from the Goose-quill people!—But you may assure yourself I give ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... transgressed. God therefore, by these words, driveth Adam to the point, either to confess or deny the truth of the case. If he confess, then he concludes himself under judgment; if he deny, then he addeth to his sin: Therefore he neither denieth nor confesseth, but so as he may lessen and extenuate his sin. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... so much indebted: 'When I survey my past life, I discover nothing but a barren waste of time with some disorders of body, and disturbances of the mind, very near to madness, which I hope He that made me will suffer to extenuate many faults, and excuse many deficiencies.' But we find his devotions in this year eminently fervent; and we are comforted by observing intervals of ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... to do, to exonerate Marie de Medicis from the charge of reckless extravagance unsparingly brought against her by the Duc de Sully. Richelieu himself, at the period at which this report was furnished to the ministers, was little disposed to extenuate the errors of the Regent; and cannot, consequently, be supposed to have volunteered any palliative circumstances. Moreover, it is worthy of notice that the enormous sums registered above were not lavished upon the personal favourites of the Queen, but were literally the price paid by ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... myself, for when or where the letter will reach him—And I have written to old Mr Hamley. The relief is the one good thing come out of it all. It is such a comfort to feel free again. It wearied me so to think of straining up to his goodness. "Extenuate my conduct!"' she concluded, quoting Mr. Gibson's words. Yet when Mr. Gibson came home, after a silent dinner, she asked to speak with him, alone, in his consulting-room; and there laid bare the exculpation of herself which she had ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... sentiment, the countess, feeling herself developed like a beautiful plant in a fertile soil, caressed by the sun of a cloudless sky, awoke to a sense of a new self. This crisis of her life, the subject of this Scene, would be incomprehensible without certain explanations, which may extenuate in the eyes of women the wrong-doing of this young countess, a happy wife, a happy mother, who ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... inadequate to your wishes, attribute my demerits to some infirmity of mind, rather than to a negligence of your happiness. Yet, be the cause what it will, since these faults have existed, I do not attempt to disavow or extenuate them, and I ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... belief is that Angie was much fascinated by him, and had met him East before meeting him here. Mr. Davies, I am glad to relieve your mind of one uncomfortable theory in connection with this affair. I wish I could extenuate or explain Willett's conduct as easily, but that young man is a fool of ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... the fatal curiosity of Fatima and her sister Anne. We must extenuate here, nor aught set down in malice, remembering that Wagner knew only the women of his own day, before the sex was uplifted and purified by the vote, and he naturally depicted them with the man-engendered vices that were ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... yf he can shewe that he hathe in tyme afore ben in auctoritie and bare a rule ouer other / in the whiche he was neuer but gentyll and glad to forgyue them that had offended vn[-] derneth hym. And than let hym extenuate his owne faute / and shew that there folo- wed nat so great damage therof / and that but lytle profyte or honesty wyll folowe of his punysshment. And finally than by co- mon places to moue the iudge to ...
— The Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke • Leonard Cox
... that climate suffice to send the stoutest African to his grave. But he can well be spared. While he is fast sinking into premature old age, negro boys in Virginia are growing up as fast into vigorous manhood to supply the void which cruelty is making in Louisiana. God forbid that I should extenuate the horrors of the slave trade in any form! But I do think this its worst form. Bad enough is it that civilised men should sail to an uncivilised quarter of the world where slavery exists, should there buy wretched barbarians, and should carry them away to labour in a distant land: ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... it proper to say, that I have suppressed[1151] every thing which I thought could really hurt any one now living. Vanity and self-conceit indeed may sometimes suffer. With respect to what is related, I considered it my duty to 'extenuate nothing, nor set down aught in malice[1152];' and with those lighter strokes of Dr. Johnson's satire, proceeding from a warmth and quickness of imagination, not from any malevolence of heart, and which, on account of their excellence, could not be omitted, I trust that ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... that he ever performed. He is so notorious a villain that even the infamous National Convention expelled him from its bosom, and since his Ministry no man has been found base enough, in my debased country, to extenuate, much less to defend, his past enormities. In a nation so greatly corrupted and immoral, this alone is more than ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Roland sought to interrupt his son,—nay, by a feverish excitement which my heart understood in its secret sympathy, he had seemed eagerly to court every syllable that could extenuate the darkness of the offence, or even imply some less sordid motive for the baseness of the means. But as the son now closed with the words of unjust reproach and the accents of fierce despair,—closed a ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... occupied with this thought at present, no doubt the same impulse would have been experienced; but now it was my brother whom I was irresistibly persuaded to regard as the contriver of that ill of which I had been forewarned. This persuasion did not extenuate my fears or my danger. Why then did I again approach the closet and withdraw the bolt? My resolution was instantly conceived, and executed ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... of her connivance at that deep-laid plot which had imposed her upon him as a wife. Yet the lot of Leah was peculiarly a lot of reproach and trial—and as we behold her wretchedness, we are led, not to extenuate her fault, nor to palliate her sin, but to forgive ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... every resource. A fatal idea occurred to me. Believing myself certain of impunity, I committed an infamous action. You see, my father, I conceal nothing from you. I confess the ignominy of my conduct. I seek to extenuate nothing. One of two resolutions remains for me to take, and I have now to decide which. The first is to kill myself, and to leave your name dishonored, for if I do not pay to-day even the twenty-five ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... aim in the course of this narrative to extenuate nothing, nor set down aught in malice. Like the gentleman who played euchre with the Heathen Chinee, I state but facts. I do not, therefore, slur over my scheme for disturbing the professor's peace of mind. I am not always good and noble. I am the hero of this story, ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... down, and lay there before me strangling with sobs and cries. "Should Mr. Floyd know," he murmured, "should Mr. Floyd even guess, that I am the wretched wreck of a man that I am, he would not let Helen stay with me another moment. He would extenuate, he would pity, nothing: he does not know what it is for a man like me, once proud, witty, gay, to bear seclusion and depression and decay. I long at times for some of the inspiration of my youth: it comes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... the main points, he must, and would blame her weakness in first consenting to this deception—he who was above deceit. She had not absolutely told, but she had admitted a falsehood; she had acted a falsehood. This she could not extenuate. Her motive at first, to save Lady Davenant's life, was good; but then her weakness afterwards, in being persuaded time after time by Cecilia, could not well be excused. She was conscious that she had sunk step by step, dragged down that slippery path by Cecilia, ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... Lord Byron never spared himself. He invented faults rather than sought to extenuate them. And so he fully merits belief, when he happens to do himself justice. Let us attend to ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... But if he experience some of their sudden and terrific snow storms and showers, when the thunder and the lightning are such that a Northerner feels that all the storms he has ever witnessed are only infantile attempts, he is inclined to extenuate, on mere climactic principles, the outbursts of wrath, and "fire-eating" propensities of the people. He who is gendered of fire and brimstone must have some vim in his composition. We believe this study is not unworthy the Christian philosopher ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... show candor. Though, perhaps, nothing could ultimately have averted the strife, and though to treat of human actions is to deal wholly with second causes, nevertheless, let us not cover up or try to extenuate what, humanly speaking, is the truth—namely, that those unfraternal denunciations, continued through years, and which at last inflamed to deeds that ended in bloodshed, were reciprocal; and that, had the preponderating strength and the prospect of its unlimited ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... result of that prosecution, whether those indicted be found guilty, or acquitted, of the misdemeanours laid to their charge; we feel assured, on the one hand, however long and grievous may have been the "provocation," that while there will be "nothing extenuate," neither will there be "set down aught in malice;" but that the measure of the retribution now demanded by the state, will be so temperately and equitably adjusted, that while the very semblance of oppression is carefully avoided, the majesty of the law, and the powers of the executive, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... popular discontent. The articles against Dr. Sacheverel being exhibited, his person was committed to the deputy-usher of the black rod, but afterwards the lords admitted him to bail. Then he drew up an answer to the charge, in which he denied some articles, and others he endeavoured to justify or extenuate. The commons having sent up a replication, declaring they were ready to prove the charge, the lords appointed the twenty-seventh day of February for the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Mr. McCombs' suggestion, arguing that no explanation of the Joline letter could be made to Mr. Bryan that would wear the appearance of sincerity, or be convincing, and that the letter having been written there was nothing to do to extenuate it in any way and that the wise thing was to make a virtue of necessity. I suggested that on the following night, when the Governor was to deliver his address at the Jackson Day dinner, he could, in the most generous and kindly way, pay a handsome tribute to Mr. Bryan for his unselfish ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... became troubled, he dropped awkward sentences; with a burst of honest feeling, which made him very red, he at length plunged into his confession. Not a little astonished, Mrs. Clover learnt all that had passed between him and Polly Sparkes, now Polly Parish. Nothing did he extenuate, but he wronged neither ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... powers, as exercised by the said judges, and we do, with heartfelt sensibility, deprecate the serious and distressing consequences which followed such decision; yet we forbear to look with severity on the past, in consequence of judicial precedents, calculated in some measure to extenuate the conduct of the judges, and hope that for the future this explicit expression of public opinion will ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... and then to the dry-goods store for dress goods, which Pheeny made up; and Eddie left an occasional sum at the Pantatorium for a fresh alpaca coat, or for a new pair of trousers when the seat of the old ones grew too refulgent or perilously extenuate. As Eddie stood up at his tall desk most of the time, however, it was rather his shoes than his pantaloons that felt the wear and ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... dangerous always, and which must be finally fatal to the societies which admit it. This is no longer regarded as a subject of argument and investigation. The opinions referred to are assumed as settled, or the truth of them as self-evident. If any voice is raised among ourselves to extenuate or to vindicate, it is unheard. The judgment is made up. We can have no hearing before the tribunal of the civilized world. Yet, on this very account, it is more important that we, the inhabitants of the slaveholding States ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... Queen of Scots as a beautiful sinner who has repented. Her sins are grievous and she does not deny or extenuate them. But they are in the distant past; so far as the present is concerned, she is in the right. She has come to England seeking an asylum, but instead of being treated as a queen she has been confined in one prison after another and finally brought to Fotheringay, ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... But death brings clearer vision, my child, and I cannot wish that your father's last years,—if, indeed, he be living—should be desolated by not knowing you. I want you to know that there were many things which, while they did not extenuate your father, yet might in some measure explain ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... came and apologised to me in a very proper manner, and entirely removed the disagreeable impression from my mind. I owe this to your kindly intervention; and I must honestly say that I thought well of Sandys. He did not attempt to excuse himself, or to extenuate his fault. He showed very good feeling, and I believe that henceforth his influence will be on the side of order. I ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and the dog could manage very well alone, so that Hugo pulled no longer. Once, as he chanced to stumble, the girl thought she heard a groan from him. She began to wish that she had been able to believe him, but it was utterly impossible, although she suddenly found it in her heart to pity him, to extenuate the abomination of his conduct. Why that last sacrilegious lie he had uttered? The man was suffering; it looked as if the iron were entering his soul. Oh! the pity of it! If he had only acknowledged his offence and begged her pardon she might perhaps have forgiven. A moment ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... compiler's own times it becomes slightly more interesting, but also slightly less fair. Throughout the fourth century a few little remarks are interspersed in the dry list of names and dates, the general tendency of which is to praise up the Gothic nation or to extenuate their faults and reverses. The battle of Pollentia (402[36]) is unhesitatingly claimed as a Gothic victory; the clemency of Alaric at the capture of Rome (410) is magnified; the valour of the Goths is made the cause of the defeat of Attila in the Catalaunian plains ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... retreat, but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable; and let it come!—I repeat it, sir, let it come. It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace! but there is no peace. The ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... so much profaned, were it not misused in easy good-nature, to extenuate lettered and sensual indolence, that worn old term might be applied, above all men, to "the Shirra." But perhaps we scarcely need a word (it would be seldom in use) for a character so rare, or rather so lonely, in its nobility and charm as that of Walter Scott. Here, in the heart of your own country, ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... disposition of mind confined to painting only: but if it should prove extended to more serious subjects, we can only hope that the violent excess of the temptation may prove some excuse, or at least in a slight degree extenuate the offence: A wise man cannot believe half he hears in Italy to be sure, but a pious man will be cautious not ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... clear and decisive manner are punishments awarded for every class of crimes committed in society; and it was communicated to the English factory from the viceroy, that on no consideration was it left in the breast of the judge to extenuate or to exaggerate the sentence, whatever might be the rank, character, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... ever comfort me!" he says moodily to Miriam, when she would extenuate his crime. "I have a great weight here!" lifting her hand to his breast. Wild creatures, once his loved companions, shun him as he, in turn, shuns the face of man. He disappears from the story, hand-in-hand with Miriam, bound, it would seem, upon a penitential pilgrimage, or to ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... philosopher will ever find it an easy task to 'justify the ways of God to man'. As Timaeus says in Plato, 'to find the father and fashioner of the Universe is not easy', and I want rather to lay stress on the magnitude of the task than to extenuate it. But I am concerned to urge that the doctrine which accounts for what is by what ought to be is the only philosophical theory on which it ceases to be an unintelligible mystery that we should have—as I maintain we certainly have—the same kind ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... having seldom observed him open his mouth except for purposes very foreign to conversation. In short, sir, this young gentleman's failing is, an immoderate indulgence of his palate. The first time he dined with us, he thought it necessary to extenuate the length of time he kept the dinner on the table, by declaring that he had taken a very long walk in the morning, and came in fasting; but as that excuse could not serve above once or twice at most, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... then, the heresiarch causes infinitely greater evils than the murderer, why is he not as proper an object of penal legislation as the murderer? We can give a reason, a reason, short, simple, decisive, and consistent. We do not extenuate the evil which the heresiarch produces; but we say that it is not evil of that sort the sort against which it is the end of government to guard. But how Mr. Gladstone, who considers the evil which the heresiarch produces as evil of the sort against which it is the end of government to guard, can ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... are now called common places. Gorgias, he adds, did the same, and wrote panegyrics and invectives on every subject: for he thought it was the province of an Orator to be able either to exaggerate, or extenuate, as occasion might require. Antiphon the Rhamnusian composed several essays of the same species; and (according to Thucydides, a very respectable writer, who was present to hear him) pleaded a capital cause in his own defence, with as much eloquence ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... obliged Man only to him from whom he has received a Benefit, but also to all who are capable of doing him one. And whatever little Offices he can do for you, he is so far from magnifying it, that he will labour to extenuate it in all his Actions and Expressions. Moreover, the Regard to what you do to a great Man, at best is taken notice of no further than by himself or his Family; but what you do to a Man of an humble Fortune, (provided always ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... are those who are and desire to be considered powerful theologians, though they extenuate original sin by sophistry. But vices so numerous and great cannot be extenuated. Original sin is not a slight disorder or infirmity, but complete lawlessness, the like of which is not found in other ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... the afternoon was well advanced before the head of the portrait was approached. There had been so few interruptions, that the dealer felt called upon to extenuate the absence of custom by explaining more than once that it was a very dull season. He was evidently interested in his task, for he worked with a will till the light began to fail. "Never mind," he said; "I will get a lamp; now we have got so ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... is said that the question is only one of political morality, this does not extenuate its importance. Questions of constitutional morality are of no less practical moment than those relating to the constitution itself. The very existence of some governments, and all that renders others endurable, rests on the practical ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... defended themselves by pointing to the crimes of Hastings, and by arguing that abuses so extraordinary justified extraordinary measures. Those who, by opposing that bill, had raised themselves to the head of affairs would naturally be inclined to extenuate the evils which had been made the plea for administering so violent a remedy; and such, in fact, was their general disposition. The Lord Chancellor Thurlow, in particular, whose great place and force of intellect gave him a weight in the government inferior only ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay |
