"Palliate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to endeavor to palliate Franklin's error in failing to detect the duplicity of de Vergennes. On the contrary, it would give a less agreeable idea of him had he been ready to believe so ill of an old and tried friend. For years Franklin had been the medium ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... than by anything else, by the scandals which were notoriously associated with the early history of railways in the United States. It is not desired here either to insist on the occurrence of those scandals or to palliate them. The point is that the conditions which made those scandals possible (of which the incapacity on the part of the North-western lines to keep faith with each other may be regarded as symptomatic) were concomitants of a particular ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... world. It moves with the irresistible certainty of organized nature, and, while it makes man free, in order that his responsibility may be unquestionable, it leaves mercy, even, for the judgment hereafter. Such a system of divine law can never palliate the African slave trade, and, in fact, it is the basis of that human legislation which converts the slaver into a pirate, and awards him ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... the symmetry of the one and the spontaneity of the other the choice cannot be doubtful. We are not defending coarseness in any guise. It is always to be assailed, and never to be defended. It is always a detriment, and never an ornament. No excellence can justify it. No occasion can palliate it. But coarseness is of two kinds,—one of the surface, and one in the grain. The latter is pervading and irremediable. It touches nothing which it does not deface. It makes all things common and unclean. It grows more repulsive as the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... ordered Edward to desist from molesting Gaston during its hearing. The English king, anxious not to quarrel openly with the French court, granted a truce. The suit of Gaston long occupied the parliament of Paris, but the good-will of the French lawyers could not palliate the wanton violence of the Viscount of Bearn. The French, like the English, were sticklers for formal right, and were unwilling to push matters to extremities. Edward had the reward of his forbearance, for ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... Patriarch of Incredulity gave to him. Catherine II. of Russia kept up a close correspondence with him; his expressions to her were confiding, even tender. She required that trumpet to celebrate her exploits, and palliate the crimes committed in the pursuit of her ambition. 'My Catau (his name for the Empress) loves the philosophers, her husband will suffer for it with posterity.' At the same time, she respected him more than Frederick, and her letters were never disgraced by any impurity. She offered D'Alembert ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... unwonted sullenness, only to appear what it could not by nature be? He was all soft and sweet, and if he had pride, he knew also how to make his pleasure; and his youth loved love above all the other little vanities that attend it, and was the most proper to it. Fain he would palliate her crime, and considers, in the condition she was, she could not but have some tenderness for Philander; that it was no more than what before passed; it was no new lover that came to kindle new passions, or approach her with a new flame; but a decliner, who came, and was received ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... recognition of the fact, seeking miserably to palliate and excuse it. When she had given Garth that impetuous assurance of her confidence, she had not, in her crudest imaginings, dreamed of anything so hideous and ignoble as the actual truth had proved to be. Vaguely, she had deemed him outcast for some big, reckless sin that by the splendour ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... to palliate, wrote very frankly. "Look, my Lord," he said to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, "upon the country near Boston. It is all fortification." His mathematics has been already quoted; he adds that the army had nothing for transport in an active campaign of any duration. Proceeding, he delicately ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... himself to spur people up to be helpful. He expresses a conviction, indeed, that all will be made up to the victims in the end; that "what is untried and afterward" will fail no one, not even "the old man who has lived without purpose and feels it with bitterness worse than gall." But this is not to palliate our sense of what is hard or melancholy in the present. Pangloss, smarting under one of the worst things that ever was supposed to come from America, consoled himself with the reflection that it was the price we have to pay for cochineal. And with that murderous parody, logical ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... That is how worldly minded people talk. That is how they palliate these sins against good taste and propriety. I like these girls; they are genuine, somehow; but I suppose our bringing up has made us old-fashioned, for I seemed to shrink inwardly every time they opened their lips. Surely it must be wrong to lose all feminine refinement in one's ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... had paid the penalty of rebellion with life. In particular, during the late reign, Fawkes de Breaute and the adherents of Simon de Montfort had been spared by men flushed with victory and exasperated with a long strife. There were some circumstances to palliate David's treachery, if, as is probable, his charges against the English justiciary have any truth. We may well acquit Edward of that vilest infirmity of weak minds, which confounds strength with ferocity and thinks that the foundations of law can be laid ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... They ingeniously contrive to make their conduct appear good, imagining that to pass as faultless before men and to escape public censure means to deceive God also. But they will learn how God looks upon the matter. Paul tells us (Gal 6, 7) God will not, like men, be mocked. To conceal and palliate will not avail. Nothing will answer but dying to vice and then striving after what is virtuous, divine and ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... region. To this accidental source of the error may be added the artifice of some celebrated authors, whose writings have had a great share in forming the modern standard of political opinions. Being subjects either of an absolute or limited monarchy, they have endeavored to heighten the advantages, or palliate the evils of those forms, by placing in comparison the vices and defects of the republican, and by citing as specimens of the latter the turbulent democracies of ancient Greece and modern Italy. Under the ...
— The Federalist Papers
... words!" cried she indignantly. "You would palliate your unfaithfulness, represent your fickleness of mind as magnanimity! But I hear only one thing in your words—you give me up, you ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... the Irish land legislation which was begun by the Ministry of Mr. Gladstone, but which has been largely extended by the party that originally most strenuously opposed it. Much may no doubt be said to palliate it: agricultural depression; the excessive demand for land; the fact that improvements were in Ireland usually made by the tenants (who, however, were perfectly aware of the conditions under which they made them, and whose rents were proportionately lower); the ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... Relaxed into an universal grin, Sees not a countenance there that speaks a joy Half so refined or so sincere as ours. Cards were superfluous here, with all the tricks That idleness has ever yet contrived To fill the void of an unfurnished brain, To palliate dulness and give time a shove. Time, as he passes us, has a dove's wing, Unsoiled and swift and of a silken sound. But the world's time is time in masquerade. Theirs, should I paint him, has his pinions fledged With motley plumes, and, where the peacock shows His azure eyes, is ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... angrily. Oh, well, it was done and could not be undone now. It was mean, perhaps, to send him another girl's picture, but, considering that the whole world acknowledged that Mabel Moreley was far the better-looking of the two, did not this sacrifice of vanity palliate the offence? It seemed, after all, a very remote possibility that any harm could come to the other girl through this freak of hers. She could not, of course, have sent her own picture, and this was the only one in her collection that had seemed at all passable: so, eventually, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... Kawabe no Nie fared differently. Japanese annals attempt to palliate his discomfiture by a story about the abuse of a flag of truce, but the fact seems to have been that Kawabe no Nie was an incompetent and pusillanimous captain. He and his men were all killed or taken ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... that in case they resisted he would spear them. On being taxed by the governor with this outrage, he at first stoutly denied it; but on being confronted with the people who were in the boat, he changed his language, and, without deigning even to palliate his offence, burst into fury and ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... dissatisfaction with myself, wore gradually away, and by the time I reached Chicago I had resolved to climb high. "I will carry mother and Jessie to comfort and to some small share, at least, in the world of art," was my resolve. In this way I sought to palliate my selfish plan. ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... of pain within him, that which was loudest and most imploring was a wailing self-reproach. It was a self-reproach with a strain of pleading in it, akin to that with which a mother blames herself for the failings of her son, seizing on any one else's wrong to palliate the guilt of the accused. He had injured Diane himself! He had pried into her past, and laid bare her sins, and stripped her life of that covering of secrecy which no human existence could do without, least of ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... Augustus were perhaps equal in atrocity to any which are recorded; and the equivocal apology for those acts (one which might as well be used to aggravate as to palliate the case) is, that they were not prompted by a ferocious nature, but by calculating policy. He once actually slaughtered upon an altar, a large body of his prisoners; and such was the contempt with which he was regarded by some of that number, that, when led out to death, they saluted ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... cramming the utmost corners of The Enormous Room with Gottverdummers which echoingly telescoped one another, producing a dim huge shaggy mass of vocal anger, The Young Pole began to laugh less and less; began to plead and excuse and palliate and demonstrate—and all the while the triangular tower in its naked legs and its palpitating chemise brandished its vast fists nearer and nearer, its ghastly yellow lips hurling cumulative volumes of rhythmic profanity, its blue ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... Every one bought as much bread, and ate it as freely, as if the government by insuring its cheapness had insured its abundance. So the city lived in high spirits and in gleeful defiance of its besiegers, until all at once provisions gave out, and the government had to step in again to palliate the distress which it had wrought. It constituted itself quartermaster-general to the community, and doled out stinted rations alike to rich and poor, with that stern democratic impartiality peculiar ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... his return found Christine suffering from a nervous horror of the smallpox. From the indiscreet and callous maid, intent on her own safety, and preparing to palliate the cowardice of her flight should her fears prove true, Christine learned that the city was full of this loathsome disease, and her feelings were harrowed by exaggerated instances of its ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... victim! Not for a moment did she think of defending him. She accused him to herself vehemently of a sin over and above those sins which had filled Alice with dismay. He had demanded money from the girl whom he intended to marry! According to Kate's idea, nothing could excuse or palliate this sin. Alice had accounted it as nothing,—had expressed her opinion that the demand was reasonable;—even now, after the ill-usage to which she had been subjected, she had declared that the money should be forthcoming, and given to the man who had treated her so shamefully. It might be well ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... had been in a calmer mood herself she would not have been so stupid as to attempt to palliate her offense. Her offer of replacing the miserable cup only added fuel to ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... existence of a state of things in a portion of the United Kingdom itself, which was a "serious disgrace to the age, and to the government, and the country in which we live," without endeavouring, by the enactment of more stringent laws, to correct it, the evasions, by means of which they now seek to palliate their neglect, and the strange want of perspicacity which they display in not being able to discover the real source of mischief, or their timidity in not daring to denounce it, must naturally excite ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... relationship between these two plays there always seemed to be something which needed explanation. It was the only instance among the works of Shakspeare in which a direct copy, even to matters of detail, appeared to have been made; and, in spite of all attempts to gloss over and palliate, it was impossible to deny that an unblushing act of mere piracy seemed to have been committed, of which I never could bring myself to believe that Shakspeare had been guilty. The readiness to impute this act to him was to me but an instance of the unworthy manner in which he had almost ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... with wraps, and not buried under them. Bury may be used of any object, entomb and inter only of a dead body. Figuratively, one may be said to be buried in business, in study, etc. Compare IMMERSE; PALLIATE. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... better world. In detail it was not so bad now, but the whole was a violent effect of porches, gables, chimneys, galleries, loggias, balconies, and jalousies, which nature had not yet had time to palliate. ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... enlightened and benevolent that so great a sacrifice of appetite and prejudice can be expected, even though its ultimate excellence should not admit of dispute. It is found easier, by the short-sighted victims of disease, to palliate their torments by medicine than to prevent them by regimen. The vulgar of all ranks are invariably sensual and indocile; yet I cannot but feel myself persuaded that when the benefits of vegetable diet are mathematically proved, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... gold, and the prospect of rank in the British service, would flock to his standard, and form a corps at whose head he might again display his accustomed intrepidity. With this hope he published an address to the inhabitants of America, in which he laboured to palliate his own guilt, and to increase their dissatisfaction with the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... no bounds to the authority of those who bestowed it on the king. The omnipotence of parliament appeared no longer a mere hyperbole. Let it not be supposed, that to mention the good thus finally educed from such evils, is intended or calculated to palliate crimes, or to lessen our just abhorrence of criminals. Nothing, on the contrary, seems more to exalt the majesty of virtue than to point out the tendency of the moral government of the world, which, as in this instance, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... case where each individual would feel that the fruits of his exertions would be shared by others, whether equally or unequally making them, and that the exertions of others would equally avail him, notwithstanding a deficiency in his own. Skilful arrangements might palliate this tendency, but it would be difficult to ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... high-born and splendidly-gifted women who figured so conspicuously in the civil war of the Fronde; and, though so much self-abnegation, courage, constancy, and heroism, well or ill displayed, may obtain some share of pardon for errors it would be wrong to palliate or condone, their example, it is to be hoped, will prove deterrent rather than contagious. La Rochefoucauld—a moralist, though by no means a moral man—who well knew the sex, had seen at work these political women of the time of the Fronde. That opportunity does not appear to have ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... and of the utmost suffering on the other, were constantly exhibiting. A few instances of this suffering and of that barbarity, may not be improperly adduced here. They will serve to illustrate the condition of those who were within reach of the savage enemy; and perhaps, to palliate the enormities ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... the business of the truthful historian to narrate facts, not to palliate or extenuate the conduct of the various actors. Whether Ernest did right or wrong, at least he did it; he wrote a playful social for Monday's 'Morning Intelligence,' and carried it into the office on Sunday ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... possibility of Johnny Crapeau beating us, where there was any thing approaching to an equality of force; but, say as much as we please about larger ships and more men, and a variety of excuses which proud John Bull, with some truth very often I will admit, has pertinaciously thrust forward to palliate his losses during the short war, a regard for truth and fair dealing, which I hope are no scarce qualities amongst British seamen, compels me to admit, that although I would of course peril my life and credit more readily with an English crew, yet I believe a feather ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... strive to console himself and endeavour to palliate the wrong he had done with the consideration that he was the man Cynthia loved, and not his son; that his son was nothing to her, and that she would never have accompanied him had she dreamt that he wooed ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... permission for the King of France to exercise all the rights of sovereignty over all the places and harbors of Corsica, as security for debts owing to him by the republic. This cession, disguised under the form of a security in order to palliate the aggrandizement of France in the eyes of Austria and England, recalls the conditional and thinly veiled surrender of Cyprus to England nine years ago,—a transfer likely to be as final and far-reaching ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... quiet, and deliberate satisfaction in torturing to death any wretched victim whom they can have any pretext for destroying, especially if they can invent some new means of torment to give a fresh piquancy to their pleasure. These monsters do not act from passion. Men are sometimes inclined to palliate great cruelties and crimes which are perpetrated under the influence of sudden anger, or from the terrible impulse of those impetuous and uncontrollable emotions of the human soul which, when once excited, seem to make men insane; but the crimes of a tyrant are not of this kind. They are the calm, ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... and elaborated players at the old game, this is to propose a new, crude, difficult, and unsympathetic game. They may all of them, or most of them, hate war, but they will cling to the belief that their method of operating may now, after a new settlement, be able to prevent or palliate war. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the wife, or the children, or the servants, have done wrong, and deny or excuse their wrong-doing, the father of the family is the more moved to wrath; whereas, on the other hand, confession secures pardon or a lighter punishment. But it is the nature of hypocrites to excuse and palliate their sin or to deny it altogether and under the show of religion, ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... and do right to the painful Artificer? But many of this excellent Character are overlooked by the greater Number; who affect covering a weak Place in a Client's Title, diverting the Course of an Enquiry, or finding a skilful Refuge to palliate a Falsehood: Yet it is still called Eloquence in the latter, though thus unjustly employed; but Resolution in an Assassin is according to Reason quite as laudable, as Knowledge and Wisdom exercised in the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Kourakine copy. The Emperor Nicholas caused all these to be seized by the secret police, and it is only since his death that one or two copies have again made their appearance at Moscow (where the original is kept) and St. Petersburg. From one of these M. Herzen made his transcript. They fail to palliate any of Catharine's crimes, or in the least to brighten her reputation, and add nothing to our knowledge of her sagacity and her administrative talents; but they are yet not without very considerable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... origin of the enmity of this particular clan towards the neighbouring tribes, I cannot so confidently speak. I will not say that their foes are the aggressors, nor will I endeavour to palliate their conduct. But surely, if our evil passions must find vent, it is far better to expend them on strangers and aliens, than in the bosom of the community in which we dwell. In many polished countries civil contentions, ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... Henry's mind was oddly perverse; he had been as fierce in his denunciation of convention as ever Gilbert Farlow had been, but nevertheless he clung to conventional things with something like desperation. It was characteristic of him that he should palliate his submission to the conventional thing by inventing a sensible excuse for it. He would say that such things were too trivial to be worth the trouble of a fight or a revolt, and declare that one should save one's energies for bigger battles; but the truth was that he had not the moral courage ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... Darrow was all attention. He would be delighted to show it. Suppose they make a practical test of it by playing a game. This they did and Maitland played superbly, but he was hardly a match for the old gentleman, who sought to palliate his defeat by saying: "You play an excellent game, sir; but I am a trifle too much for you on my own ground. Now, if you can spare the time, I should like to witness a game between you and my daughter; I think you ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... believe," answered the widow. "The magistrate is a great friend of the Colonel's, plays cards with him every evening, and to palliate the affair, and silence public indignation, he made an official visit to the commandant's house. Francis Mordaunt was examined, and, as might be expected beforehand, came out of the affair snow-white—at least, according to the ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... branded by the hereditary curse of the inebriated patriarch of mankind. In truth, of all the people of antiquity, the accursed and enslaved race of Ham were the most free-born, enlightened, and enterprising! Never was such a perversion of Scripture interpretation to palliate and bolster up the systems of wickedness of this and former days! Shall we compare the Model Republic and the miserable and degraded nations of Brazils, Spain, and Portugal, the present enslavers of the alleged posterity of Ham, with the once mighty ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... not leave me satisfied with obtaining my liberty, if I could not insist upon coming off scathless also. In fact, I was not content to evacuate the fortress, if I were not to march out with all the honours of war. This feeling I neither attempt to palliate nor defend, I merely chronicle it as, are too many of these confessions, a matter of truth, yet not the ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... are right," said he; "I have plenty of faults of my own: I know it, and I don't wish to palliate them, I assure you. God wot I need not be too severe about others; I have a past existence, a series of deeds, a colour of life to contemplate within my own breast, which might well call my sneers and ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... cruelty, endure more from the consciousness that no man will sympathise with their sufferings, than from apprehension of the personal agony of their impending punishment; and are known often to attempt to palliate their enormities, and sometimes altogether to deny what is established by the clearest proof, rather than to leave life under the general ban of humanity. It was no wonder that Nigel, labouring under the sense of general, though unjust suspicion, should, while pondering on so painful a theme, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... unjustly punished. My name and injuries will ever stain the annals of Frederic the Great; even those who read this book will perhaps suppose that I, from political motives of hope or fear, have sometimes concealed truth by endeavouring to palliate his conduct. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... that you lately happened upon some Papers that were entitled The FARMER's LETTERS, &c. which were imputed to me as the Author. And, after some Compliments on Spirit, and Genius, and so forth, in order to palliate, as I suppose, what you purpose to administer, you charge me, by Implication, with Crimes, whose smallest Tendency I should abhor in myself, as in any ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... minds of the fickle multitude, that time alone will bring them to their proper equilibrium. Let us travel back to the impeachment of the DUKE OF YORK, in the case of the celebrated MRS. CLARK. To attempt to palliate the acts of His Royal Highness was to commit an overt act of treason against the sovereign people; to admit his indiscretions, but deny his guilty participation, or even knowledge of the peculations ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... and itching of the feet and toes, take these remedies, Rhus and Apis, the former at night and the latter in the morning. In bad cases, they should be used once in six hours. Applications of Oil of Arnica to the affected parts at night, warming them before a fire, will serve greatly to palliate the sufferings, and frequently effect a perfect cure. The Urtica Dioica will relieve recent cases, immediately, and is one of the best remedies for the chronic affection. It should be taken at the 2d dilution, and the tincture applied to the ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill
... towards a friend with frailties, who is under the prosecution of implacable foes. I think it a duty, in that case, not to inflame the public mind against the obnoxious person by any exaggeration of his faults. It is our duty rather to palliate his errors and defects, or to cast them into the shade, and industriously to bring forward any good qualities that he may happen to possess. But when the man is to be amended, and by amendment to be preserved, then the line of duty takes another direction. When his safety is ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... Bourgogne, by Monsieur de Barante. M. Capefigue has published many historical productions, and amongst the rest a Life of Napoleon, which is perhaps one of the most impartial extant, and very interesting, as containing a sort of recapitulation of facts, without any endeavour to palliate such of his actions as stern justice must condemn. M. Mignet has also chosen the path of history, and has not followed it unsuccessfully; the foundation of his present prosperity consisting entirely in his writings, ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... commits an error, and he has sufficient address to conceal it, or sufficient ingenuity to palliate it, but he does neither; instead of availing himself of concealment and palliation, with the candor of a great mind, he confesses his error, and makes all the apology or atonement which the occasion ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... a greater man than either Wellington or Nelson says of both. Napoleon, at St. Helena, spoke in very high terms of Lord Nelson,[9] and indeed attempted to palliate that one stigma on his memory, the execution of Carraciolli, which he attributed entirely to his having been deceived by that wicked woman Queen Caroline, through Lady Hamilton, and to the influence which the latter had over him. ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... purpose. In Scotland, for long years after he was dead and dust, the mention of his name was like a curse; and even in England, where the debt due to his courage counted for much, no one has been found to palliate his conduct or to whitewash his infamy. As "Butcher" Cumberland he was known while he lived; as Butcher Cumberland he will be remembered so long as men remember the "Forty-five" and the horrors after ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... wherever you can, in good houses of people above you, that you may see their EVERY-DAY character, manners, habits, etc. One must see people undressed to judge truly of their shape; when they are dressed to go abroad, their clothes are contrived to conceal, or at least palliate the defects of it: as full-bottomed wigs were contrived for the Duke of Burgundy, to conceal his hump back. Happy those who have no faults to disguise, nor weaknesses to conceal! there are few, if any such; but unhappy those who know little enough of the world to judge ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... admit the appropriateness to the old comedy, as a work of defined art, of allusions and descriptions, which morality can never justify, and, only with reference to the author himself, and only as being the effect or rather the cause of the circumstances in which he wrote, can consent even to palliate. ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... her! Christine is mild, and more than modest—she is meek. But what can meekness itself do to palliate such a calamity? Desirous of averting the stigma of his family from all he could with prudence, my father caused my sister, like myself, to be early taken from the parental home. She was given in charge to strangers, under such circumstances of secrecy, as left her long, perhaps ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... Uncle Wattleberry. 'My nephew Bunyip among these sacrilegious whisker-pluckers and nose-pullers. My nephew, not only aiding and abetting these ruffians, but seeking to palliate their crimes! This is too much. My feelings are such that nothing but bounding ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... man, and she, a young woman, unhappily married, had formed an attachment, which you both say—with what truth I am unable to gauge —had not yet resulted in immoral relations, but which you both admit was about to result in such relationship. Your counsel has made an attempt to palliate this, on the ground that the woman is in what he describes, I think, as "a hopeless position." As to that I can express no opinion. She is a married woman, and the fact is patent that you committed this crime with ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to say the least," Annabel replied, laughing. "And a charming host," she added, to palliate ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... making a running commentary upon every stroke he made; and he went on just the same at cards. However, he never blamed his companions, or lost his temper when his plan of action was defeated. He certainly talked incessantly, but it was always to explain or to palliate some point in the game, and the eternal repetitions, delivered in the same eloquent and persuasive tone, provoked a ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... event occurred between our Charles I. and the Scotch Covenanters; and the king expressly declared, in "a large declaration, concerning the late tumults in Scotland," that "religion is only pretended, and used by them as a cloak to palliate their intended rebellion," which he demonstrated by the facts he alleged. There was a revolutionary party in France, which, taking the name of Frondeurs, shook that kingdom under the administration ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... All scribbled in the worst of times, To palliate his friend Oxford's crimes; To praise Queen Anne, nay more, defend her, As never favouring the Pretender: Or libels yet concealed from sight, Against the court to show his spite: Perhaps his travels, part the third; A lie at ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... nobody but the subjects of these biographies would seek them "with avidity," and he made these plausible, bombastic assertions to excuse himself for having sprung such a trap on an unsuspecting public. That he tries to palliate the offence is, sufficient ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... an oppressed people, whom he had taken under his protection and whose cause it was the mission of his life to sustain and defend. The violation of divine and human justice had been erected into a system by the conquerors and discoverers and nothing, in his eyes, could palliate the evils which that system fostered, and by which the colonists prospered, while the native races were dwindling to extinction. Beyond these primary facts, he refused to see; of them, he had seen more than enough to inflame his indignation and start him upon the crusade for which his ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... of the unfortunate consort of a most unhappy monarch is without a flaw. Enmity, hatred, and every evil passion, have done their worst to palliate murder and to blacken innocence, but the ineradicable spot cannot be fixed to the fair fame of this true woman. Faultless she was not. We are under no obligation to vindicate her imprudent, wilful, and fatal interference ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... endeavoured to support himself by surliness and asperity. "He was not the first that had played away a few trifles, and of what use were birth and fortune if they would not admit some sallies and expenses?" His mamma was so much provoked by the cost of this prank, that she would neither palliate nor conceal it; and his father, after some threats of rustication which his fondness would not suffer him to execute, reduced the allowance of his pocket, that he might not be tempted by plenty to profusion. This method would have succeeded in a place where ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... personal investigation in such a case, she blamed herself for having omitted herself to question the confidential clerk, and having left all to Lord Ormersfield, who, cool and wary as he ordinarily was, would be less likely to palliate Mr. Ponsonby's errors than those of any other person. Her heart grew sick as she counted the weeks ere she ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gentlemen of this jury," said Dan Anderson, "I stand here before you to make no excuses for this Law, to palliate nothing in the way of its workings, to set no tentative or temporizing date for the time of the arrival at this place of the image of the Law. I say to you here to-day, at this hour, that image now sits there enthroned above us. The Law ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... increased by steamers and railways, by the Whig alliance, by democratic sympathy, and by the transference of our political capital to Westminster. Tracts, periodicals, and the whole horde of Benthamy rushed in. Without manufactures, without trade, without comfort to palliate such degradation, we were proclaimed converts to Utilitarianism. The Irish press thought itself imperial, because it reflected that of London—Nationality was called a vulgar superstition, and a general European Trades' Union, ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... had been no rupture, he would be as blithe as a lark at this moment, and might outlive you and M. le President and me. ... The ways of Providence are mysterious, let us not seek to fathom them," he added to palliate to some extent the hideous idea. "It cannot be helped. We men of business look at the practical aspects of things. Now you see clearly, madame, that M. de Marville in his public position would do nothing, and could do nothing, as things are. He has broken off all relations with his cousin. ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... The original reason of our connexion, his particularly disordered health and spirits[2], had been long at an end, and he had no other ailments than old age and general infirmity, which every professor of medicine was ardently zealous and generally attentive to palliate, and to contribute all in their power for the prolongation of a life ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... being dragged in chains to the court of Milan or Constantinople, to defend his life and fortune against the malicious charge of these privileged informers. The ordinary administration was conducted by those methods which extreme necessity can alone palliate; and the defects of evidence were diligently supplied by the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... nineteen propositions we see very little to blame except the articles against the Catholics. These, however, were in the spirit of that age; and to some sturdy churchmen in our own, they may seem to palliate even the good which the Long Parliament effected. The regulation with respect to new creations of Peers is the only other article about which we entertain any doubt. One of the propositions is that the judges shall hold their offices during good ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... beforehand through what a course of unflinching and resolute consistency with their first principles he is to follow her early legislators, has reason to limit their aim and motive at the start, that he may not assume for them more than he can make good. Especially if he intend to palliate, and, still more, to justify, some of the severer and more oppressive elements of their policy, he will find it wise to qualify their purpose within the same limitations which they themselves set for it. Dr. Palfrey parts with an advantage ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... the territory of his proud forefathers, the scenes of his youth, were ravaged by a detachment of Cumberland's army. The houses of such gentlemen as had assisted Prince Charles were burned; and their families, after receiving every species of indignity that could palliate the guilt of a future revenge, and that could break honest hearts, were turned out to perish on the hills with cold and hunger. The very nature of Englishmen appears to have been changed during this most mournful, most disgraceful warfare; and never did the British army ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... character of Lilla than she had yet done, for she thought their long years of intimacy demanded candour on her part; and each year, while it increased the evil of Lilla's present situation heightened her earnest desire to draw the father and child more closely together. She did not palliate her faults, but she proved that they were increased by the constant contradiction and irritation which she had to encounter. She repeated all that had passed between them the preceding day, unconsciously and cautiously condemning Grahame's excessive sternness, by relating, almost verbatim, ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... sense enough in Bonaparte to see that the train was unavoidable, and would change the face of the world, saved us from that storm. I did not expect he would yield till a war took place between France and England, and my hope was to palliate and endure, if Messrs. Ross, Morris, &c. did not force a premature rupture until that event. I believed the event not very distant, but acknowledge it came on sooner than I had expected. Whether, however, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... will say, that they were treacherously surprised. 'Two minutes' looks, under the circumstances, very much like an idle pretence of fair dealing to cover an intentional act of cowardice which subsequent conduct could hardly palliate. The Boers say that they had not more men than were marching with the 94th on that occasion; that statement is worth very little, considering the evidence of our officers, and, above all, the harsh evidence ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... have a more extended intercourse, and consequently means of information and refinement, and may seek education for his children where it may be found. I say, what is obviously true, that he has the means of obtaining those advantages; but I say nothing to palliate or excuse the conduct of him who, having such means, neglects to avail ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... saintliness will be assigned the same positions in the rewards of the last day; and it is just as unlikely that human estimates are right when they venture to assign the degrees of final condemnation. Two things it is our duty to do in regard to Judas: first, not so to palliate his sin as to blunt the healthy, natural abhorrence of it; and, secondly, not to think of him as a sinner apart and alone, with a nature so different from our own that to us he can be no example. But for the rest, there is only one verdict which is at once righteous, dignified and safe; ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... trail, Liverpool, and only the men that are hard will get through," Charles strove to palliate. ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... vision like this. All the journals approve, palliate, or keep silent; nobody dares offer resistance.[31130] Property as well as lives belong to whoever wants to take them. At the barriers, at the markets, on the boulevard of the Temple, thieves, decked ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... hopelessness of man's mood. Finally the novelist turns against life itself. "Birth," he says, speaking of Tess, "seemed to her an ordeal of degrading personal compulsion whose gratuitousness nothing in the result seemed to justify and at best could only palliate." It is strange to find pessimism in a romantic setting; strange, too, to find a paganism which is so little capable of ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... like Ceres, searching through the world for her lost Proserpine. Not ours to subject the succession of events to our will, but to narrate them with such poor skill as nature and a defective education concede, trusting that a homely sincerity, if it cannot wholly supply the place of art, may palliate its want. ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... rejoined Jonathan. "In the first place, she had no knowledge of her birth; and, consequently, no false pride to get rid of. In the second, she was wretchedly poor, and assailed by temptations of which you can form no idea. Distress like hers might palliate far greater offences than she ever committed. With the same inducements we should all do the same thing. Poor girl! she was beautiful once; so beautiful as to make me, who care little for the allurements of women, fancy myself ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and being absolutely necessary to give value and emphasis to the belief, it has come to pass that it is the belief, and the acceptance of the belief, that has been held to hallow the life and excuse and palliate its errors. ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... the ancients, we are most obliged; it is only intended to authorize the manner in which I have treated a life far more extraordinary than any of those he has transmitted to us. It is my part to describe a man whose inimitable character casts a veil over those faults which I shall neither palliate nor disguise; a man distinguished by a mixture of virtues and vices so closely linked together as in appearance to form a necessary dependence, glowing with the greatest beauty when united, shining with ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... sought to escape—crept out into the back-yard—tried to scale the wall—fallen back exhausted, and been found at morning on the stones in a dying state. But though there was some evidence of cruelty, there was none of murder; and the aunt and her husband had sought to palliate cruelty by alleging the exceeding stubbornness and perversity of the child, who was declared to be half-witted. Be that as it may, at the orphan's death the aunt inherited ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... book; and it seems like blasphemy to intimate that the Spirit of God could have had anything to do with its composition. It is absolutely sickening to read the commentaries, which assume that it was dictated by the Holy Ghost, and which labor to justify and palliate its frightful narrative. One learns, with a sense of relief, that the Jews themselves long disputed its admission to their canon; that the school of Schammai would not accept it, and that several of the wisest and ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... course my ward is disposed to impute to her, I should cease to feel any interest in her career or fate; but I cherish the conviction that she would scorn to be guilty of conduct so ignoble. Her defects of character I shall neither deny nor attempt to palliate, but I trust her true womanly heart as I trust my own manly honor; and a stern sense of justice to the absent constrains me to vindicate her from Muriel's hasty and unfounded aspersions. So strong is my faith in Salome's conscientiousness, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... theory can be correct which a mother is not willing for her daughter to practice. Decent women should not live with licentious husbands in the relation of wife. As society is now, good, pure women, by so living, cover up and palliate immorality and help to violate the law of monogamy. Women must take the social helm into their own hands and not permit the men of their own circle, any more than the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... to my question," cried the wretched father, tightening his grasp upon the old man's arm. "I do not ask you to palliate his guilt. It admits of no excuse. Did you see him do it? Tell me that—tell me quickly. I am ...
— George Leatrim • Susanna Moodie
... marriage is more doubtful, but Sheridan is probably not far wrong when he puts it in 1716. It was simply a reparation, and no union was implied in it. Delany intimates that Vanessa, like the young Chevalier, vulgarized her romance in drink. More than this, however, was needful to palliate even in Swift the brutal allusion to her importunacy in "Gulliver," unless, as is but too possible, the passage in question be an outbreak of ferocious spleen against her victorious rival. Its coarseness need not make this seem impossible, for that was by no means a queasy ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... deck, and he soon understood the whole matter. He was very severe upon Cleats for leaving the deck, declared that he could not be trusted, and that he should be discharged. The latter was very humble, acknowledged his error, and made no attempt to palliate it. He had always been faithful, so far as was known, and probably had never been guilty of any graver offence than that of leaving the deck for a few minutes during his watch. But he had been expressly cautioned not to do this, and ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... and recollected that some physicians maintained, that a fever produced by it was, upon the whole, good for health: so different are our reflections on the same subject, at different periods; and such the excuses with which we palliate what we know ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... nor rugged and unkempt; 'Twill answer bravely to a bold attempt: Whether you train for pleading, or essay To practise law, or frame some graceful lay, The ivy-wreath awaits you. Could you bear To leave quack nostrums, that but palliate care, Then might you lean on heavenly wisdom's hand And use her guidance to a loftier land. Be this our task, whate'er our station, who To country and to self would fain ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... been both cruel and base in his treatment of her? And yet she recoiled from the application of such hard terms by another to Philip, by a cool-judging and indifferent person, as she esteemed Jeremiah to be. From some inscrutable turn in her thoughts, she began to defend him, or at least to palliate the harsh judgment which she herself had been the first ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... instrument bearing only her mark; and the maid servant, who attended her, would have proved quite sufficient to have set aside the will, and exposed the parties concerned; but, as one of them was a very near relation of mine, and one whose faults I have always been anxious to conceal and palliate, rather than expose and condemn, I put up with the loss without opposing the proof of the will. There is one fact more connected with this case, which I will state, to show to what extent the cruelty of some persons will lead them, when they wish to accomplish a bad action. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... gallant men who were maimed or killed on that hard fought field. Enveloped in the mists of receding years; obscured by the glamour of poetry; belied by the vivid imagination of stragglers and camp-followers who, on the first note of danger, made a frantic rush for Winchester, seeking to palliate their own misconduct by spreading exaggerated reports of disaster, the union army that confronted Early at Cedar Creek, for many years made a sorry picture, which the aureole of glory that surrounded its central figure ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... the time for the building of Rome was determined to be about the year 754 before Christ. As to Romulus himself, the tradition is that he was but eighteen or twenty years old when he commenced the building of it. If this is true, his extreme youth goes far to palliate some of the wrongs which he perpetrated—wrongs which would have been far more inexcusable if committed with the deliberate purpose of middle life, than if prompted by the unthinking impulses ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... little proof would be sufficient. She gave the accusers of Mary leave to go to Scotland, and the box and letters were seen no more. They have been since lost, and the discovery, which comparison of writing might have made, is now no longer possible. Hume has, however, endeavoured to palliate the conduct of Elizabeth, but "his account," says our author, "is contradicted, almost in every sentence, by the records, which, it ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... or palliate to me, dearest Tom," replied Mary; "my eyes have been opened, too late it is true, but they have been opened; and although it is kind of you to say so, I feel the horrid conviction of my own guilt. See what misery I have brought about. ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... until the passengers of the Francesco, with whom he had sailed for two months, and to whom he was now under some obligation, could have participated in them. There was no reason for hurry; there existed no necessity for the King's immediate return to Nauplia; in short, no excuse can be found to palliate such paltry, ungenerous, unfeeling conduct: certainly unfeeling, when it is considered that his fellow-travellers were witnesses of these festivities, without the possibility of joining ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... reader by bringing before him ill-assorted or compulsory marriages. Although habitual tolerance has long since relaxed our morals, an author could hardly succeed in interesting us in the misfortunes of his characters, if he did not first palliate their faults. This artifice seldom fails: the daily scenes we witness prepare us long beforehand to be indulgent. But American writers could never render these palliations probable to their readers; their customs ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... Dr. Ryerson was then the Methodist minister in charge of the only congregation of that body in town. The rebellion of 1837-8, had led to excited, and very bitter feelings—arrests had been frequent; and it was not prudent for any one to try to palliate the deeds of the rebels, or to seek to lessen the odium which covered their real, or even supposed allies and friends. Dr. Ryerson, however, desired to bring out the facts connected with Mr. Bidwell's banishment, and to change the current of public feeling on the subject—but ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... purchases of gowns and jewels. Madame Dobson's sentimental and sympathetic tone led one to repose confidence in her. Her continual repinings seemed too long to attract other repinings. Sidonie told her of Georges, of their relations, attempting to palliate her offence by blaming the cruelty of her parents in marrying her by force to a man much older than herself. Madame Dobson at once showed a disposition to assist them; not that the little woman was venal, but she had a passion for passion, a taste for ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... boy's shoulder, "you must remember that the injustice came from you—no one would have doubted you if you had not first accused yourself! I had my doubts always, but I did not know enough to understand. You told a lie; nothing can palliate or do away with that! No motives can make a lie anything but a lie, and a lie is always a cowardly thing, whether we try to shield ourselves ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... in safety; and the nobles, who needed little persuasion, were able to convince the more earnest pilgrims that Philip's offer must of necessity be accepted, though Alexius III was on friendly terms with the Pope and had been expected to assist the Crusade. To palliate the flagrant treachery a promise was exacted from the pretender that, when installed as Emperor, he would help in the conquest of Egypt ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... person, that when he found them hesitating in the presence of the enemy, he "burst into a passion," called them cowards, and dashed into the river as before narrated. If this account be true, it may somewhat palliate, but ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... wish that the punishment would be light. His confidence that Jim needed only to be pushed a little to confess was somewhat shaken, and the charge was really serious. He felt a desire to explain, to palliate, to minimize. ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... turn, fidgeted, and Coxon smiled sardonically. The Premier, encouraged by this success, pulled himself together and approached the last and most delicate part of his task, which was to defend or palliate a phrase of Norburn's that had been greeted with angry groans and protests. Mr. Norburn had in fact referred to the Capitalist class as a "parasitic growth," and Medland was left to get out of this indiscretion as best he could. He referred to the unhappy phrase. The ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... to palliate as is so often done by practitioners in dealing with these distressing maladies. We do not prescribe coca mixtures, whiskey, malt extracts, so-called celery compounds or other nerve stimulants, which only spur the already weakened ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... senses upon the occasions, and in the manner to be afterwards stated, he may have committed improprieties which fill him with sorrow and regret: but he hopes, that in case he shall be able to show circumstances which abridge and palliate the guilt of his imprudent excess, the Venerable Court will consider these improprieties as the effects of that excess only, and not as arising from any radical vice in his temper or disposition. When a man is bereft of his judgment ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... that therefore a just war has been waged against us by you. That men of years, and of consular dignity, should not be ashamed to exhibit such mockery of religion in the face of day! And should have recourse to such shallow artifices to palliate their breach of faith, unworthy even of children! Go, lictor, take off the bonds from those Romans. Let no one delay them from departing when they think proper." Accordingly they returned unhurt from Caudium to the Roman camp, having acquitted, certainly, ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... case, which he did in the course of a brief walk and conversation in Boston before Hawthorne started with Mr. Pierce; but he was unable, with that slight opportunity, to reach any definite conclusion. Dr. Holmes prescribed and had put up for him a remedy to palliate some of the poignant symptoms, and this Hawthorne carried with him; but "I feared," Dr. Holmes writes to the editor, "that there was some internal organic—perhaps malignant—disease; for he looked wasted and as if ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... agitation be continued until reason shall be convinced; until prejudice shall be overcome by the power of conviction; until men are constrained, from very shame, to withdraw from a position which no argument, no experience can justify, which no consideration of decency will palliate. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... with qualities to produce happiness; that these ought not to be lost; and, that the gentleman on whose account she was divorced had gained her heart while thus unhappily situated. Seduced, perhaps, by the charms of the lady in question, I thus attempted to palliate what I was sensible could not be justified; for when I had finished my harangue, my venerable friend gave me a proper check: 'My dear Sir, never accustom your mind to mingle virtue and vice. The woman's a whore, and ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... read the passage referred to, whereupon the prisoner undertook to show that the remark had been misunderstood. He had not said—at least, he did not intend to say—that; they had quite misinterpreted his words. With such remarks did he try to palliate the effect ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... succession, pursuing the same studies under the guidance of the same teachers, without establishing a certain community of sentiment and action, from which the student's intellectual efforts must derive a great share of their nourishment. Yet, admitting the principle, we cannot justify or palliate the excess to which it has been carried. We insist upon the observance of certain limits, which no man, whether old or young, learned or unlearned, is at liberty to transgress. And when these limits are ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... was free, but in fact I was bound," he acknowledged. "The words I spoke on the steps that night escaped me unaware. I was tortured by jealousy, and tempted by love. I had no right to speak them then; nothing can excuse or palliate the weakness which allowed me to. I should have waited until I could come to you untrammeled—as now. I attempt no justification of my madness, Princess. I have no excuse but my love, and can only sue for pardon. You will forgive me, sweetheart"—using ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... and began going through the empty formality of attempting to discuss the evidence in such a way as to excuse or palliate Angelo's crime. For Angelo's guilt of murder in the first degree was so plain that it had never for one moment been in the slightest doubt. Whatever might be said for his act from the point of view of human emotion ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... parents, and Sharp, the man who was with me, represented to me, that there was no surer way of accomplishing my purpose than by taking away the treasures that he prized. For that only I became a house-breaker. I deserved punishment. I do not seek to palliate my guilt, but I thank you again ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... served with tickets was endured, a traveler found fault in good Saxon English as to the stupidity of such delay about trifles, and also complained of having been robbed of some small article of luggage. Another Englishman, particularly disposed to palliate matters, said there must be some mistake about it; he had been here before, and the people of Burgos were proverbially honest. By and by a great excitement was apparent on the platform, when it came to light that the apologist and indorser of the good people here was declaring ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... married, in 1803, Madame Leclerc, who, between the death of a first and a wedding with a second husband—a space of twelve months—had twice been in a fair way to become a mother. Her portion was estimated at eighteen millions of livres—a sum sufficient to palliate many 'faux pas' in the eyes of a husband more sensible and more delicate than her present Serene Idiot, as she styles ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... But there is one misdeed, one which outweighs all others whatsoever—a crime which it is useless to palliate, let our other friend say what he pleased; and Reineke himself felt it so. It sate heavy, for him, on his soul, and alone of all the actions of his life we are certain that he wished it undone—the death and eating of that poor foolish Lampe, the hare. It was a paltry revenge in Reineke. Lampe ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... Third's wife, of whom I had read much in French Memoires; and into that of John Gaston, which was so fresh when I was at Florence; but as the author, in spite of the Great Duke's injunctions, has tried to palliate some of the worst imputations on Cosmo and his son Ferdinand, so he has been mighty modest about the Caprean amours of John Gaston and his eldest brother. Adieu! I have been writing a volume here myself. Pray remember to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... to palliate your conduct, Gascoyne," said Mr Mason, earnestly. "The blackness of your sin is too great to be deepened or lightened by what men may have said of you. You are a pirate. Every pirate ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... inference was unavoidable. He even mentioned other concurring and contemporary incidents, which had eluded the observation of his censurer, and which added still more force to the conclusion. He was studious to palliate the vices of this woman, as long as he was her only paramour; but, after her marriage with his father, the tone was changed. He confessed that she was tidy, notable, industrious; but, then, she was a prostitute. When charged with being instrumental in making her such, and when his ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... induced Edward to accept of more moderate terms of peace; and it is probable that, in order to palliate this change of resolution, he ascribed it to a vow made during a dreadful tempest, which attacked his army on their march, and which ancient historians represent as the cause of this sudden accommodation.[*] The conferences between ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume |
