"Excusable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to beware of gossiping with travellers, on the subject of the changed numbers, under penalty of being dismissed, the manager composed his mind with the reflection that he had done his duty to his employers. 'Now,' he thought to himself, with an excusable sense of triumph, 'let the whole family come here if they like! The hotel ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... other flaggery. The sentimentalism of Bob Smillie is as bad as the sentimentalism of the Pinkerton press; as untruthful, as greedy, as muddle-headed. Smillie's lot are out to get, and the Potterites out to keep. The under-dog is more excusable in its aims, but its methods aren't any more attractive. Juke can swallow it all. But Jukie has let his naturally clear head get muddled by a mediaeval form of religion. Religion is like love; it plays the devil with clear thinking. Juke pretended not to hate even Smillie's interview with ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... to be losing such wits as she had,—not that 't was any great loss, as fur as she could see. Wasn't that dreadful, Hildegarde? Of course I was wheeled over to her house the next day, and begged her pardon; but she was still withering and persistent, though she said, 'Very excusable!' at last." ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... round the room, which had become all at once so interesting to him. Mr. May was too clear-sighted not to see it. He thought, quite impartially, that perhaps it was an excusable weakness, even though it was his own society that was the counter attraction. They were two nice-looking girls. This was how he put it, being no longer young, and father to one of them; naturally, the two young men would have described the attraction of Phoebe and Ursula more warmly. Clarence ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... silk-stocking grafter of Chelsea, while yet the fair offspring of her house were lisping infants, innocent and beautiful as playful lambs. Debouchette himself was a right jolly fellow, careless of domestic 40happiness, and very fond of his bottle; and indeed that was excusable, as during a long period of his life he was concerned in the wine trade. To the conduct and instructions of the mother the daughters are indebted for their present share of notoriety, with all the attendant infamy that attaches itself to Harriette and her sisters:—and this perhaps ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... other armies in the world that seemed to possess the same fierce nature with the one which had now sprouted from the dragon's teeth; but these in the moonlit field were the more excusable, because they never had women for their mothers. And now it would have rejoiced any great captain who was bent on conquering the world, like Alexander or Napoleon, to raise a crop of armed soldiers as ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... advancing towards the Table, told them, That the Error they had all gone upon thus far, in making out the several Facts in the Romance,—was in looking too high; which, with great Candor, he said, was a very natural Thing, and very excusable withall, in such a Political Club as theirs: For Instance, continues he, you have been searching the Registers, and looking into the Deeds of Kings and Emperors,—as if Nobody had any Deeds to shew or compare the Romance to but themselves.—This, ...
— A Political Romance • Laurence Sterne
... parts, and do our own share of the lifting, and as in no case that share can be great, so also in all cases it is called for, it is necessary. Therefore let us work and faint not; remembering that though it be natural, and therefore excusable, amidst doubtful times to feel doubts of success oppress us at whiles, yet not to crush those doubts, and work as if we had them not, is simple cowardice, which is unforgivable. No man has any right to say that all has been done for nothing, that all the faithful unwearying strife of those ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... is, you observe, quite lacking in that reserve with which young ladies should always treat strange gentlemen and especially those who are not in their own social "set." Slang may be excusable in shop girls or baseball players, but never in the mouth of a young lady with any pretensions to breeding. And the use of "darned" and "dog-goned" is simply unpardonable. Notice, now, the way in which Miss Florence writes the ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... "Oh, that's excusable. He did not know me. But you were my lover; you ought to have seen I was forced to deceive poor Raynal. How dare you believe your eyes; much more your ears, against my truth, against my honor; and then to believe such nonsense?" Then, ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... collect all the different parts of this reasoning, and by joining them together form an exact definition of the relation of cause and effect, which makes the subject of the present enquiry. This order would not have been excusable, of first examining our inference from the relation before we had explained the relation itself, had it been possible to proceed in a different method. But as the nature of the relation depends so much on that of the inference, we have been obliged to advance in this seemingly preposterous ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... monologue with a regular and excusable "My land!" and the young voices fade away into the mid-summer afternoon quiet. I am free to resume my interrupted flight of fancy, but I refrain. The atmosphere is soporiferous, hardly conducive to editorial inspiration, and I find the commingled flavours of red-cedar, ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... this shrinking from the brutal vivacity and brutal variety of common men is a perfectly reasonable and excusable thing as long as it does not pretend to any point of superiority. It is when it calls itself aristocracy or aestheticism or a superiority to the bourgeoisie that its inherent weakness has in justice to be pointed out. Fastidiousness is the most pardonable of vices; but it is the most unpardonable ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... could turn this here," murmured the journeyman, toying with the handle that moved the bed. It was an exaggeration, but an excusable, poetical exaggeration. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... produce no criminals, and would even, if it were not beyond the bounds of possibility, wean from vice those who had been previously made criminals by misery and ignorance; but we wished, in the beginning, to avoid being swamped by bad elements, and, in view of the excusable attempts of certain States to rid themselves in some way or another of their relapsed criminals, we were ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... no power to interest, and in refusing to appear as an author from motives of pusillanimity, idleness, or self-love, is one less excusable for hiding the truth when one is acquainted ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... "Quite excusable," said Starmidge. "I never heard of it myself until Monday. Well—this is all very queer, Mr. Simmons. What does Mr. Polke think? And what's ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... submit an advertisement. Babbitt disapproved of Laylock, who sang in choirs and was merry at home over games of Hearts and Old Maid. He had a tenor voice, wavy chestnut hair, and a mustache like a camel's-hair brush. Babbitt considered it excusable in a family-man to growl, "Seen this new picture of the kid—husky little devil, eh?" but Laylock's domestic confidences were as ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... the power and government of God, so that he directs their malice to whatever end he pleases, and uses their crimes for the execution of his judgments. The modesty of those who are alarmed at the appearance of absurdity, might perhaps be excusable, if they did not attempt to vindicate the Divine justice by a pretence utterly destitute of any foundation in truth. They consider it absurd that a man should be blinded by the will and command of God, and afterwards be punished for his blindness. ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... others—such as marriages, deaths, &c.—the importance is of the most temporary and transitory character. It may be hoped that the liberty taken of leaving out such portions will be regarded as, if not commendable, at the least excusable.] ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... memory certain enormities of Dunshie had rankled ever since that versatile individual had abandoned the veterinary profession, owing to the most excusable intervention of a pack-mule's off hind leg, was not far out in his surmise, as subsequent history may some day reveal. But the telling of that story is still a long ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... zealous adherents and one or more Jews[371] concerning the doctrine of purifying. The context[372] leaves little room for doubt that a question was involved as to the relative merits of John's baptism and that administered by the disciples of Jesus. With excusable ardor and well-intended zeal for their master, the disciples of John, who had been embroiled in the dispute, came to him saying: "Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou bearest witness, behold, ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... be found, he writes at the beginning of his work, with the elegant gracefulness of a man who knows how to do everything that he does well, that I carry my apology to excess; but that is excusable: listen to what Pietro Pugliano, my master of horsemanship, at the Emperor's Court, said: "Hee sayde souldiours were the noblest estate of mankinde, and horsemen, the noblest of souldiours. Hee sayde, they were the maisters of warre, and ornaments of peace: ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... his conviction by a Boer jury to be very small. The word "culpable," says Webster (English Dictionary) is "applied to acts which have not the gravity of crime." In this instance, it made Jones' action excusable on the grounds that Edgar struck him with a stick, at the moment of his ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... Although a vivid imagination might be excusable at such a time even in a man, a veteran of many campaigns, he was essentially an uncompromising realist, and he wished to see facts exactly as they were. The work upon which he was engaged allowed no time ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... where, in the calm and repose of a peaceful existence, and with a mind freed from the harassing cares of the world, he would have leisure to meditate and write; that this proceeding of his, though strange in appearance, was excusable, and to be judged with an indulgent eye; he, the Abbe de Voisenon, was happy, rich, powerful even. The Abbe Boiviel would be quite at home at the chateau de Voisenon; his feelings of independence would not be outraged; when he should be tired of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... friendly, I should say. Very intimate indeed. I should not have been surprised if—when I turned away as a matter of fact—if he did not touch, just touch, her red lips. It would have been excusable—forgive me, messieurs." ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... fruit-trees, and leave them scarcely subsistence enough to preserve them from starving. They had indeed imbibed from the crew of the Rurik a favourable opinion of white people; but the ship which now approached them was a monster in comparison of it, and they were excusable in supposing it manned by another ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... tent, half bower—for which the skipper had acted the part of architect-in-chief. This structure had cost Captain Blyth a vast amount of almost painful cogitation, and was the result of a little fit of excusable, and perhaps natural pique, which had come over him on finding how exceedingly well the two landsmen had managed without him. From the moment of their being thrust out of the ship to that other moment when he had rejoined them, they had scarcely been out of his thoughts for an hour, and his ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... what he would; young people have no will any more.—He astonishes me. I had chosen him among a thousand for my daughter. He should have had a soul as deep as hers.—He has done nothing which may not be excusable, but I had hoped more.... What do you say ...
— Pelleas and Melisande • Maurice Maeterlinck
... by no means peculiar to China. The Chinese (they say) make physical monsters. We revile them for it and proceed to make moral monsters of our own children. The most excusable parents are those who try to correct their own faults in their offspring. The parent who says to his child: "I am one of the successes of the Almighty: therefore imitate me in every particular or I will have the skin off your back" (a quite common attitude) is a much more absurd figure than ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... nomenclature; make a noise of some sort, affix a Latin termination, and you will have, as far as euphony goes, the equivalent of many of the tickets pasted in the entomologist's specimen boxes. The cacophony would be excusable if the barbarous term signified nothing but the creature signified; but as a rule this name possesses, hidden in its Greek or other roots, a certain meaning in which the ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... if it is excusable anywhere, it is so in country or provincial society in Scotland. "We cannot help spoiling the men"—says a distressed party-giver in these latitudes, conscious that this state of things is not right, and half-ashamed of herself for giving in to it—"there are really so few of them." ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... ten whizzing cylinders print off the papers, and an impression of a quarter of a million is soon thrown out, folded, and piled ready for distribution. But imagine what a loss of one minute means! Truly the agitation of the officials at an awkward pinch is singularly excusable, and many a hard word is levelled at pertinacious talkers who insist on thrusting themselves upon the House at a time when the country is waiting with wild eagerness for momentous tidings. The long line of carts waits in the street, the speedy ponies rattle off, and soon the immense building ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... friends and foes to express their opinions of his administration, and when a member of his household rose to extol his work and to declare that he had "surpassed the very greatest of his predecessors." This courtier-like declaration, which would have been excusable even if it had had a less basis of truth than it unquestionably possessed in the case of Hwangti, was received with murmurs and marks of dissent by the literati. One of them rose and denounced the speaker ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... have her reward. If then, in the end, she should have succeeded in getting Edward back she would have kept her man within the limits that are all that wifehood has to expect. She was even taught that such excesses in men are natural, excusable—as ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... with whom they professed to be friendly, forms one of the darkest pages in the annals of the British in America. Yet they have been much less severely blamed for their behaviour in this matter, than for far more excusable offences. American historians, for example, usually condemn them without stint because in 1814 the army of Ross and Cockburn burned and looted the public buildings of Washington; but by rights they should keep all their condemnation for their own country, so far as the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... to such a matter for me, that I should endeavor to attend to it myself as wisely as I can. Also, that a little bit of pique, caused by the fact that I am to have an old schoolfellow for a stepmother, is excusable." ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... my intention to detain the reader by expatiating on the variety or the importance of the subject, which I have undertaken to treat; since the merit of the choice would serve to render the weakness of the execution still more apparent, and still less excusable. But as I have presumed to lay before the public a first volume only [1] of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, it will, perhaps, be expected that I should explain, in a few words, the nature and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... posture of standing in prayer, it is excusable, and that by the very father of the faithful himself: For Abraham stood praying when he made intercession for Sodom. (Gen 18:22,23) Christ also alloweth it where he saith, "And when ye STAND PRAYING, forgive, if ye have ought ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... an amateur garden and a book garden: a garden which to me, as to most of us, would have been impossible in any but these days when the whole art of gardening has been printed in books and no amateur is excusable for trying to garden without reading them, or for saying after having read them that he has planned and worked without professional advice. The books are the professional advice, with few drawbacks and with the great advantage that they are ours ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... person is universally condemned and yet many of our prejudices are excusable, and some of them necessary: if we do not indulge a few of our prejudices, we shall have to go on doubting ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... blushed, and stammered out somewhat—"That it was excusable in him, if he had said, in jest, that so prodigious and curious a valor had not sprung from ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... the impulses of their nature; when they really need a good fuck the cock-stand will be evident enough; forcing nature only tends to after enervation, and should only be resorted to on some special occasion when one really wishes to prove himself a champion in the arena of Love. Then it may be excusable. ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... gentleman, on this, asked his son, with excusable vanity, whether he had done ill in steering clear of speculation; he then congratulated him on having listened to good advice and stuck to legitimate business. "I must say, Arthur," added be, "your books are models for ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... haughtily; but the burst that offended him rose so evidently from the heart, was so excusable from its motive and the youth's ignorance of the world, that his frown soon vanished as ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and regard to me, whom I was sure she would not have left without notice. "But alas!" says I, "she may even now be near me, but taken so ill she cannot get home, or she may have died suddenly in the wood." I lay tumbling and tossing in great anxiety, not able to find out any excusable occasion she could have of so long absence. And then, thinks I, if she should either be dead, or have quite left me, which will be of equally bad consequence to me, what can I do with three poor helpless infants? If they were a little more ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... celebrated bruiser was brought over from Newark. When this "sparring partner" came to face Corbett in the imitation ring he was so paralyzed with terror he could hardly move. It was just after Corbett had won one of his big battles as a prize-fighter, and the dismay of his opponent was excusable. The "boys" at the laboratory still laugh consumedly when they tell ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... search for some common principle, on which this variety of sentiments might depend. And though they have sometimes carried the matter too far, by their passion for some one general principle; it must, however, be confessed, that they are excusable in expecting to find some general principles, into which all the vices and virtues were justly to be resolved. The like has been the endeavour of critics, logicians, and even politicians: Nor have their attempts been wholly unsuccessful; though perhaps longer ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... further service could be had from him. This Hal did with due patience and speed, reciting their experiences since their arrival at the island. Meanwhile the Canadian consulted his call book, and was ready with the desired information by the time his very excusable curiosity had been satisfied. He supplied Hal with two Port Hope calls, together with ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... described in a three-volume novel—do all those things, and, while on your back in the smoke room, after a hard day's pleasure, you will probably be heard to murmur that in the general Fall some of us dropped easily enough, and that, all things considered, Adam's unhappy collapse was decidedly excusable. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... right, all right," said Mr. Dickerson. "I don't blame you. I think you're perfectly excusable to feel the way you do. But some time, when I get a chance, I should like to tell you about it, and put it to ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... of the Persies, as they published it abroad.] These noble men, to make their conspiracie to sem excusable, besides the articles aboue mentioned, sent letters abroad, wherein was conteined, that their gathering of an armie tended to none other end, but onlie for the safegard of their owne persons, and to put some better gouernment in the commonwealth. For whereas taxes and tallages were dailie ...
— Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9) - Henrie IV • Raphael Holinshed
... admiration? To think that a person from the North of Scotland should travel through some of the finest countries in Europe, and find fault with everything he meets—nothing to please him! And therefore, methinks, the Tour to the Hebrides is more excusable, and also perhaps Mr. Twiss's Tour in Ireland. Dr. Johnson, bred in the luxuriance of London, with more reason should become cross and splenetic in the bleak and dreary ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... maxim, by the general consent of all mankind, that good, the greater good, determines the will, that I do not at all wonder that, when I first published my thoughts on this subject I took it for granted; and I imagine that, by a great many, I shall be thought more excusable for having then done so, than that now I have ventured to recede from so received an opinion. But yet, upon a stricter inquiry, I am forced to conclude that GOOD, the GREATER GOOD, though apprehended ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... true and every man a liar.' He says you cannot serve Him and Mammon. He says that strait is the gate that leads to eternal life. Many there are who seek to widen it; they will tell you that such and such self-indulgences are but venial offences—that this and that worldly compliance is excusable and even necessary. The thing cannot be; for in a hundred and a hundred places He tells you so—look to your Bibles and seek there whether such counsel is true—and if not, oh, 'halt not between two opinions,' if God is the Lord follow Him; only be strong and of a good ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... of typographical errors exposed in those pages, where they are least to be expected, and are least excusable, opens up some curious considerations. It may surely be believed that, between the compositors who put the types together and the correctors of the press, the printing of the Bible has generally been executed with more than average care. Yet the editions ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... faith, 'twould be excusable in him to tremble," replied Aramis, "for even I feel a shudder at the recollection; hold, just above that tree is the little spot where ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... mentioned you to me—to Mrs. Sherman, rather—she described you as her young lady. She has a very warm feeling for you. I think she considers you in the light of personal property, like a child of her own. That's excusable—it's commendable, even, in such a case as this. I believe she said she nursed you till you were ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... a sorry sight. His clothes were torn in many places, and his face and hands badly scratched, while the red stains of the raspberries had turned his light tweeds into something resembling an impressionist sketch. It was perhaps excusable that he had altogether lost his temper. He burst out in angry abuse of the mare, the bullock, the raspberry clump, and the expedition in general—anger which the scarcely concealed grins of the stockmen only served to intensify. Norah, who had choked with laughter at first, but ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... him. Having mentally pictured him in various mean conditions of life, she had finally settled it in her mind that he was an agent for some patent fertilizer; a man of this kind being a very obnoxious person to her. This avocation, however, constituted in the old lady's mind no excusable reason for his protracted absence; and if ever a wife was deserted, she believed that her niece Annie was such ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... I felt badly about her being in the poor-house, but truth compels me to say, that it was more on Ella's account than her own. I shall give Ella every advantage which money can purchase, and I am excusable I think for saying that she is admirably fitted to adorn any station in life; therefore it cannot but be exceedingly mortifying to her to know that one sister died a pauper and the other was one for a length of time. This, however, can not be helped, and now, as I said before ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... was excusable, because in the interval he had been introduced by Aunty Rosa to two very impressive things—an abstraction called God, the intimate friend and ally of Aunty Rosa, generally believed to live behind ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... of wrong-doing, shades of guilt," she said. "Crimes, offences, misdeeds, call them as you please, are not absolutely unpardonable; in some respects they are excusable, if not ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... brought into the presence of the commander in chief, he pretended to be very much frightened; and he would have been excusable if he had been really frightened, for in that little performance of his he had run a great many risks. After asking a few questions of this pretended traitor Washington told the guards to withdraw, and he had a private conference which lasted over half an hour; and in that time it is probable ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... fast, and one of them rests upon the sharp spears of the railing, which are buried in its trunk—as though it were comitting suicide for very grief! The foliage of the rest is thinned and disfigured by the frequent and almost excusable depredations of visiters. Fresh cuttings have however, been planted by the Governor, who intends, moreover, to set cypresses round the outer fence. Madame Bertrand's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... to you, Signory Rosy-elly," continued Buck, with a burst of pride quite excusable, tipping his hat to one side and hooking his thumb into the armhole of his vest, "it wasn't my money you got, and it never will be my money you'll get. You just made the mistake of your life when you run away ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... did not know it, we ought not to be too severe upon him, when we shall see afterwards that he was a Florentine of the fifteenth century: then on account of his having lived so many centuries after the events of which he writes, it is quite excusable that he should fall into a state of confusion with respect to this rather out of the way matter, though into such a state of confusion no Roman could have fallen on account of his intimate acquaintance with the outlines of his constitution, the ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... with which some men revert to an aimless life can best be accounted for by the savage or barbarian instincts of our natures. The West has produced many types of the vagabond,—it might be excusable to say, won them from every condition of society. From the cultured East, with all the advantages which wealth and educational facilities can give to her sons, they flocked; from the South, with her pride of ancestry, they came; even the British Isles contributed their ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... own severity in the past regarding women whose conduct had caused scandal, she employed in her turn the harshness of her judgment in examining her own actions. She felt herself more guilty than all the others, for her weakness appeared less excusable to her. She felt that she was unworthy and contemptible, and wished to die that she might escape the shame that made her blush scarlet, and the remorse that ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... happen, at least neglect was not to be his lot. But, in the natural heat of youth he had at the outset certainly mixed up some trivial with a greater number of worthy productions, and had shown an impatience of criticism by which, however excusable, he was sure to be himself the chief sufferer. His higher gifts, too, were of the quality which, by the changeless law of nature, cannot ripen fast; and there was, accordingly, some portion both of obscurity and of crudity in the results of his youthful labours. Men of slighter materials would ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... with, too, the greatest respect for my friend Mrs. Tarbell, in admiration for whose talents and determination I yield to nobody, I feel it my duty to say to you that this accident having happened through the negligence, excusable perhaps, but still the negligence,—carelessness, haste, if you will,—of Mrs. Stiles,—and that this was the case I shall show you in a moment,—Mrs. Stiles and her counsel, neither of them being for a single instant anything but a woman, took the—what shall I say?—the romantic ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... to lie so close and confined, that I could not breathe in it, and therefore lay all night in an outward room upon four chairs, with a leather portmanteau for my pillow. For this entertainment I payed very near a loui'dore. Such bad accommodation is the less excusable, as the fellow has a great deal of business, this being a great thoroughfare for travellers going into Italy, or returning ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... the poor against a species of food that is usually thrown to the dogs; and as we cannot expect them to enter into chemical considerations, it is in some degree excusable. Besides, it requires a prodigious quantity of fuel to dissolve bones and ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... primitive maternal part of her was convulsed with horror at his fault. Because he was more important than anybody else, it seemed the most tremendous fault that anybody had ever committed, and because he was her son it seemed quite unlike any other fault and far more excusable. Her detached wisdom warned her that she must check all such tendencies in him, since what would in other children be judged a shortcoming natural to their age, would in him be ascribed to the evil blood of his lawless begetting, and he would start life under the powerful ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... between the collar of his coat and the brim of his hat, almost blinded him. He made a few seconds' stand against the violence of the whirlwind, and then, instead of uttering any exclamation of impatience, which would have been more than excusable under the circumstances, he merely gave vent to a long-drawn sigh ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... the hawsers twanged, and now they twanged at will, for with such a stream running it was excusable for even such a worthy officer as Jerry Rolfe to put something down to natural causes. And incessantly the rats gnawed, gnawed, and ripped at the wood beneath them until even that sound helped to ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... time with the incense amid which he lived? And then his whole soul rose up in anger at her, at the woman who had dared to raise her voice against him. That she should be jealous of and insult another woman, that was excusable. It was, in fact, an indirect compliment to himself. But that she should turn upon him, as if they were merely man and woman, instead of monarch and subject, that was too much. He gave an inarticulate cry of rage, and rushed to ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had been prefect of the praetorium, to Vercelli, who, to all persons capable of distinguishing between right and wrong, will appear very excusable in respect to the act for which he was condemned. For his offence was only that, fearing a violent disturbance which had arisen, he fled to the protection of his prince. And the treatment inflicted on him could not be read without great horror, when the preamble of the public accusation began thus:—"In ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... and stop this shooting!" shouted the old man. "Stop it, now, or you'll land me in a federal prison for life! Those horsemen may be deceived. When federal courts can be deluded with sugar-coated blandishments, ordinary men ought to be excusable." ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... which no debutante or dandy should ever dream of going out to dine. Not that Mr. Mahaffy's book can be said to be, in any sense of the word, popular. In discussing this important subject of conversation, he has not merely followed the scientific method of Aristotle which is, perhaps, excusable, but he has adopted the literary style of Aristotle for which no excuse is possible. There is, also, hardly a single anecdote, hardly a single illustration, and the reader is left to put the Professor's abstract rules into practice, without either the examples or the ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... I said, "for I don't feel in the least faint." That was a fib, because when you are as miserable as I was at that minute your heart feels cold and heavy, as though it could hardly go on beating. But I felt that if ever a fib were excusable, that one was. "I'm a little tired, though," I went on. "None of us got to bed till after three last night; and this day, though very nice of course, has been rather long. I think, if you don't mind, Aunt Lil, I'll go straight to my ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... excusable upon particular emergent occasions, with some heat of language to express dislike of notorious wickedness. As our Lord doth against the perverse incredulity and stupidity in the Pharisees, their profane misconstruction of His words and actions, their malicious ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... surprised to hear his Queen scold him so much, for she had never said an angry word to him before; but he thought it was quite excusable in this case, and tried to quiet the child along with her, but it was no use. Then he went and wakened the sailors, and bade them hoist the sails, for a breeze had sprung up and was ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... these letters are among the Leven and Melville Papers, The author of An Account of the Late Establishment of Presbyterian Government says of a person who had taken a bribe of ten or twelve pounds, "Had he been as poor as my Lord Crawford, perhaps he had been the more excusable." See also the dedication of the celebrated tract ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... towns and jobs—jobs he had held and jobs from which he had resigned, and all the crushing things he had said to the wicked bosses during those victorious resignings.... Clerk in a general store, in a clothing-store, in a hardware-store—all these in Ohio. A quite excusable, almost laudable, failure in his own hardware-store in a tiny Wisconsin town. Half a dozen clerkships. Collector for a harvester company in Nebraska, going from farm to farm by buggy. Traveling salesman ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... game from this hillock of abstinence—it is not an eminence like those occupied by the twelve and fifteen year boys—looking back at the old game from this slight elevation, it is perhaps excusable for a man who put in twenty years at the old game to set the old game off against the new game and make up a debit and credit account just for the ...
— The Old Game - A Retrospect after Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon • Samuel G. Blythe
... I singing that, now?" said Mr Bagnall, laughing. "I did not know I got quite so far. But at a hunt-supper, you know, everything is excusable." ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... it," I answered, with, I hope, excusable duplicity. "The fact is, Mark, I had formed a wrong opinion of you gentlemen; and in future I hope to make as bold a robber as ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... check on the table with a low bow, and left me. Among the curious developments of human stupidity which occasionally present themselves to view, surely the least excusable is the stupidity which, to this day, persists in wondering why the Scotch ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... Miss Ilderton, "I would threaten him with a protestant son-in-law, and be glad of an opportunity to disobey him for conscience' sake. And now that Nancy is out of hearing, let me really say, I think you would be excusable before God and man for resisting this preposterous match by every means in your power. A proud, dark, ambitious man; a caballer against the state; infamous for his avarice and severity; a bad son, a bad brother, unkind and ungenerous to all his relatives—Isabel, ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... equally righteous. A man who styles himself devout resembles a commoner who styles himself a marquis; he arrogates to himself a quality he does not possess. He thinks himself more worthy than his neighbour. One can forgive such foolishness in women; their frailty and their frivolity render them excusable; the poor creatures pass from a lover to a director in good faith: but one cannot pardon the rogues who direct them, who abuse their ignorance, who establish the throne of their pride on the credulity of the sex. They resolve themselves into a little mystic seraglio composed ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... direct to the place appointed to it in Bradshaw, until they have been verbally assured upon the point by two guards, six porters, and a newspaper boy. Nevertheless, Elisabeth's ignorance—though perhaps excusable, considering her sex—was anything but bliss to poor Christopher, and her good-natured carelessness hurt him none the less for her not knowing ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... concealed within bundles of hoop-staves. Sometimes we found seamen, dressed as gentlemen, drinking wine and talking with the greatest familiarity with people much above them in rank, who had used these means to conceal them. Our information led us to detect these excusable impositions. ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... even more widely spread. It is not merely the artizan who spends all that he earns, but the classes above him, who cannot plead the same excuse of ignorance. Many of what are called the "upper" classes are no more excusable than the "lower." They waste their means on keeping up appearances, and in ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... Tweed; but at the distance of six or seven thousand miles Great Britain, though never diminished, looks foreshortened enough even to its own children to rob such details of their importance. Stein was excusable, and his hinted intentions were so generous that I begged him most earnestly to keep them secret for a time. I felt that no consideration of personal advantage should be allowed to influence Jim; that ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... believed, then, that now when I was seasick, a cup of such coffee as our old cook made would have done me no good, if indeed it would not have come near making an end of me. And bad as it was, and since it was not to be had at that time of night, as I said before, I think I was excusable in taking something else in place of it, as I did; and under the circumstances, it would be unhandsome of them, if my fellow-members of the Temperance Society should reproach me for breaking my bond, which I would not have done except in case of necessity. But the evil effect of ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... and swallow your apprehensions. I trust that you are not going to make a fool of yourself by any apology or retraction in any quarter. As for its having seemed holy and just to do what you did, that is mere bosh. A lie is a lie, and as such is often excusable. As anything else,—as a thing beautiful, holy, or just,—it's quite inexcusable. Yours was a lie to you, and a lie to me. It serves me, and I accept it. I suppose you understand me. I adopt it. You don't ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... an unskillful workman for doing imperfect work, because he must work, well or ill, or starve; this workman is excusable; but your God is not. According to you, He is self-sufficient; in this case, why does He create men? He has, according to you, all that is necessary to render man happy; why, then, does He not do it? You must conclude that your God has more malice than goodness, or you must admit that God was ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... did once know a descendant of theirs, in their own country who was overcome by red wine. "It was perfectly excusable," he said, for he had never tasted it before—or since! He was a fine, tall man called Callum Bhouie, from his yellow hair when he was a youth; he was old when I knew him—six feet two and thin as a rake and strong, with the face of Wellington and an eye like a hawk. He and his friend were going ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... his eyes. We were sitting together on the trunk of a fallen tree, and he covered his face with his hands, but I could see that the tears forced their way between the fingers, and that he was sobbing violently. He is only as yet a mere boy, and such emotion is excusable. ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... better he would also. With the greater cleanliness of our time, with all the additional experience of history, with the greater classical, aesthetic, and theological knowledge of our day, the sins of our poets are as much less excusable than those of Eusden, Blackmore, Cibber, and the rest, as Pope's "Dunciad" on them would be more righteously severe. What, for instance, would the author of the "Essay on Man" say to anyone who now wrote p. 137 (for it really is not to ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... virtues into rhyme, unless it was, that my prose began to run upon stilts, or that I mistook a momentary enthusiasm for a poetical inspiration. In fact, every thought and conception is so far raised above the common train of ideas, that the error is excusable, especially too when the imaginary poet ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... rest in the shade, within the wooded mouth of the Obion River. The spy-glass revealed the fact that she was named for me —or HE was named for me, whichever you prefer. As this was the first time I had ever encountered this species of honor, it seems excusable to mention it, and at the same time call the attention of the authorities to the tardiness of my ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... progress of applied chemistry, an addendum in a work of this kind is quite excusable. Even while the book is being printed some fact may be announced which the author or editor would wish to insert. In our case this has happened. Very recently there has been introduced in France as ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... knew that her father was angry and saw the naked sword in his hand, she was like to swoon for fear; [405] so she raised her head and said to him, "Dear [406] my father, be not wroth with me, neither be thou hasty in thine anger, for that I am excusable in that which thou hast seen from me. [407] Do but hearken what hath betided me and I am well assured that, whenas thou hearest my story of that which hath happened to me these two nights past, thou wilt excuse me and Thy ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... instead of his history; he would never mix together (under his nose) two chemicals that would assuredly explode and nearly blow his head off. For he has a few brains in that head, which makes such blunders all the less excusable. But I am not sure if a good deal of his bad luck is not due to the merciless way in which he was laughed at, and called "duffer," and taught to believe that he could no more do a thing right than a bull could walk through ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... the health of the absent,' her husband replied, filling his friend's glass and his own and giving a drop to their companion; 'but we must hope he's preparing himself for a happiness much less like this of ours this evening—excusable as I grant it to be!—than like the comfort we have always (whatever has happened or has not happened) been able to trust ourselves to enjoy. The comfort,' the Master explained, leaning back in the pleasant lamplight and firelight, holding up his glass and looking round at his marble family, quartered ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... am not prepared to criticize them in their broad lines. But they are not the methods appropriate to more advanced countries, and our Socialists will be unnecessarily retrograde if they allow the prestige of the Bolsheviks to lead them into slavish imitation. It will be a far less excusable error in our reactionaries if, by their unteachableness, they compel the adoption of violent methods. We have a heritage of civilization and mutual tolerance which is important to ourselves and to the world. Life in Russia ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... friends stood upon a promontory lower down the stream to wave us a last farewell; but we, having already performed these shore rites, with excusable reserve, as befits those who are embarked on unusual enterprises, who behold but speak not, silently glided past the firm lands of Concord, both peopled cape and lonely summer meadow, with steady sweeps. And yet we did unbend so far as to let our guns speak ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... inclinations that were struggling in the mind of the woman against her sense of duty. Note that in the story the temptation did not come to man through his appetite or his curiosity or his esthetic sense but through his wife whom God had given him. Was the man's act in any way excusable? Strong men and women often sin through the influence of those whom they love and admire. Are they thereby excused? What natural impulses impelled the woman to disobey the divine command? Were these impulses of themselves wrong? How far did her experience reflect common human experience? ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... only he is outside order, and everything must be in order. "He who is maddened by the bite of a mad dog is certainly innocent; yet anyone has the right to suffocate him. In the same way, the man who cannot govern his passions by fear of the law is a very excusable invalid; yet he cannot enjoy peace of mind, or the knowledge of God, or even the love of God, and it is necessary that he perish." Through death he ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... is excusable—I recognize it and (ought to) concede it. We are all insane, each in his own way, and with insanity goes irresponsibility. Theodore the man is sane; in fairness we ought to keep in mind that Theodore, as statesman and politician, is insane ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Protestants, likewise, were excusable if they too placed little confidence in the sincerity of the Roman Catholics. By the treacherous and inhuman treatment which their brethren in Spain, France, and the Netherlands, had suffered; by the disgraceful subterfuge of the Romish princes, ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... almost unknown. The mother had but recently come to the village, her object having been to secure to her daughters the educational advantages which the academy afforded. Poverty, as well as perhaps an excusable if not laudable pride, compelled her to live in obscurity, and consequently the assault upon their characters fell upon her and her daughters with crushing force. Her employment mainly ceased, her daughters were ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... undergo all his own Tortures. But this, indeed, is an Artifice so difficult, and at the same time so dis-ingenuous, that it ought never to be put in Practice, but by such as have Skill enough to cover the Deceit, and Innocence to render it excusable. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... quite right, sir," he said. "To any one else I should never have mentioned it. But we were alone, and I thought that the circumstances might make it excusable." ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... great statesman is to use utterly misleading terms. Generalship and statesmanship, as we understand them, did not yet exist, and to speak of them in the ninth century in England is to be guilty of a common, but none the more excusable, anachronism. AElfred was a sturdy and hearty fighter, and a good king of a semi-barbaric people. As a lad, he had visited Rome; and he retained throughout life a strong sense of his own and his people's barbarism, and a genuine desire to civilise himself and his subjects, ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... and ride. In England the distinction is made of applying ride to going on horseback and drive to going in a carriage, whether you ride or drive. That usage is not closely followed in this country. He who guides the horse drives; the rest of the company ride. The noun and participial forms are more excusable than the verb. "Jones asked me to drive with him this afternoon." But as Jones expects to do the driving himself, the speaker should have said, "Jones asked me to take a ride," or "go driving," or ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... continued, 'when I first made his acquaintance, had an idea of writing for the working classes; and what do you think he was going to offer them? Stories about the working classes! Nay, never hang your head for it, old boy; it was excusable in the days of your youth. Why, Mr Reardon, as no doubt you know well enough, nothing can induce working men or women to read stories that treat of their own world. They are the most consumed idealists ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... The mistake was excusable among the Spaniards. They were totally ignorant of the mode of life indicated by these joint tenement-houses. When they found one of these large structures, capable of accommodating several hundred occupants, with its inner court, terraced foundation, and ornamented by stucco work, or sculpture, ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... touching the poet's wife, worrying up the matter against her to the utmost, and, in fact, tormenting the poor woman's memory in such a way as to indicate something very like spite. Now this is not fair; and Mr. White's general fairness on other subjects makes his proceeding the less excusable in this case. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... lies disgrace a gentleman, white or black, although I grant there is a difference. To say the least of it, it is a dangerous habit; for white lies are but the gentlemen ushers to black ones. I know but of one point on which a lie is excusable, and that is, when you wish to deceive the enemy. Then your duty to your country warrants your lying till you're black in the face; and, for the very reason that it goes against your grain, it becomes, as it were, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... and the others were blamed afterward for not giving the alarm at once and for starting their own investigations before informing the colonel and telephoning to the local commissary. Yet this very excusable delay can hardly be said to have hampered the action of the police. In any case, the colonel was not told until half-past eight. He was dressed and ready to go out. The news did not seem to upset him beyond measure, or, at least, he managed to control his emotion. ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... the allusions do not now show clear, are, I know, barely excusable even thus curtly: but I choose to save a touch or two from annihilation. Here is another little bit; this time from a somewhat vicious parody on my rival Rickard's prize poem: it is fairest to produce at length first his serious conclusion ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... joining in the retreat, or lending aid to the attacking party, Amy had snatched up her camera, and was bending over the finder in an absorption which rendered her quite oblivious to Ruth's denunciation. She was, indeed, excusable for thinking that the scene under the maple would make a spirited and unusual photograph. Old Bess was rearing and plunging with a coltish animation quite inconsistent with the dignity of her twenty-three years. Priscilla and Peggy, armed with the tin covers of the boxes which had contained ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... deceite into a simple womans head. I durst pawne the credit of a page, which is worth ams ase at all times, that she was immaculate honest till she met with vs in prison. Marie what temptations shee had then when fire and flaxe were put together, conceit with your selues, but hold my master excusable. ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... sentiment as deep and constant as his mind was capable of entertaining. The value of this compliment is indeed somewhat diminished by the circumstance that he knew very little about us. His ignorance of our institutions, manners, and history is the less excusable, because, according to his own account, he consorted much, during the peace of Amiens, with Englishmen of note, such as that eminent nobleman Lord Greaten, and that not less eminent philosopher Mr Mackensie Coefhis. In spite, however, of his connection with these well-known ornaments of our ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... well-dressed citizen of forty-five, who would have been wholly ordinary save for one peculiarity. In a room more than temperately cool he was sweating profusely, and that, despite the fact that his light overcoat was on his arm. Not polite perspiration, be it noted, such as would have been excusable in a gentleman of his pale and sleek plumpness, but soul-wrung sweat, the globules whereof gathered in the grayish hollows under his eyes and assailed, not without effect, the glistening expanse of his tall white collar. He darted a glance at Bertram, then turned ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... most fruitful mother of mischief. Hence, it is almost always when they are doing nothing in the fields, that they are tempted to increase their stores by dishonest courses. Bees are, however, much more excusable than the lazy rogues of the human family; for the bees are idle, not because they are indisposed to work, but because they can find nothing to do. Unless there is some gross mismanagement, on the part of their owner, they seldom attempt to live upon stolen sweets, when they have ample ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... the will of man; as varied pieces detached from the mass of facts which constitute the possessions of another planet, and rather as thrown by nature into rugged heaps than as having been symmetrically arranged by the hand of an artist. Want of unity under these circumstances is surely excusable. ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... Madam. It might possibly be excusable in a Church, assuming that the means of egress were sufficient. Of what building do you ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 13, 1890 • Various
... our own troops. Distances and contours were almost impossible to appreciate from the map, and it was not realised what a great extent of line we were being asked to hold with a battalion, and really, faulty map reading was excusable, considering the maps ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... breach of neutrality. Yet the Chief of the Swiss General Staff, Colonel Sprecher, defended the accused men on the singular ground that their action—that is to say, a grave breach of neutrality to the detriment of the allied nations—was excusable because of the end in view, which was to gain in exchange useful information for the Intelligence Department of the War Office. This plea is based on the German military principle that the means are ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... [57] It is excusable to use two words for the single verb savoir to bring out the meaning. King Bagdemagus does not "know" as a fact that Lancelot has slain his son, though he fears it and feels almost ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... this mistake. Any one looking for the first time at the trees might fancy that they were indeed vast and titanic fans, which by their mere waving agitated the air around them for miles. Nothing, I say, could be more human and excusable than the belief that it is the trees which make the wind. Indeed, the belief is so human and excusable that it is, as a matter of fact, the belief of about ninety-nine out of a hundred of the philosophers, reformers, sociologists, and politicians of the great age in which we live. My ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton |
