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Premeditation   /primˌɛdətˈeɪʃən/   Listen
Premeditation

noun
1.
Planning or plotting in advance of acting.  Synonym: forethought.
2.
(law) thought and intention to commit a crime well in advance of the crime; goes to show criminal intent.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Premeditation" Quotes from Famous Books



... of this solemn premeditation, which tends, as Madame de Stael says, to bring more poetry into life, some women, in whom virtuous mothers either from considerations of worldly advantage of duty or sentiment, or through sheer hypocrisy, ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac

... of serious plays), a bare imitation will not serve. The converse, therefore, which a poet is to imitate, must be heightened with all the arts and ornaments of poesy; and must be such as, strictly considered, could never be supposed spoken by any without premeditation. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... moment's impulse, without premeditation as to what he should say, he turned back and laid his hand upon the door handle. A passing tremor, as to the result, arose within him; but he had learned where help in need is ever to be obtained, and an earnestly breathed word went up ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... futile. David was in college the following winter when he heard, through Dick Cronk, that Colonel Grand had sold out the circus to P. T. Barnum, with whose vast enterprises it was speedily amalgamated. As the concern was sold at private sale, by actual premeditation, Mary Braddock's interests were undefended. There was talk among the circus people, however, to the effect that Grand, after certain judgments had been satisfied, advertised throughout the country for Mrs. Braddock, conveying to her notice by this means ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... apt to be content with the acquisition of knowledge, which remains passive in his mind. An inventor seizes upon fresh facts, and combines them with the old, which thereby become nascent. Through accident or premeditation he is able by uniting scattered thoughts to add a novel instrument to a domain of science with which he has little acquaintance. Nay, the lessons of experience and the scruples of intimate knowledge sometimes deter a master from attempting what the tyro, with the audacity of genius and the ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... is the sudden result of long premeditation. The first and most conspicuous lesson of this volume seems to be that Poetry is an art, and therefore has rules. Next after this, one is struck with the carefulness with which these practitioners, when it comes to ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Luther's Catechism] that my relations with Susanna, as long as they were kept a secret from her parents, were wrong, and now I was going, with this deliberate sin on my conscience, coolly and with premeditation to ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie

... it were, at the feet of the ladies, with enthusiasm, and had made absurd offers of himself to be "of use." There could be no doubt that in the circumstances this was mad enough, and culpable too; but it was done without premeditation, by impulse, as he was too apt to act, especially in such matters; and it could be put a stop to. He was pledged to call, it was true; but that might be once, and no more. And then there was the play, the opera, to ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... was nothing of more recent date and no personal correspondence whatever. The same was true of the pockets of the suit Siders had been wearing at the time of his death. A man of any property or position at all in the world gathers about him so much of this kind of material that its absence shows premeditation. The suit Siders had been wearing when he was killed was lying on the table in the room. It was a plain grey business suit of good cut and material. The body had been prepared for burial in a beseeming suit ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner

... saw him now, and they yelled recognition. From a thousand dusty throats came a cry, involuntary, individual, indescribably fierce, a high and shrill and wild expression of anger and personal opinion. There was the enemy. They saw him, they yelled,—without premeditation, without cooperation, each man for himself, Yaai, Yai ... Yaai, Yaai, Yai.... Yaai! That cry was to be heard on more than two thousand battlefields. It lasts with the voice of Stentor, and with the horn of Roland. It has gone down to history ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... she sat there in the big easy-chair, still gazing into the fire, but listening for his every word. "In five long years I have heard no words from a woman's lips that gave me such joy and comfort as those you spoke so hurriedly and without premeditation. Only those who know anything of what my past has been could form any idea of the emotion with which I heard you. If I could not have seen you to say how—how I thanked you, I would have had to write. This explains what I said awhile ago: I owe you more ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... wife had killed him in a fit of jealous rage—under provocation, be it remembered, which the witnesses proved—she might have been convicted of manslaughter, and might have received a light sentence. But the evidence so undeniably revealed deliberate and merciless premeditation, that the only defense attempted by her counsel was madness, and the only alternative left to a righteous jury was a verdict which condemned the woman to death. Those mischievous members of the community, whose topsy-turvy sympathies feel for the living criminal and forget ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... order and grooming seem a part of nature's processes. There is, too, a casual charm about the villages themselves, the graceful, accidental grouping of houses and gardens, which suggests growth rather than premeditation. The general harmony does not preclude, but rather comes of, the greatest variety ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... been a sudden impulse on her part. She had been playing with him—leading him on. His visits to the Old Town, at that quiet hour of the day. . . . No. She had carried out her infamous plan after ample premeditation. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... the social rage in every salon. And his ability to do the right thing at the right time, seemingly without premeditation, made him a general favorite. For instance, if he attended a fete given by the King of Bavaria, he wore just one decoration—the decoration of Bavaria. If he attended a ball given by the French Ambassador, in the lapel of his modest black velvet coat ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... ones. They did nothing without premeditation. If they ran it was to show their slender ankles, and when they stopped and panted for breath it was sure to be at the side of some youths—young workmen of their acquaintance—who smoked in their faces as they talked. Nana had her favorite, whom she ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... society make for disorder, it is the work of social education to control, transform and utilize all social and collective forces, the primitive emotions and instincts, the moods of intoxication and all the higher ecstasies of the social life, and it is only, we suppose, by thus consciously and with premeditation controlling these forces that in any real sense we can "make democracy ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge

... those remarkable efforts of mind—one might say, of character—which are sometimes called forth, without premeditation, almost without consciousness, by a profound moral crisis. A minute or two ago he would have believed it impossible to recall and state in lucid terms the arguments to which, as he sat in the Cathedral, he had barely given ear; he remembered vaguely that the preacher ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... the French authorities had decided that it was not expedient to put the survivor of the duelists on his trial before a court of law. No jury, hearing the evidence, would find him guilty of the only charge that could be formally brought against him—the charge of "homicide by premeditation." Homicide by misadventure, occurring in a duel, was not a punishable offense by the French law. My correspondent cited many cases in proof of it, strengthened by the publicly-expressed opinion of the illustrious Berryer himself. In a word, ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... question between America and Great Britain. The country, under the advice of Pennsylvania, might have indemnified the East India Company, might have obtained by importunity the repeal of the tax on tea, or might have borne the duty, as it had borne that on wine; but Parliament, after ten years of premeditation, had exercised the power to abrogate the laws and to change the Charter of a province without its consent; and on this arose the conflict of the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... into her soul something—it was cruel now to call it malice—which was still and watchful and dangerous, which waited its opportunity, and then shot like an arrow from its bow out of the coil of brooding premeditation. Even those who had never seen the white scars on Dick Venner's wrist, or heard the half-told story of her supposed attempt to do a graver mischief, knew well enough by looking at her that she was one of the creatures not to be tampered with,—silent ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... dear friend, and without any premeditation when I sat down, I find I have been attempting to give it; but it is very evident thou art under the special care of an infinitely better Instructor, who has already uttered His soft and heavenly voice, to teach thee that ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... pursuing the conversation more for the sake of finishing off his thoughts on the subject than for engaging her attention, 'that in actual life it is merely a matter of instinct with men—this trying to push on. They awake to a recognition that they have, without premeditation, begun to try a little, and they say to themselves, "Since I have tried thus much, I will try a little more." They go ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... could not bring himself to understand that the great States of Europe had, almost without premeditation, moved into a field of policy which involved the apportionment of regions scarcely yet known in any detail to the geographers; nor did he realize the far-reaching consequences of the acquisition or refusal of some of these districts. The question of the Congo, for example, involved, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... were the men of this time, Raleigh, Essex, Elizabeth, Henry VIII himself, excessive and inconstant, ready for devotion and for crime, violent in good and evil, heroic with strange weaknesses, humble with sudden changes of mood, never vile with premeditation like the roisterers of the Restoration, never rigid on principle like the Puritans of the Revolution, capable of weeping like children, and of dying like men, often base courtiers, more than once true knights, displaying constantly, amidst all these contradictions of bearing, only the overflowing ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... And yet, betweene my Soules desire, and me, The lustfull Edwards Title buryed, Is Clarence, Henry, and his Sonne young Edward, And all the vnlook'd-for Issue of their Bodies, To take their Roomes, ere I can place my selfe: A cold premeditation for my purpose. Why then I doe but dreame on Soueraigntie, Like one that stands vpon a Promontorie, And spyes a farre-off shore, where hee would tread, Wishing his foot were equall with his eye, And chides the ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... his wife's cousin down at the door of this house, saying, "Good-night, Cousin," an elegant-looking woman, young, small, slender, pretty, beautifully dressed, and redolent of some delicate perfume, passed between the wall and the carriage to go in. This lady, without any premeditation, glanced up at the Baron merely to see the lodger's cousin, and the libertine at once felt the swift impression which all Parisians know on meeting a pretty woman, realizing, as entomologists have it, their desiderata; so he waited to put on one of his gloves with judicious deliberation ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... odds would have been against him, had he not in his wife possessed one advantage. While Mrs. Sharp possessed by nature the qualities expressed by her name and made herself unpopular to the good women of Windsor, Althea, without premeditation or effort, was a universal favorite. Thornton Rush was well aware of this advantage, and he made the most ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee

... unpronounceable names; and he had thought of them in much the same way. To him they had been something known to exist, but with which it was but remotely probable he would ever come in contact. Now, without preparation or premeditation, thrown face to face with the reality, it brought upon him a sickening feeling, a sort of mental nausea. Ben was not a philanthropist or a social reformer; the inspiring thought of the inexhaustible field for usefulness therein presented had never ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... early hour in the morning,—for here (we insist upon this point) premeditation is unquestionable,—from an early hour in the morning, strange placards had been posted up at all the street-corners; we have transcribed these placards, and our readers will remember them. During sixty years that the cannon of revolution have, on certain days, boomed through Paris, ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... finding silence becoming an agony. Much brooding has bitten the real and fanciful details of his life into his mind. He has, quite by accident, discovered in us a singularly acceptable audience. Without conscious premeditation he has told us his story. Every narrator of the most trivial incident can induce you to listen for something naive and individual in his utterance. Most of us disperse this quality over our days. Mr. Carville has secreted it, distilled it to a quintessence, and the result is—well, something in ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... him from turning state's evidence and incriminating you. Or maybe you killed him in a quarrel over the division of the loot. I hope, for your sake, that it was the latter; if it was, you may get off with second degree murder. But if you can't prove that there was no premeditation, you're tagged for the ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... thus that John Gordon had thought of it as he had turned Mr Whittlestaff's letter over in his mind. The appeal had been made readily enough. The making of it had been easy; the words to be spoken had come quickly, and without the necessity for a moment's premeditation. He had known it all, and from a full heart the mouth speaks. But was it to have been expected that a man so placed as had been Mr Whittlestaff, should be able to give his reply with equal celerity? He, John Gordon, had seen at once on reaching Croker's ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... possessed to have been able to persuade himself that his act was purely one of self-defence—as no doubt to some extent it was, for if he had not fired first Perrin's action showed that he would certainly have been the man-slayer. But, then, young McKay could not shut his eyes to the fact that premeditation had, in the first instance, induced him to extend his hand towards his gun, and this first act it was which ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... ham is a matter of grace no less premeditation. It must be cut from a wether at least four years old, grass fed, grain finished, neither too fat, nor too lean, scientifically butchered in clear, frosty, but not freezing weather, and hung unsalted in clean, cold air for a matter of three days. Saw off shank ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams

... longer possible that she could get back to London,—even to the house of the hated Primeros,—without absolutely running away from her father's residence! 'Then, papa,' she said, with affected calmness, 'you have simply and with premeditation broken your word ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... from the Son, whom he identifies with the "Thing in itself," "Wisdom," or "Life in itself." In creation "the One is said to become multiform." The world is a necessary process of God's being. He created it "as the sun shines," "without premeditation or purpose." The Father is simply One; the Son has also plurality, namely, the words (or reasons) which make existence ([Greek: tous ousiopoious logous]), which theology calls fore-ordinations ([Greek: proorismous]). But he does not teach that all separate existences ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... defend himself had evidently been taken from him after his death, and Gabriel had hastened to break it, so as to destroy, to the best of his power, the traces of his crime. Bastiano's evidence did not receive a minute's consideration: he, to destroy the idea of premeditation, declared that the young fisherman had left him only at the moment when the storm broke over the island; but, in the first place, the young diver was known to be Gabriel's most devoted friend and his sister's warmest admirer, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... unable to waste such a precious occasion, she suddenly got up, and saying to Kitty, "Come here, my love, I want to speak to you," took her out of the room. Jane instantly gave a look at Elizabeth which spoke her distress at such premeditation, and her entreaty that she would not give in to it. In a few minutes, Mrs. Bennet half-opened the door and ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... was, but not by consistent hypocritical premeditation; for his pose was not so much of set purpose as in obedience to a false education, an undisciplined temper, and a changing mind. He was guided by the impulse of the moment. I think it a supportable thesis that every age, every wide and popular movement, finds its supreme expression in ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... the wolverine is a very knowing brute, and if he thinks he may be trailed, he will sometimes—without the slightest sign of premeditation—jump sideways over a bush, a log, or a rock, in order to begin, out of sight of any trailer, a new trail; or he may make a great spring to gain a tree, and ascend it without even leaving the evidence ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... subtlest dialectic, the most persuasive eloquence, the most cogent appeals to everything that was highest and best in the audience that he was addressing, every instrument which could find place in the armory of a member of this House, he had at his command without premeditation, without forethought, at the moment and in the form which appeared best suited to carry ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... duration with Miss Hamm. The first meeting was by chance, we merely exchanging commonplaces touching upon our respective fields of activity here at Fernbridge; but the second eventuated through deliberate intent on my part. With premeditation I put myself in her path. My motive for so doing was, I trust, based upon unselfishness entirely. I had formed an early and perhaps a hasty estimate of this young woman's nature. I wished either to convince myself absolutely upon these ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... the answer which we shall receive, and which we ourselves make, till we hear it: so the dialogues in Shakspeare are carried on without any consciousness of what is to follow, without any appearance of preparation or premeditation. The gusts of passion come and go like sounds of music borne on the wind. Nothing is made out by formal inference and analogy, by climax and antithesis: all comes, or seems to come, immediately from nature. Each object and circumstance exists ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... to believe in you. I have believed in you, Johan. All the horrible things that were rumoured about you after you had gone must have been done through being led astray—from thoughtlessness, without premeditation. ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen

... conspiracies, and I was taken by surprise on arriving here at Winchester at finding that my cousin was on his trial for the unfortunate deed into which I was betrayed by haste and passion, but entirely without premeditation or intent to do more than to defend the young lady. So that I plead that my crime does not amount to murder from malicious intent; and likewise, that those who charge me with the actual death of Peregrine Oakshott should prove ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... C., in presenting his case, said: "I propose to show that the prisoner murdered his friend and fellow-lodger, Mr. Arthur Constant, in cold blood, and with the most careful premeditation; premeditation so studied, as to leave the circumstances of the death an impenetrable mystery for weeks to all the world, though fortunately without altogether baffling the almost superhuman ingenuity of Mr. Edward Wimp, of the Scotland Yard Detective Department. ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill

... earlier and purely secular work there is something, though less of this inequality, and its cause is not at all dubious. No poet, certainly no poet of merit, seems to have written with such absolute spontaneity and want of premeditation as Wither. The metre which was his favourite, and which he used with most success—the trochaic dimeter catalectic of seven syllables—lends itself almost as readily as the octosyllable to this frequently fatal fluency; ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... his crisp greeting as he dropped into the chair which the astute old gentleman had placed, with premeditation, close to his own some time before. He went straight to the point. "I've been thinking over what you said the other day about Martha. Well, I'll ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon

... guards, her first words were, "Pray, spare the life of that man!" This is another proof of Isabella's kind and forgiving disposition, especially when it is considered that she uttered the words spontaneously, without prompting or premeditation, but on the spur of ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... Three or four times he has said to me, and certainly without the slightest premeditation, 'at such a period I was five years old, at another ten years old, at another twelve,' and I, induced by curiosity, which kept me alive to these details, have compared the dates, and never found him inaccurate. The age of this singular man, who is of no age, is then, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... momentary sympathy called out by his attitude. My own heart indeed spoke for him. But the judge's heart may not dare to dictate to his brain or to his conscience. My conviction forced me to declare that the rector had killed Niels Bruus, but certainly without any premeditation or intention to do so. It is true that Niels Bruus had often been heard to declare that he would "get even with the rector when the latter least expected it." But it is not known that he had fulfilled his threat in any way. Every man clings to life and honor as long as he can. ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... sent to Broadmoor, which would be frightful. He ended by saying that he had had great provocation, and that he was certain the judge would consider it in passing sentence, only he must satisfy the jury there had been no premeditation. ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... sufficient to dash the lad to the ground and send his pistol flying. And before he could regain his feet or draw his remaining pistol, the last survivor was upon him, with a ponderous club upraised to dash out the youngster's brains. Like lightning the blow fell; but instinctively and without premeditation Dick just managed to dodge it; and such was the force of the blow that the club snapped short off in the brute's great hairy hand. And now the knowledge of boxing that the young sailor had aforetime somewhat painfully acquired, came to his aid, for as his ferocious antagonist crouched ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood

... her safety. This certainty of mine has been quoted to prove premeditation on the Nor'-Westers' part; but I meant nothing of the sort. I only felt there was unrest on both sides, and that she must ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... made by the Countess without premeditation, but it had been long agitated in the minds of the people, who considered that it was from France they were to hope for redress from the evils with which they were afflicted. I now found I had as favourable an opening as I could wish for ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre

... a large nail—obviously an extra one in case of need. The strong silk cord upon which Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch had hanged himself had evidently been chosen and prepared beforehand and was thickly smeared with soap. Everything proved that there had been premeditation and consciousness up to the ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... manoeuvre so suddenly, and so apparently without premeditation, that Truey looked to discover the cause. The moment before, it was gliding along in rapid retreat, its glistening form stretched to its full length along the earth. The next instant it had assumed the appearance of a coiled cable, over the edge of which projected its fierce head, with the ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid

... annals, and almost every reader becomes a partisan. Cromwell, the greatest man of his age, was still a creature of the age, and was led by the violence of circumstances to do many things questionable and even wicked, but with little premeditation: like Rienzi and Napoleon, his sudden elevation fostered an ambition which robbed him of the stern purpose and pure motives of his ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... circumstance could have been forgotten or neglected, thus disarranging all his plans. He had been wondering if this strange man would refuse the dangerous liberty which had been offered him. But he had been anxious without cause. May had fled; not thoughtlessly, but with premeditation. ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... the vast train of consequences which that event entailed. I must, however, notice some accusations which were brought against him from the time of our landing to the 9th of November. He was reproached for having left Egypt, and it was alleged that his departure was the result of long premeditation. But I, who was constantly with him, am enabled positively to affirm that his return to France was merely the effect of a sudden resolution. Of this the following fact is in ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... taste and propriety, than, by those which apply to him officially. If a man's official acts are all right, it is unjust to let them go for nothing, and bring into prominence a short address made without premeditation in the front of an excited, promiscuous assembly, moved by different motives. That it was open to criticism in some respects, is true. It should have been imbued more with the spirit of determination to maintain order and suppress ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley

... effected by troops stationed at a proper distance for availing themselves of the first favourable opportunity offered by the enemy, and success would principally depend upon the suddenness of the attempt. This, therefore, must rather be the effect of time and chance than premeditation. You undoubtedly have determined judiciously in waiting the further orders of congress. Whether they allow me the pleasure of seeing you shortly, or destine you to a longer absence, you may assure yourself of the sincere ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... The jury are mixed. At any rate I don't think they'll find the Karnins guilty of premeditation. Do you want to ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al

... Mardians. How then with those beings who every way are but too apt to be riddles. In many points the works of our great poet Vavona, now dead a thousand moons, still remain a mystery. Some call him a mystic; but wherein he seems obscure, it is, perhaps, we that are in fault; not by premeditation spoke he those archangel thoughts, which made many declare, that Vavona, after all, was but a crack-pated god, not a mortal of sound mind. But had he been less, my lord, he had seemed more. Saith Fulvi, 'Of the highest order of genius, it may ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... that had amazed her by crowding up into her mind, demanding to be said, was that she forgave him utterly—if indeed she had anything more to forgive than he. She'd never thought it before. Now she realized that it was true. He was as guiltless of premeditation on that night as she. If he had yielded to a rush of passion, even while his other instincts felt outraged by the things she had done, hadn't she yielded too, without ever having tried to tell him certain material facts that might change his feeling? They'd both ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... devil planned it," said Ford bitterly. "I bought the mine one day last summer when I was in Copah, without premeditation, without seeing it—without knowing where it was situated, just as I have told you. Some little time afterward, Frisbie came to me with the plan for the change of route. I had considered it before, but had made no estimates. Frisbie had made ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... hook with flattery there was no sign of premeditation in the gentleness of her accents or in the friendly look she gave me. Could it be possible that this was the person in whom I had seen such a ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... replied the lawyer. "There was no identity to be established. The matter was very simple. The woman had murdered her child; the infanticide was proved; the jury threw out the question of premeditation, and ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... known many excellent men that would speak suddenly to the admiration of their hearers, who upon study and premeditation have been forsaken by their own wits, and no way answered their fame; their eloquence was greater than their reading, and the things they uttered better than those they knew; their fortune deserved better ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson

... presented by the Rev. Dr. PUTNAM, who had acted as his spiritual adviser, and who laid before the Council a detailed confession, which he had received from Prof. Webster, in which he confessed that he killed Dr. Parkman with a single blow from a stick, but claimed that it was done without premeditation, in a moment of great excitement caused by abusive language. He gave at length a statement of the whole transaction. After considering the subject fully and carefully, acting under the advice of the Council, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... long and careful premeditation on the part of the French crown and its ministers, for the relations between England and her American colonies had been carefully and acutely considered by the statesmen of Versailles long before the point of open revolt was reached. Even when France ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... the Demon is to depress him still further in his own estimation than he was before, by showing him infinite things and his own abasement, till he falls into the frame of mind that leads to the catastrophe, from mere internal irritation, not premeditation, or envy of Abel (which would have made him contemptible), but from the rage and fury against the inadequacy of his state to his conceptions, and which discharges itself rather against Life, and the author of Life, than the mere living."—Letter to Moore, November 3, 1821, Letters, 1901, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... known a fragment of lace, a flower, a few bars of a song, do more to link the broken chain of memory than scores of more laboured recollections; and then these little paths that lead you back are so simple, so free from all premeditation. Don't you think ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... as mere men, and out of this seat of rigorous justice, you are susceptive of the tender passions, and too humane not to commiserate the unhappy situation of those, whom the law sometimes, perhaps—exacts—from you to pronounce upon. No doubt, you distinguish between offences which arise out of premeditation, and a disposition habituated to vice or immorality, and transgressions, which are the unhappy and unforeseen effects of casual absence of reason, and sudden impulse of passion; we, therefore, hope you will contribute all you can to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... had answered the first two questions truthfully because I had reasoned about them. The third took me unawares. And, such is the result of trifling with conscience, I had lost the knack of doing right without premeditation. "We must have time to think," Radley had said bitterly, "or else we lie." Obliged to answer ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... Allen must have secured the knife some little time before it was used, as Luigi was in the pantry just previously," observed Fenn. "That shows premeditation. It wasn't done with a weapon picked ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells

... of Monte-Leone at the wretch was so great that he hastened to terminate the conversation. The quasi complicity in a crime committed in cold blood, and with premeditation; was odious to him. ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... by premeditation his steps turned through the streets that led to his old familiar haunt, the As de Pique; and dropping down on a bench under the awning, he asked for a draught of water. It was brought him at once; the hostess, a quick, brown little woman from Paris, whom the lovers of Eugene Sue called ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... "confesses with calm the horrible crime she has committed; she confesses with calm its premeditation; she confesses its most dreadful details; in short, she confesses everything, and does not seek to justify herself. That, citizens of the jury, is her whole defence. This imperturbable calm, this utter abnegation of self, which displays no remorse even in the very presence ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... up lightly before him, showing, doubtless without premeditation, as well-turned an ankle and as pretty a foot as could fall to a damsel's fortunate lot. "My sister and Mr. Rodney have gone to the play," she said, "but they left strict instructions with me to see that ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... sudden enthusiasm, which sometimes feels as strong as the Spirit of God ever made in us the enthusiasm for virtue. 'There are moments when our passions speak and decide for us, and we seem to stand by and wonder. They carry in them an inspiration of crime, that in an instant does the work of long premeditation.'[2] 'An inspiration of crime,' that is the oracle of sin. From that come the panic and the despair of temptation. The heart, which has still left in it some loyalty to God, is horrified by the ease and the surprise of evil. ...
— Four Psalms • George Adam Smith

... his mind not to stand it any longer, secured a revolver, sought out Tomasso in his barber shop and put a bullet through his head. Now however much you may sympathize with Angelo as a man and a husband there isn't the slightest doubt that he killed Tomasso with every kind of deliberation and premeditation." ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train

... Sinclair was guilty of murder; for had the trial taken place in England before a common jury, the judge must have directed the jury to find him guilty of murder, no provocation whatever being sufficient to excuse malice, or to make the offence of killing less than murder, when it is committed with premeditation. How far the provocation was to be considered as a ground of mercy, these ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... conscious of the same things." To others, however, he would not deny it, but would admit frankly enough, that he neither entirely wrote his speeches beforehand, nor yet spoke wholly extempore. And he would affirm, that it was the more truly popular act to use premeditation, such preparation being a kind ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... men who hate most are usually those who have little time in Paris to make plans; life is too fast, too full, too much at the mercy of unexpected events. But such perpetual changes, though they hinder premeditation, nevertheless offer opportunity to thoughts lurking in the depths of a purpose which is strong enough to lie in wait for their tidal chances. When Roguin first confided his troubles to du Tillet, the latter had vaguely foreseen the possibility of destroying ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... be extravagant in his behavior; he would say that it was a matter of life or death to him; he would bring all the resources of torrid eloquence into play; he would cry that he had lost his head, that he could not think, could not write a line. The horror that some women feel for premeditation does honor to their delicacy; they would rather surrender upon the impulse of passion, than in fulfilment of a contract. In general, prescribed happiness is not the kind ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... Christian Mission began to take form, William Booth had no particular intentions as to the kind of helpers he was to have—either male or female. Female ministry evolved as a part of its service, as indeed the whole Salvation Army evolved, without premeditation or plan, indeed, as it is said of the Kingdom of God, 'without observation.' To Mr. Booth's early meetings in the East End of London came a godly man and his wife to assist him with their sympathy. The woman was so shy as to be ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter

... then been invented by the psychologists; still less could she suspect that she herself might have come partially under the influence of hypnotic suggestion. The large kindliness of the new prophet, the steady sobriety and childlikeness of his demeanour, the absence of any appearance of policy or premeditation, were not in harmony with fraud or madness. Her gentle intelligence was puzzled, as all the candid historians of this man have since been puzzled. Then, tired of the puzzle, she fell again to contemplating scraps ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... indicated. "She'll think it is all nonsense, that it doesn't matter at all!" thought Charmian. And more than ever she wanted to tell Miss Fleet. In self-restraint she became violently excited. Often she felt on the verge of tears. And at last, very suddenly and without premeditation, ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... with most cunning wisdom, a wild-animal murderer will often conceal his purpose until outside interference is an impossibility, and the victim is entirely helpless. These manifestations of fiendish cunning and premeditation are very exasperating to those responsible for the ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... me one afternoon in my room, as I came in from walking. I had been thinking of Jesus while I walked, as I was often in the habit of doing. Without any intention or premeditation on my part, I was now suddenly overwhelmed by a most horrible, unbearable, inexplicable pain of remorse for my vileness: for I seemed suddenly to be aware of Him standing there in His marvellous purity and looking at me—not with any reproach, ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley

... social gatherings at the height of political crises, she stops to tell you how some lady was dressed and how the apparel suited her. Amongst other men of the epoch she has something to say about BLOWITZ, the famous Paris correspondent of The Times. It is evident that, without premeditation, he managed to offend the lady. She reports how Prince HOHENLOHE expressed a high opinion of the journalist, remarking, "He is marvellously well-informed of all that is going on." "It was curious," writes Madame, "how a keen clever man like the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various

... their fore-mothers, that cooking is an art in itself, that may be "fine" to exquisiteness. In their eyes, it is an ugly necessity, to be got over as expeditiously as "the men-folks" will allow, their coarser natures demanding more and richer filling than women's. It follows that dishes which require premeditation and deft manipulation are unpopular. The scorn with which our middle class woman regards soups, jellies, salads and entrees is based upon prejudice that has become national. Recipes marked—"Time from three to four hours," are a feature of English ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... wouldn't he? Furthermore, he might use the boards to conceal the prints of his telltale foot-gear; but why should he not have put on shoes of the ordinary type? If he had time to prepare the boards,—the whole affair shows premeditation, —clearly he had time to change his boots. The Chinese are usually small, and this might easily account for the smallness of the hand as shown by your cast. These are the pros and cons of the only clue that suggests itself to me. By the ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy

... two struggled the girdle (obi) came loose. The contest was brought to an end. At this juncture returned Hamiya Iemon. He had little disposition to enter his home. Thus unexpectedly, without premeditation, the two came face to face. Mutually they gazed at each other. "Ho! The Danna: good day." Kosuke remained where he was, uneasily twisting. O'Iwa clasped tight the breast of her husband's ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... very first there would be nothing to conjecture and nothing to select. To put it briefly, I will end by using the language of psychiatry: if one denies that creative work involves problems and purposes, one must admit that an artist creates without premeditation or intention, in a state of aberration; therefore, if an author boasted to me of having written a novel without a preconceived design, under a sudden inspiration, ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... other times he would compose or prune his verses, as he walked in the garden, and then, coming in, dictate. His verse was not at the command of his will. Sometimes he would lie awake the whole night, trying but unable to make a single line. At other times lines flowed without premeditation "with a certain impetus and oestro." What was his season of inspiration is somewhat uncertain. In the elegy "To Spring," Milton says it was the spring which restored his poetic faculty. Phillips, however, ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... great orators, believed in premeditation, and always wrote and corrected his speeches with fastidious care. While such men knew that inspiration might come at the moment of speaking, they preferred to base their chances of success ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser

... with a glad cry, expecting her to rise. She remained seated, her hand extended. This indifference on her part may have been the result of cool premeditation. In any event, it served to check the impulsive ardour of the Prince, who, it is to be feared, had lost something in the way of self-restraint. It is certain— absolutely certain—that had she come forward to meet ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... languages; but what is all that compared to the cardinal virtues. This world is a mere bird of passage, Miss Norali; and it behooves us to be ever on the wing for futurity and premeditation. Now, will you remember the excellent moral advice I ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... greet us. We found her standing in the game path which we were following, quite a quarter of a mile from the wagons, with her hands set upon her broad hips and her feet apart. Her attitude was so defiant, and had about it such an air of premeditation, that I cannot help thinking she had got wind of our return, perhaps from having seen the smoke of our last fires, and was watching for us. Also, her greeting ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... Loiseau made three jokes that hung fire; everybody beat their brains for fresh instances to the point; and found none, when the Countess, possibly without premeditation and only from a vague desire to render homage to religion, interrogated the older of the two Sisters on the main incidents in the lives of the saints. Now, several of them had committed acts which would be counted crimes in our ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... happy chance that the Captain found her arrayed in such finery, as is so often the case with heroines of romance, but the result of much premeditation and studied effect. Ever since her meeting with Blanch she had dressed herself daily with terrible deliberation and nicety of precision, the same as every woman of flesh and blood would have done under the circumstances, on the chance of Captain Forest ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... "yass, sah. Please to 'scuse me, sah, but Ah didn't go foh no premeditation of disturbance. It is quite unintelligible, sah, but one of de men, sah, he come round, sah, and says Ah gotta give him a pie, sah, and of co'se Ah can't do nothin' like dat, sah. Pies is foh de officers and gen'lems, sah, and of ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... that the man who shot poor Selby was an ignorant savage, but there was no premeditation. It was a word and a blow. The latter, though inexcusable to the last degree, was given by a ruffian whose class are in the habit of shooting and stabbing one another (let alone strangers, whom they detest) at the slightest provocation. They are not natives ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha

... "Pierre is a rich man, I must entice him to marry my daughter and lend me the forty thousand rubles I need." But when he came across a man of position his instinct immediately told him that this man could be useful, and without any premeditation Prince Vasili took the first opportunity to gain his confidence, flatter him, become intimate with him, and finally ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... simpler than to maintain it on Pope's flank until Longstreet came into line. The direction of his marches, the position of his bivouacs, the distribution of his three divisions, were the outcome of long premeditation. On the night of the 25th he disappeared into the darkness on the road to Salem leaving the Federals under the conviction that he was making for the Valley. On the 26th he moved on Bristoe Station, rather than on ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... face of difficulties one man shows fear and worry, another acts hastily and without premeditation, a third flares up in what we call a fighting spirit and seeks to batter down the resistance, and still a fourth becomes very active mentally, calling upon all of his past experience and seeking a definite plan to ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson

... being betrayed by her husband—and that, too, with cruel premeditation—never had arisen to torture her soul. But, beyond those delicate attentions to her which she never exaggerated in her letters to her mother, she felt herself disdained and slighted. Marriage had not changed Camors's habits: he dined at home, instead of at his club, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... the reason, the preamble of every political constitution seeking a sanction and a principle, is necessarily this: THERE IS A GOD; which means that society is governed with design, premeditation, intelligence. This judgment, which excludes chance, is, then, the foundation of the possibility of a social science; and every historical and positive study of social facts, undertaken with a view to amelioration and progress, must suppose, with the people, the existence ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... we, in the face of a hostile community, become accusers when we ourselves are the accused? We should need the help and good-will of the government and a thousand times more proof than is wanted in ordinary circumstances. I am convinced there was premeditation, and subtle premeditation, on the part of our mysterious adversaries, who must have known the situation of Michu and the Messieurs de Simeuse towards Malin. Not to utter one word; not to steal one thing!—remarkable prudence! I see something very different from ordinary evil-doers behind ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac

... memorable morning, when a hunt had been arranged, Leicester escorted the Queen to the castle garden, with another chase in view. Without premeditation, but urged on by vanity and ambition, his importunity became ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... that were in him came forth then and informed his later books. These are far more carefully written, far more cunningly constructed, than the old chapters written from month to month as the fit took him, with no more plan or premeditation than "Pickwick." But it is the early stories that we remember, and that he lives by—the pages thrown off at a heat, when he was a lively doctor with few patients, and was not over-attentive to them. ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... to know," said Mr. Wharton, on whom was thrown by premeditation on the part of Lopez the task of beginning the conversation,—"I want to know what is the nature of your operation. I have never been quite ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... man hardly knew what he was doing, so shocked was he, and surprised by what he had heard. He could hardly believe that after what Thady had said to him, after the promises he had made, he would deliberately, and with premeditation, plan and execute Ussher's murder. Such an idea was incompatible with the knowledge that he had of Thady's disposition, and he concluded that there must have been some quarrel between the two men, in which Ussher had fallen the victim. He little ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... other sex. In his very heart Greystock despised this woman; he had told himself over and over again that were there no Lucy in the case he would not marry her; that she was affected, unreal,—and, in fact, a liar in every word and look and motion which came from her with premeditation. Judging, not from her own account, but from circumstances as he saw them and such evidence as had reached him, he did not condemn her in reference to the diamonds. He had never for a moment conceived that she had secreted them. He acquitted her altogether from those special charges which ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... depression in husbands of boarding-house keepers and women who rent furnished rooms. Bone-laziness filling the marrow and changing its natural pink to a Roquefort verdigris of decay, was my diagnosis of old Dewey's ailment. He moved with a premeditation which nine times out of ten amounted to standing still; rest resulted from two opposing forces, Mrs. Dewey's beseeching and threats colliding with his will traveling against her purpose with counter-balancing velocity and mass. A ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... principles which are not founded on that authority. Moral philosophy has, indeed, this peculiar disadvantage, which is not found in natural, that in collecting its experiments, it cannot make them purposely, with premeditation, and after such a manner as to satisfy itself concerning every particular difficulty which may arise. When I am at a loss to know the effects of one body upon another in any situation, I need only put them in that situation, and observe what results from it. But should I endeavour to clear ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... individuality has been merged in the common action of the family, tribe, or nation to which he belongs. He can do nothing by himself, and the first impulse to a new formation in language, though given by an individual, is mostly, if not always, given without premeditation, nay, unconsciously. The individual, as such, is powerless, and the results, apparently produced by him, depend on laws beyond his control, and on the coperation of all those who form together with him one class, one body, one organic ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... uncertainly at the point of seizing her in his arms when he was made aware of her premeditation. The tepor of her politeness was like a blow between the eyes, and he peered blindly into her face in vain for some sign ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... their couples, and yeomen, rangers, and prickers lamented the exhaling of the dew, which would prevent the scent from lying. But Leicester had another chase in view: or, to speak more justly toward him, had become engaged in it without premeditation, as the high-spirited hunter which follows the cry of the hounds that hath crost his path by accident. The Queen—an accomplished and handsome woman, the pride of England, the hope of France and Holland, and the dread of Spain—had probably listened with ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... got up with so little premeditation, that Captain Reud had no other arms than his regulation sword; and his aide-de-camp, my redoubtable self; no other weapon of offence than a little crooked dirk, so considerably curved, that it would not answer the purpose of a dagger to stab with, and so blunt, that I ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... be in such a hurry," cried Monsieur Hochon. "The young man's agitation may have been caused by something besides the premeditation of this crime. He meant to return to Paris to-day, to attend to a matter in which Gilet and Mademoiselle Brazier ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... if you were a little less pathetic," said the king. "You not only assert, but you declaim. There is too little of nature and truth in your tone; you remind me a little of the stilted French tragedies, in which design and premeditation obscure all true passion; in which love is only a phrase, that no one believes in, dressed up with the tawdry ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... disagreeable to me. I felt piqued, vexed, provoked, and the more so because I could not suppose that the lady acted in that manner wilfully and purposely; I would have been highly pleased if there had been premeditation on her part. I felt satisfied that I was a nobody in her estimation, and as I was conscious of being somebody, I wanted her to know it. At last a circumstance offered itself in which, thinking that she could address me, she was compelled ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... expect. He was always cheerful and animated, often, indeed, boisterous in his mirth; entered with spirit into convivial society; contributed largely to its enjoyments by solidity of information, and the naivete and originality of his character; talked often without premeditation, and laughed loudly ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... should Ramona say? Suddenly her heart gave way; and without premeditation, without resolve, almost without consciousness of what she was doing, she flung herself on Alessandro's breast, and cried: "Oh, Alessandro, take me with you! take me with you! I would rather die than have ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson

... their leisure hours; Molineux and Villiers flirting with the fair American sisters, until they had nearly been held fast by the chains with which they dallied, and Middlemore uttering his execrable puns with a coolness of premeditation that excited the laughter of the fair part of his auditors, while his companions, on the contrary, expressed their unmitigated abhorrence in a variety of ways. As for the somewhat staid Captain Granville, he ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... the model of that of the French. This project was promoted by the late Earl of Oxford, Lord High Treasurer, and much more by the Lord Bolingbroke, Secretary of State, who had the happy talent of speaking without premeditation in the Parliament House with as much purity as Dean Swift wrote in his closet, and who would have been the ornament and protector of that academy. Those only would have been chosen members of it whose works will last as long as the English tongue, such as Dean Swift, Mr. ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire

... instant that surge of impulse which, when it does come, shatters routine and habit to bits, seized the bear. Without premeditation, he dealt the trainer a cuff that knocked him clean over a wagon-pole and broke his arm. Before any of the other attendants could realize what had happened, the bear was beyond the circle of wagons, and half-way across the ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... spoke of this incident to Mrs. Weldon, the latter, though she shared his distrust in a certain measure, could find no plausible motive for what would be criminal premeditation on the part of the ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne

... persuade him that everybody was jealous of his successes, his genius and his position in South Africa, that it became relatively easy with a man of Rhodes' character to make him smart under the sense of non-appreciation. Thus goaded, Rhodes acted often without premeditation. ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill

... to see Frank Shabata. Ever since she last saw him in the courtroom, Frank's haggard face and wild eyes had haunted her. The trial had lasted only three days. Frank had given himself up to the police in Omaha and pleaded guilty of killing without malice and without premeditation. The gun was, of course, against him, and the judge had given him the full sentence,—ten years. He had now been in the ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather

... Kent looked dubious. "I would believe him guilty if it were not for the use of aconitine—that shows premeditation on ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... that it was a case of chance-medley, or to bring it under manslaughter, as a thing done in a passion, and if he thinks that being employed by you will be any defence, or will show that it was a sudden burst of rage, without premeditation, he will tell the whole story as soon as he would ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... down. Premeditation is neither rashness nor recklessness. Jack, life has begun with you; with me it has come to an end. When there is nothing more to live for, it is time to die. But how? That is the question. A war would be a God-send; but these so-called ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath

... the station, Maria climbed in, Wollaston and Gladys after her. Neither Wollaston nor Gladys had the slightest premeditation in the matter; they were fairly swept along by ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... assented Gabriel. "That's the worst of it. Everything points to premeditation. And when a man has been so ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher

... our passions speak and decide for us, and we seem to stand by and wonder. They carry in them an inspiration of crime, that in one instant does the work of long premeditation.—George Eliot. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... altogether so irresistibly handsome, that, for the life of him, he could not forbear saluting, approaching, and addressing her. He was affably received, and the conversation, at first slight and indifferent, turned gradually, without premeditation on his part, but, as it were, by a sort of irresistible fatality, into that sombre and troubled channel whither, sooner or later, though not exactly then, he had determined ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... allusion to his character of Saviour, were naturally sought for in it.[1] Perhaps he, like all mystics, exalted himself in this respect. It is thus that more than one great vocation in history has been caused by a name given to a child without premeditation. Ardent natures never bring themselves to see aught of chance in what concerns them. God has regulated everything for them, and they see a sign of the supreme will in ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... coalition weakened. Loiseau spoke three unfortunate sentences. Each was racking his brains to find new examples and did not find any, when the Countess, possibly without premeditation, prompted by a vague desire to render homage to religion, questioned the elder of the two nuns about the most noteworthy deeds in the lives of the Saints.—Now, many Saints had committed acts which would be crimes in our estimation; but the Church absolves readily such ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... statement Professor Webster denied all premeditation. Dr. Putnam asked him solemnly whether he had not, immediately before the crime, meditated at any time on the advantages that would accrue to him from Parkman's death. Webster replied "Never, before God!" He had, he protested, ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... boots, pulling the hair of some of the smaller boys, pinching the others in aggravating places, and rendering himself in various similar ways a great comfort and happiness to his mother. Their entrance, whether by premeditation or a simultaneous impulse, was the signal of revolt for the boys. While one detachment rushed to the door and locked it, and another mounted the desks and forms, the stoutest (and consequently the newest) boy seized the ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... a most peculiar way some years after the close of the War, and it was thought by many that his death was the result of premeditation upon his part. ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... went on, without taking any notice. "I should think it right to prosecute, if I found out that this offence against me was only one of a series committed, with premeditation, against society. I should then feel, as a protector of others ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... import uttered by Krishna, Satyabhama, having first reverenced the virtuous princess of Panchala, answered saying, 'O princess of Panchala, I have been guilty, O daughter of Yajnasena, forgive me! Among friends, conversations in jest arise naturally, and without premeditation." ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... backwards, while over her countenance flitted a vague, undefinable, almost spectral expression of terror. He saw it, and swift words came at once to his lips,—words that uttered themselves without premeditation. ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... consisted perfectly with policy, his mission considered. Soon or late he would have to adopt every form and observance of Christian worship. In this performance, however, there was no premeditation, no calculation. In his exaltation of soul he fancied he heard a voice passing with the tempestuous jubilation of the singers: "On thy knees, O apostate! On thy knees! God ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... still. The second to go was Laura, who married Captain Level, and accompanied him to India. Then he, Val, a young man in his teens, went out into the world, and did all sorts of harm in it in an unintentional sort of way; for Percival Elster never did wrong by premeditation. Next came the death of his mother. He was called home from a sojourn in Scotland—where his stay had been prolonged from the result of an accident—to bid her farewell. Then he was at home for a year or more, making love to charming Anne Ashton. The next move was his ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... premeditation that this establishment had received the name of one of the gambling dens of Europe? Perhaps the following information may serve to answer the question. The Hotel de Homburg was one of those flash hostelries frequented by adventurers of distinction, who are attracted to Paris by the ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... taken for ten minutes, in the hope that he would arrive, Senator Sargent, of California, took the floor. Mr. Conkling finally came in, and when he began to speak, appeared to be in better health than on the day previous, and he again uttered his well-rounded sentences as if without premeditation. Once he forgot himself, when, to give additional emphasis to a remark, he advanced across the aisle toward Senator Morton. The Senator from Indiana retreating, Mr. Conkling exclaimed, in the most dramatic tone, "I see that the Senator retreats ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... reading in his eyes that her first effect was produced, she rose and busied herself about her guests with well-bred courtesy. There was nothing studied or forced in her motions, smiles, behavior, or voice, nothing that betrayed premeditation or purpose. All was harmonious; no part was over-acted; an observer could not have supposed that she affected the manners of a society in which she had not lived. When the Royalist and the Republic were seated she looked sternly at the count. He, ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... custom: one swallow does not make a summer. Is what I have just seen due to accident or to premeditation? I turn to other Lycosae. Many, a deal too many for my patience, stubbornly refuse to dart from their haunts in order to attack the Carpenter-bee. The formidable quarry is too much for their daring. Shall not hunger, which brings the wolf from the wood, also bring ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... letter to Sherman, charged him with having permitted the burning of Columbia, if he did not order it directly; and this has been iterated later by many Southern writers. The correspondence between Halleck and Sherman is cited to show premeditation on the part of the general. "Should you capture Charleston," wrote Halleck, December 18, 1864, "I hope that by some accident the place may be destroyed, and if a little salt should be sown upon the site it may prevent ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... at the Italiens. You can there watch at your leisure the studied deliberateness of her movements. The enchanting deceiver plays off all the little political artifices of her sex so naturally as to exclude all idea of art or premeditation. If she has a royally beautiful hand, the most perspicacious beholder will believe that it is absolutely necessary that she should twist, or refix, or push aside the ringlet or curl she plays with. If she has some dignity ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac

... not make it a bit clearer to my mind. I will now, however, present the ideas, without premeditation and without criticism, which introspection yielded. I soon notice that it is an advantage to break up the dream into its elements, and to search out the ideas which link ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud

... Major Skinner, before alluded to, brought together without premeditation, the naturalist will be struck by the preponderance of those genera which are adapted by nature to endure, a temporary privation of moisture; and this, taken in connection with the vicissitudes affecting the ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... to deprive of life, human, animal, or vegetable, with no suggestion of how or why. Assassinate, execute, murder, apply only to the taking of human life; to murder is to kill with premeditation and malicious intent; to execute is to kill in fulfilment of a legal sentence; to assassinate is to kill by assault; this word is chiefly applied to the killing of public or eminent persons through alleged political motives, whether secretly or openly. To slay is to ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... door by the private watchman, and so boldly that the watchman, seeing them here, believed them clerks of the bank, and let them go unmolested. No: this was the coincidence of good luck, not of bold premeditation. There will be no second attempt. (Yawns.) If they don't come soon I shall fall asleep. Four nights without rest will tell on a man, unless he has some excitement to back him. (Nods.) Hallo! What was that? Oh! Jackson in the counting-room getting to bed. ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte



Words linked to "Premeditation" :   malice aforethought, planning, provision, jurisprudence, forethought, preparation, premeditate, mens rea, law



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