"Venial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... path. And the queen of rivers beholding them in the predicament, asked them, 'Why look ye so dejected? Ye dwellers in heaven, is everything right with you?' Those celestials, the Vasus, answered her, saying, 'O queen of rivers, we have been cursed, for a venial fault, by the illustrious Vasishtha in anger. The foremost of excellent Rishis, Vasishtha, had been engaged in his twilight adorations and seated as he was, he could not be seen by us. We crossed him in ignorance. Therefore, in wrath he hath cursed us, saying, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... it had been arranged that the cost should be paid per gun; but there was a vacancy still, and Ralph the heir, being quite willing to pay for his cousin, thought no harm to cover his generosity under a venial falsehood. The disinherited one, however, declined the offer, with many thanks. "There is nothing, old fellow, I wouldn't do for you, if I knew how," said the happy heir. Whereupon the Norfolk Ralph unconsciously resolved that he would accept nothing,—or as little ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... to-day, the restrictions on woman in the married relation are much greater than upon man.[208] Adultery, which is polygamy outside of the married relation, is everywhere held as more venial in man than in woman. In England, while the husband can easily obtain a divorce from his wife, upon the ground of adultery, it is almost impossible for the wife to obtain a divorce upon the same ground. Nothing short of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Quakers generally towards the punishment of death, except for murder in the highest degree, was hostile; but Mrs. Fry's constant intercourse with inmates in the condemned cell fixed her attention in a very painful manner upon the subject. For venial crimes, men and women, clinging fondly to life, were swung off into eternity; and neither the white lips of the philanthropist, nor the official ones of the appointed chaplain, could comfort the dying. Among these dying ones were many women, who were executed for simply passing ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... presumptuous, but it was heard unblamed, and granted in so far as possible. It was a venial error—if error it may be called—that a soul, touched with the flame of divine love, should aspire beyond the possibilities of mortality. At all events, it was a fault in which he has had few imitators. Our desires keep but too well within the limits ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... morality and decorum, as was his course of life while under the roof of Madame * *, it was (with pain I am forced to confess) venial in comparison with the strange, headlong career of licence to which, when weaned from that connection, he so unrestrainedly and, it may be added, defyingly abandoned himself. Of the state of his mind on leaving England I have already endeavoured to convey some idea, and, among the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... her, indeed: "My daughter, you have behaved with the fortitude of a saint. It would have been more than a venial sin, if you had kissed and blessed a rebel in the very act of his rebellion. The Holy Mary will reward ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... so officiously befriended by him, as to have his presence in the tiring-house, to prompt us aloud, stamp at the book-holder, swear for our properties, curse the poor tireman, rail the music out of tune, and sweat for every venial trespass we commit, as some author would, if he had such fine enghles as we. Well, 'tis ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... the monks themselves followed, in two lines. And what was the motto of their banner? "Justitia et Misericordia!" Then followed the culprits, to the number of three hundred, each with his godfather by his side, and his large wax candle lighted in his hand. Those whose offences have been most venial walk first; all are bareheaded, and barefooted. After this portion, who wore only the dress of black and white serge, came those who carried the Sanbenitos; then those who wore the Samarias, with ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... members have been treated too severely, according to its standard, by a certain professor, what more natural than to create a disturbance in the recitation-room or in public? In itself considered, the act is a youthful ebullition, and we might be tempted at first to look upon it as something venial and pass it by in silence. Reflection, however, should lead us to the opposite conclusion. There is nothing that a college faculty cannot afford to pardon sooner than disorder. The reason is almost self-evident. There is nothing that ruins so effectually ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... marks a collusion between him and his superior, to gratify the revenge of the former, and the avarice of the latter. Indeed, we need not wonder that the killing of a man should be considered as so venial an offence, amongst a people who do not consider it as any crime at all to murder their own children. When talking to them, about such instances of unnatural cruelty, and asking, whether the chiefs or principal people were not angry, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... of a moment, so soon repented of, so largely excusable, is far more venial than many of our denials. For a continuous life in contradiction to our profession is a blacker crime than a momentary fall, and they who, year in and year out, call themselves Christians, and deny their ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... altogether account for that Captain Filbert should not desert her post. The idea had an element of irritation oddly personal; he could not bear to reflect upon it. It may be wondered whether in any flight of venial imagination Arnold saw himself in a parallel situation with a lady. I am sure he did not. It may be considered, however, that among mirages there are unaccountable resemblances—resemblances without shape or form. He ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... legitimate offspring of marriage and its accompanying errors. Women, for no other crime than having followed the dictates of a natural appetite, are driven with fury from the comforts and sympathies of society. It is less venial than murder; and the punishment which is inflicted on her who destroys her child to escape reproach is lighter than the life of agony and disease to which the prostitute is irrecoverably doomed. Has a woman obeyed the impulse of unerring nature;—society declares war ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Marryat, we are sorry to say, has taken to the same line. Both these popular authors may rely upon our warning, that they will live to see their laurels fade unless they more carefully cultivate a spirit of self-respect. That which was venial in a miserable starveling of Grub Street is perfectly disgusting in the extravagantly paid novelists of these days—the caressed, of generous booksellers. Mr Ainsworth and Captain Marryat ought to disdain such pitiful peddling. Let them ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... unimportant reservations, limiting the area at their disposal for the practice. It is needless—and might be thought indelicate—to instance the numerous expressions that no little girl should use under any circumstances, which are regarded as venial sin in little boys, except of course on Sunday. Society does not absolutely countenance the practices of spitting and sniffing in little boys, but it closes its eyes and passes hypocritically by on the other side of the road; while, on the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... do so," she said with a smile. "I learned when my first children were young that it was the part of wisdom to be sometimes blind to venial faults. Not," she added more gravely, "that I would ever put disrespect to my father in that category, but we must not make too much of a little girlish petulance, especially when excited by a generous sympathy with the troubles ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... penitent confusion Upon interior peace amidst anxieties Upon discouragement Upon rising after a fall Upon kindliness towards ourselves Upon imperfections The just man falls seven times in the day Upon the purgative way Upon venial sin Upon complicity in the sins of another Upon equivocating Upon solitude Upon vanity Upon the knowledge which puffs up Upon scruples Upon temptations Upon the same subject Thoughts on the Incarnation Upon Confession and Communion Upon Confession Upon ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... moment. She had experienced the emotion of it, and just the same would it have been a matter of indifference to her had the dagger pierced Natalie's breast—she was sufficiently a child of the South to consider a murder as only a venial sin, for which ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... system of instruction was the absence of all punishment, except such as was self-inflicted, under a code of laws of our own, hereafter to be noticed. Twice, or perhaps three times, during the term of my residence, one of the pupils, on account of repeated inattention, or for similar venial cause, was requested by the professor, during the course of the recitation, to leave the room. But this was quite an event, to be talked of for a week, so contrary was it to the regular, quiet, uncoercing routine of the institution. No expulsion ever occurred. I do not myself remember ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... has no individuality capable of being exercised in a purely selfish direction;—I am using the word "selfish" in its ordinary acceptation. A greedy ant, a sensual ant, an ant capable of any one of the seven deadly sins, or even of a small venial sin, is unimaginable. Equally unimaginable, of course, a romantic ant, an ideological ant, a poetical ant, or an ant inclined to metaphysical speculations. No human mind could attain to the absolute matter-of-fact ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... rather fix upon John, than Frederick. No scandal, touching Frederick, had ever reached his ears: plenty of it touching John. In fact, Mr. Verner was rather glad to help in shipping John off to some faraway place, for he considered him no credit to Verner's Pride, or benefit to the neighbourhood. Venial sins sat lightly on the conscience ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the woman I no longer respect. I do not hate you; but I do sincerely pity you, and humbly, and fervently do I pray that you may, ere too late, see the errors of your conduct. You, by your own confession, deem coquetry a venial error; can that be such, from which come such cruel and mischievous results. But no more. I forgive you most freely, and shall ever fervently pray that you may see and feel how inimical to peace here, as well as hereafter, is such ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... scrupulous person, who frameth himself many times double the fear that he hath cause, and many times a great fear where there is no cause at all. And of that which is indeed no sin, he maketh a venial one. And that which is venial, he imagineth to be deadly—and yet, for all that, he falleth into them, since they are of their nature such as no man long liveth without. And then he feareth that he is never fully confessed nor fully contrite, and then that his sins be never ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... and Courtin: The Presence seems, with things so richly odd, The mosque of Mahound, or some queer pagod. See them survey their limbs by Durer's rules, 240 Of all beau-kind the best proportion'd fools! Adjust their clothes, and to confession draw Those venial sins, an atom, or a straw; But oh! what terrors must distract the soul Convicted of that mortal crime, a hole; Or should one pound of powder less bespread Those monkey tails that wag behind their head. Thus finish'd, and corrected ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... solution in my mind of the problem of the safety of others; and then I halted, having given up the thought that in this life it was possible to regenerate the body, putting down its failings as venial and connected with our human infirmities. In time it came to me that surely some growth, some improvement, ought to be made, some increased sanctification ought to be expected, one ought not to be so very barren; glimpses of selfishness, self-seeking pride, and a ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... of his pantaloons. Him I was compelled to expel from my house, the Toe of my Boot aiding; and meeting him subsequently at a Coffee-house, and he not seeming sufficiently impressed with the turpitude of his Offence, but the rather inclined to regard it as a venial Prank or Whimsey, I did Batoon him within an inch of his life, and until there were more wheals on his Body than bars of silver-braid on his Jacket. This led to a serious misunderstanding between Justice ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... truthfulness is by no means very powerful or universal. Few laws enforce it. No very severe reprobation follows untruthfulness. In all ages and countries, falsehood has been thought allowable in love, and laudable in war; while, at the present day, it is held to be venial by the majority of mankind, in trade, commerce, and speculation. A certain amount of untruthfulness is a necessary part of politeness in the east and west alike, while even severe moralists have held a lie justifiable, to elude ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Nothing is easier, nothing commoner (most wise people do it, whose fate is, that they must keep up with the race of current publication, and therefore must keep down the still-increasing crowd of authorial creations), nothing is more venial, more laudable, than to read the last chapter first; and so, finding out all mysteries at once, to save one's self a vast deal of unnecessary trouble. And, for mere tale-telling, this may be sufficient. What need to burden memory with imaginary statements, or to weary ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Excellency. "That's simply rich!" Here was a thing to relish! The Frontier comes to town "heeled for a big time," finds that presents are all the rage, and must immediately give somebody something. Oh, childlike, miscellaneous Frontier! So thought the good-hearted Governor; and it seems a venial misconception. "My dear fellow," he added, meaning as well as possible, "I don't want you to spend your money ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... of this hindrance, especially in the country districts, is our ignorant, and, in too many cases, venial ministry, for ignorance is the greatest curse on earth, save sin. The Sunday-school is destined to be the most potent factor in the removal of this evil. As our children see the light as revealed in the Sunday-school ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... was engaged in sanguinary wars, and her flag was borne by her ships on every sea. It was difficult to man her navy, the pay being small, and the penalties for misconduct or venial errors terribly severe. Therefore, when on the ocean, British ships of war in want of men were in the habit of impressing sailors from merchant vessels, and often without regard to national character. American ships were fired at, brought to, and strictly searched by these tyrants of the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, so far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul,—I will not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.' I should steal the farthing and assume the 'excuse.' I confess that I would not only lie, but should think lying right under the ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... not repress a smile at Belle's association of herself with him in the guilt of the affair. In fact, he rather liked the idea, for it made his own part seem quite venial after all—an error of ignorance like that of the child's—so he said kindly, "Indeed, we did not, and now we'll make amends. You go and see what is needed and let me know, and to-morrow, if you wish, you can take your own place and not any one's else. ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... permitted no familiarity with any living being, no sympathies with any other heart, commanded but never indulged, rebuked but never applauded, she must have sunk beneath the severities imposed on her by her father, but for the venial disobedience committed in the pursuit of the solitary pleasure procured for her by her lute. Vainly, in her hours of study, did she read the fierce anathemas against love, liberty, and pleasure, poetry, painting, and music, gold, silver, and precious stones, which the ancient ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... should be noted that the Catholic writers who express their extreme disgust at the immoral principles of Luther belong to a Church whose theologians have made very questionable distinctions between venial sins and others. Papal dispensations and decisions of Catholic casuists, especially in the order of the Jesuits, have startled the world by their moral perverseness. Yea, the very principles of probabilism and mental reservation which the Jesuits have ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... intended for the popular personification of evil. Implacable hate, patient cunning, and a sleepless refinement of device to inflict the extremest anguish on an enemy, these things are evil; and, although venial in a slave, are not to be forgiven in a tyrant; although redeemed by much that ennobles his defeat in one subdued, are marked by all that dishonours his conquest in the victor. Milton's Devil as a moral being is as ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... souls are those who, after their conversion, give themselves up to meditation, or even to works of charity. They perform some exterior austerities; endeavour, little by little, to purify themselves, to rid themselves of certain notable sins, and even of voluntary venial ones. They endeavour, with all their little strength, to advance gradually, but it is ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... has cultivated the habit of speaking correctly, as that habit is not apt to be found united with carelessness of observation. Such persons would, perhaps, look upon this sort of carelessness as a venial offence; but it is not so. Anything that interferes with, or diminishes the capacity for, perceiving or speaking the truth is of importance, and should never be passed over lightly. God is truth no less than love, and every variation from the truth ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... of a holy mission; my thoughts were far away, and the words of Clarimonde were ever upon my lips like an involuntary refrain. Oh, brother, meditate well on this! Through having but once lifted my eyes to look upon a woman, through one fault apparently so venial, I have for years remained a victim to the most miserable agonies, and the happiness of my life has ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... challenge to his own preconceived notions, and that, without for a moment intending to be unfair, he responded to this challenge by giving the school a strongly adverse report. Immorality and irreligiousness as such are comparatively venial offences in the eyes of religious orthodoxy. What it cannot tolerate is that men should be moral and religious in any but the ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... it worthy the bestower, when The talent is not hidden in the dust Of pampered negligence and venial sin, But put to studious use, that it may work The end and aim for which it was bestowed. All Good is God's; all Love and Truth are His; We are His workers; and we dare not plead But that He gave us largely of all these, Demanding a discreet return, that when ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... Sabbath-breaking; had inflicted various terms of imprisonment on two drunkards and a beggar-woman; had discharged for lack of evidence (but with admonition) a youth accused of profane swearing; and were now working through a list of commoner and more venial offences, such as cheating by the use ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... expressing his opinion at them. It is regrettable that criticism should be written in this fashion, since it causes a feeling of distrust. Probably the writer had no desire to be unjust, or even unfair in the comparatively venial way of doing rather less than justice to the author in his desire to do rather ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... neighbour, old Lady Cork, "The Dowager-Countess of Cork and Orrery," as her door-plate proclaimed, some of whose peculiarities I may mention without offence, as they were notorious and (the physicians judged) innocent and venial. Whenever she found herself alone (and she kept profuse hospitality three or four days a week, with her vast illuminated conservatory full of artificial flowers and grapes and oranges tied on everything), ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... a perception of the ridiculous, perhaps to excess, is characteristic of the British mind, and is at the bottom of many defects in the national manners, commonly attributed to less venial feelings, our Transatlantic descendants err in just the opposite direction. The Americans seldom laugh at any body, or any thing—never at themselves; and this, next to an unfortunate trick of insolvency, and a preternatural abhorrence of niggers, is perhaps ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... followed; their first genuine humorist, he flashes forth his wit like a stream of light suddenly turned on in the dark. That he measured the worth of his productions by the generous meed of praise given by his contemporaries is a venial offense in the time of the troubadours and minnesingers. Charisi was particularly happy in his use of the "mosaic" style, and his short poems and epigrams are most charming. Deep melancholy is a foil to his humor, but as often his writings are disfigured by levity. The following may serve ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... the young man; its immediate effect was that of allaying his agitation. The theatrical touch in her manner made his offense seem more venial than he had thought it a ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... do not believe that all men have their price, I suspect that some Custom House officials have not always been proof against temptation, and are not now. And perjury in the view of a non-christian Chinese is a venial offense except when so clumsily committed as to lead to detection. But, no matter how these new comers get here, once among us they are fish for our fishing, and when one of them becomes a Christian and tells me he has been in the country five ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 2, June, 1898 • Various
... not do that in this case,—not so much because she was his wife, as because she was so young, so innocent, so unaware of the complications of existence. How could she understand the temptations that assail a young man in the heyday of life, to whom many indulgences appear permissible or venial, which to her limited and innocent soul would seem unpardonable sins? To live even for a few years with a stainless nature like that of Lucy, in whom there was not even so much knowledge as would make the approaches of vice comprehensible, ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... the Derya-Dowlut, is not for a moment tenable as warranting such extreme measures:—since not only was the participation of the parties on whom the whole responsibility was thrown, at all events extremely venial; but satisfaction had been given, and had been admitted to have been given, before the subject of the cession of the place was broached:—and the Sultan constantly denied that his alleged consent to the transfer, on which the subsequent hostilities were grounded, had ever been intended to be ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... frequently happened that they imbibed, enough, not only to make them a little exuberant but also quite intoxicated, she thought she must not expect her husband to be different from other men in this respect, as it was at most only a venial offence. But now when his troubles thickened, and his friends one after another left him, and he began to drink more deeply to drown his cares and to stimulate him to meet his difficulties, her partial anxiety deepened into agony, strong and intense. She ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... cried the impatient Elizabeth, those laws that condemn a man like the Leather-Stocking to so severe a punishment, for an offence that even I must think very venial, cannot be ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... not choose to be over-curious upon the subject, and on his return to his affairs it was by common consent passed over as hardly criminal in one who was otherwise so much afflicted. For they regard bodily ailments as the more venial in proportion as they have been produced by causes independent of the constitution. Thus if a person ruin his health by excessive indulgence at the table or by drinking, they count it to be almost a ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... be convinced that his sin of autograph collecting was not venial. When authors denied his requests, on the ground that they were intrusions, he was inclined to believe that selfishness lay at the basis of their motives. Some men are quite willing to accept great fame, but they resent being obliged to pay the penalties. They wish to sit in the fierce light ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... by a special privilege of divine grace, man, even though he be in the state of sanctifying grace, is unable to avoid venial sin throughout life.* ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... that the course he followed during Wapole's administration was indefensible. All due weight being given to these various considerations, it must be admitted, nevertheless, that Pitt did overstep the limits within which inconsistency is usually regarded as venial. His one great object was first to gain office, and then to make his tenure of office secure by conciliating the favour of the king. The entire revolution which much of his policy underwent in order to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... the law which adjudged her guilty, and its duly appointed administrators are either too timid or too negligent of duty to endeavor to enforce it.... It is doubtful whether they had the right to refuse those votes. In any event their offense is venial as compared with hers. It does not look well for the District Attorney thus to proceed against the lesser offenders, while the chief offender snaps her fingers at the law, and dares its ministers to make her a martyr.... We write in no spirit ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the language of the better sort of light literature as the language of conversation and of familiar letter-writing. Even some of the idiomatic blemishes of conversation may perhaps, in such a work, be venial, if not laudable. I have not always sought to be a minute purist even on points of grammar. Cowper, rather singularly, appears from his practice to proscribe colloquial abbreviations in poetry, though they were, I suppose, at least as usual in his time as in ours, and are used ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... as an immaterial rite, which might innocently vary with the fashion of the age and country. With regard to the second, both parties were agreed in the belief of an intermediate state of purgation for the venial sins of the faithful; and whether their souls were purified by elemental fire was a doubtful point, which in a few years might be conveniently settled on the spot by the disputants. The claims of supremacy appeared of a more weighty and substantial kind; yet by the Orientals ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... enough that I could make, to this inquiry, no answer that would not involve something of a sacrifice of my employer. Yet it appeared to me that we were all, at Bly, sufficiently sacrificed to make that venial. "I don't think ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... them a code of laws, to which they conformed with scrupulous fidelity. Polygamy, which once prevailed among them to a great extent, was now rarely indulged. All the crimes denounced by the Christian faith met with severe punishment among them. Even theft, so venial a crime among the Indians, had recently been punished with hanging, by sentence of ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... from the University of Virginia, but bore himself well there as a student and a man; that he deliberately went to work and procured his being dropped from the rolls of West Point by building up with venial faults the requisite sum of "demerits," after having repeatedly and in vain sought permission to withdraw from the control of a system of discipline so unsuited to his temperament; that, so far from being intemperate, a single glass of wine ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... undergo some punishment for the offence of being caught in transactions which were all the time carried on with impunity, he told himself that interest could be used to make his punishment light. In these hopeful moods it was a necessity of his drama that his transgression of the law should seem venial to him. It was only when he feared the worst that he ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... Victor Herbert." Offenbach's charming opera had been heard in New York before, from a French company managed by Maurice Grau, but it required a memory that compassed twenty-five years to recall that fact; so in respect of it Mr. Hammerstein's slip was venial at the worst. His list of the greatest singers in the world read as follows: Sopranos: Nellie Melba, Lillian Nordica, Mary Garden, Gianinna Russ, Camille Borello, Ludmilla Sigrist, Giuseppina Giaconia, ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... religion. But, at any rate, such connexions are so common, I might almost say universal, in our slave colonies, that except by the missionaries and a few serious persons, they are considered, if faults at all, so very venial as scarcely to deserve the name of immorality. Mr. Wood knows this colonial estimate of such connexions as well as I do; and, however false such an estimate must be allowed to be, especially When applied to their own ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... was inspired and compelled to utter in this world by such methods as he had. There for him lay the first commandment; this is what it would have been the unforgivable sin to swerve from and desert: the treason of treasons for him, it were there; compared with which all other sins are venial! ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... goods on several occasions by the revenue officers; and that, however erroneous the idea, he thought himself justified in making reprisals. Besides, Wilson's conduct had excited a very great sympathy in his favour; and the crime for which he was condemned was considered very venial at that time by the populace, who hated the malt-tax, and saw no more harm in smuggling, or in robbing a collector of excise, than in any matter of trifling importance. The magistrates of Edinburgh, in order to defeat all attempts at a rescue, lodged the executioner the day ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... stations aboard the Julia; or else the planters must have considered him some illustrious individual, for certain inscrutable reasons, going incog. With this idea of him, his undisguised disinclination for work became venial; and entertaining such views of extending their business, they counted more upon his ultimate value to them as a man of science ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... of his day, yet he had none of the airs of authorship." He continues—"He was a proud man; not a proud poet, or historian, or novelist." His was the pride of ancestry—a weakness, to be sure, but of a venial nature: "he loved to be looked on as a gentleman of old family, who built Abbotsford, and laid out its garden, and planted its avenues, rather than a genius, whose works influenced mankind, and diffused happiness among millions." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... prove to you how I trust to you, you shall come with me, and see this—the lady of whom I spoke, and judge for yourself whether my fault is not a venial one." ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Divested of ornaments, enough remained to satisfy him that an attempt to arrest Holden had been made. For the cause, he was at first at a loss; for, though he had heard of the disturbance at the conference, he hardly supposed that an offence which he regarded as so venial, would have drawn along such serious consequences. But when he heard that generally assigned as the reason, having no words of his own to express his astonishment, he was obliged to resort to his ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... direction, they could not allow any weak sentiment of pity or human consideration to influence their judgment. Their only error was in their failure to discern the authenticity of the girl's miracles, and we must call that a venial error, since it has taken the Church nearly five centuries to give a final decision on the point. The authenticity of miracles! Of all questions that is the most difficult for a contemporary to decide. In the case of Joan's judges, indeed, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... resorted to by his indolence on this occasion. Some verses by Tickell are mentioned as having supplied one of the best stanzas; but I am inclined to think, from the following circumstances, that this theft of Sheridan was of that venial and domestic kind—from himself. A writer, who brings forward the accusation in the Gentleman's Magazine, (vol. lxxi. p. 904,) thus ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... sin given way to, and entertained without controlment, without wrestling against it, hindereth the acceptation of your solemn approaches. If your heart regard iniquity, shall God hear? Psal. lxvi. 18. No, believe it, the least sin that you may judge at first venial, and then give it toleration and indulgence, shall separate between God's face and you. Your prayers are abomination, because of such an idol perked up in the heart beside God, that getteth the honour and worship due to him, and God must answer you according to it, Ezek. xix. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... have drunk chocolate and played at dominoes or picquet all his life on the Piazza di San Marco, when Alfieri was crossing the sierras on his Andalusian horse, and devouring a frugal meal of rice in solitude. Goldoni glided through life an easy man, with genial, venial thoughts; with a clear, gay, gentle temper; a true sense of what is good and just; and a heart that loved diffusively, if not too warmly. Many were the checks and obstacles thrown on his path; but round them or above them he passed nimbly, without scar or scathe. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... not lost in brilliancy since he passed from the world in which he acted such a providential part. Like the Phidian Zeus his proportions are all the more majestic for the distance which rounds over any venial defect. His example is as valuable to the American Republic of the present as his life-work was to the America of a century ago. As water never rises above its source, so a great nation should have a great founder, and the figure of Washington is sublime enough to be the oriflamme of a people's ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... the goodly matter which my readers have just perused, I might be said to go through a course of breaking-in to stand criticism, like a shooting-pony to stand fire. By some of those venial breaches of confidence, which always take place on the like occasions, my private flirtations with the Muse of Fiction became a matter whispered in Miss Fairscribe's circle, some ornaments of which ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... bespattered but the spotless, not the real but the ideal. All this may awaken in us contempt and disgust; but if we consider these figures in themselves as realities, and compare them with the evil figures of our drama, we find that they are mere venial sinners—light, fickle, amorous, fibbing—very human in their faults; human, trifling, mild, not at all monstrous, like all the art products of ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... was effected entirely by the act of the two celebrants themselves and not by the priest. Gradually, however, a more reasonable and humane opinion crept into the Church. Intercourse outside the animal end of marriage was indeed a sin, but it became merely a venial sin. The great influence of St. Augustine was on the side of allowing much freedom to intercourse outside the aim of procreation. At the Reformation, John a Lasco, a Catholic Bishop who became a Protestant and settled in England, laid it down, following various earlier theologians, ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... uttered or written a word against the Manbo's sexual morality. It is true that sexual matters are discussed with the greatest freedom, but the most venial breaches of morality are punished. The greatest modesty is observed in regard to the exposure of the private parts. Gazing at an undressed woman, for instance, at the bathing place results in a fine. Unseemly insinuations to a woman are visited with a similar ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... beauty, the wonderful scroll of tone, and say that this mighty genius remains in a class alone. I whistle "The Pilgrims' Chorus," and chortle of "Lohengrin," and say that all other music is merely a venial sin. But when at my own piano Susannah sits down to play, I beg her to cut out Wagner and shoo all his noise away. "I'm weary and worn and beaten; my spirits," I say, "are low; so give us some helpful music—a few bars ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... that the sins which thou hast committed up to the time of the penance will all by virtue thereof be purged and pardoned unto thee, and those which thou shalt commit thereafterward will not be written to thy prejudice, but will pass away with the holy water, as venial sins do now. It behoveth a man, then, in the first place, whenas he cometh to begin the penance, to confess himself with the utmost diligence of his sins, and after this he must keep a fast and a very strict abstinence for the space of forty days, during which time thou[166] ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Scold me if you will! Since yesterday, a vague, unutterable dread of having offended you pours grief on the life of feeling which you had made so sweet and so rich. The lightest veil that comes between two souls sometimes grows to be a brazen wall. There are no venial crimes in love! If you have the very spirit of that noble sentiment, you must feel all its pangs, and we must be unceasingly careful not to fret each other ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... completed his studies, he frequently showed the difference between a mortal and a venial sin of thought. While speaking about his Exercises, he was closely questioned. To their questions, however, he replied, "What I say is either false or true; if false, condemn it." The ...
— The Autobiography of St. Ignatius • Saint Ignatius Loyola
... teeth with impotent anger; for it seemed such hard lines, just when I had succeeded in getting into favor, to go and spoil it all in that unhappy way. Now that I had become acquainted with their style of singing, the supposed fib, about which there had been such a pother, seemed a very venial offense compared with my attempt to lead the singing. Nevertheless, when the concert was over, not a word was said on the subject by any one, though I had quite expected to be taken at once to the magisterial chamber to hear some dreadful sentence passed on me; and when, before ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... chapter, are mere hors d'oeuvres: such "copy" should have been reserved for another edition of "The Modern Egyptians." The substitution of chapters for Nights was perverse and ill-judged as it could be, but it appears venial compared with condensing the tales in a commentary, thus converting the Arabian Nights into Arabian Notes. However, "Arabian Society in the Middle Ages," a legacy left by the "Uncle and Master", and like ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... the potter has produced a tolerable pot, and we may write down his fault of extreme foolhardiness as venial. What, however, Mr. CONRAD himself thought of the rehearsals, if he attended them—but perhaps we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... not rolled in the dust of vanity, we do not venture entirely to justify the zealous love which we have so long had for books, or to deny that it may perchance sometimes have been the occasion of some venial negligence, albeit the object of our love is honourable and our intention upright. For if when we have done everything, we are bound to call ourselves unprofitable servants; if the most holy Job was afraid of all his works; if according to Isaiah all our righteousness is as filthy rags, who shall ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... modesty of the senior service. So shy indeed is our Fleet of praise that I feel my apologies are due to their Chaplain for my perfectly honest commendation of his book. But he seems human enough to pardon the more venial sins. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... cannot say, that your children have suffered from associating with her. I had her in my family, under the watchful eyes of three anxious persons for a year or more; we saw faults—no human being is without them—and poor Ruth's were but slight venial errors; but we saw no sign of a corrupt mind—no glimpse of boldness or forwardness—no token of want of conscientiousness; she seemed, and was, a young and gentle girl, who had been led astray before she fairly knew ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... James, the naval chronicler, made it appear profanity so much as to consider whether Nelson's attack differed in the least from his intended plan, and anyone who ventured to examine the question in the light of general principles was likely to be shouted down as a presumptuous heretic. Venial as was this attitude of adulation under all the circumstances, it had a most evil influence on the service. The last word seemed to have been said on tactics; and oblivious of the fact that it is a subject on which the last word can never be spoken, and that the enemy was ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... creed of the Church of Rome a place in which the souls of the dead, saved from hell by the death of Christ, are chastened and purified from venial sins, a result which is, in great part, ascribed to the prayers of the faithful and the sacrifice of the Mass. The creed of the Church in this matter was first formulated by Gregory the Great, and was based by him, as ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... not know that "the man with the dogs" had some years before given her, once for all, a lesson in fidelity, and that for a mere trifle, and that for a venial sin! He had surprised her for allowing herself to be kissed by some gallant; that was all! He had not taken any notice, but when the man was gone he brought two of his hounds into the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... our relief, the predetermined patron of what has been actually done may have taken his bias from the weight of these considerations, as well as from considerations of a sinister nature. The predetermined adversary, on the other hand, can have been governed by no venial motive whatever. The intentions of the first may be upright, as they may on the contrary be culpable. The views of the last cannot be upright, and must be culpable. But the truth is, that these papers are not addressed to persons falling under ...
— The Federalist Papers
... away with Owen she had had no sins to confess, or only venial sins; that she had been late for Mass through her own fault; that she had omitted her evening prayers. Her worst sin was the reading of a novel which she thought she ought not to have read, but now her life was all sin. If the priest questioned her she could not answer, she must refuse to ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... thou hast committed up to the very hour of the penance will all be purged away and thereby remitted to thee, and the sins which thou shalt commit thereafter will not be written against thee to thy damnation, but will be quit by holy water, like venial sins. First of all then the penitent must with great exactitude confess his sins when he comes to begin the penance. Then follows a period of fasting and very strict abstinence which must last for forty days, during which time he is to touch no ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... becoming a little tipsy over his private dinners with Sir Robert Walpole, were English as well as German traits, and were regarded almost as condescensions; and then he had a kind of slow wit, that was turned upon the venial officials whose perquisites were at their disgraceful ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... to the clothes-press, by now so far gone in self-indulgence, her moral sense so insidiously sapped by the sheer sensual delight she had of all this pilfered luxury, that she could contemplate without a qualm less venial experiments with the ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... of personal property, or to understate one's income. Hence the temptation to lessen the burden of the tax bill by making false statements is considerable, and doubtless a good deal of deception is practised. There are many people who are too honest to cheat individuals, but still consider it a venial sin to cheat ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... interests of his friend? May I be permitted however to draw one conclusion from your silence, that you do not consider my situation as critical and alarming? That although you join the prudent severity of a monitor with the candid partiality of a friend, you yet view my faults in a venial light, and are disposed to draw over them the veil ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... the true Church, had insensibly recommended it to her confidence. At first, she deemed herself unworthy to enter the fold. She had broken, in thought, one of its stringent laws. What she had come to regard as but a venial error, now appeared to her as an unpardonable sin. So unpardonable, indeed, that left to herself, she might have despaired of forgiveness, and returned to it cherishingly, seven times worse than before. But this aged Missioner, wise and experienced, ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse." I think the principle here enunciated to be the mere preamble in the formal credentials of the Catholic Church, as an Act of Parliament might begin with a "Whereas." It is ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... to love any man as well as I love my father, and so I strive not to do it, Hist," returned the conscientious Hetty, who knew not how to conceal an emotion, by an approach to an untruth as venial as an evasion, though powerfully tempted by female shame to err, "though I sometimes think wickedness will get the better of me, if Hurry comes so often to the lake. I must tell you the truth, dear Hist, because you ask me, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... are therefore Scribes in all ages—Romish Scribes, who distinguish between venial and mortal sin, and apportion to each its appointed penance and absolution. There are Protestant Scribes, who have no idea of God but as an incensed judge, and prescribe certain methods of appeasing him—a certain price—in consideration ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... unworthiness came over him. As the short, sharp stroke of the bell smote upon his ear, he fell upon his knees, and rested his forehead against the wall. Old words of prayer rose familiarly to his lips. He remembered his sins of omission and commission—venial faults they would seem, to many of us, but black and heinous in pure-hearted Dino's eyes—and pleaded passionately for their forgiveness. And then the words turned into a prayer for the welfare of his friend Brian and the ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the priest; "there are spots in the sun, Mrs. O'Shaugh-nessy—we are not all immaculate. There never was one sent into this world without less or more sin upon them. Even the saints themselves had venial touches about ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... filled in the minds of men a place at least equal to that of the State in the Roman Republic. Men who had made great sacrifices for it and rendered great services to it were deemed, beyond all others, the good men, and in those men things which we should regard as grossly criminal appeared mere venial frailties. Let any one who doubts this study the lives of the early Catholic saints, and the still more instructive pages in which Gregory of Tours and other ecclesiastical annalists have described the characters and acts of the more prominent figures ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... Fray Raimundo de Rosa killed Fray Juan Zambrano, his vicar and superior; but the archbishop has not made any demonstration [of displeasure], although he has so often done so in the more venial offenses of the clerics. The Order of St. Dominic has honored the Dominicans who were most rebellious against the king with the best offices in the provincial chapter; and those of their following, like ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... to confess how much excuse she felt inclined to admit just then for the sins both of commission and omission—sins that, at another time, when her faculties were fresh and her judgment unbiassed, she might have looked upon as any thing but venial. Ah! Mr. Fullarton, the seed you have scattered so profusely to-night is beginning to bear fruit already you never dreamed of. Beet-root and turnips will not succeed on every soil. It must be long before a remunerative crop of these ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it," thought the good old lady afterwards. "This girl sins like a soldier against the first five and from the sixth to the tenth not a venial sin, just the opposite to us! How the world ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... and confession. Events have been transposed to the extent of some few months in this narrative in order to preserve the continuity and evenness of the story. I hope so small a divergence may seem a venial error after so many centuries. For the rest, it is as accurate as a good deal of research and ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... from selfishness and self-will, and ready for obedience, to know when God speaks, though men may be His mouthpieces, and when men speak, though they may call themselves His messengers. The child's mistake was venial. It is less pardonable and more dangerous when repeated by us. If we would be guarded against it, we must be continually where Samuel was, and we must not sleep in the Temple, but ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... another contending for the obligation of its law, in all its parts, throughout its whole extent, and over every one who sought acceptance with God. Upon the two latter subjects, a natural, perhaps, and venial, but a fruitless, eager, and impatient curiosity, prompted by the philosophy and by the scholastic habits of the age, which carried men much into bold hypotheses and conjectural solutions, raised, amongst some who professed Christianity, very wild and unfounded opinions. I think there ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... fears of the Duchess Regent, who was certainly placed in a terrible position. Her conduct was not heroic, although she might be forgiven for trepidation. Her treachery, however, under these trying circumstances was less venial. At three o'clock in the morning of the 22nd of August, Orange, Egmont, Horn, Hoogatraaten, Mansfeld, and others were summoned to the palace. They found her already equipped for flight, surrounded by her waiting-women, chamberlains and lackeys, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... twaddling, again, mere rambling grows venial. One of H. J. Byron's burlesque heroes ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... was during the very few years that intervened between his leaving the university at Bonn and his marriage, that William obtained his reputation for dissipation. His shortcomings, due to the exuberance of youth, were exaggerated until they were transformed from very venial offences into the most mortal of sins, while in the same way the delight manifested by Princess Charlotte at the admiration and homage to which her comeliness gave rise—a very natural feeling when one recalls the ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... are men no doubt whose natures are proof against kindness and consideration, but my experience is that they are few and far between. I have found also that if one refrains from fault- finding, gives praise where praise is due, and overlooks small or venial faults, when reproof becomes necessary, if it be temperately administered, it is always effective and productive of good. But even such reproof may be carried too far as on one occasion I found to my dismay. Pinion, one forenoon, came into my room to tell me he had discovered that the man ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... of yours on the subject of obscurity I am disposed to think reasonable; and, unless the contrary should appear in the course of our conversations, I will concede them to be applicable to the case of Mr. Ricardo; his obscurity may be venial, or it may be inevitable, or even none at all (if you will have it so). But I cannot allow of the cases of Kant and Leibnitz as at all relevant to that before us. For, the obscurity complained of in metaphysics, etc., is inherent in the very objects contemplated, and is ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... male sheep in regard to the other sin is venial blackness. Whether the teller of such a tale as this should say so outright, may be matter of dispute; but, unless he say so, the teller of this tale does not know how to tell his tale truly. Blackness such as that will be all condoned, and the sheep received into almost any flock, on condition, ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... once his burden and his temptation. He drags it with him and yields to it. He must watch it, check it, repress it, and obey it only at the last extremity. There may be some fault even in this obedience; but the fault thus committed is venial; it is a fall, but a fall on the knees ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... fell off several points towards latitudinarianism in the course of the next ten minutes. He had a deep inward sense that everything was as it should be, human nature included. The little accidents of humanity, known collectively to moralists as sin, looked very venial to his growing sense of universal brotherhood ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... [343]poet, nisi quod faciunt summis nati generibus? he hath done no more than what gentlemen usually do. [344]Neque novum, neque mirum, neque secus quam alii solent. For in a great person, right worshipful Sir, a right honourable grandee, 'tis not a venial sin, no, not a peccadillo, 'tis no offence at all, a common and ordinary thing, no man takes notice of it; he justifies it in public, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... itself to the new ideas, found that it could not attain to satisfactory representation merely by form and colour, but that it required light and shadow and effects of space. Indeed, venial faults of drawing are perhaps the least disturbing, while faults of perspective, of spacing, and of colour completely spoil a picture for people who have an every-day acquaintance with painting such as the Venetians had. We find the Venetian ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... part of the farming and labouring population in the Roman Catholic provinces of the country, it cannot be matter of surprise that any trick, or act of violence by which a landlord was deprived of his just rights, was regarded either as a "venial offence," or no offence, or even a patriotic and virtuous act, according as the conscience of the rude casuist was more or less under such influences. Had the landlords as a body administered their estates in a spirit of justice; used their power to bring land questions under ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... sound the alarm; and they did sound it, with right good will. They had observed a large party of the enemy clearing out of Alexandersfontein, and were possessed of an hallucination that it portended an attack on Beaconsfield. These wolf-cries, however, were venial faults; they denoted watchfulness; we were not disposed to take umbrage at small things; it was a day of victory. No suspicion of the truth flashed through our minds to upset our comfortable conclusions. Our ignorance was bliss; the folly of wisdom was ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... blame Prussia for such a use either of her conquests or her influence. Say what you will, gambling is an indulgence blushed over in England; abroad, practised as a little luxury in dissipation, it may be pardoned as venial; habitually, however, it is a leprosy. And as it is by habitual gamblers that these haunts are made to flourish, this alone should reconcile the world of tourists to a deprivation which for them must be slight; while ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... where no one ever mentions or complains of them. The shallowness of his heart, the impurity of his hand, which clasps that of all vices, all evils, all treacheries, all opinions, have made him as inviolable as a constitutional king. Venial sins, which excite a hue and cry against a man of high character, are thought nothing of in him; the world hastens to excuse them. Men who might otherwise be inclined to despise him shake hands with him, fearing that the day may come when they will need him. He has, in fact, so many ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... the dinner was over, we drank, every one In a bumper, "the venial delights of Crim. Con.;" At which Headfort with warm reminiscences gloated, And Ellenb'rough chuckled ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... his purpose with diabolical deliberation. He must have been well aware that, had he acted on the natural impulse of the moment and revenged himself then and there on Aubert, he would have committed what is regarded by a French jury as the most venial of crimes, and would have escaped with little or no punishment. He preferred, for reasons of his own, to set about the commission of a deliberate and cold-blooded murder that bears the stamp of a more sinister motive than the vengeance ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... fear of the devil, and offered up hundreds of thousands of victims to the delusion of witchcraft. At another time, the many became crazed on the subject of the philosopher's stone, and committed follies till then unheard of in the pursuit. It was once thought a venial offence, in very many countries of Europe, to destroy an enemy by slow poison. Persons who would have revolted at the idea of stabbing a man to the heart, drugged his pottage without scruple. Ladies of gentle birth and manners caught the contagion of murder, until poisoning, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... years had made a great change of opinion in reference to the punishment of crime, which was cruelly severe. Capital offences numbered at the beginning of the century nearly two hundred and fifty, some of which were almost venial; but in 1837 only seven crimes were punishable with death, and the accused were allowed benefit of counsel. Before this, the culprit could be condemned without a hearing,—a gross violation of justice, which did not exist even under the imperial ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... necklace in our neighbor's trunk! I have no luck as a criminal, my dear Orion. Twice have I deserved the name. Thanks to the generous and liberal use you made of my inexperience I sinned—sinned so deeply that it has ruined my whole life; and now, again, in a more venial way; but I was caught out, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... are perhaps censurable in making the dwelling and the food of acknowledged and convicted guilt more comfortable and palatable than what the parties could have gained by any exertions when at large, and supporting themselves by honest labour; but this is a venial error compared to that of our ancestors, who, considering a charge and a conviction as synonymous, treated the accused before sentence in a manner which would have been of itself a severe punishment after he was found guilty. Damian, therefore, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... with a Samaritan, to carry a load or raise a sheep from the ditch on the Sabbath,—this was a sin which, to the Pharisees, would weigh a man down to hell itself; while to lie or to use other foul language, or to trample under foot the whole decalogue was, by comparison, a venial offence. The whole moral code was rendered impotent by them, while ceremonial cleansing was the be-all and end-all of their system. Christ was daily thrown into conflict with these "blind leaders of the blind"; His soul abhorred their ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... acted on different Maxims. And the former having succeeded in reducing the first Order nearer the second, he was for bringing them both to an Equality, and raising the third to a Level with them, by making all Employments and Dignities venial; and, without any Regard to Merit, constantly bestowing them on the highest Bidder. Thus, as the same Posts and Honours were equally attainable by the Citizen and Gentleman, there was no material Distinction betwixt them. The Government which ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... certainty that she would thence-forward be on guard against me without having given me any real information. I was perfectly convinced there was a deep plot underlying the foolishness she had proposed. The fact that she considered me so venial and so gullible was no proof that the hidden purpose was not dangerous. The mystery was how to seem to be fooled by her and yet get in touch with my friends. Then suddenly I recalled that she and the ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... heteroclital, and such as want name or precedent, there is ofttimes a sin even in their history. We do desire no record of enormities: sins should he accounted new. They omit of their monstrosity as they fall from their rarity; for men count it venial to err with their forefathers, and foolishly conceive they divide a sin in its society.... In things of this nature, silence commendeth history: 'tis the veniable part of things lost; wherein there must never ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... delicacy, she disliked to confess to ignorant priests. She said that the half-learned did her more harm than good. The learned were probably more lenient to her, and more in sympathy with her, and assured her that those sins were only venial which she had supposed were mortal. But she soon was obliged to give up this confessor, since he began to confess to her, and to confess sins in comparison with which the sins she confessed were venial ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... officiously befriended by him," says one of the characters in the Induction to "Cynthia's Revels," "as to have his presence in the tiring-house, to prompt us aloud, stamp at the bookholder [or prompter], swear at our properties, curse the poor tireman, rail the musick out of tune, and sweat for every venial trespass we commit as some author would." While, in the Induction to his "Staple of News," Jonson has clearly portrayed himself. "Yonder he is," says Mirth, in reply to some remark touching the poet of the performance, "within—I was in the tiring-house awhile, to see the actors dressed—rolling ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... has done for him demands his constant love and gratitude, not his ill- humour and caprice. Careless fellow as I am, I am not so indifferent, Mrs. Bounderby, as to be regardless of this vice in your brother, or inclined to consider it a venial offence.' ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... and No. 1, 5s. 0d. costs." Now a lawyer would never have spoken of obtaining "judgment from a jury," for it is the function of a jury not to deliver judgment (which is the prerogative of the court), but to find a verdict on the facts. The error is, indeed, a venial one, but it is just one of those little things which at once enable a lawyer to know if the writer is a layman ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... if it were secondary, nor can the secondary be sought as if it were primary. To invert the ethical order is to bring in that disorder which is called sin. If the human act brings in a slight disorder, it is venial sin; if the human act brings in a grievous disorder it is ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... is true that a few writers among the Fathers see in blessed Mary traces of venial sin; who think of her intervention at Cana as presumptuous &c. But such notices are not of sufficient frequency or importance to ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... perjury, to her, the self-doomed Iphigenia! For her morbid fancy, whispered to by her intense tenderness, conjured up that dilemma between faith broken to her lover and abandonment of a dear parent to his fate. Despair suggested that self-destruction itself might seem venial, even before God, when rushed upon as the only alternative to perjury—to prostitution; for such her romantic purity taught her to consider submission to the embrace of any living man except her heart's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... admit that we have advanced by some years the maturity of celestial justice; we have hastened a little for him an eternity of torture which sooner or later must inevitably have been his lot. But be indulgent, Gentlemen, towards so venial an offence, and reserve your severity for those who attempt the life ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... sceptical of the existence of the Mine, and he was mistrustful of Ralegh's disposition to comply with the compact. The national eagerness, however, for the adventure, and the confidence of Ralegh's well-wishers, overpowered his reluctance. He was moved also by the venial hope of a vast influx of innocent profit into his empty Treasury. From the first it was understood plainly that the admiral accepted the entire responsibility for the maintenance of a peaceable attitude towards ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... right to conceal may be right, provided no lie is involved in the concealment. As to the relative grades of sin in lying, Aquinas counts lying to another's hurt as a mortal sin, and lying to avert harm from another as a venial sin; but he sees that ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... and that they can obtain salvation by means of a few prayers, and a few alms, which shall be made after their death; not regarding that these good works can be useful only to those who died in a state of grace, although stained by some venial fault, since the Scripture informs us[399] that nothing impure will enter ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... very welcome, however, and I am very much obliged to you. I believe I drank too much wine last night at Hurstbourne; I know not how else to account for the shaking of my hand to-day. You will kindly make allowance therefore for any indistinctness of writing, by attributing it to this venial error. ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... were not evildoers, but sturdy archers and yeomen, whose outlawry had been incurred only for shooting the king's deer. Indeed, to most men of that time—that is, to most men who were not in the royal service—the shooting of deer, and the pursuit of game in general, were not only venial offences, but the most natural thing in life. The royal claim to exclusive hunting in the vast forests of Epping, Sherwood, Needwood, Barnesdale, Englewood, and many others seemed preposterous to ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... "Shining." That Shakespeare knew everything is much more certain than that miracles do not happen; and he certainly knew Mr Arnold's case if not Mr Arnold, when he introduced a certain main episode in A Midsummer Night's Dream. To frown on Oberon and caress Bottom is venial compared with the dismissal of the Bible as popular legend, and the implicit belief in as, ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... patriots, and to support them in venial errors Possible to do, only because we see that it has been done Repose in the other world, "Repos ailleurs" Soldiers enough to animate the good and terrify the bad To work, ever to work, was the primary law of his nature When persons ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... envelopes were known,) and he is desired to repeat the experiment till he succeeds. General Macaulay's fastidious nature led him to take my father's line regarding your uncle, and my youthful soul was often vexed by the constant reprimands for venial transgressions. But the great sin was the idle reading, which was a thorn in my father's side that never was extracted. In truth, he really acknowledged to the full your uncle's abilities, and felt that if ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... Fear. We know, very many of us, that our present state has many evil aspects, seems unjust and wasteful of human happiness, is full of secret and horrible dangers, abounding in cruelties and painful things; that our system of sanctions and prohibitions is wickedly venial, pressing far more gravely on the poor than on the rich, and that it is enormously sapped by sentimentalities of various sorts and undermined and qualified by secret cults; it is a clogged and an ill- made and dishonest machine, but we have a dread, in part ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... things. Let us rather discuss this omelette, a dish worthy of the gods, and the bacon in it, the savour of which might imperil a saint. Sister Gabrielle, you tempt us this evening to commit the sin of gluttony, which is the most venial of all sins. And I will bear the burden ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... results, in lines of tell-tale fire. The moral office of tragedy is to show us our own weaknesses idealized in grander figures and more awful results,—to teach us that what we pardon in our selves as venial faults, if they seem to have but slight influence on our immediate fortunes, have arms as long as those of kings, and reach forward to the catastrophe of our lives, that they are dry-rotting the very ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... straight to hell. Thus practically the Intermediate State is cancelled for these two classes. There remains, therefore, only one class which is supposed to enter the Intermediate State, those namely, who have died in venial sin. And since it is part of the Romish doctrine to regard Paradise as the same thing as Heaven, and to hold that the souls which alone enter Purgatory, after suffering due torments, pass direct out of Purgatory into Paradise or Heaven, it follows that in the Intermediate State are only ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... and he quotes Horace, who tells us we should impute such venial errors to a pardonable inadvertency; and, as I recollect, Addison makes another very just remark, that the ancients, who were actuated by a spirit of candour, not of cavilling, invented a variety of figures ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... characteristic feature in the narrative. From the moment the mysterious strangers landed, every movement of theirs had been recorded in hieroglyphics, and there is no reason why notes of what they said and did should not have been taken at dinner. As for the place where the pulque was kept, it was a venial slip of the pen to call it a "wine-cellar," even if it was not below the ground. The language of Cortes does not imply that he visited the "cellar;" he saw a crowd of Indians drinking the beverage, and supposing the great house he was in to be Montezuma's, he expressed ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... nice, the sin is venial, Considering you yield for charity; And by your fall the nunnery ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... and vindictive feeling against the colored race since the negro has ceased to be property. The pecuniary value which the individual negro formerly represented having disappeared, the maiming and killing of colored men seems to be looked upon by many as one of those venial offences which must be forgiven to the outraged feelings of a wronged and robbed people. Besides, the services rendered by the negro to the national cause during the war, which make him an object of special interest to the loyal people, make ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz |
