"Extenuating" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vindication, justification, warrant; exoneration, exculpation; acquittal &c. 970; whitewashing. extenuation; palliation, palliative; softening, mitigation. reply, defense; recrimination &c 938. apology, gloss, varnish; plea &c. 617; salvo; excuse, extenuating circumstances; allowance, allowance to be made; locus paenitentiae[Lat]. apologist, vindicator, justifier; defendant &c. 938. justifiable charge, true bill. v. justify, warrant; be an excuse &c. n.for; lend a color, furnish a handle; vindicate; exculpate, disculpate[obs3]; acquit &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... be built for her residence; fifteen years later her real husband succeeded to the title of Earl of Bristol, and she was brought up to answer to the charge of bigamy, on which she was proved guilty, but with extenuating circumstances, and she seems to have got off scot-free. She afterwards went abroad, and died in Paris in 1788, aged sixty-eight, after a life of gaiety and dissipation. From the very beginning her behaviour seems to have ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... weak enough at times, as Gubetta says, to jingle words at the end of an idea, or to speak more modestly, at the end of certain measured syllables. The Marquise, cognisant of the offence, but not of the extenuating circumstances, launched forth into praise and flattering hyperbole that lifted me to the level of Byron, Goethe, Lamartine, discovered that I had a satanic look, and went on so that I ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... weak enough not to proclaim energetically that Byron's character was as great as his genius, but to do so only timidly. By way of obtaining pardon even for this mite of justice to the friend who was gone, Moore actually condescended to associate himself with those who pleaded extenuating circumstances for Byron's temper, like Walter Scott and other poets. But truth comes out, nevertheless, in Moore; and in the perusal of Byron's truthful and simple letters we find him there displayed in all his admirable and unique worth as ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... and he allows it to be seen a little too much. He embarrasses us sometimes. But there is one extenuating circumstance—he ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... suddenly to lure men from an honorable social position, to expose them to the hazards of a popular movement. Before the laws, my companions are guilty of allowing themselves to be enticed. But never were circumstances more extenuating in the eyes of the country than those in their favor. When I saw Colonel Vaudrey and the other persons on the evening of the 29th, I addressed them in ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... in the course of a week he was able once more to resume his place in school. The Doctor had a good deal of conversation with him with respect to his conduct towards Blackall; and though he acknowledged that there were many extenuating circumstances, still, he pointed out, that he, as master of the school, would not allow the law to be taken out of his hands and exercised by another, however ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... friends of justice were men of the stamp of W.S. Robertson[633] and the Reverend Evan Jones,[634] who went out of their way to plead the Indian's cause and to detail the extenuating circumstances surrounding his lamentable failure to keep faith. Supporting the men of the opposite camp was even the Legislature of Kansas. In no other way can a memorial from the General Assembly, ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... sought to distinguish between the holy and the unholy in that spirit? to prove, by the very degradation of the one, how high the other was. A character is never done justice to by extenuating its faults: so I do not agree to nisi bonum. It is kinder to read the ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... t),—but, he flattered himself, just a plain man—(s, a, i, n),—a plain, sensible, reasonable human being,—he could find no reason for forgiveness: a man who, in such circumstances, could kill himself, was a wretch. The only extenuating circumstance he could find in Jeannin's case was that he was not responsible for his actions. With that he begged Madame Jeannin's pardon for having expressed himself a little emphatically about her husband: he pleaded the sympathy ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... great many kind things, which were great, like himself, and, extenuating our crime, intimated to me that he could no more part with me than I could with him; so we both, as I may say, even against our light and against our conviction, concluded to sin on; indeed, his affection to the child was one great tie to him, for he was extremely ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... concludes (wrongly) that it must cost 1/2d. F. C. W. is so beautifully resigned to the certainty of a verdict of "guilty," that I have hardly the heart to utter the word, without adding a "recommended to mercy owing to extenuating circumstances." But really, you know, where are the extenuating circumstances? She begins by assuming that lemonade is 4d. a glass, and sandwiches 3d. each, (making with the 2 given equations, four conditions to be fulfilled by three ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... tearfully; "could there not be extenuating circumstances? Do pardon him, your Majesty. Just think what that would ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... He looked her over as he lit his cigar—where she stood spreading her hands above the blaze of the logs, and concluded that she was much nicer upon acquaintance than he had thought. Her slight figure might not be beautiful, but beyond doubt its lines were ladylike. The same extenuating word applied itself in his mind to her thin and swarthy, though distinguished, features. They bore the stamp of caste, and so did the way she looked at one through her eye-glasses, from under those over-heavy black eyebrows, holding her head a little to one side. Though it was easy ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... of horror. "You will soon get used to the idea," he said. "You see, Wyndham doesn't really want you, and I do. That is the one extenuating circumstance of my villainy. I want you so badly that I don't much care what steps I take to get you. And so long as you continue to hate me as heartily as you do now, just by so much shall I continue to want you. ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... our visit to Richmond. I have endeavored to sketch it faithfully. The conversation with Mr. Davis I took down shortly after entering the Union lines, and I have tried to report his exact language, extenuating nothing, and coloring nothing that he said. Some of his sentences, as I read them over, appear stilted and high-flown, but they did not sound so when uttered. As listened to, they seemed the simple, natural language of his thought. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... presents on the following day a grim reminder of the petty economies that for weeks hence must secretly be contrived in order to restore the balance of an overdrawn bank account. The folly of living beyond one's means may have this extenuating feature, that it is often an error due to generous, though indiscreet impulse, or to inexperience; but the folly of spending money lavishly on a few ostentatious "spreads" that are "beyond one's means" has no redeeming points. The deception seldom long deceives. It is a ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... a sharp cross-questioning. As the examination proceeded, an altercation between the attorneys was prevented only by the presence of the sheriff and deputies. Before the inquiry progressed, the attorney for the plaintiff apologized to the court, pleading extenuating circumstances in the offense offered to his client. Under his teachings, he informed the court, the purity of womanhood was above suspicion, and no man who wished to be acknowledged as a gentleman ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... whom the governor and all the fellows write when they want information about this county. Why? I'll tell you: because he's committed every crime and can't denounce one and goes about the country extenuating things and oiling people up with his palaver. Now he says he is a lawyer—yes, sir, actually claims to be a lawyer, and brought his diploma into court two years ago, and they accepted it. But I know, and the court knows, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... on impending elections, and above all, that heinous subject on which enormous fibs are ever told, the registration. There are, however, occasional glimpses in their talk which would seem to intimate that they have another life outside the Houses of Parliament. But that extenuating circumstance does not apply to the sporting dinner. There they begin with odds and handicaps, and end with handicaps and odds, and it is doubtful whether it ever occurs to any one present, that there is any other existing combination of atoms than odds and handicaps. ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... Louis, and bestowing all its revenues on the Legion of Honour; and a sixth, restoring to their authority all magistrates who had been displaced by the Bourbon government. These proclamations could not be prevented from reaching Paris; and the Court, abandoning their system of denying or extenuating the extent of the impending danger, began to adopt more energetic ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... at once. At first her stand had simply been one of implicit faith in the man she had conjured into a hero of all that was good and noble. She had not cast about for extenuating evidence; she had not asked herself who the guilty man was; her faith told her it was morally impossible for Mortimer to become a thief. Now Crane's questions, more material than the first deadening effects of Alan's accusation, ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... these different forms of utility fall very lightly in weight, and can not even be counted as an extenuating circumstance, when we compare them to the enormous evils brought on farmer and gardener by the hosts of those Coccides that visit plantations, hothouses, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... of sin is selfishness. It is the deliberate choice of self in preference to God—personal and wilful rebellion against the known law of righteousness and truth. There are, of course, degrees of wrongdoing and undoubtedly extenuating circumstances which must be taken into account in estimating the significance and enormity of guilt, but in the last resort Christian Ethics is compelled to postulate the fact of sin, and to regard it as a personal rebellion against the holy will of God, the ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... deliberately, and because it corresponds exactly to the thing, and wishes us to understand it in its full strength and compass. In calling the thing by its right name, he silences, beforehand, every attempt at palliating and extenuating it. Of such palliations and extenuations the Jews had abundance. They had not the slightest notion that they had become unfaithful to their God, but considered their intercourse with idols as trifling and allowable attentions which they paid to them.—Manger understands ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... insisted on buying good articles, and paid the price requisite for their production, these "sweating" trades would be impossible. But before we saddle the consuming public with the blame, we must bear in mind the following extenuating circumstances. ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... be the real white tiger single out Eric, and in my anxiety to save him from the brute, I pushed the ayah in front of him. And the thing sprang on her instead. It was nothing short of murder! And yet—well, there were extenuating circumstances, ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... "I admit the soft impeachment. I plead guilty, with extenuating circumstances. The play's the thing; and if the facts don't suit my play, so much the worse for the facts. Success has been achieved, and what more can any living author want? Credit and cash. Voila tout! 'Credit' for my own original invention ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 1, 1893 • Various
... the law of such cases considers extenuating circumstances and defective bringing-up, but it has never yet occurred to a single criminalist that people might be likely to commit crime because they could not read or write. Nevertheless, we are frequently ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... morning next. His somewhat too authoritative fixity; a certain radiancy of self-confidence, dangerous to a man; his sovereign contempt of Daun, as an inert dark mass, who durst undertake nothing: all this is undeniable, and worth our recognition in estimating Friedrich. One considerably extenuating circumstance does at last turn up,—in the shape of a new piece of blame to the erring Friedrich; his sudden anger, namely, against the meritorious General Retzow; his putting Retzow under arrest that Tuesday Evening: "How, General Retzow? You have not taken hold ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... Queensberry observed that their reports would lead any person, who had not been a witness of the tumult, to believe that a sedition as formidable as that of Masaniello had been raging at Edinburgh. They in return accused the Treasurer, not only of extenuating the crime of the insurgents, but of having himself prompted it, and did all in their power to obtain evidence of his guilt. One of the ringleaders, who had been taken, was offered a pardon if he ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... True, I might have condemned them. Had I been judge as well as witness, my sentence might have been stern as that of destiny itself. But, still, no trait of original nobility of character, no struggle against temptation,—no iron necessity of will, on the one hand, nor extenuating circumstance to be derived from passion and despair, on the other,—no remorse that might coexist with error, even if powerless to prevent it,—no proud repentance that should claim retribution as a meed,—would go unappreciated. True, again, I might give my full assent to the punishment ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to rise to one of the highest positions in the great school. Betty had committed one act of flagrant wickedness. Fanny was not going to mince matters; she could not call it by any other name. There were no extenuating circumstances, in her opinion, to excuse this act of Betty's. The fact that she had first stolen the packet, and then told Sir John Crawford a direct lie with regard to it, was the sort of thing that Fanny could ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... of a habit after it has through years been forging its chains about the youth, is in itself no small victory and should go a long way towards extenuating his lapse. The young man who can conquer himself and learn to lead a pure life, free from his early habit and above reproach not only in his acts toward womankind but also in all his thoughts of woman deserves his well-earned reward. He deserves the respect of all pure ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... this bill is so evident, that those who appeared as its advocates have rather endeavoured to defeat their opponents by charging their proposals with absurdity, than by extenuating the ill consequence of their ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... some distance from the others and guarded by their friends. Later, an assembly was convened to decide what should be done. The majority declared the deed murder, and demanded retribution. Mr. Eddy and others pleaded extenuating circumstances and proposed that the accused should leave the camp. After heated discussion this compromise was adopted, the assembly voting that Mr. Reed should be ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... of beer. "Are you afraid of the truth?—But just one word, and I'm done. You no doubt knew, as every one else did, that Lulu was Schilsky's mistress. What you didn't know, was this;" and now, without the least attempt at palliation, without a single extenuating word, there fell from his lips the quick and witty narration of an episode in which Louise and he had played the chief parts. It was the keynote of their relations to each other: the story, grossly told, of ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... with his character. (p. vi) There was nothing commonplace about him; his good and his bad qualities alike were exceptional. It is easy, by suppressing the one or the other, to paint him a hero or a villain. He lends himself readily to polemic; but to depict his character in all its varied aspects, extenuating nothing nor setting down aught in malice, is a task of no little difficulty. It is two centuries and a half since Lord Herbert produced his Life and Reign of Henry VIII.[1] The late Mr. Brewer, in his prefaces to the first four volumes of the Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... cleaving dust of suspicion, and the scorching breath of gossiping conjecture. The time has passed (did it ever really exist?) when the prestige of pastoral office hedged it around with impervious infallibility, and to-day, instead of partial and extenuating leniency, pure and uncontaminated society justly denies all ministerial immunities as regards the rigid mandates of social decorum and propriety,—and the world demands that, instead of drawing heavily upon an indefinite fund of charitable confidence and trust in ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... disobeyed the repeated orders of their superior officers and attempted to shake the allegiance of the troops for the purpose of overthrowing the Imperial power! A man who was at once soldier and autocrat, by nature as well as by position, could of course admit no extenuating circumstances. The incident stereotyped his character for life, and made him the sworn enemy of liberalism and the fanatical defender of autocracy, not only in his own country, but throughout Europe. In European politics he saw two forces struggling for mastery—monarchy and ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... have been in correspondence with the rebel capital; and with this the crest-fallen L—— and his subordinate prepared to make their report to a superior not much in the habit of excusing failure or making allowance for extenuating circumstances. ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... being put on; that it was the slackening of tightly pulled nerves; so I encouraged her as far as I dared without being suspected, knowing that it is best to open all vents when one's feelings have been dangerously pent up. As to my ability to cook!—why, there were extenuating circumstances governing this breakfast that should have excused it. ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... judge him leniently, for after all, notwithstanding his college diploma and physique, he was still but a boy and so while it is difficult for a mature and sober judgment to countenance his next step, if one can look back a few years to his own youth he can at least find extenuating circumstances surrounding ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... ashy pale, and speechless. Absolute silence reigned for a time, as the court awaited the prisoner's reply, if by any means he could offer some explanation, some possible extenuating circumstance, that might affect the judgment to be pronounced. None came, ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... some indulgence. If he happened to be punished by a timorous master, he assumed a terrible facial expression and tried to frighten him. But when, on the contrary, he found himself in the presence of a man of energy, he pleaded extenuating circumstances, and persevered until he obtained the least possible punishment. He never resented the infliction of just punishment, but suffered very much when punished in public. On the day when the class marks were read aloud, ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... everything to the police, regardless of the consequences that might recoil upon his own head. The case against Birchill depends largely on Hill's evidence, and the jury, when they have heard his story in the witness-box, and bearing in mind the extenuating circumstances of his connection with the crime, will have little hesitation in coming to the conclusion that the prisoner in the dock ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... shrieks of his sisters there rises a weird sound, as of a sucking pig in extremis. Your son, my unfortunate friend, is attempting, with his childish treble pipes, to formulate a masculine snore. This is a gross calumny. You never—stop!—well, on one occasion perhaps—but then there were extenuating circumstances. Very likely; but the child has grasped the fact without the circumstances, and has framed his conclusion as a universal proposition. It is a most improper induction, I admit; but logic, like some other things, is not to be looked for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... dependent, and all outward advantages without inward peace a mere mockery of wretchedness. The wisest men have taken care to uproot selfish ambition from their breasts. Shakespeare considered it so near a vice as to need extenuating circumstances to ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... mirth is one of the passions, having its seat in pleasure. And hyperboles may be employed either to increase or to lessen—since exaggeration is common to both uses. Thus in extenuating an opponent's argument we try to make it seem smaller than ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... influence of stimulants. He tried to speak, and muttered indistinctly from time to time words of which we could sometimes make no sense. We understood, however, that he had been tried by an Italian tribunal, and had been found guilty; but with such extenuating circumstances that his sentence was commuted to imprisonment, during, we thought we made out, two years. But we could not understand what he said about his wife, though we gathered that she was still alive, from something he whispered to the doctor of there ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... average number of distant signal equivalents per subscriber. The copyright arbitration royalty panels may consider all factors relating to the maintenance of such level of payments including, as an extenuating factor, whether the industry has been restrained by subscriber rate regulating authorities from increasing the rates for the basic ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92 • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... a full and ample confession, adding no extenuating circumstances and making no excuses. He wrote slowly and laboriously, Morva meanwhile rifling Ann's ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... heinous morally. It was hard in many cases to reconcile the exigencies of war with the call of humanity, and the sense of responsibility was only partially relieved by the knowledge that a higher authority would give due weight to the extenuating circumstances that appealed so often to one's compassion. The introduction of "suspended sentences" by the Army (Suspension of Sentences) Act 1915, with a view to keep a man's rifle in the firing line, and to give an offender the chance of retrieving his liberty by subsequent ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... well pronounced, or in case it is reenforced with a sufficient appeal to self-interest. In those cases where the national fervor rises to an excited pitch, even very attenuated considerations of right and justice, such as would under ordinary conditions doubtfully bear scrutiny as extenuating circumstances, may come to serve as moral authentication for any extravagant course of action to which the craving for national prestige may incite. The higher the pitch of patriotic fervor, the more tenuous and more thread-bare may be the requisite moral sanction. ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... Marcellinus (lib. iv. chap. 17), and the Classics generally, to Semiramis, an "ancient queen" of decidedly doubtful epoch, who thus prevented the propagation of weaklings. But in Genesis (xxxvii. 36; xxxix. 1, margin) we find Potiphar termed a "Sarim" (castrato), an "extenuating circumstance" for Mrs. P. Herodotus (iii. chap. 48) tells us that Periander, tyrant of Corinth, sent three hundred Corcyrean boys to Alyattes for castration , and that Panionios of Chios sold caponised lads for high prices (viii. 105): he notices (viii. 104 and other places) ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... been wise in Congreve to follow his master's example. He was precisely in that situation in which it is madness to attempt a vindication; for his guilt was so clear that no address or eloquence could obtain an acquittal. On the other hand, there were in his case many extenuating circumstances which, if he had acknowledged his error and promised amendment, would have procured his pardon. The most rigid censor could not but make great allowances for the faults into which so young a man had been seduced ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... letter which I have ever felt it my duty to write to you. Perhaps you will wonder that I should touch upon such a disagreeable subject at all. But I am bound, Molly, by my promise to give you a true picture (as much as in me lies) of mining-life and its peculiar temptations, nothing extenuating, nor setting down aught in malice. But, with all their failings, believe me, the miners, as a class, possess ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... would be shocked," I said, "but she has the coolest head of anyone I know—I do not think of any man I would trust so fully to take a rational attitude in the end. We can explain to her what extenuating circumstances there are, and she will have to recognise them. She will see that we are ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... correspondents should transmit to his papers whatever are the most striking items—revelations—accusations in an indictment such as was then framed against the packers. The more damning details are the best news. On the other hand he cannot, save to a ridiculously disproportionate extent, transmit the extenuating circumstances, the individual denials, the local atmosphere. Telegraph tolls are heavy and space is straitened while atmosphere and extenuating circumstances are not news at all. An Englishman is generally astonished when ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... bound to return. This was not held in law to be any excuse. I had no business to take an oath of that nature, it was asserted by the counsel for the Government. The sentence of death against me was, however, rescinded, on account of the many extenuating circumstances brought forward in my favour; but still I could not ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... Danglar!" he said coolly. "I admit it—I am ashamed of myself. I hate to think that I could be caught by you; but I suppose I can find some self-extenuating circumstances. You seem to have risen to an amazingly higher order of intelligence. In fact, for you, Danglar, it is not at all bad!" He went on polishing his nails. "Would you mind taking that thing out of my face? Even you ought to be able to handle it effectively ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... all, and punishes all? Such an existence would make every man the keeper of the record of his own transgressions, even to the most minute exactness. It would of itself mete out perfect justice, since the sin would be seen amid its accompanying facts, every aggravating or extenuating circumstance. Each man would be strictly punished according to his talents. As no one is without sin, it makes the necessity of an atonement indispensable, and, in its most rigid interpretation, it exhibits the truth of the scheme of salvation in the clearest colors. The soul, or conscience, that ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... the use of nor after not has been introduced, in consequence of such improprieties as the following: 'The injustice of inflicting death for crimes, when not of the most heinous nature, or attended with extenuating circumstances.' Here it is obviously not the intention of the writer, to understand the negative in the last clause: and, if this were good English, it would be not merely allowable to employ nor after not, to show the subsequent clause to be negative as well as the preceding, but it would ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... a saying to the effect that to know all is to pardon all; and doubtless with an omniscient insight into the causes of character we should find the field of moral responsibility pretty thickly strewn with extenuating circumstances very suitable indeed for consideration by a god who has had a hand in besetting "with pitfall and with gin" the road we are to wander in. But I submit that universal forgiveness would hardly ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... thought your sentence would be, and I told her I doubted very much whether you'd get more than a year or so, in view of all the extenuating circumstances,—that is to say, your self-restraint and all that when you had not only the jewels but the revolver as well. That seemed to cheer her up ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... vengeance. It is due to Colonel B——— to say, that he acted in the investigation of his agent's conduct with the strictest honor and impartiality. He scrutinized every statement thoroughly, pleaded for him as temperately as he could; found, or pretended to find, extenuating motives for his most indefensible proceedings; but all would not do. The cases were so clear and evident against him, even in the opinion of the neighboring gentry, who had been for years looking upon the system of selfish misrule which he practised, that at length the generous ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... trial took place several weeks later. Every possible extenuating circumstance was brought to bear upon his sentence. Five years only was to be the term of his imprisonment, his punishment for the crime of ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... away all that injures our own life or the lives of others, let us be very careful to discriminate, to draw the line where God would have it drawn, exaggerating and extenuating nothing. It is important to remember that while the motto of the old covenant was Exclusion, even of innocent and natural things, that of the new is Inclusion. Moses, under the old, forbade the Jews having horses; but Zechariah said that ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... offence, sir, and the extenuating circumstances, it is the opinion of this court, and its verdict, that you be outfitted with three days' grub. That will do, ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... own folks; it's nothin' to YOU," said the boy, suddenly beginning to struggle violently, as if inspired by this extenuating fact. ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... knows. In order to do even a little one has to know a great deal, and to know it well. . . . The right solution imposes itself; namely, the application, according to circumstances, of fixed principles. . . . Incapacity and ignorance cannot be called extenuating circumstances, for knowledge is within the reach of all" (Marshal Foch); and in the words of Napoleon's own maxim: "The only way to learn the art of war is to read and re-read the campaigns ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... at least extenuating. Genevieve Maud hesitated and sniffed. In the matter of being stripped, toys were ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... and, after all, the girl is impulsive and has never been subject to control, and there are extenuating circumstances," said the Professor. "My dear," he continued, laying his hand on his wife's very plump shoulder, "you must speak to Lucy from yourself, not from me, dear; for I am too tired. But you must speak to her from yourself, ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... drew together. She objected to extenuating circumstances in this connection, yet, as she admitted, reason usually underlay all Dr. Knott's statements. She divined, moreover, that reason, just now, touched upon matters inconveniently intimate. She abstained, therefore, from protest ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... session this afternoon. Miss Cameron may work off a full demerit, and before the Christmas Holidays, for being the prime mover in this orgy, I am told about," said Mrs. Tellingham, bitingly. "I understand there are some extenuating circumstances in the case of Ruth Fielding. She will have one-half mark against her record—to be worked off, of course. And, young ladies, I hope this will be the last time I shall see you before me for such a matter. You are ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... on some frivolous pretext when they were living separated and he, heaven knows, had no farther claim upon her—his existence was pure indifference to her. I answer for it! They tried his father for the atrocity. Even a French jury could not find extenuating circumstances for that kind of cold-blooded assassin who slays in the small hours the wife of his bosom—after having cast her off and driven her to evil ways, poor, spotless angel! They brought him in guilty of a foul murder and he was guillotined—gentleman ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... serve beyond that which the state possesses in the vindication of the law, and in that cool, deliberate, and impartial administration of justice which has so long distinguished this country. Nothing is unduly pressed against the prisoner, but every extenuating fact is fairly laid before the jury by the crown; it is, in short, generosity, candor, and forbearance, on the one side, matched against craft, cunning and the resolution by any means to win, upon the other. Such are the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... property in the case of a man whose motive is the worthy one of providing the means of a "decent" manner of life for his wife and children. If it is added that the wife has been "nurtured in the lap of luxury," that is accepted as an additional extenuating circumstance. That is to say, we are prone to condone such an offense where its aim is the honorific one of enabling the offender's wife to perform for him such an amount of vicarious consumption of time ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... those days, and the other man was guilty of breaking up the home. Extenuating circumstances, you see. He was lucky enough to have a lawyer who didn't lose interest when the prison swallowed him, and he brought the matter to the attention of a new Governor who pardoned Bates after he had served five years. Your father ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... vague pardon bestowed on penitents after having admitted in general terms that they are sinners. He is bound to weigh the gravity of their errors and the strength of their repentance, to know the facts and details of the fall and the number of relapses, the aggravating or extenuating circumstances, and, therefore, to interrogate in order to sound the soul to its depths. If some souls are timorous, they surrender themselves to him spontaneously and, more than this, they have recourse to him outside of his tribunal; he marks out for them the path they must ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... David had forgotten to picket them and immediately after supper had fallen asleep. He had evidently been afraid to tell and invented the explanation of dragged picket pins. She did not know whether the men believed it, but she saw by their faces they were in no mood to admit extenuating circumstances. The oath had been Courant's. When he heard her voice he shut his lips on others, but they welled up in his eyes, glowering furiously on the culprit from the jut of ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... decide against them, there is no crime within the knowledge of man, of which they are not severally accused and considered guilty, without any extenuating circumstances. ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... harder, much harder, than it was before your coming. To protect you I have had to discipline my own children continually, and all the time you were putting their tempers to quite unnecessary tests! I am not extenuating Kathleen, but I merely say you have no right to behave as you do. You are thirteen years old, quite old enough to make up your mind whether you wish to be loved by anybody or not; at present you ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... breath of satisfaction and relief. "Yes," she answered, flushing hot. "Till he fancied himself the archangel. There—there were extenuating circumstances, you see. His own name's Michael; and his family—well, his family have a special connection with St. Michael's Mount; their crest's a castled crag with 'Stand fast, St. Michael's!' and he knew he ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... had been practiced on them. But our Government ignores all occult dealings and will not believe in the dread power in the land. They deal very differently with these matters in Russia, where, in a recent trial of a similar nature, the witchcraft was admitted as an extenuating circumstance and the culprits who had burnt a witch were all acquitted. All natives of whatever caste are well aware of these terrible powers and too often do they avail themselves of them—much oftener than any one has an idea of. One day as I was riding along I came upon ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... appeared to be considering. "Well, I think perhaps you've hit it. However, there are some extenuating circumstances. Give a man a dozen years or so of the mental starvation of a New England wilderness, and then all at once fill him chock full of new ideas, and he gets a pain within him, just as painful a pain as if it were in his ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... first-class misdemeanants and for the most atrocious of criminals alike, the distinction would not be very finely drawn by the interested; at the most, the severest treatment as an alternative to capital punishment would always savour of extenuating circumstances. ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... it ceases to occupy space in my shop, just as would an imperfect wheel. The utmost kindness is shown to all animals at Four Oaks. This rule is the most imperative one on the place, and the one in which no "extenuating circumstances" are taken into account. There are two equal reasons for this: the first is a deep-rooted aversion to cruelty in all forms; and the second is, it pays. But kindness to animals doesn't imply the necessity of keeping useless ones or those whose usefulness ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... child-jewels to Charlotte Winsors for the better keeping of them; and of sons like that one who, the other day, in France, beat his mother to death with a stick; and was brought in by the jury, "guilty, with extenuating circumstances." ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... forward as an extenuating circumstance," replied Eugenie. These words were lost in the noise which the carriage made in rolling over the pavement of La Villette. M. Danglars ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... politic, the most eloquent, the most powerful, of Scottish statesmen, should be brought to a public trial, and should, if found guilty, die the death of a felon. Nothing less than such a sacrifice could expiate such a crime. Unhappily the Estates, by extenuating the guilt of the chief offender, and, at the same time, demanding that his humble agents should be treated with a severity beyond the law, made the stain which the massacre had left on the honour of the nation broader and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the rear wheel of the "democrat" had but one meaning—he had forgotten to grease it. This would seem an inexcusable oversight in a man who expected to make forty miles before sunset, but in this instance there was an extenuating circumstance. Immediately after breakfast there had been a certain look in his hostess's eye which had warned him that if he lingered he would be asked to assist with the churning. Upon observing it he had started for the barn to harness with a celerity that approached ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... it clearly appears that you were the only one of the party who showed any mercy to the unfortunate deceased. You took him to a vacant seat, and wiped him with a clean napkin, and you laid him down with the gentleness one shows to a little child. In consideration of these extenuating circumstances, which reflect some credit upon you, I shall inflict upon you three weeks' imprisonment." So Denis Halligan got off by the judge mistaking a vacancy for a vacant seat, and a ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... great simplicity. "I—luckily I decided to tell you this morning," she said, "for I am absolutely exhausted now. It was a terrible thing to keep thinking about, and I could not have fought it out any longer! There were extenuating circumstances, I suppose. I was a spoiled little empty-headed girl; the girls all about me were reckless in everyway; I did not know the boundary-line, or dream that it mattered very much, so long as no one knew! My mother had been unhappy in my childhood, and used to talk a good deal ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... Jegado is responsible for her actions you will acquit her. If you think that, without being devoid of free will and moral sense, she is not, according to the evidence, as well gifted as the average in humanity, you will give her the benefit of extenuating circumstance. ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... did not exactly glory in it, he was at least indifferent to its effect on his reputation with others. But always he had been just. The victims of his displeasure might complain that his retributive measures were harsh, that his forgiveness could not be evoked by even the most extenuating of circumstances, but not that his anger had ever been baseless or the punishment undeserved. Thus he had held always his own self-respect, and from his self-respect had proceeded his iron and ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... and reckless men, but the language of the pledge penetrated to the better nature of them all. They endeavored, with varying success, to live up to its conditions, although most of them held that driving a bull-team constituted extenuating ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... strength had been revealed, but was for the time forgotten. When he left Quebec in 1682 he must {72} have thought that he would never see it again. Yet when need came he was remembered. This fact is a useful comment on his first term, extenuating much that had seemed ground for censure ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... of extenuating distress—a sentiment of loyalty to his fair guest. "Oh, well, now, she is devoted to her ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... he added, as Dawkins was about leaving the room, "a word more. It is only just that you should make a restitution of the sum which you have taken. If you belonged to a poor family and there were extenuating circumstances, I might forego my claim. But your father is abundantly able to make good the loss, and I shall require you to lay the matter before him without loss of time. In consideration of your youth, I shall not bring the matter before the public tribunals, ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... until later that any definite thought of injustice to me at Dinky-Dunk's hands entered my head, since my attitude toward Dinky-Dunk seemed to remain oddly maternal, the attitude of the mother intent on extenuating her own. I even wrung a ghostly sort of consolation out of remembering that it was not a young and dewy girl who had imposed herself on his romantic imagination, for youth and innocence and chivalric obligation would have brought a much ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... extenuating ill-conduct or making excuses! That's the modern way! So principles get lowered! I tell you, sir, there are excuses for everything. What makes the difference is only the listening ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... characteristically weak in dull and feeble-minded children. What we should labor to secure is the maximum attention of which the child is capable, and if this is unsatisfactory without external cause, we are to regard the fact as symptomatic of inferior mental ability, not as an extenuating factor or an excuse for lack ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... complaints of "The Dial's" short-comings Emerson did not pretend to give any satisfactory answer, but his plea of guilty, with extenuating circumstances, is ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... command holds, why should not the baptised convert return home and live there? Because he is not wanted there, as a Christian. Exceptions to this rule are rare (we are speaking of Caste Hindus), and can usually be explained by some extenuating circumstance. ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... majesty's apprehension? And is it not more evident than demonstration itself, that whilst this impression continueth in her majesty's breast, you can find no other condition than inventions to keep your estate bare and low; crossing and disgracing your actions; extenuating and blasting of your merit; carping with contempt at your nature and fashions; breeding, nourishing and fortifying such instruments as are most factious against you; repulses and scorns of your friends and dependents that ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... "I will ease the parish of the burden." It was not only against the prisoners that his fury broke forth. Gentlemen and noblemen of high consideration and stainless loyalty, who ventured to bring to his notice any extenuating circumstance, were almost sure to receive what he called, in the coarse dialect which he had learned in the pothouses of Whitechapel, a lick with the rough side of his tongue. Lord Stawell, a Tory peer, who could not conceal his horror at the remorseless manner in which his poor neighbours ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... upwards. His face was hard. "Oh, get away, Crowther!" he growled. "What's the good?" And then in his winning way he gripped Crowther's hand hard. "No, I never told her anything," he said. "And I made it impossible for her to ask. I couldn't urge extenuating circumstances because there weren't any. Moreover, it wouldn't have made a ha'porth's difference if I had. So shunt the subject like a good fellow! She must take me at my worst—at my worst, do ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... reminiscences of the late War, I feel that it is necessary to ask their indulgence and to plead extenuating ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... of June, at Utrecht, consisting of Hohenlo, Essex, and other distinguished officers. They found that the conduct of the prisoner merited death, but left it to the Earl to decide whether various extenuating circumstances did not justify a pardon. Hohenlo and Norris exerted themselves to procure a mitigation of the young man's sentence, and they excited thereby the governor's deep indignation. Norris, according to Leicester, was in love with the culprit's aunt, and was therefore especially desirous ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... good-bye. He has been connected with the Colonials from the beginning of the campaign, and took the Zealanders into their first fight. I am feeling awfully fagged to-day, so hope you will, in reading this letter, make allowance for extenuating circumstances. If you only knew, I think you do, what these letters mean, the self-denied slumbers and washes, fatigues shirked, books and papers unread, and other little treats which comrades have indulged in when the rare and short opportunities have occurred—you would forgive ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... think he is," Miss Bailey's cool and quiet voice interposed, and in a moment the harassed father was at her side pleading, extenuating, fawning. ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... sha'n't want you any more. Thank you for being so frank in the matter. As far as I can see, it is the only extenuating ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... that her husband first defiled the marital union, thus driving her to follow the general tendencies of the time or to seek solace in religious activity, for which she had too much energy. After due consideration of the extenuating circumstances, her faults and vices, such as they were, may easily be condoned. Because she was the wife of a powerful Protestant king, she was condemned by Catholics and by them regarded with suspicion; and, in order to save herself, she was forced ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... but extenuating circumstances were seldom admitted in courts-martial, the law and practice of which were severe to the extent ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... dwelling on the oak was watched, day after day, early and late, in storm and in sunshine; now I know at least one family of kingbirds, and what I know I shall honestly tell, "nothing extenuating." ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... considering a bill to remit the fine imposed upon General Andrew Jackson at New Orleans for contempt of court. It was a hackneyed theme. No new, extenuating circumstances could be adduced to clear the old warrior of high-handed conduct; but a presidential election was approaching and there was political capital to be made by defending "Old Hickory." From boyhood Douglas had idolized Andrew Jackson. With much the same boyish indignation ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... one night he told me his story. He was an escaped convict from Freemantle, Western Australia. He had, with others, been taken up to the northern coast to do some Government work, and had escaped in the dingey. His crime was stealing funds belonging to a Squatting and Mining Company. There was this extenuating circumstance: he could have replaced the money, which, as he said, he'd only intended to use for a few weeks. But a personal enemy threw suspicion on him, accounts were examined, and though he showed he'd only used the money while more ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... time—You scorned to borrow any man's wit; and if nobody had followed your example, till they had had your qualities, the number of rakes would have been but small. Yet, don't mistake me, neither; I am not so mean as to bespeak your favour by extenuating your failings; if I were, you would deservedly despise me. For, undoubtedly (I must say it, Sir), your faults were the greater for your perfections: and such talents misapplied, as they made you more capable of mischief, so did they increase ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... as great a stir as the murder had done, and gave rise, in that period when "extenuating circumstances" had not been invented, to long and angry discussions. Indeed, the marquis either was guilty of complicity or was not: if he was not, the punishment was too cruel; if he was, the sentence was too light. Such was the opinion of Louis XIV., who remembered the beauty ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... she did rub it into Louise's father, though that could hardly have been said to do any good either. Her report of the whole affair made him writhe, but when she had made him writhe enough she began to admit some extenuating circumstances. If Mrs. Maxwell was a country person, she was not foolish. She did not chant, in a vain attempt to be genteel in her speech; she did not expand unduly under Mrs. Hilary's graciousness, and she did not resent it. In fact, the graciousness ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... the charge is fabricated'. If you tell me you sit but as the judge of the fact in this case, Caesar,—if you ask me where and when he served against you,—I am silent; I will not now dwell on the extenuating circumstances, which even before a judicial tribunal might have their weight. We take this course before a judge, but I am here pleading to a father. 'I have erred—I have done wrong, I am sorry: I take ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... evidence, largely conjectural in character, while there was strong evidence in his favor. Yet the judges of the court-martial seemed biased against him, and by a vote of three judges to two, he was again found guilty - "of treason, with extenuating circumstances," as if treason could ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... stage-butt, his social authority had come to an end. In the de Senectute it is obvious that Cicero is running counter to the stream in seeking to restore to favour a character about whom the public is indifferent and for whom all he can do is to plead extenuating circumstances. ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... of some facility and much good teaching she had no genuine talent and never would fulfill the expectations of her friends. She looked back upon her mother's girlhood with positive envy because it was so full of happy industry and extenuating obstacles, with undisturbed opportunity to believe that her talents were unusual. The girl looked wistfully at her mother, but had not the courage to cry out what was in her heart: "I might believe I had unusual talent if I did not know what good music was; ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... different for you, Tommy," she said. "A man's standards are different, I know. There may be what you call extenuating circumstances—though I can't quite imagine it. I'm too tired to argue about it, Tommy dear, and you mustn't be vexed with me. I can't go into it with you, but I feel as if it is I—I myself—who have committed ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... kindler of the vitai lampada, supposing him to have been responsible for his actions, can claim from a jury of human beings a verdict of absolute acquittal. But we can, even now, see certain extenuating circumstances, which evidence not yet available may one day so powerfully reinforce as to enable him to leave the Court without a ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... beamed. He rose with an air of triumph, and demanded, "having full regard for all the extenuating circumstances of the case, but also in consideration of the obstinate persistence of the accused in his offence," a ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... let me present to the reader a slight sketch of myself, mental and bodily; and, as mind ought to take precedence of matter, I will attempt, as far as I am able after the lapse of time, to paint my character in true colours, "nought extenuating, nor setting down aught in malice". I was, then, as the phrase goes, "a very well-behaved young gentleman"; that is, I had a great respect for all properly constituted authorities, and an extreme regard for the proprieties of life; ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... temples of the Chinese people for countless ages. Whether Hung was merely an intriguer or a fanatic, he could not help feeling some gratitude to those who so conveniently echoed his pretensions to the Throne at the same time that they pleaded extenuating circumstances for acts of cruelty and brigandage often unsurpassed in ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... is the transcendent figure, the most powerful creation of the book. In her, bigotry and its fellow-vice, hypocrisy, have done their perfect work, until she comes near to being a devil, and really does some devil's deeds. Yet even she is not without some extenuating traits. Her bigotry springs from her conscience, and she is truly devoted to her daughter's eternal welfare; she is of such a native frankness that at a certain point she tears aside her mask of dissimulation and lets Pepe see all the ugliness of her ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... absence of several months, and called on me before he had even seen his father and mother. He did not mention Julia; but I saw that his errand with me concerned her. I spoke of her excellent deportment and her useful life, dwelt upon the extenuating circumstances of her error and of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... while we were at Lucerne that LORD RIDDELL and I had some of our most significant conversations. I set them down just as they occurred, extenuating nothing and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... relate. Every honest man who sets himself face to face with the coup d'etat of Louis Bonaparte hears nothing but a tumult of indignant thoughts in his conscience. Whoever reads our work to the end will assuredly not credit us with the intention of extenuating this monstrous deed. Nevertheless, as the deep logic of actions ought always to be italicized by the historian, it is necessary here to call to mind and to repeat, even to satiety, that apart from the members of the Left, of whom a very small number were present, and whom ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... from Grace's mind her sudden and unaccustomed jealousy. She knew that Richard must be going away with this girl for some reason connected with his professional work. Of course that work did not usually include consoling beautiful damsels in distress, but there must be extenuating circumstances. She put her unpleasant thoughts from her mind, and proceeded on her mission, to give her husband the warning message she had just received, with a ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... they did eat more soberly at supper than at other times, and meats more desiccative and extenuating; to the end that the intemperate moisture of the air, communicated to the body by a necessary confinitive, might by this means be corrected, and that they might not receive any prejudice for want of their ordinary bodily ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... second point it is also necessary to make many inquiries before we arrive at our conclusions; and I have no doubt, if this be done with calmness, and without prejudice, it will be generally found that there are many extenuating circumstances which may be brought to modify our judgment. I am anxious, if possible, to place a few of these before the public, in the hope, that by lessening in some degree the unfavourable opinion heretofore entertained ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... anything to say? It is a time when the truth, all the truth, might be accepted as an extenuating circumstance. I speak to you first, Lovell. You're a Sixth Form boy—remember, I have been one myself—and it is your duty ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... a rarefying or extenuating of tough flegme or viscous humours troubling the chest,—the decoction or juice hereof made up with sugar or honey is availeable, as also to clense and purge the body both upwards and downwards sometimes, of tough flegme, and clammy humours, ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... came to me. You have forged bills to the amount of twelve hundred pounds. Yours is not the case of a ruined merchant or an ignorant over-tempted clerk. In your case a jury"—(she shuddered at that word)—"would find no extenuating circumstances; and if you should fall into the hands of justice you will be convicted, degraded, clothed in a prison-dress, and transported for life. I do not want to speak harshly; but I insist that you find means to take up the bill which Mr. ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... hard course for Eric's proud and loving heart to write and tell his aunt the full extent of his guilt. But he did it faithfully, extenuating nothing, and entreating her, as she loved him, to send the money by ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... At the trial, the 'prisoner's friend'—in this instance, Garth's colonel, who was very fond of him and had always thought very highly of him—pleaded extenuating circumstances. Garth's youth, his previous good record, the conditions of the moment—the continuous mental and physical strain of the days preceding his sudden loss of nerve—all these things were urged by the 'prisoner's friend,' and the sentence was commuted ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... Rossetti's life as seems necessary for the elucidation of subsequent records. I have drawn Rossetti precisely as I found him in each stage of our friendship, exhibiting his many contradictions of character, extenuating nothing, and, I need hardly add, setting down naught in malice. Up to this moment I have never inquired of myself whether to those who have known little or nothing of Rossetti hitherto, mine will seem to ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... the "Gttingischer Taschenkalender," 1796, that is, after the publication of Nicolai's article, but with reference to Ferriar's essay in the Manchester Memoirs, Vol. IV, under the title of "Gelehrte Diebsthle" does impugn Sterne rather spitefully without any acknowledgment of his extraordinary and extenuating use of his borrowings. "Yorick," he says, "once plucked a nettle which had grown upon Lorenzo's grave; that was no labor for him. Who will uproot this plant which Ferriar has set on his?" Ferriar's book was reviewed ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... not pardon her. She was a princess—how, then, could she pardon one who had dared to revile her? Every crime is easier to pardon than that of high-treason; for every other there may be extenuating circumstances—for that, never; it is a capital crime which a prince never pardons; how then, could Elizabeth have done so?—Elizabeth, Empress by the grace of God, as all are princes and kings by ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... for the confidential clerk, and, if there was need, the broken-nosed reporter, were on hand to testify to all that had been said. The young man made no attempt to conceal, but tried to explain more fully the circumstances which led to the act, hoping that in them the justice would find such extenuating elements as would ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... continued: "You said you were satisfied to take me as I was. You would not hear evil against me and so I acquiesced, bidding you not shrink back if ever the time should come when you must read that page. I was to blame, I know, but there were many extenuating circumstances, much to excuse me for withholding what you ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... guilt, and invokes any punishment her brother may adjudge to it; but she will not betray her lover by confessing his name, and she will not forbid Mertoun to come. The Earl's mind does not connect the two. No extenuating circumstance suggests itself. He has loved his young sister with a chivalrous admiration and trust; and he is one of those men to whom a blot in the 'scutcheon is only less terrible than the knowledge that such trust has been misplaced. He is stung to madness by what seems this ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... written expressly to picture the black man's side of the story, the author has been compelled to palliate, by interjecting extenuating, often irrelevant circumstances, the ferocity and insatiate lust of greed of his race. He has been unable to tell the story as it was, because his nature, his love of race, his inborn, prejudices and narrowness ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... of hot words Roma poured out her trouble, hiding nothing, extenuating nothing, and naming and blaming no one. At length the throbbing breath and quivering voice died down, and there was a moment's silence, in which the dull rumble in the church seemed to come from far away. Then the voice behind the grating said in ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... every way against the defendant, and the sympathy of the public was, naturally enough, with the young lady plaintiff. Lincoln and his associate counsel plainly saw the hopelessness of their cause; and they wisely concluded to let their side of the case stand upon its merits, without even a plea of extenuating circumstances. Voorhees was young, ambitious, and anxious to display his oratory. He arranged with his colleagues at the beginning that he should make a speech, and he spent several hours in his room at the hotel in the preparation of an oratorical avalanche. ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... the benefit of extenuating circumstances," urged Blondet. "When he escaped the clutches of want, he dropped into the claws of a ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... in which a writer may more fittingly introduce his work to the public than by giving a brief account of who and what he is. By this means some of the blame for what he has done is very properly shifted to the extenuating ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... Their trial and condemnation speedily followed at Lancaster; and in those days it followed, of course, that they were executed. Otherwise their case fell so far within the sheltering limits of what would now be regarded as extenuating circumstances—that, whilst a murder more or less was not to repel them from their object, very evidently they were anxious to economize the bloodshed as much as possible. Immeasurable, therefore, was the interval which divided them from the monster Williams. They perished on the scaffold: ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... of course I cannot now ask you to accompany me to Paris, where doubtless the proper authorities would gladly admit extenuating circumstances, and credit you with a sincere repentance. But I put you on your honor to ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... two prisoners would have but little weight with a jury, and there were no extenuating circumstances behind which he could go in support of his plea for leniency. The prisoners had revealed to him their motive in visiting Broadso's place, going quite fully into the details of the interview which ended in the shooting. ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon |
