"Impute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what I read in a London diurnal, that letters from me out of Portugal, by sea, signifying my then immediate return for Madrid, were come to hand. The like whereof having never happened to me before, so much as for a fortnight's time, I am utterly to seek what to impute it to, unless it be interceptings in France since the war hath been declared. In the meantime, it puts me to a great confusion in many respects, particularly for the want of monies; and thus farther I crave leave to inform you upon the same point, which is, that if my ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... Caesar Impute the breach of hospitality, To you (my guest) to me; I am contemn'd, And my rebellious subjects lift their hands Against my head: and would they aim'd no farther, Provided that I fell a sacrifice To gain you safety: that this is not feign'd, ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... many present assured his Grace that such-like accidents were very common, and many skaters had perished thus, whereof even Duke Ulrich named several instances, so that his Grace of Stettin need not impute such natural accidents to witchcraft or the power of the hag, he was somewhat calmed. Still he commanded the seven sleighs to return and bring the witch bound to Wolgast, that he might question her as to wherefore ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... would not," she replied, "do Sir Launcelot Greaves the injury to suppose him capable of imposition; but you talk of things to which I am an utter stranger. I have a right, sir, to demand of your honour, that you will not impute to me your breaking off a connexion, which—I would—rather wish—had never"——"Heaven and earth! what do I hear?" cried our impatient knight; "have I not the baleful letter to produce? What else but Miss Darnel's explicit and express declaration could have destroyed the sweetest hope that ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... replied the Earl. "We say that meaner women, like the lesser lights of heaven, have revolutions and phases; but who shall impute mutability to the ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... that the people would by acclamation select him, in preference to them, as her successor; or in the last emergency, that it would be but to marry Julia, in order to secure the throne beyond any peradventure. These are the schemes which many do not scruple to impute to him. Whether credited or not by Zenobia, I cannot tell. But were they, I believe she would but smile at the poor lack-brain who entertains them. Intrenched as she is in the impregnable fortress of her people's heart, she might well despise the ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... impediment, and their great views can suffer no contraction; possunt quia posse videntur. Such was the language Lord BACON once applied to himself when addressing a king. "I know," said the great philosopher, "that I am censured of some conceit of my ability or worth; but I pray your majesty impute it to desire—possunt quia posse videntur." These men of genius bear a charmed mail on their breast; "hopeless, not heartless," may be often the motto of their ensign; and if they do not always possess reputation, they still ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... let what would be the consequence. "Once more," said the same gentleman, "we advise you to restrain your curiosity: it will cost you the loss of your right eye." "No matter," I replied; "be assured that if such a misfortune befall me, I will not impute it ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... when he found that no harm had as yet been done, resolved that he would return to the charge. It has been before observed that he lacked something in delicacy, but what he did so lack he made up in persistency. He had been unable to impute any blame to Ralph as to that evening. He felt that he rather owed an apology to his favourite candidate. He would make the apology, and inform the favourite candidate, at the same time, that the course was still open to him. With these views he left Conduit Street early on the Wednesday ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... this freedom I have ta'en, An' if impertinent I've been, Impute it not, good Sir, in ane Whase heart ne'er wrang'd ye, But to his utmost would befriend Ought ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... of the mistake is, that men, finding in the raptures of the higher poetry a condition of exaltation, to which they have no parallel in their own experience, besides the spurious resemblance of it in dreams and fevers, impute a state of dreaminess and fever to the poet. But the true poet dreams being awake. He is not possessed by his subject but has dominion over it. In the groves of Eden he walks familiar as in his native paths. He ascends the empyrean heaven, and is not intoxicated. He treads the burning marl ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... Church, if, with that mildness which she has always manifested toward all men, she will only overlook and yield, some little, (einiges Wenige,) which we could not now alter if we would." [Note 10] Let not your Eminence believe our enemies, who wickedly pervert our writings, and falsely impute to us anything which can inflame the general hatred against us. We reverently pledge obedience [Note 11] to the authority of the Roman Pontif, [sic] and to the entire organization of the (Verfassung) of the [sic on repetition] church, only let not the Pope of Rome reject us. Many feel ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... though she was a native of Hyccara, a small town in Sicily, from whence she was brought a captive, was the daughter of this Timandra. There are some who agree with this account of Alcibiades's death in all points, except that they impute the cause of it neither to Pharnabazus, nor Lysander, nor the Lacedaemonians: but, they say, he was keeping with him a young lady of a noble house, whom he had debauched, and that her brothers, not being able to endure the indignity, set fire by night to the house where he was living, and, as ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... public attention, and even now a great majority of my countrymen may scarcely have realized the probability of England and Russia ever being near enough to each other in Asia to come into actual conflict. I impute no blame to the Russians for their advance towards India. The force of circumstances—the inevitable result of the contact of civilization with barbarism—impelled them to cross the Jaxartes and extend their territories to the Khanates of Turkestan and ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... of the heart, Celia had taken a violent fancy to this pale-blooded hypochondriac, and made no secret of the fact that she regarded him as her especial property. Nothing is so flattering to the vanity as the preference of a child, that naive, spontaneous affection to which it is impossible to impute mercenary motives. And Joel had responded by becoming Celia's abject slave. He ignored the other children for the most part, seldom betraying, unless perhaps by an impatient gesture or a frown, that he was aware ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... lord," replied the priest, "whether it is consistent with Christian charity to impute motives of such heinous guilt, when we are not in a condition to bear out our suspicions. The character of this young gentleman as a Catholic is firm and faithful, and I will stake my life upon his truth and attachment to ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... were evident. These two violent deaths occurring so immediately one after another (as not the slightest doubt existed that Cabert had likewise died of poison) threw the ministers into a sad state of perplexity. But to whom could they impute the double crime unless to some accomplice, who dreaded what the unhappy prisoners might be tempted to reveal. Yet the conduct of the Jesuitical priests stated by madame Lorimer to be the principal ring-leaders in the plot, ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... writing with all my heart against what he has said of me, I am not conscious of personal unkindness towards himself. I think it necessary to write as I am writing, for my own sake, and for the sake of the Catholic Priesthood; but I wish to impute nothing worse to him than that he has been furiously carried away by his feelings. Yet what shall I say of the upshot of all his talk of my economies and equivocations and the like? What is the precise work which it is ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... particularly in the use of parentheses and contracted forms for 'it is,' 'he is,' 'I will.'" There is a "loss of mastery" in "Cymbeline," "an apparently conscious and not quite successful struggle to overcome the difficulties of the new structure." An apologetic phrase that all this does not impute any "direct imitation" of Fletcher does not redeem it from the imputation that Shakspere was not content with copying Fletcher's plot, characters, situations, but he deliberately departed, when "Philaster" met his eye, from the methods he had used for more than twenty years, ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... to impute anything to your character," he said, mildly, "but if you can't see that this place is frightfully dirty, I suppose I can't prove it. Look ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... Boab. Impute your danger to our ignorance; The bravest men are subject most to chance: Granada much does to your kindness owe; But towns, expecting sieges, cannot show More honour, than to invite ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... head Weighed his own brother's blood, and God's dread curse, Should build a city, when he trembling fled Far from his Maker's face. And which was worse, The murder—or departing far from Thee? Great God! impute ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... ministers far and near; and religious meetings were often held at his house. We know nothing to justify us in saying that he could not have been the author of this paper; but we also know nothing, except the appearance of his name upon it, to impute it ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... no doubt on political grounds that these tortures, and the death that followed them, were inflicted. But it was for the truth as he saw it, that is, for the sake of duty, that Southwell thus endured. We must not impute all the evils of a system to every individual who holds by it. It may be found that a man has, for the sole sake of self-abnegation, yielded homage, where, if his object had been personal aggrandizement, ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... himself to any particular sect or congregation, assumed that he was an adversary to religion. To claim for him any credit as a pious man would be absurd; but, to suppose he had not as deep an interest as other men 'in his soul's health and welfare,' was to impute to him a nature ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... have they been rendered waterless, and thus driven into a forced emigration. Some of their rivers, as the Oxus and Jaxartes, have, within the records of history, been dry for several years. To these topographical changes, rather than to political influences, we must impute many of the most celebrated tribal invasions. It has been the custom to refer these events to an excessive overpopulation periodically occurring in Central Asia, or to the ambition of warlike chieftains. Doubtless those regions are well adapted to human life, and hence liable to overpopulation, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... another depends the evidence and certainty of several, even very general, propositions, which have passed for innate truths;—because men, overlooking the true cause why those propositions find universal assent, impute it wholly to native uniform impressions; whereas it in truth depends upon this clear discerning faculty of the mind, whereby it PERCEIVES two ideas to be the same, or different. But ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... continuing his own thoughts, some line from 'Epipsychidion', can doubt that they retained a lasting and almost equal place in his poet's heart. But the two cannot be regarded as equals in their relation to his life, and it would be a great mistake to impute to either any important influence upon his genius. We may catch some fleeting echoes of Keats's melody in 'Pippa Passes'; it is almost a commonplace that some measure of Shelleyan fancy is recognizable in 'Pauline'. But the poetic individuality of Robert Browning was stronger than any ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... in the matter of the Archbishop of Cosenza had had the desired result, and Isabella and Ferdinand could no longer impute to Alexander the signature of the brief they had complained of: so nothing was now in the way of the marriage of Lucrezia and Alfonso; this certainty gave the pope great joy, for he attached all the more importance to this marriage ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... didst with pitfall and with gin Beset the Road I was to wander in, Thou wilt not with Predestin'd Evil round Enmesh, and then impute ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... spared myself," said the Prince, "neither day nor night. Let not your Majesty impute the blame to me if we fail. Verdugo also is uttering a perpetual cry out of Friesland ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... as my lord says,' responded AEnone. 'And if I fail in due utterance of my thanks, impute it not to want of appreciation of the gift, but rather to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... that any person could take one of the Ecclesiastical Registers of Lower Canada, and at his option mark any number of the Roman Priests in the catalogue, and impute to them any crime which he pleased. But if the accuser were closely examined, and among such a multitude of Priests, who in all their clothing are dressed alike, were called upon minutely to delineate ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... was odious; and yet she had suggested it to him! Had she not done more than that? Had she not implied that he had done a dishonorable thing in concealing what he was in no way bound to reveal? What would he think of her, or impute to her, for raising such a point at the very moment when he was displaying his confidence in her, and appealing for her sympathy? She blushed with shame at ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... superiors. If we had been in their place we should have been the inventors, like them; if they were in ours, they would add to those inventions, like us. There is no great mystery in that. We must impute equal merit to the early thinkers who showed the way and to the later thinkers who pursued it. If the ancient attempts to explain the universe have been recently replaced by the discovery of a simple system (the Cartesian), we must consider that the ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... thee," when they trust to themselves that they are righteous, and have not need of any repentance; when the truth is, they are the worst sort of men in the world, because they put themselves into such a state as God hath not put them into, and then impute it to God, saying, God, I thank thee, that thou hast done it; for what greater sin than to make God a liar, or than to father that upon God which he never meant, intended, or did: and all this under colour to glorify God, when there is ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... curious disease that has become endemic in the whole of Europe. People impute it to machinery, but unjustly. There are objects made by machinery, such as motor-cars, which have real beauty of design; and people do genuinely and unconsciously enjoy this beauty, just because they never think of it as beauty. They like the look of a car ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... I preached at Thirsk; 27, at York. Friday, 28, I entered my 80th year; but, blessed be God, my strength is not "labour and sorrow." I find no more pain or bodily infirmities than at 25. This I still impute, 1. To the power of God, fitting me for what He calls me to. 2. To my still travelling four or five thousand miles a year. 3. To my still sleeping, night or day, whenever I want it. 4. To my rising at a set hour. And 5. To my constant preaching, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... that origin of the phrase. The hip of a chase is no term of woodman's craft: the haunch is. Moreover, what a marvellous expression, to say, A hound has a chase on the hip, instead of by. Still more prodigious to say, that a hound gets a chase on the hip. One would be loth to impute to the only judicious dramatic commentator of the day, a love of contradiction as the motive for quarrelling with Mr. Collier's note on this idiom. To the examples alleged by Mr. Dyce, the three following may be added; whereof the last, ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various
... unburied bones, seen by the light of moccoletti, were to me nothing but forms of folly. The abounding life of Catholicity was hardly understood by our party, which for some reason seemed inclined to impute the most death to the faith which has the most form. We did not gather how this abounding life can afford, though making more of our little fleshly sojourn than any other patron, to compare a skull with the life of the spirit, and relegate it ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... perhaps, call down upon his head the censures of those who judge events only from their results. Will this opinion be well founded? Are men responsible for the caprice of fate? Is it not to fortune, rather than to M. Z***, that we must impute the disastrous end of this revolution, begun under such ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... of course forebore from continuing a useless and irritating resistance. Lady Maldon had several times very plainly intimated that our aversion to the marriage arose solely from a selfish desire of retaining the services of her charming relative; so prone are the mean and selfish to impute ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... will does not dishonestly, wilfully, and stubbornly resist the converting gracious will of God, He, by His Spirit, will bend and turn it toward that which is good, and, for the sake of Christ's perfect obedience, will not regard, nor impute unto me, the obstinacy cleaving to me by nature." In the introduction of the book, which was written in the Dutch language, Falckner unequivocally professes adherence to the Symbols of the Lutheran Church, the confession of his fathers, "which confession ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... she first began to work the golden thread of religion into his life; for, notwithstanding that great coarseness which unluckily makes the "Canterbury Tales" unavailable as a book for family reading, but which we must chiefly impute to the customs of the age, Chaucer was, in the main, a religious man, and his poems are, in the main, religious poems. Chaucer was certainly a good father, and attended as far as he could to the education of his boys. His "Astrolabe," a work on astronomy, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... undertake myself to impute the motive which inspired this attack upon his own State. Whether it were anger inspired by the knowledge of the estimate in which the majority of her people held him; whether it were a gross nature with blunted sensibilities; whether these expressions ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... and both be in danger of the ditch. If the devotees of the Inductive Method have in their enthusiasm set up claims for it which cannot be substantiated, they must not blame the rigorous hand, which, in the service of Science, unmasks their idol and exhibits its defects, but rather impute to their own deviation from the severity of Scientific truth, the disappointment which they may experience. The question of Method lies at the foundation of all Science. Until it is thoroughly understood, until the exact character of all our Methods or Processes is definitely ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... counter our lovers staked was lost As surely as if it were lawful coin: And the sin I impute to ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... prevent, or, if that be impossible, to decry success in others, in order to exalt themselves. The "Metropolitans" followed the example of many unillustrious predecessors, though it must, in justice, be added, that they would have been shocked to hear anyone impute to them a want of originality in their curious methods. In the counsels of these literary bravos, WILLIAM GRUBLET held a high place. At the University, where he had pursued a dull and dingy career of modified respectability, not much was thought or spoken of GRUBLET. If he was asked what profession ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various
... results." A few cases may also be cited showing how relentlessly this disclaimer is applied. The court of New York in Kittinger v. Buffalo Traction Co., 160 N. Y. 377, held that the courts had no power to inquire into the motives inducing legislation and could not impute to the legislature any other than public motives. The Pennsylvania court in Sunbury R.R. Co. v. People, 33 Pa. St. 278, had urged upon it the argument that the statute in question had been "passed in fraud of the rights of the people." The court held that, if true, that fact would ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... would not be justified in going to a city over which any suspicion of pestilence still hovered. In fact, the success or failure of the event practically hung upon the Chief Executive's action. If, now, he decided to withdraw his acceptance, on whatever ground, the country would impute it to a justified caution, and would maintain against the city that intangible moral quarantine which is so disastrous to its victim. Throughout, Hal Surtaine in his editorial columns had vigorously maintained that the President would ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... intent had been hostile, that little fault could be justly found with a critic of the existing evidence if new evidence were required to confute him. But as the very last intention that I had in writing the paper was to impute anything that can be properly called untruthfulness to De Quincey, I thought it better to say so and to wait for the further documents. In a subsequent private correspondence with Mrs. Baird Smith, I found that what had offended her (her complaints being at ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... dealing with an obstacle to an instinctive action. In other words, though there is instinct and this furnishes the basis for action in the lowest forms of life, there is also the capacity for learning by experience,—and this is Intelligence. "The basis of instinct is heredity and we can impute an action to pure instinct only if it is hereditary. The other class of actions are those devised by the individual animal for himself on the basis of his own experience and these are called generally intelligent. Of intelligence operating within the sphere of instinct there ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... fancy for me will soon pass. It is only a fancy, Hal. Take a look in the glass, and you will see reflected there the figure of a stalwart man who is purely virile, possessing not the slightest attribute of the weaker sex, therefore your love is merely a passing flame. I do not impute fickleness to you, but merely point out a masculine characteristic, and that you are a man, and only a man, pure and unadulterated. Look around, and from the numbers of good women to be found on every side choose one who will make you a fitter helpmeet, a ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... the bearer, after a considerable interval of silence, "you are right. This is, indeed, an extraordinary letter you have brought me; but it answers its purpose. I will certainly go with you now, whatever be the consequence. No person shall ever impute blame to me, so long as I have it in ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... the bones are the levers of the body, and the tendons and muscles (which are one and the same thing) are the powers of acting applied to these levers. Now when we consider a half-bred Horse running one mile or more, with the same velocity as a Horse of foreign extraction, we do not impute that equality of velocity to any innate quality in the half-bred Horse, because we can account for it by external causes: that is by an equality of the length, and extent of his levers and tendons. And when we consider a half-bred Horse running one ...
— A Dissertation on Horses • William Osmer
... complete and perfect righteousness. He did not need this righteousness for Himself, for He had a righteousness far above the righteousness of the law. He wrought it out not for Himself, but for man, that He might make it over and impute it to the transgressor. Thus then while man had no obedience of his own, he could have the obedience of another set down to his account, as though it were ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... has thus fully developed the capacity of republican governments to prosecute successfully a just and necessary foreign war with all the vigor usually attributed to more arbitrary forms of government. It has been usual for writers on public law to impute to republics a want of that unity, concentration of purpose, and vigor of execution which are generally admitted to belong to the monarchical and aristocratic forms; and this feature of popular government ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... to the one he had given all the other Churches he established;—that they should lay by every Lord's Day, as God had prospered them, for the relief of the poor Saints. It appears, by the Apostle's remarks in the second Epistle to the same Church that there were some who desired to impute base motives to him as though he wished to share in this bounty. He accordingly evinces his disinterestedness, by declining all provision for himself. He tells them, however, that he did not decline receiving any thing from them because he loved them less than other Churches by whose ...
— Christian Devotedness • Anthony Norris Groves
... in all circumstances opposed to that sympathy all men owe one to another, and to that Greater Source of love and sympathy in which 'we live and move and have our being.' Where this bond has been broken, we long for its restoration; but it cannot but tend to retard this restoration, to impute to one or other of the parties concerned motives that are entirely foreign to its action. Peace, to be lasting, must stand on a foundation of truth; and there is no truth whatever in the idea that the English ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... fought in the intertribal wars. His was the first educative and civilizing influence in the Indian towns. He endeavored to cure the Indians of their favorite midsummer madness, war, by inducing them to raise stock and poultry and improve their corn, squash, and pea gardens. It is not necessary to impute to him philanthropic motives. He was a practical man and he saw that war hurt his trade: it endangered his summer caravans and hampered the ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... extent of the ill-will which she bears towards me, those circumstances do not prevent my feeling the most profound attachment to her person, and the deepest grief at her indisposition. Do not fail to assure her that I told you this with tears in my eyes. God grant that I may never impute to so good a Princess all the injury which I have suffered from her friends, nor the calumnies which those about her incessantly propagate against me; although it is certain that so long as she listens to these envenomed tongues ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... destroy her. Our Lord would have me make a sacrifice to Him, without any consolation, and plunged in sorrow, night was the time in which I gave vent to it. He made me see, on one side the grief of her grandmother, if she should hear of her death, which she would impute to my taking the child away from her; the great reproach, it would be accounted among all the family. The gifts of nature she was endowed with were now like pointed darts which pierced me. I believe that ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... disgrace, which she knew not whether to impute to the card affair, or to the last faux pas she had committed, she now came to consult the conjurer, and signified her errand, by asking whether the cause of her present disquiet was of the town ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... employs his time, where he rides alone without one creature to contradict him, while our FEW FRIENDS there wonder at our silence, and the English in general, if they think of this matter at all, impute our refusal to wilfulness or disaffection, just as Wood and his hirelings are pleased ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... well. Julia looks well, but I think she is pretty well fagged out, having worried a good deal about the house, and being unaccustomed to the contrary ways of workmen. I am feeling better now than I have felt for five years, which fact I impute very largely to the out-of-door exercise which I am taking in the garden and upon the bicycle. I am doing good work and am ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... received from that Eminent pious and learned Man, Mr. Samuel Cradock; during my abode in London; the Letter bears date Febr. 26. 1690. Then take it in his own Words, which are these; 'We have at this present one in our next Town, who has a Son who has strange Fits, and such as they impute to Witchcraft: He come to consult with me about it, but before he came, he had used a means which I should never had directed him unto, viz. He took the Nails of his Son's Hands and Feet, and some of his ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... this freedom I have ta'en, An' if impertinent I've been, Impute it not, good sir, in ane Whase heart ne'er wrang'd ye, But to his utmost would befriend Ought that belang'd ye. ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... of their benefits. Excuses of a lighter kind, however, seem frequently to have been held adequate by the players. Mr. Sheridan, the actor, notifies in 1745 that, "as his benefit was not appointed till last Friday, he humbly hopes that such ladies and gentlemen as he shall omit to wait on will impute it rather to a want of time than to a want of respect and knowledge of his duty." And Mr. Yates, who about the same time had migrated from the West-end stage to the humbler theatre in Goodman's Fields, and announced Fielding's "Miser" for his benefit—"the part ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... duly appreciated, there was nevertheless no hesitation in deciding on the course which it became the Government to pursue. As there was reason to believe that the commanders of these posts had violated their instructions, there was no disposition to impute to their Government a conduct so unprovoked and hostile. An order was in consequence issued to the general in command there to deliver the posts—Pensacola unconditionally to any person duly authorized ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe
... sweet degrees, her heart, Vanquish'd, takes warmth from his desire; She makes it more, with hidden art, And fuels love's late dreaded fire. The generous credit he accords To all the signs of good in her Redeems itself; his praiseful words The virtues they impute confer. Her heart is thrice as rich in bliss, She's three times gentler than before; He gains a right to call her his, Now she through him is so much more; 'Tis heaven where'er she turns her head; 'Tis music ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... all the slaves within their respective limits? Would Virginia and other Southern States have ever united in a declaration which was to be interpreted into an abolition of slavery among them? Did any one of the thirteen colonies entertain such a design or expectation? To impute such a secret and unavowed purpose, would be to charge a political fraud upon the noblest band of patriots that ever assembled in council,—a fraud upon the Confederacy of the Revolution; a fraud upon the union of those States whose Constitution ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... living Stone, and we are living stones, and the life of the foundation rises up through all the courses of the great temple. Faith unites sinful men to God in Christ; therefore it makes them partakers of the 'blessedness of the man, ... to whom the Lord will not impute sin,' and of the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord reckons his faith for righteousness. That same faith which thus clothes us with the white robe of Christ's righteousness, in lieu of our own ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... reverted to the subject of poetry, let this our defence serve to show the reasonableness of our former judgment in sending away out of our State an art having the tendencies which we have described; for reason constrained us. But that she may not impute to us any harshness or want of politeness, let us tell her that there is an ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry; of which there are many proofs, such as the saying of 'the yelping hound howling at her lord,' or of one 'mighty in the vain talk ...
— The Republic • Plato
... their condition now, has been in but poor proportion to the amount of the advantages, which we are apt to be elated in recounting as the boast and happiness of later times? To assume that we should not, is to impute to that former age still more ignorance and debasement than appear in the above description. For what could, what must that condition have been, if it was worse than the present by anything near the difference made by what would be a tolerably fair ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... not impute it to levity, or to a worse failing, ingratitude, if, with anguish of heart, I feel myself compelled by irresistible arguments to recall a vow which I fear I made with too little consideration. I never can be yours. The reasons of my decision, which is final, are in my own breast, and you must ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... me justice, my dear Sir, when you impute the want of my letters to my want of news: as a proof, I take up my pen again on the first spring-tide of politics. However, as this is an age of abortions, and as I have often announced to you a pregnancy of events, which have soon after been ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... least be said that his will was not concerned in this transaction. He acted in obedience to an impulse which he could not control nor resist. Shall we impute guilt where there is no design? Shall a man extract food for self-reproach from an action to which it is not enough to say that he was actuated by no culpable intention, but that he was swayed by no intention whatever? ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... exercises. To them the individual Englishman owes his superiority to the individual of every other country, in courage, strength, and agility: and as a country is composed of individuals, to what other causes can England more reasonably impute her proud preeminence among nations which she now enjoys, and which she will ever maintain till this spirit is tamed into servility, under the pretence of applying salutary restrictions to the licentiousness ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... popular success had been of the kind to which a certain unpopularity attaches. Moderate men of both parties were prone to impute it to demagogism, and Dilke was in the fortunate position of seeing those Radical principles for which he stood advocated by his ally with a force of combined invective and argument which has had few parallels in political history, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... Mr. Gould and Mr. Allen impute opposite effects to the same cause, brilliancy or intensity of colour being due to a brilliant atmosphere according to the former, while paleness of colour is imputed by the latter to a too brilliant sun. According to the principles which have been established ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... moderation, that it may better accomplish its ambitious purposes, has been ascribed by some to a jealousy which they conceive Nadir, even at this early period, entertained of the rising reputation of his son; but those who impute it to this cause forget that Reza Kuli, when he returned, was not only received with extraordinary favor and affection, but soon afterward was intrusted with all the power of a sovereign, and left to govern Persia, while ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... ran to be wronged, was unwillingly[AU] willing to let them pass as now they appear to the world. If any faults have escaped the press (as few books can be printed without), impose them not on the author, I intreat thee; but rather impute them to mine and the printer's oversight, who seriously promise, on the re-impression hereof, by greater care and diligence for this our former default, to make thee ample satisfaction. In the mean ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... Lavinius with the design of overawing him. The writing was couched thus: "King Pyrrhus to Lavinius, Greeting. I learn that you are leading an army against Tarentum. Send it away, therefore, and come yourself to me with few attendants. For I will judge between you, if you have any blame to impute to each other, and I will compel the party at fault, however unwilling, to grant justice." Lavinius wrote the following reply to Pyrrhus: "You seem to me, Pyrrhus, to have been quite daft when you set yourself up as judge between the Tarentini ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... which can be said, and that their opponents have a fair and liberal hearing. This begets a magnanimity and a rational confidence which cannot otherwise be obtained. But, such results can never happen while we are so timid, or so dishonest, as to impute improper motives to those who assail our religious opinions. We may rely upon it that as long as we look upon an atheistical writer as a moral offender, or even as long as we glance at him with suspicion, atheism will remain a standing and permanent danger, because, skulking in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... throw the charge of transporting the English troops; the article of forage, which alone amounted, in the course of the last campaign, to one million two hundred thousand pounds, besides pontage, waggons, horses, and many other contingencies. To the German war we may also impute the extraordinary expense incurred by the actual service of the militia, which the absence of the regular troops rendered in a great measure necessary; and the loss of so many hands withdrawn from industry, from husbandry, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... "Oh, I suppose they don't pretend not to take their students at the young people's own risk: they can scarcely pretend to control their affections!" she wonderfully said; she seemed almost shocked, moreover, that I could impute either to Father or to herself any disposition to control Peggy's. It was one of the few occasions of my life on which I've suffered irritation from poor Mother; and yet I'm now not sure, after ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... are dull, or preoccupied, or blunted by want of interest. This is true of most country people. We see more when we read the lives of the wild creatures about us in the light of our human experience, and impute to the birds and beasts human motives and methods. This is too often true of the eager city man or woman who sallies out into ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... I have regretted the delay in acknowledging the courtesy of the minister of Justice of France, by a suitable return. But feel assured that he as well as yourself will impute it to accidental causes wich I ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... replied to it more at length, and with great sympathy, giving her encouragement and consolation. He speaks of their mutual sufferings as providential; and his letter is couched in a more Christian spirit than one would naturally impute to him in view of his contests with the orthodox leaders of the Church; and it also expresses more tenderness than can be reconciled with the selfish man he is ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... the Governor of South Carolina. He communicated with the Confederate government at Montgomery. That government was bent on maintaining, without further debate, its full sovereignty over the coasts and waters within its jurisdiction. There is no need to impute a deliberate purpose to rouse and unite the South by bloodshed, any more than there is reason to impute to Lincoln a crafty purpose to inveigle the South into striking the first blow. Each acted straight in the line ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... he, "strange as it may appear to you, a kind hand has not so often been held out to me, that I should forget it, especially when that hand is so fair and gracious. May I be permitted, madam—you will impute it to gratitude rather than audacity—I—I—" (whimper), "madam" (with ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... use are regrets and despair now? And my blood will not wipe away your tears. Our position is so frightful that I tremble so speak of it. I ought to tell you the truth, however, horrible as it may be. Do not curse me, Clemence; do not impute to me this fatality, which obliges me thus to torture you. In a few hours I shall have expiated the wrongs of my love, or you yourself may be free. Free! pardon me for using this word; I know it is an odious one to you, but I am too troubled to find another. Whatever ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... believe that you have been actuated by jealousy in telling this dreadful story; I will try to think that your eyes deceived you, and that you really thought that you saw the Chevalier do as you have said. But oh! how mistaken you are, unhappy girl! when you impute such a crime to one of the noblest and best ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... present) more and more good poets will do the same. Poets will tend towards Christian orthodoxy for a perfectly plain reason; because it is about the simplest and freest thing now left in the world. On this point it is very necessary to be clear. When people impute special vices to the Christian Church, they seem entirely to forget that the world (which is the only other thing there is) has these vices much more. The Church has been cruel; but the world has been much ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... matter. I have seen no reason to suppose the old man incapable of making a will. The testimony seemed to point the other way; and as nobody except the hospital had anything to gain by this last win, it strikes me as worse than absurd to impute motives of jealousy to people who were only giving ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... know you well enough to be assured of your discretion; but woe to the idiots who are gossiping, if I can get hold of them." The next night the Empress entered, as the Emperor was retiring, and his Majesty said to her in my presence, "It is very bad to impute falsehood to poor Monsieur Constant; he is not the man to make up such a tale as that you told me." The Empress, seated on the edge of the bed, began to laugh, and put her pretty little hand over her husband's mouth; and, as it was a matter concerning myself, I withdrew. For a few days the Empress ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... pipe then," answered the Warden, "and listen at my ease; and if, as you intimate, there prove to be any folly in it, I will impute it all to the kindly freedom with which you have partaken of our English hospitality, and forget it before ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... yet described to me the nature of the substance which we are to explore, nor the process by which the virtues you impute to ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... there can have been no reason why those nations, which lived peaceably in their countries, owing us nothing, should have been destroyed by us, we know not what to say, nor do we find any one to whom to impute such irreparable evils, other than to those who until now have governed them. Since it is incumbent upon us, by virtue of the office we hold at court, to oppose and denounce everything that is an offence and a dishonour to the ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... plough-boy at first-sight, which she certainly would not have done, but that some preternatural agent whispered to her, he was a young man of birth. But whether this magical information came from the palpitation of her heart, or the quickness of her eye, she has not said.—A reader will, however, gladly impute the cause of her sudden passion to magic, rather than to the want of ...
— Speed the Plough - A Comedy, In Five Acts; As Performed At The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden • Thomas Morton
... unaware,— Malice, not one can impute; And why should a heart have been there In the way of a fair ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... by its effect, intense and memorable: it must have been as a shock obliterating everything save the memory of itself and the things connected with it: the time and manner of such a shock could never have been forgotten, nor misplaced without deliberate intention to deceive, and no one will impute any such intention ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... their way. In the first place they have no financier, no man who by natural aptitude and by long-continued contact with great questions of finance, has enabled himself to handle the money affairs of a nation with a master's hand. In saying this I do not intend to impute any blame to Mr. Chase, the present Secretary of the Treasury. Of his ability to do the work properly had he received the proper training, I am not able to judge. It is not that Mr. Chase is incapable. He may be capable or incapable. But ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... while the gentlemen who asked them were the most indiscreet of individuals, he was the most discreet of Secretaries. And he did this, though he was strongly of opinion that Judge Bramber's delay was unjustifiable. But what would be thought of a Secretary of State who would impute blame in the House of Commons to one of the judges of the land before public opinion had expressed itself so strongly on the matter as to make such expression indispensable? He did not think that he was ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... reviving this absurd business, and has cast suspicion upon the accuracy of his book. It is time that our historians approached their subjects with more liberal tempers. They should cease to be advocates. Whatever the American people may think about the policy of the Federalists, they will not impute to them unpatriotic designs. That party comprised a majority of the Revolutionary leaders. It is not strange that many of them fell into error. They were wealthy and had the pride of wealth. They had been educated with certain ideas about rank, which a military life had strengthened. The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... say I should have come off rich and triumphant. I had no means of knowing that I was to play with a chemist who would use against me the latest scientific implements of criminal warfare. It is, therefore, to the extraordinary means used for my detection that I impute my defeat, rather than to any bungling of my own. This is a grim consolation, but it is still a consolation, for I have always prided myself upon being an artist in my line. As I propose to put myself beyond the reach of further cross-examination, I take ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... one may tell us, with an air of complete knowledge of the matter, that what then moved Philip to act thus was not his ambition nor any of the motives which I impute to him, but his belief that the demands of Thebes were more righteous than your own. I reply, that this statement, above all others, is one which he cannot possibly make now. How can one who is ordering Sparta to give up Messene put forward his belief in the righteousness of the act, as his excuse ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes |
