"Blame" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Admiral Charles D. Sigsbee, U.S.N. Sigsbee, commissioned captain in 1897, was in command of the battleship Maine when she blew up in Havana harbor in 1898. A naval court of inquiry exonerated Sigsbee, his officers, and crew from all blame for the disaster; and the temperate judicious dispatches from Sigsbee at the time did much to temper the ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... of our neighbours: which is nothing new. It is our trouble that we must emphasise obvious duties. To approach the question frankly with no matter what good faith will lead to much heart-burning, perhaps, to no little bitterness; but if we realise that all sides are about equally to blame, we may induce an earnestness that may lead to better things. It is in that hope I write. Catholics and Protestants, instead of saying to one another the things with which we are familiar, should ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... gutter. If you'd see her you'd know she wouldn't hurt a fly, she's that gentle looking, like all the Syrian women. She had a 'Don't be a scab' ribbon on—that's all she done! Somebody'll shoot that guy, and I wouldn't blame 'em." Anna stood beside Janet's typewriter, her face red with anger as she told ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... vessel. The captain was a good navigator, and very attentive to his duty, as was the first mate; so that when, during my watch on deck at night, I got the ship steered a wrong course, in the hopes of edging her in on the African coast, I was very soon detected. I laid the blame on the helmsman, one of my accomplices, who stoutly asserted that he had been steering a proper course. I again tried to effect my object; but the captain had, it appeared, a compass above his head, in his own cabin, and being awake, ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... really originate in an ill conformation of body, obtuse pain, or constitutional defect of pleasurable sensation. What is charged to the author, belongs to the man, who would probably have been still more impatient, but for the humanizing influences of the very pursuit, which yet bears the blame of his irritability. ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... you? You drive me, with all your sharp-pointed feminine weapons, to a painful task, and then you blame me because you fancy I've not discharged it as neatly as the angel Gabriel might. She thinks I did, however. Was I rough with you last night? Is it my habit to go around trampling on the finer feelings of our nature? In the hour of woe, ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... consequence is that nearly all the foreign settlers in Nicaragua from amongst the European and North American labouring classes have fallen into the same lazy habits as the Nicaraguans, and whenever I have been inclined to blame the natives for their indolence, some recollection of a fellow-countryman who has succumbed to the same influences has arrested my harsher judgment. I cannot recommend Nicaragua, with all its natural wealth, its perpetual summer, its magnificent lakes, and its teeming soil, ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... inexplicable mixtures, far-fetched out of India and Arabia; a medicine for a botch must be had as far as the Red Sea." And 'tis not without cause which he saith; for out of question they are much to [4170]blame in their compositions, whilst they make infinite variety of mixtures, as [4171]Fuchsius notes. "They think they get themselves great credit, excel others, and to be more learned than the rest, because they make many variations; but he accounts them fools, and whilst they brag of their skill, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... shut to me, Enter and take their place there sure enough, Though they come back and cannot tell the world. My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. The sudden blood of these men! at a word— Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too. I, painting from myself and to myself, 90 Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame Or their praise either. Somebody remarks Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, His hue mistaken; what of that? or else, ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... you I don't want your cursed option. I want ownership; and it's the same with Magnus Derrick and old Broderson and Osterman and all the ranchers of the county. We want to own our land, want to feel we can do as we blame please with it. Suppose I should want to sell Quien Sabe. I can't sell it as a whole till I've bought of you. I can't give anybody a clear title. The land has doubled in value ten times over again since I came in on it and improved it. It's worth easily twenty an acre now. But I can't ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... who am to blame for an unusual weakness," she said. "Let us both forget it. And don't you find this place hot? Let us get ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... could not aspire to, or expect to receive, the admiration of rich lords and gentlemen—that is for my betters; and now that a happy chance has thrown such an unhoped-for piece of good luck in my way, you will not blame me, I am confident, for gladly accepting it. Let me take my belongings then—which are packed in the chariot with the others—and receive my adieux. I shall be sure to rejoin you some day, sooner or later, at Paris, for I am a born ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... is, my dear young lady, it is we who have to apologise to you for not keeping pace with your fairy-like movements, and fearing that Sir Ralph and Lady Castleton might justly blame me as the senior of the party for deserting you, I hurried out as soon as the rain ceased in the hopes of finding you before you reached the house, to entreat you to offer some excuse for my conduct. But I suspect the captain is chiefly to blame, and if you will enter into a compact with ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... that," she said finally, "cried the good news through the town till everybody knew—then when people found out that it was Emmett Potter who was the thief and that he was too much of a coward to own up and take the blame—would they let the monument go on standing there, that they'd put up to show he was brave? It would serve him right if they took it down, wouldn't it!" she exclaimed with a savage little ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... bad for the babies," replies the Lord God. "Famine would kill the babies. And, besides that, the cattle must have food—they're not to blame." ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... while back, and I got one of their wheels and was fooling with it like a fellow will on a wet day—what say?" He smiled up at the Judge a self-deprecatory smile, as if to ask him not to mind his foolishness but to listen to his story. "And when I got the blame thing apart, she wouldn't go together—eh? So I had to kind of give up the agency, and I took a churn that was filling a long-felt want just then. Churns is always my specialty and I forgot all about the bicycle—just like a fellow will—eh? But here ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... listen to her perverse talk," Li Wan laughed. "She takes the lead and kicks up a rumpus, and incites people to laugh, and then she throws the blame upon me! In real truth, she's a despicable thing! What I wish is that you should soon get some dreadful mother-in-law, and several crotchety and abominable older and younger sisters-in-law, and we'll see then whether you'll still be ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... unwilling actor in the drama. But little did I suspect the series of astonishing events that was to come with the morning; little did I dream that the net I have been dreading would to-day engulf me. I can scarcely blame Inspector Bray for holding me; what I can not understand is ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... of it! I thought I'd come over and tell you that. Now you know,—and if you hear things you don't like, don't blame me, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... poetry, and such a one as makes its greatest importance and dignity: for we find those authors who have been offended at the literal notion of the gods, constantly laying their accusation against Homer as the chief support of it. But whatever cause there might be to blame his machines in a philosophical or religious view, they are so perfect in the poetic, that mankind have been ever since contented to follow them: none have been able to enlarge the sphere of poetry beyond ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... her husband's death was a defence of his memory. She had fought so hard for him when living that it seemed only natural to her to go on fighting for him now that he was beyond the reach of praise or blame. Colonel Grant had written a letter to The Times anent an obituary notice of Sir Richard Burton, in which he defended Speke, and spoke of the "grave charges" which Speke communicated against Burton to his relatives and to the Geographical Society. Lady Burton saw this letter some time after ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... I blame myself for not having taken into consideration the possible effects of a sudden abstinence on the part of virtually the whole strength of the company on one of Anatole's impulsive Provencal temperament. ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... no one belonging here was interested in the counterfeiting gang you boys came upon. I am sure, too, that no one will blame you for what you did. We are law-abiding people, but our mountains constitute a secure refuge for some who ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... never knew you to make any bad breaks. I have nothing else to do at present, and have a few thousands that I am willing to risk in this business. If I lose it I shall let it go for experience and blame no ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... think of it, the more natural it seems to me that they should thus forget themselves, for a while; have I not myself been foolish over both? The fault, too, is mine; I brought them together; they are not to blame. ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... as to occupy with his corps the line along the east side of the Dowdall's clearing, which he had already intrenched, and where he had his reserve artillery. He did not do so; and it is more easy to say that he was to blame, than to show good cause for the stigma cast upon him for the result ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... justice to the memory of so respectable a friend, Mr. Walpole enjoins me to charge himself with the chief blame in their quarrel - confessing that more attention and complaisance, more deference to a warm friendship, superior judgment and prudence, might have prevented a rupture that gave such uneasiness to them both and a lasting concern to the survivor; though, in the year 1744, a reconciliation ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... the theatre. At the same time, I would venture to say from my own experience of that branch of theatrical business with which I have been connected—and in such matters one can only speak from personal experience—that any woman yielding to these temptations has only herself to blame, that any well-brought-up, sensible girl will, and can, avoid them altogether, and that I should not make these temptations a ground for dissuading any young woman in whom I might be interested from joining our calling. To say, as a writer once said, that it was ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... FRIEND,—I am much obliged by the regard you entertain for me; and do not blame your enthusiasm, which well enough beseems your young years. If my books teach you anything, don't mind in the least whether other people believe it or not; but do you for your own behoof lay it to heart as a real acquisition you have made, more properly, as a real message left with you, which ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... could no longer resist so many prayers; especially when I saw myself accused of want of affection. I have now only to crave my readers' pardon; and if they find rashness and presumption in my attempt, to blame my advisers rather than me, since my own judgment agrees with that of ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... man of fashion, and how can a gentleman possibly show at Melton without at least a dozen hunters, and two or three hacks, to ride to cover! Yet no one in his senses would tax these things as luxuries; or would blame his friend for getting into the King's Bench for their indulgence. Even the most austere judges of the land, and the most jealous juries of tradesmen, have borne ample testimony to the reasonableness ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... lightning-speed he conceived the contents of the letter; all was now cast on one die; falsehood and artifice were trifles in comparison with the impending ruin. He would either entirely dispel Perdita's suspicions, or quit her for ever. "My dear girl," he said, "I have been to blame; but you must pardon me. I was in the wrong to commence a system of concealment; but I did it for the sake of sparing you pain; and each day has rendered it more difficult for me to alter my plan. Besides, I was instigated ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... guide-books that the region round about Ronda is one of the richest in Spain for grapes and peaches and medlars and melons and other fruits whose names melt in the mouth. If you do not find in the market the abundance you expect of its picturesqueness you must blame the lateness of the season, and go visit the bull-ring, one of the most famous in the world, for Ronda is not less noted for its toreros and aficionados than for its vineyards and orchards. But here again the season ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... of mice and men—'" he quoted philosophically. "I hope the entire blame for this wild venture is put on my shoulders where it belongs when we are brought to trial. These two navigators here and the rest of the men are in no way responsible. I forced every man of them under pain of ...
— The Space Rover • Edwin K. Sloat
... favourer of us, was grown old, and his spirit and authority decreased with his strength. His son, who was arrived at manhood, being weary of waiting so long for the crown he was to inherit, took occasion to blame his father's conduct, and found some reason for censuring all his actions; he even proceeded so far as to give orders sometimes contrary to the Emperor's. He had embraced the Catholic religion, rather through complaisance than conviction ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... convinced and consistent Christian believer, will tell us that this is at least not one of the points in which it is unfaithful to life. If the author is closer and more faithful in his study of meanness and vice than in his studies of nobility and virtue, the blame is due at least as much to his models as to himself. If he has seldom succeeded in combining a really passionate with a really noble conception of love, very few of his countrymen have been more fortunate in that respect. If in some of his types—his journalists, his married ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac
... "And small blame to them! Married man or mariner—that's what a boy is born for. Better dare wreck or wedlock than sit here and talk about both. Take my advice, master, and marry ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... blame you for thinking well of him, my child," interposed her father. "I only hope you are not becoming ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... themselves nor for you. Faugh! Flee from flatterers, and take up only with sternly true and faithful men. "I am much less regardful," says Richard Baxter, "of the approbation of men, and set much lighter store by their praise and their blame, than I once did. All worldly things appear most vain and unsatisfying to those who have tried them most. But while I feel that this has had some hand in my distaste for man's praise, yet it is ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... immoderate tongues was directed at Miss Clarice Carroll, the twinkling star of the small aggregation. Excepting the downcast comedian, all members of the party united in casting upon her with vehemence the blame of some momentous misfortune. Fifty times they told her: "It is your fault, Clarice—it is you alone who spoilt the scene. It is only of late that you have acted this way. At this rate the sketch will have ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... decide what was to be done, and left it to me. He could see all sides of the question. Other people will see one, or one more strongly than another, whatever it may be; and therefore, do what I will, a large body of people will blame me. Nay, if I threw it up, a great many would blame me. What have I done that I should be in such a strait? But I am sixty-four years old, and I shall ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... sinking and perishing, of whom our Lord has said—"It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish?" It is not His will. I am sure that it is not your will either. I believe that, with all my heart. I do not blame you, or the people of Liverpool, nor the people of any city on earth, in our present imperfect state of civilisation, for the existence among them of brutal, ignorant, degraded, helpless people. It is no one's fault, just because it is ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... also with noble king Herre, the sevinth of that name He was also at Barwick at the winnyng of the same [1482] And by ky[n]g Edward chosy[n] Captey[n] there first of anyone And rewllid and governid ther his tyme without blame But for all that, as ye se, ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... observation, that malignity takes hold only of his writings, and that his life passed without reproach, even when his boldness of reprehension naturally turned upon him many eyes desirous to espy faults which many tongues would have made haste to publish. But those who could not blame, could, at least, forbear to praise, and therefore of his private life and domestic character there are ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... from them when they behold those many knights hanging from yonder oaks, knights who thought to battle with me and so rescue the Dame Lyoness. Nor did I blame them overmuch, for it is well worth hanging for, perchance to win a smile from so fair a lady. Would that I could ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... drop, Steve," he said, hastily. "It ain't worth quarreling over. The proof of the pudding is in the eating of it; and tomorrow we'll know what's what. But remember, if it turns out that we've been bamboozled, don't blame me, because I've ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... directions for the government of his people, if he still continued to live among them, and to be their Sachem. 'But,' he added, 'I know that your heart is with your own people, and that you desire to return to your former home. I cannot blame you; for I well know the yearning of spirit that draws a man to his kindred, and to his father's house. And Oriana will go with you, and make your home and your people her own. If this is to be, then let Jyanough ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... epistle, my dear M., I left myself safely ensconced at Greenwood's Rancho, in about as uncomfortable a position as a person could well be, where board was fourteen dollars a week. Now, you must not think that the proprietors were at all to blame for our miserable condition. They were, I assure you, very gentlemanly and intelligent men, and I owe them a thousand thanks for the many acts of kindness and the friendly efforts which they made to amuse ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... children, no praetorium, but only the earth and heavens, and one poor cloak. And what do I want? Am I not without sorrow? Am I not without fear? Am I not free? When did any of you see me failing in the object of my desire? or even falling into that which I would avoid? Did I ever blame God or man? Did I ever accuse any man? Did any of you ever see ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... understand, Admiral, and really don't blame you for being slightly annoyed. But, please let us not bring this issue of national importance down to a shallow personal level. The Army has facts to back up this request—facts that ...
— Navy Day • Harry Harrison
... ill-luck, I suppose. I had no real right to question you—everybody would say it was presuming. But when we have misunderstood, we feel injured by the subject of our misunderstanding. You never said you had had nobody else here making love to you, so why should I blame you? Elfride, I ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... their choice and sympathy; and it was thus she completely veiled her feelings. Can we condemn her mother for refusing to believe the child she had trained and watched, and prayed for so long, such an adept in deceit? Can we blame her want of penetration in this instance, and think it unnatural in her character, when we remember how completely the character of her child was changed? Surely not. It would have been stranger had she, without proof, believed Caroline the ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... Isabel said, bravely: "I am sure that Juan does not blame you now, mi madre. In the other world one understands better. And remember, also, the letter which he wrote you. His last thought was yours. He fell with your name on his lips. These things are certain. And was ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... to be lineally descended from the maid's aunt of Brainford, who caused Master Ford such uneasiness. She hath Atlantean shoulders; and as she stoopeth in her gait,—with as few offences to answer for in her own particular as any of Eve's daughters,—her back seems broad enough to bear the blame of all the peccadilloes that have been committed since Adam. She girdeth her waist—or what she is pleased to esteem as such—nearly up to her shoulders, from beneath which that huge dorsal expanse, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... sender is to blame. He has misdirected. He has placed papers not properly folded in the envelope and then neglected to seal it. He has neglected to write any address at all, and dropped the letter into the box. Again he has addressed the parcel, ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... had disgraced the school and that she would be expelled. And she wrote a telegram to Mae's father to come and take her away. And she asked Mae if she had anything to say for herself, and Mae said it wasn't her fault. That you and I were to blame just as much as she, because we were all in a society together, but that she couldn't tell about ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... Bid them prepare within: I am too blame to be thus waited for. Now Cynna, now Metellus: what Trebonius, I haue an houres talke in store for you: Remember that you call on me to day: Be neere me, that I ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... "I cannot blame you, Jean; it was my usual forgetfulness of others which so misled you. I was tired of the world, and came hither to find peace in solitude. Effie cheered me with her winsome ways, and I learned to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... suspended from his neck, by a massive gold chain. He defended one of the men, who, despite his advocacy, was convicted. He then offered himself as a witness, swore that he had seen the whole transaction, that there was no smuggling, and that the Lively was to blame. This the prosecution could not stand; he was indicted for perjury, and was tried at Maidstone on 25 July, 1833. The sentence of the Court was imprisonment and transportation, but, being proved to be insane, this was commuted to confinement in the lunatic asylum, at ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... have mostly felt the necessity not only of referring all rules of conduct, and all judgments of praise and blame, to principles, but of referring them to some one principle; some rule, or standard, with which all other rules of conduct were required to be consistent, and from which by ultimate consequence they could all be deduced. Those who have dispensed with the assumption of such a universal standard, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... It is unpleasant to have ugly names hurled at one by the first writer of the day; but the abuse was for the most part too general to be libellous. Nor would there be any great interest now in exactly distributing the blame between Pope and his enemies. A word or two may be said of one of the ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... the city." The lad's bright, clear eyes looked frankly into the captain's as he continued. "I have been making a fool of myself, Captain. Got into some mischief with a crowd of fellows at school. Of course, I got caught and had to bear the whole blame for the silly joke we had played. The faculty has suspended me for a term. I would have got off with only a reprimand if I would have told the names of the other fellows, but I couldn't do that, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the wind's eye to shoot the gear," said the senior skipper. "A big swell in knee-breeches opened the door and called out our names, when I was brought up all standing, for I saw that the peak halliard was fast on the port side. The blame thing was too small for me to shift over, so I had to leave it. But, believe me, she never said a word about it. That's what I ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... a fortune hunter," he said raspingly. "If you are so dead to the most inspiring of God's works, yours be the blame, Felicity, and ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... yielding, but on the condition that Gilbert should not put his good will to the proof a second time. "Otherwise," said Ivan, "if you still attempt to talk with him secretly, I cannot permit him to go out, and, of course, he could only blame you, and would then have the right ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... you did all that was possible," John said, "and that the blame lies with them, and not with you, in any way. However, it was the will of God that it should be destroyed; and they were the instruments of his will, while they thought they were ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... doesn't hurt you; you're all right; Your easy conscience takes no blame; But he, poor boy, with morning's light, He eats his heart out, sick ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter
... ofttimes be not only without any School whatever, but may be far distant from studious people. The two first of these causes—the first of the hindrance from within, and the first of the hindrance from without—are not deserving of blame, but of excuse and pardon; the two others, although the one more than the other, deserve blame and ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... put an absolute veto on inventions of any sort tending to diminish the demand for crude hand labor in their respective crafts. As it was, they did all it was possible for them to accomplish in that direction by trades-union dictation and mob violence; nor can any one blame the poor fellows for resisting to the utmost improvements which improved them out of the means of livelihood. A machine gun would have been scarcely more deadly if turned upon the workingmen of that ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... so; but I must say, I think Mr Slow has been much to blame. I do, indeed." Mr Slow was the attorney who had for years acted for Walter Mackenzie and his father, and was now acting for Miss Mackenzie. "Will you allow me to go to him and ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... fancy may linger, without blame, over the shining meres, the golden reed-beds, the countless water-fowl, the strange and gaudy insects, the wild nature, the mystery, the majesty—for mystery and majesty there were—which haunted the deep fens for many a hundred years. Little thinks the Scotsman, whirled down by the ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... really murderous tumult in the darkness; all hands would grope in the oil and one would always outcry the others. Then the mother would come in very cross and want to know who was always starting such mischief. Then one would blame the other, and finally the blame would fall on Sami, because he made the least noise. Usually the farmer too came in then, and his angry wife would always reply that she had indeed said the boy would be an apple of discord ...
— What Sami Sings with the Birds • Johanna Spyri
... that we, the clergy, are chiefly to blame, for not only not protesting against, but most contentedly acquiescing in such a state of things. You ask now for something really demanding a sacrifice. "I can't afford it." "What, not to rescue that village from starvation? not to enable that good man to preach the Gospel to people only accessible ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ALKERTON reproved the Clerk untruly, and slandered him wrongfully and uncharitably. For, no doubt, if the living and teaching of CHRIST chiefly and his Apostles be true, nobody that loveth GOD and His Law will blame any sentence that the Clerk then preached there; since, by authority of GOD's Word, and by approved Saints and Doctors, and by open reason, this Clerk approved all things clearly that he ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... laughed. "I congratulate you, my dear. Farce is exactly the word for it. Our relations have been a farce ever since the day we were married, and if anything has gone wrong you have only yourself to blame for it. What's a man to do whose wife is no company for anybody but the ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... head, and the sceptre are gone To the hand of the stranger, who held what he won, I have borne much of sorrow, of wrong and of shame, I've been spoken against with scorning and blame; But still have my daughters been spotless and fair, And my sons have been dauntless to do and to dare; For as great as thou art and most precious to me, Still thou art not my only one, ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... fall into the hands of any who are expecting, by the acquisition, to become grammarians, and yet, have not sufficient ambition and perseverance to make themselves acquainted with its contents, it is hoped that the blame for their nonimprovement, will ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... they are people who call a spade a spade. Such men are apt to interpret this dictum as a kind of charter which enables a man to say anything foolish, or rude, or bad that may occur to him, and earn praise for it instead of blame. Some of us fail to find the greatness of this way of thinking, however much we may be impressed by its audacity. Indeed there seems to be much smallness in it ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... way. Gerald knows just how fortunate he has been, and it's exactly that which makes him so miserable. At first, you understand, he could lay the entire blame on the De Brezes; he was sure they had in some mysterious way constrained her, and though he was angrily, tragically, suicidally wretched, it was one kind of woe—a clean, classic woe, I will call it. He believed it shared by ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... insulting as Dudley's proposition was, it yet involved a great treason against my uncle. Should I be weak enough to be silent, may he not, wishing to forestall me, misrepresent all that has passed, so as to throw the blame altogether ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... of a naval court inquiry was to put all the blame for the collision on the Olympic. Captain Smith, in his testimony before the naval court, said that he was on the bridge when he saw the Hawke overhauling him. The Olympic began to draw ahead later or the Hawke drop astern, the captain did not know which. Then the cruiser ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... him, Dolly. Still, Jake's very young, and he wouldn't be so bad, either, if he'd been punished for the things he did at home. As long as I was there, you see, they could blame everything that was done onto me. He did, at ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... sixty miles mouth of Roanoke, where they were hospitably received by the savages. It is melancholy, after the bright picture of the intercourse between the natives and the English drawn by Barlow, to have to record hostilities, in which by far the greater share of blame lay with our countrymen. On the voyage back to Roanoke a silver cup was stolen from the English at one of the Indian villages. In revenge the English put the inhabitants to flight, burnt the village and destroyed the crops. On the 3d of August ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... given by unity of sentiment and community of interests. The distraction and the uncertainty of our political aims, the feebleness and inconsistency with which they are pursued, arise, in part at least, from the connection with Ireland. Neither Englishmen nor Irishmen are to blame for the fact that it is difficult for communities differing in historical associations and in political conceptions to keep step together in the path of progress. For other evils arising from the connection the blame must rest on English Statesmen. All the inherent vices of party government, ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... wandering of her thought from the text, which she still attempted dutifully to follow with her eyes and silent lips, was into an imaginary enlargement of the defence she had set up for her husband against Priscilla's implied blame. The vindication of the loved object is the best balm affection can find for its wounds:—"A man must have so much on his mind," is the belief by which a wife often supports a cheerful face under rough answers and unfeeling words. ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... a view to improving their condition in the free States. Douglass approved heartily of this plan, and through his paper made himself its sponsor. When, later on, Mrs. Stowe abandoned the project, Douglass was made the subject of some criticism, though he was not at all to blame for Mrs. Stowes altered plans. In our own time the value of such institutions has been widely recognized, and the success of those at Hampton and Tuskegee has stimulated anew the interest in industrial education as one important factor in the elevation ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... when Judge Ould agreed upon a new cartel with General Butler, Lieutenant-General Grant refused to approve it, and Mr. Stanton repudiated it; and that the policy of the Federal Government was to refuse all exchanges while they "fired the Northern heart" by placing the whole blame upon the "Rebels," and by circulating the most heartrending stories of "Rebel barbarity" to prisoners. If either of the above points has not been made clear to any sincere seeker after the truth, ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... capture a very wealthy city, wherein was such spoil as had never before been taken in all the wars of the Roman people, he feared lest the soldiers should be provoked to anger if he should seem to grudge them the booty, or the Senate blame him if he should be too bountiful. Whereupon he wrote a letter in these words: "The favour of the Gods and my own counsels and the valour of the soldiers have brought it to pass that Veii will soon be in the possession of the Roman ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... lay the whole blame of such intolerant Christianity upon the unfortunate woman who fell heir to the crown of Castile during the period when the Church of Rome had the power to bind the consciences of men. Let us remember that as a woman Isabella was an honor to her sex; as a Christian she lived devoutly; ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... "I don't blame you in the least, Alexai Dmitritch! You took advantage of.... You were quite right. No wonder that you're not so keen about our cause now... as I said before, you have something else on your mind. And, really, who can tell beforehand what will please a girl's heart ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... John Gordon! He must bear some sorrow too, if there should be cause to him for grief. There would be loss of money, and loss of time, which would of themselves cause him grief. Poor John Gordon! She did not blame him in that he had gone away, and not said one word to draw from her some assurance of her love. It was the nature of the man, which in itself was good and noble. But in this case it had surely been unfortunate. With such a passion at his heart, ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... inspection and criticism of some one from the outside world—a candid and outspoken elderly relative—he is likely to become, on the one hand, morbidly sensitive about those things which the other finds to blame, and, on the other, no less puffed up with pride in whatever ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... suggested, of course, that I should go back to them, but I couldn't think of it! It would recall too much that I must try to forget, and poor Angie's face would give me no peace. I know that in her heart she must blame me still for the ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... Eastern, that's all,' says Enright one day, while he's discussin' of this Slim Jim. 'He ain't to blame, but he ain't never goin' to do, none whatever, out yere. He can't no more get used to Arizona than one of the Disciples, an' he might ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... and so remained there, till at length through enuie and malice still increasing amongst the Christians, he perceiued how no good purpose go forward, since that which semed good to some, was misliked of other; and speciallie our writers put great blame in the French men, who either vpon disdaine or other displeasure would not be persuaded to follow their aduise, which were knowne best to vnderstand the state of things in those parties. And herevpon, when the ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (6 of 12) - Richard the First • Raphael Holinshed
... you do not challenge him, if you do not run the risk of making yourself a murderer, you will be looked upon as a mean-spirited wretch, unfit to associate with your fellows, and deserving nothing but their scorn and their contempt!" It is society, and not the duellist, who is to blame. Female influence too, which is so powerful in leading men either to good or to evil, takes in this case the evil part. Mere animal bravery has, unfortunately, such charms in the female eye, that a successful duellist is but too often regarded as a sort of hero; ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... do not blame the maiden. She bade me follow with her company, and she was only careful that no one should have cause to make ill-judged remarks upon ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... silent. He felt guiltily relieved that he did not have to break this news to Babs. Most men have an instinctive feeling that a woman will blame them for ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... he comes! Not the Christ of our subtile creeds, But the light of our hearts, of our homes, Of our hopes, our prayers, our needs, The brother of want and blame, The lover of women ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... off! Don't blame him! He gets hell from higher up if he don't work us, don't he? He ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... been a fortnight at Green Gables before Mrs. Lynde arrived to inspect her. Mrs. Rachel, to do her justice, was not to blame for this. A severe and unseasonable attack of grippe had confined that good lady to her house ever since the occasion of her last visit to Green Gables. Mrs. Rachel was not often sick and had a well-defined contempt for people who ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... them to speak and act for themselves. This is the main object which I have undertaken to accomplish in this Narrative of my Personal Adventures in The Sahara. The public must, and will, I doubt not, judge how far I have succeeded, and award me praise or blame, as may be my desert. If I have failed, I shall not abandon myself to despair, but shall console myself with the thought that I have done the best I was able to do under actual circumstances, and in my then state of health. It would, indeed, ill become me to shrink ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... the business I have undertaken. As for other particulars in my life and adventures, I shall insert them in following papers, as I shall see occasion. In the meantime, when I consider how much I have seen, read, and heard, I begin to blame my own taciturnity; and, since I have neither time nor inclination to communicate the fulness of my heart in speech, I am resolved to do it in writing, and to print myself out, if possible, before I die. I have been often ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... just come from Mr. Fulton's house," said he. "Inquiries there elicited the facts which have so startled you. Neither Mr. Fulton nor his wife meant to deceive you. They knew nothing, suspected nothing of what took place, and you have no cause to blame them. It was all a plot ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... marriage—some friend of Senor Menendez had told them—would not know us. It meant that Colin, who would have been a rich man, was very poor. It made no difference. He was splendid. And I was so happy it was all like a dream. He made me forget I was to blame for his troubles. Then we were in Washington—and I saw Senor ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... by Mr Odo Russell was not one which had been directed by her Majesty's government,'' that it was used by him "without any specific instructions or authority from the government,'' but that, at the same time, no blame was to be attached to him, as it was "perfectly well known that the duty of diplomatic agents requires them to express themselves in that mode in which they think they can best support and recommend the propositions of which they wish to procure acceptance.'' This ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... this letter on at once. Paul also wrote, as did Kimberker and even the servant who had gone with them in the carriage. Each tried to shift the blame from himself, told of the strange behavior of the horses, explained that everything possible had been ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.
... denies the freedom of the will.[4] Every human action is inevitable. "Nothing happens by chance." Every thing is because it cannot but be. How then can we consistently praise or blame any conduct? If one cares to make hair-splitting distinctions, it may be replied that we cannot, but none the less we can rejoice at some actions and deplore others. And the love of praise, with its obverse, the ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... College. But the Receiver-General would not pay them to the College authorities, pending the Crown's decision on the Statutes. The Governors urged the Royal Institution to a hasty consideration of their embarrassment. They did not blame or censure the Board for the extraordinary situation in which they found themselves. In the question as to the cause of the situation they were not primarily interested. Debating on the responsibility for it and on bygone disputes would not improve it. The fact was plain that ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... and made up my bed afresh. While she was doing this, my uncle went in and spoke to her very low. But I think I must have heard or guessed that he said my sentence had been too severe, and I was not so much to blame for trying to get a simple drink of milk, for when my grandmother came out, went into the pantry and brought me a slice of bread and butter, I was not surprised, but fell upon it like ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... Squire was silent for a moment. "It is not fair for me to put all the blame on Rachel Carter. Your father was willing to go. He did not kill Rachel Carter. Together he and Rachel Carter killed your mother. But Rachel Carter was more guilty than he was. She was a woman and she stole what belonged in the sight of God to another woman. ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... me a life without pleasure or blame (As mortals count pleasure who rush through their day With a speed to which that of the tempest is tame) O grant me a house by the beach of a bay, Where the waves can be surly in winter, and play With the sea-weed in summer, ye bountiful powers! ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... give up their boats, he said, he had no very great desire for the crews. It was driftwood and ship-timber that he was after, and he really couldn't get on without them. When his stock ran out, boat or ship he must have, and surely nobody could blame him for it either. ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... loss for a peg to hang his definite sense of injury upon. He couldn't blame the girl for having trusted him, nor for proving so perfectly adequate to the unconventional situation he'd created. He couldn't reproach her, even in his thoughts, for the frankly expressed pleasure she took in the leisured dignity of the little restaurant, with its modestly sumptuous appointments ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... far more true to character alive than as a museum specimen, for its natural complexion is a yellowish grey, the neutral tint of the blending of sand and coral mud upon which it resides. The preserving fluid added a pinkish tinge to the body and limbs. Blame, therefore, the embalmer for the over-conspicuous form which is not in the habit of the creature as it lived. Neither are the plumes those of pomp and ceremony, but merely the insignia of self-conscious meekness—the masquerade under which the shrinking ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... "The first of these of whom thou wishest to have knowledge," said he to me then, "was empress of many tongues. To the vice of luxury was she so abandoned that lust she made licit in her law, to take away the blame she had incurred. She is Semiramis, of whom it is read that she succeeded Ninus and had been his spouse; she held the land which the Soldan rules. The other is she who, for love, slew herself and broke faith to the ashes of Sichaeus. Next is Cleopatra, the luxurious. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... prey. If the three hunters were victorious he had little he thought to fear from Fabian, who was still in his eyes Tiburcio Arellanos. The lower class of Mexicans think little of a blow with the dagger, and he hoped that the one he had given might be pardoned, if he were to throw the blame upon Don Estevan. If this last remained master of the field, he trusted to find some plausible excuse for his desertion. He decided therefore upon letting them begin the struggle, and then, at the decisive moment, should come to the assistance ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... 350, "That in the neighbouring kingdom of Ardah, the duty to the King is the value of seventy or eighty slaves for each trading ship." Which is near half as much more as at Whidah; nor can the Europeans, concerned in the trade, with any degree of propriety, blame the African Kings for countenancing it, while they continue to send vessels, on purpose to take in the slaves which are thus stolen, and that they are permitted, under the sanction of national laws, to sell them to ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... suddenly hollowed; And the Piper advanced and the children followed; And when all were in, to the very last, The door in the mountain-side shut fast. Did I say, all? No! One was lame, And could not dance the whole of the way; And in after years, if you would blame His sadness, he was used to say,— "It's dull in our town since my playmates left! I can't forget that I'm bereft Of all the pleasant sights they see, Which the Piper also promised me; For he led us, he said, to a joyous land, Joining the town and just at hand, Where waters ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... that my term of life might fall far short of the average one. I resolved, however, as the last year of my apprenticeship was fast drawing to its close, to complete, at all hazards, my engagement with my master. It had been merely a verbal engagement, and I might have broken it without blame, when, unable to furnish me with work in his character as a master-mason, he had to transfer my labour to another; but I had determined not to break it, all the more doggedly from the circumstance that my uncle James, in a moment of irritation, had said at its commencement that he feared I would ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... have lived in the University too much as if it were a large country-house, if they have imitated rather the Toryism than the learning of their great Archbishop, the blame is partly Laud's. How much harm to study he and Waynflete have unwittingly done, and how much they have added to the romance of Oxford! It is easy to understand that men find it a weary task to read in sight of the beauty of the groves of Magdalen and of ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... hour had been cold and dismal enough. There is nothing to be ashamed of in the confession. Dick suffered severely, as every manly nature must suffer when deceived by a woman. He did not blame the woman—why should he?—but he felt that a calamity had befallen him, the heaviest of his young experience, and he bore ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... spacious or commodious, furnished a dwelling to three or four. The persecutions which limited the Jewish quarter to certain defined boundaries, the intolerance which prohibited the Jews from possessing or cultivating land, or from acquiring any trade or profession, were to blame for this wretchedness. ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... "Why blame or reproach me, Myra darling?" he said at last, his deep voice vibrant. "Remember that you tempted me, challenged me. It was to me that you spoke, and not to Standish, when you said you wanted to be kissed by the man who loved you, and not by a cold-blooded ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... pleased him. But the river used to be blue, always blue, when he first crossed it, a buoyant youth. The river had n't changed. It was the same river he had always loved. Then the change must be in him, Skinner. Why had he gradually ceased to enjoy things? Who was to blame for the drab existence he was suffering? Was it ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... behaviour, she is filled with bitter sadness.[56] Yet her love is still so strong that she cannot bring herself to blame him and instead calls to mind ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... Blue is right. The Frenchmen intend to run us near their own coast and then rise on us, or they hope to fall in with one of their own cruisers and be retaken. Small blame to them." ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... here put, the master may be frequently a loser by the trust reposed in his servant, but never can be a gainer: he may frequently be answerable for his servant's misbehaviour, but never can shelter himself from punishment by laying the blame on his agent. The reason of this is still uniform and the same; that the wrong done by the servant is looked upon in law as the wrong of the master himself; and it is a standing maxim, that no man shall be allowed to make any advantage of ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... candid credulity of my heart, the treasure I possessed. Many people tell me that you loved me enough to lead me to hope you would have loved me much. That idea takes from my mind all bitterness, and leads me only to blame myself. You will accept this last farewell, and you will bless me for having taken refuge in the inviolable asylum where all hatred is extinguished, and where all love endures forever. Adieu, mademoiselle. If your happiness could be purchased by the last drop of my blood, I would shed that ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... it, from his hiding place on the top of the cliff. But his heart was not sick. In a moment, he was sure, his work would be accomplished for him, and his employer would be rid of Pauline Marvin in a way that could reflect no blame on ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... would be toyling in the watrie billowes, To rob their mistresse of her Troian guest? O cursed tree, hadst thou but wit or sense, To measure how I prize AEneas loue, Thou wouldst haue leapt from out the Sailers hands, And told me that AEneas ment to goe: And yet I blame thee not, thou art but wood. The water which our Poets terme a Nimph, Why did it suffer thee to touch her breast, And shrunke not backe, knowing my loue was there? The water is an Element, no Nimph, Why should I blame AEneas ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe
... don't know as I can blame you," said Grace, still more softly: she fancied he was referring to Miriam. "I don't ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne |
