"Extenuate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... confidence gave me an immense ascendancy over Madame d'Urfe, and I often abused my power over her. Now that I am no longer the victim of those illusions which pursued me throughout my life, I blush at the remembrance of my conduct, and the penance I impose on myself is to tell the whole truth, and to extenuate nothing ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... O troubled soul, from whom the vision of Christ is veiled. It is more than likely that some undetected or unconfessed sin is shutting out the rays of the true sun. Excuse nothing, extenuate nothing, omit nothing. Do not speak of mistakes of judgment, but of lapses of heart and will. Do not be content with a general confession; be particular and specific. Drag each evil thing forth before God's judgment bar; ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... to the judicious and curious Reader to determine. Thus much I thought necessary to say concerning former Translations, in order to justify my own Undertaking, which will not acquire an intrinsic Merit from the Censures, that I have pass'd upon others. No: The Faults of others cannot extenuate our own; and that Stamp, which every Work carries along with it, can only determine of what Kind ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... May 10.—To extenuate Hooker's misconduct, his supporters assert that he was struck, stunned, and his brains affected. Hooker was stunned on Friday, and his campaign was already lost on Tuesday before, when he wrote his silly proclamation, when he subsided with the army in a semi-lunar (the worst form of all) camp, ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... Farnham really suffers in thought by the same unflinching fidelity to her creed. It makes her clear and resolute in her statement; but it often makes her as one-sided as the advocates of male supremacy whom she impugns. To be sure, her theory enables her to extenuate some points of admitted injustice to woman,—finding, for instance, in her educational and professional exclusions a crude effort, on the part of society, to treat her as a sort of bird-of-paradise, born only to fly, and therefore not needing feet. Yet this authoress is obliged ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... broke down, and lay there before me strangling with sobs and cries. "Should Mr. Floyd know," he murmured, "should Mr. Floyd even guess, that I am the wretched wreck of a man that I am, he would not let Helen stay with me another moment. He would extenuate, he would pity, nothing: he does not know what it is for a man like me, once proud, witty, gay, to bear seclusion and depression and decay. I long at times for some of the inspiration of my youth: it comes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... writer has had an opportunity of remarking, the generality of professed Christians among the higher classes, either altogether overlook or deny, or at least greatly extenuate the corruption and weakness here in question. They acknowledge indeed that there is, and ever has been in the world, a great portion of vice and wickedness; that mankind have been ever prone to sensuality and selfishness, in disobedience to the ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... unmerited popularity as a preacher. As he is, perhaps, though a burning and a shining light, not "one of the fixed," we shall take this opportunity of discussing his merits, while he is at his meridian height; and in doing so, shall "nothing extenuate, nor ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale, that sweeps from the north, will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... of life issued from the womb of nature after so long and painful a travail? The annihilation of the unfit is the seamy side, though the most real side, of natural selection. We ignore it, or extenuate it, and turn rather to consider the advances in organisation by which the survivors were enabled to outlive ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... herself. It has been objected that her ready avowal of weakness as common to all her sex is the undramatic epigram of a satirist, awkwardly ventriloquizing through the mechanism of a tragic puppet; but it is really quite in keeping with the woman's character to enlarge and extenuate the avowal of her own infamy and infirmity into a sententious reflection on womanhood in general. A similar objection has been raised against the apparent change of character implied in the confession made by ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... this cause doth saye. He that hathe obserued the whole lawe / and dothe offend in one / is made giltye of all. Which sayinge truly is harde and sharpe / but most true / and teachith all men that they shuld not extenuate synne. But this place of Iames / is not to be vnderstonded / as thoughe that all synnes ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr
... coming up to spend one evening,—Powell is the name they all knew him by, and the belief is that Angie was much fascinated by him, and had met him East before meeting him here. Mr. Davies, I am glad to relieve your mind of one uncomfortable theory in connection with this affair. I wish I could extenuate or explain Willett's conduct as easily, but that young man is a fool of ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... not so much profaned, were it not misused in easy good-nature, to extenuate lettered and sensual indolence, that worn old term might be applied, above all men, to "the Shirra." But perhaps we scarcely need a word (it would be seldom in use) for a character so rare, or rather ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... wasn't well when she went away," he whispered, turning his shoulder to the men and his face to Philip. He talked in a low voice, just above the rumble of the wheels, trying to extenuate Kate's fault and ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... this impeachment, it must be confessed that his majesty gave many marks of his great lenity; often urging the services you had done him, and endeavouring to extenuate your crimes. The treasurer and admiral insisted that you should be put to the most painful and ignominious death, by setting fire to your house at night, and the general was to attend with twenty thousand ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... had wished to say that he personally, so far from finding fault with Mr. Solmes for trying to shoot him, fully recognised that he drew trigger under a contract to do so, given circumstances which had actually come about. He would not endeavour to extenuate his own conduct, but submitted that he was entitled to a lenient judgment, on the ground that a hare, the pursuit of which was the indirect cause of the whole mishap, had jumped up from behind a stone.... Well—I suppose I oughtn't ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... bring all this upon myself? Whether unmasked by others, or by myself, is it not equally true that I have been playing false, and am now punished for it? What do the world care for your having returned to truth? You have offended by deceiving them, and that is an offence which your repentance will not extenuate." It was but too true, I had brought it all on myself, and this reflection increased my misery. For my dishonesty, I had been justly and severely punished: whether I was ever to be rewarded for my subsequent honesty still remained to be proved; but I knew very well that most people would have written ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... fanaticism borders upon hypocrisy. He was possessed with a "great moral idea," the idea of making Catholicism the ruler of the world, that he might be the ruler of Catholicism. Why, it may be said, shall the charge of fanaticism be allowed to absolve Isabella and extenuate the guilt of Charles, while it only strengthens the case against Philip? Because Isabella persecuted heretics in order to save their souls from a worse fate, while Philip burnt them in order to get them out of his way. ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... Without attempting to extenuate the errors of Madame de Longueville, moral or political, it has been the author's endeavour to reconcile the apparent contradictions in her character, imputed in the passage above cited, by assigning the different incidents, ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... ear-rings at his face. She had missed her mark. But this did not extenuate the outrageous gesture. He pointed to ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... find some reason or other to give for, or excuses to palliate. Men plead want to extenuate theft, and strong provocations to excuse murders, and many a lame excuse they will bring for whoring; but this sordid habit even those that practise it will own to be a crime, and make no excuse for it; and the most ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... But nothing can extenuate the infamy that must for ever rest upon the names of certain parties to the proceedings. Not to attempt here to measure the guilt of the accusing witnesses, it may be mentioned that it was the deliberate conviction of the ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... Circumstances, does not act like an obliged Man only to him from whom he has received a Benefit, but also to all who are capable of doing him one. And whatever little Offices he can do for you, he is so far from magnifying it, that he will labour to extenuate it in all his Actions and Expressions. Moreover, the Regard to what you do to a great Man, at best is taken notice of no further than by himself or his Family; but what you do to a Man of an humble Fortune, (provided always that he is a good ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... in refusing to marry them," said Father Tom, "nothing. Uncle John, I know that you can extenuate, that you are kind, but I do not see it is possible to look at it from any ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... devotedness, could efface the remembrance of her connivance at that deep-laid plot which had imposed her upon him as a wife. Yet the lot of Leah was peculiarly a lot of reproach and trial—and as we behold her wretchedness, we are led, not to extenuate her fault, nor to palliate her sin, but to forgive ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... conduct in life, so candour, and indeed common integrity, enjoin it upon us to accompany that acknowledgment with all such circumstances, and the reasonings upon them that occur to us, as may serve to extenuate the criminality of those acts, and to show that his misconduct was the natural, or rather the necessary and inevitable result of the circumstances to which he was exposed, and nothing more than the every-day issues of human ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... was under great obligations? He made but little reply; but the impression sunk deep into his rancorous heart; every word in Edmund's behalf was like a poisoned arrow that rankled in the wound, and grew every day more inflamed. Sometimes he would pretend to extenuate Edmund's supposed faults, in order to load him with the sin of ingratitude upon other occasions. Rancour works deepest in the heart that strives to conceal it; and, when covered by art, frequently puts on the appearance of candour. ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... understood the trend of her thoughts. He tried to find some excuse for his cowardly act; but with the realization of the true cowardliness and treachery of it that the girl didn't even guess he understood the futility of seeking to extenuate it. He saw that the chances were excellent that after all he would be compelled to resort to force or threats to win her hand ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Lieut. Corner, who would not have been likely to err on the side of hostility to Edwards, gives his evidence against him in this particular. But whether he is to be believed or not, the fact that four of the prisoners went down in irons is impossible to extenuate. ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... omissions and with nothing extenuate the data on which is based the indictment that the clergy have been, and are, anti-national, and I ask the reader to say whether the charge is unsupported or not. That overtures have again and again been made sub rosa to ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... the slightest idiosyncrasies of temperament and character, but also, in some sort of way, to justify what was positively bad. Thus his book contains the germs of that Byronic egotism which later became the fashion all over Europe. It is also, in parts, a morbid book. Rousseau was not content to extenuate nothing; his failings got upon his nerves; and, while he was ready to dilate upon them himself with an infinite wealth of detail, the slightest hint of a reflection on his conduct from any other person filled him with ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... general, that, as they consist in comparing the iniquitous practice of slavery with other iniquitous practices in force among other nations, they can neither raise it to the appearance of virtue, nor extenuate its guilt. The things compared are in these instances both of them evils alike. They call equally for redress[098], and are equally disgraceful to the governments which suffer them, if not encourage them, to exist. To attempt therefore to justify ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... independent in the mountains, in spite of every effort to reduce them under the Spanish dominion. The natives are strong, active, vigorous, and war-like, but are represented as cruel, vindictive, and treacherous, though perhaps the Spaniards have exaggerated their bad qualities, to extenuate their own tyranny and oppression. The Spanish garrison at this island at this time consisted of 300, relieved from time to time from Manilla, and the King of Spain is said to have allowed 30,000 dollars yearly for the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... floating it to a creditable finish. It is a precipitate of the partisan animosity that inspires both parties and holds them to their duty of self-sacrifice and devastation, and at its best it will chiefly serve as a cloak of self-righteousness to extenuate any exceptionally profligate excursions in ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... lack of nerve with me; I don't know what you call it, but I confess I find the smoke-wreaths pleasant; you won't join me either, Jack? Well, let us have the story in all its native simplicity and be sure you nothing extenuate nor set down ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... been explained by the barbarity of the civilized Europeans, and which, often conspicuous, has never been more destructively present than in their dealings with the Tasmanians. But I am convinced that this is an error. I certainly do not wish to apologize for or extenuate the crimes of the convicts and colonists, against which the most vigorous protests have been raised both in England and in the colony itself, but neither war nor social disasters have been the principal cause of the disappearance ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... have the fatal curiosity of Fatima and her sister Anne. We must extenuate here, nor aught set down in malice, remembering that Wagner knew only the women of his own day, before the sex was uplifted and purified by the vote, and he naturally depicted them with the man-engendered vices that were then a part of their unhappy heritage. This ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and decisive manner are punishments awarded for every class of crimes committed in society; and it was communicated to the English factory from the viceroy, that on no consideration was it left in the breast of the judge to extenuate or to exaggerate the sentence, whatever might be the rank, character, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... justly called perverted ambition, and Milton stamped it with terrible condemnation when he put into the mouth of his arch fiend the sentiment—"better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." The passions of youth extenuate those errors which in ripened manhood are criminal; and it is not improbable that Mr. Cooper's own opinion at this day concurs with ours when we say that his refusal of the manager's offer seems to us to have been very injudicious. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... or dewos, had coined a new word for god from a different root, yet coming so near to dewos as thewos? These internal difficulties seem to me nearly as great as the external: at all events it would not be right to attempt to extenuate either. ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... been my aim in the course of this narrative to extenuate nothing, nor set down aught in malice. Like the gentleman who played euchre with the Heathen Chinee, I state but facts. I do not, therefore, slur over my scheme for disturbing the professor's peace of mind. I am not always good and noble. ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... this impeachment, it must be confessed that his majesty gave many marks of his great lenity, often urging the services you had done him, and endeavoring to extenuate your crimes. The treasurer and admiral insisted that you should be put to the most painful and ignominious death, by setting fire on your house at night; and the general was to attend, with twenty thousand men armed with poisoned arrows, to shoot you on the face and hands. Some of your servants ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... would be regarded, Caesar warned the Senate against another act of precipitate anger which would be unlawful in itself, unworthy of their dignity, and likely in the future to throw a doubt upon the guilt of the men upon whose fate they were deliberating. He did not extenuate, he rather emphasized, the criminality of Catiline and his confederates; but for that reason and because for the present no reasonable person felt the slightest uncertainty about it, he advised them to keep within the ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... be said very easily on this side; nevertheless, I think I shall go on with my plea for the small verse-maker who has long fallen out; and though I may be unable to make a case out, the kindly critic may find some circumstance to extenuate my folly—to say, in the end, that this appears to be one of the little ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... the World War, from whence he emerged covered with glory, followed by the plaudits of mankind, that became the inspiration of this work—his story of devotion, valor and patriotism; of unmurmuring sacrifice; worthy the pens of the mighty, but which the historian, as best he may will tell: "NOTHING extenuate, nor ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... Baltimore and Catholic colonists of Maryland who in 1648 first proclaimed on these shores the glorious principle of universal toleration, while the Puritans were persecuting in New England and the Episcopalians in Virginia. 'Nothing extenuate nor aught set down in malice,' should be the rule of our souls. Humanity means eternal Progress, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... into the disposition requisite for your purpose; though they may not have assented to, or even stated distinctly in their own minds, the proposition which it was your business to establish. Thus if a sophist has to defend one who has been guilty of some serious offense, which he wishes to extenuate, though he is unable distinctly to prove that it is not such, yet if he can succeed in making the audience laugh at some casual matter, he has gained practically the same point. So also if any one has pointed out the extenuating circumstances in some particular case of offense, so as to show ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... the business of the truthful historian to narrate facts, not to palliate or extenuate the conduct of the various actors. Whether Ernest did right or wrong, at least he did it; he wrote a playful social for Monday's 'Morning Intelligence,' and carried it into the office on Sunday afternoon himself, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... whereof no man thinks himselfe unprovided: whereas the knowledge, of Right and Wrong, which is no lesse difficult, there is no man will pretend to, without great and long study. And of those defects in Reasoning, there is none that can Excuse (though some of them may Extenuate) a Crime, in any man, that pretendeth to the administration of his own private businesse; much lesse in them that undertake a publique charge; because they pretend to the Reason, upon the want whereof they would ground ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... came from the contrite heart of this great man, to whose labours the world is so much indebted: 'When I survey my past life, I discover nothing but a barren waste of time with some disorders of body, and disturbances of the mind, very near to madness, which I hope He that made me will suffer to extenuate many faults, and excuse many deficiencies.' But we find his devotions in this year eminently fervent; and we are comforted by observing intervals of quiet, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... no retreat but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged, their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable; and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come! It is in vain to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, 'Peace, peace,' but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Theft is theft, whatever the circumstances that seem to extenuate it. Nothing, no need, gives a right to take what does not belong to you. But, for all that, I am certain the poor creature has been honest hitherto, and deserves help. She is committed to prison for stealing, and I promised her I would look to her children; so I have been to see them, ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... predicted over and over again by the prophets as to happen. The natural consequence of this conviction in the minds of those nations, would be a revulsion of the feelings to the opposite extreme. They would exaggerate the merits, and extenuate the demerits of "God's servant." They would reflect with astonishment and commiseration on their past sufferings. "We considered them," they might exclaim, "as a God- abandoned race, and devoted to wretchedness by him for having crucified their king. But ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... conceded to him, that criminal individuals are not more numerous in the Society Islands, than among other people, yet it is obvious, that the discovery of the universal prevelancy of vice does not warrant any person to extenuate its malignity in any particular ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... anger in his replies, yet he was foaming. He passed an eulogy upon Basville (father of the Intendant), talked of the consideration he merited; excused Courson, and babbled thereupon as much as he could to extenuate everything, and lose sight of the principal points at issue. Seeing that he did not finish, and that he wished to tire us, and to manage the affair in his own way, I interrupted him, saying that the father and the son were two people; that the case in point respected ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... not cast reproach upon any man without some necessary reason. In charity (that charity which "covereth all sins," which "covereth a multitude of sins") we are bound to connive at the defects, and to conceal the faults of our brethren; to extenuate and excuse them, when apparent, so far as we may in truth and equity. We must not therefore ever produce them to light, or prosecute them with severity, except very needful occasion urgeth—such as is ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... all three, agreeing as they do wonderfully together, were printed at Aix under the eye of her enemies, in a volume where, as I shall presently prove, an attempt was made to extenuate the guilt of Girard, and fasten the reader's gaze on every point likely to tell against Cadiere. And yet the editor could not help inserting depositions like these, which bear with crushing weight on the man he sought ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... had defended themselves by pointing to the crimes of Hastings, and by arguing that abuses so extraordinary justified extraordinary measures. Those who, by opposing that bill, had raised themselves to the head of affairs would naturally be inclined to extenuate the evils which had been made the plea for administering so violent a remedy; and such, in fact, was their general disposition. The Lord Chancellor Thurlow, in particular, whose great place and force of intellect gave ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... might stand clear in his eyes as to the main points, he must, and would blame her weakness in first consenting to this deception—he who was above deceit. She had not absolutely told, but she had admitted a falsehood; she had acted a falsehood. This she could not extenuate. Her motive at first, to save Lady Davenant's life, was good; but then her weakness afterwards, in being persuaded time after time by Cecilia, could not well be excused. She was conscious that she had sunk step by step, dragged down that ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... comfort me!" he says moodily to Miriam, when she would extenuate his crime. "I have a great weight here!" lifting her hand to his breast. Wild creatures, once his loved companions, shun him as he, in turn, shuns the face of man. He disappears from the story, hand-in-hand with Miriam, bound, it would seem, upon a ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... with the letter you have addressed to me, the declaration relative to the seizure which took place at the residence of your bookseller; I find it difficult to understand the use you propose to make of this document, which cannot extenuate in any manner the infraction of law committed by M. Le Normant. The Law of the 21st of October, 1814, is precise on this point. No printer can publish or offer for sale any work, in any manner whatever, before having deposited the prescribed number of copies. ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Athens. In years to come they will name you with King Codrus who sacrificed his life for the freedom of Attica, for have you not sacrificed what should be dearer than life,—the fair name of your husband? But courage. Your patriotism may extenuate his crime. Only the traitor ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... words, and there was no demand for details. Mrs. Lascelles seemed to have lost all interest in her latest lover; but when I tried to speak of my own hateful hand in that affair, to explain what I could of it, but to extenuate nothing, and to apologise from my heart for it all, then there was a change in her, then her blood mounted, then her bosom heaved, and I was silenced by a single ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... instead of the corn and cotton which gladdened the heart and filled the purse. It was this gigantic iniquity which created that arrogant class who have exhausted the catalogue of violence to obtain power and the lexicon of sophistry for arguments to extenuate the exceeding heinousness of crime. How could it be otherwise? To tell a man he is free when he has neither money nor the opportunity to make it, is simply to mock him. To tell him he has no master when he cannot live except by permission of the man who, under ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... was great," said Reginald. "If anything can extenuate killing a fellow-creature, it is that. Are you quite positive—But perhaps I have no right ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... late "eighties," I think I should say that, while I have a strong conviction as to the identity of the person himself, I shall not express it. I accept the doctrine that there are some names not to be uttered. Similarly I shall neither defend nor extenuate; if I throw it out at all it will be as a hint to the judicious, or a clew, if you like, to those who are groping a way in or out of the labyrinth of Being. To me two things are especially absurd: one is that the trousered, ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... extenuate the term, seven scenes; the utterance seven "acts" would sound horrific, full of extremities of weariness; but my meaning actually is none other than seven acts of one scene each: for the number seven, there always have been decent reasons, and ours may best appear as we proceed, less than ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... fear; but we 'whiten' a wall, not by withdrawing some other colour, but by the superinducing of white; thus 'whited sepulchres.' When we 'palliate' our own or other people's faults, we do not seek 'to cloke' them altogether, but only to extenuate the guilt of them ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... the householder, having begun so rightly, has now nothing to do to complete the main fabric of his garden but to carry this flow of natural draperies on round the domicile's back and farther side and forward to its front again. Thus may he wonderfully extenuate, even above its reach and where it does not conceal, the house's architectural faults, thus winsomely enhance all its architectural charm; like a sweet human mistress of the place, putting into generous shadow all the ill, ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... perished forever, but who are now civilized and Christianized. Satan would be glad, I think, to see American slavery come to an end. We have no right to go and steal people in order to convert them; the salvation of these slaves will not, in one iota, extenuate the guilt and punishment of those who were engaged in the slave-trade. But "the wrath of men shall praise Thee." In the writings of anti-slavery men I do not remember to have met with cordial acknowledgments of what religion has done for the ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... into Stevie's overflowing eyes and own up to the truth as well as I could, and explain it. It was the most humiliating hour that I ever spent, but I told Stevie exactly what I felt about her 'nothing extenuate, and naught set down in malice,' and what I had said about her to our mutual friend, who by the way, is not the mutual friend of either of us any longer. We were both crying by the time I had finished, but we understood each other. There were one ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... the very first order, owe immensely to the form, the art, the stereotyped metres, and stock figures they find ready to hand. The form is suggestive,—it invites and aids expression, and lends itself readily, like fashion, to conceal, or extenuate, or eke out poverty of thought and feeling in the verse. The poet can "cut and cover," as the farmer says, in a way the prose-writer never can, nor one whose form is essentially prose, ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... must be finally fatal to the societies which admit it. This is no longer regarded as a subject of argument and investigation. The opinions referred to are assumed as settled, or the truth of them as self-evident. If any voice is raised among ourselves to extenuate or to vindicate, it is unheard. The judgment is made up. We can have no hearing before the tribunal of the civilized world. Yet, on this very account, it is more important that we, the inhabitants of the slaveholding States of America, insulated as we are, by this ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... any had done you some great wrong or injury, suppose your servant, or inferior, what acknowledgment would you take from him of his wrong? If he confessed his wrong only in general ambiguous terms, if he did it either lightly, or without any sense or sorrow for it, if he did withal excuse and extenuate his fault, and never ceased, notwithstanding of all his confession, to do the like wrong when occasion offered, would you not think this a mockery, and would it not rather provoke you than pacify you? Now, when you take words in so real and deep significations in your own matters, what ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... found himself on his recovery, and make no effort to lift his wife to that he had renounced. She was a child of Nature. He would learn life anew of her; but he failed of success in all his undertakings. Shall a man attempt to extenuate his failures? It seemed new to him; he acknowledged it in open court, that from the day of his entrance into Dalton to the day he left it, he was under some enchantment there. And if an insane man is not to be held responsible in law for his offences, he had the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... who already exercised absolute political power. "The state of France," said Burke, "is perfectly simple. It consists of but two descriptions, the oppressors and the oppressed." It is in vain that the attempt has been made to extenuate the atrocious and senseless cruelties of this time by extolling the great legislative projects of the Convention, or pleading the dire necessity of a land attacked on every side by the foreigner, and rent with ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... had as little wish to speak as the Emperor could have to let me. My thoughts were busy with the memory of the woman of whose tragic death I had been the unwitting cause, and with the measures that remained to be taken to extenuate, so far as extenuation was possible, the fatal action ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... who are sinking into oblivion together. He must accept life as a Grand Piano tuned by a new sort of Tuning Master, and unless he can dance to its music he is a misfit. That is what my friend said to extenuate her. She fitted into this kind of life splendidly. He was in the other groove. She loved light, laughter, wine, song, and excitement. He, the misfit, loved his books, his work, and his home. His greatest joy would have been to go with her, hand in hand, through some wonderful cathedral, ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... Yes, I have used deceit in persuading him of my mother's death. I began now to think that that was a false step, which, if ever discovered, might recoil upon me. I remained a long while in deep thought. I tried to extenuate my conduct in this particular, but I could not; and to rid myself of melancholy feelings, which I could not overcome, I wrote a letter, requesting leave of absence for a fortnight, and took it myself to the admiral's office. This depression of spirits ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... ashamed, for she was conscious that she was offering something unreal to extenuate the fault of her brother—her ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Anecdotes and Remarks, tending to illustrate the moral and political characters of three nations. To which is added, a correct Engraving of Dartmoor Prison, representing the Massacre of American prisoners. Written by himself." "Nothing extenuate, or set down ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... action is not the most favourable to accuracy of detail:—Notwithstanding the purest intentions and the most scrupulous regard to truth, much will remain, for candour to extenuate and information to supply. Impressed with this sentiment, and feeling the importance of the subject, the Editor has waited till the season of tranquility, and now presents to the public eye, the produce of his exertions. He wished to postpone the Publication ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones
... epoch in the Irish movement. It was determined at once to meet it boldly—to extenuate nothing, to retract nothing—to take advantage of no legal subterfuge; but dare the issue promptly, openly and fully. Mr. O'Brien at first refused to be defended by counsel. He was with great difficulty prevailed upon to change his determination; and, when it was known that ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... for scattered, he says, gives the idea of an anarchy, which was not the case. It may be replied that scathed gives the idea of ruin, waste, and desolation, which was not the case. It is unworthy a lover of truth, in questions of great or little moment, to exaggerate or extenuate for mere convenience, or for vanity yet less than convenience. Scattered naturally means divided, unsettled, disunited.—Next is offered with great pomp a change of sea to seize; but in the first edition the word is fee, for hire, ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... Iustice ceizes; What knowes the Lawes That theeues do passe on theeues? 'Tis very pregnant, The Iewell that we finde, we stoope, and take't, Because we see it; but what we doe not see, We tread vpon, and neuer thinke of it. You may not so extenuate his offence, For I haue had such faults; but rather tell me When I, that censure him, do so offend, Let mine owne Iudgement patterne out my death, And nothing come in ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... have followed you here to tell you the truth face to face, as I shall tell it—bientot—to the good God. You shall bind me by any oath that you will, though it should be enough for you that I have nothing at all to gain, as you have said. I shall hide nothing from you. I shall extenuate nothing. I shall tell you only the truth, man to man, as my heart knows it. For her sake, you will ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... it savoured of contempt of court, Hinted of disrespect toward the Bench, That I should chuckle when your pitch was short Or smile to see you in the sanded trench; But Golf (so I extenuate my sin) Brings all men level, like the greens they putt on; One common bunker makes the whole world kin, And Bar may scrap with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... the success and prosperity of his country? Such there are, (Oh, shame to patriotism, and reproach to Great Britain!) who act as the emissaries of France, both in word and writing; who exaggerate our necessary burdens, magnify our dangers, extol the power of our enemies, deride our victories, extenuate our conquests, condemn the measures of our government, and scatter the seeds of dissatisfaction through the land. Such domestic traitors are doubly the objects of detestation;—first, in perverting truth; and, secondly, in propagating falsehood, to the prejudice of that community ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... he had never been married, never was a housekeeper, and had no house fitting for a man of his birth to reside in, as his mansion in the country had been burnt down within two years. These reasons appeared to his judges to aggravate rather than extenuate his offence; and after a long reprimand for having deserted his tenants and neighbours, they heavily fined him ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... his persons indifferently through right and wrong, and at the close dismisses them without further care, and leaves their examples to operate by chance. This fault the barbarity of his age cannot extenuate; for it is always a writer's duty to make the world better, and justice is a virtue independent on time or place." (Nichol Smith's "Eighteenth Century ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... addresses and pamphlets, the style of Our Brethren the Roman Catholics, whose interests they put on the same foot with their own: And some of Cromwell's officers took posts in the army raised against the Prince of Orange.[5] These proceedings of theirs they can only extenuate by urging the provocations they had met from the Church in King Charles's reign, which though perhaps excusable upon the score of human infirmity, are not by any means a plea of merit equal to the constancy ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... the EMPRESS of INDIA. So the SENAPATTI must be got rid of at earliest possible moment, and in most absolutely complete fashion. Arbitrary this; tyrannical perhaps; unjust possibly. None of GORST's business to defend or extenuate it. All he could say was it is not a new thing; done wherever British flag waves under foreign skies; in New Zealand with the Maori King; in South Africa with CETEWAYO; in Egypt with ARABI; in the Soudan with ZEBEHR. "In India," said GORST, leaning his elbow ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 27, 1891 • Various
... beautiful plant in a fertile soil, caressed by the sun of a cloudless sky, awoke to a sense of a new self. This crisis of her life, the subject of this Scene, would be incomprehensible without certain explanations, which may extenuate in the eyes of women the wrong-doing of this young countess, a happy wife, a happy mother, who seems, at first ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... jovial. Both were equally ferocious. James II. was an easy-minded tiger; like Philip II., his crimes lay light upon his conscience. He was a monster by the grace of God. Therefore he had nothing to dissimulate nor to extenuate, and his assassinations were by divine right. He, too, would not have minded leaving behind him those archives of Simancas, with all his misdeeds dated, classified, labelled, and put in order, each in its compartment, like poisons ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... Mr O'Connell. Whatever be the result of that prosecution, whether those indicted be found guilty, or acquitted, of the misdemeanours laid to their charge; we feel assured, on the one hand, however long and grievous may have been the "provocation," that while there will be "nothing extenuate," neither will there be "set down aught in malice;" but that the measure of the retribution now demanded by the state, will be so temperately and equitably adjusted, that while the very semblance of oppression is carefully avoided, the majesty of the law, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... by the union, both in my own eyes and in the actual truth. I am so determined to love him, so intensely anxious to excuse his errors, that I am continually dwelling upon them, and labouring to extenuate the loosest of his principles and the worst of his practices, till I am familiarised with vice, and almost a partaker in his sins. Things that formerly shocked and disgusted me, now seem only natural. I know them to be wrong, because ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... the ball he would have lost the hole," I explained, anxious to extenuate Pepper's ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... which have been exercised on the Aborigines of America, the wrong and outrage heaped on them from the days of Montezuma and Guatimozin, to the present period, while they excite sympathy for their sufferings, should extenuate, if not justify the bloody deeds, which revenge prompted the untutored savages to commit. Driven as they were from the lands of which they were the rightful proprietors—Yielding to encroachment after encroachment 'till forced to apprehend their utter annihilation—Witnessing ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... words, driveth Adam to the point, either to confess or deny the truth of the case. If he confess, then he concludes himself under judgment; if he deny, then he addeth to his sin: Therefore he neither denieth nor confesseth, but so as he may lessen and extenuate ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... old friend of mine." Isabel cared little more for him than for the tapestry that she held in her hand; but it was true that he was an old friend and that with her husband she felt a desire not to extenuate such ties. He had a way of expressing contempt for them which fortified her loyalty to them, even when, as in the present case, they were in themselves insignificant. She sometimes felt a sort of passion of tenderness for memories which had no other merit than that they belonged to her unmarried ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... nothing can do that; because virtue is, and ought to be, preferable to all considerations, and to life itself. But, methinks, I love this dear lady so well for the sake of her edifying penitence, that I would fain extenuate her crime, if I could; and the rather, as in all probability, it was a first love on both sides; and so he could not appear to her as ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... wives and children had been murdered before their eyes, but to wreak vengeance on Spencer's unoffending family, who had walked into their settlement under the protection of a friendly alliance, was an unparalleled outrage which nothing can justify or extenuate. With as little delay as possible after the horrible discovery, I returned to camp, had boxes made, and next day buried the bodies of these ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... despised virtues of patience and humility have abased the spirits of men, which pagan principles exalted; but rather regulated the wildness of audacities, in the attempts, grounds, and eternal sequels of death, wherein men of the boldest spirits are often prodigiously temerarious. Nor can we extenuate the valor of ancient martyrs, who contemned death in the uncomfortable scene of their lives, and in their decrepit martyrdoms did probably lose not many months of their days, or parted with life when it was scarce worth the living; for (beside ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... alleviate her regrets will be to lay aside his own. He does not attempt to conceal from her the magnitude of the misfortune, because so far from being a mere novice in sorrow, she has tasted it from her earliest years in all its varieties; and because his purpose was to conquer her grief, not to extenuate its causes. Those many miseries would indeed have been in vain, if they had not taught her how to bear wretchedness. He will prove to her therefore that she has no cause to grieve either on his account, or on her own. Not on his—because he is happy among circumstances ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... from disease, and as long as I forbore any communication with the sick; yet I should have withdrawn to Malverton, merely to gratify my friends, if Thetford had not used the most powerful arguments to detain me. He laboured to extenuate the danger. ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... to excuse so great a crime as I have been guilty of it, that of Rebellion. But I humbly beg leave to lay before your Excellency some particulars in the circumstance of my guilt, which, I hope, will extenuate it in some measure. It was my misfortune, at the time the Rebellion broke out, to be liable to legal diligence and caption, at the Duke of Montrose's instance, for debt alledged due to him. To avoid ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... shows himself in quite a childish light. Having in his Panegyrical Oration set himself to prove that the Athenian state has surpassed that of Sparta in her services to Hellas, he starts off at the very outset with these words: "Such is the power of language that it can extenuate what is great, and lend greatness to what is little, give freshness to what is antiquated, and describe what is recent so that it seems to be of the past."[2] Come, Isocrates (it might be asked), is it thus that you are going to tamper with the ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... found so important. He knew the great aim of life; he saw things in their true light, and taught me to see them also; he called things by their proper names; and while he could make ample allowance for the faults of others, he never attempted to extenuate his own errors; nor did he mistake vice for virtue, or the semblance of virtue for the reality. From the companionship of such a person I could not fail to reap much benefit. I did not enjoy it long. We afterwards met under very different circumstances in a far-off region, which he at that ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... leading and general topics as are now called common places. Gorgias, he adds, did the same, and wrote panegyrics and invectives on every subject: for he thought it was the province of an Orator to be able either to exaggerate, or extenuate, as occasion might require. Antiphon the Rhamnusian composed several essays of the same species; and (according to Thucydides, a very respectable writer, who was present to hear him) pleaded a capital cause in his own defence, with as much eloquence as had ever yet been displayed by any man. ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... we should be together." The girl was so agitated, fearing that in some way her adventures might be discovered, that she had no occasion to feign alarm. Mrs. Whately sought only to soothe and quiet, also to extenuate her son's words. "I don't suppose we truly realize yet, as Madison does, ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... well-grounded belief that a felony is about to be perpetrated will extenuate a homicide committed in prevention of it, though the defendant be but a private citizen" (25 Ala., 15.) See Wharton, above quoted, who embodies the doctrine in his text ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... revoked. The noblest and the basest he not only seems to comprehend, but to personate and body forth in their most secret lineaments: hence actions and opinions appear to him as they are, with all the circumstances which extenuate or endear them to the hearts where they originated and are entertained. This also is the spirit of our Shakespeare, and perhaps of every great dramatic poet. Shakespeare is no sectarian; to all he deals with equity and mercy; because he knows all, and his heart is wide enough ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... wonderfully idyllic, with great beauty of scene and circumstance? And will you please to observe that almost all that is ugly is in the whites? I'll apologise for Papa Randal if you like; but if I told you the whole truth—for I did extenuate there!—and he seemed to me essential as a figure, and essential as a pawn in the game, Wiltshire's disgust for him being one of the small, efficient motives in the story. Now it would have taken a fairish ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... politeness cannot extenuate, though it may gloss over, my imprudence; and by delaying to unfold my little history to you, my crime may seem more black while hidden than when it ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... under complicated tenures, we become very sensitive to its violation, and acquire a proportionably intense sentiment of Justice. Again, association operates in modifying our approval and disapproval of actions according to their attendant circumstances; as when we extenuate ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... satisfaction of his relations, other circumstances connected with that unfortunate disaster, which, after their deaths, may or may not be laid before the public. And although they can implicate none but himself, either living or dead, they may extenuate but will contain not a word of his in defence of the crime he committed against the laws ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... been, and years, unretarded years, shall come. May we all have moderation; may we all show candor. Though, perhaps, nothing could ultimately have averted the strife, and though to treat of human actions is to deal wholly with second causes, nevertheless, let us not cover up or try to extenuate what, humanly speaking, is the truth—namely, that those unfraternal denunciations, continued through years, and which at last inflamed to deeds that ended in bloodshed, were reciprocal; and that, had the preponderating ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... doubtful. Such was his demeanor and conduct in company of his late companions; while, with his own family, he appeared moody, irresolute, and restless, and even, at length, he began to throw out occasional hints tending to defend or extenuate the conduct of the very man whom, a few weeks before, he had so confidently denounced as a thief and a robber. Alarmed at these indications of returning weakness and fatuity in her husband, Mrs. Elwood soon put herself on inquiry, to ascertain the ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... Dr. Breuer cannot possibly vindicate himself against this disparagement I feel obliged to extenuate Dr. Breuer in the ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... that Lord Byron never spared himself. He invented faults rather than sought to extenuate them. And so he fully merits belief, when he happens to do himself justice. Let us attend to ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... proud little creature you were, Olive," he said, trying to extenuate his shabby conduct, "and that there was no chance of your listening to me if you found out Tom was a tradesman. What does it matter about the shop? Tom is as good a chap as ever breathed, and Susan is the best-hearted woman in the world." But I ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... without feeling how intimately it was connected with the cook-shop! The victims to the intoxicating qualities of pickled salmon, oyster-sauce, and lobster salad, are innumerable; for where one gentleman or lady pleads guilty to too much wine, a thousand extenuate on the score of indigestion. We are aware that the disorganisation of the digestive powers is very prevalent—about one or two in the morning—and we have no doubt the Conservative friends of Captain Rous, who patriotically contributed five shillings ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... lauding the blessings of peace before he tried a struggle for the honors of war." After this preface (which should be read in connection with the Hornet's unaccepted challenge to the Bonne Citoyenne, a ship "a trifle superior in force") it can be considered certain that James will both extenuate and also set down a good deal in malice. One instance of this has already been given in speaking of the President's capture. Again, he says, "the Hornet received several round shot in her hull," ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... a burst of honest feeling, which made him very red, he at length plunged into his confession. Not a little astonished, Mrs. Clover learnt all that had passed between him and Polly Sparkes, now Polly Parish. Nothing did he extenuate, but he wronged neither Polly ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... Buff would explain and extenuate her broken promise: "The fact is, my hands are almost too full: what with the school and the committee, the organ and church, the missionary club and my district, I am a regular lay-curate. Then there is Mr. Duffer's early ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... to the king fresh complaints of Duchesneau against Frontenac, and of Frontenac against Duchesneau; and the king replied with rebukes, exhortations, and threats to both. At first he had shown a disposition to extenuate and excuse the faults of Frontenac, but every year his letters grew sharper. In 1681 he wrote: "Again I urge you to banish from your mind the difficulties which you have yourself devised against ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... have been caught in the snares of one dexterous heresiarch. If, then, the heresiarch causes infinitely greater evils than the murderer, why is he not as proper an object of penal legislation as the murderer? We can give a reason, a reason, short, simple, decisive, and consistent. We do not extenuate the evil which the heresiarch produces; but we say that it is not evil of that sort the sort against which it is the end of government to guard. But how Mr. Gladstone, who considers the evil which the heresiarch produces as evil of the sort against which it is the end of government to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... on both precedes. He ended, and the heavenly audience loud Sung Halleluiah, as the sound of seas, Through multitude that sung: Just are thy ways, Righteous are thy decrees on all thy works; Who can extenuate thee? Next, to the Son, Destined Restorer of mankind, by whom New Heaven and Earth shall to the ages rise, Or down from Heaven descend.—Such was their song; While the Creator, calling forth by name His mighty Angels, gave them several charge, As sorted ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... which "an upstart inlander has ever preached a crusade against the Turks because they did not introduce knives and forks at their tables," &c. Even Scripture—and this, be it remembered, by the sanction of The Christian Advocate—is blasphemously quoted to extenuate the American practice of expectoration. "What, after all, is there so unbearably revolting about spitting? Our Saviour, in one of his early miracles, 'spat upon the ground and made clay of the spittle, and anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And he said unto him, Go wash ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... sorry for poor Maud, as a rule, but he felt a need to shed a little gaiety, to extenuate the accident as far as possible, to turn it into a joke, so as to prevent his girls from being panic-stricken. He talked of heads smashed to a jelly, of legs in smithereens, of a bicyclist who had had not one, but both eyes caught in the chain. As for himself, when he ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... of its being a tender subject—a salutary form of self-discipline, which will make us wiser and better men for the future. If we have made obvious mistakes, we should not try, as we generally do, to gloss them over, or to find something to excuse or extenuate them; we should admit to ourselves that we have committed faults, and open our eyes wide to all their enormity, in order that we may firmly resolve to avoid them in time to come. To be sure, that means a great deal of self-inflicted pain, in the shape of discontent, ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... opposed Mr. McCombs' suggestion, arguing that no explanation of the Joline letter could be made to Mr. Bryan that would wear the appearance of sincerity, or be convincing, and that the letter having been written there was nothing to do to extenuate it in any way and that the wise thing was to make a virtue of necessity. I suggested that on the following night, when the Governor was to deliver his address at the Jackson Day dinner, he could, in the most ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... power, Chiefly when opportunity attends her: She will infuse true motion in a stone, Put glowing fire in an icy soul, Stuff peasants' bosoms with proud Caesar's spleen, Pour rich device into an empty brain: Bring youth to folly's gate: there train him in, And after all, extenuate his sin. Well, I will not go, I am resolved for that. Go, carry it again: yet stay: yet do too, I will defer it till ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... "Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice," said Othello to Lodovico, and these Scotland Yard men, charged with so great a responsibility, never forgot the ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy |
