"Extenuate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... 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 wer ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr
... Paris, by exhibiting it with all its perfections and imperfections. Borrowing the language of MERCIER, I shall trace the institution through all its ramifications, and, in pointing out its effects, I shall "nothing extenuate, nor set ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... upon 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 ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... interrupted by a chorus or company of men of his own tribe, who condole his miseries, extenuate his fault, and conclude with a solemn vindication of divine justice. So that at the conclusion of the first act there is no design laid, no discovery made, nor any disposition formed towards ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... life, I discover nothing but a barren waste of time, with some disorders of body, and disturbances of the mind, very near to madness,[289] which I hope He that made me will suffer to extenuate many faults, and ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... ALONE. Our sins make us guilty and deserving of punishment, even though they be sins of weakness. We must not excuse or extenuate them. God never excuses any one. But if we penitently confess our sins, He will forgive us for Jesus' sake. ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump
... known 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 ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... not defend his errors; I only seek to extenuate them. Pity and justice are not the same; but one may still so temper the other that Mercy, the appointed angel of this ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... 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
... 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 and a modest Man) raises the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... "in this confession did not deny his own responsibility; a fact which gives his statement the character of an incriminative and not of an exonerative confession; and that though he might possibly have wished, in his statement of the facts, to modify and extenuate his own share in the crime, yet there was no reason to suspect that he wished gratuitously to aggravate the guilt of his comrade;" and that also taking into consideration the villainous character of Volpi, it cannot be doubted, that he was the principal in the crime. ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... suffered much, and that their 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 hapless ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... 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 of his ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... May. I'm sure you were thinking of what would be best for both of us, but I've nothing to alter or extenuate. They must do as they think fit, these Christians, if they have the power. After all, it can make no difference to us; I can always get work enough to keep us, even if it isn't such congenial work. But ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... unpalatable in others. It was true that Ruth's condition ought to be known by those who were her friends; but were these people to whom he was now going to write, friends? He knew there was a rich mother, and a handsome, elegant son; and he had also some idea of the circumstances which might a little extenuate their mode of quitting Ruth. He had wide enough sympathy to understand that it must have been a most painful position in which the mother had been placed, on finding herself under the same roof with a girl who was living with her son, as Ruth was. And yet he did not like to apply to ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the malignant glance which he had shot toward him ere he began his tale, Richard read that the charge against him was to be pushed to the bitter end. It was in this man's power, more than in any other's (save one), to extenuate or to set down in malice; and there was no doubt in his rival's mind (though his rancor took so blunt a form that it might well have been mistaken by others for outspoken candor) which of the two courses Solomon had ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... 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 ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... 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 and ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... 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
... she 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 to excuse ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... 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! ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... Missouri Compromise by subtle indirection. This was the device of a shifty politician, trying to avert suspicion and public alarm by clever ambiguities. That he really believed a new principle had been substituted for an old one, in dealing with the Territories, does not extenuate the offense, for not even he had ventured to assert in 1850, that the compromises of that year had in any wise disturbed the status of the great, unorganized area to which Congress had applied the restrictive proviso of 1820. Besides, only so recently as 1849, he had said, with all the ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... contrast to this dingy, confined, close dungeon! And was it possible that he had ever wandered at will in that fair scene with a companion fairer? Such thoughts might well drive a man mad. With all his errors, and all his disposition at present not to extenuate them, Ferdinand Armine could not refrain from esteeming himself unlucky. Perhaps it is more distressing to believe ourselves unfortunate, than to recognise ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... higher types 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 great chill ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... it," Beppo remarked, to extenuate his outwitted cunning, when he found each door of the room fast ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... she should draw a kind veil over my faults; that such as she could not hide, she would extenuate; that she would place my better actions in an advantageous light, and shew that I had her good opinion, at least, whatever liberties the world took ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... loth to name him, because he is a most judicious writer; yet he very often falls into these errors: and I once more beg the reader's pardon for accusing him of them. Only let him consider, that I live in an age where my least faults are severely censured; and that I have no way left to extenuate my failings, but by showing as great in those whom ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... 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, and the powers of the executive, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... and that in a solemn way. She could therefore be doing no harm to Lilian Dale. If she entertained any inner feeling that Crosbie's fault in jilting Lilian Dale was less than it would have been had she herself not been an earl's daughter,—that her own rank did in some degree extenuate her lover's falseness,—she did not express it in ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... still, though she 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 ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... 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 ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... overcome the Curiatii one after another (instead of being congratulated by his sister for his victory, being upbraided by her for having slain her lover), in the height of his passion and resentment kills her. If anything could extenuate so brutal an action, it would be the doing of it on a sudden, before the sentiments of nature, reason, or manhood could take place in him. However, to avoid public bloodshed, as soon as his passion is wrought to its height, he follows his sister the whole length of the stage, ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... 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, ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... 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 ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... himself for man, and by whose atonement all mankind hope for salvation, has assured us that the greatest sinner who repents shall be forgiven, and, indeed, is more acceptable in the eyes of Heaven than him who has never erred. Far be it from me to attempt to exculpate you in your own eyes, or extenuate your former criminality. You have sinned deeply, so deeply that you may well shrink aghast from the contemplation of your past life—may well recoil in abhorrence from yourself—and may fitly devote yourself to constant ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... 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 ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... Philip. Philip was sullen, James 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 in the cabinet of a chemist. To set ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... Dr. Breuer cannot possibly vindicate himself against this disparagement I feel obliged to extenuate Dr. Breuer in ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... tell the tale to the public, with all its aggravations. Warburton, whose heart was warm with his legacy and tender by the recent separation, thought it proper for him to interpose, and undertook, not indeed to vindicate the action, for breach of trust has always something criminal, but to extenuate it by an apology. Having advanced what cannot be denied, that moral obliquity is made more or less excusable by the motives that produce it, he inquires what evil purpose could have induced Pope to break his promise. He could not delight his ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... tool in his hands, and he then turned against Matilda. When Stephen had shaken off the chains with which he was loaded in Bristol Castle, the Bishop summoned a council at Westminster, on his legatine authority; and there "by great powers of eloquence, endeavored to extenuate the odium of his own conduct"; affirming that he had supported the Empress, "not from inclination, but necessity." He then "commanded on the part of God and of the Pope, that they should strenuously assist the King, appointed by the will of the people, and by the approbation ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... of this play is extraordinarily brilliant, does his best to extenuate the stiffness of it. But to my own ear, as I read it again after a quarter of a century, there rise the tones of the stilted, the unsmiling, the essentially provincial and boringly solemn society of Christiania as it appeared to a certain young pilgrim in the early ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... have been inadequate to your wishes, attribute my demerits to some infirmity of mind, rather than to a negligence of your happiness. Yet, be the cause what it will, since these faults have existed, I do not attempt to disavow or extenuate them, and I beg ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... Villari's Machiavelli (English translation, new ed., 1892) deals with the subject at some length. Of the Catholic writers L. Pastor, Geschichte der Papste (Freiburg i. B, 1886) should be consulted, for although the author tries to extenuate the pope to some extent, on the whole he is fair. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Selwyn, the lawyer, is coming here at one o'clock, and before he comes I wish you to read over Lady R—'s confession, if I may so call it, which will explain the motives of her conduct towards you. I am afraid that it will not extenuate her conduct, but recollect that she has now made all the reparation in her power, and that we must forgive as we hope to be forgiven. Sit down and read these papers, while I unpack one or ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... his present kindly feelings toward him. I vigorously 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 generous ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... the host was celebrated for affording his guests. The major placed the fore finger of his right hand to his lip, cast a look of inquiry at the bystanders, and then said he knew it would be no easy matter to apologize to ladies for so singular a transgression, but how his treating could extenuate an insult offered to another party, he could not exactly see. "By my word as a man of standing, I have spent much sweat and labor in getting the little Fortune has favored me with, and it seems to me that ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... universal rule must have its exceptions. But he is so exceedingly accurate, that, if he only fancies he has said a word too precipitate, or too general, or only half true, he never ceases to qualify, to modify, and extenuate, till at last he appears to have said nothing at all. Upon this occasion, Albert was deeply immersed in his subject: I ceased to listen to him, and became lost in reverie. With a sudden motion, I ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... understood as the Inductive Philosophy are most fairly examined; not in the spirit of the common biographer who always canonizes his subject through thick and thin, but in that of an impartial seeker for truth, resolved to naught extenuate and set down naught in malice. It is believed by many that BACON was simply so fortunate as to have his picture stand as the frontispiece of the new Philosophy, when in truth other contemporaries, who made great discoveries by following precisely his method, as, for instance, GALILEO, were quite ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... 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. I am the hero of this story, ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... it is best that 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, what ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... there are so many lovely traits in the nature of the people. But if he experience some of their sudden and terrific snow storms and showers, when the thunder and the lightning are such that a Northerner feels that all the storms he has ever witnessed are only infantile attempts, he is inclined to extenuate, on mere climactic principles, the outbursts of wrath, and "fire-eating" propensities of the people. He who is gendered of fire and brimstone must have some vim in his composition. We believe this study is not unworthy the Christian philosopher ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... of the idea, at one feminine bound, that the caged bird had been brought by Henchard for her as a wedding gift and token of repentance. He had not expressed to her any regrets or excuses for what he had done in the past; but it was a part of his nature to extenuate nothing, and live on as one of his own worst accusers. She went out, looked at the cage, buried the starved little singer, and from that hour her heart softened towards the ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... apparently 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 (Vol. ...
— 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
... 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 Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... party, beaten on Home Rule at the Election of 1886, was now following its leader into new and strange courses. Ireland was seething with lawlessness, sedition, and outrage. The Liberals, in their new-found zeal for Home Rule, thought it necessary to condone or extenuate all Irish crime; and the Irish party in the House of Commons was trying to make ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... steel. Appearances seem against Neale. I don't seek to extenuate them. But I know men. Neale might have fallen—it seems he must have. These are terrible times. In anger or drink Neale might have struck this woman.... ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... would abide on that level where he 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... perhaps; but we should fail in our duty as reviewers, if he altogether escaped it. In all charity, we are bound, for that matter, to give him the full benefit of the speed he has exhibited, in so far as it may serve to explain, if it cannot extenuate, the wretched manner in which he has performed his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... means, in the shortest possible time. He first made dauntless and unsparing war on that gigantic system of oppression, extortion, and corruption. In that war he manfully put to hazard his ease, his fame, and his splendid fortune. The same sense of justice which forbids us to conceal or extenuate the faults of his earlier days compels us to admit that those faults were nobly repaired. If the reproach of the Company and of its servants has been taken away, if in India the yoke of foreign masters, elsewhere ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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
... Once, as he chanced to stumble, the girl thought she heard a groan from him. She began to wish that she had been able to believe him, but it was utterly impossible, although she suddenly found it in her heart to pity him, to extenuate the abomination of his conduct. Why that last sacrilegious lie he had uttered? The man was suffering; it looked as if the iron were entering his soul. Oh! the pity of it! If he had only acknowledged his offence and begged her pardon she might perhaps have forgiven. ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... unknown to the Constitution, 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 him a weight in the government inferior only to that of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "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
... any appetite, however foul and depraved, if they be once furnished with a precedent; and we foresee an inundation of blood and abomination if they be not awed or ridiculed into silence. We have quietly submitted to these inflictions from two or three distinguished writers, whose talents may extenuate, though they cannot justify, such outrages upon feeling. When regular artists and professors conduct us into their dissecting room, the skill with which they anatomise may reconcile us to the offensiveness of the operation; but if butchers and resurrection-men ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... down without 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 ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... 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 set down AUGHT ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... would have been the least likely to do so, for he scorned hypocrisy as he did every species of meanness. To sum up, General Morgan, with the virtues, had some of the faults of his Southern blood and country, and he sought so little to extenuate the latter himself, that it may be presumed that he cared not the least whether or no ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... lib. 14. cap. 10.) calleth it an infinite treasure to such as are endowed with it: Dulcisonum reficit tristia corda melos, Eobanus Hessus. Many other properties [3473]Cassiodorus, epist. 4. reckons up of this our divine music, not only to expel the greatest griefs, but "it doth extenuate fears and furies, appeaseth cruelty, abateth heaviness, and to such as are watchful it causeth quiet rest; it takes away spleen and hatred," be it instrumental, vocal, with strings, wind, [3474]Quae, a ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... 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 ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... victim be forgiven His final error, for his merits past; Could virtuous life, propitiating Heaven With former deeds, extenuate ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... great! By Allah, the Commander of the Faithful pardons me!" Quoth he, "No harm shall come to thee, O uncle." And I, "O Commander of the Faithful, my offence is too great for me to attempt to extenuate it and thy pardon is too great for me to speak a word of thanks for it." And I chanted ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... to extenuate the heinousness of his offence, but he pointed out to him what were the fruits and the means of repentance. He exhorted him to let the sense of his past errors stimulate him to double future exertions. ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... was not able to prevent taking place; which, indeed, I had before said, would be most atrocious when I so often petitioned concerning it(144) and which as you yourself show, by revoking it too late, you consider to be grave, and this I could not extenuate when ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... at first, upon which your whole depends. Let no conversation, no example, no fashion, no 'bon mot', no silly desire of seeming to be above, what most knaves, and many fools, call prejudices, ever tempt you to avow, excuse, extenuate, or laugh at the least breach of morality; but show upon all occasions, and take all occasions to show, a detestation and abhorrence of it. There, though young, you ought to be strict; and there only, while young, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... 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
... 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 Beak, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... would be down in a few minutes. I entered into conversation with the old lady on the subject of her daughter's conduct; hinted my suspicions of the cause, and declared my resolution of knowing my destiny immediately. She endeavored to extenuate, and excuse her as much as possible; but frankly owned that her behavior was mysterious; that no pains had been wanting, on her part, to alter and rectify it; that she had remonstrated, expostulated, ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... 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 ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... 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 ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... Adonis is alive, 1009 Her rash suspect sile doth extenuate; And that his beauty may the better thrive, With Death she humbly doth insinuate; 1012 Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs; and stories His victories, his triumphs, and ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... 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
... 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, ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... what a 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
... 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 strength and the prospect ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... ground. Property was thus placed at the disposal of the men 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 civil war. The more that is known ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... now and then to the dry-goods store for dress goods, which Pheeny made up; and Eddie left an occasional sum at the Pantatorium for a fresh alpaca coat, or for a new pair of trousers when the seat of the old ones grew too refulgent or perilously extenuate. As Eddie stood up at his tall desk most of the time, however, it was rather his shoes than his pantaloons that felt the ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... of the evidence given by Bielaski. I have no wish to extenuate, in the slightest degree, the few serious offences against common law included in this list, but I imagine that the unprejudiced reader will not fail to observe that Mr. Bielaski found it necessary to rake up everything ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... 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 slaves at the South. They coldly ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... seen in it a violation of the demands of poetic justice: "he carries 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 Essays on Shakespeare," ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... ladies would remain and listen to me a few moments, I am sure I would make you aware that there is much to extenuate the apparent offence ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... trying to discover what it was that had brought the Suffet just when circumstances were most unfavourable. They went on to talk over the situation, and Spendius, to extenuate his fault, or to revive his courage, asserted that some hope ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... "you wrong him. My sins and transgressions are my own. Mountain high as they are, they shall not crush another. Mine is the sorrow and guilt, and mine be the penalty. I do not extenuate my own offences, but I will not criminate others. I beseech you, sir, to recall what you have just uttered, for how can I close those doors upon a friend, which have so lately been opened ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... several times before his death, that he received his wound from Savage; nor did Savage at his trial deny the fact, but endeavoured partly to extenuate it, by urging the suddenness of the whole action, and the impossibility of any ill design, or premeditated malice; and partly to justify it by the necessity of self-defence, and the hazard of his own life, if he had lost that opportunity of giving the thrust: he observed, that neither reason ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... But he can well be spared. While he is fast sinking into premature old age, negro boys in Virginia are growing up as fast into vigorous manhood to supply the void which cruelty is making in Louisiana. God forbid that I should extenuate the horrors of the slave trade in any form! But I do think this its worst form. Bad enough is it that civilised men should sail to an uncivilised quarter of the world where slavery exists, should there buy wretched barbarians, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... trenches were down at the river. With the imperfect means at his disposal he did such scouting as he could, and if his fiery and impetuous spirit led him into a position which cost him so dearly it is certainly more easy for the critic to extenuate his fault than that subsequent one which allowed the abandoned guns to fall into the hands of the enemy. Nor is there any evidence that the loss of these guns did seriously affect the fate of the action, for at those other parts ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... so. That was merely as a relief to myself, for when or where the letter will reach him—And I have written to old Mr Hamley. The relief is the one good thing come out of it all. It is such a comfort to feel free again. It wearied me so to think of straining up to his goodness. "Extenuate my conduct!"' she concluded, quoting Mr. Gibson's words. Yet when Mr. Gibson came home, after a silent dinner, she asked to speak with him, alone, in his consulting-room; and there laid bare the exculpation of herself which she had given to Molly many weeks before. When she had ended, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... I must be, and I am, debased, contaminated 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 reason and God's word declare ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... 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 ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... are a worthy daughter of 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
... 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
... devoted, princely, but sanguine friend has been with me again and again. My time is expired and I find a relief beyond measure, for he has fully convinced me that no act of mine can mar the eternal counsel, or in the smallest degree alter or extenuate one event which was decreed before the foundations of the world were laid. He said he had watched over me with the greatest anxiety, but, perceiving my rooted aversion towards him, he had forborne troubling me with his presence. But now, seeing that I was certainly ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... what know the laws That theives do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant, The jewel that we find, we stoop and take't, Because we see it; but what we do not see 25 We tread upon, and never think of it. You may not so extenuate his offence For I have had such faults; but rather tell me, When I, that censure him, do so offend, Let mine own judgement pattern out my death, 30 And nothing come in partial. ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... of a grim humor peculiarly his own, and partly to extenuate his severity toward the youth, had sent to his niece all the city papers containing unfavorable references to Haldane, and to her mind the associations created by those disgraceful scenes were still inseparable from him. She honestly respected him for his resolute effort to reform, ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... gentleman of Valois sticks in your stomachs; and, though I do not defend his proceedings in the States, any otherwise than by the inevitable necessity which caused them, yet acknowledging his crime does not extenuate their guilt that forced him to it. It was bad on both sides, but the revenge was not so wicked as the treason; for it was a voluntary act of theirs, and a compelled one of his. The short on't is, he took a violent course to cut up the Covenant ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... 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 and ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... brought 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 the execution of my orders; to act with mildness and moderation towards all the colonists, and ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... clear 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, or ...
— 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
... guiltless; I am alone responsible for the mutiny, and I exonerate all, even my adherents, from so much as suggesting it to me; nevertheless, there are some who love me in England, to whom I would beg of you to relate the circumstances that I have told you. These may extenuate though they cannot justify the crime I have committed. I assure you, most solemnly, that almost up to the last I had no intention of doing more than making my own escape from the ship which the injustice and brutality of Bligh had made a place of torment ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... great," said Reginald. "If anything can extenuate killing a fellow-creature, it is that. Are you quite positive—But perhaps I have no right to ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... 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 cause; and she was not long in ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... the advent of history, and imagining that a Charles IX can extenuate a Saint Bartholomew, has published as a piece justificative, a so-called "official list of the deceased persons." In this "Alphabetical List,"[1] you will meet with such items as these: "Adde, bookseller, 17 Boulevard Poissonniere, killed in his house; Boursier, ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... stupendous autobiography, and made me forget that writing was a new art, to me, and that I was rather old to try my hand at a new art. My memory suddenly began to seem not so bad after all. For weeks I had hesitated between Othello's "Nothing extenuate, nor write down aught in malice," and Pilate's "What is truth?" as my guide and my apology. Now I saw that both were too big for my modest endeavor. I was not leaving a human document for the benefit of future psychologists and historians, but telling as much ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... evidently affected her more than She ventured to express: But She believed that to extenuate my fault would make me less anxious to repent it. Often while her lips painted the enormity of my guilt in glaring colours, her eyes betrayed, how sensible She was to my sufferings. In fact I am certain that none of my Tormentors, ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... and courageous. It would, indeed, be difficult to deny or extenuate the appalling truth of ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... now arose, in which every word may be said to have been deposed upon oath; for the oaths were at least equal to all the other words spoken. In this controversy the whole company spoke together, and every man seemed wholly bent to extenuate the sum which fell to his share; so that the most probable conclusion which could be foreseen was, that a large portion of the reckoning would fall to the landlord's share to pay, or (what is much the same ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... faction, introduced among the sectaries a spirit of discord and inconstancy, which, in the course of a few years, erected eighteen different models of religion, and avenged the violated dignity of the church. The zealous Hilary, who, from the peculiar hardships of his situation, was inclined to extenuate rather than to aggravate the errors of the Oriental clergy, declares, that in the wide extent of the ten provinces of Asia, to which he had been banished, there could be found very few prelates who had preserved the knowledge of the true ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... inconsiderate Maria to betray, we will not say the confidence of her friend, but such facts as could only have come to her knowledge by the intimacy of unaffected association. If there were any thing to extenuate this breach of decorum by Maria, it was the manner in which it was effected. Miss Osgood had just returned from one of her frequent visits to the villa of Mr. Henley, when Delafield made his customary morning call: the absence of Maria, and the object of her visit, had been well known ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... the dogmas of religion may rightfully be enforced by the sword of the civil, power, dominated the world, and in this way account for their conduct; or apologize for it by the necessities of their situation, and the peculiarities of their creed; or combine these causes, and so extenuate ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... cypresses airy. These in a line wide-broke set he, the Mansion surrounding, So by the soft leaves screened, the porch might flourish in verdure. Follows hard on his track with active spirit Prometheus, Bearing extenuate sign of penalties suffer'd in bygones. 295 Paid erewhiles what time fast-bound as to every member, Hung he in carkanet slung from the Scythian rock-tor. Last did the Father of Gods with his sacred spouse and his offspring, Proud from the Heavens proceed, ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... has eaten five or six children, a relatively insignificant number, no doubt, but remarkable enough from another point of view. It is manifest that, pricked by remorse—for my client is religious, in his way, and has a conscience, as I shall prove later—and desiring to extenuate his sin as far as possible, he has tried six times at least to substitute lay nourishment for clerical. That this was merely an experiment we can hardly doubt: for if it had been only a question of gastronomic variety, six would have been ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... came and apologised to me in a very proper manner, and entirely removed the disagreeable impression from my mind. I owe this to your kindly intervention; and I must honestly say that I thought well of Sandys. He did not attempt to excuse himself, or to extenuate his fault. He showed very good feeling, and I believe that henceforth his influence will be on the side of order. I was really ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... righteous gains, God's blessing upon labour: yet is there rightful hope to get those righteous gains. Who can condemn the poor man's care, though Faith should make his load the lighter? And who will extenuate the rich man's coveting, whose appetite grows with what it feeds on? "Having food and raiment, be therewith content;" that is the golden mean; to that is limited the philosophy of worldliness: the man must live, by labour and its earnings; but having wherewithal ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Scots as a beautiful sinner who has repented. Her sins are grievous and she does not deny or extenuate them. But they are in the distant past; so far as the present is concerned, she is in the right. She has come to England seeking an asylum, but instead of being treated as a queen she has been confined in one prison after another and finally brought to Fotheringay, where she is subjected ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... reason for not dating the publication of some of Gerson's treatises at Cologne earlier than the year 1470? and if good cause cannot be shown for withholding from them so high a rank in the scale of typographic being, must we not instantly reject every effort to extenuate Marchand's obtuseness in asserting with reference to Ulric Zell, "On ne voit des editions de ce Zell qu'en 1494?" (Hist. de l'Imp., p. 56.) {183} Schelhorn's opinion as to the birthright of these tracts is sufficient to awaken an interest concerning ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various
... madam, I shall beg your attention to a melancholy tale, and which may, in some slight degree, extenuate the offence I was guilty of in assuming, or rather in maintaining ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... 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 ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... Observations, 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 aught in ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... said to Macartney, "what do you make of that? That's worth coming up for. That ought to extenuate a good deal." James was quick to notice ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... more, and that is concerning provocation. We have hitherto been considering self-defense, and how far persons may go in defending themselves against aggressors, even by taking away their lives, and now proceed to consider such provocations as the law allows to mitigate or extenuate the guilt of killing, where it is not justifiable or excusable. An assault and battery committed upon a man in such a manner as not to endanger his life is such a provocation as the law allows to reduce killing down to the crime of manslaughter. Now, the law has been made ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... to extenuate my culpability towards you. I entreat your pardon for my fault. I desire you, if you please, to keep this transaction secret, in order that the world shall not have any opportunity to speak of an affair which ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer |
