"Excuse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... excused themselves by saying that while they heard the clock well enough when it struck twelve, they did not always hear it when it struck only once. The Duke thereupon had the clock made to strike thirteen at one o'clock, so that the men could no longer plead this excuse for their dilatoriness. This clock was still in use not many years ago, and may be even yet striking its thirteen strokes at ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... Some excuse ought to be made for Leland getting into this wild state of excitement, for he had on his right and on his left, before and behind him, dark-eyed Gipsy beauties—as some would call them—among whom was one, the belle of the party, dressed ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... excuse you from going. You may report now to Madam de Cartier. In regard to Miss Judson—" Miss North paused, as trying to think of the best way to impress her authority upon the very determined young girl ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... Lyon was seated she made the book she had in her hand the excuse for beginning a talk about the confidence young novelists seem to have in their ability to upset the Christian religion by a fictitious representation of life, but her visitor was too preoccupied to join ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Caribbean Sea for Hispaniola. The tenor of his commission forbade his visiting that island; but Ojeda was not a man to stand upon trifles when his interests or inclinations prompted him to the contrary. He trusted to excuse the infraction of his orders by the alleged necessity of touching at the island to calk and refit his vessels and to procure provisions; but his true object is supposed to have been to cut dye-wood, which ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... "No, excuse me, Mr. Godolphin. I think the audience is as much concerned in the play as the actor or the author, and if either of these fails in the ideal, or does a bit of clap-trap when they have wrought the audience up in expectation of something noble, then they insult the audience—or ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... Valentine: you must excuse us all. Women have to unlearn the false good manners of their slavery before they acquire the genuine good manners of their freedom. Don't think Gloria vulgar (Gloria turns, astonished): she is ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... of my marines, a graceless dog without religion or any other good quality, very busy hammering the mummy to pieces with the butt end of his musket. I was very angry, and ordered him to desist. In excuse, he replied that it was an abominable molten image, and it was his duty, as a good Christian, to destroy it—the only evidence of Christianity ever witnessed on that fellow's part. On examination, I found that the body had been wrapped in sundry clothes, and, like the ark of Noah, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... "Excuse me, Princess," replied the prince. "Was it to chop fuel that I came here? Is that the proper sort of employment for me? I have a servant for that kind of thing, Katoma dyadka, ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... excuse yourself, D'Artagnan, but continue to listen to me. When making me the reproach that you were discontented, you received in reply a promise:—'Wait.'—Is ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... "You will excuse the semblance of rudeness which may appear if I say that if you unfortunately are not of a very decided disposition, I am. It is impossible that I should ever have the slightest intercourse with a lady ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... "I never was so beat! Mr. Grantly, I hope—excuse me—I didn't know what I was about! Taddy, you notty boy, what did you leave the house for? Be ye quite ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... work, if they didn't do anything real in the world, what were they good for? What was their excuse for wanting to ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... of Djorn turned and looked at him. "The lust to kill!" he said sadly. "You still have it—though you are fighting for your own, which is some excuse. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... dismounting, began to take the saddle off his horse. "Thank you, my friends, for coming to meet me," he said; "you've saved me from a wetting, and perhaps from the jaws of a crocodile. Excuse me for being somewhat in a hurry; but the fact is that the old Dutchman who escorted me here thinks that the Zulus out there would like to get hold of our party, to retain us as hostages till you deliver up a runaway chief who has taken refuge here." He was unbuckling the girths as he spoke, ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... answered the latter, a little surprised, and somewhat timidly, as is customary with all men who have lived secluded lives; and are interrupted in the midst of their duties. "But excuse me if I ask whom I ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... is not my purpose to defend or excuse this conduct of Injun and Whitey's, but simply to record it. If you are looking for a moral in this story, you may find it in what followed on the heels of this fishing partnership. In the first place, no boy ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... you decide to go there, take my advice, and go alone. You can easily make some excuse to your friends. I will give you the address of a ladies' Pension, where you will be made at home and ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... Blanchemain fidgeted a little. To have taken this long drive for nothing!—sweet though the weather was, fair though the valley: but she was not a person who could let the means excuse the end. She neither liked nor was accustomed to see her enterprises balked,—to see doors remain closed in her face. Doors indeed had a habit of flying open at her approach. Besides, the fellow's manner,—his initial stare ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... Inclinations and Objects of Desire particular to every Stage, according to the different Circumstances of our Conversation and Fortune, thro' the several Periods of it. Hence they were disposed easily to excuse those Excesses which might possibly arise from a too eager Pursuit of the Affections more immediately proper to each State: They indulged the Levity of Childhood with Tenderness, overlooked the Gayety of Youth ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Lil Artha. "We know the Chief, and that he'd take Hen back to town just like he was a real criminal. No matter what excuse the boy'd try to give, the Chief wouldn't listen, leaving all that for the Justice of the Peace before whom he'd take his prisoners. Boys, we've just got to find Hen first; that's all there is ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... daughter; and the daughter said, with tears in her eyes, and a perfectly intoxicating impulsiveness, that it was the grandest and the most heroic and the noblest thing that she had ever seen, and she should always be a better girl for having seen it. Excuse me, Miss Galbraith, for troubling you with these facts of a personal history, which, as you say, is a matter of perfect indifference to you. The young fellow didn't think at the time he had done anything extraordinary; but I don't suppose he DID expect to live to have ...
— The Parlor-Car • William D. Howells
... jumping at the conclusion that the fat used was that of the cow—an animal held sacred in their religion; while, in all probability, the fat used would be prepared from neither of these animals, the whole being an excuse for the irruption in which Mahommedans ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... "Excuse me, Mr. Latimer." The cop came in as he spoke, Moriway following; the rest of the hounds hung about. "There's a thieving bell-boy from the hotel that's somewhere in your grounds. Can I come in ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... chased hundreds before and never caught one. Yet, when the bird rises from the ground, away it goes after it once more, with eager yelp and rush, to renew the old experience. Ah! that is like what a great many of you are doing, and you have not the same excuse that the dog has. You have been trying all your lives—and some of you have grey hairs on your heads—to slake your thirst by dipping leaky buckets into empty wells, and you are at it yet. As some one says, 'experience throws a light on the wave behind us,' but it does ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... "Mr. Edwards, excuse me, but have you any great trouble upon your heart? That sometimes causes trouble, an actual ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... an excuse because you don't choose to do me a favor," returned the boy angrily; "you weren't so particular about obeying last summer when he made you sit all the afternoon at the piano, because you didn't choose to play what ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... that's the reason, I suppose. She was aye active an' energetic, Liz,' said Teen, feeling impelled to make some kind of excuse for her old chum. 'We've been here twa weeks; maybe it's time ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... her hand a little smack of reproof. (You who have loved will excuse these lovers' absurdities.) "No, no; you are only to say 'yes' when I tell you. No objections ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... located, spiritually insphered in each other's life. Now I have no excuse for halting. I must be forever moving to some center, and he will find his life in and through me, loving me ever, but yet never quite settling into my life, which he was naturally inclined to do. In his atmosphere I shall gather another kind ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... really expected to find there was the atmosphere, the atmosphere of gratuitous treachery, which in his view nothing could excuse; for he thought that even a passion of unrighteousness for its own sake could not excuse that. But could he detect it? Sniff it? Taste it? Receive some mysterious communication which would turn his invincible ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... damage and the blood which was shed to his account. La Montagne said that he had protested against it, but that it was begun against his will and to his great regret, and that afterwards, when it was entered upon, he had helped to excuse it to the best of his ability. The secretary, Cornelius van Tienhoven, also said that he had no hand in the matter, and nothing had been done by him in regard to it except by the express orders of the Director. But this was not ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... every conceivable excuse in his power, he summoned courage, and offered her his hand and his heart. Being in no way disinclined to him, though not so fervid as he, and her uncle making no objection to the match, she consented ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... the fact that the difficulty is physical to be used as an excuse for giving way to ill-temper, and, in fact, leaving ourselves to be tossed and shaken by every tremble of our nerves. That is as if a man should give himself into the hands and will and caprice of an organ-grinder, to work upon him, not with the ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... under a sheltering roof are also two age-worn memorial tablets in gilt. My men's patriotic thermometer has risen almost to bursting-point, and in admiring the work of the ancients they feel that they have a legitimate excuse for a ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... support of the charge. Were the least shadow of a fault in evidence, you may be assured that it would have been readily found. You were innocent of the charge. But you were technically guilty that they might plead excuse for ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... had violated no trust, since he had honourably espoused a lady whom I had introduced to him as a cousin, and in whom I appeared to have no other interest than that of relationship. Not, they said, that they believed he actually did entertain that impression; but still the excuse was too plausible, and had been too well studied by my cunning rival, to be openly refuted. As for the mere fact of his supplanting me, they thought it an excellent thing,—a ruse d'amour for which they never would have given him credit; and although they admitted it was provoking ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... work, by the schedule," replied Jack, "but if you lads will excuse me now, I'll do double duty later on. I hate to leave the deck even for a few minutes. I don't feel ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... statutable[obs3], statutory; legislatorial, legislative; regulatory, regulated. Adv. legally &c. adj.; in the eye of the law; de jure[Lat]. Phr. ignorantia legis neminem excusat[Latin: ignorance of the law is no excuse]; "where law ends tyranny ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... is a terribly speculative, risky business, and the probabilities are that this mine—let me see, Ydoll, I think, is the old name, and eh, young gentleman, not badly named? Been lying idle for a very long time, I suppose? Eh? You'll excuse the joke. We may lose very heavily in this one, while we gain on others. But, of course, Colonel Pendarve, that is not my affair. My instructions, to be brief, are to ascertain whether you will sell, and, if you will ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... "Excuse me — it's not my business," growled Braith, throwing himself into a seat and beginning to rub Mrs Gummidge the wrong way. "Confound the cat!" he added, examining some red parallel lines which suddenly decorated the ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... sha'n't have any fingers left by the time I finish this needle case! King's excuse, Katy, you needn't mind. I know I said it, but if you tried to push a needle through this awful leather and pricked yourself every other stitch you'd say Golly, too." Chicken Little edged off as ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... accused of, and lamented that disorder of his mind, and distraction which his love to a woman, he said, had brought him to. So when Archelaus had brought Pheroras to accuse and bear witness against himself, he then made an excuse for him, and mitigated Herod's anger towards him, and this by using certain domestical examples; for that when he had suffered much greater mischiefs from a brother of his own, he prefered the obligations of nature ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... them up for their children, with a scandalous neglect of that charity to their Christian brethren which alone can sanctify those enjoyments to them, and enable them to lay up a good foundation against the time to come; pleading these words to excuse their sordid parsimony and want of charity; that 'he that provident not for his own household, hath denied the faiths and is worse than an infidel'; whereas these words plainly respect the provision which children should make for their ...
— Christian Devotedness • Anthony Norris Groves
... at Versailles at the Queen's gaming-table. The Duke of Orleans was the dealer. Grandmother made some excuse for not having brought any money, and began to punt. She chose three cards in succession, again and again, winning every time, and ...
— The Queen Of Spades - 1901 • Alexander Sergeievitch Poushkin
... that by building ships themselves and destroying enemy and neutral shipping, they will be the world's shipping masters at the termination of the war. In their attitude towards Norwegian shipping, you will notice that they make the flimsiest excuse for the destruction of as much tonnage as they can sink. It was confidently stated to me by a member of the National Liberal Party, and by no means an unimportant one, that Germany is building ships as rapidly as she is sinking ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... looking for the heads of my strapping cousins at the bottom button of their well-filled waistcoats, and, before Jack's arrival, meant to do a paternal and patriarchal 'pat' on his, at somewhere about that altitude; a ceremony he must excuse, as the little lad of my mind has thought proper to expand into a young Enniskillen of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... ignoramuses who translated tellurische magnetismus (terrestrial magnetism) as the magnetical qualities of Tellurium, and by his blunder caused an eminent chemist to test tellurium in order to find these magnetical qualities. There was more excuse for the French translator of one of Sir Walter Scott's novels who rendered a welsh rabbit (or rarebit, as it is sometimes spelt) into un lapin du pays de Galles. Walpole states that the Duchess of ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... Pisa from their grasp (moved, it is said, by a guilty fondness for the young and handsome Ippolito), nor did he afterwards share any of the hardships and responsibilities of the siege. Indeed, he then found it necessary to retire into exile in France, on the excuse of superintending his vast commercial affairs at Lyons. After the restoration of the Medici he returned to Florence as the courtier of Duke Alessandro, whom he aided and abetted in his juvenile debaucheries. Quarreling with Alessandro on the occasion ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... taken possession of the British ministry. Exaction followed exaction in increasing intensity and number. The history of coercive legislation can scarcely find a parallel to that of the British Parliament for the fifteen years following the fall of Quebec. Withal, no excuse was ever made for injustice done, no sympathy was ever expressed for suffering inflicted, but all communication conveyed the stern purpose to subdue. Hungry for affection, the half-grown offspring ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... which had led her down the lane, which had caused her to pause at the gate and speak to him, all at once seemed to her perfectly idiotic, and, worse still, intrusive and impertinent. What possible excuse was she going to give for it, in the face of her behaviour to him that afternoon on the moorland? Merely to have asked for shelter on account of the heat, appeared to her now as the flimsiest of excuses, and would appear to him as an excuse simply to pry upon him, ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... under This earth of ours there lies a Purgatory For those who seek to rob grief of the glory That shines through hope of life immortal. In Sin's lexicon this is the vilest sin - Needless and cruel, ugly, gaunt and mean, Without one poor excuse on which to lean, A vandal sin, that with no hope of gain Finds pleasure ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... be placed and the slide that was to cover it; he would clean again the lenses of the microscope, focus the preparation, and make ready to explain. But undoubtedly the lady all this time will have been on the point of saying a hundred times: "Excuse me, Professor, but really ... I have an engagement ... I have a great deal to do...." When she has looked without seeing anything, her lamentations are bitter: "What a lot of time I have wasted!" And yet she ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... There was no hope for him. The men hated him because of his maimed and distorted face. They despised him, possibly because he did not permit himself to resent their conduct with his revolver, and thus give them an excuse for killing him. He could not leave the camp and make his way without supplies to the nearest civilized community. There was nothing for him to do but to work his miserable claim, and bear the immense and awful loneliness of his lot. ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... I shall think the world has indeed corrupted you. Excuse for the friend who deceives, who betrays! No, such is the true outlaw of Humanity; and the Furies surround him even while he sleeps in ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Father, will you excuse me, please... I have something very important to say to Oceana. I've been ...
— The Naturewoman • Upton Sinclair
... entered into, and illustrated, the proverbs at the end of M. Joubert's grammar, which the secretary of the Russian Consul-general had lent him. Some of the proverbs are so applicable to Oriental manners, that I hope the reader will excuse ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... Rome, used to say that a commander could not make a more disgraceful excuse than to plead, 'I never expected it.' It is, in truth, a most shameful reason for any soldier to urge. Imagine everything, ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... both medical and household; but the vast majority of such complications as occur are either caused by carelessness or become serious only if neglected. Treating all children with whooping-cough as emphatically sick children, entitled to every care and excuse from exertion, every exemption and privilege that can be given them until the last whoop has been whooped, would prevent at least two-thirds of the almost ten thousand deaths from whooping-cough that yearly disgrace the ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... "Excuse me." Tyler consulted the shining dial again. "If you don't mind stopping for a few minutes I'll show you that odd ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson
... none yet have equalled Betterton. But I am unwilling to show his superiority only by recounting the errors of those, who now cannot answer to them, let their farther failings therefore be forgotten! or rather, shall I in some measure excuse them! For I am not yet sure, that they might not be as much owing to the false judgment of the spectator, as the actor. While the million are so apt to be transported, when the drum of their ear ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... sir," said the Doctor blandly. "And now, if you will excuse me for a while, I will retire with ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... Cossack cavalry regiment, properly fed, dressed, armed and drilled by foreign instructors such as General Kossackowski, and Russian officers, the infantry and artillery are a wretched lot. There is no excuse for their being so wretched, because there is hardly a people in Asia who would make better soldiers than the Persians if they were properly trained. The Persian is a careless, easy-going devil, who can live ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... such circumstances the wife's action was to be guided by the condition of her husband's affairs. If the captive husband possessed sufficient property on which his wife could be maintained during his captivity in a strange land, she had no reason nor excuse for seeking another marriage. If under these circumstances she became another man's wife, she was to be prosecuted at law, and, her action being the equivalent of adultery, she was to be drowned. But the case was ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... stockholders and prospects; follow up leads; and—oh, you'll be busy! But here comes Reverend Coles," looking out of the window as a man came up the steps. "He's interested in some projects I've been exploiting. Just excuse ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the Bowlings having their jaw tackle well abreast, and not knowing when to stop when once they begin; so, being a 'chip of the old block' and a Bowling all over in my love of talking and love for the sea, I hope you will excuse me and let me start ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... "Your highness must excuse me; I shall not offend again, for I never married afterwards. My charming Naka-poop died in child-bed, and the island became so hateful to me, that I determined to quit it. An opportunity occurred by an American vessel, which arrived with ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... shall simply recall scenes in which I myself have shared, preferring even a character for egotism rather than relate the statements of hearsay, for the truth of which I could not vouch. This must be accepted as an excuse for the unpleasant ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... flocked around, and wreathed him, as it were, with their caresses and innocent blandishments. So tender a scene melted my grandfather's spirit into sadness; and he could not remain master of himself, when the eldest, a mild and meek little maiden, said to him, as if to excuse her father's sorrow, "A foul friar made my mother an ill-doer, and took her away ae night when she was just done wi' ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... thousand men, half his fighting force, and was again shut up within the barricades and blockhouses of Fort Meigs. Procter continued the siege only four days longer, for his Indian allies then grew tired of it and faded into the forest. He was not reluctant to accept this excuse for withdrawing. His own militia were drifting away, his regulars were suffering from illness and exposure, and Fort Meigs itself was a harder nut to crack than he had anticipated. Procter therefore withdrew to Amherstburg and made no more trouble until June, when he sent raiding parties into ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... music with a few solemn chords, faintly suggestive of an Amen, and Canon Wrottesley, who was proceeding with his fifth or sixth sally into the middle of the figure, stopped breathless. Dorothy Avory looked over-heated when the dance was finished, and as she had furnished the excuse for a rather poor attempt at romping, her obvious fatigue was quite sufficient to give the canon an opportunity of a little quiet reading until all were rested. He put on his spectacles—which he always wore with an air of apology—and gave out the title ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... took the keys, and went this morning to the steward's office. I accounted for my appearance to the servants by informing them that I had work to do which it was important to complete in the shortest possible time. The same excuse would have done for Mr. Armadale if we had met, but no ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... doubted her sobriety. She sat down plump upon the baby. She must have been a woman rising sixteen stone, and for one minute fifteen seconds by my watch the whole house rocked with laughter. That the thing was only a stage property I felt was no excuse. The humour—heaven save the mark—lay in the supposition that what we were witnessing was the agony and death—for no child could have survived that woman's weight—of a real baby. Had I been able to tap myself beforehand I should have learned that on that particular Saturday I was going to ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... Shakespeare's "As You Like it." "It's all Greek to me" is traceable to the play of "Julius Caesar." "All cry and no wool" is in Butler's "Hudibras." "Pious frauds," meaning hypocrites, is from the same source. "Too thin," referring to an excuse, is from Smollett's "Peregrine ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... "Excuse me, dear friend; I was there, but at a distance. I neither saw nor heard what passed within, I only know what you told me, that he talked ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... excuse me, I'll run away and change, and go on deck. I am in your watch, you know, Mr Kennedy, and ought to be ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... and said he was glad he had come in, as he could keep Mrs. Dallas company, as he was going to the theatre. Mrs. Dallas looked a little surprised at this announcement and suggested his postponing the theatre, so that he might not miss Mr. Noel's visit, but he answered that Mr. Noel he knew would excuse him, and turned to leave the room. As he did so he stepped on one of the kittens which cried out pitifully. It had been an accident, of course, but he might have shown some compunction, which he utterly ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... convince any one else of this fact? From one actor to another, from one theater manager to another he went, but all told him that for one reason or another he was not fitted for the stage. Particularly did Andersen resent the excuse of one manager, who told him that he was too thin. This fault Andersen assured him that he was only too willing to remedy, if he would only give him a chance and a salary; ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Eva, you will excuse us for upsetting your evening. Will you be so good as to play something for us ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... way of conduct follow in the natural world upon our regenerative change. But that which produces effects in another reality must be termed a reality itself, so I feel as if we had no philosophic excuse for calling the unseen ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... must excuse me to-day. I'm very busy, and expect to leave town in an hour or two. Please state what you have to say in few words, or else I will see you ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... girl, and, in spite of Sammy's persistent attempts to bring the now sullen Ollie into the conversation, ignored the man completely. When they had talked for a few moments, Young Matt said, "I reckon you'll have to excuse me a minute, Sammy; I left the engine in such a hurry when you called that I'll have to look at it again. It won't take more'n ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... confess, Or the minstrel's powers invent, Thrilled here once at the light caress Of the fairy hands that lent This excuse for the kiss I press On the ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... have been amazingly fond of him, especially your respectable mothers; I know they would. If any two of his numerous virtues predominated over the many that adorned his character, I should say they were his mixed punch and his after-supper song. Excuse my dwelling on these melancholy recollections of departed worth; you won't see a man like my uncle every ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... me? speak any that dare, A Horse and an Hundred Pounds for him, that's fair; Dear Courtiers, excuse me from Teagland and Slaughter, And take which you please, Sir, ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... the point of this long communication. But at every attempt the judge's eyes turned slowly upon me between their half-closed lids, and made me desist. No—a thousand times no! This smooth-tongued, wily Italian shall have no excuse for proving that the French, who have already such a reputation for frivolity, are a nation without a conscience, incapable of fulfilling the mission with which ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Sebastian, and to reach the cafe we turned off the main road and ran the car into a side street. There, without being ourselves conspicuous, we could see all that passed along the road beyond. We had some vermouth, sitting at a little iron table outside the cafe door, to excuse our presence. Every moment we expected to see the Duke's car shoot by, but time went on, and it did not come. We finished our first edition of vermouth and had a second, with which we toyed and did not drink, by way of ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Dear Patmore—Excuse my anxiety—but how is Dash? (I should have asked if Mrs. Patmore kept her rules, and was improving—but Dash came uppermost. The order of our thoughts should be the order of our writing.) Goes he muzzled, or aperto ore? Are his ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... for a week, at least, longer if possible; yet at the end of three days he was longing for an excuse to get back to town, where he intended to take rooms; but no excuse presented itself, and so he stayed on, spending most of his time in the billiard-room, a part of the house seldom used in the daytime, ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... all,' I hastened to assure him. 'It all seems so wonderful to me, you must excuse ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... Church has ordered Confirmation, and used it from the beginning; and next, that it is good for us to be confirmed, because we are too weak of ourselves to lead holy lives. Now let me say a word, in ending, to those who have grown up, grown old, perhaps, without Confirmation. What is their excuse? They say—I have neglected Confirmation so long, it is not worth while now. I have gone on so far without it, and I am all right. My brothers, how do you know that you are all right? You cannot see into your own heart, God ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... letter I could accept. If Mr. Darwin had said that by some inadvertence, which he was unable to excuse or account for, a blunder had been made which he would at once correct so far as was in his power by a letter to the Times or the Athenaeum, and that a notice of the erratum should be printed on a ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... "So you make excuse for this Mr. Law of Lauriston," said Mary Connynge. "Well, I like better a knight who comes on his own horse, or in his own chariot, and who rescues me when I am in trouble, rather than asks me to give him aid. But, as to that, what matter? We set those highway travelers down, ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... as they present themselves to my mind, of his position, and has distinctly and deliberately brought an accusation against one who is not on trial before you, and has, therefore, no means of rebutting the attack. For such a course there is, in my opinion, not a shadow of excuse. I have listened with great patience to the evidence in this case from the beginning to the end, and I have not detected anywhere anything that casts one particle of suspicion ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... lesions is very far at times from being of certain and easy accomplishment, and, owing to the massive structure of the parts we are considering, this is especially true in the present connection. Still there are many cases in which there is really no reasonable excuse for an error in diagnosis ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... that you will excuse me for venturing to make a suggestion to you which I am perfectly well aware it is a very remote chance that you would adopt. I do not know whether you have read my 'Origin of Species'; in that book I have made the remark, which I apprehend ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... present have gone from the Assembly before the dissolving thereof: Therefore, for remedie hereof in time coming Doth Ordaine, that hereafter Every Commissioner from Presbyteries and Universities who shall be absent from the Assembly without a reasonable excuse notified to the Assembly, Or who being present shall goe from the Assembly before the dissolving thereof without a licence, shall be suspended by the Assembly untill the Provinciall ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... signature will furnish more than I am able to give. I enclose a letter I have just received from him." This enclosure was merely a courteous and badly-composed expression of thanks; but it was signed Est, and not De Tarnaud. As soon as he could find a decent excuse, the excited commandant drew aside one of his more intimate friends, and communicated to him the surprising discovery which he had made, at the same time urging him to convey the information to the Marquis d'Eragny, who lived at no great distance. ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... being asked how he had come by his MSS. he refused at first to give any answer. Then he said he was employed to transcribe some old writings by 'a gentleman whom he had supplied with poetry to send to a lady the gentleman was in love with'—the excuse being suggested no doubt by the case of Miss Hoyland and his friend Baker. Finally when, as we can only conclude, this explanation was disproved or disbelieved, he announced that the account was copied from a manuscript his father ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... knights on foaming steeds—every-day folk ride jogging horses—threading their way through the mysterious forest aisles in search of those romantic adventures which were necessary to give knights of that period an excuse for existence. It chanced, however, that the only knights known to Woodlands were the old-time friends of its master and the youthful writers who looked to "Father Abbot" ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... goa." He took what suited his mind best, and paid very little attention to the rules of sermonizing; he was in this respect a law unto himself, and the favour with which his humble ministrations were received was a sufficient excuse for him. ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... excuse for ourselves," she answered with a touch of impatient scorn. "I'm all the time doing it. I say if things were different I would be a nice, sweet-tempered, gentle girl and not fly out like that Katherine in Shakespeare's play. But I know all the time it ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... engineering department if he could find half an excuse. I'm afraid he's going to do it, too, in the most effectual way—by forcing Mr. Ford out. If Ford goes, every man in the department will quit with him. I'm ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... chipped in Mr. Dawes, who always treated the ex-man with great deference. "If you'll excuse me, Wych Street was a narrow lane at the back of the old Globe Theatre, that used ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... You will judge if he should go beyond this allowance, and be so good as to reject the surplus. I must desire his lawyer to send me immediately a state of their case, and let me know in what court their process is, and when it is likely to be decided. I hope the circumstances of the case will excuse the freedom I take; and I have the honor to be, with great ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... you ready to start?" he asked his daughter, smiling. And then to Derby he added, "Excuse Nina for a few moments, John; I want to speak with her. You are going down to the steamer with her, of course?" As Derby answered affirmatively, Nina picked up her books and ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... that day so happily as usual; indeed, from the immense space of the circumference, the task was always one of great difficulty and art—so much so that it could seldom be adventured in rough or windy weather. But the present day was so remarkably still that there seemed to the spectators no excuse for the awkwardness of the artificers; and when a large gap in the back of the awning was still visible, from the obstinate refusal of one part of the velaria to ally itself with the rest, the murmurs of discontent were loud ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... any other layman of modern times. In imaginative literature, however, his critical instinct was perhaps less keen. He called Heine "a bad second to Schiller in poetry," which is absurd; and he thought George Eliot the greatest of modern novelists. In arriving at the latter judgment he had the excuse of personal friendship and admiration for a woman whose splendid ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter
... without putting her hand to it. On the third day the Queen came, and when she saw that nothing had been done of the spinning she was much surprised; but the girl excused herself by saying that she had not been able to begin because of the distress she was in at leaving her home and her mother. The excuse contented the Queen, who said, however, as she ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm |
