"Palliation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... perpetrated in hot blood and the acts regretted as soon as done—the feeling that prompts them is not a permanent state of mind, but a violent impulse stung up by sudden provocation. But he who habitually withholds from his dependents sufficient sustenance, can plead no such palliation. The fact itself shows, that his permanent state of mind toward them is a brutal indifference to their wants and sufferings—A state of mind which will naturally, necessarily, show itself in innumerable privations and inflictions upon them, when it ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... eye of the university in a clear case and on clear evidence, it would be punished in the most exemplary way open to a limited authority; by rustication, at least—that is, banishment for a certain number of terms, and consequent loss of these terms—supposing the utmost palliation of circumstances; and, in an aggravated case, or in a second offence, most ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... I would ask, is the warrant, the justification, or the palliation of American Slavery from Hebrew servitude? How many of the southern slaves would now be in bondage according to the laws of Moses; Not one. You may observe that I have carefully avoided using the term slavery when speaking of Jewish servitude; and simply for this reason, that ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... fleeing at once to his one city of refuge, he fell but to pacing the room in hopeless bewilderment; and before long he was searching every corner of his reviving consciousness, not indeed as yet for any justification, but for what palliation of his "fault" might there be found; for it was the first necessity of this self-lover to think well, or at least endurably, of himself. Nor was it long before a multitude of sneaking arguments, imps of Satan, began ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... continued the Duke, "just try if you cannot find some palliation for what your old father has done. I am ready to ask your forgiveness, and to apologize, for a man of honor is never ashamed to acknowledge when he has been ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... Roper only says this to convince himself that he might have forgotten the name—a sort of washy palliation of his Harrisson invention. It brings him within a measurable distance of a ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... by my side, the slave of Haj Abd-Errahman, who is sent every year by his master to buy and sell goods, as if a regular free merchant. It is wonderful fidelity on the part of this slave that he does not run away. Unquestionably the negro has some fine qualities. This slave, however, in palliation of the wrong, tells me he brings few slaves, and mostly goods. I don't fail to tell him, slaves are haram, ("prohibited,") to the English. My taleb comes in, and after asking me the news, takes up the Arabic Bible, and reads the following ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... sentiment prevailed in Ireland as to the desirableness of an independent Parliament—this, this, we say loudly, would have been dissipated, had every Irish county met by its gentry disavowing and abominating all sentiments tending towards a purpose so guilty as political disunion. Yet, in palliation of this most grievous failure, we, in the spirit of perfect candour, will remind our readers of the depressing effect too often attending one flagrant wound in any system of power or means. Let a man lose by a sudden blow—by fire, by shipwreck, or by commercial failure—a ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... been for your wounded arm," replied Edith, laying her hand gently on the scar, "we should have supposed he was under a strong delusion to believe a lie. Appearances were against you, and your condemnation was my brother's palliation, if not acquittal. My mother continued her supplications, mingled with tears and sighs that seemed to rend the life from her bosom; and I, Gabriella, do you think I was silent and passive? I, who would willingly have laid down ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... which I feel I have committed, or add to my Fault by the Vindication of an expression dictated by Resentment, an expression which deserves Censure, and demands the apology I now offer; for I think that Disposition indeed mean which adds Obstinacy to Insult, by attempting the Palliation of unmerited Invective from the mistaken principle of disdaining the Avowal of even self convicted Error. In regard to the other Declarations my Sentiments remain unaltered; the event will shew whether my Prediction is false. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... consistency. There exists no more terrible person than the man who remarks: "Well, you may say what you like, but at any rate I have been consistent." This argument is generally advanced as the palliation for some notorious failure. And this is natural For the man who is consistent must be out of touch with reality. There is no consistency in the course of events, in history, in the weather, or in the mental attitude of one's ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... could produce a man so signally truthful and single-hearted is a race of liars and cheats. I think the student of their character should also be slow to upbraid Italians for their duplicity, without admitting, in palliation of the fault, facts of long ages of alien and domestic oppression, in politics and religion, which must account for a vast deal of every kind of evil in Italy. Yet after exception and palliation has been duly made, it must be confessed that in Italy ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... I think it is necessary to state, that there has been some little difficulty concerning this word, presents. Bribery and extortion have been covered by the name of presents, and the authority and practice of the East has been adduced as a palliation of the crime. My Lords, no authority of the East will be a palliation of the breach of laws enacted in the West: and to those laws of the West, and not the vicious customs of the East, we insist upon ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... animated Smith beyond his fellows, and ran as warmly through his conversation in private life as we see it still runs through his published writings. Smith was always vigorous and weighty in his denunciation of wrong, and so impatient of anything in the nature of indifference or palliation towards it, that he could scarce feel at ease in the presence of the palliator. "We can breathe more freely now," he once said when a person of that sort had just left the company; "that man has no indignation ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... the Bible, it seems to be wholly grounded on the idea that the sin of man is astonishing, inexcusable, and without palliation or cause, and the atonement is spoken of as such a wonderful and undeserved mercy that I am filled with amazement. Yet if I give up the Bible I gain nothing, for the providence of God in nature is just as full of ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... odium which the king's enemies first threw out to make him contemptible; while his apologists imagined that, in perpetuating this accusation, they had discovered, in a weakness which has at least something amiable, some palliation for his own political misconduct. The factious, too, by this aspersion, promoted the alarm they spread in the nation, of the king's inclination to popery; yet, on the contrary, Charles was then making a determined ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... comparison with that of mere everyday. "Footfalls" was selected out of an embarrassment of riches offered by this author. The best horror story of the year is Rose Sidney's "Butterflies." It is a Greek tragedy, unrelieved, to be taken or left without palliation. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... without scruple as a means to an end. She had made him the instrument for escaping from a predicament which she found unbearably irksome. That she had done so in the heat of passion was small palliation. For the present, at least, she wisely resolved to make the best of things. It could not last forever. The day must come when she could free herself from the bonds that now ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... as though Barbara's change of mood had overthrown the barrier which her stern refusal had raised between them. Calm and cheerful as in former days he sat before her, listening while, in obedience to his invitation, she told him, with many a palliation and evasion, about her married life and the children. She made her story short, in order at last to hear some further particulars concerning the welfare of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... allegation is admitted, it is answered that in many places honest local government is impossible if the mass of uneducated negroes are allowed to vote. These are grave allegations. So far as the latter is true, it is the only palliation that can be offered for opposing the freedom of the ballot. Bad local government is certainly a great evil, which ought to be prevented; but to violate the freedom and sanctities of the suffrage is more than ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... sure, dear Madam, you must let me not again behold the weakness of that poor silly girl.—But this is my hope, you are not apt to judge unfavourably, even in circumstances that will scarce admit of palliation.—Tell me, my dear Lady, I am pardoned; tell me so, and I shall never be again unhappy.—How charming, to have peace and tranquility restor'd, when I fear'd they were for ever banish'd my breast!—I welcomed the friends;—my ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... Livingston, Minister to France, and unofficially through a French gentleman, Dupont de Nemours, sought to impress upon the First Consul the unwisdom of his taking possession of Louisiana, without ceding to the United States at least New Orleans and the Floridas as a "palliation." Even so, France would become an object of suspicion, a neighbor with whom Americans were ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... name your accomplices," cried the enraged commandant; "there is no palliation for a traitor, and if you do not name them at once, I shall ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... the world, he told himself, where men won things by their brains, he had failed like any pitiable weakling; that he had been handicapped by unpreparedness was no palliation of the crime of failure. Ignorance was no excuse. In humiliation and chagrin he attributed the mistakes of inexperience to lack of intelligence. His mother had over-estimated him, he had over-estimated himself. It was presumption to have supposed he was fitted for anything ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... tried, in weak man-fashion, to solace himself. The world had helped to train Ruth Dale. While not admitting that there should be any palliation for the double code—or even the appearance of it—such women as she recognized it, and were able, under sufficiently convincing circumstances, to deal with it. There were reasons, heaven knew, why she, Ruth Dale, should be lenient with this silent man across the hearth. The ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... animate his frame, and to produce the heated gestures which he had practised in middle age. He was a man of tender feelings to his friends, ready and willing to assist them in distress, yet, as a warrior, his cruelties to his enemies perhaps were unparalleled, and will not admit a word of palliation. ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... ever talked or wrote encomiastic nonsense about Germany and the Germans. Of all infatuations connected with what is foreign, the infatuation about everything that is German, to a certain extent prevalent in England, is assuredly the most ridiculous. One can find something like a palliation for people making themselves somewhat foolish about particular languages, literatures, and people. The Spanish certainly is a noble language, and there is something wild and captivating in the Spanish character, and its literature contains the grand book of the world. French is a manly language. ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... suppress them, but that he preserved them, with a view to their ultimate publication. This story was repeated by Warton and by Walpole; it has been accepted by Mr. Carruthers, who suggests, by way of palliation, that Pope was desirous at the time of providing for Martha Blount, and probably took the sum in order to buy an annuity for her. Now, if the story were proved, it must be admitted that it would reveal a baseness in Pope which would be worthy only of the lowest and most venal literary marauders. ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... calculated upon), he would have forgiven me; he might have even been grateful to me for having humiliated her, and cast her helpless at his feet. But the crime I had committed in loving her too well to forsake her, admitted of no palliation. He could extract nothing out of it but vengeance. The sleepless hostility with which the Indian follows the trail of his foe, is not more vindictive and persevering than the feelings of hatred with which he ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... went to Professor Tzschirner and told him everything, without palliation or concealment. He censured my frivolity and lack of consideration for my position in life, but every word, every feature of his expressive face showed that he grieved for what had happened, and would have gladly punished it leniently. In after ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... come to an end. And how can an author do better than to quote Ibn Khallikan's own concluding words, which, though written so long ago about a biographical dictionary, may be borrowed by all literary hands as palliation for whatever shortcomings their work may have?—"If any well-informed person remark, in examining this book, that it contains faults, he should not hasten to blame me, for I always aimed at being exact, as far as I could judge; and, besides, God has allowed no book ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... influenced by it, his course was wrong, as the consequence miserably proved. The position which, in his wife's presence, he assigned to another woman, however he may have persuaded himself that Catherine had no claim to be considered his wife, admits neither of excuse nor of palliation; and he ought never to have shared his throne with a person who consented to occupy that position. He was blind to the coarseness of Anne Boleyn, because, in spite of his chivalry, his genius, his accomplishments, in his ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... trick of getting the Indians drunk and then swindling them of their furs and land was carried on by Astor on an unprecedented scale. To say that Astor knew nothing of what his agents were doing is a palliation not worthy of consideration; he was a man who knew and attended to even the pettiest details of his varied business. Moreover, the liquor was despatched by his orders direct by ship to New Orleans and from thence up the ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... those which spring from the pressure of great poverty and are accompanied by great ignorance. The causes of domestic anarchy are usually of such an intimate nature and involve so many unknown or imperfectly realised elements of aggravation or palliation that in most cases the less men attempt to judge them the better. On the other hand, public opinion is usually far too lenient in judging crimes of ambition, cupidity, envy, malevolence, and callous selfishness; ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... deceptive than the pretended curative virtues of corrosive sublimate in dysentery, and that it is a matter of duty to be mindful, in this very particular, of the warning words of the master who, having himself been deceived at one time by the delusive palliation of mercury, addresses to us the remarkable warning that "mercury, so far from responding to all non-venereal maladies, on the contrary is one of the most deceitful palliatives the temporary action of which is not only soon followed by a return of the original symptoms of disease, but ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf
... of disease and misery which proceeds directly from the spread of syphilis and gonorrhoea, and indirectly from the prostitution which is the chief propagator of these diseases, that we cannot be surprised that many should eagerly catch at any system which seems to promise a palliation of the evils. At the present time, however, it is those best acquainted with the operation of the system of control who have most clearly realized that the supposed palliation is for the most part illusory,[157] and in any case attained at the cost of the artificial production ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... some of Dorothea's friends, to a restaurant for supper. He planned the little parties and excursions for which Dorothea's "budding" offered an excuse; and, while he recognized the subterfuge, he made his probable journey, with the long absence it would involve, serve as a palliation. Since, too, there was no danger to Diane, there could be the less reason for stinting himself in the pleasure of her presence, so long as he was prepared to pay for it ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... propagation of truth was promoted by persecution. Pride, vanity, and profusion contributed often, in their remoter consequences, to the happiness of mankind. In common, what was in itself evil and vicious was permitted to carry along with it some circumstances of palliation. The Arab was hospitable; the robber brave. We did not necessarily find cruelty associated with fraud, or meanness with injustice. But here the case was far otherwise. It was the prerogative of this detested traffic ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... disadvantage of Mr. Falkland. Defend yourself as well as you can, but do not attack your master. It is your business to create in those who hear you a prepossession in your favour. But the recrimination you have been now practising, will always create indignation. Dishonesty will admit of some palliation. The deliberate malice you have now been showing is a thousand times more atrocious. It proves you to have the mind of a demon, rather than of a felon. Wherever you shall repeat it, those who hear you will pronounce you guilty upon ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... having won her confidence, escorted her all through the Wicked Valley. By a continual palliation she yielded one point after another until her virtue was sacrificed on a ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... between the United States and England. Most of those who had been engaged in the war, ceased hostilities. Black Hawk, however, and his band, and some of the Pottawatamies, were not inclined to bury the tomahawk. Even as late as the spring of 1816, they committed depredations. Some palliation for these outrages may be found in the fact, that the British, on the north-west frontier, long after they were officially notified of the peace, continued to excite the Indians to acts of violence against the United States; and, indeed, ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... Congreve was not tenable: whatever glosses he might use for the defence or palliation of single passages, the general tenour and tendency of his plays must always be condemned. It is acknowledged, with universal conviction, that the perusal of his works will make no man better; and that their ultimate effect is to represent pleasure in alliance ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... and sins, atrocious and inexcusable as they were, sprang from ill-regulated and perverted feelings of love and good will, and not from selfishness and hate; from the kindly, and not from the malignant propensities of the soul. It is very doubtful whether this is really any palliation of them, but, at any rate, mankind generally regard it so, judging very leniently, as they always do, the sins and crimes which have ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... opponents. Lady Russell gave her sympathies to the side of the Northern States, as was but natural, seeing that the success of the North would mean the abolition of that system of slavery which was to her heart and to her conscience incapable of defence or of palliation. ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... the art of managing, or, according to the familiar phrase, doctoring wines. The plea alleged in exculpation of them, is, that, though deceptive, they are harmless: but even admitting this as a palliation, yet they form only one department of an art which includes other processes ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... persecutors seems to have reached its height, and the poor people know not what to do. Appeal to the government seems useless, for it is from the government that their chief oppressor gets his power to persecute. All who went back came to call on me, and most of them attended the services. They said, in palliation of their course, 'We are flesh and blood, and have families to support. We have waited for deliverance for years, and now Tamir (the chief oppressor) says, Come back and I will restore to you all; remain as you are, and I will ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... blame your staying at home if the case was even fairly stated, will not deal so honestly by you: you must expect to have every circumstance against you heightened, and most of what makes for your defence omitted; and thus you will be stigmatized as a coward without any palliation. As the malicious disposition of mankind is too well known, and the cruel pleasure which they take in destroying the reputations of others, the use we are to make of this knowledge is to afford no handle to reproach; for, bad as the world is, it seldom falls on any man who hath not given some ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... papal advocates can soften the symbolic meaning of the banner and the keys; but the style of ad regnum dimisimus, or direximus, (Codex Carolin. epist. i. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 76,) seems to allow of no palliation or escape. In the Ms. of the Vienna library, they read, instead of regnum, rogum, prayer or request (see Ducange;) and the royalty of Charles Martel is subverted by this important correction, (Catalani, in his Critical Prefaces, Annali ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... the "Broken Heart." For this unfortunate creature, every feeling mind will find an apology in his calamitous situation; but—for Mr. Weber, we know not where the warmest of his friends will seek either palliation ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... circumstance which affords ground for suspicion that some important secrets were in her possession respecting later transactions between the princess and Seymour which she had faithfully kept. It should also be observed in palliation of the liberties which she accused the admiral of allowing to himself, and the princess of enduring, that the period of Elizabeth's life to which these particulars relate was only ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... you have brought a helpless woman, is scarcely the recompense I was taught to suppose agreeable to a chivalrous Southern gentleman. If, wearing the red livery of Justice, undue zeal for vengeance betrayed you into the fatal mistake of trampling me into this horrible place, there might be palliation; but for the brutal persistency with which you thrust your tormenting presence upon me, not even heavenly charity could possibly find pardon. Literally you are heaping insult upon awful injury. Is it a refinement of cruelty that brings you here to watch and analyze my suffering, as a biologist ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... a man holding Fifth-Monarchy views, John Rogers prefers a lengthy indictment against lawyers, for whose delinquencies and heinous offence he admits neither apology nor palliation. In his opinion all judges deserve the death of Arnold and Hall, whose last moments were provided for by the hangman. The wearers of the long robe are perjurers, thieves, enemies of mankind; their institutions are hateful, and their usages abominable. In olden time they were less ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... bully blaze,"—these show how far the word has departed from its origin. Nor, indeed, does it come down from English in an unbroken line. Overlooked for centuries, it was revived (or invented) in America some fifty years ago, and it is not to Dekker and Ben Jonson that we must look for palliation ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... for a moment, and then turned his head aside without noticing the salute. It may seem strange, but we must remember that to all who hear of any wrong act by report only, it presents itself as a mere naked fact—a bare result without preface or palliation. The subtle grades of temptation which led to it—the violent outburst of passion long pent-up which thus found its consummation—are unknown or forgotten, and the deed itself, isolated from all that rendered it possible, receives unmitigated condemnation. All ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... rendering them somewhat less unendurable—(for I will not disguise my conviction, that in this one point the tragic in this play has been urged beyond the outermost mark and ne plus ultra of the dramatic);—Shakespeare has precluded all excuse and palliation of the guilt incurred by both the parents of the base-born Edmund, by Gloster's confession that he was at the time a married man, and already blest with a lawful heir of his fortunes. The mournful alienation of brotherly love, occasioned by the ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... ran through the church at sight of the silver-shining figure of the bride. How handsome, how stately, how perfectly self-possessed and calm. Truly, if beauty and high-bred repose of manner be any palliation of low birth and obscurity, this American young lady ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... Japanese mind such conduct could only mean one thing. The Japanese male is frankly animal where women are concerned. He does not understand our fine shades of self-deception, which give to our love-making the thrill of surprise and the palliation of romance. Tanaka concluded that there could be only one termination to the ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... saw his daughter alone. The interview was long and earnest. On his part was the fullest disapproval of her conduct and the most solemnly spoken admonitions and warnings. She confessed her error, without any attempt at excuse or palliation, and promised a wiser conduct ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... their primitive character. This fact has sometimes been rather illogically cited, as an argument not only against the moral influence of the salons but against the intellectual development of women. There is neither excuse nor palliation to be offered for the Italian manners and the recognized system of amis intimes, which disgraced the French society the next century. But, while it is greatly to be deplored that the moral sense has not always kept pace with the cultivation of the intellect, ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... just as we disbelieve Sir James Barrie when he invents that absurd accident of Tommy's death. These three instances of falsity have been selected from authors who know the truth and almost always tell it; and all three have a certain palliation. They come at or near the very end of lengthy stories. In actual life, of course, there are no very ends: life exhibits a continuous sequence of causation stretching on: and since a story has to have an end, its conclusion must in any case belie ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... Fitzgerald might be regarded as an injured man. From the exuberant generosity of his temper, he had powerfully sympathized with the French republicans at an early stage of their revolution; and having, with great indiscretion, but an indiscretion that admitted of some palliation in so young a man and of so ardent a temperament, publicly avowed his sympathy, he was ignominiously dismissed from the army. That act made an enemy of one who, on several grounds, was not a man to be despised; for, though weak ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... and was consequently subjected not only to the inhalation of the smoke of linseed oil, but to that of gunpowder. For his chest complaint at this stage, he underwent a variety of medical treatment, which produced mere palliation in his symptoms, and though breathing a pure atmosphere in a country situation, he experienced a most painful sensation of want of air, or, as he himself expressed it, "a feeling as if he did not get enough ...
— An Investigation into the Nature of Black Phthisis • Archibald Makellar
... is a poor excuse. Men who brave the dangers of the mighty deep, as our class do, and face death in every form with unshrinking courage, ought to be able to resist such a temptation. It will be a poor reason to hand in to the Almighty when the angel summons all hands before his dread tribunal, in palliation of our drunkenness and the sins committed by us when under the influence of liquor, that the government, instead of comforting us, and fortifying us against heat and cold, etc., with coffee, and tea, and other wholesome small stores, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... discontent. This was not unnatural nor unreasonable, for he was the party manager for that district. When the legislature went into joint session Lincoln had manifestly lost some of his prestige. It may be said by way of palliation that the "still hunt" was then new in politics. And it was the only time that ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... discharge obligations of this kind, she has little disposition to run deeply into debt; and the other is, that she has not the credit to do it if she wished! If, however, she does involve herself in this way, the law exempts her from imprisonment. This, perhaps, is offered as a sort of palliation for the disabilities which she suffers in other respects. The only object of the petition is, I believe, that the husband and wife be placed upon a legal and political equality. If the law gives woman an advantage over man, we deprecate it as much as he can. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... admiration ran through Cynthia, piercing her sorrow. The superb strength of the man was there in that simple confession, and it is in the nature of woman to admire strength. He had fought his fight, and gained, and paid the price without a murmur, seeking no palliation. Cynthia had not come to that trial—so bitter for her—as a judge. If the reader has seen youth and innocence sitting in the seat of justice, with age and experience at the bar, he has mistaken Cynthia. She came to Coniston ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... on the Negro, wounding him so severely that he died the next morning. 'Well, you got him, didn't you?' said —— on his return. 'If I didn't, I almost,' answered —— with a smile. The policeman's only statement in palliation of the unprovoked killing was that the deputy to whom he delegated his authority had 'taken his instructions literally.' The most shocking feature of the affair is that —— has not been arrested, and the policeman is apparently to continue ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... Cursor, the dictator, having occasion to quit the army and repair to Rome, strictly forbade Q. Fa'bius Rullia'nus, his master of the horse, to venture a battle in his absence. This order Fa'bius disobeyed, and gained a complete victory. Instead, however, of finding success a palliation of his offence, he was immediately condemned by the stern dictator to expiate his breach of discipline by death. In spite of the mutinous disposition of the army—in spite of the intercessions and threats, both of ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... like to kick him out of it.' Mostyn struck the table with some exclamation, and McLean continued, 'Especially when the wronged husband is a gentleman of such stainless character and unsuspecting nature as Basil Stanhope—a clergyman also! Oh, the thing is beyond palliation entirely!' And he walked away and ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... our fellow creatures, is totally disregarded; all social connection and tenderness of nature being broken, desolation and bloodshed continually fomented in those unhappy people's country." It was also intended, said he, "to invalidate the false arguments which are frequently advanced for the palliation of this trade, in hopes it may be some inducement to those who are not yet defiled therewith to keep themselves clear; and to lay before such as have unwarily engaged in it, their danger of totally losing that tender sensibility to the sufferings ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... father, all that you have alleged in palliation of the count's crime, and I fully understand you—though I still think it the most terrible thing I ever have heard tell of. But I do not perfectly comprehend wherefore you ransack our language of all its deepest terms of contempt which to heap upon the head of the Chevalier de la Rochederrien? ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... satisfaction the many judicious reflections it contains, on the condition of the respectable class of literary men. The efforts for their relief, made by a society of private citizens, are truly laudable: but they are, as you justly observe, but a palliation of an evil, the cure of which calls for all the wisdom and the means of the nation. The greatest evils of populous society have ever appeared to me to spring from the vicious distribution of its members among the occupations called for. I have no doubt that those nations ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... of medicine has ever offered a prophylactic equal to work and good-cheer, and no system of religion has ever offered a working formula for health, happiness and success equal to that launched by Mrs. Eddy. The science of medicine is a science of palliation. ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... glimpses, as our story unfolds itself, of all these transactions. Meanwhile, it is interesting to note that the statesman whose great ensign was to be human freedom, was thus born in a family where the palliation of slavery must have made a daily topic. The union, moreover, of fervid evangelical religion with antagonism to abolition must in those days have been rare, and in spite of his devoted faith in his father the youthful Gladstone may well have had uneasy moments. If so, he perhaps ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... you; there was not a thing that I did, not a thought that I ever harbored, which had not your happiness for its aim; and to your love and devotion I looked for my reward; and as I brooded over my own guilty life, blackened as it was with the worst of crimes, I thought that it was some palliation to be the parent of one pure and spotless as you were. Well, you turned out as hundreds of others have done, and my labor was lost. I loved you as never child was loved; and in proportion as my love once was great, so now is my hate ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... conduct of the husband is most noble in these scenes; he has forgiven her fully, never upbraiding, never even alluding to her fatal act, excepting in one passage possibly, in which there is a gentle palliation of her behavior: "Thou camest to the place, moved by some divinity who wished to give glory to the Trojans." The husband will not blame her, she acted under the stimulus of a God. The fallen woman restored is the divinest ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... coming to that. It was in the second year of the Countess Hurstmonceux's widowhood that I met her at Brighton. Oh, Hannah, it is not in vanity; but in palliation of my offense that I tell you she loved me first. And when a widow loves a single man, in nine cases out of ten she will make him marry her. She hunted me down, ran ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... to reproach myself, now the cruel creature has escaped me; For what would that do, but add to my torment? since evils self-caused, and avoidable, admit not of palliation or comfort. And yet, if thou tellest me, that all her strength was owing to my weakness, and that I have been a cursed coward in this whole affair; why, then, Jack, I may blush, and be vexed; but, by my soul, I ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Gladstone has characterized it as the greatest forensic effort in the English language, not excluding the masterpieces of Erskine. It is a plea for the life of a brutalized negro who butchered a whole family under circumstances of peculiar atrocity. The deed was without excuse or palliation, save in the insanity of the perpetrator, of which Seward became convinced, and volunteered as counsel amid the surprise, imprecations, and threats of the Auburn community, where the case was at issue. The moment was a supreme one for him, but he did not ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... and he has sufficient address to conceal it, or sufficient ingenuity to palliate it, but he does neither; instead of availing himself of concealment and palliation, with the candor of a great mind, he confesses his error, and makes all the apology or atonement which the occasion requires. None has a title to true honor but he who can say with moral elevation, when truth demands the acknowledgment, I have ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... newspapers exist among us of which the description of Mr. Dickens is no very extravagant caricature. But their editors, if not of notoriously infamous life, are those whose minds are unenlarged by any generous education,—men whose lack of grammar suggests a certain palliation of their want of veracity and good-breeding. Such journals are seldom or never seen by the large class of cultivated American readers, and are in no sense representative of them. The "Saturday Review" and "Blackwood's Magazine" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... Coercion Bill. Speaking of the murder of Mr. Carrick, he said: "here again let me solemnly protest—I am sure I need not—that I do not consider any of these acts as an excuse, or a reason, or even as the slightest palliation of his murder (hear, hear); no, they are not, it was a horrible murder; it was an atrocious murder; it was a crime that was deserving of the severest punishment which man can inflict, and which causes the red arm of God's vengeance to be suspended over the murderer (hear, hear)." But he ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... cited in palliation of the doubts and surmises of Captain Thorn, which might otherwise appear strange and unreasonable. That most of the partners were perfectly upright and faithful in the discharge of the trust reposed in them we are fully satisfied; ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... is a lady by birth and by education, and is destined for a social sphere into which you could never, and ought never, enter. You may now go, sir, but you must remember that your ignorance is the only palliation of your presumption. Laurie, show this ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... herself responsible for not only her own safety but that of her allies, and that this safety appeared to be menaced by a people who recognized few outward laws, was the only palliation of a course which in time showed itself as folly, even to the most embittered. The political consequences were of a nature, of which in their first access of zeal, they had taken no account. The complaints and appeals of the ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... gentleman, scholar, and philanthropist, in a tone of irony peculiarly severe, demanded, 'whether I had the unblushing impudence, in broad day-light, to offer my arm to my wife?' I replied, in deep affectation of the criminality involved, that the only palliation I could offer, for conduct so outrageous was, that it was unwittingly done, it seemed so natural. This, as you might well suppose, produced some merriment at the expense of the witness for the county, and of all others, whose ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... been carried much further, and my gradual re-conquests of ground lost might not have been followed up much more energetically, these are questions which I must decline. Perhaps I might make out a case of palliation; but—shall I speak ingenuously?—I confess it, as a besetting infirmity of mine, that I am too much of an Eudmonist; I hanker too much after a state of happiness, both for myself and others; I can not face misery, whether my own ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... without making any promises of a radical cure, as it seemed that the disease had progressed so that it would be impossible to effect more than satisfactory improvement in his general condition, and a palliation of the symptoms of disease. At the end of seven months' treatment ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... sincerity that nothing in it shows larger than it is; no mist clothes the sky-scraper in gigantic vagueness, the hideous tops soar into the clear heaven distinct in their naked ugliness; and the low buildings cower unrelieved about their bases. Nothing could be done in palliation of the comparative want of antiquity in New York, for the present, at least; but it is altogether probable that in the fulfilment of her destiny she will be one day as old ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... Richard Johnson observes, "I put down at his [the Nabob Fyzoola Khan's] particular desire, but otherwise useless; as my orders" (which orders do not appear) "were, not to receive any palliation, but a negative or affirmative": though such palliation, as it is called by the said Johnson, might be, as it was, in the strictest conformity ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... with rifle and bayonet. Among these was Miles Milton. Mindful of his recent thoughts, and re-impressed with the word Duty, which his friend had just emphasised, he sat down and wrote a distinctly self-condemnatory letter home. There was not a word of excuse, explanation, or palliation in it from beginning to end. In short, it expressed one idea throughout, and that was—Guilty! and of course this was followed by his asking forgiveness. He had forgiveness—though he knew it not—long before he asked it. His broken-hearted father and his ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... time may come when they will be able to defray the expenses, and legitimate the children who may meanwhile be born. In some cases the parties disagree, the connection is broken off, and each one seeks a new mate. Whatever palliation there may be in particular instances, the moral effect of this custom is unquestionably bad; and the volume of statistics recently published by Herr Sundt, who was appointed by the Storthing to investigate the subject, shows that there is no agricultural population in the ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... time to the termination of the last war (1812-1815) with Great Britain—that is, the impossibility of keeping them neutral; the fear of their joining the enemy; while the customs of savage warfare are so repulsive to all the feelings of humanity and pride of the soldier, that it would seem no palliation could be received for the crime of having sanctioned them by example. Indians are active and serviceable when properly employed. They are the best defence against Indians. Acquainted from their birth with wiles and stratagems, they can trace the enemy, and tell its numbers, its footsteps, when ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... cruelty might have no palliation, letters arrived leaving no doubt that the shores of the Bay of Fundy were entirely in the possession of the British; and yet at a council, at which Vice-Admiral Boscawen and Rear-Admiral Mostyn were present by ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... one must ever deplore the disgraceful scenes enacted in the streets and houses of Badajoz, Ciudad Rodrigo, and St Sebastian. Unsurpassed in atrocity, they remain everlasting blots upon the bright laurels gathered by the British in the Peninsula. And it is small palliation, that under similar circumstances, the armies of all nations have acted in like manner. Here the sufferers were not enemies. To the garrison, when their resistance ceased, quarter was given; they were marched ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... said the Reverend Mr. Timson, 'and we know that charity will cover a multitude of sins. Let me beg you to understand that I do not say this from the supposition that you have many sins which require palliation; believe me when I say that I never yet met any one who had fewer to ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... with the heaviness of its consequences, aggravated his crime. To risk so much upon other people, to gain so little for himself, was the more heinous sin than its converse would have been. That he might not have foreseen the evil consequences made possible, was no palliation: he ought to have examined the situation; or indeed he ought to have heeded what he must have known, that little offences may always entail dire evils. Measured by their possibility to work havoc with lives, there are no small sins. The man who enters ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... three things: the healing of existing ills, the reorganization of society to prevent the recurrence of similar ills, and the bringing of new opportunities and joys to the people. Our first step, then, is to consider social therapeutics-the palliation of present suffering, the redressing of existing wrongs; however we may seek, by radical readjustments, to strike at the roots of these evils, we must not fail to mitigate, as best we can, the lot of those who are the unfortunate victims of our ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... they were acquitted. On this subject, in one of his reports, Lord Durham says:—"A perusal of the notes of the chief-justice in this case, will satisfy every candid and well-ordered mind, that a base and cruel assassination, committed without a single circumstance of provocation or palliation, was brought home by evidence, which no man ever pretended to doubt, against the prisoners, whom the jury nevertheless acquitted. The duty of giving this dishonest verdict had been most assiduously inculcated ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... while a student at Amherst College, I was attacked with dyspepsia, which rendered my life wretched for more than a year, and finally drove me from college; but it had now so completely gained the mastery, that no means I resorted to for relief afforded even a palliation of my sufferings. After I had suffered nearly two years in this way, I was made more wretched, if possible, by frequent attacks of colic, with pains and cramps extending to my back; and so severe had these pains become, that the prescriptions of the most eminent ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... attractions. Her vanity is soothed, and her mind is so darkened, that she sees no bad motive whatever, and no blemish in the flatterer. "A woman," says one well versed in our nature, "can always find a palliation for the misdeeds which are set in motion by her own beauty." How often do we see the faults of the flatterer, in this way, actually converted into graces. Or a lady is but moderately well-favored, and ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... in all its hideousness, without palliation or reserve, without comment or heightening, in that stern judicial fashion so characteristic of the Bible records of its greatest characters. Every step is narrated without a trace of softening, and without a word of emotion. Not a single ugly detail is spared. The ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... in a refusal to meet their obligations. Scarcely were the country and Government relieved in a degree from the difficulties occasioned by the general suspension of 1837 when a partial one, occurring within thirty months of the former, produced new and serious embarrassments, though it had no palliation in such circumstances as were alleged in justification of that which had previously taken place. There was nothing in the condition of the country to endanger a well-managed banking institution; commerce was deranged by ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren
... the victim of a crime committed without excuse or palliation, in a time of profound peace and prosperity, not aimed at him as an individual, but at him as the President of the United States. It was a political crime, made with the view of changing, by assassination, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... but canvas-backs." Again the old marvel, the old palliation that makes the seemingly unequal game fair. "But, Lord, how they do go; how anything alive can go so—and ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... upon the spot, in close conversation with her, and scarcely five minutes after the oath had been sworn that bound her to me for life! Less wonder I was jealous. That the feeling lasted only for an instant might be some palliation, but it was no merit of mine that brought it so quickly to a termination. I cannot screen my conduct behind an act of volition; for although the poisoned sting rankled but for a few seconds of time, during that short period I yielded obedience to ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... were so, how strong a plea of palliation might not the poor negro bring, by adducing the neglect of her various owners to afford religious instruction or moral discipline, and the habitual influence of their evil example (to say the very least,) before her eyes? What moral good could she possibly learn—what ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... as to make his judgment in it very doubtful. He was anxious, while vindicating himself, to say nothing unkind of the others: but there was only one amongst them whose conduct he could mention without some necessity of defence or palliation. "We have all been more or less to blame," said he, "every one of us, excepting Fanny. Fanny is the only one who has judged rightly throughout; who has been consistent. Her feelings have been steadily against it from first ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... been a madman to-night, Miss Langdon, and I know it," he told her rapidly. "There is no excuse for the acts I have committed; there can be no palliation for them. I would not have dared to ask for your forgiveness; I can only say that I am sorry. It was not I, but a madman, who for a moment possessed me, who conducted himself so vilely toward you. I shall go back to my ranch ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... you, I then meant to leave Naples," pursued Elgar, who had repeated this so often to himself, by way of palliation, that he had come to think it true. "It was not my fault that I couldn't when that visit was over. It happened that I saw Miss Doran alone—sat talking with her ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... accuser was looking at him, in the eager hope that he might deny the charge. But he did not attempt the smallest palliation. He scorned to make the paltry plea that, at the eleventh hour, he had paid the debt of so many years' standing. As if ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... that Americans should frequently be irritated by the tone of the comments in English papers on the lynchings of negroes which occur in the South. Some of these incidents are barbarous and disgraceful beyond any possibility of palliation, but it is certain that if Englishmen understood the conditions in the South better they would also understand that in some cases it is extremely difficult to blame the lynchers. Many of those people ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... a prominent figure. So long as the earth revolves, he cannot be forgotten. If, therefore, there is a doubt affecting his case, he is entitled to the benefit of that doubt; and if he has suffered to any extent—if simply to the extent of losing a palliation, or the shadow of a palliation—by means of a false translation from the Greek, we ought not to revise or mitigate his sentence merely, but to dismiss him from the bar. The Germans make it a question—in what spirit Iscariot lived? My question is—how he died? If he were ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... science before the unguarded portion of the community; if they suffer their names to be coupled with it wherever it may gain a credulous patient; and deny all responsibility for its character, refuse all argument for its doctrines, allege no palliation for the ignorance and deception interwoven with every thread of its flimsy tissue, when they are questioned by those competent to judge and ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Kelmscotts could put up with. The unhappy father had said to himself in his agony at first that if Guy really killed that prying bank clerk at all, it was no doubt in defence of his mother's honour. THAT was a reason a Kelmscott could understand. That, if not an excuse, was at least a palliation. But to be told he had killed him for a roll of bank-notes—oh, horrible, incredible; his reason drew back at it. That was a depth to which the Kelmscott idiosyncrasy could never descend. The Colonel in his horror ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... at being deprived of this same protection, dignity and power. This is the Gibraltar of our difficulties to-day. We can not make men see that women feel the humiliation of their petty distinctions of sex precisely as the black man feels those of color. It is no palliation of our wrongs to say that we are not socially ostracized as he is, so long as we are politically ostracized as he is not. That all orders of foreigners also rank politically above the most intelligent, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... when partial discoveries are made, when the success is not of the most absolute, general, and distinct kind, when the objects of the conspirators excite many sympathies, the errors they commit admit of easy palliation, the means they employ are noble, generous, and chivalrous, and the fate they undergo is likely to produce commiseration, the detection and crushing of them only tends to multiply and strengthen similar endeavours. With such conspiracies as these, no wise minister ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... brighter and more certain than any that earth can afford. Strange that men should fail to look at heaven in this light! For thoughtless youth, to whom the world is new and bright, and pleasure sparkles with a luring gleam, there is some little palliation for neglect of the things of heaven; but what shall we say of him who has passed the golden bound, for whom all giddy pleasures have lost their glow, and nought remains but the cares and anxieties of life? Of what worth is earthly ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... reflections by my conversation with Mr. de L and his companions. I believe they do not approve of the present extremes, yet they expressed themselves with the utmost virulence against the aristocrates, and would hear neither of reconcilement nor palliation. On the other hand, these dispositions were not altogether unprovoked—the young men had been persecuted by their relations, and banished the society of their acquaintance; and their political opinions had acted as an universal proscription. There were ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... lent on mortgage, and shares in stock companies. Except the proposal of applying a sponge to the national debt, no such palpable violation of common honesty has found sufficient support in this country, during the present generation, to be regarded as within the domain of discussion. It has not the palliation of a graduated property-tax, that of laying the burden on those best able to bear it; for "realized property" includes the far larger portion of the provision made for those who are unable to work, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... was the betrayed bias of almost all we spoke with, toward palliation of this dark act. "Didn't she die in a fit; or of fright; or something?" was a frequent question, even from those near the scene of this tragedy. "What did ail the old creture to go near 'em? Name of goodness! didn't they order her not?" Even from her own sex, a disgusting lack ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... because I believe there are many, and I know there are some, very excellent and truly good men amongst them. "Well," it may be said, "and what of all this, because some Justices and Parsons are profligate, debauched, and abandoned, would you infer that to be any justification or palliation for your errors?" Not in the least. I do not wish to assume any such ridiculous proposition. All I mean to say is, it brings me to this conclusion, that as we are by our very nature liable to err, and that as it is quite clear ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... execution of many of his Peruvians is quite pardonable, considering the desperate characters he had to deal with; while his offering canine battle to the banded rebels seems under the circumstances altogether just. But for this King Oberlus and what shortly follows, no shade of palliation can be given. He acted out of mere delight in tyranny and cruelty, by virtue of a quality in him inherited from Sycorax his mother. Armed now with that shocking blunderbuss, strong in the thought of being master of that horrid isle, he panted for a ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... and this sudden qualm of conscience once quelled (I will say there seemed much of palliation in the matter), a kind of inebriate feeling of delight filled his mind, and Steady Acton plodded on to the meadow yonder, half a mile a-head, in a species of delirious complacency. Here was luck indeed, filling up the promise ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... have politely excused us to him, but Colville would have no palliation of our political and moral nakedness; and he framed a continuation of the letter he began on the Ponte Vecchio to the Post-Democrat-Republican, in which he made a bitterly ironical comparison of the achievements of Italy and America in the ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... made upon the authority of a terrified and flying soldier, it is alike due to the probabilities of the case, and more agreeable to the hopes of humanity, to lessen somewhat the horrors of a scene which has need of all the palliation which can be drawn from the slightest evidences of compassion on the part of the stern and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... feather's weight, the smallest influence of gold or spleen; and in the most critical epoch of an empire, the poising of his tremendous influence—the influence of so much earnestness and magical power—was the accident of an accident. We admit for him, in palliation, the demoralizing influence of terrific example, and of maddening oppression; but where is the worth of a morality that, in a man of heroic mould, will not stand assay? and what is virtue but a name, if she may be betrayed whenever she demands ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... that his vice became conspicuous only in the light of one of his virtues. His frankness would never allow concealment. He scandalized his friends Boileau and Racine; still, it is matter of doubt whether they did not excel him rather in prudence than in purity. But, whatever may be said in palliation, it is lamentable to think that a heaven-lighted genius should have been made, in any way, to minister to a hell-envenomed vice, which has caused unutterable woes to France and the world. Some time before he died, he repented bitterly of ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... the sad discovery that there was no longer any money wherewith to pay the bank notes, they being so prodigiously in excess of the coin. After this, each step had been but a stumble: each operation a very feeble palliation. Days and weeks had been gained, obscurity had been allowed to give more chance, solely from fear of disclosing the true and terrible state of affairs, and the extent of the public ruin. Law could not wash his ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... deeming himself the victim of ill-fortune. In short, from the most venial offense to the most flagrant, there is hardly any wrong act or neglect to which this too fatally convenient word is not applied as a palliation." ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... The poet, nevertheless, exercised no less an influence, notwithstanding his voluntary renunciation of his privilege to elevate the sinking minds of his countrymen by the great memories of the past or by ideal images, and his degradation of poetry to a mere palliation of ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... involve no fear of vengeance.' I quote this passage as a specimen of Machiavelli's direct and scientific handling of the most inhuman necessities of statecraft, as conceived by him.[1] He uses no hypocritical palliation to disguise the egotism of the conqueror. He does not even pretend to take into consideration any interests but those of the ambitious prince. He treats humanity as though it were the marble out of which the political artist should hew the form that pleased ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... please hear this in palliation—I would not presume to say in defense—of my conduct: I was driven to frenzy by a passion of contending love and jealousy as violent and maddening as it was unreal and transient. But that delusive passion has subsided, and among the unmerited mercies for ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... a palliation of which she felt herself undeserving, now lifted up her head, and forcing herself to speak, said "No, madam, I will not deceive you, for I have never been deceived myself: I presumed not to expect your approbation,—though ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... is as remarkable as its hypocrisy. Well might he brag of his courage in an honourable cause, when he knew that he could never be put to the test. But what palliation shall you find for a rogue with so little pride in his art, that he exercised it 'half loth, half consenting'? It is not in this recreant spirit that masterpieces are achieved, and Maclaine had better have stayed in the far Highland parish, which bred him, ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... out of your life. Before I do so, however, I should like to say a few words in palliation of my conduct. I have never known a mother. I early fell under my aunt's charge, who, detesting children, sent me away to school, where I was well enough treated, but never loved. I was a plain child, and felt my plainness. This gave an awkwardness to my ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... in the field of bibliography I cannot plead as palliation for any imperfections that may be discovered in this, that it is the work of a 'prentice hand. Difficult as I found my self-imposed task in the case of the Meredith and Hardy bibliographies, here my labour has been ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... blandishments, and had done that which had made him a felon. As to Eugene Pearson, the trusted, honored and respected official of the bank, who had deliberately planned and assisted in this robbery of his best friends, I had no words of palliation for his offenses; but for "Tod" Duncan, the weak and tempted victim of designing men and adverse circumstances, I experienced a sense of sympathy which I ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... he yielded to frailties, which inevitably insure degradation, it must be remembered that his lot had been one to which few men have ever been exposed, and the magnitude of his sufferings may fairly be admitted as some palliation for his weakness. ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... wriggling, twining, and darting to and fro within his narrow limits, evidently enlivened by the opium or alcohol, and incited to unusual feats of activity. Thenceforth they gave up all attempts at cure or palliation. The doomed sufferer submitted to his fate, resumed his former loathsome affection for the bosom fiend, and spent whole miserable days before a looking-glass, with his mouth wide open, watching, in hope and horror, to catch a glimpse of the snake's head far down within his throat. It is supposed ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... delay her appearance in the dining-room until she was sure that everybody was present; then she would go down, and, standing there before them all, say what she had to say, state the few bald facts of the case, without excuse or palliation, and leave them to draw ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... me all about it," said the judge, and the man in a few words told his story without any palliation. With a gleam of hope Mildred saw the expression of the judge's face change as he listened, and when at last he replied, in tones so low that none could hear them save he to whom they were addressed, she saw that look which wins all hearts—the benignant aspect ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... we like or dislike them for it in proportion as their allusions recall memories or merely puzzle us; we cannot all be expected to have agreeable memories stirred by insignificant Homer tags; and it is well to bear in mind by way of palliation that in Greek education Homer played as great a part as the Bible in ours. He might be taken simply or taken allegorically; but one way or the other he was the staple of education, and it might be assumed that every one would like the mere sound ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... assumption of powers not conferred by the Constitution and laws, but in derogation of both, and nothing is suggested to excuse or palliate the turpitude of the act. In the absence of any such excuse or palliation there is only room for one inference, and that is that the intent was unlawful and corrupt. Besides, the resolution not only contains no mitigating suggestions, but, on the contrary, it holds up ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... to proceed even in expressing our disgust for the general folly that makes the Poem as miserable in point of authorship, as in point of principle. We know that among a certain class this outrage and this inanity meet with some attempt at palliation, under the idea that frenzy holds the pen. That any man who insults the common order of society, and denies the being of God, is essentially mad we never doubted. But for the madness, that retains ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... "who were out" with prince Charles, but also those who fought for the reigning dynasty. Left without chief, or protector, clanship broken up, homes destroyed and kindred murdered, dispirited, outlawed, insulted and without hope of palliation or redress, the only ray of light pointed across the Atlantic where peace and rest were to be found in the unbroken forests of North Carolina. Hence, during the years 1746 and 1747, great numbers ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... things which inevitably continue in our presence. An instinctive policy to avoid feeling with respect to this prevailing destruction, has so effectually taught us how to maintain the exemption, by all the requisite sleights of overlooking, diverting, forgetting, and admitting deceptive maxims of palliation, that the art or habit is become almost mechanical. When fully matured, it appears like a wonderful adventitious faculty—a power of evading the sight, of not seeing, what is obviously and glaringly presented to view ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... duration, though it was happy on the side of Villebecque, and serene on that of his wife. Stella was recalled from this world, where she had known much triumph and more suffering; and where she had exercised many virtues, which elsewhere, though not here, may perhaps be accepted as some palliation of ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... whose terror-filled face is ever with me. It has kept me, also, from dwelling too constantly on the message Lillie Pierce sent by me to the women of clean and happy worlds. For herself there was no plea for pity or for pardon, no effort at palliation or excuse. But with strength born of bitter knowledge she begged, demanded, that I do something to make good women understand that worlds like hers will never pass away if men alone are left to rid ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... has now been said in palliation of existing defects in education, that the whole business is a thing remote from immediate interests, and not less so from immediate perceptions and reasonings—a thing that, to all eyes capable of seeing ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... has contributed to history long after her books have lost their last reader. It has been my habit in these papers to take the woman's side, and even for George Sand there is much to be said in praise and in palliation. For her peculiar views of life her peculiar husband may be largely blamed, along with the peculiar ideals of the literary circle into which her unhappy married life drove her. That she showed good taste in either the management or the publication of her amorous ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... What further palliation can we find? Mr. Swinburne calls the book "a worthless little volume of stolen and mutilated poetry, patched up and padded out with dirty and dreary doggrel, under the senseless and preposterous title of The Passionate Pilgrim." On the other hand, Mr. Humphreys maintains that "Jaggard, at any ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... baker's trial at Hong-Kong. He was acquitted, it seems; but upon what ground? Some journals told us that he represented Yeh as coercing him into this vile attempt, through his natural affection for his family, alleged to be in Yeh's power at Canton. Such a fact, if true, would furnish some doubtful palliation of the baker's crime, and might have weight allowed in the sentence; but surely it would place a most dangerous power in the hands of Chinese grandees, if, through the leverage of families within their grasp, and by official connivance on our part, they could reach and govern a set of agents in ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... kind, but destitute of the refining and sublimating element which a revelation only can supply; and, secondly, in that of those ages in which the lights of knowledge and religion are contending with the gloom of barbarian rudeness. Perhaps there are still two other cases capable of palliation—that of a mind so constituted as to be nothing, if not a mirror of its age, and faithfully and irresistibly reflecting even its vices and pollutions; or that of a mind morbidly in love with the morbidities and the vile passages of human nature. But suppose the case of a writer, sitting under the ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... of the "New York Tribune" and "National Era," during their heroic and self-sacrificing fight against this organized scheme of bigotry and proscription, which can only be remembered as the crowning and indelible shame of our politics. It admits of neither defense or palliation, and I am sorry to find Henry Wilson's "History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power" disfigured by his elaborate efforts to whitewash it into respectability, and give it a decent place in the records of ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... necessarily true that a tree gets a low percentage of the local rainfall because it is not plowed. The last palliation, or is it provocation, that I would throw into the camp of the orthodox and the worshippers of the plow, is the water-pocket, or small field reservoir, draining a few square rods and holding hard by the roots of a tree a few gallons or a few barrels of water which would otherwise run ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... carried much further, and my gradual reconquests of ground lost might not have been followed up much more energetically—these are questions which I must decline. Perhaps I might make out a case of palliation; but shall I speak ingenuously? I confess it, as a besetting infirmity of mine, that I am too much of an Eudaemonist; I hanker too much after a state of happiness, both for myself and others; I cannot face misery, whether my own or not, with ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... implacable revenge of their conquerors." A plea which when compared with the history of those times, will appear to be destitute of Truth; and to have been advanced, and urged, principally by such as were concerned in reaping the gain of this infamous traffic, as a palliation of that, against which their own reason and conscience ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... her opinion of me, I am more sorry than surprised at her determined blindness; the palliation which she feels the want of, for her own conduct, leads her to seek for failings in all who were concerned in those unhapppy transactions which she has so much reason to lament. And this, as it is the cause, so we must ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... highway robbery. If, however, some apology for the practice is to be derived from the incontrollable law of necessity, or from the imperious law of war, certainly there can be no possible excuse for those who incur the guilt without being able to plead the palliation; for those who violate the rights of nations in order to obtain a license for rapine manifestly show that patriotism is but the cloak for such enterprises; that the true objects are plunder and pillage; and that to those engaged in them it was only the lash of the executioner which kept ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... ascertained that, although numbers of volunteers had arrived from various points, through the unfortunate neglect or incapacity of the then Secretary of War, there was no one to command them. This was a dreadful state of affairs indeed, and one which admits of no palliation. It was expected that General Lynch, or some other distinguished officer, would take charge of the expedition from this point; but that gallant and experienced soldier, owing to the receipt of incorrect orders, did not arrive in time to ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh |
