"Premeditation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... midst of this solemn premeditation, which tends, as Madame de Stael says, to bring more poetry into life, some women, in whom virtuous mothers either from considerations of worldly advantage of duty or sentiment, or through sheer hypocrisy, have inculcated steadfast principles, ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... much wrong as I had; But, mistress, I should say a thing to you: Tarry, it woll come to my remembrance even now I must needs use a substantial premeditation; For the matter lieth greatly me upon. I beseech your mistress-ship of pardon and forgiveness, Desiring you to impute it to my simple and rude dulness: I have forgotten what I had[199] thought to have said And am thereof full ill-afraid; But when I lost myself, I knew very well, I lost also ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... tender passions, and too humane not to commiserate the unhappy situation of those, whom the law sometimes, perhaps—exacts—from you to pronounce upon. No doubt, you distinguish between offences which arise out of premeditation, and a disposition habituated to vice or immorality, and transgressions, which are the unhappy and unforeseen effects of casual absence of reason, and sudden impulse of passion; we, therefore, hope you will contribute all you can to an extension of that mercy, which ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... found without difficulty; also Mr. Hicks, who, awakened by the feeling that someone was looking at him, sat up and in a scandalized tone told her to go right away, from him. "Red" McGonnigle, however, whether by accident or premeditation, had repaired with his blankets to a bed-ground where the Almighty could not have found him with a spy-glass. In consequence, Wallie was awakened suddenly by the booming voice of Miss Mercy demanding ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... invective to the subtlest dialectic, the most persuasive eloquence, the most cogent appeals to everything that was highest and best in the audience that he was addressing, every instrument which could find place in the armory of a member of this House, he had at his command without premeditation, without forethought, at the moment and in the form which appeared best suited ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... two struggled the girdle (obi) came loose. The contest was brought to an end. At this juncture returned Hamiya Iemon. He had little disposition to enter his home. Thus unexpectedly, without premeditation, the two came face to face. Mutually they gazed at each other. "Ho! The Danna: good day." Kosuke remained where he was, uneasily twisting. O'Iwa clasped tight the breast of her ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... that twice to-day I had conversations of brief duration with Miss Hamm. The first meeting was by chance, we merely exchanging commonplaces touching upon our respective fields of activity here at Fernbridge; but the second eventuated through deliberate intent on my part. With premeditation I put myself in her path. My motive for so doing was, I trust, based upon unselfishness entirely. I had formed an early and perhaps a hasty estimate of this young woman's nature. I wished either to convince myself absolutely upon these points or to disabuse ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... academy for the English tongue upon the model of that of the French. This project was promoted by the late Earl of Oxford, Lord High Treasurer, and much more by the Lord Bolingbroke, Secretary of State, who had the happy talent of speaking without premeditation in the Parliament House with as much purity as Dean Swift wrote in his closet, and who would have been the ornament and protector of that academy. Those only would have been chosen members of it whose works will last as long as the English tongue, such as Dean Swift, Mr. Prior, whom we ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... habit of premeditation was not altogether owing to a want of quickness, appears from the power and liveliness of his replies in Parliament, and the vivacity of some of his retorts in conversation. [Footnote: His best bon mots are in the memory of every ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... complicity with the culprits, he could not say. He told them gravely that he should withhold equally their punishment and their pardon until he could satisfy himself of their veracity, and that there had been no premeditation in their act. They seemed relieved, but here, again, he could not tell whether it sprang from confidence in their own integrity or merely from youthful hopefulness that delayed retribution ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... ham is a matter of grace no less premeditation. It must be cut from a wether at least four years old, grass fed, grain finished, neither too fat, nor too lean, scientifically butchered in clear, frosty, but not freezing weather, and hung unsalted in clean, cold air for a matter of three days. Saw ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... height of political crises, she stops to tell you how some lady was dressed and how the apparel suited her. Amongst other men of the epoch she has something to say about BLOWITZ, the famous Paris correspondent of The Times. It is evident that, without premeditation, he managed to offend the lady. She reports how Prince HOHENLOHE expressed a high opinion of the journalist, remarking, "He is marvellously well-informed of all that is going on." "It was curious," writes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... Foulon, one of the colleagues of Breteuil, and his son-in-law Berthier, also a high official, were massacred by premeditation in the streets. Neither Bailly, nor Lafayette with all his cohorts, could protect the life of a doomed man; but a dragoon who had paraded with the heart of Berthier was challenged, when he came home to barracks, and cut down ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... indeed, might well have had the same look at all times who never changed his mind, from which the countenance derives its expression. So that I am ready to borrow of the Cyrenaics those arms against the accidents and events of life by means of which, by long premeditation, they break the force of all approaching evils; and at the same time I think that those very evils themselves arise more from opinion than nature, for if they were real, no forecast could make them lighter. But I shall speak more particularly ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... feared them beforehand or been ashamed of them afterwards. But now he found himself endeavouring to think what words he would use to Mary Bonner, and in what attitude he would stand or sit as he used them. "The truth is," he said to himself, "a man should do these kind of things without premeditation." But not the less was he resolved, and at the gate he jumped out of his cab with a determination to have it over as soon as possible. He desired the cabman to wait for him at the nearest stables, remarking that he might be there for ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... intermittent. The strength of the evil appeared to be exhausted; but it was merely that of the combatants; a still greater struggle was preparing, and this halt was not a time allowed to make peace, but merely given to the premeditation ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... station, Maria climbed in, Wollaston and Gladys after her. Neither Wollaston nor Gladys had the slightest premeditation in the matter; they were fairly swept along by the emotion ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... her with a glad cry, expecting her to rise. She remained seated, her hand extended. This indifference on her part may have been the result of cool premeditation. In any event, it served to check the impulsive ardour of the Prince, who, it is to be feared, had lost something in the way of self-restraint. It is certain— absolutely certain—that had she come forward to meet him, she would have found herself imprisoned ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... away by a violent passion, by a psychological hurricane which drowns his moral sense, is not checked by threats of punishment, because the volcanic eruption of passion prevents him from reflecting. Or he may decide to commit a crime after due premeditation and preparation, and in that case the penalty is powerless to check him, because he hopes to escape with impunity. All criminals will tell you unanimously that the only thing which impelled them when they were deliberating a crime was the expectation that ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri
... purely secular work there is something, though less of this inequality, and its cause is not at all dubious. No poet, certainly no poet of merit, seems to have written with such absolute spontaneity and want of premeditation as Wither. The metre which was his favourite, and which he used with most success—the trochaic dimeter catalectic of seven syllables—lends itself almost as readily as the octosyllable to this frequently fatal fluency; but in Wither's ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... Skinner, before alluded to, brought together without premeditation, the naturalist will be struck by the preponderance of those genera which are adapted by nature to endure, a temporary privation of moisture; and this, taken in connection with the vicissitudes affecting the ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... others, however, he would not much deny it, but would admit frankly enough, that he neither entirely wrote his speeches beforehand, nor yet spoke wholly extempore. And he would affirm, that it was the more truly popular act to use premeditation, such preparation being a kind of respect to the people; whereas, to slight and take no care how what is said is likely to be received by the audience, shows something of an oligarchical temper, and is the course of one that ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... constructive aim either in plot or treatment; no composition in the modern sense of the term. Such a mass of poetic material in the possession of a large community was, in a sense, fluid, and ran into a thousand forms almost without direction or premeditation. Constant use of such rich material gave a poetic turn of thought and speech to countless persons who, under other conditions, would have given no sign of the possession of ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... But, alas, the longer he thought about it, the more hopeless did the situation appear. He began to see that Williams had only spoken the simple truth when he asserted that the mutiny was the result of long premeditation. They had laid their plans well, the scoundrels! and had carried them out with such consummate artifice and attention to detail, that as Ned turned over in his mind scheme after scheme for the recovery of the ship, it was only to realise that each had ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... Jurgen, "one must be romantic. But certainly this proves that nobody ever knows when he is being entrapped into respectability: and never did a fine young fellow marry a high queen with less premeditation." ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... his rapture is the sudden result of long premeditation. The first and most conspicuous lesson of this volume seems to be that Poetry is an art, and therefore has rules. Next after this, one is struck with the carefulness with which these practitioners, when it comes to theory, ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... perfectly with policy, his mission considered. Soon or late he would have to adopt every form and observance of Christian worship. In this performance, however, there was no premeditation, no calculation. In his exaltation of soul he fancied he heard a voice passing with the tempestuous jubilation of the singers: "On thy knees, O apostate! On thy ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... always carried upon him to defend himself had evidently been taken from him after his death, and Gabriel had hastened to break it, so as to destroy, to the best of his power, the traces of his crime. Bastiano's evidence did not receive a minute's consideration: he, to destroy the idea of premeditation, declared that the young fisherman had left him only at the moment when the storm broke over the island; but, in the first place, the young diver was known to be Gabriel's most devoted friend and ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... There was some active intelligence behind that ceaseless sound; and some stress or need behind the intelligence. I was not altogether selfish, and at the thought of someone's need I was, without premeditation, out of bed. Instinctively I looked at my watch. It was just three o'clock; there was a faint edging of grey round the green blind which darkened my room. It was evident that the knocking and ringing were at the door of our own house; and it was evident, too, that there ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... a moment's premeditation, he rushed out into the middle of the street, full in the path of the furious horses, and with his cheeks pale, for he knew his danger, but with determined air, he waved his arms aloft, and cried "Whoa!" at ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... short story writing was a departure—I mean a departure from the Malay Archipelago. Without premeditation, without sorrow, without rejoicing and almost without noticing it, I stepped into the very different atmosphere of An Outpost of Progress. I found there a different moral attitude. I seemed able to capture new reactions, new suggestions, and even new rhythms ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... Twain was not a pessimist in his heart, but only by premeditation. It was his observation and his logic that led him to write those things that, even in their bitterness, somehow conveyed that spirit of human sympathy which is so closely linked to hope. To Miss ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Truedale, without premeditation, crossed the room and, sitting in his uncle's chair—the long-empty chair, lifted Lynda's face and held it in ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... "What are you doing, Giles Winterborne!" she exclaimed, with a look of severe surprise. The evident absence of all premeditation from the act, however, speedily led her to think that it was not necessary to stand upon her dignity here and now. "You must bear in mind, Giles," she said, kindly, "that we are not as we were; and some people might have said that what you did ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... most exact taste, the soundest judgment, and the most extensive learning. He is happy in a singular facility of expression. His conversation abounds in original observations, delivered with no appearance of sententious formality, and seeming to arise spontaneously, without study or premeditation. I passed two very agreeable days with him at Glammis, and found him as easy in his manners, and as communicative and frank as ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... has admitted that the carrying of a weapon which Lambernier may have been in the habit of using in his regular trade could not be used as an argument against him, and for that same reason could not be used as an argument in favor of premeditation; now, this is precisely the case in question. This weapon was neither a sword, bayonet, nor stiletto, nothing that the fertile imagination of the public prosecutor could imagine; it was a simple tool used by the accused in his profession, ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... before it finally sank upon the expectant note. But suddenly, without warning, just as the last, lingering tones were dying to the close they sought, the ADAGIO slipped over into the limpid gaiety of the RONDO, and then, there was no time more for premeditation: then his hands twinkled up and down, joining, crossing, flying asunder, alert with little sprightly quirks and turns, going ever more nimbly, until the brook was a river, the allegretto a prestissimo, which flew wildly to its end amid a ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... "we are quite mistaken in our estimate of the Italian character, in one respect. Murder is generally committed in the sudden impulse of ungovernable passion, not with the slow premeditation of deliberate revenge. That it is too common a termination of Italian quarrels, it would be vain to deny; and it is equally true, that however Englishmen may fall out, or however angry they may be, drunk or sober, they never think of stabbing, but are ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... Van Allen must have secured the knife some little time before it was used, as Luigi was in the pantry just previously," observed Fenn. "That shows premeditation. It wasn't done with a weapon picked up at ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... came forth then and informed his later books. These are far more carefully written, far more cunningly constructed, than the old chapters written from month to month as the fit took him, with no more plan or premeditation than "Pickwick." But it is the early stories that we remember, and that he lives by—the pages thrown off at a heat, when he was a lively doctor with few patients, and was not over-attentive to them. These were the days of Harry Lorrequer and Tom Burke; characters ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... my son; sit down. Premeditation is neither rashness nor recklessness. Jack, life has begun with you; with me it has come to an end. When there is nothing more to live for, it is time to die. But how? That is the question. A war would be a God-send; but these so-called war lords ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... his behavior; he would say that it was a matter of life or death to him; he would bring all the resources of torrid eloquence into play; he would cry that he had lost his head, that he could not think, could not write a line. The horror that some women feel for premeditation does honor to their delicacy; they would rather surrender upon the impulse of passion, than in fulfilment of a contract. In general, prescribed happiness is not the kind ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... revenge had germinated in his heart without budding; for the men who hate most are usually those who have little time in Paris to make plans; life is too fast, too full, too much at the mercy of unexpected events. But such perpetual changes, though they hinder premeditation, nevertheless offer opportunity to thoughts lurking in the depths of a purpose which is strong enough to lie in wait for their tidal chances. When Roguin first confided his troubles to du Tillet, the latter had vaguely foreseen the possibility of destroying Cesar, and he was not mistaken. Forced ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... could be seen the gloom of the forest along shore. The gangway door on the opposite side of the boat was open, and as I looked out I could see the long white arms of the giant snag reaching alongside. Without much plan or premeditation I sprang out, and making good my hold upon the nearest limb as I plunged, found myself, to my surprise, standing in not more than four feet of water, the foot of the bar evidently running down well under ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... had baited her hook with flattery there was no sign of premeditation in the gentleness of her accents or in the friendly look she gave me. Could it be possible that this was the person in whom I had seen such ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... from the middle of the floor, his pipe still in his hand. He spoke without premeditation, as though but uttering the words that Destiny had put into his ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... sent to Broadmoor, which would be frightful. He ended by saying that he had had great provocation, and that he was certain the judge would consider it in passing sentence, only he must satisfy the jury there had been no premeditation. ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... Pennsylvania, might have indemnified the East India Company, might have obtained by importunity the repeal of the tax on tea, or might have borne the duty, as it had borne that on wine; but Parliament, after ten years of premeditation, had exercised the power to abrogate the laws and to change the Charter of a province without its consent; and on this arose the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... question-and-answer was to establish the fact that Paul Brennan had provided a suitable home for the minor, James Quincy Holden, and that the minor James Quincy Holden had refused to live in it and had indeed demonstrated his objections by repeatedly absenting himself wilfully and with premeditation. ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... sigh. "Can you not see, mademoiselle, that to resolve deliberately and secretly on a man's death, and with premeditation to create a pretext for a challenge, is little ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... way are but too apt to be riddles. In many points the works of our great poet Vavona, now dead a thousand moons, still remain a mystery. Some call him a mystic; but wherein he seems obscure, it is, perhaps, we that are in fault; not by premeditation spoke he those archangel thoughts, which made many declare, that Vavona, after all, was but a crack-pated god, not a mortal of sound mind. But had he been less, my lord, he had seemed more. Saith Fulvi, 'Of the highest order of ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... belonged; and which, indeed, a few years since might have been inscribed there with much justice. "Festina lente," Mr. Die would say to all those who came to him in any sort of hurry. And then when men accused him of being dilatory by premeditation, he would say no, he had always recommended despatch. "Festina," he would say; "festina" by all means; but "festina lente." The doctrine had at any rate thriven with the teacher, for Mr. Die had amassed a ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... visit, all the members of the staff at their posts, the fire lighted in the stove, the goats scattered picturesquely through the park. Madame Polge had put on her green dress, the manager's attire was a little less slovenly than usual, but so simple as to exclude any idea of premeditation. Let ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the seven languages; but what is all that compared to the cardinal virtues. This world is a mere bird of passage, Miss Norali; and it behooves us to be ever on the wing for futurity and premeditation. Now, will you remember the excellent moral advice I have ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... lawyer. "There was no identity to be established. The matter was very simple. The woman had murdered her child; the infanticide was proved; the jury threw out the question of premeditation, and she was condemned ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... to have formed a very deep design with very little premeditation: she is thrown by shipwreck on an unknown coast, hears that the prince is a batchelor, and resolves to supplant the lady ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... now quits with me,' At the instant I said so, she burst into tears and without premeditation, poured ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... in his own when he had said the words, and there was a momentary flash of intelligence, a dumb announcement of affinity in posse between herself and him, which, so far as Jude Fawley was concerned, had no sort of premeditation in it. She saw that he had singled her out from the three, as a woman is singled out in such cases, for no reasoned purpose of further acquaintance, but in commonplace obedience to conjunctive orders from headquarters, ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... was, but not by consistent hypocritical premeditation; for his pose was not so much of set purpose as in obedience to a false education, an undisciplined temper, and a changing mind. He was guided by the impulse of the moment. I think it a supportable thesis that every age, every wide and popular movement, finds its supreme expression ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... — N. predestination, preordination, premeditation, predeliberation[obs3], predetermination; foregone conclusion, fait accompli[Fr]; parti pris[Fr]; resolve, propendency|; intention &c. 620; project &c. 626; fate, foredoom, necessity. V. predestine, preordain, predetermine, premeditate, resolve, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the hereditary land-lords of the South; the gentlemen with flowing locks, gentle blood and irascible tempers, who appeal to the code of honor (in times past) to settle small differences with their equals and shoot down their inferiors without premeditation or compunction, and who drown their sorrows, as well as their joviality in rye or Bourbon whiskey; the gentlemen who claim consanguinity with Europe's titled sharks, and vaunt their chivalry in contrast to the peasant or yeoman blood of all other Americans; the gentlemen who got their broad ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... communicate intelligence, and have no idea of the answer which we shall receive, and which we ourselves make, till we hear it: so the dialogues in Shakspeare are carried on without any consciousness of what is to follow, without any appearance of preparation or premeditation. The gusts of passion come and go like sounds of music borne on the wind. Nothing is made out by formal inference and analogy, by climax and antithesis: all comes, or seems to come, immediately from nature. Each object and circumstance exists in his mind, as it would have existed in reality: ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... "yass, sah. Please to 'scuse me, sah, but Ah didn't go foh no premeditation of disturbance. It is quite unintelligible, sah, but one of de men, sah, he come round, sah, and says Ah gotta give him a pie, sah, and of co'se Ah can't do nothin' like dat, sah. Pies is foh de officers and gen'lems, sah, and of co'se Ah don't give pie to de men, sah, not even ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... on, without taking any notice. "I should think it right to prosecute, if I found out that this offence against me was only one of a series committed, with premeditation, against society. I should then feel, as a protector of others more helpless ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... subjects by the gaiety of his fancy. He wrote with great elegance and dignity of style, and had the peculiar felicity of readiness and facility in every thing that he undertook, being able, without premeditation, to translate one language into another. He was no imitator, but struck out new tracks, and formed original systems. He had a quickness of apprehension, and firmness of memory, which enabled him to read with incredible rapidity, and, at the same time, to retain what he ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... himself a problem from the very first there would be nothing to conjecture and nothing to select. To put it briefly, I will end by using the language of psychiatry: if one denies that creative work involves problems and purposes, one must admit that an artist creates without premeditation or intention, in a state of aberration; therefore, if an author boasted to me of having written a novel without a preconceived design, under a sudden inspiration, I should ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... he said, "confesses with calm the horrible crime she has committed; she confesses with calm its premeditation; she confesses its most dreadful details; in short, she confesses everything, and does not seek to justify herself. That, citizens of the jury, is her whole defence. This imperturbable calm, this utter abnegation of self, which displays no remorse even in the very presence ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... Warriston had an idea she might not come so badly off on trial. But even if the King's Majesty had been of clement disposition, which he never was, or if her judges had been likely to be moved by her youth and beauty, there was evidence of such premeditation, such fixity of purpose, as would no doubt harden the ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... spoke of this incident to Mrs. Weldon, the latter, though she shared his distrust in a certain measure, could find no plausible motive for what would be criminal premeditation on the part of ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... deprive of life, human, animal, or vegetable, with no suggestion of how or why. Assassinate, execute, murder, apply only to the taking of human life; to murder is to kill with premeditation and malicious intent; to execute is to kill in fulfilment of a legal sentence; to assassinate is to kill by assault; this word is chiefly applied to the killing of public or eminent persons through alleged political motives, whether secretly ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... Lord Justice Pimblekin, "is the most heartless, atrocious, inhuman, and horrible that it has ever been my misfortune to hear of: your long and cold-blooded premeditation; the cynical indifference to the result of your atrocities, combined with the delight with which you have wallowed in human gore; your contempt for all the dictates of honesty, truth, pity, and good faith; your greed, ingratitude, treachery, savageness, meanness, and cannibalism; all these things ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... had the closing argument. Calmly and without malice or excitement he reviewed the testimony. As the cold facts were unrolled, fear settled upon the listeners. There was no escape from the murder or its premeditation. Laura's character as a lobbyist in Washington which had been made to appear incidentally in the evidence was also against her: the whole body of the testimony of the defense was shown to be irrelevant, introduced only to excite sympathy, and not giving a color of probability to the absurd supposition ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... the face of a hostile community, become accusers when we ourselves are the accused? We should need the help and good-will of the government and a thousand times more proof than is wanted in ordinary circumstances. I am convinced there was premeditation, and subtle premeditation, on the part of our mysterious adversaries, who must have known the situation of Michu and the Messieurs de Simeuse towards Malin. Not to utter one word; not to steal one thing!—remarkable prudence! I see something very different from ordinary ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... warfare with the Captain. The odds would have been against him, had he not in his wife possessed one advantage. While Mrs. Sharp possessed by nature the qualities expressed by her name and made herself unpopular to the good women of Windsor, Althea, without premeditation or effort, was a universal favorite. Thornton Rush was well aware of this advantage, and he ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... have wept and pleaded. And it infused into her soul something—it was cruel now to call it malice—which was still and watchful and dangerous, which waited its opportunity, and then shot like an arrow from its bow out of the coil of brooding premeditation. Even those who had never seen the white scars on Dick Venner's wrist, or heard the half-told story of her supposed attempt to do a graver mischief, knew well enough by looking at her that she was one of the creatures not to be tampered with,—silent ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Wilson, was continued under Pretyman. It is not strange that a young man of great abilities, who had been exercised daily in this way during ten years, should have acquired an almost unrivalled power of putting his thoughts, without premeditation, into words well ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... where she was still. The second to go was Laura, who married Captain Level, and accompanied him to India. Then he, Val, a young man in his teens, went out into the world, and did all sorts of harm in it in an unintentional sort of way; for Percival Elster never did wrong by premeditation. Next came the death of his mother. He was called home from a sojourn in Scotland—where his stay had been prolonged from the result of an accident—to bid her farewell. Then he was at home for a year or more, making love to charming Anne Ashton. The next move was his ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... would arrive, Senator Sargent, of California, took the floor. Mr. Conkling finally came in, and when he began to speak, appeared to be in better health than on the day previous, and he again uttered his well-rounded sentences as if without premeditation. Once he forgot himself, when, to give additional emphasis to a remark, he advanced across the aisle toward Senator Morton. The Senator from Indiana retreating, Mr. Conkling exclaimed, in the most dramatic tone, "I see that the Senator ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... took place without quarrel, shock or premeditation. Born of a fancy that had become love, this union was broken off ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... and there being as herein above set forth, did with premeditation, and much show of emotion look up into the eyes of said plaintiff, said eyes being tear-dimmed and extraordinarily beautiful as to their coloring to-wit: brown, as to their expression to-wit: sad and full of love, and furthermore the court did with ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... falsehood! His wife, his chosen one, his Cecilia to have been engaged, a year ago, to such a one as Sir Francis Geraldine,—to so base, so mean a creature,—and then to have married him without telling a word of it all! To have kept him wilfully, carefully, in the dark, with studied premeditation so as to be sure of effecting her own marriage before he should learn it, and that too when he had told her everything as to himself! It certainly could not be, and ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... our passions speak and decide for us, and we seem to stand by and wonder. They carry in them an inspiration of crime, that in one instant does the work of long premeditation.—George Eliot. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... That there had been no thought, no premeditation, was the fact that stirred her most. In his mind she had been Sally, and in a moment of tensity he had let it shape on his lips. She felt the blood racing through her like a mill-dam loosed. She thought when first she rose to her feet—and it was ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... talked of surrendering of Lee's sword and my handing it back, this and much more that has been said about it is the purest romance. The word sword or side arms was not mentioned by either of us until I wrote it in the terms. There was no premeditation, and it did not occur to me until the moment I wrote it down. If I had happened to omit it, and General Lee had called my attention to it, I should have put it in the terms precisely as I acceded to the provision about ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... he did stop to argue, saying in the next breath: "You forget that the stone has a setting. Would you claim that this gentleman of family, place and political distinction had planned this hideous crime with sufficient premeditation to have provided himself with the exact counterpart of a brooch which it is highly improbable he ever saw? You would make him out a Cagliostro or something worse. Miss Van Arsdale, I fear your theory will topple over of its ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... the other sex. In his very heart Greystock despised this woman; he had told himself over and over again that were there no Lucy in the case he would not marry her; that she was affected, unreal,—and, in fact, a liar in every word and look and motion which came from her with premeditation. Judging, not from her own account, but from circumstances as he saw them and such evidence as had reached him, he did not condemn her in reference to the diamonds. He had never for a moment conceived that she had secreted them. He acquitted her altogether from those special ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... entirely solved, although French writers, such as Guizot and Bordier, believe in it; and the Germans, especially Baumgarten and Philippson, deny it. It is perfectly certain that it was not a thing long and carefully prepared, as was believed in Rome, and those who deny premeditation in the common sense of the word are in the right. But for ten years the court had regarded a wholesale massacre as the last resource of monarchy. Catharine herself said that it had been in contemplation, if opportunity offered, from the year ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... race with one of his favorite parts, with Felix, in "The Wonder a Woman Keeps a Secret." When the play was ended, Mr. Garrick advanced toward the audience, with much palpitation of mind, and visible emotion in his countenance. No premeditation whatever could prepare him for this affecting scene. He bowed—he paused—the spectators were all attention. After a short struggle of nature, he recovered from the shock he had felt, and addressed his auditors ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... on the part of a potential criminal. Indeed, with most cunning wisdom, a wild-animal murderer will often conceal his purpose until outside interference is an impossibility, and the victim is entirely helpless. These manifestations of fiendish cunning and premeditation are very exasperating to those responsible for the ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... life wasn't really coordination and premeditation so much as it was coincident. Trivials. Nothing was absolute and dependable but death; between birth and death a series of accidents and incidents and coincidents which ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... Elizabeth Montier, with whom he had held many a conference concerning prison matters, since Manuel first began to walk along the southern garden-walk, where the flower-beds lay against the prison-wall. What was her answer? It came instantly, without premeditation or precaution,— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... if you were a little less pathetic," said the king. "You not only assert, but you declaim. There is too little of nature and truth in your tone; you remind me a little of the stilted French tragedies, in which design and premeditation obscure all true passion; in which love is only a phrase, that no one believes in, dressed up with the tawdry gilding of sentiment ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... from a sense of righteous indignation which, for the moment, completely blinds him. Personal insults cannot disturb his calm, but the sight of a child being abused or a defenceless one being attacked, will so infuriate him that he may even commit murder. Premeditation is never present, he acts under the powerful inspiration of the moment, and his crime is an isolated event quite unconnected ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... continuation of the old relationship. In time, even the thought of taking so much as a single step toward the intimacies from which she had come so far, had ceased to occur to her. And now, suddenly, without plan or premeditation, she was on her way actually to touch again, if only for a few moments, the lives that had been so large a part of the simple, joyous life which she had known once, but which was so foreign to ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... of our Red Cross nurses who were standing with Miss Barton in a little group at the bow of the steamer felt impelled to give expression to their feelings in some way, and, acting upon a sudden impulse and without premeditation, they began to sing in unison "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow." Never before, probably, had the doxology been heard on the waters of Santiago harbor, and it must have been more welcome music to the crowds assembling on shore than the ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... so false and bold. I became more and more convinced during the lessons on the Explanation, [Of Luther's Catechism] that my relations with Susanna, as long as they were kept a secret from her parents, were wrong, and now I was going, with this deliberate sin on my conscience, coolly and with premeditation to ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... Cecil to days at Baia, or wandering along the coast at Portici. I have known a fragment of lace, a flower, a few bars of a song, do more to link the broken chain of memory than scores of more laboured recollections; and then these little paths that lead you back are so simple, so free from all premeditation. Don't you ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... pretended amity, trailed between his toes the fatal spear. These facts are given to illustrate the cruelty of the natives; and it may be presumed that, from the slaughter of Risdon, not many could be added to the number. These were, however, the acts of individuals, and without concert or much premeditation. It is conjectured that the first European who perished was Mange, the surgeon of the Geographe, in 1802. The attack was unprovoked, and it is ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... so," assented Gabriel. "That's the worst of it. Everything points to premeditation. And when a man has been so ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... at all if I couldn't keep them straight." So her thoughts ran as she sat with her head bowed to her knees, but she remembered how, in George's room that night, with Miriam on the floor, she had called to God without premeditation, with the naturalness of any cry for help, and in a fashion, He had heard her. No one had taught her to pray and until then she had called on no god but the one behind the smoke. Perhaps this other one had a power which she ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... a horizontal, up or down stroke? It is safe to assume that not one in a thousand could give an accurate answer, for the reason that the dotting of an i and crossing of a t have become mechanical acts, done without thought or premeditation, but as the result ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... this principle of our nature which promotes the formation of what are called habits. By repeating any kind of mental effort every day at the same hour, we at length find ourselves entering upon it, without premeditation, when the time approaches. In like manner, by arranging our studies in accordance with this law, and taking up each regularly in the same order, a natural aptitude is soon produced, which renders application ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... that he must have sat with his eyes riveted on her. Resolutely, he turned them toward the stage until the poignant sweetness of the intermezzo began to dream through his consciousness as an echo of "that melody born of melody which melts the world into a sea," and then, involuntarily, without premeditation, obeying a seemingly enforced impulse, he had turned toward her and she had lifted her eyes, violet eyes, touched with all regret; and a sudden surprised ecstasy had invaded every corner of his heart and filled it with sweetness and ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... of further premeditation or contrivance of plans. That had all been traced out for them in the singular epistle signed "Ysabel," and a few whispered words from one to the other completed the understanding of it, with what was to be done. From the time this was settled ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... ferocious meaning. Their intonation carried conviction that the men meant literally every impressive line they uttered. The words visualized for me the picture in their own minds. I could sense their desire to charge the Germans, to close in, to strike, to stab. Perhaps the deliberate, vengeful premeditation to destroy is more terrible than the act itself. I doubt if any battle could ever affect me as did the song of those men. The result was so disintegrating to one's psychology that for the rest of the day I completely lost balance of ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... have many times in our history given to weak ships and inefficient guns a rating greatly beyond that of the naval list. That they will again do so upon occasion I do not doubt; but they ought not, by premeditation or neglect, to be left to the risks and exigencies of an unequal combat. We should encourage the establishment of American steamship lines. The exchanges of commerce demand stated, reliable, and rapid means of communication, and until these are provided the development ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... Further, just as the higher reason excels the lower, so does the reason excel the imagination. Now sometimes man proceeds to act through the apprehension of the power of imagination, without any deliberation of his reason, as when, without premeditation, he moves his hand, or foot. Therefore sometimes also the lower reason may consent to a sinful act, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... Sovereigns, when they are driven to it, is! In this Paris there are as many wicked men, say a hundred or more, as exist in all the Earth: to be hired, and set on; to set on, of their own accord, unhired.—And yet we will remark that premeditation itself is not performance, is not surety of performance; that it is perhaps, at most, surety of letting whosoever wills perform. From the purpose of crime to the act of crime there is an abyss; wonderful to think of. The finger lies on the pistol; but the man is ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... long. None but Mademoiselle dared to take the part of that doomed minority in the city government, which, for resisting her own demands, were to be terribly punished on that fourth-of- July night. "A conspiracy so base," said the generous Talon, "never stained the soil of France." By deliberate premeditation, an assault was made by five hundred disguised soldiers on the Parliament assembled in the Hotel de Ville; the tumult spread; the night rang with a civil conflict more terrible than that of the day. Conde and Gaston were vainly summoned; the one ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... by her husband—and that, too, with cruel premeditation—never had arisen to torture her soul. But, beyond those delicate attentions to her which she never exaggerated in her letters to her mother, she felt herself disdained and slighted. Marriage had not changed Camors's habits: ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... one of self-defence—as no doubt to some extent it was, for if he had not fired first Perrin's action showed that he would certainly have been the man-slayer. But, then, young McKay could not shut his eyes to the fact that premeditation had, in the first instance, induced him to extend his hand towards his gun, and this first act it was which ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... more for the sake of finishing off his thoughts on the subject than for engaging her attention, 'that in actual life it is merely a matter of instinct with men—this trying to push on. They awake to a recognition that they have, without premeditation, begun to try a little, and they say to themselves, "Since I have tried thus much, I will try a little more." They go on because they ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy |
