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Apology   /əpˈɑlədʒi/   Listen
Apology

noun
(pl. apologies)
1.
An expression of regret at having caused trouble for someone.
2.
A formal written defense of something you believe in strongly.  Synonym: apologia.
3.
A poor example.  Synonym: excuse.  "A poor excuse for an automobile"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Apology" Quotes from Famous Books



... who seek their fortune in the city have failed, and have found themselves far worse off than the contented folk back in the home village. The newcomer establishes himself in a boarding-house or lodging-house which hundreds of others accept as an apology for a home, joins the multitude of unemployed in a search for work, and is happy if he finds it in an office that is smaller and darker than the wood-shed on the farm, or behind a counter where fresh air and sunlight never penetrate. He will put up with ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... denial; it was not, so Julia considered, even an apology; to her it seemed more like a polite request to mind her own business, and she went up to her room after he had gone almost unjustly angry, too angry for the time being to think about the rashness of her promise that the debt ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... not just sure I like having my word questioned this way. I'm not sure I like this whole rig-out. Seems to me there's a little explaining in order about now—and kind of an apology, too. Then maybe we can go ahead and ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole

... soon as the facts were known he was restored to his command with an ample apology, but his preparations for the advance against Corinth had been seriously interrupted and it was some time before he again had the work in hand. Nevertheless, within five weeks of the surrender ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill

... our tents near the little fort of M[a]ther, about five miles from our last encampment, and situate at the foot of the Kara Kotul, or black pass. Our resting place afforded nothing remarkable; and indeed I feel that some apology is due to my readers for the unavoidable sameness of the details of this part of our journey; but I am in hopes that this very defect, though it render the perusal of my journal still heavier, will assist in ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... I should sometimes judge of the first race of our patriots as some of their contemporaries did; but it was impossible to avoid correcting these notions by the more enlarged views of their posterity. This is the privilege of an historian and the philosophy of his art. There is no apology for the king, nor any declamation for the subject. Were we only to decide by the final results of this great conflict, of which what we have here narrated is but the faint beginning, we should confess that Sir John Eliot and his party were the first fathers of our political existence; and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... beggin' yer pardon, miss," he condescended to mutter in slight apology. "Long as the pay goes on, Oi 'd jist as soon work on top as down below. H'ist the female into the bucket, ye ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish

... question of disarmament. Germany has outraged the public law of Europe, and she has followed up her outrage with a series of the most cowardly and wanton crimes. She ought to pay, and she ought to apologize. Only by German payment and German apology can international law be vindicated. Germany should pay a sum large enough to do everything that money can do toward the re-establishment of Belgium's well-being. I have no competence to suggest the amount of the indemnity. A hundred million pounds does not appear ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... of apology and bashfulness towards a young fellow who seemed to be acting as her escort, but who was hesitating in an equal bashfulness, when Seabright added: "And perhaps our young friend ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... many servile words of apology; at a crisis of this sort, the beggar was uppermost in him, and the man of genius hid his head ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various

... been to entertain me. "Why," he said, "I was plumb glad to see you and right sorry to have you go. Why, I would jist as soon talk to you as to a nigger. Yes'm, I would. It has been almost as good as talking to old Aunt Dilsey." If a Yankee had said the same to me I would have demanded instant apology, but I know how the Southern heart longs for the dear, kindly old "niggers," so I came on homeward, thankful for the first time that I ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... else—will have to beat me to the shooting. If you don't want your lands used as part of the range, fence them off. Don't interfere with a single head of my stock, either. And, if I were in your place, I'd offer this man about two hundred dollars for his mare, and throw in an apology." ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... said Tricotrin; "twenty-seven chapters of that novel, translated into a Spaniard's French, would suffice to people an asylum. Nevertheless, if it arrived on your hat, I owe you an apology." ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... his bedroom to fetch his pipe. It was occupied by a housemaid, and he made a polite apology for ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne

... not heed his words of apology, but looked at the ragged, brown-faced man who called to me. He was thin and wiry, with a yellow beard, and his hands were hard with some heavy work. Yet his face was in some way not altogether strange to me, though I could ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler

... not the same modest history as 'Embers'. As far back as 1894 it was given to the public without any apology or excuse, but I have been apologising for it ever since, in one way—without avail. I wished that at least one-fifth of it had not been published; but my apology was never heard till now as I withdraw from this edition of A Lover's Diary some twenty-five sonnets representing fully one-fifth ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... to the whole of accepted teaching, in this respect, and my excuse must be that I believe my theory represents the truth, while that universally held does not! Again, I must emphasize that I speak, not of facts, but of inferences drawn from facts. With this apology, I shall state my own view of the case ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington

... pedagogues. When physical, economic, and social sciences were born they gradually demanded a place in the educational system from top to bottom of the line. The study disciplines they introduced, at first by apology of the cultured, and later by open response to a social demand for leadership in a vastly wider range of activity than was known when colleges first came to be, have attained a higher and higher position until now the various degrees which aim to differentiate the type ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... Pierson began: "I owe you an apology. I've been thinking all sorts of things about you. I know they're unjust and—mean, which is worse. But, damn it, Scarborough, I HATE being beaten. And it doesn't make defeat any the easier ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... sir, not at all!" exclaimed Emily, mollified, in spite of herself, by the humility of the attorney. "There is no offence, and no apology is necessary." ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton

... mortally do, all long unnecessary prefaces, I shall give you good quarter in this, and use no farther apology, than to prepare you for seeing the loose part of my life, written with the same liberty that ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... No, she had given that up. She had promised Harry to be at home. Clara wanted to know rather austerely what she intended to do about the dinner. This was dreadful! Flora had forgotten it completely. Nothing to be done but go, and leave a message for Harry—apology, and assurance that she would be home early. She wondered if she were losing ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain

... I. "Suppose we are robbers, pirates, what you like, and suppose a price is put on our heads—a price which means a jolly nice libel suit for each paper printing it, by the way, or a jolly nice apology—none the less, we are a strong band and without fear either of the law or of you. Here you are alone, and not a sail is in sight. If any boat did come here, we could—well, we could blow her out of the water, couldn't ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... a sort of apology sprung to his lips; but observing that his order had wrought no sort of surprise in the Earl or the waiting page, he suppressed the words he was about to utter. The page, in the most matter-of-course way, made a profound obeisance and retired backwards out of the room to deliver ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... companion, and so forth, and, encouraged by the precept and example of Michael Lambourne, they soon passed the limits of temperance, as was evident from the bursts of laughter with which his inquiries after old acquaintances were answered. Giles Gosling made some sort of apology to a solitary guest who had sat apart for their license; they would be to-morrow a set of painstaking mechanics, and so forth, though to-night they were such would-be rufflers, and prevailed on him ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... "I shall make an apology for my visit," she answered, "but I cannot rest satisfied until I hear a direct refusal from his own lips. His conduct toward Mark seems more like revenge than punishment. I do not think ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various

... had his cap on, while all the other people in the room were uncovered. He took his cap off at once, saying to the soldier at the same time, "Pardon, sir," which is the French mode of making an apology in such cases. The soldier then resumed his seat, and Rollo and Carlos walked on slowly up ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott

... as of apology for having failed to satisfy the curiosity of those that accosted him, he saluted Messer Folco and moved toward the centre of the room. I was on his heels in an instant, for I wished for a word with him before he was unfindable in the thick and press of his friends, ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... the manner of the man's movement indicated that he was, like herself, finding greater pleasure in solitude than in the dance. It was only when he was almost upon her that she stood out visible in the depth of the shadow. He halted then and bowed his apology. ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... Governor wrote Colonel Harvey and endeavoured to make clear what he had in mind when he answered the question put to him by the Colonel at the club conference a few days before, not, indeed, by way of apology, but simply by way of explanation. This letter to the Colonel and a subsequent one went a long way toward softening the unfortunate impression that had been created by the publication of the Harvey-Watterson correspondence. The ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... there came thence two faces whereon was written the loveliness of the mercy extended to erring man. My father looked, like all who feel intensely, older than he did in the morning, and yet withal happier. Mr. Axtell went away without seeing me. Father made apology for him by saying that it was important that he should return home immediately, and asked "could I make ready to receive some visitors ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... I make no apology for the liberty I take. Your Excellency, I am persuaded, is too sensible of the truth of these observations, to think they could be delivered with less earnestness by one, who feels their importance, and I am confident that you ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... your heart Find, if it can, some poor apology For one who is too young, and feels too keenly The joy of life, to give up all her days To sorrow for the dead. While I am true To the remembrance of the man I loved And mourn for still, I do not make a show Of all the grief I feel, nor live secluded And, like Veronica da Gambara, Drape my ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... the same time, such a spirit of genuine piety and resignation, that it cannot but give an exalted idea of Marguerite's character, who appears superior to ill-fortune and great even in her distress. If, as I doubt not, the reader thinks the same, I shall not need to make an apology for concluding this Preface ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... low, distinct, and never-to-be-forgotten whisper which thrilled to the very marrow of my bones, "Gentlemen, I make no apology for this behaviour, because in thus behaving, I am but fulfilling a duty. You are, beyond doubt, uninformed of the true character of the person who has to-night won at ecarte a large sum of money from Lord Glendinning. I will ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... in the spring of 1914 when a boat's crew of American marines was imprisoned in Tampico. An apology was made, but General Huerta refused to order a salute to the United States flag, and troops were accordingly landed at Vera Cruz, where slight encounters ensued. At this juncture Argentina, Brazil and Chile, "the ABC powers" made a proposal of mediation which ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... the time, not so much as an attack upon what we venerate as an apology for those who honestly differ from the majority ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... She made this apology to a gentleman in black, who, with his wristbands tucked up, and his hat cocked loungingly on one side, and his hand in his pocket, sat down astride on the table-beer barrel, and nodded ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... was ashamed of their conduct. In the evening he sought out Father Hennepin, and offered a poor excuse for not receiving him into their canoe, saying it was so small and frail that had three been in it, it would inevitably have been swamped. The father was not deceived, though he accepted the apology. ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott

... Society, chap. ii. For Peter Apian, see Madler, Geschichte der Astronomie, Braunschweig, 1873, vol. i, p. 141. For evidences of the special favour of Charles V, see Delambre, Histoire de l'Astronomie au Moyen Age, p. 390; also Bruhns, in the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie. For an attempted apology for him, see Gunther, Peter and Philipp ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... perhaps spoke the most beautiful French in all France. I said that I truly had seen much that was glorious and interesting, but that I had never yet seen a Rachel, and that on her account especially had I devoted the profits of my last work to a journey to Paris; and as, in conclusion, I added an apology on account of my French, she smiled and said, "When you say anything so polite as that which you have just said to me, to a Frenchwoman, she will always think that you ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen

... consider themselves as acting in the view of an Infinite Being, who is in a much higher sense the object of reverence and of love, than all the world besides; and therefore they could have no more enjoyment from a wicked action done under His eye than the persons to whom they are making their apology could if all mankind were the spectators of it; and that the satisfaction of approving themselves to his unerring judgment, to whom they thus refer all their actions, is a more continued settled satisfaction than any ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler

... The only Apology necessary to be adduced, in extenuation of any errors in the following collection, is, that the Author has not yet completed his ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... before made an apology for this language, which we here repeat for the last time; though the heart may, we hope, be metaphorically used here with more propriety than when we apply those passions to the body which belong ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding

... greeted the author's "Letters to the Young," and his more recent series of essays entitled "Gold Foil," and the constant and substantial friendship which has been maintained by the public toward those productions, must stand as his apology for this third venture in a kindred field of effort. It should be—and probably is—unnecessary for the author to say that in this book, as in its predecessors, he has aimed to be neither brilliant nor profound. He has endeavored, simply, to treat in a familiar and attractive way a few ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... portly forms of two women, the landlady and the barmaid, who stood there chatting and surveying the street. Coming from within the house, I had to call out a request for passage; it was granted with all deliberation, and with not a syllable of apology. This was the best "hotel" in a Sussex ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... such as the fabliaux, farces, and morality plays, in which courtesy imposed no restraint. For our poet's lack of sense of proportion, and for his carelessness in the proper motivation of many episodes, no apology can be made. He is not always guilty; some episodes betoken poetic mastery. But a poet acquainted, as he was, with some first-class Latin poetry, and who had made a business of his art, ought to have handled his material more intelligently, even in the twelfth century. The emphasis is ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... was Norhala beside me; she lifted Ruth's face from Drake's breast. "He will not die. It may be he will walk again. They can not help," there was a shadow of apology in her tones. "They did not know. They thought it was the"—she hesitated as though at loss ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt

... short time the latter approached the spot where I was standing, and began a very long and humble apology, saying that he should never have thought of giving me the mare if he had not seen at a glance that I was a first-rate rider, and much more to the same purpose, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... self-reliant capital letter to signify that there is no disguise in its egoisms. If it were a chapter of autobiography, this is what the reader would look for as a matter of course. Let him consider it as being such a chapter, and its egoisms will require no apology. ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... an old gentleman who had retired from business and who, the landlady always said, was a miser, and kept large sums secreted in his room. He was, at any rate, a perfectly respectable man and would make an admirable witness to a transaction of this sort. Blake made an apology and rose to fetch him, crossing the room in front of the sofa where the man sat, in order to reach the door. As he did so, he saw for the first time the other side of his visitor's face, the side that had been always so carefully turned away ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... assume it to have been of a very formidable character, for after the case had been opened against them the defendants hastened to send in a petition invoking the clemency of the Maharajah. They expressed therein their deep sorrow for any conduct open to misconstruction, tendered their unqualified apology for any indiscreet acts they might have committed, and testified their "great abhorrence and absolute detestation" of anarchists and seditionists and their diabolical methods. His Highness thereupon ordered the prosecution to be abandoned, but at the same time banished the ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... not because I wish to eat, but I must have my bowl of soup like Titus DIEM PERDIDI." "My dear Doctor," said I, "why go so far? what is here? Send some to my cousin and remain here, if you will, and accept my apology for a somewhat hasty dinner and you will ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin

... he, gazing with more feeling than he cared to shew into that sweet face, so innocent of apology-making,—"you shall promise me that you will not forget uncle Orrin and the ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... in his apology. He was mocking, not God, but the magnified man of the popular creeds; to him it was a mere intellectual counter with which his wit played, oblivious of the sacred aura that clung round the concept for the bulk of the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... violently at the sound of his voice, but she did not immediately turn around. When she did so, her demeanour was almost a shock to him. There was no sign of nervousness or apology in her manner. Her eyes flashed at him angrily. She wore a loose red wrap trimmed with white fur, a dishabille unusually ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... detained. Upon this, the quarrel came to a head. The King went, with his fleet, to the coast of Wales, where, so encompassing Llewellyn, that he could only take refuge in the bleak mountain region of Snowdon in which no provisions could reach him, he was soon starved into an apology, and into a treaty of peace, and into paying the expenses of the war. The King, however, forgave him some of the hardest conditions of the treaty, and consented to his marriage. And he now thought he had reduced ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... Tess was awakened by Yasmini's hand stroking the hair back from her forehead. Again there was no explanation, no excuse. A woman who was privileged to see and hear what Tess had seen and heard, needed no apology for a visit in the ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... with reluctance, and am exceedingly mortified that it has fallen to my lot to treat any portion of my fellow citizens with severity; but I am nevertheless prepared to meet the sneers and frowns of those implicated. I shall offer no apology for the harsh language which will be occasionally found in this volume; as a desperate disease requires an active remedy. If I could, however, have re-written the work, I would have changed, in some places, the phraseology. ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward

... of the Chilean Government in relation to this cruel and disastrous attack upon our men, as will appear from the correspondence, have not in any degree taken the form of a manly and satisfactory expression of regret, much less of apology. The event was of so serious a character that if the injuries suffered by our men had been wholly the result of an accident in a Chilean port the incident was grave enough to have called for some public expression ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... letters of adieu he received before setting out we have space for only two. The first came from the venerable Professor Sedgwick, of Cambridge, in the form of an apology for inability to attend the farewell banquet. It is a beautiful unfolding of the head and heart of the Christian philosopher, and must have been singularly welcome to Livingstone, whose views on some of the greatest ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... to show that the mysteries of religion were not opposed to reason. But his work aroused much opposition both in England and Ireland, as there were many statements in the book which were capable of a rationalistic interpretation. A second edition was published in London with an apology by Toland in 1702. In Dublin he raised against himself a storm of opposition, not only on account of his book, but also by his vain and foolish manner of propagating his views. He began openly to deride Christianity, to ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... theology, astrology, archeology, geology, meteorology, mineralogy, chronology, genealogy, ethnology, anthropology, criminology, technology, doxology, anthology, trilogy, philology, etymology, terminology, neologism, phraseology, tautology, analogy, eulogy, apology, apologue, eclogue, monologue, dialogue, prologue, epilogue, decalogue, catalogue, travelogue, logogram, logograph, logo-type, logarithms, logic, illogical. (Moreover you may have perceived in some of these words the kinship which exists in all for the loquy group—see ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... We talk at the table as two strangers might in a crowded restaurant or hotel, that is, when he's there. I dare not ask people to dinner, for I never know whether he's coming or not. He might promise faithfully to come, and then appear at midnight, without apology or excuse." ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... surprising, seeing that you have made me what I am," he answered. Then he made a quick gesture of apology. "Forgive me, that sounded like a reproach or a complaint. I make neither. That is not ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... state of my bodily health would be a sufficient apology for not taking up the pen at this time, wholesome as I deem it for the mind to apricate in the shelter of epistolary confidence, were it not that a considerable, I might even say a large, number of individuals in this parish expect from their pastor some publick ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... which Cicero was thankful under the dictatorship of Julius Caesar. 'Obsecro—abiiciamus ista et semi-liberi saltern, simus; quod assequemur et tacendo et latendo' (Epist. ad Attic, xiii. 31). Contrast with this the memorable declaration of Socrates, in the Platonic Apology, that silence and abstinence from cross-examination were intolerable to him; that life would not be worth having under ...
— Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.' • George Grote

... they had better come and ask; and poor George, who cannot take a joke, came without any one knowing where he was gone. They were all in great consternation when I told them, and there is an ample apology coming to you through Edward. That is the whole story, except that Mr Rowland would have come himself to you, instead of going to your husband, but that he was ashamed of his joke. So there is an end of that silly matter, unless it ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... nervous shock in his make-up—a memory in all his after life which takes precedence over all other things. The old man had the naming of the grandchildren, and he named them after the battles of the Civil war. Bull Run and Seven Days were the boys. Atlanta, Appomattox and Shiloh were the girls. His apology for Shiloh was: "You see I thout I'd name the last one Appomattox. Then came a little one befo' her mammy died, so weak an' ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... may turn to the immediate business," Mr. Drury said with a smile of apology, "suppose you tell J.W. what your Board has to suggest for us here in Delafield, ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt

... and oppressive, and I found him clad in what was, in the strictest sense of the words, an undress uniform, consisting of undershirt, canvas trousers, and an old pair of slippers. Like the sensible man I knew him to be, he made no apology for his dress, but welcomed me heartily and introduced me to Captain Philip of the battle-ship Texas, who had just come into the harbor after a fresh supply of coal. As I entered, Captain McCalla was telling Captain Philip, with great glee, ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan

... opposed to that constantly enunciated dogma of the parrot-critic, that the features of nature must be "generalized,"—a dogma whose inherent and broad absurdity would long ago have been detected, if it had not contained in its convenient falsehood an apology for indolence, and a disguise for incapacity. Generalized! As if it were possible to generalize things generically different. Of such common cant of criticism I extract a characteristic passage from one of the reviews ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... slope, and very uncomfortably built, too. There are reckoned to be about eight hundred inhabitants in it, of exceptional poverty; the houses are hardly worthy of the name; in the chief street, by way of an apology for a pavement, there are here and there some huge white slabs of rough-hewn limestone, in consequence of which even carts drive round it instead of through it. In the very middle of an astoundingly dirty square rises a diminutive yellowish ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... a face so unconsciously marked with misery as Gholson's was when we started downstairs. I stopped him on a landing. "Understand, you and I are friends,—hmm? I think Lieutenant Helm owes you an apology, and if you'll keep away from him I'll try ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable

... chapter, which to many readers will be the most interesting, is founded upon first-hand evidence—the documents contained in the British White Book (Parliamentary Paper, Cd. 7467; hereafter cited as Correspondence respecting the European Crisis), and the German White Book, which is an official apology, supplemented by documents. The German White Book, as being difficult of access, we have printed in extenso. It exists in two versions, a German and an English, both published for the German Government. We have reproduced the English version without correcting the solecisms ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History

... the bench, stunned. Never before in all her life had such a thing happened. True, young men had at times attempted to kiss her, but not in this fashion. A rough embrace, a kiss on her cheek, and he had gone. Not a word, not a sign of apology. She could not have been more astounded had a thunder-bolt struck at her feet, nor more bereft of action. She must have sat there fully ten minutes without movement. From Thomas, the guileless, this! What did it mean? She could ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath

... patriotism may be found on both sides of the House. Among our opponents stands forth, eminently distinguished by parts, eloquence, knowledge, and, I willingly admit, by public spirit, the right honourable Baronet the Member for Tamworth. Having said this, I shall offer no apology for the remarks which, in the discharge of my public duty, I shall make, without, I hope, any personal discourtesy, on his past conduct, and his ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the first volume is Johnson's and three-quarters of the second. A second edition was published the following year, with a third volume added, which also contained pieces by Johnson, but no apology from Davies. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,[203-1] one day in the autumn of last year, and found him in deep conversation with a very stout, florid-faced, elderly gentleman, with fiery red hair. With an apology for my intrusion, I was about to withdraw, when Holmes pulled me abruptly into the room, and closed ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... who were inclined to follow the example of Catullus; but if such a practice be in any case admissible, it is only where the poet personates (68) a profligate character; and the instances in which it is adopted by Catullus are not of that description. It had perhaps been a better apology, to have pleaded the manners of the times; for even Horace, who wrote only a few years after, has suffered his compositions to be occasionally debased by ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... themselves hastily, and at a venture, anxious only to lay on enough. Where therefore there is no wanton intention, nor a wish to deceive, I can discover no immorality. But in England, I am afraid, our painted ladies are not clearly entitled to the same apology. They even imitate nature with such exactness that the whole public is sometimes divided into parties, who litigate with great warmth the question whether painted or not? This was remarkably the case with a Miss E——, whom I well remember. Her roses ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith

... are usually concerned with public movements, resolutions, petitions, and the like. There is one startling little paragraph from a London paper, dated July 7, 1906; the ignorance of the subject so flippantly dealt with is its only apology. No one could have written so had he understood. The occasion was the memorial addressed to the Governor in Council by workers for the ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... has for little things!" He turned away as he spoke, for he did not want her to see his face. It was suffused with pleasure. For an apology, which would have been intolerable eighteen months ago, was ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster

... afflicted with modern improvements, and partly filled with Frenchmen who strive to drown in the cafe their sorrow at being so far away from home. The real Morocco is so lacking in all the conveniences that would commend it to wealthy travellers that the writer feels some apology is due for the appearance of his short story of an almost unknown country in so fine a setting. Surely a simple tale of Sunset Land was never seen in such splendid guise before, and will not be seen again until, with past redeemed and forgotten, ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan

... every description have, from time immemorial, been considered free from those niceties by which all attempts in the nobler classes of literature are, or should be restrained, we consider no apology necessary for requesting the reader to leap over with us the space of four months; but still, before we continue our tale from that date, it will be as well that we should give a short outline of the principal events which produced the state in which the circumstances of the Macdermots will then ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... Chesterfield State, the, ruined by corruption of manners States-General, the Stearne, Dr. John, Bishop of Clogher Steele, Sir R. his opinions of the "Project," in the "Tatler" his opinion of Swift in the "Apology" the "Guardian" "Englishman" Stephen, Leslie, "History of English Thought in Eighteenth Century" Stillingfleet, Edward, Bishop of Worcester Stratford, Earl of Style, faults to be avoided in Suarez, Francis ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... but that Tom did not mind; he was wondering how to frame his apology to his aunt, and how she would ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan

... party sent out, on reaching the coast was treacherously attacked at a disadvantage. Ample opportunity was given for explanation and apology for the insult. Neither came. A force was then landed. After an arduous march over a rugged and difficult country, the forts from which the outrages had been committed were reduced by a gallant assault and were destroyed. Having thus punished the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... creature, without this apology for extravagance, and what right had she to letters addressed to "Miss Fleming?" The farmer prepared to ask a question, and was further instigated to it by seeing Mrs. Sumfit's eyes roll sympathetic under a burden of overpowering curiosity and bewilderment. On ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... some one to whom general opinion is hostile; the private argument being that if he is capable of this degree of virtue and friendship in an unfavourable case, how much more could he have practised it with others, if they would only have allowed him. Whether this kind of apology was present to his mind or not, Rousseau could always refer those who charged him with black caprice, to his steady kindness towards Theresa Le Vasseur. Her family were among the most odious of human beings, greedy, idle, and ill-humoured, while her mother had every fault that a woman ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... think I have given an exaggerated account of our sufferings on board the Jersey, I will here introduce some facts related in the histories of the Revolutionary War. I introduce them as an apology for the course that I and many of my fellow citizens adopted to obtain ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... I offer no apology for speaking upon a religious theme, for it is the most universal of all themes. I am interested in the science of government, but I am interested more in religion than in government. I enjoy making a political speech—I have made a good many and shall make more—but I would ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... epithet exclusively mine with a bow and a broad grin. Instantly the young fellow flushed and stammered an apology. ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... reflection in the text may furnish the admirers of Herodotus, in particular, with an excellent apology for some of his wonderful ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... the spring of 1619 Champlain attempted to sail for Quebec as usual, Boyer {79} prevented him from going aboard. There followed an appeal to the crown, in which Champlain was fully sustained, and Boyer did penance by offering a public apology before ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby

... a remonstrance to the crown, which is substantially a defence of the preceding Parliament, that had been dissolved under displeasure. It is a defence of Mr. Fox. It is a defence of the Whigs. By what connection of argument, by what association of ideas, this apology for Mr. Fox and his party is by him and them brought to criminate his and their apologist, I cannot easily divine. It is true that Mr. Burke received no previous encouragement from Mr. Fox, nor any the least countenance or support, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... deal of light on such "yong Jyntelmen." So does Fleetwood, the Recorder of London, to whom they used to run when they were arrested for debt, or for killing a carman, making as their only apology, "I am a Jyntelman, and being a Jyntelman, I am not thus to be used at a slave and a colion's hands."[124] Hall, writing in the third person, in the assumed character of a friend, describes himself as ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard

... than that, poor little pussy," she added, "you will see that one of these days he will summon courage enough to come and offer you an apology." ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... Tictocq Tracked to Doom A Snapshot at the President An Unfinished Christmas Story The Unprofitable Servant Aristocracy Versus Hash The Prisoner of Zembla A Strange Story Fickle Fortune, or How Gladys Hustled An Apology Lord Oakhurst's Curse Bexar Scrip No. 2692 Queries and Answers Poems The Pewee Nothing to Say The Murderer Some Postscripts Two Portraits A Contribution The Old Farm Vanity The Lullaby Boy Chanson de Boheme Hard to Forget Drop a Tear in This ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... history; and any one denying them must deny them upon a dogma. But something followed which would seem to modern civilization even more monstrous than a miracle. If the reader can imagine Mr. Cecil Rhodes submitting to be horsewhipped by a Boer in St. Paul's Cathedral, as an apology for some indefensible death incidental to the Jameson Raid, he will form but a faint idea of what was meant when Henry II. was beaten by monks at the tomb of his vassal and enemy. The modern parallel called up is comic, but the truth is that mediaeval actualities ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton

... dropped upon it by the German gunners could not entirely demolish it, the fort of Douaumont stood up, cold and black, on that morning of Friday, the 25th February, seeming even to overshadow the trench, or the apology for a trench—for here, too, shells had done their work—in which Henri and his friend were lying. Out beyond them the shell-marked ground, across which flakes of snow were drifting, descended abruptly to the plain of ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... appeals are seldom made in vain. It did not, indeed, lead immediately to practical reform, but it advanced the cause of reform by inspiring and bringing other initiators into the field. And pre-eminent among these was Swift. Swift was evidently well acquainted with Eachard's work. In the apology prefixed to the fourth edition of the Tale of a Tub in 1710, he speaks of Eachard with great respect. Contemptuously explaining that he has no intention of answering the attacks which had been made on the Tale, he observes: ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... out to Old Harpeth with you when you asked me; but I loathe going to church—I haven't been in one since I was strong enough to rebel—and I'm not going to yours," was the apology I graciously offered in return for that about the apple dumplings. "But I'd pay fifty dollars for a tenth row seat to hear you sing Tristan in the Metropolitan any day if I had to go hungry for a week to pay for it," I added, as I ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... Ferriar's apology, which, however, can hardly be held to cover his offence; for, as a matter of fact, Sterne's borrowings extend to a good deal besides "mirth;" and some of the most unscrupulous of these forced loans are raised from passages of a perfectly serious import ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... person of inferior rank and indifferent morals to share the Scottish throne; and many women, less artful or less fortunate, had risen to greatness from a state of concubinage, for which the manners of the times made allowance and apology. Such views might have dazzled a girl of higher birth than Catharine, or Katie, Glover, who was universally acknowledged to be the most beautiful young woman of the city or its vicinity, and whose renown, as the Fair Maid of Perth, had drawn on her much notice from the young ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... which the Inca did usually call his own," saying, "That he who was Master of that whole Empire might lawfully challenge such a proportion thereof as was convenient to supply his necessary and natural support"—a reasonable apology; and yet personally I doubt whether Manco spared the Spanish merchants and failed to pillage them of their "wares and merchandise." As will be seen later, we found in Manco's palace some metal articles of European origin which might very well have been taken ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... inability to admit that he had been in the wrong. Once aroused, he was a fierce combatant, using any weapon that came to hand, inquiring only whether it would hurt his opponent. When obliged to see that he had judged wrongly, his silence was the only confession: he was seldom equal to a candid apology. If a tacit retreat was accepted by the other party, he might endeavor to compensate for the wrong in some other manner. [Footnote: On this subject General E. D. Townsend, as adjutant-general, is a most competent and conclusive witness. (Townsend's Anecdotes of the Civil ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox



Words linked to "Apology" :   apologetic, acknowledgement, representative, defence, example, acknowledgment, apologist, vindication, apologise, illustration, defense, apologize, instance



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