"Extenuate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have been exercised on the Aborigines of America, the wrong and outrage heaped on them from the days of Montezuma and Guatimozin, to the present period, while they excite sympathy for their sufferings, should extenuate, if not justify the bloody deeds, which revenge prompted the untutored savages to commit. Driven as they were from the lands of which they were the rightful proprietors—Yielding to encroachment after encroachment 'till forced ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... so confounded and overawed by these cutting reproaches, and her animated behaviour, that all his resolution forsook him, and he found himself not only incapable of obstructing her retreat, but even of uttering one syllable to deprecate her wrath, or extenuate the guilt of his own conduct. The nature of his disappointment, and the keen remorse that seized him, when he reflected upon the dishonourable footing on which his character stood with Emilia, raised such perturbation in his mind, that his silence ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... wasn't well when she went away," he whispered, turning his shoulder to the men and his face to Philip. He talked in a low voice, just above the rumble of the wheels, trying to extenuate Kate's fault and to ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace,—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... Mme. de Marelle seemed to offer provocation by her remarks, while Mme. Forestier's charming reserve, the modesty in her voice, in her smile, all seemed to extenuate the bold sallies which issued from her lips. The dessert came and then followed the coffee. The hostess and her guests lighted cigarettes, but Forestier suddenly began to cough. When the attack was over, he growled angrily: "These parties are not good for me; ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... my aim in the course of this narrative to extenuate nothing, nor set down aught in malice. Like the gentleman who played euchre with the Heathen Chinee, I state but facts. I do not, therefore, slur over my scheme for disturbing the professor's peace of mind. I am not always good and noble. I ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... not so much profaned, were it not misused in easy good-nature, to extenuate lettered and sensual indolence, that worn old term might be applied, above all men, to "the Shirra." But perhaps we scarcely need a word (it would be seldom in use) for a character so rare, or rather so lonely, in its nobility and charm as that of Walter Scott. Here, in the heart of your ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... caught in the snares of one dexterous heresiarch. If, then, the heresiarch causes infinitely greater evils than the murderer, why is he not as proper an object of penal legislation as the murderer? We can give a reason, a reason, short, simple, decisive, and consistent. We do not extenuate the evil which the heresiarch produces; but we say that it is not evil of that sort the sort against which it is the end of government to guard. But how Mr. Gladstone, who considers the evil which the heresiarch produces as evil of the sort against which it is the end of government ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... making amongst the younger generation. But few had the courage to carry reprobation to the length of assisting Government in the detection and repression of crimes which terrorism made it less dangerous to extenuate as lamentable exhibitions of a misguided patriotic frenzy. The Western-educated classes were completely estranged and smarted so bitterly over the contempt with which their representations and protests against the policy of Government had been treated ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... real, and I have no desire to extenuate them, but I believe they are by no means so great as is commonly supposed. If the lazy, worthless members of the Commune had really the direction of Communal affairs we should find that in the Northern ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... it," Beppo remarked, to extenuate his outwitted cunning, when he found each door of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... by the sword of the civil, power, dominated the world, and in this way account for their conduct; or apologize for it by the necessities of their situation, and the peculiarities of their creed; or combine these causes, and so extenuate what cannot ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... before their eyes, but to wreak vengeance on Spencer's unoffending family, who had walked into their settlement under the protection of a friendly alliance, was an unparalleled outrage which nothing can justify or extenuate. With as little delay as possible after the horrible discovery, I returned to camp, had boxes made, and next day buried the bodies of these hapless ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... wretches who traverse the streets, when reason is well-nigh benighted; when the horrible promptings of despair can, alone, be listened to; and when vice itself assumes the aspect of virtue. Pardon what I have said, Madam. I do not desire to extenuate my guilt—far less to defend it; but I would show you, and such as you—who, happily, are exempted from trials like mine—how much misery has to do with crime. And I affirm to you, on my own conviction, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... her children and herself. It has been objected that her ready avowal of weakness as common to all her sex is the undramatic epigram of a satirist, awkwardly ventriloquizing through the mechanism of a tragic puppet; but it is really quite in keeping with the woman's character to enlarge and extenuate the avowal of her own infamy and infirmity into a sententious reflection on womanhood in general. A similar objection has been raised against the apparent change of character implied in the confession ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... discontent. The articles against Dr. Sacheverel being exhibited, his person was committed to the deputy-usher of the black rod, but afterwards the lords admitted him to bail. Then he drew up an answer to the charge, in which he denied some articles, and others he endeavoured to justify or extenuate. The commons having sent up a replication, declaring they were ready to prove the charge, the lords appointed the twenty-seventh day of February for the trial ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... had done so good an action in coming as almost to extenuate his previous arbitrary conduct to nothing, went home; and Giles was left alone to the suspense of waiting for a reply from the divinity who shaped the ends of the Hintock population. By this time ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... was his demeanor and conduct in company of his late companions; while, with his own family, he appeared moody, irresolute, and restless, and even, at length, he began to throw out occasional hints tending to defend or extenuate the conduct of the very man whom, a few weeks before, he had so confidently denounced as a thief and a robber. Alarmed at these indications of returning weakness and fatuity in her husband, Mrs. Elwood soon put herself on inquiry, to ascertain ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... Scots as a beautiful sinner who has repented. Her sins are grievous and she does not deny or extenuate them. But they are in the distant past; so far as the present is concerned, she is in the right. She has come to England seeking an asylum, but instead of being treated as a queen she has been confined in one prison after another and finally brought to Fotheringay, where ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... inadequate to your wishes, attribute my demerits to some infirmity of mind, rather than to a negligence of your happiness. Yet, be the cause what it will, since these faults have existed, I do not attempt to disavow or extenuate them, ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... glory, followed by the plaudits of mankind, that became the inspiration of this work—his story of devotion, valor and patriotism; of unmurmuring sacrifice; worthy the pens of the mighty, but which the historian, as best he may will tell: "NOTHING extenuate, nor set down ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... abide on that level where he found himself on his recovery, and make no effort to lift his wife to that he had renounced. She was a child of Nature. He would learn life anew of her; but he failed of success in all his undertakings. Shall a man attempt to extenuate his failures? It seemed new to him; he acknowledged it in open court, that from the day of his entrance into Dalton to the day he left it, he was under some enchantment there. And if an insane man is not to be held responsible in law for his offences, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... contains a great deal of information on the Borgia family; P. Villari's Machiavelli (English translation, new ed., 1892) deals with the subject at some length. Of the Catholic writers L. Pastor, Geschichte der Papste (Freiburg i. B, 1886) should be consulted, for although the author tries to extenuate the pope to some extent, on the whole he ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... opened before me, I cannot but conceive that I shall often be reproached with being not your representative but the representative of the Duke of Newcastle. Now I should rather incline to exaggerate than to extenuate such connection as does exist between me and that nobleman: and for my part should have no reluctance to see every sentiment which ever passed between us, whether by letter or by word of mouth, exposed to the view of the world. I met the Duke of Newcastle upon ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... in our duty as reviewers, if he altogether escaped it. In all charity, we are bound, for that matter, to give him the full benefit of the speed he has exhibited, in so far as it may serve to explain, if it cannot extenuate, the wretched manner in which he has ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... is a portion of the duke's life which cannot be entirely passed over in silence, since it must be conceded, that much of his unpopularity may be traced to this source. Neither the court nor the people of England are so ascetic as not to extenuate the indiscretions of royalty; but this charitable estimate of misgivings does not extend to approbation of any culpable dereliction of social and moral duties. The fact of his royal highness having a large family, by a lady now no more, is too ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - No. 291 - Supplement to Vol 10 • Various
... sweeter women who are sinking into oblivion together. He must accept life as a Grand Piano tuned by a new sort of Tuning Master, and unless he can dance to its music he is a misfit. That is what my friend said to extenuate her. She fitted into this kind of life splendidly. He was in the other groove. She loved light, laughter, wine, song, and excitement. He, the misfit, loved his books, his work, and his home. His greatest ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... plant in a fertile soil, caressed by the sun of a cloudless sky, awoke to a sense of a new self. This crisis of her life, the subject of this Scene, would be incomprehensible without certain explanations, which may extenuate in the eyes of women the wrong-doing of this young countess, a happy wife, a happy mother, who seems, at first ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... beauty of scene and circumstance? And will you please to observe that almost all that is ugly is in the whites? I'll apologise for Papa Randal if you like; but if I told you the whole truth—for I did extenuate there!—and he seemed to me essential as a figure, and essential as a pawn in the game, Wiltshire's disgust for him being one of the small, efficient motives in the story. Now it would have taken a fairish ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... come. May we all have moderation; may we all show candor. Though, perhaps, nothing could ultimately have averted the strife, and though to treat of human actions is to deal wholly with second causes, nevertheless, let us not cover up or try to extenuate what, humanly speaking, is the truth—namely, that those unfraternal denunciations, continued through years, and which at last inflamed to deeds that ended in bloodshed, were reciprocal; and that, had the preponderating strength and the prospect of its unlimited increase lain on ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... Whatever be the result of that prosecution, whether those indicted be found guilty, or acquitted, of the misdemeanours laid to their charge; we feel assured, on the one hand, however long and grievous may have been the "provocation," that while there will be "nothing extenuate," neither will there be "set down aught in malice;" but that the measure of the retribution now demanded by the state, will be so temperately and equitably adjusted, that while the very semblance of oppression is carefully avoided, the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... inconsiderable share in the applauses of his party(1); and who, upon this false and unfounded suggestion, has built a series of observations equally false and unfounded. Let him now be confronted with the evidence of the fact, and let him, if he be able, justify or extenuate the shameful outrage he has offered to the dictates of truth and to the rules ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... a fact that our virtues and our vices depend more upon circumstances than upon ourselves, and there are no circumstances which operate so powerfully upon us as government and climate. Let it not be supposed that, in the above assertion, I mean to extenuate vice, or imply that we are not free agents. Naturally prone to vices in general, circumstances will render us more prone to one description of vice than to another; but that is no reason why we should not be answerable for it, since ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... remember, Cousin Jenny, I was talking the other day about the perversity of your sex. You either cannot or will not understand your husbands: they hide nothing, extenuate nothing, yet you fail to grasp the idea of that side of their minds which is at once the best and the most dangerous. If Philip did not regard all women with interest, and some with particular interest, he could not have had it in his head to be half so ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... apologetic and abject, prepared at the same time to extenuate and deny. Trent continued ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Without attempting to extenuate the errors of Madame de Longueville, moral or political, it has been the author's endeavour to reconcile the apparent contradictions in her character, imputed in the passage above cited, by assigning the different incidents, which have doubtless caused an intelligent ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... O troubled soul, from whom the vision of Christ is veiled. It is more than likely that some undetected or unconfessed sin is shutting out the rays of the true sun. Excuse nothing, extenuate nothing, omit nothing. Do not speak of mistakes of judgment, but of lapses of heart and will. Do not be content with a general confession; be particular and specific. Drag each evil thing forth before God's judgment bar; ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... Gibbon on slavery, is full, not only of blamable indifference, but of an exaggeration of impartiality which resembles dishonesty. He endeavors to extenuate all that is appalling in the condition and treatment of the slaves; he would make us consider those cruelties as possibly "justified by necessity." He then describes, with minute accuracy, the slightest mitigations of their deplorable condition; he ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... acceptance of these critics is complete, and that I confess myself guilty, and still more, afflicted—am I as guilty as they say, and is there no excuse, which, in the eyes of indulgent and impartial readers, can extenuate my crime? ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... all the harder by the fact that she was proving herself such a different girl from the one I loved,—so different, in fact, that, despite what I had heard, I couldn't quite believe it of her, and found myself seeking to extenuate and even justify her conduct. While I was doing this, they came within hearing, and ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... last matter that the power, more than the will, to understand his own heart had failed him. His intellect now reasserted itself. He did not attempt to blink facts; he did not deny the truth of the revelation or seek to extenuate its force. He did not tell himself that the matter was a trifle, or that its effect would be transient. He recognized that he had fallen from the state of a priest vowed to Heaven, to that of a man whose whole heart and mind had gone out in love for a woman and were filled with her image. ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... children, a relatively insignificant number, no doubt, but remarkable enough from another point of view. It is manifest that, pricked by remorse—for my client is religious, in his way, and has a conscience, as I shall prove later—and desiring to extenuate his sin as far as possible, he has tried six times at least to substitute lay nourishment for clerical. That this was merely an experiment we can hardly doubt: for if it had been only a question of ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to recommend this girl to the indulgence of the tribunal, and to extenuate as much as ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... fatal curiosity of Fatima and her sister Anne. We must extenuate here, nor aught set down in malice, remembering that Wagner knew only the women of his own day, before the sex was uplifted and purified by the vote, and he naturally depicted them with the man-engendered vices that were then a part of their unhappy heritage. ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... an ineffable tangle of emotion, he sought to plead, to extenuate his attitude, to move her from her own. He ranted torrentially, but in vain. She stood as cold and aloof as earlier she had been warm and clinging. He had proved the measure of his love. He could go ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... in an unguarded moment he induced the inconsiderate Maria to betray, we will not say the confidence of her friend, but such facts as could only have come to her knowledge by the intimacy of unaffected association. If there were any thing to extenuate this breach of decorum by Maria, it was the manner in which it was effected. Miss Osgood had just returned from one of her frequent visits to the villa of Mr. Henley, when Delafield made his customary morning ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... effectual obstacle to the pity of the senate. He had sought Julia; he had detailed to her the confession of Nydia; he had easily, therefore, lulled any scruple of conscience which might have led her to extenuate the offence of Glaucus by avowing her share in his frenzy: and the more readily, for her vain heart had loved the fame and the prosperity of Glaucus—not Glaucus himself, she felt no affection for a disgraced ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... that I am no longer the victim of those illusions which pursued me throughout my life, I blush at the remembrance of my conduct, and the penance I impose on myself is to tell the whole truth, and to extenuate nothing in these Memoirs. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... bandying quotations and syllogisms. The point discussed was the merit of the oration for Cluentius, as descriptive, first, of the genius of the speaker; and, secondly, of the manners of the times. Pleyel laboured to extenuate both these species of merit, and tasked his ingenuity, to shew that the orator had embraced a bad cause; or, at least, a doubtful one. He urged, that to rely on the exaggerations of an advocate, or to make the ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... lawyer, is coming here at one o'clock, and before he comes I wish you to read over Lady R—'s confession, if I may so call it, which will explain the motives of her conduct towards you. I am afraid that it will not extenuate her conduct, but recollect that she has now made all the reparation in her power, and that we must forgive as we hope to be forgiven. Sit down and read these papers, while I unpack one or two ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... whole body of the scanty force on duty in the town. "Can you pick out the man who insulted you?" asked the sable autocrat. Captain H—— pointed him out; but beginning to fear the infliction of some punishment too severe, attempted to extenuate the offence. "Stop!" cried Christophe, and called the soldier near him. "Do you say this was the man of whom you have told me?" "Yes, sir, it is," replied the alarmed captain; "but"—In an instant Christophe had drawn ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... Anecdotes and Remarks, tending to illustrate the moral and political characters of three nations. To which is added, a correct Engraving of Dartmoor Prison, representing the Massacre of American prisoners. Written by himself." "Nothing extenuate, or set down ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... be it nowise apprehended, that any personal connection of ours with Teufelsdrockh, Heuschrecke or this Philosophy of Clothes, can pervert our judgment, or sway us to extenuate or exaggerate. Powerless, we venture to promise, are those private Compliments themselves. Grateful they may well be; as generous illusions of friendship; as fair mementos of bygone unions, of those nights and suppers ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged; their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable—and let it come! I repeat it. Let it come! It is in vain to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ear the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field! ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... such leading and general topics as are now called common places. Gorgias, he adds, did the same, and wrote panegyrics and invectives on every subject: for he thought it was the province of an Orator to be able either to exaggerate, or extenuate, as occasion might require. Antiphon the Rhamnusian composed several essays of the same species; and (according to Thucydides, a very respectable writer, who was present to hear him) pleaded a capital cause in his own defence, with ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... engagement and all that, long ago." She looked down deeply at her hand; and then she gazed at her sister. "And, oh, Sancie, you've had your honeymoon!" Before the deadly simplicity of that last stroke Sanchia fell, and lay quivering. She could not ask for mercy, she could explain, extenuate, nothing. Huddled she lay. At this aching moment the one thing that the world held worth her having seemed to be the approbation of this butterfly child. For Vicky's happiness was specific. Nuptial bliss lay, as it were, crystallised within it. There are moments in one's ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... therfor in this cause doth saye. He that hathe obserued the whole lawe / and dothe offend in one / is made giltye of all. Which sayinge truly is harde and sharpe / but most true / and teachith all men that they shuld not extenuate synne. But this place of Iames / is not to be vnderstonded / as thoughe that all synnes ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr
... injurious and dangerous always, and which must be finally fatal to the societies which admit it. This is no longer regarded as a subject of argument and investigation. The opinions referred to are assumed as settled, or the truth of them as self-evident. If any voice is raised among ourselves to extenuate or to vindicate, it is unheard. The judgment is made up. We can have no hearing before the tribunal of the civilized world. Yet, on this very account, it is more important that we, the inhabitants of the slaveholding States of America, insulated as we are, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... extenuate my culpability towards you. I entreat your pardon for my fault. I desire you, if you please, to keep this transaction secret, in order that the world shall not have any opportunity to speak of an affair ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... be, were that disposition of mind confined to painting only: but if it should prove extended to more serious subjects, we can only hope that the violent excess of the temptation may prove some excuse, or at least in a slight degree extenuate the offence: A wise man cannot believe half he hears in Italy to be sure, but a pious man will be cautious not ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... as existing destroyed, or say, it exists annihilated. The first argument above is also nugatory. These drawbacks, however, do not wholly destroy the force of the foregoing criticism, or at all extenuate the obvious tautology and impropriety of such phrases as, is being, was being, &c. The gentlemen who affirm that this new form of conjugation "is being introduced into the language," (since they allow participles to follow possessive pronouns) may very fairly be asked, "What ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Adam to the point, either to confess or deny the truth of the case. If he confess, then he concludes himself under judgment; if he deny, then he addeth to his sin: Therefore he neither denieth nor confesseth, but so as he may lessen and extenuate his sin. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... judicious writer; yet he very often falls into these errors: and I once more beg the reader's pardon for accusing him of them. Only let him consider, that I live in an age where my least faults are severely censured; and that I have no way left to extenuate my failings, but by showing as great ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... and courageous. It would, indeed, be difficult to deny or extenuate the appalling truth of Mr. Sinclair's indictment."— ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... to Macartney, "what do you make of that? That's worth coming up for. That ought to extenuate a good deal." James was quick to notice ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... who appear here as counsel for the Crown, shortly to open the history of this whole affair, that you may be better able to attend to and understand the evidence we have to lay before you. And though, in doing this, I will endeavour rather to extenuate than to aggravate, yet I trust I have such a history to open as will shock the ears of ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... again by the prophets as to happen. The natural consequence of this conviction in the minds of those nations, would be a revulsion of the feelings to the opposite extreme. They would exaggerate the merits, and extenuate the demerits of "God's servant." They would reflect with astonishment and commiseration on their past sufferings. "We considered them," they might exclaim, "as a God- abandoned race, and devoted to wretchedness by him for having crucified ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... find some reason or other to give for, or excuses to palliate. Men plead want to extenuate theft, and strong provocations to excuse murders, and many a lame excuse they will bring for whoring; but this sordid habit even those that practise it will own to be a crime, and make no excuse for it; and the most I could ever hear a man say for it was ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... that "he was obliged to sign an agreement to quit the colony forthwith; but instead of proceeding to England, Governor Bligh landed at the Derwent."—(vol. i. p. 121). And seems rather to extenuate this breach of faith. Were no agreement of this class binding the rigours of captivity and civil strife could never be mitigated. The following is Bligh's own statement:—"I took the Porpoise on the terms they proposed to me, and the moment I got the command of the Porpoise, ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... of a few years, erected eighteen different models of religion, and avenged the violated dignity of the church. The zealous Hilary, who, from the peculiar hardships of his situation, was inclined to extenuate rather than to aggravate the errors of the Oriental clergy, declares, that in the wide extent of the ten provinces of Asia, to which he had been banished, there could be found very few prelates who ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... one of the charges in which I am personally concerned. As to the other matters objected against me, which in their turn I shall mention to you, remember once more I do not mean to extenuate or excuse. Why should I, when the things charged are among those upon which I found all my reputation? What would be left to me, if I myself was the man who softened and blended and diluted and weakened all the distinguishing colors of my life, so as to leave nothing distinct and determinate in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... you have not, of quarter-sounds and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have; with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet. We represent small sounds as great and deep, likewise great sounds, extenuate and sharp; we make divers tremblings and warblings of sounds, which in their original are entire. We represent and imitate all articulate sounds and letters, and the voices and notes of beasts and birds. We have certain helps, which set to the ear do further the hearing greatly; we have also ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... and lay there before me strangling with sobs and cries. "Should Mr. Floyd know," he murmured, "should Mr. Floyd even guess, that I am the wretched wreck of a man that I am, he would not let Helen stay with me another moment. He would extenuate, he would pity, nothing: he does not know what it is for a man like me, once proud, witty, gay, to bear seclusion and depression and decay. I long at times for some of the inspiration of my youth: it comes with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... replied Paganel; "and that ought to be taken into account, not to extenuate, but to explain, their cannibal habits. Quadrupeds, and even birds, are rare on these inhospitable shores, so that the Maories have always eaten human flesh. There are even 'man-eating seasons,' as there are in civilized countries hunting seasons. Then begin the great wars, ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... that climate suffice to send the stoutest African to his grave. But he can well be spared. While he is fast sinking into premature old age, negro boys in Virginia are growing up as fast into vigorous manhood to supply the void which cruelty is making in Louisiana. God forbid that I should extenuate the horrors of the slave trade in any form! But I do think this its worst form. Bad enough is it that civilised men should sail to an uncivilised quarter of the world where slavery exists, should there buy wretched barbarians, and should carry them away to ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... politeness cannot extenuate, though it may gloss over, my imprudence; and by delaying to unfold my little history to you, my crime may seem more black while hidden than ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... gardening, and the householder, having begun so rightly, has now nothing to do to complete the main fabric of his garden but to carry this flow of natural draperies on round the domicile's back and farther side and forward to its front again. Thus may he wonderfully extenuate, even above its reach and where it does not conceal, the house's architectural faults, thus winsomely enhance all its architectural charm; like a sweet human mistress of the place, putting into generous shadow all the ill, ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... contrast to this dingy, confined, close dungeon! And was it possible that he had ever wandered at will in that fair scene with a companion fairer? Such thoughts might well drive a man mad. With all his errors, and all his disposition at present not to extenuate them, Ferdinand Armine could not refrain from esteeming himself unlucky. Perhaps it is more distressing to believe ourselves unfortunate, than to ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... and apparently well-grounded belief that a felony is about to be perpetrated will extenuate a homicide committed in prevention of it, though the defendant be but a private citizen" (25 Ala., 15.) See Wharton, above quoted, who embodies the doctrine in his text (Vol. 2, ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... creatures, he deserves censure for some part of his conduct in life, so candour, and indeed common integrity, enjoin it upon us to accompany that acknowledgment with all such circumstances, and the reasonings upon them that occur to us, as may serve to extenuate the criminality of those acts, and to show that his misconduct was the natural, or rather the necessary and inevitable result of the circumstances to which he was exposed, and nothing more than the every-day issues of human infirmity. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... known that Lord Byron never spared himself. He invented faults rather than sought to extenuate them. And so he fully merits belief, when he happens to do himself justice. Let us attend ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... or pride of intellect, that betrayed him; and to call his faults errors of genius is a mischievous fallacy. If they were, then they were no lesson for the rest of us; if they were not, to call them so is to encourage certain gin-and-water philosophers who would fain extenuate their unpleasant vices by the plea that they are the necessary complement of unusual powers,—as if the path to immortality were through the kennel, and fine verses were to be written only at the painful sacrifice of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... Canada brought to the king fresh complaints of Duchesneau against Frontenac, and of Frontenac against Duchesneau; and the king replied with rebukes, exhortations, and threats to both. At first he had shown a disposition to extenuate and excuse the faults of Frontenac, but every year his letters grew sharper. In 1681 he wrote: "Again I urge you to banish from your mind the difficulties which you have yourself devised against the execution of my orders; to act with mildness ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... regard to truth, however, compelled me to the insertion of these facts, which I have offered merely as facts, without presuming to connect with them any comment of my own; esteeming it the part of a faithful historian, 'to extenuate nothing, nor set down aught in malice.' The fatal accident happened at eight o'clock in the morning, about an hour after Captain Cook landed. It did not seem, that the king, or his sons, were witnesses to it; but it is supposed that they withdrew ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... just action that he ever performed. He is so notorious a villain that even the infamous National Convention expelled him from its bosom, and since his Ministry no man has been found base enough, in my debased country, to extenuate, much less to defend, his past enormities. In a nation so greatly corrupted and immoral, this alone is more than ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... son we will speak later," said Harley, strangely softened. "But before I say more of him, let me ask you to explain; let me hope that you can extenuate what—" ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... would have been doiwos or deiwos or dewos, had coined a new word for god from a different root, yet coming so near to dewos as thewos? These internal difficulties seem to me nearly as great as the external: at all events it would not be right to attempt to extenuate either. ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... has been my endeavour to enable you to form an impartial judgment of the police of Paris, by exhibiting it with all its perfections and imperfections. Borrowing the language of MERCIER, I shall trace the institution through all its ramifications, and, in pointing out its effects, I shall "nothing extenuate, nor set down ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... think I want to extenuate sins of passion (though, in very truth, the sin of Magdalene is a light one compared to that of Judas); but observe, sins of passion, if of real passion, are often the errors and backfalls of noble souls; but prodigality is mere and pure ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... man I hated placed me in the most cruel embarrassment. I had exhausted every resource. A fatal idea occurred to me. Believing myself certain of impunity, I committed an infamous action. You see, my father, I conceal nothing from you. I confess the ignominy of my conduct. I seek to extenuate nothing. One of two resolutions remains for me to take, and I have now to decide which. The first is to kill myself, and to leave your name dishonored, for if I do not pay to-day even the twenty-five thousand ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... is, as the model of all that is generous, hospitable, and magnanimous, is in some degree fashionable; but although I am as warm an admirer of all that is really excellent and amiable in my countrymen as any man, yet I cannot, nor will I, extenuate their weak and indefensible points. That they possess the elements of a noble and exalted national character, I grant; nay, that they actually do possess such a character, under limitations, I am ready to maintain. Irishmen, setting aside their religious and political prejudices, are grateful, affectionate, ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... the great aim of life; he saw things in their true light, and taught me to see them also; he called things by their proper names; and while he could make ample allowance for the faults of others, he never attempted to extenuate his own errors; nor did he mistake vice for virtue, or the semblance of virtue for the reality. From the companionship of such a person I could not fail to reap much benefit. I did not enjoy it long. We afterwards met under very different ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... to Mrs. Thrale on July 10, 1780:—'Last week I saw flesh but twice and I think fish once; the rest was pease. You are afraid, you say, lest I extenuate myself too fast, and are an enemy to violence; but did you never hear nor read, dear Madam, that every man has his genius, and that the great rule by which all excellence is attained and all success procured, is ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... come, Egeus; you shall go with me; I have some private schooling for you both.— For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself To fit your fancies to your father's will, Or else the law of Athens yields you up,— Which by no means we may extenuate,— To death, or to a vow of single life.— Come, my Hippolyta: what cheer, my love? Demetrius, and Egeus, go along; I must employ you in some business Against our nuptial, and confer with you Of something ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... ambitious, capable, popular man who might breed mischief for the rule of the EMPRESS of INDIA. So the SENAPATTI must be got rid of at earliest possible moment, and in most absolutely complete fashion. Arbitrary this; tyrannical perhaps; unjust possibly. None of GORST's business to defend or extenuate it. All he could say was it is not a new thing; done wherever British flag waves under foreign skies; in New Zealand with the Maori King; in South Africa with CETEWAYO; in Egypt with ARABI; in the Soudan with ZEBEHR. "In India," ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 27, 1891 • Various
... under imperative necessity, I employed thieves and burglars, I was neither a robber nor a murderer in intention. I wanted to get my own money, withheld from me against my expressed desire—that was all. I do not say this to extenuate my crime, but to let you know the exact truth. I cannot dwell upon this part of the dreadful tale. You know already that the thieves murdered Sir Lemuel Levison in his chamber. It seems that he had not gone to bed, but had fallen ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... theory or mystic exaltation the drama may have reflected, it was still more emphatically the repository of some of the most precious traditions of civilized humanity—traditions which philosophy has sometimes tended to extenuate, if ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... claims more and more distinctly; France is exasperated and rejects them more and more positively. You can have no idea of the effect produced throughout France by the conversation of M. de Bismarck with M. Jules Favre. Bismarck, indeed, seems to have some notion of it, for he attempts to extenuate what he said or allowed to be understood. Evidently the result of this interview has been to leave the belligerents mutually more embittered than they were before; and the intervention of the neutral Powers at the present time ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... went now and then to the dry-goods store for dress goods, which Pheeny made up; and Eddie left an occasional sum at the Pantatorium for a fresh alpaca coat, or for a new pair of trousers when the seat of the old ones grew too refulgent or perilously extenuate. As Eddie stood up at his tall desk most of the time, however, it was rather his shoes than his pantaloons that felt the wear and ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... for poor Maud, as a rule, but he felt a need to shed a little gaiety, to extenuate the accident as far as possible, to turn it into a joke, so as to prevent his girls from being panic-stricken. He talked of heads smashed to a jelly, of legs in smithereens, of a bicyclist who had had not one, but both eyes caught in the chain. As for himself, when he was a small ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... above all, let no example, no fashion, no witticism, no foolish desire of rising above what knaves call prejudices, tempt you to excuse, extenuate or ridicule the least breach of morality, but upon every occasion shew the greatest abhorrence of such proceedings, and hold virtue and religion in the ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... Africa, would have perished forever, but who are now civilized and Christianized. Satan would be glad, I think, to see American slavery come to an end. We have no right to go and steal people in order to convert them; the salvation of these slaves will not, in one iota, extenuate the guilt and punishment of those who were engaged in the slave-trade. But "the wrath of men shall praise Thee." In the writings of anti-slavery men I do not remember to have met with cordial acknowledgments ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... him, yet still, though she might stand clear in his eyes as to the main points, he must, and would blame her weakness in first consenting to this deception—he who was above deceit. She had not absolutely told, but she had admitted a falsehood; she had acted a falsehood. This she could not extenuate. Her motive at first, to save Lady Davenant's life, was good; but then her weakness afterwards, in being persuaded time after time by Cecilia, could not well be excused. She was conscious that she had sunk step by step, dragged down that slippery path ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... poor lady's fall; nothing can do that; because virtue is, and ought to be, preferable to all considerations, and to life itself. But, methinks, I love this dear lady so well for the sake of her edifying penitence, that I would fain extenuate her crime, if I could; and the rather, as in all probability, it was a first love on both sides; and so he could not appear to her as a ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... and for ages will be, sunk in the grossest Fetichism,—Polytheism,—and every form of absurd and misshapen Monotheism;—the horrors of all which he proceeds faithfully, but not too faithfully, to describe, and sometimes, when he is in the mood, to soften and extenuate; in order that he may find that the "grim Calmuck," and even the savage, "whose hands are smeared over with the blood of human sacrifices," are yet in possession of the "absolute ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... Charlemagne,) entertained Ebn Oaz at his court in the quality of jester, he desired him one day, in the presence of the Sultana and all her followers, to make an excuse worse than the crime it was intended to extenuate: the Caliph walked about, waiting for a reply. Alter a long pause, Ebn Oaz skulked behind the throne, and pinched his highness in the rear. The rage of the Caliph was unbounded. "I beg a thousand pardons of your Majesty," said Ebn Oaz, "but I thought it was her Highness the Sultana." This was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... declared several times before his death, that he received his wound from Savage; nor did Savage at his trial deny the fact, but endeavoured partly to extenuate it, by urging the suddenness of the whole action, and the impossibility of any ill design, or premeditated malice; and partly to justify it by the necessity of self-defence, and the hazard of his own life, if he had lost ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... regard to Judgment on the arrested Raths has been received. But do you think I don't understand your Advocate fellows and their quirks; or how they can polish up a bad cause, and by their hyperboles exaggerate or extenuate as they find fit? The Goose-quill class (FEDERZEUG) can't look at facts. When Soldiers set to investigate anything, on an order given, they go the straight way to the kernel of the matter; upon which, plenty of objections from the Goose-quill people!—But you may assure yourself ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the virtuous a disapprobation of the wicked; he carries his persons indifferently through right and wrong, and at the close dismisses them without further care, and leaves their examples to operate by chance. This fault the barbarity of his age cannot extenuate; for it is always a writer's duty to make the world better, and justice is a virtue independant on ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... has had an opportunity of remarking, the generality of professed Christians among the higher classes, either altogether overlook or deny, or at least greatly extenuate the corruption and weakness here in question. They acknowledge indeed that there is, and ever has been in the world, a great portion of vice and wickedness; that mankind have been ever prone to sensuality and selfishness, in disobedience to the more refined and liberal ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... been simply occupied with this thought at present, no doubt the same impulse would have been experienced; but now it was my brother whom I was irresistibly persuaded to regard as the contriver of that ill of which I had been forewarned. This persuasion did not extenuate my fears or my danger. Why then did I again approach the closet and withdraw the bolt? My resolution was instantly conceived, ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne |
