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More "Excusable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the property intact and under the perpetual control of one partnership, the granddaughter of Wyckholme was to marry the grandson of Skaggs within the year after the death of the surviving partner. The penalty to be imposed upon them if the conditions were not complied with—neither to be excusable for the defection of the other—lay in the provision that the whole industry and its accumulated fortune, including the land (and they owned practically the entire island), was to go to the islanders—or, in plain words, to the original owners, their heirs, share and share alike, all ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... apparent willingness with which some men revert to an aimless life can best be accounted for by the savage or barbarian instincts of our natures. The West has produced many types of the vagabond,—it might be excusable to say, won them from every condition of society. From the cultured East, with all the advantages which wealth and educational facilities can give to her sons, they flocked; from the South, with her pride of ancestry, they came; even the British Isles contributed their ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... in a most invaluable manner, the pronunciation of English at that time; and in the second, it shows that Orm had a sound understanding of that principle of English which has been set at nought by those who would spell "traveller" "traveler." He knew that the tendency, and the, if not warned, excusable tendency, of an English tongue would be to pronounce this traveeler. It is a pity that knowledge which existed in the twelfth century should apparently have become partial ignorance close to the ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... my mother and my father on Sabur, King of the Persians; for he would have slain them; but my mother escaped and I know not whether he killed my father or not." When Gharib heard these words, he replied, "By Allah, thou art indeed excusable! But who were thy father and mother and what are their names?" Murad Shah said, "My sire was Gharib, King of Al-Irak, and my mother Fakhr Taj, daughter of King Sabur of Persia." When Gharib heard this, he gave a great cry and fell ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... in intuitions which prolong experience just as it occurs, in its full immediacy; on the other hand, all representation, thought, theory, calculation, or discourse is so much mutilation of the truth, excusable only because imposed upon us by practical exigences. The world, being a feeling, must be felt to be known, and then the world and the knowledge of it are identical; but if it is talked about or thought about it is denaturalised, ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... involuntary botanical researches he was a sorry sight. His clothes were torn in many places, and his face and hands badly scratched, while the red stains of the raspberries had turned his light tweeds into something resembling an impressionist sketch. It was perhaps excusable that he had altogether lost his temper. He burst out in angry abuse of the mare, the bullock, the raspberry clump, and the expedition in general—anger which the scarcely concealed grins of the stockmen only served to intensify. Norah, who had choked with laughter ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... you would be excusable in having less wrath against an object so beloved, against a lover so dear; you have done enough, you have seen the King; do not urge on the result [of that interview]. Do not persist in ...
— The Cid • Pierre Corneille
... it," I answered, with, I hope, excusable duplicity. "The fact is, Mark, I had formed a wrong opinion of you gentlemen; and in future I hope to make as bold a robber as the ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... found, he writes at the beginning of his work, with the elegant gracefulness of a man who knows how to do everything that he does well, that I carry my apology to excess; but that is excusable: listen to what Pietro Pugliano, my master of horsemanship, at the Emperor's Court, said: "Hee sayde souldiours were the noblest estate of mankinde, and horsemen, the noblest of souldiours. Hee sayde, they were the maisters of warre, and ornaments of peace: speedy goers and strong abiders, ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... her reward. If then, in the end, she should have succeeded in getting Edward back she would have kept her man within the limits that are all that wifehood has to expect. She was even taught that such excesses in men are natural, excusable—as if they ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... widely spread. It is not merely the artizan who spends all that he earns, but the classes above him, who cannot plead the same excuse of ignorance. Many of what are called the "upper" classes are no more excusable than the "lower." They waste their means on keeping up appearances, and in feeding folly, dissipation, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... [57] It is excusable to use two words for the single verb savoir to bring out the meaning. King Bagdemagus does not "know" as a fact that Lancelot has slain his son, though he fears it and feels almost ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... indicating their only valid apology—we should degrade both the white and the red men, by attributing to the former all imaginable vices, and, to the latter, a peculiar aptitude in acquiring them. These mistakes are natural and excusable—as the man who kills another in self-defence is justifiable; but the Indian character is not the less misconceived, just as the man slain is not less dead, than if malice had existed in both cases. To ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... not the whole; Yet say I am not guilty! for the blood Of this man weighs on me, as if I shed it, Though, by the Power who abhorreth human blood, I did not!—nay, once spared it, when I might And could—aye, perhaps, should (if our self-safety Be e'er excusable in such defences Against the attacks of over-potent foes): But pray for him, for me, and all my house; For, as I said, though I be innocent, I know not why, a like remorse is on me, As if he had fallen by me or mine. Pray for me, Father! I ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... of defeat. Yates' passion for office led him into strange blunders. He seemed willing to become the candidate of any party, under any conditions, at any time, if only he could step into the official shoes of George Clinton. He was excusable in 1789, perhaps, when the way opened up a fair chance of success, but in 1795 his ambition subjected him to ridicule as well as to humiliation. It was said derisively that he was defeated, although every freeholder in the State ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... who had been prefect of the praetorium, to Vercelli, who, to all persons capable of distinguishing between right and wrong, will appear very excusable in respect to the act for which he was condemned. For his offence was only that, fearing a violent disturbance which had arisen, he fled to the protection of his prince. And the treatment inflicted on him could not be read without great horror, when the preamble of the public ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... service. All is guess work whose father and mother are "Tradition and Ignorance." Ignorance of the kind that is wholly inexcusable to anyone but a medical doctor. An Osteopath who does not understand the general law of tumefaction of the whole system is not excusable from the fact that tumefaction, disease and death are so plainly written on the face of all diseases that the blind need not have eyes to see, nor the philosopher any brain to enable him to know this foundation is the highest known ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... joining in the retreat, or lending aid to the attacking party, Amy had snatched up her camera, and was bending over the finder in an absorption which rendered her quite oblivious to Ruth's denunciation. She was, indeed, excusable for thinking that the scene under the maple would make a spirited and unusual photograph. Old Bess was rearing and plunging with a coltish animation quite inconsistent with the dignity of her twenty-three years. Priscilla and Peggy, armed with the tin ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... be the light," I said, "for I don't feel in the least faint." That was a fib, because when you are as miserable as I was at that minute your heart feels cold and heavy, as though it could hardly go on beating. But I felt that if ever a fib were excusable, that one was. "I'm a little tired, though," I went on. "None of us got to bed till after three last night; and this day, though very nice of course, has been rather long. I think, if you don't mind, Aunt Lil, I'll go straight to my room when ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... fruit-trees, and leave them scarcely subsistence enough to preserve them from starving. They had indeed imbibed from the crew of the Rurik a favourable opinion of white people; but the ship which now approached them was a monster in comparison of it, and they were excusable in supposing it manned by another ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... swayed by the shallow judgments of a public whose taste he despised. Was it possible that he had allowed himself to think less well of "Abundance" because it was not to the taste of the average novel-reader? Such false humility was less excusable than the crudest appetite for praise: it was ridiculous to try to do conscientious work if one's self-esteem were at the mercy of popular judgments. All this the professor's letters delicately and indirectly conveyed to Betton, with the result that the author of "Abundance" began to recognize in ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... settled, I hope to see Kate's cheeks once more plump and round and rosy. I hope not only to see them, but to kiss them too. I'm not too old to fancy such things, I can tell you; and now, widow, hadn't I a right to be a little boisterous? Ah! I see that you think me excusable; but bring me a pipe, and I'll give you all the particulars over that. I'm a little thirsty, too; for I've already told a long story, and have yet a longer one ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... we made a mistake. The conspiracies of David Rossi were not criminal, and his aims were not unrighteous. I have been instructed on this subject, and now I see everything in a different light. Yes, a great mistake, although a natural and excusable one, and if that was the cause and origin of this terrible event, the Holy Father who ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... oblige me with the sequel of your papers. I was a little out of humour with you at first;—I must own I was:—for I cannot bear denial, when my heart is set upon any thing. But Lady Betty became your advocate, and said, she thought you very excusable: since, no doubt, there might be many tender things, circumstanced as you were, well enough for your parents to see, but for nobody else; and relations of our side, the least of all, whose future intimacy, and frequent ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... Mawworm says, a number of devotees, male and female, all very tipsy, in a most blasphemous fashion, the table being covered with rummers of punch, and fragments of pies and cold meat; but this did not render our conduct more excusable, I will acknowledge. Finally, as a trophy, Percales, who was a wickeder little chap than I took him for, with Longtram's help, unshipped the bell of the conventicle from the little belfry, and fastening it below Smoothpate's gig, we dashed back to Mr Shingle's ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... eXiled eXqueen of the eXquimaux, eXceedingly eXcelled in eXerting an eXquisite eXactness in eXpense in general; but eXhibited the most eXceptional, eXtensive, eXtraordinary, eXcessive, eXtravagant, but eXcusable eXuberance. When she visited Cole's Book Arcade, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... except the one place—the nook where Una bathed. Estelle de Tourneville secured that spot from the searchers' gaze. No man dared go there. Una could forgive the worst of tempers to the woman who purchased such security. And the Comtesse was excusable. Doubtless, she paid a heavy price for a delicately-nurtured and fastidious lady. No one ever knew what she endured. Neither to Una nor any one else did she tell at the time or afterwards the details of ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... sensible thing for a girl in my position to marry, and, having no one to attend wisely to such a matter for me, that I should endeavor to attend to it myself as wisely as I can. Also, that a little bit of pique, caused by the fact that I am to have an old schoolfellow for a stepmother, is excusable." ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... believed that, when his own hasty nature led him into a lawsuit with Signor Barricini, is excusable. But such blindness on your part really can not be admitted. Pray consider that Barricini could have served no interest of his own by forging the letter. I will not talk to you about his character, for you are not acquainted with it, and are prejudiced against ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... imposing upon it what is the real office of the teeth; and also that of checking them from eating too much. When food is not properly masticated, the stomach is longer before it feels satisfied; which is perhaps the most frequent, and certainly the most excusable cause of eating more than is fairly sufficient. Thoughtless people will often, for their own amusement, give children morsels of high dishes, and sips of spirituous or fermented liquors, to see whether they ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... were quarantined in, and the others out. Judge Wyatt had installed himself in a hotel and telegraphed the Dowager to keep Patty at St. Ursula's during the holidays. Poor Patty had been happily packing her trunk when the news arrived; and as she unpacked it, she distributed a few excusable tears ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... mean, underhand watchfulness for an opportunity which is almost excusable in one of the unfortunates against whom every man's hand is raised to-day, he had never parted with his thirst for revenge. The moment seemed propitious. It was within his power to lay for Anna Agar one of those spiteful ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... thought, or do a dishonorable action, except that of substituting you for Mr. Fitzgerald's legal heir. And if I have at all succeeded in impressing upon your mind the frantic agony of her soul, desolate and shockingly abused as she was, I think you will agree with me in considering that an excusable offence; especially as she would have repaired the wrong a few hours later, if it had been in her power. With regard to an alliance with the colored race, I think it would be a more legitimate source of pride to have descended from that truly great man, Toussaint L'Ouverture, who was ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... belonged. He always held implicitly and sometimes explicitly that gifted people live under a kind of dispensation of grace; the law existing solely for dull souls. What in a clown is a crime punishable by the laws of the land might in a man of genius be a necessary development, or at any rate an excusable offence. He had nothing to say for the servant-girl who had sinned with the shopman, but if artist or poet were to carry off another man's wife, it might ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... act under the orders of any civil officer. The commanding officers of the troops so employed are directly responsible to their military superiors. Any unlawful or unauthorized act on their part would not be excusable on the ground of any order or request received by them from a marshal or ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... her painfully that, even there, Chris's respect for the conventions of his world was not at fault. Flirtations, "crushes," "cases," and "suitors" were entirely acceptable in the circle that Chris so conspicuously ornamented. To pay desperate attentions to a pretty young married woman was quite excusable; it ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... that we cannot take our daughters to the theater without risking familiarizing them with vice in one form or another. I do not think I am overstating the situation when I say that it would be reasonably inferred from most of our so-called musical shows and farces that the natural, customary and excusable amusement of the modern man after working hours—whether the father of a family or a youth of twenty—is a promiscuous ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... to pass it, but they were obstinate. He then resorted to a trick which is in itself objectionable, but which is perhaps excusable when the great body of the people wish a certain thing and a small body like the Legislative Council are resolved to thwart them. It is part of our constitutional law that all bills dealing with money matters ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... Lady Bedrulbudour knew that her father was angry and saw the naked sword in his hand, she was like to swoon for fear; [405] so she raised her head and said to him, "Dear [406] my father, be not wroth with me, neither be thou hasty in thine anger, for that I am excusable in that which thou hast seen from me. [407] Do but hearken what hath betided me and I am well assured that, whenas thou hearest my story of that which hath happened to me these two nights past, thou wilt excuse me and ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... and less excusable was his acceptance of the pension of ten thousand maravedis which had been offered to the member of the expedition who should first sight land. Columbus was granted a very large gratuity on his arrival in Barcelona, and even taking the ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... can not be correct. Both committees, we are bound to assume are equally honest, disinterested, and competent, because the members of both committees considered in making up a decision such discrepancy of judgment and the system which renders it possible may be almost excusable, perhaps, but in the Fat Stock Show, where we deal so fully in details and exact figures, and where we pretend to use our best efforts in every practical manner to get at and publish for the benefit of a confiding world the reliable, bottom ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... but there was need of sternness. Moral life and death were in the balance. If the Scots people were to be told that the crimes which roused their indignation were excusable, or beyond punishment, or to be hushed up and slipped over in any way, there was an end of morality among them. Every man, from the greatest to the least, would go and do likewise, according to his powers of evil. That method was being tried ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... the English Poets, or the description of Winterslow and its neighbourhood in the "Farewell to Essay-writing," or "On a Landscape of Nicolas Poussin" in the Table-Talk. Read these pieces and nothing else, and an excusable impression might be given that the writer was nothing if not florid. But turn over a dozen pages, and the most admirable examples of the grave and simple manner occur. He is an inveterate quoter, yet few men are ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... not see a single soul in the Senate of all those whom he had called upon to speak during his consulship. Within such narrow limits are the powers of living of even the mightiest throng confined that it seems to me the royal tears are not only excusable but even praiseworthy. For the story goes that when Xerxes cast his eyes over his enormous host, he wept to think of the fate that in such brief space would lay so many thousands low. But that is all the more reason why we should apply all the fleeting, ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... of life, and from which to be relieved she had only consented to assist the looser pleasures of the amorous duke; but, added she, I would not methinks have her seem to glory in her shame, and in a manner of life which her misfortunes alone can render excusable; nor can I approve of the indulgence her mistaken triumph meets with, because it may not only destroy all notions of regret in herself for what her necessities oblige her to, but also make others, who have not ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... sure to be mistaken for her lover. We never came across a brother and sister in real life who ever gave the most suspicious person any grounds for mistaking them for lovers; but the stage brother and sister are so affectionate that the error is excusable. ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome
... it would have seemed to Paul so simple and easy a matter to point out to the Doctor the very excusable error into which he had fallen. It was no more than he would have to do repeatedly upon his return, and here was an excellent opportunity ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... cases been for so long the tormentor," said Madame de la Baudraye guilelessly, "that the crime would sometimes seem almost excusable if the ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... policy, we should entirely overlook them. If even Lord Ellenborough, in the excitement of the glorious moment in which he penned the proclamation, departed from the style of all previous state documents of that character, was it not very excusable? But we are disposed to vindicate the propriety of the step he took. It may be said that it was highly impolitic to make so frank an avowal to the natives of India, that a mere change of Ministry at home may be attended with a total and instant ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... which 'might have been foreseen.'[602] Otherwise we should have to excuse a man because he had neglected to calculate, whereas to calculate is the very essence of virtue. A man who fired a gun down a crowded street would not be excusable because he had not thought of the result. He 'ought' to have thought of it. The question of moral approval of any given action turns upon these questions. Did a man foresee evil consequences and disregard them? He is then cruel. Did ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... it was supposed that the very beautiful designs for the entirety and for each detail of this noble work was due to Raphael. The guide-books all copied the statement one after the other; and they were indeed excusable in doing so, for the large and magnificent folio which was published at Rome by the abbot and monks in 1845, containing engravings of every detail of the celebrated carvings, declares on the title-page that the work was executed "by Stefano da Bergamo after the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... faith, 'twould be excusable in him to tremble," replied Aramis, "for even I feel a shudder at the recollection; hold, just above that tree is the little spot where I ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... all this is said (continues Eleutherius) it may be represented in favour of the Chymists, that, in one regard the Liberty they take in using names, if it be excusable at any time, may be more so when they speak of the substances whereinto their Analysis resolves mixt Bodies: Since as Parents have the Right to name their own Children, it has ever been allow'd to the Authors of new Inventions, ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... by intercourse with my sister, but my creative instincts, which had long lain dormant, were stimulated afresh by the society of my brilliant and learned brother-in-law. It was brought home to me, without in any way hurting my feelings, that my early marriage, excusable as it may have been, was yet an error to be retrieved, and my mind regained sufficient elasticity to compose some sketches, designed this time not merely to meet the requirements of the theatre as I knew it. During the last wretched days I had spent with Minna at Blasewitz, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... have been consulted, not you. If Jean's action is indeed excusable, his want of courtesy is ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... wilderness, and dwellings in the desert! Monsieur Dumas might indeed be reluctant to accept the flattering overtures of a country which is known to cherish such antipathies to his great ancestor Ham, and all that interesting family; and is quite, excusable for preferring the persecutions of French courts of justice, to the patronage which American law would more fully accord to his books than to his person; but why should not you, my dear Godfrey, become as original in your manner ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... aided in inducing her to remain. Perhaps a vague, but a very natural, expectation that she was again to dismiss the commander of the Coquette, had its influence on her first decision. In order that the reader may judge how far this boldness was excusable, we shall describe ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... company after my first visit to the Royal Society. "Then how did he act? Was he very proud and haughty, as if he could not speak to other people?" And I was happy to be able to reply that though Lord Lister, perhaps of all men living, would be most excusable did he carry in his manner the sense of his achievements and honors, yet in point of fact no man could conceivably be more free from any apparent self-consciousness. As one watches him now he is seen to pass from group to group with cordial hand-shake and pleasant word, clearly the most affable ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... always had her fresh egg, which she shared with the Pink, for the Pink had been brought up daintily, and appreciated the tops of fresh eggs. On this occasion Mrs. Dove herself brought up Primrose's letter. Letters came so seldom to the girls that Mrs. Dove felt it quite excusable to gaze very hard at the inscription, to study the name of the post town which had left its mark on the envelope, and lingering a little in the room, under cover of talking to Jasmine, to watch Primrose's face as ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... of forty-five, who would have been wholly ordinary save for one peculiarity. In a room more than temperately cool he was sweating profusely, and that, despite the fact that his light overcoat was on his arm. Not polite perspiration, be it noted, such as would have been excusable in a gentleman of his pale and sleek plumpness, but soul-wrung sweat, the globules whereof gathered in the grayish hollows under his eyes and assailed, not without effect, the glistening expanse of his tall white collar. He darted a glance at Bertram, ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... inexpressible; and such is your goodness. I was almost sorry to find your servant here this day; because I was loath to have any witness of my not coming home last night, and indeed of my coming this morning. But my not coming was excusable, because earnest business detained me; and my coming this day is by the example of your St. Mary Magdalen, who rose early upon Sunday to seek that which she loved most; and so did I. And, from her and myself, ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... the community. It is for such persons, and for the many others who, though not unacquainted with the principles which should guide them in their conduct, are yet often at fault upon questions of detail, and sometimes commit errors, which are the more excusable that absolute rules, deduced from precedent and established by practice alone could set them right, that this code of Modern Etiquette has been prepared. To them it is offered as supplying a need which it is their misfortune, rather than ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... is perfectly excusable, Rosemary," retorted Floyd. "In fact I rather like it. It is much better than this ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... the fact that the Empress was willing to disobey her august spouse by wearing clothes made of prohibited material, and that a colonel was willing to slip contraband into my coach without my knowledge, the trick which I had played seemed to me to be excusable. In any case, since it was June, the soakingaking which I had caused these Mainz officials to undergo would do no harm except to their clothes. When I was far from Mainz, I could still hear the sound of drums, and ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... may safely assume that it will be an imperial autocracy. I cannot regard it as a wise plan if, owing to dislike of its defects, the Republic should be transformed into an Imperial autocracy. Owing to various unavoidable reasons, it is excusable in spite of violent opposition to adopt temporarily autocratic methods in a republican country. But if the plan proposed by present-day critics be put into effect, that on the promise of a constitution ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... come after him, but that we take as a matter of course; it is 'good form' in the Navy. His temper I should have said was bullet-proof. I have never seen him begin to lose it for a second of time, and I have seen him in circumstances where the loss of it would have been excusable. ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... any kind is bad anywhere, but in any type of educational institution, from the kindergarten to the post graduate college, it is worse and less excusable than it is elsewhere, unless it be in association with religion, while the absence of beauty at the instigation of parsimony or efficiency is just as bad. I am firmly persuaded that we need, not more courses of study but more beautiful environment ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... be excusable upon particular emergent occasions, with some heat of language to express dislike of notorious wickedness. As our Lord doth against the perverse incredulity and stupidity in the Pharisees, their profane misconstruction of His words and actions, ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... reader who has not a very great love for Elizabethan literature and some experience of it, can be recommended to seek confirmation of the estimate in which Greville was held by Charles Lamb, and of the very excusable and pious, though perhaps excessive, admiration of his editor Dr. Grosart. Even Coelica is very unlikely to find readers as a whole, owing to the strangely repellent character of Brooke's thought, which is intricate and obscure, and of his style, which is at any rate sometimes ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... excusable. The first theatre in Drury Lane was called "The Cock-pit or Phoenix Theatre." Whitbread himself wrote an address, it is said, for the occasion; like the others, it had of course a Phoenix. "But Whitbread," said Sheridan, "made more of the bird ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... beware of gossiping with travellers, on the subject of the changed numbers, under penalty of being dismissed, the manager composed his mind with the reflection that he had done his duty to his employers. 'Now,' he thought to himself, with an excusable sense of triumph, 'let the whole family come here if they like! The hotel is a match ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... the presence of the commander in chief, he pretended to be very much frightened; and he would have been excusable if he had been really frightened, for in that little performance of his he had run a great many risks. After asking a few questions of this pretended traitor Washington told the guards to withdraw, and he had a private conference which lasted over ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... only some scruples of conscience, and a thousand interests to sacrifice, he quitted all to follow a man, whom strong motives and resentments, which in some manner appeared excusable, had withdrawn from the paths of rectitude: he adhered to him in his first disgrace, with a constancy of which there are few examples; but he could not submit to the injuries which he afterwards received, and which such an inviolable attachment so little merited. ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... marked his peculiar character; Berthier, by a melancholy countenance, by lamentations, and even tears; Lobau and Caulaincourt, by a frankness, which in the first was stamped by a cold and haughty roughness, excusable in so brave a warrior; and which in the second was persevering even to obstinacy, and impetuous even to violence. The emperor repelled their observations with some ill-humour; he exclaimed, addressing himself more especially to his aid-de-camp, as well as to Berthier, "that he had enriched ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... sting about to strike? From what we have learnt from the other paralysers, it will be driven into the breast, to suppress the movement of the legs. That is your opinion; it was also mine. Well, without blushing too deeply at our common and very excusable error, let us confess that the insect knows better than we do. It knows how to assure success by a preparatory manoeuvre of which you and I had never dreamt. Ah, what a school is that of the animals! Is it not true that, before striking the adversary, ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... I am," said Mrs. Button. "Of course they are excusable for leaving as they did. Why, ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... are returning from their evening constitutional, walking in the middle of the street and taking off their hats to their neighbors as they pass. It is their custom, and the American habit of nodding to friends is held to be evidence of backwoods' manners excusable only in a people so new. In the deep recesses of the Domkirke dark shadows are gathering. The tower clock peals forth. At the last stroke the watchman lifts up his chant in a voice that comes quavering ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... directed against others, is supposing a criminality and baseness too great to be readily admitted. In that wild reign of the worst of passions, this would have transcended them all in its iniquity. The only excusable people at that time were those who honestly, and without a doubt, believed in the guilt of the convicted. Those who had doubts, and did not frankly and fearlessly express them, were the guilty ones. On their hands is the stain of the innocent blood that was shed. It is not ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... certain minor points, notably the fact that the story, though by no means badly told, suffers from what I can only call a plethora of plot. As I followed the developments of its intrigue and tracked the heroine from untutored savage, wife of the wild Westerner whose excusable suspicions caused him to brand her as private property, to the moment of her triumph as the bejewelled idol of theatrical New York, the conviction grew upon me that here was a tale surely predestined to be the screen that covers a multitude of melodramatics. Presently ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... the door as at play, and shook his head at the young bear, which was of the harmless kind so well known in the Northwest, and the bear turned and ran, while the Indian followed it toward the wood. The odd event was quite excusable on any ground of rule and propriety in the ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... situations uncommonly difficult will make necessary some extraordinary steps, which, but for those situations, would be hardly excusable. It will be very happy indeed, and somewhat wonderful, if all the measures I have been driven to take should be right. A pure intention, void of all undutiful resentment, is what must be my consolation, whatever others ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... evil to exist in his soul. And therefore he who deals with the curable sort must be long-suffering and forbearing; but the incurable shall have the vials of our wrath poured out upon him. The greatest of all evils is self-love, which is thought to be natural and excusable, and is enforced as a duty, and yet is the cause of many errors. The lover is blinded about the beloved, and prefers his own interests to truth and right; but the truly great man seeks justice before all things. Self-love is the source of that ignorant conceit of knowledge which ...
— Laws • Plato
... national prejudice of the English against France is supposed to have its full effect on a subject, from which the literati of England expect to derive but little honour. An unsuccessful attempt has been made by a Frenchman, and my name being that of a foreigner, a very excusable ignorance in the people may place me among the adventurers of that nation, who are said to have sometimes distinguished themselves here by ingenious impositions." In vain did he try to obtain another place to launch his aerial ship; he was laughed at ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... is bound to restitution of the loss unjustly incurred by the other party by reason of the assistance he has provided. If, however, he defends an unjust cause unknowingly, thinking it just, he is to be excused according to the measure in which ignorance is excusable. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... bluest blood of Spain. But he can show, moreover, thank God, a reputation which raises him as much above the imputation of cowardice, as it does above that of discourtesy. If you think fit, senor, to forget what you have just, in very excusable anger, vented, and to return with me, you will find me still, as ever, your most faithful servant and host. If otherwise, you have only to name whither you wish your mails to be sent, and I shall, with unfeigned sorrow, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... the privilege adopted by most travellers at home and abroad, I have made occasional references to the weather. This is perhaps excusable when it is remembered that the year 1888 was a very remarkable one in that respect, so much so indeed, that the writer of a leading article in The Times of January 18th, 1889, in commenting on Mr. G. J. Symons' report of the British rainfall of the previous year, remarked that ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... that, if no apology, it is yet mitigation of the atrocity of the Knapps' conduct in attempting to charge this foul murder on Mr. White, the nephew and principal devisee, that public suspicion was already so directed! As if assassination of character were excusable in proportion as circumstances may render it easy. Their endeavors, when they knew they were suspected themselves, to fix the charge on others, by foul means and by falsehood, are fair and strong proof of their own guilt. But more ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... magnanimous hero of the Voyage to Lisbon. If these things be remembered, it will seem of minor importance that to his dying day he never knew the value of money, or that he forgot his troubles over a chicken and champagne. And even his improvidence was not without its excusable side. Once—so runs the legend—Andrew Millar made him an advance to meet the claims of an importunate tax-gatherer. Carrying it home, he met a friend, in even worse straits than his own; and the money changed hands. When the tax- gatherer arrived there was nothing but the answer—"Friendship ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... a smile of satisfaction. "In one of my age loss of memory is excusable, yet now on looking closely at thee, I see the resemblance—yea, I welcome thee home, my ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... Most High saith, 'And rivers of wine, delicious to the drinkers.'[FN327] And we will drink it in this world and in the next world." She laughed and emptying the cup, gave him to drink, and he said, "O Princess of the Fair, indeed thou art excusable in thy love for this." Then he bent in hand from her another and another, till he became drunken and his talk waxed great and his prattle. The folk of the quarter heard him and assembled under the window; and when ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... touches to quite a respectable structure—half tent, half bower—for which the skipper had acted the part of architect-in-chief. This structure had cost Captain Blyth a vast amount of almost painful cogitation, and was the result of a little fit of excusable, and perhaps natural pique, which had come over him on finding how exceedingly well the two landsmen had managed without him. From the moment of their being thrust out of the ship to that other moment when he had rejoined them, they had scarcely ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... General staring under the staring sun. I do not blame them at all for clamouring for the schoolboy's detention in prison; I dare say a little detention in prison would do him no harm. Still, I think the immense act has something about it human and excusable; and when I endeavour to analyse the reason of this feeling I find it to lie, not in the fact that the thing was big or bold or successful, but in the fact that the thing was perfectly useless to ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... singing that, now?" said Mr Bagnall, laughing. "I did not know I got quite so far. But at a hunt-supper, you know, everything is excusable." ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... The boyish Prince was going about in armor when soft raiment would be excusable—and that meant ambition, dreams of conquest, dedication to martial glory. Very good indeed! And then his manner under the eyes of the girlish Princess—how quickly her high-born grace had captivated him! Something impossible were he not of ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... who minister there had a sweetheart; and that, if perchance any of them had one, he concealed it very carefully, since he himself had never known any trace of it. Concerning that point, I will say, although it appears evil to many, that that offense is the most excusable, especially in young and healthy men, placed in the torrid zone. Nature must struggle continually with duty. The garb of the Filipina women is very seductive; and it is known that the girls, far from being untractable to the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... gentlemen got the panic worked out of their systems—or, at least, had said all they could think of about that panic, Colonel. Now we can go ahead and do real business. We have not had a battle in this state for a long time, and this panic may be excusable. They say that the men who are the worst frightened before the battle do the best fighting after they get into the real scrap. I will admit that the situation in the state has been a little slippery, as Saunders has said. And some men have dared to do a lot of loud talking since ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... in dignity of person far excelled his father. He had more skill and more courage; but he had the same theory of arbitrary government, and acted as if insincerity and the breaking of promises were excusable in defense of it. His strife with Parliament began at once. They would not grant supplies of money without a redress of grievances and the removal of Buckingham, the king's favorite. War had begun with Spain before the close of the last reign. An expedition ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... startling, laughable, perhaps ridiculous. A woman with the head of a goose and a flowery tail may be a symbolical, but it never can be an agreeable object. When the idea conveyed is a great one, then it is excusable. The Ninevite bull, with a human head and five legs, is a grotesque, but it is also a symbol of majesty and might. A Satyr is a grotesque, but he has been so long recorded and accepted that he has ceased ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... my intention to detain the reader by expatiating on the variety or the importance of the subject, which I have undertaken to treat; since the merit of the choice would serve to render the weakness of the execution still more apparent, and still less excusable. But as I have presumed to lay before the public a first volume only [1] of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, it will, perhaps, be expected that I should explain, in a few words, the nature and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... had become hardened to gin-palaces and did not notice them. Women seemed to be going in and coming out of such places in draggle-tailed processions in those wicked days; but now I only once saw women drinking in a public house. It was a Saturday night, when, if ever, it may be excusable to anticipate the thirst of the morrow, for all through the Sunday idleness it cannot be slaked enough. It was a hot night, and the bar-room door stood open, and within, fronted by a crowd of their loudly ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... destiny. General D'Hubert trembled as he put down the empty water ewer. "He will have me," he thought. General D'Hubert was tasting every emotion that life has to give. He had in his dry mouth the faint sickly flavour of fear, not the excusable fear before a young girl's candid and amused glance, but the fear of death and the honourable man's ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... will be to his consciousness at death no more than the old garment he throws aside at night, intending to put on a new and a better in the morning. To desire to keep the old body seems to me to argue a degree of sensual materialism excusable only in those pagans who in their Elysian fields could hope to possess only such a thin, fleeting, dreamy, and altogether funebrial existence, that they might well long for the thicker, more tangible bodily being ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... their indignation at the injury done to their people—who have mixed themselves up with feats of arms, or interfered with more ardour than discretion in the arena of politics; but such instances have been rare, and circumstances have generally made them in some degree excusable. The position of the Irish priest in regard to his flock is so anomalous, that some explanation of it seems necessary in order to understand the accusations made against Father Nicholas Sheehy, and the animosity with which he was hunted to death ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... understand, truly, what our savage brethren are like, we must penetrate into the woods and the wilds where they are to be found; we must mingle with them in the exercise of their domestic avocations; we must see them as they are, in all their excusable degradation; and not invested with a fictitious dignity, or a theatrical simplicity; we must observe them, also, unawares, and see how they conduct themselves under the ordinary influences ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... The parish, in effect, was first an immense monastery, where the monks, determined to do themselves extremely well in dignified peace, had made a prodigious and not entirely unsuccessful effort to keep out the excitable sex. And, second, it was an excusable conspiracy on the part of intensely respectable tradesmen and stewards to force the non-bargaining sex to pay the highest possible price for the privilege ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... enough scandal even now, but the whole story was going to be lifted by this elopement into a higher sphere; it would take on, so to speak, an appearance vastly more interesting, less vulgar, nay, even aristocratic and excusable,—an entirely different matter from the bald statement that he, Borgert, had deserted for no other reason except a lot of bad debts ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... Bedrulbudour knew that her father was angry and saw the naked sword in his hand, she was like to swoon for fear; [405] so she raised her head and said to him, "Dear [406] my father, be not wroth with me, neither be thou hasty in thine anger, for that I am excusable in that which thou hast seen from me. [407] Do but hearken what hath betided me and I am well assured that, whenas thou hearest my story of that which hath happened to me these two nights past, thou wilt ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... rights and prerogatives. In assuming this attitude, that Otis's zeal and energy were at times unrestrained and his language occasionally unguarded and overvehement, is doubtless true; but this was certainly excusable in a man of his ardent temperament and strength of character; while the situation of affairs was such as to call not only for patriotic enthusiasm, but for righteous indignation and heated denunciation, ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... in to report a sale and submit an advertisement. Babbitt disapproved of Laylock, who sang in choirs and was merry at home over games of Hearts and Old Maid. He had a tenor voice, wavy chestnut hair, and a mustache like a camel's-hair brush. Babbitt considered it excusable in a family-man to growl, "Seen this new picture of the kid—husky little devil, eh?" but Laylock's domestic confidences were ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... was poor Sandie, if anybody. I do not think Christina suffered, more than a little natural and very excusable mortification. She never loved me. I had guessed as much before, and I was relieved now to find that I had been certainly right. But she needed a little while to get her breath, nevertheless. She asked me if I was serious? then, why I did ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... Wyatt had installed himself in a hotel and telegraphed the Dowager to keep Patty at St. Ursula's during the holidays. Poor Patty had been happily packing her trunk when the news arrived; and as she unpacked it, she distributed a few excusable tears ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... not only that,— That were excusable, that and thousands more Of semblable import—but he hath wag'd New wars 'gainst Pompey; made his will, and read it To public ear: Spoke scandy of me: when perforce he could not But pay me terms of honour, cold and sickly He vented them:most ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... knew the rhythm and accent needed in a hymn-tune. The determination was to make an evangelical hymn of a poem "too good to lose," and in that view perhaps the editorial liberties taken with it were excusable. It was to Moore, however, that the real hymn-thought and key-note first came, and the title-line and the sweet refrain are his own—for which the Christian world has thanked him, lo ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... 227) translates "Hawa al-'Urzi" by "the love of the Beni Udhra, an Arabian tribe famous for the passion and devotion with which love was practiced among them." See Night dclxxxiii. I understand it as "excusable love" which, for want of a better term, is here translated "platonic." It is, however, more like the old "bundling" of Wales and Northern England; and allows all the pleasures but one, the toyings which the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... up the same idea from a map saying 'Zambesi' (eastern branch), believing that the map printer had some authority for his assertion. My first crossing was thus as fruitless as theirs, and I was less excusable, for I ought to have remembered that while Chambeze is the true native name of the northern river, Zambesi is not the name of the southern river at all. It is a Portugese corruption of Dombazi, which we adopted rather than introduce confusion by new names, in the same way that we adopted ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... which they were employed. The circumstances of his education, however, must be admitted as some extenuation of his habitual transgressions against the law; and for his political tergiversations, he might in that distracted period plead the example of men far more powerful, and less excusable in becoming the sport of circumstances, than the poor and desperate outlaw. On the other hand, he was in the constant exercise of virtues, the more meritorious as they seem inconsistent with his general character. Pursuing ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... provided that hic not., that the game of the muss is honest, healthful, ancient, and lawful, a Muscho inventore, de quo cod. de petit. haered. l. si post mortem. et Muscarii. Such as play and sport it at the muss are excusable in and by law, lib. 1. c. de excus. artific. lib. 10. And at the very same time was Master Tielman Picquet one of the players of that game of muss. There is nothing that I do better remember, for he laughed heartily when his fellow-members of the aforesaid judicial chamber spoiled their caps ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... which is at this hour taught in the Public Schools. This, I am aware, is a grave charge, but it is made with all deliberation and sense of responsibility. Indeed, the ancients were in many respects more excusable than we are. They had but the Old Law, always incomplete and obscure, whilst we live under the fulfilment of the new law, with all its aids and graces. Now, if God did not spare the "Cities of the Plain," if He destroyed the ancient nations in punishment for their wicked ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... "I would threaten him with a protestant son-in-law, and be glad of an opportunity to disobey him for conscience' sake. And now that Nancy is out of hearing, let me really say, I think you would be excusable before God and man for resisting this preposterous match by every means in your power. A proud, dark, ambitious man; a caballer against the state; infamous for his avarice and severity; a bad son, a bad brother, unkind and ungenerous to all his relatives—Isabel, I would ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... whatever upon the toilet table of the young girl. Powder and paint are so obvious to the eye, that their use, or rather abuse, by some otherwise sensible women, is a continual wonder. A dust of rice powder is sometimes excusable, but there can be no possible apology for the "made-up" faces one sees upon our streets. They deceive no one and have no excuse for being. The woman who stands in the pitiless glare of the footlights must needs add color to replace that ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... been a college bacchanalian, I am excusable for the inaccuracy," she retorted. "I did not even know where I picked up the foolish bit. Having ascertained the origin to be of doubtful respectability, I shall never use ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... came on, and the owls and bats flapped their wings in shadowy corners, it was desirable to cling closely together and feel afraid in company—a tremor was excusable in the boldest. Patrick, indeed, always declared he had once seen a ghost in Maskells. Pressed for details, he had been unable to give any clear account of it, and was a good deal laughed at, especially by Mary; but it was dimly felt by all that there might be truth in it—anything was possible ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... subject to the power and government of God, so that he directs their malice to whatever end he pleases, and uses their crimes for the execution of his judgments. The modesty of those who are alarmed at the appearance of absurdity, might perhaps be excusable, if they did not attempt to vindicate the Divine justice by a pretence utterly destitute of any foundation in truth. They consider it absurd that a man should be blinded by the will and command of God, and afterwards be punished for his blindness. They therefore evade ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... perchance any of them had one, he concealed it very carefully, since he himself had never known any trace of it. Concerning that point, I will say, although it appears evil to many, that that offense is the most excusable, especially in young and healthy men, placed in the torrid zone. Nature must struggle continually with duty. The garb of the Filipina women is very seductive; and it is known that the girls, far from being untractable to the cura, consider ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... bruiser was brought over from Newark. When this "sparring partner" came to face Corbett in the imitation ring he was so paralyzed with terror he could hardly move. It was just after Corbett had won one of his big battles as a prize-fighter, and the dismay of his opponent was excusable. The "boys" at the laboratory still laugh consumedly when they tell ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... "But alas!" says I, "she may even now be near me, but taken so ill she cannot get home, or she may have died suddenly in the wood." I lay tumbling and tossing in great anxiety, not able to find out any excusable occasion she could have of so long absence. And then, thinks I, if she should either be dead, or have quite left me, which will be of equally bad consequence to me, what can I do with three poor helpless ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... indulge himself in the liberty of fiction, as I could not relate anything true (for I know of nothing at present worthy to be recorded), I turned my thoughts towards falsehood, a species of it, however, much more excusable than that of others, as I shall at least say one thing true, when I tell you that I lie, and shall hope to escape the general censure, by acknowledging that I mean to speak not a word of truth throughout. Know ye, therefore, that I am going to write about what ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... Although a vivid imagination might be excusable at such a time even in a man, a veteran of many campaigns, he was essentially an uncompromising realist, and he wished to see facts exactly as they were. The work upon which he was engaged allowed no time ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the "Origin of Species" is so far from prominent and so incidental that it was excusable to assume that Darwin had not touched upon the descent of man in this work. It was solely the desire to have his mass of evidence sufficiently complete, solely Darwin's great characteristic of never publishing till he had ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... it was his duty to do. Stephenson is a friend and servant of the Duke's, and in his ill-humour he tried to revenge himself upon the Duke as well as on Stephenson, and he thwarted the Duke in his military arrangements. What made his conduct the less excusable was that it was important that these things should be done quickly, and as the Duke was out of town a correspondence became necessary, by which great ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... committed the gross error of tendering myself to Sir Robert Peel to fill the post of envoy. I have difficulty at this date (1894) in conceiving by what obliquity of view I could have come to imagine that this was a rational or in any way excusable proposal: and this, although I vaguely think my friend James Hope had some hand in it, seems to show me now that there existed in my mind a strong element of fanaticism. I believe that I left it to Sir R. Peel to make me any answer or ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... all this looks either like preaching or scoffing, and it is neither. It is really the result of a desire to push myself into the home life you good people are still leading, somehow or other. An excusable offence after all, my Masters! Having re-cursed the tail of the convoy, it at last moved forward, and we, having allowed it so much grace, did the same. At the outskirts of the village, which the column had moved through, the last waggon—an overloaded one—collapsed, ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... of the danger in which the readers of such books place them-selves. In those books human frailty is idolized, deeds committed through it are either necessary or excusable, the hair-breadth escapes, and often the tragical conclusion of their story, will often inspire the reader with a salutary terror, it is true; but will that feeling destroy all those tender sympathizing sentiments that were ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... moral corruption, of the oppression, wretchedness, and woe, of the groans uttered, and the tears shed, by the millions now subject to their galling sway, "as for hid treasures." Ignorance on these topics, at the present day, cannot be excusable. The organs of the various benevolent societies come weekly or monthly to our doors, detailing scenes of sottish ignorance, of pollutions and misery, which cause philanthropy to weep. They are indeed distressing to the feeling heart; and I have sometimes thought there were those, who shrink ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... sentence, Very likely. At the Cambridge meetings, the trial to the nerves, as Mr. Watson thinks, was even more severe. There was not the spell of common reverence for a great man, in whose presence a modest reticence was excusable. You were expected to speak out, and failure was the more appalling. The contests between Stephen and Harcourt were especially famous. Though, says Mr. Watson, your brother was 'not a match in adroitness and chaff' for his ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... have suffered hunger to extremity; and although impossible to express the corporeal agony, yet some notion of it may be conceived from the effect it had upon my mind. I felt that I hated the whole world, kin or no kin; that theft was a virtue, murder excusable, and cannibalism any thing but disgusting; from which the inference may be safely drawn, viz, that ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... light," I said, "for I don't feel in the least faint." That was a fib, because when you are as miserable as I was at that minute your heart feels cold and heavy, as though it could hardly go on beating. But I felt that if ever a fib were excusable, that one was. "I'm a little tired, though," I went on. "None of us got to bed till after three last night; and this day, though very nice of course, has been rather long. I think, if you don't mind, Aunt Lil, I'll go straight to my room ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... been or might be committed. They had heard unpleasant stories of private lunatic asylums and their like. Things to shudder at might be going on at the very moment they spoke to each other. Under this possibility, no supineness would be excusable. Efforts to trace the missing man must at least be made. Efforts were made, but with no result. Painful as it was to reflect on the subject of the asylums, careful private inquiry was made, information was quietly collected, there were even visits to gruesomely quiet ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Romans has been preserved, which is sufficiently curious. One Albinus, in the preface to his Roman History, intercedes for pardon for his numerous blunders of phraseology; observing that they were the more excusable, as he had composed his history in the Greek language, with which he was not so familiar as his maternal tongue. Cato severely rallies him on this; and justly observes, that our Albinus had merited the pardon he solicits, if a decree of the senate had compelled ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... Key, p. 11. We only take this opportunity of mentioning the manner in which those letters got abroad, which the author was ashamed of as very trivial things, full not only of levities, but of wrong judgments of men and books, and only excusable from the youth and ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... of Frenchmen. When he says "the average Frenchman dresses," or "thinks," or "talks" in such and such a way, he merely means that so does the normal specimen of a class including only a few hundred thousand men, and those city dwellers, dress or think or speak. The figure is excusable because (apart from the fact that an "average" of the entire population would be quite unfindable) the comparatively small class does indeed guide, rule, and, practically, think for, the whole population. So ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... how it will be asked for at the bookstalls. You may be obliged to call later ventures Chesterton's Daily or Chesterton's Annual, but this one needs no impertinently superfluous definition: Chesterton's Perennial is amusing enough to be excusable; but a joke repeated every week is no joke. A picture cover like that of Punch might stand even that test if it were good enough; but where are ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... Wallace said anything, and so well did I understand the nature of their feelings, that I made no allusion whatever to the farce. As for the others, they did but chime in with what appeared to be the common opinion, and were to be pitied rather than condemned. It was perhaps the more excusable in them to imagine such a play right, inasmuch as they must have known it was much extolled at home, a fact that gave any custom a certain privilege in the colonies. A mother country has much of the same responsibility ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... more excusable to marry him than to get drunk with him. That is a new accomplishment of Andrew's, by the way. He ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... stage of civilised society. To call him a great general or a great statesman is to use utterly misleading terms. Generalship and statesmanship, as we understand them, did not yet exist, and to speak of them in the ninth century in England is to be guilty of a common, but none the more excusable, anachronism. AElfred was a sturdy and hearty fighter, and a good king of a semi-barbaric people. As a lad, he had visited Rome; and he retained throughout life a strong sense of his own and his people's barbarism, and a genuine desire to ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... country, would be regarded as of any weight, so, none of the excuses offered for slaveholding in this country are worthy of the least consideration. The act, in both cases, is essentially the same—equally inhuman, immoral, piratical. Oppression is not a matter of latitude or longitude; here excusable, there to be execrated; here to elevate the oppressor to the highest station, there to hang him by the neck till he is dead; here compatible with Christianity, there to be branded and punished as piracy. "He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... O my lord, that I came out to avenge my mother and my father on Sabur, King of the Persians; for he would have slain them; but my mother escaped and I know not whether he killed my father or not." When Gharib heard these words, he replied, "By Allah, thou art indeed excusable! But who were thy father and mother and what are their names?" Murad Shah said, "My sire was Gharib, King of Al-Irak, and my mother Fakhr Taj, daughter of King Sabur of Persia." When Gharib heard this, he gave a great cry and fell down fainting. They sprinkled rose- ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... story, concluding with the remark that, after all, it was not quite such a serious matter as the poor child seemed to think. She remembered that girls used to copy when she went to school, and they worked so hard now that it really was somewhat excusable. ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... incensed; but his indignation was soon appeased, when I professed my penitence, and assured him that I had totally rejected his rival. Not that I approved of my behaviour to Sir T—, who, I own, was ill-used in this affair; but surely it was more excusable to halt here, than proceed farther in ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... from the bottle. It contained whiskey. Tom had heard that there was virtue in whiskey; that it was invigorating to a tired man, and he was tempted, under these extremely trying circumstances, to experiment upon the beverage. He would certainly have been excusable if he had done so; but our hero had a kind of horror of the article, which would not let him even taste it. He was afraid that he should acquire a habit which would go with him through life, and make ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... He was unusually busy with his own thoughts and plans, for Mr. Carson had laid out a course of study for him by which he might prepare himself for college, the goal of his ambitions; and the world was looking very bright to him as well as to Tabitha, so perhaps he was excusable if he day-dreamed a little. But he never forgave himself for relaxing his vigilance over the small sister even in this slight measure, for it cost her many hours of bitter anguish. If only he had inquired about the name ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... first at me and then at Thuvan Dihn, as though to ask our judgment upon the man, but the error was so evidently excusable that neither of us had any mind to see the young officer suffer for a mistake that any might ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... epidemical pestilence, which is equally fatal to its objects, though they fall with a multitude. Besides, they ought to consider a remark, somewhere made by Cyprian,[36] that persons who sin through ignorance, though they cannot be wholly exculpated, may yet be considered in some degree excusable; but those who obstinately reject the truth offered by the Divine goodness, are ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... was brought into the presence of the commander in chief, he pretended to be very much frightened; and he would have been excusable if he had been really frightened, for in that little performance of his he had run a great many risks. After asking a few questions of this pretended traitor Washington told the guards to withdraw, and he ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... more Jews[371] concerning the doctrine of purifying. The context[372] leaves little room for doubt that a question was involved as to the relative merits of John's baptism and that administered by the disciples of Jesus. With excusable ardor and well-intended zeal for their master, the disciples of John, who had been embroiled in the dispute, came to him saying: "Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou bearest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him." John's supporters were concerned at ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... every insistence; for I should, of course, not have been excusable if I had failed in any case vigorously to carry out my instructions. But every time I plainly saw matters getting worse and worse; and I should have failed of my duty also if I had not so informed the President and the Department. I can ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... I am now going to relate, will prove that Natura had the greatest excitements, and the greatest justification both for wrath and revenge that could possibly be offered to any one man: yet did another passion, not more excusable than either of these, suppress all the turbulent emotions of both, and quench the boiling flames within his soul, insomuch as to make him appear all ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... being born with a hump-back and very high nose. This was the more astonishing, because none of his forefathers ever had such a blemish, nor indeed was there any in the neighbourhood of that make, except the butler, who was noted for round shoulders and a Roman nose; what made the nose the less excusable was the remarkable ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... Mammon. He says that strait is the gate that leads to eternal life. Many there are who seek to widen it; they will tell you that such and such self-indulgences are but venial offences—that this and that worldly compliance is excusable and even necessary. The thing cannot be; for in a hundred and a hundred places He tells you so—look to your Bibles and seek there whether such counsel is true—and if not, oh, 'halt not between two opinions,' if God is the Lord follow ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... John La Farge in his "Considerations on Painting," "are not the spectators excusable who live for the moment a serene existence, feeling as if they had made the ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... with that inning, for Scranton made five runs, having a nice little batting bee of their own for a change. In the ninth the visitors got a man on first through a juggle on the part of Hobson on second, though Julius was really excusable, for the ball came down to him with terrific speed, and though he knocked it down he could not recover in time to get it across the infield so as to ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... slight indication of the excess to which he carried his love for reading and scribbling. If he could not read, he must scribble; so he scribbled when out hunting! If he had been fishing with a book in his hand, that had been excusable. But we do not believe that the Romans took kindly to fishing as a sport. They bred their fish in private fish-ponds—piscinae—and they had a revolting habit of fattening their fish. Old Izaak would ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... could, of course, reflect nothing but credit upon the general; and yet, though unquestionably a sagacious man, he had his own little weaknesses-very excusable ones,—one of which was a dislike to any allusion to the above circumstance. He was undoubtedly clever. For instance, he made a point of never asserting himself when he would gain more by keeping in the background; and in consequence many exalted personages ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... will be evident enough; forcing nature only tends to after enervation, and should only be resorted to on some special occasion when one really wishes to prove himself a champion in the arena of Love. Then it may be excusable. ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... stopped him, and the rain penetrating between the collar of his coat and the brim of his hat, almost blinded him. He made a few seconds' stand against the violence of the whirlwind, and then, instead of uttering any exclamation of impatience, which would have been more than excusable under the circumstances, he merely gave vent to a long-drawn sigh ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... occupied not exactly with Tertius Lydgate as he was in himself, but with his relation to her; and it was excusable in a girl who was accustomed to hear that all young men might, could, would be, or actually were in love with her, to believe at once that Lydgate could be no exception. His looks and words meant more to her than other men's, because ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... that are gone back again? and that, AFTER the angel had fled through the midst of heaven, preaching the gospel to those that dwell on the earth? (Rev 14:6-10). They that received the mark of the beast at first, before this angel came forth, are when compared with these, excusable (Rev 13:16,17): Wherefore, they are not threatened with that smoking wrath, as are these which ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to lead a life of reasonable comfort; a salary is measured by the period of service; but an honorary is not dependent on time employed, or on needs of support, or on effect produced, but it is a tribute of gratitude due to a special benefactor. Whatever practical arrangements may be necessary or excusable in special circumstances, this is the ideal which makes the medical ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... authorities that Harry was released, on giving bonds to appear as a witness when wanted. His spirits rose with their usual elasticity as soon as he was out of Centre Street, and he insisted on giving Philip and his friends a royal supper at Delmonico's, an excess which was perhaps excusable in the rebound of his feelings, and which was committed with his usual reckless generosity. Harry ordered, the supper, and it is perhaps needless to say, that Philip paid ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... how great was Greene's reputation as an author, how publishers were ready to outbid one another for the very dregs of his wit. Thomas Brabine was but voicing the general opinion when, in some verses prefixed to Menaphon, he wrote, condescending to an inevitable pun, but also to a less excusable mixed metaphor: ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... of the fort. They were pierced with a thousand blows of stilettos, such as I sent you and the representatives of the French people cause it to be printed, that if they believed this fact for an instant, they were excusable. I know well there are societies where it is said, "Is ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Blake's telegram telling us of your wound caused us some anxiety, which was made less by Dr. McGregor's somewhat hastily written letter. Aunt Ann thought it was excusable in so busy a man. Poor Uncle Jim on hearing it said, 'Yes, yes—why didn't John write—can't be much the matter.' This shows you his sad failure. He has not mentioned ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... been cruel to a man of such a sceptical soul as mine to educate him back from the faith he had acquired to the unfaith he had tried to put behind him. Why did you do it? The suppression of the truth is never excusable. The secret you might have scattered with a word, when suspicion started against you, is now diffused through every family ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... spoke several times with excusable asperity of "buttons," and after another psalm and a sounding benediction the religious exercises were finished, and the real business of the evening, the spelling-bee and the ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... is courting a rich girl," suggested Mr. Gryce. "Under those circumstances some show of vanity is excusable. Certainly he would not carry his folly so far as to put on gloves for the shooting match with which you credit him, unless there was criminal intent back of his folly—which, of course, would be as hard for you as for me ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... meet events as they might arise, and began to plot the means of obtaining more Pottawattamie scalps. Let not the refined reader feel disdisgust at this exhibition of the propensities of an American savage. Civilized life has had, and still has, very many customs, little less excusable than that of scalping. Without dragging into the account the thousand and one sins that disgrace and deform society, it will be sufficient to look into the single interest of civilized warfare, in order to make out our case. In the first place, the noblest strategy of the ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... gentleman, white or black, although I grant there is a difference. To say the least of it, it is a dangerous habit; for white lies are but the gentlemen ushers to black ones. I know but of one point on which a lie is excusable, and that is, when you wish to deceive the enemy. Then your duty to your country warrants your lying till you're black in the face; and, for the very reason that it goes against your grain, it becomes, as it were, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... patted her shoulder, and in spite of everything his action thrilled her with a sense of comfort. "Why, all through this dreadful night you've behaved like a heroine, and if your courage fails you a little now—which I hardly believe—well, that's excusable, ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... or natural than this mistake. Any one looking for the first time at the trees might fancy that they were indeed vast and titanic fans, which by their mere waving agitated the air around them for miles. Nothing, I say, could be more human and excusable than the belief that it is the trees which make the wind. Indeed, the belief is so human and excusable that it is, as a matter of fact, the belief of about ninety-nine out of a hundred of the philosophers, reformers, sociologists, ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... my saying so, seems to me to be carrying your habit of scepticism to the verge of actual mania. I don't think you ought to adopt that kind of attitude, Major. If you had been trained in theology, or even secular metaphysics, it might be excusable; though then, of course, you wouldn't do it. But in a simple and almost entirely uneducated country gentleman like you, ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... I beg of you," she entreated. "Mrs. Henshaw is quite excusable, I'm sure. Please don't give it another thought," she finished, as with a hurried direction to the man who was holding open the door of her car, she stepped ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... to be the safest place he could choose, ventured into the trenches. "As you are no adventurer in the trade of war, Mr. Godfrey," said William, "I think you should not expose yourself to the hazard of it." "Not being more exposed than your Majesty," was the courtly reply, "should I be excusable if I showed more concern?" "Yes," returned William; "I am in my duty, and therefore have a more reasonable claim to preservation." A cannon-ball at this moment answered the "reasonable claim to preservation" by killing Mr. Godfrey; and it requires ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... air, and claps its self-congratulating wings, answered nevertheless somewhat disdainfully, that it was impossible for man, in his mortal state, to comprehend such things; and that the astonishment he feels at them, though doubtless it would be excusable under other circumstances, must rest satisfied with the affirmations ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... world have little to do with the causes of private animosities, I shall think myself perfectly excusable, here to say a few words on this subject, as you have assigned causes for the interruption of our intimacy different from the true ones, and with a view ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... was a great lover of flowers, very proud of hers, cultivated principally by her own hands. After tea she invited her nephew and niece to a stroll through her garden, while she exhibited her pets with a very excusable pride in their ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... exhausted nature, help to destroy the very fundamentals of the constitution. He reviewed his own conduct with the utmost severity, and could not recollect one circumstance which could justly offend the idol of his soul. The more blameless he appeared to himself in this examination, the less excusable did her behaviour appear. He tasked his penetration to discover the cause of this alteration; he burned with impatience to know it; his discernment failed him, and he was afraid, though he knew not why, to demand an explanation. ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... Taurus, who had been prefect of the praetorium, to Vercelli, who, to all persons capable of distinguishing between right and wrong, will appear very excusable in respect to the act for which he was condemned. For his offence was only that, fearing a violent disturbance which had arisen, he fled to the protection of his prince. And the treatment inflicted on him could not be read without great horror, when the preamble of the public accusation ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... were called forth by the sensible statement of my brother," said Shagoth, peevishly; "and it would have been perfectly excusable in thee to have remained silent, until I should have thought fit to make some remarks suitable to the capacity ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... lowest exigencies of life, and from which to be relieved she had only consented to assist the looser pleasures of the amorous duke; but, added she, I would not methinks have her seem to glory in her shame, and in a manner of life which her misfortunes alone can render excusable; nor can I approve of the indulgence her mistaken triumph meets with, because it may not only destroy all notions of regret in herself for what her necessities oblige her to, but also make others, who have not the same pretence, find a kind of sanction ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... it in a newspaper. The reporter found my study "an unattractive room," because it lacked the signs of "luxury" or even "comfort." As I was erroneously regarded as a clerical Croesus at this time the reporter's disappointment was excusable. The Gobelin tapestries, the Raphael paintings, the Turkish divans, and the gold and silver trappings of a throne room were missing in my study. The reporter found the floor distressingly "hard, but polished wood." The walls were painfully plain—"all white." My table, which the reporter kindly ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... that "he had known all that long ago, that any child knew it, that it was mere bathos, and that it was only due to a want of clear and definitive expression, or to a want of knowledge of English, excusable in a foreigner, if there had been so much darkening of counsel by words without thought." ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... deaths, &c.—the importance is of the most temporary and transitory character. It may be hoped that the liberty taken of leaving out such portions will be regarded as, if not commendable, at the least excusable.] ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... law spurned money, whatever the sum. God would not cheapen human life, by balancing it with such a weight. "Ye shall take NO SATISFACTION for the life of a murderer, but he shall surely be put to death." Num. xxxv. 31. Even in excusable homicide, where an axe slipped from the helve and killed a man, no sum of money availed to release from confinement in the city of refuge, until the death of the High Priest. Num. xxxv. 32. The doctrine ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... to admit anyone to the pleasure of looking forward to it,—and simply because he so feared the disappointment in case anything should go wrong. He did not realize that not only is the pleasure of anticipation often the best, but that even disappointment, provided it happen through excusable causes, strengthens the bonds of affection through sympathy. We do not want merely results from a friend—merely finished products. We like to be in at the making, ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... the occasion, which prompted him to avail himself of the accidental means which were at that instant afforded him of accepting and converting it to the use of the Company."[23] By this account, he considers the act as excusable only by the particular occasion, by the temptation of accidental means, and by the suggestion of the instant. How far this is the case appears by the very next paragraph of this letter in which the account is given and in which the apology is made. If these were his sentiments in June, 1780, they ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... seamen, dressed as gentlemen, drinking wine and talking with the greatest familiarity with people much above them in rank, who had used these means to conceal them. Our information led us to detect these excusable impositions. ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... brook which, however, keeps steadily flowing on; and the stored scholarship of his mind was supplemented by long evenings with no other relaxation but reading. Now as he went down the path he broke into song; and when the Doge sang it was something awful, excusable only by the sheer happiness that brought on ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... Yes, it may be so considered, in one sense, at least, for it informs him of something of which he was before ignorant, as much so as it did me, but then the truth of the fact does not rest with him on equal testimony, and therefore he is more excusable if he does not believe. If, however, he can believe all that I believe, and in addition to that, believe also in me, then, and not till then, he will become a believer in the same truth. But if he even suspects my veracity, it weakens ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... when Madame was "pretty sure the girl had been in London during the hospital interlude," Marion also thought, "it might be so; Captain Binnie was a very taking man." When Madame said, "Sophy's whole conduct was only excusable on the supposition of her unaccountability," Marion also thought "she did ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... own parts, and do our own share of the lifting, and as in no case that share can be great, so also in all cases it is called for, it is necessary. Therefore let us work and faint not; remembering that though it be natural, and therefore excusable, amidst doubtful times to feel doubts of success oppress us at whiles, yet not to crush those doubts, and work as if we had them not, is simple cowardice, which is unforgivable. No man has any right to say that all has been done for nothing, that all the faithful ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... proud to place herself under obligations to the servant? She felt rebuked at her presumption; for what right had she to make such distinctions? If she had been a lady, like Mrs. Gordon, she might have been excusable for cherishing such pride; but she was a poor girl; she was ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... broad white morning and find a large vermilion General staring under the staring sun. I do not blame them at all for clamouring for the schoolboy's detention in prison; I dare say a little detention in prison would do him no harm. Still, I think the immense act has something about it human and excusable; and when I endeavour to analyse the reason of this feeling I find it to lie, not in the fact that the thing was big or bold or successful, but in the fact that the thing was perfectly useless to everybody, including the person who did it. The raid ends in itself; and so ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... leave them scarcely subsistence enough to preserve them from starving. They had indeed imbibed from the crew of the Rurik a favourable opinion of white people; but the ship which now approached them was a monster in comparison of it, and they were excusable in supposing it manned by another and ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... expected, that situations uncommonly difficult will make necessary some extraordinary steps, which, but for those situations, would be hardly excusable. It will be very happy indeed, and somewhat wonderful, if all the measures I have been driven to take should be right. A pure intention, void of all undutiful resentment, is what must be my consolation, whatever others may think of those ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... nobility of your pedigree) the bluest blood of Spain. But he can show, moreover, thank God, a reputation which raises him as much above the imputation of cowardice, as it does above that of discourtesy. If you think fit, senor, to forget what you have just, in very excusable anger, vented, and to return with me, you will find me still, as ever, your most faithful servant and host. If otherwise, you have only to name whither you wish your mails to be sent, and I shall, with unfeigned sorrow, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... and pressing grievances no one could possibly deny. To recount them all would be a formidable task, for their whole lives were darkened by injustice. There was not a wrong which had driven the Boer from Cape Colony which he did not now practise himself upon others—and a wrong may be excusable in 1835 which is monstrous in 1895. The primitive virtue which had characterised the farmers broke down in the face of temptation. The country Boers were little affected, some of them not at all, but the Pretoria Government became a most corrupt ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... who should have been consulted, not you. If Jean's action is indeed excusable, his want of ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... at the head of their drujinas, and of supplying them with infantry. In 1276 Boris of Rostof and others, followed Mangou Khan in the war against the tribes of the Caucasus, and helped to sack the town of Dediakof in Daghestan. This was excusable, because the enemy was an alien; but what can be thought of Prince Andrew, the unworthy son of Alexander Nevski, who, in 1281, induced the Tartars to aid him in pillaging Vladimir, Souzdal, Mourom, Moscow, and Pereiaslaf, and led in profaning ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... in the practice; it is a species of war which we wage with brute animals for their spoils; but if ever it can be considered as excusable, it is in these savage nations, who have recourse to it for their subsistence. They are active, bold, and dexterous in all these exercises, to such a degree, that none of the wild animals they attack have the smallest chance of escape. ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... last meeting she had been engaged to another man, a fat, bald, doddering, senile fool, whose only merit was his money. Scarcely a fair description of Mr Pickering, but in a man in Bill's position a little bias is excusable. ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
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