"Apology" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... By way of apology, he said, afterwards, while shaking the sand out of his shoes, "It is difficult to preserve the serenity of the class-room under conditions so very dissimilar. I understand now why the golf-playing parson swears in a bunker. It is not right, but it is very human. It is the recrudescence ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... of bronchitis. A certain pious farmer in the north country when, like Agricola, he was about to die, requested the doubtful glory of this epitaph: 'He was a poor sinner, but he done his best' Save for the fact that I am an excellent sinner, in a literary sense, the words may stand for all the apology ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... what Mr. Sumner now admitted for Colorado and Nevada. Mr. Webster acted from the same considerations that now influenced and controlled the judgment of Mr. Seward. As matter of historic justice, the Republicans who waived the anti- slavery restriction should at least have offered and recorded their apology for any animadversions they had made upon the course of Mr. Webster ten years before. Every prominent Republican senator who agreed in 1861 to abandon the principle of the Wilmot Proviso in organizing the Territories of Colorado and ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... Border" at Abbotsford in 1831, shortly before Scott set out for Naples, and the two poets went in company to the ruins of Newark Castle. It is characteristic that in "Yarrow Revisited," which commemorates the incident, the Bard of Rydal should think it necessary to offer an apology for his distinguished host's habit of romanticising nature—that nature which Wordsworth, romantic neither in temper nor choice of subject, treated ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... now," I answered, offering no other apology. The man irritated me more than any other person that had ever come across me. There was something perverse and splenetic in every word he uttered, and every expression ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... somewhat rested by the delay at Eldara it was impossible to keep him up with Bard's prancing piebald, which sidestepped at every shadow. Yet the tenderfoot never allowed his mount to pass entirely ahead of the roan, but kept checking him back hard, turning toward Nash with an apology each time he surged ahead. It might have been merely that he did not wish to precede the cowpuncher on a trail which he did not know. It might have been something quite other than this which made him consistently keep to the rear; Nash felt ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... for the amusement of our subscribers. But September—September, with all its allurements of flood and field—its gathering of honest old friends—its tales of by-gone seasons, and its glorious promises of the present—must plead our apology for abandoning our pen and rushing back to old associations, which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various
... observed Paige, the stout young man, with an air of apology. "I know I'm not much use; but I've placed men, and they'll stick; and if this freeze-out proposition goes through—why, they're in ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... apology, Jane sought a chair and made a half-hearted attempt at study. Gradually she drew her mind from unpleasant thoughts and proceeded to concentrate it upon her lessons for the ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... Conrad von Burgsdorf who thus spoke. He had just entered the apartment, and strode forward without apology or more ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... ground or on a bush, evidently and unmistakably using language of the most sulphurous nature; while the dogs came up, their tongues out, their tails between their legs, and with a general air of exhaustion, dejection, and apology. As they slunk up the muttered curses broke forth: "You! you lazy hound! Call yourself a greyhound! You're a fat-tailed sheep, that's what you are, nothing more!" And up would get friend hawk and cuff and strike and harry that poor ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... her with pleasure and Thorne with repugnance. He drew back, while she busied herself in arranging his cup, saucer and plate. She dropped the spoon on the tray, scolded herself for her own stupidity, looked up at him with a hurried apology, and laughed. If she did not blush, she conveyed by her manner a sort of idea of blushing, and went out of the room with a final giggle, being confused by his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... said in a fresh tone of apology, "ther's fellers around here wi' no sort o' manners. They're scairt to death makin' a big talk to a red-ha'r'd gal, so I jest got to do it. An' I sez it, it ain't easy, folks like me speechin' to folks ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... add, that he was firmly persuaded you were intoxicated during a portion of the evening, and possibly unconscious of the extent of the insult you were guilty of. He commissioned me to say, that should this be pleaded as an excuse for your behaviour, he will consent to accept a written apology, to be penned ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... owe you an apology," he said swiftly. "In a way we've been friends, and as you say, it's not a big thing you ask of me; but nevertheless I can't grant it. Please don't ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... Rickman was certainly not in his vein this evening. He made no apology whatever for his lateness. He ignored the commercial gentleman's "Good-evening, Rickman." As he slipped into his place between Miss Walker and Miss Roots he forgot his usual "Busy to-day at the Museum, Miss Roots?"—a question ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... Bismarck, the modern archetype of "Empire-makers," as necessary to the consolidation of the great German nation. An average Australian or Canadian statesman would read them through with almost complete approval of every passage, save only their defence of Free Trade. Nay more; the apology for property which they put forward—that it must be "associated in the minds of the mass of the people with ideas of justice and reason"—is that on which the friends of true conservatism build when they think of the evils of modern civilisation and ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... bet the bottle of wine that he would have me bathe his head at my next visit. The result has been described. I had hardly reached my office, when a special patient and friend of mine, Charlie Gazzan, of Mobile, Alabama, arrived with an apology from Lieutenant Cox, a few words of explanation from Captain Ellis, signed by all the officers in the ward, and the bottle of wine, sent for my acceptance. I would not accept the wine or read the note, and in this course I was upheld ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... these, important as they are, make but a slender portion of the material out of which a judgment concerning these grave events can be constructed. I do not therefore offer an apology for the somewhat copious extracts which I have translated and given in these volumes from the correspondence of Barneveld and from other manuscripts of great value—most of them in the Royal Archives of Holland and Belgium—which ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... being married by a Protestant minister, is the apology for your absence, it does," replied Helen, with a ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... to appear. Shortly after we reached the Esplanade, carriages occupied by the women of the Sultan's harem began to appear, coming out from the palace grounds and driving up and down the roadway. Only a few of the women were closely veiled, a majority of them wearing an apology for veiling, merely a strip of white lace covering the forehead down to the eyebrows. Some were yellow, and some white-types of the Mongolian and Caucasian races. Now and then a pretty face was seen, rarely a beautiful one. Many ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... courteous apology, and whispered to her husband, as she followed lightly up, "We'll take it, Basil, if ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... dear? We cannot afford to give a party, and that will be an apology all-sufficient to a woman ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Fairfax handed a letter to Bessie. "From home, from my mother," said she in a glad undertone, and instantly, without apology, opened and read it. Mr. Cecil Burleigh took a furtive observation of her while she was thus occupied. What a good countenance she had! how the slight emotion of her lips and the lustrous shining under her dark eyelashes enhanced her beauty! It was a letter to make her happy, to ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... he, blandly, "I make no apology for introducing myself to you; Carew and I have been just having a talk about you, and he has no secrets from his ghostly adviser. I take your hand with pleasure. I seem to feel it is the flesh and blood of my best friend. Sooner or later, mark me, he will own as much, and, be sure, no effort of ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... the apology; and, a few moments later, the apothecary and both ladies (the one as fond of the abstract as the other two were ignorant of the concrete) were engaged in an animated, running discussion on art, society, climate, education,—all those large, secondary desiderata which seem ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... was bearing down upon him. It was raining, and the large man had an umbrella up. The two came full tilt against each other. Jasper felt his breath taken away, and could only gasp out a word of remonstrance and apology. ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... from the city. One could see that from his fine clothes and his white shirt and collar. Ranald looked at him with deepening contempt. "Pride" was written all over him. Not only did he wear fine clothes, and a white shirt and collar, but he wore them without any sign of awkwardness or apology in his manner, and indeed as if he enjoyed them. But the crowning proof of his "pride," Don noted with ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... his journey and of his feelings, expressing all the affection, gratitude, and respect which was natural and honourable, and describing every thing exterior and local that could be supposed attractive, with spirit and precision. No suspicious flourishes now of apology or concern; it was the language of real feeling towards Mrs. Weston; and the transition from Highbury to Enscombe, the contrast between the places in some of the first blessings of social life was just enough touched on to shew how keenly it was felt, and how much more might have been said ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... seeking. I cannot go to him and order him into the field. Seek him yourselves, if you will. He has spoken words to me which no one, not even the first noble in Christendom, has a right to use to his sovereign. I pass that over. I demand no apology. Let him resume his place in the field and his command, if he will. I would not place my own dignity before the good of Theos. The Assembly ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... mighty work it had already accomplished in ameliorating the condition of a lost and wandering world. Amidon felt that he must have been very blind in failing to note this work until it was thus forced on his notice; but he made a mental apology. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... to open the door, Mr. Lincoln explained that those knocks had just been adopted by the boy and himself, as part of the telegraph system, and that he was obliged to let the lad in—"for it wouldn't do to go back on the code now," he added, half in apology for permitting such a sudden break in ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... cautiously opened far enough to allow a scowling head to be thrust out. The instant the Anarchist's narrowed eyes rested on Mrs. Elwood her belligerent manner changed. She swung the door wide, remarking in cold apology; "Pray, pardon me, Mrs. Elwood. I believed that a number of rude, ill-bred young women whom I had the misfortune to encounter earlier in the day were renewing their attempts to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... but in her it seemed to be the token of surprise rather than that of terror. There was, probably, somewhat in my aspect and garb that suggested an apology for this intrusion, as arising from simplicity and mistake. She thought proper, however, to assume the air of one offended, and, looking sternly,—"How now, fellow," said she, "what is ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... Then when the train had stopped, he had been spewed out upon a strange country platform, led through strange mean streets, and forced with head bared to the autumn chill of evening, to attend the obsequies of a total stranger. At the end, without a word of explanation, still less of apology, he had been returned as an empty rejected package to the platform at Liverpool Street. Yes, I should dearly love to have met and cross-questioned that policeman, and have listened to the bizarre solution ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... more gentle word was already on her lips, the look of mute apology was struggling to her eyes, when to her astonishment the praefect, without a word, was down ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... turned off to the right. Homer hurried down it. At each door he looked inside. To whoever occupied the room he murmured a few words of apology in Wolof, the Sengalese lingua franca. The ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... does an opponent's confutation in a dialectical argument, so as to see whether he means the same thing, in the same relation, and in the same sense, before admitting that he has contradicted either something he has said himself or what a man of sound sense assumes as true. But there is no possible apology for improbability of Plot or depravity of character, when they are not necessary and no use is made of them, like the improbability in the appearance of Aegeus in Medea and the baseness of ...
— The Poetics • Aristotle
... predicament, and its members took what comfort they could in pitching upon the Secretary, who had, without authorization, announced the vote of censure on the call for the monthly meeting. He was now directed to write to Mr. Fenton a letter of apology, which he did with such small grace as he could command, taking the precaution to ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... my understanding, and bad's the best, you'll tell me," said Miss Pross, softened by the tone of the apology, "he is ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... original;[151] Capgrave calls attention to his interpolations and refers them to their sources.[152] On the other hand, there are constant implications that variation from source may be a desirable thing and that explanation and apology are unnecessary. Bokenam, for example, apologizes rather because The Golden Legend does not supply enough material and he must leave out certain things "for ignorance."[153] Caxton says of his Charles the Great, "If I had been more ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... the artist, laying down his weapons and grasping Gibault's proffered hand with a sigh of evident relief, "I am well, excellently well. You did, indeed, startle me by your sudden appearance; but no harm is done, and where none was intended no apology is necessary. You ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... lay in the nest, saddled to the burr-oak bough. Still, through the peaceful morning air comes the loud, clear, cheery call of the Bob White—a note that has in it health and vigor for the healing of many a tired heart. As for the cuckoo, well, his mate is guarding those bluish-green eggs in the apology for a nest built in the lower branches of a young black-oak; they will not be hatched until the very last of the month. He does his best to be cheerful and to make a joyful sound. "Kut-Kut-Kut," and "Kow-Kow-Kow"—you may often hear the latter sound ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... quickly. "We must stop him." He ran lightly down the steps of the terrace to the beach, with Meakim waddling heavily after him. "He's got too much at stake, Meakim," he said, in half-apology, as they tramped through the sand. "He mustn't spoil it. We won't ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... woman's intuitive tact and poetry, she had, as she spoke, slowly shifted her position so as to bring the mute figure of the ruined man between her and her audience, hiding in the shadow behind it, as if she offered it as a tacit apology for her actions. Silent and expressionless, it yet spoke for her; helpless, crushed, and smitten with the Divine thunderbolt, it still stretched an invisible ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... in the card-catalogues of the great dealers, my decease would be looked forward to with resignation by my junior colleagues. As it is, after twenty years of collecting, and an expenditure shameful in one of my fiscal estate, I have nothing that even courtesy itself could call a collection. In apology, I may plead only the sting of unchartered curiosity, the adventurous thrill of buying on half or no knowledge, the joy of an instinctive sympathy that, irrespective of boundaries, knows its own when it sees it. And you austerely single-minded ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... the subject must, to those who have made up their minds on the matter, be my apology for entering upon its investigation. The views I have taken of the definite action of electricity in decomposing bodies (783.), and the identity of the power so used with the power to be overcome (855.), founded not on a mere opinion or general notion, but on facts which, being altogether new, ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... out their dead reckoning, causing them to run past the Straits of Sunda; but, picking themselves up on 1st October, they got into the straits, and after a wearisome beat up arrived in Batavia on the 10th; and Hicks was sent on shore to announce their arrival, and offer an apology for failing to salute the Dutch flag in a proper manner—the reason being that they had only three ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... was not in London when the Tower was captured by the citizens, October 16th (Compotus Willielmi de Culpho, Wardrobe Accounts, 20 Edward the Second, 31/8), since she dates a mandate from Wallingford on the 15th, unless Bishop Orleton falsified the date in quoting it in his Apology. Thence she marched to Cirencester and Gloucester, and at last to Bristol, which she entered on or before the 25th. Since Gloucester was considerably out of her way—for we are assured that her aim was to make a straight and rapid course to ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... No apology is needed, therefore, for a discussion of the way in which peace may be organized and established out of the settlement of this war. I am going to set out and estimate as carefully as I can the forces that make for a peace organization and the forces that make for war. I am going to ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... apology. Hooker's thorough inability to grasp the situation, and handle the conditions arising from the responsibility of so large a command, dates from Thursday noon, or at latest Friday morning. And from this time his enervation was steadily on ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... of this little volume has no other apology for offering it to the public, than the hurried manner in which it has been composed. Being detained in the city of New York on business, he seized the opportunity of a tedious delay, and wrote the work in the inside of one month, attending to other ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... comfortable as a gentleman might do who was debating with himself whether the probabilities, as regarded the old lady's next movements, lay on the side of kissing or scratching. Mrs Martha Phillips herself commenced an incoherent apology about "expecting to see four young gentlemen in fancy dresses;" and Hanmer and the captain tried all they could to laugh off a contretemps, which to explain was impossible. What the old lady took Mr Plympton for, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... authority from him. I could undoubtedly say it was your feelings I was expressing; but the answer would naturally be, that Lord Grenville personally was concerned. However, the lapse of time is at present the additional objection, and no apology could answer to you or your friends but a public explanation from Castlereagh, which could not be made. I assure you I have been very much disturbed by your letter, being always anxious to obey your wishes and forward your objects, and in the first place called on ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... sent two dollars to a brave-hearted sister—who, by faith alone, and not by money, had gathered some sick and poor about her, and lived only by prayer—and a note of apology and half-contempt that it was such a miserable pittance. She received, in reply, the following little ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... Let it be some apology for the damage caused by the careering hero, and a consolation to the quiet wretches, dragged along with him at his chariot-wheels, that he is generally the last to know when he has made an actual start; such a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... caps your jests and corrects your mistakes, and does your special things over again in newer and smarter ways. Any really well-bred man who presumed so far would at least be plain or physically feeble, or unhappily married by way of apology, but the idea of so much civility seems never to have entered Crichton's head. He will come into a room where we are jesting perhaps, and immediately begin to flourish about less funny perhaps but decidedly ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... LORD,—I am uncertain if I ought to profit by the apology which is afforded me, by a very obliging communication from our acquaintance, John Murray, of Fleet Street, to give your Lordship the present trouble. But my intrusion concerns a large debt of gratitude due to your Lordship, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... Then boys began bringing the German's breakfast, and unless I chose to confess myself an eavesdropper it became my business to be in the tent ahead of them. So I strode forward as if just arrived and purposely tripped over a tent-rope, stumbling under the awning with a laugh and an apology. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... of his ill-natured sneers, and, after the school was dismissed, he went, with tears in his eyes, and tendered his hand to Hartly, making a handsome apology for his past ill manners. "Think no more about it," said Hartly; "let us all go and have a ramble in the woods, before we break up for vacation." The boys, one and all, followed Vincent's example, and then, with shouts and huzzas, ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... expressed a lively sense of his courage, and perhaps implied (for I suppose the arts of ladies are the same as those of men) a modest consciousness of his good looks, our bear began insensibly to soften; and it was already part as an apology, though still with unaffected heat of temper, that he volunteered some sketch of ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... bed-chamber, they were so fatigued that sleep appeared to their minds the compensating logical deduction. Miss Dorothea suppressed a yawn, and inflicted it upon Miss Virginia, who returned it, with an apology, and immediately had her sister's hand on her shoulder, for, an attempted control of one of the irresistibles; a specacle imparting bitter shudders and shots to the sympathetic jawbones of an observer. Hand at mouth, for not in privacy would they have been ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... promotion, if he finally makes it, is not an act of restitution: it is giving to the officer that which was not his before. And if the opportunity has passed, he owes the officer nothing in compensation. But if he has insulted the officer, he owes him an apology for all time to come: he must give back that honour which belonged to the officer, and of which he has robbed him. This is restitution. In a thousand practical cases it is important, and often a very nice question ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... for beauties of mountain or sky. I could do nothing but gaze on the strange figure of the silent swagger, who knelt yes, positively knelt, on the still wet and shining shingle which formed an apology for a gravel path up to the back-door of the little wooden homestead. His appearance was very different to what it had been three days before. Now his clothes were dry and clean and mended,—my Irish maids doing; bless their warm hearts! He had cobbled up his boots himself, ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... pipkin and her jars of lentils and beans, are empty. She lays the tray before her son and invites me to partake of the repast. I go to my basket, bring forth the few onions and the two cakes of cheese I had left, lay them with an apology on the tray—the mother, abashed, protests—and we sit down cross-legged in a circle to supper. When we rise, the little girl lights a little fire, and they enjoy the cup of coffee I make for them. And the mother, in taking hers, tells ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... While the apology made for Miss Pink stated no more than the plain truth, it must be confessed that Hardyman was right in declining to be satisfied with Isabel's excuse for the melancholy that oppressed her. She had ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... intonation in his son-in-law's voice, and the way that son-in-law shook him as he spoke was so eloquent, that Monsieur Chebe was fully convinced. He even stammered an apology. Certainly Risler had good reason for acting as he had. All honorable people would be on his side. And he backed toward the door as he spoke. When he reached it, he inquired timidly if Madame Chebe's little allowance would ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... was the rope, the unloaded pistols. It was a queer puzzle. How did it happen? Ney began with an apology. Would Mademoiselle d'Aumerle forgive him? But he had worried though! He should not have left ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... breath and stiffened in his chair, then with a gesture of apology and a smile he added: "Why should I hunt for pompous words? I can tell you in one phrase: the ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... kind solicitude for her comfort. She had cried so much that she felt as if she could cry no longer, but she reproached herself excessively for having left him to himself so long, when all he wanted was to comfort her; and she tried to make some apology. ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in his apology. He was mocking, not God, but the magnified man of the popular creeds; to him it was a mere intellectual counter with which his wit played, oblivious of the sacred aura that clung round the concept for the bulk of the world. Even his famous picture of Jehovah ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... colour stand in need of explanation or apology. In the first place we have to take into account how far the artist was bound to tradition; we have, for instance, to bear in mind that in painting The Assumption, he was enjoined by the Church to clothe the Madonna in white. Then comes the whole question of ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... Japanese officers replied that they considered the flying of any other flag than theirs in Manchuria or Siberia an insult to Japan. I told them they were fools, that if the English commander had heard their conversation (they both spoke in Russian) he would demand an apology. At which they grinned and departed." We tried every means to find the two officers, but were unable to do so. This was the atmosphere in which we discussed the smaller subject, and may explain the obstinacy of both sides; ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... ass saw him whom the prophet could not see." He walked manfully to the gallows, harangued the people with a smile, prayed fervently that God would hasten the downfall of Antichrist and the deliverance of England, and went up the ladder with an apology for mounting so awkwardly. "You see," he said, "I have but ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... took the paper from the pocket-book, and, leaving his place, approached Mr. Hawbury. "I beg your pardon," he said, as he offered the doctor the manuscript with his own hand. His eyes dropped to the ground, and his face darkened, while he made the apology. "A secret, sullen fellow," thought the doctor, thanking him with formal civility; "his friend is worth ten thousand of him." Midwinter went back to the window, and sat down again in silence, with the old impenetrable resignation which had ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... never shone in farming; indeed I believe he never took heartily to it, or tried it except in fits. His Bute farm was, at best, a kind of apology for some far different ideal of a country establishment which could not be realized; practically a temporary landing-place from which he could make sallies and excursions in search of some more generous field of enterprise. Stormy brief efforts ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... only expanded his facial twitching at this friendly assault until it became a definite grin. It was a grin that needed no apology, for all evidence was in its favor that it was so seldom seen by the eyes of men that it could be ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... of this poem an apology is needed for affixing thereto a praem. Some friends of mine have been plaguing me beyond the restrictive line of Patience for the true cause of conceiving the accompanying collection of words, balderdash ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... character, which loses nothing in coming to us from the lips of Cicero. So much Cicero allows to the stern nature of the man's character. Let us look back and we shall find that we make the same allowance. This is not, in truth, a lesson which he gives us, but an apology ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... in an apology to the Emperor Antoninus, writes in the second century: "We do not receive these things as common bread and drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior was made flesh by the word of God, even so we have been taught that the ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... once a witness to itself. He compares explicitly and broadly the method of God's dealing, as the hearer of prayer, with the practice of a judge who is manifestly vile and venal. Nor is a word of explanation or apology interposed. He who thus simply brings sweet food from noisome carrion, has all power in heaven and in earth; His ways are not as our ways, nor ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... of the Church as the Univers at the time when he directed it; but no one who read those savagely scurrilous and intolerant pages, burning with an impotent hatred of all the progressive and liberal tendencies of the time, shrinking from no misrepresentation of fact and from no apology for crime if it was in the interest of the Church, could fail to perceive how utterly out of harmony it was with the best lay thought of France. English religious journalism has sometimes, though in a very mitigated degree, exhibited ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... said Hilda, contemptuously, "you do not seem to understand our positions. This seems to me like impertinence, and, unless you make an apology, I shall be under the very unpleasant necessity of obtaining a ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Without apology, then, I shall endeavor to show that in the structure, the habits, the mode of growth, and, above all, in the productions of this spider are to be found subjects worthy the attention of every class of minds; for to the naturalist is exhibited a species which, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... the same at the bottom; just as a man who is clad in regimentals is the same as the man that is clad in skins. The garments make a change to the eye, and some change in the conduct, perhaps; but none in the man. Herein lies the apology for gifts; seein' that you expect different conduct from one in silks and satins, from one in homespun; though the Lord, who didn't make the dresses, but who made the creatur's themselves, looks only at his ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Etonian entered as would the guest of the evening who is a few moments late for dinner. He was cheerful, but slightly deprecating. He gave the impression of one who, though sure of his welcome, feels that some slight apology is expected from him. He advanced into the room with a gentle half-smile which ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... silver bowl of frozen cream. Beside this, at the head of the table before her grandmother, he placed scarlet strawberries gathered that morning under white dews. She availed herself of the slight interruption and rose with an apology; but even when love bade her go, love also bade her linger; she could scarce bear to be with them, but she could scarce bear to be alone. She paused at her grandmother's chair to stroke the dry bronze puffs on her temples—a unique impulse; she hesitated ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... after all this. A handsome fellow if he had not surprised me. Methinks, now I look on him again, I would not have him mistaken. [Aside.] We are all liable to mistakes, sir. If you own it to be so, there needs no farther apology. ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... sacrilege; and well it was for the fugitives in the sanctuary in those iron times that it should be so considered. Yet not the less is it necessary for us to distinguish a high-handed military measure from actual sacrilege, for which there can be no apology, and hardly ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... faced about, and ran back again with the completest unanimity, until Mr. Giles (who had the shortest wind of the party, as was encumbered with a pitchfork) most handsomely insisted on stopping, to make an apology for ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... author's confidence, possibly from kindliness of disposition to a younger man, yielded, and "The Luck of Roaring Camp" was published in the current number of the magazine for which it was written, as it was written, without emendation, omission, alteration, or apology. A not inconsiderable part of the grotesqueness of the situation was the feeling, which the author retained throughout the whole affair, of the perfect sincerity, good faith, and seriousness of his friend's—the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... his wife, children and furniture, and himself: this is passed unanimously."—No opposition is tolerated. One of those present having manifested some horror at such sanguinary motions, "is seized by the collar, obliged to kneel down, to make an apology, and to kiss the ground. The punishment inflicted on children is given to him; he is ducked repeatedly in one of the fountain-basins, after which they him over to the mob, who roll him in the mud." On the following day an ecclesiastic is trodden under foot, and flung from hand to hand. A few ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... English poets. Both in his quotation from Sidney ("... being so evil apparelled in the Dust and Cobweb of that uncivil Age, what would it work trimmed in the gorgeous Eloquence of Pindar?") and in his own apology for the "Simplicity of the Stile" there is sufficient prescription for all those improvements that either a Ramsay or a Percy were soon actually to undertake. And some of the Virgilian passages in Chevy Chase which Addison picked out ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... fountain in the plaza he made an apology for a toilet with his wetted handkerchief. Across the open square filed the dolorous line of friends of the prisoners in the calaboza, bearing the morning meal of the immured. The food in their hands aroused small longing in Blythe. ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... mails between England and North-America, and England and the West-Indies and Mexico.' That 'the execution of all these contracts, with the exception of the latter, had given general satisfaction. But for this exception, the extent and complication of the plan at its commencement afforded some apology.' That 'the spirit in which the steam contractors had generally executed their contracts merited notice, as they had in almost every instance exceeded the horse-power stipulated in their agreements, and thus insured an accuracy in the delivery of mails which experience has shown, if the letter ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... Ruth felt the rebuke keenly. An apology was on her lips, but only her flushed cheeks betrayed any emotion. Miss Ainslie's face was pale, and there was unmistakable resentment ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... nice to him that evening. Wolfgang felt it with much satisfaction. Well, they owed him an apology, too. He allowed them to make ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... A little apology for a dwelling was perched on the top of a hill overlooking in several directions hundreds of leagues of pine-barrens there was as yet neither garden nor inclosure near it; and a wilder, more desolate and savage-looking ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... an inarticulate word of apology, he thrust out his hand. Saltash's came to meet it in a ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... Tuskegee to write the first chapter. After these efforts had been typewritten by his stenographer they produced only three and one-half pages—an amount of copy discouragingly inadequate for the first installment. He mailed the material, however, with a line of apology for its inadequacy and promising to send more the next day. On receipt of this scant initial copy the editors wrote him a letter of congratulation and approval which greatly encouraged him, in spite of his heavy and unrelenting administrative ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... fierceness.' On eliciting the information that 'the gentleman' was a riding surveyor, "I replied," says Fielding, "that he might be a riding surveyor, but could be no gentleman, for that none who had any title to that denomination, would break into the presence of a lady, without any apology or even moving his hat. He then took his covering from his head, and laid it on the table, saying he asked pardon." To this 'riding surveyor' we owe also an indication that Fielding found room in the narrow confines of a cabin for his Plato; for the rude insolence of that functionary ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... more than fulfilled. Another copy of the book Kepler sent to Reymers the Imperial astronomer with a most fulsome letter, which Tycho, who asserted that Reymers had simply plagiarised his work, very strongly resented, thus drawing from Kepler a long letter of apology. About the same time Kepler had married a lady already twice widowed, and become involved in difficulties with her relatives on financial grounds, and with the Styrian authorities in connection with the religious ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant
... that the days of wonders and portents had not passed away yet. That the eminently serious Fynes should do such an exceptional thing was simply staggering. With a more hasty enunciation than usual little Fyne was sure that I would not demand an apology for this irregularity if I knew what her real name was. A sort of warmth crept ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... room; and there, in my own corner, sat poor Mr. Fairly, looking a little forlorn, and telling me he had been there near an hour. I made every apology that could mark in the strongest manner how little I thought his patience worth such ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... of this legend, endeavored to disprove it, and his apology for Lucretia was highly gratifying to the patriotic Italians. To it is due the reaction which has recently set in against this conception of her. The Lucretia legend may be analyzed most satisfactorily and scientifically where documents ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... owe you an apology, for I had done you an injustice. Meanwhile your son is about to be dressed, and there is hardly room for three men in ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... then President, declined to interfere, on the ground that what had been done was done by States, and that it was contrary to the theory of our government "to coerce a State." Thus was the pretension of State Rights made the apology for imbecility. Had this President then interfered promptly and loyally, it cannot be doubted that this whole intolerable crime might have been trampled out forever. And now, when it is proposed that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... taught that branch of philosophy in the museum; but he afterwards embraced the Christian religion, and then taught Christianity openly in Alexandria. He enjoys with Justin the honour of being one of the first men of learning who were converted, and, like Justin, his chief work is an apology for the Christians, addressed to ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... "No apology necessary, I assure you. I took the liberty, some time ago, of requesting your daugh—your gardener to bring me a ladder. He will appear presently, I have no doubt—in fact, I see ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... for advice or support; he had utterly estranged from him his father's lawyer; and though he suspected that Daly was not true to him, he felt that he could not break with him. He was obliged, therefore, to swallow his wrath, though it choked him, and to mutter something in the shape of an apology. ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... feel lonely when a gentlemanly looking man of about forty-five approached her seat with an apology, and, by way of question, spoke her name. Surprised, but on her guard, for she remembered her home warnings, she made no reply; but the pleasant stranger went on to say that he was a schoolmate of her mother, whom he called by her girl name. This had its effect; and when he mentioned ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... always dressed in black. "I take it," he says, "to be the proper costume of an author." When this was once objected to, at a wedding, he pleaded the raven's apology in the fable, that "he had no other." His clothes were entirely black; and he wore long black gaiters, up to the knees. His head was bent a little forward, like one who had been reading; and, if not standing ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... to contain an apology. But mine must contain at least an explanation, if only of omissions. The Highways and Byways of Surrey belong not to one county or to one period of time, but to two different ages, and, to-day, to two counties. London has made the difference. ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... known, except by her special intimates; and they were never many. Her fidelity in friendship was imperishable. Friends might break with her; she never broke with them, whatever the wrong they had done her. She never stood upon dignity, nor exacted apology, nor resented an unkindness, though keenly feeling it; and, if falsely accused, answered nothing. She never spoke disparagingly of others, unless clearest duty exacted it. Gossips, tattlers, and backbiters were her trinity of horrors. Her absolute truthfulness was shown in ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... go and report the occurrence, provided only Chin Jung admitted his being in the wrong. Chin Jung refused, at the outset, to agree to this, but he ultimately could find no way out of it, as Chia Jui himself urged him to make some temporising apology. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... found Balmawhapple, no little sulky and altogether silent, with the Baron by his side. The latter in his capacity of mediator made Edward a full and complete apology for the events of the past evening—an apology which the young man gladly accepted along with the hand of the offender—somewhat stiffly given, it is true, owing to the necessity of carrying his right arm in a sling—the ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... "I accept your apology," said Mosely; "it's lucky you made it. Me and my friend don't stand no insults. We don't take no back talk. We're bad men when we get into ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... doing this would be very bitter to him, because it would be necessary that he should humble himself before the scented shiny head of the little man: but Michel knew that it must be so. Urmand had been undoubtedly ill-treated among them, and the apology for that ill-treatment must be made by the chief of the family himself. 'I suppose I might as well go to him alone,' ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... reply was in the hands of the editor, denying that such battles ever took place, retailing the actual facts of which I had been myself an eyewitness, and intimating legal prosecution unless the most ample and unequivocal withdrawal and apology were at once published. The Newspaper printed my rejoinder, and made satisfactory amends for having been imposed upon and deceived. I waited upon the Commodore and appealed for his help in redressing this terrible injury to our Mission. He informed me that he had already called his ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... his jovial, rather noisy fashion, and would hear not a word of apology, but insisted that Mozart should accompany him to the house, for the afternoon ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... that an apology is due for placing yet another war book before a war-weary public, but an effort has been made to make of the following chapters a record of British maritime achievement, more than a narrative of ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... Note in this apology the sweetness of Hamlet's nature. How few are alive enough, that is unselfish and true enough, to be capable of genuine apology! The low nature always feels, not the wrong, but the confession of ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... newspapers, and that Mr. Stanton had shown neither to him nor to any of his associates in the cabinet till they were published. Nearly all the members of the cabinet made similar assurances to me afterward, and, as Mr. Stanton made no friendly advances, and offered no word of explanation or apology, I declined General Grant's friendly offices for a reconciliation, but, on the contrary, resolved to resent what I considered an insult, as publicly as it was made. My brother, Senator Sherman, who was Mr. Stanton's neighbor, always insisted that Mr. Stanton had ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... apology for being here. You have made it easy for me. I have been away from home for nearly five weeks traveling on four wheels, and I received notice from your worthy president just a day or two before leaving my office that he would expect me to read a paper on ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922 • Various
... hate him on the third day, I should have thought him wholly sublime. This thought alone should have silenced me, but an angry man always thinks himself right. Posterity on reading my attack will rank me among the Zoyluses, and the humble apology I now make to the great man's shades ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... scraped his lantern jaws with apologetic thumb and finger, and looking at him with a startled meekness, as if he would fain propitiate anger for a possible intrusion, sidled to the foot of the stairs, mounted the stairway with a backward glance and a second cough of apology, ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... ominous squaring of the shoulders, what he meant by treading on his toes,—to which he, poor man, instead of replying that it was so obviously unintentional that no gentleman would think of demanding an apology, is fain, in order to escape the impending blow, to answer by assuring the bully in the most soothing terms that no insult was intended, that he never will do so again, and hopes that the occasion may serve as a precedent for Mr. Bully himself ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... made Bonrepaux shudder by denying the existence of a God, and had, at the same time, won the heart of James by pretending to believe in transubstantiation. In a short time the banished man put forth an apology for his conduct. This apology, when examined, will be found to amount merely to a confession that he had committed one series of crimes in order to gain James's favour, and another series in order to avoid being involved in James's ruin. The writer ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... I need not offer this audience, gathered in the noble hall of this historic Inn—of "old Purpulei, Britain's ornament"—any apology for challenging its attention in this and two succeeding addresses to the genesis, formulation, and the fundamental political philosophy of the Constitution of the United States. The occasion gives me peculiar satisfaction, not only in the opportunity to thank my fellow Benchers of the Inn for ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... in it, may have nearly the same subduing effect; I have, besides, a few curious touches to lay in, which seem hitherto to have escaped observation and the pencil; and in these several circumstances must lie my apology for adding one sketch more ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... discussion and to the widening of the breach between the Dutch and the Portuguese. On the 11th of January, 1638, the besiegers applied to the Dutch at Hirado for a supply of gunpowder, which request was complied with, and at the same time an apology was tendered that no larger quantity could be sent. Again, on the 15th of February a request for cannon to be used in the siege was received, and the guns were sent. Mr. Koeckebacker says: "We gave the largest and most uniform ...
— Japan • David Murray
... can it be to hear the howlings of repining Lucifer?" our critic responds flippantly, "I think 'tis easier to answer than to find out what shew of Reason he had for asking it, or why Lucifer mayn't howl as pleasantly as either Cerberus, or Enceladus." Without hesitation or apology he takes issue with Rapin's conception of Decorum in the epic. But Wesley is empiricist as well as rationalist, and the judgment of authority can be upset by appeal to the court of experience. To Balzac's suggestion that, to avoid ...
— Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (second edition, 1697) • Samuel Wesley
... mine, a Mr. Nell, a very hearty fellow, and one who is very desirous of seeing you—a poet, and, as I have convinced him, as hearty a fellow as himself. Therefore I have taken the liberty of introducing a stranger without any apology, feeling that such an introduction was not needed. He will be particularly gratified in seeing what you can show him of the immortal specimens of Chantrey's genius, and any other matters that can ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... influence—that Mr. Maurice was greatest. True, he was a great and rare thinker. Those who wish to satisfy themselves of this should measure the capaciousness of his intellect by studying—not by merely reading— his Boyle Lectures on the Religions of the world; and that Kingdom of Christ, the ablest "Apology" for the Catholic Faith which England has seen for more than two hundred years. The ablest, and perhaps practically the most successful; for it has made the Catholic Faith look living, rational, practical, and practicable, to hundreds ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... borrowed." Now, in answer to this extravagant assertion, I will venture to say that the two following are the sole cases of questionable idiom throughout Milton:—1st, "Yet virgin of Proserpine from Jove;" and, in this case, the same thing might be urged in apology which Aristotle urges in another argument, namely, that anonymon to pathos, the case is unprovided with any suitable expression. How would it be possible to convey in good English the circumstances here indicated— namely, that ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... persuasiveness, how the Court had in six points strayed from the exact meaning of the law; and besides this he touched, though briefly, on the merits of the case, and on the crying injustice of the sentence. The tone of his speech was one of apology to the Senators, who, with their penetration and judicial wisdom, could not help seeing and understanding it all better than he could. He was obliged to speak only because the duty he had undertaken forced him to ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... on both sides, eventually successful, on the part of these mentally [66] divided people, to hold together; ending with the hero's death, the genuine piety and resignation of which is the crowning touch in the author's able, learned, and thoroughly sincere apology for ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... dignified manner, both in talking and walking, and I now gave her a small looking-glass, and she went and brought me her only fowl and a basket of cucumber-seeds, from which oil is made; from the amount of oily matter they contain thov are nutritious when roasted and eaten as nuts. She made an apology, saying they were hungry times at present. I gave her a cloth, and so parted with Kanangone, or, as her name may be spelled, Kananone. The carriers were very useless from hunger, and we could not buy anything ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... and at a time when the text of the preacher in his pulpit, and the title of a bill in a legislative body, are alike made the threads upon which to string the whole knowledge of the speaker upon every subject,—such an apology can scarcely be necessary. It should be said, in deference to a few retentive memories, that two chapters of this story, now embraced in the body of the work, were originally written for and published in the Continental ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford |
