"Excuse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... apartments, and thus combining the gratification of the ears with that of the eyes. The Marquise, who still held her enormous basket, was perfectly sensible of something offensive in this request, and tried to excuse herself from singing. The Queen at last commanded her; she then exerted her fine voice in the solo of Armida—'At length he is in my power.' The change in her Majesty's countenance was so obvious that the ladies present at this scene had the ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... at the same time, a punishment [Pg 406] of its wickedness sent by God. But the fact is easily accounted for, if only we keep in mind that the Prophet had here to do with the kings only, and not with the people. To them it could not serve for an excuse that their wickedness was naturally connected with that of the people. This natural connection was not by any means a necessary one, as appears from the example of a Josiah, in whose case it was broken through ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... home, adding that I had come to kill him. My aunt replied with her peculiar smile that so many gentleman called on that errand and were afterward carried away without having performed it that I must excuse her for doubting my good faith in the matter. She said I did not look as if I would kill anybody, so, as a proof of good faith I leveled my rifle and wounded a Chinaman who happened to be passing the house. She said she knew whole families that could do a thing of that kind, but Bill ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... return to the point from which we deviated. The Emperor Louis, to add to the importance of his party and to receive the crown, came into Italy; and being at Milan, as an excuse for taking money of the Milanese, he pretended to make them free and to put the Visconti in prison; but shortly afterwards he released them, and, having gone to Rome, in order to disturb Italy with less difficulty, he made Piero della Corvara ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... was an outraged mother. She had allowed him to live beneath her roof, assuming that he was a man of honour and he had simply abused her hospitality. He was thirty-four or thirty-five years of age, so that youth could not be pleaded as his excuse; nor could ignorance be his excuse since he was a man who had seen something of the world. He had simply taken advantage of Polly's youth and inexperience: that was evident. The question was: ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... "You'll excuse us, Alice," said the Hatter, politely. "We'd escort you further ourselves, but a question has come before the Municipal Ownership Caucus that we must settle before the meeting of the Common Council to-night. ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs
... the Demoiselle de Surcourt knew how to combine the sallies of imagination with the soft outpourings of the soul, or the burning expressions of her love! Pardon the Sieur Lebrun if he transcribes a few passages from her letters; Madame Lebrun, above all, ought to excuse him. It is not betraying her secrets; it is recalling her to herself, and to a sentiment she would never have forsworn, if she had been allowed to follow the dictates ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... "Excuse my persistence, my friend," he said apologetically. "You seem all right and my men have apparently made a mistake, all the same I'm going to ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... told him. He built a fire. Beyond that, and bringing in the water, she gave him to understand that his duties were at an end, and that he could smoke while she prepared the supper. With the beginning of dusk he closed the cabin door that he might have an excuse for lighting the big hanging lamp a little earlier. He had imagined how its warm glow would flood down upon the thick soft coils of ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... own boat, sir, as lively as if they was still in their natural eleming, Grove's fish do. But they might be red herrings for any notice as you take of 'em. You're not yourself, Mr. Douglas, that's what it is. You're ill, Mr. Douglas, and you ought to see a doctor. Excuse my presumption, sir, in making these remarks; but if an old family servant that has nursed you on his knees can't ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... volunteers, and these were in general orderly and respectable men; but the irregular regiments, such as the Enfants Perdus, Chasseurs Federes, Defenseurs de la Colonne de Juillet, etc., were nothing but troops of blackguards and ruffians, who made their uniforms an excuse for robbery and pillage. Such men deserved the vengeance which overtook the majority ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... the crew assure him. Sir Joseph is completely overcome. To excuse himself the Captain is obliged to reveal the ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... much. Come into the parlour, Winifred, and dry your eyes directly, or I'll send you to bed. Mr. Wood, I desire you'll put on your best things, and join us as soon as possible. Thames, you needn't tidy yourself, as you've hurt your arm. Mr. Kneebone will excuse you. Dear me! if there isn't his knock. Oh! I'm in such ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... "If you'll excuse me, sir," returned the assistant, "I'm afraid it does matter. I hope, sir, you won't think I speak disrespectful, but I've been noticing that you didn't seem to care about ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... the hideous barrier that their sin had reared between himself and them; but, like most foolish, blind Adams and Eves, they hug their crime to their breasts and raise the barrier heaven high by trying to excuse their guilt. Thus they pronounce their own doom. For God himself only one course of action remains: it is to send them forth from his presence and from the life-giving tree, out into the school of hardship and bitter pain, that there ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... minds to the filtering of the fallacious doctrine that it is less infamous to murder men for their politics than for their religion or their money, or that the courage to execute the deed is worse than the cowardice to excuse it. Let us not flinch from condemning without respite or remission, not only Marat and Carrier, but also Barnave. Because there may be hanging matter in the lives of illustrious men, of William the Silent and Farnese, ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... golden gorse blossoms. Tom was not silent. He could not trust himself to be silent. He began to speak of the meeting he had just been attending at Croydon. He gave Rhoda a vivid account of it, which lasted till they got close to the house; then, with a hasty excuse of having forgotten to tell Jackson something, he ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke
... this fact must needs, on account of its extreme improbability, remain untold in an investigation which was based upon logic alone. Daniel very naturally, somewhat ashamed of his imprudence, tried to excuse himself; and, when he had concluded his explanations, ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... to the carriage and told the astonished servants to leave his baggage at the Mitre; this understood, he put in his head and announced to his host that he would come on next day. 'Your lordship must excuse me to-night,' he said. ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... bright' of you, Adrian, as that American girl used to say. There's something in that. (Yes, I know you don't like it, dear, but I love doing it. I'll pour you out another glass of port. There!) But any idiotic excuse is good enough for a man in love. Has he ever been sentimental ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... a fitting reply, when the folding doors of the room were thrown wide open, and a belated party of travellers entered. They came opportunely, for they afforded a timely excuse to withhold an answer without attracting notice; yet at the head of the new guests of The Blue Pike was his Cologne colleague Conrad Kollin, who was followed, as he himself had been, by ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... boys, I refused to listen to advice on that point, and told my father that I should never make a surgeon—that I had no taste or talent for the medical profession. The more my father tried to reason me out of my desire, the more obstinate I became. The only excuse that I can plead is that I was very young, very ignorant, and very stupid. One day, however, I was left in the surgery with a number of dirty phials to wash—my father having gone to visit a patient at a short distance, when our servant came running in, saying that there was a cab at the ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... like sheep-boys stuffing themselves with blackberries while the sheep are licking up flukes in every ditch? And now you wish to leave the poor man in the slough, whither your neglect and your example have betrayed him, and made his too apt scholarship the excuse for your own remorseless greed! As a Christian, I am ashamed of you all; as a Churchman, doubly ashamed of those prelates, hired stalking-horses of the rich, who would fain gloss over their own sloth and cowardice with the wisdom which cometh not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish; ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... this charge could be brought. One of our most ardent democrats, I remember, sent me during the time of his military training a careful and painstaking examination of Mr. Mallock's latest big book. The excuse of those that fell into intolerance must be, I suppose, that they were young, and that they found themselves confronted by an astonishing spectacle of intolerance in some of their ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... when he stigmatizes me in this way merely as an excuse to himself? He wants to be rid of me,—probably because I did not sit and hear him read the sermons. Let that pass. I may have been wrong in that, and he may be justified; but because of that he cannot believe really that I have been a liar,—a ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... supremely ignorant. With some of the early observers it was a very favourite notion that they are artificial works, constructed presumably by Kepler's sub-volvani, or by other intelligences. There is perhaps some excuse to be made for the freaks of an exuberant fancy in regard to objects which, if we ignore for a moment their enormous dimensions, judged by a terrestrial standard, certainly have, in their apparent absence of any physical relation to neighbouring ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... complains that "the principles of the Nonconformists grew at last to such a height and were vented so daringly, that, beside the loss of life and limbs, the Church and State were both forced to use such other severities as will not admit of an excuse, if it had not been to prevent confusion and the perilous consequences of it." But those very severities have of themselves made union on an Episcopalian footing impossible. Besides, Presbyterianism, the popular authority of elders, the power of the congregation in the management of their ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... particularly courteous in acknowledging the ability shown in the Divorce treatise, the "wit and parts" of the author, his "elocution," and the more than ordinary "industry, exactness, and labour" he had expended on the subject, but who made all this only an excuse for not discussing his proposition seriously. On this class of his critics Milton is very severe. They were like those, he said, who used to get off from Socrates, when they could not resist the force of his truths, by saying that Socrates could at any time make the worse cause seem ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... "I do hope—excuse me, my dear sir," said Mr Black excitedly, "I do hope you will see your way to grant me the accommodation I ventured to ask for yesterday. My business is in such a state that this disaster ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... behaved stiffly, and, I could not help thinking, uncourteously to the rest of the party. Wyatt's conduct I did not so much regard. He was gloomy, even beyond his usual habit—in fact he was morose—but in him I was prepared for eccentricity. For the sisters, however, I could make no excuse. They secluded themselves in their staterooms during the greater part of the passage, and absolutely refused, although I repeatedly urged them, to hold communication with any person ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... shrieked with agony, and thought I was killed; and I feel a weakness in that part to this day. The cow was frightened at his violence, and kicked down the pail and spilt the milk all about. My master knew that this accident was his own fault, but he was so enraged that he seemed glad of an excuse to go on with his ill usage. I cannot remember how many licks he gave me then, but he beat me till I was unable to stand, and till ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... it's a problem." Austin rose. "If you'll excuse me, Brooks, I'll go to my wife. We always read ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... plants and insects. At an early stage of our intimacy I had begged to free her wrist from the handcuffs, but she had implored me to continue at least the appearance of slavery, to serve, in case of need, as a partial excuse for violation of her vows. This did not prevent her daily disappearance during the middle hours when the sun was strongest; but these absences only served to give a time for reflection on her beauties ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... no harm in trying to buy things cheap, Monsieur Porthos," said the procurator's wife, seeking to excuse herself. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... demonstrated during this war, that whatever might have been accomplished in days of old, the cavalry on either side could not stand the fire of the infantry. And it seemed that they had a kind of intuition of the fact whenever the infantry was in their front. Nothing better as an excuse did a cavalry commander wish, when met with a repulse, than to report, "We were driving them along nicely until we came upon the enemy's infantry, then ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... lady could yield her esteem with too little discretion, be any excuse for suspicions, then may I advise a search ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... "Excuse me, sir," Soar interrupted. "I believe there's some coal in the coal-box, but I shall have to break up a packing-case for firewood—or go out ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... and slid down the rubble of the steep hillside, clambered down a rough face of rock, and dropped into the corral: He wore a revolver, but he did not draw it. He did not want to give anybody in the house an excuse to shoot at him ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... endeavoring to explain away his responsibility for the disaster; the bare fact, indeed, that the Army of the Potomac was here beaten by Lee, with one-half its force; and the very partial publication, thus far, of the details of the campaign, and the causes of our defeat,—may stand as excuse for one more attempt to make plain its operations to the survivors of the one hundred and eighty thousand men who there bore arms, and to the few who harbor some interest in the subject as ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... him, that is the fact," observed Mrs. Melcombe; "and to be sure the other brother, wanting to marry Miss Graham, does seem to make some difference, some excuse; but as to his illness, I don't think much of that. I remember when his old father came here to the funeral, I remarked that Valentine looked overgrown, and not strong, and Mr. Mortimer said he had been very delicate ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... window where he seemed to be keeping a vigilant eye on the ships that could be seen from there. Even at the luncheon table he got up once and walked to the window to look out, making some clumsy excuse about the beautiful view. ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... his eyes open the very state of affairs which you say should in conscience and good morals compel a man to surrender and give up. He faced a far worse state of affairs than the Boers face, and he had less excuse for ...
— The American Revolution and the Boer War, An Open Letter to Mr. Charles Francis Adams on His Pamphlet "The Confederacy and the Transvaal" • Sydney G. Fisher
... chief pilot was 90 leagues short; the pilot of the Bufora galleon 100 and odd; those who made the least were 70 leagues short; and my own pilot, being only 65 leagues, was nearest in his reckoning. They were all astonished at this difference, and all affirmed in excuse for their short reckoning, that the way was actually shorter than was expressed on the charts; with them the Moorish pilots concurred in opinion, affirming that it was only 300 leagues from Goa to Socotora[263]. The island of Socotora is 20 leagues in length from ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... to your making a collection of insects. Prudence is a very good quality, but you must not make it an excuse for cowardice." ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... that she did not mean to spoil the peony; but it was almost as bad to ruin it by being careless. Children ought to understand that not meaning to do wrong is not a good excuse, when the wrong might have ...
— Proud and Lazy - A Story for Little Folks • Oliver Optic
... giant. "Do you think so? I'd give a good deal to sleep in a bed in a house. Excuse me if I sit down," he added. "My legs ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... a great excuse for their being glad, poor things! young people were always so fond of a change; at the same time, nobody could deny but that it would have been quite natural for them to ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... he knew everything she took, and as he felt that there was no excuse for him to stay there any longer, ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... technically and seemingly, in the wrong. An apology is for what one has done or left undone; an excuse may be for what one proposes to do or leave undone as well; as, one sends beforehand his excuse for not accepting an invitation; if he should fail either to be present or to excuse himself, an apology would be in order. An excuse for a fault is an attempt at partial justification; as, one alleges haste as an excuse for carelessness. Confession is a full acknowledgment of wrong, generally ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... always been famous, and which it should prize beyond almost anything else. But for our brutality, our recklessness of life and property, the brazen ruffianism in our great cities, the hellish greed and robbery and plunder in high places, I should have to look a long time to find so plausible an excuse. ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... know you do, and therefore will not leave you; Excuse me, Zanga, therefore dare not leave you. Is this a night for walks of contemplation? Something unusual hangs upon your heart, And I will know it: by our loves, I will. Ask I too much to ...
— The Revenge - A Tragedy • Edward Young
... but not with pride. From time to time her people tried to hide their tears, and she made a sign of pitying them. Seeing that the dinner was on the table and nobody eating, she invited the doctor to take some soup, asking him to excuse the cabbage in it, which made it a common soup and unworthy of his acceptance. She herself took some soup and two eggs, begging her fellow-guests to excuse her for not serving them, pointing out that no knife or fork had ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... his own party in the Senate and House were left without an apology or excuse for the seeming indifference of the President to affairs in Mexico. Day after day from outraged senators would come vigorous demands for firm action on the part of America, insistent that something radical be done to establish conditions of peace along our southern ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... this account. For I am more than seventy years of age, and appearing now for the first time in a court of law, I am quite a stranger to the language of the place; and therefore I would have you regard me as if I were really a stranger, whom you would excuse if he spoke in his native tongue, and after the fashion of his country:—Am I making an unfair request of you? Never mind the manner, which may or may not be good; but think only of the truth of my words, and give heed ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... Reader will correct, and in some part excuse, as, owing to the Author’s residing at a distance from the Printer, the proof-sheets were once only revised, and this has been found totally inadequate to avoid numerous errors in printing so ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... third day the Queen came, and when she saw that nothing had been done of the spinning she was much surprised; but the girl excused herself by saying that she had not been able to begin because of the distress she was in at leaving her home and her mother. The excuse contented the Queen, who said, however, as ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... disgrace of defending their capital against the Saracens. If, in the account of this interesting people, I have deviated from the strict and original line of my undertaking, the merit of the subject will hide my transgression, or solicit my excuse. In the East, in the West, in war, in religion, in science, in their prosperity, and in their decay, the Arabians press themselves on our curiosity: the first overthrow of the church and empire of the Greeks may be ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... and fifteen is one-an'-three," said he. "Which," he added, looking up as one who would stand no contradiction, "is the 'alf of two-an'-six . . . You'll excuse me, missy, but business first an' pleasure afterwards. We're stoppin' here ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... called up my woman Amy, but I thought that would not be proper neither; so I made my excuse, that since his Highness would not let his own servant wait, I would not presume to let my woman come up; but if he would please to let me wait, it would be my honour to fill his Highness's wine. But, as before, he would by no means allow me; so ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... come to take a stand and I informed my uncle, to his evident chagrin, that I should not leave as long as any excuse could be ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... excuse) has gane, An' wark is dune, and duty's plain, An' to my charmer a' my lane I creep apairt, My conscience! hoo the yammerin' pain ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was alone engaged in my domestic affairs, I was told that a lady desired to speak to me. I gave orders that she should be admitted. She was a person advanced in years; she saluted me by kissing the ground, and said to me kneeling, "Dear lady, excuse the freedom I take to trouble you, the confidence I have in your charity makes me thus bold. I must acquaint your ladyship that I have an orphan daughter, who is to be married this day. She and I are both strangers, and have no acquaintance in this town; which much perplexes ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... towards him were purely potential. I did him the simple justice to believe that his self-abnegation was sincere. But, with your practical, cynical little mind, darling, you are hardly capable of—excuse me for saying so—of appreciating the real value and meaning of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... Quite clear to such an one, and say, 'Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark'—and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, —E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... paused by the door. "If you'll excuse me a minute," he said, "I'll call Jermyn and Mrs. Edwards' maid, Juanita. You ought to go over the whole thing ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... Sidney, which had occurred suddenly, had followed quickly upon that of Frank; but, amid all the widow's affliction, she never forgot the sorrow that Charles's selfish disposition occasioned her. There was no longer even the shadow of an excuse for parsimony, as the inheritance which would have been divided between the two brothers would now devolve on the only son. Charles knew this: he knew that he was provided with a sufficient fortune to finish his education admirably, to send him to college, and start him in ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... "Excuse me," he said, presently, as his gray eyes held hers. "That's how I had it. As I remember girls—an' it doesn't seem long since I left home—most of them would die of lonesomeness up here." Then he addressed himself to Bo. "How ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... "the beastly aristocracy." Authors, even of position, were not spared by this young Ishmael of the press, the respected Mrs. Trollope, for instance, being unceremoniously referred to as "Mother Trollope." The only excuse of course for this sort of thing is to be found in the fact that comic journalism being then in its infancy, personal abuse was mistaken for satire; while, so far as the bad taste of the editor is concerned, allowance ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... a remarkable coincidence. But, excuse me, did you consider me a sensible man and not insane when ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... thought—much too long in the box. A letter addressed by the schoolmaster found great disfavor in Lizzie's eyes. You might explain to her that you had merely called in his assistance because you were a poor hand at writing yourself, but that was held no excuse. Some addressed their own envelopes with much labor, and sought to palm off the whole as their handiwork. It reflects on the post-mistress somewhat that she had generally found them out by next day, when, if in a specially vixenish mood, she did not hesitate ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... the Lord and of his Christ,"[98] it is a compensatory satisfaction that they are neither of them without their advantages to the general welfare of the country; that good is mixed with their evil, as well as brought out of their evil. This does not, however, serve as an excuse for those who, having their mind and judgment enlightened to see the dangers to others and the temptations to themselves of attending such amusements, should still disfigure lives, it may be, in other respects, of ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... Clark answered, smiling. He turned to the judges. "If your Honors please," said he, "this gentleman is an old soldier of mine, and unused to the ways of court. I beg your Honors to excuse him." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the minor characters, as already hinted, would be much better away. Of the two brothers the Cardinal is a cold-blooded and uninteresting debauchee and murderer, who sacrifices sisters and mistresses without any reasonable excuse. Ferdinand, the other, is no doubt mad enough, but not interestingly mad, and no attempt is made to account in any way satisfactorily for the delay of his vengeance. By common consent, even of the greatest admirers of the play, the fifth act is a kind of gratuitous ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... And now," I added, as we drew near the house, "we will change the subject, because I have this morning received two letters, which demand the united consideration of our whole party. I will therefore call up Bella and Nicholas, who have fallen behind, as usual. Mr Jones will excuse my talking of family matters for a few minutes, as replies must be sent ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... excuse to swill. An' all that while I sat till late at night and waited. Once—I don't know, but it must ha' been a bird flyin' against the window—I thought 'twas you, an' so I went to the window an' opened it. After that I was that mad, I ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... confessed that Bothwell had communicated to him the design, had pleaded Mary's consent, and had desired his concurrence; but he denied that he himself had ever expressed any approbation of the crime; and in excuse for his concealing it, he alleged the danger of revealing the secret, either to Henry, who had no resolution nor constancy, or Morton, who appeared to be an ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... Rebecca, Aunt Sophia, Aunt Hetebel, and—glory to goodness, I could sit here for ten minutes and string out the names of the grimeses there are in the mountains; but say I'm awful hungry, and you'll excuse me if I get busy with this fine grub. The other names will keep till ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... considerable precious time and money? You've said a good deal about my sacrificing my room in the house and coming out here to fix a little home for us both, upstairs in the barn chambers, but perhaps you can see now that it isn't all sacrifice, that perhaps I'm glad of an excuse to get out of the house, where things are so different from what they used to be, and to have a cosy home with my own boy. Now then, 'Zekiel," coaxingly, these words recalling her boy's responsibilities, "look ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... Enos; but Mrs. Cary came straight to me as soon as Amanda reached home, and 'twas an hour later when Anne returned, and she has no word of excuse. 'Twill do the child no harm to stay in her room until she can tell me the reason for such behavior. And of course this visit to the Freemans' must be given up. 'Twould not do to let her ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... teems, and to nature it is left in the lapse of years to 'consume the offspring she has herself produced.' The difficulty of transporting the timber to a market has been always alleged by the natives as their reason for neglecting to turn the forests to account; but this is a paltry excuse, for with abundance of rivers to float it to the coast, and a neighbour so anxious to monopolise the trade of the country as Austria has shown herself, little doubt can be entertained of the possibility of its advantageous disposal. As far back as 1849 an Austrian Company, ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... Excuse this rhapsody, into which I have been betrayed by a revival of early feelings. The Hudson is, in a manner, my first and last love; and after all my wanderings and seeming infidelities, I return to it with a heart-felt preference over all the other ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... an empire. The want of skill they supplied for a time by atrocity and blind violence. For legislative ability, fiscal ability, military ability, diplomatic ability, they had one substitute, the guillotine. Indeed, their exceeding ignorance and the barrenness of their invention are the best excuse for their murders and robberies. We really believe that they would not have cut so many throats, and picked so many pockets, if they had known how to govern in any ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... question was The Substance of some Letters written by an Englishman in Paris, 1816 (by J. C. Hobhouse). It was inscribed "To the Emperor Napoleon." Lowe's excuse was that Hobhouse had submitted the work to his inspection, and suggested that if the Governor did not think fit to give it to Napoleon, he might place it in his own library. (See Napoleon in Exile, 1822, i. 85-87; ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... if the aforesaid people and marchants shalbe at any time in the course of their iourneis and dealings by any meanes taken, they shall be deliuered and inlarged, without any excuse ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... which we all wear in cities. But people can't afford to be shocked either at Cape Town or at Inverness every time they meet an individual who wears his national airy raiment. I never knew the "Arabian Nights" was an improper book until I happened once to read it in a "family edition." Well, qui s'excuse. . . . Who, pray, has accused me as yet? Here am I smothering dear good old Mrs. Grundy's objections, before she has opened her mouth. I love, I say, and scarcely ever tire of hearing, the artless prattle of those two dear ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... humiliating to him who uttered it, and a fatal example to those who heard; but mankind soon grew used to the new fashion. I pass over the rude barbarian ages, whose gross and inartistic lying offers no claim to respectful and sympathetic interest, and no excuse but the lame one of selfish depravity, common to the race. But with the inroads of civilization Life became complex, and Truth was found too simple and rigid to fit with all its varied intricacies. That is, when Truth is simple. "Don't you think my baby beautiful?" ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... enough for the compliment; and I had not been married so long but that I could excuse the evidence of his observation of another, for the sake of the neatness of his phrase. I should have thought the unconscious child incongruously lovely amongst brooms and dust-pans, pots and kettles, suds and slops and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... the drilling crew standing near, though Rawson was handling the hoisting drums himself. A ratchet release lever hooked its end under a ring on Rawson's hand and pinched the flesh. Dean made this an excuse for waiting a moment ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... Governor to excuse him," says she. "We must keep our strong friends." But when she took up the pen it flew out of her fingers. "I cannot write," said she. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... convention, and peace, be rejected. Let us carry on the war in the same circumstances, and situations, in which we were before peace was mentioned. Let neither the Roman people blame the convention of the consuls, nor us the faith of the Roman people. Will ye never want an excuse for not standing to the compacts which ye make on being defeated? Ye gave hostages to Porsena: ye clandestinely withdrew them. Ye ransomed your state from the Gauls, for gold: while they were receiving the gold, they were put to the sword. Ye concluded a peace with us, on ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... was the case can be proved beyond a doubt, but I do not give it as an excuse for our being caught napping by the enemy, which we certainly were. We ought, of course, to have reconnoitred the surrounding country for ourselves, and posted our piquets as usual; and we ought not to have been induced to neglect these essential military precautions ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... protection. But then power would have nothing to do, and good nature no occasion to show itself; and where those qualities are, 'tis pity they should want objects to shine upon. I must confess this is no reason why a man should do an idle thing, nor indeed any good excuse for it when done; yet it reconciles the uses of such authority and goodness to the necessities of our follies, and is a sort of poetical logic, which at this time I would make use of, to argue your lordship into a protection of this play. It ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... Dei judicio casten in Sir Roberts lap for his so dishonourable complying, yea, betraying the priviledges of the Advocats, and breaking the bond of unity amongs them, and embracing first that brat of the Regulations. The excuse that he made for so over shoting him selfe was most dull and pittifull, vid. that they had come to him just after he had dined, and he had drawen it then, ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... the other way, Bill," whispered Harry, "and throw up your hands. It'll only be an excuse to shoot, ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... patients and nurses were got away before that happened. It will probably be pleaded in justification of the Boers that these buildings, being directly in the line of fire behind our naval batteries, were liable to be hit by high shots from "Long Tom." The same excuse, however, cannot be made in other cases when shells fell among houses that are not in line with any defensive work, camp, or arsenal. One cannot suppose that a mere desire for wanton destruction of life and property ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... mother forgetting all about the rents on Monday morning, or putting them off till Monday afternoon on some grotesque excuse. Her fancy heard the interminable complainings, devisings, futile resolvings, of the self-appointed collector. It was impossible to imagine a woman less fitted by nature than her mother to collect rents from unthrifty artisans such as inhabited Calder Street. The project ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... would intervene between His departure and return, including the long era of darkness associated with the apostasy.[1560] But as to the certainty of His advent in glory, as Judge, and Lord, and King, Jesus left no excuse for dubiety in the minds of His apostles. After the ascension, throughout the course of apostolic administration, the future coming of the Lord was ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... Braithwait's Latin Drinking-song (Vol. iii., p. 297.).—It is well for us that honest Barnaby is not alive to visit upon us the scandalous "negligences and ignorances" with which our transcript of his song abounds; and it is no excuse perhaps to say, that the errors almost all of them exist in the MS. from whence the transcript was made. Sensitive as he has shown himself "upon the errata's," he would not have accepted the apology from us which he makes for himself. "Good reader, if this impression have errors in it, excuse ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various
... to express my great regret, sir," I replied, as I lifted my hat in acknowledgment of the lady's presence, "that I should have trespassed upon your land. I can only plead, as my excuse, that I fully believed I was still upon the manor belonging to ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... to the office, where we sat all the morning, and Sir W. Pen and I had a word or two, where by opposing him in not being willing to excuse a mulct put upon the purser of the James, absent from duty, he says, by his business and order, he was mighty angry, and went out of the office like an asse discontented: At which I am never a whit sorry; I would not have [him] think that I ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... feet as if impelled by springs; then hurriedly he sat again with some mumbled excuse and trembling hands. He could not take his eyes from the shining white of the face before him, the glazed smooth surface left in many places between the black of the pock marks. The removal of the hood had somewhat disarrayed the hair, leaving the broad expanse of forehead more prominent, the puffed ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... the Theatre having entirely taken up his Time, during this Season, from which, as yet, he is not releas'd, deprives him of the Pleasure of writing to you, in Answer to the Letter you did him the Favour of communicating from the Author of Otho; he, therefore, hopes you will excuse his deputing me to convey to you the Opinion of his Friends thereon; and if they differ in Sentiment with the Author, it is with some Concern, as they wou'd rather give Approbation to a Piece, which has, indeed, great merit in the Writing, but will not suit ...
— A Pindarick Ode on Painting - Addressed to Joshua Reynolds, Esq. • Thomas Morrison
... to your honors is this [he spoke calmly and distinctly], and it may in a degree extenuate, though it cannot excuse, my crime. I went into that man's store an innocent boy, and if he had been an honest man I would not have stood before ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... Cornelia, drawing herself up to her full height, "I am not accustomed to your prostrations and genuflections, and of them my countrymen make sorry work; pray excuse me." And without waiting for reply or expostulation she advanced straight toward the dais. The hall was small, the steps from the door to the queen's chair few; but never did Cornelia fare on more tedious journey. She knew that ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... little to that, except that, she said, she would give her as little trouble as possible; but she was afraid she should sometimes be uneasy to her, which she hoped she would excuse. My Quaker told her she would much rather excuse her if she would forbear; for that if she would believe her, she would assure her she should never get any ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... faults of Bonaparte, but I excuse him; situated as he was, any other person would have acted in the same way. Truth now reached him with difficulty, and when it was not agreeable he had no disposition to hear it. He was surrounded by flatterers; and, the greater number of those who approached him, far from telling ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... every necessary provision," answered the young officer, glad to find that her thoughts could be diverted from the immediate source of her sorrow. "Elmsley's wife, to whom I spoke a few hurried words on leaving, is even now preparing for your temporary reception, and I have thought of an excuse to be given to your mother. You must for once in your life use deceit, and say that Van Vottenberg desires her presence in the fort, because his duties have become so severe that he can no longer absent himself to bestow upon her that professional ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... if she will go abroad with me upon the chance of his death or mine preventing our union, and live with me till she is of age— ... perhaps there is no heart so callous by avarice, no soul so poisoned by prejudice, no head so feather'd by foppery, that will forbear to excuse her when she returns to the rich and the gay—for having saved the life of a mother thro' compliance, extorted by anguish, contrary to the received opinions ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... had their reasons, and on the whole sound ones, for so regarding them. The educated classes had given up any honest and literal worship of the old gods. They were trying to excuse themselves for their lingering half belief in them, by turning them into allegories, powers of nature, metaphysical abstractions, as did Porphyry and Iamblichus, Plotinus and Proclus, and the rest of the Neo-Platonist school ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... the whole body eventually put in order. In exactly the same way, many a man finds himself possessed of a bad temper or a tendency to avarice or suspicion or self-indulgence, and when in consequence of any of these vices he commits some great mistake or does some great harm he offers it as an excuse that he is a hasty-tempered man, or that he possesses this or that quality by nature—implying that therefore he cannot ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater
... excuse for looking at her, as if demanding a reply, but she answered readily: "In a sense, ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... heavy burdens laid on the people, and taking into account the promises made to them in 1473, that no further demands should be made on the public purse, the three Estates concurred in humbly petitioning Monseigneur to excuse them ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... Romulus wore the purple, and that the dyed garments, all purple, were sacred to the gods in those days. After saying that it was still a colour of distinction, he continues: "Let us be prepared to excuse the frantic passion for purple, though we are impelled to inquire why such a high value is placed on the produce of this fish, seeing that in the dye the smell of it is offensive, and the colour, of a greenish hue, resembles the sea when tempestuous." He describes purples[294] as being differently ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... house, and little Two Eyes again left the scraps on the dish untouched, and One Eye could not tell her mother whether little Two Eyes had eaten anything in the field; for she said to excuse herself, "I ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... little Latin, and less learning or civility."[429] In many places he found the walls of the churches thrown down, the chancels uncovered, and the windows and doors ruined or spoiled—fruits of the iconoclastic zeal of the original reformers and of the rapacity of the nobles, who made religion an excuse for plunder. He complains that the sacrament of baptism was not used amongst them, and he accuses the "prelates themselves" of despoiling their sees, declaring that if he told all he should make "too long a libel of his letter. But your Majesty may believe ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... till they have done mischief,[222] and then they can; and we can tell that the rich man cannot sleep, because his abundance will not let him.[223] The tares were sown when the husbandmen were asleep[224]; and the elders thought it a probable excuse, a credible lie, that the watchmen which kept the sepulchre should say, that the body of thy Son was stolen away when they were asleep.[225] Since thy blessed Son rebuked his disciples for sleeping, shall I murmur because I ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... They did not have any teacher at that time. Soon after Mr. J. M. Green came and I learned fast and was soon a corner man. I was a student two years and nine months. After that time I secured an excuse and left for home. I was very proud of my trade and all seemed to be surprised as no one knew where I was but my white people. I wrote to them once a month and they always answered and would send me money, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... Excuse me! I assure you, it's not my fault. I always have good beef in the market here. The Kholmogory merchants bring it, and they are sober, well-behaved people. I'm sure I don't know where he gets his bad meat from. But if anything is wrong, may I suggest ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... with Quakers to beg ten thousand pardons, as some of the world do, for any little mistake. A Quaker generally on such an occasion asks a persons excuse. ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... that. We dine at seven. I will expect you to dinner. Do you—ahem!—excuse me, Mr. Tresham, perhaps you may require a little money in advance. I shall be ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... on, he suffered much from the transition. Writing on the 4th of November to Sir C. Wood, he says: 'At the commencement of the cool season, on which we are now entering, we suffer from all manner of minor ailments; so I hope you will excuse a short letter.' And again on the 9th: 'I am half blind and rather shaky from fever still, so that again I shall be brief in my epistle to you.' Soon, however, these ailments disappeared, and in the cooler temperature he regained to a great extent ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... Phil," Cloud stated, not at all sheepishly. "I'm going to blow out Number One vortex with duodec, yes—but I'm really going to blow it out, not merely make a stab at it as an excuse for suicide, ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... due, their author tells us, to "the dangerous Illness of one from whom I draw all the solid Comfort of my Life, during the greatest Part of this Winter. This, as it is most sacredly true, so will it, I doubt not, sufficiently excuse the Delay to all who know me." [4] Early in the following year, after this second winter of crushing anxiety, and under an urgent pressure for means, Fielding tried again his familiar role of popular dramatist, giving his public the husks they preferred, in the comedy of ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... what I stammered, to excuse myself, to explain; but I went toward her, to tell her I meant no harm. She waved me off with her old hands, retreating before me in horror; and the next thing I knew she had fallen back with a quick spasm, as if death had descended on ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... time in instituting the appropriate hygienic and medical treatment, for it is at this stage that remedies will be found most effective. Unfortunately, this period is too apt to pass unheeded, or receive but trifling attention; the patient finds some trivial excuse for his present condition, and believes that he will soon be well. But, alas for his anticipations! The disease goes onward and onward, gradually gaining ground, from which it will be with great ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... strike De Courtenay for kissing the woman whom he had won with his red flowers and his curls before the populace? That he himself had fancied for a brief space that she was his was no excuse for plunging like a boy at his rival's throat. If he had held his peace, all would be well now and the old chief would not be lying stiff and stark somewhere in the shadowed camp, the women wailing ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... no desire that in regard to ourselves we should err on the side of leniency. He wanted us to embrace the happy medium, by humiliating without discouraging ourselves, and by encouraging ourselves with humility. In another letter he says: "Be just, neither accuse nor excuse your poor soul, except after much consideration, for fear lest if you excuse yourself when you should not, you become careless, and if you accuse yourself without cause, you discourage yourself and become cowardly. Walk simply and ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... betrayed Europe from within, had no excuse. Theirs was not any dumb instinctive revolt like that of the Outer Germanies, the Outer Slavs, nor the neglected mountain valleys, against order and against clear thought, with all the hard consequences that clear thought brings. They were in no way subject to enthusiasm for the vaguer ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... "Excuse me, Madame," she said, "but you told me I was to bathe your hand. If it is not bathed it will look horrible to-morrow. I have the ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... to keep them for remembrance. But she would not offer. He would never have admitted to himself that he knew she would not; yet, since receiving her letter, he had known. If he had by and by to tell Billie that he was to be a poor man, she would make some charming excuse for not sending back his presents. Or else she would not refer to them at all. Whatever the future might bring, it seemed to Max that he had lost youth's bright vision of romance. There was no such girl in the world as the girl he had dreamed. The letter had ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... authorcraft are of small amount to that. One would say the primary character of the Koran is this of its genuineness, of its being a bona-fide book. Prideaux, I know, and others, have represented it as a mere bundle of juggleries; chapter after chapter got-up to excuse and varnish the author's successive sins, forward his ambitions and quackeries: but really it is time to dismiss all that. I do not assert Mohammed's continual sincerity: who is continually sincere? But I confess I can make nothing of the critic, ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... repeated some fifteen times, but were not carried out, General Burnside alleging as an excuse that he believed that Bragg was in retreat, and that General Rosecrans needed no reenforcements. When the latter had gained possession of Chattanooga he was directed not to move on Rome as he proposed, but simply to hold the mountain-passes, so as to prevent the ingress of the rebels ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... himself, intent upon destinations made serious by the near sound of firing. An interesting evening, thus far. A stout, red-faced man with a heavily ornamented vest followed the figure of a woman. Dorn smiled. Biology versus politics.... "Excuse me, pretty one, you look lonely...." A charwoman. Black, sagging clothes. Dorn passed and heard her exclaim, "Who, me? You ask me to go with you? Dear God, he asks me! I am an honest workingwoman. ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... reasons, I believe, which are, alas! very common. For one of them there are great excuses; for the other, there is no excuse whatsoever. ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... concluded she, 'I should be glad to have your approbation of our choice.'—'How, madam,' replied he, 'my approbation! My approbation of such a choice! Never. What! Sacrifice so much beauty, and sense, and goodness, to a creature insensible of the blessing! Excuse me, I can never approve of such a piece of injustice And I have my reasons!'—'Indeed, Sir,' cried Deborah, 'if you have your reasons, that's another affair; but I should be glad to know those reasons.'—'Excuse ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... I can give you, gentlemen," said Walters finally. "Thank you for your kind attention"—he shot an ironic glance at Brett—"and for your understanding of a difficult situation. Now you must excuse me. Captain Strong, whom you all know, will fill in the details ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... is to be forbidden, then every state must accumulate its own supply or greatly enlarge its arms manufacturing capacity, both wasteful processes. To say that a moderate trade is lawful which a big trade is not is like the excuse of the lady who thought her baby born out of wedlock did not matter because it was ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... had made had been by reason of their Captain, who had fallen sick, but he was now healed, and they were advancing fast. And the sons of Aboegib and great part of the people rejoiced in these tidings, and took heart: and Abeniaf was in great fear, and he began to excuse himself to the men of the town, and said unto them to pacify them, that they did him wrong to complain of him for the garden which the Cid had asked of him, inasmuch as he had only given it him to disport himself therein for some ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... trouble ourselves to make them hollow, and we say their use is "emblematic." When, following the bent of our ancestral instincts, we go on, age after age, in the performance of some senseless act which once had a use and meaning we excuse ourselves by calling it symbolism. Our "symbols" are merely survivals. We have theology and patriotism. We have all the savage's superstition. We propitiate and ingratiate by means of gifts. We shake hands. All these and hundreds ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... the monstrous object of their gibes and imagination. To me, the old war novels have the atmosphere of smoke powder and antiquated tactics which still survived when I went on my first campaign sixteen years ago. These classic masterpieces endure through their genius; the excuse of any plodder who chooses their theme to-day is that he deals with the ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... are never at their best till they are dressed, and that some others can put off learning their parts till the last moment, and then "study" them at a push, and acquit themselves creditably in the play. But these peculiarities are no excuse for neglecting rehearsals, or for not learning parts, or for rehearsing in a ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... how much you'd dare. At any rate, I'll excuse you from breathing it to me, for I'm not interested. I know it ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... this remark, and easily pardoned its familiarity for its truth. In these sealers the discipline is by no means of that distant and military or naval character that is found in even an ordinary merchantman. As every seaman has an interest in the result of the voyage, some excuse was made for this departure from the more general usage; and this familiarity itself never exceeded the bounds that were necessary ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Norbanus must have been! What an eye for everything, down to the details of a funeral procession, in which he could find an excuse for emancipation! And that, too, in the midst of the wars of Marius and Sylla in which he took part. I can picture him seated before his tent, the evening after the battle. Pensive, he reclines upon his shield as he watches ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... mother—came with a kindly design to rescue their misguided kinsman from danger, and laying hands upon Him, to carry Him off to some safe restraint in Nazareth, where He might indulge His delusions without doing any harm to Himself. They wish to excuse His eccentricities on the ground that He is not quite responsible—scarcely Himself; and so to blunt the point of the more hostile explanation of the Pharisees that He is ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... Peloponnese, and in particular upon Laconia, might, it was hoped, be diverted most effectually by annoying them in return, and by sending an army to their allies, especially as they were willing to maintain it and asked for it to aid them in revolting. The Lacedaemonians were also glad to have an excuse for sending some of the Helots out of the country, for fear that the present aspect of affairs and the occupation of Pylos might encourage them to move. Indeed fear of their numbers and obstinacy even persuaded the Lacedaemonians to the action which I shall now relate, their ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... grasp; heard the splash of the turgid waters; saw himself, his lust for vengeance unsatisfied, peering downwards through the dim and murky gloom. It was not only a physical nightmare which seized him. His brain, too, was his accuser. He saw with a hideous clarity that even the excuse of motive was denied him. It was a sense of personal loss which had driven him out on to that canal path, a murderer at heart. It was something of which he had been robbed, an acute and burning desire for vengeance, personal, entirely egotistical. It was not the wrong to the woman which he ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... having had charge of the underground works in both collieries. If your board and its agents in the management of those works had neglected the moral duties of such an establishment as yours in this important district, some excuse might be offered by the Guild for the outrage committed—the first, however, your board has had to complain of during twenty years that your works have been in operation; but the following facts prove ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... Chartres for some time opposed her daughter's opinion, as thinking it very singular; but when she saw she was obstinate in it, she gave way, and told her, that in that case she ought to pretend an indisposition as an excuse for not going to the ball, because the real reasons which hindered her would not be approved of; and care ought to be taken that they should ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... as these the clearest Miracles God ever wrought? Do such Miracles deserve a serious Regard? And shall the Gravity with which Mankind is thus banter'd out of their common Sense, excuse these ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... feet with a gesture to his guests that might be rendered by, "Excuse me; this kind of thing ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac
... I've forgotten the rest.) "I love kindness," continued Mrs. BELLAMY, "in young men. By the way, will you excuse a short invitation, and dine with us the day after to-morrow? All the PENFOLDS are coming." I said yes, and made up my mind that I must settle matters with MARY one way or another before complications got worse, or young PENFOLD made any more ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... Publius Manlius, dictator, then inclined the advantage to the side of the people, by naming Caius Licinius from the commons, who had been military tribune, as master of the horse. The patricians, I understand, were much displeased at this nomination, but the dictator used to excuse himself to the senate, alleging the near relationship between him and Licinius; at the same time denying that the authority of master of the horse was higher than that of consular tribune. When the elections for the appointment of plebeian tribunes were declared, ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... am! Well, you are welcome to it. As for me, it's the last life I should choose. I like the uniform very well, especially when I go where the girls are—they always give a cadet's suit a second glance—but as for the 'profession of arms,' as you call it, excuse me." ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott |
