"Mitigation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... In mitigation of sentence I can only urge the day-long preoccupations in which I had been plunged, and the article, suddenly become necessary, which I must begin to write instanter. But at any rate, excuse or no excuse, it is certain ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... world. She was a bird, the hut was her nest and Hannah her mother, whose wings covered her. These sisters were very poor; not, however, as the phrase is understood in the large cities, where, notwithstanding the many charitable institutions for the mitigation of poverty, scores of people perish annually from cold and hunger; but as it is understood in the rich lower counties of Maryland, where forests filled with game and rivers swarming with fish afford abundance of food and fuel to even the poorest hutters, however destitute ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... to prevail on them to reconsider their determination. So, after telling Mr Swiveller how they had not lost sight of Kit's mother and the children; how they had never once even lost sight of Kit himself, but had been unremitting in their endeavours to procure a mitigation of his sentence; how they had been perfectly distracted between the strong proofs of his guilt, and their own fading hopes of his innocence; and how he, Richard Swiveller, might keep his mind at rest, for everything should be happily adjusted between that time and night;—after ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... prisoners almost without a struggle, of whom but very few appeared to have been rescued by an honorable death from the ignominy of passing under the American yoke; nor are there many whose wounds plead in mitigation of this reproach." The fugitives made the best of their way to Ancaster, at the head of Lake Ontario; and on the 17th of October they numbered there 240, including the general and 17 officers. The consequence of these disasters was the relinquishment, by the British, of the Michigan territory, ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... (M16) The only mitigation of the sentence was the eternal enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the Serpent, in which the final victory should be given to the former. The rite of sacrifice was introduced as a type of the satisfaction for sin by the death of a substitute for the sinner; and thus a hope of ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... Judgment concerning Manners, hee bringeth one Text, which is that of John 16.13. "When the Spirit of truth is come, hee will lead you into all truth" where (saith he) by All Truth, is meant, at least, All Truth Necessary To Salvation. But with this mitigation, he attributeth no more Infallibility to the Pope, than to any man that professeth Christianity, and is not to be damned: For if any man erre in any point, wherein not to erre is necessary to Salvation, it is impossible he should be saved; for that onely ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... appear that he has contravened or violated any one of our abovementioned commands—nevertheless, we do will and ordain that such person shall be considered as relapsed, and, as such, be punished with loss of life and property, without any hope of moderation or mitigation ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... asking here below a little happiness for my brethren, who have been suffering and groaning for centuries, dare to utter, in Thy name, O Lord! that the poor must always be doomed to the tortures of this world, and that it is criminal in Thine eyes that they should either wish for or hope a mitigation of their sufferings on earth, because the happiness of the few and the wretchedness of nearly all mankind is Thine almighty will. Blasphemies! is it not the contrary of these homicidal words that is more worthy of the name of Divine ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... rods of men, and the stripes of the children of men, are punishments to which all men are subject, because they are sinners, and at which no man needs to be surprised. Grace is not to free the Davidic family from this common lot of mankind, is not to afford to them the privilege of sinning. The mitigation only follows in ver. 15, in which the close resumes the beginning: "I will be a father to him." But this mitigation must not be misunderstood by being conceived of as referring to the individuals. ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... however favourable the circumstances may appear in behalf of the criminal, the Emperor alone is invested with the power of remitting the sentence, a power which he very rarely if ever exercises to the extent of a full pardon but, on many occasions, to a mitigation of the punishment awarded by law. Strictly speaking, no sentence of death can be carried into execution until it has been ratified by the monarch. Yet in state crimes, or in acts of great atrocity, the viceroy of a province sometimes ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... difficult to conceive of such irreverence in a priest, himself a member of that great order in the Catholic Church; and it is this, if anything, which would show a weakness of the mind. But even here, let us say, not as excuse, but in mitigation of his offense, that only from inadvertence did the Father speak to, or of, his cats by these names in any one's hearing; and there were only two or three people at the mission who knew after what august personages they were called. Besides, their full title was usually reserved ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... the sacrifice, or the acute pain of a remedy by which a chronic disease is cured. Such was slavery in its origin: a commutation for death, gladly accepted as mercy under the arm of a conqueror in battle, or as the mitigation of a judicial sentence. But it led immediately to nefarious abuses; and the earliest records which tell us of its existence show us also that men were kidnapped for sale. With the principles of Christianity, the principles of religious philosophy—the only true policy, to which mankind ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... of condition, beyond the middle of life, was on the point of being stripped of her whole fortune by a near relation to whom she had been a friend and benefactor; and she must have been totally ruined, without a power of redress or mitigation from the courts of law, had not the legislature itself rushed in, and by a special act of Parliament rescued her from the injustice of its own statutes. One of the acts authorizing such things was that which we in part repealed, knowing what our duty was, and doing that ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... forgotten. Their host had entrusted to Lord Henry the restoration of many old observances; and the joyous feeling which this celebration of Christmas had diffused throughout an extensive district was a fresh argument in favour of Lord Henry's principle, that a mere mechanical mitigation of the material necessities of the humbler classes, a mitigation which must inevitably be limited, can never alone avail sufficiently to ameliorate their condition; that their condition is not merely 'a knife and fork question,' to use the coarse and shallow phrase of the Utilitarian school; that ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... probably made her husband come forward, in Tedham's behalf, and do what hopelessly could be done to defend him where there was really no defence, and the only thing to be attempted was to show circumstances that might perhaps tend to the mitigation of his sentence. I do not think they did. Tedham had confessed himself and had been proven such a thorough rogue, and the company had lately suffered so much through operations like his, that, even if it could have had mercy, as an individual may, mercy was felt to ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... the Commons of Great Britain, that it be dismissed from your consideration: and this I demand, whether you take it as an attempt to render odious the conduct of the Commons, whether you take it in mitigation of the punishment due to the prisoner for his crimes, or whether it be adduced as a presumption that so virtuous a servant never could be guilty of the offences with which we charge him. In whichever of these lights you may be inclined ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... end of May, I was called up to the Court of King's Bench for judgment, for the assault upon Stone the gamekeeper. I did not employ counsel, but offered in person what I had to urge in mitigation. I put in affidavits, to prove that the witnesses who gave evidence upon the trial were perjured; and that the doctor, who attended and swore that he lived at Amesbury, was an impostor; that no such person had ever lived ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... in hope of discovering some mitigation of her sentence, she re-read the short letter, lingering on the last paragraph, which alone contained some ray of comfort, some assurance of the strong love that was at once the cause and the anodyne of ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... merits, and resisting all remonstrance to the contrary and all the forms of ordinary custom, she witnessed herself the dreary ceremony which bequeathed the human remains of William Brandon to repose and to the worm. On that same day Clifford received the mitigation of his sentence, and on that day another trial awaited Lucy. We think briefly to convey to the reader what that scene was; we need only observe that Dummie Dunnaker, decoyed by his great love for little Paul, whom he delightedly said he found not the least "stuck up by his great fame and ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... commandant, who afterwards shewed him a little favor. This was the first approach to kindness he had known since when, years before, he had left his home, and had its usual influence. He was never again in a scrape there. His good-conduct induced the commandant to recommend him for a mitigation of sentence, which he received, and he was again employed in the police-boat. The free cockswain of the boat was, however, a drunkard, and intrusted much to Sears. Oftentimes he roused the men by his violence, but Sears contrived to subdue his passion. ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... establish fixed principles of science that could not be controverted, but in reference to the ends for which he labored. "The aim of Bacon," says Macaulay, "was utility,—fruit; the multiplication of human enjoyments, ... the mitigation of human sufferings, ... the prolongation of life by new inventions,"—dotare vitam humanum novis inventis et copiis; "the conquest of Nature,"—dominion over the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air; the application of science to the subjection of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... Indians. He charged the Adjutant-General Reiffenstein with gross prevarication. He sneered at the captured, few of whom had been rescued by an honorable death from the ignominy of passing under the American yoke, and whose wounds pleaded little in mitigation of the reproach. The officers in retreating from Detroit, Sandwich and Malden, seemed to have been more anxious about their baggage than they had afterwards been about their honor. The enemy had attacked and defeated Proctor ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... universal power has no specific energy, no determinate interest at heart; there is nothing friendly about it nor allied to your private necessities; no links of place and time fortify and define its influence. Nor is it rational to appeal for a mitigation of evils or for assistance against them to the very being that has decreed and is inflicting them for some ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... naturally rough: and a man of a rigorous temper, with that vigilance of minute attention which his works discover, must have been a master that few could bear. That he was disposed to do his servants good, on important occasions, is no great mitigation; benefaction can be but rare, and tyrannic peevishness is perpetual. He did not spare the servants of others. Once, when he dined alone with the Earl of Orrery, he said of one that waited in the room, "That man has, since we sat to the table, committed ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... attention of those interested in their behalf, and, if possible, also of some of those concerned in that administration. This is, the practice which prevails of making strong appeals to the jury in mitigation of damages, or to the judge, after a verdict has been rendered against a captain or officer, for a lenient sentence, on the grounds of their previous good character, and of their being poor, and having friends and families depending upon them for support. These appeals have been allowed a weight ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... death, but dreading disgrace, Andre was deeply affected by the mode of execution which the laws of war decree to persons in his situation. He wished to die like a soldier not as a criminal. To obtain a mitigation of his sentence in this respect he addressed a letter to Washington, replete with the feelings of a man of sentiment and honor. But the occasion required that the example should make its full impression, and this request could not be granted. He ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... before, a detailed statement of the circumstances which have induced him to recommend the individuals respectively; and should the governor be satisfied that they are deserving of reward, his excellency will mitigate their sentence to that of seven or fourteen years, from the date of such mitigation; after which the individuals will, of course, be eligible to all the privileges of prisoners of ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... who sold her jewels to fit Columbus for the discovery of a New World, is modern warfare most indebted for a mitigation of its horrors, through the establishment of the first regular Camp Hospitals. During her war with the Moors she caused a large number of tents to be furnished at her own charge, with the requisite medicines, appliances, and attendants for the wounded and sick of her army. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... we will have a strange mingling of political elements, and a striking evidence of the changes of interest and principle on this subject in different parts of the country, caused by the revolution of the industry of our people by the abolition of slavery during the Civil War. The only mitigation of my desire for a prompt revision of the tariff is the confidence I have that delay and discussion will make the sectional revolution more thorough and universal, and leave the tariff question a purely business and not a political or ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... last, those two, and discreetly confabulated, the maitre d'hotel betraying welcome mitigation of that nervous tension which had heretofore so palpably affected him; and, as the other stepped back into the elevator, Lanyard saw this one's glance irresistibly attracted to the table dedicated to ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... perform their drill of prayers without embarrassment or distraction in the sight of a crowd, or the rapt 'devotion' of fakirs, are held up as a rebuke to us 'Christians' who are ashamed to be caught praying. One may observe, in mitigation, that the worship which is of the heart is naturally more sensitive to surrounding distractions than that which is a matter of posturing and repetition by rote. But there still remains substance enough in the contrast to point a ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... valued above all possessions, would be the first to cast him out. He would appear as a vulgar murderer who, having failed by falsehood to fasten the guilt upon an innocent man, sought now by falsehood still more damnable, at the cost of his wife's honour, to offer some mitigation ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... the cornerstone of the Republican edifice. Cant, indeed, in one form or other, is the innate vice of the "earnest" Anglo-Saxon mind, on both sides of the Atlantic, and ridicule is the weapon which the gods have appointed for its mitigation. You must lay on the rod with a will, and throw "moral suasion" to the dogs. Above all, your demagogue dreads satire as vermin the avenging thumb—'Any thing but that,' squeaks he, 'an you love me. Liken me to Lucifer, or Caius Gracchus; charge me with ambition, and glorious vices; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... to be permanently influenced by means of impressive friendly admonition, the frequent inculcation and daily observance of religious duties, and the exciting hope of reward for good behaviour in a mitigation of their sentence: in short, by the most encouraging and kind treatment, as far as is compatible with the strictness of prison discipline. None therefore, but the thoroughly incorrigible, can leave the institution without being greatly improved in their ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... the associated most suggestive establishment of it, the confession, is a very extraordinary psychological problem.[1] In many cases the reasons for confession are very obvious. The criminal sees that the evidence is so complete that he is soon to be convicted and seeks a mitigation of the sentence by confession, or he hopes through a more honest narration of the crime to throw a great degree of the guilt on another. In addition there is a thread of vanity in confession—as among young peasants who confess to a greater share in a burglary than they actually ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... that the captain, ignorant of what had occurred, sent for the unfortunate stowaway, for the mitigation of whose sorrows his friend Ben Trench had, more than once, pleaded earnestly, but in vain. The captain invariably replied that Watty had acted ungratefully and rebelliously to a kind father, and ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... vehicle of speech. This will be illustrated in due course: the actual condition of English with respect to homophones must be understood and appreciated before the nature of their growth and the possible means of their mitigation will seem ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... advertisement, offering what we do not want. In time we imagine we do. Duplications of Cuyp's very puerile arrangement of parts, as in the "Departure for the Chase" to be found in others of his pictures, work in our minds mitigation for those faults. The belief in self has the singular magnetic potency of drawing and turning us. A stronger magnet must then be the living principle. We find it in unity. Originality compromises ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... Aristides by the ostracism, giving their jealousy of his reputation the name of fear of tyranny. For ostracism was not the punishment of any criminal act, but was speciously said to be the mere depression and humiliation of excessive greatness and power; and was in fact a gentle relief and mitigation of envious feeling, which was thus allowed to vent itself in inflicting no intolerable injury, only a ten years' banishment. But after it came to be exercised upon base and villainous fellows, they desisted from it; Hyperbolus, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... particularly centres in the Punjab, the United Provinces, and in Bombay. I do not think that anybody who has been concerned in India—I do not care to what school of Indian thought he belongs—can deny that measures for the extermination and mitigation of this disease have occupied the most serious, constant, unflagging, zealous, and energetic attention of the Indian Government. But the difficulties we encounter are manifold, as many Members of the House are well aware. It is possible that hon. Members ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... let us endeavour to ascertain the cause, and secondly, to suggest means for the mitigation or ...
— An Investigation into the Nature of Black Phthisis • Archibald Makellar
... women upon earth—his childlike faith in the purity of their souls. They were a humanizing influence, the guardian angels of mankind, the inspirers, the mothers, the protectors of innocence. It pleased him to think that woman had softened harsh dealings between man and man; that every mitigation of savagery, every incitement to worthy or heroic actions, was due to her gentle words, her encouraging example. From the very dawn of history woman had opposed herself to deeds of violence. What was it Count Caloveglia had said? "Temperance. All the rest is embroidery." ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... the prisoners was now very different from what it had been on board ship. Not only were they confined to prison, but, to their indignation, irons were placed on their legs, as if they had been common malefactors. The only mitigation allowed to them was that their servants were permitted to attend upon them. Their clothes had been rigorously searched, and their boots taken off, but no suspicions had been entertained that coin had been hidden in those of Desmond and ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... companion had taken a gloomy view of his case, that he looked upon Richard's own story with utter disbelief, and was convinced it would not hold water before a jury. His remark about the money having been recovered must have had reference to a possible mitigation of the sentence, and therefore took conviction for granted. Nor, upon reconsideration of the case with calmness—the calm of loneliness and despair—was, Richard himself admitted, any other conclusion to be arrived at by a stranger. Those who ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... and Wilberforce were philanthropists. His sympathy was too strongly under the control of true political reason. In 1780, for instance, the slave-trade had attracted his attention, and he had even proceeded to sketch out a code of regulations which provided for its immediate mitigation and ultimate suppression. After mature consideration he abandoned the attempt, from the conviction that the strength of the West India interest would defeat the utmost efforts of his party. And he was quite right in refusing to hope from any political action what could only be effected ...
— Burke • John Morley
... do no good; whilst in the larger proportion of 206 out of 234, its use was followed by marked and unequivocal improvement—this improvement varying in degree in different cases, from a temporary retardation of the progress of the disease, and a mitigation of distressing symptoms, up to a more or less complete restoration to apparent health. The most numerous examples of decided and lasting improvement, amounting to nearly 100, have occurred in patients in the second stage of the disease, in which the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... is to be banished from the sisterhood of Valkyries, and Valhalla is to know her no more. Thrown into a deep sleep, she shall lie upon the mountain-top, to be the bride of the first man who finds and wakens her. Bruennhilde pleads passionately for a mitigation of the cruel sentence, or at least that a circle of fire shall be drawn around her resting-place, so that none but a hero of valour and determination can hope to win her. Moved by her entreaties, Wotan consents. He kisses her fondly to sleep, and lays her gently ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... only as directed to something else, for instance justice, or the correction of the person punished. Hence love makes one quick to mitigate punishment—and this pertains to clemency—while hatred is an obstacle to such mitigation. For this reason Tully says that "the mind provoked to hatred" that is to punish too severely, "is restrained by clemency," from inflicting too severe a punishment, so that clemency directly moderates ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... finished long in his desk? and that consequently between some scenes of Tom Jones and some scenes of Amelia it is not improbable that there was no more than a few months' interval? I do not urge these things in mitigation of any unfavourable judgment against the later novel. I only ask—How much of that unfavourable judgment ought in justice to be set down to the fallacies connected with an imperfect appreciation ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... although he had not only had great benefits bestowed on him by his father, enough to tame his reason, yet could not be more tamed than the most envenomed serpents; whereas even those creatures admit of some mitigation, and will not bite their benefactors, while Antipater hath not let the misfortunes of his brethren be any hinderance to him, but he hath gone on to imitate their barbarity notwithstanding. "Yet wast thou, O Antipater! [as thou hast thyself confessed,] the informer as to what wicked actions ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... point of prohibition which is aimed at by some gentlemen to be attained, the consumers of the article would pay this last-mentioned sum every year to the producers of it, over and above the price at which they could supply themselves with the same article from other sources. There would be no mitigation of this burden, except from the prospect, whatever that might be, that iron would fall in value, by domestic competition, after the importation should be prohibited. It will be easy, I think, to show that it cannot fall; and supposing for the present ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... including both your lps pencion and the arbitrary help of his frends. It is this extraordinary expense, wch he cannot recouer wch makes both him and me for him appele to your Lps goodnei and bounty for some tollerable mitigation thereof. ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... mordant sarcasm of a disappointed man, brought upon Buelow the enmity of the official classes and of the government. He was arrested as insane, but medical examination proved him sane and he was then lodged as a prisoner in Colberg, where he was harshly treated, though Gneisenau obtained some mitigation of his condition. Thence he passed into Russian hands and died in prison at Riga in 1807, probably as a ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... his committing them, being instruments in the hands of the devil to draw them in too. And, therefore, lest this come to pass, 'I pray thee send him to my father's house.' For if they might not come hither, peradventure my torment might have some mitigation; that is, if they might be saved, then their sins will be pardoned, and not so heavily charged on my soul. But if they do fall into the same place where I am, the sins that I have caused them to commit will lie so heavy, not only on their ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... confessor and penitent alike. After mass, as he returned, he learned from a librarian called Seney, at the porter's lodge, as he was taking a glass of wine, that judgment had been given, and that Madame de Brinvilliers was to have her hand cut off. This severity—as a fact, there was a mitigation of the sentence—made him feel yet more interest in his penitent, and he hastened ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Reformers; these were the people who insisted, if not upon the actual evils and sufferings indicated in this illustrative note of social contradictions, then upon violent opposition to their complements in the way of mitigation and relief. And I was ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... formidable is that it rages in all seasons of the year, and at all periods of human existence. The emotions of friendship or of love are weakened or subdued as old age advances; but the influence of this passion, or rather disease, admits of no mitigation: "it grows with our growth, and strengthens with our strength;" and ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... importance to the people, the Government, and all who have any stake in India, that I think it well to offer here some remarks on them, and also suggest some measures for their prevention, or perhaps I should rather say for their mitigation. ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... its highest merit. The 'Planter's Northern Bride' should be as welcome as the dove of peace to every fireside in the Union. It cannot be read without a moistening of the eyes, a softening of the heart, and a mitigation of sectional and most unchristian prejudices."—N. ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... with a strong and firm grip. From one mouth alone, however, proceeded, amidst a succession of hiccups, the word "transportation," which, when Lord Deilmacare heard, he changed his principle, and joined the old squire in the same mitigation of feeling. ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... individual condition, as of different states of society. Some unexpected solace arises to alleviate the severest calamity. Wonderful is the power of custom, in making the hardest condition tolerable; the most generally wretched life has circumstances of mitigation, and moments of vivid enjoyment, of which the more seemingly happy can scarcely conceive; though the lives of individuals be shortened, the aggregate of existence is increased; even the various forms of death accelerated by want, familiarized to the contemplation, like ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... not undertake," said Spalding, "to enter into a labored defence of the use of tobacco in any form. I only move for a mitigation of punishment, and will state the circumstances upon which I base my appeal to the clemency of the court. The exception in the indictment, enables me to avoid the plea of necessity, which I should have interposed, founded upon a huge forest meal, and the abundance as well as impertinence ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... enjoyed her friendship, her pious conversation and correspondence were highly valued. She was no stranger in the habitation of the widow and the fatherless, or beside the dying bed. Her sympathy in such scenes was a mitigation of sorrow, and her offices of Christian love endeared her in the hour of distress. She gratified the benevolence of her heart by relieving the distresses of many; and some of her poor neighbours were pensioners ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various
... February, 1430, a canon and a chaplain were arrested and brought before the chapter for having conspired to deliver the city to the English. It was well for them that they belonged to the Church, for having been condemned to perpetual imprisonment, they obtained from the King a mitigation of their sentence, and the canon a complete remittance.[1926] The aldermen and ecclesiastics of the city, fearing they would be thought badly of on the other side of the Loire, wrote to the Maid entreating her to speak well of them to the King. The ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... this chapter on "Plans and Projects, Executed and Unexecuted," I know well that my confessions will do me no good in the eyes of many who shall read them. It will be said that I attempted too many things. In mitigation of such a judgment I may say that the conditions of American life in the second half of the century just closed have been very different from those in most other countries. It has been a building period, a period of reforms necessitated by ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... November, in the presence of their former comrades, the culprits were sent, in accordance with the terms of their sentence, to render their account to the Almighty. It was the saddest spectacle I ever witnessed, but there could be no evasion, no mitigation of the full letter of the law; its timely enforcement was but justice to the brave spirits who had yet to fight the rebellion to ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... questionable whether admiration for this quality may not sometimes blind us to other things in the same persons which are actual faults, and hence a man may be intemperate or profane or worldly, and people say, "Well, but he is such a generous fellow," and that is taken as mitigation of his faults: thus he is allowed to indulge in many wrongs, because he has one excellency in his character. Men are not often impartial judges; their minds are warped by unduly regarding one virtue more than another, and consequently their verdict on character is not always reliable. Give ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... Queen Caroline Murat. Having opened it he took out a bottle and a glass. On the label of the bottle was a kilted Highlander playing on the pipes. A siphon of soda was also in the cabinet, but he left it there. What he had to do would be done more quickly without its mitigation. ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... state to which they were raised by fighting, at our own expense, the general quarrel of mankind; and why the sinking fund, a kind of inviolable deposit appropriated to the payment of our creditors, and the mitigation of our taxes, has been from year to year diverted to very different uses; we shall find that our treasure has been exhausted, not to humble foreign enemies, or obviate domestick insurrections; not to support our allies, or suppress our factions; but for ends which no man, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... the contest has been conducted, and is still carried on, with a lamentable disregard of human life and of the rules and practices which modern civilization has prescribed in mitigation of the necessary horrors of war. The torch of Spaniard and of Cuban is alike busy in carrying devastation over fertile regions; murderous and revengeful decrees are issued and executed by both parties. Count Valmaseda and Colonel Boet, on the part of Spain, have ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... as to the ignorance, perverseness, and dirty habits of the parents themselves.' But whatever the immediate cause the death of these numerous children lies heavy, not upon the conscience, but upon the heart of our nation. It is some mitigation to know that the death-rate among children is normally quite remarkably high in South Africa, and that the rate in the camps was frequently not higher than that of the towns near which ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the general degradation and showed that they were fitted by nature for a higher position. But sin and ignorance kept the mass of them under the heel of their masters. As civilization advanced there came some mitigation of their lot, and where pure religion gained a foothold women began to receive recognition; but their state was deplorable indeed among all those peoples whose religion was only gross ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... even the chaplains, appealed for a mitigation of the extreme penalty. "While he was in command at Winchester, in December 1861, a soldier who was charged with striking his captain was tried by court-martial and sentenced to be shot. Knowing that the breach of discipline had been attended with many extenuating circumstances, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... One mitigation I might have set against the rest. Dining at the Rag the night before I left, I met a man who knew a man then staying at the Riffel Alp. My man was a sapper with whom I had had a very slight acquaintance out in India, but he happened to be one of those good-natured creatures ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... followers, he joined Thomas Forster at Green-rig. Like Forster the earl was lacking in military experience, and when the rebels capitulated at Preston he was conveyed to London and impeached. Pleading guilty at his trial he was attainted and condemned to death. Great efforts were made to obtain a mitigation of the sentence, but the government was obdurate, and Derwentwater was beheaded on Tower Hill on the 24th of February 1716, declaring on the scaffold his devotion to the Roman Catholic religion and to King James III. The earl was very popular among ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... is written, Gen. viii. 21, "And IHVH smelled a sweet savor." It is not written (He smelled) the odor of the sacrifice. What is "sweet" save "rest"? Assuredly the spirit at rest is the mitigation of the Lords ...
— Hebrew Literature
... do something, while I write the LAST chapter of Oliver, which will be arter a lamb chop." How well I remember that evening! and our talk of what should be the fate of Charley Bates, on behalf of whom (as indeed for the Dodger too) Talfourd had pleaded as earnestly in mitigation of judgment as ever at the bar for any client ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... his memory, and in part mitigation of the censures of many of his personal friends, as well as to enable the reader to judge of the circumstances under which this distinguished man fell into his ruinous habit, the following extracts from his own letters and from other sources are given, nearly in ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... French, the reduction of their large garrison at Danzig, and the recognition of Russia's right to trade with neutrals. If these terms were accorded by France, Alexander was ready to negotiate for an indemnity for the Duke of Oldenburg and a mitigation of the Russian customs dues on French goods.[254] The reception given by Napoleon to these reasonable terms was unpromising. "You are a gentleman," he exclaimed to Prince Kurakin, "—and yet you dare to present to me such proposals?—You ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Trenton, "I have no desire to convert you to the beauties of amateur photography. I admit the results in many cases are very bad. I am afraid if you saw the pictures I take myself you would not be much in love with the art. But what I wish to say is in mitigation of my refusal to destroy the plate when you asked ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... Act; the Irish and not the English Cabinet will decide with what severity wrong-doers are to be punished, and whether, and under what circumstances, convicted criminals deserve either pardon or mitigation of punishment. ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... church's part in the business was mainly to find excuse; through slavery the heathen were being made Christians. But when they had become Christians the church forgot to bid that they be made brothers and freemen. Some real mitigation of their lot no doubt there was, through teaching of religion and from other conditions. Professor Du Bois says that slavery brought the African three advantages: it taught him to labor, gave him the English language and—after a sort—the Christian religion. But it ruined such ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... doorway. Though bitterly annoyed at his mother's interference, he was too much of a gentleman to wreak his vengeance on the innocent cause of his exile. As a mitigation of the penance, it occurred to him that he might occupy the time of absence by talking of Elma since he might not talk to her; but Providence was merciful, and came to his aid at the eleventh hour. The inner door opened, and Captain Guest appeared upon the threshold, ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... by death: would you give way to it? or do you propose any other punishment that will be more useful to the public? for, since death does not restrain theft, if men thought their lives would be safe, what fear or force could restrain ill men? On the contrary, they would look on the mitigation of the punishment as an invitation to commit more crimes.' I answered, 'It seems to me a very unjust thing to take away a man's life for a little money, for nothing in the world can be of equal value with a man's ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... upright Friends, our religious society were brought to a united and settled judgment as a body, that personal slavery, both in its origin and its results, was so great an evil, that it could be tolerated by no mitigation of its hardship; and they felt the demands of equity to be so urgent upon them, that they were concerned to enjoin it upon Friends every where, by a ready compliance with such reasonable duty, to cease to do evil, by immediately releasing those they held as slaves. Their own hands being ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... blame than you or I. I have seen men who had been guilty—yes, even convicted of most heinous crimes, who from the very conformation of their heads revealed certain things that, to say the least, should have been considered in mitigation ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... unconventional requires a nicely discriminating taste; and it's no use being more violent than you can help. You and Dorothea are making a match that sets the rules of your world at defiance, but you may as well avail yourselves of any little mitigation that comes to hand. Life is going to be hard enough ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... as a whole, must sternly limit individual liberty. And it looks as if we were at the threshold of an era of "vaccination" for other diseases besides smallpox; typhoid is now absolutely preventable by that means, and the number of diseases amenable to prevention or mitigation by similar methods is yearly increasing. In some or all of these cases there is a slight risk to the patient, in view of which compulsory "vaccination" is in some quarters strenuously opposed. Leaving the discussion of the principle here involved to chapter ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... time, I was informed by signal that the Terror's was completely destroyed, and nearly torn away from the stern-post. We had hoped that, as we drifted deeper into the pack, we should get beyond the reach of the tempest; but in this we were mistaken. Hour passed away after hour without the least mitigation of the awful circumstances in which we were placed. Indeed, there seemed to be but little probability of our ships holding together much longer, so frequent and violent were the shocks they sustained. ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... regaling himself and his blowen with a glass of the "right sort." The indignant Sir Felix raised his cane, and was about to inflict a well-merited chastisement, when the transgressor, deprecating the wrath of his master, produced the full amount of the cheque in mitigation of punishment, expressing his obligations to mother Cummings for the preservation ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... purpose, or more worthy of such dishonour, than the article in the 'Quarterly Review' for July, 1860. (I was not aware when I wrote these passages that the authorship of the article had been publicly acknowledged. Confession unaccompanied by penitence, however, affords no ground for mitigation of judgment; and the kindliness with which Mr. Darwin speaks of his assailant, Bishop Wilberforce (vol. ii.), is so striking an exemplification of his singular gentleness and modesty, that it rather increases one's indignation against ...
— The Reception of the 'Origin of Species' • Thomas Henry Huxley
... former friendship. "If," replied Count Mansfeld to his friend, who in an amicable manner had reproved him for his defection to the king, "if formerly I was of opinion that the general good made the abolition of the Inquisition, the mitigation of the edicts, and the removal of the Cardinal Granvella necessary, the king has now acquiesced in this wish and removed the cause of complaint. We have already done too much against the majesty of the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... could promise the old man some mitigation of his sufferings, and they liked each other so well that they parted the best of friends, and not till a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... writing towards the close of the twelfth century, tells us that English parents then frequently sold their surplus children and other persons to the Irish as slaves. The Church repeatedly intervened for the release of captives and mitigation of their condition. The whole institution of slavery was strongly condemned as un-Christian by the Synod ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... of life, ... because I have known her derive extreme amusement and diversion from circumstances and associates that would have been utterly distasteful to me. Her love and perception of the ridiculous is not only positive enjoyment, but a protection from annoyance and a mitigation of disgust. My father desires his love to you, and bids me thank you for your kindness in sending him the newspapers. With regard to that last song in the "Amina," of which you speak as of a tour de force, it is hardly so much so, in point of fact, as her execution of the whole ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... many shirts, and a penny a-day for pocket-money! These piccoli omicidii at home do not get off so cheap, but stabbing is endemic at Naples. When a queen of Naples brings the Neapolitans a new prince—great joy of course!—all the penal settlements except St Stefano receive three years' mitigation of their sentence; but the crimes that consign to that island are senza grazia—the rays of royal bounty do not reach those dark and solitary cells. The St Stefano convicts form a body of three hundred doomed men, incorrigible housebreakers or systematic assassins. The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... greater misstatement than to speak of her as having blighted his life. This last part of his life was indeed blighted, but by ill-health and consequent nervous irritability and suffering; but such mitigation as was possible he found for eight years in the womanly devotion and genial society of Madame Sand—real benefits to one whose strange and delicate individuality it was not easy to befriend—and which the breach that took place between them shortly before his ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... before his death, and had perceived at once his countenance pervaded by a most remarkable serenity. On being congratulated on his appearance, Coleridge replied that he did now, for the first time, begin to hope, from the mitigation of his pains, that his health was undergoing a permanent improvement (alas! he was deceived; yet may we not consider this hopeful feeling, which is, I believe, by no means uncommon, to be under such circumstances a valuable blessing?); but that what he felt most ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... day we are sensible of the truth of what he said; nothing is more glorious for the regular state, and nothing more edifying for the whole Church, than to see the nuns of St. Clare, who keep the rule of their Order without the slightest mitigation, who renounce the possession of any property whatsoever, whether private or in common, who live wholly on alms, and in such a state of rigorous austerity, that the stronger sex would find to ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... very grave and aggravated case." We could not, however, pledge ourselves to do anything more than stop the sale pending the appeal on the writ of error which we had resolved to go for. "Have you anything to say in mitigation?" was the judge's last appeal; but Mr. Bradlaugh answered: "I respectfully submit myself to the sentence of the Court"; and I: "I have nothing to say in ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... was very simple and in marked contrast to Stella Benton's. Plenty of grub, no work, some cheap finery, and a man white or red, no matter, to make eyes at. Her horizon was bounded by Roaring Lake and the mission at Skookumchuck. She was therefore no mitigation ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... acquittal of a criminal on the ground of his having inherited a brain of vitiated quality; but, surely, it would not be repugnant to the testimony of science, or the dictates of common sense and common justice, if he allowed this fact to operate in mitigation of sentence. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... of my sadly-pleasing state, That you alone conceive me well I know, When to your fierce beams I become as snow! Your elegant disdain Haply then kindles at my worthless strain. Did not this dread create Some mitigation of my bosom's heat, Death would be bliss: for greater joy 'twould give With them to suffer death, without ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... remember, and others present will remember it too, two or three years of bad fishing, followed by a year of blight, when the man who wrought most anxiously and was honest-hearted could not meet the demands upon him. At such times, if there was no qualification or mitigation of the ready-money system, perhaps the men might ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... passed upon persons who may be convicted of offences contrary to the rules of civilized warfare committed during the recent hostilities will be duly carried out, and no alteration or mitigation of such sentences will be made or allowed by the Government of the Transvaal State without Her Majesty's consent conveyed through the British Resident. In case there shall be any prisoners in any of the gaols of the Transvaal State whose respective ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... unpardonable folly is that of hope. Raising his eyes for a moment from the face of his watch, he rested them upon the opposite bank, reflectively and not without a certain wistfulness, as if the sternness of their gaze were still capable of mitigation. Soon a look of the deepest satisfaction filled them, though, for a moment, he did not move. He watched a lady who came rapidly, and yet with a trace of hesitation, down the broad grass-walk towards him. She did not see him. Distance lent her figure ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... we have a House of Commons. To the Whigs of the nineteenth century we owe it that the House of Commons has been purified. The abolition of the slave trade, the abolition of colonial slavery, the extension of popular education, the mitigation of the rigour of the penal code, all, all were effected by that party; and of that party, I repeat, I am a member. I look with pride on all that the Whigs have done for the cause of human freedom ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... whether I had not observed that many of the children were grown. I answered I had not, but could readily believe it. She assured me it was so, but said the certain evidence that their minds too had grown since their migration upward, had gone far in mitigation of the alarm ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... distribution of wealth: but this process, it is scarcely necessary to add, would do nothing to mitigate existing inequalities. Existing inequalities ought to be mitigated; and they can be mitigated without doing the slightest injustice to their owners. The means to such mitigation are, of course, to be found in a graduated inheritance tax—a tax which has already been accepted in principle by several American states and by the English government, which certainly cannot be considered indifferent to the rights ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... expected, and as the tenor of his speech had assured his friends would be the case, Socrates was found guilty—but by a majority of only five or six in a body of over five hundred. He would make no proposition, as was his right, for a mitigation of punishment; and after sentence of death had been passed upon him he spent the remaining thirty days of his life in impressing on the minds of his friends the most sublime lessons in philosophy and virtue. Many of these lessons have been preserved ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson |
