"Palliation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... —(for I will not disguise my conviction, that in this one point the tragic in this play has been urged beyond the outermost mark and 'ne plus ultra' of the dramatic)—Shakspeare has precluded all excuse and palliation of the guilt incurred by both the parents of the base-born Edmund, by Gloster's confession that he was at the time a married man, and already blest with a lawful heir of his fortunes. The mournful alienation of brotherly love, occasioned by the law of primogeniture in noble ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... pondered on the thing Watson had done, and, in the light of common business morality, could find no fault with it; but in his heart he knew it was wrong. The argument he found against it was a trite one, but true: "The wrongs of others are no palliation of ours." If the banks did wrong in using depositors' money to earn dividends for the rich, that was not the clerk's business—that was ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... serfdom, provided that it safeguarded the elementary rights of the serf to serve God as well as man. In the great struggle in America, he had no sympathy with the North, which seemed to him to make majority rule the only measure of right: and he wrote, if not in favour, at least in palliation, of slavery. It may be doubted how far he would have used the same language in later life, but his reasons were in accord with all his general views. Slavery might be rendered harmless by the State, and some form of compulsion might be the only way of dealing with child-races, indeed, ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... form not apart from, but by the help of, drapery. It was reserved for the age of Praxiteles and Scopas to represent the Goddess of Love in the guise of a nude woman; and Praxiteles made an apology for the innovation by introducing the motive of bathing as an explanation and a palliation. And even the Aphrodite of Praxiteles is remarkably free from all attempt at sensuous attraction, or self-consciousness. Solid, noble, and stately in form, she is a type or model rather than an individual. Later sculptors, ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... come from an individual not authorized, or at all commissioned by his party—from an individual not showing any readiness to face the whole charges, disingenuously dissembling the worst of them, and finally offering his very feeble disclaimer, which equivocates between a denial and a palliation—not until after he found himself in the position of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... charitable, madam,' said the Reverend Mr. Timson, 'and we know that charity will cover a multitude of sins. Let me beg you to understand that I do not say this from the supposition that you have many sins which require palliation; believe me when I say that I never yet met any one who had fewer to ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... palliation of which she felt herself undeserving, now lifted up her head, and forcing herself to speak, said "No, madam, I will not deceive you, for I have never been deceived myself: I presumed not to expect your approbation,—though in missing it I have ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... authority of a terrified and flying soldier, it is alike due to the probabilities of the case, and more agreeable to the hopes of humanity, to lessen somewhat the horrors of a scene which has need of all the palliation which can be drawn from the slightest evidences of compassion on the part of the stern ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... still continues to wield his flaming sword against priests and despots, against intellectual and political servility. What may be termed the historical plea, the excuse for ideas and institutions that they are the relics of evil days long past, is no palliation for them to his mind; he would stamp them out and utterly destroy them. In this respect his temperament has unconsciously a strong tincture of the intolerance which he denounces; he would sweep away Christianity as Christianity ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... to-night, Miss Langdon, and I know it," he told her rapidly. "There is no excuse for the acts I have committed; there can be no palliation for them. I would not have dared to ask for your forgiveness; I can only say that I am sorry. It was not I, but a madman, who for a moment possessed me, who conducted himself so vilely toward you. I shall go back to my ranch again. ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... here let me watch over myself again: for in those four words, I was very young, is there not a palliation couched, that were enough to take all efficacy from ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... Dinwiddie's declaration that they have shown a "fine martial spirit," and he commends Virginia as having done far better than her neighbors; but for Pennsylvania he finds no words to express his wrath.[203] He knew nothing of the intestine war between proprietaries and people, and hence could see no palliation for a conduct which threatened to ruin both the expedition and the colony. Everything depended on speed, and speed was impossible; for stores and provisions were not ready, though notice to furnish them had been given months before. The quartermaster-general, Sir John Sinclair, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... with Mr. Rogan that practical jokes are exceedingly bad, and productive frequently of far more evil than fun, we feel it our duty, as a faithful delineator of manners, customs, and character in these regions, to urge in palliation of the offence committed by the young gentlemen at York Fort, that they had really about as few amusements and sources of excitement as fall to the lot of any class of men. They were entirely dependent on their ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... instance of conventionality constantly repeated is the sin of inversion, which is no less prevalent, throughout the poem, in the conversational than in the narrative portions. In some cases the exigencies of rhyme may be pleaded in palliation, as for "Cam's marge along" and "breezy willows cool," which occur in two consecutive lines of a speech; but there are many for which no such excuse can be urged. Does any one talk of "sloth obscure," or of "hearts afflicted?" Or what reason is there for preferring "verses ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... spoke first. He is a man somewhat advanced in years, and possesses abilities, which we could wish were better applied than in the defence, or even palliation, of such a corrupting habit as gambling. He directed his batteries mainly against the late ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... having won her confidence, escorted her all through the Wicked Valley. By a continual palliation she yielded one point after another until her virtue was ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... it," said the judge, and the man in a few words told his story without any palliation. With a gleam of hope Mildred saw the expression of the judge's face change as he listened, and when at last he replied, in tones so low that none could hear them save he to whom they were addressed, she ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... an Injury which I feel I have committed, or add to my Fault by the Vindication of an expression dictated by Resentment, an expression which deserves Censure, and demands the apology I now offer; for I think that Disposition indeed mean which adds Obstinacy to Insult, by attempting the Palliation of unmerited Invective from the mistaken principle of disdaining the Avowal of even self convicted Error. In regard to the other Declarations my Sentiments remain unaltered; the event will shew whether my Prediction is false. I know Mrs. Byron too well to imagine ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... for restoring the corporations which James II. had suppressed clauses manifestly intended to preserve the ascendency of the Whig party, "by keeping the Church or Tory faction out of"[238] them. But no such palliation (if, indeed, that had any right to be called a palliation) could be alleged for their abuse of the trusts committed to them; abuse which, if committed by single individuals, would have been branded, and perhaps punished, as malversation and fraud of the deepest ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... wrong, as the consequence miserably proved. The position which, in his wife's presence, he assigned to another woman, however he may have persuaded himself that Catherine had no claim to be considered his wife, admits neither of excuse nor of palliation; and he ought never to have shared his throne with a person who consented to occupy that position. He was blind to the coarseness of Anne Boleyn, because, in spite of his chivalry, his genius, his accomplishments, in his relations ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... judgment, nor pervert your integrity. An enemy may at any time obtain your commendation by only deserving it; and the utmost which the faults of your friends can hope for, is your silence; or, perhaps, if too severely accused, your gentle palliation. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Embassy at Washington addressed to the people of the United States through the newspapers, but only for the purpose of pointing out that no warning that an unlawful and inhumane act will be committed can possibly be accepted as an excuse or palliation for that act or as an abatement of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... world, he told himself, where men won things by their brains, he had failed like any pitiable weakling; that he had been handicapped by unpreparedness was no palliation of the crime of failure. Ignorance was no excuse. In humiliation and chagrin he attributed the mistakes of inexperience to lack of intelligence. His mother had over-estimated him, he had over-estimated ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... Brown, Esq., a gentleman, scholar, and philanthropist, in a tone of irony peculiarly severe, demanded, 'whether I had the unblushing impudence, in broad day-light, to offer my arm to my wife?' I replied, in deep affectation of the criminality involved, that the only palliation I could offer, for conduct so outrageous was, that it was unwittingly done, it seemed so natural. This, as you might well suppose, produced some merriment at the expense of the witness for the county, and of all others, ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... please hear this in palliation—I would not presume to say in defense—of my conduct: I was driven to frenzy by a passion of contending love and jealousy as violent and maddening as it was unreal and transient. But that delusive passion has subsided, and among the unmerited mercies for which I have ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... said he, "I repeat that to be descended of a line of czars or from a house of emperors is, at the worst, an empty braggartism, or, at best—upon the plea of heredity—a handy palliation for iniquity; and to be descended of sturdy and honest and clean-blooded folk is beyond doubt preferable, since upon quite similar grounds it entitles one to hope that even now, 'when their generation ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... time it struck Bedient that he must leave. He was startled that he had not left. His only palliation for such a venture into two lives—was the memories her voice roused. His lips tightened with scorn of self. And yet the thought became a fury as he walked rapidly through the dark toward the river—what it would mean to have a woman want him that way!.... His thoughts did not violate ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... am ignorant of what you know, and I shall not ask," he continued. "I have been very criminal toward you, but perhaps less so than you think. Terrible circumstances bound me with iron bands. Fate ruled me! But I seek no palliation. Judge me as severely as you wish; but I beg of you to calm yourself—preserve yourself! You spoke to me this morning of your presentiments—of your maternal hopes. Attach yourself to those thoughts, and you will always be mistress ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... out of your life. Before I do so, however, I should like to say a few words in palliation of my conduct. I have never known a mother. I early fell under my aunt's charge, who, detesting children, sent me away to school, where I was well enough treated, but never loved. I was a plain child, and felt my plainness. This gave an awkwardness to my actions, ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... very excellent and truly good men amongst them. "Well," it may be said, "and what of all this, because some Justices and Parsons are profligate, debauched, and abandoned, would you infer that to be any justification or palliation for your errors?" Not in the least. I do not wish to assume any such ridiculous proposition. All I mean to say is, it brings me to this conclusion, that as we are by our very nature liable to err, and that as it is quite clear that those who are the most forward to condemn others ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... the field of bibliography I cannot plead as palliation for any imperfections that may be discovered in this, that it is the work of a 'prentice hand. Difficult as I found my self-imposed task in the case of the Meredith and Hardy bibliographies, here my labour ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... the "Broken Heart." For this unfortunate creature, every feeling mind will find an apology in his calamitous situation; but—for Mr. Weber, we know not where the warmest of his friends will seek either palliation ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... the doctor, see-sawing very solemnly, "that, indeed, is some palliation for his forbearance. But I must not have you so fond of the Scotch, my little Burney; make your hero what you will but a Scotchman. Besides, you write Scotch—you say 'the one'—my dear, that's not English, Never use that ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... present some slight palliation for those acts of mob violence by which the people of the United States are so often disgraced. It may be added that out of the Southern States they are quite rare, and in the Northeastern States substantially unknown. Of the one hundred and four lynchings in 1903, ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... to-day, Gen. Lee's letter of the 7th instant, simply announcing the capture of Hoke's and Haye's brigades. They were on the north side of the river, guarding the pont de tete. There is no excuse, no palliation. He said it was likely Meade's entire army would cross. This had been sent by the Secretary to the President, who indorsed upon it as follows: "If it be possible to reinforce, it should be done promptly. Can any militia or local defense men be ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... ask, is the warrant, the justification, or the palliation of American Slavery from Hebrew servitude? How many of the southern slaves would now be in bondage according to the laws of Moses; Not one. You may observe that I have carefully avoided using the term slavery when speaking of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... investigator of an interesting character made accessible by length of time. L'Evangeliste had at least the excuse that the Salvation Army was fair game; and that, if there was personal satire, it was not necessarily obvious—a palliation which (not to mention another for a moment) extends to Sapho. But L'Immortel revived—unfortunately, as a sort of last word—the ugliness of this besetting sin of Daudet's. Even the saner members of Academies would ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... has now been said in palliation of existing defects in education, that the whole business is a thing remote from immediate interests, and not less so from immediate perceptions and reasonings—a thing that, to all eyes capable of seeing in it something more than so many days devoted to spelling, penmanship, and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... affords ground for suspicion that some important secrets were in her possession respecting later transactions between the princess and Seymour which she had faithfully kept. It should also be observed in palliation of the liberties which she accused the admiral of allowing to himself, and the princess of enduring, that the period of Elizabeth's life to which these particulars relate was only her ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... to find excuse or palliation. Instinct must have told us that the demands, the programme, of such diseased creatures, could only aggravate the national ills instead of healing them. Yes, it would seem so. I can only say that comparatively few among us did see ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... but another slave is to be put to death by the garrote in about a fortnight, whose offense had some palliation. His master was a man of harsh temper, and treated his slaves with extreme severity; the negro watched his opportunity, and shot him as ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... myself, now the cruel creature has escaped me; For what would that do, but add to my torment? since evils self-caused, and avoidable, admit not of palliation or comfort. And yet, if thou tellest me, that all her strength was owing to my weakness, and that I have been a cursed coward in this whole affair; why, then, Jack, I may blush, and be vexed; but, by my soul, I ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... their wish that he would appear before them on the next afternoon, to give an account of himself, as the church deemed the matter far too serious to be passed lightly over. The minister was evidently a good deal surprised and startled at this, but he neither denied the charge nor attempted any palliation, merely saying that he ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... said Richard Johnson observes, "I put down at his [the Nabob Fyzoola Khan's] particular desire, but otherwise useless; as my orders" (which orders do not appear) "were, not to receive any palliation, but a negative or affirmative": though such palliation, as it is called by the said Johnson, might be, as it was, in the ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Darius in this—the crisis of his fate—cannot be approved; but it admits of palliation, and does not compel us to withdraw from him that respectful compassion which we commonly accord to great misfortunes. After Issus, it was his duty to make at least one more effort against the invader. To this object he addressed himself with earnestness and diligence. The ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... had begun to leave him a few days before, although he despised their action and protested bitterly to Congress against their employment, yet in his letters he displayed a keen appreciation of their feelings, and saw plainly every palliation and excuse. But there was one thing which he could never appreciate nor realize. It was from first to last impossible for him to understand how any man could refuse to fight, or could think of running away. When he beheld rout and cowardly panic before his very eyes, his temper broke ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... an error, and he has sufficient address to conceal it, or sufficient ingenuity to palliate it, but he does neither; instead of availing himself of concealment and palliation, with the candor of a great mind, he confesses his error, and makes all the apology or atonement which the occasion requires. None has a title to true honor but he who can say with moral elevation, when truth demands the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... and to produce the heated gestures which he had practised in middle age. He was a man of tender feelings to his friends, ready and willing to assist them in distress, yet, as a warrior, his cruelties to his enemies perhaps were unparalleled, and will not admit a word of palliation. ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... propagation of truth was promoted by persecution. Pride, vanity, and profusion contributed often, in their remoter consequences, to the happiness of mankind. In common, what was in itself evil and vicious was permitted to carry along with it some circumstances of palliation. The Arab was hospitable; the robber brave. We did not necessarily find cruelty associated with fraud, or meanness with injustice. But here the case was far otherwise. It was the prerogative of this detested traffic to separate ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... It smuggled in prodigious quantities of rum. The trader's ancient trick of getting the Indians drunk and then swindling them of their furs and land was carried on by Astor on an unprecedented scale. To say that Astor knew nothing of what his agents were doing is a palliation not worthy of consideration; he was a man who knew and attended to even the pettiest details of his varied business. Moreover, the liquor was despatched by his orders direct by ship to New Orleans and from thence up the Mississippi ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... in no other light than highway robbery. If, however, some apology for the practice is to be derived from the incontrollable law of necessity, or from the imperious law of war, certainly there can be no possible excuse for those who incur the guilt without being able to plead the palliation; for those who violate the rights of nations in order to obtain a license for rapine manifestly show that patriotism is but the cloak for such enterprises; that the true objects are plunder and pillage; and ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... Verschoyle." Major Roper only says this to convince himself that he might have forgotten the name—a sort of washy palliation of his Harrisson invention. It brings him within a measurable distance ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... you were more than fourteen, and that he was simply putting it over on us so as to have this marriage go on without interference—and so I tried to get the story to you. Even now I thought you ought to know," he added, as if in palliation ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... them that Ussher was not using any violence to the young lady, who had herself admitted in her evidence, that she was a willing party to Ussher's proceedings. Doubtless, there might be circumstances, which at the prisoner's trial would be properly put forward in palliation of the murder, by his counsel; but with that the jury before the Coroner could have nothing to do; and on these considerations, the jurors with very little delay had come to the conclusion which had ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... that you have alleged in palliation of the count's crime, and I fully understand you—though I still think it the most terrible thing I ever have heard tell of. But I do not perfectly comprehend wherefore you ransack our language of all its deepest terms of contempt which to heap upon the head of the Chevalier de la Rochederrien? ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... mind such conduct could only mean one thing. The Japanese male is frankly animal where women are concerned. He does not understand our fine shades of self-deception, which give to our love-making the thrill of surprise and the palliation of romance. Tanaka concluded that there could be only one termination to the scene which ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... right to mention here (what however is no palliation of the crime, though a diminution of the extent of it) a circumstance which I do not recollect to have seen noticed by any author, and the truth of which I have too good authority to call in question. As every corpse great and small must be carried to a place of burial at a considerable ...
— 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
... my turn to apologise and explain. She listened, with many pleas of palliation for the indignities I had endured, to my account of my business in Ireland, and the circumstances which had led me to Glen——; but when I came to account for my appearance at Moyabel, her confusion satisfied me that the motive was already known. I felt suddenly conscious of having been dreaming ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... these "piping times of peace" the reader, in the quiet of his own room, will think that my suggestion was brutal, and without any palliation; my excuse, however, may be found in General Washington's own motto: Exitus acta probat. If the suggestion had been acted upon, many an innocent man and woman would have escaped torture, and many a maiden ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... explanation and honeyed pleadings, will hardly banish from their eyes the peculiar expression wavering betwixt compassion and contempt. They may forgive cruelty, or insolence, or even treachery—in time; but they can find no palliation, and little sympathy, for that one unpardonable sin. Truly, transgression in this line, beyond a certain point, may scarcely be excused; for weakness may be controlled, if not cured: if we can not be dashingly courageous, we ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... What further palliation can we find? Mr. Swinburne calls the book "a worthless little volume of stolen and mutilated poetry, patched up and padded out with dirty and dreary doggrel, under the senseless and preposterous title of The Passionate Pilgrim." On the other hand, Mr. Humphreys maintains that "Jaggard, ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... living in rickety tenements. The Dickens idea of betterment was the priestly plan of dole. Dickens did not know that indiscriminate almsgiving pauperizes humanity, and never did he supply the world a glimpse of a man like Robert Owen, whose charity was something more than palliation. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... little Mammy. As with her lameness, it took time for her to recognize, to understand, the fact. She could study over her lameness, she could in the dull course of time think out the broomstick way of palliation. It would have been almost better, under the circumstances, for God to have kept the truth from her; only—God keeps so little of the truth from us women. It is ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... be forced to name your accomplices," cried the enraged commandant; "there is no palliation for a traitor, and if you do not name them at once, I shall subject ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... Cynthia, piercing her sorrow. The superb strength of the man was there in that simple confession, and it is in the nature of woman to admire strength. He had fought his fight, and gained, and paid the price without a murmur, seeking no palliation. Cynthia had not come to that trial—so bitter for her—as a judge. If the reader has seen youth and innocence sitting in the seat of justice, with age and experience at the bar, he has mistaken Cynthia. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of this allegation is admitted, it is answered that in many places honest local government is impossible if the mass of uneducated negroes are allowed to vote. These are grave allegations. So far as the latter is true, it is the only palliation that can be offered for opposing the freedom of the ballot. Bad local government is certainly a great evil, which ought to be prevented; but to violate the freedom and sanctities of the suffrage is more than an evil. It is a crime which, if persisted in, will destroy the ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VIII.: James A. Garfield • James D. Richardson
... she has little disposition to run deeply into debt; and the other is, that she has not the credit to do it if she wished! If, however, she does involve herself in this way, the law exempts her from imprisonment. This, perhaps, is offered as a sort of palliation for the disabilities which she suffers in other respects. The only object of the petition is, I believe, that the husband and wife be placed upon a legal and political equality. If the law gives woman an advantage over man, we deprecate it as much as he can. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... from no morbid wish to dwell upon the frightful scenes which, alas! grew too common, but as some palliation of the acts of our men, against whom charges were plentiful about their ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... a man holding Fifth-Monarchy views, John Rogers prefers a lengthy indictment against lawyers, for whose delinquencies and heinous offence he admits neither apology nor palliation. In his opinion all judges deserve the death of Arnold and Hall, whose last moments were provided for by the hangman. The wearers of the long robe are perjurers, thieves, enemies of mankind; their institutions are hateful, and their usages abominable. In olden time they were less powerful and ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... these was Miles Milton. Mindful of his recent thoughts, and re-impressed with the word Duty, which his friend had just emphasised, he sat down and wrote a distinctly self-condemnatory letter home. There was not a word of excuse, explanation, or palliation in it from beginning to end. In short, it expressed one idea throughout, and that was—Guilty! and of course this was followed by his asking forgiveness. He had forgiveness—though he knew it not—long before he asked it. His broken-hearted ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... they had increased and multiplied the numbers in the settlement, they certainly would have been found to deserve every care and attention as useful members of society; but their vices were too conspicuous and prominent to admit of much palliation. ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... papal advocates can soften the symbolic meaning of the banner and the keys; but the style of ad regnum dimisimus, or direximus, (Codex Carolin. epist. i. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 76,) seems to allow of no palliation or escape. In the Ms. of the Vienna library, they read, instead of regnum, rogum, prayer or request (see Ducange;) and the royalty of Charles Martel is subverted by this important correction, (Catalani, in his Critical Prefaces, Annali ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... clear evidence, it would be punished in the most exemplary way open to a limited authority; by rustication, at least—that is, banishment for a certain number of terms, and consequent loss of these terms—supposing the utmost palliation of circumstances; and, in an aggravated case, or in a second offence, most ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... was afraid of looking into his works, and a pure ear of hearing any thing quoted from them. 'Such authors,' she used to say, 'were not honest to their own talents, nor grateful to the God who gave them.' Nor would she, on these occasions, admit their beauties as a palliation; on the contrary, she held it as an aggravation of their crime, that they who are so capable of mending the heart, should in any places show a corrupt one in themselves; which must weaken the influences of their good works; and pull down with one hand ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... arrived from various points, through the unfortunate neglect or incapacity of the then Secretary of War, there was no one to command them. This was a dreadful state of affairs indeed, and one which admits of no palliation. It was expected that General Lynch, or some other distinguished officer, would take charge of the expedition from this point; but that gallant and experienced soldier, owing to the receipt of incorrect ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... the many judicious reflections it contains, on the condition of the respectable class of literary men. The efforts for their relief, made by a society of private citizens, are truly laudable: but they are, as you justly observe, but a palliation of an evil, the cure of which calls for all the wisdom and the means of the nation. The greatest evils of populous society have ever appeared to me to spring from the vicious distribution of its members among the occupations ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Duke, "just try if you cannot find some palliation for what your old father has done. I am ready to ask your forgiveness, and to apologize, for a man of honor is never ashamed to acknowledge when he has been ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... and his bride, I would like to kick him out of it.' Mostyn struck the table with some exclamation, and McLean continued, 'Especially when the wronged husband is a gentleman of such stainless character and unsuspecting nature as Basil Stanhope—a clergyman also! Oh, the thing is beyond palliation entirely!' And he walked away ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... there can be no justification for the ferocity with which Cooper was assailed, there was some palliation. His course (p. 168) from his return to the country had been wanting in prudence, and at times in common sense. He had plunged at once as a combatant into one of the bitterest political controversies that ever agitated the republic. Hard blows were given and taken. He could ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... involve no fear of vengeance.' I quote this passage as a specimen of Machiavelli's direct and scientific handling of the most inhuman necessities of statecraft, as conceived by him.[1] He uses no hypocritical palliation to disguise the egotism of the conqueror. He does not even pretend to take into consideration any interests but those of the ambitious prince. He treats humanity as though it were the marble out of which the political artist should hew the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... is told in all its hideousness, without palliation or reserve, without comment or heightening, in that stern judicial fashion so characteristic of the Bible records of its greatest characters. Every step is narrated without a trace of softening, and without a word of emotion. Not a single ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... Era," during their heroic and self-sacrificing fight against this organized scheme of bigotry and proscription, which can only be remembered as the crowning and indelible shame of our politics. It admits of neither defense or palliation, and I am sorry to find Henry Wilson's "History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power" disfigured by his elaborate efforts to whitewash it into respectability, and give it a decent place in the ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... views which I am now going to acknowledge, must, infallibly, incur your displeasure;-yet I scorn all palliation. ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... discovery of her situation (which was exactly what he appeared to have calculated upon), he would have forgiven me; he might have even been grateful to me for having humiliated her, and cast her helpless at his feet. But the crime I had committed in loving her too well to forsake her, admitted of no palliation. He could extract nothing out of it but vengeance. The sleepless hostility with which the Indian follows the trail of his foe, is not more vindictive and persevering than the feelings of hatred with which he coiled himself up for the spring which he was nursing all his strength to make upon ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... alleviation, mitigation, comfort, ease, succor, palliation, assuagement, help; redress, remedy; relay, reinforcement; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... been to reserve to himself the credit of obtaining so signal a distinction for the noblemen and gentlemen upon whom it was conferred, and to render her own helplessness more apparent. As such an outrage required, however, some palliation, and De Luynes was anxious not to drive the Queen-mother to extremity, he induced the King to forward for her inspection the names of those who were about to receive the blue ribbon, offering at the same time to include one or two of her personal adherents should she desire it; ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... and for a moment he made no answer. Perhaps she partly guessed the cause of his commotion; yet it was not so much her beauty that silenced him, as the spirit that seemed to inhabit it. Nature, in general so chary of her gifts, so prone to use one good feature as the palliation of a dozen deficiencies, to wed the eloquent lip with the ineffectual eye, had indeed compounded her of all fine meanings, making each grace the complement of another and every outward charm expressive of some inward quality. Here was as little of the convent-bred miss ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... me to intreat your opinion and advice.'—'In this state I with great earnestness desire you to tell me what is to be done. Excision is doubtless necessary to the cure, and I know not any means of palliation. The operation is doubtless painful; but is it dangerous? The pain I hope to endure with decency[744]; but I am loth to put life into much hazard.'—'By representing the gout as an antagonist to the palsy, you have said enough to make it welcome. This is not strictly the first ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... taking prisoners "in a camp already subsisting on half and quarter rations." Now we, in a paper on Casuistry, (long since published by this journal,) anticipated this shocking plea, contending that Napoleon's massacre of 4000 young Albanians at Jaffa, could draw no palliation from the alleged shortness of provisions, whether true or false; and on the ground that a civilized army, consciously under circumstances which will not allow it to take prisoners, has no right to proceed. Napoleon's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... the little parties and excursions for which Dorothea's "budding" offered an excuse; and, while he recognized the subterfuge, he made his probable journey, with the long absence it would involve, serve as a palliation. Since, too, there was no danger to Diane, there could be the less reason for stinting himself in the pleasure of her presence, so long as he was prepared to pay for it ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... be added, moreover, as a slight palliation for the enormous crimes committed by these men, that, becoming at last weary of their business, they urged Noircarmes to desist from the work of proscription. Longehaye, one of the commissioners, even waited upon him personally, with a plea for mercy in favor of "the poor people, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... is extremely queer," Mr. Kennaston continued, after an interval of meditation, "but falling in love appears to be the one utterly inexplicable, utterly reasonless thing one ever does in one's life. You can usually think of some more or less plausible palliation for embezzlement, say, or for robbing a cathedral or even for committing suicide—but no man can ever explain how he happened to fall in love. He simply ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... this, we say loudly, would have been dissipated, had every Irish county met by its gentry disavowing and abominating all sentiments tending towards a purpose so guilty as political disunion. Yet, in palliation of this most grievous failure, we, in the spirit of perfect candour, will remind our readers of the depressing effect too often attending one flagrant wound in any system of power or means. Let a man lose by a sudden blow—by fire, by shipwreck, or by commercial failure—a ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... must sink under such a proof of family weakness, such an assurance of the deepest disgrace. She could neither wonder nor condemn, but the belief of his self-conquest brought nothing consolatory to her bosom, afforded no palliation of her distress. It was, on the contrary, exactly calculated to make her understand her own wishes; and never had she so honestly felt that she could have loved him, as now, when all love ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... difference strike you? For what lady of quality ought to respect another, who has made so sordid a choice, and set a groom above her? For, would not that be to put that groom upon a par with themselves?—Call this palliation, or what you will; but if you see not the difference, you are blind; and a very unfit judge for yourself, much more unfit to be a censurer ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... at being deprived of this same protection, dignity and power. This is the Gibraltar of our difficulties to-day. We can not make men see that women feel the humiliation of their petty distinctions of sex precisely as the black man feels those of color. It is no palliation of our wrongs to say that we are not socially ostracized as he is, so long as we are politically ostracized as he is not. That all orders of foreigners also rank politically above the most intelligent, highly-educated women—native-born ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... sinned again. His commanding officer was in despair as to what should be done. A fellow officer said, "Suppose you try forgiveness." The guilty soldier was summoned. On being asked what he had to say in palliation of his offense, he hung his head and replied: "Nothing, except I'm very sorry." "Well," said the officer, "We have decided to forgive you." The culprit looked dazed, burst into tears, saluted, and went out to become one of the best ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... attribute to the original witch-house the reputation of having really given birth to a new superstition and a new persecution. As we have seen, this is entirely erroneous. The fact that the Puritans copied a bad example, instead of setting a new one, should, at least, be remembered in palliation of the unfortunate blot upon ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... so much upon other people, to gain so little for himself, was the more heinous sin than its converse would have been. That he might not have foreseen the evil consequences made possible, was no palliation: he ought to have examined the situation; or indeed he ought to have heeded what he must have known, that little offences may always entail dire evils. Measured by their possibility to work havoc with lives, ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... of just pride may the friend and artist remember a career in which there are no jarring dissonances; no contradictions, for which he is forced to claim indulgence; no errors, whose source must be found in palliation of their existence; no extreme, to be accounted for as the consequence of "excess of cause." How sweet it is to be able to name one who has fully proved that it is not only apathetic beings whom no fascination can attract, ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... Hermit, captured all the women and children who had lagged in the rear, and a great quantity of baggage. Peter hereupon turned round and marched back to Nissa, to demand explanation of the Duke of Bulgaria. The latter fairly stated the provocation given, and the Hermit could urge nothing in palliation of so gross an outrage. A negotiation was entered into, which promised to be successful, and the Bulgarians were about to deliver up the women and children, when a party of undisciplined Crusaders, acting solely upon their own suggestion, endeavoured to scale the walls and seize ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... I read the Bible, it seems to be wholly grounded on the idea that the sin of man is astonishing, inexcusable, and without palliation or cause, and the atonement is spoken of as such a wonderful and undeserved mercy that I am filled with amazement. Yet if I give up the Bible I gain nothing, for the providence of God in nature is just as full of mystery, and of the two I think that the Bible, ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... not wish to be misunderstood. I do not wish to be misrepresented in this matter. Let no man assert that I refer to the evils of those days as either excuse or palliation for the evils of ours. That generation was a frugal and honest generation in the main, and they would have visited with the swiftest condemnation and punishment, every breach of public trust, whether through ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... only the servants of the evil one might do, and were heard by many to utter the blasphemies mentioned, I must adjudge you a sorcerer with the penalty of death by fire. If anything there be that you can advance in palliation of your black offense, however, you may now do so before final sentence is passed ...
— The Man Who Saw the Future • Edmond Hamilton
... conventional world. Far from believing it immoral, I consider this one of the most moral novels I have ever written. And it is for this reason that, with a full realization of the standards demanded by the English-reading public, I have not hesitated to authorize the present translation without palliation or amputation, fully convinced that the reader will not find anything in this novel objectionable or offensive to his moral sense. Morality is not to be found in words but in deeds and in the ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and luxury) should be confounded. The princes were to become fools; there was to be general confusion, and no work was to be done in manufactures. Even Judah should become a terror to Egypt, and fear should overspread the land. To these calamities there was to be some palliation. Five cities should speak the language of Canaan, and swear by the Lord of Hosts; and an altar should be erected in the middle of the land which should be a witness unto the Lord of Hosts, to whom the people should cry amid their oppressions and miseries; ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... were so, how strong a plea of palliation might not the poor negro bring, by adducing the neglect of her various owners to afford religious instruction or moral discipline, and the habitual influence of their evil example (to say the very least,) before her eyes? What moral good ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... of judging of this matter of slavery for myself; not, of course, that I ever doubted that to keep human beings as slaves was in itself wrong, but I supposed that I might, upon a nearer observation of the system, discover at any rate circumstances of palliation in the condition of the negroes: hitherto, however, this has not been the case with me; the wrong strikes me more forcibly every hour I live here. The theory of human property is more revolting to every sentiment of humanity; and the evil effect of such a state of things ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... meant to leave Naples," pursued Elgar, who had repeated this so often to himself, by way of palliation, that he had come to think it true. "It was not my fault that I couldn't when that visit was over. It happened that I saw Miss Doran alone—sat talking with ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... of discussion, who would have writhed far more at the spinster's palliation of his offense than at the men's disdain, lay in his tiny cabin, a prey to an attack of that nervous misery which overtakes an artist out of his element as surely and speedily as ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... portion of the community; if they suffer their names to be coupled with it wherever it may gain a credulous patient; and deny all responsibility for its character, refuse all argument for its doctrines, allege no palliation for the ignorance and deception interwoven with every thread of its flimsy tissue, when they are questioned by those competent to judge ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... judgment. There may be much or little sanity in condemning a picture owing to a single fault. It depends on the kind. There are errors of selection, of presentation (technique) of natural fact, and of art principle. We can excuse the first, condone the second, find small palliation for the third, but he for whom art principles mean nothing, is an ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... justice and forbearance, was identified, in the minds of the people, with the Monarchy which they feared and detested." (History of Philosophy, Chap. 59.) The moral is that when injustice and evil are rampant, let us have no palliation, no weakness disguising itself as a virtue. What we cannot at once resist, we can always repudiate. To ignore these things is the worst form of imprudence—an imprudence which we, for our part at least, take the ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... current that the duchess had paid Pope 1000l. to suppress them, but that he preserved them, with a view to their ultimate publication. This story was repeated by Warton and by Walpole; it has been accepted by Mr. Carruthers, who suggests, by way of palliation, that Pope was desirous at the time of providing for Martha Blount, and probably took the sum in order to buy an annuity for her. Now, if the story were proved, it must be admitted that it would reveal a baseness in Pope which would be worthy only of the lowest and most venal ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... curative virtues of corrosive sublimate in dysentery, and that it is a matter of duty to be mindful, in this very particular, of the warning words of the master who, having himself been deceived at one time by the delusive palliation of mercury, addresses to us the remarkable warning that "mercury, so far from responding to all non-venereal maladies, on the contrary is one of the most deceitful palliatives the temporary action of ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf
... did make might not have been carried much further, and my gradual re-conquests of ground lost might not have been followed up much more energetically, these are questions which I must decline. Perhaps I might make out a case of palliation; but—shall I speak ingenuously?—I confess it, as a besetting infirmity of mine, that I am too much of an Eudmonist; I hanker too much after a state of happiness, both for myself and others; I can not ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... existing ills, the reorganization of society to prevent the recurrence of similar ills, and the bringing of new opportunities and joys to the people. Our first step, then, is to consider social therapeutics-the palliation of present suffering, the redressing of existing wrongs; however we may seek, by radical readjustments, to strike at the roots of these evils, we must not fail to mitigate, as best we can, the lot of those who are the unfortunate victims of our still crude social organization. The detailed ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... that a race which could produce a man so signally truthful and single-hearted is a race of liars and cheats. I think the student of their character should also be slow to upbraid Italians for their duplicity, without admitting, in palliation of the fault, facts of long ages of alien and domestic oppression, in politics and religion, which must account for a vast deal of every kind of evil in Italy. Yet after exception and palliation has been duly made, it must be confessed that in Italy it does not seem to be thought shameful ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... come to an end. And how can an author do better than to quote Ibn Khallikan's own concluding words, which, though written so long ago about a biographical dictionary, may be borrowed by all literary hands as palliation for whatever shortcomings their work may have?—"If any well-informed person remark, in examining this book, that it contains faults, he should not hasten to blame me, for I always aimed at being exact, as far as I could judge; and, besides, ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... delay her appearance in the dining-room until she was sure that everybody was present; then she would go down, and, standing there before them all, say what she had to say, state the few bald facts of the case, without excuse or palliation, and leave them to draw ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... terror-filled face is ever with me. It has kept me, also, from dwelling too constantly on the message Lillie Pierce sent by me to the women of clean and happy worlds. For herself there was no plea for pity or for pardon, no effort at palliation or excuse. But with strength born of bitter knowledge she begged, demanded, that I do something to make good women understand that worlds like hers will never pass away if men alone are left to rid earth of them. Ceaselessly I keep busy lest I realize too clearly what such a message means. I ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... was encouraged by the mild and benignant expression on the old man's face, which had been more often fierce, as she remembered it through the years. She seated herself quietly, and then proceeded immediately to confession. There was no attempt at palliation of her offense, if offense it were. She gave the narrative of events starkly, from the moment when she had first seen Hodges descending Luffman's Branch to the time of her separation from him at the clearing, ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... are too good. But my folly admits of no excuse, no palliation," interrupted Lady Delacour; "mine was jealousy ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... she proposes to do the next best thing and rule Turkey in the future, as in the past, through the medium of her financial interests. Sophisticated men who have read the remarkable tributes to Turkey which have been appearing in the French press, and its palliation of her long list of crimes, have been aware that something was afoot, but only those who have been on the inside of recent events realize how enormous are the stakes, and how shrewd and subtle a game ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... magnitudine simulacra" of Caesar—which were filled with human victims, and which crackled and disappeared in towering flame and columns of smoke, amid the loud chantings of the bards. The most that can be said in palliation of this custom is, that almost always such a scene presented the judicial execution of criminals, invested ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... Except the proposal of applying a sponge to the national debt, no such palpable violation of common honesty has found sufficient support in this country, during the present generation, to be regarded as within the domain of discussion. It has not the palliation of a graduated property-tax, that of laying the burden on those best able to bear it; for "realized property" includes the far larger portion of the provision made for those who are unable to work, and consists, in great part, of extremely small fractions. I can hardly conceive a more ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... was struck not only at those "who were out" with prince Charles, but also those who fought for the reigning dynasty. Left without chief, or protector, clanship broken up, homes destroyed and kindred murdered, dispirited, outlawed, insulted and without hope of palliation or redress, the only ray of light pointed across the Atlantic where peace and rest were to be found in the unbroken forests of North Carolina. Hence, during the years 1746 and 1747, great numbers of Highlanders, with their families and the families of ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... became the subject of severe censure. Though he neither shared Tweed's corrupt counsels nor sanctioned his audacious schemes, Tilden's abhorrence of wrong, it was argued, seemed insufficient to break his silence. But the accusation that cut the deepest, because without palliation, illuminated his declination to attend the great indignation meeting that appointed the Committee of Seventy. This fact, established by abundant proof as well as by his conspicuous absence, created the belief that had the Times' exposure failed fatally to ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... to expect, that either one or other will avow the existence of so dangerous a motive. The only excuse that offers itself in. behalf of Captain Cook's conduct on this occasion, is stated in what he immediately mentions of the anarchy existing in this island. But even that is only a palliation in part, and does not reach to the full amount of the case. Let ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... the government. Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri were excited by strong minorities who desired to aid the South, while no strong element in their population was ready to take decisive measures for the Union. Palliation, conciliation, concession, compromise, were the only words heard, and the almost universal opinion in the South, shared largely by the North, was that to precipitate war would be to abandon the last hope ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... is one expression of our author too perverse, too grossly abused, to admit of any apology, of any palliation. It is not to be supposed, that he was ignorant of any word in the English language. And least of all can he be supposed ignorant of the meaning of a word, which, had it been ever so doubtful before, had a certain meaning impressed ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... to seek both the explanation and palliation of Lorenzo's failure in the temper of his times. There was enough daring left in Florence to carry through a plan of brilliant treason, modelled on an antique Roman tragedy. But there was not moral force in the protagonist to render that act salutary, not public energy sufficient in his ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... according to agreement, whose profits on the sale of the work far exceeded the debts for which the author in his perplexities had pre-engaged it. The sum which accrued to Goldsmith from his benefit nights afforded but a slight palliation of his pecuniary difficulties. His friends, while they exulted in his success, little knew of his continually increasing embarrassments, and of the anxiety of mind which kept tasking his pen while ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... capital, and my progress through his dominions, to be witness of the disordered state of his finances and government, and of the desolate appearances of his country. The evils were too alarming to admit of palliation, and I thought it my duty to exhort him, in the most friendly manner, to endeavor to apply effectual remedies to them. He began with urging as apology, that, whilst he was not certain of the expense [extent?] of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... to accomplish this is, by voluntary associations in a foreign community, seeking to excite public sentiment against the perpetrators of the evil; exhibiting the enormity of the crime in full measure, without palliation, excuse or sympathy, by means of periodicals and agents circulating, not in the community committing the sin, but in that which does ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... thought very differently of him now. Louis had hotly defended him against everything the confidence man had said, and, of course, she now saw that the man who had spoken against Mr. Warner was of the most abandoned type of men. Somehow she felt that she owed him some palliation for the rudeness she had exercised. It would, perhaps, not be altogether according to the rules of etiquette; but if the opportunity offered she intended to say something in explanation. As he came on around her way she felt her pulses beat faster and her face flushing under some strange ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... We must invoke the patience and candor of the reader, giving to our deductions, if we are capable of it, sufficient clearness to throw forward at once, without disguise or palliation, the true and the false, in order, once for all, to determine whether the victory should be for Restriction or ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... through his conversation in private life as we see it still runs through his published writings. Smith was always vigorous and weighty in his denunciation of wrong, and so impatient of anything in the nature of indifference or palliation towards it, that he could scarce feel at ease in the presence of the palliator. "We can breathe more freely now," he once said when a person of that sort had just left the company; "that man has ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... said.—I am sure, dear Madam, you must let me not again behold the weakness of that poor silly girl.—But this is my hope, you are not apt to judge unfavourably, even in circumstances that will scarce admit of palliation.—Tell me, my dear Lady, I am pardoned; tell me so, and I shall never be again unhappy.—How charming, to have peace and tranquility restor'd, when I fear'd they were for ever banish'd my breast!—I welcomed the friends;—my ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... denial she had withdrawn, famous, to reappear now and then during her course always in similar roles. It happened that she had never heard of Eleanor Watson's stolen story until a week before the class-meeting, when some one had told her the unvarnished facts, with no palliation and no reference to Eleanor's subsequent change of heart or renunciation of one honor after another. Virtuous indignation and pained surprise struggled for expression upon her pasty, ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... mean, a mean and sorry thing to shoot this man in the back, dog though he was; and now that the moment had come a wave of sickening shame ran through Buck. No one of his name had ever done that before; but this man and his people had, and with their own lips they had framed palliation for him. What was fair for one was fair for the other they always said. A poor man couldn't fight money in the courts; and so they had shot from the brush, and that was why they were rich now and Buck was poor—why his enemy was safe at home, and he was out ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... fled across the fields, and the bubble of rebellion burst at a touch. Whether they were legally guilty of high treason, for which they were unwisely tried, may perhaps be doubted, but it would certainly be no palliation of their crime if it could be shown, as it never was shown, that Oliver had led them to rely on a jacobin revolution in London. What does appear very clearly is that Sidmouth was greatly alarmed by the reports of his agents on the disturbed state of the country, but that he ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... misguided Boer people to the wicked artifices by which it has been seduced from friendly relations with England into an unjustifiable war, to deter the still wavering portion from joining the ranks of sedition, and, lastly, the grounds for palliation being recognised, to pave the way to an early termination of the war by adjustments which could restore mutual goodwill and respect between the contending parties, and so bring about a speedy return of South African prosperity ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... enjoyed a liberty of person, a freedom of speech and action, such as you can have in no other country in Europe, and it is not too much to say in no other country in the world. The only—I will not say excuse, but palliation that I can find for conduct like yours is that it has been for some years past the fashion to treat lightly matters of this kind, so that men have been perhaps encouraged to play with sedition and to toy with treason, wrapt in a certain proud consciousness ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... more such men in America, and slavery will soon be numbered among the things that were. A few men who will not only have the moral courage to aim the severing blow at the chattel relation between master and slave, without parley, palliation or compromise; but who have also the christian fidelity to brave public scorn and contumely, to seize a coloured man by the hand, and elevate him to the position from whence the avarice and oppression of the whites have degraded him. These men have the right view of the subject. They see that ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... himself up to their blandishments, and had done that which had made him a felon. As to Eugene Pearson, the trusted, honored and respected official of the bank, who had deliberately planned and assisted in this robbery of his best friends, I had no words of palliation for his offenses; but for "Tod" Duncan, the weak and tempted victim of designing men and adverse circumstances, I experienced a sense of sympathy which I could not easily ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... act, and, doubtless, it did not trouble his conscience much or long, but he would leave the judgment-seat tolerably satisfied with his morning's work. How little he knew what he had done! In his ignorance lies his palliation. His crime was great, but his guilt is to be measured by his light, and that was small. He prostituted justice for his own ends, and he did not follow out the dawnings of light that would have led him to know Jesus. Therefore he did the most ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... stone-miner, and was consequently subjected not only to the inhalation of the smoke of linseed oil, but to that of gunpowder. For his chest complaint at this stage, he underwent a variety of medical treatment, which produced mere palliation in his symptoms, and though breathing a pure atmosphere in a country situation, he experienced a most painful sensation of want of air, or, as he himself expressed it, "a feeling as if he did not get enough ...
— An Investigation into the Nature of Black Phthisis • Archibald Makellar
... slavery from the Potomac to Cape Horn; who would then have remembered that England raised up this scourge to humanity not for the evil's sake, but because somebody had offered an insult to her flag? Or even if unforgotten, who would then have felt that such a grievance was a sufficient palliation of the crime? Every reader of a newspaper, to the farthest ends of the earth, would have believed and remembered one thing only—that at the critical juncture which was to decide whether slavery should blaze up afresh with increased vigor or be trodden out at the moment of conflict between the good ...
— The Contest in America • John Stuart Mill
... helpless woman, is scarcely the recompense I was taught to suppose agreeable to a chivalrous Southern gentleman. If, wearing the red livery of Justice, undue zeal for vengeance betrayed you into the fatal mistake of trampling me into this horrible place, there might be palliation; but for the brutal persistency with which you thrust your tormenting presence upon me, not even heavenly charity could possibly find pardon. Literally you are heaping insult upon awful injury. Is it a refinement of cruelty that brings you here to watch and analyze my suffering, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... of grief beyond all palliation; days when he worked blindly through a grist of tasks that seemed unreal. And at night he sought his room, to sit in darkness, suffering dumbly through the hours. Sometimes Dawn ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... inexpressibly horror stricken to feel the monster wriggling, twining, and darting to and fro within his narrow limits, evidently enlivened by the opium or alcohol, and incited to unusual feats of activity. Thenceforth they gave up all attempts at cure or palliation. The doomed sufferer submitted to his fate, resumed his former loathsome affection for the bosom fiend, and spent whole miserable days before a looking-glass, with his mouth wide open, watching, in hope and horror, to catch a ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... course of the Baylor students who laid forcible hands on Brann and by mob power compelled him to sign humiliating admissions and apologies, their course was about as grave a blunder as was Brann's. It is not palliation to argue how indignant they were and how natural their indignation. Perhaps those in authority at Baylor who are said to have known beforehand the purpose of the student mob and quietly winked at—if they did not openly commend it—are more to blame than ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... communicated to her this episode in the history of young Tom. As most ladies are severe judges of their own sex, she was very strong in her expressions against the conduct of Mary, which she would not allow to admit of any palliation. Even her penitence had no ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... exaggeration, vanity, and an inordinate love of words. The former is at once a conscious rhetorical artifice, and an unconscious effect of his vehement and excitable temperament. It probably did not deceive his hearers any more than it deceives us. His vanity is more deplorable; and the only palliation it admits is the fact that it is a defect which rarely goes with a bad heart. Had Cicero been less vain, he might have been more ambitious; as it was, his ridiculous self-conceit injured no one but himself. His wordiness is of all his faults the most seductive and the most conspicuous, ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... lives of 'Wits and Beaux' are, it is admitted, just: vice is censured; folly rebuked; ungentlemanly conduct, even in a beau of the highest polish, exposed; irreligion finds no toleration under gentle names—heartlessness no palliation from its being the way of the world. There is here no separate code allowed for men who live in the world, and for those who live out of it. The task of pourtraying such characters as the 'Wits ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... Exaltation of the Holy Cross, until Easter. These six months are a modification: the rule says all the year, but this drugget chemise, intolerable in the heat of summer, produced fevers and nervous spasms. The use of it had to be restricted. Even with this palliation, when the nuns put on this chemise on the 14th of September, they suffer from fever for three or four days. Obedience, poverty, chastity, perseverance in their seclusion,—these are their vows, which the rule ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... daughter alone. The interview was long and earnest. On his part was the fullest disapproval of her conduct and the most solemnly spoken admonitions and warnings. She confessed her error, without any attempt at excuse or palliation, and promised a wiser conduct in ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... likewise, that some of the vices common among the French are not merely less foul and disgusting in appearance, but less odious in their own nature, than those of our countrymen. We do not say this in palliation of their conduct. It is rather to be considered as a benevolent provision of nature, that in proportion as vice is more generally diffused, its influence on individual character is less fatal. This remark applies particularly to the case of women. A woman in England, who loses one virtue, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison |
