"Vindicate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... assertions in regard to the same man, some have suggested the possibility that they referred to two different men of the same name, a supposition, however, that no one has been able to authoritatively vindicate. ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... voice, irate, And swore till all the air was blue; So then we rose to vindicate The dignity of Dandaloo. 'Look here,' said we, 'you must not poke Such oaths at ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... resumed, being willing a little further to vindicate myself, "it would not have done any good. I have just told you how in my nightmare last night, when I tried to tell my contemporaries and even my best friends about the nobler way men might live together, they derided me as a fool and madman. That is exactly what they would have ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... to excuse and vindicate himself impressed her as no attempt at extenuation could have done. Perhaps, in that moment, her quick instinct divined something of his case, something of the mental suffering he strove to conceal. Contrition shone in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... about the gold, concealed it for a long time. In the end, the soldier returned, and found his treasure entire, and the fame of this incident was spread abroad. And many ingenious persons of the city competed with each other, on this occasion, to vindicate the integrity of Demosthenes, in several epigrams which ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... spontaneous observations that it is primarily a better illustration of that principle than an event happening in the ordinary course of nature. For the ground of the miracle is immediately intelligible; we see the mercy or the desire to vindicate authority, or the intention of some other sort that inspired it. A mechanical law, on the contrary, is only a record of the customary but reasonless order of things. A merely inexplicable event, manifesting no significant purpose, would be no miracle. What surprises us in the miracle is that, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... and rye bread? Hard enough, you may imagine, as it is baked only once a year. The servants also, in most families, eat this kind of bread, and have a different kind of food from their masters, which, in spite of all the arguments I have heard to vindicate the custom, appears to me a ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... physical superiority, and have gravely asserted that all animals, and with them the human species, degenerate in America—that even dogs cease to bark after having breathed awhile in our atmosphere.1 Facts have too long supported these arrogant pretensions of the Europeans. It belongs to us to vindicate the honor of the human race, and to teach that assuming brother, moderation. Union will enable us to do it. Disunion will will add another victim to his triumphs. Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound ...
— The Federalist Papers
... from a head teacher. In the ordinary run of things, he should step into the thick of the fight between Porcupine and me, and side with me with all his colors flying. By so doing, he might be worthy the position of the head teacher, and vindicate the principle of wearing ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... it hold? She had seen how little people thought of that scurrilous article, and how the decent papers had passed it over without a word. But she had also seen, the scandal harped upon by partisans and noted that Peter failed to vindicate himself publicly, or vouchsafe an explanation to her. Had she taken Peter with trust or doubt, knowledge ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... have recorded are not imaginary. They are FACTS; and there lives one whose authority none would venture to question, who could vindicate the accuracy of every statement which I have set down, and that, too, with all the circumstantiality of ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... strengthen me, I would desire to confess the truth like them. . . . I questioned whether I might not safely use means to decline the cross and to ward off the wrath of the Lords and the Magistrates. Shall I begin to hear Mr. William Falconer? Shall I write to Seaforth and Argyll to ask them to clear and vindicate me? Shall I forbear to hear that honest minister, James Urquhart, for a time, seeing the storm is like to fall on me if I do so? What counsel shall I give my son? Shall I expose myself and my family to danger at this time? What is Thy will? What is ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... diatribe (A Disquisition upon Free Will) appeared in September 1524. Was Erasmus qualified to write about such a subject? In conformity with his method and with his evident purpose to vindicate authority and tradition, this time, Erasmus developed the argument that Scripture teaches, doctors affirm, philosophers prove, and human reason testifies man's will to be free. Without acknowledgement of free will the terms of God's justice and God's mercy remain without meaning. ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... evident that so long as incapability could shield itself under the first of these creeds, or presumption vindicate itself by the second; so long as the feeble painter could lay his faults on his palette and his panel; and the self-conceited painter, from the assumed identity of materials proceed to infer equality of power—(for we believe that ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... excuses (and you know I was ever good at an excuse) might I call up to vindicate my past shameful silence. I might tell how I wrote a long letter on my first coming hither, and seem vastly angry at my not receiving an answer; I might allege that business (with business you know I was always pestered) ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... statements of the day, and hence it was but natural that he should retort with an appeal to the facts of a private nature more or less commented upon at the time, to expose the reasons for official action and to vindicate his own conduct. He strenuously contended that he was under no obligation to conceal any important facts of the case connected either personally or officially with those who were using him unkindly to the prejudice of the public welfare, especially where those ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... patrolling the coast with a squadron of frigates and sloops. "What has been perpetrated," Rodgers was warned, "may be again attempted. It is therefore our duty to be prepared and determined at every hazard to vindicate the injured honor of our navy, and revive the drooping spirit of ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... Encyclical, nullis certe verbis, of date 19th January, in which he declared that he was prepared to suffer the last extremities rather than betray the cause of the church and of justice. He also invited all the bishops to join with him in praying that God would arise and vindicate his cause. ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... yet never sinks so deep but that he rises again to the surface. When Santa Anna is in authority the fickle multitude cry out against him, and when he is in exile no suffering innocent can compare with him; and the books that at such times sell best in Mexico are those that vindicate his past career. Of such a man something must be said, and to render that something intelligible, a brief account of the social and political changes of his ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... Brinkley was elected. This took place on the 11th December, 1790. The national press of the day commented on the preference shown to the young Englishman, Brinkley, over his Irish rival. An animated controversy ensued. The Provost himself condescended to enter the lists and to vindicate his policy by a long letter in the "Public Register" or "Freeman's Journal," of 21st December, 1790. This letter was anonymous, but its authorship is obvious. It gives the correspondence with Maskelyne and other eminent astronomers, whose advice and ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... more energetic measures, however, in order to vindicate my reputation, I was anxious to offer to Dr. Royce an opportunity of doing me justice in a manner which should be consistent with full vindication, yet should involve the least possible publicity and the least possible mortification to himself. Accordingly, on June 20, I wrote to Mr. Warner ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... of Jesus were one,—in the divine oneness of the trinity, Life, Truth, and Love, which healed the sick and cleansed the sinful. This trinity in unity, correcting the individual thought, is the only Mind-healing I vindicate; and on its standard have emblazoned ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... could not bear with the affront which her kinswoman said she had received from her subjects.—The parliament however assembled, and after much reasoning it was resolved to send commissioners to England to vindicate their conduct; but none consenting to undertake this business, the regent resolved upon going himself, and accordingly chose three gentlemen, two ministers, two lawyers, and Mr. George Buchanan to accompany ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... thus long on a part of Johnson's character, on which we have elsewhere[2] avowed that we could not speak with perfect pleasure, we are not attempting to vindicate him in all his violent reproaches of those whom he politically disliked. We would, however, wish to deprecate unmitigated condemnation, and also to ask, whether the conduct of those whom he denounced, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... writing these lines is to vindicate the character of an innocent woman (formerly in my service as housekeeper) who has been cruelly slandered. Absorbed in the pursuit of my purpose, it has only now occurred to me that strangers may desire to know something more than they know now of myself and my friend. "Give ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... the Commissioner peremptorily required that Oglethorpe and his people should immediately evacuate all the territory to the southward of St. Helena's Sound, as that belonged to the King of Spain, who was determined to vindicate his right to it. He refused to listen to any argument in support of the English claim, or to admit the validity of the treaty which had lately been signed, declaring that it had erred in the concessions which had been made. He then unceremoniously departed, ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... inquiry, or a general court-martial. Perhaps, impelled by a sense of gratitude, he determined, by anticipation, to extend to the general that pardon which he had the undoubted right to grant after sentence. Let us not shrink from our duty. Let us assert our constitutional powers, and vindicate ...
— Henry Clay's Remarks in House and Senate • Henry Clay
... disregarded. Thoas, and others of the same faction, were then heard with general approbation; and they prevailed so far, that, without adjourning the meeting, or waiting for the absence of the Romans, a decree was passed that Antiochus should be invited to vindicate the liberty of Greece, and decide the dispute between the Aetolians and the Romans. To the insolence of this decree, their praetor, Damocritus, added a personal affront: for on Quinctius asking him for a copy of the decree, without any respect to the dignity of the person to whom he spoke, he ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... ancient and glorious precedents. The great principles of industrial liberty, as well as those of commercial liberty, originated in France. Forbonnais was right when he said: "We may congratulate ourselves on being able to find, in our old books and ancient ordinances, wherewith to vindicate for ourselves the right to that light which we generally supposed to have been revealed to the English and Dutch before us." The further Forbonnais carried his researches into our annals, the greater the number of traces of ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... banishment in the forest as a temporary one at the best, and no longer looked for the aid of Normans, lay or ecclesiastical, to avenge his mother's wrongs and his own; he would vindicate them by the ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... spirit, and alive only in stomach, can have, turns all on Kaiser Karl, and these his clutchings at shadows. Which makes a very sad, surprising History indeed; more worthy to be called Phenomena of Putrid Fermentation, than Struggles of Human Heroism to vindicate itself in this Planet, which latter alone are worthy of recording as "History" ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... maintaining the cold, lofty bearing of a man whose imperious will awed and controlled all within its sphere, he fumed up and down his office like one who had been caught in the toils himself. In the morning it had seemed that there could not have been a fairer opportunity to vindicate his iron system, and make it irresistible. The offending subject in his business realm should receive due punishment, and all the rest be taught that they were governed by inexorable laws, which would be executed with the certainty and precision with which the wheels moved in a great factory ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... right. If Abraham had meant, 'What God does, must needs be right, therefore crush down all questions of how it accords with thy sense of justice,' he would have been condemning his own prayer as presumptuous, and the thought would have been entirely out of place. But the appeal to God to vindicate His own character by doing what shall be in manifest accord with His name, is bold language indeed, but not too bold, because it is prompted by absolute confidence in Him. God's punishments must be obviously righteous to have moral effect, or to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... expense she is now at, for the support of the forts and garrisons belonging to that company on the coasts of Africa; which would alone prove of great and immediate service, both to the public and to the company. To say the truth, something of this sort is absolutely necessary to vindicate the expense the nation is at; for if the trade, for the carrying on of which a company is established, proves, by a change of circumstances, incapable of supporting that company, and thereby brings a load upon the public, this ought to be a motive, it ought, ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... President Davis came out to Chattanooga to give matters his personal attention and seek, if possible, some "scape-grace" upon which to saddle the blame for not reaping greater fruits of the battle, and to vindicate the conduct of his commander ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... "And here we cannot but think it necessary to offer some better proof than the incidents of an idle tale, to vindicate the melancholy representation of manners which has been just laid before the reader. It is grievous to think that those valiant Barons, to whose stand against the crown the liberties of England were indebted for their existence, should ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... with vulgar spite, To vindicate his helpless right; But bow'd his comely head Down, as ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... I have availed myself of this freedom will be evident from the notes included in each volume. They seemed to me necessary, partly in order to explain the names and illustrate the circumstances mentioned in the text, and partly to vindicate the writer in the eyes of the learned. I trust they may not prove discouraging to any, as the text will be found easily readable without ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... beneficent revolt of the laity against clerical dominion. He denied that since the Reformation there had been one Catholic Church, and as an Englishman he asserted in the language of the Articles that the Bishop of Rome had no jurisdiction within this realm of England. He wanted to vindicate the reformers, and to prove that in the struggle against Papal Supremacy English patriots took the side of the king. He was roused to indignation by slanders against the character of Elizabeth; and he held, as almost every one now holds, that the attempt ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... undertaken the task. He never seemed even to have heard of Fletcher, Ford, Marlowe, Massinger, and the worthies of Dodsley's Collection; but he is to read all these, to prepare him for bringing out his "Parallel" in the winter. I find he is also determined to vindicate poetry from the shackles which Aristotle and some others have imposed upon it,—which is very good-natured of him, and very necessary just now! Now I am touching so deeply upon poetry, can I forget that I have just received from Cottle a magnificent ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... colorless way of stating it," Trent replied, as he dissected a sole. "I should prefer to put it that I have come down in the character of avenger of blood, to hunt down the guilty and vindicate the honor of society. That is my line of business. Families waited on at their private residences. I say, Cupples, I have made a good beginning already. Wait a bit, and I'll tell you." There was a silence, during which the newcomer ate swiftly and abstractedly, ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... has departed from us, but one, not so illustrious in Genius, but certainly not less wise, my dear old Friend of sixty years, James Spedding: {302} whose name you will know as connected with Lord Bacon. To re-edit his Works, which did not want any such re-edition, and to vindicate his Character which could not be cleared, did this Spedding sacrifice forty years which he might well have given to accomplish much greater things; Shakespeare, for one. But Spedding had no sort of Ambition, and liked to be kept ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... braves, on whom devolves the mission To vindicate our gallant Army's worth, Upholding in its present proud position The noblest fighting instrument on earth— If, in your progress, any vile civilian Declines the homage of the lifted hat, Your business is to paint his chest vermilion— ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... and stood out to sea the bells pealed from every steeple in the town, while the guns in the hastily improvised fortifications above the town thundered out a farewell salute to the ships which were going to vindicate the honour of Chili, and the action of which was tantamount to a declaration of war. As each warship rounded the point she returned the salute with all her starboard broadside guns, while the ensigns at the mizzen-gaff were ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... out of a prophetical Spirit, how near it might concern a Grand-Child of his own), hath expunged this Clause (by the Help of the Earl of Salisbury) out of the Commission, and left us nothing but the rusty Sword of the Church, Excommunication, to vindicate the Authority of this Court. We have given him day until Saturday next, either to conform, or to be excommunicated. She hath answered wittily, and cunningly, but yet sufficient for the Cognisance of the Court: Confesseth a Fame of Incontinence ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... obliged to direct his flight through the ranks of our brave soldiers. Shall we then recede, when all Europe is looking on and encouraging us? Let us, on the contrary, set it an example, and kiss the hand which has thus led us forth to be the first among the nations to vindicate the cause of independence and virtue." He concluded with an invocation to ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... the epithet, on the quarter-deck, I could not have blamed him if he had put you in irons. I approve his conduct fully. As you insulted him before his officers and crew, it was necessary that he should vindicate himself ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... the Christian Guardian, as the organ of the Conference, shall be properly and truly a religious and literary journal, to explain our doctrines and institutions, and, in the spirit of meekness, defend them when necessary; to vindicate our character, if expedient, when misrepresented; to maintain our religious privileges, etc. 2. To publish general news, etc. 3. That the Christian Guardian shall not be the medium of discussing political questions, nor the merits of political parties; ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... evidence required them to sustain it. And it is proper that I should also say, that more cases have arisen in my circuit, by reason of its extent and locality, than in all other parts of the Union. This has been done to vindicate the sovereign rights of the Southern States, and protect the legal interests of ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... pretty to see how Pett hugged the occasion of having anything against Sir W. Batten, which I am not much troubled at, for I love him not neither. Though I did really endeavour to quash it all I could, because I would prevent their malice taking effect. My Lord I see is fully resolved to vindicate Carcasse, though to the undoing of Sir W. Batten, but I believe he will find himself in a mistake, and do himself no good, and that I shall be glad of, for though I love the treason I hate the traitor. But he is vexed at my moving it to the Duke ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... a great mercy that Mr. Wilkes, the intrepid defender of our rights and liberties, is out of danger, and may live to fight and write again in support of them; and it is no less a mercy, that God hath raised up the Earl of S———to vindicate and promote true religion and morality. These two blessings will justly make an epoch in the ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... vision as she followed Pete's fortunes up to the moment when he was brought into the hospital. And presently she understood that he was trying to tell her that if the newspaper report was authentic he was a free man. His eagerness to vindicate himself was ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... guest then went into a long vindication of the Templars, stating Scott had done them gross injustice, and concluding with an exaggerated compliment, in which it was attempted to persuade me that I was the man to vindicate the truth, and to do justice to at subject that was so peculiarly connected with liberal principles. I disclaimed the ability to undertake such a task, at all; confessed that I did not wish to disturb the images which Sir Walter Scott had left, had I the ability; and declared ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the group of writers who, after a century of criticism, ventured once more with an intrepid confidence—differing fundamentally from the tone of preceding apologists in the Protestant camp, who were nearly as critical as the men they refuted—to vindicate not the bare outlines of Christian faith, but the entire scheme, in its extreme manifestation, of the most ancient and severely maligned of all Christian organisations, this apathy is very much to be ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... discipline he had set himself, to labour hard and achieve a fixed, worthy end by his own unaided efforts, no matter what stretch of his life it consumed, were to vindicate himself, were to ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... her all happiness," said Mrs. Wharton, without emotion. "I always liked Anne, and for her sake I secured that confession. That, when published, will vindicate her character. You need have no hesitation in showing it to the police and in letting that detective deal with it as he thinks fit. In a few days I shall be in France under the name of Mrs. Wharton, and the past will be dead to me. Good-bye." ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... encountered. Actual events have proved their error; the last war, far from impairing, gave new confidence to our Government, and amid recent apprehensions of a similar conflict we saw that the energies of our country would not be wanting in ample season to vindicate its rights. We may not possess, as we should not desire to possess, the extended and ever-ready military organization of other nations; we may occasionally suffer in the outset for the want of it; but among ourselves all doubt upon this great point has ceased, while ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... to those who know how to make the best of it. It was essential both to the stability of his utilitarian philosophy, and to the contentment of his own temperament, that the reality of happiness should be vindicated, and he did both vindicate and attain it. A highly pleasurable excitement that should have no end, of course he did not think possible; but he regarded the two constituents of a satisfied life, much tranquillity and some excitement, as perfectly attainable by many ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... probably inserted at first to vindicate the doctrine of communion of saints in this life, it has long been regarded as extending to a communion subsisting between the spirits of just men made perfect and followers of the Lord Jesus Christ who are ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds
... gift, is filling my heart, and the anger I felt at my dear father's unjust suspicions is lost in pity and love. My sorrows are over; his, alas! are to come. To you, dearest mother, I leave the task of reconciliation. You will vindicate my memory, and teach him to respect me in death. And that miserable old man—tell him to deal gently with him for my sake. Tell him that I forgive him, that he must forgive him also, and lead the sinner back to God." He paused, and panted for breath. ...
— George Leatrim • Susanna Moodie
... of the ferocious attacks made upon him by Hunt and Hazlitt. Holding, as he did, that inviolable secrecy was one of the prime functions of an editor—though the practice has since become very different—he never attempted to vindicate himself, or to reveal the secret as to the writers of the reviews. In accordance with his plan of secrecy, he desired Dr. Ireland, his executor, to destroy all confidential letters, especially those relating to the Review, so that ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... accident and spoilt in the making says the greatest of the schoolmen, but we are far from denying her right to vindicate something more than an accidental place in the world. After all that can be urged as to the glory of self-sacrifice, the greatness of silent devotion, or the compensations for her want of outer influence in the inner power ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... question at rest by quietly rising in his place in the House and saying that he took full responsibility for everything that had been done. The Prime Minister, amid the frenzied cheers of his followers, assured the House that "His Majesty's Government will take, without delay, appropriate steps to vindicate the authority of the law." For a short time there was some curiosity as to what the appropriate steps would be. None, however, of any sort were taken; the Government contented itself with sending a few destroyers to patrol for a short time the coasts of Antrim and Down, where they were saluted by ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... from the country filled up the ranks again. There they were, and they had to stand on their own legs. In most cases they had learned nothing properly; they had only sat earning their master's daily bread, and now they suddenly had to vindicate their calling. Emil had gone to the dogs; Peter was a postman and earned a krone a day, and had to go five miles to do that. When he got home he had to sit over the knee-strap and waxed-end, and earn the rest of his livelihood at night. Many forsook ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... striplings bear,[27] Whilst Smith and Sutton from the canvass stare.[28] Hear'st thou through all this consecrated ground, The rattling thong's unwonted clangour sound? Awake! arise! though many a danger lour, By one bright deed to vindicate thy power." He ceased; as loud the fatal whip resounds, With throbbing heart the eager Doctor bounds. So when some bear from Russia's clime convey'd, Politer grown, has learnt the dancer's trade, If weary ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... in this collection which were not written under the age of five-and-twenty: so that my youth may be made (as it never fails to be in executions) a case of compassion. That I was never so concerned about my works as to vindicate them in print; believing, if any thing was good, it would defend itself, and what was bad could never be defended. That I used no artifice to raise or continue a reputation, depreciated no dead author I was obliged to, bribed no living one with unjust ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... written before the recent appearance of Mr. Conway's Life of Randolph. That ample biography, in my opinion, confirms the view of Randolph here given. If, in the light of this new material, I have erred at all, it is, I think, on the charitable side. Mr. Conway, in order to vindicate Randolph, has sacrificed so far as he could nearly every conspicuous public man of that period. From Washington, whom he charges with senility, down, there is hardly a man who ever crossed Randolph's path whom he has not assailed. Yet he presents no reason, so far as I can see, to alter the ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... be new, the spirit of the institution will, I hope, be still the same. My successor will, I hope, be able to boast that the fifth century of the University has even been more glorious than the fourth. He will be able to vindicate that boast by citing a long list of eminent men, great masters of experimental science, of ancient learning, of our native eloquence, ornaments of the senate, the pulpit and the bar. He will, I hope, mention with high honour ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... could not fail to affect the generous heart of James Gray, who determined from that moment to risk life and limb in order to vindicate the rights and avenge the wrongs of poor Clashnichd, the ghost of Craig-Aulnaic. He, therefore, took good care to interrogate his new protegee touching the nature of her oppressor's constitution, whether he was of that killable species of ghost that could be shot with a silver sixpence, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... Constitution exalted into the peaceful principle of amendment. Instead, therefore, of really being denied, the right of revolution is, indeed, enlarged and consecrated in our system of government, which rests upon that right. In vindicating and maintaining, therefore, that system, we vindicate and maintain with it the right of revolution. But we deny any such thing as a right of revolution for the sole sake of revolution; because it leads to anarchy. We deny the right of revolution for the sake of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... been in reality her one hour of choice to which regret now turned with longing? At the time she had been so engrossed in her own rapture that she had passed it unheeding. And now, was it possible to tell him? And if she did so, how could she explain, how vindicate her own actions? She had taken his protestations, his tenderness under a false pretence. How could she tell him now, when his memory was groping back slowly and painfully, and he had already so much to bear in the fuller knowledge of his limitations—when he had ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... remarks, (though in my opinion unadvisedly,) that, "Nouns of a plural form, but of a singular signification, require a singular construction; as, mathematicks is a useful study. This observation will likewise," says he, "in some measure, vindicate the grammatical propriety of the famous saying of William of Wykeham, Manners maketh man."—Priestley's Gram., p. 189. I know not what half-way vindication there can be, for any such construction. Manners and mathematics are not nouns of the singular ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... was determined to fight, until the assault on Fort Sumter presented the South as the first aggressor and roused the North to use every possible resource to maintain the government and the imperilled Union, and to vindicate the supremacy of the flag over every inch of the territory of the United States. The fact that Lincoln's first proclamation called for only 75,000 troops, to serve for three months, shows how inadequate was even his idea ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... Insanity was pleaded even, in his defence, not only {398} in the court but subsequently in the Commons at Ottawa, when it was attempted to censure the Canadian Government for their stern resolution to vindicate the cause of order in the Territories. Poundmaker and Big Bear were sent for three years to the penitentiary, and several other Indians suffered the extreme penalty of the law for the murders at Frog Lake. Sir John Macdonald was at the head of the Canadian Government, ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... fact and recognised that the crown was vested in him, without rashly venturing upon the why or the wherefore. He had in truth been raised to the throne because men were weary of Richard. He was chosen to vindicate no theory of hereditary or other abstract right, but to govern with a firm hand, to establish peace within his gates and give prosperity to his people. That was the true Tudor title, and, as a rule, they remembered the fact; they were de facto ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... without his being called to account. Obliged to leave hold of his prey, he endeavoured to bewilder him in a labyrinth where all trace of truth might be lost. Already, as he had arranged beforehand, he had called calumny to his help, and prepared the audacious lie which was to vindicate himself should an accusation fall upon his head. He had hoped that Monsieur de Lamotte would fall defenceless into his hands; but now a careful examination of his position, showing the impossibility of avoiding an explanation ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... commoner, he shall not escape the disgrace he has deserved. And to forfeit one's standing among English gentlemen is a punishment hardly less severe than to lose caste in India. In such a community, what need of duels to vindicate wounded honor or establish ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... shall I vindicate my innocence? I think I ought to go back openly to this woman's house and get my hat. I was about to do that when I got your note; yet it seems a ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... divine providence, and a public calling then offered, first for preaching, and after for printing, in either of which I think there did not appear the least disrespect or bitterness towards the reverend brother. The Lord knows my intention was to speak to the matter, to vindicate the truth, and to remove that impediment of reformation by him cast in; and if he, or any man else had, in meekness of spirit, gravely and rationally, for clearing of truth, endeavoured to confute me, I ought not, I should not, have taken it ill; but ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... penetrating thinker of the early Church, St. Augustine, wrestled once more with the problem, as if no word had been written on it; and he wrestled in vain. A century and a half ago, when the Lisbon earthquake destroyed forty thousand Portuguese, Voltaire attempted, with equal unsuccess, to vindicate Providence with the faint hope of the Deist. Modern science, prolonging the sufferings of living things over earlier millions of years, has made that problem one of the great issues of our age, and this dread spectacle of human nature red in tooth and claw brings it impressively ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... were published after Sidney's death, and it is certain that like Shakespeare's they were never intended for publication at all. The point is important because it helps to vindicate Sidney's sincerity, but were any vindication needed another more certain might be found. The Arcadia is strewn with love songs and sonnets, the exercises solely of the literary imagination. Let any one who wishes to gauge the sincerity of the impulse of the Stella sequence ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... Song. Poets and critics have been unanimous in their praise of this exquisite lyric, which, had she written nothing more, would alone have been amply sufficient to vindicate Aphara Behn's genius and immortality. It was a great favourite with Swinburne, who terms it 'that melodious and magnificent song'; Mr. Bullen is warm in its praise, whilst Professor Saintsbury justly acknowledges it to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... CHRISTOPH, a German literary notability, born near Koenigsberg, professor of philosophy and belles-lettres at Leipzig; was throughout his life the literary dictator of Germany; did much to vindicate the rights and protect the purity of the German tongue, as well as to improve the drama, but he wrote and patronised a style of writing that was ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... follows: 'The Holy See has frequently given opportune advice and counsel to the Irish people (upon whom it has always bestowed especial affection), whenever its affairs seem to require it, by which counsel and advice they might be enabled to defend and vindicate their rights without prejudice to justice, and without disturbing the public peace.' A fairer statement of the rights of men, and a more express injunction against public disturbance of any kind, could hardly be expressed in two ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... wholesale store, and commenced to erect the splendid marble warehouse which he still occupies. His friends were surprised at his temerity. They told him it was too far up town, and on the wrong side of Broadway, but he quietly informed them that a few years would vindicate his wisdom, and see his store the center of the most flourishing business neighborhood of New York. His predictions have ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... after a long silence, "the gods can, indeed, do all things. But as you have yourself perceived the gods do not do all things, even for their favorites. The gods work miracles to vindicate their votaries, but as you divine, each miracle is the happening by the special ordinance of the gods of what might happen even without their mandate, but which does not happen because it is only once in countless ages that all ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... Stephen is the victim of unjust persecution on the part of his own class, is suspected, by young Gradgrind's machinations, of the theft committed by that young scoundrel, falls into a disused pit as he is coming to vindicate his character, and only lives long enough to forgive his wrongs, and clasp in death the hand of Rachel—a hand which in life could not be his, as he had a wife alive who was a drunkard and worse. A marked contrast, is it not? On ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... arrest against the officers who were trying to arrest him, and grabbed the New York official before he could skip out of town. Then I went to see the Lamson crowd and we had it out. They begged that I allow Vinal to go to New York, just to vindicate them, in which circumstances he would be allowed to return on the next train, and the case would never be heard of again. If I would consent, they would agree to a reorganization of the company and the dropping out of Lamson. I showed them that they had gone too far, that I had damaging information ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... the ear which he pinched till he brought tears to my eyes, saying, "You don't try to do well, and I'll make you suffer the consequences." I did not reply, for I had learned that to answer a priest, or seek to vindicate myself, or even to explain how things came to be so, was in itself a crime, to be severely punished. However unjust their treatment, or whatever my feelings might be, I knew it was better to ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... unskilful generalship of the king; he would not only point out his errors, but how the enemy could be defeated. He would prove that he had ideas and plans worthy of attention. He would, as it were, vindicate himself before he was executed, and he tried to collect his thoughts and to put them into form. Every moment the face of Aurora seemed to look upon him, lovingly and mournfully; but beside it he saw the dusty ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... more man sees himself forsaken by the universe, the more opportunity to vindicate his own greatness. Is there no kind heart beating through the scheme of things?—man's heart shall still be kind. Will the eternal silence make mock of his dreams and his idealisms, laugh coldly at 'the splendid purpose in his eyes'? Well, ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... Ages by robber barons, who levied tribute right and left. Yet have the mounds and dykes of corruption been carried—from buttress to bell-tower the walls of crime have fallen—without a shot out of a gun, and still no fires of Smithfield to light the pathway of the victor, no bloody assizes to vindicate the justice of the cause; nor need ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... which he came out clearly against the doctrine hitherto taught in the Lutheran Church. But now also a much more able and determined combatant appeared in the arena, Joachim Moerlin, who henceforth devoted his entire life to defeat Osiandrism and to vindicate Luther's forensic ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... enfranchisement of women; and this step in civilization is to be taken in our day and generation. Whether the Democratic party will take the initiative in this reform, and reap the glory of crowning fifteen million women with the rights of American citizenship, and thereby vindicate our theory of self-government, is the momentous question we ask you to decide in this eventful hour, as we round out the first ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... prescribed for them by Parliament. On July 5 the Commons had ruled and the Lords had agreed "that the Assembly, in their beginning, in the first place shall take the ten first Articles of the Church of England into their consideration, to vindicate them from all false doctrine and heresy." In other words, it was the pleasure of Parliament that the first business of the Assembly should consist in a revision and amendment of the Thirty-nine Articles, and that, by way of a commencement ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... religious liberty,"—the cause for which Hampden had died in the field, and Russell on the scaffold,—and joined the other whig lords, and great lay impropriators, in calling over the Prince of Orange and a Dutch army, to vindicate those popular principles which, somehow or other, the people would never support. Profiting by this last pregnant circumstance, the lay Abbot of Marney also in this instance like the other whig lords, was careful to maintain, while he vindicated ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... would die with his subjects rather than longer bear the arrogance of France; and who boldly and courageously staked all in order to win all, to restore at length a lasting peace to Austria and Germany, and vindicate their honor and independence. For this reason all hearts greeted the Emperor Francis with love and exultation, and he was received ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... giants who look down upon their games? who move upon a cloudy Olympus, following unknown designs apart from rational enjoyment? who profess the tenderest solicitude for children, and yet every now and again reach down out of their altitude and terribly vindicate the prerogatives of age? Off goes the child, corporally smarting, but morally rebellious. Were there ever such unthinkable deities as parents? I would give a great deal to know what, in nine cases ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... my purpose either to deny or to entreat; for as the one can avail me nothing, so I intend the other shall be of little service. I will by no means bespeak your love and tenderness towards me; but shall first, by an open confession, endeavour to vindicate myself, and thus do what the greatness of my soul prompts me to. It is most true that I have loved, and do still love Guiscard; and whilst I live, which will not be long, shall continue to love him; and ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... Scandinavian ancestors or from their Frankish neighbours? All these origins have been maintained, and others besides these. According to some writers, it is a relic of Roman law; some trace it to the Canon law; and champions have not been wanting to vindicate it as originally a Slavonic institution which the Angles borrowed from the Werini ere they had left ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... your contemporaries that truth which is as important in politics as in ethics, and you will not have lived in vain! Scatter that seed upon the waters, and doubt not of the harvest! Vindicate always the system of nature, in other and sounder words, the ways of God, while you point out ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... matter—I am resolved—I'll bid her farewell for ever—Vapid, 'tis the last favour I shall ask of you—give her this, [A Letter.] and tell her, since I have resented Willoughby's attack on her honour, I think I may be allowed to vindicate my own; tell her, great as have been my faults, my truth has still been greater, and ...
— The Dramatist; or Stop Him Who Can! - A Comedy, in Five Acts • Frederick Reynolds
... Nature here assumed aspects of beauty so surpassing, man, as if to lend her the emphasis of contrast, appeared in the sorriest shape. I name him here, that I may vindicate his claim to remembrance, even when he is a blot upon the beauty around him. I will not forget him, even though I can think of him only with shame. To remember, however, is here enough. We will go back to Nature,—though she, too, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... once. I want to now make the announcement in public that if within twenty-four hours he does not retract his words I shall whip him till he can't stand, leave the academy, and never come back till I have the proofs to vindicate ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... righteousness. Nothing but the most hopeless determination to find difficulties could make a difficulty of such words. David is not speaking of his whole character or life, but of his conduct in one specific matter, namely, in his relation to Saul. The righteous integrity which he calls God to vindicate is not general sinlessness nor inward conformity with the law of God, but his blamelessness in all his conduct to his gratuitous foe. His prayer that God would judge him is distinctly equivalent to his often repeated cry for deliverance, which should, as by a Divine ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... objection, but took refuge in the general skepticism of that day on the practicability of an electric telegraph. He did not believe it could ever be put in practise. This was an argument I could not then repel. Time alone could vindicate my opinion, and time has shown both its practicability and ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... could have tempted him to swerve from the plain paths of truth and justice. An appeal was made to his writings, which manifested great moderation: and as it respected the Church, the London, and the Baptist Missionary Societies, it might be said, that he courageously stood forth to vindicate them in the Quarterly, at a critical time, when those Societies had been assailed by Sydney Smith, in the Edinburgh Review. All proved unavailing. At length I submitted to Mr. Foster's inspection, Mr. Southey's correspondence for more than forty years, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... strict accordance and proportion with the intimacy and sacredness of their previous relationship. Then why—since the choice was with himself—should the individual, whose connection with the fallen woman had been the most intimate and sacred of them all, come forward to vindicate his claim to an inheritance so little desirable? He resolved not to be pilloried beside her on her pedestal of shame. Unknown to all but Hester Prynne, and possessing the lock and key of her silence, he chose to withdraw his name from the roll of mankind, and, as regarded his former ties and ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
