"Extenuating" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... admit the soft impeachment. I plead guilty, with extenuating circumstances. The play's the thing; and if the facts don't suit my play, so much the worse for the facts. Success has been achieved, and what more can any living author want? Credit and cash. Voila tout! 'Credit' ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 1, 1893 • Various
... be shocked," I said, "but she has the coolest head of anyone I know—I do not think of any man I would trust so fully to take a rational attitude in the end. We can explain to her what extenuating circumstances there are, and she will have to recognise them. She will see that we are ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... i, n, t),—but, he flattered himself, just a plain man—(s, a, i, n),—a plain, sensible, reasonable human being,—he could find no reason for forgiveness: a man who, in such circumstances, could kill himself, was a wretch. The only extenuating circumstance he could find in Jeannin's case was that he was not responsible for his actions. With that he begged Madame Jeannin's pardon for having expressed himself a little emphatically about her husband: he pleaded the sympathy ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... personal responsibility, it is a most difficult matter to decide whether this factor ought to be taken into consideration when passing sentence on criminal offenders. It is much more truly an extenuating circumstance than the majority of pleas which receive the name. In a variety of cases, such, for instance, as threats, assaults, manslaughter, murder, a high temperature unquestionably sometimes enters as a determining factor into ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... took place several weeks later. Every possible extenuating circumstance was brought to bear upon his sentence. Five years only was to be the term of his imprisonment, his punishment for the crime of ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... been led, in editing a Work not free from ecclesiastical heresies, and especially in writing a Life very full of such, to dwell with preponderating emphasis on that part of his subject; by no means extenuating the fact, nor yet passing lightly over it (which a layman could have done) as needing no extenuation; but carefully searching into it, with the view of excusing and explaining it; dwelling on it, ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... Louis, and bestowing all its revenues on the Legion of Honour; and a sixth, restoring to their authority all magistrates who had been displaced by the Bourbon government. These proclamations could not be prevented from reaching Paris; and the Court, abandoning their system of denying or extenuating the extent of the impending danger, began to adopt more energetic ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... that some of this was being put on; that it was the slackening of tightly pulled nerves; so I encouraged her as far as I dared without being suspected, knowing that it is best to open all vents when one's feelings have been dangerously pent up. As to my ability to cook!—why, there were extenuating circumstances governing this breakfast that should have excused it. Some ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... inclined to condone an offense against property in the case of a man whose motive is the worthy one of providing the means of a "decent" manner of life for his wife and children. If it is added that the wife has been "nurtured in the lap of luxury," that is accepted as an additional extenuating circumstance. That is to say, we are prone to condone such an offense where its aim is the honorific one of enabling the offender's wife to perform for him such an amount of vicarious consumption of time and substance as is demanded by the standard of pecuniary decency. In such a case ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... over-strained efforts at showy entertainment. The "banquet hall deserted" presents on the following day a grim reminder of the petty economies that for weeks hence must secretly be contrived in order to restore the balance of an overdrawn bank account. The folly of living beyond one's means may have this extenuating feature, that it is often an error due to generous, though indiscreet impulse, or to inexperience; but the folly of spending money lavishly on a few ostentatious "spreads" that are "beyond one's means" ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... before been framing excuses, in the effort to convince himself that her fault had been one of impulse, rather than of cool deliberation! This was she in whose behalf he had weakly lowered himself to plead to his own cast-off slave for extenuating evidences! And once more grasping her by the arm, he lifted her from the couch, and, followed by Leta, hurried her across the room into the outer hall, into the court yard, past the fountain, and so onward ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... second point it is also necessary to make many inquiries before we arrive at our conclusions; and I have no doubt, if this be done with calmness, and without prejudice, it will be generally found that there are many extenuating circumstances which may be brought to modify our judgment. I am anxious, if possible, to place a few of these before the public, in the hope, that by lessening in some degree the unfavourable opinion heretofore entertained ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... about the trouble here," Nestor said, "and I came to learn the exact truth from you. If you struck this man and rifled the safe, tell me so at once. There may be extenuating ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... appeal did not destroy these two arguments, any more than it effaced the impression produced by the money-lender relative to the theft of forty-five francs. The jury brought in a verdict of "Guilty," but without premeditation, and admitting extenuating circumstances. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... even a little one has to know a great deal, and to know it well. . . . The right solution imposes itself; namely, the application, according to circumstances, of fixed principles. . . . Incapacity and ignorance cannot be called extenuating circumstances, for knowledge is within the reach of all" (Marshal Foch); and in the words of Napoleon's own maxim: "The only way to learn the art of war is to read and re-read the campaigns ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... tragedy came out in broken snatches, to the last particle. For once in her life Evelyn Desmond spoke the unvarnished truth, adorning nothing, extenuating nothing; and Honour listened in an enigmatical silence—a silence which held even after the last word had been spoken. Evelyn looked ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... Lord Arleigh. "If you had been innocent—even if there had been what they call extenuating circumstances—I would have spent a fortune in the endeavor to set you free; but your confession renders ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... no notion of extenuating ill-conduct or making excuses! That's the modern way! So principles get lowered! I tell you, sir, there are excuses for everything. What makes the difference is only the listening to ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... working with us heart to heart. I welcomed you with open arms and you have made my life harder, much harder, than it was before your coming. To protect you I have had to discipline my own children continually, and all the time you were putting their tempers to quite unnecessary tests! I am not extenuating Kathleen, but I merely say you have no right to behave as you do. You are thirteen years old, quite old enough to make up your mind whether you wish to be loved by anybody or not; ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... prescribes the maximum limit of punishment for the offenses named, and this limit is intended for those cases in which the severest punishment should be awarded. In other cases the punishment should be graded down according to the extenuating circumstances. Offenses not herein provided for remain punishable as authorized by the Articles of War and the custom ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... have a neat method of controversy which they derive from Aristotle) but more nervously and pressingly; and general sentiments must be so applied to particular cases, as to leave us room to say many extenuating things in behalf of the Defendant, and many severe ones against the Plaintiff. But in heightening or softening a circumstance, the powers of language are unlimited, and may be properly exerted, even in the middle of an argument, as often as any thing ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... hand, the Formula of Concord is just as determined in opposing every effort at extenuating the corruption wrought by original sin. It is solicitous to explain that in designating original sin as an accident, its corruption is not minimized in the least, if the answer concerning the nature of this accident is not derived from philosophy ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... himself believed that Peter Ibbetson was the better book. It certainly witnesses to the nobility of the author's mind; it expresses the quick sympathy of the artist temperament—the instinct for finding extenuating circumstances which artists share with women, and which both rightly regard as the same thing as the sense of justice. The tale of Peter Ibbetson breathes a great human sympathy. The simplicity with which it is ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... Poe. Mr. Kimball and others, who knew the Doctor, believed, as I do, that there was no deliberate evil or envy in those remarks. Poe's best friends told severe stories of him in those days—me ipso teste—and Griswold, naught extenuating and setting down naught in malice, wrote incautiously more than he should. These are the words of another than I. But when Griswold was attacked, then he became savage. One day I found in his desk, which he had committed to me, a great number of further material collected to Poe's ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... words of his own in confirmation of this view, and as before, he recounted with marvellous exactness the details of his crime. He was convicted, but with extenuating circumstances, and condemned to hard labour in Siberia for fifteen years. He heard his sentence grimly, silently, and thoughtfully. His colossal fortune, with the exception of the comparatively small portion wasted in the first wanton period of his inheritance, went to ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... extenuating circumstances, dearest. One does not have the delightful experience of last night but once in a lifetime, and why should we not make the most of our pleasures? However, I can thank your father for ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... that the use of nor after not has been introduced, in consequence of such improprieties as the following: 'The injustice of inflicting death for crimes, when not of the most heinous nature, or attended with extenuating circumstances.' Here it is obviously not the intention of the writer, to understand the negative in the last clause: and, if this were good English, it would be not merely allowable to employ nor after not, to show the subsequent clause to be negative as ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... is so evident, that those who appeared as its advocates have rather endeavoured to defeat their opponents by charging their proposals with absurdity, than by extenuating the ill consequence ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... charitably fancy, to excess. It was to your "Dear Brother, the Reverend H. B. Gage," that you chose to communicate the sickening story; and the blue ribbon which adorns your portly bosom forbids me to allow you the extenuating plea that you were drunk when it was done. Your "dear brother"—a brother indeed—made haste to deliver up your letter (as a means of grace, perhaps) to the religious papers; where, after many months, I found and read and wondered at it; and whence I have now ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... than demonstration itself, that whilst this impression continueth in her majesty's breast, you can find no other condition than inventions to keep your estate bare and low; crossing and disgracing your actions; extenuating and blasting of your merit; carping with contempt at your nature and fashions; breeding, nourishing and fortifying such instruments as are most factious against you; repulses and scorns of your friends and dependents that are true and steadfast; winning and inveigling away from ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... why measles? and was told that there was a fear lest extenuating circumstances should prevent a jury from convicting me, if I were indicted for typhus or small-pox, but that a verdict would probably be obtained for measles, a disease which could be sufficiently punished ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... then, admit Luther's fault and proceed to apologize for him and find plausible reasons for extenuating his indiscretions in speech and his temperamental faults? We shall do neither. We shall let this "foul-mouthed," coarse Luther stand before the bar of public opinion just as he is. His way cannot be our way, but ultimately none of ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... which she was reared; furthermore, that her husband first defiled the marital union, thus driving her to follow the general tendencies of the time or to seek solace in religious activity, for which she had too much energy. After due consideration of the extenuating circumstances, her faults and vices, such as they were, may easily be condoned. Because she was the wife of a powerful Protestant king, she was condemned by Catholics and by them regarded with suspicion; and, in order to save herself, she was forced to commit ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... transformation of the old ideas concerning the Revolution by perusing the latest writings of its official defenders. While they professed formerly to justify every act of violence by representing it as a simple act of defence, they now confine themselves to pleading extenuating circumstances. I find a striking proof of this new frame of mind in the history of France for the use of schools, published by MM. Aulard and Debidour. Concerning the Terror we ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... to avoid his vengeance. It is due to Colonel B——— to say, that he acted in the investigation of his agent's conduct with the strictest honor and impartiality. He scrutinized every statement thoroughly, pleaded for him as temperately as he could; found, or pretended to find, extenuating motives for his most indefensible proceedings; but all would not do. The cases were so clear and evident against him, even in the opinion of the neighboring gentry, who had been for years looking upon the system of selfish misrule which he practised, ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... hard course for Eric's proud and loving heart to write and tell his aunt the full extent of his guilt. But he did it faithfully, extenuating nothing, and entreating her, as she loved him, to send the money by ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... much good teaching she had no genuine talent and never would fulfill the expectations of her friends. She looked back upon her mother's girlhood with positive envy because it was so full of happy industry and extenuating obstacles, with undisturbed opportunity to believe that her talents were unusual. The girl looked wistfully at her mother, but had not the courage to cry out what was in her heart: "I might believe I had unusual talent if I did not ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... existence would make every man the keeper of the record of his own transgressions, even to the most minute exactness. It would of itself mete out perfect justice, since the sin would be seen amid its accompanying facts, every aggravating or extenuating circumstance. Each man would be strictly punished according to his talents. As no one is without sin, it makes the necessity of an atonement indispensable, and, in its most rigid interpretation, it exhibits the truth of the scheme of salvation ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... ill-nature—and I take the liberty of adding, undeserved ill-nature—in their prefatory address; but in their versification they have done me admirably." Here Crabbe shows a slight lack of self-knowledge. For when to the Letter on Trades the following extenuating postscript is found necessary, there would seem to be hardly any room ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... decisions. In domestic life especially, in which so much depends on circumstances, and the highest questions often relate to mere matters of expediency, how easy it is to be "always finding fault," if we neglect to take notice of explanatory and extenuating circumstances! Anybody with a tongue and a most moderate complement of brains can call a thing stupid, foolish, ill-advised, and so forth; though it might require a larger amount of wisdom than the judges possessed to have done the thing better. But what do we want with captious judges ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... don't think he is," Miss Bailey's cool and quiet voice interposed, and in a moment the harassed father was at her side pleading, extenuating, fawning. ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... run away. Like criminals "caught with the goods" they stand, self-convicted, dirty with the soot of a thousand chimneys, heavy with the spoils of vanished civilizations; graft and greed stare at us out of their glazed windows—eyes behind which no soul can be discerned. There are doubtless extenuating circumstances; they want to be clean, they want to be honest, these "monsters of the mere market," but they are nevertheless the unconscious victims of evils inherent in our transitional ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... their date of incurring a list of all his debts, great and small—not that he intended to pay them in that order, but where a creditor had waited long he decided that his delay in paying should be regarded as in some degree extenuating and excusing the fierceness of the assaults made upon a luckless debtor. The creditors chanced to have had no choice in the matter, but that did not count. Age hallowed a debt to a certain ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... convinced she became, that it was just such an antagonistic attitude which had prompted the beautiful, though wicked Borgia, to administer certain love potions to numerous unappreciative gallants. Deliberate, cold-blooded murder committed under such extenuating circumstances began to appear more in the light of justice than ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... thine own injustice and wrong, and together we will seek the merciful. Think not about thy sin so as to make it either less or greater in thine own eyes. Bring it to Jesus, and let him show thee how vile a thing it is. And leave it to him to judge thee—sure that he will judge thee justly, extenuating nothing, for he hath to cleanse thee utterly, and yet forgetting no smallest excuse that may cover the amazement of thy guilt, or witness for thee that not with open eyes didst thou do the deed. At the last he cried, Father forgive ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... you, Tommy," she said. "A man's standards are different, I know. There may be what you call extenuating circumstances—though I can't quite imagine it. I'm too tired to argue about it, Tommy dear, and you mustn't be vexed with me. I can't go into it with you, but I feel as if it is I—I myself—who have committed an ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... more disconcerting day by day. And yet she had acted for the best. That fact did not insure to her immunity from blame on the part of that awful personage, her sister Mary. Good intentions had never yet received their due as extenuating circumstances in ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... whose society we like, and from whom we have received favours; how long we struggle against evidence, how fondly, when the facts cannot be disputed, we cling to the hope that there may be some explanation or some extenuating circumstance with which we are unacquainted. Just such is the feeling which a man of liberal education naturally entertains towards the great minds of former ages. The debt which he owes to them is incalculable. They ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... nevertheless. At the trial, the 'prisoner's friend'—in this instance, Garth's colonel, who was very fond of him and had always thought very highly of him—pleaded extenuating circumstances. Garth's youth, his previous good record, the conditions of the moment—the continuous mental and physical strain of the days preceding his sudden loss of nerve—all these things were urged ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... any extenuating circumstances, was condemned to the severest penalty. The judges immediately signed a warrant consuming him to ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... blundered upon knowledge of a state of affairs which must have existed under her very nose for some time, there were few remnants of sisterly affection to bid her seek extenuating circumstances. ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... so. I never saw them again. But you believe the father really was, then, a felon, a convict—no excuse for him—no extenuating circumstances? There was something in that man, Mr. Darrell, that made one love him—positively love him; and when I had to tell him that I had given up the child he trusted to my charge, and saw his grief, I felt ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... if undecided whether he should speak—everything seemed to be pure mockery now. The end of all things had come. He knew that when a jury pronounced a verdict of guilty of wilful murder, especially as there were no extenuating circumstances sufficient in any way to lessen the guilt, all hope was gone. And yet he felt as though he must say something. It seemed like allowing himself to be led as a lamb to a butcher if he uttered ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... mother. And yet—he reverted—in such a man as Ostermore, sheer stupidity, a lack of imagination, of insight into things as they really are, a lack of feeling that would disable him from appreciating the extent of any wrong he did, seemed to Mr. Caryll to be extenuating circumstances. ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... speechless. Absolute silence reigned for a time, as the court awaited the prisoner's reply, if by any means he could offer some explanation, some possible extenuating circumstance, that might affect the judgment to be pronounced. None came, ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... imperious need. She had the fullest, clearest view of the situation, and she looked at it without flinching and without compromise. Above all, she had true vision of Stephen Arnold, glorifying nowhere, extenuating nothing. It was almost cruel to be the victim of such circumstance and be denied the soft uses of illusion; but if that note of sympathy had been offered to Hilda she would doubtless have retorted that it was precisely because she saw ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... on which enormous fibs are ever told, the registration. There are, however, occasional glimpses in their talk which would seem to intimate that they have another life outside the Houses of Parliament. But that extenuating circumstance does not apply to the sporting dinner. There they begin with odds and handicaps, and end with handicaps and odds, and it is doubtful whether it ever occurs to any one present, that there is any other existing combination ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... uncertain evidence, largely conjectural in character, while there was strong evidence in his favor. Yet the judges of the court-martial seemed biased against him, and by a vote of three judges to two, he was again found guilty - "of treason, with extenuating circumstances," as if treason could ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... him; vice smiled on him from the midst of unbridled luxury. Here, as before a jury, the magnitude of a crime was an extenuating circumstance. "And is your lady pretty at any rate?" asked Josepha, trying as a preliminary act of charity, to divert Hulot's thoughts, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... absolute silence, the work went on. There was no talking, but (under extenuating circumstances) smoking was permitted. Periodically, as the star-shells burst into brilliance overhead, the workers sank down behind a parapet, or, if there was no time, stood rigid—the one thing to avoid upon these occasions is movement of any kind—and gave the snipers a chance. ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... so grave that society condemns it bitterly. How shall I justify myself before those who believe a woman owes her whole self to her husband, whatever his conduct to her may be? That is impossible. To them I merely plead "guilty," and say nothing of extenuating circumstances. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... fair, clear and judicial account of the man. I will attempt to present a brief for the people, and neither prosecute nor defend. I will simply try to picture the man as he once existed, nothing extenuating, nor setting down aught in malice. As the original office of the State's Attorney was rather to protect the person at the bar than to indict him, so will I try to bring out the best in Moses, rather than hold up his mistakes and raise a laugh by ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... at once. At first her stand had simply been one of implicit faith in the man she had conjured into a hero of all that was good and noble. She had not cast about for extenuating evidence; she had not asked herself who the guilty man was; her faith told her it was morally impossible for Mortimer to become a thief. Now Crane's questions, more material than the first deadening effects of Alan's accusation, started her mind ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... murdered another of the same tribe he was taken up and tried by a council, and if it was found to be wilful murder, without any cause, he was condemned and put to death; but if there were any extenuating circumstances which showed that he had some reason for it, he was condemned and sentenced, by the chief, to sit on the grave of his victim for a certain length of time. That was his only hope and his "City of refuge." If any of the relatives of the deceased wanted to kill ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... unoffending self. When Barnwell began to go wrong, I declare that I felt positively apologetic, Pumblechook's indignant stare so taxed me with it. Wopsle, too, took pains to present me in the worst light. At once ferocious and maudlin, I was made to murder my uncle with no extenuating circumstances whatever; Millwood put me down in argument, on every occasion; it became sheer monomania in my master's daughter to care a button for me; and all I can say for my gasping and procrastinating conduct on the fatal morning, is, that it was worthy of the general feebleness of ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... certainly very difficult to see how the kindler of the vitai lampada, supposing him to have been responsible for his actions, can claim from a jury of human beings a verdict of absolute acquittal. But we can, even now, see certain extenuating circumstances, which evidence not yet available may one day so powerfully reinforce as to enable him to leave the Court without a stain on ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... any way by government authority, or obnoxious as representing the dignity of law, were gutted, destroyed, then left to the mercy of the flames. Newspaper offices, whose issues had been a fire in the rear of the nation's armies by extenuating and defending treason, and through violent and incendiary appeals stirring up "lewd fellows of the baser sort" to this very carnival of ruin and blood, were cheered as the crowd went by. Those that had been faithful to loyalty and law were hooted, ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... appeared to be considering. "Well, I think perhaps you've hit it. However, there are some extenuating circumstances. Give a man a dozen years or so of the mental starvation of a New England wilderness, and then all at once fill him chock full of new ideas, and he gets a pain within him, just as painful a pain as if it were in his tummy, not his mind. In time, it leads to chronic indigestion. ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... the truth?—But just one word, and I'm done. You no doubt knew, as every one else did, that Lulu was Schilsky's mistress. What you didn't know, was this;" and now, without the least attempt at palliation, without a single extenuating word, there fell from his lips the quick and witty narration of an episode in which Louise and he had played the chief parts. It was the keynote of their relations to each other: the story, grossly told, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... wild and reckless men, but the language of the pledge penetrated to the better nature of them all. They endeavored, with varying success, to live up to its conditions, although most of them held that driving a bull-team constituted extenuating circumstances for ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... consequence is, from an absolutistic point of view, a totally irrelevant consideration, as is also the pain we feel in telling the truth under such conditions. But the single moral course is clear; there is no alternative; in absolutistic morals there are no extenuating circumstances. The truth must be told, whatever be the consequences. For to tell the truth is a universal moral law, and conformity to that law ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... rehabilitation to which other members of the family, Tiberius for instance, have a right. And yet it has not been enough for succeeding generations that he atoned for his follies and crimes by death and infamy. They have fallen upon his memory: they have overlooked that extenuating circumstance of considerable importance, his age when elected; they have gone so far as to make him into a unique monster, no longer ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... there no extenuating circumstances to be adduced on the part of the Japanese? Were there no acts of provocation on the part of foreigners? If we rely merely on the testimony of the complainants, the reply would be an unqualified negative. An impartial witness, however, finds no difficulty ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... different forms of utility fall very lightly in weight, and can not even be counted as an extenuating circumstance, when we compare them to the enormous evils brought on farmer and gardener by the hosts of those Coccides that ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... a revolution, came suddenly to lure men from an honorable social position, to expose them to the hazards of a popular movement. Before the laws, my companions are guilty of allowing themselves to be enticed. But never were circumstances more extenuating in the eyes of the country than those in their favor. When I saw Colonel Vaudrey and the other persons on the evening of the 29th, I addressed them ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... a certain radiancy of self-confidence, dangerous to a man; his sovereign contempt of Daun, as an inert dark mass, who durst undertake nothing: all this is undeniable, and worth our recognition in estimating Friedrich. One considerably extenuating circumstance does at last turn up,—in the shape of a new piece of blame to the erring Friedrich; his sudden anger, namely, against the meritorious General Retzow; his putting Retzow under arrest that Tuesday Evening: "How, General Retzow? You have not taken hold of the Stromberg for me!" That ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... traces of this feeling even in Shakespeare, and to this day Shylock (notwithstanding the grievous wrongs which he had suffered at the hands of Christians) rarely gets much sympathy from modern readers, who quite overlook all the extenuating circumstances in his case.[FN643] Nor do we always find the Jew famous for 'cuteness in folk-tales. This phase of his reputation is comparatively modern, and in the time of Horace, "Credat Judaeus" was a Roman proverb, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... sin was permitted in that fold. And Mrs. Tregenza had little pity herself for unfortunate or mistaken women. Let a girl lose her character and Thomasin usually refused to hear any plea of mercy from any source. Only once did she find extenuating circumstances: in a case where a ruined farmer's daughter brought an action for breach of promise and won it, with heavy damages. But money acted in a peculiar way with this woman. It put her conscience and her judgment ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... friends of the latter accuse King Fisher of treachery. There are never lacking men who regard dead desperadoes as martyrs; and indeed it is usually the case that there are mixed circumstances and frequently extenuating ones, to be found in the ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... for an opening honestly; saw at last the impossibility of telling her—unless indeed he shouted, "Say, I'm a married man!" to her without preface or extenuating explanation—and yielded finally to the reprieve the ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... Russell, and who had led the cry of "traitor" afterwards. He was a brave man, and the son of a bishop; but his excitable mind had been poisoned by the officials of the New Zealand Company, and now that death had interposed its extenuating plea, his offence could be forgiven. The archdeacon was permitted by the victorious Maoris to take the officer's eyeglass, and a lock of hair from his brow, for transmission to his English friends, and might well hope that the ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... some had been neatly winged, some thrust through; some, in a more sordid age, permitted counsel of ability to explain to a jury how guiltless a careless gentleman could be under the most unfortunate and extenuating appearances. ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... reminiscences of the late War, I feel that it is necessary to ask their indulgence and to plead extenuating ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... out of the room. The unhappy memory of having, in my ignorance, tendered a small tip to a student of the Munich University will cling around me forever. Nevertheless, I feel that after all there are extenuating circumstances - he ought to change ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... looked her over as he lit his cigar—where she stood spreading her hands above the blaze of the logs, and concluded that she was much nicer upon acquaintance than he had thought. Her slight figure might not be beautiful, but beyond doubt its lines were ladylike. The same extenuating word applied itself in his mind to her thin and swarthy, though distinguished, features. They bore the stamp of caste, and so did the way she looked at one through her eye-glasses, from under those over-heavy black eyebrows, holding her head a little to one side. Though ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... a sincere compassion for his old messmate, and obtained leave to pay him a visit, anxious to ascertain if there were any extenuating circumstances by which he might obtain a ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... those days, and the other man was guilty of breaking up the home. Extenuating circumstances, you see. He was lucky enough to have a lawyer who didn't lose interest when the prison swallowed him, and he brought the matter to the attention of a new Governor who pardoned Bates after he had served five years. ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... fine writing, I have related the facts of my case, giving a precise account of my prosecutions, and as vivid a narrative as memory allows of my imprisonment in Holloway Gaol. I have striven throughout to be truthful and accurate, nothing extenuating, nor setting down aught in malice; and I have tried to hit the happy mean between negligence and prolixity. Whether or not I have succeeded in the second respect the reader must be the judge; and if he cannot be so in the former respect, he will at least be able to decide ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... of Raoul's carelessly uttered words and they had hurt her poignantly, but it was no new sorrow. He had told her himself months ago, callously, brutally, sparing her nothing, extenuating nothing. She pressed her cheek against the hand she was holding. She did not blame him, she could only love him, no matter what his life had been. It was Ahmed as he was she loved, his faults, his vices were as much ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... and he allows it to be seen a little too much. He embarrasses us sometimes. But there is one extenuating circumstance—he has married ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... at least extenuating. Genevieve Maud hesitated and sniffed. In the matter of being stripped, toys were ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... they understood the truth from my lips. I know that my people have sometimes gone mad. I am deeply sorry for it; and I am, therefore, here to submit not to a light penalty but to the highest penalty. I do not ask for mercy. I do not plead any extenuating act. I am here, therefore, to invite and submit to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. The only course open to you, Mr. Judge, is, as I am just going to say ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... his with an extenuating look. "It was some time ago, you see," he said; and then, passing it off, "There are as many as you like out ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... be very glad if this story would incline some people who have got money in not such honest ways (though perhaps less dangerous) to endeavour at extenuating the crimes they have been guilty of, by making such reparation as in their power, by which at once they atone for their fault, and regain their lost reputation; but I am afraid this advice may prove both unsuccessful and unseasonable and therefore shall proceed in my narrations as the ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... candidly narrated the importunities, the indelicacies, of which my desire to possess myself of Jeffrey Aspern's papers had rendered me capable I need not shrink from confessing this last indiscretion. I think it was the worst thing I did; yet there were extenuating circumstances. I was deeply though doubtless not disinterestedly anxious for more news of the old lady, and Miss Tita had accepted from me, as it were, a rendezvous which it might have been a point of honor with me to keep. It may be said that her leaving the ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... bloodstains that had sunk into the stone beyond the power of a hasty washing to obliterate, Ruth said in a low whispering tone that was full of pent-up feeling, "I told you that Lester was a murderer condemned for life, Jenny, but there were extenuating circumstances in connection with his crime. That is not his name we call him by: I do not even know his real one, but I am convinced that he belongs to educated and reputable people, and that he suffers the keenest remorse for the wild life that led him so terribly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... no heed to the extenuating circumstances; he would close his ears to all attempts at justification. He would be pitiless. He would have naught but hatred and scorn to bestow upon a mother who had fallen from the highest rank in society down to everlasting infamy. ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... came to our ears of that battle was that the Englishes had lost, the Duc of York was slain. When the true news came the Hollanders sneered at it, boasting that they would equippe a better fleet ere a 4 night. The French added also the pace, vilifieng and extenuating the victory as much as they could, knowing that it was not their interest nor concernment that the King of England sould grow to great. It was fought in the channel eagerly for 3 dayes; and tho at a ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... The expedient of extenuating circumstances. The judge does not ask for the advice of the court physician in the case of some forlorn criminal, but condemns him without a word of rebuke to society for its complicity. But in order to assuage his own conscience he grants him extenuating circumstances, which seem a concession of justice, but are, in reality, a denial of justice. For you either believe that a man is responsible for his crime, and in that case the concession of extenuating circumstances is a hypocrisy; or you grant them in good ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri
... No 'extenuating circumstances,' however, can be admitted respecting the notorious racing lotteries, in spite of the small figure of the tickets; nay this rather aggravates the danger, being a temptation to the thoughtless multitude. ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... witchcraft had been practiced on them. But our Government ignores all occult dealings and will not believe in the dread power in the land. They deal very differently with these matters in Russia, where, in a recent trial of a similar nature, the witchcraft was admitted as an extenuating circumstance and the culprits who had burnt a witch were all acquitted. All natives of whatever caste are well aware of these terrible powers and too often do they avail themselves of them—much oftener than any one has an idea of. One day as I was riding along I came upon a ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... return they did eat more soberly at supper than at other times, and meats more desiccative and extenuating; to the end that the intemperate moisture of the air, communicated to the body by a necessary confinitive, might by this means be corrected, and that they might not receive any prejudice for want of their ordinary bodily exercise. Thus was Gargantua governed, and ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... he continued: "if I were certain he's an anarchist and he had the cheek to ask me for money, I would give him the toe of my boot. However, let him have the benefit of the doubt. I am perfectly willing to take it that he has done nothing worse than to stick a knife into somebody—with extenuating circumstances—French fashion, don't you know. But that subversive sanguinary rot of doing away with all law and order in the world makes my blood boil. It's simply cutting the ground from under the feet of every decent, respectable, hard-working person. ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... in his seat. "Well, there's one extenuating circumstance. The officers of the Trobwell reported that you were a fine source of amusement during the trip. They enjoyed your clownish performance ...
— But, I Don't Think • Gordon Randall Garrett
... sir." The members of the court looked at each other, the Colonel whispered to the Judge-Advocate, the Judge-Advocate to the Prosecutor. The Judge-Advocate turned to the prisoner, "Do you realise," he asked, not unkindly, "that if you plead 'Guilty' you will not be able to call any evidence as to extenuating circumstances?" The prisoner pondered for a moment; it seemed to him that the ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... up of compromises. Good was mixed with evil everywhere. The domestic idea, as Hadria called it, might be, in its present phase, somewhat offensive, but it could be redeemed in its application, in the details and "extenuating circumstances." Valeria could not warn Hadria too earnestly against falling into the mistake that Valeria herself had made. She had repudiated the notion of anything short of an ideal union; a perfect comradeship, ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... the situation has something of that twist or boomerang effect which we have noticed in Michel Teissier. Dr. Morgex begins by defending murderers; he does not end, but starts the end, by becoming a murderer himself, though one with far more "extenuating circumstances" than those so often allowed in French courts. His friend—who is an advocate of no mean powers but loose life and dangerously full habit—has, when the doctor warns him against apoplexy, half scoffed, but also ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... and criticism, and preceded by such a summary of the leading facts in Rossetti's life as seems necessary for the elucidation of subsequent records. I have drawn Rossetti precisely as I found him in each stage of our friendship, exhibiting his many contradictions of character, extenuating nothing, and, I need hardly add, setting down naught in malice. Up to this moment I have never inquired of myself whether to those who have known little or nothing of Rossetti hitherto, mine will seem to be on the whole favourable or unfavourable portraiture; but I have trusted my admiration ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... bestowed on penitents after having admitted in general terms that they are sinners. He is bound to weigh the gravity of their errors and the strength of their repentance, to know the facts and details of the fall and the number of relapses, the aggravating or extenuating circumstances, and, therefore, to interrogate in order to sound the soul to its depths. If some souls are timorous, they surrender themselves to him spontaneously and, more than this, they have recourse to him outside of his tribunal; ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... revolver and the bomb of the political assassin. The British civilian is not going to be frightened by one more risk added to the vicissitudes of an Indian career, but can you expect him to be proof against discouragement when many of his fellow-countrymen exhaust their ingenuity in extenuating or in casting upon him the primary responsibility for the new Indian gospel of murder which is being preached against him? Mr. Montagu was well inspired in protesting against such "hostile, unsympathetic, and cowardly criticism" as was conveyed in Mr. Mackarness's pamphlet; ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... my duty to write to you. Perhaps you will wonder that I should touch upon such a disagreeable subject at all. But I am bound, Molly, by my promise to give you a true picture (as much as in me lies) of mining-life and its peculiar temptations, nothing extenuating, nor setting down aught in malice. But, with all their failings, believe me, the miners, as a class, possess many ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... think himself an obedient son, (Matt. xxi. 30). Such a confession of duty may be extorted from damned spirits, and therefore you would not draw this vail over the wretched wickedness of your natures, to the end that you may conceive well of yourselves. It is so far from extenuating or excusing, that the very conviction of the great obligation to love and obey God, is the greatest aggravation of the enmity. It is this which makes it the purest malice and perfectest hatred, that knowing the goodness of God, convinced of our bound duty to love and serve him, yet in the very ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... evidence is false; the charge is fabricated'. If you tell me you sit but as the judge of the fact in this case, Caesar,—if you ask me where and when he served against you,—I am silent; I will not now dwell on the extenuating circumstances, which even before a judicial tribunal might have their weight. We take this course before a judge, but I am here pleading to a father. 'I have erred—I have done wrong, I am sorry: I take refuge in your clemency; ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... coat. She clung, laughing, kissing. Let her.... "The doomed man ate a hearty breakfast of ham and eggs and seemed in good spirits." Reporters, with a sense of the dramatic, usually wrote it that way. Ham and eggs were a symbol. Should he mull around for extenuating epigrams—a fervid rigmarole on the mysteries and ethics of life? Or strike swift, short?... "Death was instantaneous. The drop fell at 10:08 A.M. sharp." Always sharp. ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... or small employer in these and other clothing trades. If the public insisted on buying good articles, and paid the price requisite for their production, these "sweating" trades would be impossible. But before we saddle the consuming public with the blame, we must bear in mind the following extenuating circumstances. ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... have had Reanda take Gloria back. Between the two opposites of conviction and instinct, she did not know what to do. Moreover, Reanda had struck his wife. He admitted it, though apologetically and with every extenuating circumstance which he ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... deceased, came to his death by a stab in the left breast, inflicted by a sharp instrument in the hand or hands of Anthony Romescos, during an affray commonly called a rencontre, regarding which there are many extenuating circumstances." To this verdict Mr. Moon forthwith bows assent, directs the removal of the body, and invites the gentlemen jurors to join him in another drink, which he does in compliment to their distinguished services. The dead body will be removed to the receiving vault, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... need of a rarefying or extenuating of tough flegme or viscous humours troubling the chest,—the decoction or juice hereof made up with sugar or honey is availeable, as also to clense and purge the body both upwards and downwards sometimes, of tough flegme, and clammy humours, notwithstanding that these qualities are found to ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... repeated orders of their superior officers and attempted to shake the allegiance of the troops for the purpose of overthrowing the Imperial power! A man who was at once soldier and autocrat, by nature as well as by position, could of course admit no extenuating circumstances. The incident stereotyped his character for life, and made him the sworn enemy of liberalism and the fanatical defender of autocracy, not only in his own country, but throughout Europe. In European politics he saw two forces struggling for mastery—monarchy and democracy, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... children. What we should labor to secure is the maximum attention of which the child is capable, and if this is unsatisfactory without external cause, we are to regard the fact as symptomatic of inferior mental ability, not as an extenuating factor or an excuse for lack ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... there are extenuating circumstances, I am letting you off easy," said his father. "No baseball games for you for the rest of the season. Either at the ball park ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... of its ideas; that man does evil gratuitously and when not under compulsion, just as he honors himself by acts of heroism which justice does not exact,—it will follow that man, at the tribunal of his conscience, may be allowed to plead certain extenuating circumstances, but can never be entirely discharged of his guilt; that the struggle is in his heart as well as in his mind; that he deserves now praise, now blame, which is a confession, in either case, ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... She objected to extenuating circumstances in this connection, yet, as she admitted, reason usually underlay all Dr. Knott's statements. She divined, moreover, that reason, just now, touched upon matters inconveniently intimate. She abstained, therefore, from protest or comment. But, since feminine ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... was guilty of only an indiscretion and that he paid back the money later. But the world is too busy to listen. It sees only the court record, and that was against him. The public forgets, or never knows, the extenuating circumstances. But it never forgets two things—the verdict of guilty and the prison. The young man would almost give his life for a chance to wipe it all out, but it is impossible. It stands against him for ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... to picture the black man's side of the story, the author has been compelled to palliate, by interjecting extenuating, often irrelevant circumstances, the ferocity and insatiate lust of greed of his race. He has been unable to tell the story as it was, because his nature, his love of race, his inborn, prejudices and narrowness made him a ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... cases to reconcile the exigencies of war with the call of humanity, and the sense of responsibility was only partially relieved by the knowledge that a higher authority would give due weight to the extenuating circumstances that appealed so often to one's compassion. The introduction of "suspended sentences" by the Army (Suspension of Sentences) Act 1915, with a view to keep a man's rifle in the firing line, and to give an offender the chance of retrieving his liberty ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... rationally— still, etc., etc."—Now as I am in no way inclined to cry peccavi for all my compositions, or to assume that the castigations they received were just and justifiable, I do not consider it advisable to subscribe to the supposed extenuating circumstances of the "Elizabeth". I well know the proverb: "Non enim qui se ipsum commendat, ille probatus est," and do not think I am sinning against it. However it is possible that my resolute friends may, in the end, be right in asserting ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... outraged, next morning when she found she was going to have neither Hugo's life nor his property. But I told her she must bear this cross; that while by law and custom she certainly was entitled to both the man's life and his property, there were extenuating circumstances, and so in Arthur the king's name I had pardoned him. The deer was ravaging the man's fields, and he had killed it in sudden passion, and not for gain; and he had carried it into the royal forest in the hope that that might make detection of the misdoer impossible. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... energetically that Byron's character was as great as his genius, but to do so only timidly. By way of obtaining pardon even for this mite of justice to the friend who was gone, Moore actually condescended to associate himself with those who pleaded extenuating circumstances for Byron's temper, like Walter Scott and other poets. But truth comes out, nevertheless, in Moore; and in the perusal of Byron's truthful and simple letters we find him there displayed in ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... loitering about the Courts, civil and criminal. San Francisco is not the only city in the United States in which defendants in grave criminal cases have recourse to every conceivable and possible means, without scruple, to procure their own acquittal, or the utmost modification of the penalty, by proving extenuating circumstances, or that the indictment magnifies the crimes. This was true of 1856; here, as elsewhere in the land; it is equally true now. Had the merchants and solid citizens then drawn as jurors, fulfilled ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... forward as an extenuating circumstance," replied Eugenie. These words were lost in the noise which the carriage made in rolling over the pavement of La Villette. M. Danglars ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... clerk, and, if there was need, the broken-nosed reporter, were on hand to testify to all that had been said. The young man made no attempt to conceal, but tried to explain more fully the circumstances which led to the act, hoping that in them the justice would find such extenuating elements as would ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... This was not held in law to be any excuse. I had no business to take an oath of that nature, it was asserted by the counsel for the Government. The sentence of death against me was, however, rescinded, on account of the many extenuating circumstances brought forward in my favour; but still I could not be ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... be administered to them. If slavery was ordained of God to the Hebrews, it must, therefore, have been benevolent. If we start with the doctrine that 'Slavery is the sum of all villanies,' no wonder that we find it necessary to use extenuating words and a sort of apologetic, protecting manner of treating the divine oracles. After all it is evidently hard work, with many anti-slavery men to maintain that reverence for the Old Testament ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... how far we are in the grip of our bodies. He alone can judge how far the cruelty of Mr. Elliot was the outcome of extenuating circumstances. But Mrs. Elliot could ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... cross of the Legion of Honor from Napoleon upon the field of battle, he is an ex-colonel, and had it not been for the Restoration, which put him upon half-pay, he would be a general. These are certainly extenuating circumstances. ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... House to be built for her residence; fifteen years later her real husband succeeded to the title of Earl of Bristol, and she was brought up to answer to the charge of bigamy, on which she was proved guilty, but with extenuating circumstances, and she seems to have got off scot-free. She afterwards went abroad, and died in Paris in 1788, aged sixty-eight, after a life of gaiety and dissipation. From the very beginning her behaviour seems to have been scandalous, and she richly ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... expression "to whore," he does so deliberately, and because it corresponds exactly to the thing, and wishes us to understand it in its full strength and compass. In calling the thing by its right name, he silences, beforehand, every attempt at palliating and extenuating it. Of such palliations and extenuations the Jews had abundance. They had not the slightest notion that they had become unfaithful to their God, but considered their intercourse with idols as trifling and allowable attentions which they paid to them.—Manger understands by whoredoms, ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... vindication, justification, warrant; exoneration, exculpation; acquittal &c 970; whitewashing. extenuation; palliation, palliative; softening, mitigation. reply, defense; recrimination &c 938. apology, gloss, varnish; plea &c 617; salvo; excuse, extenuating circumstances; allowance, allowance to be made; locus paenitentiae [Lat.]. apologist, vindicator, justifier; defendant &c 938. justifiable charge, true bill. v.. justify, warrant; be an excuse for &c n.; lend a color, furnish a handle; vindicate; exculpate, disculpate^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... speeches in "this great council of the kingdom" are as admirable pieces of composition as exist in the language. Even the court-party were moderate, extenuating rather than pleading for the late necessities. But the evil spirit of party, however veiled, was walking amidst them all: a letter-writer represents the natural state of feelings: "Some of the parliament talk desperately; while others, of as high a course to enforce money if they ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... has been on my part," admitted Laura dispassionately; "he has merely been the extenuating circumstance. He made a thin, peevish kind of fuss, for instance, when I took the collie puppies from the farm out for a run the ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... years which followed the untoward affair of Waterloo young Tennyson fell much under the influence of Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and the other offenders, and these are extenuating circumstances. By a curious practical paradox, where the realms of poetry and politics meet, the Tory critics seem milder of mood and more Liberal than the Liberal critics. Thus Mr William Morris was certainly a very advanced political theorist; and in theology Mr Swinburne has ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... average number of distant signal equivalents per subscriber. The copyright arbitration royalty panels may consider all factors relating to the maintenance of such level of payments including, as an extenuating factor, whether the industry has been restrained by subscriber rate regulating authorities from increasing the rates for the basic service of ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92 • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... low, but slowly and distinctly—"You forget. I did not send for you; you came to me. You have forged bills to the amount of twelve hundred pounds. Yours is not the case of a ruined merchant or an ignorant over-tempted clerk. In your case a jury"—(she shuddered at that word)—"would find no extenuating circumstances; and if you should fall into the hands of justice you will be convicted, degraded, clothed in a prison-dress, and transported for life. I do not want to speak harshly; but I insist that ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... he's just horrid," was Ruth's final summary of him, after the manner of the swift judgment of women, with no consideration of the extenuating circumstances. Mr. Bigler had no idea that he had not made a good impression on the whole family; he certainly intended to be agreeable. Margaret agreed with her daughter, and though she never said anything to such people, ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... her guilt, and invokes any punishment her brother may adjudge to it; but she will not betray her lover by confessing his name, and she will not forbid Mertoun to come. The Earl's mind does not connect the two. No extenuating circumstance suggests itself. He has loved his young sister with a chivalrous admiration and trust; and he is one of those men to whom a blot in the 'scutcheon is only less terrible than the knowledge that such trust ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... am situated, of course I cannot now ask you to accompany me to Paris, where doubtless the proper authorities would gladly admit extenuating circumstances, and credit you with a sincere repentance. But I put you on your honor to surrender at the ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... certain extenuating circumstances in the cases of those timid people who take refuge in boasting. They are almost invariably the dupes of their own fancies, and for the moment really believe themselves to be capable of endeavors beset by difficulties, ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... altogether.[24] The trial proceeded; they were found guilty, and recommended to mercy, but the Chief Justice never asked the jury upon what grounds, leaving it doubtful whether the jury thought that there were any extenuating circumstances, or whether they were actuated by terror, or mere repugnance to the infliction of capital punishment. It was probably the great importance of the case, and the fact of the Chief of the Commission being against the objection, which induced ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... is one of the passions, having its seat in pleasure. And hyperboles may be employed either to increase or to lessen—since exaggeration is common to both uses. Thus in extenuating an opponent's argument we try to make it ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... one," I urged, tearfully; "could there not be extenuating circumstances? Do pardon him, your Majesty. Just think what that would mean for ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... overheard the quarrel between him and his father, by the flight after commission of the crime, by the discovery of a blood-stained knife dropped on the threshold, by the deposition of the father before death, and lastly, by the confession of the prisoner himself, who admitted the crime, though under extenuating circumstances. The fact that the sister never heard the knife open, although it had three clasps, was asserted to be evidence that the prisoner entered the room with his knife open and intending to commit the crime. This charge of malice prepense was supported by the son's ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... tormentors, feeling that you have in reality been benefited instead of injured. When you have acquired greater power of controlling your thoughts, it will be serviceable to you to think over all the details of the annoyance from which you are suffering, and to consider all the extenuating circumstances of the case; to imagine (this will be good use to make of your vivid imagination) what painful chord you may have unconsciously struck, what circumstances may possibly have led the person who annoys you to suppose that the provocation ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... escaped scot-free. His accomplice, the Count, was executed. The fair Eugenie, under extenuating circumstances—consisting, so far as I could discover of her good looks—got off for six ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Alamo and of the six brave men there put to death by his orders, suggesting in a certain degree the atrocities of the Duke of Cumberland of which I have already spoken. Santa Anna, however, had Indian blood in his veins—an extenuating circumstance that cannot be offered in defense of ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... not because it will give me the least pleasure, but simply because it affords me an opportunity of extenuating myself, which has hitherto been wholly denied ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... 1d.: whence she concludes (wrongly) that it must cost 1/2d. F. C. W. is so beautifully resigned to the certainty of a verdict of "guilty," that I have hardly the heart to utter the word, without adding a "recommended to mercy owing to extenuating circumstances." But really, you know, where are the extenuating circumstances? She begins by assuming that lemonade is 4d. a glass, and sandwiches 3d. each, (making with the 2 given equations, four conditions to be fulfilled by three miserable unknowns!). And, having ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... going to bed, and directed their efforts toward the chintz chamber. "Ah, well," thought M. Pelouse, "the fiance, then, is going to remain over night in the house of his fiancee!" It was droll; yet there were extenuating circumstances. But—such a singular climate, such curious temperaments, such a general chill! And M. Pelouse was presently lost to view among the welcome ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... There were extenuating circumstances in connection with Joubert's failure in the campaign—his age, an illness, and an accident while he was in laager—and it is but charitable to grant that these were fundamentally responsible for his shortcomings, but it is undoubted that he was primarily ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... no dereliction from the Eleventh Commandment, in which people would more joyfully welcome an earthquake than being taken at a similar disadvantage. No explanation or extenuating circumstances can be attempted ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... on this side ought to be abandoned. And I really think that the setting the difficulties and discouragements encountered by the Centurion in the strongest light, will serve my purpose much better than lessening or extenuating them. For, if after being ruined in a manner by storms, diseases, and hardships, they landed rather skeletons than men, on the island of Juan Fernandez; if, after their long cruize in the South Seas, their distresses came to be as great when they took shelter in the island of Tinian; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... eyes of horror. "You will soon get used to the idea," he said. "You see, Wyndham doesn't really want you, and I do. That is the one extenuating circumstance of my villainy. I want you so badly that I don't much care what steps I take to get you. And so long as you continue to hate me as heartily as you do now, just by so much shall I continue to want you. Is that ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... he was incapable of cowardice or meanness. Do justice to that involuntarily guilty arm, do justice to him, whom God, in his mercy, has allowed to sleep in his quiet grave, where you have wept for him, suspecting, it may be, the extenuating truth. Punish, curse the guilty creature before you! Horrified by the crime when once committed, I did my best to hide my share in it. Trusted by my father—I, who was childless—to lead a child to God, I led him to the scaffold! ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac |
