"Extenuating" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... being just in our 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
... pleading guilty; but pleading also that there were extenuating circumstances in the case. We all know the story of the convict, who on the scaffold bit off his mother's ear. By doing so he did not deny the fact of his own crime, for which he was to hang; but he said that his mother's indulgence, when he was a boy, had a good deal to do with it. In ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... carelessly. 'There is too much plunder in the future for Amalek to quarrel with me. When he scents the possibility of the Bedouin cavalry being poured into Syria and Asia Minor, we shall find him more manageable. The only thing now is to heal the present disappointment by extenuating circumstances. If I could screw up a few thousand piastres for backsheesh,' and he looked Eva in the face, 'or could put anything in his way! What do you ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... books written expressly 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 ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... this, and if he did not exactly glory in it, he was at least indifferent to its effect on his reputation with others. But always he had been just. The victims of his displeasure might complain that his retributive measures were harsh, that his forgiveness could not be evoked by even the most extenuating of circumstances, but not that his anger had ever been baseless or the punishment undeserved. Thus he had held always his own self-respect, and from his self-respect had proceeded his iron and ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... court-martial was summoned, 26th of June, at Utrecht, consisting of Hohenlo, Essex, and other distinguished officers. They found that the conduct of the prisoner merited death, but left it to the Earl to decide whether various extenuating circumstances did not justify a pardon. Hohenlo and Norris exerted themselves to procure a mitigation of the young man's sentence, and they excited thereby the governor's deep indignation. Norris, according to Leicester, was in love with the culprit's aunt, and was therefore ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... 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 written things not ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... 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 begged him, if a seizure should take place, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... away, Crowther!" he growled. "What's the good?" And then in his winning way he gripped Crowther's hand hard. "No, I never told her anything," he said. "And I made it impossible for her to ask. I couldn't urge extenuating circumstances because there weren't any. Moreover, it wouldn't have made a ha'porth's difference if I had. So shunt the subject like a good fellow! She must take me at my worst—at my worst, do you ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... 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 strange ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... 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
... colours, appreciates all, and punishes all? Such an 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
... 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 ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... Archdeacon Hare, both by natural tendency and by his position as a Churchman, had 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, presenting all the documents of it, and as it were spreading ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... will, as briefly as may be, relate my experiences, nothing extenuating, and setting ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... drew together. 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 emotion, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... suspicion, and the scorching breath of gossiping conjecture. The time has passed (did it ever really exist?) when the prestige of pastoral office hedged it around with impervious infallibility, and to-day, instead of partial and extenuating leniency, pure and uncontaminated society justly denies all ministerial immunities as regards the rigid mandates of social decorum and propriety,—and the world demands that, instead of drawing heavily upon an indefinite fund of charitable confidence and trust in the clergy, pulpit-people should ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... separately arrested. Their trial and condemnation speedily followed at Lancaster; and in those days it followed, of course, that they were executed. Otherwise their case fell so far within the sheltering limits of what would now be regarded as extenuating circumstances—that, whilst a murder more or less was not to repel them from their object, very evidently they were anxious to economize the bloodshed as much as possible. Immeasurable, therefore, was the interval which divided them from the monster Williams. They perished ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... and many infirmities. But his life is a part of the history of his country. It will be better for his reputation that the chapter of that history which relates to him shall be written by a historian with a full and clear sense of those faults and infirmities, concealing nothing, and extenuating nothing. But also let him set nought down in malice. Mr. Blaine was a brilliant and able man, lovable, patriotic, far-seeing, kind. He acted in a great way under great responsibilities. He was wise ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... plead 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 ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... senator, not being a saint—(s, a, 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 that ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... his eyes, Flannery had him by the collar and had jerked him to the head of the stairs. It is true; he kicked him downstairs. Not insultingly, or with bad feeling, but in a moment of emotional insanity, as the defense would say. This was an extenuating circumstance, and excuses Flannery, but the professor, being a foreigner, could not see the fine point of ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler
... one," I urged, tearfully; "could there not be extenuating circumstances? Do pardon him, your Majesty. Just think what that would mean for the ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... that he acted on impulse, not realizing. You can't judge him by ordinary standards. It isn't fair," pleaded Juliet. "There was probably some extenuating circumstance in the background—something we don't know about. I hope you haven't been very severe. You ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... other 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 ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... confidential 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 prevent a ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... o'clock in the evening, after a long deliberation, the jury returned to court and the foreman read out the answers to the questions put from the bench. The answer was "Yes" to every count of the indictment, a verdict of guilty without extenuating circumstances. ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... 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
... a simple thing; a man had either broken the law or he had not; if he had, he should be punished. "Extenuating circumstances" was a phrase used only by the sentimental and the guilty. I recall, as I write, his telling me with some pride and an amused smile of a certain occasion, when he had wrung a verdict from a jury against their ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... lifelong remorse, and for these we may feel pity, even if we do not understand and cannot enter into the cowardly weakness by which they were driven to betray their comrades. But in the case of the National Scouts there were no extenuating circumstances except perhaps that the greater responsibility rested on the men who paid in dross for the dishonour of ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... 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' for my own original invention ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 1, 1893 • Various
... an extenuating look. "It was some time ago, you see," he said; and then, passing it off, "There are as many as ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... Perfecta herself who is the transcendent figure, the most powerful creation of the book. In her, bigotry and its fellow-vice, hypocrisy, have done their perfect work, until she comes near to being a devil, and really does some devil's deeds. Yet even she is not without some extenuating traits. Her bigotry springs from her conscience, and she is truly devoted to her daughter's eternal welfare; she is of such a native frankness that at a certain point she tears aside her mask of dissimulation and lets Pepe see all the ugliness of her perverted soul. She is wonderfully ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... with precision; and accordingly the law of our day shows an increasing tendency to abstain as much as possible from laying down positive rules on the subject. In France, the jury is left to decide whether the offence which it finds committed has been attended by extenuating circumstances; in England, a nearly unbounded latitude in the selection of punishments is now allowed to the judge; while all States have in reserve an ultimate remedy for the miscarriages of law in the Prerogative of Pardon, universally ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... there were certainly; but extenuating circumstances were seldom admitted in courts-martial, the law and practice of which were severe to the ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... 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
... 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 ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... you have still a work to do. But if not, promise me that, whatever be the event of your voyage, you will publish, in good time, an honest history of your life; extenuating nothing, exaggerating nothing, ashamed to confess or too proclaim nothing. It may perhaps awaken some rich man to look down and take pity on the brains and hearts more noble than his own, which lie struggling in poverty and misguidance among these foul sties, which civilization rears—and ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... before Mr. Justice Yelverton. Sir Francis Bacon, the Solicitor-General, did what he could to save the revengeful Scot, but it was impossible to keep him from the gallows. Robert Creighton, Lord Sanquhar, therefore, confessed himself guilty, but pleaded extenuating circumstances. He had, he said, always believed that Turner boasted he had put out his eye of set purpose, though at the taking up the foils he (Sanquhar) had specially protested that he played as a scholar, and not as one able to contend with a master in the profession. The mode ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... figure in state politics,—at least the one to whom the governor and all the fellows write when they want information about this county. Why? I'll tell you: because he's committed every crime and can't denounce one and goes about the country extenuating things and oiling people up with his palaver. Now he says he is a lawyer—yes, sir, actually claims to be a lawyer, and brought his diploma into court two years ago, and they accepted it. But I know, and the court knows, and the bar knows it was forged; it belonged ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... than a moral alliance; that it does not demand friendship or affection between married couples, provided there be no scandal. You did not absolutely confess the existence of your mistresses, but you pleaded extenuating circumstances. You were very sarcastic upon the subject of those poor, silly women who object to their husbands being gallant toward other women, since, according to you, such gallantry is one of the laws of the polished society to which you belong. You laughed at the ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... 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 you find means to take up the bill which Mr. ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... weak enough at times, as Gubetta says, to jingle words at the end of an idea, or to speak more modestly, at the end of certain measured syllables. The Marquise, cognisant of the offence, but not of the extenuating circumstances, launched forth into praise and flattering hyperbole that lifted me to the level of Byron, Goethe, Lamartine, discovered that I had a satanic look, and went on so that ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... defending James Datchett. I hold no brief for James. On the contrary, I am very decidedly of the opinion that he should not have done it. I merely say that there were extenuating circumstances. Just that. Ext. ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... explanation, please. I dislike the publication of wrong doing. It only leads to imitation and repetition. Beside, even a poor worm of a valet should be shielded if possible from public execration. We could not explain the extenuating circumstances." ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... converted to the Christian religion. Among other topics he inculcates the doctrine of the Church respecting Matrimony. We must suppose that as an inspired writer and a faithful minister of the Word he discharges his duty conscientiously, without suppressing or extenuating one iota of the law. He addresses the Corinthians as follows: "To them that are married not I, but the Lord, commandeth that the wife depart not from her husband. And if she depart that she remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband. ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... 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, ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... knowledge that they had allowed persons to escape who certainly must have been in correspondence with the rebel capital; and with this the crest-fallen L—— and his subordinate prepared to make their report to a superior not much in the habit of excusing failure or making allowance for extenuating circumstances. ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... pleasure he may have in committing the deed, and in the prospect of gratifying his avarice or his revenge? We are hardly so formed as to sympathise at the same moment with the assassin and his victim. The degree of pleasure the former may feel, instead of extenuating, aggravates his guilt, and shews the depth of his malignity. Now the mind revolts against this by mere natural antipathy, if it is itself well-disposed; or the slow process of reason would afford but a feeble resistance to violence and wrong. The will, which is necessary ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... 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, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... 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 by the 'prisoner's ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... not pardon her. She was a princess—how, then, could she pardon one who had dared to revile her? Every crime is easier to pardon than that of high-treason; for every other there may be extenuating circumstances—for that, never; it is a capital crime which a prince never pardons; how then, could Elizabeth have done so?—Elizabeth, Empress by the grace of God, as all are princes and kings by the ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... 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, that at length the generous ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... loving, place themselves in the background. He loved Rosa, in a word, better than he loved himself. And in the solitude of his life at the mill he had worked out a grim problem in his own mind. He had weighed himself carefully in the balance, nothing extenuating. He had taken as precise a measure of Felipe Fortis with his present position and his future prospects. And, of course, the only solution was that Rosa would do well to marry Felipe. So Tomaso withdrew to the outer side of the road and the ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... 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
... do?" asked 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)
... different for 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 awful ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... Colonel's merit and services," remarked the Adjutant, "was dragged off before daylight, and disgraced for what was in its very worst light but a simple blunder, made under the most extenuating of circumstances. Boys, if there be faith in Stanton's pledged word, matters will be set right as soon as the record of the case reaches the War Department. I am informed that he denounced the whole proceeding as an outrage, and telegraphed the General; and we all know that the General ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... pardon stories really is that he would spare himself no trouble to enquire, and to intervene wherever he could rightly give scope to his longing for clemency. A Congressman might force his way into his bedroom in the middle of the night, rouse him from his sleep to bring to his notice extenuating facts that had been overlooked, and receive the decision, "Well, I don't see that it will do him any good to be shot." It is related that William Scott, a lad from a farm in Vermont, after a tremendous march in the Peninsula campaign, volunteered to ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... decent, well-brought-up laddie, and walking down to the school in time for the geometry" (the school believed that the master's eye rested on William Dowbiggin), "ye jumped clothes and all into the Tay." (There was evidently no extenuating feature, and ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... is based the conception of irresponsibility for crimes and the extenuating circumstances admitted by all legislative codes. The responsibility appears greater or less according to our greater or lesser knowledge of the circumstances in which the man was placed whose action is being judged, and according to the greater or lesser interval of time between the commission ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... created an admiration of their fearless daring, which has caused that they have been spared and dismissed unmolested. This sort of feeling had its influence on the present occasion in favor of the prisoners. Another extenuating influence was, that hostilities between the white and red men in the west had as yet been uncommon; and the mutual fury had not been exasperated by murder ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... of such cases considers extenuating circumstances and defective bringing-up, but it has never yet occurred to a single criminalist that people might be likely to commit crime because they could not read or write. Nevertheless, we are frequently in touch with an old peasant as witness who gives the impression ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... had but a moment 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 until they stood before the prison house. There, seeing the inner door ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the Israelites, 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
... bring that 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 no longer had ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a saying to the effect that to know all is to pardon all; and doubtless with an omniscient insight into the causes of character we should find the field of moral responsibility pretty thickly strewn with extenuating circumstances very suitable indeed for consideration by a god who has had a hand in besetting "with pitfall and with gin" the road we are to wander in. But I submit that universal forgiveness would hardly do as a working principle. Even those who are most apt and facile with the ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... visit to Richmond. I have endeavored to sketch it faithfully. The conversation with Mr. Davis I took down shortly after entering the Union lines, and I have tried to report his exact language, extenuating nothing, and coloring nothing that he said. Some of his sentences, as I read them over, appear stilted and high-flown, but they did not sound so when uttered. As listened to, they seemed the simple, natural ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... we are desirous of extenuating the vices of Paul, we must suspect the assembled bishops of the East of publishing the most malicious calumnies in circular epistles addressed to all the churches of the empire, (ap. Euseb. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... judge as well as witness, my sentence might have been stern as that of destiny itself. But, still, no trait of original nobility of character, no struggle against temptation,—no iron necessity of will, on the one hand, nor extenuating circumstance to be derived from passion and despair, on the other,—no remorse that might coexist with error, even if powerless to prevent it,—no proud repentance that should claim retribution as a meed,—would go unappreciated. True, again, I might ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ready-made from religion, general moral principles, and clings to them so strongly that they become her very own, for they permeate her system. The simpler the differential quality of good and evil, the more absolute and merciless it grows. In this ethical code there are no extenuating circumstances. As according to it the wife belongs to her husband, she who gives herself to another does wrong. There are no discussions, no considerations, or reflections,—there is the right hand for the righteous, the left for the ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... round the lamps, and falling, more or less singed, on the cloth of the table. To these drawbacks Gleeson earnestly attributed the bad luck which usually attended the play of his opponents, and the extraordinary strokes with which he was able to win the hardest fought games; but not even these extenuating circumstances could quite reconcile the miners to the constant loss they suffered at his hands, and so it came about that he was the first one ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... Carlyle's complaints of "The Dial's" short-comings Emerson did not pretend to give any satisfactory answer, but his plea of guilty, with extenuating circumstances, is ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... great many kind things, which were great, like himself, and, extenuating our crime, intimated to me that he could no more part with me than I could with him; so we both, as I may say, even against our light and against our conviction, concluded to sin on; indeed, his affection to the child was one great tie to ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... literary men show, as might well have been supposed, that it was not lacking in freedom. Greene himself has left an account of one of these conversations, when he expressed, Bohemia-wise, his opinions of a future life and, without Aucassin's extenuating plea that he was love-mad, he exclaimed: "Hell, quoth I, what talke you of hell to me? I know if I once come there, I shall have the company of better men than my selfe; I shall also meete with some madde knaves in that place, and so long as I shall not sit there alone, my care is ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... doings, patriotism, and old Rome's ruin. To these let there be added—to speak mathematically—open-hearted Manlius; and let there follow certain disceptatious converse about Nero, Manlius excusing him, extenuating his vices by his temptations, giving military anecdotes of his earlier virtues, and in fact striving to make the most of him, a very gentle monster: Galba throwing in, sarcastically, blacker shadows. After disputation, the father ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... to disallow her vows. It is supposed by, some expositors that by a parity of reason minor sons should have been under the same restrictions as daughters, but if it were intended, it is extraordinary that daughters alone should have been mentioned. Scott, in extenuating the custom, says: "Males were certainly allowed more liberty than females; the vows of the latter might be adjudged more prejudicial to families; or the sons being more immediately under the father's tuition might be thought less liable to be inveigled ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... indictment, and lose the advantage of those distinctions made by legislators on public grounds, between crime and crime; or the executive might delude a prisoner with fallacious hopes of mercy, to prevent the disclosure of extenuating facts to conceal official wrong; while ignorance of the details of a crime, might destroy the moral ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... "don't say that! I can't have made the case clear. You are too big, too comprehending, Mr. Hodder, to have a hard-and-fast rule. There must be times—extenuating circumstances—and I believe the canons make it optional for a clergyman to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... royalty fee shall be permitted based on any reduction in the 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 ...
— 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.
... decide against them, there is no crime within the knowledge of man, of which they are not severally accused and considered guilty, without any extenuating circumstances. ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... follow his master's example. He was precisely in that situation in which it is madness to attempt a vindication; for his guilt was so clear that no address or eloquence could obtain an acquittal. On the other hand, there were in his case many extenuating circumstances which, if he had acknowledged his error and promised amendment, would have procured his pardon. The most rigid censor could not but make great allowances for the faults into which so young a man had been seduced ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was not the cause of his inward grief. That would have been comparatively powerless to disturb him, had he not lost his own respect. He quailed before his own thoughts; he was dishonoured in his own eyes. His perplexity had not yet sufficiently cleared away to allow him to see the extenuating circumstances of the case; not to say the fact that the peculiar mental condition in which he was at the time, removed the case quite out of the class of ordinary instances of cowardice. He condemned himself more severely ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... of Dr. Johnson when you come to read it, as you will be sure to do by and by, has left a living picture of this great and good man for all future generations to enjoy, extenuating nothing to his quaintness, directness, and proneness to contradiction for its own sake, yet unveiling everywhere the deep piety and fine magnanimity of his character. He suffered much, but never complained, ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... and 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, and the ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... 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 the complex set of influences which produce these crimes. ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... condition. Our unwillingness to do this, often betrays to others, (not seldom it first discovers to ourselves) that we entertain a secret distrust of our own character and conduct. Instead also of extenuating to yourself the criminality of the vicious tempers under consideration, strive to impress your mind deeply with a sense of it. For this end, often consider seriously, that these rough and churlish tempers are a direct contrast to the "meekness and gentleness ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... But in this case it can be shown that there were extenuating circumstances. We can make a showing of facts to demonstrate that the killing of Carter Anson ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... inspired me with a curious conceit of impertinent respect. In person the very embodiment of that insignificant vulgarity, without extenuating circumstances, which is the type in caricature of the ultimate cockney, he possessed a force of mind and an earnestness of purpose that absolutely redeemed him on close acquaintanceship. I found him all he had stated himself to be, ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... 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 ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... talk of 'circumstances'; he heard the story from other sources; my confession came too tardily, it seems. I could no longer plead extenuating circumstances: I could not demean ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... title, and caused Kingston 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 ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... map affect your case or influence the decision of the jury? By the way, there is no need for you to worry about the result; I have had a frightful lot of experience in criminal cases, and so be assured you are all right: extenuating circumstances, you know. But—oh, yes, there is one thing more I wanted to tell you. A fresh witness is going to be called at the examination; let me see, what's his name? Dollon: that's it: the ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... which the individual had to contend may have been exceptional and unexpected, the measures which he adopted may have had untoward and unnatural results, and the crisis of the hour may have called for genius of a transcendent order. But in the case of Kiaking not one of these extenuating facts can be pleaded. His path had been smoothed for him by his predecessor, his difficulties were raised by his own indifference, and the consequences of his spasmodic and ill-directed energy were scarcely ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... two other gentlemen with you." Bessie, though conscious of her wickedness, saw no harm in extenuating it. ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... probable, 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 ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... 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, ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... the Times was brought. They had reluctantly agreed, saying there did not appear to be a shadow of doubt on the fact of Dixon's having killed Mr. Dunster, only hoping there might prove to be some extenuating circumstances, which Ellinor had probably recollected, and which she was desirous of ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... appealed for a mitigation of the extreme penalty. "While he was in command at Winchester, in December 1861, a soldier who was charged with striking his captain was tried by court-martial and sentenced to be shot. Knowing that the breach of discipline had been attended with many extenuating circumstances, some of us endeavoured to secure his pardon. Possessing ourselves of all the facts, we waited upon the general, who evinced the deepest interest in the object of our visit, and listened with evident sympathy to our plea. There was moisture in his ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... in the eyes of the moralist, there were extenuating circumstances in Pons' case. Man only lives, in fact, by some personal satisfaction. The passionless, perfectly righteous man is not human; he is a monster, an angel wanting wings. The angel of Christian mythology has nothing but a head. On earth, the righteous person is the ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... did not understand how to differentiate between the various charges very well, they decided it should be on all four, and a recommendation to mercy added. Afterward this last was eliminated, however; either he was guilty or he was not. The judge could see as well as they could all the extenuating circumstances—perhaps better. Why tie his hands? As a rule no attention was paid to such recommendations, anyhow, and it only ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... week he was able once more to resume his place in school. The Doctor had a good deal of conversation with him with respect to his conduct towards Blackall; and though he acknowledged that there were many extenuating circumstances, still, he pointed out, that he, as master of the school, would not allow the law to be taken out of his hands and exercised by another, ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... offence; and, after all, the girl is impulsive and has never been subject to control, and there are extenuating circumstances," said the Professor. "My dear," he continued, laying his hand on his wife's very plump shoulder, "you must speak to Lucy from yourself, not from me, dear; for I am too tired. But you must speak to ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... ineffectual, as to end in the production of Cornelias who entrust their child-jewels to Charlotte Winsors for the better keeping of them; and of sons like that one who, the other day, in France, beat his mother to death with a stick; and was brought in by the jury, 'guilty, with extenuating circumstances.' ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... had a history. It is told in a few words: her father sold her to the captain of a trading-vessel for a cask of brandy. The "extenuating circumstances" in this case are that Oundo had been invited on board the captain's ship, plied with brandy, and when nearly drunk assented to the shameless bargain. When Oundo became sober he repented of his act, and the more ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... except that unseen load which seems to trouble her spirit, and she believes absolutely in your innocence. By the way, why did you never explain to her or to me or to any of your friends the real history of the case? There must at least have been extenuating circumstances, and we might be able ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... though she would not for all the world 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 ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... really 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 life. ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... warlike crime-avenging materials? And to think that within a month or two he was going to leave the Philippines, and the article could not be published in Spain, since how could he say those things about the criminals of Madrid, where other ideas prevailed, where extenuating circumstances were sought, where facts were weighed, where there were juries, and so on? Articles such as his were like certain poisonous rums that are manufactured in Europe, good enough to be sold among the negroes, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... distance from the others and guarded by their friends. Later, an assembly was convened to decide what should be done. The majority declared the deed murder, and demanded retribution. Mr. Eddy and others pleaded extenuating circumstances and proposed that the accused should leave the camp. After heated discussion this compromise was adopted, the assembly voting that Mr. Reed should be banished from ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... of the trial was such that the dark secrets of this sinister affair were never brought from their murky depths. And with neither the guilt nor the innocence of the victim proven, the amazing verdict was rendered, "Guilty, with extenuating circumstances." ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... 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: ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... a stir as the murder had done, and gave rise, in that period when "extenuating circumstances" had not been invented, to long and angry discussions. Indeed, the marquis either was guilty of complicity or was not: if he was not, the punishment was too cruel; if he was, the sentence was too light. Such was the opinion of Louis ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 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 us will be his final ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... satisfactory way, it ceases to occupy space in my shop, just as would an imperfect wheel. The utmost kindness is shown to all animals at Four Oaks. This rule is the most imperative one on the place, and the one in which no "extenuating circumstances" are taken into account. There are two equal reasons for this: the first is a deep-rooted aversion to cruelty in all forms; and the second is, it pays. But kindness to animals doesn't imply the necessity of keeping useless ones or those ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... one of the principal subjects of conversation at dinner. Villebecque, the manager of the troop, had married the actress Stella, once celebrated for her genius and her beauty; a woman who had none of the vices of her craft, for, though she was a fallen angel, there were what her countrymen style extenuating circumstances in her declension. With the whole world at her feet, she had remained unsullied. Wealth and its enjoyments could not tempt her, although she was unable to refuse her heart to one whom she deemed worthy of possessing it. ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... 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 ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... favour the historical 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 human ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... 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. ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... the narrative, had remained motionless, his features drawn and colorless. Fully realizing that his father would not have maliciously manufactured this evidence against the girl, his mind could conceive no extenuating circumstance to clear it away. That she had deceived him was not beyond the consent of reason. He was a man of the world and of the time, well aware of possible duplicity, and further, that the age offered numerous examples of women ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... the only creature who could suppose there might be any extenuating circumstances in the case, unknown to the society of Hertfordshire; her mild and steady candour always pleaded for allowances, and urged the possibility of mistakes—but by everybody else Mr. Darcy was condemned as the ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen |
