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Justify   Listen
verb
Justify  v. i.  
1.
(Print.) To form an even surface or true line with something else; to fit exactly.
2.
(Law) To take oath to the ownership of property sufficient to qualify one's self as bail or surety.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Justify" Quotes from Famous Books



... constantly referred himself back to the fact that he was a Congressman, at a salary of six thousand dollars. His economy was too deeply ingrained to be easily wiped out. He seldom got into a street-car that he did not hold a mental debate with himself to justify the extravagance. ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland

... the Great Basin, it will be remembered, belongs to the Alta California, and has no application to Oregon, whose capabilities may justify a separate remark. Referring to my journal for particular descriptions, and for sectional boundaries between good and bad districts, I can only say, in general and comparative terms, that, in that branch of agriculture which implies the cultivation of grains and staple crops, it would be inferior ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... looking hurriedly around. Perhaps a sudden tremendous suspicion may have flashed into his mind, and he was seeking to justify it by making some sort ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson

... burdened by no delusion concerning the place he occupied in Connie's horizon. But before the breathless chase of excitement in which she lived, the frenzied invocation of pleasure that filled her thoughts, he found himself groping blindly for some meaning which would explain the thing it could not justify. ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... iniquity and oppression would not dare to lift a hand against him, though they knew it was the business of his life to annihilate their sway in their most secret dominion. How admirably did the progress of his travels evince and justify the pure and enlightened confidence of his spirit! All dangers, all difficulties, vanish before his gentleness, his regularity, his perseverance. Insolence and ferocity seem to turn, at his approach, into docility and respect. Every hardship he endures, every step he advances, in his wide ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley

... proposition or some other unstressed word, or lines in which there is a syllable too many—abound in their plays. They destroyed blank verse as a musical and resonant poetic instrument by letting this element of variety outrun the sparing and skilful use which alone could justify it. But they were decadent in other and deeper ways than that. Sentiment in their plays usurps the place of character. Eloquent and moving speeches and fine figures are no longer subservient to the presentation of character in action, but are set down for their own sake, "What strange self-trumpeters ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair

... give conclusive results on many points. Until the last few years the Agricultural Experiment Station has devoted little or no time to the problem of reclaiming strip mine spoil. The area of the state that is involved, less than 1/4 of 1%, has been too small to justify the use of their limited funds. However, since funds have been made available to that Station, through the Industry, to establish research fellowships, the Station has given whole hearted cooperation. The information ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various

... contribution to political science which your Gladstone praised as the greatest "ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man"? If "peace hath her victories no less renown'd than war," this achievement may well justify your study and awaken your admiration; for, as I have already said and cannot too strongly emphasize, it was the work of the English-speaking race, of men who, shortly before they entered upon this great work ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck

... passages are daring, but greatly daring. So great is the subtlety, the variety, the art, that they never fail of their intended effect. They are justifiable because they justify themselves—partly by their lofty and dignified content, partly of course by their sheer artistry. But when the same thing is attempted by unskilful hands it fails ingloriously. We say it has "a palpable design upon us," and balk. Gibbon and Burke, as inheritors ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum

... of the working class. But it is not so easy to know who are the working class. However, assume again that the census knows how to classify them. Then there were roughly 104,000 men and 107,000 women who ought to have been questioned. They possessed the answers which would justify or refute the casual phrase about the "ignorant workers" or the "intelligent workers." But nobody could think of questioning the ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... Naville called the "Hypostyle Hall," possessed a colonnade of such beauty that it would seem to justify the statement of Herodotus, that the temple of Bubastis was one of the finest in Egypt. The columns were either splendid red granite monoliths, with lotus-bud or palm-leaf capitals; or, a head of Hathor from which fell two long locks. These columns probably belonged to the twelfth dynasty. ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... which even the good sense of Plutarch scarcely penetrated. Our age, more analytical and freer from illusions, in the great man seeks to find the individual. It is by this searching test that the present puts aside all illusions, and that the future will seek to justify its judgments. In the council of state, the statesman is in his robe, on the battlefield the warrior is beneath his armor, but in his bedchamber, in his undress, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... instances which appeared at first to indicate a gradual transition, yet which instances have been shown by further investigation and discovery not to indicate truly anything of the kind. Thus at one time the remains of Labyrinthodonts, which up till then had been discovered, seemed to justify the opinion that as time went on, forms had successively appeared with{135} more and more complete segmentation and ossification of the backbone, which in the earliest forms was (as it is in the lowest fishes now) a soft continuous rod or notochord. Now, however, ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... from the staff, of which resignation too much has been said. It in no way affected the regard for him which our chief entertained, and the occasion of his leaving the staff was not one, I thought, to justify my friend in so doing, as indeed I ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... laughed. Her beauty entranced him. He had scars enough to justify him in keeping silence under her ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page

... that it was the true interest of this Court to follow that line of conduct, than from any confidence in the real good will or good faith of government here. Its apparent jealousy of our rising importance, and of our vicinity to their American possessions, joined to its past conduct, I think will justify these sentiments. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... with Austria, in which he received valuable aid from the Poles, Napoleon increased the Grand Duchy of Warsaw by lands taken from that country. Tardy and ungenerous though his action had been, he had thus done something to justify the hopes of the Poles that he would one day reconstitute their Commonwealth as a whole. Hence it will be clear with what enthusiasm Poland, and still more Lithuania, awaited the outcome of a great war between Napoleon and Russia, such as was evidently approaching in the year 1811. ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... the inquisitive Reuben, not finding any cloven feet in his furtive observations, but encountering always either the rosy Suke, or "Scamp," (which was Nat's pet fighting-dog,) or the shoemaker, or the round-faced Mr. Boody himself, could justify and explain his aunt's charge of the tavern wickedness only by distributing it over them all. And when, one Sunday, Miss Suke appeared at meeting (where she rarely went) in hat all aflame with ribbons, Reuben, sorely ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... V. Schweibs, of Berlin, made the hundreds of corrections, many reversing the meanings of former readings, which almost justify calling the revised Jagor translation a new one. Numerous hitherto-untranslated passages likewise appear. There have been left out the illustrations, from crude drawings obsolete since photographic pictures have familiarized the scenes and objects, and also the consequently ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... intelligent and respectable class of people; but upon this occasion they lost all patience and self-control, and proceeded to an extreme measure, which only the peculiar circumstances of the case could in any degree justify. Without previous notice, they assembled in large numbers upon the night of the 31st of January, with a firm determination to correct for once the mildness of the laws, and to take the punishment o the criminal into their own hands. They ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... rather severe on Drusie, who had neither said nor done anything to justify Hal's scornful remarks. But he was too annoyed to be fair, and as a punishment for what he chose to call Drusie's bragging, he tucked his bat under his arm, and told them that he was not going to play ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler

... attractive charm of the religion, both to the initiated and to those who were seeking to be admitted to the secrets of the Endowment,—for the Endowed alone possess the privilege of a plurality of wives. But until the community had become firmly fixed in Utah, no one dared to justify or even to proclaim the doctrine. At the time of the passage of the Organic Act of the Territory, in the autumn of 1850, and repeatedly during the next two years, prominent Mormons at Washington and New York denied its existence, with the most solemn asseverations. It was on Sunday, August ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... accepted the invitation. She further privately told madame Wang in clear terms, that every kind of daily expense and general contribution would have to be entirely avoided and withdrawn as that would be the only thing to justify her to make any protracted stay. And madame Wang aware that she had, in her home, no difficulty in this line, promptly in fact complied with ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... to the equalisation of the spirit duties in the two countries, and the extension of the Income Tax to Ireland. The special circumstances of Ireland do not appear to have received due consideration at this time. Many arguments of a general character might be employed to justify the equalisation of the spirit duties, and the imposition of an Income Tax, but Ireland was entitled under the Act of Union to such exemptions and abatements as her circumstances might require, ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... business about him, occurred, in all probability, in the Almanac, in the list of Scotch advocates. Both were of course high Tories,—I was quite sure of that,—zealous in behalf of the Establishment, though previous to the Disruption they had not cared for it a pin's point,—and prepared to justify the virtual suppression of the toleration laws in the case of the Free Church. I was thus decidedly guilty of what old Dr. More calls a prosopolepsia,—i.e. of the crime of judging men by their looks. At dinner, however, we gradually ate ourselves into conversation: we differed, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... most obliging. I profess I vaunt myself very happy in your kindness. Be sure that I shall know how to justify you." ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... Such a vessel ought to have been a match, at her own distance, for a British brig-sloop, but we never hear of any such engagements, and there were several instances where privateers gave up, without firing a shot, to a force superior, it is true, but not enough so to justify the absolute tameness of the surrender. [Footnote: As when the Epervter, some little time before her own capture, took without resistance the Alfred, of Salem, mounting 16 long nines and having ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... your gift. Perhaps I act selfishly in taking it, but a day may come when I shall justify that selfishness to you. In the meantime, once again farewell. You are my only friend, and these are the saddest words I ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... of a form so commanding that a king might exult at the prospect of his crown descending on such a head; of a perfection of strength and masculine excellence that will almost justify the dangerous exultation of health and vigor; of a reason that is riper than his years; of a virtue of proof; of all qualities that we respect, and which come of study and not of accident, and yet a youth condemned of men ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... could, nevertheless, try to make himself acknowledged, rend France with a long civil war, win maybe over Louis XIII.'s son, by alleging the right of primogeniture, and substitute a new race for the old race of the Bourbons. These motives, if they did not entirely justify Louis XIV.'s rigour, serve at least to excuse him; and the prisoner, too well-informed of his fate, could be grateful to him for not having listened to more rigorous counsels, counsels which politics have often employed against those who had pretensions ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... parable of the unprofitable servant, the parable of the man without a wedding garment, and the parable of the unsavoury salt, do each of them justify this for truth. (Matt 25:24,29, 22:11-13, 5:13) That of the unprofitable servant is to show us the sloth and idleness of some professors; that of the man without a wedding garment is to show us how some professors have ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... unthinkable—that she had the sense of infinity within her. Thyrsis strove to make her see that one was to wreak one's hunger for infinity at each moment, and not put it off to any future age; that life was a thing for itself, and needed no sequel to justify it. "It is a free gift, and we have no claim upon it; we must take it on the terms of ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... the most laborious practice or the fiercest determination to recover my lost form with it was rewarded with any appreciable amount of success. After a time I got back to playing it in some sort of fashion, but I was never so good with it again as to justify me in sticking to it in preference to the cleek, so since then I have practically abandoned it. This, I am led to believe, is a fairly common experience among golfers, so the moral would seem to be, that you should make the most of ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon

... opinion is that we are commanded by a madman. Nothing else can account for the extraordinary vagaries of Captain Craigie. It is fortunate that I have kept this journal of our voyage, as it will serve to justify us in case we have to put him under any sort of restraint, a step which I should only consent to as a last resource. Curiously enough it was he himself who suggested lunacy and not mere eccentricity as the secret of his strange conduct. He was standing upon the bridge about ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... she knew that Sandro would make people think there was. Nor did she share in any serious degree the fears which afflicted her nephew's wife; Sandro always had a case, and she did not doubt that he would have a very good one whereby to justify any proceedings he might take in regard to the Alethea. So she lived frugally, hoped magnificently, and came often to Grosvenor Road to pick up what crumbs of information she could. Here she met Lady Castlefort and nodded her rusty bonnet at that ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope

... you have them completely at your disposition, and during the Voluntaries you can consult them with the rest of the public in the library; it is not thought best that study should be carried on throughout the day, and the results seem to justify this theory. If you want to read a book merely for pleasure, you are allowed to take it out and live with it as long as you like; the copy you have is immediately replaced with another, so that you do not feel hurried and are not obliged to ramp through ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells

... justify this opinion. He did not appear to have any peculiar pursuit, unless such might be called a very earnest attempt to make Phyllis desist from her favourite preface of 'I'll tell you what,' and to reform her habit of saying, ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge

... its highest excellence only when it springs from upright motives and confines itself to truth. If there is exaggeration or caricature, as is generally the case, there still must be a substantial basis of fact. No amount of intellectual brilliancy or artistic skill can justify ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter

... the lady you mentioned till your lips pronounced it; and if it be she I danced with, I protest I never saw her face: and as for the meaning of the other lady's treatment of me, it must certainly be occasioned by some mistake, having offered nothing to any of the sex that could justify ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... The trooper attempted to justify himself; but Lord Ulswater saw his intoxication in an instant, and, secretly vexed that the complaint was not on the other side, ordered the soldier to his quarters, with a brief but sure threat ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Czernin's answer referring mainly to my speech of January 8 is couched in very friendly terms. He sees in my statements a sufficiently encouraging approach to the views of his own Government to justify his belief that they afford a basis for a thorough discussion by both Governments ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... thing on which good government depends; neither can this identity of interest be secured by the mere conditions of election. I was not at all satisfied with the mode in which my father met the criticisms of Macaulay. He did not, as I thought he ought to have done, justify himself by saying, "I was not writing a scientific treatise on politics, I was writing an argument for parliamentary reform." He treated Macaulay's argument as simply irrational; an attack upon the reasoning faculty; an example of the saying of Hobbes, that When reason is against ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill

... acquainted with them till that moment, and therefore not answerable for their former existence: but now they could no longer plead ignorance concerning them. They had seen them brought directly before their eyes, and they must decide for themselves, and must justify to the world and their own consciences the facts and principles upon ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... the progress of this cause, that there is not only a long, connected, systematic series of misdemeanors, but an equally connected system of maxims and principles invented to justify them. Upon both of these ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... professional character as a Public Reader. It will be then seen, immediately those facts have come to be examined in their chronological order, that they were sufficiently remarkable in many respects, as an episode in the life of a great author, to justify their being chronicled in some way or other, if only as constituting in their aggregate a wholly unexampled incident ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent

... as vindicating wrongs for which no courts of law, however upright, can afford redress. Among the most polished nations, “the point of honour” has been held to justify an injured man for challenging his adversary to mortal combat. But the duel, from its first origin among our Scandinavian ancestors, savage as they were, and through all its forms, whether legalised or treated as felonious, to its last shape ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... the doctrine of the "native-soilers," he places at the foundation of the majority of his works one of the two following types: (1) The gentle type of the man overflowing with tender affection of utter self-sacrifice, ready to forgive everything, to justify everything, to bear himself compassionately towards the treachery of the girl he loves, and to go on loving her, even to the point of removing the obstacles to her marriage with another man, and so forth. Such is the hero of "Crime and Punishment"; such is Prince Myshkinh in "The Idiot," and so ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... that time for want of provisions. It will be seen in the succeeding section, that the Minion actually proceeded on her voyage; on the 25th February 1562, and the unsuccessful events of that voyage fully justify ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... your colonel, on the advice of the people of Townsville who know me as one of its leadin' an' trusted citizens, havin' selected me as the guide of this trip. I was jest tellin' you what would happen to you if I didn't justify the confidence of ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the parliament of Mirlingois, in Mirlingues, was come to him with a writ of summons to cite and warn him personally to appear before the reverend senators of the high court there, to vindicate and justify himself at the bar of the crime of prevarication laid to his charge, and to be peremptorily instanced against him in a certain decree, judgment, or sentence lately awarded, given, and pronounced by him; and that, therefore, he had taken ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... affects great spirits, and to be sanguine about a change of men and of measures. Je n'en crois rien. Charles said last night if I would give him five guineas he would give me 100 if I lost my place. He must get one himself to justify my accepting the proposal. The match of tennis stark naked was not played, which I am sorry for. Another red Ribbon vacant, Sir C. Montagu. Clinton anticipated that which ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue

... tacit emulation of good offices between the wife and husband, who had, for so many years, lived in a state of partial indifference. Mr. Uhler urged the procuring of a domestic, in place of the girl who had left them, but Mrs. Uhler said no—their circumstances would not justify the expense. Mr. Uhler said they could very well afford it, and intimated something about an ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur

... themselves, or as he saw them. Caiaphas—who that has seen Burgomaster Lang in that leading role can feel anything but admiration and sympathy for the worthy chief of the Sanhedrin? He had everything on his side to justify him. Law, respectability, patriotism, religious expediency, common sense. Against him there was only this poor vagabond from Nazareth—and the Invisible. But Caiaphas, like other men, does not see the Invisible and he ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead

... and the other a mere Name, to signify its Absence; not that Vice is therefore a mere Name, to signify the Absence of Virtue, for Comparisons seldom hold good in every minute Particular; but there is a Parity between the two Cases, sufficient to justify my bringing in the one, as an Illustration of the other. There is no Knowledge more certain, than what Mankind commonly have of Good and Evil; and he who, in order to serve any private Scheme of Religion, ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch

... goods of the same kind carried on any German lines "under similar conditions of transport, for example, as regards length of route."[62] As a non-reciprocal provision this is an act of interference in internal arrangements which it is difficult to justify, but the practical effect of this,[63] and of an analogous provision relating to passenger traffic,[64] will much depend on the interpretation of the phrase, "similar ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... antecedents of the Jesuits as a body, and their declared principles of "moral theology," were such as raise no presumption against them even in unfriendly minds. But we must be content with thankfully acknowledging that divine change which has made it impossible longer to boast of or even justify such deeds, and which leaves no ground among neighbor Christians of the present day for harboring mutual suspicions which, to the Christian ministers of French and English America of two hundred years ago and less, it ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... given the reserves on the road to "Form square." At this crisis the fire of the enemy came heavily to our right flank, as well as into the front and rear of our force in advance. I saw nothing to justify the first impression that we were to be attacked by cavalry. I gave the word to "Re-form column," with the view of deploying, when to my surprise I found the rear of the reserve which had formed ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... living organism, that they have to a very large extent, if not entirely, cut him off from the general operation of that process of Natural Selection and survival of the fittest which up to their appearance had been the law of the living world. They justify the view that Man forms a new departure in the gradual unfolding of Nature's predestined scheme. Knowledge, reason, self-consciousness, will, are the attributes of Man."(1) It has been a slow and gradual growth, and not until within the past century has science ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler

... before the nursery grate, and should be strict in not allowing your child to play with fire. If he still persevere in playing with it, when he has been repeatedly cautioned not to do so, he should be punished for his temerity. If anything would justify corporal chastisement, it would surely be such an act of disobedience. There are only two acts of disobedience that I would flog a child for—namely, the playing with fire and the telling of a lie! If after various warnings and wholesome corrections he still persist, it would be well to let him ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... 25, 27) with Shelley's still finer "Hymn of Apollo." There is hardly any instance of direct verbal resemblance; but the metre, the strain of sentiment, the oratorical pose, the mental and moral attitude of the two poems are so much alike as to justify the assertion that the younger owes its form and much of ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton

... farewell to Moe, Abe, Leon, and Hymie Salzman, at the Gare St. Lazare, he uttered words of encouragement and cheer which failed to justify themselves after the ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass

... Mr. Duge," the ambassador said, "that I cannot recognize you as possessed of such authority as to justify the use of the word 'must.' I am in the habit of doing what I ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... horribly dirty when entered, and where there are eight or nine months of very hard winter—the Commission passed on to Kars, which became its headquarters. The heroic defence of that fortress was then recent, and it is still of sufficient interest as a military episode to justify the quotation of the evidence Gordon, with his characteristic desire to be well informed, collected on the spot while the events themselves were fresh. For convenience' sake, his remarks on Kars and the whole campaign ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... until the tears ran down his cheeks because his man-of-all-work thought that boiled oil should be called "biled ile"; but his attempts to create and sustain humorous characters, such as the singing-master in The Last of the Mohicans, justify Balzac's comments on Cooper's "profound and radical impotence for the comic." Nothing could be more comic than his role of lecturer to the American people upon refinements of social usage and manners. The many who were guilty of the vulgarities which he wished to correct ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... them. Her unanswered wonder was but the beginning of a long chain of puzzlements, but the reader is free to know that the smile of M. de Mauves was a reply to a postscript affixed by the old lady to a letter addressed to him by her granddaughter as soon as the girl had been admitted to justify the latter's promises. Mademoiselle de Mauves brought her letter to her grandmother for approval, but obtained no more than was expressed in a frigid nod. The old lady watched her with this coldness while she proceeded ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James

... wise," said Mr. Toombs, "to accept a part of our just rights, if we can have the residue unimpaired and uncompromised, but nothing can justify a voluntary surrender of principle, indispensable to the safety and ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

... class dispersed, that she might prove to her the intimacy of Ginevra and the young man by entering the studio and surprising them together. But Laure refused to condescend to an act of espial which no curiosity could justify, and she consequently became the object of ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac

... only river in the island is just at the proper distance from the probable site of the city and palace of the king, to justify the princess Nausicaa having had resort to her chariot and to luncheon when she went with the maidens of the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... countries. Sometimes it may still be regarded as a necessity to include small groups of alien race and language in different states in order to ensure strategically safe frontiers. But, with the exception of the necessity for self-defence, there is nothing to justify what has been done ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti

... wives an account of the appearance of the place where the grand council was to be held. Jock thrust himself forward, and seizing a bundle of green boughs, entered the barn. Certainly there was nothing here to justify any suspicions. The soldiers were laughing and joking as they made the arrangements; clean rushes lay piled against a wall in readiness to strew over the floor at the last moment; boughs had been nailed against the ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... obtain possession of their arms and horses. This, at least, was the interpretation of what the Inca said given by Felipillo; but he was a malicious youth, who bore Atahuallpa no good will, and the Spaniards were only too ready to believe anything that seemed to justify their cruel deeds. Pizarro replied that the fate of the Inca was the lot that fell to all who resisted the white men, but he bade Atahuallpa take courage, for the Spaniards were a generous race, warring only against those who would not submit themselves. That same night the general reviewed ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... marry is expressed. It has been held in this state that a marriage was legal, where the woman intended present marriage, though the man did not, where they had assumed the relation of husband and wife, and his conduct had been such as to justify her in believing that he had intended present marriage. Marriages by consent only, are not rendered void by a provision punishing parties for solemnizing marriages in any other manner ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson

... Mr. Devar," said the detective, apparently yielding to a sudden resolve. "I think I can make use of you—justify your presence, that is. Tell your chauffeur to wait for ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... innocent of any obvious offence, is wicked. At one time, moreover, he accuses the playwrights of recommending the vices which they should satirize and at other times denies that even the most sincere satiric intention can justify the lively representation of wickedness. But none of his opponents actually seized the opportunity to completely clarify the issues. Vanbrugh, it is true, makes some real points in his "A Short Vindication of The Relapse and The Provok'd Wife", and John Dennis, ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet

... quality of her honesty. Yet she trusted him! He was made giddy by a desire, which he fought down, to justify himself before her. His eye beheld her now as the goddess with the scales in her hand, weighing and accepting with outward calm the verdict of the balance . . . . Outward calm, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... safety with the eyes of housekeeper and governess upon her—but when the eyes of a tired, disillusioned, and lonely man became fixed upon her, it was time for Patricia to flee. But she did not. Instead she gripped her philosophy of "grab"—and really managed to justify it to a certain extent—while ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock

... I would not myself destroy papers of mine which were sacred to me for personal reasons—but then I never would call this natural weakness, virtue—nor would I, as a teacher of the public, announce it and attempt to justify it as an example to other minds ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... the use of these simple remedies does not justify their abuse. They may make great claims while their use is really limited. Do not rely upon them to do ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... offense against one's private sensibilities. But indecencies, exhibitionism and bawdiness of such a nature that if done on a reservation would warrant trial of the individual for unbecoming conduct will justify intervention by the officer ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... endless mangrove swamp impresses the imagination strongly by its dolefulness. Here are hundreds of square miles all along the coast nothing but swamp and slime, loaded with rank and useless vegetation, which has not even beauty to justify its existence, teeming with alligators, serpents, and other vengeful creatures. There is a mournfulness in seeing the pointed fruit of the mangrove drop down through the still air into the slime beneath, with the rootlet already formed ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... very angry if I say that you haven't yet looked thoroughly round this one? The idea probably came to you as an impulse—a very fine impulse, I admit; and, instead of fairly weighing pros and cons, you have simply been hunting up excuses that will justify you in carrying it out; because, for the moment, Evelyn seems a little discontented with things ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... a ridiculous position, Davis had to evade the question whether he would rather see an able and effective Democrat elected to the United States Senate than a vicious and corrupt Republican. He failed as miserably in attempting to justify the extreme partisan features of the bill. And the questions which Judge Davis could not answer came from men who wanted to see an effective Direct Primary measure enacted, not from the opponents of the Direct ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn

... said Herbert, rather proud of the confidence reposed in him. "I will do what I can to justify your confidence. I'll go right off and see ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger

... watched it all, as you so often may see the Russian peasant doing, with indifferent gaze. In his mild blue eyes Bohun fancied that he saw all kinds of things—power, wisdom, prophecy—a figure apart and symbolic. But how easy in Russia it is to see symbols and how often those symbols fail to justify themselves! Well, I let Bohun have his fancies. "I should know that man anywhere again," he declared. "It was as though he knew what was going to happen and was ready for it." Then I suppose he saw my smile, for he broke off ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... political differences in the giving of contracts and the appointment of officers has occurred only in quite exceptional cases, and it concludes by declaring its opinion that the conduct of their affairs by the various local authorities will continue to justify the delegation to them of large powers transferred to their control ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... on rapidly for a couple or three hours, without finding much encouragement in their search. The rugged mountain sides were but thinly peopled, and the few poor cabins they saw in the distance they decided were not promising enough of results to justify clambering up to where they were perched. At last, almost wearied out, they halted for a little while to rest and scan the interminable waves of summits that ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... stall. If, however, the case does not progress in a prompt and satisfactory manner, absolute quiet must be enforced for six weeks or more. Repeated blistering is beneficial, although it is doubtful if firing is of sufficient benefit in the average chronic case of intertubercular bursitis to justify the punishment which this form of treatment inflicts, unless infliction of pain is the thing sought, to enforce repose in restless subjects. Patients are best given a long rest at pasture and returned to work for two or three months after an acute attack of inflammation of the bursa, lest the condition ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix

... little scheme had been defeated. We had him brought into camp, but I declined to see him and returned to Fort Sumner. Soon afterwards M—— threw up the sponge, so to speak, and agreed to turn the property over to us. These M—— cattle, numbering only 2000, did not justify the running of a mess wagon and full outfit, so I made arrangements with a very strong neighbouring ranch company to run the cattle for us, only myself attending the round-ups to see that our ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... prisoner. The emperor was at the time confined to his bed with the gout. As soon as they had sent off the cardinal, Ferdinand and Maximilian repaired to the royal chamber, informed the emperor of what they had done, and attempted to justify the deed on the plea that the cardinal was a weak and wicked minister whose policy would certainly divide and ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... upon her suddenly with a strange girl," I protested; "and we are not at all on such intimate terms as to justify my taking all ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp

... unsound and subversive of specialisation in citizenship. The results of the abandonment were sometimes good and sometimes bad, but the determining conditions have been studied as yet too imperfectly to justify any broad generalisation. Secondly, there is the idea of strenuous and persistent effort—not resting to secure each minor advantage, but pressing the enemy without pause or rest till he is utterly overthrown—an idea in which Cromwell had anticipated Napoleon by a century ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett

... even in the preceding sections, spoken with levity, though sometimes perhaps with rashness. I have never treated the subject as other than demanding heedful and serious examination, and taking high place among those which justify as they reward our utmost ardor and earnestness of pursuit. That it justifies them must be my present task to prove; that it demands them has never been doubted. Art, properly so called, is no recreation; it cannot be learned at spare moments, nor pursued when we have nothing better to do. ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin

... told her anything like that, but one of her brothers, the very one who has the greatest influence over her, has been kind enough to make this remark about me. It is then the purpose of the dream that this brother should remain in the right; and she does not try to justify this brother merely in the dream; it is her purpose in life and the motive for her ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud

... have said enough to justify both Sexes, in the gratifying of their Amorous Desires, tho' they be married; for 'tis not strange at all to hear that Men and Women have been married, and yet have been uncapable of answering the Ends of Marriage, or satisfying the Delights of Venus. It is not long ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous

... Laconia was a most daring novelty. A courageous and patriotic Theban might venture upon it as a retort against those Spartans who questioned the right of Thebes to her presidency of Boeotia; but he would never do so without assigning his reasons to justify an assertion so startling to a large portion of his hearers. The reasons which I here ascribe to Epameinondas are such as we know to have formed the Theban creed, in reference to the Boeotian cities; such ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... consulted (a point, with respect to this order, as well as certain other tropical tribes, appearing very important) those portions of the western shores recently seen, indicate no one character that would justify the supposition of the existence of the Palmae in the corresponding extremes of the respective parallels that produce them on the opposite or East Coast. Another remark relative to the economy of this family is, that in New Holland it seems confined ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... desired me not to be grieved that he had thus got his own choice, as he had not patience to forbear from seeing them, in which he did me no wrong, as he believed I wished him to be served first, and that he would make satisfaction to the king my master, to whom he would justify me. As for the prince and Noormahal, they were all one with himself. As to bringing any presents hereafter to procure his favour, I might be easy on that score, as it was merely a needless ceremony, for I should be always welcome to come to him empty-handed, and he would hear me, as ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... defence to make," she said, "I know I have behaved contemptibly; self-deception is no excuse. I can explain but not justify myself. I wanted to escape from my eternal self; I was tired of fighting and always in vain. I wanted to throw myself into the life and hopes of somebody else, somebody who had some chance of a real and effective existence. Then other elements of attraction ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... little Countess seemed very much embarrassed at the effect that her confession had had, and tried to justify her taste. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... firm jaw, but not squared to the point that suggests the dominance of the physical. He wore a dark gray Inverness coat, evidently one of the fruits of his English tour, and a well-proportioned soft felt hat, set on firmly, the crown creased in the precise way necessary to justify the city use of the article by a man of thirty. He seemed to be in excellent, almost boyish spirits, and so natural and wholesome withal, that I am sure I should not feel at all embarrassed at finding myself alone with him on a desert island. This ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support; That to the light of this great argument I may assert eternal Providence And justify the ways of God ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz

... true: whatever the rights of the case, poor Catherine had no proofs—no evidence—which could justify a respectable lawyer to advise her proceeding to a suit. She named two witnesses of her marriage—one dead, the other could not be heard of. She selected for the alleged place in which the ceremony was performed a very remote village, in which it appeared that the register had been ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... beast. And there is many a farm home, plain to an extreme, devoid of the veneer, a home that to the man of the town seems lacking in all the things that season life, but a home which virtue, intelligence, thrift, and courage transform into a garden of roses and a type of heaven. I do not justify neglect of the finer material things of life, nor plead for drab and homespun as passports to the courts of excellence; but I insist that the plainness, simple living, absence of luxury, lack of polish that may be met with in the country, do not necessarily ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield

... a signal which served to justify that opinion. Captain Wass had docilely announced that he was going full speed astern, his whistle-blasts had declared that he had stepped off the sidewalk of the ocean lane—as usual! The big fellows knew that the ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... leaders. The whole history of Charles's expedition is one narrative of headlong rashness triumphing over difficulties and dangers which only the discord of tyrants and the disorganization of peoples rendered harmless. The Ate of the gods had descended upon Italy, as though to justify the common belief that the expedition of Charles was divinely sustained ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... truth when they said, that 'all things were in the power of God, save the fear of God;' and when people stand in great dread of an invisible power, I suspect they mistake quite another personage for the Deity. I might justify myself for the passages criticised by many parallel ones from Scripture, but I need not. The Reverend Homer Wilbur's note-books supply me with three apposite quotations. The first is from a Father of the Roman Church, the second from a Father of the Anglican, and the third from a Father of Modern ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... blaspheming, were really fighting for truth and justice. The conception of the gods as jealous and contemptuous was not confined to the Greek mythology, but has appeared within the pale of Christian faith as well as in all heathen cults. Nature, in some of its aspects, seems to justify it. The great powers appear to be arrayed against man's efforts, and present the appearance of cruel and bullying strength. Evidently upon such a theory something must go, either our faith in God or our faith in humanity; and when faith has gone we shall be left in the position ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... by this time, and so eager to get to the cottage, that I had already opened my door. What I had just heard brought me back into the room. As a matter of course, we both suspected the same person of stealing the oars. Had we any proof to justify us? ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins

... and you are another." In the course of their interview, the President informed him that he and his companions must proceed on the following day to Fortress Monroe, there to remain, until the conduct of their people at home was such as to justify their being set at liberty. In reply to this, the Prophet said, "We expected to return immediately to our people. The war in which we have been involved was occasioned by our attempting to raise provisions on our own lands, or where we thought we had a right so to do. We have lost many ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake

... one, I suppose, will deny. There may have been extreme opinions and extreme acts, pride and pomp in certain bishops, over-honour paid to saints, fraud in the production of relics, extravagance in praising celibacy, formality in fasting; and such errors would justify a protest, which the Catholic Fathers themselves are not slow to make; but they would not justify that utter reprobation of relics, of celibacy, and of fasting, of episcopacy, of prayers for the dead, and of the doctrine of defectibility, which these ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... judgment, the stand against Sherman should be made. Nor is it inconceivable that, had the French retreat lasted as long as Johnston's, Joffre would have been removed and would have lost the opportunity to justify his Fabian policy, as he did so gloriously at ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... "Not much, but enough to justify going on with the work. I am glad I wrote Sloan that I should draw on him, and now we'll go ahead and hire a small gang to set the mill and ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton

... women is met by that sort of hesitation and evasion which is characteristic of politicians who are not sure of their intellectual ground. A candidate who has just been speaking on the principles of democracy finds it, when he is heckled, very difficult to frame an answer which would justify the continued exclusion of women from the franchise. Accordingly a large majority of the successful candidates from both the main parties at the general election of 1906 pledged themselves to support female suffrage. But, as I write, many, perhaps the majority, of those who gave that pledge ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas

... was printed in very small type. Dave said that since the chemicals had got together to form life everything had lived on something else, and the best livers had always been the best killers. He did not pretend to justify the plan, but there it was; and it worked the same whether it was one microscopic organism preying on another or a bird devouring a beetle or Germany trying to swallow the world. Rapp, Senior, ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... remained of what had been furnished by the contractor for the passage, and the supply of four months flour which had been received by the Sirius from the Cape of Good Hope. All this did not produce such an abundance as would justify any longer continuance of the full ration; and although it was reasonable to suppose, as we had not hitherto received any supplies, that ships would arrive before our present stock was exhausted; yet, if the period of distress should ever ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... conferred much pleasure, even upon Mussulmans, whom, as some chronicles say, she did not repulse; and, when the king, her husband, spoke to her of approaching departure, she emphatically refused, and, to justify her opposition, she declared that they could no longer live together, as there was, she asserted, a prohibited degree of consanguinity between them." Louis, "who loved her with an almost excessive love," says William of Nangis, was at the same time angered ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... has been more hotly discussed than the organization of the primitive Christian Church. Each of several Christian confessions have attempted to justify a polity which it regarded as de fide by appeal to the organization of the Church of the primitive ages. Since it has been seen that the admission of the principle of development does not invalidate claims for ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... played banjo-trios, nor even the mild performing doves which cooed so prettily, and walked up their mistress's outstretched fingers according to order, if they felt disposed. There was nothing to justify Hightums, there was scarcely even sufficient to warrant Tightums. Scrub was written all over "the desert's ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... exponent of the Christian faith. "Truth emerges sooner from error than from confusion," says Bacon; and clearer views than commonly prevail upon the points at issue regarding "religion and science" are still sufficiently needed to justify these endeavors. ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... who alternated between a generous flow of emotion on the one hand and an unimaginative hardness on the other. Only Lin Darton could have given promise then of the middle-class, semi-prosperous business man who was to justify the Darton tradition. But from all that I could gather of those younger days, before Con's marriage to Selma Perkins, he was the cock of the walk, holding the reins over them all by virtue of his shrewdness, apparently ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... and in a moment of insane fury or drunken stupidity he had drawn forth his weapon, and shot the poor brute dead. He had just then been standing near the top of the stairs. The quantity of liquor he had drunk was sufficient to justify the conclusion that he was not as steady on his pins as a sober man would have been. He had over-balanced himself, and—and that was the whole story. The coroner's jury brought in a verdict in accordance with the facts, and ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... Sullivan, in his eloquent and unanswerable speech of yesterday, has so clearly demonstrated the facts of that unhappy and disgraceful affair of Manchester, that I shall merely say of it that I adopt every word he spoke upon the subject for mine, and to justify the sentiment and purpose with which I engaged in the procession of the 8th December. I say the persons responsible for that transanction are fairly liable to the charge of acting so as to bring the administration of justice into contempt, unless, gentlemen, ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan

... been killed in the duel, and who had hastened to Vienna on receipt of a telegraphic message, a few hours after his arrival, and demanded the money. "My wife was your son's most intimate friend," he stammered, in embarrassment, in order to justify his action as well as he could. "Oh! I know that," the old Count replied, "and female friends of that kind want to be paid immediately, and in full. Here ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... separate paragraph. I have often felt, after writing a line which pleased me more than common, that it was not new, and perhaps was not my own. I have very rarely, however, found such a coincidence in ideas or expression as would be enough to justify an accusation of unconscious plagiarism,—conscious plagiarism is not my particular failing. I therefore say my say, set down my thought, print my line, and do not heed the suspicion that I may not be as original as I supposed, in the passage I have been writing. My experience may ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... Berkeley with the commissioners in the Council chamber were sometimes stormy. On one occasion he told Berry, "with an angry voice and a Berklean look, ... that he and Morryson had murdered his brother". "Sir John as sharply returned again" that they had done nothing but what they "durst justify".[837] ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... returned, "and I'm like a plant we have in my old home. My roots spread, and time is needed to strengthen them; suddenly I shoot up and—flower. The little Canadian blossom doesn't seem to justify the strong, spreading roots. I hope you will not ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock

... just before he mounted his horse, received a letter from Dr. Blair, which, having partly read, he crumpled up and angrily thrust into his pocket. A perusal of the letter will explain, if it does not go far to justify, the poet's irritation. It is a sleek, superior production, with the tone of a temperance tract, and the stilted diction of a dominie. The doctor is in it one of those well-meaning, meddlesome men, lavish of academic advice. Burns resented moral prescriptions ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun

... common language; that heat and cold, day and night, pass into one another was a matter of experience 'on a level with the cobbler's understanding' (Theat.). But how could philosophy explain the connexion of ideas, how justify the passing of them into one another? The abstractions of one, other, being, not-being, rest, motion, individual, universal, which successive generations of philosophers had recently discovered, seemed to be beyond the reach of human thought, like ...
— Sophist • Plato

... grass, after a certain period, in an improved state, or at least without injury. The general report, based on the information derived from these essays, states that no high price of corn or temporary distress would justify the ploughing up of old meadows or rich pastures, and that on certain soils well adapted to grass age improves the quality of the pasture to a degree which no system of management on lands broken up and laid down can equal. In spite of this, the cupidity of landowners ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... market without requiring men and teams is generally recognized by farmers and where production of the individual farmer has justified the purchase of a motor truck, the adoption has been very rapid during the past few years. On many farms, however, the quantity of production is not sufficient to justify the investment in a truck by the individual farmer if he must maintain his teams for farm power. The use of the rural express with its greater speed enables the farmer to operate the same or an increased acreage with fewer horses, making more land available ...
— The Rural Motor Express - Highway Transport Commitee Council of National Defence, Bulletins No. 2 • US Government

... belong to the higher class of people. That Robert was an ordinary Christian name requires no proof; and if it was, the combination of Robert Hood must have been frequent also. We have taken no extraordinary pains to hunt up this combination, for really the matter is altogether too trivial to justify the expense of time; but since to some minds much may depend on the coincidence in question, we will cite several Robin Hoods in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... works alone he always has a certain set of reflections which as it seems to him directed his past activity, justify his present activity, and guide him in planning his future actions. Just the same is done by a concourse of people, allowing those who do not take a direct part in the activity to devise considerations, justifications, and surmises concerning ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... is quite as open to the charges of ambition and artfulness as the behavior of Rufinus, for I do not perceive how we can strictly justify his detention of the forces, which ought to have been sent back to defend the provinces of Arcadius at the very beginning of the year. Stilicho's march to Thessaly can scarcely have taken place before October, and it is hard to interpret this long delay in sending back the troops, over which he ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... station between Vittoria and the Duke of Bracciano rendered a marriage almost impossible. It was also an affair of delicacy to stimulate without satisfying the Duke's passion. Yet Marcello did not despair. The stakes were high enough to justify great risks; and all he put in peril was his sister's honour, the fame of the Accoramboni, and the favour of Montalto. Vittoria, for her part, trusted in her power to ensnare and secure the noble prey both had ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... a narrow isthmus from a thoracic coach-box, where the directing power was stationed; while the wheels, poles, springs, and general framework on which the vehicle rested, corresponded to the wings, limbs, and antennae of the insect. There was at least sufficient resemblance of form to justify resemblance of colour; and here was the actual resemblance of colour which the resemblance of form justified. I remember that, in musing over the coincidence, I learned to suspect, for the first time, ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... taxed with too much uxoriousness, it behoves us to ascertain whether the personal attractions of his helpmate would, in any degree, justify the devotion he displayed. In the first place, Mrs. Wood had the advantage of her husband in point of years, being on the sunny side of forty,—a period pronounced by competent judges to be the most fascinating, and, at the same time, most critical epoch ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth



Words linked to "Justify" :   extenuate, justificative, absolve, vindicate, maintain, gloss, rationalize, wash one's hands, color, excuse, apologize, warrant, plead, defend, let off, printing, forgive, confirm, exempt, set



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