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More "Excuse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... maybe not ride that I should say somedings," complained he. "But if the law will not excuse me, I will say it, if it makes some more trouble ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... frequently the characters who have to do with the apparition of the late King Hamlet alternate between the theories that it is a ghost and that it is a devil which they have seen. The whole subject has such an important bearing upon any attempt to estimate the character of Hamlet, that no excuse need be offered for once again ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... help me 'to shuffle off this mortal coil' by dealing me, if they can, four by honours. Any time between nine and twelve to-night, or to-morrow night, you will find me at home; and if you are not better engaged, suppose you dine with me to-day—or rather dine opposite to me—and excuse my Spartan broth. You will meet (besides any two or three friends whom an impromptu invitation may find disengaged) my sister, with Beaufort and their daughter: they only arrived in town this morning, and are kind enough ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... solvency in consequence of the enormous sums which Baron Jeanrenaud and his mother were said to be receiving from him. And, indeed, these suspicions on the part of the tenants, the creditors, and the landlord had some excuse in the Marquis' extreme economy in housekeeping. He conducted it as a ruined man might. His servants always paid in ready money for the most trifling necessaries of life, and acted as not choosing to take credit; if now they had asked for anything on credit, it would ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... sighed M'ri. "I am afraid it's all she can do to keep a very small pot boiling. I am glad she sent the sorghum, so I could have an excuse for sending the eggs." ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... given another lease of life to the feud, and Billy had come back to Kay's with the fixed intention of smiting his auburn-haired foe hip and thigh at the earliest opportunity. Wren's attitude with respect to Kennedy gave him a decent excuse. He had no particular regard for Kennedy. The fact that he was a friend of his brother's was no recommendation. There existed between the two Silvers that feeling which generally exists between an elder ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... "Good-evening," he said. "Excuse my long intrusion. I shall be immensely obliged if you will let me have a wire reporting your safe arrival, and a letter, later on, with details as to Ronnie's state. I put my address on the paper I gave you just now, with the name of the man Mrs. ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... his faculties, or the power of doing good; or, to use his own words, 'lingering over the dregs after the spirit had evaporated.' Indeed, the decay of his mental faculties seems to have been that which he most dreaded. He would sometimes complain of slowness of apprehension, and would then excuse it with a smile, saying, 'it could not be otherwise, the shadow must lengthen as the sun went down.' When seized with paralysis he was resigned to the event, anxious to soften any alarm to his family, and was thankful that his intellect was spared. But his invariable ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... has been relaxed. The orders of the sentry are stringent that neither of the ladies shall be allowed to set foot outside the door, but I do not think they have any orders to prevent others from going in and out had they some good excuse for ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... "that I should apologize for—for the things I've called you. My only excuse is that your mistake about my father helped ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... indication is given of an underlying allegory, and draw their own conclusions. But on the whole, the main interest of the first nine cantos of the Purgatory is more of a personal nature. Sordello alone may give an excuse for a good deal of historical research. For example, no one has yet explained Dante's reasons for so distinguishing a person who, from all the records that we have, does not seem to have made any great figure in ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... book annoyed him. He hated a woman to get herself talked about—June, too, of all people. There was nothing new-fangled about June. Why, his mother loved her and she was so pretty and so fond of clothes and babies. There was really no excuse for her sprawling over his paper when she ought to have been moving discreetly through the social column like his other ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... excuse me for this troubles I taking, though he is my caste and countryman much like not to do so, but his temperature is not good therefore liable to ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... the door eyed him with more curiosity than caution, and her protests that Mrs. Hilmer could see no one seemed rather tentative and perfunctory. Fred had a curious feeling that she was demanding a more or less conventional excuse for admitting him, and in the end he flung ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... in the very heart of a town under martial law. When I first set foot on Central American soil, however, my majority was still many months ahead of me, and I had not yet done with that period of puerile frivolity through which most youths have to pass. Thus I will offer no other excuse, but will merely relate ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... that he should be a famous actor, but how was he to convince any one else of this fact? From one actor to another, from one theater manager to another he went, but all told him that for one reason or another he was not fitted for the stage. Particularly did Andersen resent the excuse of one manager, who told him that he was too thin. This fault Andersen assured him that he was only too willing to remedy, if he would only give him a chance and a salary; but still ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... those that haue not read the Story, That I may prompt them: and of such as haue, I humbly pray them to admit th' excuse Of time, of numbers, and due course of things, Which cannot in their huge and proper life, Be here presented. Now we beare the King Toward Callice: Graunt him there; there seene, Heaue him away vpon your winged thoughts, Athwart the ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... to meet you too," said Leopold. "I'm sure I didn't expect to see you out in this fog. But I'm the pilot of this yacht now and if you will excuse me, I will go forward, and ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... tenderness," and he rose to enthusiasm in commending his translations, especially the scenes from Faust.[99] He has been accused of writing a Spirit of the Age which omitted to give an account of Shelley and Keats, but in the title of the book consists his excuse. As it was not his idea to anticipate the decision of posterity but only to sketch the personalities who were in control of the public attention, he passed over the finer poets who were still neglected, and wrote instead about ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Bobazayo in the calf-kraal, and then to the members of his family. Upon two points I kept wondering: one was in connection with the skull—whose was it, and where had the witch-doctor obtained it? The other was the absence of Xolilizwe—where was he, and what excuse would he give for not being present when the great son of the Chief ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... forbid liberty should have such charms to tempt me to the perpetration of so horrid a crime as murder! As to the poor evasion of committing it by other hands, it might be useful indeed to those who seek only the escape from temporal punishment, but can be of no service to excuse me to that Being whom I chiefly fear offending; nay, it would greatly aggravate my guilt by so impudent an endeavour to impose upon Him, and by so wickedly involving others in my crime. Give me, therefore, no more advice of this kind; for this is ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... seated in a chair just inside the big door of the shed, near a small stove in which was a fire to take off the chill of the big place. The guard had slept all day, and there was no excuse for him nodding in the ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton
... and just at present, when the passions of every man in the South are inflamed to the utmost, such an accusation will be most serious. In the present instance there does not seem that there is a shadow of excuse for your conduct. You simply heard cries of a slave being flogged. You deliberately leave the road and enter these people's plantation and interfere without, so far as I can see, the least reason for doing so. You did ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... their mistress once in twenty-four hours. If the witch, said her persecutors, could be put naked upon a chair in the middle of the room and kept awake, the imps could not approach her. Herein lay the supposed reasonableness of the methods in vogue. And the authorities who were offering this excuse for their use of torture were not loth to go further. It was, they said, necessary to walk the creatures in order to keep them awake. It was soon discovered that the enforced sleeplessness and the walking ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... and more the truth of his suspicions. But the communication of Prudence rankled in his mind, and though disposed to acquit the Assistant of treachery against himself, he could not forgive the treatment of the girl. He did not doubt her word, and yet desired to hear the Assistant's excuse, if he had any. He shrunk from the subject, and yet was drawn to it, like a ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... times at Sais, and here too, on your arrival and departure. You ask, my prince, whether you would be generally recognized? Certainly not. The foreign dress, the change in your hair and the coloring of your eyebrows have altered you wonderfully. But excuse me a moment, my old steward seems to have some ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Ulua is to avenge that treacherous attack upon my fellow-countrymen, to exact ample compensation therefor and for all the loss and suffering attendant upon it, and to demand the release of those who fell into your hands upon that occasion. If you have aught to urge by way of excuse for, or justification of, your treachery, I am willing to hear it and give it ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... an act of usurpation and tyranny. Those only who borrow their ideas of political justice from the despotic codes of Europe, and are more imbued with the spirit of METTERNICH and BOMBA than of JEFFERSON and MADISON, will attempt to justify, palliate, or excuse such violation of the sacred rights of the people. I have observed that often the noisiest champions of popular rights are the first to trample those rights under foot. The word "freedom" is continually on the tongues of gentlemen on the other side of the Chamber; and I believe the Senator ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... would say the primary character of the Koran is this of its genuineness, of its being a bona-fide book. Prideaux, I know, and others, have represented it as a mere bundle of juggleries; chapter after chapter got-up to excuse and varnish the author's successive sins, forward his ambitions and quackeries: but really it is time to dismiss all that. I do not assert Mohammed's continual sincerity: who is continually sincere? But I confess I can make ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... were bitterly condemned for their vote for the Wright bill. Incidentally, the writer has been roundly criticized for offering the excuse in their behalf that these two men indicated by their attitude on other measures throughout the session that they would have continued with the reform element in the matter of railroad regulation, had the anti-machine Senators been organized to give effective ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... accomplished in a few minutes by the average American boy! Yet let one of these cadets be late at dinner formation, without an unquestionably good excuse, and he must pay the penalty in demerits. These demerits, according to their number, ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... discharge their men at Lerwick. On rare occasions, when the ships have come in, and the masters have been anxious to get away again without waiting to attend at the Shipping Office, I may have written at their request a letter of excuse to the shipping master, but certainly never advised them to go away. It is quite true that when I have paid off men before the shipping master, who had accounts to settle, I have told them to go down ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... longs for it; and yet one struggles, combats, and resists. But, if an opportunity occurs, one is only too happy to seize it; then one has an excuse with which to silence ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... accepted some pate sandwiches and iced champagne, and chatted and laughed with Her so industriously, and so much to the exclusion of all else, that the horses were at the starting-post before he was aware of it, and he had to excuse himself hurriedly and run to put up his money on Bugler, the second on his list. He decided that as he had won one hundred dollars on the first race he could afford to plunge on this one, so he counted out fifty ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... His excuse for attending these dinners, which indeed were relaxing and enjoyable, he found in the obvious duty of getting to know the most important members of his congregation. But invariably he came away from them with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in learning to walk, long afterward we learned that its law guided earth and moon. And it is the presence of this law within us, and our own knowledge that we are conscious of it, that makes man without excuse. But conformity to that which is deepest in environment often, always, demands non-conformity to some of the most palpable of ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... correct one of the least of the abuses in our military machinery—if they lighten the toil of the humblest of our soldiers, or nerve anew the resolves of loyalty tempted to despair, the writer will have no reason to complain of labor lost. Great latitude of excuse for the existence of abuses must be allowed, when we consider the suddenness with which our volunteers sprang into ranks at the outset of the Rebellion. Now that the warfare is a system, there is less ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... should deny the Pope's authority to absolve citizens from their allegiance and to grant spiritual absolution, and he forcefully insisted upon and secured the restriction that "the liberty of conscience hereby granted shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness or justify practices inconsistent with the safety of the State." The question of the naturalisation of foreigners renewed the contention. Jay's Huguenot blood was still hot, and again he exacted the limitation ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... spinsterhood, and the means whereby it may be made a blessing to self and to others. This must be said lest the reader should be deterred by the unquestionably true assertion that the individual is meant by Nature to be a parent, and has no excuse for existence in Nature's eyes except as a parent. If we are to regard the body as a trustee of the germ-plasm, it is evident that the body which carries the germ-plasm with itself to the grave—the "immortality of the germ-plasm" being only ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... saw the father and Phippen, and they wished he would not go again, because it would be said the prisoners were making confession. He said he had engaged to go again at five o'clock; but would not, if Phippen would excuse him to Joseph. Phippen engaged to do this, and to meet him at his office at five o'clock. Mr. Colman went to the office at the time, and waited; but, as Phippen was not there, he walked down street, and saw him coming from the jail. He met him, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... "Excuse the question, but I cannot understand why a man so fond of domestic life has not taken to himself a companion. Neither your studio, your assistants, nor your dogs can give you the feeling of a home you are ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... then turning to us, "I am happy to see the gentlemen in Vienna." An officer immediately came up, who addressed us in fluent English. "You may speak in your native tongue," said the Inspector:—"excuse our neglect; from the facility with which you speak German, we supposed you were natives of Austria!" Our passports were signed at once and given us with a gracious bow, accompanied by the hope that we would visit Vienna again before ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... pleased with this assurance and this prospect as she might have been. Somehow, when she put her arms round Mrs Boffin's neck and said Good Night, she derived a sense of unworthiness from the still anxious face of that good woman and her obvious wish to excuse her husband. 'Why, what need to excuse him?' thought Bella, sitting down in her own room. 'What he said was very sensible, I am sure, and very true, I am sure. It is only what I often say to myself. Don't ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... message to his friends here in the country, among whom he reckons Gudmund Eyjolfson, Snorre Gode, Thorkel Eyjolfson, Skapte the lagman, and Thorstein Halson, and desires them by me to come to him on a friendly visit; and adds, that ye must not excuse yourselves, if you regard his friendship as worth anything." In their answer they thanked the king for his message and added, that they would afterwards give a reply to it by Thorarin when they had more closely considered the matter with their friends. The chiefs now weighed the matter among themselves, ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... of economic forces with moral aims assigned as their formal justification. Assuming that the narratives of the conquest of Canaan are true, what the Hebrews desired—these economists tell us—was the milk and the honey. They made their so-called advance in obedience to God an excuse for taking possession of the milk and the honey. Now, he would be blind indeed who would deny that economic values do play their part in wars of conquest; he would be foolish who would deny that wars always do justify themselves by appealing to lofty ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell
... the name of the house where Lady Vale-Avon and her daughter were staying, and having learned it, I made an excuse to escape from ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... foundations of another on the Castle Hill. It appears, however, that the pace he set was rather too hot for his people; they raised a deal of trouble, and Bo[vr]ivoj had to call in the German King Arnulf to help in restoring order. This step did not bring unmixed blessings; it gave the Germans an excuse for interfering in Bohemian affairs. Now Arnulf was a Carolingian, of bastard blood indeed, but nevertheless under the "Holy Roman Empire" obsession, and therefore convinced of the German right to round up all Christian countries into that Empire. In this action of Bo[vr]ivoj ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... 17th of February, and the anxiety and alarm lest there should be no election, and anarchy ensue, a wonderful effect was produced on the mass of federalists who had not before come over. Those who had before become sensible of their error in the former change, and only wanted a decent excuse for coming back, seized that occasion for doing so. Another body, and a large one it is, who from timidity of constitution had gone with those who wished for a strong executive, were induced by the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... am not trying to excuse things; I am only explaining how they happen. But how explain to others? We always talk of putting ourselves in our neighbours' place; idlest of phrases! since we cannot possibly avoid bringing our personal apparatus to ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... up and hurried indoors. A minute later her husband muttered an excuse, and followed. Old Jolyon was ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... crimsons Sybel's pale face as she welcomes me in, for simple and retired as her life is, she yet cherishes in her heart all the fondness for company and visiting inherent to her sex, and loves to enjoy them whenever opportunity permits. No excuse would be listened to,—I must stay dinner—my bonnet is untied, and placed upon the bed—Sybel has churned in the early cool of the morning, and she has now been working over the golden produce of her labours with a wooden ladle in a tray. With this ladle ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... the terrible position in which he had placed himself, then and there determined to become an outlaw, as he could frame no excuse for his wicked deed. He therefore hid himself at once in the mountains, carrying with him, of course, the sack ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... dare to come to me with a tale like that, you shameless rascal! Why, if it's legal to clear yourself that way, we should be stripping ladies of their jewellery on the public highways in broad daylight! And then when we were caught we'd excuse ourselves on the score that we were drunk, and did it out of love. Drink and love are altogether too cheap, if your drunken lover can do what he likes ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... continued Porphyrius, more and more at his ease, without ceasing to indulge in his little laugh, whilst continuing his perambulation about the room. "You may be right. God has given me a face which only arouses comical thoughts in others. I'm a buffoon. But excuse an old man's cackle. You, Rodion Romanovitch, you are in your prime, and, like all young people, you appreciate, above all things, human intelligence. Intellectual smartness and abstract rational deductions entice you. But, to return to the SPECIAL CASE we were talking about just now. ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... your address," Ned replied. "And even had I known where you were I should not have dared to write; for there was no saying into whose hands the letter might not fall. But, countess, excuse me if I turn to other matters, for the time presses sorely. You know that the city ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... gentleman is now downstairs. He lent me your candle for a minute or two, while I call upon my friend here. I hope you'll excuse the noise I make, but I find it very difficult ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... of a sick and almost heart-broken man," interposed Randall, with a smooth, deceitful softness of tone, that instantly reawakened La Salle's antipathies. "I beg you, however," he continued, "to excuse me, and to make yourself at home in your old quarters. I should like to talk with you about your strange cruise, but at St. John's we may have a better opportunity over ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... Franklin, with which I, his friend and fellow countryman, should have been acquainted, save that the sacrifices of the patriot are as common as mother's milk and cause little comment among us. The great orator was expected to display his talents, if there were any excuse for it, wherever he might be, so the ladies set up a demand for a toast. He spoke of ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... the fruits of the cursed cupidity of those who call themselves Christians for the very little that these poor naked people have. Simon and his wife also do their best in the same way, although we spoke to them severely on the subject. They brought forward this excuse, that if they did not do it, others would, and then they would have the trouble and others the profit, but if they must have the trouble, they ought to have the profit; and so they all said, and for the most part falsely, for they all solicit the Indians as ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... rotating solid bodies, he pointed out that they could not maintain their position unless their weight were in some way unsymmetrically distributed; but made no attempt to determine the kind or amount of irregularity needed to secure this end. Some observations by Herschel gave astronomers an excuse for taking for granted the fulfilment of the condition thus vaguely postulated; and the question remained in abeyance until once more brought prominently forward by the discovery of the ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... conditional. Your hostess may wish to invite another couple; she must know who will be present that she may arrange her table accordingly. Nothing is so annoying to a hostess as to be obliged to rearrange her table because of some slight excuse on the part of a guest who has ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... have listened to you very patiently. If I owe you any excuse for having appeared to encourage any one of those thoughts of which you speak, here it is. I am like thousands of other women. I absolutely don't know until the time comes what sort of a creature I am, how I shall be moved to act under certain circumstances. I tried to think last night. I ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... seemed as cheerful as ever in her talk with others; him she kept apart from. He could not make up his mind to write. She had refused to accept such proof of his sincerity as it wag in his power to offer, and Wilfrid made this an excuse—idle as he knew it to be—for maintaining a dignified silence. Dignified, he allowed himself to name it; yet he knew perfectly well that his attitude had one very ignoble aspect, since he all but consciously counted upon Beatrice's love to bring ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... "You will excuse me," said Holmes blandly, "but I could not help overhearing the questions which you put to the salesman just now. I think that I could be of ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... 'deed you must excuse me, Miss Claudia, because I wouldn't say a word, only I think how ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... Mr. Barradine, although still wincing, had recovered composure, and what he said now appeared to be an implied excuse for the sharpness of his protest. "When you get to my time of life, you'll ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... speculations on life and human nature were so far off, that it would be just wasting your breath to try to set them right. He'd stay here in the study and smoke and maybe doze off a little, till they went away. Marise had known he had business figuring to do, and she would have a perfectly valid excuse to give them for his non-appearance. Not that he had any illusions as to anybody there ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... note how far the Ball would speed when properly spanked, but he thought there was no valid excuse for ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... Sir Stamford Raffles governed Java in the spirit of a Christian statesman. The new Governor-General, Lord Moira, afterwards Marquis of Hastings, proved to be the most enlightened and powerful friend the mission had had. In these circumstances, after the charter of 1813 had removed the legislative excuse for intolerance, Dr. Carey was asked by the Lieutenant-Governor to send missionaries and Malay Bibles to the fifty thousand natives of Amboyna. The Governor-General repeated the request officially. Jabez Carey was baptised, ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... ag'in. I don't know what you'll have fer an excuse when she's gone, or what'll become of you either. I know one thing, though; I won't have you. But it'd be a heap sight better fer you if I would, ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... the statement with a cynical smile. It was too evidently not for him Kerr had been hunting, and after the first stammer of embarrassment, the Englishman made no attempt to conceal his real intentions. His words merely served him as an excuse not to retreat. ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... or two of the possible reason) and he agreed to slip me off secretly at Ismailia. It was easy—middle of the night, you know—had the doctor isolate the ruffians on the starboard side while the ship anchored—some cooked-up excuse about quarantine—and kept 'em out of sight of what was happening until the ship went ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... are no rattlesnakes under the rose-bushes, or the milliner-shops, to see that no palmetto cockades are made. May I insist upon a seat for you? Not that chair," she added hastily and with heightened color as the captain was about to occupy the mutilated fauteuil: "excuse me, but that is a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... sister had been expelled from Charleston, S. C., where he had gone at the risk of his life to defend Massachusetts colored sailors who were imprisoned there, and appealed to them not to give the people of South Carolina the right to excuse their own conduct by citing the example of Massachusetts. There were shouts from the crowd: "Will he promise to leave Worcester and never come back?" Butman, who was inside, terribly frightened, said he would promise never to come to Worcester again as long as he lived. I did not, however, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... Hoby says of his translation of The Courtier, "I have endeavored myself to follow the very meaning and words of the author, without being misled by fantasy or leaving out any parcel one or other, whereof I know not how some interpreters of this book into other languages can excuse themselves, and the more they be conferred, the more it will perchance appear."[271] On the whole, however, the comment confines itself to general statements like that of Grimald, who in translating Cicero is endeavoring "to do likewise for my countrymen as Italians, ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... hand,[FN261] for that he had no jot of spending money. But he was ashamed to say, 'No,' after he had made suit to her; so he went on before her, bethinking him how he should rid himself of her and casting about for an excuse which he might put off on her, and gave not over going from street to street, till he entered one that had no issue and saw, at the farther end, a door, whereon ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... afraid to say what I would not accept, for your father's sake. I feel as if I would consent to anything not wrong or sinful that could save him. And remember, we must be just. As things are, Lady Myrtle knows nothing of us except that we are poor. And there is every excuse for her deep-seated prepossessions against her brother Bernard's family. Pride must not blind ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... defective, of his not being able to bring his actions under the control of his will, or of some other sad handicap existing, was never contemplated. His crime was looked upon as a desperate act, for the committal of which he was absolutely without any excuse. The consequence was that an elaborate system of torture was devised in order to deal with him. Readers who are familiar with such books as Marcus Clark's "For the term of his natural life," and Charles Reade's "It is never too late to mend," ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... game which had once won him a million dollars from just such plungers as Wiley, and if he also smiled as he tucked away the note it was not without excuse. There had been a time when this boy's father had sat in the game with Blount and now he was engaged in raising cattle on a ranch far back in the hills. And Colonel Huff, that prince of royal plungers, had surrendered at last to the bank. It was twelve per cent, compounded ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... at my visit, I know, my charming Angelique. But you must excuse my thus appearing so unexpectedly before you. The truth is, I found it impossible to leave Paris without seeing you ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... have but half-an-hour between me and, it may be, ruin. Excuse, therefore, my abruptness. You have, I perceive, a pair of scissors in your workbag. Oblige me, if you please, by ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... the government afforded an excuse for postponing action upon the newly discovered French Decree. It permitted also time for reflection. Just before Perceval's death, Russell had noted a firm determination to maintain the Orders in Council, conditioned only by the late Declaration of April 21; but at the same time ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... that must necessarily be recognized in its reality, and faced by these men who will presently emerge to rule the world; men who will have neither the plea of ignorance, nor moral stupidity, nor dogmatic revelation to excuse such elaborate cruelty. ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... the only thing to be done, and the sooner the ceremony should be over the better. Lent would come on in a few short weeks; that would be the excuse to hasten matters, and this idea was all Tamara was conscious of as ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... "Q. Excuse me, mademoiselle,—if you will allow me, I will ask you some questions and you will answer them. That will fatigue you less than making ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... BE SUBSTANTIVE, but more than being its own excuse for being, it lights up the land it depicts, shows people what is significant, cherishable in their own lives and environments. Thus Peter Hurd of New Mexico has revealed windmills, Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri has elevated mules. Nature ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... much as sea breakfasts generally do—that is to say, the company ate heartily: even Isabella, who had sufficient excuse for low spirits and want of appetite, yielded to the demands of hunger the most unromantic, and, in vulgar language, "spoilt the looks" of the broiled fowl before her. The meal was drawing to a close, when the steward came below with information, that Mr. Walker had seen, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... proper comment on the sound of their name. "Yes. That is no!" had been Chad's reply; but he had immediately added that their English was the most charming in the world, so that if Strether were wanting an excuse for not getting on with them he wouldn't in the least find one. Never in fact had Strether—in the mood into which the place had quickly launched him—felt, for himself, less the need of an excuse. Those he might have found would have been, at the worst, all for the others, the people before him, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... his reach, could not even imagine circumstances in which they might be reconciled. To a Celt the summit of wrong is a slight, but apology is correspondingly potent with him. Mistress Conal, however, had not the excuse of ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... from the dining-room with a bottle of champagne). Excuse me for being so long; but I had to go to the cellar. (Puts the bottle down on ...
— Ghosts - A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... visited several Etruscan tombs, and saw their red and black scrawled pictures. One of the sepulchres was a well-jointed vault of stone with no wall-paintings. The rest had been scooped out of the living tufa. This was the excuse for some pleasant hours spent in walking and driving through the country. Chiusi means for me the mingling of grey olives and green oaks in limpid sunlight; deep leafy lanes; warm sandstone banks; copses with nightingales and cyclamens and cuckoos; glimpses of ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... selues. Bea. yea and ye may be sure they wold gladly with al theyr harts i their bodies make suche lawes yf they coulde mayntayne them or were of power to se them executed, and they myght haue some thynge to laye for theyr excuse if they could proclayme opyn warre before they fell to robbynge. Boni. But who gaue that pryuylege rather to a horseman then to a foteman, or more to a gentylman the to a good yeman. Bea. The fauoure that is ...
— Two Dyaloges (c. 1549) • Desiderius Erasmus
... considerable profit indeed," said I; "and you ought to be abundantly thankful. We shall talk this matter over at another time, Mr Sawley, but just now I must beg you to excuse me. I have a particular engagement this morning with my broker—rather a heavy transaction ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... her so much, her constant remembrances in having him on to visit us on different occasions. It was a lesson to me, for I should probably never have thought of it myself; and of course when one does not do what one ought to, the excuse that one erred from thoughtlessness instead of wrong ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... the letters which appear in the following collection. His motives for publishing this monument of his official life are sufficiently set forth in the two prefaces, one prefixed to the First Book and the other to the Eleventh. Much emphasis is laid on the entreaties of his friends, the regular excuse, in the sixth century as in the nineteenth, for an author or a politician doing the very thing which most pleases his own vanity. A worthier reason probably existed in the author's natural desire to vindicate his own consistency, by showing that the influence which ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... wrong to say that, sir," replied Ready: "excuse me, Mr Seagrave, for being so bold; but the fact is, that if I was in command of that vessel, I should do just as they have done. The gale rises fast, and it would be very dangerous for them to remain where they now are. It does not at all prove that they intend ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of hunger, or the request of friends, was the excuse for the printing of sorry books in Pope's time; and it has not become obsolete yet. The writer of the book, the title of which we have given above, pleads the latter alternative as the occasion of this publication. He says it was "a few ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... island. Sir Hudson got it into his malevolent brain that he had pinned them at last. He affirmed that their reason for not signing what they pretended was their Emperor's and their own degradation was to give an excuse for being "sent off." Whereupon, as soon as the Governor's crafty insinuations became known, they all signed except Santini, who refused to have Napoleon described by any other term than ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... moderate and dull as well as the refined and reasoning classes. Alone it was impotent against the solid clay of the English apathetic nature. But give this fiery element a body of decent-looking earth; give it an excuse for breaking out on an occasion, when the decent, the cultivated, and aristocratic classes could join with it, and they would conquer by means of it, and it could be ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... him up, long ago, as incorrigible,' Martin replied. 'He takes his own way, Tom. You would excuse him, Miss Pinch, if you ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... birds perform to a more hostile audience than the owl. I say advisedly "the owl," since the vast majority of people make no distinction whatever between our three resident kinds of owl, not to mention at least half a dozen more visitors. Some excuse for such carelessness might perhaps be found in the similar flight and habits of different owls, but it might have been thought that greater measure of individual recognition on their own merits would have been conceded ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... incorrectly used. It may be argued that to refer to the remote ancestors and their descendants equally as "Greeks and Romans," is an anachronism as marked as would be the calling of the ancient Keltic Gauls, or the Insubres, Frenchmen. As a matter of fact this is true. But, besides the very plausible excuse that the names used were embodied in a private letter, written as usual in great haste, and which was hardly worthy of the honour of being quoted verbatim with all its imperfections, there may perhaps exist still weightier objections to calling ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... in the country; but has a sword at his a—- here in town. 'Tis a poor little short wretch, but will do best in a gown, and we will make Lord Keeper give him a living. Lord Bolingbroke writ to Lord Treasurer to excuse me to-day; so I dined with the former, and Monteleon, the Spanish Ambassador, who made me many compliments. I stayed till nine, and now it is past ten, and my man has locked me up, and I have just ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... appointment for Bro. Wm. Tandy. Bro. Jacob Hugley was to come on the first of the week, and join me in a protracted meeting. Something prevented him from coming. I soon ran out of sermons, the supply on hand being small. In the meantime a fine interest had sprung up, and I had no excuse for quitting. So I had either to face the music, prepare and preach two sermons a day, or ingloriously surrender. The meeting continued two weeks, with some eighteen or twenty additions. During the same trip I held a meeting at a church ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... though it was forbidden to drink or sip beer, it was not forbidden to eat it. When this was in turn prohibited, the Soaker gave up any pretence, and brewed and drank unabashed, telling the angry king that he was celebrating his approaching funeral with due respect, which excuse led to the repeal of the obnoxious decree. A good Rabelaisian tale, that must not have been wide-spread among the Danish topers, whose powers both Saxo and Shakespeare have celebrated, from actual ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... from Louisiana is a lawyer, and he knows very well that under such circumstances, a mother with a nursing infant, that fact being made known to the court would be excused; that would be a sufficient excuse. He knows himself, and he has seen it done a hundred times, that for trivial excuses compared to that men have been excused from service ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... a kindness," said Mr. Chase, "if you would forget Garnet's as now exhibited. You'll excuse the personality, but you seem to have collected a good deal of the professor's property coming ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... observances of propriety which society imposes: for when, with her, passion spoke in accents either of anger or sympathy, nothing could any longer restrain her impulses. Madame approached Manicamp, who had sunk down upon a seat, as if his grief were a sufficiently powerful excuse for his infraction of one of the laws of etiquette. "Monsieur," she said, seizing him by the hand, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... general impression that membership of the House of Commons is in itself a sufficient excuse for the avoidance of military service. This, it appears, is erroneous. Only those are exempt whom a Medical Board has declared unfit for general service; and even these, according to Mr. FORSTER, ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... actor, had quarrelled about some fancied slight. So when Macready came to the city to play at the Astor Place Opera House, some friends of Forrest's gathered and sought to prevent his acting by shouting their disapproval. This was the excuse for an unruly mob to gather outside the theatre and storm the house with stones. Macready escaped by leaving the theatre by a rear door. Then a regiment of soldiers came and after using all peaceful measures to quell the disturbance, fired upon the mob ...
— The Story of Manhattan • Charles Hemstreet
... those Fire-balls, and supernal and infernal prodigies, which, in the case of the Jewish Mysteries, have also more than once scared-back the Alien? Be this as it may, such failure on my part, after best efforts, must excuse the imperfection of this sketch; altogether incomplete, yet the completest I could give of a Sect too singular ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... left for it but to go into the kitchen, and look after the cooking; as for the lad outside, she couldn't get leave to ask him in, or to treat him either; but just as she was about spitting the pig in the kitchen, she made an excuse for running out into the yard, and then and there she gave Boots a pair of scissors, of such a kind that they cut of themselves out of the air the loveliest clothes any one ever saw, silk and satin, and all that ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... enlisted in the sportsmen's battalion. He was wounded, and then the authorities discovered that he was likely to be of more use with a commission and drew him, in spite of considerable resistance, out of the firing line. To which he always returns whenever he can get a visitor to take with him as an excuse. He now stood up, fairly high and clear, explaining casually that the Germans were no longer firing, and showed me ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... endearments of our early days, Nor e'er the heart such fondness prove, As when it first began to love." Lloyd has kindly left me for a keep-sake, John Woolman. You have read it, he says, & like it. Will you excuse one short extract? I think it could not have escaped you:—"Small treasure to a resigned mind is sufficient. How happy is it to be content with a little, to live in humility, & feel that in us which ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... insufficient excuse. A blind ale-house, lane, or alley; an obscure, or little known or frequented ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... in the Italian language. Then he tries to explain it in Italian to us, which is more difficult still. He makes us read aloud to him, during which he folds his hands over his fat stomach and audibly goes to sleep. He will awake with a start and excuse himself, saying that he gets up at five o'clock in the morning for matines, and that naturally at eleven he is sleepy; but I think he only pretends to sleep and takes refuge behind his eyelids, in order to ponder over the Italian language as "she ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... des faux Scavans is Father MALEBRANCHE; he is far more severe than Cornelius Agrippa, and he long preceded ROUSSEAU, so famous for his invective against the sciences. The seventh chapter of his fourth book is an inimitable satire. "The principal excuse," says he, "which engages men in false studies, is, that they have attached the idea of learned where they should not." Astronomy, antiquarianism, history, ancient poetry, and natural history, are all mowed down by his metaphysical scythe. When we become acquainted ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... Churchill, and one of these told him that a silver property in which he was interested over at Cobalt had turned out well and that his share in the sale was something over ten thousand dollars. He used this unexpected piece of good-fortune as an excuse to the inspector when he refused to re-enlist. A week after his arrival at Churchill Bucky Smith was dishonorably discharged from the Service. There were several near them when Bucky came up to him with a smile on his face and ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... as it happened we found them full of men. Finally, there were the bombs. We had been promised Mills only, and yet found many other types during the battle. Possibly a shortage of Mills might account for this, but there can be no possible excuse for sending grenades into a fight without detonators, and no punishment could be too harsh for the officer who ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... their number by proposing this change. A stormy reign prevented Charles V. from the execution of this extensive plan, which Philip II. now undertook as a bequest from all these princes. The moment had now arrived when the urgent necessities of the church would excuse the innovation, and the leisure of peace favored its accomplishment. With the prodigious crowd of people from all the countries of Europe who were crowded together in the towns of the Netherlands, a multitude of religious opinions had ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... provision. Its apparent purpose is to allow certain bankers to sue in the Court of Claims for the amount of internal-revenue tax collected from them without lawful authority, upon showing as matter of excuse for not having brought their suits within the time limited by law that they had entered into an agreement with the district attorney which was in substance that they should be relieved of that necessity. I can not ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... secret of the affair. The wisest in the land speak so strongly of these proceedings that it will be no wonder if the King my master should give me orders to take the Seignior Barneveld under his protection. Should this prove to be the case, your Lordships will excuse my course . . . I beg you earnestly in your wisdom not to give cause of offence to neighbouring princes, especially to my sovereign, who wishes from his heart to maintain your dignity and interests and to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... dead—which is used again in Peter Simple, came from Marryat's own experience; and he declared that he ran away from school on account of the very indignity—that of being compelled to wear his elder brother's old clothes—which Frank Mildmay pleads as an excuse for sharing at least the sentiments of Cain. Marryat, again, was trampled upon and left for dead when boarding an enemy (see chap, v.); he saved the midshipman who had bullied him, from drowning, though his reflections on the occasion are more edifying ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... he had no excuse for holding the fellow, nor for examining his baggage. In search of such excuse, he despatched a wireless to the agent of his government at Brussels, directing him to secure at once all the information available about Andre Chevrial, 18 ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... The moderns are only guilty of taking-on trust what they ought to have examined more scrupulously, as the authors whom they copied were all ranked on one side in a flagrant season of party. But no excuse can be made for the original authors, who, I doubt, have ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... consistent with the high-spirited independence which one desires to believe to have been a leading feature of his character. There may have been great subtlety in the way in which he was tempted; that may be admitted even by the stoutest defenders of the character of George III; but nothing can excuse the eager, rapturous gratitude with which the glittering bait was caught. The whole circumstances are related in the Chatham Correspondence, ii. 146, coupled with Adolphus's Hist. ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.01 • Various
... week, in which I had no regular night sleep. He" (the Tartar) "could not sleep, for he had two horses carrying gold ... but he dozed famously while on horseback. Dr. Kidd used to tell us that the wrist, the eyelid, and the nape of the neck went to sleep before the brain—a charitable excuse for one who drops a Prayer Book in church from drowsiness. I wish I could get Dr. Kidd to tell me whether the knee does not (at least by habit) remain awake after the brain is asleep, for I never saw the Tartar loose ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... 'Oh, excuse me, please ... but it struck me: what if Doenhof were to have another duel with you ... on my account.... ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... would be no excuse for delaying payment of what is justly due, but it shows the great importance of time in this connection—the great advantage of a policy by which we shall not have to pay until we number 100,000,000 ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... TERRIER, his eyes black and keen, Thus attack'd the last speaker—"Pray what do you mean? To boast of your service no longer of use; If you still roasted meat, there might be some excuse; But Smoak-jacks, and Rumfords, and other new hits Ease you (thank the Dog Star) from turning of spits. But to be in such haste to record your own worth, And speak before me, a famed dog of the North, Who all vermine destroy, Mouse, ...
— The Council of Dogs • William Roscoe
... The customs of Eastern marriages favoured the deceit, and Jacob found that he was wedded to Leah, and not to the object of his affection. The deceit was most unjustifiable. The disappointment and the resentment must have been proportionally great; and miserable was the excuse of Laban, and wretched the device which was offered as an atonement. Yet Jacob must have bowed before the retributions of an avenging God, and the remembrance of his own treachery may ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... momentous of all purposes, and make conditions of enrolment that would strengthen all educational measures. It is true enough that there is a low sense of parental duties in the nation at large, and that numbers who have no excuse in bodily hardship seem to think it a light thing to beget children, to bring human beings with all their tremendous possibilities into this difficult world, and then take little heed how they are disciplined and furnished for the perilous ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... 'Excuse me, madam,' said the butler, looking more and more perfect, and more and more the sort of person who is sure to know best, 'he is not your slave. He is the Slave of the Ring. But then, you see, he is a footman, and footmen have to obey butlers ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... Naples, the fleet and army of Belisarius, almost always in view of each other, advanced near three hundred miles along the sea-coast. The people of Bruttium, Lucania, and Campania, who abhorred the name and religion of the Goths, embraced the specious excuse, that their ruined walls were incapable of defence: the soldiers paid a just equivalent for a plentiful market; and curiosity alone interrupted the peaceful occupations of the husbandman or artificer. Naples, which has swelled to a great and populous capital, long cherished the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... bribe a man to inform against him. If any such rascal were to cast up, why, he would miss his ears next morning, or be sent to seek them in the Solway. He is a statesman, [A small landed proprietor.] though he keeps a public; but, indeed, that is only for convenience and to excuse his having cellarage and folk about him; his wife's a canny woman—and his daughter Doll too. Gad, you'll be in port there till you get round again; and I'll keep my word with you, and bring you to speech of ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... whisper it; he didn't tell it to a friend in confidence; he bellowed it out at the top of his voice so all the passengers could hear him. The only possible excuse which can be offered for that captain's behavior is that his staggering was due not to the motion of the ship but to alcoholic stimulant. Could you imagine Little Sure Shot, the Terror of the Pawnees, drunk or sober, doing an asinine thing like ...
— A Plea for Old Cap Collier • Irvin S. Cobb
... who had been ordained in this irregular manner? He returned to Holland to fight his battle there. And he never set foot on African soil again! The whole argument about the irregular ordination turned out to be a mere excuse. If that argument had been genuine the Dutch clergy could now have had Schimdt ordained in the usual way. But the truth is they had no faith in his mission; they had begun to regard the Brethren as dangerous heretics; and, therefore, for another fifty years they forbade all further mission work ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... now, was softly pounding him; and Gregory's voice threatened tears. "What is it?" Lee Randon asked. "You will have to excuse me, ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Latin correspondence were necessities for the princes of that age. What bitter complaints are those of Duke Alfonso, competent as he was in practical matters, that his weakliness in youth had forced him to seek recreation in manual pursuits only! or was this merely an excuse to keep the humanists at a distance? A nature like his was ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... a charming school of youth without smiles. His air of ennui and lassitude, which with him at least had the excuse of a serious foundation, was servilely copied by the youth around him, who never knew any greater distress than an overloaded stomach, but whom it pleased, nevertheless, to appear faded in their flower and contemptuous of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... forces lest we be overwhelmed by them. Yet we know that in every large city there are hundreds of men whose business it is to discover girls thus hard pressed by loneliness and despair, to urge upon them the old excuse that "no one cares what you do," to fill them with cheap cynicism concerning the value of virtue, all to the end that a ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... the Senators who sat on the Democratic side escaped from his truly formidable denunciation. Lane, of Oregon, a compound of conceit, ridiculous ignorance, and servility to Southern masters, was totally annihilated by the sturdy Tennesseean, for his imbecile attempts to excuse his pusillanimous submission to his chivalrous dictators. So successful was he in conjecturing and exposing the designs of the malcontent Senators, that the boldest of them feared to meet him in forensic discussion, and recoiled from the honesty and acuteness of one who ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... nervous. Don't take risks. Everything will come right in time. Remember, I'm not far away in an emergency. Should I chance to be absent if you need advice, send for Mr. Franklin. You can easily devise some official excuse, a mislaid letter, or an error in ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... heard Christmas advanced as an excuse for many things," I replied, "but not early ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... doctrine which runs through all his writings, and may be taken as their general text, namely, that art is not an amusement but a serious undertaking, consequently that purity and truthfulness are just as necessary in art as in actual life. It is no excuse for the artist who deceives to say that his work is "only poetry," and has no serious significance. He carried this exalted notion of the mission of art almost to excess, if such a thing is possible with so noble an idea, when he insisted upon art being a matter of national ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... is a mature plan throughout the Southern States to break up the Union. I believe the election of a Republican is to be the signal for that attempt, and that the leaders of the scheme desire the election of Lincoln so as to have an excuse for disunion. I do not believe that every Breckinridge man is a disunionist, but I do believe that every disunionist in America is a Breckinridge man."—Douglas, Baltimore ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... doctor forced him to come out for a tramp in the snow by the light of the moon. The Norsemen, who bore the winter better than the rest, had begun to lose hope, and declined to leave the fire, while the cook always pleaded for excuse—want of time. ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... premature ringing at her bell. I had no reason for haste, as the reader knows. The distribution of the cyclopaedias was not to take place till the next day, and that absurd trifle was the only distinct excuse I had to myself for being in New York at all. I asked Miss Jones, therefore, if I might not be her escort still to her aunt's house. I had said it would be hard to break off our pleasant journey before I had seen where she lived, and I thought she seemed relieved to know ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... "Not always; excuse me, Belle," contradicted Selene, in her coldest manner; "the last time Sig sang 'Goetterdaemmerung' he returned here." Belle stood up and waved ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... and at last by the moonlight, we had a distinct view of the Peak of Orizava, with his white nightcap on (excuse the simile, suggested by extreme sleepiness), the very sight enough ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... about electricity than the guy that invented it, and I'm not sure that he can't talk to a detectaphone and make it say anything he wants it to. Anyway, we can soon settle it. Yesterday I made a special trip down to the Bureau, with some notes as an excuse, to set this object-compass on him," taking one of the small instruments from his pocket as he spoke. "I watched him a while last night, then fixed an alarm to wake me if the needle moved much, but it pointed steady all night. See! It's moving now. That means that he is going to work ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... reason there seems no excuse for detailing the next three hours. From three o'clock until sunset the mirages slowly fade away into the many-tinted veils of evening. I know that because I've seen it; but never would I know it whilst an inmate of a gasoline madhouse. We carried our ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... every one should be free, if every one had freely done only what he wished.'' Moreover, with this masterful temper was joined an infirmity of purpose which ever let "I dare not wait upon I would,'' and which seized upon any excuse for postponing measures the principles of which he had publicly approved. The codification of the laws initiated in 1801 was never carried out during his reign; nothing was done to improve the intolerable status of the Russian peasantry; ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... corrects it by the others. Obviously the editor who allows himself the wider range lays himself open to more criticism, point by point. He has to justify himself in each particular case, while the other's excuse is set down once for all in his preface. But after comparing the two texts in over a dozen passages, I have had to vote in almost ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of myriads of examples of perfect Art. You can count the cost accurately; saying, "It will take me a year—two years—five—a fourth or fifth, probably, of my remaining life, to do this." Is the thing worth it? There is no excuse for choosing wrongly; no other men whatever have data so full, and position so firm, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Now, if we adopt the mild temperament of some Spanish writers, calling this "a schism in the natural interests," how shocking that such a schism could have arisen at so dreadful a crisis! That schism, which, as a fact, is urged, in the way of excuse, merely as a possibility, is already itself the opprobrium for Spain never to be washed out. For in Spain, what was the aristocracy? Let us not deceive ourselves, by limiting this term to the feudal nobility or grandees; the aristocracy comprehended every man that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... he be ashamed? Was he not a good man? Was the blame of his bad niece's acts his? From the story, she was well used and had no excuse. It is he who is ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... restitution. Would openly acknowledge the bond which joined Faircloth to her and to her people, by openly claiming his protection now, in this hour of her disgrace and supreme dismay. She would offer no excuse, no apology. Only there should be no more attempted concealment or evasion of the truth on her part, no furtiveness in his and her relation. Once and for all she would make her declaration, cry it from the house-top in fearless ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... "his discarded mistress; and then he pelted her with stones. I suppose that's what gave him the idea for his picture. He has just been alleging the pathetic excuse that she was old enough to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and Christians to turn Turks, and think T'excuse the Crime because 'tis in their drink, Is more than Magick.... Pure English Apes! Ye may, for ought I know, Would it but mode, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the work is slowly going forward, as I have shown, while the average per cent. of growth among the negroes is nearly that of the progress among the whites; yet conditions are not satisfactory. While we can excuse ourselves, if we will, by pointing to the changed conditions after the war; by telling of the days of re-construction, which did more to separate and to make antagonistic the two races than many wars; by speaking of the high moral standard, which we demand and which the negroes in ...
— Church work among the Negroes in the South - The Hale Memorial Sermon No. 2 • Robert Strange
... year and "scattered," but we observed that the quail of the Sonoran Desert managed to survive and breed and perpetuate themselves numerously without the benevolent cooperation of the "pump-gun" and the automatic shotgun.] While the study of avian mentality is a difficult undertaking, this is no excuse for the fact that up to this date (1922) that field of endeavor has been only scratched on its surface. The birds of the world are by no means so destitute of ideas and inventions that they merit almost universal neglect. ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... to possess the copper kettle. So he promised to do as Argall asked, and began to cast about for an excuse for getting Pocahontas on board. Soon he fell upon a plan. He bade his wife pretend that she was very anxious to see the Englishman's ship. But when she asked to be taken on board he refused to go with her. Again and again she asked. Again and again the chief refused. Then the poor lady wept with ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... feet of Jesus, who quenched its fire, and of that destructive bolt made a trophy of grace and a fair image of hope. She could not speak, and so she wept,—like the raw, chilling, hard atmosphere, which is relieved only by a shower of snow. How could she speak, guilty, remorseful wretch, without excuse, without extenuation? In the presence of divine virtue, at the tribunal of judgment, she could only weep, she could only love. But, blessed be Jesus, he could forgive her, he can forgive all. The woman departs in peace; Simon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... with the horses at their trot, and inciting them to better speed when they lagged. I conceived a great respect for this poor boy, who had what most Italian peasants would consider an enviable birthright in those two club feet, as giving him a sufficient excuse to live on charity, but yet took no advantage of them; on the contrary, putting his poor misshapen hoofs to such good use as might have shamed many a better provided biped. When he quitted us, he asked no alms of the travellers, but merely applied ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... contrition is (Noble Sir) I needes must have A long one; for a long amisse If you aske me (how is this) Upon my faith Ile tell you frankely, You love above my meanes to thanke yee. Yet according to my Talent As sowre fortune loves to use me A poore Shepheard I have sent, In home-spun gray for to excuse me. And may all my hopes refuse me: But when better comes ashore, You shall have better, newer, more. Til when, like our desperate debters, Or our three pild sweete protesters I must please you in bare letters And so ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... face flush with the intensity of his regard. She cast down her eyes, and the young man took advantage of the fact to signal slightly to his friends. One after the other they rose and, with an excuse, left the room. ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... intelligence of the people, and created a demand for books to read. This demand has gone on increasing from year to year, until we have reached a time when we may say with the Ecclesiast: "Of making of books there is no end." If there was an excuse for the absence of books in our Canadian homes half a century ago, and if the slight draughts that were obtainable at the only fountains of knowledge that then existed were not sufficient to create ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... had been a partisan of the unhappy Charles, and afterwards, at heart, as complete a regicide as any who took a more active part in the terrible transactions of the times. He joined the army of the Parliament, nevertheless, but for a short time, pleading, as an excuse, the necessity there was for remaining amongst his own tenants and thralls to keep them in subjection. Sir Willmott Burrell may well be designated a man of two characters—one for public, one for private life. His manners to his superiors, and generally to his equals, were bland and insinuating; ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... father bear galloping up as fast as he could to see what the matter was. He came over toward Teddy growling, "Gur-r-r! gur-r-r-r! Who are you, coming and frightening my little bears this way?" But as soon as he saw the Counterpane Fairy he grew quite humble. "Oh, excuse me," he said. "I didn't know it was a ...
— The Counterpane Fairy • Katharine Pyle
... voice interrupted him. "Excuse me, Mr. Bradshaw," said Master Byles Gridley, "I wish to present a young gentleman to my friend here. I promised to show him the most charming young person I have the honor to be acquainted with, and I must redeem my pledge. Miss Hazard, I have ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... get some dinner, will you? And Oswald, while you dine, excuse me if I leave you for a while. Your intelligence has so astounded me that I can listen to nothing else till I have had a little while to commune with myself ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... given, that every man may be perfect, and fully learned to eschew all losses, hurts, and damages, that may ensue by pretence or colour of none knowledge, the company extendeth not to allow, or accept ignorance for any lawful or just cause of excuse, in that which shall be misordered by negligence, the burthen whereof shall light upon the negligent offending person, especially upon such as of their own heads, or temerity, will take upon him or them to do or to attempt anything, whereby prejudice may arise, without the commission of the ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt
... expected his cousin to come hurrying up. Velo smiled. He hoped Zaidos would come. He wanted to be there when he tried to make his lame excuses for leaving the barracks in the face of the refusal to give him permission. Velo knew well that in the troubled times in which Greece found herself, no excuse would be accepted. It was desertion; and the fact of his return would not soften the offense. There was no place or time for punishment or imprisonment. Velo shuddered, ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... these entries as an explanation for the tendency to excuse services, forgetting that the lord could usually demand a money equivalent for services not required for any reason. We have here the reason why so few services are demanded, but no explanation of ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... loose of me, Kent. From the moment he saw her, he was a different man. His attitude toward you changed instantly. If he could save you now by raising his little finger, he wouldn't do it, simply because it's absolutely necessary for him to have an excuse for freeing McTrigger. Your confession came at just the psychological moment. The girl's unspoken demand there in the poplars was that he free McTrigger, and it was backed up by a threat which Kedsty understood and which terrified ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... of this my treatise, which I may not omit; operi suscepto inserviendum fuit: so Jacobus Mysillius pleadeth for himself in his translation of Lucian's dialogues, and so do I; I must and will perform my task. And that short excuse of Mercerus, for his edition of Aristaenetus shall be mine, [4419]"If I have spent my time ill to write, let not them be so idle as to read." But I am persuaded it is not so ill spent, I ought not to excuse or repent myself of this subject; on which many grave and worthy men have ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... "Search me. I had to concoct some excuse for getting 'em started—two or three excuses. An' it looks like I got to keep on concoctin' 'em to keep 'em goin'. But it don't hurt no one—lyin' like that, don't. It don't hurt the girl, because she's bound to get one of us. It don't hurt the pilgrim, because ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... Barley, immediately brought to the malt house from the field, rarely makes good malt, as a great proportion of it becomes staggy, and will not grow. Those who can corroborate the truth of these remarks, and sufficiently appreciate them, will readily justify and excuse this seeming departure from the original ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... Southern hominy,—not the pebbly broken corn which our dealers impose under that name,—various hot cakes, tea and coffee, bananas, sapodillas, and if there be anything else not included in the present statement, let haste and want of time excuse the omission. The conversation runs a good deal on the hopes of increasing prosperity which the new mail-steamer opens to the eyes of the Nassauese. Invalids, they say, will do better there than in Cuba,—it is quieter, much cheaper, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... those he had decided upon in his interview with M. Cambon. The prince replied that Austria might be expected to move unless Serbia accepted her demands in toto. He suggested that Serbia ought in no case to give a negative reply. A partial acceptance if sent at once might afford an excuse to Russia against immediate action. Sir Edward asked Sir Horace to submit his views to the German Secretary ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... answered. "It is a ease of contagious, mystic psychopathy! But you must excuse me now, for I am due at Subiaco at eight o'clock. I hope you will enjoy yourselves. May your ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... are now so rapidly taking up old farmsteads, bringing light again to the eyes of the window-panes that have looked out on the world of nature so long that they were growing dim from human neglect. In these places, where land is reckoned by the acre, not by the foot, there is no excuse for the lack of seed beds for both hardy and annual flowers (though these latter belong to another record), in addition to space for cuttings of shrubs, hardy roses, and other woody things that may be ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... retractation, and the passage which Mr. Allen thinks so generous was inserted into the "brief but imperfect" sketch which Mr. Darwin prefixed—after Mr. Chambers had been effectually snuffed out—to all subsequent editions of his "Origin of Species." There is no excuse for Mr. Darwin's not having said at least this much about the author of the "Vestiges" in his first edition; and on finding that he had misrepresented him in a passage which he did not venture to retain, he should not have expunged it quietly, but ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... of the case, and content myself with a condensed statement of the general and special causes of complaint against Mr. Motley, and the explanations which suggest themselves, as abundantly competent to show the insufficiency of the reasons alleged by the government as an excuse for the manner in which he ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... make your treat complete; but since I am not accustomed to drink wine, I am afraid I shall commit some error in point of good breeding, and contrary to the respect that is due to you; therefore I pray you, once more, to excuse me from drinking any wine; I will be content with water." "No, no," said the Barmecide, "you shall drink wine," and at the same time he commanded some to be brought, in the same manner as the meat and fruit had been served before. He made as if he poured out wine, and drank first ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... extant and already found, and what is defective and further to be provided. Of which provisions, because in many of them after the manner of slothful and faulty officers and accomptants it will be returned (by way of excuse) that no such are to be had, it will be fit to give some light of the nature of the supplies, whereby it will evidently appear that they are to be compassed and procured. And yet nevertheless on the other side again it will ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... is of all things the saddest, for a man to say, My Time is done, but my work undone! O then, To work as fast as you can; and of Soul-work, and Church-work, dispatch as much as ever you can. Say to all Hindrances, as the gracious Jeremiah Burrows would sometimes to Visitants: You'll excuse me if I ask you to be short with me, for my work is great, and my time is but short. Methinks every time we hear a Clock, or see a Watch, we have an admonition given us, that our Time is upon the wing, and it will all be gone within a little ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... physical science and political economy for the last fifty years, and yet persists, in defiance of his own knowledge, in leaving his used-up servants, and their children and grand-children after them, to rot, body, mind, and soul, in the very precincts of the palace, having no other excuse to offer for this than that it is too much trouble to treat them better, and that, on the whole, he can make money more rapidly by thus throwing away that human dirt, and leaving it to decay where it can, regardless what it pollutes and poisons; just as the manufacturer can make ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... has been a depression in the Gulf of Mexico. Excuse me!" He leaped overside; but his friends took up ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... some rarities which particularly struck me, and avoid further temptations, where the sense of obligation, and the recollection of partial kindness, inspire an inclination to praises which appear tedious to those readers who could not enter into my feelings, and of course would scarcely excuse them. ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... tongue is running away with me," she said. "Excuse me, Bawn, my dear. Your stranger sounds like Anthony Cardew, but I don't see that it can be he. He was raven-black. Better think no more of him. I wouldn't waste a thought on any man. I wonder why ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... can take no excuse. After hearing you once, nothing but a repetition will satisfy us. Mr. Gurney will play for you," was ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... out west," replied Mr. Post. "Now let's get down to business. Excuse me for awhile, boys. Make yourselves to home, and I'll be with you after a bit. Look ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... first visit to Almondbury to preach, the verger came to me in the vestry and said, "A've put a platform in t' pulpit for ye; you'll excuse me, but a little man looks as if he was in a toob." (N.B. To prevent undue inferences I am five feet nine ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... as perhaps we may, the existence of a measure of truth in this complaint, it will only be to claim that there is some excuse for those whom it asperses. The intellectual problems bred of a materialistic age have so compelled the preacher to the defence of the walls of Zion that it may well have come to pass that the inhabitants of the city—the men and women down in the streets ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... the coming of the Americans the instruction in the Philippines was always and exclusively religious, and was directed by the Roman priests, the persistence of these old superstitions are evident proofs of the failure of religious education. As an excuse missionaries will perhaps attribute this to the invincible rudeness of the Filipinos, which we shall admit for courtesy's sake and to avoid discussions. But what is all-important is not that they were unable to take out something ...
— The Legacy of Ignorantism • T.H. Pardo de Tavera
... him before, but I wasn't sure," she observed, nodding her head; "but then I should have remembered so remark—that is, such a good-looking boy. And I'm going to begin delivering eggs at his house on my very next trip to Carson, too. That's queer, isn't it? Clarence, shake hands with me, and excuse me for seeming to be angry. We have tramps come here so often, and they always shy stones at Carlo, so that when I heard him howling I thought some of that tribe had hurt him. I can let you have all the eggs you want, just ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... This pelting with imputations of forgery may be very fine fun to the pelters, but it is death to him. To them, indeed, it may be a mere question of evidence and criticism; but to him it must, in any case, be one of vital personal concern. Yet we cannot find any sufficient excuse for the manner in which Mr. Collier has behaved in this affair from the very beginning. His cause is damaged almost as much by his own conduct, and by the tone of his defence, as by the attacks of his accusers. A ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... she sighed; yet, instantly recovering herself, she made the excuse that so many ceremonious greetings and ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... fur. An' he had the best judgment about mining-ground—why you never see anything like it. When we went to work, he'd scatter a glance around, 'n' if he didn't think much of the indications, he would give a look as much as to say, 'Well, I'll have to get you to excuse me,' 'n' without another word he'd hyste his nose into the air 'n' shove for home. But if the ground suited him, he would lay low 'n' keep dark till the first pan was washed, 'n' then he would sidle up 'n' take a look, an' if there was about six or seven grains of gold ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... those excellencies which are placed at the greatest distance from possibility of attainment. We are conscious of our own defects, and eagerly endeavour to supply them by artificial excellence; nor would such efforts be wholly without excuse, were they not often excited by ornamental trifles, which he, that thus anxiously struggles for the reputation of possessing them, would not have been known to want, had not ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... are open to the same objection. They cause an abnormal desire for food. Therefore, they should be used seldom and very sparingly. So long as apples, oranges, figs, dates, raisins, sweet prunes and various other fruits can be had, there is no excuse for the consumption of great quantities of the heavily sugared concoctions ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... monasteries seem to have been gently administered. Indeed, this has been made the chief reproach on them, and the excuse for robbing them for the benefit of a more energetic crown and nobility who tolerated no beggars or idleness but their own; at least, it is safe to say that few well-regulated and economically administered modern charities would have the patience of the ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... above portrait of my brother, painted in the very best style of Rubens, the reader will conceive himself justified in expecting a full-length one of myself, as a child, for as to my present appearance, I suppose he will be tolerably content with that flitting glimpse in the mirror. But he must excuse me; I have no intention of drawing a portrait of myself in childhood; indeed it would be difficult, for at that time I never looked into mirrors. No attempts, however, were ever made to steal me in my infancy, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... a lot will come," said Mrs. Ridge when Mary showed her a copy of it. "They would come anyhow, Miss Spencer. Most of them never made money like they made it here. They've been away long enough now to miss it and—Ha-ha-a!—Excuse me." She suddenly checked herself and looked very red ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... some excuse for Eddie's Don Juanity with the common clay of Delia, especially as she never quite believed her own beliefs in that affair; but Luella was different. Luella had been a rival. The merest courtesy to Luella was an unpardonable affront to every ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... soon gave something or other as an excuse and withdrew. Yuean Yang then returned also quite alone to her chamber to give vent to her resentment; and Mrs. Hsueeh, Madame Wang and the other inmates, one by one, retired in like manner, for fear of putting Madame Hsing out of countenance. Madame Hsing, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... by the officers in the cabin, I noticed Van Luck was never present. He made an excuse for his absence that, as first officer, his place was on deck when the captain was below. Although this could not be disputed, yet I bethought me he might have found an opportunity to add his voice to our councils had he the inclination to ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... through ignorance, not by being half-educated, or miseducated. It can be only through a liberal culture of all her faculties. So trained, she will ever bear in mind "that knowledge is not to elevate her above her station, nor to excuse her from the discharge of its most trifling duties. It is to teach her to know her place, and her functions, to make her content with the one, and willing to fulfil the other. It is to render her more useful, more ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... the plea that though it was forbidden to drink or sip beer, it was not forbidden to eat it. When this was in turn prohibited, the Soaker gave up any pretence, and brewed and drank unabashed, telling the angry king that he was celebrating his approaching funeral with due respect, which excuse led to the repeal of the obnoxious decree. A good Rabelaisian tale, that must not have been wide-spread among the Danish topers, whose powers both Saxo and Shakespeare have celebrated, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... unsophisticated beliefs in the permanence of marriage, his suspicions were roused by the Old Squire's silence on the matter. At no point did he join his appeals and arguments with Ellen's, though he had been ready enough to write to excuse and explain.... No, Arthur felt that love and wisdom lay not in sanctifying Ellen in her new ways with the blessing of the law, but in leaving the old open for her to come back to when the new should perhaps grow hard. "That ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... Excuse this digression, for which I have a double reason: chiefly I was anxious to put on record my own opinions, and my contempt for men generally in this particular; and here I seemed to have a conspicuous situation for that purpose. Secondly, apart from this purpose of ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... matter of advertising and were assured that it would be attended to and they could go home and "forget it," which they trustingly did. When no advertisements appeared members of the committee hurried to Trenton and learned that Governor James F. Fielder was responsible. His excuse was that his secretary had mislaid the resolution and forgotten to remind ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... the invited guests had been prevented from coming at the last moment, which would spoil the number for a certain march figure she had planned, she wanted to know if we would mind attending the ball in their places. She begged us to excuse her for not coming in to speak to us herself, but she was in the hands ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... hope enough to justifie soe much freedome with a Prince that is so easie to excuse things well intended as this is "BY "Great Prince, "Thy faithfull subject, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... had already made their fortunes, and who did not therefore think it worth their while to transfer their homage to a new patron. One of these persons tried to enlist Prior in Portland's faction, but with very little success. "Excuse me," said the poet, "if I follow your example and my Lord's. My Lord is a model to us all; and you have imitated him to good purpose. He retires with half a million. You have large grants, a lucrative employment in ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... help for it, so, with a sickly smile, he put his name to the fatal document in big and shaky letters. Then Muller called another man, who instantly tried to shirk on the ground that his education had been neglected, and that he could not write, an excuse which availed him little, for Frank Muller quietly wrote his name for him, leaving a space for his mark. After this there was no more trouble, and in five minutes the back of the warrant was covered with the sprawling signatures of the various ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... started arguing about the point, Bloom saying he wouldn't and he couldn't and excuse him no offence and all to that and then he said well he'd just take a cigar. Gob, he's a prudent member and ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... fully learned to eschew all losses, hurts and damages that may insue by pretence or colour of none knowledge, the company entendeth not to allow, or accept ignorance for any lawfull or iust cause of excuse, in that which shall be misordered by negligence, the burden whereof shall light vpon the negligent offending person, especially vpon such as of their owne heads, or temeritie, will take vpon him or them to doe or to attempt any thing, whereby preiudice may arise, without ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... that the many cruelties stated to have been perpetrated by the present Khan previous to the capture of his city did not take place. Indeed, they only existed in the fertile Muscovite imagination, which was eager to find an excuse for the appropriation of a neighbour's property. On the contrary, capital punishment was only inflicted when the laws had been infringed; and there is no instance of the Khan having arbitrarily put ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... his egregious ears! [xcv] There lives one Druid, who prepares in time [71] 'Gainst future feuds his poor revenge of rhyme; Racks his dull Memory, and his duller Muse, To publish faults which Friendship should excuse. 740 If Friendship's nothing, Self-regard might teach More polished usage of his parts of speech. But what is shame, or what is aught to him? [xcvi] He vents his spleen, or gratifies his whim. Some ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... 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 to thrones occupied ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... the plaza to the door of the chapel. Kit knew this was the right moment for him to disappear and get the black mare back of the wall, but Rotil kept chuckling to him over the ungirlish request, and so pointedly included him in the party that there seemed no excuse available for ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... I apprehend This is one of the strangers to whose aid[cp] I owe my rescue. Is not that the other? [Pointing to WERNER. My state when I was succoured must excuse 470 My uncertainty to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... congressional district campaign which would reach the members of Congress before they left their homes to go to Washington. This was intended to impress them with the strength of the suffrage sentiment in their districts and thus deprive them of a favorite excuse for not voting for our amendment. The plan called for congressional district meetings all over the country on or about November 16 in every district where the Representative was not already pledged to the Federal Amendment. The call was sent to ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... realised that his sole chance lay in controlling himself to accept stoically whatever treatment was offered; for he saw instantly that any protest or indignation would be interpreted as insubordination and possibly be made an excuse to shoot ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... the sort of mistake the rural constable did when he came along by the riverside and saw a face floating on the water. 'Come out o' that!' he says. 'You know there ain't no bathing allowed around here.' And the face in the water answered: 'Excuse me, officer; ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... Meet all accusers with as good excuse, As well as I am certain I can clear Myself ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... Chesapeake refused to surrender men alleged to be deserters from King George's navy, the British warship Leopard opened fire, killing three men and wounding eighteen more—an act which even the British ministry could hardly excuse. If the French were less frequently the offenders, it was not because of their tenderness about American rights but because so few of their ships escaped the hawk-eyed British navy to operate in ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... impetuosity, and although the other divisions of the Eleventh made an effort to hold their ground, this big hole in the line was fatal to them and all were quickly swept away. Of course, the division and brigade commanders were responsible for that unpardonable carelessness. No valid excuse can be made for such criminal want of watchfulness, especially for troops occupying a front line, and which had heard, or should have heard, as we a half mile farther in the rear had, all the premonitions of the coming storm. But it was an incident showing ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... Agnes cut this out, enclosing it with an anonymous letter to Petard. She told of the miserable trick played upon him. Isabelle was only seventeen and a half, and in no way fit to be a god-mother to him. She was infatuated with him, and pretended to be old, so she would have an excuse ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... in his power. She at once appropriated them, and secreted such of them as she did not require for present use. But there were articles which she could not well treat in that way with any shadow of excuse: for instance, the gun, powder and shot, bows and arrows, tobacco and pipes, hatchets and scalping-knives, blankets and masculine garments, which were in daily use. These were frequently lost and re-won before winter had fairly begun, but Mozwa ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... were chatting pleasantly, and Henrietta pushed back her chair. 'Will you excuse me? I have to ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... society, and I assume that they are—not because they have property, but because, as a rule, they have acquired it by unjust processes and use it tyrannically—what excuse have we for aristocracies, an idle class, a privileged class, who toil not, nor spin? What is a recognized aristocracy, such as England maintains? From what perennial fountain did it draw its nobility and wealth? Came they not through Norman conquest and robbery? Who ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... Gentlemen, it might possibly be said, that that noble Lord, not reflecting on the consequences of such an offence as that imputed to him by this indictment, might be engaged in it; but you must impute to Lord Cochrane a much more serious offence, one for which want of consideration will be no excuse, after that affidavit has been laid before you, or it is impossible for you to say that he can be convicted of this conspiracy; for it will not be forgotten by you, that at the close of that affidavit, my Lord Cochrane ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... each to consist of one hundred men. Yet his anxious wishes continued to be directed towards fort Du Quesne. In a letter written about this time to Colonel Stanwix, who commanded in the middle colonies, he said, "You will excuse me, sir, for saying, that I think there never was, and perhaps never again will be, so favourable an opportunity as the present for reducing fort Du Quesne. Several prisoners have made their escape from the Ohio this spring, and agree in their ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... a great man, but you must excuse me if I think that it would take many Newtons to make ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... of Ammonius," he really knows no more than about the lost Books of Livy. He is, therefore, without excuse for adducing them in the ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... to the linguistic requirements of the American reader, using the every day language for the historical part of my subject; and maintaining the more classical expression for the men with the tendencies to argue, just to make a show of their higher knowledge, thus trying to excuse themselves for not submitting all their powers to ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... with directness. "Why should I have come, unless I thought I could be of use to you? It is my only excuse for imagining you could ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... Busteed's apology; but the judge still said that he should send him to prison. 'You will, will you?' said Brady; 'I say you will not.' And, citing authority after authority against his power to do so, he dared him to thus stretch his prerogative. The judge thought best to excuse ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... only too glad of an excuse for climbing a tree, however cheaply he might hold one who cared for flowers; and by the time Bessie had put on her lilac-spotted sun-bonnet—a shapeless article it must be confessed, with a huge curtain serving for a tippet, very comfortable, and no trouble ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had waited for days without finding any trace of him or hearing any word from him, and at last had turned about on her lonely, homeward road. And yet he was blameless then. As far as that was concerned, he could excuse himself; he could explain all. He felt so guilty in some things, that he was anxious to show his innocence in other things where he had not been to blame; and so he hastened most eagerly to give a long and an eloquent vindication of himself, by explaining all ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... Ambassador Crodfoller's voice was faint. "Magnan, you'll be knighted for this. Thank God you reached me. Thank God it's not too late. I'll find some excuse. I'll get ...
— Gambler's World • John Keith Laumer
... spread. The sputum coughed up from the lungs is the principal carrier of the disease, and the person who, having tuberculosis, even in its earliest stages, spits in a public place, is an enemy of mankind, for he endangers the lives of hundreds of others. The only excuse for this is that he usually does it through ignorance, but the knowledge of the danger should be so impressed on all the people that no one could plead ignorance, and for a consumptive to spit on the street should be counted as much a crime morally as for ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... to excuse themselves from the practice of family religion, upon the ground that they have not the capacity nor the time. If so, you should not have married. But if you are Christians, you have the capacity, and you will take ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... whirl, finding her duties at school sufficient excuse. She often longed for some young life, however, and wondered why she did not meet the daughters of the ladies who were so kind to her when she went out under Miss ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... struggled under the necessity to move. Why shouldn't he want to move? Why not? Because he didn't want the day in front—the plunge into a strange country, towards nowhere, with no aim in view. True, he said that ultimately he wanted to join Lilly. But this was hardly more than a sop, an excuse for his own irrational behaviour. He was breaking loose from one connection after another; and what for? Why break every tie? Snap, snap, snap went the bonds and ligatures which bound him to the life that had formed him, the people he had loved or liked. He found ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... be necessary for him now to find some occupation, which with his abilities I have no doubt he will easily do. As usual, the young people are in a hurry to know their fate, so it will be a charity to them to reply as soon as convenient. Excuse the trouble I am giving you, and, with kind regards to Mrs B. ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... bray about music, stride straight to the notes, and have no patience till they come to Beethoven; who foolishly prate and fume about my unclassical management, but at bottom only wish to conceal their own unskilfulness, their want of culture and of disinterestedness, or to excuse their habitual drudgery. Lazy people without talent I cannot undertake to inspirit, ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... the house; but Edgar, so anxious lest any cross be given to his wife, with a double reason then for tenderly guarding her health, could not inflict a serious sorrow upon her with only a baseless jealousy for its excuse. Thus, Heathcliff became intimate at Thrushcross Grange, the second house to which he was made welcome, the second hearth he meant to ruin. At this time he was lodging at Wuthering Heights. On his return he had first intended, he told Catharine, "just to have one ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... anticipated any determined resistance. Of course they had looked for a formal protest, and perhaps a sufficient show of opposition to excuse the sheriff in the eye of any stickler for legal formalities. They had not however come prepared to fight a battle, and no one of them seemed willing to lead an attack upon the jail. The leaders of the ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... of that black night—often leave him, sitting through solitary evenings with pipe and samovar, quite unchallenged. Indeed there were already times when it seemed as if he need hardly wait for the excuse of the "Tosca" to turn ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... Adrian, as that American girl used to say. There's something in that. (Yes, I know you don't like it, dear, but I love doing it. I'll pour you out another glass of port. There!) But any idiotic excuse is good enough for a man in love. Has he ever been sentimental ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... grass banished all thought of the shadow, and then there came a cheerful voice in her ears, and the big policeman was standing by her side. For a few moments they were stationary, making salutation and excuse and explanation, and then they walked slowly on through the sunshine. Wherever there was a bush there were flowers on it. Every tree was thronged with birds that sang shrilly and sweetly in sudden thrills and clear sustained melodies, but in the open spaces the silence was more wonderful; there ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... because he was defamed himself, but he stood up for his friend[776] that was abused, the occasion giving him a reasonable excuse for self-commendation. So too the Romans were far from pleased at Cicero's frequently passing encomiums upon himself in the affair of Catiline, yet when Scipio said they ought not to try him (Scipio), since he had given them the power ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... his father, who was a good man, believed him; but his mother could not be persuaded that it was true; and seeing that he went almost every day a-hunting, and that he always had some excuse ready for so doing, though he had been out three or four nights together, she began to suspect that he was married; for he lived thus with the Princess above two whole years, during which they had two children, the elder, a daughter, was named Dawn, and the younger, a son, they called Day, ...
— The Tales of Mother Goose - As First Collected by Charles Perrault in 1696 • Charles Perrault
... interfere with this engagement with the boys if she could help it. However, it happened this evening that some old friends of the family who were passing through the city on their way south called, and it was impossible to excuse herself, so the boys were left ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... rate, after receiving the appointment, his courage failed him, and he begged the king to excuse him from performing so dangerous a commission. The king was, however, very unwilling to do so. Finally, it was agreed that the king should give the earl his written order, executed in due and solemn form, and signed with the great seal, commanding him, on the royal authority, ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... windmills. There would be excitement, fascination in playing such a thrilling part in real life. Were you ever hungry, Prince?" She broke off. "What an absurd question! What is more to the point, tell me it was all well done—the device, or excuse, of substituting another motor-car for her own, the mad flight far into the night, down the coast where save for that mishap—But I met all difficulties, did I not? And, believe me, it was not easy—to keep your little American inamorata concealed until the Nevski could be repaired and ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... much she thinks of Aunt Therese. And the people she's been engaged to! There ain't a worse flirt in the city of St. Louis; and always some excuse or other to break it off at the last minute. I haven't got any use for her, Lord knows. There ain't much love lost ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... Luck, it is my Design to confirm to them viva voce, what I have already given them under my Hand. If you will honour me with a Visit, I will compliment you with the first opening of my Mouth, and if you please you may make an entertaining Dialogue out of the Conversation of two dumb Men. Excuse this Trouble, worthy Sir, from one who has been a ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... with clearness, gravity, and elegance; yet what frequently gave me great uneasiness when I heard him, as it did while I attended to you, was to see so excellent a genius falling into such frivolous (excuse my freedom), not to say foolish, doctrines. However, I shall not at present offer anything better; for, as I said before, we can in most subjects, especially in physics, sooner discover what is not true ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... they touched upon them at all, with the coolness and impartiality of naturalists: They did not conclude things to be necessarily worse because they were different. A modern Tom Coryat, instead of introducing the use of the fork among his countrymen, would find some excuse for thinking the Italians a nasty people because they used it. In our day it would appear that the chief aim of a traveller was to discover (or where that failed, to invent) all that he possibly can to the disadvantage of the country ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... unpleasant truth which the others had characteristically shirked, for Blake was often careless and Benson had taken the risks of the journey with frank indifference, though they had the excuse that after nearly starving once or twice they had succeeded in getting fresh supplies. Now, however, their hearts sank as they thought of the expanse of frozen wilderness that lay between them ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... the army was not extended to the fleet, which continued totally unready; nor was the organisation of the volunteers carried out in an efficient manner. The excuse afterwards advanced was that not more than 15,000 enrolments were expected, while the actual figure reached 35,000. Besides being from its very bulk less manageable than the 'few and good' of 1859, this mass of men was ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... the men had no excuse for posing as warriors; for the Fantis were the only cowardly race on the coast, and had several times shown themselves worthless as fighters, when the Ashantis ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... was in his diversions we know not; here was no room for such things. It was no time for mirth. Neither can I say I ever saw him smile. Those who speak so positively of his being like King James the Seventh, must excuse me for saying that it seems to say they either never saw this person or never saw King James the Seventh; and yet I must not conceal that when we saw the man whom they called our King, we found ourselves not at all animated by his presence; and ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... first engagement should always be kept, and if a patroness should honor you with such an invitation, and you have made prior arrangements, you should at once explain by note your position, which will be a sufficient excuse to your ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... no doubt of the excellence of your family, Mr Forster. I can only express my deep regret that it is not noble. Excuse me, Mr Forster; except you ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... "But think of the experience I'll get, Alice," he insisted. "The directions say, 'If the man of the house is at home make some excuse and call again'; but with my usual luck he's sure to see me first, and then I'll go out on three legs. I suspect the material will get polished all right. But the talk that man gave me to learn is certainly ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... the South), and we have a fox-hunt or two in the mornings, and that old buck to look after whose tracks I showed you in the road; besides the ducks and turkeys which are waiting to be shot, and all the Christmas frolicking, from which the ladies will not excuse us. We will therefore take this quiet Sunday afternoon for a walk among the fields and woods to see what manner of country we are in. Bending our steps first toward the huge old oak which seems to hang ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... liberty to dedicate this offering to you, as a token of respect and esteem. This, together with a grateful remembrance of the courtesies extended to me, and the support which I have derived from your friendship, will be, I hope, a sufficient excuse for ...
— Allopathy and Homoeopathy Before the Judgement of Common Sense! • Frederick Hiller
... of Catullus to excuse the wantonness of his own verses, which he is sending to his friend Paternus; and Apuleius cites the passage in his Apology for the same purpose. "Whoever," says Lambe, "would see the subject fully discussed, should turn to the Essay on the Literary Character by Mr. ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... ma'am, I'm a quarter late, and could you please to excuse me; the clock around the corner doesn't go, and Kate she didn't know the time; and Mrs. Meeker said would you please accept her love and these grapes in a basket. She says they're the finest of the lot, and you needn't ...
— Three People • Pansy
... scepters and have naught of chivalry (vi. 51). It may be said that both Dante before Tasso, and Milton after him, employed similar classical language in dealing with Christian and mediaeval motives. But this will hardly serve as an excuse; for Dante and Milton communicate so intense a conviction of religious earnestness that their Latinisms, even though incongruous, are recognized as the mere clothing of profoundly felt ideas. The sublimity, the seriousness, the spiritual dignity is in their thought, not in its expression; whereas ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... often doing it. I could on the spur of the moment write as many as twenty names of people of whom I am accustomed to speak ill without really knowing much about them. I make it an excuse that they are in the public eye, that I don't like their politics, or their social opinions, or their literary output, or the things they do on the stage. Anything will serve so long as it gives me the opportunity ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... before-mentioned. They had, curiously enough, all been equally honoured with the distinction of knighthood, and their schemes for seeing her were manifold, each fearing that one of the others would steal a march over himself. Not content with calling, on every imaginable excuse, at the house of the relative with whom she sojourned, they intercepted her in rides and in walks; and if any one of them chanced to surprise another in the act of paying her marked attentions, the encounter often ended in an altercation of great violence. So heated and ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... in his own charming way. He was so happy, so radiantly happy, so persuasive, so compelling, that Antonia granted him, without a word, the favor his eyes asked for. And the lovers hardly heard the excuse she made; they understood nothing of it, only that she would be reading in the myrtle walk for one hour, and, by so doing, would protect ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... Granvelle, mournfully, "that nobody in Rome believes in his Majesty's journey to the provinces." From that time forward, however, the King began to promise this visit, which was held out as a panacea for every ill, and made to serve as an excuse ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... reformed than the other.—The Book is perhaps, as it stands, too bulky for the subject; but if the Reader knew how many pressing considerations, as it grew into size, the Author resisted, which yet seemed intitled to be heard, he would the more readily excuse him. ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... but it will take some time," he went on. "Let me have one of your dressing-gowns. I shall be more comfortable for the night, and these ladies will excuse me, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... from the gallant Peredeus, and the mode of seduction employed by Rosamond betrays her shameless insensibility both to honor and love. She supplied the place of one of her female attendants who was beloved by Peredeus, and contrived some excuse for darkness and silence, till she could inform her companion that he had enjoyed the queen of the Lombards, and that his own death, or the death of Alboin, must be the consequence of such treasonable adultery. In this ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... you will excuse this written by a stranger. I have often observed you listening to the sermon in our church. My wife and I are going abroad, so we offer you our pew; you appear to admire Eyton's preaching as much as we do—we shall be very glad if ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... misfortune," she continued, "to care very little for the pastimes you speak of; and as for the company, I've no doubt it will be very pleasant for those who go, but to me it will afford very little pleasure. Your mother must therefore excuse me, William:—I should be a very ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... one morning, she had said, "Come—I want to introduce you to Miss War-field." Pinckney had demurred, and offered as an excuse that he was smoking. "Nonsense, Charles," said the girl; "I have told her you are coming." Pinckney threw away his cigar and followed, and the presentation was made. Miss Warfield drew herself almost unusually erect after courtesying, as if in protest at having to bow at all. She was so tall that, ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... letter, and request you to excuse my calling upon you at your hotel this evening, as I am unwell; but if you will do me the honor to come to Vavasour House on receipt of this, I will discuss the matter in question with you, and trust you will believe that you may ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... accusation," they said, "was only to cover that wretched conduct, and, if possible, to hide or excuse the disgrace and failure that had attended all their measures. Was any other part of their policy more commendable or more successful? Did the cruel and sanguinary laws of the preceding session answer any of the purposes for which they were proposed? Had they in any degree ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... affords—grog drinking—to which no earthly bliss can be compared in the Indian's estimation. To find the Company serving out rum to the natives as payment for their services in this remote quarter, created the utmost surprise in my mind: no excuse can be advanced which can justify the unhallowed practice, when the management of the native population is left entirely to themselves. Why then is it continued? Strange to say, while Indians were to be seen rolling drunk about the establishment, an order of Council appeared, prohibiting the ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... of some lame excuse or other, had persisted in putting off the visit which Lady Tressady had intended to pay them at Ferth during the Whitsuntide recess, and since their return to town there had been no meeting whatever between the two ladies. George, indeed, had seen his mother two or three times. ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... feet, his brow darkening. "Do you think I don't suffer doubly on your account? That I don't feel the insolence of his behavior toward you four-fold? There is but one excuse for him and my mother, and that lies in their terrible disappointment about ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... instituted by some of the tribunes, dared indeed to commit no act of violence, but, together with the malcontents in the senate, changed their clothing as if for a calamity. They immediately, however, repented in regard to this costume and without waiting for any excuse went back to their accustomed dress. Now when the tribunes endeavored to abolish the levies and rescind the vote for the proposed campaigns, Pompey, for his part, showed no anger. He had sent out his lieutenants ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... Bud found excuse to call Bronson aside to show him a good place to fence-in the corral. Dorothy was playing ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... Newfoundland's history, he might have added a third fact; namely, that the French claims in Newfoundland have been for the Jingoes of the last half-century a convenient means of excuse for shirking their own responsibility to the unfortunate island, and for covering up the malignant selfishness of those tradesmen in Canada and England to whose private interests the island has ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell
... always excited my imagination, and the thought of the island having thus by chance been revived in me, I began to feel that a visit to it would be a very charming adventure, and that Sir Samuel's story of the marble, even if it should prove to be a myth, would at least be a plausible excuse for embarking on so long a journey. Moreover, it provided Sir Samuel with an excuse for writing to Sir Henry Bulwer, then governor of the island, and asking him to do what he could in the way of securing accommodation ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... Buergermeister as about the functions of a Mayor. In short, my knowledge of Germany, like my knowledge of England, is based on a series of life-long, unclassified, more or less inchoate impressions, and the only excuse I have for writing about either country I find in my own and ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... religion and philosophy, shorten, would add to the national misfortunes, by injuring the health of so great a supporter of our sinking liberties. I ought to ask pardon for this digression; it is more proper for me in this place to say something to excuse an address that looks so very presuming. My sex is usually forbid studies of this nature, and folly reckoned so much our proper sphere, we are sooner pardoned any excesses of that, than the least pretensions to reading or good sense. We are permitted no books ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... each other, they were implacable to their enemies, and they gave no quarter; the dead bodies of their enemies afforded horrible festivities, which the want of other animal food explains, but can hardly excuse. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... and yet they were very cruel—that is, if they are to be judged by the standard of the present age; but in this let us pass sentence on them with moderation, and even with indulgence. The magnitude of the deeds they were accustomed to perform can never be fully estimated now, and these should excuse to some extent many of their clumsy and misguided modes of operation. It must not be supposed that all these men were afflicted by a demoniac spirit. It was their training that blanketed the sympathetic side of them, until they unconsciously acquired ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... burn, and she prays thee, Hymenaeus, to come quickly. Telethusa, dreading the same thing that she desires, at one time puts off the time {of the wedding}, and then raises delays, by feigning illness. Often, by way of excuse, she pretends omens and visions. But now she has exhausted all the resources of fiction; and the time for the marriage {so long} delayed is {now} at hand, and {only} one day remains; whereon she takes off the fillets for ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Junius ever dealt in more furious words than Macaulay, who had not the excuse of controversy or passion. Frederick William of Prussia was "the most execrable of fiends, a cross between Moloch and Puck"; "his palace was hell"; compared with the Prince, afterwards Frederick the Great, "Oliver Twist in the workhouse, and Smike at Dotheboys Hall were petted children." ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... part in every play in which we had appeared at the Princess's. "Walking on is so dull," the young actress says sometimes to me now, and I ask her if she knows all the parts of the play in which she is "walking on." I hardly ever find that she does. "I have no understudy," is her excuse. Even if a young woman has not been given an understudy, she ought, if she has any intention of taking her profession as an actress seriously, to constitute herself an understudy to every part in the piece! Then she would not find her time as ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... breach of charity and humility, only not universal among all sects and parties of this period, and common to the best and gentlest men in all; we should not therefore bring it in charge against any one in particular. But what excuse shall be made for the revival of this presumptuous encroachment on the divine prerogative in ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... oyster-like insensibility to the passing events,—a mind-stupor,—a brawny defiance to the needles of a thrusting-in conscience? Did you ever have a very bad cold, with a total irresolution to submit to water-gruel processes? This has been for many weeks my lot, and my excuse; my fingers drag heavily over this paper, and to my thinking it is three-and-twenty furlongs from here to the end of this demi-sheet. I have not a thing to say; no thing is of more importance than another; ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... a scandalized little cry. Her attitude was determinedly that it was just an ordinary marriage, as good an excuse for sentiment and pretty frocks as ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... to Janet Dunton. Now there was a gulf wider than the world between them. He slipped out of the best room by the outside door and came in through the kitchen. The neighbor's sleigh that was to call for them was already at the door, and John begged them to excuse him. He had set his heart on helping Huldah make mince pies, as he used to help his mother when a boy. His sister was in despair, but she did not say much. She told John that it was time he was getting over his queer freaks. And ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... answer to your letter; a mass of business and constant illness must be my excuse. That I am here for the restoration of my health proves the truth of my excuse. Do not snatch the laurel wreaths from Handel, Haydn, Mozart; they are entitled to them; as ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... over the apartment again with a haunting sense of familiarity, and then recognized the janitor and laughed; and to that house with the pathetic widow and the pretty daughter who wished to take them to board. They stayed to excuse their blunder, and easily came by the fact that the mother had taken the house that the girl might have a home while she was in New York studying art, and they hoped to pay their way by taking boarders. Her daughter ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... stick, I purposely touched the back of his neck—unperceived by him, of course—he fled frightened out of his life, supposing it to have been a ghost. He met me again on the high road in the plain, about half a mile farther on, and explained his conduct with the very truthful excuse, that "a spirit had seized him by the throat and shaken him violently, meaning at all costs to enter his mouth, and that it was to escape serious injury that he had fled!" When I told him that it was I who had touched him with the ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... "you must excuse my company to-night. Langley will be glad to go with you; and as we sail so soon, I have a ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... "if the Senora will excuse me, I could not lie on a bed. A raw-hide like Senor Felipe's, and my blanket, are all I want. I could ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... did—for a minute. I thought you're wanting to borrow a horse was just the flimsiest kind of an excuse to ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... shops, but that the landlord, Mr. Danby, had taken them away the day before to see how the ceilings were standing, and had not returned them. "But if you was thinking of taking a shop here," the poor baker added, with some hesitation, "I—I—if you'll excuse my advising you—I shouldn't recommend it. I've had ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... owing to the summer heats and the Vardar marshes, some 210,000 were down with malaria.[8] Nevertheless, under pressure from home and against his own better judgment,[9] General Sarrail began an offensive (10 August). As might have been foreseen, this display of energy afforded the Bulgars an excuse, and the demobilization of the Greek forces an opportunity, for a fresh invasion. M. Zaimis, in view of the contingency, imparted to General Sarrail his Government's intention to disarm the forts in Eastern Macedonia, so that he might forestall the Bulgars ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... will, for days together, refuse all food, or worse still, go dirt-eating, stuffing themselves with clay till they have the mal d'estomac, and so die: this mal, of which our English stomach-ache gives no valid translation (which must prove my excuse for placing here a foreign word), being, with the Yaws, their most frequent and fatal complaint. Of a less perplexing nature also are their fits of the Sulks, when, for more than a week at a time, they will remain wholly ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... cheeks you, you feel as if you'd like to hit him. My young brother did hit him. What was still more to his advantage he gave people the impression that he was always ready to jump over the table at them. My impression is that the old Head didn't dare flog him and had been glad to find an excuse to get rid of him. It didn't occur to the old chap that my brother wouldn't come home. ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... asked the meaning of it, and Farmerson said that in making a fresh hole he had penetrated the gas-pipe. He said it was a most ridiculous place to put the gas-pipe, and the man who did it evidently knew nothing about his business. I felt his excuse was no consolation for the expense I ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... wires of the instrument gave way, as a patient kicked and rolled frantically upon the ground; this was a good excuse for ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... affecting the memory of the sacred dead, affixing a shame on the scutcheon of the living, in the irreverent hands of a Gustave Rameau,—it was too dreadful to contemplate such a hazard. And yet, if Isaura were the missing heiress, could Graham Vane admit any excuse for basely withholding from her, for coolly retaining to himself the wealth for which he was responsible? Yet, torturing as were these communings with himself, they were mild in their torture compared to the ever-growing anguish of the thought that ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... said Grace, hastily wiping her eyes, and rubbing the traces of tears from her cheeks—"Excuse me, Sir George ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... lighthouse bluff, and we descended to the landing-place to meet them in a state of excitement not easily imagined. Fourteen months had elapsed since we had heard from home, and the prospect of receiving letters and of getting once more to work was a sufficient excuse for unusual excitement. The smallest boat was the first to reach the shore, and as it grated on the sandy beach an officer in blue naval uniform sprang out and introduced himself as Captain Sutton, of the Russian-American Telegraph ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... the name given in the Middle Ages to the sea-roving, adventure-loving inhabitants of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark; in their sea-rovings they were little better than pirates, but they had this excuse, their home was narrow and their lands barren, and it was a necessity for them to sally forth and see what they could plunder and carry away in richer lands; they were men of great daring, their early religion definable as the consecration of valour, and they were the terror of the quieter nations ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... are enemies of society, and I assume that they are—not because they have property, but because, as a rule, they have acquired it by unjust processes and use it tyrannically—what excuse have we for aristocracies, an idle class, a privileged class, who toil not, nor spin? What is a recognized aristocracy, such as England maintains? From what perennial fountain did it draw its nobility and wealth? Came they not through Norman ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... to its natural conclusion, left the lesson which it had begun to teach abruptly broken off in the midst,—left a glory of the Lord unrevealed, and a terror to wicked men unspoken. That he might proclaim the whole truth, and leave his unrepenting hearers without excuse, the Lord proceeded then and there to demand of them, "Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... authority of the Egyptian Government, or for the appointment or actions of General Hicks." At this time the Turkish Government were supplying the Mahdi with money and officers in the hope that the troubles in the Soudan would afford them an excuse for sending troops to "assist the Khedive." As we continued to get telegrams from Hicks Pasha, Sir Edward Malet informed the Egyptian Government by letter that we must repeat that we had no responsibility for the operations in the Soudan. We foresaw the failure of the Hicks expedition, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... journal for two days, owing to a slight indisposition, which furnished an excuse ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... England know that, as long as she enforces her blockade, her friends in Belgium will have to pay for it." It is the same kind of double-edged declaration as that used on the occasion of the Allied air-raid on Brussels. Literally speaking, it cuts both ways. The excuse becomes a threat and the untruth savours of blackmail. Healthy minds work by single or treble propositions. If we did not remember that our aim is to analyse the beautiful and heroic side of the ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... am," was his startling response. "You've got to be, in love. If you don't think you're pretty fine how are you going to convince anybody else that you are? But you'll have to excuse me for a moment—these bracelets are cutting my wrists to pieces. I must find that man who locked me up. You must stay here till I come back—I won't be a minute," and the young man darted out of the room with a ludicrous diving motion of his arms as he parted the heavy crimson ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... brown eye had wavered ever so slightly, indicating some one behind Fairchild. "But I was n't on the Denver road yesterday, and if you 'll excuse me for saying it, I don't remember ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... arouses my interest. Is this indolence an inherent characteristic of the native, or is it true, as a foreign traveller has said in speaking of a country whose inhabitants are of the same race as these, that this indolence is only a fabrication to excuse our own laziness, our backwardness and the ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... waiting one day at the kings heeles when he entred the parke at Greenewich, the king blew his horne, Flamock hauing his belly full, and his tayle at commaundment, gaue out a rappe nothing faintly, that the king turned him about and said how now sirra? Flamock not well knowing how to excuse his vnmannerly act, if it please you Sir quoth he, your Maiesty blew one blast for the keeper and I another for his man. The king laughed hartily and tooke it nothing offensiuely: for indeed as the case fell ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... God, might have discerned the signs of the times, and proclaimed the coming of the Promised One. The prophecy of Micah designated His birthplace;(510) Daniel specified the time of His advent.(511) God committed these prophecies to the Jewish leaders; they were without excuse if they did not know and declare to the people that the Messiah's coming was at hand. Their ignorance was the result of sinful neglect. The Jews were building monuments for the slain prophets of God, while by their deference to the great men of earth they ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... not with pride. From time to time her people tried to hide their tears, and she made a sign of pitying them. Seeing that the dinner was on the table and nobody eating, she invited the doctor to take some soup, asking him to excuse the cabbage in it, which made it a common soup and unworthy of his acceptance. She herself took some soup and two eggs, begging her fellow-guests to excuse her for not serving them, pointing out that no knife or fork had been set in ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... telling of obscene stories. As one man puts it, "There are few essentially rotten minds." When, however, the name of our Lord is used not only profanely, but dragged into the most obscene and horrible connections, unheard of in peace times, no possible excuse can be offered and the habit cannot but prove deadening and baneful in its influence. Men who never before thought of swearing find themselves driven to strong language and to reckless, heightened, or intensified expression in the trying and ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... of the great hall were more powerful than those of the secret chamber. He replied curtly, however,—"I have excused the lady from coming, Cadet. She is ill, or she does not please to come, or she has a private fancy of her own to nurse—any reason is enough to excuse a lady, or for a gentleman to ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... professional pretensions and social formulas, men for whom not only their daily bread but their collective character, their personal achievement and their individual merit come from the sea. Those words of the statesman were meant kindly; but, after all, this is not a complete excuse. Rightly or wrongly, we expect from a man of national importance a larger and at the same time a more scrupulous precision of speech, for it is possible that it may go echoing down the ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... equally to Europeans and to Mahomedans—as well as for tumultuous processions only too well calculated to provoke affrays with the Mahomedans and with the police, which in turn led to judicial proceedings that served as a fresh excuse for noisy protests and inflammatory pleadings. With the Ganpati celebrations the area of Tilak's ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... threats?" replied Serge, already calmed. "Excuse me; I know that you will not tell; if not for my sake at ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... It had been a very small grumble, but there are no sins for which there is less reason or less excuse than small ones: in no sense are they worth committing. And we grown people commit many more such than little children, and have our reward ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... Wellington; and when the Boyd family summoned me the next morning at four or five o'clock to set off with them for Antwerp, I permitted my repugnance to quitting the only spot where I could receive letters from Trves to conquer every obstacle, and begged them to excuse my changed purpose. They wondered at my temerity, and probably blamed it ; but there was no time for discussion, and ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... George" (we are never told his surname), who gives the overture-orgie. One might, as the lady said to Professor Wilson in regard to the Noctes, say to him, "I really think you eat too many oysters, and drink too much [not indeed in his case] whisky," and I can find no excuse for his deliberately upsetting an enormous bowl of flaming arrack punch on a floor swept by women's dresses. But he is quite human, and he makes the best speech and scene in the book when he remonstrates with Musidora for secluding herself because she cannot discover the elusive marquis-rajah ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... has never been any agreement as to what vox means or as to what populus means." In spite of endless discussions about democracy, this remark of Sir Henry Maine is still so far true that no other excuse is needed for studying the conceptions which lie at the very base of popular government. In doing so one must distinguish the form from the substance; for the world of politics is full of forms in which the spirit is dead—mere shams, but sometimes not recognized ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... questions of a local nature; and the same motive now induces me to decline attendance on Committees on any private Bills, except such as relate to Ireland." The answer, Mr. Estcourt said, he had given to this communication was, that the Committee could not recognise such an excuse; he reminded Mr. O'Brien of the resolutions of the 12th of February, but offered to consult for his convenience, inasmuch as important Irish business was before the House, by postponing, if possible, his attendance to a later period; but that unless he had heard from him ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... it avail," I asked, "since neither of us can help matters? Do you want the fulness of my heart or merely a word and an excuse?" ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... mocking voice from the lake added to my perplexity. It was not, I reflected, such a voice as one might expect to hear from a country girl; nor could I imagine any errand that would excuse a woman’s presence abroad on an October night whose cool air inspired first confidences with fire and lamp. There was something haunting in that last cry across the water; it kept repeating itself over and over ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... picnic variety; they saw in this an opportunity of spending halcyon days in the game preserves, glorious opportunities for making collections of big game heads, all sandwiched in with pleasant and successful enterprises against an enemy that was waiting only a decent excuse to surrender. ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... said, "with quite extraordinary fluency, and with a-a-really interesting and engaging accent; but—excuse me please—shall I be entirely frank? You see you have learned the language, under many disadvantages, among the Koraks, Cossacks, and Chukchis of Kamchatka and the Okhotsk Sea coast, and—quite innocently and naturally of course—you have picked up a few words ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... we are delighted with you here—in fact, you are quite a favourite; but you will excuse me if I tell you that you possess one failing pretty general with your ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... his stock in trade; that's his excuse for being. Women are crazy about him, as you probably know, but—give me a man the men like." There was a pause. "So you don't ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... and maintenance of his curate in the single case of absence with the bishop's licence, from extreme necessity of sickness). When the living amounted to L70 or upwards, he would have the choice, as at present, of residing, or finding some legal excuse for non-residence; but in the latter case he would be obliged to provide a curate constantly resident. And in both cases proper certificates of residence would be required to be ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... perfectly easy about THAT, Miss Briggs. We'll put 'Literature, Science, and Art' to one side and enjoy the delights of the open air, and, if I happen to say anything that sounds like book, just you excuse me, for I don't mean it. Mebby I DO get to talking about that book when I don't mean to, for it is a book that a man that knows it as well as I do just can't HELP talking about. It's a wonderful book. It is a book that has all the wisdom and ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... last! What happiness! I am saved, when I had almost given up all hope! Monsieur de Gramont, you will excuse me! Au revoir!" ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... absolutely guaranteed. Too often colored people have entrusted their savings to wholly irresponsible persons, lost them through the dishonesty of these persons, and in discouragement abandoned all attempts at saving. Today, however, there is no excuse for any man not saving a certain amount of his earnings no matter how small it may be. It is a poor person, indeed, who cannot invest twenty-five cents at stated intervals in a Thrift Stamp. Many are able also to buy small Liberty Bonds. It is a duty and a privilege for colored persons to ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... so," retorted Isabel, scornfully; but the next moment, with a kind of rough tenderness, she drew the shawl closer round Alice's shoulders. "Yes, we're different; perhaps that's why I like you. And I do like you still, though sometimes, when you look up at him with the eyes of a sick calf, and make excuse to touch him——" ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... his day, "There is a deal more of politics than of conscience in their action." Yet there are times when even the word conscience may have to be used, and no other will suffice. Another is "Duty"—so often put forward as the excuse for people doing something stupid, probably something they have been in the habit of doing and seem unable to give up, but which is really only a nuisance to themselves and also to others. Yet there are under the abused words ideas which should be ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... had acted very wickedly, and was guilty of every thing that he had been accused of, and lamented that disorder of his mind, and distraction which his love to a woman, he said, had brought him to. So when Archelaus had brought Pheroras to accuse and bear witness against himself, he then made an excuse for him, and mitigated Herod's anger towards him, and this by using certain domestical examples; for that when he had suffered much greater mischiefs from a brother of his own, he prefered the obligations of nature before the passion of revenge; ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... course, of course," said the Doctor. "Excuse me, surely you are related to the Deer Family, ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... or Frizland, or the Barbarous jangling of the Negroes and Savages. In the choise that I was to make I could not but give the preference to those of the greatest credit and repute, took some Prince (excuse the allusion) who having laid his design to reunite all the Kingdomes of the world, began his conquest upon those Nations that were most formidable and renown'd, from an apprehension that the rest in a little time would be less able to ...
— A Philosophicall Essay for the Reunion of the Languages - Or, The Art of Knowing All by the Mastery of One • Pierre Besnier
... greater than the number required to serve on the inquest, because many find it very inconvenient, and others find it impossible, to give their services. Valid excuses are admitted in plea against the performance of the duty; but a frivolous excuse is not allowed; and a tradesman, whose turn it is to serve, if he can prefer no good reason for not serving, must serve or pay the fine. Six guineas is the heavy penalty inflicted upon a recusant who declines service altogether. This preliminary meeting is called merely ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... black-balled.) Each gambling dame she knew, and he Knew every shark of quality; From the grave cautious few who live On thoughtless youth, and living thrive, To the light train who mimic France, And the soft sons of nonchalance. While Jenny, now no more of use, Excuse succeeding to excuse, Grew piqued, and prudently withdrew To shilling whist, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... "Each and All" so in most of his verse Emerson is too much of a teacher or moralist to be a poet. In "The Rhodora," one of his most perfect poems, he proclaims that "Beauty is its own excuse for being"; but straightway he forgets the word and devotes his verse not to beauty but to some ethical lesson. Very rarely does he break away from this unpoetic habit, as when he interrupts the moralizing of his "World Soul" to write a lyric that we welcome ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... we find in Chinese lo-che for the Sanskrit ragas, dust, we may ascribe the change of r into l to the inability of the Chinese to pronounce or to write an r. We may admit that the Chinese alphabet offered nothing nearer to the sound of ga than tche; but the dropping of the final s has no excuse in Chinese, and finds its real explanation in the nature of the Gatha dialect. Thus the Chinese Fan-lan-mo does not represent the correct Sanskrit Brahman, but the vulgar form Brahma. The Chinese so-po for sarva, all, thomo for dharma, law, find no explanation in ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... existence a wine-shop where the guest fares so badly that he would go at once were it not that he fears to call for the reckoning. The reckoning, Mary, is death. I have called for it. I am about to pay. Let me tell you. I have no excuse to offer, no forgiveness now to await. My heart was a meadow: you made it stone. There were well-springs in it: you dried them, Mary. When I first saw you, you were a dream fulfilled. Others had brought ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... the third evening succeeding our return, Silvia and I started upstairs early to give them a chance to have the exclusive use of the library, the Polydores having all been sent to bed. As we were making some plausible excuse for going to our room, ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... on, and she did not go. Every little trivial domestic duty was made an excuse for delaying it. Miss Amilly, finding her sister unusually bad company, went out to drink tea with some friends. The time came for ordering in tea at home, and still Deborah had ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the Triton with more regret and homesickness than remorse; and then he would add by way of excuse, "Ay, but then I ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... not for the substantial tokens of her actuality he possessed she would have seemed to him like the heroine of a play. He would have reproached himself for disloyalty if the intensity of each minute as he had to meet it had not been an excuse for him. The time would come when the pressure of the instant would be less great, and he should be able to get back the emotion with which he left her. Perhaps if she had been "his type of girl," her image would not have ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... railroads that had long held the town in scorn. Two of the industries failed, the new station was cited as an awful example by the Professor of Fine Arts at the college, and yet Paul Fosdick made himself essential to Montgomery. The commercial club's bimonthly dinners gave the solid citizens an excuse for leaving home six nights a year, and in a community where meetings of whist clubs and church boards constituted the only justification for carrying a latch-key this new freedom established him at once as a friend of mankind. Fosdick was wholly presentable, and while his contributions to the ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... Vaughn, and beside her the gentleman who had been so kind to her, and had seemed to take such a friendly interest in her success with her little pupils. They had not yet been observed, and there was still time for the mortified girl to make her escape unseen. The first impulse of her mind was to excuse herself to her eccentric companion, and turn ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... the brat! Pshaw!" said Captain Brand, quieting down, and returning the pistols to his pockets. "How nervous I am! Excuse me, caballeros. I was ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... desperate moment injured, I had better call it robbed, a relative of ours. The boy had got into difficulties, but hitherto, although he had been a fool, there was a certain generosity in his rashness. He was very hard pressed—I have seen that since—but I can make no excuse for what ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... mind on it, for sailor men are very uncertain; only they are pretty sure to roll around the whole world, making excuses that ships take them whether they will or not. A poor excuse for not coming is better than none." Then as the door closed behind the girl she added, "I wish he would send money to buy her clothes; it would be as little as he could do, for she is not my child, but my sister's. I, too, wish he would come, for a cold winter we have had taking much coal and ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... I excuse myself this time, but I must hold myself to the same standard that I want to hold Lee Greenfield to. How do I know that he hasn't had all sorts of cold, creepy feeling's keeping him from ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... who in the sixteenth century set in motion the chaos which threatens to overwhelm us to-day, the religious abuses existing at the time can offer no excuse for their destruction of Religion, because stains happened to sully the purity of ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... Fairy then; as it was, she didn't tell the story till later on, when Belvane happened to be near. I regret to say that Belvane listened. It was the sort of story that always got overheard, she explained afterwards, as if that were any excuse. On this occasion she was just too early to overhear, but in time to prevent the ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... an ill day, Captain, never reckon it other. But, say you were bound to the peace, the law allows you to defend yourself. That will prove but a poor excuse. ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... family quickly came to the entrance to welcome them; and D'Arcy, coming back, explained what had occurred. He had seen the blaze of their burning hut, but not suspecting the cause, had gone across the lake with his canoe on runners, to ascertain if they had got home safe, not sorry for a good excuse for his visit. His appearance naturally caused great dismay and anxiety. He, however, afforded his friends some comfort, by assuring them that he believed the missing ones would be found on the island, towards which, supplied with a compass, he ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... began to beg the Snake to excuse him, saying that he could not leave the sheep; but ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... there should be anything. It was far more interesting than Where. Why was a deeper question than whence. It made them feel more important, for one thing. Somebody—but Somebody who was not there—owed them a proper explanation about it. The burden of apology or excuse was lifted instantly from Uncle Felix's shoulders, for, obviously, he had nothing to do with the reason for ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... ready to start?" he asked his daughter, smiling. And then to Derby he added, "Excuse Nina for a few moments, John; I want to speak with her. You are going down to the steamer with her, of course?" As Derby answered affirmatively, Nina picked up her ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... sort of practice that had come into fashion of late years, and that, although we had been at his counting-house in the morning, he considered it requisite that he should call on his return from the city. I made the best excuse I could for the mistake; and the servant having placed glasses on the table, we were invited to take wine. But I was grieved to think that so respectable a man should have had the bottles before him by himself, the more especially ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... holding herself aloof from Maulevrier's masculine pursuits. She sheltered herself a good deal under the Fraeulein's substantial wing, and took care never to intrude herself upon the amusements of her brother and his friend. She was not one of those young women who think a brother's presence an excuse for a perpetual tete-a-tete with a young man. Yet when Maulevrier came in quest of her, and entreated her to join them in a ramble, she was not too prudish to refuse the pleasure she so thoroughly enjoyed. But afternoon ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... acquiring and testing ideas and information in active pursuits typifying important social situations, it will, doubtless, be a long time before all of them are thus furnished. But this state of affairs does not afford instructors an excuse for folding their hands and persisting in methods which segregate school knowledge. Every recitation in every subject gives an opportunity for establishing cross connections between the subject matter of the lesson and the wider and more ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... attended to at once, and immediate redress is pretty sure to follow. The cabman is generally gruff and surly, and, though seldom seen drunk, in the majority of cases is addicted to drink—a vice which the exposed nature of his calling palliates if it does not wholly excuse. Some cabmen are devoted to newspaper reading, and may be seen engaged perusing the Rappel or the Evenement while awaiting the appearance of a fare or stationed before the door of a shop or a picture-gallery. Others ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... which his lordship and two of the aldermen, having invited themselves, accompanied him home to dinner. On their arrival Mr. Eyre desired his wife to "prepare the little table, and set some refreshment before the guests." This she would fain have refused, but finding he would take no excuse, she seated herself on a low stool, and, spreading a damask napkin over her lap, with a venison pasty thereon, Simon exclaimed to the astonished mayor and his brethren, "Behold the table which I would not take a thousand pounds for!" Soon after this Sir Simon was chosen Lord Mayor, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... his new boarding-place, Darius Holt's, he answered no questions concerning his plans, and was silent and non-communicative. He kept to himself and made no effort to regain his lost popularity or to excuse his action. Thankful saw him but seldom and even Captain Obed no longer mentioned John's name unless it was mentioned to him. Then he discussed the subject with a scornful sniff and the stubborn declaration that there was a mistake ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... another, and we make our way forward. If I chose a distant object for the end of our first journey, it is not difficult to find an excuse for it; when we leave Paris we must seek a wife ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... lofty attitude, and picking out the general with an unfailing eye she saluted and said: "Only the most urgent matters would excuse ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... an end of tomorrow's wedding," he said sadly. "I do not know how Elfrida will take it, for it is not to be supposed that Erpwald will hold back from the levy, though, indeed, if ever man had excuse, he has it ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... halfpenny. She took that opportunity to propose her bloody intentions to them, and her willingness that they should do so; she was acquainted with their design, heard the blow given to Mr. Hayes by Billings, and then went with Wood into the room; she held the candle while the head was cut off, and in excuse for this bloody fact, said the devil was got into them all that made them do it. When she was made sensible that her crime in law was not only murder, but petty treason, she began to show great concern indeed, making very strict enquiries into the nature of the proof which was ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... "It will tire him; I can't do it." She longed to give any sort of excuse, but none would come to her lips. She was forced to take Rosamund ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... majesty," replied the countess, "I come to beg that you will excuse her highness. She has been suddenly taken sick. She was lifted insensible to the carriage, and has ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Dunton. Now there was a gulf wider than the world between them. He slipped out of the best room by the outside door and came in through the kitchen. The neighbor's sleigh that was to call for them was already at the door, and John begged them to excuse him. He had set his heart on helping Huldah make mince pies, as he used to help his mother when a boy. His sister was in despair, but she did not say much. She told John that it was time he was getting over his queer freaks. ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... Volunteers. The first view was that Volunteers of any kind were a superfluous encumbrance at a moment when the supreme need was for men in the actual fighting-line; that encouragement of Volunteers gave an excuse for shirking war; and further, that Volunteers outside the State's control were a danger; that the danger was increased when there were two rival Volunteer forces which might fly at each other's throats; and that it was ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... Jardine admitted. "I thought I wouldn't spoil the plot. It looked as if he wanted an excuse for meeting us again, but I think I wronged him. That ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen—but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—AND I WILL BE HEARD." Martin Luther's "Here I take my stand," was not braver or grander than the "I will be heard," of the American reformer. It did not seem possible that a young man, without influence, without money, standing almost alone, ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... his words or his tone discouraged the subtle observer, and she said, coldly, "Excuse me: I have hardly the courage. My British history is a tale of injustice, suffering, insult, and, worst of all, defeat. I cannot promise to relate it with that composure whoever pretends to science ought: ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... that there was a famous stout and good-looking fellow that we should have as a shipmate. Sam's wife, who, like all women, was a little curious, put her head up the hatchway to look at him. She put it down again very quick, as I thought, and made some excuse to go forward in the eyes of her, where she remained some time, and then, when she came aft, told Sam that she would go on shore. Now, as it had been agreed that she should remain on board till we were clear of the river, Sam couldn't think what the matter was; but she was positive, ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Miss Brandon will excuse us, Mr. Walden and myself will take a turn through the grounds," said Doctor ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... up and help yourself. The refreshments are very poor, but I hope you will excuse our plainness," said Mother Sparrow. The delighted old man, wondering in himself at such a polite family of sparrows, ate heartily, and drank several cups of tea. Finally, on being pressed ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... skeletons at Khartoum, and the crimes of Tippoo Tib. The gentlemen adventurers braved torture for its sake, It beckoned out the galleons, and filled the hulls of Drake! Oh, it sets the sails of commerce, and it whets the edge of war, It's the sole excuse for churches, and the only cause ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... his excuse for publishing personal details in his letters, that it was essential that the whole world should know just what the great chancellor had said on so important a subject. As it turned out, Mr. Kelly's zeal defeated ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... Rosalie, "Madame La Blanche says 'it is our duty to visit them, even though we have nothing to offer them but our sympathy, and kind words are often better to the poor then costly gifts.' I felt as you do when I first went among them, but I don't believe our teacher would ever excuse us from going since she thinks it right. I should think," continued Rosalie, twining her arms lovingly about her companion, and drawing as near to her as possible, "that what you have seen to-day would ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... any breakfast, and my answer being in the negative, a splendid old-time breakfast was promptly prepared. But my mother was keenly disappointed at my utter lack of appetite. I just couldn't eat hardly a bit, and invented some sort of an excuse, and said I'd do better in the future, but, somehow, right then, I wasn't hungry, which was true. However, this instance of involuntary abstinence was fully made up ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... acquaintance, but with a gentle confiding pressure which was very pleasant to him, and yet the capricious man must needs every two or three minutes, change that kindly position as the trees and irregularities of the walk afforded an excuse. Now he placed Emily on the one side, now on the other, and if she had thought at all (but by this time she was far past thought,) she might have fancied that he did so solely for the purpose of once more taking her hand in his to draw it through ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... because it's not his weddin'," was McKee's parting shot at the young couple. "I 'low I'll go in and join the boys. Excuse me." ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... doctor. Byron suddenly forgot how to sit down, and looked irresolutely from one chair to another. The doctor made a brief excuse, and left the room; much to the relief of ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... is not merely a violation of your legal duty; it is without just cause, without reason, without excuse. You never made a complaint that was not listened to with patience; you never exhibited a real grievance that was not redressed as promptly as it could be. The laws and regulations enacted for your government ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... rendered thyself invisible to thy child! Inconceivable, hidden Author of all, whom I could not discover! Pardon me, if my limited understanding hath not been able to know thee, in a nature, where every thing hath appeared to me to be necessary! Excuse me, if my sensible heart hath not discerned thine august traits among those numerous systems which superstitious mortals tremblingly adore: if, in that assemblage of irreconcileable qualities, with which the imagination ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... Transactions, belong to certain Treatises, the Author hath lying by him; but that yet he denys not {256} to communicate them to his Friends, and to allow them to dispose thereof, upon a hope, that equitable Readers will be ready to excuse, if hereafter they should appear also in the Treatises they belong to, since he consents to this Anticipation, but to comply with those, that think the imparting of real and practical Experiments, may do the Publick ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... matter to get a vessel. Roberval had returned, and Charles had no longer his former excuse. It was rumoured at court that the lovers had been punished for flaunting immorality; and to tell why he wanted the ship would be to drag the names of Claude and Marguerite through the mire. This he would not do. He would not even let himself ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... hopefully down the long room at the bent heads of the other operators at their panels. None was signaling an emergency to draw him away from this; give him an excuse to leave in the hope the problem would have solved itself by the time he could get back to it. He chewed on a knuckle and stared angrily at the operator who was sitting back, relaxed, looking at ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... Dr. Devoe in excuse for Miss Ainsley said, "We can't make too much allowance to-night for every one. Many strong men are utterly overcome and nauseated by these, shocks. No ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... best you can do is to make some excuse, and then go and borrow a gun from some of the men, and tell the general you lent yours to some man to go hunting with to-day. While we are waiting here, I will send back to the post and get your ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... people—not for much other reason. But this is a wonderful idea of yours, that my only life—as I've regarded it—is just about five minutes anyhow, of a day that goes on from strength to strength. You've somehow put an atmosphere into it, and a reality. I believe you believe it. Excuse me—I'm not being flippant; I'm only being deadly real. I may shoot myself tonight; tomorrow morning I may be dead, whatever that means. Anyhow, I haven't a desire to talk etiquettically about things like this. And I won't, whatever you may think of me. Your letter didn't convince me. It inspired ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... leave is stopped owing to the doings of your admiral's ships, I am kept here; so, of course, directly I heard that you were to be sent to Callao I applied to him to appoint me to command the escort, and as I was the first applicant he had no excuse for refusing, although he was not in the most pleasant of humours. However, that I did not care about as long as I got my leave. He has gone down to the river with several of his officers to inspect the goods, ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... a consul to tell him that sort of thing? Perhaps he wouldn't understand it at all; he would misunderstand our pathetic little story and be angry that we took up his time. He wouldn't think that a shortage of tobacco and clothing was a sufficient excuse for slighting William Tell and the Jungfrau. He wouldn't appreciate the frustrated emotion and longing with which we watch the little red cross at his front door, and think of all it means to us and all it ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... "Oh, he'll excuse us when he learns the truth," answered Jack. "Just the same, I'd give a good deal if we were back safe and sound at the school. We certainly can't stay here all night, and it looks as if this storm was going ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... I say? I stand and gaze on thee, yet see thee not; I am scarcely conscious of my own existence. Shall I seek to excuse myself? Shall I assure thee that it was not till the last moment that I was made aware of my father's intentions? That I acted as a constrained, a passive instrument of his will? What signifies now the opinion thou mayst entertain ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... pressed and badgered, I don't know where to turn. I shall go mad; by Jove, I shall. I wish I was dead, for I'm the most miserable brute alive. I say, Mr. Altamont, don't mind me. When I'm out of health—and I'm devilish bilious this morning—hang me, I abuse everybody, and don't know what I say. Excuse me if I've offended you. I—I'll try and get that little business done. Strong shall try. Upon my word he shall. And I say, Strong, my boy, I want to speak to you. Come into the office ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rendered still more revolting by the disfigurement it caused. On the 10th of February, 1745, when Catharine had been one year at Moscow, the grand duke celebrated his seventeenth birthday. In her journal Catharine writes that Peter seldom saw her, and was always glad of any excuse by which he could avoid paying her any attention. Though Catharine cared as little for him, still, with girlish ambition, she was eager to marry him, as she very frankly records, in consideration of the crown which ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... brisk pace alongside the water, and the rapidity of our motion was an excuse for silence; but as we turned away from the lake, and began ascending a steep acclivity, which led to the moors we had yet to cross on our way home, we were forced to slacken our pace; and as we did so, I asked Henry in a half-joking manner, "Have you recovered the ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... the Dewan asked Baptiste to formulate some excuse for getting Nana Sahib up to Chunda—some matter affecting the troops, so that he might casually get a sustaining ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... that all men who have lived in Italy, or even visited it, feel a peculiar interest in these cities,—an interest which they can feel in no others, even if they be such capitals as London and Paris. I excuse this extravagant admiration for the wonderful masterpieces produced in that age, making marble and canvas eloquent with the most inspiring sentiments, because, wrapt in the joys which they excite, the cultivated and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... very far from being words of dislike,' said AEnone; 'and they only prove that you still love her, or you would not so readily excuse her.' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... conscience, the honesty of which in themselves we do not mean to doubt, were precluded, when once they granted to the plebeians -en masse- at the right time the patriciate. This only may perhaps be alleged by way of excuse for the nobility, that after it had neglected the right moment for this purpose at the abolition of the monarchy, it was no longer in a position subsequently of itself to retrieve the neglect ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... not possible! It is the last and darkest insult to tell the woman who loves you that you do not wish to marry her. Her indignant curiosity may be appeased only by the excuse that you like some other woman better, and although she may hate the explanation she will understand it—but no less legitimate excuse than this may pass sunderingly between ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... The old Squire was sitting up in his bed, his face as pale as the sheet that covered him, his silken hair flowing in silvery locks from under his red cap, and the tears rolling from his large blue eyes down his furrowed cheek, like two mill streams. Will you excuse my lighting a cigar? For the story is a long, awful moveing, and I don't think I could get on without a smoke. [Strikes match.] Wal, says he to me, and his voice was not as loud as it was afore—it was like ...
— Our American Cousin • Tom Taylor
... your Excellency will excuse—the fact is, I have so rarely any visitors that the poor woman does not understand her duty in such matters. Really I am so covered with confusion,"—she continued, putting up her delicate little hand with a feeble sort of little attempt to draw her dress a little ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... enough that pare wood is not so quickly used up as all that, as nothing had been said about it up to now, and that it was only an excuse to go away and buy this lamp. But she wisely held her tongue so as not to vex father, for then the lamp and all would have been unbought and unseen. Or else some one else might manage to get a lamp ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... how far the witness behaved according to his habits. For by means of this knowledge we may be able to see the likelihood of many a thing that might have otherwise seemed improbable. Finally, we may be able properly to estimate many an excuse offered by a defendant through considering his habits, especially when we are dealing with events that are supposed to have occurred under stupefaction, absolute intoxication, distraction, etc.[1] Hume, indeed, has assigned to habit the maximum of significance; his whole system ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... her moocha, for she had but one mantle and was afraid lest the water should splash it. He watched her advancing along the path, her hands resting on her hips, her splendid naked figure outlined against the westering sun, and wondered what excuse he could make to talk with her. As it chanced fortune favoured him, for when she was near him a snake glided across the path in front of the girl's feet, causing her to spring backwards in alarm and overset the gourd of water. He came ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... him alone for that; else would Mrs. Haughton have made some running or gone for him? excuse the ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... dreadful fright lest they should see me laugh, for they make such horrid grimaces it is hardly possible to look at them. When my father has been angry with me, I have sometimes been obliged to pretend I was crying, by way of excuse for putting my handkerchief to my face: for really he looks so excessively hideous, you would suppose he was making mouths, like the ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... knowledge of his approaching end. He must not be informed, and though his father and mother and family were told in advance, they never warned their unfortunate loved one. No hand was lifted to avert his fate, for he was tabu to the gods. Though no excuse could be offered for the slaying of their own clansman except the direful hold of religion, which in Tahiti, as in Europe not so long ago, put Protestant and Catholic on the pyre in the name of Christ, yet so soft-hearted were ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... results of this teaching has been indicated in part already. The futility of the stereotyped religious offices was recognized. But these offices could not be discarded by the orthodox. With the lame and illogical excuse that they were useful as discipline, though unessential in reality, they were retained by the Brahman priest. Not so by the Jain; still less ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... for the soul," or "May whose soul God pardon," were sufficient excuse for fanatics such as Dowsing to destroy or deface the beautiful brasses in various parts of the kingdom. But the fanatics were not alone to blame; for it is well known that churchwardens and even incumbents of our churches have in many cases taken up and sold the brasses to satisfy some ...
— A Short Account of King's College Chapel • Walter Poole Littlechild
... Arabs Heywat, and our people were extremely angry, and even insolent, at not having been treated with a roasted lamb, according to the promise of the Sheikh, who had invited us to alight. His excuse was that he had found none at hand; but one of our young men ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... that we treat gentlemen under misfortune in the manner we treat you, sir; they are usually dealt with more summarily, less mercifully. You must excuse altogether my showing you the document; both you and his lordship are officers skilled, I believe, in ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... distinctly triumphed over her father. She flashed him the glance of a conqueror, and he nodded, understandingly. He liked Jerrold Harmer,—as much as he could like any man who stepped seriously into the life of Prudence. He was glad that things were well. But—they would excuse him, he must look after his ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... you nothing would matter but—excuse my saying it—your own damnable, headstrong pride. But Rosalie is different. Everything matters to her. And you will find it ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... true that they are not always good," Elsie said with patient sweetness. "And now I beg you will all excuse me for a few moments, as they never feel quite comfortable going to bed without a last ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... last forced to yield a grudging assent to all the demands of the opposition, and even to appoint a commission for the perambulation of the forests. By the time the summer was at hand, the progress of the negotiations with France occupied Edward so fully that he had abundant excuse for not precipitating a new rupture with his barons, by insisting upon a fresh ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... marmalade," she told him. He built a fire. Beyond that, and bringing in the water, she gave him to understand that his duties were at an end, and that he could smoke while she prepared the supper. With the beginning of dusk he closed the cabin door that he might have an excuse for lighting the big hanging lamp a little earlier. He had imagined how its warm glow would flood down upon the thick soft coils ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... other excuse be needed for thus presenting the British public with A. Ward's "last," in addition to the pertinency of the article and its real merit, that excuse may be found in the fact that it is thoroughly new to readers on ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... out, however, that there need be no hurry about making the decision. Madeline would have welcomed any excuse to procrastinate; but, as it happened, a letter from Alfred made her departure out of the question for the present. He wrote that his trip to California had been very profitable, that he had a proposition for Madeline from a large cattle company, and, particularly, that he wanted to marry Florence ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... of addressing your Grace be too familiar I hope you will excuse it. It seems to me that if I were to use one more distant, I should myself be detracting something from my right to make the claim which I intend to put forward. You know what my feelings are in reference to your daughter. I do not pretend to suppose that they should ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... politeness, read my note, and said how happy he should be to comply with the request it contained; "but," said he, "you must excuse me now. I have to finish my correspondence, get my breakfast, and make myself a little more presentable. Will you call again ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... land of idleness the activity and flexibility of a southern Frenchman; and in a few years I made one of those fortunes which can only be made in those hot countries, where everything is gigantic, prodigious, disproportionate, where flowers grow in a night, and one tree produces a forest. The excuse of such fortunes is the manner in which they are used; and I make bold to say that never has any favourite of fortune tried harder to justify his wealth. I have not been successful." No! he had not succeeded. From all the gold he had scattered he ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... easily excuse any remarks upon this comedy. It is not absolutely without humour, but is so disgustingly coarse, as entirely to destroy that merit. Langbaine, with his usual anxiety of research, traces back a few of the incidents to the novels of Cinthio ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... which request he occasionally complied, but with so many complaints about the interruption, that at last she told him she would never ask him again. Gently as this was said, he yet felt it as a reproach, and tried to excuse himself. ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... sir; but as for taking that anchorage, you must excuse me, as I shall never take ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... think so little of the future, I will not insist on expectations; though I really can only excuse your methods of judging by the fancy that you are far too prudent in fearing for the future: however, if you will not admit this, let me take you on your own ground, the present; perhaps Mr. Clements may not possess quite as much as I could wish ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... but he caught at your father's sin as an excuse for his own. He was always a drinking man. No man is forced into sin. Nothing can harm them who are the followers of God. Don't lay on your father's shoulders more than his own wrong-doing. Sin spreads misery around it only when there is ground ready for the ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... I've forgotten the rest.) "I love kindness," continued Mrs. BELLAMY, "in young men. By the way, will you excuse a short invitation, and dine with us the day after to-morrow? All the PENFOLDS are coming." I said yes, and made up my mind that I must settle matters with MARY one way or another before complications got worse, or young PENFOLD made any more ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... character, showing indeed, a high degree of good breeding, but only a moderate quantity of learning. But whom can I fear to have read my works when I ventured to address a book to you, who are not inferior to the Greeks themselves in philosophical knowledge? Although I have this excuse for what I am doing, that I have been challenged by you, in that to me most acceptable book which you sent ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... no excuse for statements like this. If Mr. Turner did not read the paper, he should not have attempted to criticize it. What the writer presented for consideration was more than his opinion of the matter. In fact, no opinion at all was presented. What ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... "There ain't no excuse for a man bein' a hawg," Walky Dexter afterward declared. "Frank might ha' intermated what was comin' off when the fust train was due ter pull into Polktown; I sha'n't never feel jest ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... preface—and especially a short one—is a somewhat difficult task, but my intense pride in, and admiration for, the part played by the Battalion with which the gallant author was so long and honourably associated must be my excuse for undertaking ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... glass, she rose and led the way to the parlours. The gentlemen adjourned to the smoking-room, and in a short time Mrs. Harris ordered her carriage, pleading an engagement with Grace's mantua-maker as an excuse for leaving so early. With a feeling of infinite relief the hostess accompanied them to the door, saw the carriage descend the avenue, and, desiring one of the servants to have Erebus saddled at once, ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... "You'll excuse me, Mistress Abbott, but I've no time to waste i' talk. 'The talk of the lips tendeth only to penury,'—and if you'll go in and look for that i' th' Good Book, it'll happen do you a bit o' good—more than ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... Lady Gregory "is the greatest living Irishwoman.... Even in the plays of Lady Gregory, penetrated as they are by that intense love of Ireland which is unintelligible to the many drunken blackguards with Irish names who make their nationality an excuse for their vices and their worthlessness, there is no flattery of the Irish; she writes about the Irish as Moliere wrote about the French, having ...
— Magic - A Fantastic Comedy • G.K. Chesterton
... stating the time, place, and cause of the injury or damage.[117] This notice is a condition precedent to the right to maintain an action for such injury or damage, and cannot be waived by the city or town.[118] Nothing will excuse such notice except the physical or mental incapacity of the person injured, in which case he may give the notice within ten days after such incapacity is removed, and in case of his death it may be given by his executors or administrators.[119] Formerly it was essential that the time, place, and ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... Why, what on earth do you suppose I should do with it? I don't want to live in it; and, as for any more investments in real estate, why, just excuse me, if you please! Insurance and repairs eat up all the profits, and I am plagued to death ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... P.S.—Pray excuse the date of place; so soon as the profits of the publication come in, I mean to hire lodgings in a ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... outrages religion, be anathema. But at the same time, young people should not conclude too hastily that a man is a hypocrite because he does some things they cannot reconcile with his profession. A man may be a very faulty man, and yet be a genuinely good man. His goodness does not excuse his faults, nor do his faults destroy his claim to goodness. I have known many a son judge a father very harshly, and find himself in after years glad to find a place of repentance. If you would have less reason later on to call yourself a fool, be told that as yet you ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... of the country in everything that constitutes the wealth and strength of nations are so abundant, the spirit of a most industrious, enterprising, and intelligent people is so energetic and elastic, that the Government will be without the shadow of excuse for its delinquency if the difficulties which now embarrass it be not speedily and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... affrighted Susan stood amaz'd, With tearful eyes, and hands uprais'd, O'erwhelm'd with grief and self-reproach, Farewell! to Madam in her coach! Her tongue itself forgot its use,— Tongue once so ready at excuse! ...
— Think Before You Speak - The Three Wishes • Catherine Dorset
... of Jesus Christ to deny one's self for the welfare of the weaker brother. Let one go to hear Mansfield in Shakespeare, and his neighbor boy will take his friend and go to the vaudeville, and his only excuse to his parents and to his half-taught mind and heart will be, "Well, Mr. So-and-So goes to the theater, he is a member of the Church and superintendent of the Sunday-school; surely there is no harm for me to go." To the immature mind what seems right ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... must not be allowed to "muffle up his throat," and keep his notes for some imaginary and far-off spring. He has not the excuse of the mavis. He must give us more of his own "clear fluting." Let him, with that keen, kindly and thoughtful eye, look from his retreat, as Cowper did, upon the restless, noisy world he has left, seeing ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... camest not within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered themselves together to Michmash; therefore, said I, The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication unto the Lord: I forced myself, therefore, and offered a burnt offering." Such was his excuse; and now hear what Samuel thought of it: "And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, which He commanded thee: for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue: ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... of disappointment in his ruddy countenance. "Well, so long," he said, moving toward the door. Near the threshold he paused to add carelessly: "Excuse my referring to a personal matter—but I understand Miss Spragg's wedding ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... broken "in favor of any interest, however important," has actually been made to yield to one of domestic occurrence. The Chambers have just been convened before the period which was declared to be the soonest at which they could possibly meet. Your excellency will also excuse me for remarking that since the first institution of the Chambers, in 1814, there have been convocations for every month of the year, without exception, which I will take the liberty of bringing to your recollection by enumerating the different dates. The Chambers were summoned ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... especially under this state of facts —nothing could excuse or palliate that shocking and disgraceful and barbarous crime against humanity; and the human mind is incapable of understanding how such savagery can be accounted for, except upon the theory that "He that nameth Rebellion nameth not a singular, or one only sin, as is ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... aid, Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid; They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires, Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires; The virgin's wish without her fears impart, Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart, Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul, And waft a sigh from Indus to ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... seeming like herself produced then an immediate struggle; but after a while she could do no more. She began not to understand a word they said, and was obliged to plead indisposition and excuse herself. They could then see that she looked very ill, were shocked and concerned, and would not stir without her for the world. This was dreadful. Would they only have gone away, and left her in the quiet possession of that ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... than Where. Why was a deeper question than whence. It made them feel more important, for one thing. Somebody—but Somebody who was not there—owed them a proper explanation about it. The burden of apology or excuse was lifted instantly from Uncle Felix's shoulders, for, obviously, he had nothing to do with the reason for their being ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... are they? I need not ask how you are," and, while John answered him, he placed camp-stools for us, and said to Syd and me, "Sit down, gentlemen; and excuse me if I address myself mainly to this eccentric cousin of mine, and, I am sure, your very good friend. I do not see him often, and he never will let me know when he is coming my way"—a statement which Syd and I could easily believe. For, with all John's faults, and he had many of ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... he never acted with aught but consideration for the welfare of others. No one could fail to respect him who knew him in public or private life. The defenders of those murderous criminals who seek to excuse their criminality by asserting that it is exercised for political ends, inveigh against wealth and irresponsible power. But for this assassination even this base apology ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt
... fallen below two hundred; Scott's fees averaged about another two hundred; he evidently had an allowance from his father (who had been very well off, and was still not poor), and before very long the Sheriffship of Selkirkshire added three hundred more, though he seems to have made this an excuse for giving up practice, which he had never much liked. His father's death in 1799 put him in possession of some property; legacies from relations added more. Before the publication of the Lay (when he was barely three-and-thirty), Lockhart estimates his income, leaving fees and literary work ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... with Mrs. Brodrick, she "looked at it sensible." She understood. She saw the excuses that could be made for him. She couldn't understand her; she couldn't find one excuse for her behaviour, a married woman, leaving her husband—such a good man, and her children—her little helpless children, and going off for weeks together with a married man, let him be who he might be. Still, ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... to you, Monsieur; but it is true that I was thinking about something else. You will excuse me, won't you? I could not help thinking that Mademoiselle Prefere must like you very, very much indeed, to have become so good to me all ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... all our viperous race The greedy creeping things in place Most vile, most venomous; and then The United Irishmen! To come on earth should John determine, Imprimis, we'll excuse his sermon. Without a word the good old Dervis Might work incalculable service, At once from tyranny and riot Save laws, lives, liberties and moneys, If sticking to his ancient diet He'd but eat up our locusts ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... before, when some experience is gained, glassblowing, becomes a very simple art, and work can be done under circumstances so disadvantageous that they would entirely frustrate the efforts of a beginner. This is not any excuse, however, for ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... bright cloudless day, the air cold and penetrating. Connie said it was just the day for her to collect her thought, and she could do it best of all in the car. So if they would excuse her,—and they did, of course. Just as she was getting into the car she said that if she had a very exceptionally nice time, she might not come back until after dinner. They were not to worry. She knew ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... said Miss Ethel Morrissey without batting an eye. "I just 'phoned the hotel. Thought you'd gone back on me, Emma. I'm baking a caramel cake. Don't slam the door. This your first visit here, Miss LeHaye? Excuse me for not shaking hands. I'm all flour. Lay your things in there. Ma's spending the day with Aunt Gus at Forest City and I'm the whole works around here. It's got skirts and suits beat a mile. Hot, ain't it? Say, suppose you girls slip off your ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... his promise by tickling Fred's nose with a twig, and the prisoner was by no means averse to the cruel sport, since it gave him a good excuse to struggle. ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... opinions expressed therein. Though, in common with many others, I may have regretted the disappointment of our anticipations with regard to a general rising, in co-operation with the Southern invaders; I think it is easy to show that there were reasons sufficient to account for, if not excuse, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... and for the first time in his life he wished the bell would ring, and give him an excuse to get away. Within a moment his wish was gratified, and he scampered up stairs very briskly, but not before Bert Sharp had caught up with him, and called him "Smarty," and asked him if he hadn't some more dreams that he could go about telling as truth. Poor Benny's only consolation, as he took ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... was there at the time and talked with him daily. When Little was arrested, it had been agreed among the disaffected to have him resist, which meant that he would be roughly handled. This was to be their excuse to attack the Indian police, which would probably lead to a general massacre or outbreak. I know that this desperate move was opposed from the beginning by American Horse, and it was believed that his life ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... her Majesty's Secretaries of State, my Lord Orkney, that had served with us abroad, being of the party. His Grace of Hamilton, Master of the Ordnance, and in whose honor the feast had been given, upon his approaching departure as Ambassador to Paris, had sent an excuse to General Webb at two o'clock, but an hour before the dinner: nothing but the most immediate business, his Grace said, should have prevented him having the pleasure of drinking a parting glass to the health of General Webb. His absence ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... dismiss the matter from our minds. Perhaps another time my solicitude will be less unfortunate. I can only ask your pardon for having thought of thus disposing of you almost without consulting you. I find my excuse in the motives which guided me; I had in view your well-being and advancement in ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... Ruth insisted upon getting along without a girl again. I didn't approve of this but I saw that it would make her happier to try anyway. How in the world she managed to do it I don't know but she did. This gave her an excuse for not going out—though it was an excuse that made me half ashamed of myself—and so we saved in another way. Even with this we just made both ends meet and ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... bell," said Hans; "and for the rest of your inquiries I'll answer them all as soon as Swartboy has skinned this 'aard-vark,' and Totty has cooked a piece of it for supper; but I'm too hungry to talk now, so pray excuse me." ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... ought in Justice, Sir, t'excuse me here, Prisoners when first committed are less gay, Than when they're us'd to Fetters every day, But yet in time they will ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... have taken the liberty of discussing with you this afternoon has not often occupied the serious attention of critics. But it was attempted, by no less a person than Wordsworth, more than a hundred years ago. I make no excuse for repeating to you the remarkable passage in which he expressed his convictions in the famous ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... O sister! to my bosom dear By every tie that binds the soul sincere; O, while I fondly dwell upon thy name, Why sinks my soul, unequal to the theme? But though unskilled thy various worth to praise, Accept my wishes, and excuse my lays. May all thy future days, like this, be gay, And love and fortune blend their kindest ray; Long in their various gifts mayst thou be blessed, And late ascend ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... laid his hand on his arm again. "Excuse me," said he, deliberately and quietly, "but you are wanted quick at the station. They are waiting for you. Go right along, ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... aforesaid people and marchants shalbe at any time in the course of their iourneis and dealings by any meanes taken, they shall be deliuered and inlarged, without any excuse or cauillation. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... if they didn't do anything real in the world, what were they good for? What was their excuse for wanting ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... a remarkable coincidence. But, excuse me, did you consider me a sensible man and not ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... had that day an attack of malarial fever, and he hoped to find him weakened, and so to get the better of him. Monsieur de la Palisse and Bayard's other supporters advised him, from the fact of his fever, to excuse himself, and to insist on fighting on horseback; but Monsieur de Bayard, who had never trembled before any man, would make no difficulties, and agreed to everything, which astonished Don Alonzo greatly, as he had expected ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... Edith waited me at home. Their perusal gave me an opportunity to collect my thoughts, and an excuse to talk of them, of Grandison Place, rather than of topics connected with the present. Yet all the time I was reading Mrs. Linwood's expression of trusting affection, I said ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... simply and charmingly; that he owned also. Why did it irritate him so intensely to see Teddy moved and thrilled, to see his eyes brighten, his colour rise and to see him obviously admiring the girl? When she made an excuse to leave them Teddy was ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... Queen. Her Majesty was dead! In the midst of the festivities she had slipped away out of her new happiness and her old sufferings, not few nor small. Sending away all her women to see the grand sight,—at least they said afterward, in excuse, that she had done so, and it was very like her to do it,—she had turned with her face to the window, whence one could just see the tops of the distant mountains—the Beautiful Mountains, as they were called—where she was born. So ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... there's any excuse for you to forget me so completely," he said dryly. "I'm here—waiting to ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... reinforced in most communities by a paucity of other and more inviting divertissements. If you have ever observed the women of Spain and Italy at their devotions you need not be told how much the worship of God may be a mere excuse for relaxation and gossip. These women, in their daily lives, are surrounded by a formidable network of mediaeval taboos; their normal human desire for ease and freedom in intercourse is opposed by masculine distrust and superstition; they meet no strangers; they see and hear nothing ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... to Bononia, let alone all the way to Aquileia. If I did want to go on, the bandits have run off with my maid, and I could hardly get along without her, and they have also removed my escort, and I certainly could not keep on without a proper escort. I have every excuse for turning about at once and making haste to get out of this dangerous neighborhood and ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... interested in the development of the methods of dry-farming forms 63 per cent of the whole of the continental United States, not including Alaska, and covers an area of 1,861,652 square miles, or 1,191,457,280 acres. If any excuse were needed for the lively interest taken in the subject of dry-farming, it is amply furnished by these figures showing the vast extent of the country interested in the reclamation of land by the methods of dry-farming. As will be shown below, nearly every other large country ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe
... had environed Mistress Pen wick with sacred influences, and she had absorbed its most potent authority, religion, yet even that was not efficacious to the annihilating that 'twas born within; and one can but excuse the caprice and wantonness of a coquette, when 'tis an inheritance. She adhered pertinaciously to the requirements of a lady of title, and loved opulence and luxury and admiration. She foresaw—young as she was ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... condemned, we should act most unjustly. We must not judge him by the standard of our own times, nor with reference to principles on which we might justly be arraigned ourselves. But let the same measure of justice be dealt to all alike; and whilst the eulogist of Lord Cobham pleads in excuse the "wretched state of society" then existing,[278] let all the circumstances of time and society and law be taken into calm consideration before we condemn Henry, or rather before we withhold from him the praise of moderation, liberality, ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... but that of the world; just as he is doing in that passage of his 'Apology,' about which I must complain of Mr. Napier. 'It was a maxim of his,' says Mr. Napier, 'that good success admits of no examination.' This is not fair. The sentence in the original goes on, 'so the contrary allows of no excuse, however reasonable and just whatsoever.' His argument all through the beginning of the 'Apology,' supported by instance on instance from history, is—I cannot get a just hearing, because I have failed in opening this mine. So it is always. Glory covers the multitude of sins. But a man who has failed ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... fervently. "If you will excuse me, madam, I shall hurry to tell my wife and daughter. I have been able to find no one who ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... regretfully. "I should never be able to dig a way into the vaults, and certainly I should not be able to get enough powder to blow a big building up, if I could. No; I was only saying that, if Guy Fawkes hated the Parliament as much as I hate the Convention, there is some excuse to be made ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... strike out once more, on foot, for the lumber camp. He was worried, nervous; in a vague way he realized that he had been curt, almost brusque, with a woman for whom he felt every possible gratitude and consideration. Nor had he inquired about her when work had ended for the day. Had the excuse of a headache been made only to cover feelings that had been deeply injured? Or had it meant a blind to veil real, serious illness? For three years, Barry Houston had known Agnes Jierdon in day-to-day association. But never had he remembered ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... satisfaction is felt is by those who survive. When a Titanic sinks it must be the people on shore who see the element of goodness in it since it makes travelling easier for them. And the kindness developed in one who can excuse the brutalities of nature because it brings some benefit to himself is of ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... be concealed, however, that, to some extent, this evil is incident to the position of things. Indeed, it would be unfortunate if national hypocrisy could not find a better excuse for itself than in that of the individual. In civilized life, society is ever under the imperious necessity of moving onward in legal forms, nor can such forms be avoided without the most serious disasters ensuing. To absolve ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... the question Major Starland asked himself, while tramping directly behind his sister. Such a thing would be so daring an outrage that it seemed improbable. What excuse could he offer when coming into the presence of the two American visitors for so high-handed an interference with their rights? Hitherto he had shown a fulsome obsequiousness to both, and acted the part of a high-toned gentleman. How ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... William II of Germany, he is just now the predominating figure in Europe, if not in the world. This must be our excuse for a word or two concerning the race from which came ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... stood eye to eye. I dropped the whip and snatched at the pistol in my pocket; for I meant to kill this brute, the most formidable of any left now upon the island, at the first excuse. It may seem treacherous, but so I was resolved. I was far more afraid of him than of any other two of the Beast Folk. His continued life was I knew a threat ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... defiance at them as they approached and to indulge in a free fight with the newcomers when they arrived, until the opposing ones were beaten apart with clubs and whips. It is a part of a husky dog's religion to fight whenever an excuse offers, and often when ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... make my friend's apologies," he said, "until he is composed enough to act for himself. The circumstances are so extraordinary that I venture to think they excuse him. Will you allow us to ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... of apology that was as consoling as a box on the ear, "We have some friends at dinner, sir, who are rather particular persons; but I am sure when they hear that you only came on a sudden invitation, they will excuse your morning dress.—Bah! what a ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
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