"Exculpation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fruits of the victory had not been gathered by the capture of Washington City. Then some indiscreet friends of the generals commanding in that battle, instead of the easier task of justification, chose the harder one of exculpation for the imputed failure. Their ill-advised zeal, combined perhaps with malice against me, induced the allegation that the President had prevented the generals from making an immediate and vigorous ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... manager, a gentleman who ran to portliness in his figure, his jewellery and his courtesy, seemed perfectly acquainted with the case. In exculpation of himself and his company, he said that they were constantly being held up by every variety of official from a county commissioner to a mayor, and they were simply forced to give "presents" in ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... having met Sir John Middleton in the lobby of Drury Lane Theatre the previous night, and thus heard of Marianne's serious illness, had set forth post-haste to make inquiries, and was now delighted to find her out of danger. Attempting an exculpation of himself, he confessed that at first meeting Marianne he had tried to engage her regard without a thought of returning it; that afterwards he grew sincerely fond of her, but put off from day to day paying her his formal addresses and that just ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... officers flushed, and Philemon began a faltering explanation and self-exculpation, but he was cut short by his superior saying sharply: "Tush, sir, such language will not make us deal the more gently with your cribs; so if you 'd save something, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... authors of the late insurrection in Dominica. A revolt had certainly taken place in that island. But revolts there had occured frequently before. Mr. Stanley himself, in attempting to fix this charge upon them, had related circumstance which amounted to their entire exculpation. He had said that all was quiet there till the disturbances in the French islands; when some negroes from the latter had found their way to Dominica, and had excited the insurrection in question. He had also said, that the negroes in our own islands hated ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... him, and memory had time to commence with him undisturbed, the deed of which he had had been guilty was forced upon him; Conscience was awakened, and self-condemnation was the result. Yet, so inconsistent is poor humanity that self-exculpation warred with self-condemnation in the same brain! The miserable man would have given all he possessed to have been able to persuade himself that his act was purely one of self-defence—as no doubt to some extent it was, for if he had not fired first Perrin's action showed that he would ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... thought for the tipstaves than he had for the smoke in his eyes or the stench of powder in his nostrils, sped to Sir Richard. In a passion of grief and anxiety, he raised his adoptive father, aided by Bentley, what time Mr. Green was abusing Jerry, and Jerry was urging in exculpation how he had acted purely in Mr. Green's interest, fearing that Sir Richard might have been on the point of ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... capable of this hard-hearted thing and went on loving her blindly in spite of it. But as for me, I said I would never give belief an inch of standing-room; that had I stood in Ephraim Yeates's shoes, having the witness of my own eyes and ears, I would still have found excuse and exculpation for her. ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... etc.): "A Mrs. C. (now a kind of housekeeper and spy of Lady N's), who, in her better days, was a washerwoman, is supposed to be—by the learned—very much the occult cause of our domestic discrepancies." The seeming exculpation of myself in the extract (p.646), with the words immediately following it, "Her nearest relations are a—-;" where the blank clearly implies something too offensive for publication. These passages tend to throw suspicion on my parents, and give reason ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... and bitter in feeling and intention between him and the Government. They are both anxious to avoid blows if possible, but it is so difficult to avoid mutual inculpation and accusation, although only professing exculpation, that it will be very strange if the matter does (as many think it will) blow over lightly. The personal question between Melbourne and Durham about Turton appears the most difficult to settle; but if there is ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Droulde's treason, although by the latter's attitude he remained quite convinced that such proof did exist, he was already reckoning upon the cat's paw, the sop he would offer to that Cerberus, the Committee of Public Safety, in exchange for his own exculpation ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... against her? Did you never hear me say, 'that when there was a right or a wrong, she had the right?' The reason I put these questions to you or others of my friends is, because I am said, by her and hers, to have resorted to such means of exculpation." ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... think me immodest in my demands," she went on in hasty exculpation. "I'm not even aiming my remarks at you ... I'm only thinking aloud.... But you see, I can't get any real foothold in society until—until my affairs are more clarified.... To run about the drawing-rooms as an example of frivolous heedlessness—that's ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... Nero could have no more wise adviser in taking steps to secure the fruition of his imperial hopes. It might perhaps have been better for Seneca's happiness if he had never left Corsica, or set his foot again in that Circean and bloodstained court. Let it, however, be added in his exculpation, that another man of undoubted and scrupulous honesty,—Afranius Burrus—a man of the old, blunt, faithful type of Roman manliness, whom Agrippina had raised to the Prefectship of the Praetorian cohorts, ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... this sharp lecturing of me, that you deserve much of my confidence, and if I make you any, Kate, it is not by way of exculpation; for I do not accept your blame; it is simply out of caprice—mind that, and that I am not thinking ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever |
