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Extenuation   Listen
noun
Extenuation  n.  The act of axtenuating or the state of being extenuated; the act of making thin, slender, or lean, or of palliating; diminishing, or lessening; palliation, as of a crime; mitigation, as of punishment. "To listen... to every extenuation of what is evil."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Extenuation" Quotes from Famous Books



... others followed him, but Cornelia could not speak. Some of the pictures she did not like; some she thought were preposterous; but there were some that she found brilliantly successful, and a few that charmed her with their delicate and tender poetry. He said something about most of them, in apology or extenuation; Cornelia believed that she knew which he liked by his not saying ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells

... use fer Chinks," said the mucker, as though in extenuation of his suggestion that they murder the youth. For some unaccountable reason he had felt a sudden compunction because of his thoughtless remark. What in the world was coming over him, he wondered. He'd be wearing white pants and playing lawn tennis ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... me when I exhort you never to debase the moral currency or to lower the standard of rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives, and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on wrong.[90] The plea in extenuation of guilt and mitigation of punishment is perpetual. At every step we are met by arguments which go to excuse, to palliate, to confound right and wrong, and reduce the just man to the level of the reprobate. The men who plot to baffle and resist us are, ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton

... other hand, he was the only one who had ever stood up and said a word of extenuation for me in the teeth of a family squall. Father did not count; my mother thought me bad from end to end; Gertie, in addition to the gifts of beauty and lovableness, possessed that of holding with the hare and running with ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... But Mr. Adams did not mention his relations with Jones's pistol. Let it be said, in extenuation of that performance, that Mr. Adams supposed Jones was going to Tucson, where he said he was going, and where a job and a salary were awaiting him. In Tucson an unloaded pistol in the holster of so handy a man on the drop ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister

... was born May 27, 1702; died April 17, 1774. He was a soldier and jurist, but his most prominent position (though now of painful notoriety) was as commander of that tragic disgrace in American history, the expedition against the Acadians. It is told in extenuation of his action that before the annihilation and dispersion of that unfortunate community he addressed them, saying that his duty was "very disagreeable to his natural make and temper as it must be grievous to them," but that he must obey orders,—and ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow

... gone." There was no one by at the moment to hear these injuries except Westover, but Whitwell called them out with a frankness which was perhaps more carefully adapted to the situation than it seemed. Westover made no attempt to parry them formally; but he offered some generalities in extenuation of the unworthiness of the Durgins, which Whitwell did not ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... my plea in extenuation of Boyce's conduct (if plea there can be), seeing that he raised not a shadow of one of his own. You may say that my plea is no excuse for his betrayal; that no man, even if he is tempted, can be pardoned for non-control ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... me, I shall not go any further into this lamentable love affair. I submit, in extenuation, that people do not care to be regaled with the heartaches of past affairs; they are only interested in those which appear to be in the process of active development or retrogression. Suffice to say, I was terribly cut up over the way my first serious ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... her education, Dr. John," said I. "Tossed about all her life from one foreign school to another, she may justly proffer the plea of ignorance in extenuation of most of her faults. And then, from what she says, I believe her father and mother were brought up much as she ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... him again. Before the lines of our lives crossed, I knew him for what he was, I knew the report of him that ran the countryside. Even then I found him detestable. You heard him allude last night to the unfortunate La Binet. You heard him plead, in extenuation of his fault, his mode of life, his rearing. To that there is no answer, I suppose. He conforms to type. Enough! But to me, he was the embodiment of evil, just as you have always been the embodiment ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... all Christians can feel themselves so inexcusably sinful, when it seems to me we all come into the world in such a way that it would be miraculous if we did not sin. Mr. Hawes always says in prayer, 'We have nothing to offer in extenuation of any of our sins,' and I always think when he says it, that we have everything to offer in extenuation. The case seems to me exactly as if I had been brought into the world with such a thirst for ardent spirits that there was just a possibility, though no hope, that I should resist, and ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... condoning his conduct, Levi. He has behaved as badly as a young man could, and not a word of extenuation will you hear from me. I'm not speaking of him as a part of the social order; I'm speaking of him as master of the Mill. As master here he may be a successful man and you'll do well to bear in mind that he must be judged by results. Morally, he's a failure, and you are right to condemn ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... 39, he wrote of this kind of control:—'It may be urged in extenuation of this crime which parents, not in any other respect to be numbered with robbers and assassins, frequently commit, that, in their estimation, riches and happiness are equivalent terms.' He wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'There wanders about ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... Her mother took it, drew her in, and kissed her forehead. "Good-bye, my child"; she could not, for her life, be more cordial than that. The offence itself seemed a pinprick beside the rankle of the wound to her pride. This child had set up for herself, and was now returned—without extenuation, without plea for mercy. Mrs. Percival was one of those people who cannot be happy unless their right to rule be unquestioned. Had the girl humbled herself to the dust, grovelled at her feet, she would have taken her ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... suggested by the author in the way of excuse or extenuation for this incompatibility of Falstaff with Falstaff—for the violation of character goes far beyond mere inconsistency or the natural ebb and flow of even the brightest wits and most vigorous intellects—will commend itself more readily to the moralist ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... squadrons had by this time arrived within gunshot of each other, and Harry and Roger, eager though they were for the fight to commence, were yet conscious of a peculiar feeling something akin to fright, in extenuation of which it must be remembered that neither of the boys had ever been in ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... their sort of humanity and the common article was absolute. The effect of such a delusion in moderating fellow feeling for the sufferings of the mass of men into a distant and philosophical compassion is obvious. To it I refer as the only extenuation I can offer for the indifference which, at the period I write of, marked my own attitude toward the misery of ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy

... all the Holmes stories with great attention, and had thought many times what an incompetent ass Doctor Watson was; but, now that he had started to handle his own first case, he was compelled to admit that there was a good deal to be said in extenuation of Watson's inability to unravel tangles. It certainly was uncommonly hard, he thought, as he paced the cricket field after leaving Sergeant Collard, to detect anybody, unless you knew who had really done the crime. As he brooded ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... amazed at Eve's extraordinary gift for putting him in the wrong, and for making him still more wrong when he was wrong. "This is the second time this morning that I've had to surrender to overwhelming force. Name your own terms of peace. But let me tell you in extenuation that I've discovered your offspring. The fact is, I got ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... antagonist to tell his story after his own fashion, and was too dispirited either to contradict him or seek to justify himself. He felt ashamed of himself, and in his self-humiliation saw neither defence nor extenuation for his conduct. ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed

... He picked up a paper but threw it down after only a casual glance at the paragraph. He saw enough to convince him that for the present, at any rate, Elizabeth seemed assured of a certain amount of sympathy. The career of poor Wenham Gardner was set down in black and white, with little extenuation, little mercy. His misdeeds in Paris, his career in New York, spoke for themselves. He was quoted as a type, a decadent of the most debauched instincts, to whom crime was a relaxation and vice a habit. Tavernake would ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... I thought God was an orphan," Hannah pleaded in extenuation. "But, what about God's papa?" she demanded with sudden inspiration. "You're so smarty, ...
— The Little Mixer • Lillian Nicholson Shearon

... dealt harshly with the English clergy, and connived at their wholesale deprivation. We must own, in extenuation, that their lives and conduct had not been such as to do honour to God, that they were said to be the most ignorant clergy in Europe; and that the sins of the nation under their guidance were owned, even by the English, to have brought the heavy judgment of the Conquest ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... reserves and reticences of childhood, the things that offend, the things that bring agony, are forgotten by so many of those who have left childhood behind. In extenuation of this lively and kindly lady, it may be said that the manners and customs of her early youth were not those to which Larry was habituated. Yet, one might have thought that a glance at Larry's face would have sufficed to induce Rhadamanthus himself to remit the ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... will allege in extenuation the modern improvements now in progress, the Suez Canal, the railroads, the steamboats on the Nile, the bridge across the Nile at Cairo, and the sugar ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... is, of course, a mixed one. His sagacity, boldness, and prudence, qualities so highly necessary to success in war, became in some degree vices, from the manner in which they were employed. The circumstances of his education, however, must be admitted as some extenuation of his habitual transgressions against the law; and for his political tergiversations, he might in that distracted period plead the example of men far more powerful, and less excusable in becoming the sport of circumstances, than the poor and desperate outlaw. On the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... be no distinction made between the wealthy and aristocratic female thief and her less fortunate sister, for the crime is the same in both cases; the only difference being that the latter cannot claim the possession of riches in extenuation of her guilt. ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... which they have recourse in conducting a bargain are often exceedingly ingenious; and to be reputed rich might materially interfere with their success on such occasions. There is nothing more common than to hear a plea of poverty set up and most pertinaciously urged, in extenuation of the terms of a purchase, by persons whose outward condition, comfortable well-furnished houses, and large mercantile credits, indicate any thing ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... I am assured by men who are not so sustained and occupied by the worship of pure beauty, that a similar consecration is possible, is practised; that many men feel that no temptation can be too strong for the will of man, if he invokes the aid of the Spirit instead of seeking extenuation from the brute alliances of his nature. In short, what the child fancies is really true, though almost the whole world declares it a lie. Man is a child of God; and if he seeks His guidance to keep the heart with diligence, it will be so given that all the ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... [Footnote 1: In extenuation of the little that is known of the fresh-water fishes of Ceylon, it may be observed that very few of them are used at table by Europeans, and there is therefore no stimulus on the part of the natives to catch them. The burbot and grey mullet are ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... extenuation of the station agent's and the Double R manager's sins of omission, but without doubt the country was what she had termed it—an unfeatured wilderness. Her first sensation upon getting a view of the country had been one of deep disappointment. There was plenty of ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer

... justly plead the hacknied excuse of being urged by not a few of those friends to publish these Notes, in extenuation of the folly or presumption, or whatever else it may be termed, of obtruding them on the world, in these days of "making many books;" he feels that he can rest his vindication on higher grounds. Although several works of some merit have appeared in connexion with the subject, ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean

... scenes of outrage which had followed the capture of the Bastille and the overthrow of French absolutism thirty years before. [316] The gentler character of these southern movements proved, however, no extenuation in the eyes of the leading statesmen of Europe: on the contrary, the declaration of soldiers in favour of a Constitution seemed in some quarters more ominous of evil than any excess of popular violence. ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... certainly be mere folly,' says Prince Kraft, 'to advance artillery to within 600 or 800 yards of a position held by infantry unless the latter were under the fire of infantry from an even shorter range.' This 'mere folly' is exactly what Colonel Long did, but it must be remembered in extenuation that he shared with others the idea that the Boers were up on the hills, and had no inkling that their front trenches were down at the river. With the imperfect means at his disposal he did such scouting ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of her folly, and bitterly would the others upbraid her, telling again of the joys and wonders she had squandered. Then loudly would she bewail her weakness and plead in extenuation: "I seen the candy. Mouses from choc'late und Foxy Gran'pas from sugar—und I ain't never ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... with an easy upward motion, as of a cork alighted in water, above the level of the looking-glass on her left hand—an action she repeated, with a solemn aspect, four times; at which point Gainsford gave way. The ladies accorded him every extenuation for the offence. They themselves, but for the heroism of exalted natures, must have succumbed to the gross temptation. "It is difficult, dear papa, to bring one's mind to religious thoughts in her company, even when she is quiescent," they said. Thus, by the prettiest exercise ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... her.' That is, in brief, what ails the Mormons. The only argument in favor of them which can possibly be made is that their practice, not their preaching, offers the only solution of your own theory that all women should be married. But that theory has never been advanced in extenuation of their behavior. I offer it to you brand new, as a slight illustration of a ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... 'in extenuation of thy country's fault, who it was that succeeded the good Valerian—then the brief reign of virtuous Claudius, who died ere a single purpose had time to ripen—and the hard task that has tied the hands of Aurelian on the borders of ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... appetite for pleasure—all these might, perhaps, be pleaded in extenuation—for virtue often survives honor—and many who once trod the paths of infamy have subsequently reconciled themselves to society by the performance of noble deeds, and have thus thrown a halo of glory round their evil doings—but if this were so, whence comes the monstrous extortion ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... Here some repetition of ideas was found unavoidable, in a case where what is substantially a single theme has been treated in the various forms which it assumed in the light of constantly growing knowledge. If the critical reader finds this a defect, the author can plead in extenuation only the difficulty of avoiding it under the circumstances. Although mainly astronomical, a number of discussions relating to general scientific ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb

... there was nothing whatever to be advanced in extenuation of her folly in thus inviting indigestion—a passion for pastry is its own punishment no less than any other infatuation to which mortal flesh is prone. Sally was morally certain she would suffer, and that ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... withall, and grafted too, Accompanie the greatnesse of thy blood, And hold their leuell with thy Princely heart? Prince. So please your Maiesty, I would I could Quit all offences with as cleare excuse, As well as I am doubtlesse I can purge My selfe of many I am charg'd withall: Yet such extenuation let me begge, As in reproofe of many Tales deuis'd, Which oft the Eare of Greatnesse needes must heare, By smiling Pick-thankes, and base Newes-mongers; I may for some things true, wherein my youth Hath faultie wandred, and irregular, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... have made, are making, and will make, continual additions, however, is Hume's fame as a philosopher; and, though I know that my plea will add to my offence in some quarters, I must plead, in extenuation of my audacity, that philosophy lies in the province of science, and ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... exposed to the penalty of his law. What would have been thought of one of those mutinous seamen, if, when brought before the bar of his country, he had pleaded in his defence, that, after the revolt, he had been faithful to his new commander? Would any person have regarded that as an extenuation of his sin? No! He would at once have been led to the scaffold. And the voice of an indignant public would have said that he suffered ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott

... and in the second, filled with an unreasoning fear that caused her to flee whenever she had seen him approach. This is the only excuse for what she did; for while her mother was feebly murmuring, as if in extenuation, "We thought it was John coming in," Cora Cordelia clasped her hands in delirious delight, and cried aloud, "It's Santa Claus! Oh, it's Santa Claus!" Could anything more awful happen to a cross man, a very cross man, than to be taken for ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull

... upon Maria Braccio as a holy woman, cut off in her youth by a frightful death, the truth was overwhelmingly awful. She strove within herself to find something upon which she could throw the merest shadow of an extenuation, ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... kindnesses? Are they foolish, and wicked, and wayward in the use of their faculties? What is all this but what we ourselves are guilty of every day? Consider how much in our case the guilt of such conduct is aggravated by our superior knowledge. We shall not have ignorance to plead in its extenuation, as many of the people of Shelford may have. Now, instead of railing at the people of Shelford, I think the best thing which you and your schoolfellows could do would be to try to reform them. You can buy and distribute useful and ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... garden, for it was a beautiful warm autumnal day. We sat down about twenty, and a merrier party I never was at. Old Waghorn was the only one who got tipsy on the occasion, and it was very ridiculous to hear him quoting scraps of Scripture in extenuation, and then calling himself a poor blind old sinner. It was not till eight o'clock in the evening that the party broke up, and I had then some difficulty to persuade some to go away. As for the old man, he had been put to bed an hour before. I staid a few minutes ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... cycle of the revolving seasons, I went along deceiving myself, even though I deceived none else, coining new pleas in extenuation or outright contradictions to meet each new-arising element of confirmatory proof to a state of case which no unprejudiced person could fail to acknowledge. The original discoverer of the alibi was a fat man; indeed, it was named for him—Ali Bi-Ben Adhem, he was, a friend and companion of the Prophet, ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb

... of some great offence was tried before Lord Hermand (who was a great toper), and the counsel pleaded extenuation for his client in that he was drunk when he committed the offence. "Drunk!" exclaimed Lord Hermand, in great indignation; "if he could do such a thing when he was drunk, what might he not have done when he was sober?" evidently implying that the normal condition of human nature and ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... recognised and tacitly acknowledged as his conquerors and judges. And when the sentence of dethronement, separation from his family, and instant banishment for life from his country, was pronounced upon him, he offered no plea for pardon or mitigation of his punishment; he urged nothing in extenuation or justification of his conduct, but simply bowed his head in token of his submission to the inevitable, and begged a respite of a few minutes in which to bid farewell to his family before setting out upon his journey ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... evening newspaper—when the unhappy compiler tries to round up the broodings of the day and still get home in time for supper. And yet perhaps the will-to-live is in them, for are they not a naked exhibit of the antics a man will commit in order to earn a living? In extenuation it may be pleaded that none of them are so long that they may not be mitigated by an ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... unwitnessed, had been that none, not even his brother, might hearken to the reproaches he anticipated to receive, or say hereafter that he heard Warwick, returned as victor and avenger to his native land, descend, in the hour of triumph, to extenuation and excuse. So affronted, imperilled, or to use his own strong word, "so despaired," had he been in the former rule of Henry, that his intellect, which, however vigorous in his calmer moods, was liable ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the decay and min of a mind, the wreck of an immortal soul. What place could there be in heaven for the drunkard, who had dribbled away his reason, his power to discriminate between right and wrong, by perpetual doses of brandy? what could be pleaded in extenuation of ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... and Herrera's squadron, no cavalry was forthcoming. Lopez remained unpardonably inactive, for want of orders, as he afterwards said; but, under the circumstances, this was hardly an extenuation. The position of the Carlists had been, in the first instance, from the nature of the ground, scarcely attackable by horse, at least with any prospect of advantage; but now the want of that arm was great and obvious. Cordova's conduct in leaving his squadrons so far in the rear, seems, at any rate, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... prove worthy," he said, earnestly. "You must remember, in extenuation, that I have not seen the ladies of our ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... capital city over the Union Pacific. It was a cowardly expedient, prompted wholly by the old, sharp-toothed fear of consequences if I should fall to obey the wire summons, and I knew it. I offer nothing in extenuation. ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde

... being resolved to defend the work of the National Assembly against the interference of strangers, were not disposed to have him at their head in the fearful struggle which was approaching? We have nothing to say in defence or extenuation of the insolence, injustice, and cruelty with which, after the victory of the republicans, he and his family were treated. But this we say, that the French had only one alternative, to deprive him of the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... and there was nobody to set before Elizabeth any extenuation of the absent one's deceit. Even had he been present Henchard might scarce have pleaded it, so little did he value himself ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... a graphic description of the rage Lulu was thrown into at the sight of Rosie galloping away on the pony she had expected to ride, repeated her angry retort in reply to Aunt Dinah's reproof, and told, without any extenuation of the hard facts, how the baby girl, escaping from her nurse's watchful care for a moment, had toddled along to her sister, caught at her skirts for support, and received a savage kick, that sent her down the ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley

... troubled with scruples in political cases. He had been deeply concerned in those dark and atrocious parts of the Whig plot which had been carefully concealed from the most respectable Whigs. Nor is it possible to plead, in extenuation of his guilt, that he was misled by inordinate zeal for the public good. For it will be seen that after having disgraced a noble cause by his crimes, he betrayed it in order to escape from his well ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the chief murderers was a man named Jowe, who had formerly been a Sunday-school teacher in Sierra Leone. He pleaded in extenuation of his offence that he had been compelled to join the society. The others said they committed the murders in order to obtain certain parts of the body for ju-ju purposes, the leg, the hand, the heart, etc. The Mercury goes on to give the statement of the Reverend ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... Church stoutly opposed the insetting tide, but as the waves of commercial life grew strong and swept around her, the power of resistance grew more feeble from year to year, until finally some of her own people began to plead extenuation and even tolerance. The conflict was now open, and the result seemed questionable. With the conscience of the Southern portion of the Church asleep or dormant, the anti-slavery side of the issue came finally to depend upon ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller

... character of Peters was reinstated; and as he had declared, at the time of his capture, that the unjust punishment which he had received had been the motive of his desertion, the captain was strongly urged by the officers to overlook an offence which had everything to be offered in its extenuation. But Captain A—- was fond of courts-martial; he imagined that they added to his consequence, which certainly required to be upheld by adventitious aid. Moreover, the feeling, too often pervading little minds, that of a dislike taken to a person because you ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... debased mien, a disgraced sensualist, not merely a deceiver of another woman's innocent confidence, and her tempter to dishonor and wretchedness, but a poltroon—a whipped coward who had not dared to lift voice or pen in denial or extenuation of his crime. ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... to motives, to reason and to passion, in their varieties, and all such considerations,—law ignores in the main question, however it may admit them in the imperfect form in which only they can be known, as circumstances in extenuation or aggravation. This large part of responsibility, it will seem to every reflective moralist, enters little into the law's survey; and its penalties, at best, are "the rack of this rude world." Death and imprisonment, as it inflicts them, are for the protection ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry

... likely to consume more time in reaching a place than they are apt to bestow upon it when found. And, I am ashamed to say, that even Louisburgh was not an exception to this general truth; although perhaps certain reasons might be offered in extenuation for our somewhat speedy departure from the precincts of the old town. First, then, the uncertainty of a sailing vessel, for the "Balaklava" was coquettishly courting any and every wind that could carry her out of our harbor of refuge. Next, the desire of seeing more ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens

... must sufficiently justify punishment, whether its end be to secure the innocent from wrong, or to deter guilt by example; and I believe every reader feels some indignation when he finds him spared. From what extenuation of his crime, can Isabel, who yet supposes her brother dead, form any plea in his favour. Since he was good 'till he looked on me, let him not die. I am afraid our varlet poet intended to inculcate, that women think ill of nothing that raises ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... In extenuation, however, of these faults, it must be allowed that we were ourselves the exciting cause which called them into action, and without which they would be comparatively of rare occurrence among them. Like every other child of Adam, ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry

... anything like a graduated scale of responsibility. A very bad training in youth would be in a certain limited sense regarded as lessening the guilt of any wrong thing done; and you may remember, accordingly, how that magnanimous monarch, Charles II., urged to the Scotch lords, in extenuation of the wrong things he had done, that his father had given him a very bad education. But though human laws and judges may vainly and clumsily endeavor to fix each wrongdoer's place in the scale of responsibility, and though they must, in a rough way, do what is rough ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... Majesty, I would I could Quit all offences with as clear excuse As well as I am doubtless I can purge Myself of many I am charged withal: Yet such extenuation let me beg, As, in reproof of many tales devised By smiling pick-thanks and base news-mongers,— Which oft the ear of greatness needs must hear,— I may, for some things true, wherein my youth Hath faulty wander'd and irregular, Find pardon on my ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]

... certainly was not overcome and suffered from no reaction. This confirmed and augmented if possible Mr Powell's good opinion of her as a "jolly girl," though it seemed to him positively monstrous to refer in such terms to one's captain's wife. "But she doesn't look it," he thought in extenuation and was going to say something more to her about the lighting of that flare when another voice was heard in the companion, saying some indistinct words. Its tone was contemptuous; it came from below, from ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... Knight explained, and then wished he had not,—Blue Bonnet looked so grieved. "She killed a calf a few nights ago," he said in extenuation, "and Shady was 'laying for' her. She made for her hole after she was wounded and we followed,—that's how we came to find the pups. Lucky we did or they'd have had ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs

... by seemingly without regret. And if the topic, therefore, is one possessing an attractive personal interest, for that very reason it is felt that the present chapter falls far short of what might be achieved; yet it may be permissible to plead in extenuation thereof that its composition has not proved the easiest of tasks, and its shortcomings must consequently be condoned by an indulgent public. I shall begin, then, by saying that if ever there was a form of food which was intended for our semi-tropical ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)

... to commit this Sacriledge, in the straightnesse of your Lordship's leisure, to present a peece, for matter and model so unworthy, and in this scribbling age, wherein great persons are so pestered dayly with Dedications. All I can alledge in extenuation of so many incongruities, is the bequest of a deceased Man; who (in his lifetime) having offered some translations of his unto your Lordship, ever wisht if these ensuing were published they might onely bee addressed unto your Lordship, as the ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... strike my own name off the books at the buttery hatch, shall be prevented making a retreat to Cam roads.—You're out of the scrape, that's clear, and that affords me some hope; for as you are fresh, your word will pass for something in extenuation, or arrest of judgment." After some little time spent in anticipating the charges likely to be brought against him, and arranging the best mode of defence, it was agreed that Echo should proceed forthwith to Golgotha, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... suppose the reader will dub me a fool to have married Sylvia. Well, he or she may do so. My only plea in extenuation is that I loved her dearly and devotedly. My love might have been misplaced, of course, yet I still felt that, in face of all the black circumstances, she was nevertheless true to those promises made before the altar. I was hers—and she ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux

... had been waiting a most unreasonable time. Neither Mrs. Maylie, nor Harry, nor Rose (who all came in together), could offer a word in extenuation. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... statement about the ear as against the eye; but it is not like him to have let such an over-statement stand and continue in his corrected and carefully finished work. The prophet Jeremiah, I feel satisfied, would not have subscribed to what is said in the Holy War in extenuation of the eye. That heart- broken prophet does not say that it has been his ear that has made his head waters. It is his eye, he says, that has so affected his heart. The Prophet of the Captivity had all the Holy War potentially in his imagination when he penned ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... yet it was quite impossible for Lockhart, a political sympathiser and a personal friend, to treat him harshly in an obituary notice. There was no danger of his setting down aught in malice; but there might be thought to be a considerable danger of over-extenuation. The danger was the greater, inasmuch as Lockhart himself had certainly not escaped, and had perhaps to some extent deserved, one of Hook's reproaches. No man questioned his integrity; he was not a reckless spendthrift; he was not given to excesses in living, or to hanging about great houses; ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... Bertrade," he cried, "what is this thing that I have done! Forgive me, and let the greatness and the purity of my love for you plead in extenuation of my act." ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... supplication was not permanent. Again the anguish swept over His spirit in another foaming breaker, and again He sought solitude, and again He found tranquillity—and again returned to find the disciples asleep. 'They knew not what to answer Him' in extenuation of their ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... up understandingly into her father's kind eyes, "and I will be more careful in the future, Dad. But oh," she offered, in extenuation, "when mystery marches right up to you and begs to be looked into, what can you do? Oh, girls, if you could only have been there—if you ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... miserable about it, for he could see that she despised him more for being an informer than for having something to inform. He pleaded in extenuation: ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... that the masterpiece in question had escaped my research, but pleaded in extenuation that I came from England, where the rudiments of polite larnin' and the iliments of Oirish litherature have not yet permeated the barbarian population. Barbatus then ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... the renegade; "but, in extenuation, your highness must call to mind that at that time I ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat

... I had not learned about them in the way God thinks best to teach us his abhorrence of them. I never read any book in which a sin was fully delineated that I did not feel some of the excitement of the sin—some extenuation, perhaps, some glossing over, some excuse for the sinner,—but in the record God gives I always intensely hate the sin and feel how abominable it is in his sight. The first book I ever cried over was the Bible and it was somebody's sin that brought the tears. I would like to talk to Mrs. Grey!" ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin

... John Crossthwaite held the victim-of-circumstance doctrine in theory, he did not allow Mike Kelly to plead it in practice, as an extenuation of his misdeeds. Very different from his Owenite "it's-nobody's-fault" harangues in the debating society, or his admiration for the teacher of whom my readers shall have a glimpse shortly, was his lecture that evening to the poor Irishmen on "It's ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... the Indians in the canoe, as to lose somewhat of that self-possession, by which his character in general was eminently distinguished. Candour, however, requires, that I should relate what he hath offered in extenuation, not in defence, of the transaction; and this shall be done in his own words. "These people certainly did not deserve death for not choosing to confide in my promises, or not consenting to come on board my boat, even if they had apprehended no danger. ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... its author might be supposed to have written under a sense of peculiar responsibility, and to have tested, with especial care, the statements he ventured to promulgate. And even if this be expecting too much, hastiness, or want of opportunity for due deliberation, cannot now be pleaded in extenuation of any shortcomings; for the propositions cited were repeated two years afterwards in the Reade Lecture, delivered before so grave a body as the University ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley

... to his one—one drink with him, the other drink without him and of which he did not know. I STOLE that other drink, and, worse than that, I began the habit of drinking alone when there was a guest, a man, a comrade, with whom I could have drunk. But John Barleycorn furnished the extenuation. It was a wrong thing to trip a guest up with excess of hospitality and get him drunk. If I persuaded him, with his limited calibre, into drinking up with me, I'd surely get him drunk. What could I do but steal that every ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London

... his having all his wits about him, and is a stratagem, such as it is, not improper for a buffoon, whose fate would be singularly hard, if he should not be allowed to avail himself of his Character when it might serve him in most stead. We must remember, in extenuation, that the executive, the destroying hand of Douglas was over him: "It was time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid him scot and lot too." He had but one choice; he was obliged to pass thro' the ceremony of dying ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... I wish I could undo, Laura; an' there's a lot more of it I couldn't help, an' maybe some I—I—wasn't——" He paused. He couldn't bring himself to say anything in extenuation of himself and his acts in the presence of this girl. It might sound as if he were playing for her ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts

... and he frequently stutters into imagination; but the imp that controls his heart corrupts his taste and taints his sense of beauty, and the result is that he has a malicious satisfaction in deliberately choosing words whose uncouthness finds no extenuation in their expressiveness, and in forging elaborate metaphors which disgust rather than delight. His description of a storm at sea is among the least unfavorable specimens of this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... they never approached the truth. M. de Camors might have committed this base action under the menace of some great danger to save the fortune, the honor, probably the life of Madame de Campvallon. This, though a poor excuse in the mother's eyes, still was an extenuation. Probably also he had in his heart, while marrying her daughter, the resolution to break off this fatal liaison, which he had again resumed against his will, as often happens. On all these painful points she dwelt after the departure ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet

... a mob of persons. When brought into the presence of the magistrate, he learned, to his consternation, that the root upon which he had been experimentalizing was worth four thousand florins; and, notwithstanding all he could urge in extenuation, he was lodged in prison until he found securities for the payment ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... enter into any further extenuation of what was thought exceptionable in this play, but that it has been said, that the managers should have prevented some of the defects before its appearance to the public—and in particular the uncommon length of the piece as represented the first night. It were an ill return ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... said Harlan, in extenuation. "Will you come in?" She was evidently a friend of Dorothy's, and, as such, ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed

... for the keeping of the promises that an hysterical woman had made, struggling for the strength to go on,—on with this cheery, brave little bit of humanity in the next cabin, without a word in self-extenuation, without a hint to break the lack of estimation in which she held him, without a plea in his own defense. And some way, Houston felt that such a plea now would be cheap and tawdry; they were in a world where there were bigger things than ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... happy, having exactly fulfilled without change, bargain, or extenuation the task she had mapped out for herself in 1778, when she declared in the alliance treaty that the "direct and essential object of the same was efficaciously to maintain the freedom, sovereignty, and absolute and illimited independence of the United States." The joy ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... case no plea of love can be offered in extenuation. The truth is far otherwise: he loved her no more. And this forms the most dreadful part of the story. We have seen how cruelly he drugged her; we have now to see her utterly forsaken. He owed her a grudge for being of greater worth than ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... have avowed it, if all this be a proof of the justice of the charge brought against me by my accuser of having "turned round upon my Mother-Church with contumely and slander," in this sense, but in no other sense, do I plead guilty to it without a word in extenuation. ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... that belonged to it, passed out of my life. It had its faults, but it can at least be said of it, in extenuation, that it was very human. With them all it had a rude sense of justice that did not distinguish its early builders. When the work of tearing down had begun, I watched, one day, a troop of children having fun with a seesaw they had made of ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... consider this point in extenuation for her. It is almost certain that in moving to bring about the death of Overbury she had sanction, if only tacit, from the Earl of Northampton. By the time that the Great Oyer began Northampton ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... determined that I will have an apology for their affidavits. The other men may pay their costs and get out of it, but I will stick to my friend the author." Two days later he wrote: "The farther affidavits put in by way of extenuation by the printing rascals are rather strong, and give one a pretty correct idea of what the men must be who hold on by the heels of literature. Oh! the agony of Talfourd at Knight Bruce's not hearing him! He had sat up till three in the morning, he says, preparing his speech; ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... severely blamed: it is not the first time that I have been compelled to interfere, for my pupil is of a very susceptible disposition, and has fancied himself in love with at least five young people since he has been under my charge. In this instance,' continued he, making me a bow, 'he has some extenuation to offer. Will you oblige me by informing me if he adheres to his promise? or do you wish that I ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... de key-note of it all, I fear. I plead guilty. But I also plead, in extenuation, dat I have a vife to whom ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond

... because they think I'm strong," he pleaded, in extenuation of his acceptance of the nomination for Mayor ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... I am now so much a favourite, and have such a visible share in her confidence, and even in her affections, that I may do what I will, and plead for excuse violence of passion; which, they will have it, makes violence of action pardonable with their sex; as well as allowed extenuation with the unconcerned of both sexes; and they all offer their helping hands. Why not? they say: Has she not passed for my wife before them all?—And is she not in a fine way of being reconciled to her friends?—And was not the want of that reconciliation the pretence ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... make small mention, for, in truth, one boasts little of one's deeds in piracy after the fact, or of inciting piracy and making accessories before the fact, the more especially if such accessories be small but bloodthirsty boys. These latter, let me plead in extenuation of my own sins, already were pirates, and set upon rapine. For my own part, seeing their resolution to take green corn and other vegetables, aye, even fowls, as part of the natural returns of their stern calling, I made no ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... Chicago speech of 1858; and in the Cooper Union speech of 1860 he exhibited a familiarity with the theory and history of the Constitution which amazed the young lawyers who prepared an annotated edition of the address. "He has wit, facts, dates," said Douglas, in extenuation of his own disinclination to enter upon the famous joint debates, and, when Douglas returned to Washington after the debates were over, he confessed to the young Henry Watterson that "he is the greatest debater I have ever met, either here or anywhere ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... of conventions. With a Republican mayor in every other city, there had been no attempt at official protection; and yet it may be remembered, in extenuation, that it is always easier for the party out of power than for the one in power to stand for principle; the former has nothing to lose. The Republicans at this time were panic-stricken and staggering under the weight of responsibility suddenly laid upon them; and the Abolitionists, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... It was admitted that Gray had had a long talk with the prisoner, took him his overcoat, newspapers, etc., but, in extenuation, they were members of the same college society and their social standing was, outside the army, on the same plane. Gray deserved reprimand and caution—nothing more. As to the carriage, he had nothing to do with the one that drove to camp that ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King

... one who has even pretended to study the art of war is able to find an excuse, I have failed to find such an instance in the course of many years' reading, and shall be happy to have it pointed out to me. Hooker's wound cannot be alleged in extenuation. If he was disabled, his duty was to turn the command over to Couch, the next in rank. If he did not do this, he was responsible for what followed. And he retained the command himself, only using Couch ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... sound boots for her feet, we'll worry through without it." And they did. The extreme solicitude of the State Children's Department, as carried out by its zealous officers, for the life and the wellbeing of their babies serves them in Public extenuation, and the children are often so pretty and engaging that they win love all round. A grown-up son in the home was very fond of little Lily. "Mother will you get Lily a cream coat, such as I see other babies wearing, and I will ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... more even as friends. I do not ask you either to forgive or to remember me. Look on me as one wholly unworthy even of resentment! Do not think that I write this in madness or in fever or excitement. Judge me not by my seeming illness this morning. I invent no excuse, no extenuation, for my broken faith and perjured vows. Calmly, coldly, and deliberately I write; and thus writing, I ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IX • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... subject the former, in their turn, to the money power in Great Britain. It is not denied that the suspension of the New York banks in 1837, which was followed in quick succession throughout the Union, was produced by an application of that power, and it is now alleged, in extenuation of the present condition of so large a portion of our banks, that their embarrassments have arisen ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... moor cock doesn't fly that way," Willis drawlingly explained, in extenuation of the poor shooting. "He doesn't go right up and down, you 'now. He has wings, don't you 'now, and flies straight away, like a shot. I could hit a grouse without any trouble, but this kind of shooting! The best shot in England ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish

... Ralph, in a few words, related the occurrence. Though carefully avoiding the use of epithet or phrase which might color with an increased odium the connection and conduct of Forrester with the affair, the offence admitted of so little apology or extenuation, that the delicacy with which the details were narrated availed but little in its mitigation; and an involuntary cry burst from mother and daughter alike, to which the hollow groan that came from the lips of Forrester furnished ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... therefore, as is their condition, the consideration that it has thus far been occasioned by their own imprudence, is apt to detract from that unbounded commiseration which it would otherwise excite: if, on the other hand, we do not reflect in extenuation of their thoughtlessness and extravagance, that their former increased means of indulgence, were the result of their industry; that this industry was in the first instance called into activity by the encouragement of the government; that it has since been paralysed by ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... supporters of the scheme proclaim their readiness and their capacity to regenerate the State and human nature, they are hailed as the prophets of a new order; they are allowed to plead the excellence of their motives in extenuation of all and any means; and they end by creating new evils without ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... has been in all the history of murder and plunder. Liberty! the People! these are the sacred objects with which tyrants cloak their usurpations, and which assassins plead in extenuation of their brazen disregard of life, of virtue, of all that is dear and sacred to the race. The dagger of Brutus and the sword of Cromwell, were they not drawn in the name of Liberty—the People? The guillotine of the French Commune and the ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... tempt me to be less frank than I have been. I wish to make full confession. I know, I see now, I have been cruelly, brutally selfish—as selfish as Nature herself!—none knows that better than I. But remember, in extenuation, what I have told you of my origin and my growth. And I had not the suspicion of a thought of injuring any one. Fool! fool! egregious fool that I was! I who understood most things so clearly did not guess that no creature, no being in the universe—god, or man, or beast—can ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban

... provision for prisoners of war, one thing ought to be taken into consideration, which may be offered as an extenuation of crime alledged against the British agents for prisoners; and that is, that the American soldier and sailor live infinitely better in America, than the same class of people do in Great Britain and Ireland. Generally speaking, an American eats three times the quantity of animal food that fall ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... have betrayed you—they have shut their eyes and blindfolded others," objected Joseph Smith, as if in extenuation. ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... was worth that to him," she said to herself in extenuation, "and he's goin' to get two thousand dollars a year. I didn't want to lend the money, I'd rather have had it in the savings bank, but I did ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... furnished supplies than of annihilating the Army of the Potomac, and relying on European intervention rather than on the valour of the Southern soldier, were responsible for the occupation of the Fredericksburg position. In extenuation of their mistake it may, however, be admitted that the advantages of concentration on the North Anna were not such as would impress themselves on the civilian mind, while the surrender of territory would undoubtedly have embarrassed both the Government and the supply department. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... poetasters arises from their extreme love of spinning out an infinite deal of nothing. Now, as "brevity is the soul of wit," their productions can be looked upon as little else than phantasmagorial skeletons, ridiculous from their extreme extenuation, and in appearance more peculiarly empty, from the circumstance of their owing their existence to false lights. This fault does not exist with all the master spirits, and, though "many a flower is born to blush unseen," we now proceed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various

... judge of them so far as I can see; and if I am expected to judge of his purposes when they appear to be beneficent, I am in consistency obliged also to judge of them when they appear to be malevolent. And it can be no possible extenuation of the latter to point to the "final result" as "order and beauty," so long as the means adopted by the "Omnipotent Designer" are known to have been so revolting. All that we could legitimately assert in this case would be, that so far as observation can extend, "he cares for animal perfection" ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes

... compelled to interfere, for my pupil is of a very susceptible disposition, and has fancied himself in love with at least five young people since he has been under my charge. In this instance,' continued he, making me a bow, 'he has some extenuation to offer. Will you oblige me by informing me if he adheres to his promise? or do you wish that I should speak ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... plead this circumstance in partial extenuation. The intent had been plain, the deed was consummated. I had practically ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... having come to light since his trial, which had been humanely represented in the proper quarter. The other two had nothing to expect from the mercy of the crown; their doom was sealed; no plea could be urged in extenuation of their crime, and they well knew that for them there was no hope in this world. 'The two short ones,' the turnkey whispered, 'were ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... your sweet fraternal breath. How the Fates have since sundered us! How have you been going on, fattening and beautifying from one degree to another of poetical perfection, while I have, under the chilling shade of the Ochil Hills, been dwindling down from one degree of poetical extenuation to another, till at length I am become the very shadow and ghost of literary leanness! I should now wish to see you, and compare you as you are now with what you were in your 'Queen's Wake' days. For this purpose, I would be very fain you would condescend to pay us a visit. I see you indeed, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... but a writer on English literature within brief limits is forced to bow to it if he wishes his book to avoid the dreariness of a summary, and he can plead in extenuation the increased literary output of the later age, and the incompleteness with which time so far has done its work in sifting the memorable from the forgettable, the ephemeral from what is going to last. The main body of imaginative prose literature—the novel—is treated of in the next ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair

... oath in extenuation of my conduct, and that I was bound to return. This was not held in law to be any excuse. I had no business to take an oath of that nature, it was asserted by the counsel for the Government. The sentence of death against me was, ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... very hard to forgive, and that is, that as the two went together under the flaming white lights towards Chiswick High Street, she turned to Frank a little nervously and asked him if he would mind walking just behind her. (Please remember, however, in extenuation, that Gertie's new pose was that of the ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... are anxious to procure the rare books mentioned in these bibliographical treatises, may be pretty safely taxed with being infected by the BIBLIOMANIA. What apology my friend Mr. Haslewood, the author of them, has to offer in extenuation of the mischief committed, it is his business, and not mine, to consider; and what the public will say to his curious forthcoming reprint of the ancient edition of Wynkyn De Worde on Hunting, Hawking, and Fishing, 1497 (with wood cuts), I ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... in extenuation of his sentence, and beseeching the intercession of the Lords with his Majesty, Lord Kilmarnock concluded—"It is by Britons only that I pray to be recommended to a British monarch. But if justice allow not of mercy, my lords, I will lay down my life ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... a-piece:' our indulgent poet, whenever he has spoken of any dirty or low work, constantly puts us in mind of the poverty of the offenders, as the only extenuation of such practices. Let any one but remark, when a thief, a pickpocket, a highwayman, or a knight of the post are spoken of, how much our hate to those characters is lessened, if they add a needy thief, a poor pickpocket, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... and the meaning of the words Law and Right. He expatiated in the field of practical morals in his celebrated Instructions to his Son and to Posterity. The treatise makes an unpleasant impression with its hard, selfish, and somewhat sensual dogmatism. In extenuation it must be recollected that it was addressed to a hot and impetuous youth. He cultivated a taste for metaphysics. The Sceptic and A Treatise on the Soul are exemplifications of it. The former, as it stands, is an apology for 'neither affirming, nor denying, but doubting.' Probably the intention, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... buildings to be actually razed, and fined truants heavily. One case which is reported displays the grim and costly humor of the illegal tribunal which dealt with such cases. Poor Mr. Palmer of Sussex, a gay bachelor, being called upon to show cause why he had been residing in London, pleaded in extenuation that he had no house, his mansion having been destroyed by fire two years before. This, however, was held rather an aggravation of the offence, inasmuch as he had failed to rebuild it; and Mr. Palmer paid ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... he parries these thrusts with weak, apologetic appeals, preserved in his Respuestas (Rhymed Answers). He claims his high-born foe's sympathy by telling him that he has sons, grandchildren, a poor, old father, and a marriageable daughter. In extenuation of his cowardice it should be remembered that Antonio di Montoro lived during a reign of terror, under Ferdinand and Isabella, when his race and his faith were exposed to most frightful persecution. All the ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... this tree," and the master led the way to an umbrageous beech close by. There, still resting upon his horse, while China leaned against the enormous trunk, the story was told of the day's doings without exaggeration or extenuation. ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee

... having administered the inhuman castigation, Landry (the owner of the girl) pleaded guilty, but urged in extenuation that the girl had dared to make an effort for that freedom which her instincts, drawn from the veins of her abuser, had taught her was the God-given right of all who possess the germ of immortality, no matter what the color of the casket in which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... England—whatever happens at home is but part of an orderly and an ordered scheme of things, whereas whatever happens beyond the British domains must necessarily be highly unusual and exceedingly disorganizing. If so be it happens on English soil he can excuse it. He always has an explanation or an extenuation handy. But if it happens elsewhere—well, there you are, you see! What was it somebody once called England—Perfidious Alibi-in', wasn't it? Anyhow that was what he meant. The party's intentions were good but his ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... and his Cabinet adopted the course which in the light of subsequent events seems to have been woefully ill-timed and hazardous in the extreme. They determined to sacrifice the army and navy. In extenuation of this decision, it may be said that the danger of war with France, which had forced the Adams Administration to double expenditures, had passed; and that Europe was at this moment at peace, though only the most sanguine and shortsighted could believe that continued ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... Baronet, holding out his hand, 'what have you to say in extenuation of your past conduct? You found it convenient, no doubt, to forget an ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie

... had taken milk from the same place at other times. When asked what she had to say in extenuation, she held her child up and said, "I did not take it for myself, I took it for this!" She did not call it her child. The magistrate looked, shuddered, and sentenced her to ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes

... The sole extenuation of Rachel's base worldliness was that during the previous six months she had almost continuously had the sensations of a person crossing Niagara on a tight-rope, and that now, on this very day, she had leaped to firm ground and was accordingly exultant. After Mrs. ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett

... afraid, hate my memory after this sad disclosure; but in my extenuation recall to mind how madly I loved, how cruelly I was deceived. Remember, also, that if not insane, I was little better at the time I was so criminal; and may it prove to you a lesson how difficult it is, when once you have stepped ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... germ of those vices, which like the Java tree shed a pestiferous vapour around—death is in the shade! and he perceives them without abhorrence, because he feels himself drawn by some cord of love to all his fellow creatures, for whose follies he is anxious to find every extenuation in their nature—in himself. If I, he may thus argue, who exercise my own mind, and have been refined by tribulation, find the serpent's egg in some fold of my heart, and crush it with difficulty, shall not I pity those who are ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]



Words linked to "Extenuation" :   mitigation, palliation, excuse, step-down, reduction, decrease



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