"Justifiable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... think so. It is a greater crime to bring a soul into the world and then neglect it—let it drift into any hell on earth that nets it—than it is to send a soul out of the world, to meet heaven, if it deserves it. There are times when murder is justifiable, but there are certain other crimes ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... was far too much of a man to hazard an opinion on the proprieties in the face of his wife's disapproval, so he grunted an amiable acquiescence in that spirit of justifiable hypocrisy known among his kind as "humoring the women-folks." Privately he was disposed to exult in his daughter's spirit and good sense, and so long as these admirable qualities did not take her away from him, and paternal pride and affection were both gratified, he saw no reason to complain. This ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... husbands. Their wives are useful to them, and they learn to feel that a woman, being a wife, is entitled to all the respect, protection, and honour which a man can give, or procure for her. Such men, no doubt, often live honest lives, are good Christians, and depart hence with hopes as justifiable as though they had loved as well as Romeo. But yet, as men, they have lacked a something, the want of which has made them small and poor and dry. It has never been felt by such a one that there would be triumph in giving away everything belonging to him for one little whispered, yielding word, in ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... blame him. Suffering, as he was, from the ceaseless agony of hunger and thirst, any indiscretion, or even crime, seemed justifiable, for ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... and in all times the outsetting is essentially the same: the same high hopes and brave determinations; the same profound conviction of uniqueness; the same perfectly true and justifiable inner knowledge that, for the individual, this journey is the most important in all history. In many cases, of course, there are a mother's tears, a father's blessing, and suchlike substitutes for the stirrup-cup. And, ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... iron-clads in James river were burnt by their own commanders. When he knew the troops were marching out of Richmond and saw the Confederate iron-clads burning in the river, Tucker thought it was not only justifiable but necessary for him to act without orders, and he retired with his command from Drewry's Bluff. General R.E. Lee told Tucker, when they met, that of all the mistakes committed by the Richmond authorities he regretted none more than the neglect to apprise the naval force at Drewry's Bluff of ...
— Life of Rear Admiral John Randolph Tucker • James Henry Rochelle
... delights to work for you, to please you if he can, to do his tasks well enough to win your favorable notice, and the breath of praise is sweet to his nostrils. It is right and justifiable that he should have this praise, and it will be an aid to his spiritual development, if bestowed with discrimination. Only Titanic strength of character can endure constant discouragement and failure, and yet work steadily onward, and the weak, undeveloped human being needs ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... think hard, only simulate doing so. One is compelled at the very least to look closely after the witness who simply imitates intensive thinking without showing the signs proper to it. The suspicion of false testimony is then justifiable. ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide. Thus, in a case lately decided before Miller, J., Doe presented Roe a subscription paper, and urged the claims of suffering humanity. Roe replied by asking, When charity was like a top? It was in evidence that Doe preserved a dignified silence. Roe then said, "When it begins to hum." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... prince saw Mozart's Figaro announced for performance at Drury Lane, and looked forward to hearing once more the sweet harmonies of his Vaterland. 'What, then, was my astonishment,' he exclaims, in justifiable indignation, 'at the unheard-of treatment which the masterpiece of the immortal composer has received at English hands! You will hardly believe me when I tell you that neither the count, the countess, nor Figaro ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... of view was, I think, justifiable. Leaving out the intolerable implication that Lance had showered benefits upon her, she felt that the Lorrigans had been over-generous. The schoolhouse and the books might be accepted as a public-spirited effort to do their part. But the piano, since it had not been returned, ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... to tell you just how I have found this out, but I am now convinced that you are as much in the dark as myself in regard to this unfortunate affair, and are as willing as I am to take all justifiable means to enlighten yourself. I own that at first I thought it more than probable you were in collusion with the girl here to deceive me. That I wouldn't stand. I'm glad to find you as truly a victim of this mystery ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... Secession. Innumerable precedent occurrences had produced a condition, but it was the passion for the Union, the strong loyalty to that sovereign, which dominated the situation, and in truth had been dominating it silently for years; a passion as profound and, though justifiable to reason, as unreasoning as any simple love that ever bound man to woman. Could this have been appreciated, what reams of demonstration might have been spared to foreign pens—demonstration of the folly, the hopelessness, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... would have entered a further protest. He did not see the necessity of confronting an old woman with the gruesome sight of a mutilated corpse, nor did he perceive justifiable cause ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... acts of this kind can possibly be influenced. On the other hand, it is an idle claim that the character of the press has been elevated by libel suits that Cooper or any one else has ever brought. Such prosecutions may be both justifiable and necessary; but the agencies that form and build up intelligence and taste and high principle are not of ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... voice, told the simple tale of their married happiness. It had been a love-match, different from the ordinary marriages of reason and arrangement. Not a cloud since their wedding-day. They were called the turtle-doves of the Rue de la Curatterie. He had not even manifested the jealousy justifiable in the possessor of so beautiful a wife. He had trusted her implicitly. He was certain of her love. That was enough. They had had one child, who died. Grief had brought them even nearer each other. And now this ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... manifested this, perhaps excessive, contempt for money. On one occasion it was quite justifiable. Father Bambini had taken him to a party where he was to sing on very advantageous terms. The scholar was treated with deference; but the teacher who had neither a fine face nor the claims of youth to shield him against aristocratic prejudice, was received much as a servant would have ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... ladies, and thinking he would be back about mid-day, I advised him, sir, to delay his return to the station, until he had seen his master. Hence, you see, sir, his presence on the station was perfectly justifiable. With regard to his peccancy I will not attempt, sir, to offer any palliation beyond the expression of my belief, that the tobacco was taken without any notion of the offence he was committing; in proof of which, I may mention, sir, the absence of any concealment on his part, ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... congratulate you two young fellows on your escape last night. Those scoundrels have got away; and if they turn up again, lawyer though I am, I should advise you both to shoot on sight. If you are brought before me, I'll promise you I will bring it in justifiable homicide." ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... conscience avoid it. What is it after all, my dear friend, but a spoiling of the Egyptians, as holy Moses did, when about to lead the children of Israel from bondage. In that case it was what may be termed in these our days a description of justifiable theft, such as many professors of the word do, in matters of business, feel themselves warranted even now in imitating. It requires, however, to be done carefully, and within the freedom of the perfect law; ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... severity itself may stimulate a convict. His human mind cannot comprehend despair. Instinct forces him to hope. So weeks, months, years go by, and hope seems to him more instead of less justifiable, till at last, perhaps, he dies with the illusion still strong in him. Real despair is un-human and possibly rare. Otherwise prison mutinies and killings would be more frequent. The argument of despair is, "Since I must die here anyway, I'll take ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... tells us in his Memoirs [1]—sat there absorbed in deep contemplation. Some of them, leaning on their silver-adorned staffs or smoothing their long beards, seemed as if agitated by earnest thoughts and justifiable suspicions; others were engaging in a lively but quiet discussion on the principles involved; such put to me the ominous question: "Doctor, are you fully acquainted with the leading principles of our government? You are ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... absorb the food, and to excrete the superfluous nitrogenous matter. Unproductive labor should be avoided as much in physiological as in political economy. The universal practice of subsisting on a mixed diet, in which proteids are mixed with fats or amyloids, is therefore justifiable. ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... justifiable as to the ordinarily accepted scene of his birth. Of two adjoining houses forming a detached building on the north side of Henley Street, that to the east was purchased by John Shakespeare in 1556, but there ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... school. They spoke of a return to nature. What, to ask once more a very troublesome question, is meant by nature? Does it mean inanimate nature? If so, is a love of nature clearly good or 'natural?' Was Wordsworth justifiable prima facie for telling us to study mountains rather ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... is not justifiable by any electrodynamical facts, supplies us then with that particular law of motion which has been confirmed with great precision in ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein
... raised, and though Lord Rotherwood and Mr. White, the chief owners of property, have done, and will do, much, there still remains greater need than a fleeting population like this can be expected to supply, and Clement thinks that a bazaar is quite justifiable in such ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... such understanding gives. It exhibits no ulterior purpose of using its knowledge for the benefit of mankind, or even of diffusing it. Its aim is selfish, and the secrecy which it has maintained is not justifiable in the present condition of ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... pleasure and outward prosperity the great aims of successful ambition, and hid with an impenetrable screen from the eyes of men the fatal results of a worldly life, so that suicide itself came to be viewed as a justifiable way to avoid evils that are hard to be borne; in short, it was a religion which, though joyous, was without hope, and with innumerable deities was without God in the world,—which was no religion at all, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... animals, because it seemed cruel; but thinking afterwards that it was also cruel to destroy herbs which have a share of sensitive feeling, they saw that they would perish from hunger unless they did an unjustifiable action for the sake of justifiable ones, and so now they all eat meat. Nevertheless, they do not kill willingly useful animals, such as oxen and horses. They observe the difference between useful and harmful foods, and for this they employ the ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... fired and sent over the Falls. When the Caroline was boarded one American, Amos Durfee, was killed and several others wounded. The United States at once demanded redress, but the British Government took the position that the seizure of the Caroline was a justifiable act of self-defense against people whom their own government either could not or would ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... Occasion.—Featuring the occasion of a speech or the auspices under which it was given is justifiable only when the speech and the speaker are of ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... arises. The past history of the City of London is one long illustration of this position,—it is an uninterrupted series of reforms, many of them rather beneficial to the nation at large than to the Corporation itself. On what grounds, then, is it justifiable to supersede this salutary internal action of the Corporation, and to exercise the arbitrary power of the legislature to enforce crude and inapplicable innovations? This interference with the self-government of the City is, in fact, a vote of censure on the duly elected representatives of the citizens, ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... procedure, because every thing in the drama must be regulated by the conditions of theatrical probability; but the mixture of such dissimilar, and apparently contradictory, ingredients, in the same works, can only be justifiable on principles reconcilable with the views of art, which I have already described. In the dramas of Shakspeare the comic scenes are the antechamber of the poetry, where the servants remain; these prosaic attendants must not raise their voices so high ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... office. It is a remarkable fact that, aside from a few hints about the necessity of maintaining order and proceeding according to law, the general tone of the press here is to the effect that this occurrence, though unfortunate on account of its effect at the North, was really justifiable. ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 10. October 1888 • Various
... of invention as well as style in the Jerusalem. The Talking Bird, or bird that sings with a human voice (canto iv. 13), is a piece of inverisimilitude, which the author, perhaps, thought justifiable by the speaking horses of the ancients. But the latter were moved supernaturally for the occasion, and for a very fine occasion. Tasso's bird is a mere born contradiction to nature and for no necessity. The ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... combination of circumstances which they are utterly incapable of comprehending: and, indeed, it is not every man in the highest classes who is altogether equal to it. Nothing, in a general sense, appears to me less fair and justifiable (even if no attempt were made to inflame the passions) than to submit a matter on discussion to a tribunal incapable of judging of more than one side of the question. It is at least as unjustifiable to inflame the passions of such judges against that side in favor of which they cannot ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the extremity of their rigour. I am not ignorant neither how flourishing this necessary tyranny, this lawful oppression renders your State; how safe and glorious, how secure from enemies at home, (those worst of foes) and how feared by those abroad: pursue then, sir, your justifiable method, and still be high and mighty, retain your ancient Roman virtue, and still be great as Rome herself in her height of glorious commonwealths; rule your stubborn natives by her excellent examples, and let the height of your ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... its attention on the point of what the events in America portended to British interests and policy. This is the business of governments, and their agents would be condemned as inefficient did they neglect it. But did British governmental policy go beyond this entirely justifiable first thought for immediate British interests to the point of positive hope that England would find an advantage in the breaking up of the great American Republic? American opinion, both then and later, believed Great Britain guilty ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... of them are called for. Only when the point is reached at which providing for this through traffic in addition to the local freight entails additions to the permanent plant and involves costs that exceed the return from the through business, is it justifiable, in the interest of social efficiency, to advance such charges. In preventing such an advance under other conditions a government helps to secure an approach to a natural economy and ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... town, where they might have had as many houses as they wanted. This reckless indifference to the preservation of their health can only be accounted for on the principle, that on an expedition attended by so many difficulties and privations, it was deemed justifiable to attempt to inure the constitution to the noxious influences of the climate, and to look down with contempt upon any act which had the least tendency to effeminacy, or a scrupulous attention to personal comfort. The constitution of Clapperton was well known to have been of an iron nature; ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... suppose I did not all the time know that it was to this it was sure to come, soon or late?" she said, with justifiable complacency. "It's a good thing to have a house o' one's own an' an estate. An' the linen that's in the house! I've no need to turn a hand to the flax-wheel for ten years if I've no mind. An' ye can all bide your times, an' see what John'll make o' the ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... fact is sufficient to guarantee a verdict of "Not Guilty," in case I am prosecuted for murder, or whether an unscrupulous jury could sacrifice me to the unsettled condition of the popular mind on the subject of justifiable insanity. Yours sanguinarily, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... inquest's result. And, very thoughtful about it all, he gravely agreed with Norton; the coroner's jury, taking the evidence offered by Jim Galloway, Kid Rickard, and Antone, would bring in a verdict of justifiable homicide. ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... said it is a book of horrors. I started to mark the passages of peculiar tragedy and found that I was marking every page, and yet it is a justifiable book and ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... think it was justifiable and humorous, I notice. But what would you have said if Hannah had told you to say: 'So am I' when strangers said: 'I am glad to meet you'? That was what some one told me, when I first ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... you like about it when we have the means. I think whatever is done should be done for Moore himself. This is more distinct, direct, and intelligible. Making a small provision for young men is hardly justifiable; and it is of all things the most prejudicial to themselves. They think what they have much larger than it really is; and they make no exertion. The young should never hear any language but this: 'You have your own way to make, and it depends upon your own exertions whether you ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... that there are cases in which the performance of an abortion is perfectly justifiable from a moral standpoint, for instance in cases of rape or where the mother is unmarried, nevertheless abortion must be recognized as an evil, a necessary evil now and then, but an evil, nevertheless. It is never ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... intentions, on the possibility that the girl's assertions might be true, on the benefits of expedition, and of gaining access to the object of my visit without interruption or delay. To these considerations was added a sort of charm, not easily explained, and by no means justifiable, produced by the very temerity and hazardness accompanying this attempt. I thought, with scornful emotions, on the bars and hinderances which pride, and caprice, and delusive maxims of decorum, raise in the way of human intercourse. ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... was hardly justifiable, but things were desperate," he said. "You see, when you and the girl went upstairs, I felt that your impetuous nature might have let you overlook the fact that we had no proofs against Wyck, so I determined to lay hands on some of his letters, and use them against him. By means of a little steaming ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... witness than that of John, for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me." "If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin; their rejection of my claims would be justifiable but for the fact that my divinity is demonstrated in the works which I do." The same thought accompanies the introduction of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the preaching of the Apostles. Paul said, "Our gospel ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume 1, January, 1880 • Various
... and only one where it has been directly observed. This is in the case of domestic animals and plants under man's charge. Now as here, where alone we see Evolution going on, it is under the guidance of superintending mind, it is a justifiable inference that in nature, also, it goes on under similar intelligent guidance. Now, it is the observation of distinguished men of science that we see precisely such guidance in nature. There is nothing in the Darwinian theory, as I said, that would conduct ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... the English speaking public before discussing them with the poet himself and my friends in Athens, I am only yielding to the urgent requests of friends on both sides of the Atlantic who have regarded my delay with justifiable impatience. I am thoroughly conscious of the shortcomings that were bound to result from the above difficulties and from the interruption caused by my two years' service in the American army; and were it not for the encouragement ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... create it. In fact, it is not sufficient to say, "The right of property is demonstrated by the existence of property; the function of the civil law is purely declaratory." To say that, is to confess that there is no reply to those who question the legitimacy of the fact itself. Every right must be justifiable in itself, or by some antecedent right; property is no exception. For this reason, M. Cousin has sought to base it upon the SANCTITY of the human personality, and the act by which the will assimilates a thing. "Once touched by man," says one of M. Cousin's ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... justice to his own idea of himself if I did not add that he was most respectably connected, and that he had a justifiable though feeble pride in his family. It helped his self-respect, which no ignoble circumstances could destroy. He was, as must appear by this time, a most intelligent man, and he was a well-informed man; that is ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... as may be said, to deliver himself into my hands. M. d'Herblay left to me the happiness of saving my king and my country. I could not condemn M. d'Herblay to death; nor could I, on the other hand, expose him to your majesty's most justifiable wrath; it would have been just the same as if I had ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... the "as if" manner of philosophising, and shows that it is justifiable. Some of those confounded Frenchmen have lately been pitching into me for using this form ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... married man, and by a little judicious management, sound family reasons for his past secrecy upon the subject, which were floated as adjuncts to the story, were placidly received; they seemed so natural and justifiable to the unsophisticated minds of nine-tenths of his neighbours, that curiosity in the matter, beyond a strong curiosity to see the lady's ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... for nothing, and that his operations might indeed succour the movements of the prince. The baronet, upright as he was in other matters, had no scruples of conscience on this occasion; having long since brought himself over to the belief that it was justifiable to attain ends as great as those he had in view, by the sacrifice of any of ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... knew that Charles considered several demands of the Protestants to which the Church could never consent, entirely justifiable—nay, that he deemed a reformation of the Church by the council now in session at Trent ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... against Louisburgh was only justifiable upon the ground that the wants of New England for additional territory were pressing, and immediate action, under the circumstances, indispensable. Levies of colonial troops were made, both in and out of the territories of the saints. The forces, however, ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... they are maltreated and murdered by brutal mobs. It is true that individual Negroes, by fiendish assaults on white women, now and then rouse men to frenzy, but statistics show that only about a fifth of the lynchings of Negroes are because of the 'usual crime.' Burning at the stake is never justifiable under any circumstance, and it is undeniable that in race riots scenes of horror have been enacted that are a disgrace to American civilization. Such scenes are sadly out of place in a nation that proclaims itself the special champion of liberty and justice and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... enjoyed no small fame as a worker of miracles, but when Otto unfolded his case to him the Abbot declared straightway that no miracle would be justifiable in the present instance, and that only by repentance and by complete renunciation of the world might the Count be released from his nightly menace. Otto hung his head on hearing this verdict, and as he stood hesitating, pondering whether it were possible for him to forgo all earthly ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... count the coals, nor did she even go through accounts, or into the kitchen every day. The secret was simple. She had a good cook and housekeeper, who managed all these important but tedious details admirably, under her suggestions. In order to do this Edith had to practise a little fraud on Bruce, a justifiable and quite unselfish one. She gave the cook and housekeeper a quarter of her dress allowance, in addition to the wages Bruce considered sufficient; because Bruce believed that they could not afford more than a certain amount for a cook, while he ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... complication with the reader. This person is spoken of as the botanist, and he is a leaner, rather taller, graver and much less garrulous man. His face is weakly handsome and done in tones of grey, he is fairish and grey-eyed, and you would suspect him of dyspepsia. It is a justifiable suspicion. Men of this type, the chairman remarks with a sudden intrusion of exposition, are romantic with a shadow of meanness, they seek at once to conceal and shape their sensuous cravings beneath egregious ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... with yellow pine be found is greatly to be desired, since yellow pine seedlings do not withstand transplanting well, but there is need for careful experimentation before extensive seeding operations in this type by private timber owners would be justifiable. ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... BRITISH.—There are also certain regulations imposed by many local authorities respecting the storage of carbide, and usually a licence for storage has to be obtained if more than 5 lb. is kept at a time. The idea of the rule is perfectly justifiable, and it is generally enforced in a sensible spirit. As the rules may vary in different localities, the intending consumer of acetylene must make the necessary inquiries, for failure to comply with the regulations may obviously be followed ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... old restrictive system, which at every turn hampered the rising industrial energy. This is the sense in which 'Individualism,' or the gospel according to Adam Smith—laissez faire, and so forth—has been specially denounced in recent times. Without asking at present how far such attacks are justifiable, I must be content to assume that the old restrictive system was in its actual form mischievous, guided by entirely false theories, and the great barrier to the development of industry. The same spirit appeared in purely political questions. ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... been buryin' the dead. They had me as witness on the coroner's jury last night, an' after the jury decided that it was justifiable homicide, there was nothin' to do but plant the three o' 'em—before the sun got too high. But let's take up some ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... lied and respected them the more, for down in the hearts of all men is a feeling that the love-affairs of a man and a woman are sacred themes, and a bulwark of lies to protect the holy of holies is ever justifiable. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... livelihood, should become the husband of the celebrated Mrs. Thrale, and the stepfather of four young ladies of fashion, the daughters of a brewer, and the heiresses to his large fortune,- -there was the rub! The dislike of Dr. Johnson and his friends to the marriage was, from a worldly point of view, justifiable enough, but it argues ill for their generosity of mind that they should have attached such overwhelming importance to such petty considerations. Mrs. Piozzi has been blamed for deserting her three elder daughters; ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... lords, is not only our right but our duty; we are not only justifiable in practising, but criminal in neglecting it. That we should declare our apprehensions of any impending danger, and our disapprobation of publick misconduct, is expected both by our sovereign and the people, and let ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... requests from the French for naval support on the Belgian coast. We regret we are unable to comply. The small vessels by themselves cannot face the new shore batteries, and it is not justifiable to expose battleships to submarine perils unless to support a ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... separation of eight months from our Families & Friends, We the undersubscribers, Prisoners of war from North Carolina now in Philadelphia Prison, think ourselves justifiable at this period in applying to your Honours for permission to return to our Families; which indulgence we will promise on the Faith & honour of gentlemen not to abuse, by interfering in the present disputes, or aiding or assisting ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... knowledge of the real man's heart and soul. Homer simply tells us, that he walked away, with great strides, greatly rejoicing. I can remember, at this moment, but one tale in which this style of descriptive searchings into the feelings is altogether justifiable—Godwin's "Caleb Williams;" for there the ever instant terror, varying by the natural activity and ingenuity of the mind, which, upon the one pressing point, feverishly hurries into new, and all possible channels of thought, requires this pervading absolutism. It is the Erynnis of a bygone creed, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... M. Prohibant on the frontier, or that which he causes to be used by the law, may be judged very differently in a moral point of view. Some persons consider that plunder is perfectly justifiable, if only sanctioned by law. But, for myself, I cannot imagine anything more aggravating. However it may be, the economical results are the same in ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... modeled Venus. Her skin was of the rich gold hue that marks the blood unmuddied by Spanish strain; to see her, poised on a rich hip by the river's brink, wringing her tresses after the morning bath, it were justifiable to mistake her for some beautiful bronze. Moreover, it were easy to see her, for, in Tehuantepec, innocence is thoughtless as in old Eden. When Paul Steiner passed her one morning, she gave him the curious open-eyed stare of a deer, bade him a pleasant ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... the sightless epic which racks the nations of Europe, every type of experience abounds: great exploits and great crimes, sublime acts of devotion and sordid interests, heroes and grotesques. If to laugh be permissible, if it be French to laugh amid the worst trials, how much more justifiable is laughter when it becomes a weapon against hypocrisy, a weapon employed for the vindication of stifled common sense! Never was hypocrisy more widespread and more disastrous than in these days, when in every land it is a mask assumed by force. Hypocrisy, ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... uses like a hammer to knock down the bricks of his opponent's reasons, and when he finds himself in the other's intrenchments, why he gathers together the scattered materials in order to build a wall for his own protection. Then what was oppression yesterday is justifiable defence to-day; fanaticism becomes logic; and credulity and pliant submission get, in two centuries, to be deference to the venerable opinion of our fathers! But let it go—thou wert speaking of thanking God, and in that; Roman though I am, I fervently and ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... announced by telegraph, began April 12th, and ended on the 14th. We then knew that the war was actually begun, and though the South was openly, manifestly the aggressor, yet her friends and apologists insisted that she was simply acting on a justifiable defensive, and that in the forcible seizure of, the public forts within her limits the people were acting with reasonable prudence and foresight. Yet neither party seemed willing to invade, or cross the border. Davis, who ordered the bombardment of Sumter, knew ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... undertaken from the highest motives. In this class are the widowers who wed for the sake of their children, the spinsters whose motive is their desire for motherhood, the men and women who marry to possess a home, or for the sake of companionship. All these reasons are justifiable enough, and people who embark on matrimony with a set purpose generally take it very seriously, and determine to make a success of it. Such marriages often prove extremely happy, perhaps for the very reason that so little is asked. The spirit of contentment is an excellent influence ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... cant of the last generation) "a high-toned Virginia gentleman." Colonel Benton tells us that Mr. Randolph invented an ingenious excuse for the enormous inconsistency of his conduct on this occasion. A duel, he maintained, was private war, and was justifiable on the same ground as a war between two nations. Both were lamentable, but both were allowable when there was no other way of getting redress for insults and injuries. This was plausible, but it did not deceive him. He knew very well that his offensive language respecting ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... legislator who enacts a purely positive law, or of a judge who imposes and inflicts a punishment by an order of his will, without any connexion between the evil of guilt and the evil of punishment. And it is not necessary to suppose that God in justifiable annoyance deliberately put a corruption in the soul and the body of man, by an extraordinary action, in order to punish him: much as the Athenians gave hemlock-juice to their criminals. M. Bayle takes the matter thus: he speaks ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... that such talk did quite as much harm as good. "Do not try to be good," he would say, "but true to yourself." Wisdom was the best of all virtues because it included all. He thought there were cases in which divorce from incompatibility is justifiable. When a certain transcendentalist left his wife and children in Newport, and came to Concord to write poetry and live the life of an old bachelor, there were many who blamed him severely; but Emerson said, "He is no doubt to blame, but you cannot tell how much; perhaps ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... justify ourselves in our time we must have done with dispensations. Many honest men are astray on this point and think attitudes justifiable that are at the root of all our failures. What is the weakness? It is so simple to explain and so easy to understand that one must wonder how we have been ignoring it quietly and generally so long. A man, ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... The censor does good work, but it is still the demand which creates the supply, and whatever improvement has occurred has been largely due to the taste of the patrons. Medical students need all the open air they can get in order to keep body and soul fit, and our contempt for the theatre fan was justifiable. ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... by the majority of mankind, in trade, commerce, and speculation. A certain amount of untruthfulness is a necessary part of politeness in the east and west alike, while even severe moralists have held a lie justifiable, to elude an enemy or prevent a crime. Such being the difficulties with which this virtue has had to struggle, with so many exceptions to its practice, with so many instances in which it brought ruin or death to its too ardent devotee, ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... justifiable sense of irritation. She was new to the city and thought she was taking the most direct method of replacing "same." Perhaps she should have known better, but she did not. Buying a key is not so simple as buying a box of matches and to a newcomer it is a matter ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... Grenville strongly objected to the exception even of the English Chancellor, as justifiable upon no principle, when the exercise of ecclesiastical patronage had been provided for in the other part of the Bill; and it is difficult to discover what principle can justify the exclusion of the Chancellor ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... to do it myself, and dress him as I can, for his wardrobe as made here is not complete, and whatever you can send us will be highly acceptable. It is lucky that Northmoor is a born nurse, for the women's fear of breaking the child is really justifiable, as they never handled anything not made up into a mummy; moreover, they wish to let all the world up into Mary's room to behold the curiosity, I met the priest upon his way and turned him back! So we have pretty well all the nursing on our hands, ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... broad-minded man. Having experienced most things that fall to the lot of men, he did not believe in restraining her against her will in order that her conversion might be accomplished as many a zealous priest might have considered justifiable in her case. But should she manifest a desire to remain with him, she would be reared in the very lap of Mother Church. With this project in mind, it was with the greatest solicitude that he watched her recovery, and when she was informed that she would be ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... in the Knobs, some seventy-five thousand acres Mr. Buckstone said. But Mr. Washington Hawkins (one of the heirs) objected. He was, indeed, very reluctant to sell any part of the land at any price; and indeed—this reluctance was justifiable when one considers how constantly and how greatly the property is ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... collegian it becomes no part of the duty of the university to control, beyond the demands necessary for the main object of instruction. As the circumstances of parents vary, so will the pecuniary allowance made to their offspring. It would be a task neither practicable nor justifiable for the university to regulate the outlay of the collegian, or, in fact, become the paymaster of his menus plaisirs. Only let such a task be imagined in its enormity of control, from the son of the nobleman with an allowance of a thousand a year to one of a hundred and fifty pounds. ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... half an hour and said, with an air of frank concession, touched with personal grief: "Mr. Hubbard, I can see how, from your point of view, you were perfectly justifiable in selling your article to the Chronicle-Abstract. My point of view is different, but I shall not insist upon it; and I wish to withdraw—and—and apologize for—any hasty ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... title is justifiable. Conceding that this sudden 'good' ending looks like a concession and certainly is a constructive weakness, yet in the inwardness of the subject it is excellently motivated by the typically mediaeval attitude of Kolbein to salvation ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... England, has a feeble grip on the masses. They hold it in no familiar embrace. And if reasons are sought, they are partly found in the want of cutting edge to her sober comprehensive teaching, partly in the characteristics often theoretically so justifiable but practically so awkward, of the Prayer Book. There is little in our Church which corresponds to that elemental regimen or discipline which possesses simple-minded Roman Catholics. The power of cultus, of institutional and family religion, ...
— Thoughts on religion at the front • Neville Stuart Talbot
... fray, when blood was up and swords drawn, when no one, as De Pean remarked, would be able to find an i undotted or a t uncrossed in a fair record of the transaction, which would impose upon the most critical judge as an honorable and justifiable ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... when men and women, they will recall with justifiable pride that they were part of the quadricentennial festivities, and that the part they bore ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... saw the Opium Schools, built in the form of large dens. After this came the Schools of Iniquity, operated in darkness. Here all forms of evil are taught and made to appear justifiable under certain conditions. Many of these underground schools could not be clearly seen by Mr. World, but ere the telescope completed its third revolution he saw the Schools of Suicide more distinctly than during his visit, and got a glimpse ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... from them present no striking abnormalities. Distinctly pathological records are obtained mainly from those cases which clinically resemble dementia praecox; in these records the nature of the pathological reactions would seem to indicate that the diagnosis of dementia praecox would be more justifiable than that of ...
— A Study of Association in Insanity • Grace Helen Kent
... such was Essex's impatient ardor, that, though James declined this dangerous expedient, he still endeavored to persuade Mountjoy not to desist from the project; but the deputy, who thought that such violence, though it might be prudent, and even justifiable, when supported by a sovereign prince, next heir to the crown, would be rash and criminal if attempted by subjects, absolutely refused his concurrence. The correspondence, however, between Essex and the court of Scotland ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... all the remaining traces of their fatal visit to my tent. Still for many a day I could not drive the picture of their hideous countenances out of my head, as they lay stark and stiff on the ground, killed by my hand— yet never was homicide more justifiable. I had, as I believed, got rid of all the traces of the savages outside the tent. When I found the arrows sticking inside it in my bed, it did not occur to me that it would be equally necessary to get rid of them. The whim seized me of keeping them as a memorial of my escape. Instead, ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... either to retain against a robber, or to acquire from a present holder. In either case an attitude of hostility toward others is of its essence. It would be a mistake to suppose that defensive possessiveness is always justifiable, while the aggressive kind is always blameworthy; where there is great injustice in the status quo, the exact opposite may be the case, ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... to rule over us? Hath he not been taught to bear meekly that which Providence hath called us to suffer? Where did he learn of Fox to retort violence for violence, or that shedding of blood was justifiable? And does thee hold with ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... on, telling of the times she had failed and times she had succeeded, Mary felt as if she were listening to the confessions of a white Easter lily. It seemed perfectly justifiable to her that Lloyd should have had tantrums, and stormed at the doctor when he forbade her going back to school after the Christmas vacation, and that she should have cried and moped and made everybody around her miserable for days. Mary's overweening admiration ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... inverts' histories are at the least as trustworthy as the attempts of psychoanalysts, especially when they come from persons skillful in self-analysis," adds that "even Freudian analysis gives no absolute guarantee for truth. A healthy skepticism is justifiable—but not an unhealthy skepticism!" Hirschfeld, also (Die Homosexualitaet, p. 164), whose knowledge of such histories is unrivalled, remarks that while we may now and then meet with a case of pseudo-logia fantastica in connection ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Henchard's fear of losing her dearly loved daughter's heart by a revelation had little to do with any sense of wrong-doing on her own part. Her simplicity—the original ground of Henchard's contempt for her—had allowed her to live on in the conviction that Newson had acquired a morally real and justifiable right to her by his purchase—though the exact bearings and legal limits of that right were vague. It may seem strange to sophisticated minds that a sane young matron could believe in the seriousness ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... heavy expenditure would have to be incurred in establishing an arsenal, small arms and explosives factory, it was incumbent on me to prove to the Government that such an expenditure was not only justifiable from a national insurance point of view but that it could be made actually a money-saving proposition, apart from the fact that, by utilizing Australian products and labour, as well as local inventive talent, all the money ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... son from her," she muttered, sinking down upon a cushioned chair. "Any means was justifiable. He would have married her—it was drifting toward that, and rapidly. I could see it. Heaven only knows how I have plotted and planned, first to find some business by which my son could be called from the city, and during his absence get rid of that girl—so ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... nature—as regarded not merely the provisioning and management of armies, as regarded not merely the grand strategy to be adopted and carried out by France, but as regarded the very structure and relations of other European nations—would be justifiable. But to be justifiable they must be adequate; and to be adequate they must be unexpected and thorough. What should they be? The OEdipus who solves this riddle for France is the man of the hour. He was found in Bonaparte. What mean ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... most valuable manure, indeed one of the most economical of all the manures experimented with. They further showed that heavy dressings with superphosphate, amounting to as much as 8 cwt. per acre, are, from an economical point of view, as a rule justifiable in Scotland; and that nitrate of soda and sulphate of ammonia possess practically equal value as a manure for turnips. In almost every one of the experiments the benefit of supplementing superphosphate with nitrogenous manure was shown. Potash was also found in many cases to be a thoroughly paying ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... that a conductor (of the orchestra) has written a symphony requiring an orchestra of one hundred and fifty men. If his work perhaps had one hundred and fifty valuable ideas, the one hundred and fifty men might be justifiable—but as it probably contains not more than a dozen, the composer may be unconsciously ashamed of them, and glad to cover them up under a hundred and fifty men. A man may become famous because he is able to eat nineteen ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... his friends—rare and incongruous virtues for a professional burglar; nevertheless, he possessed them in a marked degree. This is a statement to make a cynic smile, and is one of those cases where the result is justifiable; yet, however the cynic may smile, there is plenty of all-around good faith in the world, and there is no nation, race or color, no clique, religion nor social strata, that has a monopoly of the article. Good faith and truth grow in unlikely places, as I have found in my career, ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... little to do with this story, and yet it may be fully warranted by the occasion. And at least it is justifiable to say that the full of the moon may have made Joe Harris madder than usual and readier than ever to indulge in frolics of the most reprehensible character. What we began to indicate, especially, was that no portent loomed ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... about such a traveller, though robbers undoubtedly were to be feared, even in the eighteenth century,[405] and though inns were undoubtedly dirty. A repugnance to dirt and discomfort is justifiable enough, but there is something especially peevish in the tone of many Georgian travellers. Sam Sharp's Letters from Italy breathe only sorrow, disillusion and indignation. Italian beds and vermin, Italian post-boys and their sorry nags are too frequently the theme of his discourse. He even ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... juggling imposition. Now we do not object per se to M. Renan's taking that view of it. He has a perfect freedom of choice. We do object to the immorality, the essential blindness to right and wrong, which lead him to apologize for the cheat, and try to prove it a perfectly innocent and justifiable thing. We protest against confounding eternal distinctions, against debauching conscience by proving wrong right, and a cheat an innocent bit of acting, against claiming an impostor and a liar as the high priest ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... a wider reputation, on account of his controversy with the great European scholar, Salmasius, on the sufficiently important and interesting, and then novel, subject of the execution of Charles I. Was it justifiable? Salmasius, a scholar and a Protestant, though of an easy-going description, was employed, or rather, as he had no wages (Milton's hundred Jacobuses being fictitious), nominated by Charles, afterwards the Second, to indict the regicides at the bar of European ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... I confided to the men-folk that I was feeling a little nervous. "Supposing that telegraphing bush-whacker decides to shoot me off-hand on my arrival," I said; and the Man-in-Charge said amiably: "It'll be brought in as justifiable homicide; that's all." Then reconnoitring the enemy from the platform, he "feared" we were "about ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... hands. General Halleck ordered me, verbally, to send in my report, but I positively declined on the ground that he had received the reports of a part of the army engaged at Shiloh without their coming through me. He admitted that my refusal was justifiable under the circumstances, but explained that he had wanted to get the reports off before moving the command, and as fast as a report had come to him he had forwarded ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Wilks; it's a rifle. If I only get a sight at Grinstuns, I'll commit justifiable homicide. Then I wish the Squire would punish me by sending me down here ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... Alec and Aunt Janet down on the homestead; and our housekeeper, who belonged to the Island and was now returning to it, took charge of us on the journey. I fear she had an anxious trip of it, poor woman! She was constantly in a quite justifiable terror lest we should be lost or killed; she must have felt great relief when she reached Charlottetown and handed us over to the keeping of Uncle Alec. Indeed, she ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... by a physician. It insists on the prohibition of all dangerous occupations. The former articles in this Bulletin on the abuses which exist in the industrial employment of children in New York show how justifiable is this action of the society. "Thousands of children," says Mr. Gerry, "die of diseases contracted in these injurious employments; in this respect our nation is far behind Europe in its means of affording protection to children. In France, severe laws have been in ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... honored place in the household is the white-haired mother, who, with justifiable pride, has followed the fortunes of her son from his destitute boyhood, along the years in which he gained strength by battling with poverty and adverse circumstances, to the time when he fills the leading place in the councils of the nation. So steadily ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... commission was appointed to inquire into the whole business. This committee reported to Parliament on June 26, 1917, and the report created a great sensation. The substance of the report was, that while the expedition was justifiable from a political point of view, it was undertaken with insufficient forces and inadequate preparation, and it sharply criticized those that ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... exercised by the foreigners, nothing was so much insisted on in daily talk and in the popular ballads as the propriety of calling the natives of the land to counsel, since to them its laws were best known. This justifiable wish met with adequate satisfaction now that the Commons were summoned; the public feeling against the foreigners, on which Simon de Montfort necessarily relied, thus found expression. The assembly ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... money in her own name in a savings-bank, and he survives her, it is sometimes the rule of such establishments to compel him to take out administration in order to receive such money, although it is questionable whether such rule is legally justifiable. Widows and widowers pay no legacy-duty for property coming to them ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Carlotta's prophecy that her parent would raise a merry little row if she announced to him her intention of marrying that obscure individual, Philip Lambert, of Dunbury, Massachusetts. He thought that particular way of behavior on the parent's part not only probable but more or less justifiable, all things considered. He saw no reason now why Mr. Cressy ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... supported the second, but far less justifiable view, by arguments taken from the Laws and the Canons, so forcible that, while all were amazed, all were uncertain whether greater praise should be given to the ornateness of the words or to the efficacy ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... given by teachers or textbooks have little or no pedagogical justification. Only in cases where the summary introduces a new point of view or unifying principles, or when it sets forth basic principles in particularly forceful language—only then is the statement by teacher or textbook justifiable. ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... I think, awakened some of that ill-feeling you have just noticed." He checked himself too late: he had again lost not only his tact and self-control, but had nearly betrayed himself. He was surprised that the girl's justifiable ignorance should have irritated him. Yet she had evidently not noticed, or misunderstood it, for she said, with a certain ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... has offered armed resistance to authority and seriously wounded two officials in the discharge of their duty, and he is now a standing menace to the peace and order of the town. Surely, in such a case, a court-martial is justifiable." ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... drips from every portion. Great masses of stone were lying upon the bright strip of turf, and among them I noticed some that could not have been there long; this made me keep close under the cliff in justifiable fear of another fall. I stared with apprehension at one rock that would not only kill, but completely bury, anyone upon whom it fell, and I thought those old writers had underrated ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... scandals. In fact, Mr. Welby was one of those brilliant persons who adorn any society amidst which they are thrown. If at heart he was a disappointed man, the disappointment was concealed by an even serenity of spirits; he had entertained high and justifiable hopes of a brilliant career and a lasting reputation as a theologian and a preacher; the succession to his estate at the age of twenty-three had changed the nature of his ambition. The charm of ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thereupon filed her order for a similar amount. Barrister received them with an "I told you so" air which amounted almost to satisfaction. He was quite used to seeing the sons of rich men hastening to become poor men, and he had so evidently classed Bobby as one of the regular sort, that Bobby took quite justifiable umbrage and decided that if he had any legal business whatever he would put it into the hands ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... condition that he revealed the whole truth to him concerning the evidence which he had lately given against a bankrupt, and which some circumstances had induced a suspicion of; that he might depend on it the truth would be discovered by other means, and gave some oblique hints (a deceit entirely justifiable) that Wild himself had offered such a discovery. The very mention of Wild's name immediately alarmed Fireblood, who did not in the least doubt the readiness of that GREAT MAN to hang any of the gang when his own interest ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... of all this was that we all felt ourselves well led, and had the most absolute confidence in our chief, and I myself was particularly fond of him. It really was a fine sight both from the picturesque point of view and from that of a justifiable national pride, when our twenty white-sailed ships manoeuvred all together, under the admiral's signal, on the blue Mediterranean waters, with no sound to break the silence except the shrill voices of the officers of ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... contain both form and matter, a form, I should say, suited to the matter. Among the painters Vermeer is admittedly perfect; has then Rembrandt no art? Among the writers Turgenev is perfect. George Moore has compared his perfection to that of the Greeks; is it then justifiable to call Dostoevsky journalese, as some have called him? Indeed, it takes a great artist to write about great things, though, it is true, a great artist is often pardoned for lapses in style, where a minor artist can afford no such lapses. It was in such a light, with the true ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... conception of the purpose of life than either of these. But alas! their ideal is too evident to be mistaken. I call it the "divitial" ideal, that of the rich man, that which makes the acquisition of material wealth the one standard of success in life, the only justifiable aim of effort. To most American citizens the assertion that there is any more important, more sensible purpose than this, is ...
— An Ethnologist's View of History • Daniel G. Brinton
... may come before the Jury in Cases of Homicide, Assault and Battery, and other charges of that nature, which may be justifiable on circumstances: but in many if the fact is found, as in Forgery, &c. the criminality, with some very rare exceptions, is a legal inference necessarily ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... for defence, of little importance in themselves, and simply manifesting his fears. Napoleon took umbrage at it; the mad passion for conquests was again roused in his mind; he already meditated a new enterprise, bolder and less justifiable than all those which he had hitherto accomplished, necessitating efforts which became every day more difficult. No resource would be neglected; no reinforcement could be detached for Portugal and Spain from the ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... isolated post, so far from the real centre of conflict. Could its capture have lessened in any way the power or resources of the Russian Government, or, by creating a diversion, have attracted attention from the decisive struggle in the Crimea, it would perhaps have been justifiable; but it could not possibly have any direct or indirect influence upon the ultimate result, and only brought misery upon a few inoffensive Kamchadals who had never heard of Turkey or the Eastern Question and whose first intimation of a war probably was the thunder of the ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... importance; if he was exercising a wide influence through his books, in the direction of leading others to love the simple sources of happiness, then his withdrawal from ordinary activities and pleasures would be justifiable. Was it justified as it was? Hugh could not answer the question. He only knew that as the train glided on its way, as the streets became less dense, as the country verdure began to occupy more and more of the ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... striving to interest herself in the breezy conversation of Morley or the domestic chatter of his wife. In her heart Anne had felt a pang at this desertion, although she knew that it was perfectly justifiable, and unable to bear the sight of Daisy's brilliant face, ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... her life. She had denied it because it was not present in her memory. We soon came to see that I was in the right. Her wish that I should be in the wrong, which is transformed into the dream, thus corresponded to the justifiable wish that those things, which at the time had only been suspected, ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... scientific school of thought. In short, concerning matters spiritual and temporal, Faith had usurped the function of Reason. Hence any innovations, whatever their abstract merit, were regarded not only with justifiable suspicion and caution, but as entirely unworthy of consideration, unless, of course, they could be shown to be in accordance with accepted traditions and doctrines, or had received the sanction of the Church. But even the Church itself was popularly regarded ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... of Japan, they are harmonious decorations, and a dozen or so of such engaging sketches placed in the upper panels of a lofty apartment would afford a justifiable and welcome alternative even to noble tapestries or Morris wallpapers."—F. Wedmore, ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... that was then the recognized and established order of things, from which there was no apprehension of departure. Then, what was the cause of this sudden and unexpected uprising? There must have been a strong, if not a justifiable, reason for it. What was it? That question will be ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... were in high favor) was at the Craigie house. His son Israel was a member of his military family, which also included Major Humphreys (who afterward wrote his biography) and Major Aaron Burr, his military secretary. His justifiable severity in proclaiming martial law, and in punishing Tories found guilty of harboring or assisting the enemy, incurred the ill-will of New York's inhabitants, and militated against his fortunes when later ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... happened—sorry as a kind parent is when compelled to punish a dear child. He did not believe that he had done wrong, even accepting as true the statement of the culprit; for the safety of the master and his family made it necessary for him to regard the striking even of a blow justifiable under other circumstances as a great enormity. It was the system, more than the ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... bundle, and these were filled with the protestations of love, written with passion certainly, but also with that deceit which men so often think it justifiable to use to the other sex. Judith had shed tears abundantly over the first packet, but now she felt a sentiment of indignation and pride better sustaining her. Her hand shook, however, and cold shivers again passed through her frame, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... appropriation of what is not our own. Kleptomania is met with in the book-worm or the antiquarian, as well as in the feminine lover of dress or those in poverty and distress. Firmness may become obstinacy; the justifiable love of self may, by abuse, become pride; and a proper and chaste wish for the approbation of others may be turned into the most absurd of vanities. Even religion itself may be carried to uncharitableness, ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... words have to be understood to complete the meaning. An idea or relation corresponding to the omitted words is present, at least vaguely, in the mind of the speaker. Elliptical sentences are usually justifiable except when the reader cannot instantly supply the understood words. Examples of proper ellipses: You are as tall as I [am tall]. Is your sister coming? I think [my sister is] not [coming]. I will go if you will [go]. [I give you] Thanks for ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... the possibility of his coming to live in Thyrza's house; yet how propose that? Thyrza had so much to occupy her; it was not wonderful that she took for granted Mr. Boddy's well-being. And would it be justifiable to impose a burden of this kind upon the newly-married pair? To be sure she could earn enough to pay for the little that Mr. Boddy needed. Thyrza had almost angrily rejected the idea that her sister should pay rent ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing |
