"Justify" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hope of finding a market. From several places favorable replies were received, particularly from places north of the Colorado River; for the drouth was local and was chiefly confined to the southern portion of the state. There was enough encouragement in the letters to justify the old ranchero's attempt to reduce the demand on the ranch's water supply, by sending a herd of horse stock north on sale. Under ordinary conditions, every ranchman preferred to sell his surplus stock at the ranch, and ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... man easily finds logic to justify the course he desires to take, so Charles turned a deaf ear to Clarendon, and, listening to Castlemain, announced that Dunkirk was for sale. As expected, a strong protest came from the people, but no one is so stubborn as a fool in the wrong, so Charles ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... have sometimes suppressed, and his contemptible ostentation I have frequently concealed; but I have in some places shewn him, as he would have shewn himself, for the reader's diversion, that the inflated emptiness of some notes may justify or excuse ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... and had no business to retreat. If a robber meet me in the street and command me to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without asking any questions. If a person commit a bare assault on me, this will not justify killing; but if he assault me in such a manner as to discover an intention to kill me, I have a right to destroy him, that I may put it out of his power to kill me. In the case you will have to consider, I do not know there ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... they are subjected, and to illustrate some of their most typical applications. A formal summary of the conclusions reached would be tedious and unnecessary. But it may be well to show that even when brought to the tests imposed by the reigning Pragmatism, the nature-mystic can justify his existence and can ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... off his glove, and crawling in spirit upon the ground before them, 'I will justify the tenderness with which I know I shall be treated; and as, without tenderness, I should, now that this discovery has been made, stand in the worst position of the three, you may depend upon it I ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... be served with meat, and sleep, and quiet havens, and ease. That the best sacrifice to the sea was in the morning. With such sailor-like sayings and mutinous arguments, which the majority have always ready to justify disobedience to their betters, they forced Ulysses to comply with their requisition, and against his will to take up his night-quarters on shore. But he first exacted from them an oath that they would neither maim nor kill any of the cattle which ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... disagreeably significant in the tone with which this was spoken; and, looking suddenly at the speaker, thought he saw in his countenance, in the slight smile that curled his upper lip, and the accompanying twinkle of his keen dark eye, something to justify his unpleasing surprise. "I have heard of robbers," he thought to himself, "and of wily cheats and cutthroats—what if yonder fellow be a murderer, and this old rascal his decoy duck! I will be on my guard—they will get little by me but ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... there is a single fact which would justify any one in saying that any degree of sterility has been observed between breeds absolutely known to have been produced by selective breeding from a common stock. On the other hand, I do not know that there ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... me, that if Providence has, in truth, any concern with the predictions of the Old Testament, it could not have taken more effectual care to justify the unbelief and obstinacy of the Jews, than by ordering matters so, that the life and death of Jesus should be so exactly, and so entirely, the very reverse of all those ideas under which their prophets had constantly described, and the Hebrew nation as constantly expected of their ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... excited to adore and love God and cherish piety". The council then gives directions for the extirpation of any abuses which may creep in. These words, by which our faith and practice are regulated, are too clear to need comment, and sufficiently justify catholics from the foolish and calumnious charge of idolatry. The true Catholic practice is well expressed in a work attributed to Alcuin "We prostrate our bodies before the cross, and our souls before the Lord: we venerate the ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... all further improvements," relative to moral truth, may have its rise in a principle, which, so far from being inimical to man, is, in its general tendency, incalculably beneficial. No desire is entertained to justify all the zeal and all the means which are employed to prevent the free exercise of the human mind, in its researches after divine knowledge, and to retard the influx of that light which would prove unfavourable ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... respectfully urge that after concentrating all his troops here, an attempt should be made to capture the Federal forces at Romney. The attack on Romney would probably induce McClellan to believe that General Johnston's army had been so weakened as to justify him in making an advance on Centreville; but should this not induce him to advance, I do not believe anything will, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... how you justify the fact that Catherine told landladies, friends, bosses, and all the rest that she was going to marry me a good long time before I was ready to ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... declare my feelings would produce indignation and anguish; to hide them from her scrutiny was not in my power; yet, what would she think of my estranging myself from her society? What expedient could I honestly adopt to justify my absence, and what employments could I substitute for those precious hours hitherto ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... find the secret of the assurance and happy courage which characterized her. Whether she intended it or not, many parts of the book are without doubt autobiographical. In this chapter we propose to give some extracts from the novel which we consider justify the belief that the authoress is describing her ...
— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren
... au feu d'enfer, or dry devils, are usually composed of the broiled legs and gizzards of poultry, fish-bones, or biscuits; and, if pungency alone can justify their appellation, never was title better deserved, for they are usually prepared without any other intention than to make them 'hot as their native element,' and any one who can swallow them without tears in his eyes, need be under no apprehension of the pains of futurity. ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... full and final revelation of divine truths? If in the deep midnight of heathenism the sage had been justified in seeking in the mysteries of Eleusis for a keener apprehension of the truths of primitive religion, how does this justify the Mason, in the midday effulgence of Christianity, in telling mankind he has a wonderful secret for advancing them in virtue and happiness—a secret unknown to the incarnate God, and to the Church with which he has promised the Paraclete ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... how he could justify this new relationship to his family, should they chance to hear about it. If he should decide to take a home in Chicago or St. Louis (there was such a thought running in his mind) could he maintain it secretly? Did he want to? He was half persuaded that he really, truly ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... my grandfather, though a rich man was a great believer in work, and all his sons had to find occupation and justify their lives in his eyes. Uncle Albert, who was only a year younger than my father, cared for studious subjects and literature. He was apprenticed in youth to a bookseller at Sydney and after a time came to England, joined a ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... taste Some subtilties o' the isle, that will not let you Believe things certain. Welcome, my friends all! 125 [Aside to Seb. and Ant.] But you, my brace of lords, were I so minded, I here could pluck his Highness' frown upon you, And justify you traitors: at this time I will ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... obey; nor will I know repose, Till I have justify'd this fatal Truth. [Abd. goes to the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... and that they effect their purposes by contrivances of the same or of resembling kinds. And yet the appearance in nature, age after age, of the same forms and colors of beauty which man, in gratifying his taste for the lovely in shape and hue, is ever reproducing for himself, does seem to justify our inference of an identity of mind in this province also. The colors of the old geologic organisms, like those of the paintings of ancient Egypt, are greatly faded. A few, however, of the Secondary, and even Palaeozoic shells, still retain the rich prismatic hues of the original nacre. Many ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... thing, my dear—er—Horace," said the Professor, solemnly, after dinner, when the neat parlourmaid had left them at dessert, "one thing on which I think it my duty to caution you. If you are to justify the confidence we have shown in sanctioning your engagement to Sylvia, you must curb this propensity of yours ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... which time did not justify. Just as the dawn had put new life into us, so it had steeled the hearts of this derelict crew and nerved it for any desperate act. For long we watched the rogues rowing hither, thither; now in the island's shadows, now coming towards us, but never once raising a rifle or uttering a threat. ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... employed in this one work. There are everywhere so many statues that seem to breathe so many miracles of consummate art, so many casts that rival even the perfection of Roman antiquity, that it may well claim and justify its name of Nonesuch, being without an equal; or ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... thought, "I should not be surprised if the girl were taken at disadvantage by his abrupt visit, and that the venerable Adonis saw something to justify his jealousy. A husband has no right to surprise his wife. Le Prun," he continued carelessly aloud, "I wonder why Nature, who has been so bounteous to the sex, has not furnished husbands, like certain snakes, with rattles to their ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... Place de la Concorde, but before he reached Maxim's his heart misgave him; he was reviewing the events of the evening and, though he could not justify it, his mind was full of suspicion. It was queer her wanting to see Ramsey again after the way he had behaved. What could have been her object? Was he really so irresistible? She had certainly shown quite plainly that she wanted to see him, and yet she had shown equally plainly that she didn't ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... real one; still, it was a departure, and therefore a mistake, in my opinion. It was better, kinder, swifter, and much more humane than a number of the methods which have been sanctified by custom, but that does not justify its employment. That is, it does not wholly justify it. Its unusual nature makes it stand out and attract an amount of attention which it is not entitled to. It takes hold upon morbid imaginations and they work it up into a sort of exhibition of cruelty, and this smirches the good name of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... way until I met the girl I wanted to marry. Then the rest looked almighty different. I've given Nancy the best I had to give but it wasn't good enough. She deserved more than I could give her. That is plain speaking, Holiday. Men say war excuses justify anything. It doesn't do anything of the sort. Some day you will be wanting to marry a girl yourself. Don't let anything happen in this next year over there that you will regret for a life-time. That is ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... 1899, he laid emphasis on the changes in the world which justify a naval policy one can see now was ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... difference between the low situation and moist air of Batavia, and the high and dry country of the Mattiaci, will sufficiently justify this remark, in the opinion of those who allow anything to the influence ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... of women and children by air-raids on London a service to the German God. Dr. Forsyth, in The Christian Ethic of War, tells us that "war is not essentially killing, and killing is here no murder. And no recusancy to bear arms can here justify itself on the plea that Christianity forbids all bloodshed or even violence." He reminds us that Christ used a scourge of small cords, and that he called the Pharisees "you vipers," and Herod "you fox." "If ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... men," Bonaparte had said to the assembled deputies. "It is acknowledged by Europe that Italy, Holland, and Switzerland are at the disposition of France." At the same time (11th September, 1802), and as if to justify this haughty declaration, the territory of Piedmont was divided into six French departments, the Isle of Elba was united to France, and the Duchy of Parma was definitively occupied ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... great duke's way, I have an High Adventure of my own. Yet would I rather squire a knightlier,—Nay! Be the least harper by his red-hung throne. I am not satisfied with any love Till I can say, "O stronger far than I!" Is it a shame to hide the aching of, A sacred mystery to justify? Through all our spiritual discontents Thrills the strange leaven of renunciation.— Ah! god unknown behind the Sacraments Unfailing of the earthly expiation, Lift up this amethyst-encumbered Vine, Crush from her ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... acquisition of language can best be promoted by the Manual or Manual Alphabet Method, and so far as circumstances permit, such method is chosen for each pupil as seems best adapted for his individual case. Speech and speech-reading are taught where the measure of success seems likely to justify the labor expended, and in most of the schools some of the pupils are taught wholly or chiefly by the Oral ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... discredit to Greece that would result from such an act. Lord Cochrane, accordingly, had an interview with the President and his two chief advisers on the 5th of December, when this subject was discussed, and, though the repudiation was only threatened, attempts were made to justify it on the plea that the 2,000,000l. forming the loan had nearly all been squandered in England and America, much having disappeared in unexplained ways, the rest having been absorbed in ship-building and engine-making, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... often in real life that such conversations occur. Generally, in any talk worth calling conversation, every man has some point to maintain, and his object is to justify his own thesis and disprove his neighbour's. I will allow that he may primarily have adopted his thesis because of some sign of truth in it, but his mode of supporting it is generally such as to block up every cranny in his soul at which more truth might enter. In the present ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... hope that Paris, where I learnt the little I know, where I struggled and found love and happiness, whose every woe and disaster and triumph I have shared for over thirty years, may, however dark the clouds that still pass over her, some day fully justify M. Zola's confidence, and bring to pass his splendid dream of ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the West coast of England, about a hundred miles from the metropolis, there stands a sleepy little town, which possesses no special activity nor beauty to justify its existence. People live in it for reasons of their own. The people who do not live in it wonder for what reasons, but attain no better solution of the mystery than the statement that the air is very fine. "We have such bracing air!" says the resident, as proudly ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... that, with the mastery of matter to which we have already attained, the future development of our race will justify these seeming "miracles," and make them as natural and commonplace as telegraphy ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... passer, which is pure science. We, also, are of opinion that the reproach was ill founded, for it proceeded from a wrong conception of the principle itself. But it seems to us that, far from condemning this doctrine in its serious application, the historical method may serve to explain and to justify it. Employing less of rigidity and dryness in form, it reaches consequences more in harmony with social life. But it is not to be imagined that we do not meet in this way with many ancient and glorious ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... frequent intervals, during the last four years, I have sallied forth from my home in Renfrewshire, north, south, east, and west, to some of the most remote and isolated nooks of insular and provincial Scotland, on a mission so uncommon as to justify the writing of a book of impressions and experiences. The Highlands and Islands of Scotland are, of course, visited every summer by a great host of excursionists, who go thither to fish, play golf, lounge, climb hills, and otherwise picturesquely disport themselves. A few earnest ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... come together as if he were strangling something. But it was all too deep for him. The lights glimmered in the rooms upstairs. His father walked to the outer gate to say good-night to Mr. Sanderson—and he tried to justify the feeling of hatred he felt toward Sanderson, but could not. The sound of a shutter being drawn in, caused him to look up. Anna, leaned out in the moonlight for a moment before drawing in the blind. Dave took off his hat—it was an unconscious act of reverence. The next ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... Spanish ambassador if he still felt secure of winning his wager, and was answered by De Gondomar that he had never had the slightest misgiving on the subject, but he was now better satisfied than ever that the result of the coming struggle would justify his expectations. In the ladies' gallery an unusual degree of interest was manifested in what was going forward; and many a wish was audibly expressed by many a ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... not stoop to denying or even repeating what he said; far less to justify myself. Yet I should like to mention, in passing, that his coarse gibe concerning my fawning on a rich man is the most unjust of all his ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... challenge of the un-quenched human soul. Perhaps too acrid and challenging today, when there is nothing left to challenge. But men—who existed without apology and without justification. Men who would neither justify themselves nor apologize for themselves. Just men. The rarest thing left ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... justify marrying a person because of his or her social position. The evils of this may be seen in the first classes of English society, where rank is mechanical, and where law forbids a trespass upon its bastard prerogatives; and as ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... Federal system, and our right to be considered none the less a compact nationality because the insurrection has taken the form of State secession. Our diplomatic intercourse has been confined to strictly diplomatic etiquette. No attempt has been made to justify, for the satisfaction of foreign courts, either the origin of the war, or the modes which have been adopted in its prosecution. It has not been deemed necessary to retaliate upon the Confederate agents who fill Europe with their tale of woe, by retorting upon them a reference to the unchristian ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... The office of the detective is to serve the ends of justice; to purge society of the degrading influences of crime; and to protect the lives, the property and the honor of the community at large; and in this righteous work the end will unquestionably justify the means adopted to secure ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... as fast as he can." Pelisson warmly protested against prefatory composition; but when he published the works of Sarrasin, was wise enough to compose a very pleasing one. He, indeed, endeavoured to justify himself for acting against his own opinions, by this ingenious excuse, that, like funeral honours, it is proper to show the utmost regard for them when given to others, but to be inattentive ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... They justify their existence by their passion. But if you ask what is to be said for such a creature as Linton Heathcliff, you will be told that he does not justify his existence; ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... jealous spite of Vaudreuil pursued him even in death. Leaving Levis to command at Jacques-Cartier, whither the army had again withdrawn, the Governor retired to Montreal, whence he wrote a series of despatches to justify himself at the expense of others, and above all of the slain general, against whom his accusations were never so bitter as now, when the lips were cold that could have answered them. First, he threw on Ramesay all the blame of the surrender of Quebec. Then he addressed himself to his chief task, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... stood close to them; the timber-merchant spoke, and continued his buying; Grace merely smiled. To justify his presence there Winterborne began bidding for timber and fagots that he did not want, pursuing the occupation in an abstracted mood, in which the auctioneer's voice seemed to become one of the natural sounds ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... executive is, that they received Talleyrand's letter before or about the meeting of Congress: that not meaning to meet the overture effectually, they kept it secret, and let all the war measures go on; but that just before the separation of the Senate, the President, not thinking he could justify the concealing such an overture, nor indeed that it could be concealed, made a nomination, hoping that his friends in the Senate would take on their own shoulders the odium of rejecting it; but they did not choose it. The Hamiltonians would not, and the others could not, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... he stood in his room stretching his great body like a lion returned from the kill and thought of the little black-bearded barber in the room at the end of the hall stooping over his violin, his mind busy with the attempt to justify himself because he would not face one of life's problems. The feeling of resentment against the man had gone. He thought of the course laid out for himself by that philosopher and laughed. "There is something about it to avoid, like giving ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... I hope, for my sister's sake and your own too, if you justify the impression you have made. There, you came to me quite a stranger, and I wanted to see whether you had the manliness and courage to refuse to stay, and I know that you have both, and would have gone back. Come," he said, pressing ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... the soft pleading of something deeper to answer for Alan Macdonald, and to justify his rash deed. He had risked life to see her and set himself right in her eyes, and he had doubled the risk in standing there in the garden, defiantly proud, unbent, and unrepentant, refusing to leave her without some ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... upon Gudea's cylinders. For picturesque narrative, for wealth of detail, and for striking similes, it would be hard to find their superior in Babylonian and Assyrian literature. They are, in fact, very remarkable compositions, and in themselves justify the claim that the Sumerians were possessed of a literature in the proper ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... the popular ballad, thus evincing her determination not to have the secret wrested from her till she chose to divulge it. Some of those inducements may be enumerated. The extreme popularity of the ballad might have proved sufficient in itself to justify the disclosure; but, apart from this consideration, a very fine tune had been put to it by a doctor of music;[9] a romance had been founded upon it by a man of eminence; it was made the subject of a play, of an opera, and of a pantomime; it had been claimed by others; a sequel had been ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... table at the sleek, well-groomed men, and the showy women with their gaudy hair ornaments, bare powdered shoulders, and beautiful gowns. She looked from face to face searching eagerly for—she knew not what; power, perhaps, some power which should justify their costly elegance. This hurt as a lie hurt her, because, as she gazed from person to person, she could not divine the individuality beneath the uniform, and she was still young enough to wish to do so.... Meanwhile, as she gazed, Charles ate and ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... best, you mean to sell for as much as by hook or crook he can get for his commodity; then I say it is not lawful. And if I should say the contrary, I should justify Mr. Badman and all the rest of that gang; but that I never shall do, for the Word of God condemns them. But that it is not lawful for a man at all times to sell his commodity for as much as he can, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... rejoiced to think you find it still worth consulting. It has always been my intention to return to the subject some day, and to try to justify my old conclusions—as I think they may ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... people in this county all that I could; but I can no longer justify them or myself to risk our lives here, under such extraordinary hazards. The inhabitants of this county are very much alarmed at the thoughts of the Indians bringing another campaign into our country this fall. If this should be the case, it will break up these settlements. I hope therefore that ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... despised, whatever Mr. Bickerstaff, or other merry gentlemen are pleased to think. As to the tradition of these lines having been writ in the original by Merlin, I confess I lay not much weight upon it: But it is enough to justify their authority, that the book from whence I have transcrib'd them, was printed 170 years ago, as appears by the title-page. For the satisfaction of any gentleman, who may be either doubtful of the truth, or curious to be inform'd; I shall give order to have the very book ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... primary sore or chancre, and its duration is more often only a matter of four or five days before the disease is in the blood, the blood test becomes positive, and the prospect of what we call abortive cure is past. Nothing can justify or make up for delay in identifying the trouble in this early period, and the person who does not take the matter seriously often pays the price of his ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... She will not suspect you; and while she is amusing herself with making her beams play upon the water, you will suddenly shut the well: then we shall get hold of her. It will make both our fortunes, and we will see how she will be put to it to justify her conduct." ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... expectation that this little Work will have a sudden and general popularity. They will not undertake, as there is no need, to justify the gay costume in which the Author delights to dress his thoughts, or the German idioms with which he has sportively sprinkled his pages. It is his humour to advance the gravest speculations upon the gravest topics in a quaint and burlesque style. If his masquerade ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... conception of work, which foresees the end in the beginning and never loses sight of it, and in every part is conscious of all the rest, till the last sentence does but, with undiminished vigour, unfold and justify the first—a condition of literary art, which, in contradistinction to another quality of the artist himself, to be spoken of later, I shall call the necessity of mind ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... than a certain disease with which I was already too well acquainted. They assured me that all the stories relating to those creatures were fables; they laughed at the lines which Virgil has devoted to them in the Georgics as well as at all those I quoted to justify my fears. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... help, and that he would do it as soon as I was out of sight. I went into a clump of bushes near the spot where he stood, intending to watch his movements, for I wished to be entirely satisfied that he meditated treachery. I wished to be able to justify myself for any step I ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... figures into which certain specified sins have been poured. This is an artistic as well as ethical error. As Porson finely said to Rogers, "In drawing a villain, we should always furnish him with something that may seem to justify him to himself"; and Schiller, in his aesthetic writings, lays down the same rule. Yet this censurable habit does not seem to proceed from anything cynical in the author's own nature, but rather from inexperience, and from a personal directness which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... passage when he was thirty, that would justify the past tense, which perhaps, too, we have a right to construe have been, for that ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... definitely. I told him what Mabel had confided to me. I said that I would neither approve nor condemn her action in bringing me into the business, but that she was suffering, and I considered it my right to ask how he could justify himself in placing ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... really, from your letter, obtained a better conception of the queen's case, than from all that I have been able to read and hear upon the subject in London. The rule you lay down is excellent. Public safety is certainly the only principle which can justify mankind in agreeing to observe and enforce penal statutes; and, therefore, I think with you, that unless it could be proved in a very simple manner, that it was requisite for the public safety to institute proceedings ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... episodes, the mind of a woman, who has thinking powers is displayed. The female organs have been thought too weak for this arduous employment; and experience seems to justify the assertion. Without arguing physically about possibilities—in a fiction, such a being may be allowed to exist; whose grandeur is derived from the operations of its own faculties, not subjugated to opinion; but drawn by the individual ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... that his eccentric way of treating the engagement would justify her in keeping Arkwright in reserve. But she was finding that there were limits to her ability to endure her own self- contempt, and she sacrificed Grant to her outraged self-respect. Possibly she might have been less conscientious had she not come to look on Grant as an exceedingly pale ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke were dismissed ministers and doomed to live in exile, the latter for many years, and felt, no doubt, strongly their removal from the glare of public life to obscurity. We hear no complaint from them which can justify some future critic in saying that their wails were unworthy of a woman; but neither of them was capable of telling an Atticus the thoughts of his mind as they rose. What other public man ever had ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... a thing improbable and yet possible. Again, it may be impossible that there should be men such as Zeuxis painted. 'Yes,' we say, 'but the impossible is the higher thing; for the ideal type must surpass the reality.' To justify the irrational, we appeal to what is commonly said to be. In addition to which, we urge that the irrational sometimes does not violate reason; just as 'it is probable that a thing may ...
— Poetics • Aristotle
... topgallantsails and royals, while two more were laying out upon the jibbooms to loose the jibs. Meanwhile I had sprung into the lee mizen rigging, and from that situation was anxiously scanning the sea ahead and upon the lee bow. To my great relief I presently saw that the ship was looking up high enough to justify the hope that she would claw off from the danger that menaced her to leeward; the sea being merely a short, irregular popple, with no weight in it to set us down toward the white water. Meanwhile the hand in the chains was continuing to take casts of the lead as ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... as she was, she first sought to get sufficient information to justify her in speaking plainly to both nephew and niece. For this purpose she drew Addie out on Sunday afternoon, asking her if she had noticed anything peculiar in the manner of Hemstead and Lottie towards each other. Then, for the first time, and with just indignation, to her credit ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... but it was the beauty of an angry serpent. She had a pencil in her hand, with which, a little while before, she had been sketching heads of some of the passengers in her little notebook. She was now handling this inoffensive object in such a way as to justify the fancy that, had it been charged with a deadly poison in its point, instead of with a bit of plumbago of the HH quality, she would have driven it into Freeman's heart then ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... reasons best known to himself—they were never got at—had come to the resolution of bringing his brother Highlanders, who had made away with the sergeant, to justice. It was necessary for his own safety, however, that he should be under the pressure of a motive or impulse sufficient to justify so heartless and unnatural a proceeding, otherwise he would himself have been likely to follow the sergeant's fate. Any reference to his conscience, the love of justice, respect for the laws of the land, or the like, would of course have been received with well-merited ridicule ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... tradition, but most fortunate in the portrayer of her beauty. Lawrence has painted a picture which it is a perpetual pleasure to behold,—the superb arms and shoulders, the serene, steadfast gaze of the eyes, and the conscious, yet confident, poise of the head forming a record to justify the tradition of great personal beauty and alertness ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... our side. The Boers must have been startled at their own shadows or at the movements of a subaltern's patrol which they magnified into an army, and having beat the big drum they perhaps tried to justify themselves by sending ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... being founded upon a mere resemblance of sound between the Sanskrit word malaya and the name of the Malay people, is not sufficient to justify this derivation.[40] ...
— A Manual of the Malay language - With an Introductory Sketch of the Sanskrit Element in Malay • William Edward Maxwell
... each individual member was absolutely without fitness for this business. So the committee made itself a great power, and therefore also a great complication, in the war machinery; and though it was sometimes useful, yet, upon a final balancing of its long account, it failed to justify its existence, as, indeed, was to have been expected from the outset.[155] In the present discussions concerning an advance of the army, its members strenuously insisted upon immediate action, and their official influence brought much ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... tread the stage, Make Dorimant betray, and Loveit rage; Let Cully, Cockwood, Fopling, charm the pit, And in their folly show the writer's wit. Yet still thy fools shall stand in thy defence, And justify their authors' want of sense. Let 'em be all by thy own model made Of dulness, and desire no foreign aid; That they to future ages may be known, Not copies drawn, but issue of thy own. Nay, let thy men of wit too be the same, All full of thee, and diff'ring ...
— English Satires • Various
... sense of relief at the suggestion of sending that inevitable third in all their interviews away; but he was at that stage when the wish of a person beloved is strong enough in a young mind to make all endurance possible, and to justify the turning upside down of heaven and earth. He had replied boldly that there would be nothing more easy than to find a tutor; that he himself would go to town, and make inquiries; and that she ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... seemed to Henry that de Peyster intended his remarks largely for him. He would justify himself to the captive youth, and at the same time show him the power of the allied Indians, Tories, and English. He talked quite freely of the great expedition of Bird and of the cannon that he ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... break down in tears and Isaac with premature economic instinct, feeling it wicked to waste a cry, would proceed to justify it by hitting her. Thereupon little Sarah would hit him back and develop ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Mr. Astor, so little in conformity with his own. His mind, too, appears to have become almost diseased by the suspicions he had formed as to the loyalty of his associates, and the nature of their ultimate designs; yet on this point there were circumstances to, in some measure, justify him. The relations between the United States and Great Britain were at that time in a critical state; in fact, the two countries were on the eve of a war. Several of the partners were British subjects, and might be ready to desert the flag under which they acted, should a war ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... Alcmene; I admit it. This action is unquestionably an odious crime; I do not pretend to justify it longer: yet allow my heart to defend itself in your eyes, and let it reveal to you who is to blame for this insulting fury. To tell you frankly, it is the husband Alcmene, who has done this wrong; it is the ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... considers graceful is to another strange and bizarre. There is no question of the fine quality, however: of course a nation with elm for hubs and ash for spokes wonders at American temerity in making wheels so light, and the casual observer thinks our roads must be better than the European to justify them. As one English builder has, however, contracted lately with an American firm for five hundred sets of wheels, they will have an opportunity soon of testing the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... will. He has set his heart upon making Nace Grimshaw his successor at Luckenough, that if you disappoint him in this darling purpose, there will be no limit to his rage and his revenge. And he will not only send us from his roof, but he will seek to justify himself and further ruin us by blackening our names. Your wildness and eccentricity will be turned against us and so distorted and misrepresented as ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... no blue bird. The cerulean tint seems much rarer among the feathered tribes there than here. On this continent there are at least three species of the common bluebird, while in all our woods there is the blue jay and the indigo-bird,—the latter so intensely blue as to fully justify its name. There is also the blue grosbeak, not much behind the indigo-bird in intensity of color; and among our warblers the ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... of the house, was of noble presence, which almost seemed to justify the claim of royal blood which was made for her. Tall and commanding, age had not bent her form, although her locks were already white. Her beauty, which must have been marvellous in her younger days, had attracted the attention of a younger son of ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... 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 ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... at him with a sinister significance. "Good enough. I'll bring you one that will justify it ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... to the Count of Crevecoeur. All remained mute after she had finished her brief and broken narrative, and the Duke of Burgundy bent his fierce dark eyes on the ground, like one who seeks for a pretext to indulge his passion, but finds none sufficiently plausible to justify himself ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... not send it," he muttered to himself, as he tore it in pieces. "One week has made all the difference. Nothing could ever justify me in speaking ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... that, perhaps, and the sense of having got so much more out of it than any account of his visit would justify, that kept Peter from saying much to his mother that night about his talk with the rich man; he asked her instead if she had ever seen ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... opportunity, Roldan and his friends likewise sent letters to Spain, endeavoring to justify their rebellion by charging Columbus and his brothers with oppression and injustice, and painting their whole conduct in the blackest colors. It would naturally be supposed that the representations of such men would have little weight in the balance ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... without paying them the slightest attention, "I must say, Mr. M'Clutchy, that if you proceed as you threaten to do, your conduct towards me and my poor orphan will be such as I don't think you can justify either to God or man. I wish you good morning, sir; I have no more to ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... dwellings can it be said that no word of anger is ever heard beneath its roof, and that no unkindly feeling ever exists between the inmates? Most men's experience would seem to justify them in declaring that, throughout the inhabited world, no such house exists. I, knowing at all events of one, admit the possibility that there may be more; yet I feel that it is to hazard a conjecture; I cannot point with certainty ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... man has entered his country's service. He must carry out his orders; what he is sent to do must be done. No excuse can justify disobedience and failure. But we are getting too serious and I am boring you. There is another picture I think you would like ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... men, however, were bent on making mischief. Indeed, one of the lawmakers of the Territory said frankly: "The only course, therefore, which remains for us to rid ourselves of them, is to adopt such a mode of treatment towards them as will induce them to acts that will justify their expulsion by force." ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... I done, then, kind friends, that you should call me a traitor?" asked Lombard. "State the crimes you charge me with, so that I may justify myself!" ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... is unapproachable—will prove so, it seems to me. But this 'Tragedy' shows more heat from the first, and then, the words beat down more closely ... well! I am struck by it all as you see. If you keep it up to this passion, if you justify this high key-note, it is a great work, and worthy of a place next 'Luria.' Also do observe how excellently balanced the two will be, and how the tongue of this next silver Bell will swing from side to side. And you to frighten me about it. Yes, and the worst is (because it was stupid in me) ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... after a king of Eleusis, certainly has kingly qualities to justify the appellation. The colouring is all grey, black, brown, white and yellow, and the combinations are most artistic. It is a relative of Lineata. It flies and feeds by day, has nearly the same length of life, and is much the same ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... Boethius to speak of himself, in order that under pretext of Consolation he might excuse the perpetual shame of his imprisonment, by showing that imprisonment to be unjust; since no other man arose to justify him. And this reason moved St. Augustine to speak of himself in his Confessions; that, by the progress of his life, which was from bad to good, and from good to better, and from better to best, he might give example and instruction, which, ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... success depends upon the continuance of that good will. Our appreciation of that fact is your best assurance that in the future the services of this company, as well as the superiority of its products, will justify the confidence and good will of the thousands to whom the name of Pratt is but another name ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... was in a burning mood; for Sacheverell's friends, wishing to justify his cry of the Church in danger, which he had ascribed to the heretical works lately printed, easily succeeded in procuring the burning of Tindal's and Clendon's books, before mentioned. Nor can any one who reads that immortal work, The Rights of the Christian Church, asserted ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... British Government, and eager to be led against the rebels. In some cases terrible punishment was meted out to mutinous Bengal sepoys within the Punjab, but the Imperial interests at stake were sufficient to justify every severity, although all must regret the painful necessity that called for ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... gleamed bravely in their polished brass. Then the ammunition was got ready beside each separate gun. It begin to look like business. The Sea Eagle began to justify her name and fly through the water. Still the spot upon the ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... have no difficulty in comprehending the morality that presided over their conference. It was, in truth, that which, in some form or other, rules most of the acts of men, and in which the controlling principle is that one wrong will justify another. Their enemies paid for scalps, and this was sufficient to justify the colony for retaliating. It is true, the French used the same argument, a circumstance, as Hurry took occasion to observe in answer to one of Deerslayer's ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... whole arrangement of this trust was brought about by Mr. Scott or others, to enable him or them to make a cat's-paw of this new trustee, and thus use the lady's money for their own purposes, such an opinion on your part may justify you in recommending the prisoner to the merciful consideration of the bench; but it cannot justify you in finding a verdict of ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... record of the first smoking of the herb Nicotiana Tabacum by a European on this continent. The probable results of this discovery are so vast as to baffle conjecture. If it be objected, that the smoking of a pipe would hardly justify the setting up of a memorial stone, I answer, that even now the Moquis Indian, ere he takes his first whiff, bows reverently toward the four quarters of the sky in succession, and that the loftiest monuments have been reared to perpetuate fame, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... to lay eyes on the sort of man who can unjoint this devilish combination of politics and law and finance," he informed himself, trying to justify his ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... any incident that justified him in saying, "The opinion I once entertained of the candor and simplicity and fairness of Mr. Madison's character has, I acknowledge, given way to a decided opinion that it is one of a peculiarly artificial and complicated kind." To justify this opinion, and as an evidence of how bitter Madison's political and personal enmity toward him had become, he refers in the same letter to Madison's relation to Freneau and his paper, "The National Gazette." "As the coadjutor of Jefferson," he wrote, "in the establishment of this paper, I include ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... please you. I have read somewhere, however, that Tarascon is supposed to produce handsome men, as Arles is known to deal in handsome women. It may be that I should have found the Tarasconnais very fine fellows if I had encountered enough specimens to justify an induction. But there are very few males in the streets, and the place presented no appearance of activity. Here and there the black coif of an old woman or of a young girl was framed by a low doorway; but for the rest, as I have said, Tarascon was mostly involved in a siesta. ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... they have been used in support of a former huge Antarctic continent, instead of ruling them out of court as Rails which, each in its island, have lost the power of flight, a process which must have taken place so recently that it is difficult, upon morphological grounds, to justify their separation into Aphanapteryx in Mauritius, Erythromachus in Rodriguez and Diaphorapteryx on Chatham Island. Morphologically they may well form but one genus, since they have sprung from the same stock and have developed upon the ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... your own way, and doubtless you expect to have it now. I suppose I am to listen to all your story, and I must not say a word about my own nephew. But sit down and tell me all about it, and then you can justify him ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... possessing no interest except as a notable example of a "burnt-out planet." In answer to these dogmatic assertions, it may be said that, notwithstanding the multiplication of monographs and photographs, the knowledge we possess, even of the larger and more prominent objects, is far too slight to justify us in maintaining that changes, which on earth we should use a strong adjective to describe, have not taken place in connection with some of them in recent years. Would the most assiduous observer assert that his knowledge of any one of the great formations, ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... have been divided, distracted, and confused, and in all probability, unable to resist the assailants. But all these suggestions surely proceeded from ignorance or malevolence, or else the admiral would not have found it such an easy matter, at his return to England, to justify his conduct to a ministry at once so upright and discerning. True it is, that those who undertook to vindicate him on the spot, asserted, that there was not water enough for our great ships near the town: though this was a little unfortunately urged, because there happened to be ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... were written primarily as a preface or reason for the [writer's] second Pianoforte Sonata—"Concord, Mass., 1845,"—a group of four pieces, called a sonata for want of a more exact name, as the form, perhaps substance, does not justify it. The music and prefaces were intended to be printed together, but as it was found that this would make a cumbersome volume they are separate. The whole is an attempt to present [one person's] impression ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... accord to the judge to confess himself deserving of death, he would put a rope upon his head. And that rope as much as said to the judge and to all men—the miserable man as good as said: This is my desert. This is the wages of my sin. I justify my judge. I judge myself. I hereby do myself to death. And it was this that so angered the happy holiday-makers of Mansoul. For they forgave themselves. They justified themselves. They put a high price upon themselves. Humiliation ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... millenary, began to grow with extraordinary vigour and rapidity; that new soul which experienced a wider, if not deeper, unfolding in the period of the Renascence, and to this day pervades and fertilises our spiritual life. I might have been less digressive, but I hope that two reasons will justify my prolixity; the first is the great importance of the subject from the point of view of a history of civilisation, and the second and more particular one is its close inner relationship to my principal theme. For, in complete contrast with the sexuality ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... made several very happy voyages by setting out when a certain constellation was in the ascendant, that constellation might become known as the Great Bear's constellation. Certainly, there is nothing in its shape to justify the name. Very few of the constellations indeed are like the thing they are called after. Their names were usually given for some fanciful association with the namesake, rather than for resemblance ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... and whose system of conduct forbids it. At the same time, truth authorizes me to say, that he was received and treated with proper respect to his official character, and that he has had no cause to justify the assertion, that he could not expect any support for fulfilling the ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... that the spider was a sort of pet of an old virtuoso to whom he owed many obligations in his boyhood; and the conversation turned from this subject to others suggested by topics of the day and place. His Lordship was affable, and Redclyffe could not, it must be confessed, see anything to justify the prejudices of the neighbors against him. Indeed, he was inclined to attribute them, in great measure, to the narrowness of the English view,—to those insular prejudices which have always prevented them from fully appreciating what differs from ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to justify Ike's opinion, for from the day that the doctor fixed the time for the Old Prospector's departure the fever abated, his philosophic calm returned, he became daily stronger and daily more cheerful and courageous, and though he was troubled still with a cough he departed ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... intercourse by water was stopped, and Philadelphia was also cut off from the lower Delaware. Both Philadelphia and Baltimore were now severed from the sea, and their commerce destroyed, not to revive till after the peace; while alarms, which the near future was to justify, were felt for the land road which connected the two cities. As this crossed the head waters of the Chesapeake, it was open to attack from ships, which was further invited by deposits of goods in transit at Elkton and Frenchtown. Fears for the safety of Norfolk were ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... For one thing, the worst has never been seen by anybody yet. We have no experience to justify it." ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... with quadrangular chambers, in the sides of which are square holes at equal distances, as if intended for the reception of beams; the smoothness and perfect perpendicularity of the sides, and the number of detached pillars that are scattered over the plain, would justify a similar mistake to that of Mr. Addison's Doctor of one of the German universities, whom he found at Chateau d'Un in France, carefully measuring the free-stone quarries at that place, which he had conceived ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... merciless blow he struck was rending a fetter apart. He was making it possible for the woman, close to him physically, to regard him at last as—a man; not a husband that mistaken loyalty must shield and suffer for. He was placing her among the safe and decent people, permitting her at last to justify her instincts, to trust ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... capitals and figures are required in the same line use figures about one-half larger in body than the capitals and justify ...
— Capitals - A Primer of Information about Capitalization with some - Practical Typographic Hints as to the Use of Capitals • Frederick W. Hamilton
... AEschylus for their model, these commenced the first great era of improvement in the comic drama. Of the comedies of Cratinus, Quintilian speaks in great commendation; the little of his poetry, however, that remained is not thought to justify that praise. Eupolis is related to have composed seventeen plays at the age of seventeen years. He was put to death by Alcibiades for defamation, and died unlamented except by a dog, which was so faithfully attached to him that he refused to take food and starved to death upon ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... took up but few hours, and those were spent far from unpleasantly. The evening was bright, and the prospect before us such as might justify sanguine expectation. Having passed between the capes which form its entrance, we found ourselves in a port superior, in extent and excellency, to all we had seen before. We continued to run up ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay • Watkin Tench
... you to say to me? It is not for me to speak, but for you. I have no explanations to give you. I have not to justify a betrayal." ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... soon be drowning all that would interrupt them; O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march, It reaches hither—it swells me to joyful madness, I will run transpose it in words, to justify it, I will yet sing a ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... was impersonal and businesslike, and that her business was urgent. "Can I see you?" to show that he was not being invited to see her. "It's about Nicky" to justify the whole proceeding. "Dorothy Harrison" because "Dorothy" by itself ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... readers judge; but the few words of comment that follow, from well-known individuals, bear strong testimony to an effect that must have been duplicated in a great many other instances: and, indeed, if its influence had gone no farther than to a few persons, that alone would justify the laudable attempt of this "venture in philanthropy." My conviction is that it reached farther than to single individuals, and that it still reaches into and influences more or less all the deep undercurrents ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... had been acquitted of the charge of abduction which had been brought against him, but the prosecution brought forward facts sufficient to justify the public indignation that was raised. He soon after went abroad, and died ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... own I did, and I don't wonder at the severity of your thoughts about me. The heat of the times deprived us both of our natural candour. Yet I will confess to you here, that, before I died, I began to see in our party enough to justify your apprehensions that the civil war, which we had entered into from generous motives, from a laudable desire to preserve our free constitution, would end very unhappily, and perhaps, in the issue, destroy that constitution, even by the arms of ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... in the extreme antiquity of the bow is such as almost to justify the quaint statement of Jean Jacques Rousseau that Adam played ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... Heaven the President would wear the robes of the Dukes of the Chow dynasty, B. C. 1112, a novel and interesting republican experiment. Excerpts from two Mandates which belong to these days throw a flood of light on the kind of reasoning which was held to justify these developments. The ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... and very often most disagreeably. A housekeeper does not enjoy an intrusion—for such it is—of that kind any more than you would be pleased to have a chance caller rush unannounced into your private rooms. Even among relatives and the most intimate friends, there is nothing to justify the unexpected arrival. Nothing so strikes terror to a woman's soul as the thud of trunks on the piazza and the crunch of wheels on the gravel, meaning someone ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... only cares— To justify their Boards in showing A handsome dividend on shares, And ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... these Sermons, what we can seldom say of sermons published at the request of parishioners, that they justify the respect paid to them; and appear to us in somewhat the same light as we should suppose they seemed to those who listened to and admired them. They are sermons of a high and solid character, and are the production of a good Churchman. ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.26 • Various
... victory. The literary and thinking world had learned but a little of it in Hippel's book; and now there seemed to be no inclination to probe the concise language of the master's work, for the task appeared greater than the fruits would justify. This hesitancy was a glaring testimony to the loose thinking and careless literary habits of those days. But the haste with which Kant prosecuted the authorship of his work, apart from the thoughts employed in its elaboration into a system, furnishes some ground of apology for the failure ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst |
