"Palliation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... course of the Baylor students who laid forcible hands on Brann and by mob power compelled him to sign humiliating admissions and apologies, their course was about as grave a blunder as was Brann's. It is not palliation to argue how indignant they were and how natural their indignation. Perhaps those in authority at Baylor who are said to have known beforehand the purpose of the student mob and quietly winked at—if they did not openly commend ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... his wife. Stella was recalled from this world, where she had known much triumph and more suffering; and where she had exercised many virtues, which elsewhere, though not here, may perhaps be accepted as some palliation of one ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... Richard Johnson observes, "I put down at his [the Nabob Fyzoola Khan's] particular desire, but otherwise useless; as my orders" (which orders do not appear) "were, not to receive any palliation, but a negative or affirmative": though such palliation, as it is called by the said Johnson, might be, as it was, in the ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... we come to an end. And how can an author do better than to quote Ibn Khallikan's own concluding words, which, though written so long ago about a biographical dictionary, may be borrowed by all literary hands as palliation for whatever shortcomings their work may have?—"If any well-informed person remark, in examining this book, that it contains faults, he should not hasten to blame me, for I always aimed at being exact, as far as I could judge; and, besides, God has allowed ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... and my belief of your friendship, determine me to intreat your opinion and advice.'—'In this state I with great earnestness desire you to tell me what is to be done. Excision is doubtless necessary to the cure, and I know not any means of palliation. The operation is doubtless painful; but is it dangerous? The pain I hope to endure with decency[744]; but I am loth to put life into much hazard.'—'By representing the gout as an antagonist to the palsy, you have said enough to make it welcome. This is not strictly the first fit, but ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... have been most pleased with, both on 1st and 2nd readings, perhaps, are Florinda's palliation of Roderick's crime, confessed to him in his disguise—the retreat of Palayo's family first discovered,—his being made king—"For acclamation one form must serve, more solemn for the breach of old observances." Roderick's ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... engaged, and of the little cashier-girl whose terror-filled face is ever with me. It has kept me, also, from dwelling too constantly on the message Lillie Pierce sent by me to the women of clean and happy worlds. For herself there was no plea for pity or for pardon, no effort at palliation or excuse. But with strength born of bitter knowledge she begged, demanded, that I do something to make good women understand that worlds like hers will never pass away if men alone are left to rid earth of them. Ceaselessly I keep busy lest ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... no palliation," sharply responds the Judge, his face crimsoning with blushes. "Mark ye, my friend of the clergy, these places make sad destruction of our young men. Indeed I may say with becoming sincerity and truth, that they spread a ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... madam,' said the Reverend Mr. Timson, 'and we know that charity will cover a multitude of sins. Let me beg you to understand that I do not say this from the supposition that you have many sins which require palliation; believe me when I say that I never yet met any one who had fewer to atone for, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... supper. He planned the little parties and excursions for which Dorothea's "budding" offered an excuse; and, while he recognized the subterfuge, he made his probable journey, with the long absence it would involve, serve as a palliation. Since, too, there was no danger to Diane, there could be the less reason for stinting himself in the pleasure of her presence, so long as he was prepared to pay ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... advanced by criminals as a palliation of their crimes. Michelieu justified the coup de grace inflicted on his victim by saying, "When I saw her in that state, I felt such terrible remorse that I shot her dead in order not ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... madman to-night, Miss Langdon, and I know it," he told her rapidly. "There is no excuse for the acts I have committed; there can be no palliation for them. I would not have dared to ask for your forgiveness; I can only say that I am sorry. It was not I, but a madman, who for a moment possessed me, who conducted himself so vilely toward you. ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... thirty-first of May, it was ascertained that, although numbers of volunteers had arrived from various points, through the unfortunate neglect or incapacity of the then Secretary of War, there was no one to command them. This was a dreadful state of affairs indeed, and one which admits of no palliation. It was expected that General Lynch, or some other distinguished officer, would take charge of the expedition from this point; but that gallant and experienced soldier, owing to the receipt of incorrect orders, did not arrive in time to assume ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... with. The unhappy father had said to himself in his agony at first that if Guy really killed that prying bank clerk at all, it was no doubt in defence of his mother's honour. THAT was a reason a Kelmscott could understand. That, if not an excuse, was at least a palliation. But to be told he had killed him for a roll of bank-notes—oh, horrible, incredible; his reason drew back at it. That was a depth to which the Kelmscott idiosyncrasy could never descend. The Colonel in his horror ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... struck Bedient that he must leave. He was startled that he had not left. His only palliation for such a venture into two lives—was the memories her voice roused. His lips tightened with scorn of self. And yet the thought became a fury as he walked rapidly through the dark toward the river—what it would mean to have a woman want him that way!.... His thoughts did not violate the ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... was ever more honorable than that of the "New York Tribune" and "National Era," during their heroic and self-sacrificing fight against this organized scheme of bigotry and proscription, which can only be remembered as the crowning and indelible shame of our politics. It admits of neither defense or palliation, and I am sorry to find Henry Wilson's "History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power" disfigured by his elaborate efforts to whitewash it into respectability, and give it a decent place in the records of ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... consist in three things: the healing of existing ills, the reorganization of society to prevent the recurrence of similar ills, and the bringing of new opportunities and joys to the people. Our first step, then, is to consider social therapeutics-the palliation of present suffering, the redressing of existing wrongs; however we may seek, by radical readjustments, to strike at the roots of these evils, we must not fail to mitigate, as best we can, the lot of those who are the unfortunate victims of our still crude social organization. ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... punishment had been inflicted without avail. He sinned again. His commanding officer was in despair as to what should be done. A fellow officer said, "Suppose you try forgiveness." The guilty soldier was summoned. On being asked what he had to say in palliation of his offense, he hung his head and replied: "Nothing, except I'm very sorry." "Well," said the officer, "We have decided to forgive you." The culprit looked dazed, burst into tears, saluted, and went out to become one of the ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... office:—a circumstance which affords ground for suspicion that some important secrets were in her possession respecting later transactions between the princess and Seymour which she had faithfully kept. It should also be observed in palliation of the liberties which she accused the admiral of allowing to himself, and the princess of enduring, that the period of Elizabeth's life to which these particulars relate was ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... again,—may not the verdict of the poet and the historian be rather exaggerated? Nobody has ever attempted to acquit Bacon for taking bribes. Nobody has ever excused him. He did commit a crime; but in palliation it might be said that he never decided against justice, and that it was customary for great public functionaries to accept presents. Had he taken them after he had rendered judgment instead of before, he might have been acquitted; for out of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... for granted that if it can be shown that great numbers of lives have been and are sacrificed to ignorance or blindness on this point, no other error of which physicians or nurses may be occasionally suspected will be alleged in palliation of this; but that whenever and wherever they can be shown to carry disease and death instead of health and safety, the common instincts of humanity will silence every attempt ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... was the betrayed bias of almost all we spoke with, toward palliation of this dark act. "Didn't she die in a fit; or of fright; or something?" was a frequent question, even from those near the scene of this tragedy. "What did ail the old creture to go near 'em? Name ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... cause of his commotion; yet it was not so much her beauty that silenced him, as the spirit that seemed to inhabit it. Nature, in general so chary of her gifts, so prone to use one good feature as the palliation of a dozen deficiencies, to wed the eloquent lip with the ineffectual eye, had indeed compounded her of all fine meanings, making each grace the complement of another and every outward charm expressive of some inward quality. Here was as little of the convent-bred ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... Roper only says this to convince himself that he might have forgotten the name—a sort of washy palliation of his Harrisson invention. It brings him within a measurable distance ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... No defence, excuse, or palliation, can be offered for such movements; and their triumph will safely produce all the evils which it is possible for an enlightened people to endure. Our system of instruction is what it professes to be,—a public system. ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... confidence, and the like. Incident unto this is the inquiry how to raise and fortify the imagination; for if the imagination fortified have power, then it is material to know how to fortify and exalt it. And herein comes in crookedly and dangerously a palliation of a great part of ceremonial magic. For it may be pretended that ceremonies, characters, and charms do work, not by any tacit or sacramental contract with evil spirits, but serve only to strengthen the imagination of him that useth it; as images are said by the ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... satisfaction the many judicious reflections it contains, on the condition of the respectable class of literary men. The efforts for their relief, made by a society of private citizens, are truly laudable: but they are, as you justly observe, but a palliation of an evil, the cure of which calls for all the wisdom and the means of the nation. The greatest evils of populous society have ever appeared to me to spring from the vicious distribution of its members among the occupations called for. I have no ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... please hear this in palliation—I would not presume to say in defense—of my conduct: I was driven to frenzy by a passion of contending love and jealousy as violent and maddening as it was unreal and transient. But that delusive passion has subsided, and among the unmerited mercies for which I have to be thankful ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... Gloster's after sufferings,—at least, of rendering them somewhat less unendurable—(for I will not disguise my conviction, that in this one point the tragic in this play has been urged beyond the outermost mark and ne plus ultra of the dramatic);—Shakespeare has precluded all excuse and palliation of the guilt incurred by both the parents of the base-born Edmund, by Gloster's confession that he was at the time a married man, and already blest with a lawful heir of his fortunes. The mournful alienation of brotherly love, occasioned by the law of primogeniture in noble families, or rather ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... from ill-regulated and perverted feelings of love and good will, and not from selfishness and hate; from the kindly, and not from the malignant propensities of the soul. It is very doubtful whether this is really any palliation of them, but, at any rate, mankind generally regard it so, judging very leniently, as they always do, the sins and crimes ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... misguided Boer people to the wicked artifices by which it has been seduced from friendly relations with England into an unjustifiable war, to deter the still wavering portion from joining the ranks of sedition, and, lastly, the grounds for palliation being recognised, to pave the way to an early termination of the war by adjustments which could restore mutual goodwill and respect between the contending parties, and so bring about a speedy return of ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... am ignorant of what you know, and I shall not ask," he continued. "I have been very criminal toward you, but perhaps less so than you think. Terrible circumstances bound me with iron bands. Fate ruled me! But I seek no palliation. Judge me as severely as you wish; but I beg of you to calm yourself—preserve yourself! You spoke to me this morning of your presentiments—of your maternal hopes. Attach yourself to those thoughts, and you will always be mistress of your life. As ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... error, and he has sufficient address to conceal it, or sufficient ingenuity to palliate it, but he does neither; instead of availing himself of concealment and palliation, with the candor of a great mind, he confesses his error, and makes all the apology or atonement which the occasion requires. None has a title to true honor but he who can say with moral elevation, when truth demands the acknowledgment, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... bridegroom and his bride, I would like to kick him out of it.' Mostyn struck the table with some exclamation, and McLean continued, 'Especially when the wronged husband is a gentleman of such stainless character and unsuspecting nature as Basil Stanhope—a clergyman also! Oh, the thing is beyond palliation entirely!' And he walked away and ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... should, because I believe there are many, and I know there are some, very excellent and truly good men amongst them. "Well," it may be said, "and what of all this, because some Justices and Parsons are profligate, debauched, and abandoned, would you infer that to be any justification or palliation for your errors?" Not in the least. I do not wish to assume any such ridiculous proposition. All I mean to say is, it brings me to this conclusion, that as we are by our very nature liable to err, and that as it is quite clear that those who are the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... through the church at sight of the silver-shining figure of the bride. How handsome, how stately, how perfectly self-possessed and calm. Truly, if beauty and high-bred repose of manner be any palliation of low birth and obscurity, this American young ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... is to be derived from the incontrollable law of necessity, or from the imperious law of war, certainly there can be no possible excuse for those who incur the guilt without being able to plead the palliation; for those who violate the rights of nations in order to obtain a license for rapine manifestly show that patriotism is but the cloak for such enterprises; that the true objects are plunder and pillage; and that ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... bad as consistency. There exists no more terrible person than the man who remarks: "Well, you may say what you like, but at any rate I have been consistent." This argument is generally advanced as the palliation for some notorious failure. And this is natural For the man who is consistent must be out of touch with reality. There is no consistency in the course of events, in history, in the weather, or in the mental attitude of one's fellow-men. The consistent man means that he intends to apply ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... was very young.—But here let me watch over myself again: for in those four words, I was very young, is there not a palliation couched, that were enough to take all efficacy from the discovery ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... as long as Garibaldi lives, I shall not let myself believe that a race which could produce a man so signally truthful and single-hearted is a race of liars and cheats. I think the student of their character should also be slow to upbraid Italians for their duplicity, without admitting, in palliation of the fault, facts of long ages of alien and domestic oppression, in politics and religion, which must account for a vast deal of every kind of evil in Italy. Yet after exception and palliation has been ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... an Injury which I feel I have committed, or add to my Fault by the Vindication of an expression dictated by Resentment, an expression which deserves Censure, and demands the apology I now offer; for I think that Disposition indeed mean which adds Obstinacy to Insult, by attempting the Palliation of unmerited Invective from the mistaken principle of disdaining the Avowal of even self convicted Error. In regard to the other Declarations my Sentiments remain unaltered; the event will shew whether my Prediction is false. I know Mrs. Byron too well to imagine that she would part ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... having won her confidence, escorted her all through the Wicked Valley. By a continual palliation she yielded one point after another until her virtue was ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... I read the Bible, it seems to be wholly grounded on the idea that the sin of man is astonishing, inexcusable, and without palliation or cause, and the atonement is spoken of as such a wonderful and undeserved mercy that I am filled with amazement. Yet if I give up the Bible I gain nothing, for the providence of God in nature is just as full of mystery, and of the two I think that the Bible, with all its difficulties, ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... the Board of Inquiry is—that what we barely suspected is ripened into certainty—and that on all, which we assuredly knew and declared without needing that any tribunal should lend us its sanction, no effort has been made at denial, or disguise, or palliation. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... and forbearance, was identified, in the minds of the people, with the Monarchy which they feared and detested." (History of Philosophy, Chap. 59.) The moral is that when injustice and evil are rampant, let us have no palliation, no weakness disguising itself as a virtue. What we cannot at once resist, we can always repudiate. To ignore these things is the worst form of imprudence—an imprudence which we, for our part at least, take the occasion here ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... the case proved, and asked Brother Pogram what palliation he hed to offer. I set before him the enormity uv the crime, and showed him that he was by this course sappin the very foundashun uv the Church and the Democratic party. Wat's the use, I askt, uv my preachin ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... of me, I am more sorry than surprised at her determined blindness; the palliation which she feels the want of, for her own conduct, leads her to seek for failings in all who were concerned in those unhapppy transactions which she has so much reason to lament. And this, as it is the cause, so we must in some measure consider it as ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... kind, but destitute of the refining and sublimating element which a revelation only can supply; and, secondly, in that of those ages in which the lights of knowledge and religion are contending with the gloom of barbarian rudeness. Perhaps there are still two other cases capable of palliation—that of a mind so constituted as to be nothing, if not a mirror of its age, and faithfully and irresistibly reflecting even its vices and pollutions; or that of a mind morbidly in love with the morbidities and the ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... account of the Roman war, in which he vilified the patriots to extenuate his own surrender and his master's cruelty. It is true that he afterwards composed an elaborate apology for his people in the form of a history in twenty volumes, which may be considered as a kind of palliation for the evil he had done them in action. It was more possible to refute the Roman prejudices based on utter ignorance of Jewish history, than the prejudices based on their narrowness of mind. But even here the writer has often to accommodate ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... were intervals of grief beyond all palliation; days when he worked blindly through a grist of tasks that seemed unreal. And at night he sought his room, to sit in darkness, suffering dumbly through the hours. Sometimes ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... her appearance in the dining-room until she was sure that everybody was present; then she would go down, and, standing there before them all, say what she had to say, state the few bald facts of the case, without excuse or palliation, and leave them to draw ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... Brick. Undoubtedly, newspapers exist among us of which the description of Mr. Dickens is no very extravagant caricature. But their editors, if not of notoriously infamous life, are those whose minds are unenlarged by any generous education,—men whose lack of grammar suggests a certain palliation of their want of veracity and good-breeding. Such journals are seldom or never seen by the large class of cultivated American readers, and are in no sense representative of them. The "Saturday Review" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... continues to wield his flaming sword against priests and despots, against intellectual and political servility. What may be termed the historical plea, the excuse for ideas and institutions that they are the relics of evil days long past, is no palliation for them to his mind; he would stamp them out and utterly destroy them. In this respect his temperament has unconsciously a strong tincture of the intolerance which he denounces; he would sweep away Christianity as Christianity swept away polytheism. ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... the subject of severe censure. Though he neither shared Tweed's corrupt counsels nor sanctioned his audacious schemes, Tilden's abhorrence of wrong, it was argued, seemed insufficient to break his silence. But the accusation that cut the deepest, because without palliation, illuminated his declination to attend the great indignation meeting that appointed the Committee of Seventy. This fact, established by abundant proof as well as by his conspicuous absence, created the belief that had the Times' exposure failed fatally ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... a thought that I ever harbored, which had not your happiness for its aim; and to your love and devotion I looked for my reward; and as I brooded over my own guilty life, blackened as it was with the worst of crimes, I thought that it was some palliation to be the parent of one pure and spotless as you were. Well, you turned out as hundreds of others have done, and my labor was lost. I loved you as never child was loved; and in proportion as my love once was great, so now is my hate ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... glimpses, as our story unfolds itself, of all these transactions. Meanwhile, it is interesting to note that the statesman whose great ensign was to be human freedom, was thus born in a family where the palliation of slavery must have made a daily topic. The union, moreover, of fervid evangelical religion with antagonism to abolition must in those days have been rare, and in spite of his devoted faith in his father the youthful Gladstone may well have had uneasy moments. If so, he perhaps consoled ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... the faculty of mental vision, it is in the increased power of dealing with the shadowy and the dark, that the characteristic virtue of opium lies. Now, in the original higher sensibility is found some palliation for the practice of opium-eating; in the greater temptation is a greater excuse. And in this faculty of self-revelation is found some palliation for reporting the case to the world, which both Coleridge ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... too Sir, as well as "the Lady," had some knowledge of that person, so much honoured and so much maligned; and although I do not defend his one great error (though in that, with some palliation, there were united elements of a generous and noble nature), I venture to say that whoever forms a notion of his manners and deportment in private life from this account of him, will labour under ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... happiness of Ireland was sucked into the maelstrom of his ruin. He refused to retire from leadership at Gladstone's bidding, and Ireland staggered into civil war. The end is known—Parnell died as he had lived. Of his moral fault there is no palliation, but it may be said he held his country's honor dearer than his own, for he could not bear to see her win even independence by obeying the ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... have no palliation, letters arrived leaving no doubt that the shores of the Bay of Fundy were entirely in the possession of the British; and yet at a council, at which Vice-Admiral Boscawen and Rear-Admiral Mostyn were present by invitation, it was unanimously determined to send the French inhabitants out ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... Kirton. I might tell you of unfair play brought to bear upon me, of a positive assurance, apparently well grounded, that Anne had entered into an engagement to wed another, could I admit that these facts were any excuse for me. They are no excuse; not the slightest palliation. My own yielding folly alone is to blame, and I shall take ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... looking into his works, and a pure ear of hearing any thing quoted from them. 'Such authors,' she used to say, 'were not honest to their own talents, nor grateful to the God who gave them.' Nor would she, on these occasions, admit their beauties as a palliation; on the contrary, she held it as an aggravation of their crime, that they who are so capable of mending the heart, should in any places show a corrupt one in themselves; which must weaken the influences of their good works; and pull down with ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... work in the looms. She thought very differently of him now. Louis had hotly defended him against everything the confidence man had said, and, of course, she now saw that the man who had spoken against Mr. Warner was of the most abandoned type of men. Somehow she felt that she owed him some palliation for the rudeness she had exercised. It would, perhaps, not be altogether according to the rules of etiquette; but if the opportunity offered she intended to say something in explanation. As he came on around her way she felt her pulses beat faster ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... think it is necessary to state, that there has been some little difficulty concerning this word, presents. Bribery and extortion have been covered by the name of presents, and the authority and practice of the East has been adduced as a palliation of the crime. My Lords, no authority of the East will be a palliation of the breach of laws enacted in the West: and to those laws of the West, and not the vicious customs of the East, we insist upon ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... papal advocates can soften the symbolic meaning of the banner and the keys; but the style of ad regnum dimisimus, or direximus, (Codex Carolin. epist. i. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 76,) seems to allow of no palliation or escape. In the Ms. of the Vienna library, they read, instead of regnum, rogum, prayer or request (see Ducange;) and the royalty of Charles Martel is subverted by this important correction, (Catalani, in his Critical Prefaces, Annali d'Italia, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... that they were in many cases trained to their peculiarly indelicate life by their parents, and had been taught to regard ballet-dancing as quite a proper and legitimate what's-its-name. No doubt this was only a palliation of the life they led, but she thought that if anyone was to be severely blamed in the matter it was the people who went to witness and encourage such ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... a man holding Fifth-Monarchy views, John Rogers prefers a lengthy indictment against lawyers, for whose delinquencies and heinous offence he admits neither apology nor palliation. In his opinion all judges deserve the death of Arnold and Hall, whose last moments were provided for by the hangman. The wearers of the long robe are perjurers, thieves, enemies of mankind; their institutions are ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... freshness faded early; we met but once at Aix-la-Chapelle, where Lady Castlewood besought my wife to go and see her, and afflicted Lady Warrington's kind heart by stories of the neglect and outrage of which her unfortunate husband was guilty. We were willing to receive these as some excuse and palliation for the unhappy lady's own conduct. A notorious adventurer, gambler, and spadassin, calling himself the Chevalier de Barry, and said to be a relative of the mistress of the French King, but afterwards turning out to be an Irishman of low extraction, was in constant attendance upon the Earl and ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... undertook his case without making any promises of a radical cure, as it seemed that the disease had progressed so that it would be impossible to effect more than satisfactory improvement in his general condition, and a palliation of the symptoms of disease. At the end of seven months' treatment he writes ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... a gulp of beer. "Are you afraid of the truth?—But just one word, and I'm done. You no doubt knew, as every one else did, that Lulu was Schilsky's mistress. What you didn't know, was this;" and now, without the least attempt at palliation, without a single extenuating word, there fell from his lips the quick and witty narration of an episode in which Louise and he had played the chief parts. It was the keynote of their relations to each other: the story, grossly told, of a woman's ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... case are thus far incontrovertibly established; and I deeply lament, that, heinous as the offences are which this narrative exhibits, I can discover no material palliation of them amongst the other circumstances detailed in ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... their pretended new science before the unguarded portion of the community; if they suffer their names to be coupled with it wherever it may gain a credulous patient; and deny all responsibility for its character, refuse all argument for its doctrines, allege no palliation for the ignorance and deception interwoven with every thread of its flimsy tissue, when they are questioned by those competent to judge and entitled ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... mortgage, and shares in stock companies. Except the proposal of applying a sponge to the national debt, no such palpable violation of common honesty has found sufficient support in this country, during the present generation, to be regarded as within the domain of discussion. It has not the palliation of a graduated property-tax, that of laying the burden on those best able to bear it; for "realized property" includes the far larger portion of the provision made for those who are unable to work, and consists, in great part, of extremely small fractions. I can hardly conceive a more shameless ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... concerned, during my short residence at his capital, and my progress through his dominions, to be witness of the disordered state of his finances and government, and of the desolate appearances of his country. The evils were too alarming to admit of palliation, and I thought it my duty to exhort him, in the most friendly manner, to endeavor to apply effectual remedies to them. He began with urging as apology, that, whilst he was not certain of the expense [extent?] of our demands ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... of your life. Before I do so, however, I should like to say a few words in palliation of my conduct. I have never known a mother. I early fell under my aunt's charge, who, detesting children, sent me away to school, where I was well enough treated, but never loved. I was a plain child, and felt my plainness. This gave an awkwardness to my actions, and as my ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... with such a man as his abominable lodger, appeared, in the cold light of day, a mystery of human weakness. True, he was caught in a situation that might have tested the aplomb of Talleyrand. That was perhaps a palliation; but it was no excuse. For so wholesale a capitulation of principle, for such a fall into criminal familiarity, no excuse indeed was possible; nor any remedy, but to withdraw at ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gasping denial she had withdrawn, famous, to reappear now and then during her course always in similar roles. It happened that she had never heard of Eleanor Watson's stolen story until a week before the class-meeting, when some one had told her the unvarnished facts, with no palliation and no reference to Eleanor's subsequent change of heart or renunciation of one honor after another. Virtuous indignation and pained surprise struggled for expression upon ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... of discussion, who would have writhed far more at the spinster's palliation of his offense than at the men's disdain, lay in his tiny cabin, a prey to an attack of that nervous misery which overtakes an artist out of his element as surely and speedily as air suffocates ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... omit here to mention one of the customs, which has been often brought as a palliation of slavery, and which prevailed but a little time ago, and we are doubtful whether it does not prevail now, in the metropolis of this country, of kidnapping men for the service of the East-India Company. Every subject, as long as ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... fleeing at once to his one city of refuge, he fell but to pacing the room in hopeless bewilderment; and before long he was searching every corner of his reviving consciousness, not indeed as yet for any justification, but for what palliation of his "fault" might there be found; for it was the first necessity of this self-lover to think well, or at least endurably, of himself. Nor was it long before a multitude of sneaking arguments, imps of Satan, began to assemble at the agonized cry of his self-dissatisfaction—for ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... ran through Cynthia, piercing her sorrow. The superb strength of the man was there in that simple confession, and it is in the nature of woman to admire strength. He had fought his fight, and gained, and paid the price without a murmur, seeking no palliation. Cynthia had not come to that trial—so bitter for her—as a judge. If the reader has seen youth and innocence sitting in the seat of justice, with age and experience at the bar, he has mistaken ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... palliation can we find? Mr. Swinburne calls the book "a worthless little volume of stolen and mutilated poetry, patched up and padded out with dirty and dreary doggrel, under the senseless and preposterous title of The Passionate Pilgrim." On the other hand, Mr. Humphreys maintains ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... authority of a terrified and flying soldier, it is alike due to the probabilities of the case, and more agreeable to the hopes of humanity, to lessen somewhat the horrors of a scene which has need of all the palliation which can be drawn from the slightest evidences of compassion on the part of the stern ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... to imagine a person more unhappy. Undisciplined and unfortified by the knowledge that disappointment is an integral part of all lives, there had suddenly come upon me a disappointment the most total. It covered everything; there was not a flicker of hope or palliation. And I had no idea where to go to make myself another hope, or in what course lay palliation. As we have prepared ourselves or have been prepared, so is the issue of our temptations. My great temptation came upon me, foolish, ignorant, unprepared: the wonder would have been if I had resisted ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... protest against the wrong in ours. One wrong cannot excuse another. That murder is worse than arson does not make a hero of the rascal who fires our homes. If Allah were more cruel than Jehovah, that would be no palliation of the awful crimes of the Old Testament. That slaves have better clothes than savages cannot make noble traffic in human blood. A choice of evils is often necessary, but it does not make either of them a good. But there is no book which tells of a more ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... common during the last winter, many persons locking up their negroes over night in the quarters, and most sleeping with arms at hand, ready for nocturnal conflict. Whoever considers the necessarily horrible nature of a servile insurrection will find in it some palliation for Southern violence toward suspected incendiaries and Southern precipitation in matters of secession, however strongly he may still maintain that lynch-law should not usurp the place of justice, nor revolution the place ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... Mr. Newbery, according to agreement, whose profits on the sale of the work far exceeded the debts for which the author in his perplexities had pre-engaged it. The sum which accrued to Goldsmith from his benefit nights afforded but a slight palliation of his pecuniary difficulties. His friends, while they exulted in his success, little knew of his continually increasing embarrassments, and of the anxiety of mind which kept tasking his pen while it impaired the ease and freedom of ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... alone. The interview was long and earnest. On his part was the fullest disapproval of her conduct and the most solemnly spoken admonitions and warnings. She confessed her error, without any attempt at excuse or palliation, and promised a wiser conduct ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... the doctor, see-sawing very solemnly, "that, indeed, is some palliation for his forbearance. But I must not have you so fond of the Scotch, my little Burney; make your hero what you will but a Scotchman. Besides, you write Scotch—you say 'the one'—my dear, that's not English, Never use ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... together in a flood, we disbelieve her; just as we disbelieve Sir James Barrie when he invents that absurd accident of Tommy's death. These three instances of falsity have been selected from authors who know the truth and almost always tell it; and all three have a certain palliation. They come at or near the very end of lengthy stories. In actual life, of course, there are no very ends: life exhibits a continuous sequence of causation stretching on: and since a story has to have an end, its conclusion must in any case belie a law of nature. Probably ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... Barbara's change of mood had overthrown the barrier which her stern refusal had raised between them. Calm and cheerful as in former days he sat before her, listening while, in obedience to his invitation, she told him, with many a palliation and evasion, about her married life and the children. She made her story short, in order at last to hear some further particulars concerning the welfare ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of one who is evidently adverse to the political creed, no less than to the daring violence, of the clan Macgregor. Little can, it is true, be offered in palliation for the extraordinary career of spoliation and outrage which the history of this race of Highlanders presents; and which terminated only with the existence of the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... of all men should have stooped to this palliation, for he had, not without justice, said of himself "The same parts and application which have made me a poet might have raised me to any honors of the gown." Milton and Marvell neither lived by the Court, nor starved. Charles Lamb ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... of Congreve was not tenable; whatever glosses he might use for the defence or palliation of single passages, the general tenour and tendency of his plays must always be condemned. It is acknowledged, with universal conviction, that the perusal of his works will make no man better, and that their ultimate effect is to represent pleasure in alliance with vice, ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... all about it," said the judge, and the man in a few words told his story without any palliation. With a gleam of hope Mildred saw the expression of the judge's face change as he listened, and when at last he replied, in tones so low that none could hear them save he to whom they were addressed, she saw that look ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... thee the glosses I put upon these heavy charges, what would it be, but repeat many of the extenuating arguments I have used in my letters to thee?—Suffice it, therefore, to say, that I insisted much, by way of palliation, on the lady's extreme niceness: on her diffidence in my honour: on Miss Howe's contriving spirit; plots on their parts begetting plots on mine: on the high passions of the sex. I asserted, that my whole view, in gently restraining her, was to oblige her to forgive me, and to marry me; ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... little Mammy. As with her lameness, it took time for her to recognize, to understand, the fact. She could study over her lameness, she could in the dull course of time think out the broomstick way of palliation. It would have been almost better, under the circumstances, for God to have kept the truth from her; only—God keeps so little of the truth from us ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... other will avow the existence of so dangerous a motive. The only excuse that offers itself in. behalf of Captain Cook's conduct on this occasion, is stated in what he immediately mentions of the anarchy existing in this island. But even that is only a palliation in part, and does not reach to the full amount of the case. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... irregularity of a communication from the Imperial German Embassy at Washington addressed to the people of the United States through the newspapers, but only for the purpose of pointing out that no warning that an unlawful and inhumane act will be committed can possibly be accepted as an excuse or palliation for that act or as an abatement of the ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... for a blow was struck not only at those "who were out" with prince Charles, but also those who fought for the reigning dynasty. Left without chief, or protector, clanship broken up, homes destroyed and kindred murdered, dispirited, outlawed, insulted and without hope of palliation or redress, the only ray of light pointed across the Atlantic where peace and rest were to be found in the unbroken forests of North Carolina. Hence, during the years 1746 and 1747, great numbers of Highlanders, with their families and the families of their friends, removed to North Carolina ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... dream! Here was her husband needing her. And the children, whose inherent ungainliness, whose ungracious spirits demanded a perpetual palliation of culture and instilled deportment. What honest over-nurse was there for him or helper and guide and friend for them, if she withdrew? There was something undignified in a flight for mere happiness. There was something vindictive ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... be inflicted ought to be such that it need involve no fear of vengeance.' I quote this passage as a specimen of Machiavelli's direct and scientific handling of the most inhuman necessities of statecraft, as conceived by him.[1] He uses no hypocritical palliation to disguise the egotism of the conqueror. He does not even pretend to take into consideration any interests but those of the ambitious prince. He treats humanity as though it were the marble out of which the political artist ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... Nottinghamshire magistrate named Rolleston, with a small body of soldiers, they fled across the fields, and the bubble of rebellion burst at a touch. Whether they were legally guilty of high treason, for which they were unwisely tried, may perhaps be doubted, but it would certainly be no palliation of their crime if it could be shown, as it never was shown, that Oliver had led them to rely on a jacobin revolution in London. What does appear very clearly is that Sidmouth was greatly alarmed by the reports of his agents on the disturbed state of the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... detached scenes of the "Broken Heart." For this unfortunate creature, every feeling mind will find an apology in his calamitous situation; but—for Mr. Weber, we know not where the warmest of his friends will seek either palliation or excuse. ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... it? Yes; from no morbid wish to dwell upon the frightful scenes which, alas! grew too common, but as some palliation of the acts of our men, against whom charges were plentiful about ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... existence; and if at last he yielded to frailties, which inevitably insure degradation, it must be remembered that his lot had been one to which few men have ever been exposed, and the magnitude of his sufferings may fairly be admitted as some palliation for his weakness. ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... having thus robbed the Negro of every political and civil right, the white South, in palliation of its course, makes a great show of magnanimity in leaving him, as the sole remnant of what he acquired through the Civil War, a very inadequate public school education, which, by the present program, is to be directed ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... simply the plea of "not guilty," which even the most hardened culprit may make in court. In one of the Vedic hymns to Varuna there is something which looks like confession of sin, but it really ends in palliation. "It was not our doing, O Varuna, it was necessity; an intoxicating draught, passion, dice, thoughtlessness. The old is there to mislead the young. Even sleep brings unrighteousness." And the remission sought for is not one involving a change of ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... innocent man to death. That would be his reading of his act, and, doubtless, it did not trouble his conscience much or long, but he would leave the judgment-seat tolerably satisfied with his morning's work. How little he knew what he had done! In his ignorance lies his palliation. His crime was great, but his guilt is to be measured by his light, and that was small. He prostituted justice for his own ends, and he did not follow out the dawnings of light that would have led him to know Jesus. Therefore he did the most awful thing ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... relief; deliverance; refreshment &c. 689; easement, softening, alleviation, mitigation, palliation, soothing, lullaby. solace, consolation, comfort, encouragement. lenitive, restorative &c. (remedy) 662; cushion &c. 215; crumb of comfort, balm in Gilead. V. relieve, ease, alleviate, mitigate, palliate, soothe; salve; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... have the opportunity of judging of this matter of slavery for myself; not, of course, that I ever doubted that to keep human beings as slaves was in itself wrong, but I supposed that I might, upon a nearer observation of the system, discover at any rate circumstances of palliation in the condition of the negroes: hitherto, however, this has not been the case with me; the wrong strikes me more forcibly every hour I live here. The theory of human property is more revolting to every sentiment of humanity; and the evil effect of such a state of things upon the whites, who ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... one expression of our author too perverse, too grossly abused, to admit of any apology, of any palliation. It is not to be supposed, that he was ignorant of any word in the English language. And least of all can he be supposed ignorant of the meaning of a word, which, had it been ever so doubtful before, had a certain meaning impressed upon it by the authority of Parliament, of which ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... on the part of the well disposed. But in other circumstances, either when partial discoveries are made, when the success is not of the most absolute, general, and distinct kind, when the objects of the conspirators excite many sympathies, the errors they commit admit of easy palliation, the means they employ are noble, generous, and chivalrous, and the fate they undergo is likely to produce commiseration, the detection and crushing of them only tends to multiply and strengthen similar endeavours. With such ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... violence to the young lady, who had herself admitted in her evidence, that she was a willing party to Ussher's proceedings. Doubtless, there might be circumstances, which at the prisoner's trial would be properly put forward in palliation of the murder, by his counsel; but with that the jury before the Coroner could have nothing to do; and on these considerations, the jurors with very little delay had come to the conclusion which had so surprised and grieved Father John. Still, however, he ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... present some slight palliation for those acts of mob violence by which the people of the United States are so often disgraced. It may be added that out of the Southern States they are quite rare, and in the Northeastern States substantially unknown. Of the one hundred and four lynchings in ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... ever offered a prophylactic equal to work and good-cheer, and no system of religion has ever offered a working formula for health, happiness and success equal to that launched by Mrs. Eddy. The science of medicine is a science of palliation. ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... tendency, and perhaps we like or dislike them for it in proportion as their allusions recall memories or merely puzzle us; we cannot all be expected to have agreeable memories stirred by insignificant Homer tags; and it is well to bear in mind by way of palliation that in Greek education Homer played as great a part as the Bible in ours. He might be taken simply or taken allegorically; but one way or the other he was the staple of education, and it might be assumed that every one would like the mere ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... ask, is the warrant, the justification, or the palliation of American Slavery from Hebrew servitude? How many of the southern slaves would now be in bondage according to the laws of Moses; Not one. You may observe that I have carefully avoided using the term slavery when speaking of Jewish servitude; and simply for this reason, that no such thing ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... maturity, which has discovered that nothing that is true (in the sense of being existent) can be beautiful, deprecates truth beyond everything. What happens, we find, is never what ought to happen; nor does it happen in the right way or season. In palliation of this hardship, the sublime irony of fate grants us our imagination, wherewith we create little pet worlds of poetry and romance, in which everything is arranged in neat harmonies and surprises, to ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... He neither accepts nor denies the king's crime, while frankly admitting that Guienne's decease was an opportune circumstance for Louis. He apologises for mentioning any evil report of either king or duke, but urges his duty as historian to tell the truth without palliation. ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... respect to this prevailing destruction, has so effectually taught us how to maintain the exemption, by all the requisite sleights of overlooking, diverting, forgetting, and admitting deceptive maxims of palliation, that the art or habit is become almost mechanical. When fully matured, it appears like a wonderful adventitious faculty—a power of evading the sight, of not seeing, what is obviously and glaringly presented to view on all sides. There is, indeed, a dim general recognition that such things ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... In so far as the truth of this allegation is admitted, it is answered that in many places honest local government is impossible if the mass of uneducated negroes are allowed to vote. These are grave allegations. So far as the latter is true, it is the only palliation that can be offered for opposing the freedom of the ballot. Bad local government is certainly a great evil, which ought to be prevented; but to violate the freedom and sanctities of the suffrage is more than an evil. It is a crime which, if persisted in, will destroy the Government ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VIII.: James A. Garfield • James D. Richardson
... the good thing he designs. Cherays you call them, and for cherays I despatched him, suspended between the leaves in the good sun. Bah! there is nothing ever fit to eat in England. The cherays look very fine, very fine indeed; and so many did I consume that to travel on a gate was the only palliation. Would you have me stay all day in this long cellar? No diversion, no solace, no change, no conversation! Old Cheray may sit with his hands upon his knees, but to Renaud Charron that is not sufficient. How much longer before I sally forth to do the things, to fight, to conquer ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... was Wetherell who helped her from her saddle and spread his pack for her to rest upon. He also brought a blanket and covered her as tenderly as if she were his own grandmother. "She's pretty near all in," he said, in palliation of this action. He took a pleasure in seeing her revive under the ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... ensued; and Lieutenant Harvey gave it as his opinion, that, if these men had remained sober, many lives might have been spared. There is so much cause for regret in the whole catastrophe, that we will not harshly impute blame to one party or another. We may see some palliation for the misconduct of the men in the awful situation in which they were placed—their fears, perhaps, made them forgetful alike of their duty to their king, their country, and themselves; but it is cheering to know that such cases are ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... for your wounded arm," replied Edith, laying her hand gently on the scar, "we should have supposed he was under a strong delusion to believe a lie. Appearances were against you, and your condemnation was my brother's palliation, if not acquittal. My mother continued her supplications, mingled with tears and sighs that seemed to rend the life from her bosom; and I, Gabriella, do you think I was silent and passive? I, who would willingly have ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... though he was; and now that the moment had come a wave of sickening shame ran through Buck. No one of his name had ever done that before; but this man and his people had, and with their own lips they had framed palliation for him. What was fair for one was fair for the other they always said. A poor man couldn't fight money in the courts; and so they had shot from the brush, and that was why they were rich now and Buck was poor—why his ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... admonish us of the folly and wickedness of those who have sometimes taken upon themselves to supersede the regular course of law, and by rash and violent acts to punish supposed disturbers of the peace of society. This can admit of no justification or palliation whatever. Burke, I think, somewhere remarked something to this effect,—that when society is in the last stage of depravity—when all parties are alike corrupt, and alike wicked and unjustifiable in their measures and objects, a good man may content himself with standing ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... his part, he had always determined to oppose all innovation, and the new-fangled notions which incroached on the good old rules of conduct. We did not want French principles in public or private life—and, if women were allowed to plead their feelings, as an excuse or palliation of infidelity, it was opening a flood-gate for immorality. What virtuous woman thought of her feelings?—It was her duty to love and obey the man chosen by her parents and relations, who were qualified by their experience ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... may be much or little sanity in condemning a picture owing to a single fault. It depends on the kind. There are errors of selection, of presentation (technique) of natural fact, and of art principle. We can excuse the first, condone the second, find small palliation for the third, but he for whom art principles mean nothing, is ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... of truth was promoted by persecution. Pride, vanity, and profusion contributed often, in their remoter consequences, to the happiness of mankind. In common, what was in itself evil and vicious was permitted to carry along with it some circumstances of palliation. The Arab was hospitable; the robber brave. We did not necessarily find cruelty associated with fraud, or meanness with injustice. But here the case was far otherwise. It was the prerogative of this detested ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... would be unavailing, and whether many of the innumerable efforts which I did make might not have been carried much further, and my gradual reconquests of ground lost might not have been followed up much more energetically—these are questions which I must decline. Perhaps I might make out a case of palliation; but shall I speak ingenuously? I confess it, as a besetting infirmity of mine, that I am too much of an Eudaemonist; I hanker too much after a state of happiness, both for myself and others; I cannot face misery, whether my own or not, with an eye of sufficient firmness, and am little capable ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... serfdom, provided that it safeguarded the elementary rights of the serf to serve God as well as man. In the great struggle in America, he had no sympathy with the North, which seemed to him to make majority rule the only measure of right: and he wrote, if not in favour, at least in palliation, of slavery. It may be doubted how far he would have used the same language in later life, but his reasons were in accord with all his general views. Slavery might be rendered harmless by the State, and some form of ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... peculiarities of his mind and the ardour of his temperament. On one occasion, indeed, he wrote a violent and reproachful letter to Tycho, who had given him no just ground of offence; but the state of Kepler's health at that moment, and the necessitous circumstances in which he had been placed, present some palliation of his conduct. But, independent of this apology, his subsequent conduct was so truly noble as to reconcile even Tycho to his penitent friend. Kepler quickly saw the error which he committed; he lamented it with genuine contrition, and was anxious to remove any unfavourable impression ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... that has now been said in palliation of existing defects in education, that the whole business is a thing remote from immediate interests, and not less so from immediate perceptions and reasonings—a thing that, to all eyes capable of seeing in it something more than so many days devoted to spelling, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... scorned any further mere palliation of the weaknesses of human nature. Like all supermen, Bismarck struck straight from the shoulder; in turn to be misunderstood, cursed and reviled by the very people he would serve; but in the end aroused German manhood to a just comprehension of the power and dignity of a free ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... women are afraid to admit that they have any desire for sexual pleasure. Rousseau, who was not very straight-laced, excuses the conduct of Madame de Warens on the ground that it was not the result of passion: an aggravation rather than a palliation of the offense, if society viewed it from the point of view of any other fault. Even in the modern novels written by the 'new woman' the longing for maternity, always an honorable sentiment, is dragged in to veil the so-called 'lower' ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... I stood already in the box of the Old Bailey and heard myself sentenced to the treadmill, and was unable to offer the slightest explanation in palliation of ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... however, one excuse, or rather palliation, for the superstition of that time. In periods of great public depravity—and few epochs have been more depraved than that in which Calmet lived—Satan has great power. With a ruler like the regent Duke of Orleans, with a Church governor like Cardinal Dubois, it would ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... fellow creatures, is totally disregarded; all social connection and tenderness of nature being broken, desolation and bloodshed continually fomented in those unhappy people's country." It was also intended, said he, "to invalidate the false arguments which are frequently advanced for the palliation of this trade, in hopes it may be some inducement to those who are not yet defiled therewith to keep themselves clear; and to lay before such as have unwarily engaged in it, their danger of totally losing that tender sensibility to the sufferings ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... poisonous aggravation. But with a nature that sought for peace before all things, in this very worst of its aggravations was found a morbid cure—the effectual temptation to wilful blindness and forgetfulness. The sting became the palliation of the wrong, and the poison became its anodyne. For together with the five hundred hidden wrongs, arose the necessity that they must be hidden. Could he be pinned on, morning, noon, and night, to his wife's apron? And if not, what else should he do by angry interferences ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... were put to the sword, the rest were sold into slavery, and the movable property which had been seized was divided amongst the soldiers. The breach of international custom was not denied; the only attempt at palliation was drawn from the reflection that it was due neither to motiveless treachery nor to greed; a position like Capsa, it was urged,—difficult of approach, open to the enemy, the home of a race notorious for its mobile cunning-could be held neither by leniency nor by fear.[1128] The expedition ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... right to mention here (what however is no palliation of the crime, though a diminution of the extent of it) a circumstance which I do not recollect to have seen noticed by any author, and the truth of which I have too good authority to call in question. As every corpse ...
— 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
... for not only her own safety but that of her allies, and that this safety appeared to be menaced by a people who recognized few outward laws, was the only palliation of a course which in time showed itself as folly, even to the most embittered. The political consequences were of a nature, of which in their first access of zeal, they had taken no account. The complaints ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... fellows, and ran as warmly through his conversation in private life as we see it still runs through his published writings. Smith was always vigorous and weighty in his denunciation of wrong, and so impatient of anything in the nature of indifference or palliation towards it, that he could scarce feel at ease in the presence of the palliator. "We can breathe more freely now," he once said when a person of that sort had just left the company; "that man has no ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... Surely, it is some palliation of the course of the deluded masses of the South, that they heard such pernicious counsels, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... His summary execution of many of his Peruvians is quite pardonable, considering the desperate characters he had to deal with; while his offering canine battle to the banded rebels seems under the circumstances altogether just. But for this King Oberlus and what shortly follows, no shade of palliation can be given. He acted out of mere delight in tyranny and cruelty, by virtue of a quality in him inherited from Sycorax his mother. Armed now with that shocking blunderbuss, strong in the thought of being master of that horrid ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... recent thoughts, and re-impressed with the word Duty, which his friend had just emphasised, he sat down and wrote a distinctly self-condemnatory letter home. There was not a word of excuse, explanation, or palliation in it from beginning to end. In short, it expressed one idea throughout, and that was—Guilty! and of course this was followed by his asking forgiveness. He had forgiveness—though he knew it not—long before he asked it. His broken-hearted father ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... are many situations worse than mine, and I have no business to complain. If these afflictions should draw the bonds tighter which hold me to my Redeemer, it will be well. You may be assured that you have here a plain statement of my case in its true colours without any palliation. I am now well again, and have only to fear a relapse, which I shall do all I can to prevent, by a relaxation in study. I have now ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... depository of all my thoughts, pains, and pleasures, and I communicated to her this episode in the history of young Tom. As most ladies are severe judges of their own sex, she was very strong in her expressions against the conduct of Mary, which she would not allow to admit of any palliation. Even her penitence had no weight ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... beauties of the female form not apart from, but by the help of, drapery. It was reserved for the age of Praxiteles and Scopas to represent the Goddess of Love in the guise of a nude woman; and Praxiteles made an apology for the innovation by introducing the motive of bathing as an explanation and a palliation. And even the Aphrodite of Praxiteles is remarkably free from all attempt at sensuous attraction, or self-consciousness. Solid, noble, and stately in form, she is a type or model rather than an individual. Later sculptors, it is true, departed from this line of simple harmoniousness, ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... certainly had a distant idea of turning the little boy, in process of time, into a clerk; but he had rather urged this possibility of future usefulness beyond what he had at first intended, in speaking of it to my lady as a palliation of his offence, and he certainly was very much inclined to retract his statement that the letter-writing, or any other business, had increased, or that he was in the slightest want of help of any kind, when my lady after a ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... perhaps to admit likewise, that some of the vices common among the French are not merely less foul and disgusting in appearance, but less odious in their own nature, than those of our countrymen. We do not say this in palliation of their conduct. It is rather to be considered as a benevolent provision of nature, that in proportion as vice is more generally diffused, its influence on individual character is less fatal. This ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... I have been most pleased with, both on 1st and 2nd readings, perhaps, are Florinda's palliation of Roderick's crime, confessed to him in his disguise—the retreat of Palayo's family first discovered,—his being made king—"For acclamation one form must serve, more solemn for the breach of old observances." ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... conveniently be landed here from Spanish men-of-war.[34] I say a considerable sum, because, as I have declared to him, I do not wish to labor under the weight of obligation without deriving from it any real benefit; and because I consider the advance of small sums rather as a temporary palliation than a radical remedy. Our disorders are such, that the former can be of no use, and it would be better to desist in a desultory defence, than to put on the delusive appearances of a vigor we do not feel; for this lulls the people into a dangerous security, and softens those hopes of the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... captured all the women and children who had lagged in the rear, and a great quantity of baggage. Peter hereupon turned round and marched back to Nissa, to demand explanation of the Duke of Bulgaria. The latter fairly stated the provocation given, and the Hermit could urge nothing in palliation of so gross an outrage. A negotiation was entered into, which promised to be successful, and the Bulgarians were about to deliver up the women and children, when a party of undisciplined Crusaders, acting solely upon their ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... just pride may the friend and artist remember a career in which there are no jarring dissonances; no contradictions, for which he is forced to claim indulgence; no errors, whose source must be found in palliation of their existence; no extreme, to be accounted for as the consequence of "excess of cause." How sweet it is to be able to name one who has fully proved that it is not only apathetic beings whom no fascination can attract, no illusion betray, who are able to limit themselves within the strict ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... excuse, no palliation for an act that was undutiful, dishonorable, and deceitful—there was nothing to plead for him, save that he was young, and had never known a ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... motives there is not so much palliation to offer. He had often received aid from the Rohillas, and was under personal obligations to them, which ought to have obliterated all earlier memories of a hostile character; and, whatever grounds the Emperor may have had for ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... this vision I think it possible that I might have left her. I wish to gloze over nothing; I did not make my own nature, and in these pages I describe it as it was and is without palliation or excuse. I know that this is not the fashion in autobiographies; no one has done it since the time of Pepys, who did not write for publication, and for that very reason my record has its value. I am physically and, perhaps morally also, timid—that is, ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... explanation and honeyed pleadings, will hardly banish from their eyes the peculiar expression wavering betwixt compassion and contempt. They may forgive cruelty, or insolence, or even treachery—in time; but they can find no palliation, and little sympathy, for that one unpardonable sin. Truly, transgression in this line, beyond a certain point, may scarcely be excused; for weakness may be controlled, if not cured: if we can not be dashingly courageous, we may at least be decently ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... continued the Duke, "just try if you cannot find some palliation for what your old father has done. I am ready to ask your forgiveness, and to apologize, for a man of honor is never ashamed to acknowledge when he has been in ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... other frontier communities. The men who proposed to enter into the scheme were certainly not loyal to their country; although the adventurers were not actuated by hostile designs against it, engaging in the adventure simply from motives of private gain. The only palliation—there is no full excuse—for their offence is the fact that the Union was then so loose and weak, and its benefits so problematical, that it received the hearty and unswerving loyalty of only the most far-seeing and broadly patriotic ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... his breast, they were inexpressibly horror stricken to feel the monster wriggling, twining, and darting to and fro within his narrow limits, evidently enlivened by the opium or alcohol, and incited to unusual feats of activity. Thenceforth they gave up all attempts at cure or palliation. The doomed sufferer submitted to his fate, resumed his former loathsome affection for the bosom fiend, and spent whole miserable days before a looking-glass, with his mouth wide open, watching, in hope and horror, to catch a glimpse of the snake's head far down within his throat. It is supposed ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
