"Plea" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... On the plea that the Lombard emigration was concerned in the abortive movement, which was by no means consistent with facts, the Austrian Government sequestered the landed property of the exiles and voluntary emigrants, reducing them and their families (which in ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... There was a whimsical plea for forgiveness in his eyes. Domini's did not reject it; they did not answer it. She walked away, and the two men looked after her tall figure with admiration. As she went along the sand paths between ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... a plea for the under dog. For in this case, where the future of the race is at stake, all other considerations must be put into the background. I simply plead for an intelligent consideration of the subject. Many honored citizens are worse criminals and worse ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... house, I do here say that for the life of me I cannot see how any one can hope for salvation while living in open disobedience to the only Savior, Jesus Christ. Can any plead ignorance? From this hour forth you shall not bring that in as a plea for neglect of duty, for I now repeat in your ears the words that fell from the lips of Jesus himself: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." Have I a right to say that you will be saved ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... wrong; the lover who suspects her casts an aspersion on her entire life. I know it. Her plea is in her tears, her past life, her devotion and her patience. What will happen if she remains silent? Her lover will lose her by her own act and time will justify her. Is ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... on their seat, as he bent to make his shots, in a cheerful and almost a poetic way. The birds were singing gaily in the hedgerows, and such was my uplifted state that I, too, burst into song, until Arthur petulantly desired me to refrain, on the plea that, though he yielded to no man in his enjoyment of farmyard imitations in their proper place, I put him off his stroke. And so we passed through Bayside in silence and started to cover that long ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... masters entreated Vasco da Gama to tack back again, on the plea that the days were short, the nights long, and the vessels leaky, while the wind blew strongly, and cold rain and sleet came beating in their faces. He accordingly ordered the ships to be put about, declaring at the same time, should he find that they had not weathered the cape, he should ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... The plea of the godly that Mary should ratify the Book of Discipline was countered by the scoffs of Lethington. He and his brothers ever tormented Knox by persiflage. Still the preachers must be supported, and to that end, by a singular compromise, the Crown assumed dominion over the property of the ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... enough, for justice was a word unheard of in the present condition of things; and my plea of being an Englishman, and in the civil service of my country, would have been a death-warrant. I must acknowledge, too, that I had fairly thrown it away by my adoption of the Prussian sabre. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... often. Once, when a fellow really hooked in, and joined the crowd that had ignobly paid, one of the fellows could not stand it. He asked him just how and where he got in, and then he went to the door, and got back his money from the doorkeeper upon the plea that he did not feel well; and in five or ten minutes he was back among the boys, a hero of such moral grandeur as would be hard to describe. Not one of the fellows saw him as he really was—a little lying, thievish scoundrel. Not even my boy saw him so, though he had on some ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... head. He was a game man himself. He would go through when the call came, and he knew quite well that Sanders would do the same. Nor would any specious plea sidetrack him. At the same time there was substantial justice in the contention of his daughter. Dave had no business getting mixed up in this row. The fact that he was an ex-convict would be in itself a damning thing in case the courts ever had to pass ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... Plea, a shilling. Given for a new quarter with the nurse hir bairne, 3 dollars and a halfe. For the Informations about the Firing of London, 6 pence. At a collation, 30 pence. For a quaire of paper, 8 pence. Given to my wife, a dollar. At a collation ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... in that," remarked Billee. "Old Tosh probably tries to sell everybody he meets some of his dope, on the plea that it'll save them from the fate that overtakes so many in Death Valley. No harm ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... the window, broke suddenly into a jubilant fluting; and rising from the table, we stood for a minute, as if petrified, with our eyes on the bird, and on the box of blossoming sweet alyssum upon the sill. A little later, when I left with the plea that the General expected me at nine o'clock, the two elder ladies gave me their small, transparent hands, while their polite farewell sounded as final as if it had been uttered on the edge of ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... young men, ideas upon life and the world. Hilda had been introduced to him, but owing to the performance of another Beethoven symphony there had been almost no conversation before supper, and she had not heard him talk. She had stationed herself behind the grand piano, on the plea of turning over the pages for the musicians (though it was only with great uncertainty, and in peril of missing the exact instant for turning, that she followed the music on the page), and from this security she had ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... child"; she could not, for her life, be more cordial than that. The offence itself seemed a pinprick beside the rankle of the wound to her pride. This child had set up for herself, and was now returned—without extenuation, without plea for mercy. Mrs. Percival was one of those people who cannot be happy unless their right to rule be unquestioned. Had the girl humbled herself to the dust, grovelled at her feet, she would have taken her to her ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... Whim. That's no Plea; for if you kill a Man when you are sober, you must be hanged when you are drunk. Hast thou any thing else to say for thy self why Sentence may ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... treachery by which it was subjugated; and this night, in my own person, I have felt the effects of both. The English at Lanark dispatched a body of men to Bothwell Castle (where my family now are), on a plea, that as its lord is yet absent, they presume he is adverse to Edward, and therefore they must search his dwelling for documents to settle the point. Considering myself the representative of my brother-in-law, Lord ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... importance to man and society, of a large variety in types of character, and of giving full freedom to human nature to expand itself in innumerable and conflicting directions' (p. 253). It seems to us, however, that Mr. Mill's plea for Liberty in the abstract, invaluable as it is, still is less important than the memorable application of this plea, and of all the arguments supporting it, to that half of the human race whose individuality has hitherto been blindly ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... plea. One planter cried: "You saved his worthless life once before and said the law would punish him. How has he been punished! By shooting down some of our best neighbors. I say a bullet ought to let daylight through his onery carcass, and I'll be the one to fire it." With this remark he raised his ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... Search where she would in her consciousness, she found no plea to justify a plaint. Any romantic illusions she had had in marrying this man had turned on her power of using him as she liked. He was using her as ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... It was because a god Received this prayer, considered it, Favored its plea, and passed it on To him whose place was next, in that grand ring, Who in his turn received the prayer, Considered it, and sent it on— Harken! Around that circle vast, Harken! Where sit ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... position, but I am human, as human as a mother in any station of life, and oh, if there is any way, close up that gilded society resort that is dissipating our small fortune, ruining an only son, and slowly bringing to the grave a gray-haired widow, as worthy of protection as any mother of the poor whose plea has closed up a little poolroom ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... your last reason seems to me in favour of granting an audience," returned the Dey, "for if his plea be insufficient I shall thus appear to be desirous of furthering justice without suffering loss. It is always wise to act with urbanity when it costs ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... before but now, under these strange circumstances, they listened with fresh amazement to the beauty of his tones. Every word fell clean-cut upon their ears, every note was rich with feeling, as Brown in this strange fashion made his plea, took his stand with George Matheson's ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... failed, but inhabited still by tenants too poor to leave it. The boundary line between Wyker and Jacobs was the same ugly little creek that Doctor Carey had turned his course to avoid on that winter day when he had seen Virginia Aydelot's distress signal and heard her singing a plaintive plea for help. ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... drawing-room was resplendent. Felicite was all over the place. Everybody was there; Sicardot, Granoux, Roudier, Vuillet, the oil-dealers, the almond-dealers, the whole set. The marquis, however, had excused himself on the plea of rheumatism; and, besides, he was about to leave Plassans on a short trip. Those bloodstained bourgeois offended his feelings of delicacy, and moreover his relative, the Count de Valqueyras, had begged him to withdraw from public notice for a little time. ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... could do. I could excuse myself from dinner and thus secure an hour's quietude. I gave no false plea, when I urged a violent headache as the reason for my seclusion. My temples ached and throbbed as if trying to burst from a metallic band, and the sun rays, though sifted through curtains of folding lace, fell like needle points ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... they easily offended at the public Notice which is taken of 'em. But tho' Mr. de la Bruyere might have very good prudential Reasons for not making his Characters too particular, yet those Reasons cannot be urg'd, as a just Plea for his transgressing the Bounds of Characteristic-Justice, by ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... of school he obtained a dismissal for the day on the plea of feeling ill. He was ill—very ill at ease in his mind, beset as it was with fears, and troubled over the sudden change in Nellie's ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... bride, and before any one could move, drew a revolver, blew the top of her husband's head off, and then shot herself. The ball passed through her shoulder and broke her arm, but as you see, she was spared, as many another wildcat has been. Her friends and counsel tried to prove insanity, but the plea was too thin; so she landed here for a term of twenty years, and it will take every day of it to cut her claws. She is as hard as flint, and her heart is as black ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the curious cannot show Any one part that's dissonant in you: And 'gainst your chaste behaviour there's no plea, Since you are known to be Penelope. Thus fair and clean you are, although there be A mighty strife ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... made against the Prisoner was, her being evidently convicted of gross Lying in the Court, several times, while she was making her Plea; but besides this, a Jury of Women found a preternatural Teat upon her Body: But upon a second search, within 3 or 4 hours, there was no such thing to be seen. There was also an Account of other People whom this Woman had Afflicted; and there might have been many more, if ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... wickedly. The low, lascivious rascal has dared to seduce the honoured daughter of the House. Both are now harboured at the house of this Kyu[u]bei, who now makes report. Their lives are in the hand of Tamiya Dono. But Kyu[u]bei would make earnest plea for delay. O'Mino San being pregnant, the child would be sent from darkness to darkness—a terrible fate. May it be condescended to show the honoured mercy and benevolence. Evil and unfilial though the action of the ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... approaching the gates of the city. The hymns and prayers that followed seemed to have no importance. The hymns happened on that day to be familiar ones that Maggie had always known: "As pants the hart for cooling streams," "Just as I am, without one plea" and "Jerusalem the golden." These were sung, of course, slowly, badly and sentimentally, the harmonium screaming in amazing discords, and the deep and untuneful voices of some members of the congregation drowning the ladies and placing a general discord upon everything. ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... absent one, to show that this so-called warning of death has been followed up by fact. But, if you test her action by the theory I have just advanced, viz., that the man she called husband was at that moment in the room with us and that these words were a plea to him—the last appeal of a broken-hearted woman for the support she felt to be her due—how the atmosphere of unreason and mystery clears itself. His suggestion that what was needed there was an alienist, and the pitiful ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... the piazza, after ringing the door-bell, he was in greater trepidation than when he had made his first plea in court, and was so intent in trying to frame his thoughts into appropriate language that he did not note for the moment that no one answered. Again he rang, but there was no response. There were lights in the house, and he knocked upon ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... Then, again, her zealous maintenance of the doctrine and the rule of celibacy, which I recognized as Apostolic, and her faithful agreement with Antiquity in so many other points which were dear to me, was an argument as well as a plea in favour of the great Church of Rome. Thus I learned to have tender feelings towards her; but still my reason was not affected at all. My judgment was against her, when viewed as an institution, as truly as it ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... that modern women might take example from these little creatures," said Temperley, who, in common with many self-sufficient persons, was fond of recommending humility to others. "They never attempt to shirk their lowly tasks on the plea of higher vocations. Not one turns from the path marked out by our great Mother, who also teaches her human children the same lesson of patient duty; but, alas! by them is less ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... a moment entertained the thought of admitting this plea and letting the pleader go. But Ishmael was really too conscientious to suffer himself to be lured aside from the strict line of duty by any passing fancy ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... same year. It is a novel with a purpose, and accomplished its purpose because an artist's hand was necessary to paint the picture of East London that met with such a response as the People's Palace. The appeal to philanthropy was a new one. It was a plea for a little more of the pleasures and graces of life for the two million of people who inhabit the east end of the great city. It is not a picture of life in the lowest phases, where the scenes are as dramatic as in the highest ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... graceful it grew As is the wand that queen Titania wields. And, as I feasted on its fragrancy, I thought the garden-rose it far excell'd: But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me My sense with their deliciousness was spell'd: Soft voices had they, that with tender plea Whisper'd of peace, and truth, ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... many hundreds yearly, as may be seen by the French catalogues; but the writer has not so much to do with works political, philosophical, historical, metaphysical, scientifical, theological, as with those for which he has been putting forward a plea—novels, namely; on which he has expended a great deal of time and study. And passing from novels in general to French novels, let us confess, with much humiliation, that we borrow from these stories a great ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to the plea of the fiscal. Consequently, on the same day he despatched in due form a second decree in the king's name, ordering the superior prelate of our province, in consideration of the extreme necessity of the islands of Calamianes, to immediately establish the necessary ministers therein for ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... and antiquaries, it can well dispense with anything like an accurate description from a traveller who went thither, not to study, but to muse; so, putting in a plea, beforehand, for possible failures in observation and memory, I propose to myself nothing more than a re-indulgence of the reverie which took possession of me on my ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... absent himself to bestow upon her that professional care she so much requires. Nay, look not so incredulous. I am aware that the pretext is a meagre one, but I cannot at present think of a better; and in her enfeebled state she will not dwell upon the strangeness of the plea. Go on then, I entreat you, and desire Catherine to collect what you will want, while my men carry to the scow such articles of furniture as will be most useful to you in your new quarters. Quick, dear Maria, I implore you, there has already been too much time lost, and I expect every moment an ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... engaged in a prosecution, he discovered that his client's cause was not a good one, and he refused to make the plea. His associate, who was less scrupulous, made the plea and obtained a decision in their favor. The fee was nine hundred dollars, half of which was tendered to Mr. Lincoln, but he refused to accept a ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... that plea will avail us little," Raoul answered. "But say on, dearest Melanie, and believe that there is nothing you can ask which I will not give you gladly—even if it were my own life-blood. Say on, so shall we best arrive at the truth of this intricate ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... Even under the direful yoke of the necessity of daily poisoning by narcotics it is somewhat less horrible, through the knowledge that it was not from any craving for pleasurable animal excitement, but from pain, delusion, error, of the worst ignorance, medical sciolism, and when (alas! too late the plea of error was removed from my eyes,) from terror and utter perplexity and infirmity;—sinful infirmity, indeed, but yet not a wilful sinfulness that I brought my neck under it. Oh, may the God to whom I look for mercy through Christ, show mercy on the author ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... presume to dictate to you, but it certainly would get us out of a serious difficulty if your client pleaded guilty. I suppose you have carefully considered his case, and think it advisable that he should not withdraw his plea? ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 18, 1891 • Various
... of the above remarkable story, was hanged in the jailyard at A—— for the wilful and brutal murder of Doctor Ambrose Matthai, a retired practitioner of that place. The plea of insanity, so strongly urged by the prisoner's counsel, proved unavailing, and the condemned man paid the penalty for his ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... king. In reply the chiefs of the assembled throng expressed their willingness to 'assist his Majesty's troops in their operations.' Johnson and Brant then went on to Oswego, on the margin of the lake, where an even larger body heard their plea. Johnson prepared for the redskins a typical repast, and 'invited them to feast on a Bostonian.' The Indians avowed their willingness to fight for the king. Then, while the summer days were long, a flotilla of canoes, in which were many of the most renowned ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... Colonel Merrycourt preserved our brother's life after Naseby, but he had found a plea of service to the King which availed at the trial that followed at Westminster. Harry had managed to secure part of the estate, as he had likewise done for our other kindred the Thistlewoods, by getting appointed their guardian when their father was killed ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... executor of her husband's estate, formerly his partner in business, was about to deprive her of all the property that had been left to her for the maintenance of her family and the education of her children, under the plea that there were, in reality, no assets, after the settlement of ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... to the Princess. One day when he had ridden a great distance, he dismounted and sat down under a tree that grew beside a river. He took from his pocket a little book, in which he jotted down some happy thoughts that he meant to use in his plea to the Princess. Not far from where he sat, a golden carp was springing from the water to catch flies, and a bound too high landed it on the grass at Charming's feet. It panted helplessly, and would have died had he not taken pity on it and thrown it back into the river. It sank out of sight, ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... Gage, Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Lyttelton, signalized themselves nobly in defending the liberties of their fellow-subjects. Mr. Pitt having expressed a laudable indignation at such a large stride towards despotic power, in justification of which nothing could be urged but the plea of necessity, Mr. Horatio Walpole thought proper to attack him with some personal sarcasms. He reflected upon his youth: and observed that the discovery of truth was very little promoted by pompous diction and theatrical emotion. These insinuations exposed him to a severe reply. Mr. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... "He has, however, dared to come back, to incur that risk. Any plea he could hope to make," Lord Ronsdale spoke with studied deliberation, "to justify the act, he could not—substantiate." The speaker lingered on the word then went on more crisply. "He stands in the position ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... first call to the faithful on San Francisco Bay, in 1776. It was but a few months after the American colonists gave to wondering humanity their impassioned plea for a world's liberty—the immortal Declaration of the ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... beginning to shoot forth their bundles of well-dressed, well-fed folk into the many and various conveyances waiting to receive them. There was a good deal of needless shouting, and much banter between drivers and policemen. Now and again the melancholy whine of a beggar's plea struck a discordant note through the smooth-toned compliments and farewells of hosts and their departing guests. No hint of pause or repose was offered in the ever-changing scene of uneasy and impetuous excitation of movement, save where, far up in the clear depths of space, the glittering ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... other drunken characters, his drollery was irresistible. His intoxication displayed as much discrimination as his pathetic performances. Who can forget his stare in being detected in his fuddling as Dozey, and his plea for drinking to "wa-ash down your honour's health:" or his anti-polarity as Nipperkin, when his very legs seemed drunk beneath him; his attempt to set down the keg would stagger the disbelievers of perpetual motion. Again, who did not ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... head-quarters of those disciples who not only clung to the Mosaic law themselves, but wished to impose circumcision and the other precepts of the Old Dispensation on gentile converts. They yielded indeed to St. Peter's plea of special and Divine direction, when summoned to Jerusalem to answer for having eaten with men uncircumcised; nay, they even rejoiced in the prospect of the gathering in of the Gentiles; but they had yet to learn the temporary nature of the ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... reins were trailing loose and broken; his face was livid and he was yelling with sheer terror at the top of his voice. He was gone in a flash and I learned afterwards that within an hour of his arrival at the village, he put in his papers on some plea of urgency, and immediately went down country. Years afterwards I brought my wife to town to hear an afternoon lecture from Mr Bennett Burleigh, who was just back from one of his numerous campaigns. ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... weakness be a plea for yours? Mine was an age when love might be excused, When kindly warmth, and when my springing youth Made it a ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... the standard of rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives, and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on wrong.[90] The plea in extenuation of guilt and mitigation of punishment is perpetual. At every step we are met by arguments which go to excuse, to palliate, to confound right and wrong, and reduce the just man to the level of the reprobate. The men who plot to baffle and resist ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... anywhere else, a horse with a broken leg is at once deprived of life. All through the East, but especially in India, there is, as a rule, a kind consideration for animals that is in marked contrast to the treatment they so often receive in what we term more civilized countries. Under the plea of humanity we take the life of most ailing animals in the Western world, but not so in Bombay. Horses, donkeys, cows, cats, dogs, and monkeys, sick or injured by accident, will be at once taken into this establishment, on application, and kindly cared ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... he knows: "Where's Mamma?" So he begs us to disclose "Where's Mamma?" And it often seems to me, As I hear his anxious plea, That no sweeter ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... after day for the chance of seeing Laura for five minutes at a time. For her presence at dinner he would endure the long bore of the Senator's talk afterwards, while Laura was off at some assembly, or excused herself on the plea of fatigue. Now and then he accompanied her to some reception, and rarely, on off nights, he was blessed with her company in the parlor, when he sang, and was chatty and vivacious and performed a hundred little tricks of imitation and ventriloquism, ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... patent law requires the invention to be at work in France within two years, and when Morse arranged to erect a telegraph line on the St. Germain Railway, the Government declined to sanction it, on the plea that the telegraph ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... plea shall arise between a burgess and a merchant it must be determined before the third flowing of the sea"—that is, within three tides; a wise provision! For thus the merchant would not miss the last tide of the day after the quarrel. How living ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... excess. The prisoner, however, without appearing to take the trouble of listening to the indictment, pleaded guilty, and no representations on the part of the court availed to induce her to retract her plea. After much time had been wasted in a fruitless attempt to prevail upon her to reconsider her words, the court proceeded according to the usual form, to pass sentence. This having been done, the prisoner was about to be removed, when she said in ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... short time to his young daughter Jasmine, he went over and had a consultation with Mrs Macintyre. Mrs Macintyre agreed most eagerly to Jasmine's suggestion, and accordingly, two days after Meg had 'saved her immortal soul,' Leucha and Jasmine were excused lessons—Leucha on the plea of ill-health, Jasmine because she wished to ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... underlying discipleship are pleas for the petition to follow; for unless the feeble disciples are 'kept' in the name, as in a fortress, Christ's work of revelation is neutralised, the Father's gift to Him made of none effect, and the incipient disciples will not 'keep' His word. The plea is, in effect, 'Forsake not the works of thine own hands'; and, like all Christ's prayers, it has a promise in its depths, since God does not begin what He will not finish; and it has a warning, too, that we cannot keep ourselves ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... a measure, a plea for picturesque treatment of biography and of history; not by gaudy coloring and violent contrasts, striving after rhetorical effect, but in the observance of proportion, of grouping, of subordination to a central idea; not content with mere narration, however accurate in ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... had been for the exclusive benefit of the Church of England, more especially as the creation and endowment of parsonages and rectories—which are institutions peculiar to the Church of England—had been expressly provided for by the same Act. Such was the plea put forward on behalf of the Church of England. Dissenters took a different view. They argued that the term "Protestant Clergy" had been used in the Act in mere contradistinction to the clergy of the Church of Rome. They further urged that the limited construction sought to be ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... in his speaking also, began with timidity, and in many cases scarcely left off trembling and shaking when he had got thoroughly into the current and the substance of his speech. Being to defend Licinius Murena against the prosecution of Cato, and being eager to outdo Hortensius, who had made his plea with great applause, he took so little rest that night, and was so disordered with thought and over-watching, that he spoke much worse than usual. And so now, on quitting his litter to commence the cause of Milo, at the sight of Pompey, posted, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Our plea for the justice of the coming system will not convince any man who starts with the assertion that capital ought to have no return whatever, and that interest is robbery, and that the men who bring empty hands to the mill should take all the product of it. To most men's ...
— Social Justice Without Socialism • John Bates Clark
... of reason in this refusal. After having given loose to his indignation in the most violent invectives against the defunct, he took his leave of the complaisant heir, and had immediate recourse to the advice of counsel, who assured him that he had an excellent plea, and was accordingly retained in ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... should I plead his extraordinary merit. Would the plea remove the load of affliction with which I should overwhelm those who love me best? At present they think well, nay highly of me. I sometimes have the power to influence them to good. What power shall I have when they imagine I have disgraced ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... {32b} but he attacks them on the same principle—they are blemishes and not ornaments. No one more scrupulously respects a sound and shapely tree than Mr. Gladstone; and if he is prone to condemn those that show signs of decay, he is always ready to listen to any plea that may be advanced on their behalf by other members of the family. In this, as in other matters, doubtful points will of course arise; but there can be no question that a policy of inert conservatism is an entire mistake. Besides the natural growth and decay ...
— The Hawarden Visitors' Hand-Book - Revised Edition, 1890 • William Henry Gladstone
... for a week, then took a voyage to Madeira, where he remained until there was only time enough to get back for the opening of Parliament. The natural plea of shaken health excused him to his constituents, many of whom favoured him with their unsolicited correspondence. (He had three or four long letters from Mr. Chown, who thought it necessary to keep the borough member posted ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... I will tell the story. I have told it many times to myself. Such a straight story I shall tell. And they will believe. I will make them believe. And they will not hurt a girl much," she said, dropping back upon her native shrewdness to strengthen her plea. "The railroad does not care who killed Rogers. They want only to punish the young Whiting. And the court will believe, as I shall ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... above this scepter'd sway; 10 It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, Though justice be thy plea, consider this,— 15 That, in the course of justice, none of us Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy, And that same prayer doth teach us all to render ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... exactly the same with interest as with the undertaker's gains and with ground-rent: the guaranteed right of association saves the worker from the necessity of handing over a part of the proceeds of his production to a third person under any plea whatever. Interest disappears of itself, just like profit and rent, for the sole but sufficient reason that the freely associated worker is his own capitalist, as well as his own undertaker and landlord. Or, if one will put it so, interest, ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... very much of the ancient feudal baron of France and Germany, who, perched on castled eminence, looked down with the complacency of an eagle from his eyrie, and marked all below him for his own. The resemblance is good in all respects but one. The plea and justification of Marion are complete. His warfare was legitimate. He was no mountain robber,—no selfish and reckless ruler, thirsting for spoil and delighting inhumanly in blood. The love of liberty, the defence of country, the protection of the feeble, ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... more dreadful than the Gothic arms. An extraordinary supply of corn was imported from Sicily: the harvests of Campania and Tuscany were forcibly swept for the use of the city; and the rights of private property were infringed by the strong plea of the public safety. It might easily be foreseen that the enemy would intercept the aqueducts; and the cessation of the water-mills was the first inconvenience, which was speedily removed by mooring large vessels, and fixing mill-stones in the current of the river. The ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... we are landed into the province of a religion of spiritual life as a necessity in the affairs of the world and of the State. Eucken's great plea is that the civilised nations of the world should become aware of all this before it is too late to turn back—before the boat has reached too near the rapids to avoid disaster. The remedy is in our own hands. How to create the consciousness of the ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... as from me. It is clear that the Reform Bill must pass, either in this or in another Parliament. The majority of one does not appear to me, as it does to you, by any means inauspicious. We should perhaps have had a better plea for a dissolution if the majority had been the other way. But surely a dissolution under such circumstances would have been a most alarming thing. If there should be a dissolution now, there will not be that ferocity in the public mind which there would have been if the House ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... prevented by the doctor. At this moment he rose almost to the greatness which his associates claimed for him. Bitter as his feelings were at thus openly being defied and flouted, he refused to blind himself to the justness of the other's plea. He even acquiesced with a decent grace, although he refused—as Jim knew he would—to change ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... existence, and life is a struggle with environment. Freedom and liberty are terms of relative not absolute value. The absolutism of the commune is oppression refined, each man must dig even if he digs his own foot. The plea of the anarchist for liberty is more consistent than the plea of the communist,—the one does demand a wild, lawless freedom for individual initiative; the other demands the very refinement of interference with ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... United States, would be a new source of strength and power. Conforming my Administration to these principles, I have or no occasion lent support or toleration to unlawful expeditions set on foot upon the plea of republican propagandism or of national extension or aggrandizement. The necessity, however, of repressing such unlawful movements clearly indicates the duty which rests upon us of adapting our legislative action to the new circumstances of a decline of European monarchical power and influence ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson
... But many a plea has been received to "Tell us more about the —th," and at last the motion prevailed. Thackeray has said, "It is an unfair advantage which the novelist takes of the hero and heroine to say good-by to the two as soon as ever they are made ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... this speech went but a short way to deceive Atlee, who only read it as a plea for a higher price, it was his policy to seem to believe every word of it, and he looked a perfect picture of ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... "you see the state of this church. Concerning the cause of it I require none of you to judge. I enter no plea against any man. Another will judge, who said, 'Destroy this temple and in three days I will rear it up.' But He spake of the temple of His body; which was destroyed and is raised up; and its living and irrevocable triumph I, or some other servant of God, will celebrate at ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and plain, everyday honesty forbade his summary supplanting by another. Preciosa listened with lowered eyes,—eyes that once or twice slid down the stairs and rested upon the prepossessing young gentleman for whom this plea was made. She felt that she was trapped; Virgilia Jeffreys had set a snare for her once more. She was conscious of the sidelong glance out of Virgilia's narrow green eyes, and of Virgilia's sharp nose and vibrating nostrils and fine intent eyebrows; they were all at work upon her to subdue ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... excuses for them, as the case now standeth with them? Is there not every where in God's book a flat contradiction to this, in multitudes of promises, of invitations, of examples, and the like? Alas, alas! there will then be there millions of souls to confute this plea; ready, I say, to stand up, and say, O! deceived world, heaven swarms with such, as were, when they were in the world, to the ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... question arose out of a prosecution of Messrs. Hansard by one Stockdale, for the publication of a libel on himself in the Parliamentary Debates. Hansard pleaded the authority of Parliament, but the Court of Queen's Bench rejected the plea and gave judgement against Hansard. The House of Commons, on the motion of Lord John Russell, who was supported by Sir R. Peel, defended their printers, and committed the Sheriffs of London for levying damages on Hansard. Peel afterwards acknowledged that he had been misled by the advice of Sir ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Lord Tankerville and some other of the English borderers, made their request to Sir David Bennet, and the late Mr. Wauchope of Niddry, that they would accompany them at a riding of the Plea lands, who readily complied with their request. They were induced to this, as they understood that the Gypsies had taken offence, on the supposition that they might be circumscribed in the pasture for their shelties and asses, which they had held a long time, partly ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... graciously, but met all expressions of sympathy and indignation with laughing protests, and as soon as she could do so without appearing unappreciative, excused herself, upon the plea that she must look over a lesson before the retiring bell rang, and slipped away ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... passing through the Thebaid in his barge on the Nile, Cleomenes was wrecked, and one of his children bitten by a crocodile. On this plea, he called together the priests, probably of Crocodilopolis, where this animal was held sacred, and told them that he intended to revenge himself upon the crocodiles by having them all caught and killed; and he was only bought ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... universal alteration in the type of the young girl of former times may be imputed, first of all, to the mothers of the present generation." ...M. Marcel Prevost justifies his unpleasant discourse on the plea that modern education tends more and more to develop the type "demi-vierge," and that, if the education of the young girl be not greatly modified, ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... Mounted. MacGregor knows you pretty well, Bucky, and knows one or two things you've done, even though your whole record is not an open book to him. I don't believe he'll put any obstacles in the way of your discharge although your enlistment hasn't expired. Disability is an easy plea, you know. But if the inspector should think so much of you that he is loath to let you go, then M'sieur Janette and I will have to fix up the story for headquarters, and I don't mind telling you we'll add just ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... the Adventurer if he thought to ask her how, or by what means, she was in possession of the information that enabled her to communicate with him. But she must risk that—put him off, if necessary, through the plea of haste, and on the ground that there was not time to-night for an unnecessary word. He had given her, believing her to be Gypsy Nan, his telephone number, which she, in turn, was to transmit to the White Moll—in other words, herself! But the White Moll, so he believed, had never received that ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... walnut beds of the last generation. White painted metal beds came first, and will last always, but they weren't good enough for people of ostentatious tastes, and so the vulgar brass bed came to pass. Why we should suffer brass beds in our rooms, I don't know! The plea is that they are more sanitary than wooden ones. Hospitals must consider sanitation first, last, and always, and they use white iron beds. And why shouldn't white iron beds, which are modest and unassuming in appearance, serve for homes as well? The truth is that the glitter of brass appeals ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... two weeks of misery and suspense for all who loved Champney Googe, Octavius Buzzby was making up his mind on a certain subject. Now that it was fully made up, his knock on the library door sounded more like a challenge than a plea for admittance. ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... that may be, a professional man, employed by Lord Digby, estimated the value over and above the reserved rent at 30,600 l., which sum the new landlord proposed to put into his own pocket, by increasing the rent one-third. The plea for this sweeping confiscation was, that the late Lord Digby, cousin to the present, had only a life interest in the Irish estate, and therefore, the leases were all illegal and worthless. Accordingly ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... plea, lacking perhaps those subtilities of detail with which a Zorra man would have trimmed it, but good enough for a man who labored under the disadvantages which accrue to birth south of the Tweed and Tyne. But it did not stir ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... have been I do not know. But in his Mexican War experience he had at least learned every possible trick and device that could be resorted to in "playing off," as the boys called it; that is, avoiding duty on the plea of sickness or any other excuse that would serve. He was not a bad man, by any means, but a good-hearted old fellow. He had re-enlisted, along with the rest of us, when the regiment "veteranized." But his propensity for shirking duty, ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... figure was missing from the Manor household,—that of Edward Neville. Since the night at the Brilliant, when he had left the theatre so suddenly, and gone home on the plea of illness, he had never been quite the same man. He looked years older—he was strangely nervous and timid—and he shrank away from Thelma as though he were some guilty or tainted creature. Surprised at this, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... "A plea uttered through a veil is like an unsigned message. It partakes too much of the indefinite. Will you lift ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... went to work at the canoe, and waited till he should turn to me. When he did it was with a child's plea for pity, and the abjectness of his tone was horrible, coming from a man of his girth ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... the dignity of tragedy in other than royal and ducal circles. It may be said in explanation of this partiality for high rank that he was only following the custom of the dramatists of his time, but this is a poor plea for a man of great genius, whose business it is precisely to lead and not to follow. Nor is the explanation altogether accurate. In his play, the "Pinner of Wakefield," first printed in 1599, Robert Greene makes a hero, and a very stalwart one, of a mere pound-keeper, who proudly refuses ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... of Virgil in a right line." Father Le Moine with his "Saint Louis," and Scudery with his "Alaric" (for a godly king and a Gothic conqueror); and Chapelain would take it ill that his "Maid" should be refused a place with Helen and Lavinia. Spenser has a better plea for his "Faerie Queen," had his action been finished, or had been one; and Milton, if the devil had not been his hero instead of Adam; if the giant had not foiled the knight, and driven him out of his stronghold to wander through the world with ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... though natural enough it may be, must, nevertheless, be condemned by every law recognised among civilized nations. Even his observing these people engaged in feasting on the victims of their fury, much indeed as it would necessarily augment his abhorrence, could not be allowed a sufficient plea for his attacking them; because the principles which ought to govern the conduct of a member of such a society as he belonged to, are indiscriminately imperative in their nature, and do not allow any latitude of dispensation to an individual. The only thing that warrants the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... armistice and peace, he had high hopes that this intermediary would return with the result he desired. However things had gone too far for the allied sovereigns to treat with Napoleon, from whom such a plea denoted the weakness of his position. So, although unable to conquer us on the 16th, they hoped to overcome us by a renewed effort with their superior numbers, and relied heavily on the defection of the ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... set you right, Senor, and to avoid a miserable future for you. You remember the time when I was talking to you in this same banca and under the light of the same moon. It was a month ago, a few days more or less. Then you were happy. The plea of the unfortunates did not reach you. You disdained their complaints because they were complaints from criminals. You gave ear to their enemies, and, in spite of my reasons and pleas, you put yourself on the side of their oppressors. On you depended at that time whether I should turn ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... hand, had gone. There was no time for reproaches; they could very well keep for a more convenient season. Colonel De Bohun was in his dressing-room, preparing for dinner, when she rushed in without even a preliminary knock, and poured out her story with an urgent plea for haste. He quickly resumed his coat, and Marjorie had the satisfaction of seeing him take the work of rescue in hand at once. A couple of grooms were soon following them across the lawn, Marjorie leading, and as they ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... "Rogue, thy plea augments the offence. A crime committed on an extraordinary occasion becomes an extraordinary crime, and requires an extraordinary punishment, which I intend to see inflicted, forthwith. You have insulted ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... I pressed to accompany me as pilot to the Island of Disco, declined, under the plea that his wife was very ill, and that there was no one but himself to take care of the "piccaninny." Interested from such proper feeling in the man, Dr. P—— and I entered his winter abode, which he apologized for taking us to,—the illness of his "cara sposa" ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... which threatened him. Nessus and the Arab at once returned to the citadel. It was agreed that the former had better continue his work as usual until the evening, and then ask for his discharge on the plea that he had received a message requiring his presence in his native village, for it was thought that suspicion might be excited were he to leave suddenly without drawing his pay, and possibly a search might be instituted in the city to ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... at least whilst his state of mind remained what it then was, I would perish of starvation in a ditch. Then bewildered, stunned, and utterly crushed in spirit, I hastily excused myself to Courtenay upon the plea of having received distressing news from England, and, obeying the same impulse which impels a wounded animal to rush away and hide itself and its suffering in the deepest solitudes, I turned my back upon ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... to learn that the weasely Doctor was "fretished," which must be pretty nearly the same thing as perished with cold and hunger. The Abbot's plea for his monastery—surely one of the honestest letters ever written—sets in contrast the characters of the monastery and its visitor. He writes to Cromwell on ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... knew he had made an impression. As he had done at Stanislas when he wanted to soften some punishment inflicted by his master, so now he brought every argument to bear, one after another; but with how much more ardor he made this plea, for his future was at stake! He bewitched his hearer. And then suddenly he became a child again, ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... London cab-horse after his life of hardship and cruel sacrifice; there is room for the innocent lamb that goes to the slaughter; there is room in those realms of infinity for every bird of the air and every beast of the field that either the necessity (that tyrant's plea) or the ignorance of man has condemned to torture, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... if the city council puts up a plea that it is against the best interests of the city to grant the franchise, you'll find that except in most extraordinary cases, the courts regard it as against public policy to give judgment against a municipality, the State or the Government ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... in profound melancholy. Through the black weeks of January and February she scarcely left the house, and on the plea of illness refused to see any one but her brother. Between Christian and her there was no avowed confidence, but each knew the other's secret; their mutual affection never spoke itself in words, yet none the less it was indispensable to their lives. Deprived ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... is as accountable as the rest; for though a general, he is likewise a commissioner, acting under a superior authority. His first obedience is due to the act; and his plea of being a general, will not and cannot clear him as a commissioner, for that would suppose the crown, in its single capacity, to have a power of dispensing with an Act of Parliament. Your situation, gentlemen, is nice and critical, and the more so because England is unsettled. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... plea of innocence in the French missionaries, as to any instigation of the savages to hostilities against the English, we shall oppose the testimony of their own court, in the following words of the French ministry, in the very ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... to set his thatch on fire with the result that a whole village is burnt down. He is held responsible for the loss but when brought before the judge argues that the flame of his lamp was not the same as the flame that burnt down the village. Will such a plea be allowed? Certainly not. Or to take another metaphor. Suppose a man were to choose a young girl in marriage and after making a contract with her parents were to go away, waiting for her to grow up. Meanwhile another man comes and marries her. If ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... passes into the ownership of the new occupant, so that for the previous owner forcibly to resume it would be a violation of justice. English law does not recognise this right—properly enough, for with us it would be made a plea for much stealing—but refers the destitute to the parish. The law is considerately worked by the magistrates. A starving man, who took a loaf off a baker's tray, has been known to be sentenced to a few hours' imprisonment ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... become righteous. When seriously urged to act righteously, the sinful only act with hypocrisy, impelled by fear. They that are righteous among the Sudras never betake themselves to such hypocrisy under the plea that persons of the Sudra order are not permitted to live according to any of the four prescribed modes. I shall tell thee particularly what the duties truly are of the four orders. So far as their bodies are concerned, the individuals belonging to all the four orders have the five primal ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Though the Erinnys hunted Orestes in more than one play, yet no single Fury could, after all, be the heroine of tragedy. Penthesilea became in the crisis a pure Fury, and though she may find here her own defense, the play may not benefit by the same plea. On the other hand, the madness is less a reality than an impression of the Amazons who cannot understand the heroine's conflicting feelings. There is no one moment in the play when the hearer's sympathy for the heroine is destroyed by a ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... Fanny would also reawaken? Though she never spoke a word regarding that young person, after her conversation with the Major, and though, to all appearances, she utterly ignored Fanny's existence, yet Mrs. Pendennis kept a particularly close watch upon all Master Arthur's actions; on the plea of ill-health would scarcely let him out of her sight; and was especially anxious that he should be spared the trouble of all correspondence for the present at least. Very likely Arthur looked at his own letters with some tremor; very likely, as he received them at the family table, feeling ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... convinced, had persuaded himself—he has no marked ability or attractions of any kind that I can discern—that his duty impelled him to watch Madame with exceeding closeness of attention. That his strong inclinations marched with his duty may be allowed him as a privilege; the plea of duty was not, I believe, merely an excuse. But what can one say in defence of Madame, one who has stored within her little copper-covered head enough brains to furnish a brigade, say, of the Women's Emergency Corps? She had perceived that Rust was an English officer masquerading as a Frenchman, ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... The plea for mercy to the horse entered Caius' reason. The spirit-like laughter had in some mysterious way soothed his heart. He stood still, detaining O'Shea no longer, and dimly saw the horse and cart climb ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... DEAR FRIEND,—I owe you a long letter, but my late travels and the date of this epistle will be a tolerable plea for your indulgence. The truth is, I became very restless after the battle of Waterloo, and was only detained by the necessity of attending a friend's marriage, from setting off instantly for the Continent. At length, however, I got away to Brussels, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... type of mind. That type of religion cannot be right, regardless of its doctrinal orthodoxy, which produces a wrong type of men and women. But may not failure here be accounted for by the selfish basis on which men build the plea for ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... herself under the plea of duties at home; and Philothea, supposing it might be painful to meet her unfortunate lover in the presence of others, forebore to ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... arranged that I should attend Mittermayer's and others' lectures; to all of which I cheerfully assented. The next step was to give a grand supper in honour of my arrival. After the dinner and the wine, I drank twelve schoppens of beer, and then excused myself on the plea of having letters to write. I believe, however, that I forgot to write the letters. And here I may say, once for all, that having discovered that, if I had no gift for mathematics, I had a great natural talent for Rheinwein and lager, I did not ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... can't accept them on the plea of headache: it's gone, you see; but perhaps you will be so kind as to leave them all the same, for if there is one thing I like ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... really as much out of place in an English landscape as a Moorish palace or a Buddhist temple would be. All who know anything of landscape gardening know that it has been a fertile field for the growth and exemplification of false taste. Yet the plea of botanical interest, educational use, may be added to the attraction of rarity as a defence of all such cultivations as we find not only at Heligan and Mount Edgcumbe, but at Morrab Gardens and Tresco. Those of us who dislike them can keep away. But Heligan has a reputation also for genuine ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... aunt and thank yourself for kind inquiries after Letters for Literary Ladies. [Footnote: Published in 1795—an early plea in favour of female education.] I am sorry to say they are not as well as can be expected, nor are they likely to mend at present: when they are fit to be seen—if that happy time ever arrives—their first visit shall be to Black Castle. They are now disfigured ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... the West Indies,—the Papal donation, and the right of first discovery. Both are dismissed as absurd; and the document ends with an appeal to the common interests of Protestantism throughout Europe. Even the recent massacre of the Vaudois Protestants is brought into the plea. Thus:— ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... for a man to argue that he cut off a woman's hands out of kindness. Human beings are so incredulous, so apt to think evil, that such arguments somehow fail to carry conviction. I am fairly credulous myself, but even I decline to accept the plea. And I say that if your conduct was meant kindly, it is a pity that you weren't born cruel. Cruelty would have been better. Was it out of kindness that you refused to allow your youngest to acquire the skill to earn her own living? Was it out of kindness that you thwarted ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... in a better cause; Where virtue warrants, and where truth inspires: But injured truth, with brow invincible, Frowns stern reproof upon the false assertion, And contradicts it with the force of facts. From me you have appeal'd, ungrateful man! The laws, not I, must listen to your plea. Go, stand the test severe, abide the trial, And mourn, too late, the bounty you abused. [Exeunt ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... miserable state of the nation seemed to demand a volte face. Taxes were many and indirect. Let them be single and direct. Liberty of enterprise was shackled. Let it be free. State-regulation was excessive. Laissez-faire! Their economic plea for liberty is buttressed by an appeal to Nature, greater than kings or ministers, and by an assertion of the natural, inherent rights of man to be unimpeded in his freedom except so far as he infringes ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... evening, drawing toward bedtime. I am sitting with my back to the light, and have asked for a shade for the lamp, on the plea that the wind has cut my eyes—but, in spite of my precautions, I am well aware that the disfigurement of my face is still unmistakably evident to the most casual eye; and, from the anxious care with which Barbara ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... excused myself, on the plea of having already made my breakfast. "Hout, man," cried he, "a ride in the morning in the keen air of the Scotch hills is warrant enough for a second breakfast." I was accordingly whirled to the portal of the cottage, and in a few moments found ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... me because I failed to do so, and at her urgent solicitation the minister, after great exertion, secured a few signatures to a petition for my discharge on the plea that I chewed tobacco and expectorated on the floor in the presence of my class. As I easily proved that I never chewed tobacco, and as my patrons presented an overwhelming protest, the prayer of the petitioners was unanimously refused by the ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... may be fairly questioned whether these high authorities, were they living to-day, would not concur in the judgment of a more recent writer when he says—in language which, mutatis mutandis, applies to our own case: "The most weighty plea in favor of timely inquiry into the subject is that the process of revision is actually going on piecemeal, and with no very intelligent survey of the bearings as a preliminary to any one instalment. The New Lectionary of 1871, the Shortened Services Act, the debates in the Convocation of ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... At this curiously insistent plea for clemency the short, stocky bearded man who, to so few, had the bearing of a great general, faced Lieutenant Harris and gave him a look which made the young officer's bravery falter for a ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... from Washington Square to the Hotel Cosmopolis, and Archie made the journey without mishap. There was a little unpleasantness with the cabman before starting—he, on the prudish plea that he was a married man with a local reputation to keep up, declining at first to be seen in company with the masterpiece. But, on Archie giving a promise to keep the front of the picture away from the public gaze, he consented to take ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... she ignored the past as completely as it was possible to do; and she treated both Corey and Penelope with the justice which their innocence of voluntary offence deserved. It was a difficult part, and she kept away from them as much as she could. She had been easily excused, on a plea of fatigue from her journey, when Mr. and Mrs. Corey had called the day after her arrival, and Mrs. Lapham being still unwell, Penelope received ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... spiritual. The original story being in prose, no attempt could be made to keep original characteristics in verse-form. So "The Lovers of Gudrun" can stand on its own merits as an English poem; no excuses need be made for it on the plea ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... that none of them await on the court and afairs thereof without the advice and allowance of their Presbyterie. Item, that they intend no action civill without the said advice; except in small maters: and for remeding of the necessitie, that some Ministers hath to enter in plea of law, that remedie bee craved, that short processe bee devised, to bee used ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... his power, after having discharged, as far as his part was concerned, the duty of a husband, to quiet the longing for country and parents. To this the blandishments of the husbands were added, who excused what had been done on the plea of passion and love, a form of entreaty that works most successfully upon the ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... replied to Mrs. Meynell's proposal to abolish the dog—a proposal which Miss Guiney has the originality to call "original." Divested of its "literature," Miss Guiney's plea for the defendant consists, essentially, of the following assertions: (1) Dogs are whatever their masters are. (2) They bite only those who fear them. (3) Really vicious dogs are not found nearer than Constantinople. (4) Only ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... later. When asked where God was to be sought now that the Temple was destroyed, he replied, "In the great city of Rome" (Yer. Taanit, 69a). But the Rabbinical utterance had a very different meaning from the plea of Josephus.] ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich |
