"Culpable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... any of the keepers; and when I come to the Lighthouse, instead of having the satisfaction to meet them with approbation, it is distressing when one is obliged to put on a most angry countenance and demeanour; but from such culpable negligence as you have shown there is no avoiding it. I hold it as a fixed maxim that, when a man or a family put on a slovenly appearance in their houses, stairs, and lanterns, I always find their reflectors, burners, windows, and light in general, ill attended to; and, therefore, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... much mortified by the reception of Elinor's note, which, by showing the full consequence of his conduct, made it appear more culpable in his own eyes than he had yet been willing to believe it. He even wrote a second time, begging Elinor to re-consider her decision. Full as his fancy was of Jane, yet his regard, one might say his affection, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... the evidence; but when the case had reached the point of rendering the verdict, he directed a verdict of guilty. He thus denied a trial by jury to an accused party in his court; and either through malice, which we do not believe, or through ignorance, which in such a flagrant degree is equally culpable in a judge, he violated one of the most important provisions of the Constitution of the United States.... The privilege of polling the jury has been held to be an absolute right in this State and it ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... celebrated composer is discomposed easily by alert and nimble-footed mischief. And our professor of Greek and Hebrew roots is rooted to the ground with astonishment at finding himself put through all the moods and tenses of fun in a twinkling. Ah, culpable sirens, if the pangs ye have inflicted were reckoned up unto you,—the heart aches and side aches,—how ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... being pardoned by the King, he embarked for America, leaving his accomplices behind him to be tried. On the 11th of November he wrote: "The King, in his clemency, has ordered me taken to America;" he declared himself "keenly affected by the King's generosity," adding: "Certainly, we were all culpable towards the government in taking up arms against it, but the greatest culprit was myself;" and he concluded thus: "I was guilty towards the government, and the government has been generous to me."[1] He returned from America, and went to Switzerland, got himself appointed captain ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... That culpable and highly dangerous doctrine was not the only one of the same character with which the Jesuits poisoned the public morals in Europe. The system of ethics which they taught in their classes, and propounded ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... Jones, who was unmannerly enough to look pleased. I have also corresponded with the railway company, claiming damages on the grounds of culpable negligence. Unfortunately they require more evidence than I am prepared to supply of the reasonable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... fared little better. Among others, the marquis of Saluzzo, soon after reaching Genoa, was carried off by a fever, caused by his distress of mind. Sandricourt, too haughty to endure disgrace, laid violent hands on himself. Allegre, more culpable, but more courageous, survived to be reconciled with his sovereign, and to die a soldier's death on the field ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... English blunders during the Crimean War, we have made no mention of the desperate and disastrous "charge of the Light Brigade," the gross and culpable inefficiency of the Baltic fleet under Admiral Sir Charles Napier, and other instances of military incapacity no less monstrous. Enough, however, has been told to more than justify the very mild summing-up of Mr. Russell, that the "war had exposed the weakness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... must choose between two alternatives. Either they hold opinions which make it impossible that they should retain Orders in the Church of England, and yet be honest men; or they have expressed themselves with such culpable inaccuracy and ambiguity, as shews that they are altogether incompetent to handle the Science of Theology.—Gladly would one give them the benefit of a third alternative: but I see not ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... standing expression, while Judah is designated as treacherous, ver. 8-11. The measure of guilt is determined by the measure of grace. The relation of the Lord to Judah was closer, and hence, her apostacy was so much the more culpable. Farther—A detailed announcement of salvation for Judah would here not be suitable, inasmuch as no threatening preceded; and ver. 18 ("In those days, the house of Judah shall come by the side of [literally, ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... the guilty ones who were in these islands, and also those who had gone away after the death of the people, so that none remained uncaptured. Without any disturbance whatever, I beheaded seven of the authors of the rebellion, sons, nephews, and grandsons of the lords of this land. Others not so culpable I punished by exile to Nueva Espana and by other penalties, so that it now seems that this disturbance is quelled. After that, in the province of Cubu and in that called the Pintados, the chiefs held a conference, and plotted to kill the Spaniards. The majority of those ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... show, in his humorous way, that the inhabitants of Paris did not know that the sun gave light at its first rising. Whether they did know it or not—or whether or not they were culpable for their ignorance, provided it was voluntary—shall hold my readers to be as truly guilty of doing that wrong which is the result of their own voluntary ignorance, as if their minds were really enlightened. The young woman who goes to bed so late that she cannot wake ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... of this slave-driving was a constant trial to Bertha's nerves; now and then she ventured a mild protest, but only with the result of exciting her mother's indignation. In her mood of growing moral discontent, Bertha began to ask herself whether acquiescence in this sordid tyranny was not a culpable weakness, and one day early in the year—a wretched day of east-wind—when she saw Martha perched on an outer window-sill cleaning panes, she found the courage ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... of the Kingdom which Jesus came to establish on the earth? It is not God, but our selfishness that wills it; a selfishness that has its length of days and its malign power in the widespread folly and culpable ignorance that ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... courage to act on the conviction that inhumanity, however consecrated by superstition and priestcraft, has no permanent basis in popular sentiment. With the consent of his council, he prohibited "sati" absolutely, declaring that all who took any part in it should be held guilty of culpable homicide; and the native population acquiesced in ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... like swords. In Robert's mind there had arisen a sudden passion of antagonism. Before his eyes there was a vision of a child in a stifling room, struggling with mortal disease, imposed upon her, as he hotly reminded himself, by this man's culpable neglect. The dinner-party, the splendour of the room, the conversation, excited a kind of disgust in him. If it were not for Catherine's pale face opposite, he could hardly ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... civil way of indicating corrupt officials and thieves. Inflictors of severe punishments were looked upon as tyrants deserving of being put down. Heavy fines were at one time interdicted in England. Sahasapriya is a doer of rash deeds, such as culpable homicide not amounting to murder, to adopt the terminology of the Indian ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... that we have endured very patiently all this nightly disturbance. I have long been convinced, whatever may be the reason of your conduct, that you have not the control of your own actions at night; and I think we shall be very culpable if we conceal this matter longer from Mrs. Arlington; for, as you must now be convinced, the consequences may be fatal to yourself, or perhaps to others. You need not fear that Mrs. Arlington will dismiss you, but I think she will consult medical advice in your case, which most probably should ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... were among them, I doubt it not now, Samaritans who would have tended my bruised limbs; but then they all seemed to be gliding over the black ice, too happy to stay and lift up the fallen. And bruised though I was, I still rose time and again and moved painfully among them, so that theirs was no culpable ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... in the list, and the one who appeared to be most passionately enamoured of the beautiful Countess, and to receive the largest share of her regard, was Lord Roos; and as this culpable attachment and its consequences connect themselves intimately with our history we have been obliged to advert to them thus particularly. Lord Roos was a near relative of the Earl of Exeter; and although the infirm and gouty old peer had been excessively jealous of his lovely young wife on ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... effected in Leyden. Captain Nicholas de Maulde, who had recently so much distinguished himself in the defence of Sluys, was stationed with two companies of States' troops in the city. He had been much disgusted—not without reason—at the culpable negligence through which the courageous efforts of the Sluys garrison had been set at nought, and the place sacrificed, when it might so easily have been relieved; and he ascribed the whole of the guilt to Maurice, Hohenlo, and the States, although it could hardly ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... once had a present of a little money which was invested in it, and as soon as I heard of it, I immediately had it returned to the person from whom it came, and I made up the loss to my wife myself. Such, however, was the public excitement that his omission to do that was held in some quarters as culpable ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... I knew another sneak once who seemed to make a regular profession of this amiable propensity. He seemed to consider his path in life was to detect and inform on whatever, to his small mind, seemed a culpable offence. In the middle of school, all of a sudden his raspy voice would lift itself up in ejaculations like these, ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... governor now gave orders to the licentiate de la Gama to try the rest of the prisoners, and to punish them according to their deserts. De la Gama accordingly hanged several and beheaded others, to the number of forty of the most culpable, insomuch that in all about sixty were executed. Some others were banished, and the rest were pardoned, such of them as had settlements being allowed to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... by that failure of power from which there is no recovery, wantonly or carelessly to endanger it in the flower of its strength and beauty is a great folly and a great offense. Consider how deep our grief would have been, especially the grief of Yoletta, if this culpable disregard of your own safety and well-being had ended fatally, as it came so near ending! It is therefore just and righteous that an offense of such a nature should be recompensed; but it is a light offense, not like one committed against the house, or even against another person, and we also ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... own letters. Philip's loophole, Major Martin Hume thinks, was this: if Perez revealed the King's reasons for ordering the murder, they would appear as obsolete, at the date of the deed. Pedro alone would be culpable. In any case he ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... infancy I have not sought you out, and that chance alone has at last restored the long-lost child to her neglectful father. But you are so good and noble that I know you would not dwell upon such an idea, and I hope that you do not so misjudge me as to think me capable of such culpable neglect, now that you are getting a little better acquainted with me. As you must know, your mother, Cornelia, was excessively proud and high-spirited. She resented every affront, whether intended as such or not, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... may be their source; not to yield but to good arguments. Those who have thought so little of their own tranquillity as to do any more in academical elections than to give a silent and secret vote, will see on their part, in the noble and painful resistance of an honest man, how culpable they become in trying to substitute authority for persuasion, in wishing to subject ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... was in a certain degree responsible for this death; but the barber's apprentice, who was equally culpable, had ...
— Under the Liberty Tree - A Story of The 'Boston Massacre' • James Otis
... It pronounced them discreet if culpable; probably cold to the passion both. Of Dacier's coldness it had no doubt, and Diana's was presumed from her comical flights of speech. She was given to him because of the known failure of her other adorers. He in the front rank of politicians attracted her with the lustre of his ambition; she ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... begins with a conspiracy headed by Modred, Artus' nephew, against his uncle. Lancelot openly accuses him of treason, and the King sends to Merlin, for judgment. But alas, Merlin's love has already blinded his understanding; he fails to detect the culpable Modred, and declares that he is not able to find fault in him. King Artus and his knights depart to seek new laurels, leaving the country in Modred's hands. Merlin stays in his sanctum, to where the ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... obvious then that there is such a thing as the mind of London: and it is all the more culpable in me to have neglected it in as much as my editorial friend in New York had expressly mentioned it to me before I sailed. "What," said he, leaning far over his desk after his massive fashion and reaching out into the air, ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... and culpable expedients and varying fortunes, the great struggle for political freedom was conducted through the first thirty years of the nineteenth century, and it has been my interesting fortune to know some of the toughest of the combatants both among the leaders and in the rank-and-file. And from all of ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... this transaction. He acted in obedience to an impulse which he could not control nor resist. Shall we impute guilt where there is no design? Shall a man extract food for self-reproach from an action to which it is not enough to say that he was actuated by no culpable intention, but that he was swayed by no intention whatever? If consequences arise that cannot be foreseen, shall we find no refuge in the persuasion of our rectitude and of human frailty? Shall we deem ourselves criminal because we do not enjoy the attributes of Deity? Because ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... part of your harness, as that is the statute as well as the common law. By the statute law you would be liable to pay a fine of fifty dollars for each offence. And by the statute and common law, in case of a collision with another team, you would probably be held guilty of culpable negligence and made to pay heavy damages. Of course you would be allowed to show that the absence of bells on your team did not cause the accident or justify the negligence of the driver of the other team, but it would ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... Father," said Leo XIII. "Ah! rest assured that his heart is full of pity and affection for those who are unfortunate. But that is not the point, it is our holy religion which is in question. I have read your book, a bad book, I tell you so at once, the most dangerous and culpable of books, precisely on account of its qualities, the pages in which I myself felt interested. Yes, I was often fascinated, I should not have continued my perusal had I not felt carried away, transported by ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... I am writing hadn't a rope (as the sailors said) strong enough to hang a cat with, and it was in consequence of this most culpable neglect that the throat halyards of the fore trysail gaff broke soon after sailing. The gaff came down with a run, and it, together with the sail, was put into a long boat which stood on the chocks over the main hatches. Paradoxical ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... director, to deprive me at once of my office. On account of this I thought it necessary to write to the monarch personally, in order to explain to him that my action was to be regarded more in the light of a thoughtless indiscretion than as a culpable offence. I sent this letter to Herr von Luttichau, begging him to deliver it to the King, and to arrange at the same time a short leave for me, so that the provoking disturbance should have a chance of dying down during my absence from Dresden. The striking kindness ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... writing has long been exploded as an excuse for an author;—however, in the dramatic line, it may happen, that both an author and a manager may wish to fill a chasm in the entertainment of the public with a hastiness not altogether culpable. The season was advanced when I first put the play into Mr. Harris's hands: it was at that time at least double the length of any acting comedy. I profited by his judgment and experience in the curtailing of it—till, I believe, his feeling for the vanity of a young author got the better of ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... whom Ferris gave an account of this trial as they set out again on their long-hindered return, had no mind save for the magical effect of his consular quality upon the commissary, and accused him of a vain and culpable modesty. ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... malevolent &c 907; heartless, graceless, shameless, virtueless; abandoned, lost to virtue; unconscionable; sunk in iniquity, lost in iniquity, steeped in iniquity. incorrigible, irreclaimable, obdurate, reprobate, past praying for; culpable, reprehensible &c (guilty) 947. unjustifiable; indefensible, inexcusable; inexpiable, unpardonable, irremissible^. weak, frail, lax, infirm, imperfect; indiscrete; demoralizing, degrading. Adv. wrong; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... dear." There was genuine regret for such culpable carelessness in his voice. "How ever did I forget it?" He drew her closer in his embrace for a brief caress. Then, after a little, his natural buoyancy reasserted itself, and he spoke with a mischievousness that would, he hoped, serve to stimulate ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... of prodigal expenditure and culpable waste that I was to practise thrift: a fundamental in life! And it is into this atmosphere that the foreign-born comes now, with every inducement to spend and no encouragement to save. For as it was in the days of my boyhood, so it is ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... CULPABLE.—Live with the culpable, and you will be very likely to die with the criminal. Bad company is like a nail driven into a post, which after the first or second blow, may be drawn out with little difficulty; ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... too much to reply to his passionate entreaties; and Hector, who never swerved from the truth, for which he had almost a stern reverence, hardly repressed his indignation at what appeared to him a most culpable act of deceit on the part ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... were enforced with great acuteness, and were so powerful as almost to convince Hastings himself that he was a guilty man. "For half an hour," said the accused, "I looked up at the orator in a reverie of wonder; and, during that space, I actually felt myself the most culpable man on earth; but I recurred to my own bosom, and there found a consciousness that consoled me under all I heard and all I suffered." The excitement which was produced by Burke's speech operated upon all that heard him; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... or wound his own honour or his mother's pure heart. The threat that he would return was uttered in a moment of exasperation, of which he repented. He never would see her again. But his mother said yes he should; and it was she who had been proud and culpable—and she would like to give Fanny Bolton something—and she begged her dear boy's pardon for opening the letter—and she would write to the young girl, if,—if she had time. Poor thing! was it not natural that she should love ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and to direct a plan for ulterior movements. Had there been room for a persuasion that the laws were secure from obstruction; that the civil magistrate was able to bring to justice such of the most culpable as have not embraced the proffered terms of amnesty, and may be deemed fit objects of example; that the friends to peace and good government were not in need of that aid and countenance which they ought always to receive, and, I trust, ever will receive, against ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George Washington • George Washington
... account is trustworthy there is no longer any room for doubt of the Chinese or Japanese derivation of this composite creature. If the account is not accepted we will be driven, not only to attribute to the pious seventeenth-century missionary serious dishonesty or culpable gullibility, but also to credit him with a remarkably precise knowledge of Mongolian archaeology. When Algonkin legends are recalled, however, I think we are bound to accept the missionary's account ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... another's property differs from petty thieving—a distinction which the owner can scarcely be expected to understand. Those who write their names, defacing objects of beauty with their vainglorious smudges and scribblings, are scarcely less culpable. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... delicate organisation, her more vivid emotions, her more voluble fancy, as well as her mere physical weakness and weariness, have been to her, in all ages, a special source of temptation; which it is to her honour that she has resisted so much better than the physically stronger, and therefore more culpable, man. ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... prosecution; in the case of a number of other boys and girls who were concerned in the affair, no prosecution could take place. Ultimately, all the accused were discharged, as it was held that when the offence was committed they did not possess the requisite understanding of its culpable character. But by order of the court several of the accused were transferred to a reformatory. Since a prosecution may take place in such cases, a conviction is also possible. It is evident that as soon as a child is twelve years old, it ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... girl reared like yourself in affluence under your mother's eye, this strange conduct appears culpable and indelicate; but remember, that with me it is the natural result of the sad life I have led for the last three years; this disguise, that I reassume from fancy, was then worn from necessity, and I have earned the right of borrowing it a little while longer from misfortune ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... to some expression of public opinion; and that opinion has to be formed before it can be expressed. In the reign of force which now prevails throughout Europe, carelessness as to our power of defence is culpable beyond possibility of exaggeration, for we may have to defend not only our individual interests as a nation, but all that enormous influence for the good of mankind which is at present exercised in the remotest parts ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... delightful drama is a genuine jealousy of disposition, and it should be immediately followed by the perusal of Othello, which is the direct contrast of it in every particular. For jealousy is a vice of the mind, a culpable tendency of the temper, having certain well-known and well-defined effects and concomitants, all of which are visible in Leontes, and, I boldly say, not one of which marks its presence in Othello;—such as, first, an excitability by the most inadequate causes, and an eagerness to ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... supplications she obtained forgiveness and the nurseryman—I have already mentioned that he was a philosopher,—consented to take her back, the return to her own home bore all the mysterious and dramatic aspect of flight. She literally eloped with her husband. It was her last culpable pleasure. One evening as the poet, tired of their dual existence, and proud of his regrown moustaches, had gone to an evening party to recite his Credo of Love, she jumped into a cab that was awaiting her at the end of the ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... begged to be absolved in their houses, but the archbishop refused, saying that since the scandal had been public, the absolution also must be so. However, absolution was given in his house to one who was sick and who was less culpable; as well as to another by the influence of the Dominicans, who obtained that it be given ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... with the culpable, and you will be very likely to die with the criminal. Bad company is like a nail driven into a post, which after the first or second blow, may be drawn out with little difficulty; but being once driven in up to the ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... says [*Moral. xxxiii. 12] "the sins of the flesh," which are comprised under the head of intemperance, although less culpable, are more disgraceful. The reason is that culpability is measured by inordinateness in respect of the end, while disgrace regards shamefulness, which depends chiefly on the unbecomingness of the sin in ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... over to Dr. Beswick's side of the question, and she saw her success in some cases as the mere effect on the nervous system. In the bitterness of something like despair she thought herself a deluded and culpable enthusiast, worthy of ridicule, of contempt, of condemnation. There were no longer any oscillations of her mind toward the old belief; the foundations of sand had been swept away, and there was no space to make a reconstruction. Scarcely could she pray; unbelief tardily admitted threatened ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... take care, and adults will take care in their own interest. But the gentlemen who write the report are bourgeois, and so they must contradict themselves and bring up later all sorts of bosh on the subject of the culpable temerity ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... possibly might not be found till the world expire at the general conflagration. My imposing, therefore, on the publick in general, instead of a few obstinate persons, for whose sake alone the stratagem was designed, is the only thing culpable in my conduct, for which again I most humbly ask pardon: and that this, and this only, was, as no other could be, my design, no one, I think, can doubt, from the account I have just now given; and whether that was so criminal, as it has been ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... exculpate his enmity against God, and opposition to his law and gospel. To suppose his enmity and opposition to be the effect of divine influence, is to excuse them. Blame rests with the efficient. The creature cannot be culpable, because he is what God made him; or while he remains what he was made of God. To denominate either temper or conduct morally good or evil, consent is necessary, to suppose consent, in the creature, to be the effect of almighty power operating upon it, nullifies it to the creature, in a moral ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... citizen; his sentence is pronounced with a voice almost unanimous; the public indignation, roused by fanaticism, stirred up by imposture, renders it impossible for him to be heard in his defence; every one believes himself culpable, if he does not exhibit his fury against him; if he does not display his zeal in hunting him down; it is by such means man seeks to gain the favor of the angry gods, whose wrath is supposed to be provoked. Thus the individual who consults his reason, the ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... should "be subject to no supervision except by the usual board of visitors and the general commanding the army." This offensive action arose not simply from ignorance of General Sherman's promise, of which the adjutant-general and the Secretary of War had evidently not been informed, but from culpable ignorance of the academic regulations on the part of the adjutant-general, and still more culpable disregard of the invariable rule of courtesy enjoined by military law among military men. With no little difficulty I restrained my indignation so far as to write a calm and ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... investigation for the last fifteen years, and from the extensive theatre, in which his inquiries were conducted, has had the best opportunities of arriving at the truth. He, therefore, who undertakes the management of these affections, may be justly pronounced culpable, if he neglect to make himself acquainted with the ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... will ever care to receive them or their visits again. Even Gladys, their adored Gladys, will give them one cold glance of scorn and turn her back. It was hard, certainly, not to be able to include Gladys in the impending doom. But, after all, Katherine and Alice were the more culpable, for had they not cast aside all feelings of sisterly relationship? Let them, then, bear the brunt ...
— The Hickory Limb • Parker Fillmore
... past, yet impervious to the poetry of things present. But this retrograde movement in the poet, painter, or sculptor (except in certain cases as will subsequently appear), if not the result of necessity, is an error in judgment or a culpable dishonesty. For why should he not acknowledge the source of his inspiration, that others may drink of the same spring with himself; and perhaps drink deeper and a clearer draught?—For the water is unebbing ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... existed in the cabinet, and that their plans were conceived in ignorance and executed in imbecility. At the same time he inveighed against the disgraceful servility of parliament, and concluded by remarking that none would object to inquiry but those who were culpable themselves. Unable to resist his reasoning, ministers attempted to elude it, but their arguments rather weakened than strengthened their cause. Lord North, indeed, candidly admitted that some of his plans had miscarried; arguing, in extenuation of their failure, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... great feare I rode through many Outwayes and desart places, and as culpable of the death of Socrates, I forsooke my countrey, my wife, and my children, and came to Etolia where I married ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... came up, closely followed by THAYER, (of Nebraska,) who observed that his constituents had the most rooted objection to being scalped, and that they did not even contemplate with pleasure the prospect of having their horses stolen or their habitations burned down. These feelings were perhaps culpable, but certainly natural, and he wished the Senate would consider them, if it had any sensibilities to spare from the wrongs of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various
... miles north-east amongst the reefs, from 33 into 28 fathoms; where it had again caught. This change of place had not been perceived; and it was difficult, from the circumstance having occurred at the relief of the watch, to discover with whom the culpable inattention lay; but it might have been attended with ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... herein contained was wholly inexcusable. The latter country was in no position to refuse terms, and an absolute reservation of all fishing rights should have been insisted on in the interests of the colony. A culpable Ministry, short-sightedly regarding Newfoundland as little more than a fishing-station, chose rather to make a graceful concession, and we inherited the consequences in our Newfoundland Fisheries controversy with France, which lasted ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... a juncture [a rebellion], though a man may be innocent of the great breach which is made upon government, he is highly culpable, if he does not use all the means that are suitable to his station for reducing the community into its former state of peace and good order.—Swift. He speaks at his ease, but those who are ill used will be apt to apply what the boy said to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... I'll pick up that phrase and carry it to your camp. I have as much moral right as Donnelly, who, if he hasn't been caught, is none the less culpable for breaking his oath of loyalty. You know this as well ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... well aimed, and Bassett blinked, but he felt that he must exercise his parental authority. If he had been culpable in neglecting Blackford he could still take a hand in ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... study of the history of Christian Gaul, and particularly of that glorious Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, whence issued forth those King-Monks who founded our national dynasty. Now, despite the culpable insufficiency of the description given, it was evident to me that the MS. of the Clerk Alexander must have come from the great Abbey. Everything proved this fact. All the legends added by the translator related to the ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... then, in spite of ourselves, we must, in these subjects, become our own instructors. If, in a few years after we have left the school, we possess not a respectable knowledge of such common, and easily acquired subjects, as arithmetic, history, and geography, we alone are culpable; and the more the world makes us sensible of our deficiency, the more we deserve it, and the sooner we shall set about to apply the remedy. Teach us, then, in boyhood, that which we will not, or in this ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... is more rational to conclude that this is a pledge of her indestructible personality, God's impregnable defence reared around the citadel of her being, than to consider it the artificial rampart flung up by an insurgent egotism. In like manner, it is a misrepresentation of the facts to assert the culpable selfishness of the faith in a future life as a demanded reward for fidelity and merit here. No one demands immortality as pay for acquired desert. It is modestly looked for as a free boon from the God who freely gave the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... I; 'but if the governor invites the enemy, there he is justly culpable. And such is always the case with those who embrace error. The vice does not lie in assenting to the proofs they see; but in being blind to many of the proofs that offer. So that, though our erroneous ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... inadequate. The prelates were in great part non-residents, and could not from a distance narrowly watch the progress of the objectionable tenets in their dioceses. One or two of their number were accused of culpable sluggishness, if not of indifference or something worse. The question naturally arose, What new and more ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... is, that so large a portion of those who hold much capital, instead of using their various advantages for the greatest good of those around them, employ them for mere selfish indulgences; thus inflicting as much mischief on themselves as results to others from their culpable neglect. A great portion of the rich seem to be acting on the principle that the more God bestows on them the less are they under obligation to practice any self-denial in fulfilling his benevolent plan of raising our race to intelligence ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... more detestation than I have for the quack that patters in the presence of trained skill; but from what I have seen and known of mission life, both in myself and others, since coming to North China, I think it is a little less than culpable homicide to deny a little hospital training to men who may have to pass weeks and months of their lives in places where they themselves, or those about them, may sicken and die from curable diseases before the ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... one which is committed from sudden impulse, though not wholly involuntary, bears the image of the involuntary, and is therefore the more excusable of the two, and should receive a gentler punishment. The act of him who nurses his wrath is more voluntary, and therefore more culpable. The degree of culpability depends on the presence or absence of intention, to which the degree of punishment should correspond. For the first kind of murder, that which is done on a momentary impulse, let two years' exile be the penalty; for the second, that ...
— Laws • Plato
... affirmative. He replied, "He is a very honest fellow." I told him I saw all the finesse of a tradesman about him. "Oh, rejoined my friend, a man has a right to say all he can in favour of his own goods." Nor is the seller alone culpable. The buyer takes an equal share in the deception. Though neither of them speak their sentiments, they well understand each other. Whilst the treaty is agitating, the profit of the tradesman vanishes, ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... of Christ in the use of the Lord's Supper, but not "the division or separation of the body and blood." (C. R. 3, 610.) Shortly before his death, as related in a previous chapter, Luther had charged these men with culpable silence with regard to the truth, declaring: "If you believe as you speak in my presence then speak the same way in church, in public lectures, in sermons, and in private discussions, and strengthen your brethren, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... MORALITY.—What are the sanctions of morality? They are necessary sanctions; just as everything is necessary and may even be said to be mechanical. There is neither merit nor demerit and the criminal is not culpable; only he is outside order, and everything must be in order. "He who is maddened by the bite of a mad dog is certainly innocent; yet anyone has the right to suffocate him. In the same way, the man who cannot govern his passions by fear of the law is a very excusable invalid; yet he cannot ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... the reader will lose patience with my habit of constantly referring to the landscape of Italy as if that were the measure of the beauty of every other. Yet I am still more afraid that I cannot apologise for it, and must leave it in its culpable nakedness. It is an idle habit; but the reader will long since have discovered that this was an idle journey and that I give my impressions as they came to me. It came to me, then, that in all this view there was something ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... I admit I was most culpable, sir," he said. "But when I looked in my desk for a blank, I found that I had none. Every day I intended going to the Prefecture to get a new supply, but every day something occurred to prevent me. And then came ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... gained, and of the glory which would doubtless recompense his bravery if he carried out the expedition which he had arranged. Thus the conquest of Peru was retarded by at least twenty-five years, owing to the culpable jealousy of a man whose name has acquired, by Balboa's assassination, almost as wretched a celebrity as ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... be laid down as an axiom, that it is more easy to take away superfluities than to supply defects; and therefore, he that is culpable, because he has passed the middle point of virtue, is always accounted a fairer object of hope, than he who fails by falling short. The one has all that perfection requires, and more, but the excess may be easily retrenched; the other wants the qualities requisite to ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... said I, "is my title to this money? By retaining it, shall I not be as culpable as Welbeck? It came into his possession, as it came into mine, without a crime; but my knowledge of the true proprietor is equally certain, and the claims of the unfortunate stranger are as valid as ever. Indeed, if utility, and not law, be the measure of justice, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... and conviction have a heavy burden of bloodguiltiness to bear. But the Judges were less culpable than their lay colleagues and the Crown counsel; the whole bench of Commissioners and the Bar than the jury; the jury than the King, his Ministers, and courtiers. Sir John Hawles, afterwards Solicitor-General, in a printed ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... is useless for you to excite yourself. As far as personal danger goes, I am willing to share it with you, to take half the fault of this unfortunate accident, and to avow that as we were engaged together in the act that led to it we are equally culpable of ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... left judicial stations under the United States to aid the Rebellion." They were held to be specially culpable because they had been highly honored by their Government, and because they could not, like many, plead in excuse the excitement and antagonisms which spring from an active ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... that synod, he stood up in a menacing posture to outbrave the preacher. But Mr. Row no way dismayed, knowing what vices Scoon was chargeable with, particularly that he was a great belly-god, drew his picture so like the life, and condemned what was culpable in it with so much severity, that Scoon thought fit to sit down, and even to cover his face. After which Mr. Row proceeded to prove that no constant moderator ought to be suffered in the church, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... his best days, he was fond of assuming. It is remarkable, that, instead of informing me of these circumstances, that I might have had the relative of my late wife taken such care of as his calamitous condition required, Mr. Ratcliffe seems to have had such culpable indulgence for his irregular plans as to promise and even swear secrecy concerning them. He visited Sir Edward often, and assisted in the fantastic task he had taken upon him of constructing a hermitage. Nothing they appear to have ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... in some instances it would be a duty to prosecute, if only as a protection from suspicion of upright persons. But there are exceptional cases, and I consider this to be one of them, although perhaps many of our leading citizens might think me culpable in my clemency; but I think I know your nephew sufficiently well to be warranted in the belief that he feels his criminality, and will take a lasting warning from this circumstance. And now, what do you intend to do, ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... the shuffling, long-armed, dwarfed and crippled creature was, at first utterly incredible, then portentous, then, by virtue of its very monstrosity, absorbing and, to her, adorable, whetting appetite as veritable famine might. Chastity became to her more than ever absurd, a culpable waste of her own loveliness, of sensation, of emotion, a sin against those vernal influences working in this generous nature surrounding her and working in her own blood. All the primitive instinct of her womanhood called aloud in her that she ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... injury to the good, inasmuch as it takes away the freshness of rhymes, blunders upon and gives a wretched commonalty to good thoughts; and, in general, adds to the weight of human weariness in a most woful and culpable manner. There are few thoughts likely to come across ordinary men, which have not already been expressed by greater men in the best possible way; and it is a wiser, more generous, more noble thing to remember and point out the perfect words, than to invent poorer ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... MAGISTRACY. All other branches of the Government, having in themselves no coercive power, must, from the supreme executive downwards, in cases of irreconcilable clashing of interests, have ultimate recourse to the magisterial jurisdiction. Putting aside, then, whatever culpable remissness may have been manifested by magistrates in favour of powerful malfeasants, we would submit that the fact of stipendiary justices converting the tremendous, far-reaching powers which they wield into an engine of systematic oppression, ought to dim by many a shade the ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... interred in the collegiate church of Loches in Touraine. Upon her monument at Jumieges was originally placed her effigy, in the act of offering her heart to the Virgin. But this statue was destroyed by the Huguenots, who are said to have been guilty of the most culpable excesses in this monastery. Agnes' tomb remained till the revolution, when it was swept away with all the rest, and, among others, with one of great historical curiosity in the neighbouring church dedicated to St. Peter; for the convent of Jumieges contained two churches, the larger ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... after every wish was gratified; blessed in the affections of the most generous man as a husband, what could induce me to commit such a crime? Depraved indeed must that mind be that under such circumstances could be so culpable. ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... and jealousy of generals of the Union army cannot now be doubted. We know why Porter withheld the largest and freshest corps in the command from the fights, while its eleven thousand men were within sight of the battles; but why was the Sixth corps delayed? Some one was equally culpable with Porter. Was it worse to keep a corps out of the fight, when on the field, than to keep another corps off from the field altogether without any good reason? There can be but one question—who was responsible for the criminal neglect to send the Sixth corps ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... space of the twenty-four hours, that preceded and followed the Emperor's departure, the committee had to repel, and did repel, the instigations more or less culpable of the minister at war, the general in chief of the army, and the president of ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... matter. Why has she never thought of it before? Here all these years has she been going about blaming her poor old father; her mother for dying too soon; the remarkable circumstances attending her girlhood; that dear old stupid husband she thought was hers; and all the while the really culpable party has been existing unsuspected under her very nose. She clears away the furniture a bit, and tells Society exactly what she thinks of it—she is always good at that, telling people what she thinks of them. Other people's failings do not ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... herdsman of Mr. Bryan, was convicted of cattle-stealing (1833), and sentenced to death. The police magistrate, Mr. Lyttleton, who committed him for trial, alleged against his master a culpable incaution, and Judge Montagu uttered a severe censure from the bench on the same account. Mr. Lyttleton, on going outside the court, addressed several gentlemen, of whom Mr. Dry was one. He remarked, that though the man was sentenced to die, ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... which such a government could exercise upon so delicate a framework as that of credit. He discovered it afterwards to his cost, but in the mean time suffered himself to be impelled by the Regent into courses which his own reason must have disapproved. With a weakness most culpable, he lent his aid in inundating the country with paper money, which, based upon no solid foundation, was sure to fall, sooner or later. The extraordinary present fortune dazzled his eyes, and prevented him from seeing the evil day that would burst over his head, when once, from any ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... by young Englishmen, and his genius is so much revered by them that they do not admit that he is equalled by any contemporary poet or likely to be surpassed by those who follow. No doubt, therefore, England now-a-days only prefers what formerly she used to exact from her poets. Moore's culpable timidities and Macaulay's declamatory exaggerations must, at least, be looked upon as weaknesses of character, which would have been disowned by themselves, had they lived long enough to witness ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... were on the pavement, she said: "We must bid each other good-bye; I cannot meet you again after what has happened." "But why?" he asked. "Because I cannot; I have been culpable, and I will not ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... the way to Rome. For, according to Catholic doctrine, outside of the Roman Church there is no salvation; to enter it, to rest in it, to be led by it is the highest interest and first duty of man; it is the unique and infallible guide; all acts that it condemns are culpable, and not only private acts, but likewise all public acts; the sovereign who commits them may, as an individual, be Catholic by profession and even loyal at heart; but, as a ruler, he is disloyal, he has lost his semi-ecclesiastic character, he has ceased to be "the exterior bishop," ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... agree with me. Take yourself for instance, or rather, let us take your predecessor. He was a good man, all say who knew him well, and with time and study he might have proved himself a great man. But if ever a man's life was a struggle for the bare necessaries of life, his was, and the culpable neglect of the people in the regular payment of his very small salary was the cause of his leaving them at last. He has since gone West, I hear, to a happier lot, let us hope. The circumstances of his predecessor were no better. He died here, and his wife broke down in a vain effort to ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... feel pained with the fact, so little to the credit of the Church of the West, that, of our sympathy it has little or none. This is largely due to our ignorance. But is ignorance in many cases not culpable? Is it not so in our case? A little more acquaintance with the Eastern Church would vastly alter our attitude towards it, and speedily remove most ...
— Hymns from the East - Being Centos and Suggestions from the Office Books of the - Holy Eastern Church • John Brownlie
... friends, no longer any support; she weeps in her poor deserted house, abandoned by all those who besieged its doors in the hour of prosperity; she has neither credit nor hope left. At least, the unhappy wretch upon whom your anger falls, receives from you, however culpable he may be, the daily bread which is moistened by his tears. As much afflicted, more destitute than her husband, Madame Fouquet—she who had the honor to receive your majesty at her table—Madame Fouquet, the wife of the ancient surintendant ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... reaching this advanced position at all, as they had been shelled from the front by the enemy, and from the left by their own batteries. Accidents such as this often happened, and the artillery were not really as culpable as would at first sight appear. Advanced-guard actions materialised so suddenly, and situations changed so quickly, that it was not always possible to circulate precise orders. The gunners' ideas of the relative positions seemed to be, during the opening stages of the ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... extreme indigence, and neglecting the means of relieving it. But at the Friendly and other islands which we visited, the thefts, so frequently committed by the natives, of what we had brought along with us, may be fairly traced to less culpable motives. They seemed to arise solely from an intense curiosity or desire to possess something which they had not been accustomed to before, and belonging to a sort of people so different from themselves. And, perhaps, if it were possible, ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... of advice which helped me out of my trouble, and for which I shall always have reason to bless him. I admit that the expedient at first appeared to me sinful; but he assured me, and proved to me out of the casuists, that a little fasting and penance would do away with all that was culpable ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... small a compass as one hundred and seventeen pages, for that is the extent of the work, except as regards the notes, which amount to seventy-four pages more. Such brevity, on such a subject, is unseasonable, and almost culpable. On such a subject as the Philosophy of Protestantism—'satius erat silere, quam parcius, dicere.' Better were absolute silence, more respectful as regards the theme, less tantalizing as regards the reader, than a style of discussion so fragmentary ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... improprieties as the effects of that excess only, and not as arising from any radical vice in his temper or disposition. When a man is bereft of his judgment by the influence of wine, and commits any crime, he can only be said to be morally culpable, in proportion to the impropriety of the excess he has committed, and not in proportion to the magnitude of its evil consequences. In a legal view, indeed, a man must be held as answerable and punishable for such a crime, precisely as if he had been in a state of sobriety; but his crime is, in ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... the offices of General Clavering to be vacant, were not only illegal, inasmuch as the said Warren Hastings had no authority to warrant such a declaration, even on the supposition of the acts of General Clavering being contrary to law, but the said resolutions were further highly culpable and criminal, inasmuch as the said acts done by General Clavering, which were made the pretence of that proceeding, were strictly regular ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... consumed," replied Tom, "in London is comparatively small, fish being excessively dear in general: and this is perhaps the most culpable defect in the supply of the capital, considering that the rivers of Great Britain and the seas round her coast teem with that food.—There are on an average about 2500 cargoes of fish, of 40 tons each, brought to Billingsgate, and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... prince of the royal family is exiled. It is asked in vain, What crime has he committed? If the Duke of Orleans is culpable, we are all so. It was worthy of the first prince of your blood to represent to your majesty that you were changing the sitting into a lit de justice. If exile be the reward for fidelity in princes, we may ask ourselves, with terror and with grief, ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... Sir J. Malcolm a letter with some enclosures about suttees. He has reluctantly and fearfully abolished suttee, making it culpable homicide to assist, and murder to force the victim. He has done it, I think, wisely by a repeal of a clause in one regulation and an amendment. Thus not putting it vainly forward as Lord William did in a ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... of that accusation Washington declared war on the publicans. He whipped his men when they became drunk, kept them away from the ordinaries, and even closed by force one tavern which was especially culpable. "Were it not too tedious," he wrote the governor, "I cou'd give your Honor such instances of the villainous Behavior of those Tippling House-keepers, as wou'd astonish ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... the Canadian Monthly, has been the inconsiderable cause of a considerable controversy in the English press and notably of a paper by the eminent economist and moralist Mr. W.R. Greg, entitled "What is Culpable Luxury?" in the ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... the neighbourhood of the Cape without encountering anything in the way of an adventure; there, however, commenced the disasters of the unfortunate Arniston, as this transport was called. She had no chronometer on board; a most culpable and preposterous omission in the outfit of a ship destined for such a voyage. The master told me that he himself was not in circumstances to purchase so expensive an instrument, the cost of a good chronometer being at least fifty or sixty guineas, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... England. And though success attended his efforts beyond all expectation, he most wilfully endangered the safety not only of himself, but of his gallant army, when he determined to march with reduced forces through the enemy's country from Harfleur to Calais. It was a rashness nothing less than culpable, but in his own interests rashness was good policy. Unless he could succeed in desperate enterprises against tremendous odds and so make himself a military hero and a favorite of the multitude, his throne was insecure. He succeeded; but it was only by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the charge of culpable negligence for having permitted these vessels in the first place to leave Jamaica. All the leaders in the expedition were notorious privateers, men who had repeatedly been concerned in piratical outrages against the Dutch and Spaniards. Coxon ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... a chance to say much to him," he said, laughing good naturedly; "he did the talking. He seemed to have become possessed of the idea that I was past-master of the art of Gaelic, and when I confessed my culpable ignorance of the language, he flew into a rage. He seemed to lay the blame upon your friend, young McDonald." He looked steadily at ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... thus the Sage declared: More culpable the sparer than the spared; For he that breaks one law, breaks one alone: But who thwarts Justice flouts Law's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
