"Extenuating" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... crime for which they may have to do penance with lifelong remorse, and for these we may feel pity, even if we do not understand and cannot enter into the cowardly weakness by which they were driven to betray their comrades. But in the case of the National Scouts there were no extenuating circumstances except perhaps that the greater responsibility rested on the men who paid in dross for ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... such tameness, though she would not for all the world have had Reanda take Gloria back. Between the two opposites of conviction and instinct, she did not know what to do. Moreover, Reanda had struck his wife. He admitted it, though apologetically and with every extenuating ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... a deeply aggrieved, almost a whining tone; "nothing's necessary that would set me out in a little better shape! Anything will do for these grovelling Wallencampers, but just as soon as it comes to me, all the extenuating circumstances of my life—that I was left so early orphaned, sisterless, brotherless, my nearest of kin a wicked, carousing old uncle; taken to see the world here, and to see the world there; homeless, if ever one was homeless; never trained to any correct way of thinking, or settled ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... governor-general, who immediately placed him under arrest. A court-martial was summoned, 26th of June, at Utrecht, consisting of Hohenlo, Essex, and other distinguished officers. They found that the conduct of the prisoner merited death, but left it to the Earl to decide whether various extenuating circumstances did not justify a pardon. Hohenlo and Norris exerted themselves to procure a mitigation of the young man's sentence, and they excited thereby the governor's deep indignation. Norris, according to Leicester, was in love with the culprit's aunt, and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... will seek the merciful. Think not about thy sin so as to make it either less or greater in thine own eyes. Bring it to Jesus, and let him show thee how vile a thing it is. And leave it to him to judge thee—sure that he will judge thee justly, extenuating nothing, for he hath to cleanse thee utterly, and yet forgetting no smallest excuse that may cover the amazement of thy guilt, or witness for thee that not with open eyes didst thou do the deed. At the last he cried, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. For his enemies the truth ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... holds, why should not the baptised convert return home and live there? Because he is not wanted there, as a Christian. Exceptions to this rule are rare (we are speaking of Caste Hindus), and can usually be explained by some extenuating circumstance. ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... pleading guilty; but pleading also that there were extenuating circumstances in the case. We all know the story of the convict, who on the scaffold bit off his mother's ear. By doing so he did not deny the fact of his own crime, for which he was to hang; but he said that his mother's indulgence, ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... jury, very much against the usual experience, appeared to be excessively severe. The bankrupt was sentenced to twenty years' hard labor. The man accused of murder could not even obtain the plea of "extenuating circumstances," ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... faithful in his narration than we first thought—who speaks of Khalid as he is, extenuating nothing—gives us access to a letter which he received from the Bronx a month before their departure from New York. In these Letters of Khalid, which our Scribe happily preserved, we feel somewhat relieved ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... eyebrows drew together. She objected to extenuating circumstances in this connection, yet, as she admitted, reason usually underlay all Dr. Knott's statements. She divined, moreover, that reason, just now, touched upon matters inconveniently intimate. She abstained, therefore, from protest or comment. ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... after an absence of several months, and called on me before he had even seen his father and mother. He did not mention Julia; but I saw that his errand with me concerned her. I spoke of her excellent deportment and her useful life, dwelt upon the extenuating circumstances of her error and of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... have in reality been benefited instead of injured. When you have acquired greater power of controlling your thoughts, it will be serviceable to you to think over all the details of the annoyance from which you are suffering, and to consider all the extenuating circumstances of the case; to imagine (this will be good use to make of your vivid imagination) what painful chord you may have unconsciously struck, what circumstances may possibly have led the person who annoys you to suppose that the provocation originated ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... whether my reason is good or not. Technically I'm guilty of breach of contract and larceny of corporation property, but there are extenuating circumstances." ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... admit Luther's fault and proceed to apologize for him and find plausible reasons for extenuating his indiscretions in speech and his temperamental faults? We shall do neither. We shall let this "foul-mouthed," coarse Luther stand before the bar of public opinion just as he is. His way cannot be ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... Mr. Kimball and others, who knew the Doctor, believed, as I do, that there was no deliberate evil or envy in those remarks. Poe's best friends told severe stories of him in those days—me ipso teste—and Griswold, naught extenuating and setting down naught in malice, wrote incautiously more than he should. These are the words of another than I. But when Griswold was attacked, then he became savage. One day I found in his desk, which he had ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... in the eyes of the moralist, there were extenuating circumstances in Pons' case. Man only lives, in fact, by some personal satisfaction. The passionless, perfectly righteous man is not human; he is a monster, an angel wanting wings. The angel of Christian mythology ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... temporally disastrous consequence is, from an absolutistic point of view, a totally irrelevant consideration, as is also the pain we feel in telling the truth under such conditions. But the single moral course is clear; there is no alternative; in absolutistic morals there are no extenuating circumstances. The truth must be told, whatever be the consequences. For to tell the truth is a universal moral law, and conformity to that law a ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... decide against them, there is no crime within the knowledge of man, of which they are not severally accused and considered guilty, without any extenuating circumstances. ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... in spirit those battalion officers of the Old Army who fulfilled their heritage until it was overwhelmed by new forces, and I find extenuating circumstances even in remembrance of the high stupidities, the narrow imagination, the deep, impregnable, intolerant ignorance of Staff College men who with their red tape and their general orders were the inquisitors and torturers of the new armies. Tout comprendre c'est ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... murdered another of the same tribe he was taken up and tried by a council, and if it was found to be wilful murder, without any cause, he was condemned and put to death; but if there were any extenuating circumstances which showed that he had some reason for it, he was condemned and sentenced, by the chief, to sit on the grave of his victim for a certain length of time. That was his only hope and his "City of refuge." If any of the relatives of the deceased ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... and punishes all? Such an existence would make every man the keeper of the record of his own transgressions, even to the most minute exactness. It would of itself mete out perfect justice, since the sin would be seen amid its accompanying facts, every aggravating or extenuating circumstance. Each man would be strictly punished according to his talents. As no one is without sin, it makes the necessity of an atonement indispensable, and, in its most rigid interpretation, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... about office, speculations on impending elections, and above all, that heinous subject on which enormous fibs are ever told, the registration. There are, however, occasional glimpses in their talk which would seem to intimate that they have another life outside the Houses of Parliament. But that extenuating circumstance does not apply to the sporting dinner. There they begin with odds and handicaps, and end with handicaps and odds, and it is doubtful whether it ever occurs to any one present, that there is any other existing combination of atoms than odds and handicaps. ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... extreme penalty. "While he was in command at Winchester, in December 1861, a soldier who was charged with striking his captain was tried by court-martial and sentenced to be shot. Knowing that the breach of discipline had been attended with many extenuating circumstances, some of us endeavoured to secure his pardon. Possessing ourselves of all the facts, we waited upon the general, who evinced the deepest interest in the object of our visit, and listened with evident sympathy to our plea. There was moisture ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... of his people is different from our own. The taking of Indian scalps for a long time has been authorized by the Mexican Government, as a means of lessening their savage enemies, and handsome premiums have been offered as an inducement to obtain them. In the case of this Mexican, there were extenuating circumstances which, if they did not warrant such a cruel act, yet they rendered him somewhat excusable. He had recently lost a near and dear relative by the hands of these same Indians, and the appearance of this mangled body was still fresh in his memory, making ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... At the trial, the 'prisoner's friend'—in this instance, Garth's colonel, who was very fond of him and had always thought very highly of him—pleaded extenuating circumstances. Garth's youth, his previous good record, the conditions of the moment—the continuous mental and physical strain of the days preceding his sudden loss of nerve—all these things were urged by the 'prisoner's friend,' ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... end the criminal was, in consideration of extenuating circumstances, condemned to penal servitude in the second class for a term ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... on them. But our Government ignores all occult dealings and will not believe in the dread power in the land. They deal very differently with these matters in Russia, where, in a recent trial of a similar nature, the witchcraft was admitted as an extenuating circumstance and the culprits who had burnt a witch were all acquitted. All natives of whatever caste are well aware of these terrible powers and too often do they avail themselves of them—much oftener than any one has an idea of. One day as I was riding along I came upon a strange ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... Jimmie encountered no further trouble. He made a willing captive. And if in covering the five miles to Judge Van Vorst's he exceeded the speed limit, the fact that from the rear seat Jimmie held the shotgun against the base of his skull was an extenuating circumstance. ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... is," Miss Bailey's cool and quiet voice interposed, and in a moment the harassed father was at her side pleading, extenuating, fawning. ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... can, however, be excused by many extenuating circumstances. Democracy as an ideal was misunderstood in 1786, and it was possessed of little or no standing in theory or tradition. Moreover, the radical American democrats were doing much to deserve ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... in Dangloss's voice and there was honesty in his keen old eyes. His charges now saw the situation clearly and apologized warmly for the words they had uttered under the pressure of somewhat extenuating circumstances. They expressed a willingness to remain in the prison until the excitement abated or until some one swore his life against the supposed murderer. They were virtually prisoners, and they knew it well. Furthermore, they could see that Baron Dangloss ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the Israelites, and he allows it to be seen a little too much. He embarrasses us sometimes. But there is one extenuating ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... general guilt, might admit an aggravated indictment, and lose the advantage of those distinctions made by legislators on public grounds, between crime and crime; or the executive might delude a prisoner with fallacious hopes of mercy, to prevent the disclosure of extenuating facts to conceal official wrong; while ignorance of the details of a crime, might destroy the moral weight ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... was balanced on the other side of the room by an even more penetrating conversation unflaggingly maintained by a party of Americans, who were sitting in judgment on the cuisine of the country they were passing through, and finding few extenuating circumstances. ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... great, are not irremediable—who in a moment of anger, for example, have done violence to a father or a mother, and have repented for the remainder of their lives, or, who have taken the life of another under the like extenuating circumstances—these are plunged into Tartarus, the pains of which they are compelled to undergo for a year, but at the end of the year the wave casts them forth—mere homicides by way of Cocytus, parricides and matricides by Pyriphlegethon—and ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato
... Cornelias who entrust their child-jewels to Charlotte Winsors for the better keeping of them; and of sons like that one who, the other day, in France, beat his mother to death with a stick; and was brought in by the jury, 'guilty, with extenuating circumstances.' ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... influence of stimulants. He tried to speak, and muttered indistinctly from time to time words of which we could sometimes make no sense. We understood, however, that he had been tried by an Italian tribunal, and had been found guilty; but with such extenuating circumstances that his sentence was commuted to imprisonment, during, we thought we made out, two years. But we could not understand what he said about his wife, though we gathered that she was still alive, from something he whispered to the doctor of there being ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... bill is so evident, that those who appeared as its advocates have rather endeavoured to defeat their opponents by charging their proposals with absurdity, than by extenuating the ill consequence of their ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... Western Australia. He had, with others, been taken up to the northern coast to do some Government work, and had escaped in the dingey. His crime was stealing funds belonging to a Squatting and Mining Company. There was this extenuating circumstance: he could have replaced the money, which, as he said, he'd only intended to use for a few weeks. But a personal enemy threw suspicion on him, accounts were examined, and though he showed he'd only used the money while more of his own was on the way to him, the Company ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sword; while they reflected that their sedition had been unaccompanied with wounds or blood, and was neither in itself of an atrocious character nor merited severe punishment. So natural is it for men to be over-eloquent in extenuating their own demerit. They felt doubtful whether they should go to demand their pay in single cohorts or in one entire body; but the opinion that they should go in a body, which they regarded ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... in his seat. "Well, there's one extenuating circumstance. The officers of the Trobwell reported that you were a fine source of amusement during the trip. They enjoyed your clownish performance ...
— But, I Don't Think • Gordon Randall Garrett
... was conducted. We were called upon to decide on sentences affecting no less than the lives of men, and yet there was nothing laid before us to enable us to judge whether there had or had not been any extenuating circumstances; it was merely a recapitulation of the judge's opinion and the sentence. I resolved that I never would attend another report, without having read and duly considered the whole of the evidence ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... extenuating. Genevieve Maud hesitated and sniffed. In the matter of being stripped, toys were more important ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... do?" asked Lord Arleigh. "If you had been innocent—even if there had been what they call extenuating circumstances—I would have spent a fortune in the endeavor to set you free; but your ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... a saying to the effect that to know all is to pardon all; and doubtless with an omniscient insight into the causes of character we should find the field of moral responsibility pretty thickly strewn with extenuating circumstances very suitable indeed for consideration by a god who has had a hand in besetting "with pitfall and with gin" the road we are to wander in. But I submit that universal forgiveness would hardly do as a working principle. Even ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... simplicity. "I—luckily I decided to tell you this morning," she said, "for I am absolutely exhausted now. It was a terrible thing to keep thinking about, and I could not have fought it out any longer! There were extenuating circumstances, I suppose. I was a spoiled little empty-headed girl; the girls all about me were reckless in everyway; I did not know the boundary-line, or dream that it mattered very much, so long as no one knew! My mother had been unhappy ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... the resident Church of England parson. The dominie had written home to England complaining that the Company folk, from the head factor down, were addicted to Indian wives. 'Why didn't you explain the extenuating circumstances?' demanded the baron. Replied the dominie: 'A cow's tail grows downward. I do not attempt to explain why the cow's tail grows downward. I merely ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... state politics,—at least the one to whom the governor and all the fellows write when they want information about this county. Why? I'll tell you: because he's committed every crime and can't denounce one and goes about the country extenuating things and oiling people up with his palaver. Now he says he is a lawyer—yes, sir, actually claims to be a lawyer, and brought his diploma into court two years ago, and they accepted it. But I know, and the court knows, and the bar knows it was forged; ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... Yelverton. Sir Francis Bacon, the Solicitor-General, did what he could to save the revengeful Scot, but it was impossible to keep him from the gallows. Robert Creighton, Lord Sanquhar, therefore, confessed himself guilty, but pleaded extenuating circumstances. He had, he said, always believed that Turner boasted he had put out his eye of set purpose, though at the taking up the foils he (Sanquhar) had specially protested that he played as a scholar, and not as one able to contend ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... but extenuating circumstances were seldom admitted in courts-martial, the law and practice of which were severe ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... husband who was poor, with few extenuating circumstances, and an admirer who, though comfortably rich, was cumbered with a sense of honour. His wealth made him welcome in Vanessa's eyes, but his code of what was right impelled him to go away and forget her, ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... affair, are ready to render a verdict,—"that M'Fadden, the deceased, came to his death by a stab in the left breast, inflicted by a sharp instrument in the hand or hands of Anthony Romescos, during an affray commonly called a rencontre, regarding which there are many extenuating circumstances." To this verdict Mr. Moon forthwith bows assent, directs the removal of the body, and invites the gentlemen jurors to join him in another drink, which he does in compliment to their distinguished services. The dead body will be removed to the receiving vault, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... Yugoslav and had been heard to mutter threats against his life. He had apologized to the inhabitants, and had dismissed one of his men who had hauled down a Yugoslav flag and blown his nose on it. For these men an extenuating circumstance was that they had been very drunk on the night before our arrival, as they had heard—it was in the first half of June 1919—that the islands had been definitely given to Italy, and this they had ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... follow if I attempted to negotiate treaties on my own responsibility. At the same time I dropped a hint that since the murder of a British officer was a prominent count in the bill Nisbet was presenting, it would undoubtedly be an extenuating circumstance if the said officer could be produced alive and only superficially damaged. We wrangled a good bit, but at last I agreed to act as mediator on the basis of the execution of Kharrak Singh's murderers, the retention by the Rani of her jaghirs ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... opportunities of making his trouble known, and escaping from the clutches of the man, the boy had taken advantage of none of them, but had sat silent and apparently a willing victim. In spite of these extenuating circumstances, it only took the jury a few moments to convict and send the guilty man to the penitentiary for a long period. Had the boy been a girl, and had she not made any more effort than he did to escape from her captor, and had the fact been known that the man had taken advantage ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... disobeyed the repeated orders of their superior officers and attempted to shake the allegiance of the troops for the purpose of overthrowing the Imperial power! A man who was at once soldier and autocrat, by nature as well as by position, could of course admit no extenuating circumstances. The incident stereotyped his character for life, and made him the sworn enemy of liberalism and the fanatical defender of autocracy, not only in his own country, but throughout Europe. In European politics he saw two forces struggling for mastery—monarchy ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... it had no such effect. If I have candidly narrated the importunities, the indelicacies, of which my desire to possess myself of Jeffrey Aspern's papers had rendered me capable I need not shrink from confessing this last indiscretion. I think it was the worst thing I did; yet there were extenuating circumstances. I was deeply though doubtless not disinterestedly anxious for more news of the old lady, and Miss Tita had accepted from me, as it were, a rendezvous which it might have been a point of honor with me to keep. It may be said that her leaving the place dark was ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... great a stir as the murder had done, and gave rise, in that period when "extenuating circumstances" had not been invented, to long and angry discussions. Indeed, the marquis either was guilty of complicity or was not: if he was not, the punishment was too cruel; if he was, the sentence was too light. Such was the opinion of Louis XIV., who remembered the beauty of the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... madman. He rushed out and called the gendarmes. Of course I was tried for murder—but it was not murder—it was justice. The judge found extenuating circumstances. Naturally! He had a wife of his own. He understood my case. Now you know why I hate that dainty jeweled woman up at the Villa Romani. She is just like that other one—that creature I slew—she has just the same slow smile and the same child-like ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... meaning of Raoul's carelessly uttered words and they had hurt her poignantly, but it was no new sorrow. He had told her himself months ago, callously, brutally, sparing her nothing, extenuating nothing. She pressed her cheek against the hand she was holding. She did not blame him, she could only love him, no matter what his life had been. It was Ahmed as he was she loved, his faults, his vices were as much a part of him as his superb physique and the alternating moods ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... life harder, much harder, than it was before your coming. To protect you I have had to discipline my own children continually, and all the time you were putting their tempers to quite unnecessary tests! I am not extenuating Kathleen, but I merely say you have no right to behave as you do. You are thirteen years old, quite old enough to make up your mind whether you wish to be loved by anybody or not; ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... followed the untoward affair of Waterloo young Tennyson fell much under the influence of Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and the other offenders, and these are extenuating circumstances. By a curious practical paradox, where the realms of poetry and politics meet, the Tory critics seem milder of mood and more Liberal than the Liberal critics. Thus Mr William Morris was certainly ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... mastery of a habit after it has through years been forging its chains about the youth, is in itself no small victory and should go a long way towards extenuating his lapse. The young man who can conquer himself and learn to lead a pure life, free from his early habit and above reproach not only in his acts toward womankind but also in all his thoughts of woman deserves his well-earned reward. He deserves the respect ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... all outward advantages without inward peace a mere mockery of wretchedness. The wisest men have taken care to uproot selfish ambition from their breasts. Shakespeare considered it so near a vice as to need extenuating circumstances to make ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... creature is on the parish." "Do not trouble yourselves," said the Judge, "I will ease the parish of the burden." It was not only against the prisoners that his fury broke forth. Gentlemen and noblemen of high consideration and stainless loyalty, who ventured to bring to his notice any extenuating circumstance, were almost sure to receive what he called, in the coarse dialect which he had learned in the pothouses of Whitechapel, a lick with the rough side of his tongue. Lord Stawell, a Tory ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... because it corresponds exactly to the thing, and wishes us to understand it in its full strength and compass. In calling the thing by its right name, he silences, beforehand, every attempt at palliating and extenuating it. Of such palliations and extenuations the Jews had abundance. They had not the slightest notion that they had become unfaithful to their God, but considered their intercourse with idols as trifling and allowable attentions ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... see how the kindler of the vitai lampada, supposing him to have been responsible for his actions, can claim from a jury of human beings a verdict of absolute acquittal. But we can, even now, see certain extenuating circumstances, which evidence not yet available may one day so powerfully reinforce as to enable him to leave the Court without a ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... too many persons pleaded guilty, deluded with the hope that it would be taken into consideration and they would escape the severer penalty. He was determined to put a stop to that sort of thing; if Read had not pleaded guilty no doubt some extenuating circumstance would have come up during the trial and he would ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... the law of such cases considers extenuating circumstances and defective bringing-up, but it has never yet occurred to a single criminalist that people might be likely to commit crime because they could not read or write. Nevertheless, we are frequently ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... if we could save him from execution it would be well. The condemnation of the rich is a blow upon society itself. I should like to confer with him—for I hear he has recovered his senses—and ascertain the motives of his crime; they may be so extenuating as to ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... your behaviour and condition. Our unwillingness to do this, often betrays to others, (not seldom it first discovers to ourselves) that we entertain a secret distrust of our own character and conduct. Instead also of extenuating to yourself the criminality of the vicious tempers under consideration, strive to impress your mind deeply with a sense of it. For this end, often consider seriously, that these rough and churlish tempers are a direct contrast ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... the community at large Stephen's forehandedness in the matter of preparations for his marriage was imprudence, and his desire for neatness and beauty flagrant extravagance. The house itself was a foolish idea, it was thought, but there were extenuating circumstances, for the maiden aunt really needed a home, and Rufus was likely to marry before long and take his wife to the River Farm. It was to be hoped in his case that he would avoid the snares of beauty and choose a good stout girl who would ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... another pause, during which neither spoke or moved, Julia overpowered by the excess of her feelings—he by the painful consciousness of wrong; the difficulty of explaining, of extenuating his own conduct; and above all, the dread of losing the enchanting creature, whom he had never loved so deeply or so truly as he did now, when he had well nigh forfeited all claim ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... when they were living separated and he, heaven knows, had no farther claim upon her—his existence was pure indifference to her. I answer for it! They tried his father for the atrocity. Even a French jury could not find extenuating circumstances for that kind of cold-blooded assassin who slays in the small hours the wife of his bosom—after having cast her off and driven her to evil ways, poor, spotless angel! They brought him in guilty of a foul murder and ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... charcoal. The development of the situation has something of that twist or boomerang effect which we have noticed in Michel Teissier. Dr. Morgex begins by defending murderers; he does not end, but starts the end, by becoming a murderer himself, though one with far more "extenuating circumstances" than those so often allowed in French courts. His friend—who is an advocate of no mean powers but loose life and dangerously full habit—has, when the doctor warns him against apoplexy, half scoffed, but ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... a long time meditating a revolution, came suddenly to lure men from an honorable social position, to expose them to the hazards of a popular movement. Before the laws, my companions are guilty of allowing themselves to be enticed. But never were circumstances more extenuating in the eyes of the country than those in their favor. When I saw Colonel Vaudrey and the other persons on the evening of the 29th, I addressed them ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... say, that he acted in the investigation of his agent's conduct with the strictest honor and impartiality. He scrutinized every statement thoroughly, pleaded for him as temperately as he could; found, or pretended to find, extenuating motives for his most indefensible proceedings; but all would not do. The cases were so clear and evident against him, even in the opinion of the neighboring gentry, who had been for years looking upon the system ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... the Peripatetics (who have a neat method of controversy which they derive from Aristotle) but more nervously and pressingly; and general sentiments must be so applied to particular cases, as to leave us room to say many extenuating things in behalf of the Defendant, and many severe ones against the Plaintiff. But in heightening or softening a circumstance, the powers of language are unlimited, and may be properly exerted, even in the middle of an argument, as often ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... low, but slowly and distinctly—"You forget. I did not send for you; you came to me. You have forged bills to the amount of twelve hundred pounds. Yours is not the case of a ruined merchant or an ignorant over-tempted clerk. In your case a jury"—(she shuddered at that word)—"would find no extenuating circumstances; and if you should fall into the hands of justice you will be convicted, degraded, clothed in a prison-dress, and transported for life. I do not want to speak harshly; but I insist that you find means to take up the bill which Mr. Axminster ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... happened to be punished by a timorous master, he assumed a terrible facial expression and tried to frighten him. But when, on the contrary, he found himself in the presence of a man of energy, he pleaded extenuating circumstances, and persevered until he obtained the least possible punishment. He never resented the infliction of just punishment, but suffered very much when punished in public. On the day when the class marks were read aloud, if he suspected that his ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... horrid," was Ruth's final summary of him, after the manner of the swift judgment of women, with no consideration of the extenuating circumstances. Mr. Bigler had no idea that he had not made a good impression on the whole family; he certainly intended to be agreeable. Margaret agreed with her daughter, and though she never said anything to ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... influence the decision of the jury? By the way, there is no need for you to worry about the result; I have had a frightful lot of experience in criminal cases, and so be assured you are all right: extenuating circumstances, you know. But—oh, yes, there is one thing more I wanted to tell you. A fresh witness is going to be called at the examination; let me see, what's his name? Dollon: that's it: ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... independence. All could go home, each would get a horse-saddle and bridle, their private property would not be confiscated, and they would be allowed to follow their agricultural and pastoral pursuits undisturbed. And the poor officers—well for them that there were no extenuating terms, no mercy. So, at least, said Commandant Polly de Villiers, of the Ficksburg Commando. He, when posing as a martyr, announced these conditions to the burghers, who, after such long separation from ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... is probable, that the use of nor after not has been introduced, in consequence of such improprieties as the following: 'The injustice of inflicting death for crimes, when not of the most heinous nature, or attended with extenuating circumstances.' Here it is obviously not the intention of the writer, to understand the negative in the last clause: and, if this were good English, it would be not merely allowable to employ nor after not, to show the subsequent clause to be negative as ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... and separately arrested. Their trial and condemnation speedily followed at Lancaster; and in those days it followed, of course, that they were executed. Otherwise their case fell so far within the sheltering limits of what would now be regarded as extenuating circumstances—that, whilst a murder more or less was not to repel them from their object, very evidently they were anxious to economize the bloodshed as much as possible. Immeasurable, therefore, was the interval which divided them from the monster Williams. ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... up of compromises. Good was mixed with evil everywhere. The domestic idea, as Hadria called it, might be, in its present phase, somewhat offensive, but it could be redeemed in its application, in the details and "extenuating circumstances." Valeria could not warn Hadria too earnestly against falling into the mistake that Valeria herself had made. She had repudiated the notion of anything short of an ideal union; a perfect comradeship, without the shadow of restraint ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... of our era, marking his strange vacillations between friendship and enmity to the great civilised Empire under the shattered fabric whereof he and his people were dwelling, and neither concealing nor extenuating any of his lawless deeds, least of all that deed of treachery and violence by which he finally climbed to the pinnacle of supreme power in Italy. Now, for the next thirty years, we shall have to watch the career of this same man, ruling Italy ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... scot-free. His accomplice, the Count, was executed. The fair Eugenie, under extenuating circumstances—consisting, so far as I could discover of her good looks—got off for ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... any extenuating circumstances, was condemned to the severest penalty. The judges immediately signed a warrant consuming ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... grief. That would have been comparatively powerless to disturb him, had he not lost his own respect. He quailed before his own thoughts; he was dishonoured in his own eyes. His perplexity had not yet sufficiently cleared away to allow him to see the extenuating circumstances of the case; not to say the fact that the peculiar mental condition in which he was at the time, removed the case quite out of the class of ordinary instances of cowardice. He condemned himself more severely than any of his judges would have dared; remembering ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... of utility fall very lightly in weight, and can not even be counted as an extenuating circumstance, when we compare them to the enormous evils brought on farmer and gardener by the hosts of those Coccides that visit ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... was considering a bill to remit the fine imposed upon General Andrew Jackson at New Orleans for contempt of court. It was a hackneyed theme. No new, extenuating circumstances could be adduced to clear the old warrior of high-handed conduct; but a presidential election was approaching and there was political capital to be made by defending "Old Hickory." From boyhood ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... met his with an extenuating look. "It was some time ago, you see," he said; and then, passing it off, "There are as many as you ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... drinking—drinking, we may charitably fancy, to excess. It was to your "Dear Brother, the Reverend H. B. Gage," that you chose to communicate the sickening story; and the blue ribbon which adorns your portly bosom forbids me to allow you the extenuating plea that you were drunk when it was done. Your "dear brother"—a brother indeed—made haste to deliver up your letter (as a means of grace, perhaps) to the religious papers; where, after many months, I found and read and wondered at it; and whence I have now reproduced it for the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... enough not to proclaim energetically that Byron's character was as great as his genius, but to do so only timidly. By way of obtaining pardon even for this mite of justice to the friend who was gone, Moore actually condescended to associate himself with those who pleaded extenuating circumstances for Byron's temper, like Walter Scott and other poets. But truth comes out, nevertheless, in Moore; and in the perusal of Byron's truthful and simple letters we find him there displayed in all his admirable and unique worth as an intellectual ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... They thought they were right. They were, doubtless, wrong, but it was to save the remainder of the row of houses! Can you not consider this a plea for extenuating circumstances? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... extenuating circumstances will be allowed to mitigate the punishment. Family conditions, the mother ... nothing can avail against the canceling of an examination. Even in the case of great criminals extenuating circumstances are admitted in mitigation ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... situated, of course I cannot now ask you to accompany me to Paris, where doubtless the proper authorities would gladly admit extenuating circumstances, and credit you with a sincere repentance. But I put you on your honor to surrender ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... my actions as they really are, you say. Ah, but the extenuating circumstances, the temptations, the motives—aye, the motives!—have you ever thought ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the Colonials from the beginning of the campaign, and took the Zealanders into their first fight. I am feeling awfully fagged to-day, so hope you will, in reading this letter, make allowance for extenuating circumstances. If you only knew, I think you do, what these letters mean, the self-denied slumbers and washes, fatigues shirked, books and papers unread, and other little treats which comrades have indulged ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... this Javanese dainty, and we must very humbly confess that we have found nothing attractive in the earthy and slightly empyreumatic taste of this singular food. However, a sweet and slightly aromatic taste that follows the first impression is an extenuating circumstance. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... have still a work to do. But if not, promise me that, whatever be the event of your voyage, you will publish, in good time, an honest history of your life; extenuating nothing, exaggerating nothing, ashamed to confess or too proclaim nothing. It may perhaps awaken some rich man to look down and take pity on the brains and hearts more noble than his own, which lie struggling in poverty and misguidance among these ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... (rightly) that a biscuit costs less than a 1d.: whence she concludes (wrongly) that it must cost 1/2d. F. C. W. is so beautifully resigned to the certainty of a verdict of "guilty," that I have hardly the heart to utter the word, without adding a "recommended to mercy owing to extenuating circumstances." But really, you know, where are the extenuating circumstances? She begins by assuming that lemonade is 4d. a glass, and sandwiches 3d. each, (making with the 2 given equations, four conditions to be fulfilled by three miserable unknowns!). And, having ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... case it can be shown that there were extenuating circumstances. We can make a showing of facts to demonstrate that the killing of ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... view completely. I wish you could understand mine. When Edith said there were things she could have told you that I couldn't, she meant that there were extenuating circumstances." ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... decreases personal responsibility, it is a most difficult matter to decide whether this factor ought to be taken into consideration when passing sentence on criminal offenders. It is much more truly an extenuating circumstance than the majority of pleas which receive the name. In a variety of cases, such, for instance, as threats, assaults, manslaughter, murder, a high temperature unquestionably sometimes enters ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... existed was over; and in the course of a week he was able once more to resume his place in school. The Doctor had a good deal of conversation with him with respect to his conduct towards Blackall; and though he acknowledged that there were many extenuating circumstances, still, he pointed out, that he, as master of the school, would not allow the law to be taken out of his hands and exercised by another, however ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... reporter, were on hand to testify to all that had been said. The young man made no attempt to conceal, but tried to explain more fully the circumstances which led to the act, hoping that in them the justice would find such extenuating elements as would prevent a committal ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... seems an easy matter to you," he said slowly. "I could not do it. There was too much to condemn in Hartmut's life; he told me much himself that had seemed mysterious before, and I can find no excuse, no extenuating circumstances for his actions. ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... to picture the black man's side of the story, the author has been compelled to palliate, by interjecting extenuating, often irrelevant circumstances, the ferocity and insatiate lust of greed of his race. He has been unable to tell the story as it was, because his nature, his love of race, his inborn, prejudices and narrowness made him ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... spit out the bitter dose, or wipe his eyes, Flannery had him by the collar and had jerked him to the head of the stairs. It is true; he kicked him downstairs. Not insultingly, or with bad feeling, but in a moment of emotional insanity, as the defense would say. This was an extenuating circumstance, and excuses Flannery, but the professor, being a foreigner, could not see the fine point of the distinction, ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler
... duty to write to you. Perhaps you will wonder that I should touch upon such a disagreeable subject at all. But I am bound, Molly, by my promise to give you a true picture (as much as in me lies) of mining-life and its peculiar temptations, nothing extenuating, nor setting down aught in malice. But, with all their failings, believe me, the miners, as a class, possess many ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... compassion for his old messmate, and obtained leave to pay him a visit, anxious to ascertain if there were any extenuating circumstances by which he might obtain a ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... the law, without reference to any supposed rights of the justly accused party. There is, in many instances, room for a reasonable doubt as to evil reports that seem authentic, and in many more instances there may be extenuating circumstances which form a part of the case, though almost never, of the report. Then, too, the family and kindred of the person defamed may incur, through true, yet useless reports to his discredit, shame, annoyance, ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... beyond the cleaving dust of suspicion, and the scorching breath of gossiping conjecture. The time has passed (did it ever really exist?) when the prestige of pastoral office hedged it around with impervious infallibility, and to-day, instead of partial and extenuating leniency, pure and uncontaminated society justly denies all ministerial immunities as regards the rigid mandates of social decorum and propriety,—and the world demands that, instead of drawing heavily upon an indefinite fund of charitable confidence and trust in the clergy, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the Jury: I stand before you charged with an attempt to "remove" the people of America by the publication of a new book, and I enter a plea of "Not Guilty." While admitting that the case looks strong against me, there are extenuating circumstances, which, if you will weigh them carefully, will go far towards acquitting me of this dreadful charge. The facts are that I am not responsible, I was sane enough up to the day that I decided to publish this book and have been since; but on ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... the House. It is possible—I do not say it is probable, I do not now say whether I shall be prepared to commit myself to that hypothesis or not—but it is not impossible that the hon. member or some of his friends may be able to urge some extenuating circumstances—(Oh! oh!)—I mean circumstances that, when duly weighed, may have a tendency in a greater or less degree to modify the judgment of the House upon the extraordinary event that has occurred. Sir, it becomes a great people and a great assembly like this to ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... is too much plunder in the future for Amalek to quarrel with me. When he scents the possibility of the Bedouin cavalry being poured into Syria and Asia Minor, we shall find him more manageable. The only thing now is to heal the present disappointment by extenuating circumstances. If I could screw up a few thousand piastres for backsheesh,' and he looked Eva in the face, 'or could put anything in his way! What do you ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... answer at once. At first her stand had simply been one of implicit faith in the man she had conjured into a hero of all that was good and noble. She had not cast about for extenuating evidence; she had not asked herself who the guilty man was; her faith told her it was morally impossible for Mortimer to become a thief. Now Crane's questions, more material than the first deadening effects of Alan's accusation, started ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... place several weeks later. Every possible extenuating circumstance was brought to bear upon his sentence. Five years only was to be the term of his imprisonment, his punishment for the crime of a ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... the cause of Italy by thus endeavouring to blow hot and cold, is a fact which its warmest supporters no longer call in question. They now merely plead for extenuating circumstances on the ground that the damage was done unwittingly. "It would be unjust," the Nationalist Federzoni said in a speech delivered before the Chamber on March 16,[99] "to accuse the Italian Government of disloyalty or insincerity, but none the ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... royalty fee shall be permitted based on any reduction in the average number of distant signal equivalents per subscriber. The Commission may consider all factors relating to the maintenance of such level of payments including, as an extenuating factor, whether the cable industry has been restrained by subscriber rate regulating authorities from increasing the rates for the basic service of ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America: - contained in Title 17 of the United States Code. • Library of Congress Copyright Office
... It will be found that the pictures thus drawn are not always attractive—what man's life, when viewed from the inside, ever is pretty to look at? But I have told my tales of these curious companions of my exile, nothing extenuating, but setting down nought ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... more heinous morally. It was hard in many cases to reconcile the exigencies of war with the call of humanity, and the sense of responsibility was only partially relieved by the knowledge that a higher authority would give due weight to the extenuating circumstances that appealed so often to one's compassion. The introduction of "suspended sentences" by the Army (Suspension of Sentences) Act 1915, with a view to keep a man's rifle in the firing line, and to give an offender the chance of retrieving his liberty ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... course I do!" cried Raffles, with such spontaneous heartiness that I could see he had never thought of it since mentioning the matter to me at our meal. What I could not see was any reason for such conspicuous relief, or the extenuating quality of a circumstance which seemed to me rather to aggravate ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... is need of a rarefying or extenuating of tough flegme or viscous humours troubling the chest,—the decoction or juice hereof made up with sugar or honey is availeable, as also to clense and purge the body both upwards and downwards sometimes, of tough flegme, and clammy humours, notwithstanding ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... mechanically for the proper packet of mail. And twice he was called back to correct mistakes which he admitted were his own with an humbleness that was alarming to the complainant. In all the days of his service he had never before failed to plead extenuating circumstances for any slip that might occur—and to plead with much heat and staccato eloquence. But then, too, in all those years no day had ever equalled the bitter awakening of ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... it, it was a most deliberate kiss—a kiss without any extenuating circumstances. He was not even going away, and Agatha could only come to one conclusion, that they were either going to be ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... perpetrated on a Jew. We find traces of this feeling even in Shakespeare, and to this day Shylock (notwithstanding the grievous wrongs which he had suffered at the hands of Christians) rarely gets much sympathy from modern readers, who quite overlook all the extenuating circumstances in his case.[FN643] Nor do we always find the Jew famous for 'cuteness in folk-tales. This phase of his reputation is comparatively modern, and in the time of Horace, "Credat Judaeus" was a Roman proverb, which means, freely translated, "Nobody would be fool enough to believe ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... takes his own path in life, and will walk it though hell bar the way, never explaining, never extenuating, never excusing his course—something seems to emanate from such a chap that draws all eyes after him in a public place in a look between fear and desire. Sitting there in Tait's, my view of Worth cut off now by a waiter with a high-carried tray, again by people ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan |
