"Justifiable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... slaves for a term of years. The English courts were busy grinding out human material for the Virginia plantations; and, as the objects of commerce were considered paramount, this process of disposing of what was regarded as the scum element was adjudged necessary and justifiable. No voice was raised ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... Dean of St. Paul's, had recently published a thesis, to prove that suicide, under some circumstances, was justifiable. Hopeful answers all his arguments, and proves it to be the foulest of murders. Bunyan, in his treatise on Justification, volume 1, page 314, thus notices the jailer's intent to commit suicide, when the doors of the prison ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... recurring form of art, continually responding to the new needs of man's developing consciousness, I must go, rapidly and generally, over the "literary epic"; and especially I must question whether it is really justifiable or profitable to divide epic poetry into the two contrasted departments ...
— The Epic - An Essay • Lascelles Abercrombie
... I think, awakened some of that ill-feeling you have just noticed." He checked himself too late: he had again lost not only his tact and self-control, but had nearly betrayed himself. He was surprised that the girl's justifiable ignorance should have irritated him. Yet she had evidently not noticed, or misunderstood it, for she said, with a certain ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... blame him. Suffering, as he was, from the ceaseless agony of hunger and thirst, any indiscretion, or even crime, seemed justifiable, for the sake of ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... poison. Too long we had waited and allowed the enemy to use this fearful weapon against us, thinking the neutral nations might intervene; but their interest in the cause of humanity was largely a financial one, and we determined to adopt a broader view, perhaps, of what justifiable weapons are, and make use of the advances of science. France was already using the gas, but Britain hesitated at setting her hall-mark on such a usage, necessary as ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... Byron, whether there is one single principle in Schlegel's work (which is not an admitted drawback from its merits), that was not established and applied in detail by me. Plutarch tells us, that egotism is a venial fault in the unfortunate, and justifiable in the ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... along the corridor of the Bureau building. He paused only when he came to the glass door which was lettered in gold: National Bureau of Scientific Development, Dr. William Baker, Director. He was unable to regard that door without a sense of pride. But he was convinced the pride was thoroughly justifiable. ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... result of poverty, and the polyandrous races are little fecund and tend to disappear. The normal man is instinctively more polygynous than the normal woman is polyandrous. There are, however, cases where polyandry is justifiable. There are women whose sexual appetite, more or less pathological, is so insatiable that a normal man ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... secret was simple. She had a good cook and housekeeper, who managed all these important but tedious details admirably, under her suggestions. In order to do this Edith had to practise a little fraud on Bruce, a justifiable and quite unselfish one. She gave the cook and housekeeper a quarter of her dress allowance, in addition to the wages Bruce considered sufficient; because Bruce believed that they could not afford more than a certain amount for a cook, while he admitted that Edith, who ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... table was properly laid at the time fixed, and Amalia Ivanovna, feeling she had done her work well, had put on a black silk dress and a cap with new mourning ribbons and met the returning party with some pride. This pride, though justifiable, displeased Katerina Ivanovna for some reason: "as though the table could not have been laid except by Amalia Ivanovna!" She disliked the cap with new ribbons, too. "Could she be stuck up, the stupid German, because she was mistress of the house, and had consented as a favour to help her poor lodgers! ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... you may unfortunately have (and few are without them) by a gentleness of manner, but make them feel the steadiness of your just resentment; for there is a wide difference between bearing malice and a determined self-defence; the one is imperious, but the other is prudent and justifiable. ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... these were filled with the protestations of love, written with passion certainly, but also with that deceit which men so often think it justifiable to use to the other sex. Judith had shed tears abundantly over the first packet, but now she felt a sentiment of indignation and pride better sustaining her. Her hand shook, however, and cold shivers again passed ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... explain the evolution and the vast variety of the vegetable kingdom. To attribute this to any power of modification by environment, when we see how little environment can do to make any essential change in vegetation, would require more credulity than I would consider justifiable in the pursuit of scientific truths. So in the evolution of the animal kingdom, I believe the power of the physical ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... confessed themselves guilty of the crime imputed to them; and it being affirmed that poison had in fact been found in a well at Zofingen, this was deemed a sufficient proof to convince the world; and the persecution of the abhorred culprits thus appeared justifiable. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... matter of closing the deal," Johnny told her with a perfectly justifiable smile which Constance, from a distance, criticized severely. He drew an envelope from his pocket and took from it a paper which he passed to ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... had been schooled to set a high price upon herself. I know she cared for you—very much, even. But she could not face poverty; or, if you like, I will say that she could not face an obscure existence—sacrifice her ambition, a justifiable ambition in one so lovely, at the bidding of her first wooer. And then, again, she was told that if she married you, she would for ever forfeit my regard. You must not blame her for ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... London Central Mission on "Brass Bands," for the London Association of Correctors of the Press at the Trocadero, for the C.S.U. at Church Kirk, Accrington, at the Men's Service in the Colchester Moot Hall. He debates at the St. German's Literary Society, maintaining "that the most justifiable wars are the religious wars"; opens the Anti-Puritan League at the Shaftesbury Club, speaks for the Richmond and Kew branch of the P.N.E.U. on "The Romantic Element in Morality," for the Ilkley P.S.A., on "Christianity and Materialism," and so ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... piece of foolery when one looks back, but at the time we thought it high-minded and justifiable rebellion. We assembled in the court, and cheered after the senior tutor had been three parts smothered in his bed by a red-pepper squib dropped down the chimney; and on the morning after the Master's laundry was raided, and the linen (belonging ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... Shakespeare has to find, I will not say a magical expression for courage, but even an adequate and worthy expression, he fails absolutely. And is the patriotism in "Ye, good yeomen, whose limbs were made in England" a "noble patriotism"? or is it the simplest, the crudest, the least justifiable form of patriotism? There is a noble patriotism founded on the high and generous things done by men of one's own blood, just as there is the vain and empty self-glorification of "limbs made in England," as if English limbs were better than those ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... therefore of opinion that there is no justifiable ground for expecting that by continuing the war the nation will retain its independence, and that, under these circumstances, the nation is not justified in continuing the war, because this can only lead to social and material ruin, not ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... of his thoughts should have addressed herself to such an assembly. Why did she not leave it to him or her father! If it was not degrading enough to appear before such a canaille, surely to sing to them was! How could a woman of refinement, justifiable as was her desire for appreciation, seek it from such a repulsive assemblage! But Vavasor would have been better able to understand Hester, and would have met the distastes of the evening with far less discomposure, if he had never been in worse company. One main test of our dealings in the world ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... would my mother say, or my guardian? What version of the story had Plummer given them? It consoled me to work myself up into a fury as I sat in the corner of the railway carriage, and prepare an indictment of his conduct which should make my conduct appear not only justifiable, but heroic. ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... advance on account of the ensuing quarter, and at others, that which was due at the end of the quarter was not completely drawn out. The secretary entered into an examination of the constitution and laws to show that this practice was justifiable, and illustrated his arguments by many examples in which an advance on account of money appropriated to a particular object, before the service was completed, would be absolutely necessary. However this might be, it was a transaction in which ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... the copying out and publishing thereof, until I have a little better consulted with my pillow, and taken some further advice of Madame Sperienza. In the mean time, take this for a general caveat, and say I have revealed one great mystery unto you: I am of opinion, there is no one more regular and justifiable direction, either for the assured and infallible certainty of our English artificial prosody particularly, or generally to bring our language into art, and to frame a grammar or rhetoric thereof; than first of all universally to agree upon one and the same ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... away, indignant that one to whom he had offered to be reconciled—very much against his own feelings—should have refused to join what, in his smaller knowledge of the gospel plan, he considered right and justifiable. Herder had become a Protestant, and knew enough about the truth to be aware that Christians are bound to forgive their enemies. He also was convinced that the saints cannot hear prayer, that purgatory is a fiction, and that confession should be made to God and not to ...
— The Woodcutter of Gutech • W.H.G. Kingston
... compelled the leaders of both parties to lay aside their arms, and banished Corso, with many of the Neri. And as an evidence of the impartiality of their motives, they also banished many of the Bianchi, who, however, soon afterward, under pretense of some justifiable cause, returned. ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... reached him. Two aged men from the lower city arrived at the Alhambra—demanded and obtained an audience; and the effect of that interview was instantaneous upon Boabdil. In the popular frenzy he saw only a justifiable excuse for the Christian king to break the conditions of the treaty, rase the city, and exterminate the inhabitants. Touched by a generous compassion for his subjects, and actuated no less by a high sense of kingly honor, which led him to preserve a truce solemnly ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... she? I thought she looked wondrous mysterious when I met her down the street. It was justifiable, though, under the circumstances. I suppose they, the Randalls, ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... obstacle to peace was the mutual distrust with which each of the three parties regarded the others. Korea hated the Japanese with a perfect and justifiable hatred; she also feared and despised the pompous and pretentious pride of China. But in the negotiations which ensued the country which had suffered most had least to say. It remained for the two greater powers to ...
— Japan • David Murray
... vehemently against this arrest to the English Consul, and also to the British Ambassador at St. Petersburg, Lord Levison Gower; but they both declined interfering, as they considered his arrest legal and justifiable. On his release he came to Liverpool, whence he went to Dublin, where he met his future wife, Miss Neville, a native of Newry. Having become possessed of a legacy of 400 pounds, left him by his aunt, Mrs. Daw, he returned to Liverpool, ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... you! put it away from you!" exclaimed Capitola earnestly; "suicide is never, never, never justifiable! God is the Lord of life and death! He is the only judge whether a mortal's sorrows are to be relieved by death, and when He does not Himself release you, He means that you shall live and endure! That proves that ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... remember, always, that we have in the word of God a standard of truth and right that will always govern us according to heaven's will. Many persons, forgetting this truth, have been led to conclude that departures from the word of truth, as a matter of "liberality," or "broad-gauge religion," are justifiable. And, as "liberalists," or "broad-gauge Christians," they are disposed to recognize all the existing divisions in faith and practice that are known in Christendom. They even go further and allow that ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880
... first saw the Opium Schools, built in the form of large dens. After this came the Schools of Iniquity, operated in darkness. Here all forms of evil are taught and made to appear justifiable under certain conditions. Many of these underground schools could not be clearly seen by Mr. World, but ere the telescope completed its third revolution he saw the Schools of Suicide more distinctly than during his visit, and got a glimpse of ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... recollection of the confiding friendship which she had always shown this man. She said to herself with bitterness: "See how weakness and fear may lead one to unjust and odious suspicions! Yes; for until the last extremity, it is not justifiable to believe in so infernal a deception—and then only upon the clearest evidence. I will call some one: it is the only way of completely satisfying these doubts." Then, remembering that there was no bell, she added: "No matter; I will knock, and some one will doubtless ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... excursion with the ladies, and thinking he would be back about mid-day, I advised him, sir, to delay his return to the station, until he had seen his master. Hence, you see, sir, his presence on the station was perfectly justifiable. With regard to his peccancy I will not attempt, sir, to offer any palliation beyond the expression of my belief, that the tobacco was taken without any notion of the offence he was committing; in proof of which, I may ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... many charming glimpses down passages and along narrow streets that it is hard to realize that we are not in some town in Normandy such as Lisieux or Falaise, and yet those towns have no walls, and Falaise, has only one gateway, and Lisieux none. It is surely justifiable to ask, in Kingsley's words, 'Why go gallivanting with the nations round' until you have at least seen what England can show at York and Chester? Skirting the west end of the Minster, and having a close view of its two towers built in late Perpendicular ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... straightforward. He held that he had sent the letter at a time when he was a prisoner simply, which was justifiable; not when a prisoner on parole, which was shameless. The temper of the court was against him. Most important was the enmity of the Jesuits, whose hatred of Puritanism cried out for sacrifice. They had seen the work of the saints in every turn of the late siege, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... assurance of the legitimacy should precede the submission; so I made it my business to look up the manorial title-deeds. The pretensions of the ecclesiastical "Moses" to exercise a control over the operations of the reasoning faculty in the search after truth, thirty centuries after his age, might be justifiable; but, assuredly, the credentials produced in justification of claims so ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... they had reached Reigate. The inquest did not last many minutes, and the jury without hesitation returned a verdict of justifiable homicide. ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... gave birth to a vindictive feeling in many, which led to the perpetration of similar enormities and sunk civilized man, to the degraded level of the barbarian. They served too, to arouse them to greater exertion, to subdue the savage foe in justifiable warfare, and ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... managed herself and she knew to a sesterce the value of every piece of property, the justifiable expenses of maintaining each, and the income each should yield. Self-indulgent as she was and moreover an inveterate gambler, she grew richer ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... great battlefield and has shuddered in the depths of his soul at all the horrors confronting him, will have found new strength and exaltation in the thought that here the whole tragic gravity of military necessity is regnant, and here a justifiable passion has done its work.—GENERAL v. ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... were making for the future peace of the country. It was the establishment of the "Pax Britannica," as Commissioner Perry said with justifiable pride in the record the Police had made throughout the years. He quotes the words of a famous Indian Chief to which we have already called attention in the chapter on Indian treaties when that Chief, referring to the Police, said, "Before you came the Indian crept ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... disadvantages, and with this addition to them, that I am thy friend and intimate, am I to make a visit to this unhappy lady to-morrow morning! In thy name, too!—Enough to be refused, that I am of a sex, to which, for thy sake, she has so justifiable an aversion: nor, having such a tyrant of a father, and such an implacable brother, has she the reason to make an exception in favour of any of it on ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... justifiable economy to leave Brahma, the chiefest god of all, out of your studies, for he seems to cut no great figure in India. The vast bulk of the national worship is lavished upon Shiva and Vishnu and their families. Shiva's symbol—the "lingam" with which Vishnu began the Creation—is ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... suggestion for the lad's future was made by any of the people who admired his cleverness. Miss Cadman still clung in a fitful way to the idea of making her nephew a cleric; she had often talked it over with the Misses Lumb, who of course held that 'any sacrifice' was justifiable with such a motive, and who suggested a hope that, by the instrumentality of Lady Whitelaw, a curacy might easily be obtained as soon as Godwin was old enough. But several years must pass before that Levitical stage could be reached; and then, after all, perhaps ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... could not be found for making acts of confiscation, sequestration, spoliation, transfer of Government, or whatever they may be called, dependent upon some formal and judicial proceeding which should secure the Queen from acts being done in her name—which might not be entirely justifiable morally, as well as legally—which should relieve the Government agents from the fearful responsibility of being sole advisers on steps implying judicial condemnation without trial on their mere personal opinion, and from which they ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... was a very awkward affair. The bell is rung, up come the friends; the story is told, nor is it other than they had suspected. It does not end here, for, of course, there must be an inquest. It is an Irish jury. All said it served him right—and so what is the verdict?—Justifiable felo-de-se." Here, Eusebius, you have something remarkable;—one happier at the termination than the commencement of the honeymoon—a widow happier than a bride. She might go forth to the world again, with the sweet reputation of having smothered him with kisses, and killed him with kindness—if ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... one-fifth of this trade was with the West Indies. Consequently, both to swell the volume of British commerce and protect it from privateering, the seizure of the French West Indian colonies—"filching the sugar islands," as Sheridan called it—was a very justifiable war measure, in spite of the scattering of forces involved. Hayti was lost to France as a result of the negro uprising under Toussaint l'Ouverture. Practically all the French Antilles changed hands twice in 1794, the failure of the ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... British Association for refusing to examine the production. I suppose that the author, finding his first proof wrong, invented the second, of which the Association never had the offer; and, feeling sure that they would have equally refused to examine the second, thought it justifiable to {13} present that second as the one which they had refused. Mr. Upton has discovered that the common way of finding the circumference is wrong, would set it right if he had leisure, and, in the mean time, has solved the problem of the ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... these. But alas! their ideal is too evident to be mistaken. I call it the "divitial" ideal, that of the rich man, that which makes the acquisition of material wealth the one standard of success in life, the only justifiable aim of effort. To most American citizens the assertion that there is any more important, more sensible purpose than this, is simply incomprehensible ...
— An Ethnologist's View of History • Daniel G. Brinton
... considered, flirted most outrageously with Mr. Spotts. Indeed Cecil was already strongly of the opinion that the actor was trying to succeed where he had failed—a course of action which he thought quite justifiable on his, Banborough's, part, but highly reprehensible on the part of any one else. Matters had now culminated. Fate had brought the three together at this inopportune moment, and as it was manifestly impossible not to say something, Cecil laid himself ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... Scripture teaching that Jesus suffered the penalty of our sins for us is plain and simple, and all efforts to take from the Scripture language its simple, plain, natural meaning are pitiable, and if contempt were ever justifiable, would deserve the contempt of all honest men. Let the reader turn back and read the Scriptures at the head of this chapter and decide for himself as to their obvious, ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... have decided," continued Augustus, solemnly, without regard to the exclamation, "that the action would be perfectly justifiable!" ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... post, so far from the real centre of conflict. Could its capture have lessened in any way the power or resources of the Russian Government, or, by creating a diversion, have attracted attention from the decisive struggle in the Crimea, it would perhaps have been justifiable; but it could not possibly have any direct or indirect influence upon the ultimate result, and only brought misery upon a few inoffensive Kamchadals who had never heard of Turkey or the Eastern Question and whose first intimation ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... republican government elected by universal suffrage, and guaranteeing to every tiniest village its full meed of local independence,—the very idea of all this would have been scouted as a thoroughly impracticable Utopian dream. And such scepticism would have been quite justifiable, for European history did not seem to afford any precedents upon which such a forecast of the future could be logically based. Between the various nations of Europe there has certainly always existed an element ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske
... his hands in his pockets, stands by the stern, smoking a cigar, is sufficient to excuse a breach of the peace by itself; and the lordly whistle for you to get out of the way would, I am confident, ensure a verdict of "justifiable homicide" from any ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... for them now to be reconciled. Our disunion is not only a reproach, but a danger to us. Those who believe in modern miracles have more right, or at least more excuse, to neglect all secular caution; but for us, it is as justifiable to have no religion as wilfully to throw away the human means of preserving it.—I am, Dear Sir, your most affectionate ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homocide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he fell by one kind or another—the classification is for ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... university to control, beyond the demands necessary for the main object of instruction. As the circumstances of parents vary, so will the pecuniary allowance made to their offspring. It would be a task neither practicable nor justifiable for the university to regulate the outlay of the collegian, or, in fact, become the paymaster of his menus plaisirs. Only let such a task be imagined in its enormity of control, from the son of the nobleman with an allowance of a thousand a year to one of a hundred and ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... these opinions (and they were to be found in every party) regarded with resentment and alarm every addition to what seemed to them the useless burdens assumed by the nation, and required to be satisfied that every new annexation of territory was not merely justifiable, but inevitable. ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... in their unguarded moments. I have scarcely ever been admitted to the presence of a real notoriety, that I did not find the man, or woman—sex making little difference—an actor; and this, too, much beyond the everyday and perhaps justifiable little practices of conventional life. Inherent simplicity of character is one of the rarest, as, tempered by the tone imparted by refinement, it is the loveliest of all our traits, though it is quite common to meet with those who affect it, with an address that is very apt to ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in America and England are not quite identical and I believe it to be a justifiable statement that British industry is better able to stand so high a tax than American industry, for reasons inherent in the ...
— Government Ownership of Railroads, and War Taxation • Otto H. Kahn
... sent forth by an interloper under the same title; and why should not the same triumph be repeated now? There would, in short, have been a pride of talent in this manner of avenging myself, which would have been justifiable in the case of an injured man; but the state of my health has for some time been such as to render any attempt of this nature in every ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... be any the less dead, or any the less effectually buried, if one nail is not driven home in the coffin. The slayer is modernity at large, made up of science, steam, democracy, universal education, and many other things—but especially universal education. And the verdict can be, at the most, justifiable, or at any rate inevitable, pasticide. You cannot eat your cake and have it; you cannot kill off all the bad things and keep all the good ones. With sterilization goes purification, pasticide may be accompanied by pasteurization. At any rate, "the old order changeth," ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... we. For, in addition to those great and holy interests, to keep one's own interests a little in view is manly and justifiable. My heavens! life would have been perfectly hateful and abominable in this dirty, cheerless Berlin if we had not seen above us a glittering star, to which we could look up when all was so dismal here below, which shone upon our path and cheered us when we feared to sink ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... an absolute injury pardoned—one is raised to self-esteem by such an act of forgiveness; but there is no elevation in submitting patiently to a slight. It is simply the confession that the liberty taken with you was justifiable—was even natural.' ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... revolutionary methods was a good trait in his character; but surely revolutions are sometimes justifiable, and it looks, at this distance, as though this one was as nearly so as most of those that have succeeded. If Luther had put his great heart and mighty will at the head of this movement which he confessed to be most righteous, it might have succeeded, and Protestantism, ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... and they had been reared in different schools. Poor Maude Kirton had learnt to be anything but scrupulous, and really thought it a very slight thing she was about to do, almost justifiable under the circumstances. Almost, if not quite. Nevertheless she would not have liked to be ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... proposed. In most of these cases there was manifest a disposition greatly to over-accentuate organization, to make too much of the disciplinary side of the Rule and to forget the entire subordination of such things to active thought and constructive effort. They are valuable and indeed only justifiable as a means to an end. These attempts of a number of people of very miscellaneous origins and social traditions to come together and work like one machine made the essential wastefulness of any terrestrial realization of my Samurai very clear. The only reason for such an Order is the ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... positive basis for medical science by the practice of dissection of animals, and discovered the optic nerves and the Eustachian tubes. He even extended his researches to Embryology, describing the head of the foetus as the first part to be developed—a justifiable deduction from appearances. Alcmaeon introduced also the doctrine that health depends on harmony, disease on discord of the elements within the body. Curiosity as to the distribution of the vessels was excited by Empedocles and Alcmaeon and led to further ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... he, smiling, that if I were to pursue a vengeance so justifiable in my own opinion, I must be in apprehension of falling by Mr. Lovelace's hand?—I will assure you, that I have no fears of that sort—but I know this is an ungrateful subject to you. Mr. Lovelace is your friend; and ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... England upon Ireland. Here Barry observed, that although he was not competent to speak on the matter, and had no desire to endorse or countenance such an invasion, he regarded a Fenian attack upon Canada fully as justifiable as an assault of the same character upon England, or any other portion of her majesty's dominions. The empire, he contended, was a unit and no part of it could be assailed, that did not possess, in relation to Ireland, just as inoffensive people as the Canadians were. Fenianism, ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... verse of this lucubration, and Mr. Sladen informs us with justifiable pride that the parts printed in italics are from his own pen! This is certainly editing with a vengeance, and we cannot help saying that it reflects more credit on Mr. Sladen's good nature than on his critical or his poetical powers. The appearance, also, in a volume of 'poems produced in ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... to dog the steps of the murderer, who kept on the watch, not daring to go far from his village.... Finding him playing cards under a tree, they fired at and killed him, and besides this accidentally shot another man who was asleep a few paces off. The relatives on both sides pronounced the act justifiable and according to rule." Ibid., I., 143: "On reaching Bastia from Ajaccio the two principal families of the place, the Peraldi and the Visuldi, fired at each other, in disputing over ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... girl's eyes flashed, but her acquaintance with AEsop had given her the thoroughly justifiable impression that he was a man whom it was better to obey, and she retired into the caravan and shut the green-and-red door with a bang ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... anything for Lucia was the influence of a unique and irresistible personal charm. As far as he could see, Jewdwine was merely desperately anxious to protect his kinswoman from what he considered an undesirable acquaintance. And five years ago his fears and his behaviour would have been justifiable; for Rickman owned that at that period he had not been fit to sit in the same room with Lucia Harden, far less, if it came to that, than poor Soper. But his life since he had known her was judged even by Jewdwine ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... will take a fly and introduce him to the sugar-basin. He will then pull off his wings in order to see what he will do without them. The fly wanders round beneath the sugar-basin, his small mind absorbed in a somewhat justifiable surprise, and then the child loses all interest in him. ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... these things is acquired, not natural, though the acquisition may be through hereditary influence. An idea is held by a majority of even fairly intelligent individuals that there is a justifiable, harmless, and even beneficial use of these substances by the general public, though acknowledging that beyond a certain indefinite line this ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... months from that day Mme. Veuve Vauquer availed herself of the services of M. Goriot's coiffeur, and went to some expense over her toilette, expense justifiable on the ground that she owed it to herself and her establishment to pay some attention to appearances when such highly-respectable persons honored her house with their presence. She expended no small amount of ingenuity ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... not an apology for murder. It is an honest effort to unravel the tangled mesh of circumstances that led up to the Armistice Day tragedy in Centralia, Washington. The writer is one of those who believe that the taking of human life is justifiable only in self-defense. Even then the act is a horrible reversion to the brute—to the low plane of savagery. Civilization, to be worthy of the name, must afford other methods of settling human differences than those of ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... chap to do anything for I ever saw," I groaned, with the justifiable annoyance of a martyr who has failed to convert a pagan hero. "As if you hadn't made things difficult enough already by 'Mistering' yourself. At any moment you may be found out—though, on second thoughts, it won't matter a rap if you are. If you're a mere Mister, you ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... either of the others, was forced to give way. Fidelity of representation was less their object than beauty; with us it is exactly the reverse. On this principle, the use of masks, which appears astonishing to us, was not only justifiable, but absolutely essential; far from considering them as a makeshift, the Greeks would certainly, and with justice too, have looked upon it as a makeshift to be obliged to allow a player with vulgar, ignoble, or strongly ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... position, contending that the methods of the Russian Government rendered terrorism not only justifiable, ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... only, much larger than any of the others, and which was called Mary. Now this bell was never rung but when our house was in great danger, and it had this legend on it, "When Mary rings the earth shakes;" and indeed from this we took our war cry, which was, "Mary rings;" somewhat justifiable indeed, for the last time that Mary rang, on that day before nightfall there were four thousand bodies to be buried, which bodies wore ...
— The Hollow Land • William Morris
... Kearney bought some lovely blush-pink charmeuse in Brown Thomas's to let into the front of Kathleen's dress. It cost a pretty penny; but there are occasions when a little expense is justifiable. She took a dozen of two-shilling tickets for the final concert and sent them to those friends who could not be trusted to come otherwise. She forgot nothing, and, thanks to her, everything that was ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... on both flanks, and starvation in the rear. So when the advancing British met, all together, at the island of Montreal, he and his faithful regulars laid down their arms without dishonour, in the fully justifiable belief that no further use of them could possibly retrieve the great lost ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... your highness, tell the whole truth to Cerise; for I have always considered it perfectly justifiable to retain facts which cannot add to people's happiness. I declared that I left her because my life would have been forfeited if I had remained, and I valued it only for her sake. That I always intended to return, and when I quitted Valencia, and had become a man of property, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... sudden storm of indignation in his breast. Whether his future action was based on the decision of his council to which he submitted, sanctioning on his own part the treachery by which alone Douglas could be beguiled within his reach, as the chroniclers, to whom such a device was quite justifiable, tell us; or whether when he issued his safe-conduct he still hoped to be able to convince the Earl of his folly in resisting, and to bring him to a real and effectual change of mind, no one can now tell. But James ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... distribution, the State must adopt the same methods of doing business as the present owners. I mean that even as the big Trusts and companies are crushing—by competition—the individual workers and small traders, so the State should crush the trusts by competition. It is surely justifiable for the State to do for the benefit of the whole people that which the capitalists are already doing for the profit of a few shareholders. The first step in this direction will be the establishment of Retail Stores for the purpose of supplying all national ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... them in bathing and also wash their feet and give them food and I say to them only what is agreeable, leaving out what is unpleasant. I consider it to be my highest duty to do what is agreeable to them even though it be not strictly justifiable. And, O Brahmana, I am always diligent in attending on them. The two parents, the sacred fire, the soul and the spiritual preceptor, these five, O good Brahmana, are worthy of the highest reverence from a person who seeks prosperity. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... respect to the other, it brings back very strongly to my mind what I felt and still feel on the subject of Eden's conduct last year. I cannot think that we are either of us justifiable in withholding from persons in the King's Government any information upon the situation of Ireland; but that, on the contrary, the best mode of enforcing acquiescence in your wishes as to the Bill, would ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... Performances of others; especially when, besides the Reputation of the Author, the Play itself had an Intrinsic Merit; for we find it full of Humour, Wit, and Variety; the Conversation Gay and Genteel, the Love Soft and Pathetic, the incidents Natural, and Easy, and the Conduct of the Plot very Justifiable. So that I may reasonably impute its miscarriage to some Faction that was made against it, which indeed was very Evident on the First day, and more on the endeavours employed, to render the Profits of the Third, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... homely head, and stole a nap gratefully. For the twentieth time Vivian rehearsed her speeches, the one to Carver and the other to the insulted ranger. That is, he had every cause to be insulted, though her memory of the smile with which he had received her thrust would seem to dispute his justifiable indignation. Perhaps here in the mountains people were not so easily insulted. They, the mountains, were so big and generous that they ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... inserted by Prior Goldstone II., who, as already stated, built the Angel Steeple above the roof-line where it had been left by Chillenden. The arch has been called a disfigurement, and as it was not originally intended such an opinion may be justifiable, and yet the beauty of the reticulated stonework and the consummate skill which conceived the bold simplicity of design is so satisfying that it is scarcely possible to wish that it were absent. Beneath this flying arch appears the splendid western ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home
... it is a book of horrors. I started to mark the passages of peculiar tragedy and found that I was marking every page, and yet it is a justifiable book ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... that I have the courage—or effrontery—to write you once more, will you misconstrue my letter—and my motive? If I cannot be reconciled to what I hear of you—if what I hear pains, frightens me out of a justifiable silence which perhaps you might respect, will you respect my motive for breaking it the less? I do not know. But the silence is now broken, and ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... laughed Ernshaw in reply, "and I think justifiable; a little kiddy was knocked down in Addison Road there by a butcher's cart, and I picked her up and took her to the hospital in Hammersmith Road, and this good fellow won't charge me more than a shilling for both journeys, although it is ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... Michael's reason seemed to her such a justifiable one that their secret might be ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... Sam, in justifiable wrath, "as dat 'ar ole houn' Bose wuz de triflin'est meanest dog in de whole State ob ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... is not justifiable on the part of any nation to collect in behalf of private individuals financial claims against any American nation. Pearson, ...
— Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Debate Index - Second Edition • Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
... and so forth, that a searching investigation cannot be undertaken. In addition the preparation and staining of dried blood specimens is amongst the simplest and most convenient of the methods of clinical histology. In the interest of its wider dissemination, it will be justifiable to describe it ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... and justifiable indignation, Mrs. Darling at once sought Mrs. Stone and Mrs. Flight. "They had an awful scene, I'm sure," said she, "for his face was as black as a storm, and I knew how it would be. Some one's been blabbing and making matters infinitely worse than they really ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... The woman felt a justifiable sense of irritation. She was new to the city and thought she was taking the most direct method of replacing "same." Perhaps she should have known better, but she did not. Buying a key is not so simple as buying a box of matches and ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... quite abruptly, "Doctor, do you believe that any possible conditions could exist—that would make it justifiable for a man to show a woman's love-letter to ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... sentiment that induced you to act as you did. This declaration may seem strange to you. From what you knew of me, you acted rightly; but there may be a time, sir, when you will know me better: when the deeds which you abhor may seem not only pardonable, but justifiable. Enough of this at present. The object of my being now at your bedside is to request that what you do know of ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... justifiable in every case of irregular heart action to assure the patient that the condition can be improved, which in most instances is the truth. There can be no question of such urgent assurance, if it is decided ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... they are convenient terms for geographical facts, especially since the Palaearctic region expresses the unity of Europe with the bulk of Asia. Sclater further brigaded the regions of the Old World as Palaeogaea and the two Americas as Neogaea, a fundamental mistake, justifiable to a certain extent only since he based his regions mainly upon the present distribution ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... before the Municipal Court and there promptly discharged. Governor Ford, whose righteous soul had been vexed to the limit of endurance by unmerited abuse from Mormon and Gentile alike from the beginning of this controversy, here indulges in a few expressions of justifiable irony. Of these ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... race), it goes on to assert that it is not a valid immediate cognition at all. Now, I am not concerned here to inquire into the logical value of this transition, but simply to point out that it is extra-scientific and distinctly philosophic. If logically justifiable, it is so because of some plainly philosophic assumption, as that made by Hume, namely, that all ideas not derived from impressions are to ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... our childhood is not wholly justifiable: so much a man may lay down without fear of public ribaldry; for although we shake our heads over the change, we are not unconscious of the manifold advantages of our new state. What we lose in generous impulse, we more than gain in the habit of generously watching others; and the capacity ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Callandar kindly. "Just hang on a few moments longer, dear Mrs. Sykes, and your non-existent but very justifiable curiosity shall ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... broad-minded man. Having experienced most things that fall to the lot of men, he did not believe in restraining her against her will in order that her conversion might be accomplished as many a zealous priest might have considered justifiable in her case. But should she manifest a desire to remain with him, she would be reared in the very lap of Mother Church. With this project in mind, it was with the greatest solicitude that he watched her recovery, and when she was informed that she ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... had been prettily fringed and embroidered by Parthenia, and even now clothed him. How he, Ingomar, had killed several "Injins," and was once nearly scalped himself. All this with that ingenious candor which is perfectly justifiable in a barbarian, but which a Greek might feel inclined to look upon as "blowing." Thinking of the wearied Parthenia, I began to consider for the first time that perhaps she had better married the old Greek. Then she would at least have always ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... unacquainted with the barbarous treatment their people receive when they have the misfortune to be your prisoners here in Europe, and that if your conduct towards us is not altered, it is not unlikely that severe reprisals may be thought justifiable from a necessity of putting some check to such abominable practices. For the sake of humanity it is to be wished that men would endeavor to alleviate the unavoidable miseries attending a state of war. It has been said ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... Her strictures were justifiable; as long as the two below were in sight, and as often as they came round, they did not exchange word or look with each other. Schilsky frowned sulkily, and his loose-knitted body seemed to hang together more loosely than usual, while as for Louise—Maurice staring ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... individual Negroes, by fiendish assaults on white women, now and then rouse men to frenzy, but statistics show that only about a fifth of the lynchings of Negroes are because of the 'usual crime.' Burning at the stake is never justifiable under any circumstance, and it is undeniable that in race riots scenes of horror have been enacted that are a disgrace to American civilization. Such scenes are sadly out of place in a nation that proclaims itself the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... incredible number of women were reduced to the utmost distress. Some were delivered and spoiled by the rashness and ignorance of those who pretended to lay them. Children without number were, I might say, murdered by the same but a more justifiable ignorance: pretending they would save the mother, whatever became of the child; and many times both mother and child were lost in the same manner; and especially where the mother had the distemper, there nobody would come near them and both sometimes perished. Sometimes ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... which Mr. Hill took he was justifiable in feeling as he did. Everything about the little farmhouse reminded him of the woman he had loved. He never came to the house without a pang of painful loneliness at her absence. He felt himself incapable of caring for the children. She ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... that it would be improper not to mention what had happened to Mad. de Coulanges, because this would deprive her of an opportunity of judging and acting for herself in her own affairs. "This French gentleman has offered to carry letters, or to do her any service in his power; and we should not be justifiable in concealing this: the information may be false, but of that Mad. de Coulanges should at least have an opportunity of judging; she should see this botanist, and she will recollect whether what he says of the count, and his allowing him the use of his library, be true or false: from ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... by the clock. Luckily the cashier had not come yet. Mortimer's mind worked rapidly. He must make some excuse and get away; anything; he must even lie; if he saved the boy it would be justifiable. Why did not the cashier come, now that he was ready for him? Each minute seemed an age, with the honor of Allis's brother hanging in the balance. He would need money. He drew a check for a hundred dollars. A hasty inspection showed that he still had a trifle more than this amount to his ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... were the standard of right and wrong, and obedience to autocracy was better than the resistance which led to civil war or anarchy—the very things that induced men to establish sovereignty. Only when the safety of the state was threatened was rebellion justifiable. ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... ridding the world of the miscreants, he was upheld in the deed by the whole Delhi army, men in every respect better qualified to form a judgment in this particular than the sentimental beings at home who denounced with horror this perfectly justifiable act ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths |
