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Mitigate   /mˈɪtəgˌeɪt/   Listen
Mitigate

verb
(past & past part. mitigated; pres. part. mitigating)
1.
Lessen or to try to lessen the seriousness or extent of.  Synonyms: extenuate, palliate.
2.
Make less severe or harsh.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Mitigate" Quotes from Famous Books



... heavy and incessant that the men could hardly keep the deck, did not greatly mitigate the heat, and Columbus was at last constrained to yield to the importunities of his crew, and to alter his course to the north-west, in order to reach some of the Caribbee islands, where he might refit and be supplied ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich

... grand a philosophy upon the world in the present state of its intellectual civilization. I ceased to agitate the subject for many years, and allowed myself to be drawn into the political agitations connected with our civil war, to mitigate some of its social ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various

... Oxford and Smithfield were lit, Knox wrote: "Illuminate the heart of our Sovereign Lady, Queen Mary, with pregnant gifts of the Holy Ghost. . . . Repress thou the pride of those that would rebel. . . . Mitigate the hearts of those ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... need. As a consequence, a moderate amount of labour ought to produce inexhaustible abundance for everyone born of woman; and yet all these glorious achievements have not—as Stuart Mill forcibly says—been able to mitigate one human woe. And, what is more, the ever-increasing facility of producing an abundance has proved a curse to multitudes who lack necessaries because there exists no demand for the many good and useful things which they are able to produce. ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... But I didn’t have the combination,” I said, steadying the canoe carefully to mitigate the ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson

... stared at him in sudden horror; for the moment her self-possession completely deserted her. There was so little of any greeting in her face save the greeting of dismay, that he felt there was nothing for him to say to her, nothing that could mitigate the odious fact of his being there. He could only let her take it in, let her divine that, this time, he was not to be got rid of. In an instant—to ease off the situation—he held out his hand for Miss Birdseye's letters, and it was a proof of Olive's ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James

... expensive schoolhouse, to see him go to the polls, and vote in the affirmative. On being asked his reason, he explained that, while we labored under the calamity of universal (male) suffrage, he thought it best to mitigate its evils by educating the voters. In short, he wished, as Mr. Lowe said in England when the last Reform Bill passed, "to prevail upon our future masters to ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... deck, were compelled to cling to the cordage. All was confusion and alarm; scarcely had part of the crew time to hurry on deck, before the ladder gave way, leaving numbers struggling with the water, which rushed in at the bottom. The captain and lieutenant endeavored to mitigate the fears of the people; and afterwards, going down to the cabin, burnt the papers and private signals. Meantime, every sea dashed the vessel against the rocks; and they were soon compelled to climb the rigging, where they remained ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park

... devil, and he was accordingly seized with an intense personal enmity to this impertinent force. He had known what it was to have utterly exhausted his credit, to be unable to raise a dollar, and to find himself at nightfall in a strange city, without a penny to mitigate its strangeness. It was under these circumstances that he made his entrance into San Francisco, the scene, subsequently, of his happiest strokes of fortune. If he did not, like Dr. Franklin in Philadelphia, march along the street ...
— The American • Henry James

... Lynch's racial bias, the fact that he was an active participant in the events, and finally that his judgments are based on his own experiences and not on a closer study of a far wider field of material, make whatever he writes of value as source material, but at the same time mitigate against its value as an impartial opinion. This is especially evident from the fact that he makes no attempt either in the article or in his book to substantiate his statements by such references to his authorities as modern historiography demands. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... remained the whole day by herself, thinking that something must occur to mitigate the severity of the sentence which he had pronounced against her. It could not be that he should leave her thus,—he whose every word, whose every tone, whose every look, whose every touch had hitherto been so full of tenderness. If he had ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope

... Corsica they have done much for the island by improving its harbours and making good roads, and endeavouring to mitigate the ferocity of the people. But they have many things to contend against, and Corsica is still behind the other provinces of France. The people are idle, haughty, umbrageous, fiery, quarrelsome, fond of gipsy life, and retentive through generations of old ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... months of darkness, extreme cold, inaction, ennui, constant peril, and the haunting uncertainty as to the future, been sufficiently taken into account? Perfunctory duties and occupations do not avert the effects of these conditions; they hardly mitigate them, and have been known to aggravate them. I do not consider the attainment of Dr. Nansen's object by the means at his disposal to be impossible; but I do consider that the success of such an enterprise would not ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... several rolls of cheap carpeting and calico, might have been the wares of some traveling vender. Yet, as they were only visible through a flap of the drawn curtains of the canvas hood, they did not mitigate the general aggressive effect of their owner's appearance. A red bandanna handkerchief knotted and thrown loosely over his shoulders, a slouched hat pulled darkly over a head of long tangled hair, which, however, shadowed a round, comfortable face, scantily ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... misrepresentation of his meaning by his translator. If the same circumstances will atone in the least for the imperfections of what the editor has contributed to this edition, and will serve to mitigate the severity of judgment upon those contributions, it is all he ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... the Jews, their restlessness and proneness to wander from their one-principled deity which had been set up by their priests for them to worship, was doubtless an unconscious effort on the part of the people to mitigate the outrage which had been committed against their Creator. It was but a reaching out for that lost or unrecognized element which comprehends the more essential force both in human beings and in the conception of ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble

... commiserated by the People.] In our new quarters our entertainment proved as good as formerly. And indeed there was this to mitigate our misery, that the People were courteous to us and seemed to pity us. For there is a great difference between the People inhabiting the high-lands, or the mountains of Cande, and those of the low-lands ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... are inconveniences on both sides, with benefits on both, to give up a part of the benefit to soften the inconvenience. The perfect cure is impracticable; because the disorder is dear to those from whom alone the cure can possibly be derived. The utmost to be done is to palliate, to mitigate, to respite, to put off the evil day of the Constitution to its latest possible hour,—and may it be ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... hepatized. His mind is not occupied with thinking of the curious problems which are to be solved by his own autopsy,—whether this or that strand of the spinal marrow is the seat of this or that form of degeneration. He wants something to relieve his pain, to mitigate the anguish of dyspnea, to bring back motion and sensibility to the dead limb, to still the tortures of neuralgia. What is it to him that you can localize and name by some uncouth term the disease which you could not prevent and which you cannot cure? An old woman ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... their intellectual nature can be reduced has been not less conspicuously evinced. Ferdinand, like the rest of his race, was passionately fond of field sports, and cared for nothing else. His queen had all the vices of the house of Austria, with little to mitigate, and nothing to ennoble them—provided she could have her pleasures, and the king his sports, they cared not in what manner the revenue was raised or administered. Of course a system of favouritism existed at court, and the vilest and ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... confessions Catholics[1] are required to make in confessional, and the death bed confessions. The first are distinguished by the fact that they are made freely and that the confessee does not try to mitigate his crime, but is aiming to make amends, even when he finds it hard; and desires even a definite penance. Death bed confessions may indeed have religious grounds, or the desire to prevent the punishment or the further punishment ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... remembrances of the war, and it was a particular pleasure and benefit to me to see and to experience personally in the work of my mission, in how many directions and with what sincerely good and noble intentions the Governor General endeavours to mitigate personal suffering, and particularly how he cares for the children who ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton

... the lost, and shuddering anguish at the vacancy left behind, be soothed by poetic imaginations, there was something in Shelley's fate to mitigate pangs which yet, alas! could not be so mitigated; for hard reality brings too miserably home to the mourner all that is lost of happiness, all of lonely unsolaced struggle that remains. Still, though dreams and hues of poetry cannot blunt ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... doth mitigate extinguisheth thirst, asswageth the belly, and helpeth the Throat of hot hurts, sharp droppings and driness, and procureth rest: It will keep ...
— A Queens Delight • Anonymous

... promising capital which clustered about the Battery and overlooked the Bay, and of which the uppermost boundary was indicated by the grassy waysides of Canal Street. Even at the age of twenty- seven Austin Sloper had made his mark sufficiently to mitigate the anomaly of his having been chosen among a dozen suitors by a young woman of high fashion, who had ten thousand dollars of income and the most charming eyes in the island of Manhattan. These eyes, and some of their accompaniments, were for about five years ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... enforces in the seventh chapter of his Service of Man. Sanitation, medical science, free trade, popular education, co-operation, and such agencies, have done tremendously more than religion to diminish evil and mitigate suffering. On the other hand, it is indisputable that much of our boasted charity is worse than wasted, as it tends to produce the very helplessness and pauperism that furnish it with ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... heat that even the dry purity of the Sierra atmosphere could not altogether mitigate, I decided the next day to be content with reaching San Andreas, the county seat of Calaveras County, ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley

... solace our infirmity and mitigate the vexation and sorrow which persecution might cause us, a good reward is held forth: In suffering for the cause of God, we are walking step by step after the Son of God, and have Him for our guide. Were it simply said that to be Christians we must pass through ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various

... brief proceedings which left men who had been too free with their guns or with other people's property hanging from trees, projecting beams, and other convenient places. The usual rough justice of the affair did not, in his eyes, mitigate the offensiveness of ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly

... combat desertification and mitigate the effects of drought through national action programs that incorporate long-term strategies supported by ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... dishonest as any scoundrel that ever rode the wilds. He could be that, and carry it off before a sharper judge than she. So she said, finding it hard to excuse his blindness, if blindness it might be; unable to mitigate in any degree the blame, even passive knowledge of the intent, of ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... 'Mitigate it, Father?' interrupted the Lady Prioress; 'Not I, believe me. The laws of our order are strict and severe; they have fallen into disuse of late, But the crime of Agnes shows me the necessity of their revival. I go to signify my intention ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... was made the possibility of a war with the Dutch began to appear. The company considered ways by which Grillo might be induced to mitigate the contract.[86] Complications concerning the security to be given arose, and Grillo complained that the required number of Negroes was not being furnished to him. Under the circumstances this was almost impossible ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... seeing me were a thing that he very much disliked—that he came because he wanted to satisfy himself of my existence, of my identity, and my being alone. The slow stare that he gave me did not mitigate the leisureliness of his entry. He walked behind the table; the judge rose with immense deference; with his eternal smile, and no word spoken, he motioned the judge to resume the examination; he stood looking at the clerk's notes meditatively, ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... which he asserted strongly the utter folly of attempting to suppress opinion by force, and argued that "such is the nature of heresy that if it rests it rusts, but whoever rubs it whets it," had the effect of inclining the regent to mitigate the ferocity of her former edicts. Meanwhile the confederates were becoming bolder and more numerous. Assembling in great numbers at Brussels, they walked in procession through the streets to the palace of the ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot

... deepest guile; His head bent forward, and his willing ear Divinely patient right and wrong to hear: Great in his goodness, humble in his state, Firm in his purpose, yet not passionate, He led his people with a tender hand, And won by love a sway beyond command, Summoned by lot to mitigate a time Frenzied with rage, unscrupulous with crime, He bore his mission with so meek a heart That Heaven itself took up his people's part; And when he faltered, helped him ere he fell, Eking his efforts out by miracle. No king this man, by grace of ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... world would be his people, perhaps his mother; and it might soften the bitterness, of the return to consciousness if he found a woman at his bedside. More than this, it would serve to mitigate her own abysmal loneliness to ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... which she regarded him. Strangely enough, this latter fact was a relief to his conscience. It would have been terrible to have received their kindness under false pretenses; to take their just blame of the man he personated seemed to mitigate the deceit. ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... night. We could only shut ourselves up and wait for the sun to come. In trying to keep warm we would work our air-condensers harder than usual, and the water thus produced we would freeze in little cakes, and have them to help mitigate the burning heat a short ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan

... disapprobation. Whenever I meet your famous generals, or your judges and your bishops, I burn to tell them how their acts affect me; yet I'm obliged to refrain, because I know my words could do no good and might do harm, for they could only anger them. My sole hope of doing anything to mitigate the rigour of your cruel customs is to take as little notice of them as possible in any way whenever I find myself ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... last was paid to his representations. In order to avert at first the violence of the storm, and to gain time, which was so necessary to place the government in a better sate of preparation, it was agreed that a portion of the demands should be accorded to the confederates. It was also resolved to mitigate the penal statutes of the Emperor, as he himself would certainly mitigate them, were he again to appear among them at that day —and as, indeed, he had once shown under circumstances very similar to the present that he did not think it derogatory to his high dignity ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... rescue, perhaps in sickness of heart and protest against the deed. Well meant and kindly motived as his action was—and self- sacrificing too, if, as is probable, Joseph was meant by Jacob as his successor in the forfeited birthright—his scheme breaks down, as attempts to mitigate evil by compliance and to make compromises with sinners usually do. The only one of the whole family who had some virtue in him, was too timid to take up a position of uncompromising condemnation. He thought it ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... principle, moral or political, underlying the distinctive Bolshevik agitation and program. Nothing could well be farther from the truth than the view taken by many amiable people who, while disavowing the actions of the Bolsheviki, seek to mitigate the judgment which mankind pronounces against them by the plea that, after all, they are extreme idealists, misguided, of course, but, nevertheless, inspired by a noble ideal; that they are trying, as John Brown ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... delicious than ambrosia, came pelting down. It was far better and more strengthening than food, or any medicine or cordial could have been, and seemed to infuse fresh life into us all. When it was over, we wrung out from the saturated canvass, and from our clothing, water enough to mitigate for the time, though by no means to satisfy, the raging thirst from which we had suffered ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... so that if a great body of heated water, instead of flowing north-eastward, were made to pass through what is now the centre of the American continent towards the Arctic Circle, it could not fail to mitigate the severity of the winter's cold in precisely those latitudes where the cold was greatest and where it has left monuments of ice-action surpassing in extent any exhibited on the European ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... express sympathy and impart solace, the more impossible it seems to find gentle and appropriate terms. You would shun commonplaces and avoid sermonizing. You wish to say something simple, kind, soothing. And yet the reflection of how far short of the exigencies of the grief you would mitigate, fails your best and most effectual efforts, oppresses and restrains ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... silence they each other eyed At length, to speak the lovely charmer tried Said she, 'tis useless, Hispal, to bewail: Tears, with the cruel Parcae, naught avail; Each other to console be now our aim; Grim death his course will follow still the same. To mitigate the smart let's try anew; In such a place as this few ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... his misdeeds, there has been in times past more or less presumption against it, especially if he were born deaf and were without education; but to-day he is quite generally held fully answerable for his crimes and misdemeanors, and his deafness cannot mitigate his punishment.[89] As a witness, the deaf man under proper circumstances is now allowed to appear without hindrance before virtually any court.[90] As to special guardians, these will be accorded the deaf when there appears sufficient ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best

... his bones might be laid. The recent publication of his diary and letters shows that he not only acted honestly and conscientiously in opposing the popular current, but that he, at the same time, used his influence to mitigate the severe measures of government. He counselled them against the stamp act; against closing the port of Boston, and against some features of the regulating act, as too harsh and impolitic. It was his sincere wish that his countrymen would admit the supremacy ...
— Tea Leaves • Various

... not be difficult," returned David, hesitating; "though I greatly fear your presence would rather increase than mitigate ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... busybody were I to try to mitigate this woman's evil influence? I love dear Constance, and should be ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... nine?" The monarch asked them in reply: "Has it occurred to you to try The advantage of economy?" "It has," the spokesman said: "we sold All of our gray garrotes of gold; With plated-ware we now compress The necks of those whom we assess. Plain iron forceps we employ To mitigate the miser's joy Who hoards, with greed that never tires, That which your Majesty requires." Deep lines of thought were seen to plow Their way across the royal brow. "Your state is desperate, no question; Pray favor me with a suggestion." "O King of Men," the spokesman said, "If you'll impose ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... returned to his quarters he tried to mitigate the feeling of lonesomeness that oppressed him by tackling his neglected correspondence. Somehow, to-day, the sense of his isolation had come over him stronger than ever. His rank forbade any intimacy with his miserable handful of men, who had ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... nothing in defence of lawbreakers, nor would I, if I could, do aught to mitigate in the least degree the punishment that may be meted out to the person who wantonly assaults a peaceable citizen, but candor and strict impartiality force me to refuse to accept as truth all the rubbish ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith

... of the people of England, and even more emphatically of the people of Scotland. And Burke was forced to present an elaborate defence to his constituents at Bristol for taking part in an attempt to mitigate the penal laws against the Roman Catholics. There is every reason to suppose that even in 1829 a plebiscite, had one been possible, would have negatived the Catholic Relief Bill. The mitigation again of the Criminal Law was the work of thinkers like Romilly and Bentham. ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... the civil and commercial affairs of India, and to vest it in a board of commissioners, who should be nominated by Parliament, and rendered perfectly independent of the Crown. This scheme is said to have been devised by Mr. Burke; but even the paternity of Mr. Burke could not mitigate the odium that was heaped upon it by the Pitt and Grenville party. Mr. Pitt described it as a piece of tyranny that broke through every principle of equity and justice, that took away the security of every company in the kingdom, ...
— 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

... language has already made me your friend," exclaimed Francisco. "And now point out to me in what manner I can in any way repair—or mitigate—the wrong done to that fair creature in whom you express ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... therefore, there is a doubt affecting his case, he is entitled to the benefit of that doubt; and if he has suffered to any extent—if simply to the extent of losing a palliation, or the shadow of a palliation—by means of a false translation from the Greek, we ought not to revise or mitigate his sentence merely, but to dismiss him from the bar. The Germans make it a question—in what spirit Iscariot lived? My question is—how he died? If he were a traitor at last, in that case he was virtually a traitor always. If ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... passive; the sight of these indulgences of the "sprintriae" (for that is the name which was given there) did not enable him to resuscitate his vigor any more than the glamor of the throne or the servile submission of the senate served to mitigate his remorse. ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... and leave the land under the dominion of perpetual sterility. Man and beast pant for fresh air and cool water; but no cool breeze comes. A blast, as if from the mouth of a furnace, greets the burning cheek; no blessed drops descend; the sky is clear as a mirror, without a single cloud to mitigate the intensity of the sun's withering rays. At last, on some happy morning, small clouds are seen on the horizon. They may be no bigger than a man's hand, but they are blessed harbingers of rain. To those who know not what is coming, there ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne

... from this that he had not informed his cousin of the state of his affairs, and did not wish to see him until the improvement mentioned, or some other favorable development, should mitigate the shock of discovering what use Herbert had made of his powers. It was clear that it rested with her to decide whether George made the visit or not, because if she went to Egypt he would remain in Canada. But she was not quite ready to ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... repugnant to the duke, who was one of the most humane of men, and who by the uniform kind treatment of his prisoners, not only did much to mitigate the horrors of the war in which he was engaged, but set an example which has since his time been followed by all civilized armies. He had, however, no resource but to obey orders; and the cavalry of the allies were sent to carry ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty

... being may be said to be striving to the utmost to increase in numbers; that each lives by a struggle at some period of its life; that heavy destruction inevitably falls either on the young or old, during each generation or at recurrent intervals. Lighten any check, mitigate the destruction ever so little, and the number of the species will almost instantaneously increase to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... idle for them to think of throwing off their chains; that the law is riveted upon them by the Constitution, and the possibility of repeal is too remote for practical consideration. Thus the one thought that might mitigate resentment and discountenance resistance, the thought that freedom might be regained by repeal, is set aside; and the result is what we have been witnessing. On this phase of the subject, however, enough has been said in a previous ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin

... and I was maddened by my inability to protect from pagan cruelty a woman who was my sister by our common faith and a common misfortune. No longer venturing to have recourse to force, I sought other means to mitigate her sufferings. During the few hours of repose granted to us, or rather to our overseers, I hastened to the blind woman and shared with her the best of my food; I strove to fortify her by the hope that God would liberate her from this terrible ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience

... by his fatal passion to take from the funds entrusted to him by his clients a sum which was already more than half their amount. When the whole were gone, the unfortunate man intended to blow out his brains, hoping to mitigate the disgrace of his conduct by making a demand upon public pity. A fortune, rapid and secure, darted before du Tillet's eyes like a flash of lightning in a saturnalian night. He promptly reassured Roguin, and made him fire his ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... and are followed by hard times; and while a really wise reform of money and banking would not wholly prevent them, it would greatly mitigate their severity.[1] ...
— Social Justice Without Socialism • John Bates Clark

... trooping into the Dock, bringing all manner of Deadly pestilential Fumes with us from the Gaol yonder, and which not all the rue, rosemary, and marjoram strewn on the Dock-ledge, nor the hot vinegar sprinkled about the Court, could mitigate. The middle Judge, who was old, and had a split lip and a fang protruding from it, shook his head at me, and put on such an Awful face, that for a moment my scared thoughts went back to the Clergyman at St. George's, Hanover Square, that was wont to be so angry ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... company," and these two officers of the twenty-third corps, undoubtedly working in collusion, sought to mitigate their misery by putting two brigades of the fourth corps into the same class with their corps, whose battle line had proved unequal to the strain of the two brigades passing over it when driven in from the front by the assaulting rebel army. ...
— The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee • John K. Shellenberger

... performance—which has real elements of popularity in it, assuming that the management has the bold wisdom to run it against bad notices. Moreover, the most amiable criticisms in the world could do no more than mitigate the disaster of an essentially ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

... July marks the season of the greatest cold instead of, as with us, the greatest heat; and just as the civilized ancients ascribed the torrid heat of midsummer to that brilliant star,[804] so the modern savage of South Africa attributes to it the piercing cold of midwinter and seeks to mitigate its rigour by warming up the chilly star with the genial heat of the sun. How he does so may be best described in his own words ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... tell you, Sophie, immediately on your arrival yesterday," said the Comte, who was making visible efforts to mitigate the horror of what he was about to say: "but . . . as a matter of fact . . . this Mr. Clyffurde whom you met in my house last night . . . who sat next to you at my table . . . with whom you had that long and animated conversation afterwards . . . is ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... which a married woman is the owner of her own clothing to the value of $2,000, although the act granting this calls such apparel the "gifts of her husband," not recognizing the fact that most married women earn or help to earn their own clothes. A law was passed, in 1881, to "mitigate the evils of divorce." Two important acts were passed by the legislature of 1882, one allowing women to become practising attorneys, and the other providing, that in case of the death of a married woman intestate and leaving children, one-half only of her personal ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... digestion in perfect order, with the spring in the air and in his veins, and he will cheer anything, any Lewis, Lord Liverpool, dog, cat, or rat who may cross his path. Not that this is intended as a sufficient explanation of the Bourbon reception. Far from it; but it does mitigate it a trifle. At eleven o'clock in the forenoon two troops of the Oxford Blues drew up at Kilburn turnpike to await the sacred arrival. The Prince Regent himself went as far as Stanmore to meet his August Brother. When the August Brother reached the village, the excited ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford

... any importance; but he knew very well himself that he was only beguiling them in doing so. This question of a profession was, after all, but dead leaves to him—to him who had a canker at his heart, a perpetual thorn in his bosom, a misery within him which no profession could mitigate! Those dear ones at home guessed nothing of this, and he would take care that they should guess nothing. Why should they have the pain of knowing that he had been made wretched forever by blighted hopes? His ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... cannot be put down to his credit; he was, against his will, forced to do so; and indeed he could not resist a powerful impression of any kind. In a man of Jehoiakim's character, the same measure of the fear of God would induce us to mitigate our opinion; for in such a one it could not exist without some support from within. Confiding in the help of the neighbouring nations, especially the Egyptians; persuaded by the false prophets and the nobles; himself seized by that spirit of giddiness and intoxication ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... embarrassment and emotion. After some delay, and much pretended confusion, he at length confessed that the seizure of her father was all a stratagem; a mere false alarm, to procure him the present opportunity of having access to her, and endeavouring to mitigate that obduracy, and conquer that repugnance, which he declared had almost ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... poignant grief would be transient and quickly resolve itself into complete harmony. How could separation separate us, when presence itself is to us, as it were, too present? We have to cool and mitigate the consuming fire with jests, and thus for us the most witty of the forms and situations of joy is also the most beautiful. One among all is at once the wittiest and the loveliest: when we exchange roles and with childish delight try to see who can best imitate the other; whether you ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... to be regarded as a protegee of Alec Forbes, and as Alec was a favourite with most of his schoolfellows, and was feared where he was not loved, even her cousins began to look upon her with something like respect, and mitigate their persecutions. But she did not therefore become much more reconciled to her position; for the habits and customs of her home were distasteful to her, and its whole atmosphere uncongenial. Nor could it have been otherwise in any house where the entire anxiety was, first, to make ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... matched the leaden skies outside in point of gloom, and even the wood fire, crackling on the hearth, failed to mitigate the air of restraint and cheerlessness which prevailed in the dining-room. The rain, falling in torrents, had brought with it a penetrating cold wind, a last reminder of winter, and Vincent, passing noiselessly to and from ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... weren't you?" I said, seeking by emphasis on the "once" to mitigate what I felt might be the disagreeable ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome

... 1911, when Governor Dix signed the Bayne law against the sale of wild native game in the State of New York, Currituck County, N.C., was a vast slaughter-pen for wild fowl. No power or persuasion had availed to induce the people of North Carolina to check, or regulate, or in any manner mitigate that slaughter of geese, ducks and swans. It was estimated that two hundred thousand wild fowl were ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... lift his han' afore," said the laird, as if he would fain mitigate judgment on youthful indiscretion,—"excep' it was to the Kirkmalloch bull, when he ran at him an' me as gien he wad hae pitcht 's ower the ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... the Word of God itself is powerless to mitigate the immense megalomania of the Jewish race. It is doubtful indeed whether by the majority of Jews the Bible is now regarded as divinely inspired. "The ten commandments which we gave to mankind[821]" is a phrase typical of the manner in which ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... object every annoyance, or to occasion her a delightful surprise; that strength and power of love multiplied by the strength and power of royalty itself, seemed like a death-blow to Raoul. If there be anything which can in any way assuage or mitigate the tortures of jealousy, it is the inferiority of the man who is preferred to yourself; while, on the very contrary, if there be an anguish more bitter than another, a misery for which language ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... I talk to them of our Redeemer, and thus, in familiarly conversing with the young, I find means of instructing the old. They, perhaps, tell me of a sick neighbor; I direct my steps there, and endeavor to mitigate the pangs of disease by words of consolation and hope; I strive to pour balm on the wounded spirit, and, if the mind has been led away by the temptations of the world, I urge repentance as a means of grace. If death should ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... The hermits were compelled to abandon Mount Carmel by the advance of the Mahomedan power, and established themselves in Cyprus, and other places. In Europe they were compelled to live in common and mitigate their rule, and they became known as one of the mendicant orders. In England, where they became very numerous, they were called the "White Friars." To St. Simon Stock, the first general, the Virgin is said to have shown the scapular ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various

... we would now mitigate so foreign to our "business and bosoms" as we may lightly suppose: all Europe is involved by the circumstances which occasioned them, and with indignation as strong, though with sensations less acute, has watched ...
— Brief Reflections relative to the Emigrant French Clergy (1793) • Frances Burney

... and medical knowledge could suggest to mitigate these hardships was employed, the sufferings of the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... over as large districts as might be conveniently (according to the number and circumstances of their inhabitants) committed to their care; officers who, according to the reports of the pastors, should enforce or mitigate the operation of too rigid general law, and determine measures exceptionally necessary for public advantage. For instance, the general law being that all children of the operative classes, at a certain age, should be sent to public schools, these superior officers should have power, on the report ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin

... the powers of the soul there is an overflow from the higher to the lower powers: and accordingly, the pleasure of contemplation, which is in the higher part, overflows so as to mitigate even that pain which is in the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... systems and assets included on such list or in such database. (E) If appropriate, the extent to which such database and such list have been used, individually or jointly, for allocating funds by the Federal Government to prevent, reduce, mitigate, or respond to acts of terrorism. (F) The amount of coordination between the Department and the private sector, through any entity of the Department that meets with representatives of private sector industries for purposes of such coordination, ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives

... "words that made me very, very happy, though they were coupled with expressions of fear and apprehension. I have nothing to tell you, dear Laura, that can altogether remove those fears and apprehensions, but I can say something, perhaps, that may mitigate them. You are not aware of the circumstances in which I have had the happiness of seeking you and finding you this night; but you doubtless heard me mention, that it was your father who intrusted me with the search; and surely, dear ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... "I must own before these others, who have heard me speak hardly of you, that I have done you a grievous wrong. I have no excuse to urge in asking you to forgive it. There is nothing that now seems to mitigate my folly." ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss

... use common phrases when you speak to me, Mr Muddle. I presume, by mitigate, you mean to say that you can secure it. Do you mean so, sir, or ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... Drs. Winchell and Woodrow, and of the Beyrout professors, with authorities cited, see my chapter on The Fall of Man and Anthropology. For more liberal views among religious thinkers regarding the Darwinian theory, and for efforts to mitigate and adapt it to theological views, see, among the great mass of utterances, the following: Charles Kingsley's letters to Darwin, November 18, 1859, in Darwin's Life and Letters, vol. ii, p. 82; Adam Sedgwick to Charles Darwin, December 24, 1859, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutatory purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various

... the utmost snowy purity, and the conscientious polish of his boots. His dark, square countenance, with its almost shaggy depth of eyebrows, was naturally impressive, and would, perhaps, have been rather stern, had not the gentleman considerately taken upon himself to mitigate the harsh effect by a look of exceeding good-humor and benevolence. Owing, however, to a somewhat massive accumulation of animal substance about the lower region of his face, the look was, perhaps, unctuous rather than spiritual, and had, so to speak, a kind ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... I won't!" And as soon as these words were spoken, as if to mitigate something of their asperity, she made her other point. "You must remember that I never said I would—nor anything like it; not one little wee mite. I thought you just wanted me ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James

... sense of defeat, might have brought with it an element of discontent or rebellion; far from it, they accepted their exile as a judgment of the gods, which the gods alone had a right to reverse, and did their best to mitigate the hardness of their lot by rendering unhesitating obedience to their masters. Their grandchildren, born in the midst of Assyrians, became Assyrians themselves, and if they did not entirely divest themselves ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... and not Ligarius? The oration is for the most part simply eulogistic. At any rate it was successful, and became at Rome, for the time, extremely popular. He writes about it early in the following year to Atticus, who has urged him to put something into it, before it was published, to mitigate the feeling against Tubero. Cicero says in his reply to Atticus that the copies have already been given to the public, and that, indeed, he is not ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... received him in their arms as he sank utterly exhausted by the effort, and bore him back to his castle in mute sorrow; while his daughter at once wept for her brother, and endeavoured to mitigate and soothe the despair of her father. But this was impossible; the old man's only tie to life was rent rudely asunder, and his heart had broken with it. The death of his son had no part in his sorrow. If he thought of him at all, it was as the degenerate boy, through whom the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... The financial crisis must be looked upon as an economic disease which brings many evils in its train. The need is not merely to mitigate the severity of the brief period of crisis, but also to smooth out the curve of the business cycle so as to reduce periodic unemployment, the lottery element in profits, and the number of unmerited failures in business. Several measures may ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... to-day, eight slaughtered deer in one shop; and they are seen hanging at the doors in every street. The price is $3 per pound. Wild turkies, geese, ducks, partridges, etc. are also exposed for sale, at enormous prices, and may mitigate the famine now upon us. The war has caused an enormous increase of wild game. But ammunition is difficult to be obtained. I see some perch, chubb, and other fish, but all ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... primitive, but if it will mitigate the mischief in only fifty per cent. of cases, is it not well worth trying? Most collisions occur at slow speeds, and it ought to be remembered that in case of a big liner's loss, involving many lives, she is generally sunk by a ship ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... offer save a new emphasis on parts of what Calvinism contained. The theology of Calvin, we must remember, had much in it besides philosophical Calvinism. A Christian tenderness, and a hope of grace for the individual, came to mitigate its sardonic optimism; and it was these evangelical elements that the Calvinistic churches now emphasised, seldom and with blushes referring to hell-fire or infant damnation. Yet philosophic Calvinism, with a theory of life that would perfectly justify ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... fascinating and infectious than the mirthful ingenuousness which accompanied and seemed to mitigate this ungracious speech, and the consul was greatly amused, albeit conscious that it was only an attitude, and perhaps somewhat worn in sentiment. He knew that during the war of the rebellion, and directly after it, Great Britain was ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... human frame and the properties of drugs, but with ghosts, their personal peculiarities, habits, and haunts. Only by means of the influence which such a knowledge enables him to exert on these powerful and dangerous beings can the good physician mitigate and assuage the sufferings of poor humanity. His professional skill, while it certainly aims at the alleviation of physical evils, attains its object chiefly, if not exclusively, by a direct appeal to those ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... success immense. On the 2nd of August I am going away on a tour of some four months in England, Ireland, and Scotland. I shall read, during that time, not fewer than four or five times a week. It will be sharp work; but probably a certain musical clinking will come of it, which will mitigate the hardship. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... agreed that Joy should be found guilty, generally, and condemned to be confined for the space of one month, in irons, to a fine of L5, and to banishment from the colony. This result was not attained without strong resistance from Winthrop, who strove to mitigate the punishment to a fine, and from Endicott, who endeavored to obtain remission of the banishment; but in vain—the vehemence of Dudley, and the insinuations of Spikeman, ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... are generously moderate, when you mitigate my Guilt, and miscall it a Credulity; 'twas a passionate, and most unjustifiable Levity, and must still have remain'd unpardonable, whatever Truth might have been found in its ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill

... Eighteenth-century France, on the contrary, developed no benevolent despot to mitigate abuses, reform the laws, abolish privileges, temper the rule of the Church, [9] (R. 247), curb the monastic orders, develop the natural resources, begin the establishment of schools, and alleviate ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... they were betraying her did not change or mitigate the fact of betrayal; and that fact showed itself to proud, confident Adelaide Ranger in the form of the proposition that she had been jilted, and that all the world, all her world, would soon know it. Jilted! She—Adelaide Ranger—the all-conqueror—flung ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... colonel, and he found a worn lexicon in the attic and began to dig out translations and chant melodious periods. The daughters could have hugged Mary Nellen, bright-eyed and intent on advancement up the hill of learning, for they gave him something to do to mitigate suspense until his son should come. And one day at twilight, when they did not know it was going to be that day at all, but when things were in a complete state of readiness and everybody disposed ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... desirable than gaudy decoration. In course of time it was discovered that the old woman could speak Gaelic, and when one or two grave professors came to see her, the neighborhood was filled with pride that such a wonder lived in their midst. To mitigate life for a woman of ninety was an unfailing refutation of the statement that the Settlement was designed ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... great one," said Quincy. "But if the poetry be good it may serve to mitigate your sentence. Are those the evidences of your crime you hold in ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... morbid tastes; but I have an object in describing this dreadful oubliette, for it still exists—exists within thirty-two miles of British territory, and it is a scandal that some effort is not made to mitigate its horrors. Through the bars of a padlocked door, from which spurt blasts of mephitic heat, we can descry amid the steam of foul exhalations, as soon as our eyes become accustomed to the dimness, a mob of seething, sweating, sweltering captives, like in aspect ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... All downward lying prone and weeping sore. "My soul hath cleaved to the dust," I heard With sighs so deep, they well nigh choak'd the words. "O ye elect of God, whose penal woes Both hope and justice mitigate, direct Tow'rds the steep rising our uncertain way." "If ye approach secure from this our doom, Prostration—and would urge your course with speed, See that ye still to rightward keep the brink." So them the bard besought; and such the words, Beyond us some short space, in answer came. I noted what ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... Plymouth,[323] where they landed on the 21st of December. During the remainder of the winter they suffered terribly from cold, want, and sickness; no more than fifty remained alive when spring came to mitigate their sufferings. The after progress of the little colony was for some time slow and painful. The system of common property[324] had excited grievous discontent; this tended to create an aversion to labor that was to be productive ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... although damp, is good, for the thick foliage of the forest and the breezes that often hail from the mountains mitigate the ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... four dwelling-houses prior to 1661, and large numbers of men employed. He was a ready contributor to all public objects. His education had been superior and his attainments in knowledge extensive. He was of an enlightened spirit, and strove to mitigate the severity of the procedures against Antinomians and others. He seems to have had an ingenious and enterprising mind. At a General Court held at Boston, Sept. 6, 1638, it was voted that, "Whereas ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... amusement, or the instruction of the wealthier classes, who labour under the same natural disadvantages. These triumphs of skill and ingenuity deserve a double portion of our admiration when applied to mitigate the severity of natural or accidental misfortune; when they supply the rich with occupation and knowledge; when they relieve the poor from the additional evils of ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage

... half-laughed, and nearly cried as she said this, for she felt that it was rather a bold thing to say to a stranger, and yet she had such a strong desire to mitigate her husband's desolation when absent from her that she forcibly overcame her modesty. "And I want you to do me a favour, ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne

... itself any resources which may thence be furnished for the public advantage. You derive benefits from many dispositions and many passions of the human mind which are of as doubtful a color, in the moral eye, as superstition itself. It was your business to correct and mitigate everything which was noxious in this passion, as in all the passions. But is superstition the greatest of all possible vices? In its possible excess I think it becomes a very great evil. It is, however, a moral ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... dark field of the telescope, and the application of it to reading by artificial light, is very prejudicial to its use for the more delicate purpose. John Herschel, no doubt, availed himself of every precaution to mitigate the ill effects of this inconvenience as much as possible, but it must have told upon his labours as compared ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball

... and Scalped indiscriminately in the most inhuman and cruel manner. But that there was all possible care and precaution taken to prevent them is undenyable. Captain Butler, who had command of the expedition, was indefatigable in his endeavours and exertions to restrain and mitigate the fury and ferocity of the savages often at the risk of the Tomahawk being made use of against himself as well as the Indian officers.... Out of a hundred and seventy scalps three-fourths were those of Women and Children." Butler's name is still looked ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... But the chief cause of the great change that was passing over the Irish Catholics was to be found in the disappointment of their hopes in 1801, in 1804, in 1806, and 1812; in the desertion of their cause by Pitt; in the proved impotence of the Whigs; in the failure of 'the securities' even to mitigate the hostility of Perceval and his followers; in the profound consternation and exasperation that were produced by the attitude of the Regent. The formation of the General Committee of Catholic Delegates was speedily followed by its ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... incredible though it may appear, less soluble in boiling water than in cold. Water just above the freezing-point dissolves nearly twice as much lime as it does when boiling. You see, then, that a knowledge of certain important facts like these may be so used as to considerably mitigate your coal bills, ...
— The Chemistry of Hat Manufacturing - Lectures Delivered Before the Hat Manufacturers' Association • Watson Smith

... do, drive): (1) agent, agitate, agile, act, actor, actuate, exact, enact, reaction, counteract, transact, mitigate, navigate, prodigal, assay, essay; (2) agenda, pedagogue, synagogue, actuary, redact, castigate, litigation, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... confidence in his being bound to do what she required, that held him at a singular disadvantage, 'the only reparation that remains with you, is to leave here immediately and finally. I am quite sure that you can mitigate in no other way the wrong and harm you have done. I am quite sure that it is the only compensation you have left it in your power to make. I do not say that it is much, or that it is enough; but it is something, and it is necessary. ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... her, that she could not see him. She was a thousand times on the very brink of revoking the sentence she had passed against the poor youth. Love became his advocate, and whispered many things in his favour. Honour likewise endeavoured to vindicate his crime, and Pity to mitigate his punishment. On the other side, Pride and Revenge spoke as loudly against him. And thus the poor lady was tortured with perplexity, opposite passions distracting and tearing her ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... indoors and hang out wisps of straw, and when compelled to walk abroad to carry white rods.(1076) This order, however, was badly received in the city and gave rise to much murmuring and dissatisfaction.(1077) The civic authorities did what they could to mitigate the evil by driving out beggars and vagabonds, and removing slaughter-houses outside the city walls,(1078) as well as by administering relief to the poorer classes by the distribution of tokens or licences to solicit alms. These tokens consisted of round "beedes" of white tin, bearing ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... was greatly amazed at the insolence of the sergeant; taking him aside he gave him brotherly advice to plead guilty and thereby atone for his offence. The Master of the Hunt was mollified and promised that he would intercede with the Emperor and somewhat mitigate the sentence. The matter ended by the dogs being sent to be strangled, and the sergeant to prison for four weeks. This trifle amused us the whole evening; the next day the story spread abroad that the Master of the Hunt had taken up the case of my ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... dry. Good jokes are few. Surely it might be permitted Lawyer Gooch to mitigate the bore of briefs, the tedium of torts and the prosiness of processes with even so light a levy upon the good property ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... corridor he drew in his horns, bowed politely, and passed stiffly on. He was courted with great obsequiousness, for everyone was well aware that a word from him to the colonel commanding the post of Sedan would suffice to mitigate a requisition or secure the release of a friend or relative. It was not very long since his uncle, the governor-general at Rheims, had promulgated a particularly detestable and cold-blooded order, proclaiming martial law and decreeing the penalty of death ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... famous for many witty sayings (among them the well-known "Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris"), heard some grave city fathers debating what could be done to mitigate the cruel east wind at an exposed corner of a certain street in Boston. He suggested that they should tether a shorn ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... preserve the peace, giving that chief one of his daughters in marriage, and showing moderation in face of much provocation. When war was forced upon him by their raids he did everything he could to mitigate its terrors, but the ill success of his troops in their encounters with the Tartars broke his confidence, and he died prematurely after a reign of twenty-three years, which was remarkable as witnessing the consolidation of the Hans. The good work of Wenti was continued during the ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... author of thy race, Tell me, oh tell, is this my native place? For much I fear, long tracts of land and sea Divide this coast from distant Ithaca; The sweet delusion kindly you impose, To soothe my hopes, and mitigate ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... remember that they also have passed through similar experiences: let every one have his turn. Those who observe with regret this waste of time and strength consider that, while inevitable up to a certain point, it serves no good purpose; they ask whether something might not be done to mitigate the severity of this apprenticeship to Heuristic, which at one time cost them so dear. Besides, is not research, in the present condition of its material aids, difficult enough whatever the experience of the ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois

... commanded the angels to turn the man and the woman out of Paradise. They began to weep and supplicate bitterly, and the angels took pity upon them and left the Divine command unfulfilled, until they could petition God to mitigate His severe verdict. But the Lord was inexorable, saying, "Was it I that committed a trespass, or did I pronounce a false judgment?" Also Adam's prayer, to be given of the fruit of the tree of life, was turned aside, with the promise, however, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... gone. Then she crouched, staring with wide, unseeing eyes into the outside dark. The man would go right away; she would not have even him to mitigate the horrible condition ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... impulse to suffer our sisters and brothers, our aunts and uncles, much less our cousins. If we could choose our relatives, we might, by selecting congenial ones, mitigate the repulsive effect of the obligation to like them and to admit them to our intimacy. But to have a person imposed on us as a brother merely because he happens to have the same parents is unbearable when, as may easily ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw

... disagreeable and adverse to her; roads, houses, food, people, and money; rocks, trees, rivers and flowers; but especially sun, sky, and air. She talks without ceasing of heavy clouds and pouring rains, but even this abundance of water is insufficient to mitigate the dryness ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... falsed hope did promise us; Why then proceed, and rid our trembling hearts Of these suspicions; since neither in this case His good deserts in service to your grace, Which always have been just, nor my desires, May mitigate the cruel rage of grief That strains your heart, but that mine Earl must die; Then all in vain you ask, what I can say, Why I should live. Sufficeth for my part To say I will not live, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... favoured. It is true, the new Queen, on arriving, drove out Madame des Ursins, but this showed her to be possessed of as much power as the woman she displaced, and when she began to exercise that power in other directions the popular dislike to her was increased. She made no effort to mitigate it—hating the Spaniards as much as they hated her—and it is incredible to what an ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... the articles with which he has provided himself. You can neglect your billiard-table, your books, or even your wine-cellar,—because they eat nothing. But your horses soon eat their heads off their own shoulders if you pass weeks without getting on their backs. Hampstead had endeavoured to mitigate for himself this feeling of improvidence by running up and down to Aylesbury; but the saving in this respect was not sufficient for his conscience, and he was therefore determined to balance the expenditure of the year by a regular performance of his duties at Gorse Hall. ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... the effect his information had produced, and he now did his best to mitigate the anxiety of my lieutenant, entering warmly into all his plans for gaining information as to ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... and will not give way to aught that may put the Church of Scotland's head farther into the Roman yoke, or make the baron's coronet stoop to the mitre and cowl. Do you, therefore, most noble Duke of Albany, place your own name in the commission; and I pray your Grace so to mitigate the zeal of the men of Holy Church who may be associated with you, that there be no over zealous dealings; for the smell of a fagot on the Tay would bring back the Douglas ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James

... mother of Cruelty." Alas, by the introduction of that brief proviso, conceived in a spirit of admirably cautious self-defence, the writer has unwittingly given himself to the horns of a dilemma whose ferocity nothing can mitigate. These tempered and conditional truths are not in nature, which decrees, with uncompromising dogmatism, that either a woman is one's mother, or she is not. The writer probably meant merely that "fear is one of the causes of cruelty," and had ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh

... Theodoret asked him why he had chosen so singular a practice. The penitent answered: "I punish my criminal body, that God, seeing my affliction for my sins, may be moved to pardon them, and to deliver me from, or at least to mitigate the excessive torments of the world to come, which I have deserved." See Theodoret, Phil. c. 28. John Mosch in the Spiritual Meadow, c. 59, p. 872, relates that Thalihaeus, the Cilician, spent sixty years in ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... field, the piteous plaints of that terror-stricken soul. Rumor has it, that before the building was fired by a shell in the middle of the following forenoon, her spirit had taken its flight; but whether or not, it could not mitigate the retributive justice to be measured out by that God over us all to whom vengeance belongs, upon the heads of the ingrates who had ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... attention they received, they in most cases soon recovered; and it was also a great means of preventing contagion. This year the disorder was particularly severe, and the ill feeling towards Monsieur de Marne rose to a great height. He sent large assistance to the village, and endeavoured to mitigate the sufferings of the poor people; but he still heard it said as he passed along: "There goes Monsieur de Marne, who has come to restore some small part of the hospital land." If he visited a sick person, and inquired after his health, ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various

... provocation, is an enormous crime. To attempt to escape from the cruelties exercised upon us, by flight, is punished with mutilation, and sometimes with death. To take arms against masters, whose cruelties no submission can mitigate, no patience exhaust, and from whom no other means of deliverance are left, is the most atrocious of all crimes; and is punished by a gradual death, lengthened out by torments, so exquisite, that none, but those who have been long familiarized, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... been considering those elements of a pathetic presentation which may mitigate our sympathetic emotion, and make it on the whole agreeable. These consist in the intrinsic beauties of the medium of presentation, and in the concomitant manifestation of various goods, notably of truth. The mixture of these values is perhaps ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana



Words linked to "Mitigate" :   minify, mitigative, decrease, mitigable, lessen, relieve, rationalize, excuse, mitigation, apologize, apologise, justify, law, jurisprudence, lighten, rationalise, mitigatory



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