Had it been in self-defenseeven in the heat of uncontrollable angershe could have found mitigation for Jack; but there was neither the justification of self-defense nor the plausible pretext of anger.

That it was a mere pretext for getting control of Gaul he himself made plain in demanding that Cassius and Marcus Brutus be appointed consuls.

He testified in behalf of woman, the puppet of a tyrant who repudiated her upon the most frivolous pretext, and declared that in the beginning God made them male and female; the one husband for the one wife.

"You know how to keep a secret," he said, and motioned me in the direction whence came the sound, I hurried out, closing the door, and met Katie running up to know "what had happened?" I sent her back on some slight pretext, and followed whither she went.

Would any honest man have released himself from such obligation under the flimsy pretext that it would be acting against the will of God to recall the soldiers and prevent them from doing execution on the enemy?

The real object of many was, doubtless, to gratify their avarice and desire of aggrandisement: although this sinister motive was concealed under the specious pretext of searching for a remedy that should serve as a tincture of life, both for the healthy and diseased, yet some among these whimsical mortals were actuated by more honourable motives, zealous only for the interest of truth, and the well-being of their fellow creatures.

Any man who had been a New York Street Commissioner ought to be hanged as soon as any decent pretext could be found for hanging him.

They must resist the studied attempt to humiliate Turkey and therefore Islam, under the false pretext of ensuring Armenian independence.

" Lydia Sessions made this an immediate pretext for getting down and coming in.

At the beginning of 1909 the Regent dismissed Yuan on an apparently trivial pretext, but every one in China knew the real reason for his fall, and not a few wondered that his life had been spared.

Here have we, in Venice, been in undisputed possession of provinces that are adapted to our institutions, convenient to our wants, and agreeable to our desires, for ages; provinces that were gallantly won by our ancestors, and which cling to us as habits linger in our age: and yet are they become objects of a covetous ambition to our neighbor, under a vain pretext of a policy that I fear is strengthened by our increasing weakness.

The murder provided an admirable pretext for aggression against Serbia, and at the same time tended to revive all the latent prejudice with which the country of the regicides was still regarded in the West.

In the light of such events where, on German soil, Germans murderously attacked their fellow-countrymen on such ridiculous pretexts, it requires little imagination to explain the outburst of brutality against Belgians who dared to defend hearth and home.

A formal pretext for supporting the Mamertines was found in the protectorate which Rome claimed the right to exercise over all Italians.

He had also a very sufficient pretext for such interference, as he could bring forward the positive command of his sovereign, that no arms of any kind should be given or sold to the natives.

On any transparent pretext,the more transparent the better, he thought, for the proprietress of the white shoulders and the bewitching shape, who "no doubt understood,"he dropped in often at the little bookstore, to begin with a "how-do?"

"Surely," Norgate asked, "Germany will wait for some reasonable pretext?" "She will find one through Austria," Selingman replied.

He was afraid to speak to him, considering it a lack of discipline to meddle in the management of the boat, so he invented the most absurd pretext in order to run afoul of Ferragut.

It might have done in the twelfth century, when all was bigotry and superstition; but let not a mistaken humanity, in these enlightened times, furnish a colourable pretext for any injurious attack on property or character.

They had doubtless planned some little spree together, like husbands bent on availing themselves to the utmost of the convenient pretext of a day's shooting.

" Before the dismayed captain could think of any dignified pretext to stay him he was out of the room.

One day he took it into his head to prevent his officers from galloping in the streets and boulevards, under the miserable pretext that the rapid evolutions of these horsemen had occasioned several accidents.

But her vanity suggested the obvious pretext, and she murmured with a laugh: "I didn't know Raymond was going to be so jealous" The Princess stared.

The ostensible pretext was this monarch's having made war against the duke of Brittany, Charles's old ally in the short contest in which he, while yet but count, had measured his strength with his rival after he became king.

Their great popular movements have always had a religious basis, or perhaps it would be truer to say, a religious pretext, for they have been in reality the partly moral, partly envious revolt of hungry and ascetic warrior tribes against the fatness and corruption of the "cities of the plain.