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More "Persuasive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no desire to terrorize the man, but to conciliate him, for his own purposes, for his manner was pleasant and suave. No doubt he feared that threats of the guillotine, and various other persuasive methods of that type, might addle the old man's brains, and that he would be more likely to be useful through greed of gain, than through terror ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... Lynch now and then glanced anxiously in her direction; once she heard something about "the Rileys" and an imploring "hush" from Mother Lynch. Adam Kraus and the four girls were urging Dale to do something and Robin saw a big girl with bold black eyes lay a persuasive hand on Dale's arm, which Dale shook off almost rudely. Robin hated the girl, and wished she had the courage to break into the circle and drag Dale away from her, instead of standing in such a silly way ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... be ordained. With infinite skill he worked on his feelings, and this was easier since he was himself genuinely moved. Philip's change of mind caused him bitter distress, and he really thought he was throwing away his chance of happiness in life for he knew not what. His voice was very persuasive. And Philip, easily moved by the emotion of others, very emotional himself notwithstanding a placid exterior—his face, partly by nature but also from the habit of all these years at school, seldom except by his quick flushing showed what ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... gentle, yet resistless power To sooth each painful Passion's wild extremes. Here shall no empty, vain Intruder chase, With idle converse, thy enchantment warm, That brings, in all its interest, all its grace, The dear, persuasive, visionary Form. Can real Life a rival blessing boast When thou canst thus restore ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... affection, could not save you from his barbarous acts; the rule has been the same for those who like you had charms to captivate his attention, and an unsuspicious, a genuine heart to inhale the poison of his persuasive tongue. But still the fate of poor Anselma surpassed in horror ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... that Mr. Tillott has not his persuasive powers!" she thought; Mr. Tillott's eloquence being, in fact, of a very limited order, chiefly exhibiting itself in little jerky questions about the spiritual and temporal welfare of his humble parishioners—questions which, in the vernacular language of agricultural labourers, "put ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Gentlemen, the formidable influences which for a moment deprived Fourier of the suffrages of his countrymen; and caricatured, as a partisan of Robespierre, the individual whom St. Just, making allusion to his sweet and persuasive eloquence, styled a patriot in music; who was so often thrown into prison by the decemvirs; who, at the very height of the Reign of Terror, offered before the Revolutionary Tribunal the assistance of his admirable talents to the mother of Marshal Davoust, accused ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... image lay before my view. Thy father's heir in beauteous form arrayed Like flowers in spring, and fair, like them to fade; Leaving behind unhappy wretched me, And all thy little orphan-progeny: Alike the beauteous face, the comely air, The tongue persuasive, and the actions fair, Decay: so learning too in time shall waste: But faith, chaste lovely faith, shall ever last. The once bright glory of his house, the pride Of all his country, dusty ruins hide: Mourn, hapless orphans; mourn, once happy wife; For when he died, died all the joys of life. Pious ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... the accounts which we have of her, Sarah must have been a most engaging child. Gentle and affectionate in disposition, and persuasive and winning in manners, there was yet an ardor and enthusiasm in her character, combined with a quiet firmness and perseverance, that ensured success in whatever she attempted, and gave promise of the lofty excellence to which she afterwards attained. All who have sketched her character ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... arises over there in the brush a soft, persuasive cooing, a sound so subtle and wild and unobtrusive that it requires the most alert and watchful ear to hear it. How gentle and solicitous and full of yearning love! It is the voice of the mother hen. Presently ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... other human beings, and has some prospect of happiness to contemplate, if she could only be made to see it—are we not bound to make her see it, by our moral obligation to act on the medical advice?" He cast a courteously-persuasive look at her ladyship, and paused in the most innocent manner ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... Collier's Tracts on the Stage are, on the whole his best pieces. But there is much that is striking in his political pamphlets. His "Persuasive to Consider anon, tendered to the Royalists, particularly those of the Church of England," seems to me one of the best productions of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... thus, half in the persuasive charm of ceremonial, half in the hard procession of account books, the last three years of John's life had passed. On coming of age he had spent a few weeks at Thornby Place, but the place, and especially the country, had appeared to him so grossly ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... American economic life between the Civil War and the War of 1914 gave the plutocrat his chance. He was the man on horseback, quick, clever, shrewd, farseeing, persuasive, powerful. Through the courses of these revolutionary changes, the Hills, Goulds, Harrimans, Wideners, Weyerhausers, Guggenheims, Rockefellers, Carnegies, and Morgans did to the American economic organization exactly what Napoleon did to the French political ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... proposed next to have Isabel privately watched. There might be a prodigal lover somewhere in the background, with ruin staring him in the face unless he could raise five hundred pounds. Lady Lydiard (who had only consented to the search under stress of persuasive argument from Mr. Troy) resented this ingenious idea as an insult. She declared that if Isabel was watched the girl should know of it instantly from her own lips. The police listened with perfect resignation and decorum, and politely shifted ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... instinctive feelings of the heart be an inspiration of God? May not God come near to the heart of man and awaken a mysterious presentiment of an invisible Presence, and an instinctive longing to come nearer to Him? May he not draw men towards himself by sweet, persuasive influences, and raise man to a conscious fellowship? Is not God indeed the great want of ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... are so blended with all truths, and have so great a resemblance to them, that there is no certain rule for judging of or assenting to propositions; from which this maxim also follows, that many things are probable, which, though they are not evident to the senses, have still so persuasive and beautiful an aspect that a wise man chooses to direct his conduct ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... with some cipher messages. And, if you will let me have your reply to the advertisement with the returned paper by eleven at latest, I will see that it is sent." The rather peremptory tone softened—became persuasive; "You must build up the great hall again, Saxham, and building can't be done without money. And—it occurs to me that this may be ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Comte too seemed to be won over by his sister's persuasive rhetoric: her strength of mind and firmness of purpose always imposed themselves on those over whom she chose to exert her will: and men of somewhat weak character like the Comte de Cambray came very easily under the sway ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... and persuasive, and for a single instant she admitted the possibility into her mental future; but the instant after it found itself driven ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... no fateful swing of mechanical law; it is a morally good will which works patiently and forever toward a harmonized world, a Kingdom of God. The central trait of His character is Love. He does not become Father, He is not reconciled to us by persuasive offerings and sacrifices. He is inherently and by essential disposition Father and the God of all Grace. He is not remote and absentee—making a world "in the beginning," and leaving it to run by law, or only occasionally interrupting its ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... their return, and the abundant supplies at the forest cottage were more easily obtained, and were less carefully regulated, than those of the Countess Cathleen. The merchants, too, were ever at hand with their cunning wiles, and their active, persuasive dupes, who would gladly bring all others into their own soulless condition. The wine given by the demons warmed the hearts of all who drank, and the deceived peasants dreamed of happiness when the famine was over, and so the passionate ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... came to telling what he wanted to do, the Ranger warmed to his subject; he talked beautifully, convincingly, with a certain strange, persuasive power that betrayed how he worked his way; and his fine face, losing its stern, hard lines, seemed to glow and give forth a spirit austere, yet noble, almost gentle, assuredly something vastly different from what might have been ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... in the effects of their teaching. You see Erasmus addressing himself with persuasive eloquence to kings, and popes, and prelates; and for answer, you see Pope Leo sending Tetzel over Germany with his carriage-load of indulgences. You see Erasmus's dearest friend, our own gifted admirable Sir Thomas More, taking ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... invitation. He could go, she said, urging so many reasons why he should, that, for the first time since their marriage, he left her alone, and went to where Sybil Grandon smiled her sunniest smile, and put forth her most persuasive powers to keep him at her side, expressing so much regret that he did not bring his charming little wife, who completely won her heart, she was so childlike and simple-hearted, laughing so merrily when she discovered the flour on her hair, but not seeming to mind it ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... envy breeds, And smit with love of honourable deeds, Strongest of men, they pierced the mountain boar, Ranged the wild deserts red with monsters' gore, And from their hills the shaggy Centaurs tore: Yet these with soft persuasive arts I sway'd; When Nestor spoke, they listen'd and obey'd. If in my youth, even these esteem'd me wise; Do you, young warriors, hear my age advise. Atrides, seize not on the beauteous slave; That prize the Greeks by common suffrage gave: Nor thou, Achilles, treat our prince with pride; ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... reclines on thy bosom, and greedily drinks love at both his eyes, vanquished by the eternal wound of love: and his breath, as he reclines, hangs on thy lips; bending thy head over him as he lies upon thy sacred person, pour forth sweet and persuasive ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... once again in order to refresh his memory on some of the details. He was as anxious about getting this right as if Miss Winthrop were a prospective customer. Perhaps she might be. Women invested money, and if he was persuasive enough he might sell her a thousand-dollar bond. If he did not sell one to her, he might sell a few to Barton. Barton was always investing money—investing the Pendleton money, in fact. He might suggest Barton to Farnsworth, and drop around and see him ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... persuasive and all patience as he strove to make the colt take the leap. The urge of voice and rein was of the mildest; but the animal balked the take-off each time, and the hot thoroughbredness in its veins made it sweat and lather. The velvet of young grass was torn up by its hoofs, and its ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... presuming to insult a stranger and a guest. His condemnation was supported on such lofty principles as no man who possessed a particle of religion or good feeling could withstand; and his eloquence was so commanding yet persuasive that, when at length he moved away, not children only but many also of ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... collector that I set a heap of store by. Always handled himself just right when he talked to you and kept himself looking right up to the mark. His salary wasn't very big, but he had such a persuasive way that he seemed to get a dollar and a half's worth of value out of every dollar that he earned. Never crowded the fashions and never gave 'em any slack. If sashes were the thing with summer shirts, why Charlie had a sash, you bet, and when tight trousers were the nobby trick in pants, Charlie ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... have life, and may have it abundantly." Life is the characteristic word of the great spiritual Gospel from which my text is taken. And no word can penetrate more deeply into the secret of Christ than this does. He was the sweetest, the most persuasive of moral teachers; but ethical principles and precepts are the common possession of humanity; and that in which Christ is pre-eminent over all sages is not so much that he gives us new matter of obedience, as that he infuses into us ...
— Strong Souls - A Sermon • Charles Beard
... time to time with assertions, now of Walter's eternal constancy to his present idol; now, with yet more vehement declarations of the certainty of his finding new objects for his affections in new scenes; she yet admitted, by little and little, the persuasive power of Madeline to creep into her heart, and brighten away its griefs with hope, till at last, with the tears yet wet on her cheek, she fell asleep ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... been a great amount of persuasive power in citizen Chauvelin, ex-envoy of the revolutionary Government of France at the Court of St. James, and that same persuasive eloquence did not fail now in its effect on the chief agent of the Committee of General Security. ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... this was the first I had heard definitely of warrants against me in Jamaica. That, no doubt, he had heard from Ramon, who knew everything. In all this little sardonic Irishman said to me, it seemed the only thing worth attention. It stuck in my mind while, in persuasive tones, and with airy fluency, he discoursed of the profits that could be made, nowadays, in arming privateers under the Mexican flag. He told me I needn't be surprised at their being fitted out in a Spanish colony. "There's more than ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... of you to ask after anybody but me, when I came here this morning on purpose to talk the whole day to you. Now, dear little Fleda," said Miss Constance, executing an impatient little persuasive caper round her, "won't you go out and order dinner? for I'm raging. Your woman did give me something, but I found the want of you had taken away all my appetite; and now the delight of seeing you has exhausted me, and I feel that nature is sinking. The stimulus of gratified ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... had been ordained a priest by the Bishop of Arezzo. Some time after his entrance into the priesthood, he had become the pupil of a thaumaturge of Florence, Jean de Fontenelle, and had signed a pact with a demon named Barron. From that moment onward, this insinuating and persuasive, learned and charming abbe, must have given himself over to the most abominable of sacrileges and the most murderous ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... space of three-quarters of an hour, Ugo appeared, smiling, smooth and persuasive as usual. Donna Tullia assumed a fine attitude of disdain as she heard his step outside the door. She intended to impress him with a full and sudden view of her just anger. He did not seem much moved, and came ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... wrote of Paoli that by following traditional lines he had not only shown in the constitution he framed for Corsica a historic intuition, but also had found "in his unparalleled activity, in his warm, persuasive eloquence, in his adroit and far-seeing genius," a means to guarantee it against the attacks of ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... my discovery of Whitman, I came under the influence of Herbert Spencer. No more persuasive rabbi exists, and few better. How much of his vast structure will bear the touch of time, how much is clay and how much brass, it were too curious to inquire. But his words, if dry, are always manly and honest; ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with meaning. Robin strained his ears to distinguish the other's reply. "Friend," said Number Two, at last, and speaking in a smooth, milky sort of way, "friend, I would rather counsel you to adopt a persuasive argument with the Scarlet Knight, should we chance on him. I would have no violence done, an it may be avoided, being a man opposed to lawlessness in heart, as you know. It is my eternal misfortune which has ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... Two scarlet spots glowed in her cheeks. "No one appreciates your gift of oratory more than I do, Mr. Meyers. Your flow of language, coupled with your peculiar persuasive powers, make a combination a statue couldn't resist. But I think it would sort of rest me if Mr. Fromkin were to say a word, seeing that it's ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... Justice Marshall said it was folly to dream of reviving so dead a thing. Nevertheless, under the noble ministration of its great bishop, William Meade, the Episcopal church in Virginia, no longer relying upon state aid, but trusting in the divine persuasive power of spiritual truth, was even then entering upon a new life and beginning to exercise ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... her head and, turning, put it against his knee. She reached out for his hand. He began to speak at once in a low persuasive voice: ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... Proudie sitting in the old bishop's chair, very nice in his new apron; they found, too, Mr. Slope standing on the hearth-rug, persuasive and eager; but on the sofa they found Mrs. Proudie, an innovation for which no precedent could be found in all the annals of Barchester. There she was, however, and they could only make ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... brief. The forces of Mercia had been placed under the command of Edric, formerly the sheriff of the county in which Aescendune lay, but long since returned to court, where his smooth tongue gained him great wealth and high rank. Gifted with a subtle genius and persuasive eloquence, he had obtained a complete ascendency over the mind of the weak Ethelred, while he surpassed even that treacherous monarch in perfidy ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... developed, was a fluent and persuasive talker, a man of the broadest worldly experiences and wit. He was younger than Calvin, but older than Wilmer Deakon, and a little fat. He had a small mustache cut above his lip, and closely shaved ruddy cheeks with a tinge of purple about his ears. Drawing out his monologue ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... does, he does with my full sanction, and I have come hither to advise you of it since you appeared in doubt. I beg that you will remain there for a few moments, to hear what his Highness himself may have to say. I trust his eloquence may prove more persuasive." ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... pressed on them) not to reproach, or speak evil of any man. The which duty, for your instruction, I shall first endeavour somewhat to explain, declaring its import and extent; then, for your further edification, I shall inculcate it, proposing several inducements persuasive to the observance ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... instant Henry H. Rogers was again his virile and commanding self. He jumped to his feet. His words came round and tense, passionately convincing and persuasive. ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... enough to make a card-table; she could not leave the Abbe Birotteau; Mademoiselle Salomon had not missed a single evening that week; she was devoted to friends; and—et cetera, et cetera. Her speech was all the more humbly haughty and softly persuasive because Mademoiselle Salomon de Villenoix belonged to the most aristocatic society in Tours. For though Mademoiselle Salomon came to Mademoiselle Gamard's house solely out of friendship for the vicar, the old maid triumphed in receiving her, and saw that, thanks to Birotteau, she was on the point ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... so intensely delighted that his eyebrows expanded, his eyes smiled, and he felt eager to toady to the Magistrate (by presenting the girl to him). He hastened to employ all his persuasive powers with his daughter (to further his purpose), and on the same evening he forthwith escorted Chiao Hsing in a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... was incapable of conscious artifice of this kind; this appeal, the very strongest he could have made to his father, was urged in all sincerity, and derived its force from that very fact. He possessed not a little of the persuasive genius which goes to make an orator—hereafter to serve him in fields as yet undreamed of—and natural endowment guided his feeling in the way of most impressive utterance. Mr. Athel smiled ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... as the Gaonic period is concerned, the characteristics of these thousands of letters are lucidity of thought and terseness of expression. The Gaonim never waste a word. They are rarely over-bearing in manner, but mostly use a tone which is persuasive rather than disciplinary. The Gaonim were, in this real sense, therefore, princes of letter-writing. Moreover, though their Letters deal almost entirely with contemporary affairs, they now constitute as fresh and vivid reading as when first penned. Subjected to ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... talking wildly, but it was worth while to listen to him. For, whatever else he was, Whitney was one of the most persuasive promoters of the day. More than that, I could well imagine how any one possessed of an imagination susceptible to the influence of mystery and tradition would succumb to the glittering charm of the magic words, peje chica, and feel all the gold- hunter's ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... might have been fully and fairly developed. The perusal of this elegant epistle dissipated alike my fears and my hopes; for, instead of caustic verses, and satirical notes,[3] I found a smooth, melodious, and persuasive panegyric; unmixed, however, with any rules for the choice of books, or the regulation ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... He was disconcerted. Nothing is so easy to resist as logic solo. We see it, as a general rule, resisted with great success in public and private every day; but when it comes in good company, a voice of music, an angel face, gentle, persuasive caresses, and imploring eyes, it ceases to revolt the understanding. And so, caught in his own trap, foiled, baffled, soothed, caressed, all in one breath, Mr. Fountain hung his head, ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... Bacon did. We all have to do a good deal of assuming, but I am fairly certain that in every case I can call to mind the Baconian assumers have come out ahead of the Shakespearites. Both parties handle the same materials, but the Baconians seem to me to get much more reasonable and rational and persuasive results out of them than is the case with the Shakespearites. The Shakespearite conducts his assuming upon a definite principle, an unchanging and immutable law—which is: 2 and 8 and 7 and 14, added together, make 165. I believe this to be an error. No matter, you cannot get a habit-sodden Shakespearite ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... turned her face toward himself, saying, in his persuasive voice, "Give him a trial first, to please your mother. It can do no harm and may amuse you. Frank is already lost, and, as you are heart-whole, why not see what you can do for him? I shall have a new study, then, and not miss you ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... was very persuasive. He had a frank and easy way of addressing an audience, which he had picked up from a popular tribune—leaning one shoulder towards them at an angle of about eighty degrees, and rounding his periods with a confidential smile, which ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... conception,' as Mr. Napier rightly says. In proof of it we have Boswell's own words, and we have the books themselves. Such testimony is not to be overborne by any number of paradoxes, however ingenious, nor by any superflux of rhetoric, however plausible and persuasive. That Boswell was a gossip, a busybody, and something of a sot, and that many did and still do call him fool, is certain; but that is no reason why he should not have been an artist, and none why he should be credited ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... aestheticism largely animated the Romantic movement of Germany at the beginning of last century. But probably the best illustration of it is to be found in Goethe and Schiller; while in our country Matthew Arnold has given it a powerful and persuasive exposition. It was the aim of Goethe to mould his life into a work of art, and all his activities and poetic aspirations were subordinated to this end. The beautiful harmonious life is the true life, the well-rounded ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... and cold and lifeless, or weak and vacillating, or harsh and sharp and severe. With the experience, the preaching of the doctrine will be with great joy and assurance, and will be strong and searching, but at the same time warm and persuasive and tender. ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... a fellow's tongue," said Morton, with one of his persuasive smiles. "You won't have anything?" ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... that it was of no use; that it did only kick his monkey up, and so she let him alone, except when she could drop in a persuasive word or two. The mill-owners at Cress brook and Miller's Dale had forbidden any public-house nearer than Edale, and they had more than once called the people together to point out to them the mischiefs of drinking, and the advantages to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... accurately. He knew the Constable to have a persuasive tongue, to be honest, loyal, and discreet, and, above all, to possess that nameless and almost indescribable quality of imparting trustfulness in those with whom he came ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... Hector St. Hilaire in his softest and most persuasive South Carolina accent. "You ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of release, so closely that one must believe he but waited for it before he again presented himself to his mistress, came Julius, the bearer of a message in whose persuasive power he himself had little hope. Defeated, wounded, dying, her husband called this second time ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... blessed mixture and temperament may be obtained, it seems to be of all concords and harmonies the most concordant and most harmonious. For thus we are taught even God governs the world, not by irresistible force, but persuasive argument and reason, controlling it into compliance ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... do, they must leave London, for living on the allowance from Cowfold was impossible. Reproof, when it is mixed with personal hostility, although the person reproving and the person reproved may be unconscious of it, is never persuasive; and as a tendency to whisky and water requires a very powerful antidote, it is not surprising that Andrew grew rather ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... his plan of action was defeated. He certainly talked incessantly, but it was always to explain or to palliate some point in the game, and the eternal repetitions, delivered in the same eloquent and persuasive tone, provoked a ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... in England have spoken well of Mr. Gladstone or of the English people are sharply hauled over the coals. The fighting men are the patriot's glory. The Irish people believe that the introduction of a Home Rule Bill is due to the action of their bullies, rather than to the persuasive argument of their civilised men. A very small minority desire to give John Bull some credit for fair play, an opinion ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... helped his powers of observation. He changed his tone to a most insinuating softness, and, gazing at the hussar's breeches hanging over the arm of the girl, he appealed to the interest she took in Lieut. Feraud's comfort and happiness. He was pressing and persuasive. He used his eyes, which were kind and fine, with excellent effect. His anxiety to get hold at once of Lieut. Feraud, for Lieut. Feraud's own good, seemed so genuine that at last it overcame the girl's ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... to Master Cockrell and Gunner's Mate Joe Hawkridge, laying aside the stiff dignity of naval rank. To his persuasive argument that they enter the royal service with promise of quick promotion, they turned a deaf ear although they were wonderfully taken with him. He was a gentle, soft-spoken young man with a boyish smile who blushed when pressed to talk of his own exploits against the ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... village of deeply-scrolled eaves under the thick foliage of maples, of an incredible number of churches—"Reformed," "Established," qualified Methodist, uncompromising Baptist. They were all built of wood, and in varying states of repair that bore mute witness to the persuasive ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... from disaster, from martyrdom, from ignominy, from the unnameable, by the merest fluke. The nurse who tended Lionel Share's last hours was named Grig. This nurse had cousins in the typewriting business. She had also a kind heart a practical mind, and a persuasive manner with cousins." ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... with equal austerity and resolution, yet in a voice persuasive and conciliatory rather than arbitrary or dictatorial, the mere form and manner of this quixotic undertaking thrilled all my fibres in defiance of its sense. It was like the blare of bugles in a dubious cause; one's blood responded before one's brain; ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... Though the persuasive orator, Nestor, endeavored to make peace between the chiefs, Agamemnon could not be softened. As soon as the black ship bearing Chryseis set sail, he sent his unwilling men to where Achilles sat by his tent, beside ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... and vitalized. My senses are acute. I see further, hear further, smell further than I ever did on earth, and it even seems to me I can anticipate things. The nerve currents are so rapid, the mind seems so persuasive, that coming events are registered by a prophetic feeling I can scarcely describe. For that reason, Chapman, I grow happier every minute, for now I see approaching that great joy, my reunion with Martha, the one great divine event I ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... could not bear to be married without a veil, and had gone early in the morning to the nearest town to invest her last money in that frivolity. Fate was against her, however, for there were no veils in the shops, and a persuasive milliner had induced her to give up her cherished notion and buy a hat instead. "And I'm most sure the ribbon's cotton-back," she sighed. "I don't know why I bought it, anyway. That's always the way with me. I think I know what I'll get, and then they coax me into getting ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... heavy with sleep about him, David put one over on his pursuer—an act of kindness which overwhelmed him with shame. David had not only to fight a natural impulse to get even, but he had with him an adviser who used the most persuasive arguments to induce him to take Saul's life. Indeed, Abishai proposed to do the deed himself, as though that would leave David clear of guilt in the matter. But no, David was a man of principle, and he knew three ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... Besprinkled with the drooping columbine, And fragrant growths of all harmonious tints, Whose variegated colors punctuate Grandeur with beauty, and fearless, bloom In the forbidding shadow of the cliffs, And to the margin of the snowy combs Which still resist the sun's persuasive ray. ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... rowers' bench and taste of a bitterness absolutely unimaginable. As a set-off to this the man who aspired to lead must offer to his followers at least a record of success in small things; also he had to be something of an enthusiast, something of an orator, some one subtly persuasive. Against all the disagreeables of the strenuous life of the corsair he had to hold before the dazzled eyes of Selim, Ali, or Mahomet the promise of fat captures of the merchant vessels of the foe; when they had but to slit a few throats and to ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... natural, though of that new and second nature which God the Holy Ghost gives), from an innate, though supernatural perception of the great vision of Truth which is external to him (a perception of it, not indeed in its fulness, but in glimpses, and by fits and seasons, and in its persuasive influences, and through a courageous following on after it, as a man in the dark might follow after some dim and distant light)—I say, when a person thus trained from his own heart, reads the declarations and promises of the Gospel, are we to be told that ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... remains—and it is a question the future alone will solve—is the particular point at which this ancient and overgrown stronghold of war, now being invested so vigorously from so many sides, will finally be overthrown, whether from within or from without, whether by its own inherent weakness, by the persuasive reasonableness of developing civilization, by the self-interest of the commercial and financial classes, or by the ruthless indignation of the proletariat. That is a problem still insoluble, but it is not impossible that some already living ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... in his own charming way. He was so happy, so radiantly happy, so persuasive, so compelling, that Antonia granted him, without a word, the favor his eyes asked for. And the lovers hardly heard the excuse she made; they understood nothing of it, only that she would be reading in the myrtle walk for ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... King; and, beyond telling the Princess frankly the policy which moved him in the matter, he did nothing to coerce her. But the Ministers had no scruples of affection nor of kinship to control them and they brought all sorts of persuasive pressure upon her to obtain her consent to the match. All this was known to the Kingdom, and the vast majority of the people were with the Princess. The Army was ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... only in itself an interesting part, but one in the solution of which is shown to be that of many others. People who shrink from "feminism" in its more intense and accentuated forms, will find here a more proportional treatment, enlightening and persuasive. ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... This Jack accepted as the expression of sympathy and understanding which he had craved. It was to him an inspiration of fellowship that set the well of his inner being in overflow and the force of his personality, which the father had felt uncannily before the mother's picture, became something persuasive in its radiance rather than something held in leash as a threatening and volcanic element. Now he could talk as freely and happily of the desert to his father as to Burleigh and Mathewson. He told of the long rides; of Firio and Wrath of God. He ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... was certainly a triumph for Westray's persuasive oratory, but his satisfaction was chastened by some doubts as to how far he was justified in assailing the scrupulous independence which had originally prompted Mr Sharnall to refuse to have anything to do with Lord Blandamer's offer. If Mr Sharnall had scruples ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... such as is possessed by our judges and magistrates, who can say to a man, "Do thus," and compel him to obey or take the consequences. The influence of Indian rulers was more like that of leading men in a civilized community: it was chiefly personal and persuasive, and it was exerted in various indirect ways. If, for example, it became a question how to deal with a man who had done something violently opposed to Indian usage or to the interest of the tribe, there ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... the West and discourse sweetly, in persuasive English, upon Hindu philosophy. But he will not practise his religious rites or reveal his idolatrous habits and his bondage of caste to those western people who admire him. These things would at once create a revulsion of feeling ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... deceive the said banished lords, that he advised them to sue humbly for pardon at their own queen's hand, and to engage never again to offend her for satisfaction of any prince alive. And because, as they were then stated, they had no interest, he penned for them a persuasive letter and sent to her majesty." On this occasion Throgmorton showed himself a warm friend to Mary's succession in England, and advised clemency to the banished lords as one mean to secure it. Mary, highly ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... a golden rule of the salesman never to argue with the customer. He may explain and reason, and use all the persuasive phraseology at his command, but he must not permit himself for a single instant to engage in controversy. To argue is ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... college, both in the collegiate and law department, and with some honour. During his course he had managed to read an amazing amount of English literature, and no man was readier or had a keener taste in such things than he. He had a pleasing personal appearance, a fluent and persuasive manner, an unblemished character. Every morning he came to his office from one of the most pleasant little cottage homes in the world; and if you had opened the little front gate, and gone up through the shrubbery to the house, you would have seen ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... protestant, also, in his heart ; but he had a horror of apostasy, and therefore, as he told me, would not investigate the differences of the two religions; he had besides a tie which to his honour and character was potent and persuasive; he had taken an oath to keep the catholic faith when he received his Croix de St. Louis, which was at a period when the preference of the simplicity of protestantism was not apparent to him. All this made me ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... went to the mansion of Sadaijin. Lady Aoi was as cool to him as ever. His persuasive eloquence availed him but little. She was older than Genji by four years, and was as cold and stately in her mien as ever. Her father, however, received him joyfully whenever he called, although he was not always satisfied with the capriciousness of ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... and clearest of all proofs, and best adapted to convince the reason of the mass of mankind. It animates us in our study of nature. And it were not only a cheerless, but an altogether vain task to attempt to detract from the persuasive authority of this proof. There is nought to urge against ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... utterly unenlightened, even in this distant valley, Ensign?" returned the leech, leaning over the neck of his horse, and addressing his companion in a mild and persuasive tone, that he had probably acquired in his extensive practice among the females of the settlement. "Are we to be classed with the heathen in knowledge, or to be accounted as the unnurtured men who are known once to have ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... beautiful all these allegories are! And how true! How insipid life would be without these mysterious liaisons, by which Nature carries out her designs, eluding the social ties, without breaking them! Disciples of Mercury, I salute you, whatever be your sex; to your discretion, to your persuasive arts are confided our dearest interests, the peace of mind of husbands, the happiness of lovers, the reputation of women, the legitimacy of children. Without you, this desolated earth would prove to be, in reality, a vale of tears; ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... the elves forgot their hidden treasures, and joined in silent dance around him; and the strom-karls and the musicians of the wood vainly tried to imitate him. And he was as fair of speech as he was skilful in song. His words were so persuasive that he had been known to call the fishes from the sea, to move great lifeless rocks, and, what is harder, the hearts of kings. He understood the voice of the birds, and the whispering of the breeze, the murmur of the waves, and the roar of the waterfalls. He knew ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... discovered that the creole women, descendants of the old Acadians, appreciated the sterling qualities of the Anglo-Saxon race, and found in them their ideals, leaving in a state of single blessedness the more indolent, and perhaps less persuasive, creole gentlemen. The results of these marriages are the gradual extinction of old family names; and in the not very far future the romance connected with these people will be a thing of the past, and the ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... get hold of this girl and get back the letters—don't you see? I can't do it myself, cooped up miles away in the country. And besides, I shouldn't know how to handle a thing like that. It needs a chappie with a lot of sense and a persuasive sort of ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... girl was really eager to play in the brief role of housekeeper had used her powers, persuasive and authoritative, to procure servants for her, but without avail. She herself was not without an abundance of them, from the white-haired Hiram, whose position on the place had long been a sinecure, down to the little brown legged tot Mandy, much given to ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... . . .! Oh, George, is this the time to jest?" she began in persuasive tones when a faint but peculiar noise stilled her lips as though they had been suddenly frozen. She became quiet all over instantly. I, on the contrary, made an involuntary movement before I, too, became as still ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... presence of a third person, had convinced her she was wrong. No man could have imagined that the revolting method of seduction employed could meet with success, and if the commander had desired to convict her of perfidy he would have come alone and made use of more persuasive weapons. No, he believed he still had claims on her, but even if he had, by his manner of enforcing them he had rendered them void. However, the moment he threatened to seek out a rival whose identity he designated quite clearly, and reveal to him the secret it ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... War College, his close study of naval strategy and tactics had peculiarly fitted him for the important post for which he was selected, and he not only held the soundest views on such subjects himself, but was able, by dint of the tact and persuasive eloquence that had carried him successfully through his gunnery difficulties, to impress his views ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... of the composer, but he found in it, some confused passages excepted, no indications of the author's youth. In this Rondeau a la Mazur the individuality of Chopin and with it his nationality begin to reveal themselves unmistakably. Who could fail to recognise him in the peculiar sweet and persuasive flows of sound, and the serpent-like winding of the melodic outline, the wide-spread chords, the chromatic progressions, the dissolving of the harmonies and the linking of their constituent parts! And, as I have said elsewhere in speaking of this work: "The harmonies ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... will believe,—injuries to children, evils of excess, restrictions as to time and place, and offensiveness to nonsmokers. But even here it is wrong, as it is inexpedient, to leave the physical strength of the next generation to the persuasive power of parents and teachers or to the faith and knowledge of minors. Society should protect all minors against their own ignorance, their own desires, the ignorance of parents and associates, and against the economic motive of tobacco sellers by machinery that ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... Francis as Mrs. Gaunt's director; but, after a slight disclaimer, he did replace him, and had no more misgivings as to his fitness. But his tolerance and good sense were by no means equal to his devotion and his persuasive powers; and so his advice in matters spiritual and secular somehow sowed the first seeds of conjugal coolness in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... (Persuasive) and Euelpides (Sanguine) reach the home of the Hoopoe bird, once a mortal, to find a happier place than their native city. Suddenly, as the bird describes the happy careless life of his kind, Peithetairus conceives the idea of founding a ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... to take leave. A pleading look from Juliet made him abandon his intention. "Sit down," said Juliet, in a persuasive voice, "I am sure your cousin meant no offence. Delicacy of mind," she added, in a very low tone, meant only for his ear, "is not always an inherent quality; we should pity and forgive those who are destitute ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... a persuasive argument for Charles's ears. The popular pretence went only a little way. The real aim—and this it was that attracted the King— was that personal authority should be eliminated, and that he should no longer be subject to the galling supervision of the two Ministers, whose ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... consists of those stories which may fairly claim that they survive either the test of substance or the test of form. Each of these stories may claim to possess either distinction of technique alone, or more frequently, I am glad to say, a persuasive sense of life in them to which a reader responds with some part of his own experience. Stories included in this group are indicated in the yearbook index by a single asterisk prefixed ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... offered him a situation, if he could make himself more presentable to their fair clients. Harry Flint was gazing half abstractedly, half hopelessly, at the portmanteau without noticing the auctioneer's persuasive challenge. In his abstraction he was not aware that the auctioneer's assistant was also looking at him curiously, and that possibly his dejected and half-clad appearance had excited the attention of one of ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... remember that the service on which we are engaged has no soul and a very long arm." Then dropping into the persuasive and servile tone of the maitre d'hotel: "I propose, Mr. Rebener, that you allow me to send you up a nice little lunch, some melon, say, a salmon mayonnaise or a filet du sole au vin blanc and a noisette ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... should say something by way of PREFACE. If the reader would be informed what my reasons were for appearing in print, I shall candidly acknowledge, that the great prospect of a considerable advantage to myself was indeed the strongest persuasive; but I can with equal truth affirm, that it affords me no small pleasure to think I am doing my country at the same time a very great piece of service; and doubt not but that, as many will soon experience it, my labour will be ...
— The Cyder-Maker's Instructor, Sweet-Maker's Assistant, and Victualler's and Housekeeper's Director - In Three Parts • Thomas Chapman
... words made Iron feel much braver; and they were spoken in tones so sweet and persuasive that he was almost minded to obey without another word. But he asked, 25 "Why should I leave these places where I have rested so long? What will become of me after I have ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... remarked Lucinda; and then she was accosted again, by another gentleman. This time he was older and stouter, and somewhat tired in his aspect, but every whit as genially persuasive. ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... so well furnish. The appearance and words of a spirit would excite us, and make us afraid; we could not feel and act as well, under such influences, as we can under the calm, dispassionate, convincing, and persuasive influences of the Bible. One of the most intelligent and cultivated of women, the wife of a missionary in Turkey, in her last sickness, having heard her husband read to her several times, from the Pilgrim's Progress, respecting the River of Death and the ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... question him closely. Nobody save a churchman would have continued the discussion. But the Dean was a churchman, and also a Scot, and he returned to the attack, unabashed and unbaffled. "But surely, Mr. Ingledew," he said in a persuasive voice, "your people, whoever they are, must at least acknowledge ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... in my most persuasive voice, for I could see the "no" on his face even before he began to ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter
... order that they might achieve success in winning him to their disgraceful love; for, had he been taken in that net, the chaste man would have remained ensnared. That trick, it is well known, is one of the most persuasive that the devil furnishes. For he makes war by the affection for the object, and with the vehement incentives of the appetite. But divine grace was very well fortified in the soul of the gospel minister. Consequently, the shots of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... likewise amuse myself with remarking the causes which produce it. When a Citizen hears an able Orator, he readily credits what is said;—he imagines every thing to be true, he believes and relishes the force of it; and, in short, the persuasive language of the Speaker wins his absolute, his hearty assent. You, who are possessed of a critical knowledge of the art, what more will you require? The listening multitude is charmed and captivated by the force of his Eloquence, and feels a pleasure which is not ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... unjust, but generally courteous in expression and independent in thought. Every day at noon the northern mails bring hither the word of all Europe to the awaking Spanish mind, and within that massive building the converging lines of the telegraph are whispering every hour their persuasive lessons of the ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... Miss Bussey, forgetful of their sufferings, were restoring Madame Painter to her senses; Painter was uncorking a bottle of champagne for Arthur Laing; Sir Roger Deane was talking in a low voice and persuasive tones to an imposing representative of the police. "What passed between them is unknown; possibly only words, possibly something else; at any rate, after a time, Deane smiled, the great man smiled responsively, ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... taken Vooda's measure accurately. He knew the Constable to have a persuasive tongue, to be honest, loyal, and discreet, and, above all, to possess that nameless and almost indescribable quality of imparting trustfulness in those with whom he ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... be a regular little beauty with a touch here and there. I shan't let anyone see you till you are done, and then we'll burst upon them like Cinderella and her godmother going to the ball," said Belle in her persuasive tone. ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... feel disposed to lay bare his secret feelings before this persuasive superintendent and an absurdly conceited village constable. Love, to him, was an ideal, a blend of mortal passion and immortal fire. But the flame kindled on that secret altar had scorched and seared his soul in a wholly ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... surrounding men who cared for nothing but money-making, men who were not merely dishonest, but the very serpents of dishonesty, against whom pickpockets will "stick off" as angels of light; constantly under the softly persuasive influence of low morals and extravagant appreciation of cunning, he came by rapid degrees to think less and less of right and wrong. At first he called the doings of the place dishonest; then he called them sharp practice; then ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... child. Your lips quiver! You have reason to understand. I know, I know you cannot think what to do. Let me think for you." His eyes were glowing and his face animated. He was using all his persuasive power, and her gaze was fixed upon him as though he had mesmerized her. She could not resist the flood-tide of his eloquence. She could only look on and seem to be gradually turning to stone—frozen ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... forgotten Livingstone and his methods. It is now the explosive bullet and the elephant gun. I intend to learn the language of the different native tribes I meet, and if a chief opposes me and will not allow me to pass through his territory, and if I find I cannot win him over to my side by persuasive talk, ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... Committee of Guardians, who shall place out children and young people with suitable persons, that they may (during a moderate time of apprenticeship or servitude) learn some trade or other business of subsistence. The committee may effect this partly by a persuasive influence on parents and the persons concerned, and partly by cooeperating with the laws, which are or may be enacted for this and similar purposes. In forming contracts of these occasions, the committee shall secure to the Society ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... Daphne. "I'm afraid that's your case too." She smiled, and the smile lit up a face full of delicate lines and wrinkles, which no effort had been made to disguise; a tired face, where the eyes spoke from caverns of shade, yet with the most appealing and persuasive beauty. ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of argument Reud seems undecided, and observes that he can only judge the matter from well understanding the previous style and the context, and so, every now and then, requests him, with a most persuasive politeness, to begin again from the beginning. Of course, he gets no farther than the paving. After the baited author had re-read his page-and-a-half about six or seven times, the captain smiles upon him lovingly, and says in his most insinuating tones, "Just read it over again once ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... was left standing alone in the kitchen, did not like his position. He was a man not endowed with much persuasive gift of words, but he had a certain strength of his own. He had a will, and some firmness in pursuing the thing which he desired. He was industrious, patient, and honest with a sort of second-class honesty. He liked to earn what ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... bind all these qualities together in the imagination of the young and clothe the conception with every attribute of beauty that fancy can devise, how can we forego the precious opportunities that lie to our hand in the persuasive witchery of art? The power that may be exercised in the formation of character by the presentment of ideal types is as yet very imperfectly utilized. Love is par excellence the theme of the artist, and young people will soon find this out for themselves; but there is a wide difference in ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... setting aside the consideration of the end, have defined rhetoric to be "The power of inventing whatever is persuasive in a discourse." This definition is equally as faulty as that just mentioned, and is likewise defective in another respect, as including only invention, which, separate from elocution, ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... the company which did not understand the language in question. As I had the happiness of sitting opposite to her, I feasted my eyes much more than my palate which she tempted in vain with the most delicious bits carved by her fair hand, and recommended by her persuasive tongue; but all my other appetites were swallowed up in immensity of my love, which I fed by gazing incessantly on the delightful object. Dinner was scarcely ended, when the squire became very drowsy, and after several dreadful ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... see beyond my toes, Though I accept my pedigree, Yet where, pray tell me, is the key That should unlock a private door To the Great Mystery, such no more? Each offers his, but one nor all Are much persuasive with the wall 230 That rises now as long ago, Between I wonder and I know, Nor will vouchsafe a pin-hole peep At the veiled Isis in its keep. Where is no door, I but produce My key to find it of no use. Yet better ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... "Three is lucky," Friedrich may have thought: and there has no precaution, of drum-music, of secrecy or persuasive finesse, been neglected on Lacy. But Lacy has ears that hear the grass grow: our elaborately accurate triple-pincers, closing simultaneously on Bischofswerda, after eighteen miles of sweep, find Lacy flown again; nothing ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of an over or false estimate of ourselves. Let us be thankful, and not angry, that we must accept it as our touchstone. Our stamp has so often been impressed upon base metal, that we cannot expect it to be taken on trust, but we may be sure that true gold will be equally persuasive the world over. Real manhood and honest achievement are nowhere provincial, but enter the select society of all time on an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... to drop on to the lawn, a shapeless, solemn mass of feathers. At the back of the hills a little rim of gold, no wider than a wedding ring, announced the rising of the moon. He felt a touch upon his sleeve, a very sweet, persuasive voice in his ear. Nora had left Miller in the background and was ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... victory); she must assist at the ordering of gowns, at the selections, and while Madame's patrons were fitted, young Mrs. Fowler must be prepared to assume graceful attitudes in the background and to offer her suggestions with a persuasive air. Suggestions, even futile ones, offered in a charming voice from a distinguished figure in black satin had borne ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... Protestant land, free from prelacy and superstition, the boy seemed reconciled to his fate. Major Oakshott spoke more kindly than usual to him, being free from fresh irritation at his misdemeanours; but even thus there was a contrast with the gentler, more persuasive tones of the diplomatist, and no doubt this tended to increase Peregrine's willingness to be ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tell me you have more persuasive ways of making me talk. You can use force but it'll take time. Your time is valuable or you wouldn't have hustled me over here as fast as you did. So let's not waste your time. You tell ...
— The Observers • G. L. Vandenburg
... to defend his own. Thus armed, it was rarely in the power of his adversaries, mighty as they were, to beat him from the field. His eloquence, occasionally rapid, electric, vehement, was always chaste, winning, and persuasive, not awing into acquiescence, but arguing into conviction. His understanding was bold and comprehensive: nothing seemed too remote for its reach, or too large for its grasp. Unallured by dissipation, and unswayed by pleasure, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... Always remember that the service on which we are engaged has no soul and a very long arm." Then dropping into the persuasive and servile tone of the maitre d'hotel: "I propose, Mr. Rebener, that you allow me to send you up a nice little lunch, some melon, say, a salmon mayonnaise or a filet du sole au vin blanc and a noisette d'agneau and a nice little sweet, and you ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... to make his apology, and fall back from the head of the table to some lower seat, which his modesty would have preferred, when he was suddenly seized upon by the Lady Penelope Penfeather, who, detaining him in the most elegant and persuasive manner possible, insisted that they should be introduced to each other by Mr. Mowbray, and that Mr. Cargill should sit beside her at table.—She had heard so much of his learning—so much of his excellent character—desired ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... to that fisherman's hut, just to see what it was like," Mollie said. "You know the old woman was always teasing us to come in and have some milk. She may have been more persuasive this time, though Betty couldn't ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope
... many years. The convention recommended that such meetings of delegates be annually convened; that annual or periodical discourses or orations be delivered in public on slavery and the means of its abolition, in order that, "by the frequent application of the force of reason and the persuasive power of eloquence, slaveholders and their abettors may be awakened to a sense of their injustice, and be startled with horror at the ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... of a woman's heart which could not be bartered. And yet might there not be an element of selfishness in this—might not its sacrifice be a family duty? Mrs. Mavick having found this weak spot in her daughter's armor, played upon it with all her sweet persuasive skill and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... follows the close of a great world war. At such times, they always are. In the words of Mr. Kahn,—"They possess the fervor of the prophet allied often to the plausibility and cunning of the demagogue. They have the enviable and persuasive cocksureness which goes with lack of responsibility and of practical experience. They pour the vials of scorn and contempt upon those benighted ones who still tie their boat to the old moorings of the teachings ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers
... in which they could succeed in influencing that hopping stage manager to promise to sell them a duplicate set of the pictures when they were ready for showing to the public. Alec knew that they were rented out, and sometimes sold outright. If Hugh now, with his persuasive tongue, could only exact such a promise from the gentleman in charge, would it not be a splendid achievement to incidentally have the picture included in the programme to be run at the town hall for some local benefit; and then hear the shouts ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... his young mistress, when she had told him of all that lay within his grasp, and had added a gentle and persuasive modicum of moral suasion,—"now that you are going out into the world to make a way, it may be a name, for yourself, you must choose what that name shall be. You remember," soothingly, for this was ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... ranger strode after the amazed burgher, blocking his way; the thrifty had taken alarm, but the rangers herded them back with persuasive playfulness, while the little Weasel made the rounds, talking cheerfully all the time, and Mount, great fists dangling, minced round and round, with a huge simper on his countenance, as though shyly aware ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... LEE possessed many of the attributes of the orator, a gift inherited from his grandfather, Light-Horse Harry Lee. He was graceful in delivery, persuasive in manner, ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... never seemed to be at a loss, in public or private, for a criticism, or for an answer to the criticisms of others. If his power of adapting his own mind to the minds of those whom he had to convince had been equal to the skill and swiftness with which he accumulated a mass of matter persuasive to those who looked at things in his own way, no one would have exercised so complete a control over the political opinion of his time. But his mind had not this power of adaptation. It moved on its own lines—peculiar ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... the less, he is resolved to give up his place at Christmas. Johannes and Trinette are both beside themselves; the reports about the prospective son-in-law are conflicting and doubtful. But Elsie is so wild, and the cotton-dealer so persuasive, that the parents finally give reluctant consent to the marriage. Elsie constantly accuses Freneli of flirting with her husband, who is not insensible to Freneli's beauty and charm; she resolves to leave Slough Farm also, since Elsie is ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... business? he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men." And because this is a Divine law, it prevails in higher spheres also. If a Christian uses, in the service of his heavenly Master, the gifts he possesses, faith in God, knowledge of truth, power in prayer, persuasive speech—his five talents will become ten, or his two will gain other two. "To him that hath, to him shall be given, and he shall ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... you are a most persuasive cock," observed Mr. Jorrocks interrupting the Yorkshireman, "and would conwince the devil himself that black is white, but you'll never make me believe the Newmarket folks are honest, and as to the fine hair ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... presentation of the doctrine will be faulty and cold and lifeless, or weak and vacillating, or harsh and sharp and severe. With the experience, the preaching of the doctrine will be with great joy and assurance, and will be strong and searching, but at the same time warm and persuasive and tender. ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... secretaries at one time, dictating to them in different languages, of which he is said to have spoken seven. What his penetrating mind had slowly matured acquired in his lips both force and grace, and truth, set forth by his persuasive eloquence, irresistibly carried away all hearers. He was tempted by none of the passions which make slaves of most men. His integrity was incorruptible. With shrewd penetration he saw through the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... to commit burglary by deputy. I said to Holt, "Show us this agreeable little crib, young man." Holt was game—then Marjorie chipped in—she wanted to go and see it too. I said, "You'll be sorry if you do,"—that settled it! After that she'd have gone if she'd died,—I never did have a persuasive way with women. So off we toddled, Marjorie, Holt, and I, in a growler,—spotted the crib in less than no time,—invited ourselves in by the kitchen window —house seemed empty. Presently Holt became hypnotised ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... by his persuasive words and strong personal influence—when the object was the financial benefit of the Church—Bishop Strachan rallied around him many of the leading members of the Church of England in Upper Canada who aided him in his plans for endowing ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... and who now declared that under the specious name of "Federation" Liberty had been betrayed. The defence was conducted in a publication called The Federalist largely by two men afterwards to be associated with fiercely contending parties, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. But more persuasive than any arguments that the ablest advocate could use were the iron necessities of the situation. The Union was an accomplished fact. For any State, and especially for a small State—and it was the small States that hesitated ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... he replied in the accented but dignified tones of a superior who painfully finds himself in the hands of one considered inferior. "I have never seen him fight. He is persuasive—yes. ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... become persuasive, such as might have been used to a child, and the girl wondered what further cruelty it masked. She had not ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... said that the chauffeur knew by instinct what I liked best to eat, and he must have had a very persuasive way with the waiter. There was creme d'orge, in a big cup; there were sweetbreads, and there was lemon meringue. Nothing ever tasted better since my "birthday feasts" as a child, when I was allowed to ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... them. They kept on proffering persuasive little notes of interrogative sound, and possibly they advanced their claim to be heard because they had their day's work ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... shopman not long ago tried to sell me a pair of marching-boots, "for use"—as he explained, lest their name should have misled me—"on the march." Had he said "for use after the war" he might have been more persuasive. When I told him that marching-boots were no good to me, it was manifestly difficult for him to conceal his opinion that, if so, I had no business to flaunt the garb of Thomas Atkins. When I added that if he could offer me a pair of running-shoes I might entertain the proposition, his look ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... rubbing it between my hands, immersing it in water, passing it quickly from one hand to the other, and using all other persuasive attempts to solve it into lather. Useless; it was un-lather-able, and hearing the gong sound for dinner, I gave it up ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... oracular; never persuasive or plausible. It is "Lo—here" and then again "Lo—there!" and we are either with him or not with him. There are no half ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... public good will. Pressure to rectitude by government investigation is distinctly an American institution. It is not an intervention of public interest that is usually welcomed. In the plan of this Conference, this general repugnance to investigation is depended upon as a persuasive influence to the parties of the conflict to get together and settle their own quarrels. They are given the alternative of investigation or collective bargain under persuasive circumstances. In order to increase the moral pressures surrounding the investigation, either one of the parties to the ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... places, then, and in all seasons, Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings, Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons, How akin they are to ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... rendered. Some judges write treatises instead of decisions or in addition to decisions. Whatever goes beyond that which is required to show that the judgment is the legal conclusion from the ascertained facts is styled in law language obiter dictum. It may be interesting and even persuasive, but it is not an ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... to get a team from with which to continue our journey. This is a hard country on horses at best, and at this time of the year particularly so; few will let their teams go out at any price, but Mrs. O'Shaughnessy had hopes, and she is so persuasive that I felt no one could resist her. There was a drummer at breakfast who kept "cussing" the country. He had tried to get a conveyance and had failed; so the cold, the snow, the people, and everything ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... appreciating you, that I would not delay any longer the pleasure of making you a personal avowal of my past sentiments, and of those with which you now inspire me." The tone in which madame de Flaracourt uttered these words was so gracious and so persuasive, that I could not resist the pleasure of embracing her. She returned my kiss with the same eagerness, and would not listen to my thanks. "All is explained between us," she continued, "let us forget the ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... point that never bloodless fell When spear bit harness in the battle din, For Aphrodite spake, and like a spell Wrought her sweet voice persuasive, till within His heart there lived no memory of sin, No thirst for vengeance more, but all grew plain, And wrath was molten in desire to win The golden heart of ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... her to the bathroom, he insisted, with unusual gentleness, that he be left to apply the arnica to the alleged injuries himself. He was so persuasive that she yielded, and descended to the library, where she found her husband once more at home ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... to do so," answered the Abbe, shrugging his shoulders. He spoke very bad English throughout the consultation. "But the stars, too, may be very persuasive with King Charles. To be plain, he will probably consult ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... made a movement as if he were inclined to follow, but any such intention was frustrated by Lagardere, who shut the door after the boy and stood with his back towards it. "Stay where you are, gentlemen," he said, and there was something so persuasive in the way in which he said it that the gentlemen stayed where they were. Then Lagardere, as if he had almost forgotten their presence, slowly walking down the room till he paused in the middle, opened the letter and began to read it. As he seemed absorbed ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... as stay with a quiet gesture the scattering beasts. The whips would cap him, and the Master with his field find themselves in company of an equal. For his ease of manner never left him, nor that persuasive smile which made you think that the sun was come out. He had none of the airs of mystagogue, but talked to men, as he did to beasts, in the speech which was habitual to them. The lagging fox understood him when, grinning his fear and fatigue, he drew himself painfully through the furze. So did the ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... acted or declared their opinions behind the shield of his promises. He repeated what Alexander had already been told, that the Regency would, in fact, be nothing but Bonaparte in disguise. However, Dessolles acknowledged that such was the effect of Marshal Macdonald's powerful and persuasive eloquence that Alexander seemed to waver; and, unwilling to give the Marshals a positive refusal, he had recourse to a subterfuge, by which he would be enabled to execute the design he had irrevocably formed without seeming to take on himself alone the responsibility ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... prospects more than the betrayal of our intercourse with the Bishop to the Emperor. Samuel in that respect could not for a long time be trusted; as a deadly enmity existed between himself and the Bishop. It required all the persuasive powers of Mr. Rassam to bring on a good understanding between the two; he, however, managed the affair so skilfully that he not only succeeded, but after mutual explanations, they became affectionate friends. ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... occasion) would not so soon have embraced a foreign authority, instead of the commanders she had been inured to, had not the general of these strangers been of a kind gentle nature, one who worked rather by fair means than force; of a persuasive address in all applications to others, and no less courteous, and open to all addresses of others to him; and above all bent and determined on justice. But the story of his actions will ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... fancied success, he in 1750 ventured to collect them into a pamphlet, entitled An Essay on Milton's Use and Imitation of the Moderns in his Paradise Lost. To this pamphlet Johnson wrote a Preface[679], in full persuasion of Lauder's honesty, and a Postscript recommending, in the most persuasive terms[680], a subscription for the relief of a grand-daughter of Milton, of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... masterpiece of cunning from a man in a corner, which suggests with so persuasive an air that he has ruled his actions up to the very moment when he faces you, and had almost preconceived the present occasion, rather won Lady Charlotte; or it seemed to, or the scene had been too ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... had frequently seen an old woman—Barbara Trond by name—who gained her livelihood by the sale of wax tapers, little leaden ornaments of the Virgin and saints, and other Papistical trickeries. She managed also to gain many a coin by the persuasive powers of her tongue, which she wagged with considerable effect on all occasions. When she pleased, nothing could be more smooth and oily; but when angered, that tongue could utter oaths and abuse with ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... the premises, I took occasion to invite her up to my own room, with a view of seeing whether my mattress of pebbles and iron-filings could be supplemented by another of shavings or straw, or some material less provocative of bodily injuries. She was most sympathetic, persuasive, logical, and after the manner of her kind proved to me conclusively that the trouble lay with the too-saft occupant of the bed, not with the bed itself, and gave me statistics with regard to the latter which established ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... the small figure that chance had deposited so unexpectedly upon his hearth, a most forlorn and drooping small figure, with downcast and averted head, then with that sudden smile that made his young face so brightly persuasive he dropped beside her ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... refined and educated man under such conditions. They also made him prolific. He shrank from the restraints and humiliations to which the poor and shabbily dressed private tutor is exposed—revealed to us with a persuasive terseness in the pages of The Unclassed, New Grub Street, Ryecroft, and the story of Topham's Chance. Writing fiction in a garret for a sum sufficient to keep body and soul together for the six months following payment was at any rate better than ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... remained persuasive, but to an ear attuned to shades, there was a note of menace underlying its softness—"you know there was ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... voice to a gentle persuasive whisper: "Don't do it, ole man—come now—be reasonable. If we stay here in the woods, Triggers'll think we're at home. Dad will think we're in school. They'll never know no better. It's wrong, but we'll have plenty o' time to make it right—we've got six months mo' ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... to be remembered is, that the constant design of both these orators in all their speeches, was to drive some one particular point, either the condemnation or acquittal of an accused person, a persuasive to war, the enforcing of a law, and the like; which was determined upon the spot, according as the orators on either side prevailed. And here it was often found of absolute necessity to inflame or cool the passions of the audience, especially ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... he stopped at the seventeenth round, and it was a good, plain, matter-of-fact reason, too, and one that easily commends itself to us by the eloquent, persuasive flavor of probability there is ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... marm," said George, in a persuasive voice, and pushing the brandy bottle towards her, "where's the need for you to go to the workhus or to chokey either—you with a rich husband as is bound by law to support you as becomes a lady? And, marm, mind another thing, a husband as hev ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... "Persuasive in a good or bad sense—probably the latter. At any rate, it was sufficient to lure him ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... scene may be easily imagined; dust flying, gowns torn, heads broken, well-fed faces in the hot September weather steaming with anger and exertion, and every voice in loudest outcry. At length the clamour was partially subdued, and the bishop, beautifully equal to the emergency, arose bland and persuasive. ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... cloths; further, if they bought their hoes then, they would have to carry them all the way to the Lake and back. The Kirangozi acknowledged the fairness of this harangue, and soon gave way; but it was not until much more arguing, and the adoption of other persuasive means, that the rest were ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... gather the full message and enthusiasm of the essay. It will probably seem to you not to "hang together." Still, it will leave bright bits of ideas in your mind. Third: After a week's interval read the essay again. On a second perusal it will appear more persuasive to you. ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... thoughtful persons are sometimes tempted to suppose that the mass of mankind do not sufficiently know what their duty is; that they need teaching, else they would be obedient. And others fancy that if the doctrines of the Gospel were set before them in a forcible or persuasive manner, this would serve as a means of rousing them to an habitual sense of their true state. But ignorance is not the true cause why men will ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... accustomed to being ignored. She bore her crown of beauty with added brilliance and grace because of the passing years, and was fully aware of her power to sway the will of those about her, and move the hearts of men with her irresistible charm and perfect splendor, alike persuasive, compelling and all-powerful. ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... possible, to a committee in a few minutes; and I have often thought his clients never understood their own cases until he had explained them. It was wonderful how he could make a committee (sometimes composed of by no means the highest specimens of mankind) understand a case; and his persuasive power with those ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... the grandson's, was one of faintly amused condescension. There was a difference, however. The grandson's unlined young face had nothing to offer except this condescension; the grandfather's had other things to say. It was a handsome, worldly old face, conscious of its importance, but persuasive rather than arrogant, and not without tokens of sufferings withstood. The Major's short white hair was parted in the middle, like his grandson's, and in all he stood as briskly equipped to the ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... well-grounded convictions before you can hope to convince and influence other men. Duty, necessity, magnanimity, innate conviction, and sincere interest in the welfare of others,—these beget true fervor and are essential to passionate and persuasive speaking. ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... and libels, he was ignored. I have seen one of his sermons which is very insipid, and which bears sufficient resemblance to the predications of the quakers; assuredly there is to be found there no trace of that persuasive eloquence with which later he carried the parliaments away. The reason is that in fact he was much more suited to public affairs than to the Church. It was above all in his tone and in his air that his eloquence consisted; a gesture of that hand that had ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... speaking suddenly with a murmuring, yet so sharp a confidence; a confidence that in broad daylight, or in complete solitude, might have seemed impossible. All sorts of things must steal out in that persuasive, that ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... also have his redeeming qualities. This man had redeeming qualities. I cannot positively say that he was either handsome or ugly, young or old, well or ill dressed. But I can speak with certainty to the personal attractions which recommended him to notice. For instance, the tone of his voice was persuasive. (Did you ever read a story, written by one of us, in which we failed to dwell on our hero's voice?) Then, again, his hair was reasonably long. (Are you acquainted with any woman who can endure a man with ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... slender means and those of his parents at home were by no means sufficient for the purpose, and yet he felt that he had no chance in his defence if he were to face the judges of the military court, and Roth himself, whose persuasive powers of language he knew so well. He would be unable, with his very insufficient command of language, to enlighten the court in an impressive manner as to intimate details. Somehow, therefore, the money must ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... halted, under the persuasive influence of that loaded revolver, till we dismounted once more in the early dawn upon the ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... long time. Our journalist was now eloquent, now persuasive: he heaped argument on argument, he appealed to his self-respect, to duty! When at last he saw that the young corporal hesitated, that a faint gleam of hope appeared, that a vague desire for rehabilitation was born in him, he stopped short and ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... which are consistent with what I say, and by making them your guide you will with pleasure abstain from things which have such persuasive power to lead us and overpower us. But if to the persuasive power of these things, we also devise such a philosophy as this which helps to push us on towards them and strengthens us to this end, what will be the consequence? In a piece of toreutic ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... case, by the brutal encroachments of Napoleon. Austria, unaided by Prussia, could scarcely dream of success.[4] But England, at that time fearful of Napoleon's landing on her coast, lavished her all-persuasive gold. ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... you will no doubt remember"—he crossed his fat hands again comfortably—"it was these precise researches on a then little-known poison that first brought Sebastian prominently before the public. What was the consequence?" His smooth, persuasive voice flowed on as if I were a concentrated jury. "The Admiral grew rapidly worse, and insisted upon calling in a second opinion. No doubt he didn't like the aconitine when it came to the pinch—for it DOES pinch, I can tell ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... these curious works. So far as the Gaonic period is concerned, the characteristics of these thousands of letters are lucidity of thought and terseness of expression. The Gaonim never waste a word. They are rarely over-bearing in manner, but mostly use a tone which is persuasive rather than disciplinary. The Gaonim were, in this real sense, therefore, princes of letter-writing. Moreover, though their Letters deal almost entirely with contemporary affairs, they now constitute as fresh and vivid reading as when ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... cigar and talked. As he grew more sure of himself and the affairs that absorbed him, he also became more smooth and persuasive in the matter of words. He talked for a time of the necessity of certain men's surviving and growing constantly stronger and stronger in the industrial world. "It's necessary for the good of the community," he ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... glance met hers, a look of inquiry flashed from her eyes to his, accompanied by an expression persuasive, almost appealing. But the only reply was an ominous flash from the dark eyes, as, with a gesture of proud disdain, he folded his arms and again faced his interlocutor, while, with eyes gleaming with revenge ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... herself, the future of the human race is assured by our example. No sweep of overwhelming armies, no ponderous treatises on the rights of man, no hymns to liberty, though set to martial music and resounding with the full diapason of a million human throats, can exert so persuasive an influence as does the spectacle of a great republic, occupying a quarter of the civilized globe, and governed quietly and sagely by ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... while his friend, the sportsman, never let him out of his sight—afraid, no doubt, that the doctor might take his departure, without saying a word to anybody. On this subject, he regaled him with the most persuasive arguments, which, however, did NOT persuade Samuel Ferguson, and wasted his breath in pathetic entreaties, by which the latter seemed to be but slightly moved. In fine, Dick felt that the doctor ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... fine spirits. This light marching order, as the phrase is, involves a weight of some thirty pounds, musket included. At ten o'clock, having advanced some seven miles, our regiment was halted in a grove just out of the village of Kinston, for a noon-rest. By the persuasive force of greenbacks the villagers and outlying farmers were induced to unearth a goodly supply of bread, butter and eggs, hidden relentlessly doubtless from the holders of confederate shinplasters during the late sojourn of King Jeff's hungry ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... her heart a burden of responsibility for its existence, I hold my dear that a nation as well as an individual should have a conscience, and on this liquor question there is room for woman's conscience not merely as a persuasive influence but as ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... readers have heard Mrs. Besant in the sweet persuasive vein, and felt pleased if rather muddled. For their sakes, and not for our own satisfaction, we shall criticise her little volume on Death—and After? just issued as No. III. of a series of Theosophical Manuals. When we have done they will know more about Theosophy than if ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... possessor, the power of doing mischief to dependents. To confound these two, is the standing fallacy of ambiguity brought against those who seek to purify the electoral system from corruption and intimidation. Persuasive influence, acting through the conscience of the voter, and carrying his heart and mind with it, is beneficial—therefore (it is pretended) coercive influence, which compels him to forget that he is a moral agent, or to act in opposition to his moral convictions, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... the Traveling Salesman's most persuasive voice. "You don't want to go and get mixed up in any sensational nonsense and have your picture stuck in the ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... "Were hanged" quoth 'a! How sillily he pronounced it, and with lips wide apart! How can this youth ever learn an acquittal from a trial or a legal summons, or persuasive refutation? And yet Hyperbolus learned this at ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... in returning to his flagship in Callao Roads. Thence, however, on the 7th of August, he wrote a letter to San Martin, couched in terms as temperate and persuasive as he could bring himself to use. "My dear General," he there said, "I address you for the last time under your late designation, being aware that the liberty I may take as a friend might not be deemed decorous to you under the title ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... would seem, must long remain the last remedy, but might it not be force resting on a pivot and striking with effect wherever international crime seeks to disturb the peace of the nations? The mere knowledge of such a united determination would at least be a powerful persuasive. That may be only a dream. The immediate fact is that the doctrine of Will to Power must first be crushed, represented as it is to-day by Germany and her dupes. But men who have been through the ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... Doubtless he expects me. What a persuasive thing love is, to be sure! Because he loves me, he argues that the Crown Princess, the wife and mother, will rush to meet him, fall into ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... heroine came to touch upon the situation of the dying man, she became the most truly persuasive; for then she was the most truly zealous and natural. The beauty of the language was preserved, but it was sustained by the simple power of love; and her words were warmed by a holy zeal, that approached ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... The false prophet invented it to tempt his followers to force his lying creed, by might of arms and in mad contempt of death, on nation after nation. Our Lord, the Word made flesh, came down on earth to win hearts and souls by the persuasive power of the living truth, one and eternal, which emanates from Him as light proceeds from the sun; this Mohammed, on the contrary, is a sword made flesh! For me, then, there is no choice but to submit to superior strength; but I can still hate and loathe their ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... waterfall was still, and the rushing torrent tarried in its bed; the elves forgot their hidden treasures, and joined in silent dance around him; and the strom-karls and the musicians of the wood vainly tried to imitate him. And he was as fair of speech as he was skilful in song. His words were so persuasive that he had been known to call the fishes from the sea, to move great lifeless rocks, and, what is harder, the hearts of kings. He understood the voice of the birds, and the whispering of the breeze, the murmur of the waves, and the roar of the waterfalls. He knew the length and breadth of the earth, ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... moral philosophy, Mr. Ferrier, was a famous metaphysician and scholar. His lectures on "The History of Greek Philosophy" were an admirable introduction to the subject, afterwards pursued, in the original authorities, at Oxford. Mr. Ferrier was an exponent of other men's ideas so fair and persuasive that, in each new school, we thought we had discovered the secret. We were physicists with Thales and that pre-Socratic "company of gallant gentlemen" for whom Sydney Smith confessed his lack of ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... emissary—for he ought to be so known—shortly after suggested to the Provisional Government that he was 'broke,' and wished to represent the Seventh Congressional District of Kentucky, that is, the Louisville District: 'For,' said he, in his persuasive, confidential tones, 'that is the only way I know of for a man without money to ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to the soft sound of the sea as Thomas Lie's boat rolled lazily from side to side and the water murmured gently under the gentle stroke. Then came voices again just by my shoulder. I did not move. I knew the tones that spoke, the persuasive commanding tones hard to resist, apt to compel. Slowly I turned myself round; the speakers must be within eight or ten feet of me, but I could not see them. Still they came nearer. Then I heard the sound of a sob, and at it sprang to rigidity, ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... lesser beasts, but of those who have a human appearance with the spirit of a sheep or of some other abominable beast. I say then: "Thought that once fed my grieving heart"—thought, that is, of the inner life—"was sweet" (sweet, insomuch as it is persuasive, that is, pleasing, or beautiful, gentle, delightful); this thought often sped away to the feet of the Father of those Spirits to whom I speak, that is, God; that is to say, that I in thought contemplated the realm ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... house of commons before the close of the eighteenth century, but were thrown out in the house of lords. The same fate befell a bill for a temporary suspension of the slave trade, which passed the commons in 1804 under the spell of Wilberforce's persuasive eloquence; but Pitt's government caused a royal proclamation to be issued, which at least checked the spread of the nefarious traffic in the newly conquered colonies. A larger measure failed to pass the house of commons in 1805, but in 1806 Fox and Grenville succeeded in ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... o' goin' to-night," continued the young hunter in a persuasive tone. "Come along wi' me; an' you can ride down to Holt's in the mornin'. You'll then find him more reezonable to deal wi'. I can't offer you no great show o' entertainment; but thar's a piece o' deer-meat in the house, an' I reckon ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... touch stop there. It even began to make its quietly persuasive way among the finer spirits of the South from the very day on which the Second Inaugural closed with words which were the noblest consummation of the prophecy made in the First. This was the prophecy: "The mystic chords of memory, stretching ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... to the lecture room of this hall and listened to an address entitled: "The Divinity of Christ," by one of Satan's ablest advocates a professor with ecclesiastical titles. His gestures were unique and his style altogether persuasive. ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... the instinctive feelings of the heart be an inspiration of God? May not God come near to the heart of man and awaken a mysterious presentiment of an invisible Presence, and an instinctive longing to come nearer to Him? May he not draw men towards himself by sweet, persuasive influences, and raise man to a conscious fellowship? Is not God indeed the great ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... It was the first that had come from him since she had left Poona, although, as he said in it, he had obtained her new address from the Goanese clerk in the Munster Hotel office on the day of her flight, thanks to the persuasive powers of a ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... ask after anybody but me, when I came here this morning on purpose to talk the whole day to you. Now, dear little Fleda," said Miss Constance, executing an impatient little persuasive caper round her, "won't you go out and order dinner? for I'm raging. Your woman did give me something, but I found the want of you had taken away all my appetite; and now the delight of seeing you has exhausted me, and I feel that nature ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... they had taken seats, and were awaiting, without much impatience, the return of the ferryman. The compassion of the silly child was excited by the severe accident which the stranger described as the origin of his fractures and contusions; nor need I tell you that the persuasive voice and deportment of Don John are calculated to make even a more experienced one than this pretty Ulrica forget his unseemly aspect and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... in another way. Madame Elisabeth's comments upon the state of France, her mild and persuasive eloquence, and the, ease and simplicity with which she talked to him, yet without sacrificing her dignity in the slightest degree, appeared to him unique, and his heart, which was doubtless inclined to right ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... every point of novel-composition, though with special regard to epigrammatic phrase. But the whole is inorganic somehow, and more than somehow unreal; without (save in the cases mentioned) attaining that obviously unreal but persuasive phantasmagoria which some great writers of fiction have managed to put in existence and motion. How far this is due to the fact that most of the novels are political is a question rather to be hinted than to be discussed. But the present writer has ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... his road has met Hindrance so great, that he through fear has turn'd. Now much I dread lest he past help have stray'd, And I be ris'n too late for his relief, From what in heaven of him I heard. Speed now, And by thy eloquent persuasive tongue, And by all means for his deliverance meet, Assist him. So to me will comfort spring. I who now bid thee on this errand forth Am Beatrice; from a place ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... go harmlessly mad in time, believing themselves just behind the wall of fortune—most likable and simple men, for whom it is well to do any kindly thing that occurs to you except lend them money. I have known "grub stakers" too, those persuasive sinners to whom you make allowances of flour and pork and coffee in consideration of the ledges they are about to find; but none of these proved so much worth while as the Pocket Hunter. He wanted nothing ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... that the last senorita who had taken Count Almante's fancy was Miralda Estalez. The count spent many hours and many pesetas at the pretty tobacconist's counter, where, we may be sure, he used his most persuasive language to attain his very improper purpose. Accustomed to have pretty things poured into her ears by a variety of admirers, Miralda regarded the count's addresses with indifference; and, while behaving with her wonted amiability of manner, gave him neither encouragement nor motive ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... presence of whom the inhabitants remained mute with fear. Such are, Gentlemen, the formidable influences which for a moment deprived Fourier of the suffrages of his countrymen; and caricatured, as a partisan of Robespierre, the individual whom St. Just, making allusion to his sweet and persuasive eloquence, styled a patriot in music; who was so often thrown into prison by the decemvirs; who, at the very height of the Reign of Terror, offered before the Revolutionary Tribunal the assistance of his admirable talents to the mother of Marshal Davoust, accused of the crime of ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... the desired place, where I hoped soon to regain my freedom; but my master, who had hitherto connected the most persuasive language with the blackest treachery, ceased to dissemble longer, and made me endure the most ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... him after a discussion in which pints played a persuasive part; with the result that Mr. Brown, sitting in the same bar the next evening with two or three friends, was rudely disturbed by the cyclonic entrance of Mr. Kidd, who, dripping with water, sank on a ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... look is the renewal of our own vision of the calm verities in which we trust, the recourse for ourselves to the realities which we desire that others should see. And what is equal in persuasive power to the simple utterance of one's own intense conviction? He only will infuse his own religion into other minds, whose religion is not a set of hard dogmas, but is fused by the heat of personal experience into a river of living fire. It ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... to put on our shoulders. It would be so good of you to get them for us," said Ethne in persuasive tones. ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... gives this testamentary commandment to his children and heirs, "A new commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." New indeed! For though it be the same command, yet there was never such a motive, inducement, and persuasive to it as this: "God so loved that he gave me, and I so loved that I gave myself, that is an addition more than all that was before," John xiii. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... to us, my dear—take no thought what you shall put on—and you will put it on all the better." Felicie was summoned. "Felicie, remember Miss Stanley's dress is always to be the same as my own. It must be so, my dear. It will be the greatest pleasure to me," and with her most persuasive caressing manner, she added, "My own dear Helen, if you love me, ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... view, Tyre was perhaps the chief centre of conjunction for all the main streams of the world, from the point of view of literature and any other art, it was an admitted backwater. Take what art you pleased, Tyre was a dunce. Even to music, the most persuasive of the arts, it was deaf. Surely, of all cities, it had not been built to music. It possessed, indeed, one private-spirited town-councillor, who insisted on presenting it with nude sculptures and mysterious paintings which ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... he said, and his voice was so reassuring and persuasive that I could see she was not made even a shade more nervous by our simple preparations, "the game—it is just like a children's parlour game—is just this: I will say a word—take 'dog,' for instance. You are to answer back immediately the first word that comes into your mind suggested by it—say ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... said he,—in a persuasive tone, and evidently wishing to turn the drift of the remarks,—"just set them free, and hire them; we shall agree then. The slaves will be as well off, ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... chaplain, standing on his flag-draped pulpit at the main-mast, with those five hundred quiet, attentive sailors seated on capstan-bars and match-tubs between the silent cannon, and no sound save his mild, persuasive voice, as he read the sublime service from the good lessons before him. Then, after a short but impressive sermon, adapted to the comprehension of the honest tars around him, with a kindly word, too, for the sagacious officers who commanded them, he closed the holy book and ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... wily Red man went on in a persuasive manner to expatiate on the advantages of peace in general, and of peace with the Eskimos in particular. He also enlarged on the great comforts to be derived from trade—which could be carried on with the white traders on the one hand and the Eskimos on the other, so that, between ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... this matter is the audacity of the king. He trusted that the people generally would not have access to the documents which we now possess to contradict him. After issuing this mendacious letter, he approached the Stockholm merchants, and, by certain persuasive arguments whose nature it is easy to conceive, prevailed upon them to deposit all their "klippings" in the treasury, to be weighed and bought by the Government at their actual bullion value. He then began the issue of a new ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... had been times in Owen's life when, finding himself without means and without work, with want staring himself, his wife, and his family, in the face, he had resorted to bad ways of obtaining money. He would never have yielded to the temptation had it not been for the persuasive words and occasionally the threats of his mates. Many of these men were wreckers; that is to say, they deliberately placed on the coast false lights which lured passing ships to destruction. It was from the wrecks of the disabled vessels that they gathered up the treasures carried to them ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... calmness, manifesting neither anger nor satisfaction, almost as impassive and impersonal as fate itself. But while his ordinary manner was thus calmly commanding, his eloquence was as fiery as it was persuasive. "Flames sparkle from his eyes," said Bersek Bey, "and flowers are scattered from ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... opportunity of appreciating you, that I would not delay any longer the pleasure of making you a personal avowal of my past sentiments, and of those with which you now inspire me." The tone in which madame de Flaracourt uttered these words was so gracious and so persuasive, that I could not resist the pleasure of embracing her. She returned my kiss with the same eagerness, and would not listen to my thanks. "All is explained between us," she continued, "let us forget the past, and ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... Master Cockrell and Gunner's Mate Joe Hawkridge, laying aside the stiff dignity of naval rank. To his persuasive argument that they enter the royal service with promise of quick promotion, they turned a deaf ear although they were wonderfully taken with him. He was a gentle, soft-spoken young man with a boyish smile who blushed when pressed to talk of his own exploits against the Spanish, the ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... ouvrier, but of illustrious parentage, for your grandsire was the beloved friend of the virtuous Robespierre, your father perished a hero and a martyr in the massacre of the coup d'etat; you, cultured in the eloquence of Robespierre himself, and in the persuasive philosophy of Robespierre's teacher, Rousseau; you, the idolized orator of the Red Republicans,—you will be indeed a chief of dauntless bands when the trumpet sounds for battle. Young publicist and poet, Gustave Rameau,—I care ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... command of Edric, formerly the sheriff of the county in which Aescendune lay, but long since returned to court, where his smooth tongue gained him great wealth and high rank. Gifted with a subtle genius and persuasive eloquence, he had obtained a complete ascendency over the mind of the weak Ethelred, while he surpassed even that treacherous monarch in ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... influence, and these last words, spoken with gentle and persuasive dignity, turned the scale. Griffith turned to Neville, and said in a low voice that he began to fear he had been hasty, and used harsher words than the occasion justified: he was going to stammer out something more, but Neville interrupted him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... man rose, knocked the ashes out of his pipe and put the pipe in his vest pocket, stretched himself, and reached for his cap. It was plain that he considered the interview at an end. The persuasive Mr. Morrissey tried to get a wedge in somewhere to reopen it, but he tried in vain. Enos Walker was adamant. So, disappointed and discomfited, the emissaries of Colonel Richard Butler bade "good-day," to the oracle of Cobb's Corners, and drove ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... Mirabeau. It was stamped with the seal of fierce, swift, and terrible eloquence. But the Doctor bore on his brow the expression of religious faith that his modern double had not. His voice, too, was of persuasive sweetness, with a clear and ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... appointment to be Prefect of the Praetorium, he possessed some qualities fitting him, as he later was, to be entrusted by his self-indulgent master with the administration of the whole Empire. Certainly he was quick- thinking, prompt, ingenious, incredibly persuasive, resolute and ruthless, which qualities go far towards equipping a ruler. Without these characteristics he could not have conceived or adopted the plan which he ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... to be relieved from his superiority. No state chicanery, no narrow systems of vicious politics, no idle contest for ministerial victories sunk him to the vulgar level of the great; but, overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England,—his ambition was fame; without dividing, he destroyed party; without corrupting, he made a venal age unanimous; France sunk beneath him; with one hand he smote the House of Bourbon, and wielded in the ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... feller. He wasn't no good, but he had that persuasive way with him! And he knew so much more than me! You'd think a man 'ud feel shame to tell such stories on himself; but no! he'd make out as you ought to like him for bein' such a good-for-nothing waster; and by Gum! in the end you did! Never ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... cleared. "My father was a genius; and my mother is Lucy Warne," he said, won by the soft look and the persuasive voice. ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... there wanteth arguments in the tenders of the gospel, for there is not only plenty, but such as be persuasive, clear, and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Hazel in her sweet persuasive tones,'you never know what you can have. And you can always have yourself. I would break itfeeling as you doif I were half way through ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... it was of no use; that it did only kick his monkey up, and so she let him alone, except when she could drop in a persuasive word or two. The mill-owners at Cress brook and Miller's Dale had forbidden any public-house nearer than Edale, and they had more than once called the people together to point out to them the mischiefs of drinking, and the advantages to be derived from the very savings of temperance. But all these ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... years before his conversion. It is at least possible that the authorities in Rome had their eye on Manning; the may well have felt that the Archdeacon of Chichester would be a great catch. What did Pio Nono say? It is easy to imagine the persuasive innocence of his Italian voice. 'Ah, dear Signor Manning, why don't you come over to us? Do you suppose that we should not look ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... himself; often such a visit ended in a loan, whereby the 'barrer' was replenished and the surly husband set to work; but if all efforts at peacemaking were useless, this new apostle had methods beyond the reach of the ordinary missionary—he would (the case deserving it) drop his mild, insinuating, persuasive tones, and not only threaten to pulp the incorrigible blackguard into a jelly, but ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... eyes, think his thoughts, feel his sensations. He never stopped until he had projected his mind into theirs, and permeated their lives with his individuality. There was no escape from his concentration of purpose, his persuasive rhetoric, his convincing logic. "Carry the jury at all hazards," he used to say to young lawyers; "move heaven and earth to carry the jury, and then fight it out with the judge on the law questions ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... language was not quite free from impurities, arising principally from the introduction of vowels before consonants, a habit probably acquired from the Italian custom. "Her whole style of elocution," observes one writer, "may be described as sweet and persuasive rather than powerful and commanding. It naturally assumed the character of her mind and voice." She was considered the most accomplished singer that had ever been ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... Lou," said Annie in a warning tone. She had reasons for not wishing her husband to cross Alexandra too openly. "But don't you sort of hate to have people see him around here, Alexandra?" she went on with persuasive smoothness. "He IS a disgraceful object, and you're fixed up so nice now. It sort of makes people distant with you, when they never know when they'll hear him scratching about. My girls are afraid as death of him, aren't ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... not a modern Chrysostom, he was an earnest, faithful, and enlightened man, full of persuasive fervour; and to the brief but interesting discourse he delivered—a discourse occasionally sprinkled with felicitous metaphors and rounded with several eloquent passages—Mr. Palma appeared to ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... importance for success or failure. It needs cultivation, but often it depends on a native sociability, a friendliness and genuine interest, on a "good nature" that is what it literally purports to be,—good nature. Though many of the persuasive kind are insincere and selfish, I believe that on the whole the taciturn and gruff are less interested in their fellows than the ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... Lamartine, mystic in Verlaine. It is in the deferred resolutions of Chopin's music. It is in the discontent that haunts Burne-Jones's women. Even Matthew Arnold, whose song of Callicles tells of 'the triumph of the sweet persuasive lyre,' and the 'famous final victory,' in such a clear note of lyrical beauty, has not a little of it; in the troubled undertone of doubt and distress that haunts his verses, neither Goethe nor Wordsworth could help him, ...
— De Profundis • Oscar Wilde
... M. Kallen, former dean of the New School of Social Research, strongly endorses Dr. Velikovsky's statements: "It is my belief that Velikovsky has supported his theses with substantial evidence and made an effective and persuasive argument." ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... he had taken Hulen from my ship under a peremptory order from his commander to visit every American ship in port and take from each of them one or more of their seamen.... I then called upon Captain Cook, who commanded the frigate, and sought first by all the persuasive means that I was capable of using and ultimately by threats to appeal to the Government of the place to obtain Hulen's release, but in vain.... It remained for me only to recommend Hulen to that protection of the lieutenant which a good seaman deserves, and to submit ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... himself from their wretched fellowship, ought to take from them for the right use of preaching of the Gospel. For what else have many excellent members of our faith done? See we not how richly laden with gold and silver and apparel that most persuasive teacher and most blessed martyr, Cyprian, departed out of Egypt? Or Lactantius, or Victorinus, Optatus, Hilary, not to speak of the living, and Greeks innumerable? And this, Moses himself, that most faithful servant of God, first did, of whom it is written, that 'he was learned in ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... of progress. The colonists feared to part with the old effete possession, lest the French should oppose, as they have done in Senegal, all foreign industry—in fact, 'seal up' the Gambia. A highly respectable merchant, the late Mr. Brown, contributed not a little, by his persuasive pen, to defeat the proposed measure. And now it is to be feared that we have heard the last of this matter; our rivals have found out the high value of their once despised equatorial colony. If ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... powerful than the New England town-meetings, among which that of the people of Boston stood preeminent, and in the Boston town-meeting for more than thirty years no other man exerted so much influence as Samuel Adams. This was because of his keen intelligence and persuasive talk, his spotless integrity, indomitable courage, unselfish and unwearying devotion to the public good, and broad sympathy with all classes of people. He was a thorough democrat. He respected the dignity of true manhood wherever he found it, and could talk with sailors and shipwrights like ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... Paoli that by following traditional lines he had not only shown in the constitution he framed for Corsica a historic intuition, but also had found "in his unparalleled activity, in his warm, persuasive eloquence, in his adroit and far-seeing genius," a means to guarantee it against the attacks of ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... horse, not without urge of iron arm and persuasive speech, for the desert steed scented water, and plodded back to the edge of the arroyo, where in a secluded circle of mesquite he halted. The horse snorted his relief at the removal of the heavy, burdened saddle and accoutrements, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... to the manager, and talked with enthusiasm of the enormous success which would be caused by the novelty of introducing the Russian peasant on the stage. The play could be written very quickly; and M. Hostein,[] carried away by Balzac's extraordinarily persuasive eloquence, already began to reflect about suitable scenery, dresses, and decorations, for the framing of his masterpiece. However, to his disappointment Balzac returned in a few days, to announce ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... meditates whether as an economical Indian Chieftain, he can afford this outlay, and finally shakes his head sadly, and withdraws the coppers.) Oh, very well, then; please yourself, I'm sure! (CHOCOLATE's small black eyes regard her admiringly, as he tries one last persuasive smile, probably to express the degree to which the possession of a nodding monkey would brighten his existence.) It ain't a bit o' good, CHOC'LIT, I can't lower my price for you; and what's more, I'm not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various
... he felt, from his close cultivation of music and his knowledge of the genius of his countrymen, that much was wanting, and that more could be accomplished, and he sought out, while in Europe, an Italian troupe, which his persuasive eloquence and the liberal spirit of Price led to embark for our shores where they arrived in November, 1825." Stephen Price here referred to by Dr. Francis was the manager of the old Park Theater. Dominick Lynch's grandson, Nicholas Luquer, who with his charming wife, formerly ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... disputant; controversialist, controvertist[obs3]; wrangler, arguer, debater polemic, casuist, rationalist; scientist; eristic[obs3]. logical sequence; good case; correct just reasoning, sound reasoning, valid reasoning, cogent reasoning, logical reasoning, forcible reasoning, persuasive reasoning, persuasory reasoning[obs3], consectary reasoning|, conclusive &c. 478 ; subtle reasoning; force of argument, strong point, strong argument, persuasive argument. arguments, reasons, pros and cons. V. reason, argue, discuss, debate, dispute, wrangle- argufy[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... with every virtue that could make it valuable, so was his face adorned with every expression of those virtues—and they not only gave a lustre to his aspect, but added a harmonious sound to all he uttered; it was persuasive, it was perfect eloquence; whilst in his looks you beheld his thoughts moving with his lips, and ever ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... before the nesting seemed actually to have begun, three or four of these birds might be seen, on almost any bright morning, gamboling and courting amid its decayed branches. Sometimes you would hear only a gentle persuasive cooing, or a quiet confidential chattering; then that long, loud call, taken up by first one, then another, as they sat about upon the naked limbs; anon, a sort of wild, rollicking laughter, intermingled with various cries, yelps, and squeals, as if some incident had excited their mirth and ridicule. ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... day, Mary again appeared at the prison door for admission, and was soon by the side of him whom she so ardently loved. While there, the clouds which had overhung the city for some hours, broke, and the rain fell in torrents amid the most terrific thunder and lightning. In the most persuasive manner possible, Mary again importuned George to avail himself of her assistance to escape from an ignominious death. After assuring him that she not being the person condemned, would not receive any injury, he at last consented, ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... throbbings of Chupin's heart. He touched the valet's arm, and in his most persuasive tone remarked: "I've nothing to do, and as your wine was so good, I'll do your errands for you, if you'll pay me for the wear ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... bright and early, When the lark is on the wing And the robin in the maple Hops from her nest to sing, From yonder cheery chamber Cometh a mellow coo— 'T is the sweet, persuasive ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... fact is this: there is less work done under the apprenticeship than was done during slavery: therefore no work at all will be done after entire freedom! But the apprenticeship allows one fourth less time for labor than slavery did, and presents no inducement, either compulsory or persuasive, to continued industry. Will it be replied that emancipation will take away all the time from labor, and offer no encouragement but to idleness? How is it now? Do the apprentices work better or worse during their own time when they are paid? Better, unquestionably. What ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... himself beneath the domination of that confused sentiment which is unknown to true love. There was needful, in some sort, the persuasive grip of comparisons, and the irresistible attraction of memories to lead him back to a woman. True love rules above all through recollection. A woman who is not engraven upon the soul by excess of pleasure or by strength of ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... invite her up to my own room, with a view of seeing whether my mattress of pebbles and iron-filings could be supplemented by another of shavings or straw, or some material less provocative of bodily injuries. She was most sympathetic, persuasive, logical and after the manner of her kind proved to me conclusively that the trouble lay with the too-saft occupant of the bed, not with the bed itself, and gave me statistics with regard to the latter which established its reputation and at ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... suitable language necessary, a circumstance which, aided by a natural flow of words, and a felicitious illustration of imagery—for which, indeed, all prophecy-men were remarkable—had something peculiarly fascinating and persuasive to the class of persons he was in the habit of addressing. The gifts of these men, besides, were exercised with such singular delight, that the constant repetition of their oracular exhibitions by degrees created an involuntary impression ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... lust (to which human shamelessness giveth free licence, though unlicensed by Thy laws) took the rule over me, and I resigned myself wholly to it? My friends meanwhile took no care by marriage to save my fall; their only care was that I should learn to speak excellently, and be a persuasive orator. ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... the ruthless sword that never fell When spear bit harness in the battle din, For Aphrodi'te spake, and like a spell Wrought her sweet voice persuasive, till within His heart there lived no memory of sin; No thirst for vengeance more, but all grew plain, And wrath was molten in desire to win The golden heart of ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... young Priest, so doubly feel, When hurt by those whose office is to heal. "Yet of our duties you must something tell, And must at times on sin and frailty dwell; Here you may preach in easy, flowing style, How errors cloud us, and how sins defile: Here bring persuasive tropes and figures forth, To show the poor that wealth is nothing worth; That they, in fact, possess an ample share Of the world's good, and feel not half its care: Give them this comfort, and, indeed, my gout In its full vigour causes me ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... argument Reud seems undecided, and observes that he can only judge the matter from well understanding the previous style and the context, and so, every now and then, requests him, with a most persuasive politeness, to begin again from the beginning. Of course, he gets no farther than the paving. After the baited author had re-read his page-and-a-half about six or seven times, the captain smiles upon him lovingly, and says in his most insinuating ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... tried to persuade him to stay and build a colony in the new world. Lord knew that the other natives were being as persuasive with the rest of the crew. And the temptation was very real: to trade the energetic, competitive, exhausting routine that he knew for the quiet peace ...
— Impact • Irving E. Cox
... maintain the attitude of reserve and self-effacement which Barber had imposed as a condition of service under the scheme he had formulated. As soon as the miners began to fight shy of him as an opponent at the billiard-table, he forgot the necessity for caution, and ignored the gentle persuasive influence of an occasional defeat. Instead of the tact which animated the smooth-tongued Tap, he developed swagger and "side," and talked largely of his powers as a billiardist, and patronizingly to the men who made matches between themselves and declined even his bets. When the ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... but a continuous feebleness, a running sore, in my own. But it is also true that I have dwelt on this Imperialism that is an amiable delusion partly in order to show how different it is from the deeper, more sinister and yet more persuasive thing that I have been forced to call Imperialism for the convenience of this chapter. In order to get to the root of this evil and quite un-English Imperialism we must cast back and begin anew with a more general discussion of the first needs of ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... organization. The Canadian and British governments could not get up a "lobby" to press the matter in the ways peculiar to professional politicians, party managers, and great commercial or financial corporations. Mr. Hincks brought the powers of his persuasive tongue and ingenious intellect to bear on the politicians at Washington, but even he with all his commercial acuteness and financial knowledge was unable to accomplish anything. It was not until Lord Elgin himself went to the national capital and made use of his diplomatic tact and amenity ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... during the first year of Her Majesty's reign that we find Father Mathew, the Irish Capuchin friar, initiating his vast crusade against intemperance, and by the charm of his persuasive eloquence and unselfish enthusiasm inducing thousands upon thousands to forswear the drink-poison that was destroying them. In two years he succeeded in enrolling two million five hundred thousand persons on the ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... isn't what you got, but what I am to get. Come, my good sir, it's cutting off your nose to spite your face. Settle and have done with it, even if it does take a little slice off your granddaughter's fortune? Now look here"—his voice became persuasive—"why not take me into your confidence? Make a friend of me. You want advice; let me advise you. I can get you good investments—far better than you know anything of—good and safe investments—at six certain, and sometimes seven and even eight per cent. ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... of socialism and art. Mr. Wrenn felt very guilty. Istra.... Smoking and drinking wine.... But his moral reflections brought the picture of Istra the more clearly before him—the persuasive warmth of her perfect fingers; the curve of her backward-bent throat as she talked in her melodious voice of all the beautiful things made by the wise hands ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... there in the brush a soft, persuasive cooing, a sound so subtile and wild and unobtrusive that it requires the most alert and watchful ear to hear it. How gentle and solicitous and full of yearning love! It is the voice of the mother hen. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... "shrillness" of which people talk; but it was only because the organ was forced beyond the ordinary effort. His usual speech was clear, and yet with a breath in it, with an especially distinct articulation, a soft, vibrating tone, emphatic, pleasant, and persuasive. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... tactless, until the word seems to have become permanently identified with his name; how unjustly is shown by a very hasty examination of his masterly diplomacy, both in Russia and Spain. Diplomacy, as Borrow understood it, was the art of being persuasive when persuasion would obtain for him his object, and firm, even threatening, when strong measures were best calculated to suit his ends. It is only the fool who defines tact as the gentle art of pleasing everybody. Diplomacy is the art of getting ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... "he is right, quite right; for out of such religion springs contentment, and all the higher as well as the humbler virtues. Yes, he is quite right." Much more he urged Rose, with all the persuasive eloquence of warm affection, to discover, if it were possible, she could change. He tried her on all points, but she replied with the clear straightforward truthfulness that has nothing to conceal. She wavered in nothing: ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... it developed, was a fluent and persuasive talker, a man of the broadest worldly experiences and wit. He was younger than Calvin, but older than Wilmer Deakon, and a little fat. He had a small mustache cut above his lip, and closely shaved ruddy cheeks with a ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... together again, and Meynell resumed conversation, talking rapidly, in a kind, persuasive voice, putting the common sense of the situation—holding out distant hopes. The young man's face gradually cleared. He was of a docile, open temper, and deeply attached ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had spent Easter together. John wondered whether Caesar would take the Sacrament with his mother and him. He and Caesar had been confirmed side by side in the Chapel at Harrow. He felt sure that Desmond would not refuse if he were asked. On Easter Eve, Mrs. Verney said, in her quiet, persuasive voice— ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... a compelling, not a persuasive, power to win a woman. No man who takes me like this," closing her thumb and forefinger as if holding a butterfly, "can have me. The one who dares to take me like this," clenching her hand, "will get me. But he ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... along back, and be tactful. Be persuasive; don't fret her; tell her it's all right, the matter is in my hands, but it isn't good form to hurry so grave a matter as this. Explain to her that we have to go by precedents, and that I believe this one to be new. In fact, you can say I know that nothing just like it has happened ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... the venture had been carried out, he became most intolerably self-opinionated in his expressions towards Sen's mental attainments and the manner of his bringing up. It was entirely in vain that the one referred to pointed out in a tone of persuasive and courteous restraint that he had not, down to the most minute particulars, transgressed either the general or the specific obligations of the Five General Principles, and that, therefore, he was blameless, and even worthy of commendation for the manner in ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... were acquainted with him, either in public or private life, whether friends or adversaries, a strong impression of esteem and goodwill. His disposition was easy, amiable, and generous; his mind just, quick, and refined, at once calm and liberal; he was endowed with natural, persuasive, clear, and graceful eloquence; he pleased even those from whom he differed. I have heard M. Dupont de l'Eure whisper gently from his place, while listening to him, "Be silent, Siren!" In ordinary times, and under a well-settled constitutional system, he would have been ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... necessary, in compliance with custom, that I should say something by way of PREFACE. If the reader would be informed what my reasons were for appearing in print, I shall candidly acknowledge, that the great prospect of a considerable advantage to myself was indeed the strongest persuasive; but I can with equal truth affirm, that it affords me no small pleasure to think I am doing my country at the same time a very great piece of service; and doubt not but that, as many will soon experience it, my labour will be thankfully received ...
— The Cyder-Maker's Instructor, Sweet-Maker's Assistant, and Victualler's and Housekeeper's Director - In Three Parts • Thomas Chapman
... opens, you can see to the very bottom of it; and whether selfish or generous, revengeful or forgiving, the real disposition is revealed. We were all full of joy and congratulations, when Mr. Montenero, at the first pause of silence, addressed himself in his most persuasive tone to me. ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... without the direct authority of the legislature. The assembly of Lower Canada was not disposed to raise troublesome issues during the war, or in any way to embarrass the action of Sir George Prevost, who, whatever may have been his incompetency as a military chief, succeeded by his conciliatory and persuasive methods in winning the good opinions of the French Canadian majority and making himself an exceptionally popular civil governor. After closing the accounts of the war, the government felt it expedient to stop such irregular proceedings, to obtain from the ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... Monte Cristo, with that expression which sometimes made him so eloquent and persuasive—"look at me. There are no tears in my eyes, nor is there fever in my veins, yet I see you suffer—you, Maximilian, whom I love as my own son. Well, does not this tell you that in grief, as in life, there is always something to look forward ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... encroached like a canker upon Emmy's originally sweet nature. The shock of impact with unpleasant conviction made Jenny hasten to dissemble her real belief in Emmy's born inferiority. Her note was changed from one of complaint into one of persuasive entreaty. ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... back. For a moment I was uncertain whether he were addressing the woman or myself. "You mind your own business and go to your Indian! Here, Gillespie, I'll do the tents with you. Get off with you," he muttered at the squaw, rumbling out a lingo of persuasive expletives; and he led the way to ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... burning conceptions of eternity could have inspired the souls of men and made them strong enough to project and accomplish those stupendous structures which, in their silent majesty and awe-inspiring suggestiveness, are the most persuasive and the most unanswerable preachers of Christianity that the Church of two thousand years has produced. "They builded better than they knew." And what are all the sermons and theologies of that time in comparison with those great old monuments of Christian ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... sobbed aloud in the tense silence. And in a moment the whole congregation began sobbing and moaning and swaying themselves to and fro. The young priest stopped and left them alone a moment or two, and then began to speak in a low persuasive voice. I do not know what he said, but he gradually soothed them and made them happy. And then the organ began pealing out triumphantly, and while the guns crashed and thundered outside, the choir within sang of peace ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... a-wooing. Infirm and tottering as he is, it was the height of insanity. Down he dropped on his bended knees before the object of his love; out he poured his touching addresses, lisped in the blandest, most persuasive tones; and what was his answer? Scoffs, laughs, kicks, rejection! Even Johnny Russell's muse availed not, though it deserved a better fate. It gained him a wife, but could not win the electors. Our readers will discover the genius of the witty author of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... might have been successful with a helpless and submissive girl. With that look in her eyes, which are as cold as steel and have its glitter, one could not augur success for any wooer. It was a tribute not so much to the appearance of Pollock as to the soul of the man shining through his face in most persuasive purity and sincerity, that when they met and turned aside into that window space and stood in the spring sunlight, her face softened towards him. The pride of her carriage seemed to relax, and the offence went out of her eyes, and she gave him a gracious greeting, and ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... to admit that their personal animosity had yielded to their love of art: and he was much surprised. The only man who was not eager to see his work produced was himself. It was not suited to the theater: it was nonsense, and almost hurtful to stage it. But Roussin was so insistent, Sylvain Kohn so persuasive, and Goujart so positive, that Christophe yielded to the temptation. He was weak. He was so longing ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... said George, in a persuasive voice, and pushing the brandy bottle towards her, "where's the need for you to go to the workhus or to chokey either—you with a rich husband as is bound by law to support you as becomes a lady? And, marm, mind another thing, a husband as hev wickedly deserted you—which ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... perhaps, never better illustrated than in her stories. Her conversations are at times almost supernaturally bright; such talk as one hears from witty, brilliant, and cultivated American women—talk notable for insight, subtle discriminations, unexpected and surprised terms and persuasive humor. ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... infinite thanks, to the opportune and active intervention of the Very Reverend Padre Fray Bernardo Salvi, who, defying every danger in the midst of the unbridled mob, without hat or cane, calmed the wrath of the crowd, using only his persuasive word with the majesty and authority that are never lacking to a minister of a Religion of Peace. With unparalleled self-abnegation this virtuous priest tore himself from sweet repose, such as every good conscience like his ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... felt his task to be an invidious one. The majesty of grief, expressing itself with Christian meekness, and appealing as it were, from the grave to the consciences of men, could not be violated without a recoil of angry feeling, ruinous to the effect of any logic or rhetoric the most persuasive. The affliction of a great prince, his solitude, his rigorous imprisonment, his constancy to some purposes which were not selfish, his dignity of demeanor in the midst of his heavy trials, and his ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... of canal navigation is universally admitted. It is no less certain that scarcely any country offers more extensive opportunities for that branch of improvements than the United States, and none, perhaps, inducements equally persuasive to make the most of them. The particular undertaking contemplated by the State of New York, which marks an honorable spirit of enterprise and comprises objects of national as well as more limited importance, will recall the attention of Congress to the signal advantages to be derived to the United ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... the drum, and the clash of the bayonet. His oratory was straightforward, clever, striking; his words were effective in council, in confidence, and intimacy: they soothed and insinuated themselves like those of a woman. He was persuasive, for his soul, mobile and sensitive, had always in its accent the truth and impression of the moment. Devoted to the sex, and easily enamoured, his experience with them had imbued him with one of their highest qualities—pity. He could not resist tears, ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... the persuasive voice Of Orpheus, &c. Compel me not What is beneath to view. I was the first To call thee father; me thou first didst call Thy child. I was the first that on thy knees Fondly caressed thee, and from thee received The fond caress. This was thy speech to me:— 'Shall ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... to the stopping of the horse-fiddle was Greek to Mrs. Edwards, to whose ears the story had never come. But the present was not a time for general inquiries. It sufficed that she saw the main point, the persuasive ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... Throndhjem, and presented themselves to King Olaf at Nidaros. Then Eyvind was brought up to a conference with the king, who asked him to allow himself to be baptized, like other people; but Eyvind decidedly answered he would not. The king still, with persuasive words, urged him to accept Christianity, and both he and the bishop used many suitable arguments; but Eyvind would not allow himself to be moved. The king offered him gifts and great fiefs, but Eyvind refused all. Then the king threatened him with tortures and death, but ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... transformations which they were witnessing in the present. They could think they knew the world as a man knows his native town, or the contents of his chest of drawers: nature was our home, and science was our home knowledge. For it is not intrinsic clearness or coherence that make ideas persuasive, but connection with action, or with some voluminous inner response, which is readiness to act. It is a sense of on-coming fate, a compulsion to do or to suffer, that produces ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... myself, On the wide desert in his road has met Hindrance so great, that he through fear has turn'd. Now much I dread lest he past help have stray'd, And I be ris'n too late for his relief, From what in heaven of him I heard. Speed now, And by thy eloquent persuasive tongue, And by all means for his deliverance meet, Assist him. So to me will comfort spring. I who now bid thee on this errand forth Am Beatrice; ...
— The Vision of Hell, Part 1, Illustrated by Gustave Dore - The Inferno • Dante Alighieri, Translated By The Rev. H. F. Cary
... began this good queen's sorrow; for Polixenes refusing to stay at the request of Leontes, was won over by Hermione's gentle and persuasive words to put off his departure for some weeks longer. Upon this, although Leontes had so long known the integrity and honourable principles of his friend Polixenes, as well as the excellent disposition of his virtuous queen, he was seized ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... made, as it was, in the eloquent and persuasive, and yet dignified and imposing manner for which Caesar's harangues to turbulent assemblies like these were so famed, produced a great effect. Some were convinced, others were silenced; and those whose resentment ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... Two Athenians, Peithetairus (Persuasive) and Euelpides (Sanguine) reach the home of the Hoopoe bird, once a mortal, to find a happier place than their native city. Suddenly, as the bird describes the happy careless life of his kind, Peithetairus conceives the idea of founding a new bird city between earth and heaven. The Hoopoe summons ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... almost as much as the mental attitude will influence the tone. If you honestly feel resentful against some one, but, having understood the foolishness of fury, intentionally mask your fury under a persuasive tone, your fury will at once begin to abate. You will be led into a rational train of thought; you will see that after all the object of your resentment has a right to exist, and that he is neither a doormat nor a scoundrel, and that anyhow nothing is to be ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... immediately fired with a desire to see the famous Duke who had dared to cross the channel in a balloon rather than run the risk of being shut up in prison, and we all waited with impatience to see whether Lord Lyons's persuasive powers went so far as getting the Duke to show himself. Well, they did, and both the gentlemen came into the salon. The Duke bowed low and did not lose his balance. In fact, for a man half-seas over, I thought he looked as if he could get to the end of his journey ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... second floor, he knew, were in Mrs. Cable's room. In his mind's eye, he could see Graydon there with the others listening to the story as it fell from prejudiced, condemning lips—the pathetic, persuasive lips of a sick woman. He knew the effect on the chivalrous nature of his son; he could feel the coldness that took root in his ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
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