"Argumentative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in a mildly argumentative way, "'tis as I says. You must do as the women does, an' not as a man might ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... represented only the first stage, the argumentative stage of the great contest. It was during this period, for example, that the Mariposa Newspacket absolutely proved that the price of hogs in Mariposa was decimal six higher than the price of oranges ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... of the late Administration declaring their hostility to the Militia Bill, Lord John Russell rose at eleven o'clock and announced his determination to oppose the second reading of it.[32] His speech was one of his ablest—statesmanlike, argumentative, terse, and playful; and the effect he ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... effect; and what is better, political ideology, with a solicitor or pleader, is a bad note. The positive, practical mind of the judge has taken in at a glance and penetrated to the bottom of arguments, means and valid pretensions; he submits impatiently to metaphysics and pettifoggery, to the argumentative force and mendacity of words.—This goes so far that he distrusts oratorical or literary talent; in any event when he entrusts active positions or a part in public business then he takes no note of it. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... beacon I reached the spot where our people were bivouacked; they had lighted the beacon on a rock about fifty feet above the level, as although some twenty or thirty fires were blazing, they had been obscured by the intervening jungle. I found both my wife and my men in an argumentative state as to the propriety of my remaining alone so late in the jungle; however, I also found dinner ready; the angareps (stretcher bedsteads) arranged by a most comfortable blazing fire, and a glance at the star-lit heavens assured me ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... as well as Mr. Burke; but in general the speakers are more argumentative, and less rhetorical. And whereas there are with you not more than ten or a dozen tolerable speakers, here every member ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... interesting one, more especially the "conversational" portion, in which free discussion was solicited. This was opened by Hon. E. Rosewater, who spoke in response to a very general call. His address of half an hour in length was marked by apparent sincerity, and was a calm and argumentative presentation of objections, theoretical and practical, which occurred to him against the extension of the franchise to women. It was replied to by Mrs. Colby, in a running comment, which abounded in womanly wisdom and wit, and incessantly brought down the house. Our restricted space will ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... middle ages had, in France, their spiritualists, their materialists, their pantheists, their rationalists, their mystics, and their sceptics, not very clear or refined in their notions, but such as lacked neither profundity in their general view of the questions, nor ingenious subtilty in their argumentative process. We do not care to give in this place any exposition or estimate of their doctrines; we shall simply point out what there was original and characteristic in their fashion of philosophizing, and wherein their mental condition differed essentially from that which ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... thought and majesty of diction, or Fox in massive strength and debating facility; but, while falling little short of Fox in debate, he excelled him in elegance and conciseness, Burke in point and common sense, Sheridan in dignity and argumentative power, and all of them in the felicitous wedding of elevated thought or vigorous argument to noble diction. By the side of his serried yet persuasive periods the efforts of Fox seemed ragged, those ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... discreet lady, with an argumentative air, 'who ever heard of such obstinacy as his staying shut up here through all these dreadful disagreeables? It's not as if there was no place for him to go to. Of course he could have come to our house. He knows he is at home there, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... upon the infallibility of the Bible and reject the infallibility of the Church and the pope. Calvin possessed a remarkably logical mind and a clear and admirable style. The French version of his great work is the first example of the successful use of that language in an argumentative treatise. ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... any knowing in advance how Mrs. Tarrant would take a thing, and even Verena, who, filially, was much less argumentative than in her civic and, as it were, public capacity, had a perception that her mother was queer. She was queer, indeed—a flaccid, relaxed, unhealthy, whimsical woman, who still had a capacity to cling. What she clung to was "society," and a position ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... topic in the story of which Eva Denison was wayward heroine and Frank Rattray the nearest approach to a hero. Sometimes these reminiscences lead to an argument; for it has been the fate of my life to become attached to argumentative persons. I suppose because I myself hate arguing. On the day that I received Rattray's letter we had one of our warmest discussions. I could repeat every word ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... hearth-rug and shaking his head more in sorrow than in anger). She's no reasonable, ye ken, John; she disna argue fair. I'm no complaining o' her mither, but it's a wee thing hard that the only twa women I've known to be really chatty an' argumentative with should ha' been just like that. An' me that ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... only that a peace is come to but also that the nations should afterward possess authoritative impartial opinions on the main questions of consequence connected with the origin and the conduct of the war. For such opinions would educate the poisoned minds to an objective and argumentative discussion of the means to prevent a repetition of ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... John Randolph down to the latest era of Henry A. Wise, the most sufferable and interminable campaign orator extant, and John Minor Botts, scarcely his inferior. With us, out of door rhetoric is dry, studied, and argumentative; here an inspiration, based upon feeling rather than reason, and so earnest that it knew no personal friendship where its political affinities stopped. Whig and Democrat were not men of the same race or family in Richmond; they passed each ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... said Manvers, "and of course childishly illegal. Your man will be soon got rid of. I expect you might have applied to him the remark of the Bishop of Cork on the Dean of Cork—'Excellent sermon!—eloquent, clever, argumentative!—and not enough gospel in it to ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... into the material world, and a method of departure from it, wholly and strikingly dissimilar to the established order—in common parlance, miraculous. Answers conceived in these two senses—some rough and popular and declamatory, some learned and argumentative and scientific—appeared in great numbers. "Grave objections are alleged against the book.... Its conclusions about the meaning of the term God, and about man's knowledge of God, are severely condemned; strong objections are taken to our view of the ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... he would denounce before the Lord. He sat down at length from pure exhaustion. Then Dr. Cotton Mather stood forward: he did not utter more than a few words of prayer, calm in comparison with what had gone before, and then he went on to address the great crowd before him in a quiet, argumentative way, but arranging what he had to say with something of the same kind of skill which Antony used in his speech to the Romans after Caesar's murder. Some of Dr. Mather's words have been preserved to us, as he afterwards wrote them down in one of his works. Speaking of those 'unbelieving Sadducees' ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... with an argumentative spirit. She looked anxiously in the face of her companion, and murmured some broken sentences about the Lord's Prayer and the Golden Rule, and wound up by saying hesitatingly, "How can we ask forgiveness if we do ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... to Paul were written by him or not, is a matter of indifference; they are either argumentative or dogmatical; and as the argument is defective, and the dogmatical part is merely presumptive, it signifies not who wrote them. And the same may be said for the remaining parts of the Testament. It is not upon the Epistles, but upon what is called the Gospel, contained in ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... new thing, fell into quick talk with Fenwick; looked him meanwhile up and down, his features, bearing, clothes; noticed his North-Country accent, and all the other signs of the plebeian. And presently Fenwick, placed at his ease, began for the first time to expand, became argumentative and explosive. In a few minutes he was laying down the law in his Westmoreland manner—attacking the Academy—denouncing certain pictures of the year—with a flushed, confident face and a gesticulating hand. Watson observed him with some astonishment; Lord Findon ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had been my uncle instead of myself I should simply have shut down with no ado," said Robert, presently, in an angry, argumentative voice. ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... conduct—so different from that of others, 'endeared me to him.' Bentham declined one offer in 1788; but in 1790 he suddenly took it into his head that Lansdowne had promised him a seat in parliament; and immediately set forth his claims in a vast argumentative letter of sixty-one pages.[239] Lansdowne replied conclusively that he had not made the supposed promise, and had had every reason to suppose that Bentham preferred retirement to politics. Bentham accepted the statement frankly, though a short coolness apparently followed. The claim, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... Nature of Things has all the defects inseparable from a didactic poem, that unstable combination of discordant elements, and from a poem which is not only didactic, but argumentative, and in parts highly controversial. Nor are these difficulties in the least degree evaded or smoothed over by the poet. As a teacher, he is in deadly earnest; as a controversialist, his first object is to refute and convince. The graces ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... honest, of unflinching courage and energy. I had come into personal contact with him in the Presidential campaigns of 1860 and 1864, when he seemed to be pleased with my efforts. I had once heard him make a stump speech which was evidently inspired by intense hatred of slavery, and remarkable for argumentative pith and sarcastic wit. But the impression his personality made upon me was not sympathetic: his face, long and pallid, topped with an ample dark-brown wig which was at the first glance recognized as such; beetling brows overhanging keen ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... if I make myself understood,' said Mrs. Micawber, in her argumentative tone, 'to be the Caesar of his own fortunes. That, my dear Mr. Copperfield, appears to me to be his true position. From the first moment of this voyage, I wish Mr. Micawber to stand upon that vessel's prow and say, "Enough of delay: enough of disappointment: ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... rent of the Joneses' new flat was L165 or L156 or L1056 a year. But now I care intensely that it is L156. I have formed myself into a select society for the propagating of the truth about the rent of the Joneses' new flat, and my wife has done the same. In eloquence, in argumentative skill, in strict supervision of our tempers, we each of us squander enormous quantities of that h.-p. which is so precious to us. And the ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... see,' said Mr Vuffin, waving his pipe with an argumentative air, 'this shows the policy of keeping the used-up giants still in the carawans, where they get food and lodging for nothing, all their lives, and in general very glad they are to stop there. There was one giant—a black 'un—as left ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... of the Author.—This selection is neither descriptive nor narrative; it is Argumentative. Mr. Beecher is trying to establish a certain proposition, and in the three paragraphs is giving three reasons, or arguments, to prove its truth. But the argument is not all thought, is not purely intellectual. It is suffused with feeling, is impassioned. Mr. ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... He does not ask himself whether his opponent be not a man of wealth and influence, of whom it might be for his interest to speak with care and circumspection; but he devotes himself with a ready zeal to his cause, careless of aught but how he may best discharge his duty. His argumentative powers are of the highest order. He never takes before the court a position which he believes untenable. He has a quick and sure perception of his points, and the power of enforcing them by apt and pertinent illustrations. He sees the relative importance and weight of different ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Pleadings must not be insensible or repugnant. RULE II. Pleadings must not be ambiguous or doubtful. RULE III. Pleadings must not be argumentative. RULE IV. Pleadings must not be hypothetical or in the alternative. RULE V. Pleadings must not be by way of recital, but must be positive. RULE VI. Things are to be pleaded according to their legal effect. RULE VII. Pleadings should observe the known forms of expression ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... be making big money before very long," protested Kitty, keeping firmly to the point and declining to be led aside into one of Penelope's argumentative byeways. "He'll be able to settle a decent income on his ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... the by, was an extremely argumentative one on the Incarnation; which, as it was preached to a congregation not one of whom had any doubt of that doctrine, and to whom the Socinians therein confuted were as unknown as the Arimaspians, was exceedingly well adapted to trouble and ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... has not found it convenient to cite this passage; and, in view of various considerations, I dare not assume that he would assent to it, without sundry subtle modifications which, for me, might possibly rob it of its argumentative value. But, until the proposition is seriously controverted, I shall assume it to be true, and content myself with warning the reader that neither he nor I have any grounds for assuming Mr. Gladstone's concurrence. With this ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... us, you should not fear us," my friend said, in the insinuating argumentative style so peculiar ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... nothing else for me to do," he said in an argumentative tone. "I only waste money on the impoverished acres of that old place of mine. The house itself is falling down over my head. What remains, then, but to go forth and tempt Fortune to do her best—or worst? At least the profession of arms has ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... her bosom; sat for a few minutes in deep and placid thought, took the letter out of its receptacle, and read it over and over again. It was very bad Spanish and very absurd, but she thought it delightful, poetical, classical, sentimental, argumentative, convincing, incontrovertible, imaginative, and even grammatical, for if it was not good Spanish, there was no Spanish half so good. Alas! Agnes was, indeed, unsophisticated, to be in such ecstasies with a midshipman's love-letter. Once ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... write its history," which he at once proceeded to do with immense gusto and considerable accuracy. Americans will not universally agree with all the views he puts forward. I myself am of opinion (probably quite wrongly) that I could make a better argumentative case for the North in the Civil War on the question of slavery. And in his account of the War of 1812-1814 Mr. CHESTERTON spends a great deal of indignation over the burning by the British of some public ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... object, surveys it in every light, examines it in all its parts, retires and then advances, compares and contrasts it, illustrates, confirms, and enforces it, till the hearer feels ashamed of doubting a position which seems built on a foundation so strictly argumentative. And having established his case, he opens upon his opponent a discharge of raillery so delicate and good-natured that it is impossible for the latter to maintain his ground against it; or, when the subject is too grave, he colors his exaggerations with all the bitterness ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... giving my answer about Braithwaite. Though the sins of my General Staff have about as much to do with the real issues as the muddy water had to do with the death of the argumentative lamb, I begin by pointing out to the War Office wolf that "no Headquarters Staff ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... Supreme Court enters into a lengthened detail, yet as it is very acute and argumentative, and touches upon several other points equally anomalous to the boasted freedom of the American institutions, I wish the reader would peruse it carefully, as it will amply repay him for his trouble; and it is that he may read it, that I have not ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... headaches, servants, and unruly children, to their sentimental experiences and their spiritual problems. Men tell him almost nothing. Watch any group of men talking, as the minister comes in. A moment before they were eager, alert, argumentative. Now they are polite or mildly bored. He is not of their world. Some assert that he is not even of their sex! Hence the lips of men are too often sealed to the minister. He must find some way not only to meet them as brother to brother, but he must capture their inmost hearts. The shy ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... plot. But his great and abiding glory is that he revived the art, lost for centuries in England, of telling an interesting story in verse, of riveting the attention through thousands of lines of poetry neither didactic nor argumentative. And of his separate passages, his patches of description and incident, when the worst has been said of them, it will remain true that, in their own way and for their own purpose, they cannot be surpassed. The already noticed comparison of any of Scott's best verse-tales ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... might well leave heaviness behind it. Was it come to Edgar's views being such as to startle Mr. Ryder! who, for that matter, had of late shown much less laxity of opinion than in his younger and more argumentative days; and there was little comfort in supposing that these were not real honest doubts at all, only apologies for general carelessness ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... has been brought to bear against the genuineness of S. Mark xvi. 9-20 excessive, but the supposed facts adduced in evidence have been found out to be every one of them mistakes;—being either, (1) demonstrably without argumentative cogency of any kind;—or else, (2) distinctly corroborative and confirmatory circumstances: indications that this part of the Gospel is indeed by S. Mark,—not that it is probably ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... of the history is not a mere argumentative necessity, but has a moral fitness also; in fact, the whole defence of Demosthenes resolves itself into a proof that he only acted in the ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... infinitude of hideous superstitions and cruel wrongs involved in the course of this precious development, Mr. Parker tells us there was a necessity,—nothing less! It was necessary, no doubt for his logic, that he should say so; but, apart from his own argumentative exigencies, it is impossible even to imagine any necessity whatever. It was an "ordeal," it seems, through which man was obliged to pass. What is all this, but to acknowledge the unaccountable nature of ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... answer for, when his foot touched the debatable land of controversy. Though contrary to the keeping and dignity of his position in life, yet did honest Denny then get desperately significant, and his face amazingly argumentative. Many a pretender has he fairly annihilated by a single smile of contempt that contained more logic than a long argument from another man. In fact, the whole host of rhetorical figures seemed breaking out of his face. By a solitary ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... engaged in some form of argumentation. Everywhere that men meet together, on the street or in the assembly hall, debate is certain to arise. Written argument is no less common. Hardly a periodical is published but contains argumentative writing. The fiery editorial that urges voters to the polls, the calm and polished essay that points out the dangers of organized labor, the scientific treatise that demonstrates the practicability of a sea-level canal on the Isthmus are attempts to change existing conditions and ideas, and thus ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... one sturdy leg across the chair nearest him, and settled himself in his favourite attitude for an argumentative discourse. ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... corridor, and he had rounded-up a reluctant half-dozen senators and led them forth to be interrogated as to their intentions regarding the bill. The committee and the lawmakers soon distributed themselves into little argumentative clumps, and Alonzo found himself in the centre of these, with one of the ladies who had unfortunately—but, in her enthusiasm, without misgivings—begun a reproachful appeal to an advocate of the bill whose ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... he has felt with his plots. Something preposterous in the millionaire reformer Mr. Crewe, something cantankerous and passionate in the Abolitionist Judge Whipple of The Crisis, above all something both tough and quaint in the up-country politician Jethro Bass in Coniston resisted the argumentative knife and saved for those particular persons that look of being entities in their own right which distinguishes the authentic from ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... Gospel, and forming a native priesthood fit for the varying needs of the various people. Nor could such a task be committed to any but superior men. Only such as have abilities that would win them distinction in England, are fit to cope with the difficulties of dealing with intellects quite as argumentative as, and even more subtle than, those of the ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Boyse died in 1728. It may be that when Swift first wrote "The Narrative," Mr. Boyse was alive; in that case its date must be put down to an earlier year than either 1733 or even 1731. Or it may be that the style of so referring to Boyse was used for an argumentative effect, to appeal to any reader who was in sympathy ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... guests began to arrive Miss Trueman found herself regarding them even more critically than usual; an argumentative spirit rose in her, and her calm contradiction of Mrs. Ranger, who discussed with great subtlety the notable advantages—even from the artistic point of view—of the approaching spring when experienced in the city, in comparison ...
— Julia The Apostate • Josephine Daskam
... all the prejudices and antipathies of a white hunter, who generally regards the Indian as a sort of natural competitor, and not unfrequently as a natural enemy. As a matter of course, he was loud, clamorous, dogmatical and not very argumentative. Deerslayer, on the other hand, manifested a very different temper, proving by the moderation of his language, the fairness of his views, and the simplicity of his distinctions, that he possessed every disposition to hear reason, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of fact, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not true that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not false that ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... business in the linen manufacture. Although strikes were then unknown among the labouring classes, the spirit from which these take their rise has no doubt at all times existed. Among Mr. J——'s many workmen, one had given him constant annoyance for years, from his discontented and argumentative spirit. Insisting one day on getting something or other which his master thought most unreasonable, and refused to give in to, he at last submitted, with a bad grace, saying, "You're nae better than Pharaoh, sir, forcin' puir folk to mak' bricks without straw." ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... ours away," went on Tim in an argumentative tone. "Don't we want turkey as much as the O'Dowds, ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... June, 1784, he offered himself to Frau von Wolzogen for a son-in-law. Nothing came of the suggestion; it was only a passing tribute to the abstract goodness of matrimony. About a year later he made, with similar results, an argumentative bid for the hand of Margarete Schwan. On the aforementioned visit to Frankfurt he met Sophie Albrecht, a melancholy poetess who had sought relief from the tameness of her married life by going upon the stage. Of her he wrote ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... saw much ability and also a mind logical and argumentative, and he had fully resolved that the boy should be educated and trained for the legal profession. And the farmer "plodded his weary way homeward" each day buoyed up with the thought that he was doing his duty towards his family and above all ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... is utterly absurd. Mr. Brock does not like nonsense, and he never talks it. Both the form and the content of his criticism are intellectual. He is in the great English tradition—the tradition of Dryden and Johnson and Macaulay and Leslie Stephen; he has an argumentative prose-style and a distaste for highfalutin, and, where the unenlightened intellectualism of Macaulay and Leslie Stephen, and the incorrigible common sense of Johnson, might have pitched these eminent men into the slough of desperate absurdity, it often happens that Mr. Brock, whose less powerful ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... I help letting it come?" demanded the mother, listlessly argumentative. "You had outgrown me and my ways altogether. It was nonsense to suppose that you would have been satisfied to come back and live here again, over the shop. I couldn't think for the life of me what I was going to do with you. But now your uncle ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... generally bound up with what is denominated the Bible; viz., Tobias, Judith, Baruch, Sabiduria, Eclesiastico, y 1o y 2o de los Machabeos. The Christian ecclesiastic, the author of the epistle, in indignation at this omission becomes suddenly argumentative, and puts a case to the heretics, which he deems in point; 'Si vieran la luz publica las obras de Lutero mutiladas en sus principales capitulos, y transformadas en cierto modo sus maximas y preceptos; que diligencias no practicarian sus secuaces y discipulos? Se levantarian a una en tropas numerosas ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... convicted, but this claim to direct revelation, was an even more serious matter. Scripture might be twisted to the point of dismemberment, so long as one kept to the text, and made no pretence of knowledge beyond it; contention within these bounds was lawful and honorable, and the daily food of these argumentative Christians who gave themselves to the work of combining intellectual freedom and spiritual slavery, with perpetual surprise at any indication that the two ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... more impetuous nature," Mrs. Lovegrove observed. The day of domestic eclipse was happily passed. She had come into her own again; consequently she was disposed to be slightly argumentative, sitting here upon her own Chesterfield sofa in her own drawing-room, even ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... "We are Seven," "The Mad Mother," and "The Idiot," but that he was prepossessed against the use of blank verse for simple subjects. Any political significance in the poems he was apparently unable to see. To this second edition Wordsworth prefixed an argumentative Preface, in which he nailed to the door of the cathedral of English song the critical theses which he was to maintain against all comers in his poetry and his life. It was a new thing for an author to undertake to show the goodness of his verses ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... citizens long ago, and sent them money to get home, we should be suffering like this. Nothing more about the phantom train! Our nerves are becoming wrought up, and we are developing unexpectedly irritable and argumentative natures. The weather is amazingly windy and horribly cold, one shivers in summer garments, and cannot afford to buy warmer things. A leading article in the "Frankfurter Zeitung" gives us a grain of comfort, since it is headed "Geduld und ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... name is Wodehouse, though," he said, in the argumentative tone which seemed habitual to him; his voice came low and grumbling through his beard. He was not of the class of triumphant sinners, whatever wickedness he might be capable of. To tell the truth, he had long, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... six days before he learned of the Trent affair, which had occurred on November 8. That alarming incident no doubt coloured the later communications of both parties, for while both Adams and Russell indulged in several lengthy argumentative papers, such as are dear to the hearts of lawyers and diplomats, the only point of possible further dispute was on the claim of Great Britain that future occasions might arise where, in defence of British interests, it would be absolutely necessary to communicate with the Confederacy. ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... to take me with you, Paul," continued John, resorting to the persuasive, now that the argumentative had failed. ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... society, but one that called aloud the act of the parties to make it perfect and complete. How he should communicate his intentions to get a favorable reply, he was at a loss to know; he knew not whether to address Esq. Valeer in prose or in poetry, in a jocular or an argumentative manner, or whether he should use moral suasion, legal injunction, or seizure and take by reprisal; if it was to do the latter, he would have no difficulty in deciding in his own mind, but his gentlemanly honor was at stake; so he concluded to address the following letter to the father ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... question had been put on several occasions, both in the company of the tempter and in the privacy of the domestic hearth, and both in the gayly suggestive and the pensively argumentative key. Why might they not, by means of a clever purchase in the stock market, occasionally procure some of the agreeable extra pleasures of life—provide the ready money for theatres, a larger wardrobe, trips from home, or ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... explanation of the word 'hotel'?" Marion asked. She was in an argumentative mood, and it made almost no difference to her which side of the question she argued. "Webster says it is a place to entertain strangers, but you seem to attach some special importance ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... many objections made, by gentlemen present, to granting to woman the right of suffrage, Frederick Douglass replied in a long, argumentative, and eloquent appeal, for the complete equality of woman in all the rights that belong to any human soul. He thought the true basis of rights was the capacity of individuals; and as for himself, he should not dare claim a right that he ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... definite thoughts began to emerge, and for a long time she sat moodily thinking over her wrongs, and as her thoughts wavered they grew softer and more argumentative. She considered the question from all sides, and, reasoning with herself, was disposed to conclude that it was not all her fault. If she did drink, it was jealousy that drove her to it. Why wasn't he faithful to her who had given up everything for him? Why did he want ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... meekness and submissiveness to trample on the elementary decencies of marriage. He gathered loose women into his house, and carried on orgies of debauchery in his wife's presence. To show what a pass things had come to, I may mention that Grigory, the gloomy, stupid, obstinate, argumentative servant, who had always hated his first mistress, Adelaida Ivanovna, took the side of his new mistress. He championed her cause, abusing Fyodor Pavlovitch in a manner little befitting a servant, and on one occasion broke ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... more and more the popular belief that the world was not flat. One of the arguments used against Columbus was, that if the earth was not flat, and was round, he might sail down to the Indies, but he could certainly not sail up. Thus it was that fallacy after fallacy was thrown in argumentative form in his way, and the character of the man grows more wonderful as we see the ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... some Proposals for remedying this growing Evil. It was dedicated to the then Lord High Chancellor, Philip Yorke, Lord Hardwicke, by whom, as well as by more recent legal authorities, it was highly appreciated. Like the Charge to the Grand Jury, it is a grave argumentative document, dealing seriously with luxury, drunkenness, gaming, and other prevalent vices. Once only, in an ironical passage respecting beaus and fine ladies, does the author remind us of the author of Tom Jones. ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... coherency may be evidenced not merely in the lines of composition as a whole, but in the choice of a single word, while it by no means interferes with, but may even prescribe, much variety, in the building of the sentence for instance, or in the manner, argumentative, descriptive, discursive, of this or that [23] part or member of the entire design. The blithe, crisp sentence, decisive as a child's expression of its needs, may alternate with the long-contending, victoriously ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... vigorous action it will be exceedingly vigorous, perhaps unpleasantly so. Those who cause the trouble will suffer most from it. Bear that in mind, persons colored and white-skinned. We reiterate our advice to the reflective and argumentative Radical leader, to be careful how he goes, and not stir up the animals too freely; they have ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... Newton's Principia could never be a work suited for an early stage of mathematical study. Lyell's Geology has been a landmark in the history of the subject; but it is not cast in the form for a beginner in Geology. It is, in its whole plan, argumentative; setting up and defending a special thesis in Geology; the facts being arrayed with that view. Many other great works have assumed a like form; such are Malthus on Population, Grove's Correlation of Physical ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... recovering from rather a bad cold; we all have come in for one, and it seems to make most of us rather argumentative on all subjects relating to trench mortars, various regiments, &c., being a motley collection of regulars, New Army and Special Reserve, and Territorial officers drawn from all sorts of regiments and representing every branch of the army except the R.E. ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... of this argumentative harangue referred to the most important division of the subject. Bentinck met it boldly, without evasion; nor was there any portion of his address more interesting, more satisfactory, and more successful. 'I now come,' he said, 'to the great challenge, which is ever and anon put forth ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... government, in matters connected with the trade and privileges of the island; and he also went once to Jersey, to confer with the Royal Court there on the same subject. In these missions, Mr. Brock distinguished himself by his luminous and argumentative papers,[161] and the authority of the Royal Court was happily preserved intact by ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... time given to its preparation. Everybody seemed to be in the best of humors, and his good sleep must have smoothed even the spirit of the fretful Bandy-legs, for he no longer grumbled or found fault. Perhaps, as so frequently happened, he was secretly ashamed of having shown such a suspicious and argumentative disposition on the preceding evening, and meant to make amends for it ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... morning papers, announcing the 'numerous, highly respectable, and influential' nature of the assembly, and modestly hinting, that Mr Happy Jack, 'who was received with enthusiastic applause, moved, in a long and argumentative address, a series of resolutions pledging the meeting to,' &c. Jack, in fact, fully believed that he had done rather more for free-trade than Cobden. Not, he said, that he was jealous of the Manchester champion; ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... parties of the same kind, it was first silent, then talking, then argumentative, then disputatious, then unintelligible, then altogethery, then articulate, and then drunk. When we had reached the last step of this glorious ladder it was difficult to get down again without stumbling; and, to crown all, Kinnaird ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... did not say I blamed you," she returned, gaily— "but the fact is, you had left me so long to ruminate here alone, that I have fallen into a mood argumentative, or philosophical—whichsoever you may be pleased to term it—and I am willing to maintain my position, that you might, by possibility, have been more guilty than the culprit at whom you aimed, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... chapter is penned. Nick names are as common as daisies in the Army and by this medium a large number of characters will be portrayed and the fate awaiting each one later recorded. To those who imagine that Death has set laws for claiming this or that type there will be ample argumentative data—but this is a factor upon which no scientific grounds can be used as a base for theories. ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... he was a member he received the same reply, and was further reproached for treachery to his fellow-workmen. He returned to Trefusis to say that the tombstone job had ruined him. Trefusis, enraged, wrote an argumentative letter to the "Times," which was not inserted, a sarcastic one to the trades-union, which did no good, and a fierce one to the employers, who threatened to take an action for libel. He had to content ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... one of his most enthusiastic disciples. But the star of Newman was rising at the University; Ward soon felt the attraction of that magnetic power; and his belief in his old teacher began to waver. It was, in particular, Dr. Arnold's treatment of the Scriptures which filled Ward's argumentative mind, at first with distrust, and at last with positive antagonism. To subject the Bible to free inquiry, to exercise upon it the criticism of the individual judgment— where might not such methods lead? Who could say that they would not end in Socinianism?—nay, ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... chronology, history, language, natural history, he heaps up the matter of these studies as treasures for a future day. It is the seven years of plenty with him: he gathers in by handfuls, like the Egyptians, without counting; and though, as time goes on, there is exercise for his argumentative powers in the elements of mathematics, and for his taste in the poets and orators, still, while at school, or at least, till quite the last years of his time, he acquires, and little more; and when he is leaving for the university, he is mainly the creature ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... up en say, she did, dat she'd take'n loan de young men her bed-cord, en w'iles de candy wuz a coolin' in de plates, dey could all go ter de branch en see Brer Tarrypin kyar out his projick. Brer Tarrypin," continued Uncle Remus, in a tone at once confidential and argumentative, "weren't much bigger'n de pa'm er my han', en it look mighty funny fer ter year 'im braggin' 'bout how he kin out-pull Brer B'ar. But dey got de bed-cord atter w'ile, en den dey all put out ter de branch. W'en Brer Tarrypin fine de place he wanter, ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... "Argumentative contention is not what he excels in; and he is never, I think, so happy as when he has an opportunity of exhibiting a mixture of philosophy and pleasantry, and especially when he can interpose anecdotes and references to the authority of the eminent characters in the history of his own country. ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... the country. As a matter of policy he thought it mistaken: "Move in such a matter openly, and party discipline compels your defeat; bring pressure to bear on a Cabinet, some of its members are on your side, and you may gain your point." Sir Charles's speech was calmly argumentative, and to many minds convincing; it provoked a passionate reply from Gladstone; and when Mr. Auberon Herbert following declared himself a Republican, a tumult arose such as in those pre-Milesian days had rarely been witnessed in the House. ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... he) a wife to be of a studious or argumentative turn, it would be very troublesome[113]: for instance,—if a woman should continually dwell upon the subject ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... 18, 1802, the Concordat was celebrated with high solemnities; the Archbishop of Paris received the First Consul within the portals of Notre-Dame. It was the fitting moment for the publication of the Genie du Christianisme. Its value as an argumentative defence of Christianity may not be great; but it was the restoration of religion to art, it contained or implied a new system of aesthetics, it was a glorification of devout sentiment, it was a pompous manifesto of romanticism, it recovered a lost ideal of beauty. ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... of dealing with his fellow-men he manifested in the various ways in which it has been usually exhibited by statesmen. He possessed a ready eloquence—sometimes impassioned, oftener argumentative, always rational. His influence over his audience was unexampled in the annals of that country or age; yet he never condescended to flatter the people. He never followed the nation, but always led her in the path of duty and of honor, and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... CURIAE, but you must see the impropriety of your interfering with my conduct in this case, with such an AD CAPTANDUM argument as the offer of half a guinea. Really, my dear Sir, really;' and the little man took an argumentative pinch of snuff, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... matter of sword in hand, there is yet another thing to be noted. Of duels we have sometimes spoken: how, in all parts of France, innumerable duels were fought; and argumentative men and messmates, flinging down the wine-cup and weapons of reason and repartee, met in the measured field; to part bleeding; or perhaps not to part, but to fall mutually skewered through with iron, their wrath and life alike ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... experience of earnest Christians, a personal belief in the resurrection of Christ, vividly conceived in the imagination and taken home to the heart, is chiefly effective in its spiritual, not in its argumentative, results. It stirs up the powers and awakens the yearnings of the soul, opens heaven to the gaze, locates there, as it were visibly, a glorious ideal, and thus helps one to enter upon an inward realization of the immortal world. The one essential thing is not that Jesus appeared ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... true. I abhor a syllogism. Alas, how often have I picked my cautious way through three-quarters of one, only to sit down at the critical moment, declaring I would not go another step, and then to hear some argumentative man cry, "But you admitted all previous steps. Don't you know that this naturally must follow?" Well, perhaps it does follow, only I don't believe it is true. It may be very clever of the men to reason, and perhaps I am very stupid not ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... room one morning to find him sitting beside the fire with a newspaper in his hand, looking very solemn; and upon my eager inquiry what had happened, he told me that Joseph Mazzini was dead. I had never even heard Mazzini's name, and after being told about him I was inclined to grow argumentative, asserting that my father did not know him, that he was not an American, and that I could not understand why we should be expected to feel badly about him. It is impossible to recall the conversation with the complete breakdown of my cheap arguments, but in the end I obtained that which ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... on this question was animated, vehement, and argumentative; all the party passions were enlisted in it; and it was protracted until the 24th of March, when the resolution was carried in the affirmative by sixty-two to thirty-seven voices. The next day, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... philosopher-poet is Dante. He is not only philosophical in the temper of his mind, but his greatest poem is the incarnation of a definite system of philosophy, the most definite that the world has seen. That conception of the world which in the thirteenth century found argumentative and orderly expression in the "Summa Theologiae" of Thomas of Aquino, and constituted the faith of the church, is visualized by Dante, and made the basis ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... of conversing these French people carry to great perfection. It is not frivolous, though it is light and sparkling; it is still less argumentative, but it has the knack of bringing out different opinions and different views of them. We pity the French for their want of political liberty, but the social freedom they enjoy is some compensation.—— But what interested me still more than these brilliant salons, was the tour that ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... same occasion, a DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS was adopted, in which the views of Non-Resistants are set forth in the following positive and argumentative form:— ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... jaunty show of spitting to one side. Haughtiness and determination were evident in his manner, and a certain very threatening assumption of argumentative calm that suggested an outburst to follow. But Pyotr Stepanovitch had no time to realise the danger, and it did not fit in with his preconceived ideas. The incidents and disasters of the day had quite turned his head. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... seemed to return, for Mr. Secretary was slow, captious, and argumentative, though the matter of the dispatch was only as to where the army should halt for a day's rest. At last Preston was decided on, and the dispatch written accordingly. I bowed myself out, jumped on the sorrel, and ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... the Countess had a sudden acces of argumentative power. "Is there nothing it would be no use to talk to you about except this ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... I remember, produced a strong sensation in literary circles; and Mr. Southey's acquaintances smiled, and his enemies rejoiced at it. Indeed, the letter itself is a remarkable document. With much of Lamb's peculiar phraseology, it is argumentative, and defends the imaginary weaknesses or faults, against which (as he guesses) the "Quarterly" reproofs had been levelled. The occasion having gone by, this letter has been dismissed from most minds, except that ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... strong rebuke, which was followed by a long letter from Burke himself, half indignant, half argumentative, does not seem to have disturbed the temper of Francis, proverbially petulant as he was, if it did not rather raise his respect for both parties. He tells Burke, in a subsequent letter, that he has looked for his work, his Reflections on the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... examples of the sort of argumentative opposition which the revolutionists had to meet," I observed, "it strikes me that they must have had a mighty easy ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... inconsistent beliefs that we do not pause to inquire how Dr. Cumming, who attributes the conversion of the unbelieving to the Divine Spirit, can think it necessary to co-operate with that Spirit by argumentative white lies. Nor do we for a moment impugn the genuineness of his zeal for Christianity, or the sincerity of his conviction that the doctrines he preaches are necessary to salvation; on the contrary, we regard the flagrant unveracity that we find on his ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... for aught that we can tell, be competent to produce a self-conscious intelligence. Thus an objector to the above syllogism need not hold any theory of things at all; but even as opposed to the definite theory of materialism, the above syllogism has not so valid an argumentative basis to stand upon. We know that what we call matter and force are to all appearance eternal, while we have no corresponding evidence of a mind that is even apparently eternal. Further, within experience mind ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... in his corner again. His handsome face was all sweetness, indulgent though argumentative. He was ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... Modern science until lately had realised this ideal: it was an extension of common perception and common sense. We could trust it implicitly, as we do a map or a calendar; it was not true for us merely in an argumentative or visionary sense, as are religion and philosophy. Geography went hand in hand with travel, Copernican astronomy with circumnavigation of the globe: and even the theory of evolution and the historical sciences in the nineteenth century were continuous with liberal ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... nor do I doubt the ability of Shakespeare to have continued his existence, though some of his sallies are, perhaps, out of the reach of Dryden; whose genius was not very fertile of merriment, nor ductile to humour, but acute, argumentative, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... and men of science exhibit a common sensitiveness in all decisions in which their amour propre is involved. Thousands of argumentative works have been written to vent a grudge. However stately their reasoning, it may be nothing but rationalizing, stimulated by the most commonplace of all motives. A history of philosophy and theology could be written in terms of grouches, wounded pride, and aversions, and ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... considerations. This view rapidly gained over the willing convictions of Southern sympathizers, when the impulse and determination, the courage and early successes of the South, had once roused strong feelings in its favor. The earlier argumentative view as to majorities and minorities, and the fundamental basis of all governments, sank into desuetude, while the right of a compact community to independent self-government at its own option occupied the field of vision. Vast numbers of people—I should ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... or by a setting forth of cases in which the operation of the mores is shown to be what is affirmed in the analysis. Any such exposition of the mores in cases, in order to be successful, must go into details. It is in details that all the graphic force and argumentative value of the cases are to be found. It has not been easy to do justice to the details and to observe the necessary limits of space. The ethnographical facts which I present are not subsequent justification of generalizations otherwise obtained. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... the religious books in the world, have "the Psalms of David," whether in Hebrew or Latin or English, touched men's souls and melted and consoled them? They are not philosophical. They are not logical. They are not argumentative. They are not moral. And yet they break our hearts with their ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... take it for granted that it is a man," Mollie continued, still stubbornly argumentative. "But I am not so sure about that. The several times that we have seen the—the—Thing—it has looked as much animal as human ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... strength the Lord gived to him, 'Lias Hoover, to special kill the giant with," said Eliza in an argumentative tone of voice. "Do you reckon He tooken the strength away from David the next morning, Deacon, or let him keep it to use all the time?" Eliza's extreme practicality showed at all times, even in those ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... not the opinion of another guest, my friend Monsieur M——. One must be careful how one criticizes the habits of the natives in his presence; not that he would be angry, for he is too gentle to feel wrath; or become argumentative—he is too sure of his ground for that; but he might be wounded on his most sensitive spot, and he would certainly ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... the very timing of Scripture expressions, and the season of administering ordinances, have been argumentative to the promoting of the faith and way of justification by Christ, it has made think that both myself and most of the people of God look over the Scriptures too slightly, and take too little notice of that or of those many honours that God, for our ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... easily, and with considerable argumentative power, disposed of the apologies for the myths advanced by Porphyry and Plutarch. Thus Eusebius in the Praeparatio Evangelica first attacks the Egyptian interpretations of their own bestial or semi-bestial gods. He shows that the various ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... a once happy and prosperous man deprived of children, wealth, and health,—misfortunes so swift and dire that his friends in lengthy speeches insist he has offended God, for such trials as his can only be sent in punishment for grievous sins. The exhortations of Job's three argumentative friends, as well as of a later-comer, and of his wife, extend over a period of seven days, and cover three whole cycles; but, in spite of all they say, Job steadfastly refuses to curse ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... and editorial writings. The fourth and fifth are mostly employed in conjunction with the third, in scientific, philosophical, and partisan literature. All these principles, however, are usually mingled with one another. The work of fiction may have its scientific, historical, or argumentative side; whilst the textbook or treatise may be embellished ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... passengers may be dismissed more briefly. Some were interesting, some neutral, and all amiable. Monsieur Fardet was a good-natured but argumentative Frenchman, who held the most decided views as to the deep machinations of Great Britain and the illegality of her position in Egypt. Mr. Belmont was an iron-grey, sturdy Irishman, famous as an astonishingly good long-range rifle-shot, ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... not taken in. With other people he must be proud, argumentative, self-willed—that she was sure of; but her conviction only made her realise her power over him with the more pleasure. His naive respect for her own fragmentary knowledge, his unbounded admiration for her talent, his quick sympathy for all she did and was, these things, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... subject was, I imagine, treated in the orthodox way: and he expends all his paradox in showing that indebtedness is a necessary condition of human life, and all his sophistry in confusing it with the abstract sense of obligation. It is, perhaps, scarcely fair to call attention to such a mere argumentative and literary freak; but there is something so comical in a defence of debt, however transparent, proceeding from a man to whom never in his life a bill can have been sent in twice, and who would always have preferred ready-money payment to receiving a bill at ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... thanks to the men who drafted the statutes of the sixteenth century for their long argumentative preambles. These are invaluable as showing the occasion and purpose of the Acts. We shall not go to them for an uncoloured record of facts—their unsupported assertions will hardly, indeed, be taken as evidence for facts at all; but they tell us to what facts the legislator wished to ...
— The Acts of Uniformity - Their Scope and Effect • T.A. Lacey
... thought an improper manner of calling men into the kingdom of Christ; that had been more pathetic in their addresses, and more argumentative in their applications, they would have labored with more effect; that this plain and simple method is unworthy of God, and, not likely ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... causin' you sich uprisin' he'plessness. Me and Jedge Mahch"—he began to swell—"has had a stric'ly private disparitude on the subjec' o' extry wages, account'n o' his disinterpretations o' my plans an' his ign'ance o' de law." He tilted his face and gave himself an argumentative frown of matchless insolence. "You see, my ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... restlessly, that Lemaitre was in an unusually excited and quarrelsome condition, and that Francois, the chief mate, was rapidly approaching a similar condition as he gulped down tumbler after tumbler of liquor. They were always argumentative and contradictory when drinking together, but to-night they were unusually so. At length Francois made some remark as to the extraordinary good fortune they had met with on this particular voyage, in having come so far without falling in with a British cruiser; at which Lemaitre laughed scornfully ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... influential and popular writers of that day were perhaps Anthony Collins and the Earl of Shaftsbury. These were both men of fortune, of polished education, and of great rhetorical and argumentative skill. Their influence over young minds was greatly increased by the courtesy and candor which pervaded all their writings. They ever wrote like gentlemen addressing gentlemen; and the views they urged were presented with the modesty ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... a queer thing," remarked Phil, in an argumentative tone. "If I'd said Mrs. Blackwood was 'a host in herself,' it would have been considered a delicate compliment; and yet when I call her a 'party,' which certainly means a host, you two jump on me. There's no accounting for the eccentricities of the feminine character." Then, as his head ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... into narrow asceticism. The glories of Christianity, in short, touch on no chord in the heart of the writer; his imagination remains unkindled; his words, though they maintain their stately and measured march, have become cool, argumentative, and inanimate. Who would obscure one hue of that gorgeous coloring in which Gibbon has invested the dying forms of Paganism, or darken one paragraph in his splendid view of the rise and progress of Mahometanism? But who would not have wished that the same equal justice had been ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... he had returned, till he had been in his father's house for some days. Such severe application doubtless served to sow the first seeds of mental derangement, which falling on the fertile soil of his feverish disposition and nutured by the constant and intense argumentative strife of his later political career, finally found their fruition in the mental collapse which so distressingly darkened his latter days. When participating in the common amusements of youth he exhibited all the ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... the judge was beginning to say in an argumentative tone of voice, when father arose and stepped in ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... into the black wall in the direction of the sea and could see no sign of a patrol boat. How had it been able to inform this lone sentry of that flying ray which disclosed the line of a coastal road to anyone at sea? He would not accept the best argumentative burr that our chauffeur could produce as sufficient explanation or guarantee. Most Scottish of Scots in physiognomy and shrewd matter-of- factness, as revealed in the glare of the lantern, he might have been on watch in the Highland ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... of them there is no doubt; but one has an uneasy suspicion that he read Plato because he liked his humour and his style, and did not trouble himself about anything further. Gibbon speaks of 'the philosophic maze of the writings of Plato, of which the dramatic is perhaps more interesting than the argumentative part.' That is quite a legitimate opinion, provided you do not undertake to judge philosophy in the light of it. The apparently serious rejection of geometrical truth in the Hermotimus may fairly suggest that Lucian was as unphilosophic as he was unmathematical. Twice, and perhaps twice ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... read in Wright's eyes some account of his present situation. Was that pretty girl at his side the ambiguous object of his adoration, and, in that case, what was the function of the elder lady, and what had become of her argumentative daughter? Perhaps this was another, a younger daughter, though, indeed, she bore no resemblance to either of Longueville's friends. Gordon Wright, in spite of Bernard's interrogative glances, indulged in no optical confidences. He had too much ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... but turned quickly away. This sign of emotion was not hidden from Mrs. Murray, and it heightened her anxiety. Lord only knew what the girl'd try to do once she got out of their sight! But where the intellectual and argumentative Smythe had failed, what could be expected of these simple mountain folk, who for all their sturdy independence were not a little awed by the superior poise and distinction of their visitor? Moreover, Marion was at this moment entirely honest in her assurance ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... entirely without exception, was its cause, method, and effect. Many, very many were in tears. Years afterward in Boston, I heard Father Taylor, the sailor's preacher, and found in his passionate unstudied oratory the resemblance to Elias Hicks's—not argumentative or intellectual, but so penetrating—so different from anything in the books—(different as the fresh air of a May morning or sea-shore breeze from the ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... seemed to me, a characteristic of the Serb. He gives one the impression of constantly carrying a chip on his shoulder and daring any one to knock it off. He is always eager for an argument, but, like so many argumentative persons, it is almost impossible to convince him that he is in the wrong. The slightest opposition often drives him into an almost childlike rage and if things go against him he is apt to charge his opponent with insincerity or prejudice. He can see things only one way, his way and he ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... a broad principle, or a general truth, derived from examination of a considerable number of individual facts. This synthetic exposition is not the same as argumentative generalization, which supports a general contention by citing instances in proof. Observe how Holmes begins with one fact, and by adding another and another reaches a complete whole. This is one of the most effective devices ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... gravely of the weather, and of the celebrated Doctor McQ——, who was expected to give us an argumentative sermon that morning, until my argument came floating in at the door like a calm little bit of thistledown, to which our previous conversation had been as ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... challenged him to publish it in the Globe. Brown accepted the challenge, declaring that he would also publish a reply, to be written by himself. The reply, which will be found in the Globe of December 10th, 1850, is argumentative in tone, and probably would not of itself have involved Brown in a violent quarrel with the Church. The following passage was afterwards cited by the Globe as defining its position: "In offering a few remarks ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... as I be!" Here he glanced nervously at his brother-in-law, who (as a town-dweller) held the monstrous belief that farmers enjoyed their share, and even a little more, of relief from rating, and had more than once shown argumentative fight on this subject in the piping times of peace. But Mr Pamphlett ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... a contest of opposite improbabilities, that is to say, a question whether it be more improbable that the miracle should be true, or the testimony false: and this I think a fair account of the controversy. But herein I remark a want of argumentative justice, that, in describing the improbability of miracles, he suppresses all those circumstances of extenuation, which result from our knowledge of the existence, power, and disposition of the Deity; his concern in the creation, the end answered by the ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... likewise able to explain the development of reason. So that in the province of human psychology no less than in that of animal, the theory of natural selection, in showing itself competent to explain much which is otherwise inexplicable, is seen to derive a large additional measure of argumentative support. ...
— The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution • George John Romanes
... length of some of the notes. A second object in them was to teach myself first, and then others, something of the history and doctrines of Buddhism. I have thought that they might be learned better in connexion with a lively narrative like that of Fa-hien than by reading didactic descriptions and argumentative books. Such has been my own experience. The books which I have consulted for these notes have been many, besides Chinese works. My principal help has been the full and masterly handbook of Eitel, mentioned ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... olden times. Her keen intellect, her ready sympathy, her eagerness to learn, made her the perfection of a disciple, while not unnaturally he delighted in tracing the many similarities of character between himself and his child. Then, too, in his hard, argumentative, fighting life it was an unspeakable relief to be able to retire every now and then into a home which no outer storms could shake or disturb. Fond as he was of his sister, Mrs. Craigie, and Tom, they constituted rather ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... 'skied', since out of sight meant also out of reach. Altogether it was one of the most successful and popular exhibitions that the Academy had held for many years. Then the fair agitators fell back on some of their earlier methods; they wrote sweetly argumentative plays to prove that they ought to have the vote, they smashed windows to show that they must have the vote, and they kicked Cabinet Ministers to demonstrate that they'd better have the vote, and still the coldly ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... continually saying "Ha! ha!" among the breezy trumpets of those hills, like the scriptural war-horse; the second with his gaze very imperfectly turned outward, but very fruitfully turned inward, frequently pausing with argumentative finger laid on his companion's breast, and smile half satirical half kindly as the flow of discourse revealed theological lacunae in my acquirements, which, I fear, irreparably and most unfairly injured ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope |
