"Persuasive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... may be able to accomplish my purpose, Ishmael. Without proclaiming you as my son, and risking the reproach you dread for your dear mother's memory, I might adopt you as my son, and appoint you as my heir. Will you make me happy by consenting to that measure, Ishmael?" inquired the father, in a persuasive tone. ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... seated on a low stool with the dark clouds of thought and mental calculation visible on his countenance, is an Armenian. Though he will submit to a diminution of his price, he is honest; and though a man of few words also, yet is he civil without affectation, and persuasive from the apparent sincerity ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... Underwood and saw a letter from her Russian godmother among the pile which awaited her, she felt it was the finger of fate, and when she read it and found it contained not only New Year's wishes, but an invitation couched in affectionate and persuasive terms that she should visit St. Petersburg, she suddenly, and without consulting her family, decided she ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... he had that salem ingenii and pleasant eloquence that was so highly commended in Ulysses: his valor was no less than his wit, nor the stroke of his lance no less forcible than the sweetness of his tongue was persuasive; for he was for his courage chosen the principal of all the Knights of Malta. This hardy knight, thus enriched with virtue and honor, surnamed Sir John of Bordeaux, having passed the prime of his youth in sundry battles against the Turks, at last (as the date of time hath his course) grew aged. ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... to think, ere he had formed the resolve to attain the supremacy over all the Mogol tribes, to conquer the whole known world, and thus to render himself immortal in the annals of glory. Behind a curtain of mountains, and protected by vast deserts, his persuasive genius collected a large band of followers, who with enthusiasm adopted his views ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... way of the Cape of Good Hope. Doughty's imagination was fired by the gorgeous possibilities of the idea, and when he became the secretary of Christopher Hatton, the Queen's handsome Captain of the Guard, he laid the plan before him with all the eloquence of his persuasive tongue. Hatton finally obtained from Elizabeth a promise to contribute a thousand crowns to the cost of an expedition to penetrate the South Seas. This, however, was only on condition that the affair should be kept secret, above all from Burleigh, who was certain to use every effort ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... just wondering whether you'd agree to something," continued the other, in a persuasive tone. "We're not in any ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... grief, he hastened to the the queen to beg that he might be restored to his country without delay, that he might endeavour to apply some remedy to its misfortunes. The queen's prophetic skill made her aware of Ussheen's transgression of her commands before he spoke, and she exerted all her persuasive powers to prevail upon him to give up his desire to return to Erin, but in vain. She then asked him how long he supposed he had been absent from his native land, and on his answering "thrice seven days," ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... 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 ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... so distinctly that Wilford did not press her when she declined his mother's 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 in the least. Really, she ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... that is not what I mean now. I mean that I tremble for those of us who are preaching the truth, the very truth as it is in Jesus, the truth as it is recorded in the written Word of God, the truth in its simplicity, its purity and its fullness, but who are preaching it in "persuasive words of man's wisdom" and not "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power" (1 Cor. ii. 4, R. V.). Preaching it in the energy of the flesh and not in the power of the Holy Spirit. There is nothing more death dealing than the Gospel without the Spirit's power. ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... similar work. After determining the diction, prevailing type of sentences, and figures of speech, let the student divide the work, as far as possible, into its descriptive, narrative, expository, argumentative, and persuasive portions. In many cases the various kinds of discourse will be so interwoven that the classification will be doubtful and difficult. At the same time the student might point out the passages in which thought, imagination, feeling, or energy of will predominates ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... quiver in Jo's voice, and thinking it a good omen, Laurie turned round, bringing all his persuasive powers to bear as he said, in the wheedlesome tone that had never been so dangerously wheedlesome before, "Don't disappoint us, dear! Everyone expects it. Grandpa has set his heart upon it, your people like it, and I can't get on without ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... untroubled view; The critic who, without pedantic pose, Takes his firm foothold on the thing he knows; Who, free alike from passion or pretence, Holds the good rule of calm and common sense; And be the subject or perplexed or plain,— Clear or confusing,—is throughout urbane, Patient, persuasive, logical, precise, And only ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... so impaired in his presence, that he conspired to remove him, in order to be relieved from his superiority. No state chicanery, no narrow system of vicious polities, no idle contest for ministerial victories, sunk him to the vulgar level of the great; but, overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... was full-faced, with a persuasive, peremptory manner. Mrs. Hartly was—well, she was just Mrs. Hartly. You remember how we all fell in love with her figure and her manner, and her voice, and the way she used her hands. She broke her bread with those very hands; spoke to her husband with ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... a peculiarly persuasive power which quickly exerted its influence upon Winthrop, Stormont and all the others. Winthrop was good-natured, avowing that he had no cause of quarrel with anybody if nobody had any with him, and Redfield showed clearly his relief. It seemed to Prescott that the Member ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... voices of humanity that are in the air. They grow daily more audible, more articulate, more persuasive, and they come from the hearts of men everywhere. They insist that the war shall not end in vindictive action of any kind; that no nation or people shall be robbed or punished because the irresponsible rulers of a single country have themselves ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... States-General, before bringing the secret article to the knowledge of the Estates of Holland. The Estates adjourned for a recess on April 21, 1654. On the following day he presented the treaty to the States-General, and such was his persuasive skill that he accomplished the unprecedented feat of getting this dilatory body to accept the conditions of peace almost without discussion. On April 23 the treaty ratified and signed was sent back to London. Only one article aroused opposition (Art. 32), the so-called "temperament clause"; but ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... exception of Umslopogaas, we all buckled to with a will, doing four hours a day. As for Umslopogaas, he would have none of that either. He did not wish to learn that 'woman's talk', not he; and when one of the teachers advanced on him with a book and an ink-horn and waved them before him in a mild persuasive way, much as a churchwarden invitingly shakes the offertory bag under the nose of a rich but niggardly parishioner, he sprang up with a fierce oath and flashed Inkosi-kaas before the eyes of our learned friend, and there was an end of the attempt ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... of their confidence is the fact that the relationship set up by a comfortable marriage is so intimate and so persuasive of the whole life of the parties to it, that nobody has room in his or her life for more than one such relationship at a time. What is called a household of three is never really of three except in the sense ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... (almost too loud sometimes) and most persuasive; he was eloquent and impassioned, but he used little gesture or any artifice to engage attention. He commenced with a rhapsody—startling in the sudden flow of its eloquence, thrilling in its higher tones, tender and compassionate (almost to tears) in its ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... to think intently whether she would agree. And it seemed to me she would. I heard myself speaking to her in a persuasive, irrefutable manner:— ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... been a constant believer in the theory that a conquered foe generally remains an enemy, whereas a conciliated enemy often becomes a friend. Acting on this conviction and aided by an extraordinary gift of persuasive eloquence, he often won great victories without any bloodshed. Thus he succeeded in convincing the Ise barons that Nobunaga was not swayed by personal ambition, but that his ruling desire was to put an end to the wars which had devastated Japan continuously for more than a century. It is right ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... time! "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 to be caught of him but some 80 hussars. All this day and all next ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... no motive but that of entertaining themselves by annoying and injuring the feelings of others, had assembled at the meeting, hooting and yelling, and in various ways interrupting the services, and causing much disturbance. Those who had the charge of the meeting, having tried their persuasive powers in vain, grew impatient ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... in the House, persistent, persuasive, indefatigable, and by all my standards wickedly perverse, leaning over the table with those insistent movements of his hand upon it, or swaying forward with a grip upon his coat lapel, fighting with a diabolical skill to preserve what are in effect religious tests, tests he must have known would ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... One persuasive argument in favour of adopting the miscellaneous or typical course in the choice of a library is the rapid growth of the difficulty of meeting with the rarer items in all important specialities. It is the general plan on the part of every follower of particular lines to commence, very often casually, ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... 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 talkative ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... liquor saloon, to feel that she has on 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 an ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... utmost, as it seemed, the delicious, newly-washed atmosphere, the moonlit heavens and sea, the exquisitely-caressing softness of the tardily-awakened breezes that filled the white sails of the vessel, and fluttered the silken scarf of the maiden, with the same wooing breath of persuasive, subtle strength. ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... down and were all out of it, the dignitary with the staff, his scarlet tablecloth over his yellow robe, began an oration, apparently with every confidence that he was being understood. In spite of his objections at lunch, the telepathy theory was beginning to seem more persuasive. ...
— Naudsonce • H. Beam Piper
... 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 induced to relinquish ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... that he had told all he knew, and pressed the man further. Under questioning, at first persuasive and then threatening, the man remembered that there had been a meeting of the Spartacides the night before in which the matter of disposing of the prisoners had been discussed. Some had been in favor of executing them out of hand. Others had objected. He ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... 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 from under their ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... Wellesley. It was opposed by Colonels Sibthorp and Tyrrell, Sir George Clerk, Sir George Warrender, and Mr. William Peel, who merely repeated Sir Robert Peel in an ineffective manner. Mr. O'Connell delivered a persuasive and eloquent oration in favour of the immediate adoption of the bill, and intimated that there was danger of insurrection in Ireland if that country were left any longer without reform. Sir James ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... patrician weaknesses; he knew nothing about racing, or betting, or opera-dancers, or slang in general. In short, he seemed flat and insipid to Bab, who had been compared to the beautiful Lady Mary Manvers by the soft and persuasive tongue of Lady Mary Manvers's dear friend. Yet, in her secret heart of hearts, Bab drew comparisons by no means disadvantageous to Edward Leslie. 'Yes,' thought Bab, 'I like Mr Newton best by the sea-side in summer-time, when ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... never halted, under the persuasive influence of that loaded revolver, till we dismounted once more in the early dawn upon the Nile ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... gentle and 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 ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... other crafts and mysteries of that genus, had not ranked in Productive Industry at all! Can any one, for example, so much as say, What moneys, in Literature and Shoeblacking, are realised by actual Instruction and actual jet Polish; what by fictitious-persuasive Proclamation of such; specifying, in distinct items, the distributions, circulations, disbursements, incomings of said moneys, with the smallest approach to accuracy? But to ask, How far, in all the several ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... 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
... asked the question, she made an evident effort to control her agitation, and her voice and manner were well-nigh calm, and infinitely tender and persuasive. ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... white-headed, but he entered to me in the same old breezy way of his earlier life, and he was all there, yet—not a detail wanting: the happy light in his eye, the abounding hope in his heart, the persuasive tongue, the miracle-breeding imagination—they were all there; and before I could turn around he was polishing up his Aladdin's lamp and flashing the secret riches of the world before me. I said to myself: "I did not overdraw him by ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... wait on Mr. Byles's instruction in high spirits and without one missing. It is true that the Dowbiggins showed for the first time some reluctance in attending to their studies, but it was pointed out to them in a very firm and persuasive way by Speug that it would be disgraceful for them to be absent when Bulldog was ill, and that the class could not allow such an act of treachery. Speug was so full of honest feeling that he saw Thomas John safely within the ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... 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 ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... Mencken pointed out to me recently, in his most earnest and persuasive manner, that it was my duty to write a book about the American composers, exposing their futile pretensions and describing their flaccid opera, stave by stave. It was in vain that I urged that this would be but a sleeveless errand, arguing that I could not ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... the political history of the United States, beyond much that is feeble or poor in quality, has given to the English language very many of its most finished and most persuasive specimens of oratory. It is natural that oratory should be a power in a republic; but, in the American republic, the force of institutions has been reinforced by that of a language which is peculiarly adapted to the display of eloquence. Collections of American ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... enough, we may well deem that nothing less than the most intense and 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 ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... 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 was so necessary to her ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 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 ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... Relief. His verbal news was practically nil. He goes out at midnight 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 some question of ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... 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 small ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... 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 their ground. A certain suspicion (they ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... a gently persuasive tone. I imagined her kneeling by the head of the patient and breathing words into his ear. These were what ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... a part of the domestic economy habitually in operation of course; and in such families you will have seen the government exercised, or attempted to be exercised, in the roughest, barest shape of will and menace, with no aptitude or means of imparting to injunction and censure, a convincing and persuasive quality. Not that the seniors should allow their government to be placed on such a ground that, in everything they enforce or forbid, they may be liable to have their reasons demanded by the children, as an understood ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... thy soft persuasive look, That voice that might with music vie, Thy air that every gazer took, Thy matchless ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... 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 ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... a good cause. "Mrs. Mazarine's is a case which can be cured, I think," he continued. "As you've remarked, Mr. Mazarine,"—his voice was now persuasive,—"here is fine air, and a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... followed out the moral of the parable of the Good Samaritan into its most rigid and repulsive consequences with a pen of steel, and let fall his "trenchant blade" on every vulnerable point of human infirmity; but there is a want in his system of the mild and persuasive tone of the Gospel, where "all is conscience and tender heart." Man was indeed screwed up, by mood and figure, into a logical machine, that was to forward the public good with the utmost punctuality and effect, and it might go very ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... 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 what you want at ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... obliged to subscribe to doctrines of well-known severity, the faith required to the laity was almost early Christian in its simplicity. I was conscious of no change from my childish acceptance of the teachings of the Gospels, but at this moment something persuasive within made me long for an outward symbol of fellowship, some bond of peace, some blessed spot where unity of spirit might claim right of way over all differences. There was also growing within me an almost passionate devotion to the ideals of democracy, and when in all history had these ideals ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... the servants, were there not old Rachel and Sam, chef and valet? What more could one want? The major's voice, too, had lost none of its persuasive powers. ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the importance of making a friend of the animal. He stood perfectly still, talking in a gentle, persuasive tone. ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... brilliant. It may be that after all you are destined to bring me good luck!" He paced the floor for several minutes, then struck his hands together sharply. "All right!" he exclaimed. "It has never failed me! The light is mild, feminine, we shall say, gentle, persuasive, encouraging. It would be fatal ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... '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 ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... sorry to be relieved in so many words of the persuasive responsibility, and the talk drifted into reminiscence, with the Croydon ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... England. Here, at a lecture given by Mazzini in London under the auspices of the liberal Italians and those who espoused their cause, Eugenio, who to handsome features and aristocratic appearance added a modulated voice and persuasive manner, rose during the course of the evening, and in words that held the audience spellbound narrated his own sufferings and those of some of his friends under the yoke of Austria. As he concluded with the utterance of the sentiment, "Liberta! Equalita! Fraternita!" a storm of applause burst from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... of ordinary city acquaintance. Bricks and mortar and cut stones tend to the revelation of but few secrets, but the evening twilight, the crescent moon, the morning dawn, the forest shade, and the noonday repose are persuasive openers of hearts and weavers of sympathy. A walk with Elsie is far more to me than a solitary ramble. Then, too, the country population frequently exhibit an originality and individuality of development more often missed than found in the assimilating ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... the United States is on record for | |arbitration and that it would be a mockery to send | |Germany a document which, he considers, savors of an| |ultimatum. Although the majority of the cabinet was | |against him to-day, he carried his persuasive powers| |from the cabinet meeting to the University Club, | |where he and his fellow members had lunch. | | | |Bryan's attitude came as a complete surprise to the | |President. In previous notes Mr. Bryan took the | |position ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... thing before him would be in flames, and reduced to ashes; before he marched his troops to the Achradina, he sent before him some Syracusans, who, as was before observed, were among the Roman troops, to induce the enemy, by a persuasive address, to ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... was a gentle Figure that stood to him for Christ—God? yes, in some profound and mysterious way, but, for all earthly purposes of love and imitation, a meek and persuasive Man whose kingdom was not of this world, who repudiated violence and inculcated love; One who went through the world with simple tasks and soft words, who suffered without striking, who obeyed with no desire ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... Horatio Paget was content to devote his best energies to the perpetual praise of the Incorrodible and Indestructible and Incombustible India-rubber, in consideration of a very modest percentage on his commercial transactions in that material. To exert the persuasive eloquence of a Burke or a Thurlow in order to induce a man to roof his new warehouses with a fabric which you are aware will be torn into ribbons by the first run of stormy weather, for the sake of obtaining two-and-a-half per cent on his investment, may not be in accordance with ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... the voice, as from a subdued to a very high tone, from a slow to a rapid rate of utterance, and also the reverse of these movements. It also refers to changes in the style of delivery, as from a persuasive to the declamatory, etc., and to the expression of passion or emotion, as from grief to joy, ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... cunning, that they seldom have their booty taken from them, unless sometimes, when, by the help of blood-hounds following them exactly upon the tract, they may chance to fall into the hands of their adversaries. When being taken, they have so much persuasive eloquence, and so many smooth insinuating words at command, that if they do not move their judges, nay, and even their adversaries (notwithstanding the severity of their natures), to have mercy, yet they incite them to admiration ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... with The Texan then. Conway whipped him back a week or two, but he had his hands full doing it. The Texan—and I ought to know—is open to reason if the figure is big enough to be persuasive. We'll see ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... on entering the room sat down on the sofa, and his wife perched herself on the elbow of it with her arm round his neck, which engaging attitude she presently exchanged for a still more persuasive one, by kneeling at his feet; but upon his getting up, the lively lady did so also, and in a moment began flying round the room, seizing and flinging on the floor cups, saucers, plates,—the whole cabaret,—vases, candlesticks, her poor husband pursuing ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... as shown by full development behind and between the ears, where the cast measures six inches in diameter, but it was the combativeness which showed itself in force and energy rather than contention. His combativeness was harnessed to his suavity, and he could be forcible and at the same time persuasive. ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... with the graceful and artistic creation of Hephaestus, that they all determined to endow her with some special gift. Hermes (Mercury) bestowed on her a smooth persuasive tongue, Aphrodite gave her beauty and the art of pleasing; the Graces made her fascinating, and Athene (Minerva) gifted her with the possession of feminine accomplishments. She was called Pandora, which means all-gifted, having received every attribute necessary ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... qualifying asterisk. The second group 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 ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... constitutionality, and so on. But being on the ground, I had before me the exhibition of its practical working, saw the oppression and excesses growing out of it, and in the face of these experiences even Mr. Hendricks's persuasive eloquence was powerless to convince me of its beneficence. Later General Lovell H. Rousseau came down on a like mission, but was no more successful than ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... sick of repeating arguments for protection to these "Glasgow theorists," as he calls them, because he found that Smith had already succeeded in persuading them completely in favour of a free importation of corn.[52] Sir James Steuart was a most persuasive talker; Smith himself said he understood Sir James's system better from his talk than from his books,[3] and those Glasgow merchants must have obtained from Smith's expositions a very clear and complete ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... 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 ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... shook her head doubtfully; she knew well what this foreboded, and was impatient at the overthrow of her plans; yet she had full confidence in the power of Love. She had seen apparent self-reliance before, and she could not believe that her niece was invincible. At any rate nothing could be more persuasive than a twilight row upon the river, and for her part, she hoped more eagerly than ever that Love would return chief in command of the boat's young crew; and when the young man flushed a little, and looked at her appealingly, ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Children, from Sacred History. The Patriarchal Age. Judaism. The Christian Church. The Extent of this Right. The Duties it Involves. Moral Control. Coercive Measures. Improper Parental Interposition. Its Sad Effects. Persuasive Measures. Should Parents Banish and Disinherit Children for their ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... Virginia were seething with discontent and ripe for rebellion. All they wanted was a leader, and soon they found one. This leader was Nathaniel Bacon, a young Englishman who had but lately come to the colony. He was dashing and handsome, had winning ways and a persuasive tongue. He was the very man for a popular leader, and soon at his back he had an army of three hundred armed settlers, "one and ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... of raps sounded upon the door above, at first quiet and persuasive, and then increasing in intensity. There came a faint sound of ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... asking him to call and see him, as he was unable to get out. Fortified with this, she now took a priest with her, and providing herself with a carriage, returned to head-quarters, and absolutely forced, by her energy and determination and persuasive manner, the Governor to leave his business, and go to the Archbishop's. The invitation to the Irish to meet him was the result ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... call me",—and she pouted. "Lay down dear,—let's fuck if you mean it, if not let's go,—let me feel you, and you feel me." I pulled her back on to the bed, laying down by the side of her, and put my prick into her hand. It was persuasive, for soon I was having that delicious rub, probe, and twiddle. Then I got a sight of all but the cunt itself, the inspection of that she resisted. A fine pair of limbs, a fat backside, lots of hair on her split I could feel. My friction ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... better go to the South in the hope of relieving the effects of the cold, under which I have been labouring all the winter. I think I should do better here, and am very reluctant to leave home in my present condition; but they seem so interested in my recovery and so persuasive in their uneasiness that I should appear obstinate, if not perverse, if I resisted longer. I therefore consented to go, and will take Agnes to Savannah, as she seems anxious to visit that city, or, perhaps, she will take me. I wish also to visit my dear Annie's ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... fallacies, which had led the jury quite astray from the real points—the true merits of the case; and even such a person was often unable to remove the impression which had been produced by the subtle and persuasive advocate whose voice had preceded his. That voice was one indeed lovely to listen to. It was not loud, but low and mellow, insinuating its faintest tones into the ear, and filling it with gentle harmony. His utterance was very distinct—a capital requisite in a speaker—and he had the art ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... this little dark street?" he asked in low, persuasive tones. "May all the saints guard me from assailing the honour of a modest maiden, fairest Barbara; yet, if you fear that I might prevent your remaining in the future what the favour of the Most High permits you to be, I shall rather accuse you of having ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 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 proceed to ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... certainly the wish. His acquirements are not of the highest order, but such as they are they are completely under control, and he knows the use of them. He is gifted with a certain kind of pulpit eloquence, not likely, indeed, to be persuasive with men, but powerful with the softer sex. In his sermons he deals greatly in denunciations, excites the minds of his weaker hearers with a not unpleasant terror, and leaves an impression on their minds that all mankind are in a perilous state, and all womankind ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... and their magical devices, were not more remarkable than their diabolical obstinacy. Though exhorted in the most solemn, persuasive and affectionate manner, to confess themselves guilty, and be burnt for the good of religion, and the entertainment of the public, yet did they most pertinaciously persist in asserting their innocence. Such incredible obstinacy was in itself deserving of immediate punishment, and was sufficient ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... exquisite softness and flexibility. His every word was like a caress. There are voices which so move and stir the hearer that they arouse an emotion which for the moment may override reason; voices which appeal to the senses like beguiling music, and which conquer by a persuasive sweetness as irresistible as it is intangible. The tones of the Persian swayed Ashe so deeply that the young man felt as if swimming on a billow of melody. Philip regarded as if fascinated the slender, dusky fingers of the reader as they handled the splendidly ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... it he was satisfied, as it was only putting off the fulfillment of his wishes for a moment. At once all assailed Quiteria and pressed her, some with prayers, and others with tears, and others with persuasive arguments, to give her hand to poor Basilio; but she, harder than marble and more unmoved than any statue, seemed unable or unwilling to utter a word, nor would she have given any reply had not the priest ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... our youth, and for the life we owe, Antimachus shall copious gifts bestow: Soon as he hears, that, not in battle slain, The Grecian ships his captive sons detain, Large heaps of brass in ransom shall be told, And steel well-tempered, and persuasive gold." ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... women in his eye and in his walk, Among daughters of men the fairest found. Many are in each region passing fair As the noon sky, more like to goddesses Than mortal creatures, graceful and discreet, Expert in amorous arts, enchanting tongues Persuasive, virgin majesty with mild And sweet allayed, yet terrible to approach, 160 Skilled to retire, and in retiring draw Hearts after them tangled in amorous nets. Such object hath the power to soften and ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... things went quietly, along accustomed lines. Dredge simply continued the course which Lanfear's death had interrupted. He lectured well even then, with a persuasive simplicity surprising in the slow, inarticulate creature one knew him for. But haven't you noticed that certain personalities reveal themselves only in the more impersonal relations of life? It's as if they woke only to collective contacts, and ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... right, and of leaving undone what was wrong, and not of what your playfellow Epimetheus would have said or believed. And so perhaps she might, if the enchanted face on the lid of the box had not looked so bewitchingly persuasive at her, and if she had not seemed to hear, more distinctly than before, the murmur of small voices within. She could not tell whether it was fancy or no; but there was quite a little tumult of whispers in her ear,—or else it ...
— The Paradise of Children - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and a little tremulous—and it is the very grace of a woman's courage that her voice tremble never so slightly. It seemed to St. George that he loved her a thousand times the more for that mere persuasive wavering of her words. And, while he listened to what he felt to be the prelude of her message, it seemed to him that he loved her another thousand times the more—what heavenly ease there is in this arithmetic of love—for the tender meaning which, upon her lips, her father's name took ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... in his eyes, he at once grows irritated, and thinking that such false reasoning implies a contempt of his understanding, he perhaps flies into a rage and will not hear another word; or even if he masters his resentment, still he is utterly indisposed to yield to the persuasive power of eloquence. Hence it follows that a figure is then most effectual ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... with their own leaders, and had come to this round-table session with fixed ideas of what they wanted. By mid-evening of the first session it became apparent that the Swedes, the Dutch, the British, and the Americans had sent some of their most persuasive, vocative, and determined countrymen to represent them. The Swiss representative restrained himself admirably until after the initial lines had been drawn. It looked then as if there might be several codes, but before recessing ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... since thus they show themselves for what they are: you do not throw over them the veil, however transparent, of beautiful discourse, nor that shadow so fatal to truth, called the writer's vanity. Nothing so strong, nothing so persuasive, as simplicity! There are sacred emotions, cruel griefs, splendid heroisms, passionate enthusiasms that a look, a movement, a cry interprets better than beautifully rounded periods. The most precious possessions of the heart of humanity manifest themselves most simply. To ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... Merklos was the first of them. He appeared at the Wide Bend National Bank one day, cash in hand. The charm of him, his flashing smile, the easy strength in his big body, were persuasive recommendations. But the bank's appraisal scarcely got that far. Wasn't he the first buyer in fifteen years for that bone-yard ...
— The Invaders • Benjamin Ferris
... that neither of us dared to move; we just sat and listened while the unknown man, with quiet, persuasive words, was ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... the masterpiece of Titian, had been fitted into the polished marble framework over the great altar, and never had the master so excelled himself as in this glorious "Assumption." The beauty, the power, the persuasive sense of motion in the figure of the Madonna, which seemed divinely upborne,—the loveliness of the infant cherubs, the group of the Apostles solemnly attesting the mysterious event,—were singularly and inimitably impressive, full of aspiration and faith, compelling the serious ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... 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 ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Her messengers had sent no word of 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 ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... large ploughed field beyond the cow-pen, where the harrow was lying on one side of the brown ridges. As he passed the pen the startled sheep huddled into a far corner, bleating plaintively, and the brindle cow looked after him with soft, persuasive eyes. When he had attached the clanking chains of the plough harness to the single-tree, he caught up the ropes which served for reins and set out laboriously over the crumbling earth, which yielded beneath his feet and made ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... doorway. A look of passion burned in his eyes. His voice became soft and persuasive. "I would put the past behind me, and be true to you, my girl," he said. "I shall be chief over all the Romany people when Duke Gabriel dies. We are sib; give me what is mine. I am yours—and I hold to my troth. Come, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 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 in her ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... answered not a word, and stood before him with his eyes cast down, which conduct both irritated and disconcerted Herod, although he endeavoured to conceal his anger, and continued his interrogations. He at first expressed surprise, and made use of persuasive words. 'Is it possible, Jesus of Nazareth,' he exclaimed, 'that it is thou thyself that appearest before me as a criminal? I have heard thy actions so much spoken of. Thou art not perhaps aware that thou didst offend me grievously by setting free the prisoners whom I had confined at Thirza, but ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... Ulster's conviction: but this was the case which Sir Edward Carson always made on behalf of Ulster, and he made it as an Irishman whose personal interests and connections lay in the South of Ireland, not in the North. His argument was the more persuasive because it was based on a view of Ireland's true interest—not of Ulster's only; and it was the harder on that account for Redmond to repel peremptorily. More than this, between him and Redmond there ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... quiet modesty of the Chief; but even at first sight the least impressionable boy was conscious of being under the influence of an unusual personality. There was nothing of the theatrical pedagogue about him; he surrounded himself with no trappings of a proud authority. His voice was gentle and persuasive; his smile as winning almost as a child's. The little speech with which he welcomed the House back, and a passing allusion, half humorous, half appealing, to the changes in the bath-rooms were perhaps too homely to impress the imagination of the average inhuman ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... English throne under the title of George I. Haendel, in order to escape the impending disgrace occasioned by having broken faith with his former employer, wrote some music intended to be particularly persuasive, and had it played on a barge that followed a royal procession up the Thames. This "Water Music," as it was called, procured for him the ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... 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 ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... their attempts to guide the masses through the labyrinth of scientific knowledge that has been constructed during the last decade or two. This difficulty has not been wholly the farmer's fault—the scientist would often have been more persuasive had his wings been clipped. But there is a decided "getting together" nowadays—the farmer and the man of science have at last found common ground. And while the pendulum of agricultural prosperity shall ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... them into every gesture, and through a whole scene of frights upon frights, conveys the most powerful expression of ludicrous terror. This man moved all hearts by the simplicity of nature, more than skilful orators can with all the charms of persuasive rhetoric." ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... John, plunging full sail upon the breakers, "I admit that usually they have been quite easy to convince. I am naturally bold, and I suppose that perhaps—that is, I may possibly have a persuasive trick ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... It was that of the general who'd sounded pompous and indignant as he refused to listen to Lockley's statements. Now, coming out of many loudspeakers and echoing hollowly from cliffs, it was the same voice but with an intonation that was persuasive and forthright. ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... doorway, Hilda passed the most thrillingly agreeable moments that destiny had ever vouchsafed to her. She dwelt on the mysterious, attractive quality of Mr. Cannon's voice,—she was sure that, though in speaking to her mother he was softly persuasive, he had used to herself a tone even more intimate and ingratiating. He and she had a secret; they were conspirators together: which fact was both disconcerting and delicious. She recalled their propinquity in the lobby; the remembered syllables which he had uttered mingled with the faint scent ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... was astonished 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 principles ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... 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 ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... door of his boarding-house in Front Street he met Hennesey, his runner. Hennesey was a small man, sly, shrewd, and persuasive, and so far had given satisfaction in the difficult business of soliciting incoming crews to board at Murphy's house instead of the Sailors' Home, the Provident Seamen's Mission, and other like institutions. But Murphy's mood was strong upon ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... tongue as persuasive from its cunning as yours is in its impetuosity, and he has convinced greater men than himself of his usefulness. Believe me, Alexander, I speak of what I know, not of what I suspect. Accept the fact, if you ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... the nesting seemed actually to have begun, three or four of these birds might be seen, on almost any bright morning, gambolling 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, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... 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
... and went around by her head, fed her some clover, patted her on the neck, rubbed her nose, and began a little mild, persuasive appeal: ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... archangel; an ominous foot; a devilishly enticing foot, which gave one a desire to make two new ones just like it to perpetuate in this lower world the glorious works of God. The page was tempted to take the shoe from this persuasive foot. To accomplish this his eyes glowing with the fire of his age, went swiftly, like the clapper of a bell, from this said foot of delectation to the sleeping countenance of his lady and mistress, listening to her slumber, drinking in her respiration again ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac |
