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Compelling   /kəmpˈɛlɪŋ/   Listen
Compelling

adjective
1.
Driving or forcing.
2.
Tending to persuade by forcefulness of argument.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Compelling" Quotes from Famous Books



... highway of popular traffic. There is no reason why these things should not be. All that is needed is that London, through its chosen representatives, should assume the full control of its own life; working out the scheme of its improvement by deliberate methods and upon a settled plan; compelling the obedience of all its citizens to a central authority, and intrusting to that authority the complete management of its affairs, not as a means of personal profit, but for the profit and the ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson

... something winning as well as compelling in Enoch's voice. The director of the Survey rose slowly, and with a half smile held out his hand to ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... expediency of making even elementary mathematics a part of the routine in the system of the great schools. It is enough, I think, that encouragement and facilities should be given; and I think more will be thus effected than by compelling all. Much less would I incorporate the German or French, or any modern language, into the school labours. I ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... pursuit have learned to beware of assaulting the pack which they have brought to bay, and instead of indulging in the instinct which leads them into that way of danger and of certain death, they circle round the assemblage, compelling them to show front on every side and so to remain stationary until the hunters come up. Perhaps a score of similar specializations in the modes of action of our dogs which are employed in the chase could be recited; but as they ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... class standard our ideals must be changed to the standard of work, and the man who has vision is he who shall see the economic, the industrial unities, and who with compelling voice, will call men together to worship in ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson

... avaricious that of his own good-will he would do nothing, the Sultan, not wishing to compel him, but driven by necessity, set himself to devise means by which the Jew should satisfy him, and to find some manner of compelling him to do so with a good pretext. Thus thinking, he called him, and receiving him familiarly, said to him: "My good man, I hear from many here that you are the wisest and in divine affairs the most profound of men, and on that account I would like to know from you which of the three good ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... their country, it is impossible to imagine any spectacle more unedifying for the wage-earning class than that of these malcontent capitalist legislators angrily fighting for their extra war-profits. When one remembers that it was these same gentlemen who were so enthusiastic for compelling younger and poorer men to sacrifice everything they possess, it is hard to find words to say what ought to be said of them. We hope, at all events, that the names of those who voted against the Government on the division will not be allowed ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato

... now required of Hesper—a thing she scorned, hated, shuddered at; she must follow the rest; her turn to be sacrificed was come; she must henceforth be a living lie. She could recompense herself as the daughters who have sinned by yielding generally do when they are mothers, with the sin of compelling, and thus make the trespass round and full. There is in no language yet the word invented to fit the vileness of such mothers; but, as time flows and speech grows, it may be found, and, when it is ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... as if our hero had neither ears nor eyes. For he continued doggedly to work away at his 'cloud-compelling' pipe ([Greek: nephelegereta Schnakenberger]), without ever looking at ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... has been but one government in this country since April, 1865, and as friends you and I have often agreed to differ as to how many there were before then. That government has a law compelling people like you and me to go through a formality, which I have done, and you and your friends have refused to do each time it has been suggested to you. I have raised no point until now, having my reasons, which were mainly that it would make less ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister

... on the electric lamp which hung over the desk, for in the fast-gathering dusk the interior of the Ring was in almost total darkness. How should his message read? It must be brief: it must tell the story, and, above all, it must be compelling. ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train

... stone or bronze to say His was the light that lit on England's way The sundawn of her time-compelling power, The noontide of her ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... him an unintended compliment, when trying to make out that he was no great speaker; that all he did was to set some interesting theory unadorned before his audience, when such success as he attained was due to the compelling nature of ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... called Fort Brentwood. It was triangular in form, having embrazures in the corners of the triangle for guns. Much time and labor was expended on this work, only to be completed that it might be demolished—a change in the situation of our army affairs compelling the evacuation of the fort. Details were made, and on the 3rd of June the work of demolition was consummated, and on the evening of the same day the brigade returned ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear

... monarchies, where war is more properly the pastime of kings than the desire of subjects, non-combatants ought to be dealt with as humanely as possible. Not so, how ever, in States governed by popular assemblies. By compelling the constituents to experience the real hardships and miseries of warfare, you will compel the representatives to a vote of peace; and surely that line of conduct is, upon the whole, most humane, which puts the speediest period to the cruelties of war. There are few men who would not rather ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... sidewalks in this city,' remarked Rocjean, 'compelling the Romans to walk over cobble-stones, undoubtedly is the cause of the large feet of the women, added to their dislike of being in pain from tight shoes or boots. For genuine martyrdom from tight shoes, French, Spanish, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... of Hamilton's packet, the Mandanes would choose what they wanted. Then began a strange, silent haggling over prices. Unlike Oriental races, the Indian maintains stolid silence, compelling the white ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... Minister knew it! Yes, just at that juncture, resignation, or the threat of it, had become an absolutely compelling card; and he was playing it for all it was worth. Free Church Bishops were to be promised for the ensuing year, or the Ministry would be bound to feel, here and now, that his Majesty's confidence ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... business of individuals will hereafter be relieved from the injurious effects of a continued agitation of that disturbing subject. The limited influence of a national bank in averting derangement in the exchanges of the country or in compelling the resumption of specie payments is now not less apparent than its tendency to increase inordinate speculation by sudden expansions and contractions; its disposition to create panic and embarrassment for the promotion of its own designs; its interference with politics, and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... him the probably coarse retort she instantly got her lips ready to make, Burlingham's cool, peace-compelling tones broke in: ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... as ever, the Inquisitor, Titelmann, daily citing before him persons of all ranks and callings, men and women, and compelling them by force to say whatever it pleased him. Often he did so in revenge for words which they were accused of having uttered against him, although he always used the pretext of heresy. The Government of the Regent—the Duchess of Parma—was also employed in ruining the country, edicts being passed ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... a fresh cigar, and continues smoking, reflecting. The counsel of his subaltern has made an impression on him—put the thing in a new light. After all, what harm in letting Miranda live? Enough of revenge compelling him to consent that his sister shall be the wife of one she has scornfully rejected. If he ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... chiefly French, began to frequent the island, and in 1663 the French annexed the eastern part, thus dividing the island between France and Spain. By 1680 there were so many slaves and mulattoes that Louis XIV issued his celebrated Code Noir, which was notable in compelling bachelor masters, fathers of slave children, to marry their concubines. Children followed the condition of the mother as to slavery or freedom; they could have no property; harsh punishments were provided for, but families could not be separated by ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various

... of the practice of leading noble youths into captivity, and compelling them to ascend chimneys, was a severe blow, if we may so speak, to the romance of chimney-sweeping, and to the romance of spring at the same time. But even this was not all, for some few years ago the dancing on May-day began to decline; small sweeps were observed to congregate in ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... in error, and his much-quoted words are folly. It is not a question of goodness, or badness, or fitness, on part of the man who has the ambition to rule, but it is very much a question of his courage, his craft or his cunning in compelling others to ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... strode angrily out to the door, muttering—but no words were distinct. He wanted to be away from the compelling calmness of those eyes that seemed to search him through. He dashed out the screen door, letting it slam behind him, and down the steps, intending to make his car go on at all odds until he reached another town somewhere. ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... horses, one having been killed in the fight. The Indians had dashed at the coach mounted, hoping to kill the horses, and thus cut off all means of retreat or flight, but they had only succeeded in killing one horse, when the passengers and soldiers had driven them off, compelling them to carry two of their number with them, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... the white garment into the river in his sudden vexation. Factor of the post, he had made of himself a stammering youth, all for sake of the compelling ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... and rather loose woman of Mantes, courted at the same time by Maitre Fraisier and the king's attorney, Olivier Vinet; she was "kind" to the former, thereby causing his ruin; the attorney soon found a means of compelling Fraisier, who was representing both sides in a lawsuit, to sell his practice ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... or knack, or trick, or whatever it was, of one compelling the presence of the other by thinking or willing it, was as much mine as hers, and she tried sometimes to get me to say that I would use it with her if she died before I did; and if she were where the conditions were opposed to her coming to me, my will ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells

... love you so," he answered in his compelling boy voice, holding her gently. "Don't move—don't move! There is no time to think and wait—or care for anything—if we love each other. We do love each other, don't we?" He put his cheek against hers and pressed it there. "Oh, say we do," he begged. ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... feather to cure disease. Or again, high prices and low wages, high wages creating high prices, resented conditions leading to strikes, strikes bringing confusion to both wages and prices alike—these things perplex the most clear-sighted among us, compelling us to wonder as to what new troubles we are heaping up. Or again, taxes crippling incomes and gnawing at the heart of industry vex us each year with a sense of the futility of all man's efforts for the common good, and the uselessness ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King

... this "little Puritan," as the great man called her, was endowed with the divine genius which was forced to seek expression in fiction, and nowhere in all literature will one find an author who shows more completely the compelling force of a powerful creative imagination than this little, frail, self-educated woman, who had none of the advantages of her fellow writers, but who surpassed them all in a certain fierce, Celtic spirit which forces the reader to ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch

... earthly reason than a fancied scruple of honor which that old doddering woman-hater imposes on you. I cannot believe that you would so treat me." And there were sobs in her words that were wooing and compelling. ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess

... looked around inquiringly, but Elizabeth, with eyes modestly down, studied her gray-gloved hands and seemed unaware of her scrutiny. Happiness had been Elizabeth Farnshaw's daily portion for weeks, but this was different. Here was happiness of another sort, with other qualities, composed of more compelling elements. The gamut of bliss had not all been run. Elizabeth had progressed from Arcadia to Paradise and was invoicing her emotions. She never shied around a subject, but looked all things in the face; and she found this delightfully surprising world of emotions as entrancing ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... the best of it was not easy. The three convicts, after compelling their prisoners to make the resting-place they occupied more weather-proof and warm, set them to make a lean-to for themselves, to which they were relegated, but without arms, Mike Bannock having on the first day they were at work taken ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn

... There is no need to do so. Each is supreme in its own right; different yet compelling, ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... since even brown humility seemed well affected toward the world, alert and content. The air was full of the comfortable flavour of food-stuffs and spiced luxuries and the incense of wayside trees; it was as if the sun laid a bland compelling hand upon the city, bidding strange flowers bloom and strange fruits increase. Brokers' gharries rattled past, each holding a pale young man preoccupied with a note-book; where the bullock-carts gathered themselves together and blocked the road the pale young men put excited heads out of the gharry ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... summer, For thy rule of flow'ry fragrance, For thy plenilune of empire? Now on lone Mayumi's hillock, Firm on everlasting columns, Pilest thou a lofty palace, Whence no more, when day is breaking, Sound thine edicts, awe-compelling. Day to day is swiftly gathered, Moon to moon, till e'er thy faithful Servants from ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various

... of the days when the children of Israel were delivered from the bondage of Egypt, the author has sketched a romance of compelling charm. A biblical novel as great ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... belongs—with the local school municipalities, parents, and managers of schools; the Government protecting the right of each parent and child, but beyond this, and beyond the principles and duties of morality common to all classes, neither compelling nor prohibiting; recognising the duties of pastors and parents as well as of school trustees and teachers, and considering the united labours of all as constituting the system of education for ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... decided to care for himself, and during the remainder of his college course, which, of course, was longer than usual, he struggled on, doing what he could during the summer vacation—teaching school for months at a time—and in the college reducing his expenses by acting as proctor, and compelling obedience to the rules of the institution. Even the few who were aware of his limited means, and his efforts to increase them, had to acknowledge, as he stood before the multitude, delivering the valedictory, and exciting ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... on the cession of Fiume is political, and, because it is based on a deep-seated and haunting fear, it is, perhaps, the most compelling reason of all. Italy does not trust the Jugoslavs. She cannot forget that the Austrian and Hungarian fractions of the new Jugoslav people—in other words, the Slovenes and Croats—were the most faithful subjects ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell

... sought to test it by the double standard of substance and form. Substance is something achieved by the artist in every act of creation, rather than something already present, and accordingly a fact or group of facts in a story only obtain substantial embodiment when the artist's power of compelling imaginative persuasion transforms them into a living truth. The first test of a short story, therefore, in any qualitative analysis is to report upon how vitally compelling the writer makes ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... vnder your comon seale as were essentially necessary to empower and justify such appearance, and pleading for you here, which you could not imagine but that you must haue had due time to returne them in, noe law compelling impossibilities. ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... doubt, a much healthier and happier condition prevailing among the parties connected with Mr. Stewart, than would be found among the struggling concerns (say fifty or more) whose place he has taken. Centralization is a law in trade whose movement crushes the weak by an inevitable step, while, by compelling them to take refuge beneath the protection of the strong it affords a better condition than the one from which they have been driven. To his early perception of this law Mr. Stewart largely owes ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... was an unconscious one; the same is, perhaps, true though much less certainly of Sir Thomas Browne. In Lamb and Hazlitt and De Quincey egotism was deliberate, consciously assumed, the result of a compelling and shaping art. If one reads Lamb's earlier essays and prose pieces one can see the process at work—watch him consciously imitating Fuller, or Burton, or Browne, mirroring their idiosyncrasies, making their quaintnesses and graces his own. By the time ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair

... was what Jaffery could not understand. Yet any one familiar with morbid psychology will tell you of a hundred analogical instances. Some queer superstition, some reflex action of conscience, some dim, relentless force compelling the hair shirt of penitence—that is the only way in which I, who do not pretend to be a psychologist, can explain the sustained ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... Nathanael Greene succeeded to the command of the Southern Patriot army which Gates had led to defeat. Greene's genius met the rising tide of the Patriots' courage and hope and took it at the flood. His strategy, in dividing his army and thereby compelling the division of Cornwallis's force, led to Daniel Morgan's victory at the Cowpens, in the Back Country of South Carolina, on January 17, 1781—another frontiersmen's triumph. Though the British won the next ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... he of two minds how much to tell these over eager adventurers? Especially that one of the curses! But the truth, as he had told Don Ruy in part, was an easier thing to maintain, and keep memory of, than a fiction dressed up for the new man. And the man was watching him with compelling eyes, and the boy Chico, with eyes agog, was also ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan

... Mother Carey's remark was never heard, for at Nancy's given signal the four younger Careys all swooned on the floor. Nancy had secretly trained Peter so that he was the best swooner of the family, and his comical imitation of Nancy was so mirth-compelling that Mother Carey laughed and declared there was no such thing as talking seriously to children ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... the companion of youth but pleasure? And the gift of eternal youth may be mine this very hour! What means this prohibition of Mejnour's? Is it not of the same complexion as his ungenerous reserve even in the minutest secrets of chemistry, or the numbers of his Cabala?—compelling me to perform all the toils, and yet withholding from me the knowledge of the crowning result? No doubt he will still, on his return, show me that the great mystery CAN be attained; but will still forbid ME to attain it. Is it not as if he desired to keep my youth the slave to his ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... artistic achievement is the finest yet seen in America. No book can adequately represent this World's Fair. Its spell is the charm of color and the grandeur of noble proportion, harmonizing great architectural units; its lesson is the compelling value, demonstrated on a vast scale, of exquisite taste. It must be seen to ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... the comforting touch of the lifeline was not for him, his nerves were steady, and he did not falter on the glassy, inclined way. Ichi minced his steps, compelling Martin to shorten his stride. Martin saw that Ichi was trembling, and gazing fearfully into the abyss. He had an impulse to throw himself upon Ichi, and roll with him over the edge. But then, he thought, this blow would not help his shipmates; indeed, it would ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... last solemn article of death, That truth-compelling state, when even bad men Fear to speak falsely, Percy ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More

... on the memory of its generation. And yet when, in a mood of lyrical and rapt ecstasy, she began her opening song, "In Lichter Waffen Scheine," her face was upon the instant forgotten. She became a Voice—pure, miraculous, all-compelling; and the listeners seemed to hold breath while the matchless melody wove ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett

... walking and trotting, following the winding bed of the stream. Darkness fell, until they could not see each other's faces, until they were merely two black passing shadows; but the figure behind was relentless. Stimulating, compelling, he forced himself close. Ever and anon they could hear the frightened dash of a rabbit away from their path. More than once a snow-owl fluttered over their heads; but they took no notice. Twice the man in advance stumbled and fell; but though Ben paused he spoke no word. Like a ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... above blue semicircles of fatigue and the compelling terror back of her eyes forced a question through ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... strong, steady, monotonous stroke, hour after hour till we had put twenty miles behind when we stopped for the night. Next morning the same programme was continued from seven o'clock on, with a brief halt for dinner. About four a storm came up, compelling us to wait an hour, when on we pulled, with a temperature something like 100 deg.F., in the shade, till sunset, when about forty miles from our starting point, we arrived at the mouth of a river on the right, which we thought must be the Uinta. ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... were you," said Doctor Livingstone, in a peace-making spirit. "It would not be a pleasant task for you, compelling our friend to prove you descended from the ape. I should think you'd prefer to make him leave ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs

... spoof the Church and keep the Colonel, has decided to kill her husband by faked telegram. So you have a distinctly intriguing theme, which Miss TENNYSON JESSE and Captain HARWOOD handle with very considerable adroitness and embroider with many really sparkling and laughter-compelling lines. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various

... could help her the next day with the sewing. True, these were the very girls who would "turn yellow with rage" at the sight of the velvet, but precisely because these rich girls had so many things of which she was deprived she felt that, in asking their aid, she was compelling Fate to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Stener. His guilt is established by his own confession. He admits he is guilty. He will be sentenced without trial later on. But this man—he says he is an honest, honorable man. He says he didn't think he was going to fail. He says he used all that threatening, compelling, terrifying language, not because he was in danger of failing, but because he didn't want the bother of looking further for aid. What do you think? Do you really think that he had purchased sixty thousand ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... is found in primitive man. It is not strange, therefore, that at this time the religious side of my nature was the first to display compelling activity. Whether or not this was due to my rescue from a living death, and my immediate appreciation of God's goodness, both to me and to those faithful relatives who had done all the praying during the preceding two years—this I ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... would not have recognized himself in the character of all-compelling lady's-novel hero, which Miss Gleason imagined for him. Life presented itself rather simply to him, as it does to most men, and he easily dismissed its subtler problems from a mind preoccupied with active cares. As far as Grace was concerned, she had certainly roused in him an unusual ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, as those well acquainted with the state of morals during this period can all confirm, a most unbounded freedom was dominant in sexual relations, the State and the Church were desirous of compelling the people to keep better order by the use of actual force, and by religious compulsion. So forced a transformation in so vital a matter necessarily resulted in a reaction of the worst kind, and forced ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... power—insidious, subtle, dangerous power—that lurked in great art, saw that the art of the twentieth century, his century, was music. Only thirteen when the greatest of all musical Russians died, he read Nietzsche a year later; and these men were the two compelling forces of his life until the destructive poetry of the mad, red-haired Australian poet, Lingwood Evans, appeared. Illowski's philosophy of anarchy was now complete, his belief in a social, aesthetic, ethical ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... story. An admirable literary style, natural and concise construction, succeed in compelling the reader's attention through every line. We hope to welcome the author again, working on a ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... dinner; that he seemed to descry Capital in the distance, rather clearly, after dinner; that he all but realized Capital towards midnight; and that at about two o'clock in the morning, he became so deeply despondent again as to talk of buying a rifle and going to America, with a general purpose of compelling buffaloes to make ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... picking up the contents of a book as you proceed with your criticism, and tucking them in here and there where they fit, is so great that, speaking as a reviewer, I should give up reviewing if there were no more compelling reasons than requests to write criticism. There are, there must be; and still speaking as a reviewer I begin to glimpse one or two of them. Revenge is not one. Critics have written for revenge, quoting gleefully, "O that mine enemy would write a book!" ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... A minister of God told me himself, with a wink, that he had to preach anti-English because otherwise he would lose favour with those in power.' Such were the influences which induced the Free State to make an insane treaty, compelling it to wantonly take up arms against a State which had never injured it and which bore ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle

... to be anxious to terminate the interview, but the compelling power of Fitzpiers's atmosphere still held her there. She was like an inexperienced actress who, having at last taken up her position on the boards, and spoken her speeches, does not know how to move off. The thought of Grammer occurred to her. "I'll go at once and tell poor ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... was, perhaps, an endeavour to avert the impending ruin and devastation that followed, that the Master of Lovat gave their liberty to Lord Saltoun and Lord Mungo Murray, although not until he had threatened them both with hanging for interfering with his inheritance, and compelling Lord Saltoun to promise that he would, on arriving at Inverness, send a formal obligation for eight thousand pounds, never more to concern himself with the affairs of the Lovat estate, and that neither he nor the Marquis of Athole ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... April, 1794, hostilities were formally opened against Sardinia and Austria. Massena seized Ventimiglia on the sixth. Advancing by Oneglia and Ormea, in the valley of the Stura, he turned the position of the allied Austrians and Sardinians, thus compelling them to evacuate their strongholds one by one, until on May seventh the pass of Tenda, leading direct into Lombardy, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... by John Quincy Adams, then in Russia. Although the acceptance involved the surrender of heavy professional emolument, the high honor, the permanence of the tenure, and the opportunity of gratifying his juridical studies that he so much loved, joined in compelling his acquiescence. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... teeth of destruction, facing inevitable death with a coolness and fearlessness so characteristic of the British soldier. But a body of the enemy's horse suddenly appeared on the flank of the column of Infantry compelling them to form square to resist cavalry, and thus the brave little party were placed in a precarious position, being cut off from their supports. A withering volley from the right and rear face of the square, followed by ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... think a mistake is made in compelling girls to learn to play only the piano-forte. There are other instruments, for performance upon which many of them have talents. Nor need such performance detract from a graceful, ladylike appearance. I mention, for example, the harp, the violin, and, indeed, all ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... a matter of imagination, my love. It proves the truth of my theory that necessity develops capacity. A woman of leisure, for want of suitable mental pabulum, grows to fancy she has every ill that flesh is heir to, whereas, when she is obliged by compelling circumstances to put her muscles into practice, her mind acquires a more healthy tone. Self-contemplation is a most enervating exercise and involves a tremendous drain ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black

... to him from the unresponsive walls, and in time the echo checked his outcry. It taught him anew the lesson which already he had conned again and again, the lesson that his bitterest plaint fell on no one else's ears with half the compelling fervor with which it reached his own, that his cry for help came beaten back to the one person who could help him, that was—himself. But at least, there was some relief ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... very sure we shall have no conflict of opinion about constitutional duties or authority. During the anxieties of war, when necessity seemed compelling there were excessive grants of authority and all extraordinary concentration of powers in the Chief Executive. The repeal of war-time legislation and the automatic expirations which attended the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... choice of quarters over every second lieutenant in the garrison: there were ten of these young gentlemen, and four of the ten were married. Every set of quarters had its occupants, and Hayne could move in nowhere, unless as occupant of a room or two in the house of some comrade, without first compelling others to move out. This proceeding would lead to vast discomfort, occurring as it would in the dead of winter, and the youngsters were naturally perturbed in spirit,—their wives especially so. What made the prospects infinitely worse was the fact that the cavalry bachelors were already living ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... warm for any length of time. And if the authorities who fix the terms, or if they like it better, the academical year, would understand that an undergraduate is a far nicer man when he is comfortable, they might be inclined to cease from compelling him to play cricket when it is impossible to think of anything but ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... necessary.' If there's to be a new rule to fit the case of Senators, the same will prob'bly be handed to me as soon as Senators are common on the calling-list." He put up a hand in front of the colonel's face—a broad and compelling hand. "Now I'm going along on the old orders and the clock tells ye that ye have a scant twinty minutes to wait. And if I do any more talking, of the kind that ain't necessary, I'll break a rule. Be aisy, Colonel Shaw!" He resumed his ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... each guarding a Hun prisoner, making him walk along ahead with upraised hands, while the guns, taken away from the Germans themselves, served as compelling weapons. ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young

... we should ever have children, we will marry; but we are very well as we are. What is the good of compelling us to do that which we now do willingly? Besides, it is expensive, and we have no money to spare.' But see how I am gossiping! as I always do on the subject of those good people, who were so kind to me, for I never tire of ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... fleet gave occasion for Alexander to declare war against England. The war, however, which ensued between the two countries, amounted chiefly to a cessation of trade. England, protected by her fleet, was invulnerable; and Napoleon and Alexander both agreed that the only possible way of compelling England to assent to peace, was to shut her out from commerce with the rest of Europe. This was the origin of the famous continental system, by which it was endeavored to force the belligerent islanders to peace by cutting off ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... became less businesslike. There was an element in the tone of each voice that drew the London telegraphist's attention. Martin, usually the mildest-mannered man in Sussex, was obviously ill at ease. But he simply could not hold out against Grant's compelling gaze. ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... for the drama he had found them, when not wholly bad, too good to be good enough. But the long practice had given him a certain mastery of technique, and when she had set his brain on fire he had had less trouble than most young playwrights in compelling his imagination to adapt itself to the inexorable framework. He had always felt that the imagination, what is called, for want of a better term, the "creative faculty," was there, but it was lethargic; it sometimes ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... debts could not therefore be enforced against the person of the debtor; but as trade began to develop it was found necessary to provide some means of bringing personal pressure to bear upon debtors for the purpose of compelling them to meet their obligations, and under the practice of the English courts of law the right of a creditor to enforce his claims by the imprisonment of his debtor was gradually evolved (although no express legal enactment to that effect appears ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... Donderberg, homes of reverberant thunder; Thou steep theatre, where his story trod its stage, And where the circling thought of it returns With ever profounder, ever accumulating echoes, Calling to Humanity, compelling attention, provoking the unexpected tear,— Open yet once again your treasured legend; Out of the encrusted box, the precious parchment, Out of the vestment-chambers, the ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman

... of the ugly Englishman with bated breath and shining eyes long after Saltash had gone his unheeding way, for the blood was hot in his veins before the game was over. If the magic had been slow to work, its spell was all the more compelling when it gripped him. Characteristically, he tossed aside all considerations beyond the gratification of the moment's desire. The sinking fire of youth blazed up afresh. He would get the utmost out of this last night of revelry. Wherever he went, ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell

... eyes flashed down at him, wavered, and were caught in his compelling gaze. For a single instant—the last—the trembling, glittering figure seemed to hesitate, then like a streak of lightning leapt straight over the ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... southern cities. He then extended his posts all around the place so as to invest it entirely. These preparations made, he paused before he commenced the work of subduing the city, to give the inhabitants an opportunity to submit, if they would, without compelling him to resort to force. The conditions, however, which he imposed were such that the Thebans thought it best to take their chance of resistance. They refused to surrender, and Alexander began to prepare ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... now filled the air were more wonderful than ever. They excited Samuel. His fat arms waved, and the light train waved with them. A compelling hand, Sonya's, quieted them and it. There was absolutely nothing a little boy could do in this queer walk. Gloomily but sedately the Infant Samuel continued ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan

... Venice seated like a goddess in her home. Of all the secular States of Italy the Republic of S. Mark's alone produced this mythical ideal of the body politic, self-sustained and independent of the citizens, compelling their allegiance, and sustaining them through generations with the life of its organic unity.[269] The artists had no reason to paint thoughts and theories. It was enough to set forth Venice and ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... their own ignorance of its full import and to the fact that they heard only the dirges of a Chinese funeral procession or the brassy noises that feature a celestial festival. They did not have opportunity to be enthralled by the throaty, vibrant melodies—at once so lovingly seductive and harshly compelling—by which Chinese poets and lovers have revealed their thoughts and won their quest for centuries. The stirring tom-tom, if not the ragtime which sets the occidental capering to-day, was common to the Chinese three or four hundred years ago. They heard it from the wild Tartars and Mongols—heard ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang

... as most persons with married friends know too well, is a phrase covering a wide range of quality. Most of them, however, are excellent and ring true. Of the love-affairs I feel myself a less competent judge, but I should fancy their appeal will be compelling to the expert. It is perhaps impossible for a book of this type wholly to avoid the charge of being sugary or pretty-pretty, but with my hand on my heart I can declare that Mrs. WEMYSS has done less to deserve it than most ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various

... seemed amazingly vivid and bright, like those of one who has learned to see in the dark. The complexion was redder—Henry Ware had always burned red instead of brown—like that of one who sleeps oftener in the open air than in a house. His whole look was dominant, compelling and fierce, as he leaned on his elbows and studied the opposing thickets ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... embarrassed fashion, very unlike the fluent ease with which he opened the case, the judge advocate announced that, owing to the impossibility of compelling the testimony of witnesses on whom he had relied, he was obliged to announce that the prosecution would here rest. The defense, of course, he said, vaguely, would wish to be heard, though he had not ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... of the enemy's presence. After taking possession of the towns and villages, they had arrested the inhabitants, maltreated them with saber-strokes and the butt ends of their guns, stripping them of their clothing, and compelling those to follow them whom they thought capable of serving as guides on their march; and if they were not guided as they expected they killed with the sword or shot their unfortunate prisoners. Everywhere ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... in Brigade formations these drawbacks are apparent, and in larger masses they prove most formidable. The Squadron Column is, in fact, a formation derived exclusively with a view to 'Line' tactics, and for this reason alone they hamper all other demands. There is, however, no compelling reason why they should be retained as the principal working formation for Cavalry, and therefore as fundamentally beyond ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi

... with delight. For had I not been a peacemaker in this matter? And had I not then a right to feel blessed?—But the understanding was brought about simply by making the people meet—compelling them, as it were, to know something of each other really. Hitherto this girl had been a mere name, or phantom at best, to her lover's father; and it was easy for him to treat her as such, that is, as a mere ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... beautiful as women go, but that's not the right word to express you. Physically, you might be very homely, but if you were still Nan Brent you would be sweet and compelling. You remind me of a Catholic chapel; there's always one little light within that never goes out, you know. So that makes you more than beautiful. Shall ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... Metropolitan tower. The news spread everywhere in a few seconds, and the man in charge of the signaling apparatus and telephone would have been mobbed if Captain Arms had not rigorously shut off all communication with him, compelling the eager inquirers to be content with such information as he himself saw fit to give them. When the announcement was made that the bell had been cut loose, and the exploration begun, the excitement was intensified, and a Babel of voices resounded ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... Was he not always a laddie in the barrel himself, climbing in for apples while we all stood around, like gamins, waiting for a bite? He was the spirit of boyhood tugging at the skirts of this old world of ours and compelling it to come back and play. And I suppose my mother felt this, as so many have felt it: like others she was a little scared at first to find herself skipping again, with this masterful child at the rope, but soon she gave him her hand and set ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie

... girl's cheek, but the doctor's tone was compelling and she answered in a low voice: ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... you, Sir, that this money was loaned to the United States in order to enable them to continue the war; the wisdom of Congress will determine, according to circumstances, the manner of effecting this important object, and by united efforts, of compelling the enemy to conclude a firm and ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... privilege of throwing flour on their heads, and having their arms (insignia of the antiquity and rank of their family) painted on their carriages, &c. Since the commencement of the present war, a new law has been passed, compelling every person to pay annually a tenth of his whole income. Most of the taxes are permanent, but some of them are changed at the pleasure of parliament. Abu-Talib visited the country in the first years of the present century, when the capability of taxation was strained ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... He persisted in compelling admiration of Sidonie's purchase even to its smallest details, exhibited the gas and water fixtures on every floor, the improved system of bells, the garden seats, the English billiard-table, the hydropathic arrangements, and accompanied his exposition ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... said I, tormenting myself with the thought that she was acting under some compelling sense of obligation; ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... The sun was lost in the cloudbank out of which a hot wind was sweeping eastward. Vic was telling the story well, and the magnetism of his voice was compelling. ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter

... something fascinating about the word migration. It sends our minds back to the dim stories of tribal movements carved on the rocks by men who wrought in the dawn of history. We wonder at the compelling force that drove our ancestors through the forests of northern Germany, or caused the Aztecs to cross the Mexican deserts. It calls to something in our blood, for even the most stolid must at times hearken to the Pied Piper and with ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson

... that to the latter might be conceived in the affirmative. If Holt was bound to the Salt Lake, then was the fate of his daughter to be dreaded. Not long there may a virgin dwell. The baptism of the New Jordan soon initiates its female neophytes into the mysteries of womanhood—absolutely compelling them to the marriage-tie—forcing them to a ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... seemed to have increased since his last journey. The face of the landscape had changed again. One of the lower terraces had become a wild mere of sedge and reeds. The dry and dusty bed of a forgotten brook had reappeared, a full-banked river, crossing the turnpike and compelling a long detour before the traveler could ford it. But as he approached the Hopkins farm and the opposite clearing and cabin of Jim Hooker, he was quite unprepared for a still more remarkable transformation. The cabin, a three-roomed structure, and its cattle-shed had ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... necessity of the case—always the supreme law—was so little denied by the Opposition, that their objections to the bill were directed entirely against the clause for limited enlistment, and not against that which abridged the subject's liberty, by compelling him to learn to serve his country ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... XXXa). The player stands in front of the line and begins to beat the instruments with a padded stick. Oftentimes he is accompanied by a man who strikes a wooden drum with the palm of one hand and a stick held in the other. The music grows faster, emphasizing certain beats, until it becomes a compelling rhythm that starts the feet of the onlookers, and suddenly a man or woman begins to dance. At first she keeps time to the music by raising on her toes and heels, bending the knees and twisting the body from side to side, but soon she becomes more animated, ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole

... Andrew?" asked David as he faced this friend with compelling eyes. "If it's pride that takes you, better give it up! It's deadly for you both, for she's more of a woman ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... Hanan avoid the question," she smiled, "by compelling Pilate to crucify him. In either event ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... his departure, it is possible his intentions may be frustrated by the machinations of Wild, whose interest is obviously to prevent such an occurrence, unless we can surprise them together, and, by proving to Sir Rowland that we possess the power of compelling a restitution of your rights, force the other treacherous villain into compliance. Jonathan, in all probability, knows nothing of these packets; and their production may serve to intimidate him. Will ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... over the Romish clergy, for one thing. Of course there are other obstacles. So long as beer is cheap, and songs of the Fatherland are set to lilting strains, will these excellent people "Ho, ho, my brothers," and "Hi, hi, my brothers," and wait for fate, in the shape of some compelling Bismarck, to drive them into anything more than the brotherhood of brown mugs of beer and Wagner's mysterious music of the future. I am not sure, by the way, that the music of Richard Wagner is not highly ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... persecution of his children, it requires another and a much more extraordinary condition: the children are authorized, if they can find that their parent has by his industry, or otherwise, increased the value of his property since their first bill, to bring another, compelling a new account of the value of his estate, in order to a new distribution proportioned to the value of the estate at the time of the new bill preferred. They may bring such bills, toties quoties, upon every improvement of his ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... revealed to us on the subject, all is left to conjecture. Whatever the cause was, we know it was a wise and a necessary one; and this appears to me to be the most plausible reason I can assign. Perhaps we may also trace a further purpose in their creation, in compelling by the terror they inspire the inferior animals to submit themselves to man, who is alone able to protect them against their formidable enemies, or to congregate, so that he may easily find them when he requires food; and may we not further infer that man also may by a similar ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... trays. Already all sense of the daring brilliance of Peter's stroke had faded and dropped from his mind. His own concerns crowded instantly upon his attention, and all his thought was of finding Mary Carstairs immediately and compelling her to recognize him for the ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... apologies. It would seem, however, that her experience had been hard. Her slender stock of money was soon exhausted. At Sacramento she found that the composition of verse, although appealing to the highest emotions of the human heart, and compelling the editorial breast to the noblest commendation in the editorial pages, was singularly inadequate to defray the expenses of herself and Carry. Then she tried the stage, but failed signally. Possibly her conception of the passions was different from that which obtained with a Sacramento audience; ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... century which contains various subtle observations on love we read, with reference to the sweet odor which poets have found in the breath of women: "In reality many women have an intoxicatingly agreeable breath which plays no small part in the love-compelling atmosphere which they spread around them" (Eros oder Woerterbuch ueber die Physiologie, 1849, Bd. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... not help noticing the absent look of the young girl; but he had, thought he, other means of compelling her attention. And he went on, saying that he felt himself cast of the metal of which model husbands are made. His plans were all made in advance. His wife would be free to do as she pleased. She would have her own carriage and horses, her box at the Italiens and ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... said Sprouse quietly. Something in the man's voice and manner struck Barnes as oddly compelling. He hesitated a second and then resumed his seat. "I've been investigating you, Mr. Barnes," said the little man, unsmilingly. "Don't get sore. It may gratify you to know that I am satisfied you are ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon

... have not read "Lavender and Old Lace" by the same author, you have a double pleasure in store—for these two books show Myrtle Reed in her most delightful, fascinating vein—indeed they may be considered as masterpieces of compelling interest. ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay

... antipathies exist, is most certain. I was the victim of one of such that night. Waiting for change in the ticket-office, my eye lighted on a dark man, of African appearance, standing unpleasantly near, and for a second or two I could not get rid of a horrible fascination, compelling me to stare. I say "dark man" advisedly, for it would have been hard to guess at his original color, unless his cast of feature had not given a line. Now, I have seen Irish squatters in their cabins, London ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... felt her partner gathering up his strength, and by some compelling force, more of wild than of muscle, draw her nearer. Unwillingly her hand tightened under his, and her blood beat faster and her color came and went as they two moved as one. Anger—helpless anger —took possession of her as she saw the smiles on the faces of her ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... considerable tribute of corn, cattle, and horses, the only wealth of barbarians, was reserved for the use of the garrisons which Probus established on the limits of their territory. He even entertained some thoughts of compelling the Germans to relinquish the exercise of arms, and to trust their differences to the justice, their safety to the power, of Rome. To accomplish these salutary ends, the constant residence of an Imperial governor, supported by a numerous army, was indispensably ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon



Words linked to "Compelling" :   persuasive, powerful



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