"Persuasiveness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... work that was so characteristic of Mr. Clemens. But the very gusto of his creative work has been shaping his style during the past two years to a point where he may now fairly claim to have mastered his material, and to have found the most effective human persuasiveness in its presentation. Our grandchildren will read these three stories, and thank God that there was a man named Cobb ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... latter, however, as a hook, luring my students by the bait of learning to the study of the true philosophy, even as the Ecclesiastical History tells of Origen, the greatest of all Christian philosophers. Since apparently the Lord had gifted me with no less persuasiveness in expounding the Scriptures than in lecturing on secular subjects, the number of my students in these two courses began to increase greatly, and the attendance at all the other schools was correspondingly diminished. Thus I aroused the envy and hatred of the other teachers. Those who sought ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... some? Sally thought the onions could not be left. Truth to tell, her heart was in her mouth. She had been playing with edge-tools; but just then she smelt a whiff of smoke from Long Snapps's pipe, and the resolve of last night came back; her face relented, and George, seeing it, used his utmost persuasiveness; so the result was, that Sally washed her hands at the well, and away they went, in the most serene silence, over fences, grass-lots, and ditches, through bits of woodland, and fields of winter-green, till they reached the edge of the great meadow, and sat down on a log to rest. It was rather ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... examples of the art of public speaking, which no person will be likely to underrate. Those who may differ from Mr. Bright's theory of the public good will have no difficulty in acknowledging the clearness of his diction, the skill with which he arranges his arguments, the vigour of his style, the persuasiveness of his reasoning, and above all, the perfect candour and sincerity with which he expresses his ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... her daughter came into the room. Rose felt sure she had been crying, her curiosity was still further stimulated, and with all the persuasiveness at her command, she urged her mother to tell her the meaning ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... Indians who, being burned at the stake, suggested new modes of torture to their tormentors. Being superior to physical suffering, it sometimes chanced that they were superior to any consolation which the missionaries could offer; and the law to do as you would be done by fell with less persuasiveness on the ears of those who, for their part, did not care how they were done by, who loved their enemies after a new fashion, and came very near freely forgiving them all ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... and the trustees, as successors to the donors. The charter, in other words, was not simply a grant—rather it was the documentary record of a still existent agreement between still existent parties.[1620] Taking this view, which he developed with great ingenuity and persuasiveness, Marshall was able to appeal to the obligation of contracts clause directly, and without further use of his fiction in Fletcher v. Peck of an executory contract accompanying ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... when one single solitary individual called that thing "good" or that thing "evil" which all the rest of the world regarded in the opposite sense. Not only so; but it might even happen that the genius and persuasiveness of such a person might change into its direct opposite the moral valuation of the whole of humanity. In many quite ordinary cases there may arise a clash between the conventional morality of the community ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... joined to thin weak legs. Light blue eyes looked keenly out of a warm grayish-yellow face; add to these a sharp reddish nose, pale lips, a spare, badly grown mustache and beard of a dirty color, and slight baldness. His demeanor was suave and very submissive, his voice had the faltering persuasiveness which a natural and reasonable man dislikes, because it warns him that the speaker is lying in wait to take him by surprise. Barinskoi, beside, never stood upright when he was speaking to any one. He bent his back, his head hung forward, his eyes shifted their glance from the points of his ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... tars were maddened by the attempt to slay their comrade, and a wild rush was made upon several of the soldiers. They were promptly overpowered, disarmed, and their muskets used in disarming their friends who were panic stricken by the vigorous onslaught, and soon succumbed to Jack's bellicose persuasiveness. It then became an easy task to carry out the impromptu plan of campaign of putting each soldier into his sentry-box and casting both him and the box into the running stream. The call for help was unavailing; none came, and soon no voices ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... concrete examples, cast a glance at the belief in 'free will,' demolished with such specious persuasiveness recently by the skilful hand of Professor Fullerton. [Footnote: Popular Science Monthly, N. Y., vols. lviii and lix.] When a common man says that his will is free, what does he mean? He means that there are ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... said the clergyman, in a tone of curt authority very foreign to the mild persuasiveness of his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of book-learning was the one sentiment that he never was able to inspire among his followers. Almost from the first scholars, students, and men of learning were attracted by the irresistible charm of his wonderful moral persuasiveness; they gave in their adherence to him in a vague hope that by contact with his surpassing holiness virtue would go out of him, and that somehow the divine goodness which he magnified as the one thing needful would be communicated ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... according to knowledge. Follen is chaste, profound, and elaborately polished. Goodell is perceptive, analytical, expert, and solid. Child (David L.) is generously indignant, courageous, and demonstrative; his lady combines strength with beauty, argumentation with persuasiveness, greatness with humility. Birney is collected, courteous, dispassionate—his fearlessness excites admiration, his conscientiousness commands respect." Of these writers, which is acceptable to slaveholders ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... winsome old trait, persistence. The sparkling gentleman "led germans" with her, and sent sonnets to her with his bouquets—sonnets lacking neither music nor wit. He was generous, poor, well-dressed, and his amazing persuasiveness was one reason why he was always in debt. No one doubted that he would be able to persuade Isabel, but he unfortunately joined too merry a party one night, and, during a moonlight serenade upon the lawn ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... great power. She had what the Friends call unction; that made the most radical utterances from her lips acceptable. In her conversation she was original and brilliant, earnest and playful. Such was her persuasiveness of voice and manner that opinions received with hisses from another speaker, were applauded when ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the desk, and said eagerly, "Now, Aunty, I am ready," and fell to smiling and bowing with all the persuasiveness and elegance that were ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... everlasting debt of gratitude. She did not ask me if there was any other article she could have the pleasure of showing me; she had asked me that before and she remembered that I was proof against her persuasiveness! The fair creature simply made a movement towards the spiral staircase, as I thought, to fetch down a witness to the important transaction, until my eyes rested on some tissue paper. 'Pray don't stay to wrap ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... was at this time less important than his work as an agitator. If in one sense the Corn Laws did not seem a promising theme for a popular agitation, they were excellently fitted to bring out Cobden's peculiar strength. It was not passion, but persuasiveness, to which we must look for the secret of his oratorical success. Cobden made his way to men's hearts by the union which they saw in him of simplicity, earnestness, and conviction, with a singular facility of exposition. Then men were attracted by his mental alacrity, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... the neighbouring houses a violin, accompanied by a piano, began to elaborate the sustained phrases of "Schubert's Serenade." Theatrical as was the theme, the twilight and the muffled hum of the city, lapsing to quiet after the febrile activities of the day, combined to lend it a dignity, a persuasiveness. The children were still playing along the sidewalks, and their staccato gaiety was part of the quiet note to which all sounds of the ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... for the persuasiveness of an argument I will speak here of three—clearness of statement, appeal to the practical interests of the audience, and direct appeal ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... was "the greatest orator that ever lived." He seems to have exercised a kind of magical influence over his hearers, which they could not explain, which charmed and overwhelmed them, and "has left behind a tradition of bewitching persuasiveness and almost prophetic sublimity."—See Life of Patrick Henry, by William ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... by the fact that Christmas and the New Year were approaching. A twelvemonth before there had been a dearth of entertainment, more than usually pronounced, in the neighbourhood of Boulder Creek, and not even the combined persuasiveness of the inhabitants could induce the landlord of Cudlip's Rest to "set 'em up" for luck in an all-round shout. Just to stimulate the spirit of good fellowship, one man had dexterously annexed a couple of bottles ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... at the top directing the machine, was now only a cog in it. He had never in his life been anything but powerful; now he was impotent. He was in a hard, unfamiliar world, in the grip of something which he feared and didn't understand, in the charge of men who were in no way amenable to his persuasiveness. It was like a proud and bullying manager suddenly forced to labour in a squad of navvies, and worse, for there was the gnawing physical fear ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... she understood him, for she continued to mutter under her breath and began to roll her head as if in pain. Then he summoned all the persuasiveness he could. "Dere now, you're safe in 'Poleon's house; he mak' you well ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... autumn of 1793 Jefferson insisted upon resigning as Secretary of State. Washington used all his persuasiveness to dissuade him, but in vain. Jefferson saw the matter in its true light, and insisted. Perhaps it at last occurred to him, as it must occur to every dispassionate critic, that he could not go on forever acting as an important member of an administration which pursued a policy diametrically ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... possessed of the eighteen well-known merits.[1688] Ambiguity, ascertainment of the faults and merits of premises and conclusions, weighing the relative strength or weakness of those faults and merits, establishment of the conclusion, and the element of persuasiveness or otherwise that attaches to the conclusion thus arrived at,—these five characteristics appertaining to the sense—constitute the authoritativeness of what is said. Listen now to the characteristics ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... position of supreme responsibility. There have been many more effective orators, for lack of imaginative suppleness prevented him from penetrating to the inner mind of his hearers; defects in delivery weakened the intrinsic persuasiveness of his reasoning; and he had not that commanding authority of character and personality which has so often been the secret of triumphant eloquence. There have been many subtler, more original and more systematic thinkers about the conditions of the social union. But no one that ever lived ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the table before him. He rose to his feet, bowed low to his brother judges, and then with less deference to the prisoner. He spoke in a voice lacking any trace of loudness, but distinctly heard in every corner of the room because of the intense stillness. There was a sweet persuasiveness in the accents he used, and his sentences resembled those of a lady anxious not to give offence to the ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... the house. We like to say a Frenchman has no word for home. But the conclusion that the man of Anglo-Saxon birth deduces from this lack in his vocabulary is false: no man cares more for the domicile that shelters him. Hermione made her request with sweet persuasiveness. I saw at once it would have been refused if I had made it, but to her they made excuses. The old horse, they said, was very old, the old cart ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... the hearts of his hearers. He was of a deeply affectionate nature, hence his style was that of tender persuasiveness rather than of declamation. He had remarkable spiritual insight and knowledge of the human heart, and was himself deeply moved by the truths which he proclaimed ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... my personal and positive assurance—and access to my papers within an hour—during which time you will not be bound." The reply was prompt; the voice hypnotic in its persuasiveness. ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... stable happiness there is nothing so good as the best sort of religion; but, as in discussing self- control, we must here steer clear of religious controversy and phrase what we have to say in the colder terms of "mere morality." And though there will be a great loss in feeling, in persuasiveness and unction thereby, there will be gain in clearness. It is possible to express in the drab tones of morality the profound insights which have made religion the great guide to happiness; and even the man who deems himself irreligious may, if he takes to heart these more ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... was a tender virtue and mother-like. If upright Rectitude and stern Justice were peculiarly masculine, Mercy had the gentleness and the persuasiveness of a feminine nature. We were warned against indulging in indiscriminate charity, without seasoning it with justice and rectitude. Masamune expressed it well in his oft-quoted aphorism—"Rectitude carried to excess hardens into stiffness; Benevolence ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... here," he said, smiling with deliberate confidential persuasiveness. She nodded, with a ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... Greek mythology was the Greek philosophy, which was indeed in many ways its antidote. If the mythology of Greece appeared to sanction an infinite number of gods and goddesses, her philosophers taught with equal persuasiveness that the divine reality is one, though its forms be many. A remarkable synthesis was thus gradually accomplished, though it will always be a question whether the stronger tendency was to philosophise mythology or ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake
... throughout the web: the farthest hag With glistening scissors cut her sisters' work. To these Hyperion, but they never ceased, Nor raised their eyes, till with soft, moderate tones, But by their powerful persuasiveness Commanding all to listen and obey, He spoke, and all hell heard, and these three looked And waited his request: I come, a god, At pure mortal queen's request, who sues For life renewed unto her dying lord, Admetus; and I also ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... formed Cyrus the Great into an ideal king and soldier. The Cyropaedeia is said to have been intended as a counterblast to Plato's Republic, and it may have provoked Plato's casual remark in the Laws that 'Cyrus never so much as touched education'. No doubt the book suffered in persuasiveness from being so obviously fictitious.[85:1] For example, the Cyrus of Xenophon dies peacefully in his bed after much affectionate and edifying advice to his family, whereas all Athens knew from Herodotus how the real ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... call a faculty for government. But he must have been influential; for, besides being the most eloquent man in the Senate, his speeches would have been distinguished for amplitude and judgment in design, and for tact and persuasiveness in enforcement. They might not have had immediate and commanding effect, but they would have had permanent value. His speech upon the Ashburton Treaty indicates the powers he would have shown, with a longer training in the Senate. More than ten years had passed between that speech and his two ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... the embarrassments of all kinds which surrounded its instructors, and appealing to the manliness and affection and good principles of the students to help 'by whatsoever things were honest, lovely, or of good report,' occurs to recollection as of extraordinary persuasiveness ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... decided? Are you to act as father's sons, as Carnegys of the old stock, or, to put it in another way, as Christians who have given offence, and know that there is but one way of making up for it? Will you apologise?' Theo spoke with urgent persuasiveness. ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... Division of London, will not be content if Pheidias in any way fall short of his conception of truth and nature. Yet Fletcher (I take it) constructed his plays as plays; the illusion of the stage, the persuasiveness of the actor's voice, were conditions for which he wrought, and on which he had a right to rely; and, in short, any critic behaves uncritically who, distrusting his imagination to recreate the play as a play, elects to consider it in the category of ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... meaning of those good old Saxon words, mother, sister, wife, daughter; who that estimates aright the duties they involve, the influences they embody in giving character to all of human kind, will hesitate to place her intellect, with its quickness, delicacy and persuasiveness, as high in the scale of power as that of the father, husband and son? If we estimate her mind by its actual power of influence when she is permitted to fill to the best advantage her circle of action, we ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... defense. These reproduce the evidence for them in some intelligible fashion and the verdict will be innocence or guilt according to the greater intelligence of one or the other of the contending parties. Persuasiveness at its height, Hume tells us, leaves little room for intelligence and consideration. It addresses itself entirely to the imagination and the affections, captures the well-inclined auditors, and dominates their understanding. Fortunately ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... means incapable of passion, of violent feeling, or of vehement expression. His fighting qualities were in their own way as formidable as Mr. Bright's..... Still it was not passion to which we must look for the secret of his oratorical success. In one word, it was persuasiveness. Cobden made his way to men's hearts by the union which they saw in him of simplicity, earnestness, and conviction, with a singular facility of exposition. This facility consisted in a remarkable power of apt and homely illustration, and a curious ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... only give a small part of his time to these concerts. Notwithstanding his persuasiveness, there remained on his hands some intractable pupils who would not hear of viol or harpsichord, who insisted upon being taught to play modern masses on the organ, and these he could not afford to refuse. For of late years his wife's failing health had forced her to relinquish ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... verdict of history is Judas Iscariot. Eighteen centuries had agreed to regard him as the meanest of mankind, but in our century he has been transmuted into a kind of hero. The theory is of German origin; but it was presented to the English public by De Quincey, who adorned it with all the persuasiveness of his ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... this idea; from his series of grand and memorable generalisations on the habits and faults of the human mind—on the difficult and yet so obvious and so natural precautions necessary to guide it in the true and hopeful track. It came from the attractiveness, the enthusiasm, and the persuasiveness of the pleading; from the clear and forcible statements, the sustained eloquence, the generous hopes, the deep and earnest purpose of the Advancement and the De Augmentis; from the nobleness, the originality, the picturesqueness, the impressive and irresistible ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... question into politics as the paramount issue, Lincoln plunged into an arduous study of all its legal, historical, and moral aspects, and then his mind became a complete arsenal of argument. His rich natural gifts, trained by long and varied practice, had made him an orator of rare persuasiveness. In his immature days, he had pleased himself for a short period with that inflated, high-flown style which, among the uncultivated, passes for "beautiful speaking." His inborn truthfulness and his artistic instinct soon overcame that aberration and revealed to him ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... going to be the great thing of the future. There never was anything like it!" His voice grew warm and his glance scintillated. And now Hilda understood her mother's account of his persuasiveness; she felt the truth of that odd remark that he could talk the hind leg off ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... for my own good and the peace of mind of my relatives that I should temporarily surrender my freedom. This I agreed to do. Perhaps the presence of two hundred pounds of brawn and muscle, representing the law, lent persuasiveness to my brother's words. In fact, I did assent the more readily because I admired the thorough, sane, fair, almost artistic manner in which my brother had brought me to bay. I am inclined to believe that, had I suspected that a recommitment was imminent, I should have fled ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... in the spring of 1765, was doubtless the head and front of this aristocracy, the inner circle of which would also include Peyton Randolph, then King's Attorney, and Edmund Pendleton, well known for his cool persuasiveness in debate, the learned constitutional lawyer, Richard Bland, the sturdy and honest but ungraceful Robert Carter Nicholas, and George Wythe, noblest Roman of them all, steeped in classical lore, with ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... of the street. The occasion was almost ideal. I took the other arm-chair in the semicircle of the window. I saw at once by his careless demeanour that his illness had taught him nothing, and I determined with all my notorious tact and persuasiveness to point ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... the chords. His gentleness had, however, a firmness, a deep persuasiveness, which drew every face like a call. A few chords waving, as it were, over the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... while Leblanc was going to and fro with glittering glasses and an inexhaustible persuasiveness, urging the manifest reasonableness of his view upon ears that ceased presently to be inattentive. Never at any time did he betray a doubt that all this chaotic conflict would end. No nurse during a nursery ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... proper authorities when brave men were shivering in their beds," no doubt she was called unwomanly. To me, "unlock the doors" sounds better than any words of circumlocution, however sweet and persuasive, and I consider that she took the most womanly way of accomplishing her object. Patience and persuasiveness are beautiful virtues in dealing with children and feeble-minded adults, but those who have the gift of reason and understand the principles of justice, it is our duty to compel to act up to the highest light that is in them, and ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... theme of the last stanza with a swell of utterance, a crescendo of intonation that recalls the passionate and unpremeditated descant of a bird upon the boughs alone. To this true quality of music is added the persuasiveness of pleading. That the violin melody of his incomparable song is lost, must be reckoned a great misfortune. We have good reason to believe that the part of Orpheus was taken by Messer Baccio Ugolini, singing to the viol. Here too it may be mentioned ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... volumes in 1830. Besides the prominence given to their religious or moral purpose, most of them are remarkable for sustained fervour, persuasiveness of tone, and practical common sense. We give a few extracts from some of the principal works, to illustrate Hannah More's methods of appealing to the ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... West. And it is precisely this influence, quietly acquired and characteristically wielded, that represents what is perhaps his greatest claim upon the consideration of the future. No one who had the privilege of hearing him speak failed to respond to the quiet persuasiveness of his presence and the charm of his personality. There are some persons in whom is inherent a certain magnetic mastery over numbers. He had this to an extraordinary degree. Merely by rising he ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... a little by the fact that it is neither shoes, nor pig-iron, nor even mess-pork that he is selling, and, therefore, superior quality of workmanship, inferior price, and personal magnetism count for little. Persuasiveness, which, perhaps, is a part of personal magnetism, counts; so does an intelligent knowledge of the contents of the book; likewise hard work and tactful persistence; also, honesty. But opposed against the combination is the bookseller, on guard against overstocking, ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... present an array of material accomplishments over the past fifteen years that lends a false persuasiveness to many of their glittering promises to ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... and enthusiasm for, this knack of concentration, Arnold Bennett's little books on mental efficiency have done wonders for the art of auto-comradeship. Their popular persuasiveness has coaxed thousands on thousands of us to go in for a few minutes' worth of mental calisthenics every day. They have actually cajoled us into the painful feat of glancing over a page of a book and then putting it down and ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... resolutely refused to play the part of the bad girl, even though Bones promised to change the title to "The Good Girl," even though he wheedled his best, even though he struck attitudes indicative of despair and utter ruin, even though the gentle persuasiveness of Mr. Lew Becksteine was added to his entreaties. And Hamilton as resolutely declined to have anything to do with the bad man. Mr. Becksteine solved the difficulty by undertaking to produce the necessary actors and actresses ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... had for all churches and creeds a serene contempt and a fierce disdain. "Go to the grandams and the children!" she would say, with a shrug of her shoulders, to a priest, whenever one in Algiers or Paris attempted to reclaim her; and a son of the Order of Jesus, famed for persuasiveness and eloquence, had been fairly beaten once when, in the ardor of an African missionary, he had sought to argue with the little Bohemian of the Tricolor, and had had his logic rent in twain, and his rhetoric scattered like dust, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... strange how the displeasure provoked by these shortcomings in his attire gradually vanished beneath the steady persuasiveness of the wearer's fascinating personality; and very soon not only had Sir Joseph ceased from feeling their aggressiveness, but had actually begun to associate them inseparably with the strange charm of ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... age. His brow was broad, and his features regular, save that his left eyelid drooped somewhat, like that of his father, and hid part of the pupil. He spoke with a stammer, which did not, however, detract from the persuasiveness of his eloquence. His sinewy, muscular arms were those of the consummate swordsman, and his long legs gave him a firm hold in the saddle when riding the most spirited of steeds. His chief delight was in war and tournaments, but he derived great pleasure ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... my dress as I would have leaned out to speak to the driver. Her manner had suddenly changed, and she was all softness and sweetness, and persuasiveness. ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... that recorded in the scene when Winston burst into the Council Chamber and bucked up the Burgomeisters to hold on a little bit longer. Any comfort our people may enjoy from being out of cannon shot of the Germans—they owe it to the imagination, bluff and persuasiveness of Winston and to this gallant Naval Division now destined to be starved ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... greatest specimen of preaching I ever heard was by the Rev. Edward N. Kirk before my congregation during a revival; it produced a tremendous effect." Those of us that knew Kirk knew that he was not a man of genius or profound scholarship; but he was a true orator with a superb voice and a sweet persuasiveness, and his whole soul was on fire with the love of Jesus ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... Nisida irrevocably! But his next impulse was to wrestle with this feeling—to combat this weakness. How could he have hoped ever to rejoin her without rendering himself again liable to the witchery of her siren tongue—the eloquence of her silver-toned voice—the persuasiveness of her graceful manners? No; it were better that she should depart; it were preferable that he should lose her and preserve his immortal soul. Thus reasoned he;—and that reasoning was effectual. He waited only ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... can be attained by reading writers who possess it: be it, for example, persuasiveness, imagination, the gift of drawing comparisons, boldness or bitterness, brevity or grace, facility of expression or wit, unexpected contrasts, a laconic manner, naivete, and the like. But if we are already gifted with these qualities—that ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... relent before such persuasiveness. 'She's got a delicious little face,' he admitted, ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... persecution which the profession of it involved. It smiled upon her; it made promises to her; it opened eternal views to her; and it grew upon her convictions in clearness of perception, in congruity, and in persuasiveness. ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... know of it until it's too late for them to do anything—if they ever know," came the easterner's words, in smooth persuasiveness. ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... He was, we have seen, anticipated by Hering; but his attitude was his own, fresh and original. He did not hamper his exposition, like Hering, by a subsidiary hypothesis of vibrations which may or may not be true, which burdens the theory without giving it greater carrying power or persuasiveness, which is based on no objective facts, and which, as Semon has practically demonstrated, is needless for the detailed working out of the theory. Butler failed to impress the biologists of his day, even those on whom, like Romanes, ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... in this drawing was almost childish; the wall of Simon's house is not three inches thick, and there is not room for a grown-up person on the stairs that lead to it; but the tender imagination of the whole, the sweet persuasiveness of Christ, who looks out of a window, the passion of the awakened sinner, who tears the roses out of her hair, the curious novelty of treatment in the heads and draperies, all these combine to make it one of those works, the moral force and directness of which appeal to the heart ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... in his speech, along with the slurred r's and the soft drawl of his southern tongue, while his spontaneous rebellion under restraint and his brilliant disregard of the consequences of his behavior were as truly Celtic as was the honey-sweet persuasiveness with which he could convince his friends that whatever he had done had been exactly right and the only thing possible. He was all Irish that wasn't Texan, and all Texan that wasn't Irish, and everybody he knew ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... occasion. This, indeed, would have been no reflection on me personally, supposing I were persuaded of their truth, when at length addressing myself to the inquiry; but it would have destroyed, of course, the force of my testimony, and deprived such arguments, as I might adduce, of that moral persuasiveness which attends on tried and sustained conviction. It would have made me seem the advocate, rather than the cordial and deliberate maintainer and witness, of the doctrines which I was to support; and, though it might be said to evidence the faith ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... attain their ends by sheer persistency of will, others by tact and persuasiveness, while there is a third class, before whom the barred doors open as they are successively approached, through what are called either fortunate accidents or Providential interventions, but are seen, on closer inspection, to have been the direct and natural effects ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... getting almost ready to start, we were, through Walker's kindness and persuasiveness, overcome, and consented to go with him, feeling confident that we would not starve to death while with him. We did not now have Manley with his long experience, and his old rusty, but always trusty, rifle as a sure defence against ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... foolish! Reason for a moment—any presentation of this matter calls for the highest ability; it involves sifting of evidence; symmetry of arrangement; cohesiveness of method, logic of argument, persuasiveness of advocacy, subtleties of acumen, charms of eloquence—all the elements of the ...
— The Angel of Lonesome Hill • Frederick Landis
... borne on a torrent of strange thoughts. How could this man, who spoke with such impressive frankness, with such persuasiveness, be the abandoned creature that she had of late believed him? With Adela's secret warm in her heart she could not but feel an interest in Hubert, and the interest was becoming something like zeal on his behalf. During the past two ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... they may be plain, and brief, and intelligible, and credible, and respectable, and dignified: for although these qualities ought to be apparent throughout the whole speech, still they are peculiarly necessary in any narration. But since the belief which is given to a narration is engendered by persuasiveness, we have already, in the treatises which we have written on the general subject of oratory, explained what topics they are which have the greatest power to persuade the hearers. But the peroration has other points to attend to, and especially amplification; ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... a Christian, but really be found one. For if I shall be found so, then can I also be called one, and be faithful then, when I shall no longer appear to the world. Nothing visible is good: for our God, Jesus Christ, now that He is with the Father, is all the more revealed. The work is not of persuasiveness, but of greatness, whensoever it ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... "Of all fair things the autumn, too, is fair," is by no means universally true. But it happened so with Alcibiades, amongst few others, by reason of his happy constitution and natural vigor of body. It is said that his lisping, when he spoke, became him well, and gave a grace and persuasiveness to his rapid speech. Aristophanes takes notice of it in the verses in which he jests at Theorus: "How like a colax he is," says Alcibiades, meaning a corax*; on which ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... and predetermined influence few of us can boast of possessing, but this unconscious influence not one of us can escape. And indeed, that is the profounder leadership even of the greatest souls. One of the most extraordinary traits in the ministry of Jesus Christ is his undesigned persuasiveness. He does not seem to expect {24} a generally accepted influence. He recognizes that there are whole groups of souls whom he cannot reach. Only they who have ears to hear, he says, can hear him. He just goes his own ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... the teachings of the Bible, forewarns you that you are about to succumb to resisted temptations through the seductive persuasiveness of ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... little error!" she said rapidly and with soft persuasiveness. "It is la mode. Miladi has perhaps lived in a country where the fashions are different. But if she will ask the most amiable Sieur Bruce-Errington, she will find that her dress is quite in keeping with ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... obscuration in the three volumes in which the great transformation of Germany and Prussia during the Napoleonic age was not very happily grouped round a biography of Stein. But here the reader once more finds that ease, lucidity, persuasiveness, and mild gravity that were first shown, as they were probably first acquired, in the serious consideration of religious and ethical subjects. Mr. Seeley's aversion for the florid, rhetorical, and over-decorated fashion of writing history has not carried him to the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 9: The Expansion of England • John Morley
... surgery, medicine was taught almost wholly, so far as the schools were concerned, by means of didactic lectures. The "drawing" capacity of a professor was proportionate rather to his rhetorical powers and to the persuasiveness with which he inculcated the views peculiar to himself than to the amount of real information that he conveyed to the students. Although the apprentice system—for that was what the practice of students' attaching themselves to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... has thus far done in life, suddenly overwhelms him as well as the thought that despair at his loss has even killed his mother. He sinks deeply wounded at the feet of the seductive woman; it is the first soul-despair in his life. She, however, with diabolic persuasiveness, avails herself of this to overcome his manly heart by her only way, the painful, longing sensation for his mother, and offers him the consolation which love gives, "as a blessing, the mother's last greeting, the first kiss of love." At ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... to be exaggerated. Never before and never since have I witnessed such an effect as this produced by an orator, and though he lacked the stately and sonorous delivery of John Bright, and had no pretension to the intellectual persuasiveness of Mr. Gladstone, I have always felt, since hearing that speech, that Gambetta was the greatest orator ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... some of whom were even so uncharitable as to insinuate that Sis' Tamar wasn't "half so grieved as she let on." The more serious, however, united in commending her act as "mos' Christian-like an' sisterly conduc'." And when, after the gentle insistence of the long spring rains, added to the persuasiveness of Tamar's mourning, the grave of her solicitude sank to an easy level, bespeaking peace to its occupant, Tamar suddenly burst into full flower of flaming color, and the mourning period became a forgotten episode of the past. ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... wind is full of longing and unrest, of effeminate suggestions of luxurious ease, and perhaps we might say of modern poetry,—at any rate, modern poetry needs a change of air. I am not sure but the south is the most powerful of the winds, because of its sweet persuasiveness. Nothing so stirs the blood in spring, when it comes up out of the tropical latitude; it makes men "longen to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... language. But it furnishes no claim to preference for actual speaking, in which this economy of energy ceases to be a supreme virtue, since here we have also to admit the virtues of easy intelligibility and of persuasiveness. Greek largely owed its admirable fitness for speech to the natural richness and prolongation of its euphonious words, which allowed the speaker to attain the legitimate utterance of his thought without pauses or superfluous repetition. French, again, while by no means inapt for concentration, ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... others personally; an Afghan whom I've always thought did us a favor by getting killed by a sniper. He could have caused a great deal of trouble. I'd guess at the Khalifa. Most of the people who have this incredible persuasiveness, however, seem to set up as successful swindlers. What a pity The Leader had no taste for simple crime, and had to go in ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)
... the harmony and delicacy of Racine, as well as in the critical decorum of Boileau. The artistic sentiment rules in letters, as in social life. It was not only the thought that counted, but the setting of the thought. The majestic periods of Bossuet, the tender persuasiveness of Fenelon, gave even truth a double force. The moment came when this critical refinement, this devotion to form, passed its limits, and the inevitable reaction followed. The great literary wave of the seventeenth ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... and he begins to fret and fume. In the second subject he seems to protest the truthfulness and devotion of his heart, and concludes with a passage half upbraiding, half beseeching, which is quite captivating, nay more, even bewitching in its eloquent persuasiveness. Thus far, from the entrance of the pianoforte, all was irreproachable. How charming if Chopin had allowed himself to drift on the current of his fancy, and had left rules, classifications, &c., to others! But no, he had resolved to write a concerto, and must now put his hand to the rudder, and have ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... used to insist, "tae see the bonnie suit gien the Doctor by the Countess o' Kilspindie, wi' dear knows hoo much o' her ain auld lace on 't, lyin' useless, wi' naebody tae get a sicht o't on his back. Dinna ye think, man"—this with much persuasiveness—"that ye cud get the Doctor tae pit on his velvets on an occasion, maybe a Saicrament? The pairish wud be lifted; an' ye wud look weel walkin' afore him in ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... ease; we wish to have every thing our own way; we wish to enjoy both this world and the next; we wish to be happy all at once. If the Gospel promises this, we accept it; but if not, it is but a bondage, it has no persuasiveness, it will receive no acceptance from us." Such is the language of men's hearts, though their tongues do not utter it; language most unthankful, most ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... perseverance was eventually rewarded. One by one the chiefs came down from the hills and succumbed to the persuasiveness and personality of this remarkable man who could deal with wild and naked warriors as successfully as he could dictate to a group of hard-headed business men. After two months of negotiating the Matabeles were appeased and permanent peace, so far as the natives were concerned, dawned in Rhodesia. ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... which disincline him to [216] it. On the other hand, the practical operation proposed relies entirely, if it is to be effectual in altering the present practice of the Barbarians, on the power of truth and persuasiveness in the notion which it seeks to consecrate; for it leaves to the Barbarians full liberty to continue their present practice, to which all their habits and interests incline them, unless the promulgation of a notion, which we have seen to have no vital efficacy and hold ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... persuasiveness, the heart-moving sincerity which breathed through that simple phrase! From lips so untutored, it seemed marvelous. Ransom was not insensible to its power, for he quivered under her hand and his eyes took on a look ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... (Matt. 4:16, 17; Luke 8:13) Then they bethink with themselves, how to make an honourable retreat, which they suppose they usually do, by finding fault, first with their own unadvisedness, and of the over-persuasiveness of others; they also now begin to say farewell conscience, yea, God and heaven and all, and join in confederacy with the world again. Thus are they in fear, where no fear is; and the sound of a shaken leaf doth chase ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Castleman, seeking his hat. "You may be right or you may be wrong, but for persuasiveness I never saw your like. I declare, Yolanda, you have almost made me feel like a villain ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... birth, a big, strong, high-spirited boy, impatient of control, and resolute to have my own way. But Dora—ah! Dora, with her sweet, docile disposition, made ample amends for all my shortcomings, and in the end, by her gentle persuasiveness, did much to subdue my rebellious spirit and render me ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... tended to cultivate in him the grace of obedience. "As the twig is bent the tree inclines," and he had been the merest twig of an uncle, if not in years, at least in experience, when he had yielded to the sunny persuasiveness of that first faint glimmering of a smile in the baby face of the original Polly. His subjugation, moreover, having hitherto proved beneficial in its results, he was the more excusable, to-day, for letting himself be swept along by the impetus of ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... reason the austere Stoic makes less impression than his more engaging and easy-going predecessor. Horace knew how to press home his points, even while he played about the hearts of men. Persius has neither the persuasiveness of Horace nor ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... with gentle persuasiveness, "but you are speaking of your fellow-passengers. Know you not, then, of one Hurlstone, who is believed to be still in the ship Excelsior, and perhaps of the party ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... blandishment, cajolery; seduction, seducement; honeyed words, voice of the tempter, song of the Sirens forbidden fruit, golden apple. persuasibility^, persuasibleness^; attractability^; impressibility, susceptibility; softness; persuasiveness, attractiveness; tantalization^. influence, prompting, dictate, instance; impulse, impulsion; incitement, incitation; press, instigation; provocation &c (excitation of feeling) 824; inspiration; persuasion, suasion; encouragement, advocacy; exhortation; advice &c 695; solicitation ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... eighteenth century these ideas were popular in some literary circles on the continent. See Bertholet, The Transmigration of Souls, pp. 111 ff. Recently Professor McTaggart has argued in favour of the doctrine with great lucidity and persuasiveness. Huxley too did not think it absurd. See his Romanes Lecture, Evolution and Ethics, Collected Essays, vol. IX. p. 61. As Deussen observes, Kant's argument which bases immortality on the realization of the moral law, attainable only by an infinite process of approximation, ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... had all a true vagabond's pliability to circumstances and adaptiveness to momentary surroundings. In his readiness to learn from experience that contempt for early principles so necessary to a true statesman, he equalled the most successful politicians of any age; and he had enough persuasiveness and firmness of purpose to acquire a complete mastery over Lakamba's vacillating mind—where there was nothing stable but an all-pervading discontent. He kept the discontent alive, he rekindled the expiring ambition, he ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... devil-fish, Nietzsche. No stranger poisons have ever passed through the customs than those he has brought in his baggage. No man among us has ever urged more ardently, or with sounder knowledge or greater persuasiveness, that catholicity of taste and sympathy which stands in such direct opposition to the booming certainty and snarling narrowness ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... urged the other with gentle persuasiveness. "I can't take it upon my conscience to introduce you to a lady, and far less to a goddess, unless you promise to put on your best behavior. You know from your mythology that goddesses are capable ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... service to the Church and to the country. For many years he was his uncle's right-hand man as a teacher in our two chief Universities; the Church never had a pastor who had more of the true pastor's heart, nor a leader of more wisdom in counsel, more persuasiveness in conference, more decision in action; it never had a more vivid historian, nor one whose writings are so great a treasure of our Scottish literature. When James Melville came to his grave, how different ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... a shrewd observer of human motives, and I expect she has had a struggle to keep the sweetness of her nature at the top. She is, naturally, a capable, dominating character; and often I watch how she forces herself to let persuasiveness take precedence of combativeness. Her acquired philosophy, as applied to herself and others, is summed up in a saying she let drop the other day, modified to suit her needs: 'More flies are caught with molasses than with vinegar—but keep some vinegar ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... but, if he would favour me with his instructions, I would work with him as long as he pleased for a bare subsistence. I knew that I was asking of him an extraordinary kindness; but I was urged on the one hand by the most extreme necessity, and encouraged on the other by the persuasiveness ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... ill-assured. She had to contend not only with stage-fright, but Garrick-fright. "She met Roscius in all his terrors," and shrank from the encounter. The fierce lightnings of his dreadful eyes seemed to shrivel and paralyze her; even his demoniac cunning and persuasiveness filled her with mortal fear. Her voice shook with a pathetic tremor, became hoarse and almost inaudible; her eyes sank, or wandered wildly; her brow was bathed with the sweat of a secret agony; she might have given way utterly under the paralyzing spell, had not some ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... When his case was fairly before them, the speaker dealt with his opponents—some in the press, some in parliament—with much power of sarcasm, but this power was evidently rather repressed than allowed to run riot. What impressed Endymion as the chief quality of this remarkable speaker was his persuasiveness, and he had the air of being too prudent to offend even an opponent unnecessarily. His language, though natural and easy, was choice and refined. He was evidently a man who had read, and not a little; and there was no taint of vulgarity, scarcely a ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... its own exceeding great reward; for both he and Persimmon Sneed knew right well that their acquaintance amounted only to a mere facial recognition when they had chanced to pass on the country road or the village street, years before. Nevertheless, under the pressure of the inherent persuasiveness of the suggested retribution, Persimmon Sneed made haste to aver that his errand in the mountains was in no sense at the sheriff's instance. And so radical and indubitable were his protestations that Nick Peters was constrained to discard this fear, and demand, "What brung ye ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... take him," Miss Ladd urged as she laid her hands on his shoulders and attempted to draw him away. A few gentle words and an exhibition of a kind persuasiveness of manner brought success. She drew the lad back some distance and tried to reason with him, whereupon he burst ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... frequent evidence of his tact and persuasiveness. Often when matters of policy had to be fixed and discussed, the managers of out-of-town theaters would be called to New York. It was Charles's business to take them in hand and straighten out their troubles. They would leave, feeling ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... spent, and to welcome once more those familiar faces yet left in the old home. While there she was several times drawn to the meeting at Norwich, and even spoke on different occasions with her wonted fire and persuasiveness. It seemed as if her powerful memory was revived, seeing that the stores of Scripture which she had made hers were now drawn upon with singular aptness and felicity. After paying one or two farewell visits to North Repps and Runcton she returned once more to Upton Lane. Once settled there, ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... wonderful, but when I read it a second and third time, it seemed altogether dull and ineffective. Then Lysias laughed, and said, "What then? Are you going to read it more than once to the jury?" And yet do but consider the persuasiveness and grace of Lysias' style;[554] for he "I say was a great favourite with the dark-haired Muses."[555] And of the things which have been said of Homer the truest is that he alone of all poets has survived the fastidiousness of mankind, as being ever new and still at his acme as regards giving ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... stated by himself, was to compel acquiescence in his will by threats of violence, and known readiness to carry his threats into effect. This, he said, would in most cases insure the desired result. He counted on men's reluctance to engage in personal difficulties with him. He believed in the persuasiveness of ruffianism. ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... heavens! Twenty minutes is quick enough, but two minutes is nonsense. The Professor is too radical and visionary, and I doubt if the committee recommend the sum to be risked in such a manner." Mr. Sibley's sound arguments and persuasiveness prevailed, though he took care not to say what he believed, that the Professor was right as to the two minutes. Their joint efforts secured the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various
... things have happened. Perhaps if I could see them, and talk to them—if I could tell them—they might be made to understand. I haven't been a newspaper reporter all these years without acquiring a golden gift of persuasiveness. Perhaps—who knows?—we may meet again in Vienna. ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... might be compared. And when he found himself shut in, he begged me with friendly and very gracious words, to open the door for him and permit him to go out; it would prove of great advantage to me. Although I was strictly forbidden to open the chamber, yet the grand appearance and the winning persuasiveness of the king disconcerted me so that I cheerfully let him go. And when he went out he was so friendly and so gracious and yet so meek that he proved indeed that nothing did so grace high persons as did ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... a sweet persuasiveness in the tone of the last words, which at least silenced Mrs. Barker; and Esther went away to think what she should say to her father. The time had come to speak in earnest, and she must not let herself be silenced. ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... specific. Nevertheless Mr Wells uses his sharpened weapon of satire with considerable effect when he contemplates and displays for us the world as he sees it to-day. I find no hint of sweetness or persuasiveness on ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... voice of bland persuasiveness that presently warmed to anger, to explain the whole matter. I hadn't the rights of the matter at all. Firstly, there was practically no such thing as lead poisoning. Secondly, not everyone was liable to lead poisoning, ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... Baker's rear-guard was scarcely clear of the valley when a mob of tribesmen and sepoys attacked the fort in which the old Sirdar was residing, shot him through the head, and then hacked his body to pieces. It was too clear that governors unsupported by bayonets, and whose only weapons were tact and persuasiveness, were at an extreme discount in the condition which Afghanistan presented in the end of November and ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... you decided? Are you to act as father's sons, as Carnegys of the old stock, or, to put it in another way, as Christians who have given offence, and know that there is but one way of making up for it? Will you apologise?' Theo spoke with urgent persuasiveness. ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... been pointed out, did not invent this theory of Shakespeare's psychology but he elaborated it with a skill and persuasiveness which carried ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... William of Orange; he rose through successive titles to be a marquis in 1682; his writings, chief of which is "Character of a Trimmer" (practically a defence of his own life), are marked by a pungent wit and graceful persuasiveness (about 1630-1695). ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... for awhile hast been parted from thy mind's tranquillity. But it is time for thee to take and drain a draught, soft and pleasant to the taste, which, as it penetrates within, may prepare the way for stronger potions. Wherefore I call to my aid the sweet persuasiveness of Rhetoric, who then only walketh in the right way when she forsakes not my instructions, and Music, my handmaid, I bid to join with her singing, now in lighter, now ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... bewilderment to them; and yet some of those eccentric, half-savage beings could be entrusted with valuable property, and the negotiation of business involving most intricate handling. Sometimes in the settlement of knotty questions they used their own peculiar persuasiveness, and if that was not convincing, they indicated the possibility of physical force—which was usually effectual, especially with Levantines. Here is an instance: one of the latter plethoric gentlemen, with an air of aggrieved virtue, accused a captain of unreasonableness ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... very firm grasp of the mere technique of finance. Therefore Sir Paul could explain himself succinctly and precisely in technical terms, and he did so—with much skill and a sort of unconsidered persuasiveness, realising in his rough commonsense that there was no need to drive ideas into Mr. Prohack's head with a steam-hammer, or to intoxicate him with a ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... had probably winced under the satire of Frances Power Cobbe, and trembled before the annually swelling lists of suffrage petitions. Single-handed they saw they were helpless against this incoming tide of feminine persuasiveness, and so it seems they called a meeting of faint-hearted men, and bound themselves together by a constitution and by-laws to protect the franchise from the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... and in these felt as if he were in a measure making amends for the past. He had one aspiration, that of paternal martyrdom. Gently and with paternal affection Sanselme soothed the girl's shame and despair. He had preserved much of the persuasiveness of a priest, his language stirred and softened at one and the same time. But now every word ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... again, are sublime ideas of the Supreme Being, aphorisms, and precepts of the purest morality and benevolence, sanctioned by a life of humility, innocence, and simplicity of manners, neglect of riches, absence of worldly ambition and honors, with an eloquence and persuasiveness which have not been surpassed. These could not be inventions of the grovelling authors who relate them. They are far beyond the powers of their feeble minds. They show that there was a character, the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Instead of finishing them he glanced down his beard. It was a deliberate curtailment which somehow made the phrases more impressive. But he could talk fluently enough, as became apparent when changing his tone to persuasiveness he went on: "By listening to you as I did, I think I have proved that I do not regard our intercourse as strictly official. In fact, I don't want it to have that character at all.... Oh yes! I admit that the request for your ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad |
