"Argumentative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of an inner voice, so conclusive and imperative that he can dismiss all apparently contradictory facts, and even afford, for controversial purposes, to exaggerate them. Fitzjames, as a sound believer in Mill's logic, makes the facts the base of his whole argumentative structure, though he thinks that the evidence for a benevolent Deity is much stronger than the evidence against it. When we come to the narrower question of the truth of Christianity the difference is vital. Newman's course had, in fact, been decided by a belief, ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... mind rather than to the eye, though not exclusively. She retained her personal freshness even now, in the prosy afternoon-time of her life; but what her features were primarily indicative of was a sound common sense behind them; as a whole, appearing to carry with them a sort of argumentative commentary on the ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... raw—boned, well—informed personage; a bit of a quiz on occasion, but withal a pleasant fellow. Mr Isaac Shingle, mine host, a sallow, sharp, hatchet—faced, small, but warm hearted and kind, as I often experienced during my sojourn in the west, only sometimes a little peppery and argumentative. Then came Mr Jacob Bumble, a sleek fat— pated Scotchman. Next I was introduced to Mr Alonzo Smoothpate, a very handsome fellow, with an uncommon share of natural good—breeding and politeness. Again I clapper—clawed, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... pursued, in one of her absurdly argumentative moments, "Anne should have married Peter, Cherry, Justin, and I, Martin. But the truth is, we didn't seem to give the matter ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... at her; but he might have glanced openly as there wasn't the least danger of meeting her eyes. "You're marrying about as well as you could have hoped to, anyhow—better, probably," he observed, in an argumentative, defensive tone. "Zeke says Jeb's about the likeliest young fellow he knows—a likelier fellow than either Zeke or I was at his age. I've given him two thousand dollars in cash. That ought to start you off ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... I help letting it come?" demanded the mother, listlessly argumentative. "You had outgrown me and my ways altogether. It was nonsense to suppose that you would have been satisfied to come back and live here again, over the shop. I couldn't think for the life of me what I was going to do with you. But now your uncle has taken all ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... ornamental lace upon their—their regimentals; and when—" So much she said, and something more, which it may be unnecessary that I should repeat; but such were her eloquence and logic that no doubt would have been left on the mind of any impartial hearer. If an argumentative speaker ever proved anything, Miss Macmanus proved that General Chasse had never been the wearer of the ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope
... you say, SOCRATES, is very nice, and clear, and logical, and conclusive, in an argumentative sense, and your attitude is very noble and high-and-mighty—I mean highminded and all that. And we're very grateful—but deeply disappointed that you couldn't say something quite different—in view of the General Election, you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various
... was, the committee's program for gradual change proved to be a rather large dose for senior service officials. An Army representative on the Personnel Policy Board staff characterized the committee's work as "presumptuous," "subjective," and "argumentative." He also charged the committee with failing to interpret the executive order and thus leaving unclear whether the President wanted across-the-board integration, and if so how soon.[14-57] The Personnel Policy ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... style is chastened, simple, calm, with the most careful avoidance of over-statement or anything rhetorical. And so in his papers, his mode of argument, forcible and cogent as it is, avoids all appearance of exaggeration or even illustrative expansion; it is all muscle and sinew; it is modelled on the argumentative style of Bishop Butler, and still more, of William Law. No one could suppose from these papers Froude's fiery impetuosity, or the frank daring of his disrespectful vocabulary. Those who can read between the lines can trace the grave ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... of grey flannel, a hopeless tie, an unimaginable collar. Even his ready flow of speech suggested the gifts of the tubthumpers his indomitable persistence, a lack of sensibility. He knew his facts, knew all the stock arguments, was brimful of statistics, was argumentative, convincing, in his way sincere. Tallente acknowledged all these things and yet found himself wondering, with a grim sense of irony, how he could call a man "Comrade" ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... not a phoenix which alone ate not of the Tree of Knowledge and lives for ever. Women have no need to live as long as men, for they have not so many Mitzvahs to perform as men; and inasmuch as"—here his tones involuntarily assumed the argumentative sing-song—"their souls profit by all the Mitzvahs performed by their husbands and children, Gittel will profit by the Mitzvah I did in bringing over my mother, so that even if she did die through it, she will not be the loser thereby. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... married, I don't know.' She added this in tremulous excitement, speaking in an argumentative way, as if she had led him by an ordered process of ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... complete monopoly of instinct by the brute animals, so that this "instinct is a great matter" for them only, since it sharply and perfectly distinguishes this portion of organic Nature from the vegetable kingdom on the one hand and from man on the other: most convenient views for argumentative purposes, but we suppose ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... adorn the same mind. Modern science until lately had realised this ideal: it was an extension of common perception and common sense. We could trust it implicitly, as we do a map or a calendar; it was not true for us merely in an argumentative or visionary sense, as are religion and philosophy. Geography went hand in hand with travel, Copernican astronomy with circumnavigation of the globe: and even the theory of evolution and the historical sciences in the nineteenth century were continuous with liberal reform: people ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... the strength the Lord gived to him, 'Lias Hoover, to special kill the giant with," said Eliza in an argumentative tone of voice. "Do you reckon He tooken the strength away from David the next morning, Deacon, or let him keep it to use all the time?" Eliza's extreme practicality showed at all times, even in ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... this matter of sword in hand, there is yet another thing to be noted. Of duels we have sometimes spoken: how, in all parts of France, innumerable duels were fought; and argumentative men and messmates, flinging down the wine-cup and weapons of reason and repartee, met in the measured field; to part bleeding; or perhaps not to part, but to fall mutually skewered through with iron, their wrath and life alike ending,—and die as fools die. Long has this lasted, and still ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... and the claim to independence and sovereignty on the part of an aspiring people. Burke was animated by a sense of patriotic duty to Britain and by a sense of justice to her colonies in America. Fisher Ames' argumentative speech was an appeal to the sense of justice ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... (Essay on Development) in favour of the Roman Church, and indirectly against the English; but even then, till it was finished, I had not absolutely intended to publish it, wishing to reserve to myself the chance of changing my mind when the argumentative views which were actuating me had been distinctly brought out before me ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... represented only the first stage, the argumentative stage of the great contest. It was during this period, for example, that the Mariposa Newspacket absolutely proved that the price of hogs in Mariposa was decimal six higher than the price of oranges in Southern California and that the average decennial import ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... It is of no argumentative use to point to the fact that many adaptive movements in animals are performed by nerve-centres apart from any association with consciousness or volition, because all the facts on this head go to prove that consciousness and volition come in most suggestively just where adaptive ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... excuse me—I shall be happy to receive any private suggestions of yours, as AMICUS CURIAE, but you must see the impropriety of your interfering with my conduct in this case, with such an AD CAPTANDUM argument as the offer of half a guinea. Really, my dear Sir, really;' and the little man took an argumentative pinch of snuff, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... have followed Mr. Morris's career will be pleased to find that his poetic grasp, his argumentative subtlety, his tenderness of sympathetic observation, his manly earnestness, are as conspicuous and impressive as before."—MR. BAYNE, in ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... her rule. Yet, even so, it is extremely simple. Johan Johan is first heard alone, declaring how he will beat his wife for not being at home. The tuggings of fear and valour in his heart, however, give his monologue an argumentative form, in which first one motive and then the other gains the upper hand, very similar to the conflict between Launcelot Gobbo's conscience and the Devil. He closes in favour of the beating and then—Tyb comes home. Oh the ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... created. Although I have made but little progress in virtue, although my mind is never free from the phantasms of the imagination, although the interior man is never exempt in me from the influence of external impressions, and from the need of employing in meditation the fatiguing argumentative method; although I can not, by an effort of love, withdraw myself to the very center of pure intelligence, to the loftiest sphere of thought, in order to behold there goodness and truth divested of images and forms, yet I confess to you that the method ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... had all the prejudices and antipathies of a white hunter, who generally regards the Indian as a sort of natural competitor, and not unfrequently as a natural enemy. As a matter of course, he was loud, clamorous, dogmatical and not very argumentative. Deerslayer, on the other hand, manifested a very different temper, proving by the moderation of his language, the fairness of his views, and the simplicity of his distinctions, that he possessed every disposition to hear reason, a strong, innate desire to do justice, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon?' said Filby, an argumentative ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... Milton's argumentative end; its bearing on the scenes in Heaven; his political bias, and materialism; Milton's Deity; his Satan; the minor devils; Adam; Eve; personal memories; Adam's eulogy of Eve, criticised by Raphael; Milton's philosophy of love and beauty; the ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... by every possible means instituted to prevent,—A FAILURE OF JUSTICE. And this necessity is not confined within the strict limits of physical causes, but is more lax, and takes in moral and even presumed and argumentative necessity, a necessity which is in fact nothing more than a great degree of expediency. The law creates a fictitious necessity against the rules of evidence in favor of the convenience of trade: an exception which on a similar principle ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... figures such as metaphor and simile, the effect of an author's prevailing tone of thought, of his personal traits—in short, all that makes up the clothing of thought in words; thus, we speak of a figurative style, a frigid or an argumentative style, etc., or of the style of Macaulay, Prescott, or others. An author's vocabulary is the range of words which he brings ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... were Miss Emily P. Bissell of Delaware; Mrs. O. D. Oliphant of the New Jersey association; Mrs. James Wells of the Texas association; Miss Lucy J. Price of the Cleveland branch; Mrs. A. J. George of the Massachusetts association. The Judiciary Committee was in an argumentative mood and began with ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... did not want to hear a statement of that kind, even if it were a mere argumentative flourish on the part of a selfish, unsympathetic parent who would jeopardize a person's life rather than annoy herself with a light or two burning. Mary V immediately had what her mother called a tantrum. That is, she began ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... said with annoyance, "you are the most argumentative corpse I have ever encountered. I'm leaving now to get that recommendation off to Washington. In the meantime, have someone tell Captain Aronsen to see that Wims is not assassinated before we get ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia
... asked, in a calmly argumentative tone of voice as she and I walked up the path to the house, "didn't Mr. Haley talk to you just yesterday and tell you how wicked it is for you to use—use such ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... everyone was very festive and amiably argumentative. As I write there is a group in the dark room discussing political progress with discussions—another at one corner of the dinner table airing its views on the origin of matter and the probability of its ultimate discovery, and yet another debating military problems. The scraps that reach ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... worthlessness under each or any of them. This is not what I call religion, this profession and assertion; which is often only a profession and assertion from the outworks of the man, from the mere argumentative region of him, if even so deep as that. But the thing a man does practically believe (and this is often enough without asserting it even to himself, much less to others); the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know for certain, concerning his vital ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... were adduced, we should have nearly picked the argumentative part of the essay to pieces; but Bolingbroke supplies throughout the most characteristic element. The fragments cohere by external cement, not by an internal unity of thought; and Pope too often descends to the level of mere satire, or indulges in a quaint ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... and fifth are mostly employed in conjunction with the third, in scientific, philosophical, and partisan literature. All these principles, however, are usually mingled with one another. The work of fiction may have its scientific, historical, or argumentative side; whilst the textbook or treatise may be embellished with ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... hearth-rug and shaking his head more in sorrow than in anger). She's no reasonable, ye ken, John; she disna argue fair. I'm no complaining o' her mither, but it's a wee thing hard that the only twa women I've known to be really chatty an' argumentative with should ha' been just like that. An' me that fond o' ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... especially the "conversational" portion, in which free discussion was solicited. This was opened by Hon. E. Rosewater, who spoke in response to a very general call. His address of half an hour in length was marked by apparent sincerity, and was a calm and argumentative presentation of objections, theoretical and practical, which occurred to him against the extension of the franchise to women. It was replied to by Mrs. Colby, in a running comment, which abounded in womanly wisdom and wit, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... happening to light upon John Baptist with this inquiry, that little man briskly shook his head in the negative, and repeated in an argumentative tone under his breath, altro, altro, altro, altro—an infinite number ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... speech no copy has been preserved. Shane speaks of it as a masterpiece of Indian eloquence—bold, argumentative and powerful. It was delivered with great vehemence, and deep indignant feeling. After a moment's pause, Tecumseh turned to the messenger and said, with that stately indifference of manner, which he ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... up the matter of these studies as treasures for a future day. It is the seven years of plenty with him; he gathers in by handfuls, like the Egyptians, without counting; and though, as time goes on, there is exercise for his argumentative powers in the elements of mathematics, and for his taste in the poets and orators, still while at school, or at least till quite the last years of his time, he acquires and little more; and when he is leaving for the university he is mainly the creature of foreign influences and circumstances, ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... Oldrieve was content to talk about the weather, and what Zora and Emmy used to like to eat when they were little girls: subjects interesting in themselves but not conducive to discussion. Cousin Jane was nothing if not argumentative. She held views, expounded them, and maintained them. Nothing short of a declaration from Jehovah bursting in glory through the sky could have convinced her of error. Even then she would have been annoyed. ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... indeed entering on dangerous seas. The occasion had arisen thus: Stephen had been what her aunt had stigmatised as 'laying down the law' with regard to the position a married woman, and Miss Rowly, seeing a good argumentative opening, remarked: ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... to the point of dismemberment, so long as one kept to the text, and made no pretence of knowledge beyond it; contention within these bounds was lawful and honorable, and the daily food of these argumentative Christians who gave themselves to the work of combining intellectual freedom and spiritual slavery, with perpetual surprise at any indication ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... possess authoritative impartial opinions on the main questions of consequence connected with the origin and the conduct of the war. For such opinions would educate the poisoned minds to an objective and argumentative discussion of the means to prevent a ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... for the renewal of glory in which he shone during the seventeenth century, when the Jansenists, in their inveterate obstinacy, identified him with the defence of their cause? The reputation of sour austerity and of argumentative and tiresome prolixity which attaches to the remembrance of all the writers of Port-Royal, save Pascal—has that affected too the work of Augustin, enlisted in spite of himself in the ranks of these pious schismatics? And yet, if there ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... fellows, full of good humour, cheerful, and untiring. The elder was disposed to be argumentative with his countrymen, but he could not quarrel. Nature had given him an uncontrollable stutter, and, if he tried to speak quickly, spasm seized his tongue, and he had to break into a laugh. Few men in China, I think, could be more curiously constructed than this coolie. He was all neck; his chin ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... And let it be remembered, that he was now talking spontaneously, and expressing his genuine sentiments; whereas at other times he might be induced from his spirit of contradiction, or more properly from his love of argumentative contest, to speak lightly of his own application to study. It is pleasing to consider that the old gentleman's gloomy prophecy as to the irksomeness of books to men of an advanced age, which is too often fulfilled, was so far from being verified ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... was beginning to say in an argumentative tone of voice, when father arose and stepped in front of ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... particular Mission for more than a quarter of a century. But the name of Sir Richard Brandon did not appear on the roll of contributors. He had not studied the "lower orders" much, except from a politico-economical-argumentative after-dinner-port-winey point of view. ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... opinion of another guest, my friend Monsieur M——. One must be careful how one criticizes the habits of the natives in his presence; not that he would be angry, for he is too gentle to feel wrath; or become argumentative—he is too sure of his ground for that; but he might be wounded on his most sensitive spot, and he would ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... Regained: 'Certainly, says he, it is very worthy of the author, and contrary to what Mr. Toland relates, Milton may be seen in Paradise Regained as well as Paradise Lost; if it is inferior in poetry, I know not whether it is inferior in sentiment; if it is less descriptive, it is more argumentative; if it does not sometimes rise so high, neither doth it ever sink below; and it has not met with the approbation it deserves, only because it has not been more read and considered. His subject indeed is confined, and he has a narrow foundation to build upon, but ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... earnest prayer, and it was listened to with profound attention by the smart-looking lasses and tall and swarthy gillies clustering about the door; but to the English part of his audience its chief features were its curiously exhortatory and argumentative character and also its interminable length. As the minister went on and on, the frown of impatience on Lord Fareborough's face deepened and deepened; he fretted and fumed and fidgeted; but, of course, he could not bring disgrace on ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... the help of this beacon I reached the spot where our people were bivouacked; they had lighted the beacon on a rock about fifty feet above the level, as although some twenty or thirty fires were blazing, they had been obscured by the intervening jungle. I found both my wife and my men in an argumentative state as to the propriety of my remaining alone so late in the jungle; however, I also found dinner ready; the angareps (stretcher bedsteads) arranged by a most comfortable blazing fire, and a glance at the star-lit heavens assured me of a fine night—what more can man wish for?—wife, welcome, ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... have a MS. against the validity of clandestine marriages, dated from Oxford, June 23rd, 1682, signed T. Gilburt. It is a learned and argumentative treatise on this subject. It ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... same occasion, a DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS was adopted, in which the views of Non-Resistants are set forth in the following positive and argumentative form:— ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... He was not of an argumentative mind, being a large man, and consequently inclined to the sins of omission rather than to the active form of doing wrong. He had an enormous faith in Karl Steinmetz, and, indeed, no man knew Russia better than this cosmopolitan adventurer. ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... he was a good speaker whom everybody was curious to hear, and from whom no one turned away in disappointment. On the other hand, Hamilton was an acknowledged orator, diffuse, ornate, full of metaphor, with flashes of poetical genius, revelling in exuberant strength, and endowed with a gift of argumentative eloquence which appealed to the intellect and the feelings at the same time. Erastus Root says Hamilton's words were so well chosen, and his sentences so finely formed into a swelling current, that the hearer would be captivated if not convinced, while ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... their pantheists, their rationalists, their mystics, and their sceptics, not very clear or refined in their notions, but such as lacked neither profundity in their general view of the questions, nor ingenious subtilty in their argumentative process. We do not care to give in this place any exposition or estimate of their doctrines; we shall simply point out what there was original and characteristic in their fashion of philosophizing, and wherein their mental condition differed essentially ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... find how quickly his secret took wing, and it annoyed him that all his acquaintances were so prompt to felicitate him. He imagined a latent mockery in their speeches, and he took them with an argumentative solemnity. He reasoned separately with his friends; to all who spoke to him of his marriage he presented elaborate proofs that it was the wisest thing he could possibly do, and tried to give the affair a cold air of prudence. "You ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... province of human psychology no less than in that of animal, the theory of natural selection, in showing itself competent to explain much which is otherwise inexplicable, is seen to derive a large additional measure of argumentative support. ...
— The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution • George John Romanes
... prepared to sacrifice herself and her new freedom, and her new power and her new wealth, to Mr Harry Handcock. One word said to her when first she was free and before she was rich, would have carried her. But an argumentative, well-worded letter, written to her two months after the fact of her freedom and the fact of her wealth had sunk into his mind, was powerless on her. She had looked at her glass and had perceived that years had improved her, whereas years had not improved Harry Handcock. ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... him, as all who met him were, after an hour's acquaintance. His public life was as his private, open and sincere; he never had a sinister motive, and this relieved him from duplicity of conduct. His talents were of a high order: in debate, he was argumentative and explicit; never pretending to any of the arts of the orator; but logically pursued his subject to a conclusion; never verbose, but always perspicuous. As a lawyer, he was well read; and the analytical character of his ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... "Ossian." "Fingal"—which seems to have been the favorite—was again turned into heroic couplets by Ewen Cameron, in 1776, prefaced by the attestations of a number of Highland gentlemen to the genuineness of the originals; and by an argumentative introduction, in which the author quotes Dr. Blair's dictum that Ossian was the equal of Homer and Vergil "in strength of imagination, in grandeur of sentiment, and in native majesty of passion." National pride enlisted most of the Scotch scholars on the affirmative side of the question, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... from the Steppes. These bearded men. These Russians. They sat silent and watchful. They applauded little. The programme left them cold. The Trick Cyclist. The Dashing Soubrette and Idol of Belgravia. The Argumentative College Chums. The Swell Comedian. The Man with the Performing Canaries. None of these could rouse them. They were waiting. Waiting. Waiting tensely. Every muscle taut. Husbanding their ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... deserve.—Sometimes he strings together several heads of thought; of which enumeration the kindest thing which can be said is that it betrays an utter want of intellectual perspective. To unravel even a part of this tangled web so as to expose its argumentative worthlessness, soon fills a page.... But there is another kind of fallacy which the same gentleman wields with immense effect, and in the use of which he is a great master; which, because it was absolutely impossible to handle it fitly in the proper place, shall be briefly adverted ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... dark and uninviting highway—almost before he realized that London Bridge had been traversed. It was now long past one o'clock; and that part of the east-end showed dreary and deserted. Public houses had long since ejected their late guests, and even those argumentative groups, which, after closing-time, linger on the pavements, within the odor Bacchanalian, were dispersed. The jauntiness was gone, now, from Soames' manner, and aware of a marked internal depression, he passed furtively along the pavement with its long shadowy reaches between the islands ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... Mr. Amos speaks as well as Mr. Burke; but in general the speakers are more argumentative, and less rhetorical. And whereas there are with you not more than ten or a dozen tolerable speakers, here every member is ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... say to him. On applying for advice and assistance to the trades-union of which he was a member he received the same reply, and was further reproached for treachery to his fellow-workmen. He returned to Trefusis to say that the tombstone job had ruined him. Trefusis, enraged, wrote an argumentative letter to the "Times," which was not inserted, a sarcastic one to the trades-union, which did no good, and a fierce one to the employers, who threatened to take an action for libel. He had to content himself with setting the man to work ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... hand, looking very solemn; and upon my eager inquiry what had happened, he told me that Joseph Mazzini was dead. I had never even heard Mazzini's name, and after being told about him I was inclined to grow argumentative, asserting that my father did not know him, that he was not an American, and that I could not understand why we should be expected to feel badly about him. It is impossible to recall the conversation with the complete breakdown ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... thousands—for the matter o' that, there's millions and millions of 'em—an it's quite true that you can't ever pick out two that would fit into the same mould. Of course," continued Adams, in an argumentative tone, "I'm not goin' for to say but that you could find a dozen men any day with hook noses an' black eyes an' lanky hair, just as you can find another dozen with turn-up noses an' grey eyes an' carroty hair; but what I mean to say is, that you won't find no two of 'em that han't got a difference ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... Eleventh heard but little of the Davieses for a time, they had abundant news of Devers, and much comfort did he seem to find in sending to them stacks of local papers, and in writing long, argumentative letters in which he sought to convince his readers that he was a wronged and injured man. When Trooper Howard came up for the trial which resulted in his going in irons for a five years' tour in prison, an effort was made to get Devers before the ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... is not necessary to insist upon any claim to the average degree of originality; for if the book does not bear the traces of honest and independent work, that is a defect which is scarcely likely to be removed by the most eloquent and argumentative of prefaces. ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... a contradiction be given to a baseless story, which exalts Sir William Follett's reputation for intellectual readiness and argumentative ability. The story runs, that early in the January of 1845, whilst George Stephenson, Dean Buckland, and Sir William Follett were Sir Robert Peel's guests at Drayton Manor, Dean Buckland vanquished the engineer in a discussion on a geological question. The next morning, George Stephenson was walking ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... us say that I am in an unnaturally argumentative mood. I take issue with you. You see, dad, I've been crazy about Lorelei ever since I first saw ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... went on, one harsh, commanding, the other calm, even argumentative; but the attitude of the woman beside Prescott never changed. She stood like a ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... as the greatest of English parliamentary orators; but his speeches to me are disappointing, although elaborate, argumentative, logical, and full of fancy and wit. They were too rhetorical to suit the taste of Lord Brougham. Rhetorical exhibitions, however brilliant, are not those which posterity most highly value, and lose their ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... involves taxing raw materials, and must necessarily result in high and prohibitive duties, which will upset our foreign trade, and will be ruinous and disorganising to the whole business of the country. But Tariff Reformers are not going to frame their duties in order to suit the argumentative convenience of Mr. Asquith. They are going to be guided by wholly different considerations from that. It is curious that everybody opposed to Tariff Reform says that Tariff Reformers intend to tax raw material, while Tariff Reformers themselves have steadily said they do not. I ask ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner
... almost as multiplied as the successive cracks of a discharged revolver; yet when the light smoke cleared Lady Sand-gate at least was still left standing and smiling. "Yes, why in mercy's name can't he choose which?—and why does he write him, dreadful Breckenridge, such tiresome argumentative letters?" ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... blush, this argument appears to have some force, but upon close reading of the provisions of the bill, and its necessary effect upon the Practical operation of a primary campaign, it must be admitted that this sole objection is largely argumentative. In the first place, as pointed out above, each ballot must be cast by the person to whom it was sent, for it is contained in an envelope bearing the elector's own known signature. Therefore none other can vote the ballot. In the second place, the bill provides for extreme penal penalties ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... on literature and art that they themselves could not forbear laughing. Wagner was greatly over-estimated, in her opinion; she asked for invertebrate music, the free harmony of the passing wind. As for her moral views, they were enough to make one shudder. She had got past the argumentative amours of Ibsen's idiotic, rebellious heroines, and had now reached the theory of pure intangible beauty. She deemed Santerre's last creation, Anne-Marie, to be far too material and degraded, because in one deplorable ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... LUCY STONE was the last speaker. She spoke with a quiet earnestness that showed the depth of her convictions, and how greatly her heart was in her work. Her address was an entirely argumentative one, abundant illustrations being used to clinch her statements. She said that she felt keenly the degradation of being disfranchised. To bring about a change in the present state of affairs, she would have every mother impress upon her children, when they were as ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... belief over a drink at a club, on an evening in June, he had been challenged promptly by one of those argumentative persons who invariably disagree with every proposition as a matter of principle, and for the ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... important of the many problems during Mr. Vanderbilt's presidency was the question of railway commissions, both in national and State governments. In my professional capacity of general counsel, and in common with representatives of other railroads, I delivered argumentative addresses against them. The discussions converted me, and I became convinced of their necessity. The rapidly growing importance of railway transportation had created the public opinion that railway management should be under the control and supervision of some public ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... into the woods and gathered a goodly selection of highly argumentative rods and switches, and then proceeded to reason with Vespaluus on the folly and iniquity and above all the unseemliness of his conduct. His reasoning left a deep impression on the young prince, an impression which lasted for many weeks, during which time ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... boy. Geography, chronology, history, language, natural history, he heaps up the matter of these studies as treasures for a future day. It is the seven years of plenty with him: he gathers in by handfuls, like the Egyptians, without counting; and though, as time goes on, there is exercise for his argumentative powers in the Elements of Mathematics, and for his taste in the Poets and Orators, still, while at school, or at least, till quite the last years of his time, he acquires, and little more; and when ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... course, been adopted after studying Mr. Toad's "most luminous and convincing pamphlet," still there were a few minor points on which Vivian "was obliged to confess" that "he did not exactly see his way." Mr. Toad was astonished, but argumentative, and, of course, in due time, had made a convert of his companion; "a young man," as he afterwards remarked to Lord Mounteney, "in whom he knew not which most to admire, the soundness of his own views, or the candour with which he treated those of ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... exclamations and an occasional cheer. Finally he screwed up the courage for another cautious peep through the bars. The crowd was moving off up the street. A small group remained undecided near a bonfire in the court house yard. One of these men held a long rope in his hand, and seemed argumentative. ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... despised. It might seem strange, for example, to institute a comparison between the two contemporaries, bishop Butler and John Wesley. Yet there are points of contrast which are instructive. Each was one of the most marked instruments of movement and influence in the respective fields of the argumentative and the spiritual; the one a philosopher writing for the educated, the other a missionary preaching to the poor. Butler, educated a nonconformist, turned to the church, and in an age of unbelief consecrated his great mental gifts to roll back the flood ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... Mother," and "The Idiot," but that he was prepossessed against the use of blank verse for simple subjects. Any political significance in the poems he was apparently unable to see. To this second edition Wordsworth prefixed an argumentative Preface, in which he nailed to the door of the cathedral of English song the critical theses which he was to maintain against all comers in his poetry and his life. It was a new thing for an author ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... of speeches included in this volume ranges, in point of time, from the earlier months of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's Government to the latest phase in the fortunes of Mr. Asquith's succeeding Ministry, and forms an argumentative defence of the basis of policy common to both Administrations. The addresses it contains deal with nearly all the great political topics of the last four years—with Free Trade, Colonial Preferences, the South African settlement, the latest and probably the final charter of ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... of Persius are written in a free, expostulatory, and argumentative manner; possessing the same justness of sentiment as those of Horace, but exerted in the way of derision, and not with the admirable raillery of that facetious author. They are regarded by many as obscure; but this imputation arises more from ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... debater in the House of Commons, his speeches were logical and argumentative: if they did not often abound in the graces of metaphor, or sparkle with the brilliancy of wit, they were always animated, elegant, and classical. The strength of his oratory was intrinsic; it presented the rich and abundant resource of a clear discernment and a correct ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... for discontent upon the part of the inhabitants of those States." The President did not discuss the ground of difference between his policy and that of Congress, simply contenting himself with a restatement of the case, in declaratory rather than in argumentative form. He did not at all seem to realize, or even to recognize, the vantage ground which Congress had obtained by the popular decision in the recent elections. He apparently did not understand that every issue dividing the Executive and Legislative Departments of the Government had been ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the twenty-four hours they had been in camp under his walls the Maharajah had taken no more notice of Colonel Starr and his three hundred Midlanders than if they represented so many jungle bushes. To all Colonel Starr's messages, diplomatic, argumentative, threatening, there had come the same unsatisfactory response—the Maharajah of Chita had no word to say to the British Raj. And still the gates were shut, and still only the pipal-trees looked over the wall, and ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... others, 'endeared me to him.' Bentham declined one offer in 1788; but in 1790 he suddenly took it into his head that Lansdowne had promised him a seat in parliament; and immediately set forth his claims in a vast argumentative letter of sixty-one pages.[239] Lansdowne replied conclusively that he had not made the supposed promise, and had had every reason to suppose that Bentham preferred retirement to politics. Bentham ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... Eveley was called away to the telephone by Nolan, wishing to know what time he should call for her and the moment she was out of hearing, the club went into noisy conference. Upon her return, the argumentative Russian announced that the vote had been changed, and he was unanimously ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... pursued in regard to reading strictly devotional; but only when other time is taken for obtaining a connected view and a critical understanding of the whole Bible. The Bible is like a dish of savory meats. There is almost every variety of style and matter. There is History, Biography, Argumentative and Didactic Essays, and Poetry. Although these various kinds of writing are contained in a great number of books, written by various authors, at different times, without concert, yet a remarkable unity of design runs through ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... constables, sheriffs; counsel for the State and for the defendant; witnesses were subpoenaed, and a jury empaneled after much challenging. The witnesses were stupid and unreliable and contradictory, as witnesses always are. The counsel were eloquent, argumentative, and vindictively abusive of each other, as was characteristic and proper. The case was at last submitted and duly finished by the judge with an absurd ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain |
