"Argumentative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... inharmonious similarities. You are argumentative, dogmatic and commanding in disposition, unyielding, inflexible and positive. This lady is like you in these respects, and if you get into an argument, neither would yield a point, and the result would be sure to be domestic discord. The attachment you both feel for ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... endeavored to read in Wright's eyes some account of his present situation. Was that pretty girl at his side the ambiguous object of his adoration, and, in that case, what was the function of the elder lady, and what had become of her argumentative daughter? Perhaps this was another, a younger daughter, though, indeed, she bore no resemblance to either of Longueville's friends. Gordon Wright, in spite of Bernard's interrogative glances, indulged in no optical confidences. He had too ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... parchment, upon which a long, sharp nose stuck downward, morosely and ominously. This was Alexandra, the servant of old of the student bird-houses; the friend and creditor of all the students; a woman of sixty-five, argumentative, and a grumbler. ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... as I lay there in my hot bunk, tossing restlessly, that Lemaitre was in an unusually excited and quarrelsome condition, and that Francois, the chief mate, was rapidly approaching a similar condition as he gulped down tumbler after tumbler of liquor. They were always argumentative and contradictory when drinking together, but to-night they were unusually so. At length Francois made some remark as to the extraordinary good fortune they had met with on this particular voyage, in having come so far without falling in with a British cruiser; at which Lemaitre laughed scornfully ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... giving each other a dry bath in the shape of a shower of sand. There was a monotonous clank of chains, and an occasional deep abdominal rumble like distant thunder. All over the camp there was a confused subdued medley of sound. A hum from the argumentative villagers, a lazy flop in the tank as a raho rose to the surface, an occasional outburst from the ducks, an angry clamour from the water-hens and blue-fowl. My dogs were lying round me blinking and winking, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... facts, sometimes the deducing an inference from those facts. The former of these processes (viz. that of observation and experiment) is undoubtedly distinct from that which takes place in the syllogism; but then it is not a process of argumentation: the latter again is an argumentative process; but then it is, like all other arguments, capable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... these spurs against a package of smokin' tobacco I know what I mean," stoutly asserted the cowpuncher whose literary knowledge had been called in question, and then the talk ran along the familiar argumentative channels that had ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... population kept moving to and fro along that great highway there were never, I am sure, more than a hundred people gathered at the shrine of Mr. Ramsey. They laughed at his profanities, yes; but directly he dropped these, and grew argumentative, they talked, and had to be vigorously reduced to order. Gallio-like they cared for none of these things, and I am quite sure a good staff of working clergy, men like Mr. Body or Mr. Steele of St. Thomas's, who could talk to the people, would annihilate Mr. Ramsey's prestige. ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... the Nature of Things has all the defects inseparable from a didactic poem, that unstable combination of discordant elements, and from a poem which is not only didactic, but argumentative, and in parts highly controversial. Nor are these difficulties in the least degree evaded or smoothed over by the poet. As a teacher, he is in deadly earnest; as a controversialist, his first object is to refute and convince. The graces of poetry ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... energy. I had come into personal contact with him in the Presidential campaigns of 1860 and 1864, when he seemed to be pleased with my efforts. I had once heard him make a stump speech which was evidently inspired by intense hatred of slavery, and remarkable for argumentative pith and sarcastic wit. But the impression his personality made upon me was not sympathetic: his face, long and pallid, topped with an ample dark-brown wig which was at the first glance recognized as ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... than four times, as their representative to government, in matters connected with the trade and privileges of the island; and he also went once to Jersey, to confer with the Royal Court there on the same subject. In these missions, Mr. Brock distinguished himself by his luminous and argumentative papers,[161] and the authority of the Royal Court was happily preserved intact by his representations and ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... find a still unfailing topic in the story of which Eva Denison was wayward heroine and Frank Rattray the nearest approach to a hero. Sometimes these reminiscences lead to an argument; for it has been the fate of my life to become attached to argumentative persons. I suppose because I myself hate arguing. On the day that I received Rattray's letter we had one of our warmest discussions. I could repeat every word of it after ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... say, "There is a man here who was sane until Peter hailed him as the Christ, and who then became a monomaniac." We should have pointed out that his delusion is a very common delusion among the insane, and that such insanity is quite consistent with the retention of the argumentative cunning and penetration which Jesus displayed in Jerusalem after his delusion had taken complete hold of him. We should feel horrified at the scourging and mocking and crucifixion just as we should if Ruskin had been treated in that way when he also went mad, instead of being cared for as an invalid. ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... his long dark mustache, which matched in tint the silky fringe of hair encircling his polished crown; his eyes, round and brown, and glossy as a chestnut, wandered inattentively. He did not contend on small points of feasibility, according to his wont—for he was of an argumentative habit of mind—in fact, his acquiescence in every detail proposed was so complete and so unexpected that Bayne, with half his urgency unsaid, came to the end of his proposition with as precipitate an effect as if he had stumbled upon it ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... 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 young ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... "The argumentative opposition to Home Rule is dead, and all the violent language, all the extravagant action, all the bombastic threats, are but indications ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... to assume that Hawthorne could not on the whole have had a high relish for the very positive personality of this accomplished and argumentative woman, in whose intellect high noon seemed ever to reign, as twilight did in his own. He must have been struck with the glare of her understanding, and, mentally speaking, have scowled and blinked a ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... flat. One of the arguments used against Columbus was, that if the earth was not flat, and was round, he might sail down to the Indies, but he could certainly not sail up. Thus it was that fallacy after fallacy was thrown in argumentative form in his way, and the character of the man grows more wonderful as we see the obstacles ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... said Manvers, "and of course childishly illegal. Your man will be soon got rid of. I expect you might have applied to him the remark of the Bishop of Cork on the Dean of Cork—'Excellent sermon!—eloquent, clever, argumentative!—and not enough gospel in it to ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the very timing of Scripture expressions, and the season of administering ordinances, have been argumentative to the promoting of the faith and way of justification by Christ, it has made think that both myself and most of the people of God look over the Scriptures too slightly, and take too little notice of that or of those ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... this argumentative time the desire to deal blows seemed to pass, although they said much to each other. Finally the friend returned to his old seat. In a short while the three antagonists could be seen ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... well leave heaviness behind it. Was it come to Edgar's views being such as to startle Mr. Ryder! who, for that matter, had of late shown much less laxity of opinion than in his younger and more argumentative days; and there was little comfort in supposing that these were not real honest doubts at all, only apologies ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said, "you underrate the argumentative powers of the younger members. There is a text bearing upon the subject which I need not recall to you. ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... therein—he flapped his right elbow. It wasn't exactly a flap; it was a pass between a hitch and a flap, and presented external evidence of a mental state. Orville Platt always gave that little preliminary jerk when he was contemplating a step, or when he was moved, or argumentative. It was a trick as innocent as it ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... in Holland we are at a loss to say; his many elaborate pieces, both practical, argumentative and historical, witness that he was not idle; which were either mostly wrote there, or published from thence; and particularly those concerning the indulgences-paying, &c. sent for the support and strengthening of his persecuted brethren in the church of Scotland, unto whom ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... life must be preserved among friends. We can never feel very safe with the man whose humor tends to bitter speaking or keen sarcasm, or with the man who flares up into hasty speech at every or no provocation, or with the man who is argumentative and assertive,— ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... harangues. He generally spoke extemporaneously, on the spur of the occasion, and what he said came warm from the heart. It was the simple and unadorned expression of his sentiments and feelings. He was, however, argumentative and even logical, when the occasion required it. When intensely interested, his eye was full ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... and argumentative as Hindu thought is, it is less prone than European theology to the vice of distorting transcendental ideas by too stringent definition. It adumbrates the indescribable by metaphors and figures. It is not afraid of inconsistencies which may illustrate different aspects of the infinite, ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... 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 that into his ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... whether his opponent be not a man of wealth and influence, of whom it might be for his interest to speak with care and circumspection; but he devotes himself with a ready zeal to his cause, careless of aught but how he may best discharge his duty. His argumentative powers are of the highest order. He never takes before the court a position which he believes untenable. He has a quick and sure perception of his points, and the power of enforcing them by apt and pertinent ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... diction, or Fox in massive strength and debating facility; but, while falling little short of Fox in debate, he excelled him in elegance and conciseness, Burke in point and common sense, Sheridan in dignity and argumentative power, and all of them in the felicitous wedding of elevated thought or vigorous argument to noble diction. By the side of his serried yet persuasive periods the efforts of Fox seemed ragged, those of Burke philosophic essays, those of Sheridan rhetorical tinsel. And this harmony was not the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... that talking is one of the fine arts,—the noblest, the most important, and the most difficult,—and that its fluent harmonies may be spoiled by the intrusion of a single harsh note. Therefore conversation which is suggestive rather than argumentative, which lets out the most of each talker's results of thought, is commonly the pleasantest and the most profitable. It is not easy, at the best, for two persons talking together to make the most of each other's thoughts, there are ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... plot. But his great and abiding glory is that he revived the art, lost for centuries in England, of telling an interesting story in verse, of riveting the attention through thousands of lines of poetry neither didactic nor argumentative. And of his separate passages, his patches of description and incident, when the worst has been said of them, it will remain true that, in their own way and for their own purpose, they cannot be surpassed. The already ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... 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 ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... to the third means of recognition. The incident of help rendered by one or more of the lower animals to man is a favourite one in folk-tales; and it has furnished a large portion of the argumentative stock-in-trade of those scholars who contend for their Indian origin. We are assured that every tale which contains this incident must be referred to a Buddhist source, or at least has been subjected to ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... bosses at Baldwin's Locomotive Works had to lay off an argumentative Irishman named Pat, so he saved discussion by putting the discharge in writing. The next day Pat was missing, but a week later the boss was passing through the shop and he saw him again at his lathe. Then, ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... me a greater Opinion of his Parts, then he has given me Distrust for his Hypothesis, since for it even a Man of such Learning can bring no better Arguments. The Rhetorical part of his Discourse, though it make not the least part of it, I shall say nothing to, designing to examine only the Argumentative part, and leaving it to Philoponus to answer those passages wherein either Paracelsus or Chymists are concern'd: I shall observe to You, that in what he has said besides, he makes it his Business to do these ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... 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 capable ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... especially the "conversational" portion, in which free discussion was solicited. This was opened by Hon. E. Rosewater, who spoke in response to a very general call. His address of half an hour in length was marked by apparent sincerity, and was a calm and argumentative presentation of objections, theoretical and practical, which occurred to him against the extension of the franchise to women. It was replied to by Mrs. Colby, in a running comment, which abounded in womanly wisdom and wit, and incessantly brought down the house. Our restricted ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... and would have removed serious cause 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 ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... an argumentative mood. "Selfishness," he continued, "is merely another name for Will. Every deed, good or bad, that we do is prompted by selfishness. We are charitable to secure ourselves a good place in the next world, to make ourselves respected in this, to ease our own ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... strong opinion of learning and wisdom, and of being stout disputants; but this sort of disputation spent much time in trifling squabblings, which were of no credit or profit. Now Socrates, using an argumentative discourse by way of a purgative remedy procured belief and authority to what he said, because in refuting others he himself affirmed nothing; and he the sooner gained upon people, because he seemed rather to be inquisitive after the truth as well as they, than to ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... question had been put on several occasions, both in the company of the tempter and in the privacy of the domestic hearth, and both in the gayly suggestive and the pensively argumentative key. Why might they not, by means of a clever purchase in the stock market, occasionally procure some of the agreeable extra pleasures of life—provide the ready money for theatres, a larger wardrobe, trips from home, or a modest equipage? ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... sphere of metaphysical ethics, evil has assumed a more dangerous form, especially for an artist. His optimistic faith has driven the poet into a realm into which poetry never ventured before. His battle is now, not with flesh and blood, but with the subtler powers of darkness grown vocal and argumentative, and threatening to turn the poet's faith in good into a defence of immorality, and to justify the worst evil by what is highest of all. Having indicated in outward fact "the need," as well as the "transiency of sin and death," he seeks here to prove that need, and seems, thereby, ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... one of his argumentative moods. "Any place is a fit place for a woman," he said, "provided the woman is fitted for the place. The right man in the right place, you know. Square people shouldn't try to get into ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... 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, ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... 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 Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... met on his own ground and vanquished. Not with an outburst of horror; he had not even been informed that he was irreverent. Nimble Dick delighted in making each teacher tell him this; he had merely been replied to in the calmest of argumentative tones, and called upon to account for the facts in his own statements, and had been unable to do so. The crowd broke into a derisive laugh, and were noisy, it is true, and brought troubled frowns to the face ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... the interpreter of God's spirit, which is nothing more than a belief in the inspiration of the majority, or even a belief in the inspiration of a bureaucracy, is the prey of this delusion. The Protestant, too, with his legal creed, built up of texts and precedents, in which the argumentative dicta of Apostles and Evangelists are as weighty and important as the words of the Saviour Himself, falls under this delusion. I read the other day a passage from a printed sermon of an orthodox type, an acrid ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... like Ellen Key, Selma Lagerloef, Sophie Elkau, Alfhild Agress, Hilma Stanberg, and others, holds a high position in Swedish letters. Ellen Key is an essayist of virile power and argumentative breadth, of superior intellect and unfailing erudition. She is a fearless and unfailing champion of free thought, individualism, and woman's emancipation. As was said of Madame de Stael, her writings are "the most masculine productions of ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... I said, Miss Lane, but it would have been the truth if I did, and I generally speak the truth when it's equally convenient. Yes, I do know Miss Vernor very well, and I have worsted her in a great many arguments,—you know her argumentative turn, perhaps? If you will allow me, I will do myself the honor of calling upon her when she comes,—and upon yourself, if ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... was seldom in an argumentative mood, smiled blandly, and replied, "Yes, my dear Count, you are probably right as far as Holland is concerned. When we reach other parts of the world we may be compelled, against our better judgment, to change our opinion, but time enough for that when we get there; ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... strength the Lord gived to him, 'Lias Hoover, to special kill the giant with," said Eliza in an argumentative tone of voice. "Do you reckon He tooken the strength away from David the next morning, Deacon, or let him keep it to use all the time?" Eliza's extreme practicality showed at all times, even in those of ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... now admit that the less said the better. The warmth of Gibbon's language with regard to Xenophon contrasts with the coldness he shows with regard to Plato. "I involved myself," he says, "in the philosophic maze of the writings of Plato, of which perhaps the dramatic is more interesting than the argumentative part." That Gibbon knew amply sufficient Greek for his purposes as an historian no one doubts, but his honourable candour enables us to see that he was never a Greek scholar in the ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... saw much ability and also a mind logical and argumentative, and he had fully resolved that the boy should be educated and trained for the legal profession. And the farmer "plodded his weary way homeward" each day buoyed up with the thought that he was doing his duty towards his family and above all ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... him, nothing,' and this conduct—so different from that of others, 'endeared me to him.' Bentham declined one offer in 1788; but in 1790 he suddenly took it into his head that Lansdowne had promised him a seat in parliament; and immediately set forth his claims in a vast argumentative letter of sixty-one pages.[239] Lansdowne replied conclusively that he had not made the supposed promise, and had had every reason to suppose that Bentham preferred retirement to politics. Bentham accepted the ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... politics of the day. Percival, with his nose in the air, hardly deigned at first to answer; but upon Vivian's quietly propounding some strongly Conservative views, which always acted on the younger Heron as a red rag is supposed to act upon a bull, he waxed impatient and then argumentative, until at last he talked himself into a good humour, and made everybody else ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... assumed an argumentative note. "If one could find something definite ... If one could say, 'This is why—this ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... 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 descriptions ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... greatest literary genius of his time, should put his immense talent to such a use as to provoke, on his contradictions of himself, comment like the following, which is quoted from a work by V. S. Solovieff, an essayist and argumentative writer, who quotes some one on this subject, to ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... when a neighboring farmer came in, whose moderation, at least in whisky toddies, was not known unto all men. His name was W—. He was a quiet sort of a man when sober, lively and chatty under the effect of a single glass, argumentative and offensively dogmatic after the second toddy, and downright insulting and quarrelsome after getting beyond that number of drinks. We liked him and disliked him on ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... but it is believed that they were little plays, usually with only two performers. The recently discovered mimes of Herodas (Herondas) give us some idea of their scope. Plato further simplified the form, and reduced it to pure argumentative conversation, while leaving intact the amusing element of character-drawing. He must have begun this about the year 405, and by 399 he had brought the dialogue to its highest perfection, especially in the cycle directly ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... declared Langdon. "A reminiscent mood is the proper one for the road to Mayfield—just as you have to have an argumentative ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... opposed him in an election." Norton denied the charge upon his honour, which did not seem to persuade every body. Immediately after this we had another episode. Rigby,(373) totally unprovoked either by any thing said or by the complexion of the day, which was grave and argumentative, fell Upon Lord Temple, and described his behaviour on the commitment of Wilkes. James Grenville,(374) who sat beside him, rose in all the acrimony of resentment: drew a very favourable picture of his brother, and then one of Rigby, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... the Methodist Episcopal Church, the result of which was the independent body known as Free Methodists, had relieved the parent flock of its principal disturbing element. The rupture came fittingly at that time when all the "isms" of the argumentative fifties were hurled violently together into the melting-pot of civil war. The great Methodist Church, South, had broken bodily off on the question of State Rights. The smaller and domestic fraction of Free Methodism separated itself ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... full of character, melodious, impressive. The later writings have all these qualities, and in addition, that constant power to awaken the imagination, to carry an idea beyond its own horizon into a boundless world of imperishable literary significance, which power in argumentative prose is beauty. And how did Lincoln attain this? That he had been maturing from within the power to do this, one is compelled by the analogy of his other mental experiences to believe. At the same time, ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... and argument, and are not impelled to foregone conclusions by transmitted prejudice and traditional bias. The article of Professor John Roach Straton in the North American Review for June, 1900, is notable for its calm, dispassionate, argumentative treatment, and for its freedom from rancor and venom. His conclusions, therefore, if erroneous, are all the more damaging because of the evident sincerity and ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... not being provided with the means of paying it, he happened to espy Richardson in the street, and proposed to take him in the coach some part of his way. The offer being accepted, Sheridan lost no time in starting a subject of conversation, on which he knew his companion was sure to become argumentative and animated. Having, by well-managed contradiction, brought him to the proper pitch of excitement, he affected to grow impatient and angry, himself, and saying that "he could not think of staying in the same coach with a person that would use such language," pulled ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... there fell upon our ears a startling crash; the overture had commenced. The stage manager—more suggestive of a sheep-dog than ever, but lacking the calm dignity, the self-possession born of conscious capability distinctive of his prototype; a fussy, argumentative sheep-dog—rushed into the midst of us and worried us into our positions, where the more experienced continued to converse in whispers, the rest of us waiting nervously, trying to remember our words. The chorus master, taking his stand with his back to the proscenium, held ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... 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
... nature," Mrs. Lovegrove observed. The day of domestic eclipse was happily passed. She had come into her own again; consequently she was disposed to be slightly argumentative, sitting here upon her own Chesterfield sofa in her ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... lagoon. Venice, floating like a dream-city upon the brimming tide, was not at all in the direction in which May had expected to find it; indeed, so fixed was her idea of its proper whereabouts, that she was within an ace of becoming argumentative on the subject. Her amusingly irrational attitude gave rise to some lively sparring between herself and Kenwick, who was at even more pains than usual to monopolise her attention, both ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... this question was animated, vehement, and argumentative; all the party passions were enlisted in it; and it was protracted until the 24th of March, when the resolution was carried in the affirmative by sixty-two to thirty-seven voices. The next day, the committee appointed to present it to the chief magistrate ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... who was of an argumentative turn, "if all that hadn't resulted, it would have been ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... But to a green lad like Grant, who had been exceptionally independent all his life, the preliminary training was positive torture. It was then that his habitual silence stood him in good stead, for a talkative, argumentative boy could never have survived the breaking-in process which eventually transformed him from a slouchy bumpkin into a smart, soldier-like young fellow who made the most of his not excessive inches. Still, he hated almost every moment of his first year and ardently hoped that the bill ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... 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 ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... been dealing with whole compositions; we now take up the study of paragraphs, sentences, and words. A paragraph in many respects resembles a whole composition. It may be narrative, descriptive, expositive, or argumentative. It must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. It is constructed with regard to Unity, Mass, and Coherence. And as a whole composition treats a single theme, so a paragraph treats one division of a theme. It has been defined as a composition ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... more majestic youth." In his lecture-room utterances, there was an undue preponderance of rhetoric, declamation, and sentiment over logic, analysis, and philosophy. Yet he once said of himself, that he was "thoroughly logical and argumentative; not a rhetorician, as fools aver." Whether this estimate was right or wrong in the main may be a matter of question: we think it wrong. His genius, in our view, lay rather in pictorial passion than in ratiocination. At all events, as a teacher of philosophy, it appears to us that his conception ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... Denison Maurice (1805-1872) was one of the leaders of the "liberal," or "Broad Church," portion of the English Episcopal Church. His writings have exerted a strong influence. In the same general direction, but of a more critical and argumentative tone, were Richard Whately (1787-1863), Archbishop of Dublin; and Thomas Arnold, who, in addition to his influence as a teacher, classical scholar, and historian, engaged actively in discussions on the questions ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... denominated the Bible; viz., Tobias, Judith, Baruch, Sabiduria, Eclesiastico, y 1o y 2o de los Machabeos. The Christian ecclesiastic, the author of the epistle, in indignation at this omission becomes suddenly argumentative, and puts a case to the heretics, which he deems in point; 'Si vieran la luz publica las obras de Lutero mutiladas en sus principales capitulos, y transformadas en cierto modo sus maximas y preceptos; que diligencias no practicarian sus secuaces y discipulos? Se levantarian a ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... detail of it, and with an air of continually saying "Ha! ha!" among the breezy trumpets of those hills, like the scriptural war-horse; the second with his gaze very imperfectly turned outward, but very fruitfully turned inward, frequently pausing with argumentative finger laid on his companion's breast, and smile half satirical half kindly as the flow of discourse revealed theological lacunae in my acquirements, which, I fear, irreparably and most unfairly injured the Regius professor of divinity in the mind of the German graduate. For Nicholson ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... 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
... dagger. Poor Keymis, who was fifty-five at his death, was no 'rough old sailor,' no mere 'sturdy mariner,' as Mr. Gardiner styles the ex-Fellow of Balliol, the writer of Latin verses, the fluent and argumentative chronicler. He was emotional and imaginative. He was fated to be as evil a genius to the leader he adored as selfish, unstable Cobham. He brought much woe upon his friends and himself through blunders committed from the most generous motives, and he was very sternly judged. ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... their author's verse with the dramas, lyrics, and romances by which "Sordello" was followed. But the dread of being diffuse had doubly rooted itself in his mind, and was to bear fruit again as soon as the more historical or argumentative mood should prevail. ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... called aloud the act of the parties to make it perfect and complete. How he should communicate his intentions to get a favorable reply, he was at a loss to know; he knew not whether to address Esq. Valeer in prose or in poetry, in a jocular or an argumentative manner, or whether he should use moral suasion, legal injunction, or seizure and take by reprisal; if it was to do the latter, he would have no difficulty in deciding in his own mind, but his gentlemanly ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... went on, one harsh, commanding, the other calm, even argumentative; but the attitude of the woman beside Prescott never changed. She stood like ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... 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 strong words as ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... relinquished the struggle against science in this field, but have determined frankly and manfully to make an alliance with it. In two very remarkable lectures given in 1892 at the parish church of Rochdale, Wilson, Archdeacon of Manchester, not only accepted Darwinism as true, but wrought it with great argumentative power into a higher view of Christianity; and what is of great significance, these sermons were published by the same Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge which only a few years before had published the most bitter attacks against the Darwinian theory. So, too, during the year 1893, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... an improper manner of calling men into the kingdom of Christ; that had been more pathetic in their addresses, and more argumentative in their applications, they would have labored with more effect; that this plain and simple method is unworthy of God, and, not ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... exigency, the "Quadroon Slave" has been produced. It may be classed as an argumentative drama; carried on with that stage logic which always makes the heroine get the best of it. The emancipation side of the question is supported by Julie, ably backed by Vincent St. George, but opposed by Alfred Pelham; and the lingual ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... her with divine wrath; and as you know nothing about her, I regard such threats, coming from you, as impertinent, unmanly, inhuman, and blasphemous.' Mr. Caldigate had commenced this conversation, though vehemently, still in so argumentative a manner, and in his allusions to the lady's romantic and superstitious ideas had seemed to yield so much, that the terrible vigour of his last words struck the poor clergyman almost to the ground. One epithet came out after another, very clearly ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... nothing could be less like his own. He is always relentlessly guiding it towards a particular goal, from the path to which he will not have it for a moment diverted. Johnson, on the other hand, takes no thought whatever for the argumentative {159} morrow, never starts a subject, never sets out to prove anything. He talks as an artist paints, just for the joy of doing what he is conscious of doing well. The talk, like the picture, ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... again till the day was near a close; and the things that he strove most to inculcate on my mind were the infallibility of the elect, and the preordination of all things that come to pass. I pretended to controvert the first of these, for the purpose of showing him the extent of my argumentative powers, and said that "indubitably there were degrees of sinning which would induce the Almighty to throw off the very elect." But behold my hitherto humble and modest companion took up the argument with such warmth that he put me ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... its whole essence. It will be seen that it has the great advantage of resting immediately upon the foundation from which all argument concerning this or any other matter, must necessarily arise, viz.,—upon the very existence of our argumentative faculty itself. For the sake of a critical examination, it is desirable to throw the argument before us into the syllogistic form. It will ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... down, his features, bearing, clothes; noticed his North-Country accent, and all the other signs of the plebeian. And presently Fenwick, placed at his ease, began for the first time to expand, became argumentative and explosive. In a few minutes he was laying down the law in his Westmoreland manner—attacking the Academy—denouncing certain pictures of the year—with a flushed, confident face and a gesticulating hand. Watson observed him with some astonishment; Lord Findon ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... asceticism. The glories of Christianity, in short, touch on no chord in the heart of the writer; his imagination remains unkindled; his words, though they maintain their stately and measured march, have become cool, argumentative, and inanimate. Who would obscure one hue of that gorgeous coloring in which Gibbon has invested the dying forms of Paganism, or darken one paragraph in his splendid view of the rise and progress of Mahometanism? But who would not have wished that the same equal justice had been done ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... of MacPherson's "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
... Egypt and Asia, which cultivated the language and manners of the Greeks, had deeply imbibed the venom of the Arian controversy. The familiar study of the Platonic system, a vain and argumentative disposition, a copious and flexible idiom, supplied the clergy and people of the East with an inexhaustible flow of words and distinctions; and, in the midst of their fierce contentions, they easily forgot the doubt which is recommended by philosophy, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Ireland, let it be remembered that the conception of a rivalry or conflict is forced upon Unionists by the mere proposal of Home Rule. As long as we remain a United Kingdom, there is no more need to think even of hypothetical or argumentative opposition between the resources or interest of England and of Ireland than there is to consider what in case of a contest may be the relative force of London and of ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... was rising at the University; Ward soon felt the attraction of that magnetic power; and his belief in his old teacher began to waver. It was, in particular, Dr. Arnold's treatment of the Scriptures which filled Ward's argumentative mind, at first with distrust, and at last with positive antagonism. To subject the Bible to free inquiry, to exercise upon it the criticism of the individual judgment— where might not such methods lead? Who could say that they would not end in Socinianism?—nay, in Atheism itself? ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... Marriages.—I 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 ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... denounced it as misleading sinners to the belief that they could be saved even if they were not so predestinated in the eternal mind of an all-wise, all-loving Jehovah, who had foredoomed some to heaven and others to hell. The regular speaker was dumbfounded. An argumentative duett followed, much to the scandal of the saints and the hilariousness of the sinners, until the pitying organist struck up with great force: "From whence doth this union arise?" when the disgruntled disturber left the church vowing he would never pay ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... means of demonstrative reasoning. On the other hand, in God, there is a sure judgment of truth, without any discursive process, by simple intuition, as was stated in the First Part (Q. 14, A. 7); wherefore God's knowledge is not discursive, or argumentative, but absolute and simple, to which that knowledge is likened which is a gift of the Holy Ghost, since it is a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... premises; because the general propositions required for explaining a difficulty or refuting a sophism, copiously and promptly occur to him: because, in short, his knowledge, besides being ample, is well under his command for argumentative use. Whether, therefore, we conform to the practice of those who have made the subject their particular study, or to that of popular writers and common discourse, the province of logic will include several operations of the intellect not usually considered ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... an uneasy suspicion that he read Plato because he liked his humour and his style, and did not trouble himself about anything further. Gibbon speaks of 'the philosophic maze of the writings of Plato, of which the dramatic is perhaps more interesting than the argumentative part.' That is quite a legitimate opinion, provided you do not undertake to judge philosophy in the light of it. The apparently serious rejection of geometrical truth in the Hermotimus may fairly suggest that Lucian ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... part of the character; the essence of Toryism is enjoyment. Talk of the ways of spreading a wholesome conservatism throughout this country! Give painful lectures, distribute weary tracts (and perhaps this is as well,—you may be able to give an argumentative answer to a few objections, you may diffuse a distinct notion of the dignified dullness of politics); but as far as communicating and establishing your creed are concerned, try a little pleasure. The way to keep up old customs is to enjoy old ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... she uttered as the shadows of the sweet twilight gathered darkly and more darkly around us—and then, with a gentle pressure of her fairy-like hand, overthrew, in a single sweet instant, all the argumentative ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... attitude of woman's equality with man, she felt as if Stephen's barque was 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
... 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
... infallibility of the Bible and reject the infallibility of the Church and the pope. Calvin possessed a remarkably logical mind and a clear and admirable style. The French version of his great work is the first example of the successful use of that language in an argumentative treatise. ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... mules! The boy, who is constantly called Mike— ostentatiously called by that name—wants to ride Uncle Ike! Fat time hell have if he gets aboard of that argumentative brute!" ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... 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 ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... on the seeming incongruity between his father's argumentative powers and his ignorance of formal logic, Tristram Shandy says:—"It was a matter of just wonder with my worthy tutor, and two or three fellows of that learned society, that a man who knew not so much as the names of ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer
... innocent entertainment. Mrs. 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. She profoundly ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... that what I'm doing? Now, I thought I was proving the subtle nature of my argumentative powers. See here, I will be as sober as a judge. No, I don't think those verses have to do with it; at least the latter hasn't. I admit that I thought the fact that a time to dance was mentioned in the Bible was an item in its favor as far as it went; ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... decided that his evening address must be doctrinal and argumentative, when he became aware of steps in the drawing-room. Opening the door he found himself face to face with his Deacons. Before he could ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... 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 ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... allowed his face an expression of argumentative shrewdness as he completed this sentence, and M. Grandissime, the merchant, caught an instantaneous full view of his motive; he wanted to buy. He was a man whose known speculative policy was to "go in" in moments ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... a poser. Aunt Charlotte, having recovered her equanimity, began to feel argumentative. It was incumbent on her to prove that she was not inconsistent in attributing Austin's preservation to the intervention of God, while disclaiming any belief in what she called the supernatural. And for the moment she did not know ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... he raised an argumentative forefinger,—"there must be committees of entertainment; there must be those able to interpret, those competent to arrange large plans, and to do so courteously, with dignity." He bowed toward the somewhat dejected ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... 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
... nation! Let's write its history," which he at once proceeded to do with immense gusto and considerable accuracy. Americans will not universally agree with all the views he puts forward. I myself am of opinion (probably quite wrongly) that I could make a better argumentative case for the North in the Civil War on the question of slavery. And in his account of the War of 1812-1814 Mr. CHESTERTON spends a great deal of indignation over the burning by the British of some public buildings in Washington, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... the Elizabethans is liveliest when it is most argumentative. Swinburne is less amusing when he is exalting the Elizabethans than when he is cleaving the skull of a pet aversion. His style is an admirable one for faction-fighting, but is less suitable for intimate conversation. He writes in superlatives that give one the impression ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... utterly absurd. Mr. Brock does not like nonsense, and he never talks it. Both the form and the content of his criticism are intellectual. He is in the great English tradition—the tradition of Dryden and Johnson and Macaulay and Leslie Stephen; he has an argumentative prose-style and a distaste for highfalutin, and, where the unenlightened intellectualism of Macaulay and Leslie Stephen, and the incorrigible common sense of Johnson, might have pitched these eminent men into the slough of desperate absurdity, it often happens that Mr. Brock, ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... went the round of the village, as such questions do. The servants of Oakley fed upon it. They held secret conferences in the kitchen, and grew loud and argumentative when they knew John Arthur was safely out of hearing. They bore themselves with an air of subdued, unobservant melancholy in his presence, and waxed important, mysterious and unsatisfactory, when in converse with the towns folk—as was quite right and proper, for were they not, in the eyes of ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... things, a method of entry into the material world, and a method of departure from it, wholly and strikingly dissimilar to the established order—in common parlance, miraculous. Answers conceived in these two senses—some rough and popular and declamatory, some learned and argumentative and scientific—appeared in great numbers. "Grave objections are alleged against the book.... Its conclusions about the meaning of the term God, and about man's knowledge of God, are severely condemned; strong objections are taken to our view ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... is the psychic nature, the web of emotions, desires, argumentative trains of thought, which cover up and obscure the truth by absorbing the entire attention and keeping the consciousness in the psychic realm. When hopes and fears are reckoned at their true worth, ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... 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 charm when the occasions which produced them ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... 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 ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... confess that Johnny is now and then too much for me. I wish I could read him as cleverly as he reads me. He knows all my weak points; he sees right through me, and makes me feel that I am a helpless infant in his adroit hands. He has an argumentative, oracular air, when things have gone wrong, which always upsets my dignity. Yet how cunningly he uses his power! It is only in the last extremity that he crosses his legs, puts his hands into his trousers-pockets, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... of the Author.—This selection is neither descriptive nor narrative; it is Argumentative. Mr. Beecher is trying to establish a certain proposition, and in the three paragraphs is giving three reasons, or arguments, to prove its truth. But the argument is not all thought, is not purely intellectual. It is suffused with feeling, is impassioned. ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... examination. Not only is the precariousness of all such Criticism as has been brought to bear against the genuineness of S. Mark xvi. 9-20 excessive, but the supposed facts adduced in evidence have been found out to be every one of them mistakes;—being either, (1) demonstrably without argumentative cogency of any kind;—or else, (2) distinctly corroborative and confirmatory circumstances: indications that this part of the Gospel is indeed by S. Mark,—not that it is probably ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... 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 difference! ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... breath, and paused to see where they stood. Presently Bateman said, "My good sir, this is a question of fact, not of argumentative cleverness. The question is, whether it is not true that bishops are necessary to the notion of a Church, and whether it is not false that Popes ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... functionary, saw him in a distant corner, engaged in what appeared to be an urgent discussion between him and Murtough Murphy, who was talking in the most jocular manner to the sheriff, who seemed anything but amused with his argumentative merriment. The fact was, Murphy, while pushing the interests of Egan with an energy unsurpassed, did it with all the utmost cheerfulness, and gave his opponents a laugh in exchange for the point gained against them, and while he defeated, ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... back in his corner again. His handsome face was all sweetness, indulgent though argumentative. He was nothing, clearly, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... any reply, a queer little double knock announced that Miss La Creevy had called to see them; and when Miss La Creevy presented herself, Mrs Nickleby, though strongly disposed to be argumentative on the previous question, forgot all about it in a gush of supposes about the coach she had come by; supposing that the man who drove must have been either the man in the shirt-sleeves or the man with the black eye; that whoever he was, he hadn't found that parasol ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens |
