"Unconvincing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a growl, and I was taken to the guardroom, where the same Hun N.C.O. casually informed me that I was to be shot. In an unconvincing way I told myself this was nonsense. The next move was not at all reassuring. I was marched through the back door into a tiny courtyard, accompanied by the sergeant of the guard and several privates armed with rifles! I am glad to say that ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... of the speaker, the futility of the speech, were about equally balanced! Candour was impossible, if only for kindness' sake. And the story, so told, was not only unconvincing, it was hardly intelligible even, to Letty. For the two personalities moved in different worlds, and what had seemed to the woman who was all delicate impulse and romance the natural and right course, merely excited in Letty, and not without reason, fresh ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... In the near future this struggle must lead to a realisation of the duties of woman, founded on a level-headed facing of the physiological realities of her nature. It is a complete disregard of sexualogical difficulties which renders so superficial and unconvincing much of the talk which proceeds from the "Woman's Rights" platform. All efforts made to understand the sex problem, which is the woman question, must be based on the full knowledge of the physical capacity of woman and the effect that her emancipation will have on her function of race ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... me. Moreover, that I have lain awake in the night to laugh over it is no guarantee of your being passably amused. Yourselves, I dare say, have known what it is to awake in irrepressible mirth from a dream which next morning proved to be flat and unconvincing. Well, this my pet story has some of the qualities of a dream; being absurd, for instance, and almost incredible, and even a trifle inhuman. After all, I had better change my mind, and tell ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... suddenly weak and sick. He had expected McNabb's anger at his foolish whim, and knew that he deserved it—but that McNabb should accuse him of theft! Sick at heart, he faltered his answer, and in his own ears his voice sounded strange, and dull, and unconvincing. "You think I—I ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... Perhaps it is connected with the nomadic nature of his mind. That lack of roots, this remoteness from ancient instincts and traditions is responsible for a certain bleak and heartless extravagance of statement on certain subjects which makes the author really unconvincing as well as exaggerative; satires that are saugrenu, jokes that are rather silly than wild, statements which even considered as lies have no symbolic relation to truth. They are exaggerations of something that does ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... face had a striking resemblance to the traditional type for Jesus, adding to it just that element of individual peculiarity, the absence of which makes it ever liable to appear a little vacant and unconvincing. The perception of this would seem to have dictated the general arrangement of Duerer's crowning portrait of himself, that at Munich dated 1500 (see illus.), "Before which" (Mr. Ricketts writes in his recently published volume on the Prado) "one forgets all other portraits ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... as nothing less than a Person—though possibly more. It is contended by many authorities that we cannot regard any collective being, such as a college or a regiment—and Nature is a collective being—as a true person. But their arguments are unconvincing. They allow that "I" am a person because "I" possess rationality and self-consciousness. But "I" am a system or organisation of innumerable beings—electrons, groupings of electrons, groups of groupings in rising complexity. "I"—the body and ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... you mean to assert that the baby's mind is a finished product at birth; that coming into life is simply the last stage of its growth? How unconvincing your theory is." ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... than a grotesque caricature. His cynical indifference is not only evident from many of his other works, but constantly forces itself upon our attention even in the present play. The falsity of his whole position appears in the unconvincing conventionality of the patterns of chastity themselves, and in the unreality of the characters which serve them as foils—Cloe being utterly preposterous except as a study in pathlogy, and Amarillis essentially a tragic figure who can only be tolerated on condition ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... to enter for the same stakes as his great forerunners makes it almost impossible not to compare Ferdinand Fathom with Jonathan Wild: and the effect is very damaging to the Count. Much of the book is dull: and Fathom's conversation is (to adopt a cant word) extremely unconvincing. The fact seems to be that Smollett had run his picaresque vein dry, as far as it connected itself with mere rascality of various kinds, and he did well to close it. He had published three novels in five years: he waited seven before his next, and then ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... energy shorn away. He carries a bow and arrow, and promptly shoots a Swan, one of the prides of Montsalvat. He is too stupid to understand that he has done any wrong—wrong to a helpless bird or his own nature. Gurnemanz explains in very unconvincing accents; Parsifal, the poor, "pure" fool, bursts into tears, breaks his weapons and throws them away. And now the reader must bear with me if I am both tedious and inexplicable in my explanation. At some unknown period in ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... that but did not answer, although he seemed to have a hot word ready. And thenceforward he hung his head more, and at least tried to seem bereaved. But his manner was unconvincing none the less, and King found it food ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... to instantly send the radio call that would stop the waiting fleet of H-bombers. But an unconvincing message would be worse than no message at all. He had to describe exactly what he saw here so the Nyjorders would know he wasn't lying. What he told them had to fit exactly with the information they already had about ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... his means of investigation, can have the subject under his hand at the exact moment of inspiration—of the sudden, fertile, brief creative impulse—would not the experiment itself be a disturbing cause, so that the result would be ipso facto vitiated, or at least unconvincing? ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... came from the male companion of the battered peonies. He advanced with a swagger that was the unconvincing mask of diffidence assumed by an undersized, lean young man, in the chauffeur's doubtful-weather panoply of black waterproof jacket, breeches merging into knee-boots, the whole crowned with a portentous peaked cap, with absurd brass ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... elder and the incompetence of the younger. As leader, as teacher, and as writer he was alike unsurpassed. It may be mentioned in passing that, not only the Hidden Words and the Seven Valleys, but the fine though unconvincing apologetic arguments of the Book of Ighan flowed from Baha-'ullah's pen at the Baghdad period. But we must now make good a great omission. Let us turn back to our hero's ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... looked out of the window, heard the unromantic honk-honk of a piratical night-owl taxicab on the street so far below. He steadied his mental equilibrium, and looked again at the self-possessed young woman, whose regal manner was as convincing as all the other details were unconvincing. On the table lay a fortune in jewels and rings and a necklace. He had not noticed them before. He remembered the Spanish conversation which he had heard through the bathroom door. He realized from the size and elegance of the rooms ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... A human figure, glowing like a diamond ablaze, leaped out from it; another shot down from the foremast. I don't know how many I saw go. It was like a theatric effect, unreal, unconvincing, incredible. ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... first an unhappy one. During three or four years, unable, it seems, to match the new conception of form with his intensely personal reaction, Renoir produced a certain number of unconvincing and uncharacteristic pictures (e.g., the dance series, Dance a la Ville, etc.). There is an uneasy harshness about the contours, the forms are imperfectly felt, they are wooden even, and in their placing one misses the old inevitability. Signed with another name these essays ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... may consider the allegorical method artificial and unconvincing, even if he does not go so far as Spinoza, and say that it is "useless, harmful, and absurd."[125] We prefer to-day to show the inner agreement of philosophical with Biblical teaching, rather than pretend that all philosophy is contained ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... bottom, and settled down to the task that had brought them back—the bringing up of their boy and girl in an American tradition. If Mrs. Lestrange ever missed the polish and variety of European social life, if she found the "Anglo-mania" (just then so fashionable in New York) a little shallow and unconvincing, she never showed it. Handsome and serene, a trifle more matronly than women of her age appear to-day, perhaps, but none the less admired for it, she moved through her duties of household, nursery, ballroom and salon, omitting nothing, excelling ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... somewhat unconvincing fact of his wife's brother being a gamekeeper on the Marquis's estate near Jarge's native village, he had acquired, and retained through all the years of my farming, a sporting reputation; he was always the man selected for trapping ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... a quaint Gothic doorway, "they dispense the succulent pig's foot and the innocuous and unconvincing near-but-not-very-beer. It is also possible to get something to eat and drink. May I ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... find, couched in such euphemistically appreciative language, so accurate a summary of the intention and quality of this book. Casanova is pale, diffuse, and unconvincing, indeed, beside the d'Annunzio who so early gave his full measure as the supreme novelist of sensual pleasure in this book. As Arthur Symons so well says, "Gabriele d'Annunzio comes to remind us, very definitely, as only an Italian can, of the reality and the beauty of sensation, ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... is, Balderstone, I'm glad of it. She's too snippy for me, and I'm afraid I should have quarrelled with you about her in a half-hearted, unconvincing manner." ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... D.O.R.A., as a strenuous female, is now as dead as 1914 fashions, and the people who heard these friends or Germany crying out their friendliness listened to them in laughing tolerance, which must have annoyed the speakers considerably, seeing that laughter renders unconvincing the very fiercest argument. But they laughed, and, passing on their way, heard God being described as an "old scoundrel," and this seemed ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... society in which wealth and poverty, breeding and vulgarity, cheerfully rub shoulders; the descriptions of the wistful beautiful West of Ireland in autumn and winter; and above all the horses. Added to all this there are Sinn Fein raids, real and imaginary, to bring things up to date. A rather unconvincing plot, with a dash of Great Expectations in it, yet offers a situation which has plenty of amusing possibilities. Honor and Evie Nutting, two middle-aged spinsters, find themselves the possessors of eight thousand a year, on condition that they spend ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... arises naturally out of No. 127, and illustrates the relation between the town and country. No. 410 has been omitted because it was condemned by Addison as inconsistent with the character of Sir Roger, together with No. 544, which is an unconvincing attempt to reconcile it with the whole scheme. Some of the papers have been slightly abridged where they would not be acceptable to the taste of ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... At Praed Street she found her aunt gazing at her curiously, sometimes beginning a sentence, and stopping, as one fearful of trespassing on prohibited ground. When Mr. Trew called, he and Mrs. Mills conferred in undertones, breaking off when the girl came near, and speaking, in an unconvincing way, of an interesting murder in South London; Trew thought the police could find the missing man if they only went the right way about it. Great Titchfield Street, from eight o'clock in the morning till nearly eight at night, appeared ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... herself when she proclaimed the law of necessity. In the light of this consideration the German outcry that the Belgians were breaking both the laws of humanity and international jurisprudence lacks sincerity and remains unconvincing. ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... you, no doubt; but unconvincing," returned Hannah dryly. "No! It's a fine suggestion in theory, but in practice I'm afraid it won't work. I don't want to imperil my popularity for good. Think of something a trifle less searching! Er—er—Slackers against—against ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... shoulders were no longer visible, the Prophet opened Marcus Aurelius, and, seating himself in a corner of the big couch by the fire, crossed his legs one over the other and began to read that timid Ancient's consolatory, but unconvincing, remarks. Occasionally he paused, however, murmured doubtfully, "Will she have to be carried to bed?" shook his head mournfully and then ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... straight. She looked, first angry, and then as if she were going to cry. "Doctor—tell me! Am I that unconvincing? Hasn't the winter—" ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... from the factories hid the low-hanging stars and marked the seething hell of injustice and vice and want and woe that he knew was in South Harvey, and he held the glowing cigarette stub in his hand and laughed when he thought of God. "Free will," says "Mr. Left" in one of his rather hazy and unconvincing observations, "is of limited range. Man faces two buttons. He must choose the material or the spiritual—and when he has chosen fate plays upon his choice the grotesque variation of human destiny. But when the cloth of life is finished, the pattern of the passing ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... table rapped and heaved and slid about. A chair crawled to my lap and at last to the top of the table, apparently of its own motion. A little rocking-chair moved to and fro precisely as if some one were sitting in it, and so on. It was all unconvincing at the time, but as I look back upon it now, after years of experience, I am inclined to think part of it at least was genuine. And this brings me to say to Mrs. Quigg, and to any other doubter, that you have only to step aside into silence and shadow ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... note above all the tender solicitude and affection her every word was showing for this unknown mother—all this made Gwen's brain reel. Unless some natural resolution of the discord came, Heaven help her, and keep her from some sudden cruel open operation on the heart of Truth, some unconvincing vivisection of a soul! For belief in the incredible, however true, flies from forced nurture in the hothouse ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... James S. Norton was indeed a well-known attorney of Chicago, as he deserved to be for his wit and professional ability. He was on such friendly terms with Field that the latter thought nothing of taking any liberty he pleased with his name whenever it served to lend credibility to an otherwise unconvincing narrative. In subsequent paragraphs Field answered fictitious inquiries as to Mr. Norton's reality by giving his actual address, with the result that Mr. Norton was pestered with correspondence from all ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... Tamyra is forced to decoy her paramour to his doom. All this is deftly contrived and does credit to Chapman's dramatic craftsmanship. It is true that the last two Acts are spun out with supernatural episodes of a singularly unconvincing type. The Friar's invocation of Behemoth, who proves a most unserviceable spirit, and the vain attempts of this scoundrelly ecclesiastic's ghost to shield D'Ambois from his fate, strike us as wofully crude and mechanical excursions into the occult. But they doubtless ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... not, however, bring up objections that the prospect has not raised in his own mind. That would be putting up a straw man and knocking him down, which is profitless and unconvincing. Of course you must clear the path when there is no other way to proceed, but do not block it yourself. Sometimes it will not be advisable to clear the path. If you can get around a difficulty you see, without attracting your prospect's attention to it, you will ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... opening bars of the Marseillaise, the Pacificist had already decided upon his conduct. He sat still, even for a few moments he feigned to be absorbed in his favourite newspaper, but almost immediately gave this up as unconvincing and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 16, 1914 • Various
... from our couch let us arise! Hark to the cock's arousing cries! He chides the sluggard's slumbrous ease, And shames his unconvincing pleas. ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... explained the faith, so far as he understood it, that was in him. We astonished ourselves and our hearers by the irregular and fragmentary nature of the creeds we produced, clotted at one point, inconsecutive at another, inconsistent and unconvincing to a quite unexpected degree. It would not be difficult to caricature one of those meetings; the lecturer floundering about with an air of exquisite illumination, the audience attentive with an expression of thwarted edification ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... we need not examine Mr. W. F. Skene's learned but unconvincing theory that the author of the fragmentary Latin work was one Maurice Drummond, out of the Lennox. The hypothesis is that of Mr. W. F. Skene, and Mr. Felix Skene points out the difficulties which beset the opinion of his distinguished kinsman. ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... is nothing to keep you awake o' nights. There is a millionaire in it, with one daughter (whom he hates) and a very unpleasant secretary, who loves the daughter for her prospects and a country lass for her looks; and there is a great deal of the most unconvincing finance that ever I read, even in fiction. As for the secretary's end, it wouldn't be fair to give that away, as it is really the only point at which the plot quickens into sufficient vigour to hold its own with the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... all Dave's determination to force himself to obey her wish, and the struggle nearly kept him from recalling the original object of his visit. Remembering, he tried to tell Alaire what he had learned from Phil Strange; but so broken and so unconvincing was his recital that he doubted if she understood in the least what he was ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... to the jury for the defence was brief, and, to sharp legal ears, vague and unconvincing. Although he pointed out that the evidence was purely circumstantial, and that in the absence of direct testimony the accused was entitled to the benefit of any reasonable doubt, he did not attempt to ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... in a few words an unconvincing summary of a long and complicated story—one that I detest telling. However, I could not permit you to sit with me at the directors' table of this bank without knowing who I am, what I am, and why I have run that rat into ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... Carlotta!' And the profound injustice of that cry tainted even the sad sweetness of my immense sorrow. To this day, whenever I hear it, as I do still, my inmost soul protests, and all the excuses which my love found for him seem inadequate and unconvincing. I was a broken creature. (How few know what it means to be broken—to sink under a tremendous and overwhelming calamity! And yet who but they can understandingly sympathize with the afflicted?) As for my friends, I did not give them the ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... and noted the signs, and was sure he was making no mistake; before Sadie came back at supper-time he had his arms about Comrade Jennie, and was pressing kisses upon the lovely white throat; and Comrade Jennie was sobbing softly, and her pleading with him to stop had grown faint and unconvincing. ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... seemed a little surprised, and, except Mr. Rathbone-Sanders, they all seemed pleased to see him again so soon. His explanation of why he hadn't gone back to London from Chichester struck him as a little unconvincing in the cold light of Mr. Rathbone-Sanders' eye. But Amanda was manifestly excited by his return, and he told them his impressions of Chichester and described the entertainment of the evening guest at a country inn and suddenly produced his copy of the REPUBLIC. "I found ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... a little, "somebody else's nerves are kinda frazzled, too. I don't want you to begin worrying over my affairs, Dade. I'm not," he asserted with unconvincing emphasis. "But all the same, I'd like to get my fingers on the fellow ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... reached home too late, and in such a state of nerves that she made the most unconvincing replies to the cross-examination that ensued. When she saw her name in the paper the next morning her friends also began to make inquiries—and eventually to deny that they were her friends or had ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... her thoughts. She felt they would be too savage; would rend her unendurably. She tried not to listen. She felt the preacher was dealing out "pastoral platitudes." She tried to give her mind elsewhere; but the sound of the voice, unconvinced and unconvincing threatened her again and again with a tide of furious resentment. She fidgeted and felt for thoughts and tried to compose her face to a semblance of serenity. It would not do to sit scowling here amongst her pupils with Fraulein Pfaff's eye commanding her profile from the end of the pew ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... bit of unconvincing accuracy. Mrs. Haxton has always been an essential part of the scheme. I am here solely because I did not think Mr. Fenshawe should be allowed to go alone—alone in the sense that these people were strangers to him, while ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... subtleties of rascaldom, little touches of criminality, that I could have put that man up to, which would have transformed his Judas from woodenness into breathing life. As it was, with no one in the village apparently who was worth his salt as a felon to teach him, his performance was unconvincing, and Judas became a figure to laugh rather than to ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... have succeeded had the key been larger and had the situation required less accurately coordinated movements. However, it is fair to say that the evidence of the idea of using the key in the lock was unconvincing. My assistant's observation was, perhaps, misleading in so far as it suggested that idea. It may and probably was purely by accident that the animal used ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... present company in the consciousness of deeds that need attention. Generals of command, great captains of industry, and a few rare statesmen have it; but the statesmen are most rare, because they are trained to pretend, and therefore unconvincing. The generals and captains are detested for it by all who have never humbled themselves to the point where they can think, and be unselfishly absorbed. Kagig stepped out of one zone of thought into the next, and ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... so earnestly sought and so highly prized in Oriental art, is the very thing which our art and our architecture most conspicuously lack. To the eye sensitive to rhythm, our essays in these fields appear awkward and unconvincing, lacking a certain inevitability. We must restore to art that first great canon of Chinese aesthetics, "Rhythmic vitality, or the life movement of the spirit through the rhythm of things." It cannot be interjected from the outside, but must be inwardly realized by the "stilling" ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... been much attacked as involving an indefensible 'State absolutism', a denial of 'personality' to lesser groups, even as a negation of the right to lesser loyalties. Mr. Figgis, in a number of suggestive, if unconvincing, writings, has recalled the theories of the Jesuits and other anti-state minorities and protestants on this subject, reinforcing them from the Nonconformist and Trade Union theories or inclinations of our own day: and a whole school of younger ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... true to life, may be lifeless and colorless, and their doings and what happens to them uninteresting. For this reason, many modern writers of tales for children, respecting the worth of the realistic, neglect to comply with what the realistic demands, and produce insipid, unconvincing tales. The realistic tale should deal with the simple and the ordinary rather than with the exceptional; and the test is not how much, but ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... rebellious usurpers and insurgents and attempted to frighten the Convention with a vision of the inevitable failure of the insurrection, which, he claimed, would be suppressed by the forces from the front. His address sounded unconvincing and out of place within the walls of a hall where the overwhelming majority of the delegates were enthusiastically observing the victorious advance ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky
... a little brightness into its bald and unconvincing narrative of Parliamentary procedure it would provide reading-matter which would grip the heart and stir the emotions, winning many new readers from the students of fiction and other light literature. Hansard will otherwise never find it worth while to organise sand-castle ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various
... it the subject of a definite plank in their platform, but the wing of the Democratic party that refused to ally with them was silent on the civil service, and the "straight" Republicans advocated reform in doubtful and unconvincing terms. In 1876 both party platforms were even more vague, although Hayes himself was openly committed to the improvement of ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... though he was fond enough of a band. And though history was one of his few strong points at school, the glittering galaxy of kings and queens appealed to him no more than the great writers at their little desks and the great cricketers in their unconvincing flannels. They were waxworks one and all. But when the extra sixpence had been paid at the inner turnstile, and he had passed down a dungeon stair into the dim vaults below, his imagination was at work upon the dreadful faces in the docks before ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... making—during a month's leisure in London—a list, as far as that were possible, of all the gems and baubles which the dead men and women on the sunken steamers had owned. This was a paltry record of bracelets, and rings, and tiaras, and clasps, such stuff as any fellow of a jeweller may sell; unconvincing stuff, worth no more than a near relation for purposes of evidence. There was but one piece of the whole mass that did not come in my category—a great box with a fine painting by Jean Petitot upon its lid, and a curious ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... "Peter Wilkins," etc. The Adventures of Peter Wilkins, by Robert Paltock, 1751, is still read; but The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Robert Boyle, 1736, has had its day. It was a blend of unconvincing travel and some rather free narrative: a piece of sheer hackwork to meet a certain market. See Lamb's sonnet to Stothard, Vol. IV. The Fortunate Blue-Coat Boy I have not seen. Canon Ainger describes it as ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... him consider his feelings on the death of some notorious traitor or criminal; not satisfaction, but awe, is the uppermost feeling in his heart. Death sobers us all. But away from death this may be unconvincing; and one may still shout of the glory of floating the ship of freedom in the blood of the enemy. I give him pause. He may still correct his philosophy in view of the horror of a street accident or the brutality of ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... on Scott with that solemnity he could assume to bolster a baldly unconvincing statement. "Not now, Bob. Not now, I ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, though only external, is perfect. Many touches in the Idylls other than the title-one are suitable and even subtle; but the convertite in that one is (as they say now) "unconvincing." The simpler attitude of the rejection of Lancelot in the verse Morte and in Malory is infinitely better. As for Morris's two pieces, they could hardly be better in themselves as poems—but they are scarcely ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... the anthropomorphic teaching was undoubted; while if the answer were in the negative I should be guilty of fostering the abominable denominational spirit which ruins this land. My reply must have been unconvincing, for I overheard the children later deciding, the Methodist Church having been barred as a place of residence, that the attic was the only remaining possibility. It is the one spot in the Home unvisited by them, ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... ways for bringing the next creature into his power. It rather pleased me to find that I could exercise this wonderful influence—a force so long latent in a superior intellectual equipment, obscured by a disenchanting personal appearance, especially unconvincing then, for I never looked particularly well ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... betting ring with a persistence almost pitiful, but he had neither the appearance nor the manner which begets confidence in unlikely tales, and in his mouth the truth itself sounded like a fabrication. He was a willing but an unconvincing liar, and the few who lingered long enough to listen to his clumsy attempts ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... as it seemed to Morriston, gave Gifford food for disagreeable reflection. Why, indeed, should Henshaw be hanging about in the grounds of Wynford, and give so unconvincing a reason? What troubled Gifford most was that the man's reticent attitude precluded all hope of his learning anything of his plans which could usefully be imparted to Miss Morriston. Evidently there was nothing to be got out of ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... support of this opinion, but they are unconvincing. The latter part of this Sonnet (II. 'Conjectures') refers to a favourite notion of Roman Catholic writers, that Joseph of Arimathea and his companions brought Christianity into Britain, and built a rude church at Glastonbury; alluded ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... to you that he should have done it some other way. What does he mean by allowing his retreat to be cut off like that? What does he mean by using a shotgun when silence was his one chance of escape? Come, Mr. Holmes, it's up to you to give us a lead, since you say Mr. White Mason's theory is unconvincing." ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... His tactics were ably seconded by Doctor Pestovitch, his chief minister. Failing to establish his claims to complete independence, King Ferdinand Charles annoyed the conference by a proposal to be treated as a protected state. Finally he professed an unconvincing submission, and put a mass of obstacles in the way of the transfer of his national officials to the new government. In these things he was enthusiastically supported by his subjects, still for the most part an illiterate peasantry, passionately ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... attractive, energetic, animated, sympathetic, authoritative, dignified, direct, impressive, vivid, convincing, persuasive, zealous, enthusiastic, and inspiring. Avoid that which is timid, familiar, violent, cold, indifferent, unreal, artificial, dull, sing-song, hesitating, feeble, unconvincing, apathetic, monotonous, pompous, formal, arbitrary, ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... to advance another theory more plausible still, and equally unconvincing, I might urge that the word was derived from the negro hut-removals already mentioned. Here, at least, we have a very ancient custom, which would be familiar to British seamen visiting West Indian seaports. The object moved was a shanty; the music accompanying ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry
... upon which every line of future publicity and every sentence of salesman's talk will be based. Without a complete understanding throughout the establishment of the "editorial attitude" the entire publicity will be aimless and unconvincing. ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... (Vigouroux, Dict. II. 1267a), that this piece was separated from the original book because "elle retarde le récit et est en dehors du but final" seems unconvincing—as much so as Dereser's (quoted in Bissell, p. 444), from whom perhaps it was borrowed—that "the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem shortened it for convenient use," An equally unsatisfying "reason" is that of H. Deane in Daniel, his ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... of a gipsy van. The Dean's Ernest was accustomed to boast that he had once been given a ride by a gipsy on a donkey, when his nurse was not looking, but no one credited the story, and the details with which he supported it were feeble and unconvincing. The Polchester children in general were told that "they would be stolen by the gipsies if they weren't careful," and, although some of them in extreme moments of rebellion and depression felt that the life of adventure thus offered ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... for Rat when the Badger and the Mole at length returned, and he had to face them at table with his pitiful and unconvincing story. The Badger's caustic, not to say brutal, remarks may be imagined, and therefore passed over; but it was painful to the Rat that even the Mole, though he took his friend's side as far as possible, could not help ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... LAZULI. Malachite and azurite are usually correctly named, but "lapis lazuli" is a name that is frequently misused, being applied to crackled quartz that has been stained with Prussian blue, or some other dye, to an unconvincing resemblance to true lapis. Such artificially produced stones are sometimes sold as "Swiss lapis." They are harder than true lapis and probably wear much better in exposed ornaments, but they are not lapis and are never of equal color, and names should not ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... would be at Fort Rae? Why had he come down the Yellow Knife? And why had the two Indian scouts failed to report the man's coming? Only one of the Indians had returned at all, and his report that the other had been killed by one of MacNair's retainers had seemed unconvincing. However, Lapierre had accepted the story, but all through the days of the building he had secretly watched him. The man was one of his trusted Indians—so was the ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... o'clock Miss Foster summoned them and they went into the invalid's room; to Susan it was all unreal and unconvincing. The figure in the bed, the purple face, the group of sobbing watchers. No word was said: the moments slipped by. Her eyes were wandering when Miss Foster suddenly touched her ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... It was the first time he had spoken to her in that way. She stammered something about "general principles," but he was regarding her so fixedly that her attempt at dissembling was most unconvincing. ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... head aching from fatigue, Eric tried to reconstruct the fantastic evening. Little detached pictures jostled their unconvincing way through his brain—Lady Poynter's formal dining-room and the barren, self-conscious literary discussion; Lord Poynter's wheezing confidences about the wood port which should properly be taken as a liqueur. ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... learned it." Then, divining that his words were still unconvincing, he added: "Same as I learned German and other things with father, out of books, you know. Didn't you learn French when you were a ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... nothing in the letter but notorious facts; that his exaggerations of the American force could only be designed to favour the cause of his country; and that his object was purely patriotic. He added, in a burst of sounding though unconvincing oratory: "The warmest bosom here does not flame with a brighter zeal for the security, happiness, and liberties ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... was denied January 9, 1884, because there was no record of the alleged diseases, and no satisfactory proof of their contraction in the Army was produced, and because of the meager and unconvincing evidence of disability found by the surgeon on an actual examination ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... heads of the defence, and the feeling of uneasiness grew. The more experienced conceived it to be the herald of a final, overwhelming onslaught. The younger preferred optimistic views, which they found unconvincing. However, every one took care that advantage was taken of ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... that is very pretty, but it is also unconvincing. So, my friend [To ASTROFF] you must let me go on burning firewood in my stoves and building ...
— Uncle Vanya • Anton Checkov
... to mark the spirit of the time; 'to compile a long list of the evils which it has inflicted, without doing the same for the blessings which it has bestowed.'[35] Conversely we may well think it unphilosophical and unconvincing to enumerate all the blessings without any of the evils; to tell us how the Christian doctrine enlarged the human spirit, without observing what narrowing limitations it imposed; to dwell on all the mitigating influences ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... a pleasant signification, that word "Dolcedorme": it means Sweet slumber. But no one could tell me how the mountain group came by this name; they gave me a number of explanations, all fanciful and unconvincing. Pollino, we are told, is derived from Apollo, and authors of olden days sometimes write of it as "Monte Apollino." But Barrius suggests an alternative etymology, equally absurd, and connected with the medicinal herbs which are found there. ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... calmly. Then, in her sweet, clear voice, she said: "Did it ever occur to you, dearest, that a more ridiculous, unconvincing, purposeless, insane, God-forsaken idiot than you never existed? That you eclipse the wildest dreams of insanity? That you are ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... ponies all over his fields, who played bo-peep with each other in and out of the valleys of the plough-land. But they were grey valleys now, that yesterday were smiling in the sun. And the sky was a mere self-coloured sky (a modern expression, as unconvincing as most of its congeners), and wanted to make everything else as grey as itself. Also there came drifts of fine rain that wetted you through, and your umbrella wasn't any good. So a great many of the visitors to St. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... was unconvincing. Moments passed before his reply came, and in those moments the keen eyes of his employer were busy. The man was still in the working kit of a cowpuncher. Even to the chapps, and the prairie hat crushed down on his ugly bullet head. Then, too, his ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... woman in all respects, from her broad face and squat body to her forced, timbreless voice and her unconvincing gestures. It was only her clumsiness that had prevented her from opening the French window; the lock was all right. Ellen felt that she would die if she did not have an hour alone with Richard to relearn that life could be lived easily ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... of Tithes:—"To heap such unconvincing citations as these in Religion, whereof the Scripture only is our rule, argues not much learning nor judgment, but the lost labour of much unprofitable reading. And yet a late hot Querist for Tithes, whom ye may know, by his wits lying ever beside him in ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... is, like most characters which are chosen and built up to exemplify a preconceived theory, quite unconvincing. In his foreword Wezel analyzes his heroine's character and details at some length the motives underlying the choice of attributes and the building up of her personality. This insight into the author's scaffolding, this explanation of the mechanism of his puppet-show, does not enhance the aesthetic, ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... form, but it is obviously foreign to MacDowell's temperament, which was only at its best in subjects having some definite poetical basis. The work was later revised by the composer, and while quite a good example of its form, as a MacDowell work it is unconvincing. ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte |
