It is a characteristic strength of classic style to persuade by default. The classic writer offers no explicit argument at all. Ostensibly, he offers simply a presentation. If the reader fails to recognize that the ostensible presentation is a device of persuasion, then he is persuaded without ever realizing that an argument has occurred. It is always easier to persuade an audience unaware of the rhetorician’s agenda.

Francis-Noël Thomas, Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose, Princeton, 1994, p. 102