Sentence:  I had never found him so impossible to soften or to move. I tried this way and I tried that; I <WSD>pictured</WSD> his future in an English gaol; I described the sorrow of his mother when I came back with the news; I said everything to touch his heart, but all to no purpose. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  To depict or describe vividly.