"Expatiate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not the place to expatiate on the merits of the Latin play; but the assertion may be hazarded without much risk, that both the original and Thornton's version are, taken as wholes, considerably superior to any of the imitations. Indeed, the character ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... Bible books she is the greatest reader that I know. I wish you could hear her expatiate on David and Isaiah; and she is in the right, too. They leave behind them, in a rude barbarism of religious ideas, Egypt and Greece. By the bye, is it not strange that the two great literatures of antiquity, the Hebrew and Grecian, should have appeared in territories not ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... priests, when the conversation is confined chiefly to the candidate's progress. He then gives to each of them presents of tobacco, and after an offering to Ki/tshi Man/id[-o], with the pipe, they expose the articles contained in their Mid[-e]/ sacks and explain and expatiate upon the merits and properties of each of the magic objects. The candidate for the first time learns of the manner of preparing effigies, etc., with which to present to the incredulous ocular demonstration of the genuineness and divine origin of the Mid[-e]/wiwin, ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... parties:—never mind! My words, at least, are more sincere and hearty Than if I sought to sail before the wind. He who has nought to gain can have small art: he Who neither wishes to be bound nor bind, May still expatiate freely, as will I, Nor give my ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... walls, and grated windows, that were between me and liberty. "These," said I, "are the engines that tyranny sits down in cold and serious meditation to invent. This is the empire that man exercises over man. Thus is a being, formed to expatiate, to act, to smile, and enjoy, restricted and benumbed. How great must be his depravity or heedlessness, who vindicates this scheme for changing health and gaiety and serenity, into the wanness of a dungeon, and the deep ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... enter into details of the flora, fauna, and geology of his island-home, and to expatiate in such glowing language on its arboreal and herbal wealth and beauty, that the professor became quite reconciled to ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... expatiate farther concerning saps; it is by some controverted, whether this exhaustion would not be an extreme detriment to the growth, substance, and other parts of trees: As to the growth and bulk, if what I ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... whole circle of arts, and the whole compass of nature, to supply his maxims and reflections; all the inward passions and affections of mankind, to furnish his characters: and all the outward forms and images of things for his descriptions: but wanting yet an ampler sphere to expatiate in, he opened a new and boundless walk for his imagination, and created a world for himself in the invention of fable. That which Aristotle calls "the soul of poetry," was first breathed into it by Homer, I shall begin with considering him in ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... Woodstock—written as this was almost between the blows of the executioner's crow-bar on the wheel, in the tightening of the windlasses at the rack—it is not absent, whatever people may say, in Anne of Geierstein, nor even quite lacking in the better parts of Count Robert of Paris. But we must not expatiate on its effects; we must only give a little attention to the means by which ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... having to live in these disgusting surroundings is beyond description, and I now realise that it was a sin, a crime, to accept this invitation to London, which in the luckiest case must have led me far away from my real path. I need not expatiate to you upon my actual situation. It is the consistent outgrowth of the greatest inconsistency I ever committed. I am compelled to conduct an English concert programme right down to the end; that says everything. I have got into the middle of a slough of conventionalities ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... the governed, bear to each other. The first part of the external view of all states, their relation as friends, makes so trifling a figure in history, that I am very sorry to say, it affords me but little matter on which to expatiate. The good offices done by one nation to its neighbor;[8] the support given in public distress; the relief afforded in general calamity; the protection granted in emergent danger; the mutual return of kindness and civility, would afford a very ample and very ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... improving it by the assistance of imported slaves. What would be the consequence of hindering us from it? The slaves of Virginia would rise in value, and we would be obliged to go to your markets." I need not expatiate on this subject. Great as the evil is, a dismemberment of the union would be worse. If those states should disunite from the other states, for not indulging them in the temporary continuance of this traffic, they might solicit and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... abated, and his life is devoted to retirement, he will, perhaps, resemble him whom I most love and honour. His present sweetness, politeness, and diffidence, seem to promise in future the same benevolence, dignity, and goodness. But I must not expatiate upon ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... charges, I shall be compelled to establish your guilt at some length, and to set the facts in the clearest possible light. But if you admit the distribution of meat in the manner described, the introduction of men, and the theft of fire,—then my case is complete, and there is no more to be said. To expatiate further ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... the lips have grown harder and more prominent, that the legs and feet are daily altering their shape, and that the hair is beginning to change into stubs of feathers. And till the probability of so wonderful a conversion can be shewn, it is surely lost time and lost eloquence to expatiate on the happiness of man in such a state; to describe his powers, both of running and flying, to paint him in a condition where all narrow luxuries would be contemned, where he would be employed only ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... though foolish, was not intended for more than respect, and our Bishops did not desire it; at which he smiled. Then he went on to expatiate upon what he had seen in some of our churches (probably while on duty as Government servant): the display, as it seemed to him, so like this; the pomp, as he thought it, so fine, like this; the bowing and prostrating, and ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... and toil. He resolved, however, that the old man should retain all the consequence of being, in his own opinion, the first to communicate the important intelligence. At the same time, he also determined that in the expected conference he would permit David Deans to expatiate at length upon the proposal, in all its bearings, without irritating him either by interruption or contradiction. This last was the most prudent plan he could have adopted; because, although there were many doubts which David Deans could himself clear up to his own satisfaction, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and the general state of that multitude that most directly exposes the popular debasement. It certainly were ridiculous enough to fix on a laboring man and his family, and affect to deplore that he is doomed not to behold the depths and heights of science, not to expatiate over the wide field of history, not to luxuriate among the delights, refinements, and infinite diversities of literature; and that his family are not growing up in a training to every high accomplishment, after the pattern of some family ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... on talking for half an hour with astonishing endurance and resourcefulness, but it became always more apparent that he was not captivating his audience. He had to laugh at his own humour and expatiate on his own thrills. Finally a silence fell upon the three, broken ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... an Englishman expatiate upon the magnitude of our navy, and afterwards that England was at peace, cooly observed, "If you are at peace with all the world, why do you keep up so great ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various
... Beacon they passed in sight of another beacon, and of a village which they call Newworke, in which is a small castle like unto that at Rose Beacon. Here the sea began to expatiate, and about three leagues from hence was the lowest buoy of the river. And now Whitelocke was got forth into the open German Ocean, a sea wide and large, oft-times highly rough and boisterous and full of danger, especially in ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... Hispaniola, stood over to Jamaica, intending to finish its circumnavigation. The inhabitants came off, exhibiting the most friendly disposition whenever the vessels neared the shore, and Diego Colon, the interpreter, never failed to expatiate on the wonders he had seen in Spain, and the prowess of the Spaniards who had ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... accepted the dedication, and bishops wished they could read the Greek. Far otherwise was it with the impending struggle of the Reformation: there the cleavage of sides followed very different lines. Into that wide field we cannot now expatiate; but it is important to notice an element which the German Renaissance contributed to the Reformation, and which played a considerable part in both movements—the accentuation of German ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... a truth at our sides, and by purity of life and heart we can bring Him nearer, and can make ourselves more conscious of His nearness. For, brethren, the one thing that parts a man from God, and makes it impossible for a heart to expatiate in the thought of His presence, is the contrariety to His will in our conduct. The slightest invisible film of mist that comes across the blue abyss of the mighty sky will blot out the brightest of the stars, and we may sometimes not be able to see the mist, and only ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... I seldom failed to lay a scheme with the small knot that first gathered round me, by which some of those whom we expected might be made subservient to our sport. Every man has some favourite topick of conversation, on which, by a feigned seriousness of attention, he may be drawn to expatiate without end. Every man has some habitual contortion of body, or established mode of expression, which never fails to raise mirth if it be pointed out to notice. By premonitions of these particularities I secured ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... altogether take the view of the Heathen which you would get in an Exeter Hall meeting. Does not expatiate on their ignorance, their blackness, or their nakedness. Does not at all think of the Florentine Islington and Pentonville, as inhabited by persons in every respect superior to the Kings of the East; ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... character alone might serve as an antidote to the word of mental distempers, and awaken the most callous and sarcastic mind to confess the dignity of our Nature, and the beneficence of our God. In stating to you the merits of HOWARD, I might expatiate with delight on the various qualities of this incomparable man; I might trace his progress through the different periods of a life always singular and always instructive. I could not be checked by any fear of overstepping the modesty of Truth in the celebration ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... Tenderness, entirely flowed from this Prince's generous and grateful Temper, and from his good and religious Heart. He had such a delicate Sense of conjugal Duty, that he never fail'd shewing his Displeasure to any Courtiers, who presumed to expatiate on the Charms of some Houris in his Capital, and once when Kigenpi, one of the Methers, or Lords of his Bed-Chamber began to talk to him of a Person of incomparable Beauty, he gave him no Answer, only asking him in a dry and scornful Manner, ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... to go among persons of another class in the metropolis, we should probably find them collecting their entertainment from other topics. One would talk on the subject of some splendid route. He would expatiate on the number of rooms that were opened, on the superb manner, in which they were fitted up, and on the sum of money that was expended in procuring every delicacy that was out of season. A second would probably ask, if it were really known, how much one of their female acquaintance had lost ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... give you my word that I am speaking with absolute sincerity. You think you can live with impunity in this environment without becoming like all the rest of them; while I tell you that that is a natural necessity. Suppose we expatiate on that a bit . . . will ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... regularity in continuing the history of swarms, I think it proper to recapitulate in a few words the principal points of the preceding letter, and to expatiate on each, concerning the result of new experiments, respecting which I ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... among the first, some years ago, to expatiate on the vicious addiction of the lower classes of society to Sunday excursions; and were thus instrumental in calling forth occasional demonstrations of those extreme opinions on the subject, which are very generally received with derision, if ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... fancy-bred extravagations, perhaps somewhat too much: you will dub me dreamer, if not proser—or rather, poet, as the more modern reproach. Let us then, by way of clearing our mind at once of these hallucinations, go forth quickly into the fresh green fields, and expatiate with glad hearts on these ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... place to preach in." He who has no companions must needs talk to himself if he would hear the human voice. "Here, now, a man could expatiate on the work of the Creator, but his sermon would have to be within the fifteen minutes' limit, or his congregation would catch their death of cold. 'Dearly beloved brethren, the words of my text are illustrated by the ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... purity,—is added an especial interest in Italy, the mother of our language and our laws, our greatest benefactress in the gifts of genius, the garden of the world, in which our best thoughts have delighted to expatiate, but over whose bowers now hangs a perpetual veil of sadness, and whose noblest plants are doomed to removal,—for, if they cannot bear their ripe and perfect fruit in another climate, they are not permitted to lift their heads to heaven ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... without satisfying his intellect. He desired not only to know, but to discover. In 1772 he hired a small telescope, and through it caught a preliminary glimpse of the rich and varied fields in which for so many years he was to expatiate. Henceforward the purpose of his life was fixed: it was to obtain "a knowledge of the construction of the heavens";[9] and this sublime ambition ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... search, it were useless to expatiate: every one is sensible of it, and, sooner or later, it must occur. Let us not allow our grandchildren to surpass us in everything, but let us set about this ourselves. Monstrous as the idea seems, it ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... Pickwick; 'for to show that I was not wholly unworthy, sir, I should take a brief review of my past life, and present condition. I should argue, by analogy, that to anybody else, I must be a very desirable object. I should then expatiate on the warmth of my love, and the depth of my devotion. Perhaps I might then be tempted ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... In spring time, when the sun with Taurus rides, Pour forth their populous youth about the hive In clusters; they among fresh dews and flow'rs Fly to and fro: or on the smoothed plank, The suburb of their straw-built citadel, New rubb'd with balm, expatiate and confer Their state affairs. So thick the airy crowd Swarm'd and were straiten'd; till the signal giv'n, Behold a wonder! They but now who seem'd In bigness to surpass earth's giant sons, Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room Throng numberless, like that Pygmean ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... in her chat with Cope. He had told her all he had been asked to tell—or all he meant to tell: at any rate he had been given abundant opportunity to expatiate upon a young man's darling subject—himself. Either she now had enough fixed points for securing the periphery of his circle or else she preferred to leave some portion of his area (now ascertained ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... the conqueror of Egypt, with John the Grammarian, indicates how much the Arabian mind was predisposed to liberal ideas. Its step from the idolatry of the Caaba to the monotheism of Mohammed prepared it to expatiate in the wide and pleasing fields of literature and philosophy. There were two influences to which it was continually exposed. They conspired in determining its path. These were—1. That of the Nestorians in Syria; 2. That of the Jews ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... and—renown; but Pauline made out of this single man her country, friends, and home. Never woman endeavored with truer single-heartedness to understand her spouse. In her life's aim was no failure. Let him expatiate on sound to the bounds of fancy's extravagance, she could confidently follow, and would have volunteered her testimony to a doubter, as if all were a question of tangible fact, to be definitely proved. So in every matter. For all the comfort she was to the man she loved, for her confidence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... heartily shaken, for the boys were charmed with Dan's pleasure, and crowded round him to shake hands and expatiate on the beauties of their gift. In the midst of this pleasant chatter, Dan's eye went to Mrs. Jo, who stood outside the group enjoying the scene with all ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... to know his men and to touch the right chord in appealing to their prejudices or their patriotism. The English tenure of Gibraltar was also a perpetual offence to Spanish pride. Irresponsible journalists loved to expatiate on it when they had no more spicy subject to handle. On this, as on all questions affecting prestige only, Morier was tactful and patient. When they should come within the range of practical politics, he could take a different tone. But he knew that more serious dangers were arising ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... while to expatiate upon the convenience and economy of an ice-house, to an American. Those who love well-kept meats, fruits, butter, milk, and various etceteras for the table, understand its utility well; to say nothing of the cooling draughts, in the way of ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... Improbable as it is that a man uniting to the same degree as Hyder-Ali did political and military genius, will appear in the world again for centuries; most of the princes are politic, some are brave, and perhaps no few are credulous. While England is confiding in our loyalty, we might expatiate on her perfidy, and our tears fall copiously on the broken sceptre in the dust of Delhi. Ignorant and stupid as the king's ministers may be, the East India Company is well-informed on its interests, and alert in maintaining them. I wonder that a republic so wealthy and ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... constitutes a volume of intricate pantheistic philosophy, should be given to a great commander just at the moment when he is planning his attack and is absorbed with the most momentous responsibilities; it seems to us strangely inconsistent also to expatiate elaborately upon the merits of the Yoga philosophy, with its asceticism and its holy torpor, when the real aim is to arouse the soul to ardor for the hour of battle. But these infelicities are no obstacle to the Hindu mind, and the consistency of the plot is entirely ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... her beauty; I will not expatiate upon her intelligence, her quickness of perception, her powers of memory, her sweet consideration, from the first moment, for the slow-paced tutor who ministered to her wonderful gifts. I was thirty then; I am over sixty now: she is ever present to me in these hours ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens
... Reader, who computes that three ponderous [3] volumes have been already employed on the events of four centuries, may, perhaps, be alarmed at the long prospect of nine hundred years. But it is not my intention to expatiate with the same minuteness on the whole series of the Byzantine history. At our entrance into this period, the reign of Justinian, and the conquests of the Mahometans, will deserve and detain our attention, and the last age of Constantinople (the Crusades ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... burden; now turned free into a cool green field to wander, and feed, and roll about untrammelled. Even so does the mind, weary of consecutive thinking—of thinking in the track and thinking with a purpose—expatiate in ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... to Trinidad, though," observed Jack. "I don't know what your fair cousin Maria would say if she heard you expatiate so warmly on ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... Magna Charta clause by clause, and word by word, and letter by letter. They linger lovingly and proudly over every jot and tittle of that splendid instrument. And you will indulge me this Communion night of all nights of the year if I expatiate still more lovingly and proudly on that great Covenant which our Lord has sealed to us again to-day, and has written again to-day on the walls of our hearts. Moses made haste as soon as the old Charter was read over to him, and nothing shall delay us till we have feasted our eyes, and our ears, ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... My mother's maid was disagreeable to me; but yet, on account of money due to her, which I could not pay, it was not then in my power to dismiss her. But this most melancholy subject I shall not now chuse any farther to expatiate upon. I have brought down the preceding narrative to my father's death, where I at first intended it should end. Besides, I have now not many days to live, and matters of infinitely greater moment to think upon. May God forgive ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... hasty leave of this flourishing colony, and walking up the rising ground to the tents, found Delorier's fire still glowing brightly. We sat down around it, and Shaw began to expatiate on the admirable facilities for bathing that we had discovered, and recommended the captain by all means to go down there before breakfast in the morning. The captain was in the act of remarking that ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... with Nature, abandoning my soul to her maternal caress. But alas, the stir, the scramble, the mad whirl of city life, the debasing contact with low material minds, the daily study of Prices Current, make even of me a muckworm. Still, I might work up a brook or two after I get to the woods, or expatiate on a seven-pound trout: my conscience forbids me to weigh them higher, for I never saw any above three. And yet some men will talk familiarly of ten-pounders!—Or I might analyze the mediaeval garments of Hodge and his old Poll. As for the Wayback houses, they are like any other habitations, ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... nursery to tell Mammy about it. They found her overhauling a trunk of old clothes, with a view of giving them out to such of the little negroes as they would fit; but she dropped everything after Dumps had stated the case, and at once began to expatiate on the tyranny of teachers in general, and of ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... moral lepers, who, very often, were their masters and overseers. Yet, in spite of these well-known facts, we have produced women among us of pure and good morals, with unimpeachable reputation for virtue and purity. Sometimes it is a little amusing to hear the white American expatiate on the immorality of Negro women. They certainly cannot forget their own record in their dealings with the helpless Negro women of this country. But here, we will let the curtain of secrecy fall upon such a scene, while we shall advance to a higher and nobler plane upon this ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... the nature of the Deity, a subject not easy of exhaustion, and difficult to treat of through the medium of an interpreter. 'We know' (the 'cacique' said) 'that there is someone who dwells in heaven.' This vagueness put the missionary upon his mettle, and he set out at once to expatiate upon the attributes of God. They seemed to please the 'cacique', who inquired, 'What is it that displeases, then, the dweller ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... will please to remember) deliberately, wilfully, added to my trials and vexations. It was her delight to expatiate on the style in which we were to live in India, and on the establishment we should keep, and the company we should entertain when he got his advancement. My pride rose against this barefaced way of pointing ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... the god is represented as lending the money. It is obvious that such advances were made from the temple treasury.(653) It is usual from such instances to expatiate on the temple, or the priests, as the great moneylenders. This is a view easily misunderstood. It is quite true that the temples were great landowners, and had steady incomes, and possessed treasuries; but ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... expatiate on the new ideas which Michael Angelo accepted, or the impulse he gave to art in all its forms, and to the revival of which civilization is so much indebted. Let us turn and give a parting look at the man,—that ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... consult Prue, and Jessie began to display her purchases before eyes that only saw a blur of shapes and colors, and expatiate upon their beauties to ears that only heard the words—"The splendid cousin is ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... Mr. Thomas Sheridan was at Edinburgh, and delivered lectures upon the English Language and Publick Speaking to large and respectable audiences. I was often in his company, and heard him frequently expatiate upon Johnson's extraordinary knowledge, talents, and virtues, repeat his pointed sayings, describe his particularities, and boast of his being his guest sometimes till two or three in the morning. At his house I hoped to have many opportunities ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... is true, I might expatiate, did the subject require it, on the many and various objects with which the soul will be entertained in those heavenly regions; when I reflect on which, I am apt to wonder at the boldness of some philosophers, who are so struck ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... upon no subject could Larry wax so eloquent as upon the foothill country of Alberta. Long after they had secured Larry's new suit and gone on their way through park and boulevard, Larry continued to expatiate upon the glories of Alberta hills and valleys, upon its cool breezes, its flowing rivers and limpid lakes, and always the western rampart of ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... knew the worst, as we have perceived; but the worst was really something she could not know, inasmuch as up to this time Verena chose as little to confide to her on that one point as she was careful to expatiate with her on every other. The change that had taken place in the object of Basil Ransom's merciless devotion since the episode in New York was, briefly, just this change—that the words he had spoken to her there about her genuine ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... expatiate on Sanguinetti with no little complacency, for he liked the man's spirit of intrigue, his keen, conquering appetite, his excessive, and even somewhat blundering activity. He had become acquainted with ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... smile with a sob clutching at her heart. The singer lady had taken Teether from the arms of his mother, who stood happily exchanging the topics of the times with the Hoover bride, who had not had thus far sufficient opportunity to expatiate on quite all the adventures of the wedding journey and kept on hand still a small store of happenings to recount to her sympathetic neighbors as they found time and opportunity. The rosy rollicking ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... scenes of felicity, which slaves are said to enjoy. The first advantage which they are said to experience, is that of manumission. But here the advocates for slavery conceal an important circumstance. They expatiate indeed on the charms of freedom, and contend that it must be a blessing in the eyes of those, upon whom it is conferred. We perfectly agree with them in this particular. But they do not tell us that these advantages are confined; that they are confined to some favourite ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... indeed affect you; yet, for my own sake, as well as yours, I referred you to Dr. Bartlett, for the particulars of some parts of it, upon which I could not expatiate. ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... unnecessary to expatiate on the effect of this downright refusal of the woman's proposals. If there was anything like tenderness in her bosom—and no woman was probably ever entirely without that feminine quality—it all disappeared at this plain announcement. Fury, rage, mortified pride, and a volcano of wrath burst ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... an appendix. A good workman loves his tools. He is indeed inseparable from them, as our law acknowledges by forbidding a bankrupt's tools to be sold up. Give a good workman, in town or country, a sympathetic listener and he is only too ready to expatiate on his daily work. This sense of kinship between men and their tools and material is so little understood by some of our modern expert organizers of industry that it is worth while illustrating it at some length. I ...
— Progress and History • Various
... that he seemed to have made a stout battle, desired he would sit down and recover wind; and after he had swallowed a brace of bumpers, his vanity prompted him to expatiate upon his own exploit in such a manner, that the confederates, without seeming to know the curate was his antagonist, became acquainted with every circumstance of ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... fright and said to them, 'O my brethren, if generosity were lost, it would not be found save with you and had I a secret, which I feared to divulge, your breasts alone should have the keeping of it.' And I went on to expatiate to them in this sense, till I saw that frankness would profit me more than concealment; so I told them the whole story. When they heard it, they said, 'And is this young man Ali ben Bekkar and this damsel Shemsennehar?' 'Yes,' answered I. This was grievous to them and they rose and made ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... I should expatiate more largely on the other advantages of the glorious constitution of these by-the-whole-of-Europe-envied realms, but I am called away to take an account of the ladies and other artificial flowers at a fashionable rout, of which a full and particular account will hereafter ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... statesmanship, or proud political position attained through the rigid observance of the ethical rules of personal purity, are nothing to the rank and file, the polloi, who can never hope to reach those elevations in this world; as well expatiate upon the virtues of Croesus to a man who will never go beyond his day's wages, or expect the homeless to become ecstatic over the magnificence of Nabuchodonosor's Babylonian palace. Such extremes possess no influence over the ordinary mind, they are ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... found there were various other matters they could take up. It must be admitted that the lady who had just gone out was not one of these; Caspar granted all Miss Stackpole's merits in advance, but had no further remark to make about her. Neither, after the first allusions, did the two men expatiate upon Mrs. Osmond—a theme in which Goodwood perceived as many dangers as Ralph. He felt very sorry for that unclassable personage; he couldn't bear to see a pleasant man, so pleasant for all his queerness, so beyond anything to be done. There was always something to be ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... secondly, we may discuss it in the manner just proposed—we may lay it down as gospel that everyman does believe in the existence of matter, and acts at all times upon this conviction, and we may expatiate diffusely over these smooth truths; or, thirdly, we may follow and contemplate the subtle and often perplexed windings which reason takes in working her way through the problem—a problem which, though apparently clearer than the noonday sun, is really darker than the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... she felt a great pride in her virtue, and in the victory she had won over herself, and while she sunned herself in the splendor of her own merits, she wished that Hermas too should feel and recognize them. She began to expatiate on all that she had to forego and to endure in the oasis, and she discoursed of virtue and the duties of a wife, and of the wickedness and audacity ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... tell me she was the step-daughter of "So-and-so," that her own father, who was "Somebody," had died of "something," and had been buried "somewhere"; and then that hair split, and he proceeded to expatiate on the two fathers' qualities, and state their different business occupations, after which, out of breath, and far, far from the original subject, he had to hark back two and a half pages ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... landed twelve days too late," and the Journalist drew a graphic, and purely imaginary, picture of the pathos of the Belgians straining their eyes in vain to the West for the coming of the men in khaki, and unfortunately he let himself expatiate a bit ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... have had a better opportunity to speak to Susan alone, and he warned her of the "piece" T. J. had threatened to publish in the morning, and of the disgrace and sorrow it would bring to Miss Sally. The girl listened eagerly and her indignation grew as he went on, so that he had to veer, and expatiate on the virtues of T. J. and the right of the modern press to meddle in private ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... with reluctance we approach a subject on which in past years so much has been written, often falsely. Besides, it is certainly a most delicate matter to expatiate on the character of any ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... interject fraternity, charity, sacrifice, and God into the discussion of economic questions? May it not be that the utopists find it easier to expatiate upon these grand words than to seriously study ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... shoulders something more elevated, and a more commiserating tone confesses, "C'est bien mal beureux—Mai enfin que voulez vous?" ["It's unlucky, but what can be said in such cases?"] and in the same instant they ill recount some good fortune at a card party, or expatiate on the excellence of a ragout.—Yet, to do them justice, they only offer for your comfort the same arguments they would have found efficacious in ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... happened in my own lifetime;" and then Miss Burleigh left politics, and began to speak of her brother's personal ambition and personal qualities; to relate anecdotes of his signal success at Eton and at Oxford; to expatiate on her own devotion to him, and the great expectations founded by all his family upon his high character and splendid abilities. She added that he had the finest temper in the world, and that he ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... expedition, and who, from their intercourse with the Europeans, had obtained many conveniences by barter, and from the teaching of the missionaries had acquired a knowledge of the gospel. These advantages the latter did not fail to expatiate upon to their heathen countrymen; and once the brethren met with Sybilla, Jonathan's wife, surrounded by a company of women under the shadow of a skin boat, set on edge, exhorting them with great simplicity and fervour to hear and believe the gospel. Even Uttakiyok occasionally engaged in advocating ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... for hours and hours, and expatiate with rapture upon the gorgeous prospects of Duluth, as depicted upon this map. But human life is too short and the time of this House far too valuable to allow me to linger longer upon the delightful theme, (Laughter.) I think every gentleman on this floor is ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... impounder of stray cattle at Eton, is one of the most singular characters I have ever met with. Among the ignorant Barney is looked up to as the fountain of local and legal information; and it is highly ludicrous to hear him expatiate on his favourite theme of "our birthrights and common rights;" tracing the first from the creation, and deducing argument in favor of his opinions on the second from doomsday book, through all the intricate ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... subject on which it is not our intention to expatiate here. What we say is, that, in all the relations of civil life, Her people were shamefully and criminally neglected. They were left without education, permitted to remain ignorant of the arts of life, and of that industrial knowledge on which, or rather on the application ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... not expatiate on the succession of horrors which now overwhelmed the royal sufferers. Their confinement at the Feuillans, and their subsequent transfer to the Temple, are all topics sufficiently enlarged upon by many who were actors in the scenes ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... and wiped her eyes. Lord Courtland perceived the effect his eloquence had produced upon the childish fancy of his daughter, and continued to expatiate upon the splendid joys that awaited her in a union with a nobleman of the Duke's rank and fortune; till at length, dazzled, if not convinced, she declared herself "satisfied that it was her duty to marry whoever papa pleased; but—" and a sigh escaped ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... revolution families is one reason why English liberties had time to root themselves thoroughly before the monarchical reaction, under George III. In France, for reasons which we have no room to expatiate upon, the experiments both of Sully and of Colbert failed. The result may be read with graphic effect in the pages of Arthur Young, both before the Revolution broke out and again after Burke's superb rhetoric had biassed ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 8: France in the Eighteenth Century • John Morley
... back to Theobald I assured him that if it were hung among the drawings in the Uffizi and labelled with a glorious name it would hold its own. My praise seemed to give him extreme pleasure; he pressed my hands, and his eyes filled with tears. It moved him apparently with the desire to expatiate on the history of the drawing, for he rose and made his adieux to our companion, kissing her band with the same mild ardour as before. It occurred to me that the offer of a similar piece of gallantry on my ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... to expatiate upon subjects of philosophical importance and its no accomplishment. Three examples of the mental concavity sunk into by these barbarians. An involved episode which had the outward appearance of being otherwise than what ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... the tablet on his neck would be carefully perused and the chattel made to turn round and round, to walk backwards and forwards, to show his teeth and his muscle, whilst the African up on the rostrum would with loud voice and profuse gesture point out every line of beauty on a lithe body and expatiate on the full play ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... threefold distinction of mind, body, and estate. The sentiments of the mind excite and exercise our social sympathy. The review of my moral and literary character is the most interesting to myself and to the public; and I may expatiate, without reproach, on my private studies; since they have produced the public writings, which can alone entitle me to the esteem and friendship of my readers. The experience of the world inculcates a discreet reserve on the subject of our person and estate, and we soon learn that a free ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... of] Jolo, the harsh treatment and sufferings of his captivity being the cause of his death; and Father Juan de las Missas, [who perished] at the hands of the hostile Camucones; besides other fathers. I regard it as superfluous to expatiate further on this, or to attempt to spur on those who are running so gloriously. Therefore I conclude with the words, which the glorious bishop and martyr, St. Cyprian, wrote in a similar case in his epistle number 81, to Sergius Rogatianus and his companions: Saluto vos fratres charissimi ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... ground-plans thicken, and my wife is being consulted morning, noon, and night, and I never come into the room without finding their heads close together over a paper, and hearing Bob expatiate on his favorite idea of a library. He appears to have got so far as this, that the ceiling is to be of carved oak, with ribs running to a boss overhead, and finished mediaevally with ultramarine blue and gilding,—and then away ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... the field or of the ocean that came within the ken of Wallace, wasted its sweetness unadmired. He assented to the remarks of Lady Mar, who continued to expatiate on the beauties of the shores which they passed; and thus the hours flew pleasantly away, till, turning the southern point of the Cowal Mountains, the scene suddenly changed. The wind, which had gradually been rising, blew a violent gale from that part of the coast; and the sea, ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... reach a grandeur to which I was not born, and which, to speak the truth, I regard with a very complete indifference? But there is another point. In all your speech you have said nothing of any affection that you have to offer, not a single word of love— you have been content to expatiate on the profits that a matrimonial investment would bring to yourself, and by reflection, to the other ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... No one but Madame Ozhogin observed my solemn taciturnity, and she inquired anxiously after my health. I replied, of course, with a bitter smile, that I was thankful to say I was perfectly well. Ozhogin continued to expatiate on the subject of their visitor; but noticing that I responded reluctantly, he addressed himself principally to Bizmyonkov, who was listening to him with great attention, when a servant suddenly came in, announcing the arrival of Prince ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... more agreeable in the Pyrenees than the month of September. People are very apt to expatiate on the delights of autumn, its mellow beauty, pensive charms, and suchlike. I confess that in a general way I like the youth of the year better than its decline, and prefer the bright green tints of spring, with the summer in prospective, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... the same thing in most families," said the ready Mr. Jones, and continued to expatiate upon the remarkable qualities of ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... standing mast-heads, ashore or afloat, is a very ancient and interesting one, let us in some measure expatiate here. I take it, that the earliest standers of mast-heads were the old Egyptians; because, in all my researches, I find none prior to them. For though their progenitors, the builders of Babel, must doubtless, by their tower, have intended to rear ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville |
