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Expostulation   Listen
noun
Expostulation  n.  The act of expostulating or reasoning with a person in opposition to some impropriety of conduct; remonstrance; earnest and kindly protest; dissuasion. "We must use expostulation kindly."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Expostulation" Quotes from Famous Books



... observing the dangerous situation of the child, stepped forward. This was against the stipulations laid down by the mutineers, and Peters cried out to him—"Heave-to, Adams, or we fire!" Adams waved his hand in expostulation, and continued to advance. "Keep back," again cried Peters, "or, by God, ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Expostulation with the Canal Companies was of no use. They were overcrowded with business at their own prices, and disposed to be very dictatorial. When the Duke first constructed his canal, he had to encounter the fierce opposition of the Irwell ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... partial friends, can fairly allow to your merit. You stand high,—do not rashly attempt to climb higher, and incur the risk of a fall; for, depend upon it, a favourite will not be permitted even to stumble with impunity." I replied to this affectionate expostulation in the words ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... must observe, that it seems a little too evident, even from this opinion of your aunt's, that it was not absolutely determined that all compulsion was designed to be avoided, since your freedom from it must have been owing to the party to be made among them by your persuasive eloquence and dutiful expostulation. ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson

... thought she could perceive that he was rather offended, and therefore checked her laugh. Miss Bingley warmly resented the indignity he had received, in an expostulation with her brother ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... Ebenezer with enthusiasm. Keziah, after more expostulation, went back to the parsonage, where the puddings were made and seasoned with tears and fervent prayers. She wrote to Grace and told her the news of the San Jose, but she said nothing of the minister's part in it. "Poor thing!" ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... chapters follow quite naturally. The apostle speaks with plain severity to rebuke those who created the recent disturbance, and to warn any there may be whose submission perhaps has not been quite entire. The prevailing tone is that of pathetic and sorrowful expostulation. St. Paul repeats the unkind things that have been said of him—how unimposing his presence, that he depends on alms, that he is only eloquent with his pen. But he defends his apostleship with absolute though very humble confidence, counting up the things that he can ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan

... to call witnesses (false), always escape punishment. Some do not care if punished or not and who boast that they had full value for their "two days C.B." Heaume had a cute dodge of replying to an officer's angry expostulation that he (Heaume) had already been "up" twenty times with: ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq

... sesterces (about L2,000)—an estimate loudly exclaimed against not only by all the best men, but even by the common people. You will say, "What was the reason?" They for their part say it was my modesty—because I would neither say no, nor make any violent expostulation. But that is not the real cause: for that indeed in itself would have been in my favour.[395] But, my dear Pomponius, those very same men, I tell you, of whom you are no more ignorant than myself, having ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... honoured his sincerity. When this essay was written, Blackmore was finishing his best poem, the 'Creation', in seven Books, designed to prove from nature the existence of a God. It had a long and earnest preface of expostulation with the atheism and mocking spirit that were the legacy to his time of the Court of the Restoration. The citations in the text express the purport of what Blackmore had written in his then unpublished but expected work, but do not ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... see. Mrs. Jameson had done what many a novice in trousers-making does: sewed one leg over the other and made a bag of them. They were certainly a comical sight. I don't know whether Flora's sense of humor got the better of her wrath, or whether Mrs. White's expostulation influenced her, but she did not say one word, only stood there holding the trousers, her mouth twitching. As for the rest of us, it was all we could do to keep our faces straight. Mrs. Jameson was looking at her book, ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... matter o' will," says he. "'Tis nothin' more than that. An' I'm fair ashamed," he groaned, in sincere emotion, "to think ye're shackled, hand an' foot, to a bottle o' ginger-ale. For shame, lad—t' come t' such a pass." He was honest in his expostulation; 'twas no laughing matter—'twas an anxiously grave concern for my welfare. He disapproved of the beverage—having never tasted it. "You," cries he, with a pout and puff of scorn, "an' your bilge-water! In irons with a bottle o' ginger-ale! Could ye but see yourself, Dannie, ye'd quit quick ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan

... and confused way, related that, soon after Clithero and he had become bedfellows, the former was considerably disturbed by restlessness and talking in his sleep. His discourse was incoherent. It was generally in the tone of expostulation, and appeared to be entreating to be saved from some great injury. Such phrases as these,—"have pity;" "have mercy," were frequently intermingled with groans, and accompanied with weeping. Sometimes he seemed to be holding conferences with some one who was making ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... the little boy, in a tone of expostulation, "did n't Brother Fox get the meat, and was n't that ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris

... him to supper, and treated him with such a generous civility that he made the poet his friend ever after. Cardinal Mazarin gave the same kind of treatment to the learned Guillet, who had reflected upon his Eminence in a famous Latin poem. The Cardinal sent for him, and after some kind expostulation upon what he had written, assured him of his esteem, and dismissed him with a promise of the next good Abbey that should fall, which he accordingly conferred upon him a few months after. This had so good an effect upon the author that he dedicated the second edition of his book to the Cardinal, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... building galleries on their own freehold, or even to their nationalising the land in their native forests; but I do object strongly to their unwarrantable intrusion upon the domain of private life. Expostulation and active warfare, however, are equally useless. The carpenter-ant has no moral sense, and is not amenable either to kindness or blows. On one occasion, when a body of these intrusive creatures had constructed an absurdly conspicuous brown gallery straight across the ceiling of my drawing-room, ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... has been long formed, and long known, both in America and Europe, and might, at first, have been easily repressed, had force been used instead of expostulation. When the English attempted a settlement upon the island of St. Lucia, the French, whether justly or not, considering it as neutral, and forbidden to be occupied by either nation, immediately landed upon it, and destroyed the houses, wasted the plantations, and drove, or carried ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... professedly written in imitation of the style, as well as of the spirit of the elder poets; but with a few exceptions, the Author believes that the language adopted in it has been equally intelligible for these three last centuries. The lines entitled Expostulation and Reply, and those which follow, arose out of conversation with a friend who was somewhat unreasonably attached to modern ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge

... but Hephzy's look of horrified expostulation warned me to be silent. Frances, although she must have seen the look, ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... as much to the sudden terror as to any exercise of the free will; but he struggled in vain. The arms that were fastened about his own bound them down with a grasp of steel; and after a few moments of desperate effort, accompanied with one or two exclamations, half-surprise, half-expostulation, of "Hello, friend, what do you mean?" and "I say, now, friend, you'd better have done—" the struggle ceased, and he lay supine in the hold of the unseen persons who ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... opened, and sometimes stole, these favourite compositions. It is a remarkable fact that, of all his epistles, the least affected are those which are addressed to the dead and the unborn. Nothing can be more absurd than his whim of composing grave letters of expostulation and commendation to Cicero and Seneca; yet these strange performances are written in a far more natural manner than his communications to his living correspondents. But of all his Latin works the preference must be given to the Epistle to Posterity; a simple, noble, and pathetic composition, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... unreasonable rage and furious violence of the persecutors had drawn the former expostulation from me, so in a while after, my heart being deeply affected with a sense of the great loving- kindness and tender goodness of the Lord to his people, in bearing up their spirits in their greatest exercises, ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood

... resigned to his fate; he allowed himself to be pushed upstairs without expostulation. He opened the door for us, and ushered us into the passage. As he preceded us, I had time for one ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... produced a vehement expostulation from my excitable neighbor, to which I paid little attention, being better engaged in ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins

... the early friends of the new movement was inevitable. Some, who had hailed it with enthusiasm and proclaimed its pioneers as new Joans of Arc, changed their tone to expostulation and protest, and finally relapsed into silence. Other friends of the movement, even among its former leaders, were less silent. They have revealed to the world, too unkindly, some of the influences which slowly corrupt such a movement from the inside when it ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... to a triumphant close, and the cause of the war extirpated, whether you like it or not. You can accept destruction and ignominy with it, or you may live to rejoice over the most glorious victory and reform of the age: take your choice: but understand, once for all, that complaint is puerile, and expostulation but an idle wind in the face of inexorable Fate. Shall we remember our martyred heroes, our noble, our beloved, who have gone down in this conflict, and sit gloomily content while the devouring monster survives? Is it nothing that they have fallen, and yet such a wrong that the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... read this, Haliburton felt as if they were not only light-footed but light-headed. And he consulted me quite seriously as to telegraphing to them "Pycroft's Course of Reading." I coaxed him out of that, and he satisfied himself with a serious expostulation with George as to the way in which their young folks would grow up. George replied by telegraphing Brannan's last sermon, I Thessalonians iv. II. The sermon had four heads, must have occupied an hour and a half in delivery, and took five nights to telegraph. I had another engagement, ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... half consented, and Maurice lifted Jacky, very gently; as he did so, the little fellow somehow squirmed a hand out of the infolding blanket, and made a hot clutch for his father's ear; he gripped it so firmly that, in spite of Maurice's wincing expostulation, he pulled the big blond head over sidewise until it rested on his own little head. That burning grip held Maurice prisoner all the way downstairs; it chained him to the child until they reached the street. There the clutch ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... personal violence; for no race of men could be more mild and honourably forbearing in their intercourse with each other than the manly dalesmen of the Lakes. From the context, it had long been evident that it implied expostulation and verbal reproach. And now at length I learned that this was its Danish import. The very mountain at the foot of which my Grasmere cottage stood, and the little orchard attached to which formed 'the lowest step in that magnificent staircase' ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... without any directions from the gentlemen of the Endeavour, began to expostulate with the natives, and told them that our people had weapons which could destroy them in a moment. Their answer to this expostulation was, in their own language, 'Come on shore, and we will kill you all.'—'Well,' replied Tupia, 'but why should you molest us while we are at sea? As we do not wish to fight, we shall not accept your challenge to come on shore; and here there is no pretence ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... Countries. Frederic had no longer reason to fear that Maria Theresa would be able to give law to Europe, and he began to meditate a fourth breach of his engagements. The Court of Versailles was alarmed and mortified. A letter of earnest expostulation, in the handwriting of Louis, was sent to Berlin; but in vain. In the autumn of 1745, Frederic made peace with England, and, before the close of the year, with Austria also. The pretensions of Charles of Bavaria could present no obstacle to an accommodation. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... while the process of elimination was continued with unimpaired activity. The drawing-room began to look empty: the baccarat was discontinued for lack of a banker; more than one person said good-night of his own accord, and was suffered to depart without expostulation; and in the meanwhile Mr. Morris redoubled in agreeable attentions to those who stayed behind. He went from group to group and from person to person with looks of the readiest sympathy and the most pertinent and pleasing talk; he was not so much like a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... venerable artist, Mr. Duterreau, the idea of a national picture: he depicts the interview, and delineates the various countenances, drawn from the life, with great energy and effect. Robinson is seen in expostulation with a listening chief; a woman, behind him, is endeavouring to pour distrust into his ear. Others are looking on in expectation or in doubt. The grouping is skilful and expressive; and this picture, which has ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... So—I have gain'd much by my intended expostulation— yet with what a charming air she contradicts every thing I say— and how pleasingly she shows her contempt of my authority—Well tho' I can't make her love me, there is certainly a great satisfaction in quarrelling with her; and I think she never appears ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... as good as his word. The conductor escaped from the car before Miller had time for further expostulation. Finally McBane, having thrown the stump of his cigar into the aisle and added to the floor a finishing touch in the way of expectoration, rose and went back into the ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... populace was so tremendous, displayed in mobs, and conflagrations, and massacres, that these decisive measures seemed absolutely indispensable for the preservation of the Girondist party and the safety of the king. M. Roland was urged to present to the throne a most earnest letter of expostulation and advice. Madame Roland sat down at her desk and wrote the letter for her husband. It was expressed in that glowing and impassioned style so eminently at her command. Its fervid eloquence was inspired ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... submitted to his choice of a topic. There was no touch of expostulation in the voice with which she answered him. "I see what you ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... can scarcely get coarse barley-bread for myself and my family, whilst happy Sinbad profusely expends immense riches, and leads a life of continual pleasure. What has he done to obtain from thee a lot so agreeable? And what have I done to deserve one so wretched?" Having finished his expostulation, he struck his foot against the ground, like a man absorbed in grief ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... rooms below, like the falling of heavy bodies and the crash of furniture. Clamorous voices succeeded, among which she could distinguish boisterous menaces and threatenings, and the plaintive tone of expostulation.—A momentary silence ensued, when the cry of "Murder! murder! murder!!" echoed through the building, followed by the report of a pistol, and shortly after, the groans of a person apparently in ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... old cart-horse's hoofs; many a black and desolate tract of forest lay across their twenty miles' ride; more than once the tremulous shriek of a screech-owl smote ominously on Sally's wakeful sense, and quavered away like a dying groan; more than once a mournful whippoorwill cried out in pain and expostulation, and in the young leaves a shivering wind foreboded evil;—but they rode on. Presently Sally's drooping head rose erect; she listened; she laid her hand on the bridle. "Stop, Long!" said she. "I hear ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... worthy minister of the town, riding up to the bridge one evening, saw the spectre in his usual position. Nothing daunted, in virtue of his holy office, the good man thus accosted him: 'You that were once an angel of light, ain't you ashamed to appear in the shape of a dirty swine?' This expostulation was too much for the foul fiend, who at once jumped over the railing of the bridge into the river, and ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous

... military duty. Monday evening I was sent on a reconnoitering expedition to the old castellated Spanish fort of the Casa de Mata, that occupied the whole night. On Tuesday morning I was selected to attend the messenger who went with the flag of truce into the city to carry our General's letter of expostulation to Santa Anna, which employed the whole day. On Tuesday night, without having had an hour's rest in the interval, I was put on guard. Wednesday morning I was sent with a party to escort an emigrant caravan across ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... any other day but Monday. Nothing would do for my officer but Keine Vorstellung. Indeed, as he explained in his best and loudest English, Monday was his only free evening. Keine Vorstellung he wanted and Keine Vorstellung he must have. Followed reiteration, expostulation, vituperation in yet louder English than before, and when at last he turned away without his ticket he was still convinced that the authority of the Britische Besatzung had been outraged and defied by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various

... same moment that she did so a look of pained expostulation crept into the staring slant eyes on a level with her own. The yellow jaw gaped, filled with blood, and the poised knife fell at his side, sticking point down in the flooring. The azure and lemon-yellow that covered the woman's ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... solitary tree which overhung the path, making up his mind to encounter a moment which he expected to be critical of his fate. But he was mistaken in supposing that the Prince of Wales would either address him, or admit him to expostulation, in such a public place as the Park. He did not remain unnoticed, however, for, when he made a respectful but haughty obeisance, intimating in look and manner that he was possessed of, and undaunted ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! In the startled ear of night How they scream out their affright! Too much horrified to speak, They can only shriek, shriek, Out of tune, In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire Leaping higher, higher, higher, With a desperate desire, And a resolute endeavor, Now—now to sit or never, By the side of the pale-faced moon. Oh, the bells, bells, bells! What a tale their terror tells Of ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... I prevented all expostulation, by turning the angle of the house, and hastening towards the shore of the river. I roved about the grove that I have mentioned. In one part of it is a rustic seat and table, shrouded by trees and shrubs, and an intervening eminence, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... years ago, on the most intimate and personal subjects to an "old friend"—which, at the poor . . . [friend's] death fell into the hands of a complete stranger, who, at once wanted to print them, but desisted through Ba's earnest expostulation enforced by my own threat to take law proceedings—as fortunately letters are copyright. I find this woman died last year, and her son writes to me this morning that . . . got them from him as autographs merely—he ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... the press of England became for a short time free. In old times printers had been strictly controlled by the Court of Star Chamber. The Long Parliament had abolished the Star Chamber, but had, in spite of the philosophical and eloquent expostulation of Milton, established and maintained a censorship. Soon after the Restoration, an Act had been passed which prohibited the printing of unlicensed books; and it had been provided that this Act should continue in force till the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... ups and makes selection, this ungratefullest of boys, Of his soldiers, and his swords and guns, and crowns, and other toys; And when Bruin put his paw down in expostulation vain, The Bulgar boy suggested ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various

... this walk I was very nervous; more so for the awful manner in which Mrs. Rusk received my statement—with stern lips and upturned hands and eyes, and an angry expostulation: 'I do wonder at you, Mary Quince, letting the child walk into the wood with that limb of darkness. It is a mercy he did not show her the devil, or frighten her out of her ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... produced in spring, gradually grows and brings forth its leaves, which again fall in the autumn-chilly-dews—if the different parts of the same body are thus divided—how much more men who are united in society! and how shall the ties of relationship escape rending? Cease therefore your grief and expostulation, obey my commands and return home; the thought of your return alone will save me, and perhaps after your return I also may come back. The men of Kapilavastu, hearing that my heart is fixed, will dismiss from their minds all thought ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... George and all his people capable of explaining the truths of Christianity, were employed in preaching and speaking night and day during their stay, so eager were the people to be instructed. All ordinary occupation was suspended. The reply to any expostulation was, 'We can labour when you are gone: let us while you stay learn how to worship God.' Afterwards two native teachers were sent to Vavau, till a missionary could ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston

... Consul left the cabinet, shutting the door violently behind him. Being now alone with Fouche, I was eager to get an explanation of the suppressed smile which had more than once curled his lips during Bonaparte's angry expostulation. I easily perceived that there was something in reserve. "Send the author to the Temple!" said Fouche; "that would be no easy matter! Alarmed at the effect which this parallel between Caesar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte was likely to produce, I went to Lucien to point out to him his imprudence. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... their master. Ashburner, at the request of the ladies, followed Benson into the office (for the Bath Hotel being, nominally at least, the first house in the place, had its bar-room and office separate), and found Harry in earnest expostulation with a magnificently-dressed individual, whom he took for Mr. Grabster himself, but who turned out to be only that high and mighty gentleman's head book-keeper. The letter had been dispatched so long beforehand that, even at the rate of American country posts, it ought to have arrived, but ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... is one of these. As child, boy and young man he was free-hearted to an extraordinary degree. Ragamuffin, stray dog or cat, tramp, down and outer of every kind or description, these enlisted his sympathy and help despite the expostulation and remonstrance of a series of conventional good people, his mother and father, his best friends and his outraged wife. The latter never knew, she used to say, what he would bring home for dinner. "He always forgot to bring home the steak, but he never forgot to lug ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... smiling swindling cadi? We determined to go and seek in his own den this shuffling dispenser of infidel justice. This time we would be no more bamboozled by compliments; but we would use the language of stern expostulation, and, being roused, would let the rascal hear the roar of the indignant British lion; so we rose up in our wrath. The poor consul got a lamp for us with a bit of wax-candle, such as I wonder his means ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of the proposed under-ground floor? Command invariably begets opposition, opposition as certainly leads to argument. So proves our heroine, who, with a beautiful evasiveness, delivers the following expostulation:— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... and then he overheard a word of expostulation, he never interpreted it rightly. He thought that people considered it wrong for Charlotte to do so much for him, and weary herself, when he had treated her so badly. ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... sadder picture than this of a New England without rum, without codfish, without seamen, and without ships! One can easily conceive that even in that restrained and dignified First Congress there was no want of serious and alarmed expostulation, and even some threatening talk from such men as the tranquil Goodhue, the thoughtful and scholarly Ames, ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

... looking over the ridge at the Sark headlands shining in the sun—with a strong west wind driving the waves so briskly that, Sark-like, they tossed their white crests into the air in angry expostulation long before they met the rocks, and went roaring up them in dazzling spouts of foam—his eye lighted on a gleam of unusual colour on the racing green plain. It came again and again, and presently, as the merry dance waxed wilder still, every ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham

... less steamy condition, we find that the screens, which are made of paper framed in wood, have been drawn, and outside them wooden shutters have been fastened. The room is very close, and there isn't an inch open for ventilation. After a long expostulation with Yosoji we are allowed to have the outer shutters open an inch or two, though he explains they must be shut and bolted before we go to bed at night or the police will be down upon us. There are two loose, flowing Jap gowns ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... undoubtedly ambiguous; to give a kiss may mean: 1. What it literally says—to bestow a kiss. 2. To offer one's self to be kissed. 3. To accept willingly a proffered kiss; and, without much straining of words, 4. Merely to refrain from angry expostulation and a rupture of acquaintance when one is kissed—this last partaking rather of the nature of the ratification of an unauthorized act, and being, in fact, the measure of Dora's criminality. But the other shades ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope

... appeal, entreated them to surrender, to save themselves, their city, and their place of worship. But his words were answered with bitter curses. Darts were hurled at him, their last human mediator, as he stood pleading with them. The Jews had rejected the entreaties of the Son of God, and now expostulation and entreaty only made them more determined to resist to the last. In vain were the efforts of Titus to save the temple; One greater than he had declared that not one stone was to be left ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... His tardy expostulation fell upon unheeding ears. Madge was in the water and swimming toward Tom. Expert swimmer that she was, she knew that she was risking her own life. The tide was against her, and even though she did reach Tom before he sank again, it would ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers

... contrived, too, to be a very charming actress, in spite of a prosaical dislike to her business, which used to take the peculiar and rather alarming turn of suddenly, in the midst of a scene, saying aside to her fellow-actors, "What nonsense all this is! Suppose we don't go on with it." This singular expostulation my mother said she always expected to see followed up by the sadden exit of her lively companion, in the middle of her part. Miss Brunton, however, had self-command enough to go on acting till she became Countess of Craven, and left off the nonsense of the stage for ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... her august presence one at a time. It behoved her, she explained to Morgan, to impress people from the beginning, and, though this was the first time she had had a theatre of her own, she wanted to appear as if to the manner born. Moreover, when he took the opportunity, by way of expostulation, to express his sympathy with the rejected applicants, who had been kept "hanging about" in vain, she was able to make a show of justification, urging it had been necessary for her to have ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... go back to London," she said, in answer to a mild expostulation from her friend, "until you are as well as ever you were. Why should we? You have no ties there, no house, no friends who cannot spare you for a month or two. By and by you can begin to write, if you must write; ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... time that she for ever gave up expostulation or complaint in this matter. "I will hold my tongue," she had said, and she kept her word. For more than two years she held an utter silence to him; living under the same roof, witnessing day by day his ever-deepening degradation, no syllable crossed ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... twisted up grotesquely, weaving in and out. There were voices of expostulation and strong words of anger; but the new serious business that had materialized had most effectually put a stop to reflections upon the innocent girl who had ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... proudly, determined that neither should perceive how deeply I felt the humiliation of my position. As I thus passed them, my eyes fixed upon the shining road ahead, my ears caught a word or two of indignant expostulation from her lips. ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... "Finding that argument and expostulation had not the slightest effect upon him, I changed my tactics, and suddenly demanded whether he would be willing to have Olla buried, when she began to get old and infirm? This seemed at first to startle him. He ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... the Appin country, where we were surprised and interested to discover that the feeling concerning the murder of Glenure (the "Red Fox," also called "Colin Roy") was almost as keen as though the tragedy had taken place the day before. For several years my husband received letters of expostulation or commendation from members of the Campbell and Stewart clans. I have in my possession a paper, yellow with age, that was sent soon after the novel appeared, containing "The Pedigree of the Family of Appine," wherein it is said that "Alan 3rd Baron of Appine ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... whose towers and extended walls were now scarce visible in the distance; and thus intimated to her the necessity of her return to Holm-Peel. She looked down, and shook her head, as if negativing his proposal with obstinate decision. Julian renewed his expostulation by look and gesture—pointed to his own heart, to intimate the Countess—and bent his brows, to show the displeasure which she must entertain. To all which the maiden only ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... long soliloquy printed in Carmina Burana, pp. 119-121, should be compared with the foregoing lyric. It has a similar motive, though the lover in this case expresses his willingness for reconciliation. One part of its expostulation with the faithless woman is ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various

... warm expostulation and intreaty, that I would not go; but I begged him to desist, and told him, very honestly, that, if my compliance were not indispensably necessary I should require no persuasion to stay. He then took my hand, to lead me down stairs; but the Captain desired him to be quiet, saying ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... of Derbend, he entered Persia at the head of ninety thousand horse: with the innumerable forces of Kipzak, Bulgaria, Circassia, and Russia, he passed the Sihoon, burnt the palaces of Timour, and compelled him, amidst the winter snows, to contend for Samarcand and his life. After a mild expostulation, and a glorious victory, the emperor resolved on revenge; and by the east, and the west, of the Caspian, and the Volga, he twice invaded Kipzak with such mighty powers, that thirteen miles were measured ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... I was sorry he had seen fit to change the subject so abruptly, because such conduct was very offensive to me; but under the circumstances I would overlook the matter and come to the point. I now went into an earnest expostulation with him upon the extravagant length of his report. I said it was expensive, unnecessary, and awkwardly constructed; there were no descriptive passages in it, no poetry, no sentiment no heroes, no plot, no ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... of the whole scheme. As she was the chief dramatis persona, the very Hamlet of the play, this unlooked-for decision somewhat interfered with Mrs. Geer's plans. All the eloquence of that estimable woman was brought to bear on this one point; but this one point was invincible. Expostulation and entreaty were alike vain. Neither ambition nor pleasure could hold out any allurements to Ivy. Maternal authority was at length hinted at, only hinted at, and the spoiled child declared that she had not had her own will and way for sixteen years ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... to whom others ascribed it, Warton remarked that it might have been written by Walpole, and buckramed by Mason. Indeed, it is not unlikely that one supplied the venom, and the other spotted the snake. In a letter of expostulation to Warton, Mason did not go the length of disclaiming the satire, though he was angry enough that it should be laid at his door. I have heard that he received with much apathy the praises offered him by Hayley, in ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... dear husband, it would soon be discovered that we are not Roman Catholics; and we should be placed in an embarrassing, if not in a dangerous position, were we to do as you propose," observed my mother in a tone of expostulation. "You would not, surely, have us conform, even outwardly, to a religion in ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston

... shame and disgrace: they care only for their love, and their love relentlessly drives them into their grave. Mark has a great affection for them both, and precisely on that account he is their enemy. He begins a long expostulation: "How is it that the two people dearer to him than all the world have so betrayed his trust?" It is lengthy, and must needs be so; each proof he gives them of his love only more clearly defines his real significance ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... a fair example of her sardonic and unscrupulous humour—a humour not of words but of acts. G.J. simply tossed his head, aware of the futility of expostulation. ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett

... in this way. The criticism in the Times called for instant expostulation, and my answer was consequently sent in to the Editor, who forthwith returned it, regretting "that its tone prevented its appearance in the paper." ... I thereupon withdrew to write the following note ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... England fall fast, and, on both sides, there is every appearance of an approaching war. Being informed, by the concurring reports of many who had escaped, that our people, prisoners in England, are treated with great inhumanity, we have written a letter of expostulation on that subject to Lord North, which is sent over by a person express, whom we have instructed to visit the prisoners, and, (under the directions of Mr Hartley) to relieve as much as may be the most necessitous. We shall hereafter acquaint you ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... bugles! blow! Make no parley—stop for no expostulation; Mind not the timid—mind not the weeper or prayer; Mind not the old man beseeching the young man; Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties; Make even the trestles to shake the dead, where they lie awaiting the hearses, So strong you thump, O ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... expostulation passed over the other culprits who heard it like a thunderstorm. There was a force and impetuosity in this gentleman's manner, when his anger was kindled, which had long gained for him among the boys, with whom he was the most popular of ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... we were joined by a third person in the garrulous phase of inebriety, and he pestered the tired artisan with his boshand gibberish (two words which should have been introduced at an earlier period of my history) until he provoked the righteous expostulation, "Oh, don't bother me; you're drunk." Then, with an air of outraged dignity, and with a stern solemnity, which, if he had not wobbled in his gait and stammered in his utterance, might have suggested ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... risk again!" exclaimed Murray. "All hands go below; one on deck is enough. I'll take the helm. No expostulation, Adair; remember, I am commanding officer. I am determined ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... said Lucy, who liked not the tone of this expostulation, and was desirous to abridge it, "is upon ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... of the most bigoted of zealots!—The fox can bleat like the lamb. At the very moment James the Second was uttering this mild expostulation, in his own heart he had anathematised the nation; for I have seen some of the king's private papers, which still exist; they consist of communications, chiefly by the most bigoted priests, with the wildest projects, and most infatuated prophecies and dreams, of restoring the true catholic faith ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... sentence. And it alone is free from difficulties. It is quite plain for instance, that Eusebius did not understand our Gospels to be meant thereby; for otherwise he would hardly have quoted this low estimate without expostulation or comment. And again, the hypothesis which identifies these 'books' with written Evangelical records used by Papias charges him with the most stupid perversity. It makes him prefer the second-hand ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot

... request our commander gave a gallant and positive refusal. The vessels lay now close to each other, so that a biscuit might have been thrown on board of either. A generous expostulation ensued, which continued till the Spanish vessel was a ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... disgrace with dignity. The proudest man in England became, all at once, the meanest. He wept, he cringed, he lost his spirits; he surrendered his palace, his treasures, his honors, and his offices, into the hands of him who gave them to him, without a single expostulation: wrote most abject letters to "his most gracious, most merciful, and most pious sovereign lord;" and died of a broken heart on his way to a prison and the scaffold. "Had I but served my God as diligently as I have served the king, he would not have given me over in my gray hairs"—these ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... of jeers, expostulation, and fierce incentives to retaliation, there came in sight, pushing his way through the crush, a creature whose appearance immediately struck Dick and ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming

... For two years, however, this produced no effect; but in 1820, when at Penang, as a lieutenant in the Dauntless, Allen received a letter of grave reproof from his father, and one of warm kindness and expostulation from the same lady, his mother's friend, together with some books. Nothing would have seemed more hopeless than the chance that a letter from a religious old lady would make an impression on a dashing young naval officer, and yet Allen Gardiner always considered this as the ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... peace and prosperity, never, under any possible consideration, give your hand to a man who presses to his lips the intoxicating cup! Though you may have granted your affections, and plighted your troth, to one who is given, even but slightly, to this practice, if on your earnest expostulation, he will not abandon it, you should, without hesitation, break all connection with him. Every consideration of prudence, self-respect, and safety, urges you to such a step, however painful; and every law, human and divine, will justify you in ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin

... for me," he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. "I am nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even John asked at length in expostulation, 'Art Thou He that shall come?' Am I for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of any of ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... seems to have aided and abetted him in his speculations. He tormented her with accounts of new enterprises, and she complained very bitterly of him. "——, I know, urges you to stay," she wrote in one of her first letters of expostulation, "and is continually branching out into new projects because he has the idle desire to amass a large fortune, rather, an immense one, merely to have the credit of having made it. But we who are governed by other motives ought ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... disputations, protests, and complaints, with direct attacks upon Penn's interests, and even upon his character, got to such a pass that he addressed a letter of expostulation to the people. "When it pleased God to open a way for me to settle that colony," he wrote, "I had reason to expect a solid comfort from the services done to many hundreds of people.... But, alas! as to my part, instead of reaping the like advantages, some of the greatest of my ...
— William Penn • George Hodges

... The extraordinary course adopted by Benton in urging his 'appeal,' excited astonishment and indignation among the democratic partisans that had, in many cases, thoughtlessly become arrayed against him.[A] They might have yielded to expostulation; they were stung to resentment by unsparing vilification. The rumor of Benton's manner preceded him through the State, after the first signal manifestations of his ruthless spirit; and he was warned not ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... the sergeant in mild expostulation. "You've got to get it off your chest, sir. Let them 'ear it. So!" And he gave a stentorian shout. It was a meritorious and surprising performance, for he was fat and scant of breath. The sedentary duties of hall-porter at the —— Club, after twenty-one years' service ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... victory, the note once more changes: he turns back to earth, to linger over those old departed days, with which the present is so hard a contrast; and his parable dies away in a strain of plaintive, but resigned melancholy. Once more he throws himself on God, no longer in passionate expostulation, but in pleading humility. And then comes (perhaps, as Ewald says, it could not have come before) the answer out of the whirlwind. Job had called on Him had prayed that He might appear, that he might plead his cause with Him; and now He comes, and what will Job ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... restoration of the Catholic faith as the dominant religion of the land. Such an Association, embracing most of the Roman Catholic population, was regarded with great alarm by the government; and they determined to put it down as seditious and dangerous, against the expostulation of such men as Brougham, Mackintosh, and Sir Henry Parnell. Then arose the great figure of O'Connell in the history of Ireland (whose eloquence, tact, and ability have no parallel in that country of orators), defending the cause of his countrymen with masterly power, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... but not many, in wondering, disgusted expostulation, while fondling the head of poor Tara, who had stood erect with her fore-paws on his shoulders the instant he recognized her, her noble face all alight with gladness and love. Through ten acutely unhappy minutes she had nuzzled her friend's hand, and ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... dangerous descent, even for one afoot; and if left to his own will, Hamersley might decline attempting it on horseback. But he has no choice now, for before he can make either expostulation or protest, Lolita has struck along the path, and continues with hind-quarters high in air and neck extended in the opposite direction, as though standing upon her head! To her rider there is no alternative but do as he has been directed—stick close to the saddle. This he manages by throwing ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... his breakfast within the specified time, though not without protest. Once upstairs, however, the usual Sunday morning drama of despatching him to Sunday-school in presentable condition was enacted. At every moment his voice could be heard uplifted in shrill expostulation and debate. No, his hands were clean enough, and he didn't see why he had to wear that little old pink tie; and, oh! his new shoes were too tight and hurt his sore toe; and he wouldn't, he wouldn't—no, not if he ...
— Blix • Frank Norris

... not tell you, then, Senorita?" The woman raised her fat hands in expostulation. "Heaven is my witness, it was not my fault! I did not think to watch her, she did not even glance toward the window! Could I know ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... his ear. But even then his friend could not hear. Nor did he listen. The crowd upon the staircases had surged irresistibly forward and upward. There was a sudden outburst of cries. Women's voices were raised in expostulation, ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... of the old Man, who affirms he had not seen it, and appeals to Heaven in witness of his Innocence. The Soldier not believing his Protestations, kills him. Moses fell on his Face with Horror and Amazement, when the Divine Voice thus prevented his Expostulation: Be not surprised, Moses, nor ask why the Judge of the whole Earth has suffer'd this Thing to come to pass: The Child is the Occasion that the Blood of the old Man is spilt; but know, that the old Man whom thou sawst, was the Murderer ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... his courage, began to whimper some words of expostulation; but Beaumanoir's strong hands soon silenced him with an improvised gag, for the effeminate little rascal realized that his jaw might be broken if he resisted the stuffing of a towel into his mouth. In a few minutes the three were seated on the floor, securely bound, and unable to utter ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... who stood by her side, tall and threatening. Her eyebrows were lifted in expostulation. A faint, delightfully humorous ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... them, since their docility shews, that neither the motive nor the end were of sufficient force to bear them through the obstacles attendant on their undertaking. If, on the contrary, they are proof against expostulation, this very steadiness is an omen of success; and it becomes the duty of those who love them, to assist in smoothing the obstructions in their path. Such sentiments actuated our little circle. Finding ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... is given of the Prince's letter in Dr. Brown's work on the Highlands, vol. iv. p. 340. It is a sort of expostulation with the Duke, but mildly and sensibly expressed. "I fear," he said, alluding to the British people, "they will find yet more than I the smart of preferring a foreign yoke to the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... Prior was discontented with his share of preferment, appears from the verses entitled, "Earl Robert's Mice," and an angry expostulation elsewhere: ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... though there was some as to the mode of securing its exercise. If, then, the right of self-government were in the colonists, did they use all proper means of securing its exercise previous to a resort to arms? They spent ten years in the work of petition, remonstrance and expostulation—and those ten years of experience convinced the people that the policy of the British Ministry and Parliament was fixed and irreversible; that there was only resistance to the execution of this policy on the one hand, ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell

... with his army till he came to the borders of a lake which was not a great way from Vang Khan's dominions. Here he encamped, and, before proceeding any farther, he determined to try the effect, upon the mind of Vang Khan, of a letter of expostulation and remonstrance; so he wrote ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... turned as red as a well-cooked beet, clear down into his immaculate collar. He wasted no time in expostulation or protest that Arethusa's champion was interfering in something which was none of her immediate business, but he gathered up his neat leather cases and fled to the smoker for safety. He had meant no sort of harm, ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox

... with mock courtesy, "I am going back to New Orleans. I would not give that for all the fish in the sea; I want to see my wife. I am going back to New Orleans to see my wife—and to congratulate the city upon your absence." Incredulity, expostulation, reproach, taunt, malediction—he smiled unmoved upon ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... as become traitors to their Faith and to their King. They raided our village at dusk yesterday, and have perpetrated there the same wanton outrages and cruelties. They reduced it to ashes, and the least expostulation on our part exposed us to be shot down like outlaws. They have driven its inhabitants to the seashore like cattle, and when through sheer exhaustion, one of their victims fell by the road side, I have seen the fiends compel him with ...
— Acadian Reminiscences - The True Story of Evangeline • Felix Voorhies

... Mistress Gowrie presently appeared, to Elsie's intense relief. She was a kindly woman, and felt conscience-stricken as she kneeled beside the little herd-boy; for she knew that it was not with his will that Blackie roamed at large among those knolls. She had happened to hear his last expostulation with her husband on the point; and this was how it had ended. But she did not think he was dead. Elsie could hardly restrain a cry of delight when she heard the whispered word that he lived still. How joyfully she carried water in her sun-bonnet from the flowing river, how tenderly ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae

... of Gladsmuir wrote a censure on the Stirling lines, intimating, as a priest, that Burns's race was nigh run, and as a prophet, that oblivion awaited his muse. The poet replied to the expostulation.] ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... exigency of the war, and an internal scarcity, having rendered these measures necessary, and it being found impossible to persuade the farmers into a peaceful compliance with them, the government has had recourse to its usual summary mode of expostulation—a prison or ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... from roping and blindfolding the twisted dynamite I was engaged in "gentling," I found that Brower was saddling the mournful creature with my saddle. My expostulation found him very snappy and very arbitrary. His opium-irritated nerves were beginning to react. I realized that he was not far short of explosive obstinacy. So I conceded the point; although, as every rider knows, a cowboy's saddle and a cowboy's ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... he had time to finish his expostulation. "My dear boy, what country can you come from? The druggist is not a man; he is a strong box delivered into our hands by his ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... infancy, and places the first and most trying scene of his misfortunes before us, with all that he must have suffered in the interval. How well the silent anguish of Macduff is conveyed to the reader, by the friendly expostulation of Malcolm—"What! man, ne'er pull your hat upon your brows!" Again, Hamlet, in the scene with Rosencrans and Guildenstern, somewhat abruptly concludes his fine soliloquy on life by saying, "Man delights not me, nor woman neither, though ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... it?" asked Ferrier, throwing out his hands in expostulation. "Have I not given to the common fund? Have I not attended at ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle

... for, as I think nothing so insipid as a flat ceiling, I think nothing so absurd as a storied one. Before I was aware, and without my participation, the painter had adorned that of my bedchamber with a golden shower, bursting from varied and irradiated clouds. On my expostulation, his excuse was that he knew the Danae of Scopas, in a recumbent posture, was to occupy the centre of the room. The walls, behind the tapestry and pictures, are quite rough. In forty-three days the whole fabric was put together ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... who boasts of his magnanimity, can throw from him a woman who has sacrificed every thing to his pleasure. For two years your majesty, in devotion to others, has been estranged from me, and yet never have I publicly offered one word of expostulation. Why is it, then, that I am now, after silently submitting for two years to this estrangement, to be ignominiously banished from the court? Still, my position here has become so hateful, through the perfidy and treachery of those by whom I am compelled to associate, that I will willingly consent ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott



Words linked to "Expostulation" :   exclaiming, communicating, exclamation, expostulate



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