"Expatiate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... greater 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 ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... hearing 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
... rebellion was never outspoken. She was always quiet in demeanour. Her sister Martha, on the contrary, spoke out vigorously, daring Miss Wooler so much, face to face, that she sometimes received a box on the ear, which hardly any saint could have withheld. Then Martha would expatiate on the danger of boxing ears, quoting a reverend brother of Miss Wooler's. Among her school companions, Martha was called "Miss Boisterous," but was always a favourite, so piquant and fascinating were her ways. She was not in the least pretty, but something much better, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... even if it had had a less basis of truth than it unquestionably possessed in the case of Hwangti, was received with murmurs and marks of dissent by the literati. One of them rose and denounced the speaker as "a vile flatterer," and proceeded to expatiate on the superior merit of several of the earlier rulers. Not content with this unseasonable eulogy, he advocated the restoration of the empire to its old form of principalities, and the consequent undoing of all that Hwangti had accomplished. Hwangti interrupted this speaker and ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... To expatiate upon the principles of penal law is foreign to the purpose of this work, but thus much is evident to the plainest apprehension, that the objects most to be desired in it are the restriction of the number of capital inflictions, ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... with the odor of sanctity; virtuous 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 the mere vanities ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... all rot," said the School-master, impatiently. "Country life is ideal only in books. Books do not tell of running for trains through blinding snowstorms; writers do not expatiate on the delights of waking on cold winter nights and finding your piano and parlor furniture afloat because of bursted pipes, with the plumber, like Sheridan at Winchester, twenty miles away. They are dumb on the subject of the ecstasy one feels when ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... the shrill cries of lady Tartars rending their lords. And all this existeth of necessity. To war it is, and other depopulators, that we are beholden for elbow-room in Mardi and for all our parks an gardens, wherein we are wont to expatiate. Come on, then, plague, war, famine and viragos! Come on, I say, for who shall stay ye? Come on, and healthfulize the census! And more especially, oh War! do thou march forth with thy bludgeon! Cracked are, our crowns by nature, and henceforth ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... that self-consciousness in the bright light of God; to feel the supernatural corroborations of the light of glory, securing to us powers of contemplation such as the highest mystical theology can only faintly and feebly imitate; to expatiate in God, delivered from the monotony of human things; to be securely poised in the highest flights of our immense capacities, without any sense of weariness, or any chance of a reaction; who can think out for himself the realities of a life ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... adviser on the subject of the influence of architecture on religion than Monsignore Catesby. Monsignore Catesby had been a pupil of Pugin; his knowledge of ecclesiastical architecture was only equalled by his exquisite taste. To hear him expound the mysteries of symbolical art, and expatiate on the hidden revelations of its beauteous forms, reached even to ecstasy. Lothair hung upon his accents like a neophyte. Conferences with Father Coleman on those points of faith on which they did not differ, ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... great entrance-hall, after Mr. Screwemtight had eased them of their cash in the steward's room. Then Mr. Jawleyford would shine forth the very impersonification of what a landlord ought to be. Dressed in the height of the fashion, as if by his clothes to give the lie to his words, he would expatiate on the delights of such meetings of equality; declare that, next to those spent with his family, the only really happy moments of his life were those when he was surrounded by his tenantry; he doated on the manly character of the English farmer. Then he would advert to the great ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... the use of mules was an experiment. The "scientific" branch of service has always held that the proper animal to draw a field-piece is the horse. They expatiate with great delight upon the almost human intelligence and sagacity of that noble animal; upon his courage "when he snuffeth the battle afar," and upon the undaunted spirit with which he rushes upon the enemy, and assists his master to work the ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... denial the result of her vigilance for her son's interests, she was the more impelled to expatiate on the folly of leaving a maid of sixteen to herself, to let the household go to rack and ruin; while as to the wench, she might prank herself in her own conceit, but no honest man would soon look ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in amazing spirits, and did nothing all dinner-time, but expatiate upon the companionable and amiable qualities of de Chavannes, whom he already liked, he said, more than any person he had ever seen for so short a time—so clever, so high-spirited, so gallant. Everything, ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... relish he would expatiate on the wrong which "the service" had sustained in his person at my hands—the "frightful example" I presented, of insubordination and defiance to constitutional authority; and how, he would draw up the most elaborate document, detailing all this, in flowing but strictly official language, ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... love is embodied in the second Pauline. She is not the woman her lover imagines her to be, but far older and more experienced than her lover; who has known long ago what love was; who always liked to be loved, who therefore suffers her lover to expatiate as wildly as he pleases; but whose life is quite apart from him, enduring him with pleasurable patience, criticising him, wondering how he can be so excited. There is a dim perception in the lover's phrases of these elements in his mistress' character; ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... gladly add a few more did his means permit. He was a connoisseur in wines and the pleasures of the table—not that he had any tendencies toward excess, but he delighted to sip the great wines of the world, to expatiate on their age, character, and origin. Sometimes he would laughingly say, "Never dilate on the treasures bequeathed to us by the old poets, sages, and artists, but for inspiration and consolation give me a ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... expatiate on this low, but not unuseful subject,) in his more trifling solicitudes, would have had a sorry key-keeper in me. Were I mistress of a family, I would not either take to myself, or give to servants, the pain of ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... they who are accounted worthy of that resurrection, shall be as the angels of God in heaven." I lay a stress upon this reserve, because it repels the suspicion of enthusiasm: for enthusiasm is wont to expatiate upon the condition of the departed, above all other subjects, and with a wild particularity. It is moreover a topic which is always listened to with greediness. The teacher, therefore, whose principal purpose is to draw upon himself attention, is sure to be full ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... 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 in collecting the ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... work like the present, to introduce himself to the notice of his readers by some sort of preface or address. I take up the pen in conformity to this custom, but am quite at loss for topics suitable to so interesting an occasion. I cannot expatiate on the variety of my knowledge, the brilliancy of my wit, the versatility of my talents. To none of these do I lay any claim, and though this variety, brilliancy of solidity, are necessary ingredients ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... might stand here 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 ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... style of it being what it was, I carried this morning to Lord G(ower), who seemed perfectly satisfied with the option you had made, and the manner in which you expressed yourself in relation to himself. Lord North dines with him on Saturday, when he intends to expatiate more at large upon your views, and to urge further your pretensions to some ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... expatiate on her daughter's heroism till steps were heard approaching, and his aunt knocked at the door. Perhaps she was the person most tried when she looked into his bright, dark eyes, and understood the thrill in his voice ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... civil government who would have to be excused by his wife for some such reason, upon which there would be a chatter of regret and the meeting would fall into a conference upon matters in general. While the gentlemen would "expatiate and confer" with one another as to what breeding would produce the most wrinkles on a sheep's back (thus giving the greatest wool-bearing surface), the ladies would devise new wrinkles to make use of it. And usually the ones who produced ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... prowl, roam, range, patrol, pace up and down, traverse; scour the country, traverse the country; peragrate^; circumambulate, perambulate; nomadize^, wander, ramble, stroll, saunter, hover, go one's rounds, straggle; gad, gad about; expatiate. walk, march, step, tread, pace, plod, wend, go by shank's mare; promenade; trudge, tramp; stalk, stride, straddle, strut, foot it, hoof it, stump, bundle, bowl along, toddle; paddle; tread a path. take horse, ride, drive, trot, amble, canter, prance, fisk^, frisk, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... To expatiate to any extent whatever upon the bereavement is heartless or thoughtless, and as there is no danger of ambiguity, the letter does not need to account for itself in ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... well expatiate in these two varying forms of speech, both of them intended to express the same thing—'rich in mercy' and 'great in love.' For surely a love which takes account of the sin that cannot repel it, and so ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... To expatiate further upon the famous "No. 9 Pill" would be absurd, as it is as great an institution of the British Army out here as the ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... had a mind farther to expatiate, I could enlarge upon several instances of like nature, but this ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... stupefying Theme! Whereon with eloquence less deep than full, Still maundering on in slow continuous stream, All can expatiate, and all be dull: Bane of the mind and topic of debate That drugs the reader to a restless doze, Thou that with soul-annihilating weight Crushest the Bard, and hypnotisest those Who plod the placid path of ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... present I shall not expatiate further upon Stizus ruficornis, whose complete biography would be out of place in this chapter. I will limit myself to mentioning its method of constructing strong-boxes in order to compare it with that of the Bembex and above ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... must render the same service every day; but these sons of God are not held to labour by a bridle so short and rigid. They are endowed with reason and will; they are set at liberty, and permitted to expatiate over a wider field. Their master goes out of sight, and trusts to a renewed, loving heart for the diligent outlay and faithful return of all the talents. The Gospel requires and generates not a legal, but ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... Margery, as she sat, resting from the labors of the day, with le Bourdon at her side, speaking of the pleasures of a residence in such a spot. The youth was eloquent, for he felt all that he said, and the maiden was pleased. The young man could expatiate on bees in a way to arrest any one's attention; and Margery delighted to hear him relate his adventures with these little creatures; his successes, ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... as their mamma excused them, they ran right to the 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 ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... 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 ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... recent example of the literary character carrying his indifference to privations to the very cynicism of poverty; and he seems to exult over his destitution with the same pride as others would expatiate over their possessions. Yet we must not forget, to use the words of Lord Bacon, that "judging that means were to be spent upon learning, and not learning to be applied to means," DE PERRON refused ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... at once into the library, where Doctor Joyce was spelling over the "Rubbleford Mercury," while Mrs. Joyce sat opposite to him, knitting a fancy jacket for her youngest but one. He was hardly inside the door before he began to expatiate in the wildest manner on the subject of the beautiful deaf and dumb girl. If ever man was in love with a child at first sight, he was that man. As an artist, as a gentleman of refined tastes, and as the softest-hearted of male human beings, in all three capacities, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... at the fear and wonder his dog had struck in the gaudy Jewesses and the shaky generals, Frank threatened and finally forced the dog to lie down. He continued to expatiate on the dog's points— the number of wrinkles, the bandiness of the legs, etc. The conversation dropped in heat and glare, and the ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... 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 ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... not expatiate any further upon this, as it may be gathered from it that whatever part of whatever history of a knight-errant one reads, it will fill the reader, whoever he be, with delight and wonder; and take my advice, sir, and, as I said before, read ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... 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 of seeing the sage, as Mr. Sheridan obligingly ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... we have the simple genesis of the army usurer, so-called. He exists and thrives in every garrison in the empire, and the broad swath he mows within the ranks of the army testifies to his diligence and to his successful methods. It would be going too far to expatiate on this matter. Suffice it to say that the system by which the usurer brings hundreds, nay thousands, to disgrace and premature retirement from the army, usually involving the impoverishment of the officers' families, is wellnigh perfection in itself. Within his net are driven, ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... contemplation of 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 obtain ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... and fellows of the colleges, and their frequent kindness to the junior members of their college, this is not the place to expatiate. They are of course an intimate part of every man's college life, and around them many happy memories will generally dwell. The point that it is desired to emphasize is that, in looking back upon Oxford, it is these matters that have been briefly described—the ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... 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; ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... general use of catalogues of [of books], and the esteem they are in at present, is so well known, that it were to waste paper to expatiate on it."—Gerard LANGBAINE, 1688. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various
... 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 you ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... physic—then, in law too, Counsellor TIM, to thee we bow; Not one of us gives more eclat to The immortal name of FUDGE than thou. Not to expatiate on the art With which you played the patriot's part, Till something good and snug should offer;— Like one, who, by the way he acts The enlightening part of candle-snuffer, The manager's keen eye attracts, And is promoted thence by him To strut in robes, like thee, my TIM!— Who shall ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... indebted. Many anxious and solitary hours and days did she consume in the patient trial of relief and amusement; many wakeful nights did she sit by my bedside in trembling expectation that every hour would be my last." Gibbon is rather anxious to get over these details, and declares he has no wish to expatiate on a "disgusting topic." This is quite in the style of the ancien regime. There was no blame attached to any one for being ill in those days, but people were expected to keep their infirmities to themselves. ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... absolutely obliged to keep her. 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 me my follies, and my enemies theirs! May he likewise take my poor ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... Raffaelle's Transfiguration was worshipped in that spot; how it was carried away by the French in 1809, and restored to the pope by the Allies in 1814. As you have already in all probability admired this masterpiece in the Vatican, allow him to expatiate, and search at the foot of the altar for a mortuary slab, which you will identify by a cross and the single word, Orate; under this gravestone is buried Beatrice Cenci, whose tragical story ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... absolute prohibition of putting themselves in opposition to the secular clergy; 7, the interdiction of great churches and rich convents. On all these points and many others infidelity to Francis's will was complete in the Order less than twenty-five years after his death. We might expatiate on all this; the Holy See in interpreting the Rule had canonical right on its side, but Ubertino di Casali in saying that it was perfectly clear and had no need of interpretation had good sense on his side; let that ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... resumed Mr. 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
... that my present want of a house in Madrid is more murmured at there than needs, considering the King is absent, and moreover, though I am much straitened in matter of lodgings, yet that I have a very large and pleasant garden thereunto belonging, to expatiate and refresh myself and wearied family in, I received a message from Baron Battevil to this effect, besides general tenders of all manner of service which is in his power; that he is at present (as in truth he is) sick, or else would have waited upon me himself in person; but that he ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... at first stormed and was furious, but gradually allowed himself to be mollified, and finally gave his consent to their union; how De Berg exchanged into a regiment serving in Africa, and has since gained laurels and high rank. But I have no time to expatiate upon any of these interesting matters, for I leave town to-morrow morning for Oakley Manor, to pay my annual visit ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... news but because she loved to hear him talk, and 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
... liberal-hearted, lofty-minded, gayer, more jocund, elastic, adventurous, given to fun and frolic, than the top-men of the fore, main, and mizzen masts? The reason of their liberal-heartedness was, that they were daily called upon to expatiate themselves all over the rigging. The reason of their lofty-mindedness was, that they were high lifted above the petty tumults, carping cares, and paltrinesses of ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... my ship is none of the largest, I believe he finds himself as comfortable in her as he would aboard the flag.—This gentleman, Doctor, is the honourable Captain Howard, of his Majesty's ship 'Antelope.' I need not expatiate on his remarkable merit, since the command he bears, at his years, is a sufficient ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... in May a menagerie. A chance like this roused the children to a pitch of the wildest enthusiasm. Wonderful posters were put up. It was not considered a circus at all, but a moral and instructive show, if it did not have delightful Artemas Ward to expatiate upon it. There were a great many children who had never seen an ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... editors are called the "moulders of public opinion." Writing in our easy chairs or making suave speeches over the walnuts and wine, we take scrupulous care to expatiate on this phase of our function. But the real question is: who "moulds" us? for assuredly the hand that moulds ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... ingenious arguments, or in pathetic appeals. Many of his scenes have altogether the appearance of a lawsuit, where two persons, as the parties in the litigation, (with sometimes a third for a judge,) do not confine themselves to the matter in hand, but expatiate in a wide field, accusing their adversaries or defending themselves with all the adroitness of practised advocates, and not unfrequently with all the windings and subterfuges of pettifogging sycophants. In ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... sat sae lang as a 've heard o' him daein' in the heich Glen, but it wes the times he cam'," Mrs. Stirton used to expatiate, "maybe twice a week for a month. He hed a wy o' comin' through Tochty Wood—the shade helpit him tae study, he said—an' jumpin' the dyke. Sall, gin he dinna mak a roadie for himsel' through the field that ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... is of 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 know that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... gentlemen then present, who were at once delighted and amazed to hear an instrument of so simple an organization use an exact articulation of words, a just cadency in its sentences, and a wonderful pathos in its pronunciation; not that he designs to expatiate in this practice, because he cannot (as he says) apprehend what use it may be of to mankind, whose benefit he aims at in a more particular manner: and for the same reason, he will never more instruct the feathered kind, the parrot having been his ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... speaking, to cut a man's flesh after he is dead is far less hateful than to oppress him whilst he lives; and even the victims of their appetite were gently used in life and suddenly and painlessly despatched at last. In island circles of refinement it was doubtless thought bad taste to expatiate on what was ugly in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Adolphus the Drummer. Life in Foray was little less than banishment, though it had its wages 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 in him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... other officiating Mid[-e]/ 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 ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... at this point that Raymond, behind the speaker's back, beckoned Sabina, and presently, as Mr. Churchouse began to expatiate on Nature's spinning, she slipped away. The garden was large and held many winding paths and secluded nooks. Thus the lovers were able to hide themselves from other eyes and amuse themselves with their ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... 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 ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... had there learned to speak the sweet Italian tongue, he could talk with Frau Blanca like one of her own countrymen. He was a convivial person, and when he was in the tavern, or dining with a friend, he would expatiate on how learned the doctor was in all the secrets of nature and how well Dr. Vitali, Frau Bianca's father, had known how to cultivate her appreciation of the good and the beautiful. To hear her questions and her husband's tender and wise replies was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... for his whole world. A like reckoning is followed in China and Korea. Upon the disadvantages of being considered from one's birth up at least one year and possibly two older than one really is, it lies beyond our present purpose to expatiate. It is quite evident that woman has had no voice in the framing of such a chronology. One would hardly imagine that man had either, so astronomic is the system. A communistic age is however but an unavoidable detail of the general scheme whose most suggestive feature ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... the faithless, Mr. GINNELL was in his place. He is not interested in the troubles of the British Government. His present obsession is the alleged over-taxation of his own beloved country. In order that he might have due verge and scope to expatiate upon that grievance be pressed the PRIME MINISTER to arrange an early sitting on Wednesday and also to suspend the eleven o'clock rule. At this naive suggestion the House relieved its tension with a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... is subject and upon whom he depends. In every age, the voice of conscience has been regarded as the voice of God, so that when it has filled man with guilty apprehensions, he has had recourse to sacrifices, and penances, and prayers to expatiate his wrath. ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... adjusted, and tied sufficiently tight to produce a fine full-blooming countenance: corsets and bag pantaloons are indispensably necessary to accoutre you for the stand. When in this trim, dilate upon the events of the times—know but very little of domestic affairs—expatiate and criticise upon the imperfections or charms of the passing multitude—tell a fine story to some acquaintance who knows but little about you, and, by this means, borrow as much money as will furnish you with a very small bamboo, or very large cudgel; extremes are ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... 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 ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... In spring-time, when the Sun with Taurus rides. Pour forth their populous youth about the hive In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank, The suburb of their straw-built citadel, New rubbed with balm, expatiate, and confer Their state-affairs: so thick the airy crowd Swarmed and were straitened; till, the signal given, Behold a wonder! They but now who seemed In bigness to surpass Earth's giant sons, Now ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... too narrow bounds for the capacious mind of man to expatiate in, which takes its flight farther than the stars and cannot be confined by the limits of the world, that extends its thoughts often even beyond the utmost expansion of matter and makes excursions into that incomprehensible inane. Nor will it be so strange to ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... worth 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 drinks, in hot weather, to which it adds—when not taken ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... when Crabshaw, having no longer the fear of hobgoblins before his eyes, and being moreover cheered by the sight of a place where he hoped to meet with comfortable entertainment, began to talk big, to expatiate on the folly of being afraid, and finally set all danger at defiance; when all of a sudden he was presented with an opportunity of putting in practice those new-adopted maxims. In an opening between two lanes, they perceived a gentleman's coach stopped by two highwaymen on horseback, one of ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... was something too aristocratical in thus keeping himself apart from the rest of the world, and condemning himself to his own dull company throughout a rainy day. And then, too, he lived too well for a discontented politician. He seemed to expatiate on a variety of dishes, and to sit over his wine like a jolly friend of good living. Indeed, my doubts on this head were soon at an end; for he could not have finished his first bottle before I could faintly hear him humming a tune; and on listening, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... companions of his pillow. What he read stimulated 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 he cherished to ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... great one to expatiate on things you know nothing about, like the barbers and the cobblers,' said the grasshopper. 'I only want to know if you're coming to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... I need not here expatiate on the sumptuous reception afforded us; it may be enough to say, that having some hours to spare before sunset—the universal time for dinner in the East—we walked about, and the Bek shewed me the yet unrepaired damages, inflicted in his father's time, at the hands of the victorious ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... the other writers of the New Testament gives us another field in which this virtue may expatiate, when the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews exhorts to diligence, in order to attain 'the full assurance of hope.' If we desire that our path should be brightened by the clear vision of our blessed future beyond the grave, and above the stars, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... down once more in his arm-chair; and, tapping his shining hessians with the stem of his long clay in smiling abstraction, began, with all a lover's egotism, to expatiate on the theme that ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... bought out of laborious savings and a certain amount of "going without." His spirits finally quite restored, he must needs go and caress his possessions, and take a lamp and show off their points to his visitor and expatiate on them, quite forgetful of the supper they both so much needed; Rat, who was desperately hungry but strove to conceal it, nodding seriously, examining with a puckered brow, and saying, "wonderful," and "most remarkable," at intervals, ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... they're called in America?" asked Anna-Felicitas, with the intelligent interest of a traveller determined to understand and appreciate everything, while Anna-Rose, still greatly upset by the condition of the best skirt but unwilling to expatiate upon it before the youth, continued to brush her down as best she could ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... finished, the dealer had seized his arm, and, hurrying him into the store, pulled down a coat, on the merits of which he began to expatiate with ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... always refers to them gently as "brother" and "sister." To plant a tree to mark an event was one of his picturesque customs—an unconscious desire, perhaps, to project himself into the future. I am quite sure, as we accompany him, he will expatiate on the improvement in the soil which he has effected; that he will point out eagerly not only the domestic but the wild animals about the place; and that he will stand for a few moments on the high bluff overlooking the sea and the marshes and let the wind ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... parent is weaving all manner of bright visions, she resolves that practice be not sacrificed to theory, and commences by a skilful contrivance to expatiate upon the ability and goodness ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... strain did the Squire, guiding his horses with strong, dexterous hand, expatiate to his son; the crisp air rushing past them, making their faces glow with the tingling blood until, burning the ground, they dashed up the avenue that leads to the white mansion of Pulwick, and halted amidst a cloud of steam ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... expatiate upon these praiseful topics to their principals! Even eloquent in their praises! The distressed principals listening and weeping! Then to see them break in upon the zealous applauders, by their impatience and remorse, and throw abroad their helpless hands, and exclaim; then again ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... tired of vain efforts to seduce a publisher from the wary ways of business, surrendered in disgust his neatly copied out and carefully stitched MSS., she lost no opportunity—when Mr. Browning was absent—to expatiate upon their merits. Among the people to whom she showed them was a Miss Flower. This lady took them home, perused them, discerned dormant genius lurking behind the boyish handwriting, read them to her sister (afterwards ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... 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 ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... going too far! If you had shown ever so little shame I would have thrown the book aside, and never again have spoken of it. But to insult me by supposing that force of impudence can overcome the testimony of my own reason! Very well. The question shall be decided by others. All who have heard you expatiate on your—your 'bio-sociological' theory shall be made acquainted with this French writer, and form their own opinion as ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... earnest look; his vivacious eyes were for the most part turned upwards, with a thoughtful and rather a gloomy expression, which I have tried to represent. His lips were closed, but the mouth was not an unkindly one. He was ready enough to expatiate on the arrogant vanity and depraved taste of the Viennese aristocracy, by whom he feels himself neglected, or ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... One could expatiate long upon his attitude to Christianity—his final desire to be "ordained Priest"—his alternating pieties and incredulities. His deliberate clinging to what "experience" brought him, as the final test of "truth," made it quite easy for him to dip his arms deep into the Holy Well. He might not ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... 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
... earliest source, near Cirencester, to where it rolls calm, equable, and full, through the magnificent bridges of our splendid metropolis, giving and reflecting beauty,* presents so grand an image of power in repose—it is not now my purpose to speak; nor am I about to expatiate on that still nearer and dearer stream, the pellucid Loddon,—although to be rowed by one dear and near friend up those transparent and meandering waters, from where they sweep at their extremest ...
— Jesse Cliffe • Mary Russell Mitford
... languidly, and feels it to be no more than a burden. The mere lessons may be learnt from a sense of duty; but that freshness of power which in young persons of ability would fasten eagerly upon some one portion or other of the wide field of knowledge, and there expatiate, drinking in health and strength to the mind, as surely as the natural exercise of the body gives to it bodily vigor,—that is tired prematurely, perverted, and corrupted; and all the knowledge which else it might so covet, it now seems a wearying ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... upon the subjects of citizenship and civilization but, as yet, have achieved no adequate definition of either of the terms upon which we expatiate so fluently. Our books teem with admonitions to train for citizenship in order that we may attain civilization of better quality. But, in all this, we imply American citizenship and American civilization, and here, again, we show forth our provincialism. But even ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... 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 house in which we are assembled.'" His voice filled the ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... Mr Laffan continued to expatiate on the perfections of green Erin's Isle, its mountains, lakes, and rivers, a theme in which he delighted, until his eyes glistened, and his voice choked with emotion, as he thought of the country he might ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... he had 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 ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... 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 affairs when ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... expatiate on the concetti that may be objected to in many of his sonnets, for they are so often in such close connection with exquisitely fine thoughts, that, in tearing away the weed, we might be in ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... to 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 him on his return from the nunciature at Vienna, when ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... we 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 have observ'd of a birch, which has for very many years been perforated at the usual season, (besides ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... Barlow would heat all the pokers in the house, and singe him with the whole collection, to bring him better acquainted with the properties of incandescent iron, on which he (Barlow) would fully expatiate. I pictured Mr. Barlow's instituting a comparison between the clown's conduct at his studies,—drinking up the ink, licking his copy-book, and using his head for blotting-paper,—and that of the already mentioned young prig of prigs, Harry, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... and chests, are "possessed" by denizens of the occult world. Of course, everyone has heard of the "unlucky" mummy, the painted case of which, only, is in the Oriental department of the British Museum, and the story connected with it is so well known that it would be superfluous to expatiate on it here. I will therefore pass on to instances of other mummies "possessed" in a ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... assembly. When, for example, he undertook to show the wrongfulness of Mississippi repudiation, he would refer to Wordsworth as "a poet and philosopher, whose good opinion was capable of adding weight even to the character of a nation," and then expatiate, with the enthusiasm of a scholar, upon the noble office of such men in human society. He had corresponded with Mr. Wordsworth and knew that members of his family had suffered heavily from the dishonesty of the State; and perhaps ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... from the recitation of poetry is justly ranked among the sweetest enjoyments of human life. This sentiment has been so general, in all ages, civilized and savage, that it would be superfluous to expatiate upon it, even with regard to the less elevated species of poetic composition. The application of it to the more elevated and sublime requires no comment; and our present attempt, therefore, requires no apology. The illustrious names which decorate ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More
... that while the faddists were perfectly prepared to take the children out of the hands of any parents who happened to be poor, they had not really the courage of their own convictions. They would expatiate upon methods; they could not define their aims; they would take refuge in such meaningless terms as progress or efficiency or success. They were not prepared to say what they wanted to succeed in producing, towards what ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... 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 to which they led. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... as certain of no fresh sorrows as I was of no fresh joys. And yet, sir, I am at this moment sinking under the infliction of unparalleled misery; misery which I feel I have a right to believe was undeserved. But why expatiate to a stranger on sorrow which must be secret? I deliver myself up to ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... iron pipes, I would not undertake to say that it retains aught of the rustic simplicity of its greener days. Had the pipes been of wood, indeed, the place might yet have had a chance. To understand this, one should hear the French-Canadian expatiate upon the superiority of the wooden to the metal bridge. Five years ago, the road-trustees of Quebec undertook to span the Montmorency River, just above the great fall, with an iron suspension-bridge. This ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... thine own.' When I heard this, I was like to die of 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?' ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... was ordered down stairs the moment the lady entered the room; and Wild, having shut the door, approached her with great ferocity in his looks, and began to expatiate on the complicated baseness of the crime she had been guilty of; but though he uttered many good lessons of morality, as we doubt whether from a particular reason they may work any very good effect on our reader, we shall omit his speech, and ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... officials were in readiness to escort the visitors through the city; and at their beck the doors of public buildings and churches, and the gates of palaces and gardens, were thrown open. The party entered the Hotel de Ville, and in one of its large rooms an opportunity was afforded for Mr. Mapps to expatiate a little on ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... 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 only by ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... and the fundamental principle of that Constitution, was the Bill of Rights—that Bill of Rights, drawn by George Mason, you, gentlemen, in your Constitution of New York, from your first Constitution to your last, have adopted. So when you expatiate upon the merits of written-over prescriptive constitutions, and with such eloquence and convincing force, I beg you to remember that this now forlorn and bereaved Commonwealth was the first people on earth that ever promulgated ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... unexpectedly put in. "And he's not the only person he torments about it. Only yesterday when he came down to the rectory to see some old deeds, didn't he expatiate on that subject and succeed in spoiling the afternoon. I had never been forced to think so much about it in all my life. He made me very uncomfortable, very! What's the use of going miles out of your way, I say, out of the station ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... 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 ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... than the explanation of some article of the faith, or a panegyric on the life of some saint. There are no interpreters of the gospel to be heard from the Spanish pulpit, except during the period of Lent. The preachers like rather to refer to and expatiate largely on miracles, than to unfold the morals of the New Testament; and, in general, it may be taken as a fact that the immense majority of the Spanish population, and especially those of the poorer class, have the most ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... be absurd, it would be impertinent, in such an assembly as this, if I were to attempt to expatiate upon the extraordinary combination of remarkable qualities involved in the production of any newspaper. But assuming the majority of this associated body to be composed of reporters, because reporters, of one kind or other, compose the majority ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... feathered, furred, and scaly tribes under contribution to supply her table and tempt her delicate appetite. A proud and happy man was he when skill or fortune enabled him to lay the antlered stag or tusked boar at her feet, and expatiate on the incidents of his sylvan campaign. He, of course, must be often invited to partake of the social meal. Captain Cranfield, of the engineers, had just returned from Badajoz, where he had been repairing shattered ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... 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
... varieties of late potatoes the Carmen is the premier. Part of the charm of hoeing potatoes lies in anticipating the joys of the potato properly baked. Charles Lamb may write of his roast pig, and the epicures among the ancients may expatiate upon the glories of a dish of peacock's tongues and their other rare and costly edibles, but they probably never knew to what heights one may ascend in the scale of gastronomic joys in the immediate ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... had chosen was so very unseasonable as to make his exercise of a parliamentary right productive of ill effects on his friends or his country? Thirdly, whether the opinions delivered in his book, and which he had begun to expatiate upon that day, were in contradiction to his former principles, and inconsistent with the general tenor of his ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... makes the poets so much easier to a beginner in the German language than the illimitable weavers of prose. The line or the stanza reins up the poet tightly to his theme, and will not suffer him to expatiate. Gradually, therefore, Pope came to read the Homeric Greek, but never accurately; nor did he ever read Eustathius without aid from Latin. As to any knowledge of the Attic Greek, of the Greek of the dramatists, the Greek of Plato, the Greek of Demosthenes, Pope neither ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... masters of their craft. Mr. Peacock does not stop to explain to us that Doctor Folliott is witty. The reverend gentleman opens his mouth and acquaints us with the fact himself. There is no need for George Eliot to expatiate on Mrs. Poyser's humor. Five minutes of that lady's society is amply sufficient for the revelation. We do not even hear Mr. Poyser and the rest of the family enlarging delightedly on the subject, as do all of Lawyer Putney's friends, in Mr. Howells's story, "Annie Kilburn"; and yet even the ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... controversy, with integrity and ease, for a twelvemonth. The man, on the other hand, who does not believe in the authenticity of Ossian must forego all these advantages in succession, and will reduce himself to straits in an hour. He dare not expatiate or admire, or love, or eulogise, or trust, or credit, or contemplate, or sympathise with anything; or admit a fact, or listen to a word, or look at an argument, on the peril of immediate discomfiture. He must simply shut ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... I made no doubt, when they had as good a subject to expatiate upon, as I had, in the pleasure before me, of seeing so many agreeable friends of Mr. B.'s, they would maintain the title they claimed of ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... 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 windings of the modern inclosure acts. ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... these is now added the all-important department of Foreign Affairs; so that, if things remain as they are, the representatives of the people must be content to feed on second-hand information.... Most of us can remember a time when it was a favorite topic with popular agitators to expatiate on the number of lords which a government contained, as if every peer of Parliament wielded an influence necessarily hostile to the liberties of the country. We look down in the present age with contempt on such vulgar ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... also in the precincts of one jail, where Mr. Patrick Brown was cruelly incarcerate for wiping the floor with the cold refuser of the gin. "Criffens! Fechars!" said Swipey for a twelvemonth after, stunned by the mere recollection of that home of the glories of the earth. And then he would begin to expatiate for the benefit of young Gourlay—for Swipey, though his name was the base Teutonic Brown, had a Celtic contempt for brute facts that cripple the imperial mind. So well did he expatiate that young ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... him as water adapts itself to the shape of the vessel in which it is placed. She dare not assert herself or be herself, lest, in some way, she should lose her tentative grasp upon the counterfeit which largely takes the place of love. If he prefers it, she will expatiate upon her fondness for vaudeville and musical comedy until she herself begins to believe that she likes it. With tears in her eyes and her throat raw, she will choke upon the assertion that she likes the smell ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... Silverbridge could not talk about the election at Polpenno because all conversation about Tregear was interdicted in the presence of his sister. He could say nothing as to the Runnymede hunt and the two thunderbolts which had fallen on him, as Major Tifto was not a subject on which he could expatiate in the presence of his father. He asked a few questions about the shooting, and referred with great regret to his ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... of the family. But, as it was, she did not dare to tell him. He would have received her tidings with silent scorn. And even Henrietta would not be enthusiastic. She felt that though she would have delighted to expatiate on this great triumph, she must be silent at present. It should now be her great effort to ingratiate herself with Mr Melmotte at ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... very considerable number is known to proceed critics and wits by reading nothing else. Into which two factions I think all present readers may justly be divided. Now, for myself, I profess to be of the former sort, and therefore having the modern inclination to expatiate upon the beauty of my own productions, and display the bright parts of my discourse, I thought best to do it in the body of the work, where as it now lies it makes a very considerable addition to the bulk of the volume, a circumstance by no means ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... not the place to expatiate on Ormskirk's extraordinary career; his rise from penury and obscurity, tempered indeed by gentle birth, to the priviest secrets of his Majesty's council,—climbing the peerage step by step, as though ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... organs, whose corporeal touch O'ershadoweth thy pure essence. Yet, my Muse, If Fortune call thee to the task, wait thou Thy favourable seasons; then, while fear And doubt are absent, through wide nature's bounds Expatiate with glad step, and choose at will Whate'er bright spoils the florid earth contains, Whate'er the waters, or the liquid air, 300 To manifest unblemish'd Beauty's praise, And o'er the breasts of mortals to extend Her gracious empire. Wilt thou to the isles Atlantic, to the rich Hesperian ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside |
