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Expatiate   Listen
verb
Expatiate  v. t.  To expand; to spread; to extend; to diffuse; to broaden. "Afford art an ample field in which to expatiate itself."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Expatiate" Quotes from Famous Books



... this was the letter in question. Mr. Jefferson was, she knew, upon the defensive in regard to these measures, and she was glad to believe that he had fallen into an ancient habit and was willing, as of old, to expatiate upon his policy ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... but even the lying formed of itself a peculiar trait. I have never heard lying elsewhere that set all probability so utterly at defiance—a consequence, in part, of their recklessly venturing, like unskilful authors, to expatiate in walks of invention over which their experience did not extend. On one occasion an old gipsy woman, after pronouncing my malady consumption, prescribed for me as an infallible remedy, raw parsley minced small and made up into balls with fresh butter; but seeing, I suppose, from ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... (my Mistress you will please to remember) deliberately, wilfully, added to my trials and vexations. It was her delight to expatiate on the style in which we were to live in India, and on the establishment we should keep, and the company we should entertain when he got his advancement. My pride rose against this barefaced way of pointing out the ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... be found, Sir W. Hamilton has not failed to tell us. If mere intellectual speculations on the nature and origin of the material universe form a common ground in which the theist, the pantheist, and even the atheist, may alike expatiate, the moral and religious feelings of man—those facts of consciousness which have their direct source in the sense of personality and free will—plead with overwhelming evidence in behalf of a personal God, and of man's relation to Him, as a person to a person. We have seen, in ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel

... yellow colours with which they painted their ornaments. To these his mother added blue, by giving him a piece of indigo, so that he was thus put in possession of the three primary colours. The fancy is disposed to expatiate on this interesting fact; for the mythologies of antiquity furnish no allegory more beautiful; and a Painter who would embody the metaphor of an Artist instructed by Nature, could scarcely imagine any thing more picturesque than the real incident of the Indians instructing ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt

... had found a clue to the heart of his cousin, and he began to expatiate, with unusual eloquence, on the nobleness of that daring sin which "lost angels heaven." Florence listened to him with attention, but not with sympathy. Lumley was deceived. His was not an ambition that could attract the fastidious but high-souled Idealist. The selfishness ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... I humbly conceive it is altogether unnecessary (while I am pleading the cause of an army which have done and suffered more than any other army ever did in the defence of the rights and liberties of human nature) to expatiate on their claims to the most ample compensation for their meritorious services, because they are perfectly known to the whole world, and because (although the topics are inexhaustible) enough has already been said on the subject. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... nature kind, But slightly weak and somewhat undefined, Rush at each other, make a sudden stand, Begin to talk, expatiate, and expand; Each looks quite radiant, seems extremely struck, Their meeting so was such a piece of luck; Each thinks the other thinks he 's greatly pleased To screw the vice in which they both are squeezed; So there they talk, in dust, or mud, or ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... an Imperial Conference raises one or two very delicate questions, as to whether common citizenship is to be observed, or whether the relations between India and the Colonies should remain what they are. I am not going to expatiate upon that to-night, but it did occur to me in reading all these proceedings that the part of Hamlet was rather omitted, because India after all is the only real Empire. You there have an immense Dominion, an almost countless population, ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)

... unerring accuracy than he has—in Pall Mall, St. James's Street, or Piccadilly. He will point out to you the exact spot where he would post himself if the birds were being driven from St. James's Square over the Junior Carlton Club. He will then expatiate learnedly on angle, and swing, and line of flight, and having raised his stick suddenly to his shoulder, by way of an example, will knock off the hat of an inoffensive passer-by. This incident will remind him of an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various

... to enter into details of the flora, fauna, and geology of his island-home, and to expatiate in such glowing language on its arboreal and herbal wealth and beauty, that the professor became quite reconciled to ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... Madame Ozhogin observed my solemn taciturnity, and she inquired anxiously after my health. I replied, of course, with a bitter smile, that I was thankful to say I was perfectly well. Ozhogin continued to expatiate on the subject of their visitor; but noticing that I responded reluctantly, he addressed himself principally to Bizmyonkov, who was listening to him with great attention, when a servant suddenly came in, announcing the arrival of Prince N. Our host jumped up and ran to meet ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... pistachios; eat, for thou hast never eaten their like." "O my lord," replied my brother, "they are indeed first rate." Then the host began motioning with his hand as though he were giving my brother a mouthful; and ceased not to enumerate and expatiate upon the various dishes to the hungry man whose hunger waxt still more violent, so that his soul lusted after a bit of bread, even a barley scone.[FN690] Quoth the Barmecide, "Didst thou ever taste anything ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... of Paris," said Our Missis, in a deep tone, "I will not expatiate. Too loathsome were the task! But fancy this. Fancy a guard coming round, with the train at full speed, to inquire how many for dinner. Fancy his telegraphing forward the number of diners. Fancy every one expected, and the table elegantly laid for the complete party. Fancy ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... 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 ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More

... 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 ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... on the payment of a shilling. It contains various Carlylean relics: letters, scraps of manuscript, furniture, pictures, etc., and attracts visitors from all parts of the world. There is no need to expatiate on the life of the philosopher; it belongs not to Chelsea, but to the English-speaking peoples of all countries. Here came to see him Leigh Hunt, who lived only in the next street, and Emerson from across the Atlantic; such diverse natures as Harriet Martineau and Tennyson, Ruskin and Tyndall, ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton

... I should expatiate more largely on the other advantages of the glorious constitution of these by-the-whole-of-Europe-envied realms, but I am called away to take an account of the ladies and other artificial flowers at a fashionable rout, of which a full and particular ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith

... those misfortunes or infirmities which another would turn into ridicule, and by that means gain the reputation of a wit. The ill-natured man, though but of equal parts, gives himself a larger field to expatiate in; he exposes those failings in human nature which the other would cast a veil over, laughs at vices which the other either excuses or conceals, gives utterance to reflections which the other stifles, falls indifferently upon friends or enemies, exposes the person who has ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... subject on which it is not our intention to expatiate here. What we say is, that, in all the relations of civil life, Her people were shamefully and criminally neglected. They were left without education, permitted to remain ignorant of the arts of life, and of that industrial knowledge ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... purchased, or otherwise acquired, in 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 including them in the temporary continuance of this traffic, they might solicit and obtain aid from ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... community the tranquil happiness which belongs to a virtuous and well-ordered household." Naturally desiring to represent in the most favourable colours the world from which I came, I touched but slightly, though indulgently, on the antiquated and decaying institutions of Europe, in order to expatiate on the present grandeur and prospective pre-eminence of that glorious American Republic, in which Europe enviously seeks its model and tremblingly foresees its doom. Selecting for an example of the social life of the United States that city in which progress advances ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... attenuated, the shoulders something more elevated, and a more commiserating tone confesses, "C'est bien mal beureux—Mai enfin que voulez vous?" ["It's unlucky, but what can be said in such cases?"] and in the same instant they ill recount some good fortune at a card party, or expatiate on the excellence of a ragout.—Yet, to do them justice, they only offer for your comfort the same arguments they would have found efficacious in ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... and sufferings of his captivity being the cause of his death; and Father Juan de las Missas, [who perished] at the hands of the hostile Camucones; besides other fathers. I regard it as superfluous to expatiate further on this, or to attempt to spur on those who are running so gloriously. Therefore I conclude with the words, which the glorious bishop and martyr, St. Cyprian, wrote in a similar case in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various

... 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 . . . ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... says that Wordsworth's face, notwithstanding his constitutional gravity, sometimes revealed indications of dry humor. And once, at a morning visit, I heard him give an account of his having breakfasted in company with Coleridge, and allowed him to expatiate to the extent of his lungs. "How could you permit him to go on and weary himself?" said Rogers; "why, you are to meet him at dinner this evening." "Yes," replied Wordsworth; "I know that very well; but we like to take the sting ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall

... expatiate in its presence on the blessing of rain, and to teach it the enjoyment of all nature's varying moods, which other ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... 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 called upon ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... to expatiate concerning himself, even when he is trying to corner a fellow-man. This principle of human nature perhaps accounts for the frequent failure of thieves to catch thieves, in spite of the proverb; the pursuit suggests somehow the pleasures of autobiography, and while they are reminded of ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... of it apiece, and drank a gallon of that most heathenish beverage, cold clear water, before the repast was considered ended. After a hearty meal and a pint of claret, I felt rather inclined to sit still, and expatiate for an hour or so, but Campana roused me, and asked whether or not I felt inclined to go and look at the town. I had no apology, and although I would much rather have sat still, I rose to accompany him, when in walked Captain Transom and Mr Bang. They were ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... 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 ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... 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

... Mr Thomas Sheridan was at Edinburgh, and delivered lectures upon the English language and Public 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 {96} ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... needless task to expatiate on the beauty of this temple, with its noble columns, and its magnificent metopes; for the best still remain, where Lord Elgin could not reach them. The prospect from the summit of the building, whither I mounted to inspect these interesting relics, ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... side deemed it the less necessary to expatiate upon this question, since, admitting the South's basal contention, the right in question depended upon sufficiency of grievance. As, in the South's view, the case was one of sovereigns one party of whom, without referee, was about to break a compact without the other's consent, the adequacy of ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... the lips have grown harder and more prominent, that the legs and feet are daily altering their shape, and that the hair is beginning to change into stubs of feathers. And till the probability of so wonderful a conversion can be shewn, it is surely lost time and lost eloquence to expatiate on the happiness of man in such a state; to describe his powers, both of running and flying, to paint him in a condition where all narrow luxuries would be contemned, where he would be employed only in collecting the necessaries of life, ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus

... 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 at her for a wife, if her father left her to ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... the old man should retain all the consequence of being, in his own opinion, the first to communicate the important intelligence. At the same time, he also determined that in the expected conference he would permit David Deans to expatiate at length upon the proposal, in all its bearings, without irritating him either by interruption or contradiction. This last was the most prudent plan he could have adopted; because, although there were many doubts which David Deans could himself clear ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... convoking the states-general. As soon as Meetkercke had finished his observations, the Prince demanded that the points and articles should be communicated to him in writing. Now this was precisely what the envoys preferred to omit. It was easier, and far more agreeable to expatiate in a general field of controversy,—than to remain tethered to distinct points. It was particularly in these confused conferences, where neither party was entirely sincere, that the volatile word was thought preferable ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... nobody dreamed of as a collector, hearing of the book, secured it, and then invited the two noblemen to dinner, with the view of parading his trophy. In due course he led the conversation to the book, and, after letting them expatiate on its rarity, told them he thought he had a copy in his bookcase, which they emphatically declared to be impossible, and challenged him to produce it. On producing the book, about the purchase of which they had only been temporizing, they were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... bees 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 less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room Throng ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... I might expatiate all night—if you would sit and hear me—on the treatment of such required subject, or introduction of pleasant caprice by the old workmen; but we have no more time to spare, and I must quit this part ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin

... thronged into my mind, the moment I beheld this celebrated river. I thought of the vast regions through which it flows, and suffered my imagination to expatiate as far as its source. A red, variegated sky, reflected from the stream, the woods trembling on its banks, and the spires of Nuys rising beyond them, helped to amuse my fancy. Not being able to brook ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... 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 suffice! Et est stupor quare queritur ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... effect of this is to cause the ice-masses on the horizon to appear as if floating in the air, and to distort them into all sorts of shapes, even turning them upside down, and thus affording to an innovative mind a most ample and attractive field wherein to expatiate. ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne

... expatiate on the effect of this downright refusal of the woman's proposals. If there was anything like tenderness in her bosom—and no woman was probably ever entirely without that feminine quality—it all disappeared at this plain announcement. ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... about that; he must know the circumstance, though he never has a chance to expatiate on his side of the house. Poor man! he has the gout, and passes his time in experiments with temperature and diet. Will you ever visit Belem? I ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... speak as Strauss speaks of his new faith. In fact, spirit in general seems to be altogether foreign to the book— more particularly the spirit of genius. Only those whom Strauss designates as his "We," speak as he does, and then, when they expatiate upon their faith to us, they bore us even more than when they relate their dreams; be they "scholars, artists, military men, civil employes, merchants, or landed proprietors; come they in their thousands, ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... Solon or Montesquieu; he may look on me as wilfully guilty; he may call me by the most opprobrious names. Secure from personal danger, his warm imagination, undisturbed by the least agitation of the heart, will expatiate freely on this grand question; and will consider this extended field, but as exhibiting the double scene of attack and defence. To him the object becomes abstracted, the intermediate glares, the perspective distance and a ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... that 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 ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker

... could say much if we were to expatiate, how few there are that believe this article. For we all pass over it, hear it and say it, but neither see nor consider what the words teach us. For if we believed it with the heart, we would also act accordingly, and not stalk about proudly, ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... occasion, a trial occurred in which an eminent land valuer was put into the witness box to swell the amount of damages, and he proceeded to expatiate on the injury committed by railroads in general, and especially by the one in question, in cutting up the properties they invaded. When he had finished the delivery of this weighty piece of evidence, the counsel for the Company ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various

... experience than any assertions. The idea of hurting his health, is a general idea, which he does not yet comprehend. It is more prudent to keep him out of the way of unripe gooseberries, than to hazard at once his obedience and his integrity. We need not expatiate further; the instance we have given, may be readily applied to all cases in which children have it in their power to disobey with immediate impunity, and, what is still more dangerous, with the certainty of obtaining immediate pleasure. ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... reproach myself for introducing Crashaw thus. I had to point out the fact, and now having done with it, I could heartily wish I had room to expatiate on his loveliness even in ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... Ezekiel's Visionary Representation and Prophetical Paradise. Nor can it, I think, be justly reckoned more criminal, where we have any great instructive Example, which has been real matter of Fact, to expatiate thereon; adding suitable and proper Circumstances and Colours to the whole, especially when the History it self is but succinctly Related, and the Heads of things only left us. And this some great Man have thought was ...
— Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (second edition, 1697) • Samuel Wesley

... 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 ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... (chief). Accordingly I ordered them to be taken up, and we were conducted by him to a house, wherein were seated, in a circle, eight or ten middle-aged persons. To them I and my pigs being introduced, with great courtesy they desired me to sit down; and then I began to expatiate on the merits of the two pigs, explaining to them how many young ones the female would have at one time, and how soon these would multiply to some hundreds. My only motive was to enhance their value, that they might take the more care of them; and ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook

... John! leave all meaner things To low ambition and the pride of kings. Let us (since life can little more supply Than just to look about us, and to die) Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man; A mighty maze! ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... it always according to their own will, and with the same method, who exercise themselves as they will on any subject which suggests itself to them, who are so well satisfied with themselves and their light, who expatiate upon the preparation and the methods for prayer, will make but little advance in it; and after ten or twenty years of this exercise, will always remain ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon

... 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 before ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... of the orator's power. One of his points was, that the faith of the country had been pledged by the ratification of the treaty, and that consequently a refusal of the House to appropriate the money would be a breach of faith. This led him to expatiate upon the ...
— Revolutionary Heroes, And Other Historical Papers • James Parton

... to write a book on Epic Poetry, he dedicated his first chapter to "Differences of Taste in Nations." A critic of to-day might well find it necessary, on the threshold of a general inquiry, to expatiate on "Differences of Taste in Generations." Changes of standard in the arts are always taking place, but it is only with advancing years, perhaps, that we begin to be embarrassed by the recurrence of them. In early youth we fight for the new ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... expatiate with great volubility on all he had heard concerning our Lord. He asked a thousand questions, and exhorted him to work a miracle in his presence; but Jesus answered not a word, and stood before him with his eyes cast down, ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... lend them their ears, or accepted the atrocious accusation of being a young man; and then a Bishop, who had been a schoolmaster himself, delivered an address. It was delightful to see and hear the good man expatiate. I did not believe much in what he said, nor could I reasonably endorse many of his statements; but he did it all so genially and naturally that one felt almost ashamed to question the matter of his discourse. Yet I could not help wondering why it is thought advisable always to say exactly the ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... and those who have known him only in his ripened years, if they apply the truth of this axiom, will have no difficulty in correctly conjecturing what must have been his early youth. Even then his predominant weakness was to almost daily, and by the hour, expatiate upon the merits of his great "grandfather," and to entertain boys, smaller and younger than himself, with the revolutionary exploits—more numerous and diversified far than those with a narration of which Othello beguiled the fair Desdemona, ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various

... saw rising over the surface, to certify, like some frail memorial in a churchyard, that the dead lay beneath, had an eloquence in it which the words wanted, and at once sent the imagination back to deal with the stern realities of the disaster, and the feelings abroad to expatiate over saddened hearths and melancholy homesteads, where for many a long day the hapless perished would be missed and mourned, but where the true story of their fate, though too surely guessed at, would never ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... she, for the first time in many a week, listened without irritation while Freddie poured forth his unending praise of "my wife." As Brent knew them intimately, Freddie felt free to expatiate upon all the details of domestic economy that chanced to be his theme, with the exquisite lunch as a text. He told Brent how Susan had made a study of that branch of the art of living; how she had explored the unrivaled Parisian markets and groceries and shops that dealt in specialties; how she had ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... coated with it in the course of an hour or two. The common hazel or nut-tree affords a fine illustration of the structure of that division of plants to which most of our common European trees belong, and which, from its including the oak, is called 'the oak-tribe.' I shall not, however, expatiate on the hazel, the pride of our old copse-banks, but look beneath its long slender branches, and there, lurking modestly, do I see that pretty little yellow flower, the lesser celandine (Ficaria verna.) Every one knows this little early blossom ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various

... and Dinwiddie made them an opening speech, inveighing against the aggressions of the French, their "contempt of treaties," and "ambitious views for universal monarchy;" and he concluded: "I could expatiate very largely on these affairs, but my heart burns with resentment at their insolence. I think there is no room for many arguments to induce you to raise a considerable supply to enable me to defeat the designs of these troublesome people and enemies of mankind." The burgesses in their turn ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... expatiate on the battle. I have read in the correspondent's letter of a Northern newspaper, that in the midst of the company assembled the reader's humble servant was present, and in a very polite society, too, of "poets, clergymen, men of letters, and members of both Houses of Parliament." If so, I must have ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... up my mouth—and you must know—if you know any thing—how vast a superfluity of breath I have to dispose of! If you do not know, however, sit down and you shall see. In my situation it is really a great relief to be able to open ones mouth—to be able to expatiate—to be able to communicate with a person like yourself, who do not think yourself called upon at every period to interrupt the thread of a gentleman's discourse. Interruptions are annoying and should undoubtedly ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... well trained ever to exploit themselves, their school, or their work. The pictures, the statuary, the fittings, and the equipment are all of the best, and, hence, show for themselves without exploitation. To teachers and pupils it would seem a mark of ill-breeding to expatiate upon their own things. Such a thing is simply not done in this school. The auditorium is a stately, commodious, and beautiful room, and everybody connected with the school accepts it as a matter of course with no boastful comment. Anything approaching braggadocio would ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... 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, in a word, that a man could ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... here, a want of interest on account of what has been, that is most sensibly felt. At most, we can only go back to the naked savage who devoured his prisoner, and adorned himself with bones and feathers here. In the East, imagination is at liberty to expatiate on past grandeur, wisdom, and politeness. Monuments of art and of science meet us at every step: here, every thing, nature herself, wears an air of newness, and the Europeans, so evidently foreign to the climate, and their African slaves, repugnant to every wholesome feeling, show too plainly ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... conversation is confined chiefly to the candidate's progress. He then gives to each of them presents of tobacco, and after an offering to Ki/tshi Man/id[-o], with the pipe, they expose the articles contained in their Mid[-e]/ sacks and explain and expatiate upon the merits and properties of each of the magic objects. The candidate for the first time learns of the manner of preparing effigies, etc., with which to present to the incredulous ocular demonstration of the genuineness and divine origin of the Mid[-e]/wiwin, ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman

... branched off, to tell me she was the step-daughter of "So-and-so," that her own father, who was "Somebody," had died of "something," and had been buried "somewhere"; and then that hair split, and he proceeded to expatiate on the two fathers' qualities, and state their different business occupations, after which, out of breath, and far, far from the original subject, he had to hark back two and a half pages ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris

... 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 pushing a twenty-pound lawn-mower ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs

... is just one of the great points which the defenders of women's rights forget to expatiate upon. A man may love as often as he chooses, while a woman must only love once, or he considers himself very badly used. Why not be on an equal footing? Not that I want to love any one," says Molly; "only it is the injustice of the thing ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... know the Clickits without loss of time. Such people ought not to be strangers to each other.' Mrs. Widger books both families as the centre of attraction for her next party; and Mr. Widger, going on to expatiate upon the virtues of the Clickits, adds to their other moral qualities, that they keep one of the neatest phaetons in town, and ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... filled by the words "at Ephesus" is left blank. Thus it reads: "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, to the saints which are and the faithful in Christ Jesus." Some of the old fathers expatiate on this title, drawing distinctions between the saints which are and the saints which seem to be,—an amusing example of exegetical thoroughness. Undoubtedly the letter was designed as a circular letter to several churches in Western Asia,—Laodicea ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden

... when fully determined on paying my addresses to her, I allowed myself most improperly to put off, from day to day, the moment of doing it, from an unwillingness to enter into an engagement while my circumstances were so greatly embarrassed. I will not reason here—nor will I stop for you to expatiate on the absurdity, and the worse than absurdity, of scrupling to engage my faith where my honour was already bound. The event has proved, that I was a cunning fool, providing with great circumspection for a possible opportunity ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... personal Power above man, to whom he 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

... the desired result being obtained with almost provoking celerity. Thus even success had palled, and Carnaby's sharp and idle wits had begun to work on the problem which seemed to be occupying his elders. Neither Robinette nor Lavendar could expatiate to the boy on his grandmother's peculiarities, but Carnaby had contrived to find out for ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... other kinds of fishery, the abundance of whales, seals, and walruses in the Gulf, and of salmon up all the tributary rivers. Burton recommends immediate attention to the iron mines behind Three Rivers. All the governors expatiate on the vast amount of forest wealth and remind the home government that under the French regime the king, when making out patents for the seigneurs, reserved the right of taking wood for ship-building ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood

... or, as I rather hope, more fancy and warmth of feeling than is quite reasonable, my mind is ever impressed with admiration for persons of high birth, and I could, with the most perfect honesty, expatiate on Lord Errol's good qualities; but he stands in no need of my praise. His agreeable manners and softness of address prevented that constraint which the idea of his being Lord High Constable of Scotland might otherwise ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... two or three days after—as was only his duty—Camors reflected on a strong resolution he had made to keep very cool, and to expatiate to Madame Lescande only on her husband's virtues. This pious resolve had an unfortunate effect; for Madame, whose virtue had been piqued, had also reflected; and while an obtrusive devotion had ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... Honour. The exact Return which he made to her Duty and Tenderness, entirely flowed from this Prince's generous and grateful Temper, and from his good and religious Heart. He had such a delicate Sense of conjugal Duty, that he never fail'd shewing his Displeasure to any Courtiers, who presumed to expatiate on the Charms of some Houris in his Capital, and once when Kigenpi, one of the Methers, or Lords of his Bed-Chamber began to talk to him of a Person of incomparable Beauty, he gave him no Answer, only asking him in ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon

... The great oriental scholar, ANQUETIL DE PERRON, is a 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 the offer of thirty thousand livres for his copy of the "Zend-avesta." ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... death of Schiller, he was seized with a strong desire to travel in foreign countries, as if his spirit had a presentiment of its approaching enlargement, and already longed to expatiate in a wider and more varied sphere ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... air upon the moon, the conclusion has been inferred that there exists no vegetable or animal life on that globe," [449] other writers, holding opposite views of the moon's physical condition, may be allowed to expatiate on the luxuriant life which an atmosphere with water and temperature would undoubtedly produce. Mr. Proctor's tone is temperate, and his language that of one who is conscious with Hippocrates that "art is long and life is short." He says, ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... might expatiate, did the subject require it, on the many and various objects with which the soul will be entertained in those heavenly regions; when I reflect on which, I am apt to wonder at the boldness of some philosophers, who are so struck with admiration at the knowledge ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... she continued, "I implore you to lose no time in reaching Pianura. Occasion is short-lived, and an hour's lingering may cost you the regency, and with it the chance of gaining a hold on your people. I will not expatiate, as some might, on the power and dignities that await you. You are no adventurer plotting to steal a throne, but a soldier pledged to his post." She moved close to him and suddenly caught his hand and raised it to her lips. "Your excellency," said she, "has deigned to look for a moment on a poor ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... 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 Gourlay ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... went on in a rapturous way to expatiate upon the subject of Katie, and in this way the remainder of the evening was taken up. Russell said but little: what he said was chiefly an incoherent jumble which expressed with tears of gratitude a full acceptance of "His ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... 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 picturesqueness of ...
— Spring Days • George Moore

... progress of backward races. From the political point of view the conversion of so many millions of the population of India to the faith of their rulers would open up prospects of such moment that I need not expatiate upon them. ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... to look upon." Of course. In relating the history of these examples who have been held up since time immemorial for us to follow, the writers of "Holy Writ" never expatiate upon their virtue, industry, domesticity, constancy or love, but we are simply and briefly told they were "fair to look upon," and the natural logical inference is that we ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley

... to Mr. Emerson. I'm willing if he is." Whereupon, vastly encouraged, Clyde proceeded to expatiate upon his own surpassing qualifications. While he was speaking, a party of three men approached, and seated themselves at an adjoining table. As they pulled out their chairs, Big George chanced to glance in their direction; then he put ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... 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 ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury

... 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 Nave, and reverberated ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... metaphor here, both in the word 'access' and in that other one 'stand.' 'The grace' is supposed as some ample space into which a man is led, and where he can continue, stand, and expatiate. Or, we may say, it is regarded as a palace or treasure-house into which we can enter. Now, if we take that great New Testament word 'grace,' and ponder its meanings, we find that they run something in this fashion. The central thought, grand and marvellous, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... second place is assigned to geometry; on the usefulness of which it is unnecessary to expatiate in an age when mathematical studies have so much engaged the attention of all classes of men. This treatise is one of those which have been borrowed, being a translation from the work of Mr. Le Clerc; and is not intended as ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... an idea which would make a strong appeal to a girl. Women like the idea of reforming their husbands. Besides, the prospect for her is in other respects most brilliant. She would be recognized by the Emperor. She would be received in the most exclusive Courts of Europe. But I need not expatiate. ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham

... principal English authors, was both a pleased and a benefited listener to the conversations of these bookish men. Hawthorne says that to hear the old Inspector (whom he has immortalized in the quaint and genial introduction to the "Scarlet Letter") expatiate on fish, poultry, and butcher's-meat, and the most eligible methods of preparing the same for the table, was as appetizing as a pickle or an oyster; and to hear these literary gourmands talk with such gusto of this writer's delightful style, or of that one's delicious humor, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... formerly at the siege of Barleta. The Spaniards made two unsuccessful efforts to burn the enemy's bridge; but they succeeded, on the other hand, in carrying the strong fortress of Rocca Guglielma, garrisoned by the French. Among the feats of individual heroism, the Castilian writers expatiate most complacently on that of their favorite cavalier, Diego de Paredes, who descended alone on the bridge against a body of French knights, all armed in proof, with a desperate hardihood worthy of Don Quixote; and would most probably have shared the usual fate of that renowned ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... do not dare to expatiate on these monstrosities. We shall only cite the words of the lawyer Heterus: "Shamelessness is a crime in a free man—a duty in a freedman—and a necessity in a slave." For further details of the abominable and precocious depravity into ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue

... over continents, and the tides that swell upon their shores, 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

... I felt it necessary the next time I went to my darling to expatiate on that unfortunate drawback. I soon carried desolation into the bosom of our joys—not that I meant to do it, but that I was so full of the subject—by asking Dora without the smallest preparation, if ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... out from start to finish. I happened to get acquainted with the widow of some departed high Anglo-Indian official. She was good enough to call me by the pet-name Ruby. Some Indian friend of hers had composed a doleful poem in English in memory of her husband. It is needless to expatiate on its poetic merit or felicity of diction. As my ill-luck would have it, the composer had indicated that the dirge was to be chanted to the mode Behaga. So the widow one day entreated me to sing it to her thus. Like the silly innocent that I was, I weakly ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore

... let John 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 as he told of Sydney's bravery and resolution. ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... shalt know, too," answered Alvarado firmly, "that though I break my heart, I, an unknown, can expatiate his guilt with all the pride of most ancient lineage and birth highest ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... days of Queen Elizabeth than what has happened in my own lifetime;" and then Miss Burleigh left politics, and began to speak of her brother's personal ambition and personal qualities; to relate anecdotes of his signal success at Eton and at Oxford; to expatiate on her own devotion to him, and the great expectations founded by all his family upon his high character and splendid abilities. She added that he had the finest temper in the world, and ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... volubly 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. ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... of every Company; if a Man in a Coffee-House takes up a News-Paper, the first Thing he turns to is the Price of the Stocks; if he looks over the Advertisements, it is in Quest of some new Project; when he has finished his Enquiry, and mixes in Conversation, you hear him expatiate upon the Advantage of some favourite Project, or curse his Stars for missing the lucky Moment of buying as he intended at the Rise of the South-Sea. Another complains of the Roguery of some Broker or Director, ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe

... my wife is being consulted morning, noon, and night, and I never come into the room without finding their heads close together over a paper, and hearing Bob expatiate on his favorite idea of a library. He appears to have got so far as this, that the ceiling is to be of carved oak, with ribs running to a boss overhead, and finished mediaevally with ultramarine blue and gilding,—and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... management of freedmen's affairs; that some of the officers of the bureau were men of more enthusiasm than discretion, and in many cases went beyond their authority: all this is certainly true. But, while the southern people are always ready to expatiate upon the shortcomings of the Freedmen's Bureau, they are not so ready to recognize the services it has rendered. I feel warranted in saying that not half of the labor that has been done in the south this year, or will be done there next year, would have been or would be done but for the exertions ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz

... if I don't let go. Fact is, we've been keeping it up a bit all night. Byfield leaves us—to expatiate in realms untrodden by the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the hilarity of the festival had warmed and opened all hearts, he took occasion in an interview with the chief to expatiate upon the parental affection which had led the father and mother of his little sister to give up their friends and home, and come hundreds of miles away, in the single hope of sometimes looking upon and embracing her. The heart of the chief softened ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... successfully shirking facts. We were like bankrupts, who cannot summon energy to begin life and work again in earnest. And we were represented by the most comic parliament that ever sat in Westminster, upon which it would be too painful here to expatiate. ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay

... well in such a description, allowing the heaving bosom to be seen beneath it, while "sparkling eyes," and "jetty tresses," and "tiny feet" might be thrown in profusely. But, alas! regard for truth will not permit me to expatiate too admiringly on such topics, determined as I am to give as far as I can a true picture of the people and places I visit. The princesses were, it is true, sufficiently good-looking, yet neither their persons nor their garments had that appearance of freshness and cleanliness ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... 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 will with ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe

... dames! In most Asiatic countries the ladies are at a sad discount in the estimation of their lords and masters, however much the latter may expatiate on their personal charms, and in Eastern jests this is abundantly shown. For instance, a Persian poet, through the importunity of his friends, had married an old and very ugly woman, who turned out also of a very bad temper, and they had constant quarrels. Once, in a dispute, the poet made some ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... had called him—Alexander, with whose deplorable capacity for "unbending" a scholar like Eames was perfectly familiar—he would switch the conversation into realms of military science, and begin to expatiate upon the wonderful advance which has been made since those days in the arts of defensive and offensive warfare—the decline of the phalanx, the rise of artillery, the changed system of fortifications, those modern inventions in the department of land defences, sea defences and, above all, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... 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

... he will say to his sister, 'I have a new friend at college, Lucy—the handsomest, brightest, most amiable and fascinating youth I ever saw.' You see he will call me a 'youth;' possibly this may excite Miss Lucy's curiosity, and she will ask more about me; and then Mowbray will of course expatiate on my various and exalted merits, as every warm-hearted man does when he speaks of his friends. Then Miss Lucy will imagine for herself a beau ideal of grace, elegance, beauty, intelligence and wit, far more than human. She will ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous

... not expatiate on the new ideas which Michael Angelo accepted, or the impulse he gave to art in all its forms, and to the revival of which civilization is so much indebted. Let us turn and give a parting look at the man,—that great creative genius ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... Magna Charta clause by clause, and word by word, and letter by letter. They linger lovingly and proudly over every jot and tittle of that splendid instrument. And you will indulge me this Communion night of all nights of the year if I expatiate still more lovingly and proudly on that great Covenant which our Lord has sealed to us again to-day, and has written again to-day on the walls of our hearts. Moses made haste as soon as the old Charter was read over to him, and nothing shall delay us till we have feasted our ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... in large measure a sense of humor, that clarifying quality which Prussianization has destroyed in the Germans, must have smiled when they heard the German envoys expatiate on the beauties of neutrality, and, although they are a polite people, they must have found it hard to keep from laughing when the agents of Dr. Bethmann-Hollweg, who had just declared that a treaty is only a scrap of paper, to be torn up at pleasure, tried to ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times

... a relapse into her teasing, but she did not yield. "Oh, father's all right—from your point of view. He's been ridiculous from the first; perhaps that's the reason he doesn't feel obliged to expatiate and expand a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... from Rose Beacon they passed in sight of another beacon, and of a village which they call Newworke, in which is a small castle like unto that at Rose Beacon. Here the sea began to expatiate, and about three leagues from hence was the lowest buoy of the river. And now Whitelocke was got forth into the open German Ocean, a sea wide and large, oft-times highly rough and boisterous and full of danger, especially in these parts of it, and as Whitelocke shortly ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... was inclined to expatiate on the riches of the man; so I asked him, Well, Erasistratus, and what sort of character does ...
— Eryxias • An Imitator of Plato

... my right hand to have been with him when he beat the French in Quiberon Bay. That was a glorious day for old England, let me tell you." I was able to expatiate on the subject, as the last time I was at home my father read me a full account of the battle which took place in 1759, the year preceding the death of his Majesty George the Second, and about five years before the time of which I am now speaking. ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... means my design, however, to expatiate upon the merits of what I should read you. These will necessarily speak for themselves. Boccalini, in his "Advertisements from Parnassus," tells us that Zoilus once presented Apollo a very caustic criticism upon a very admirable ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... bulk the whale affords a most congenial theme whereon to enlarge, amplify, and generally expatiate. Would you, you could not compress him. By good rights he should only be treated of in imperial folio. Not to tell over again his furlongs from spiracle to tail, and the yards he measures about the waist; only think of the gigantic involutions of his intestines, where they lie in him ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... below, Fills the assassin's heart with vengeful woe, When Troy, or Argos, the dire scene affords, Or Creon's hall8 laments its guilty lords. Nor always city-pent or pent at home 50 I dwell, but when Spring calls me forth to roam Expatiate in our proud suburban shades Of branching elm that never sun pervades. Here many a virgin troop I may descry, Like stars of mildest influence, gliding by, Oh forms divine! Oh looks that might inspire E'en Jove himself, grown old, with young desire! Oft have I gazed on gem-surpassing ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton

... incunabula, first editions or uncut copies, and keeping them from publication or reading, and, in short, of worshipping anything, be it a book or a coin, merely because it is rare. Men never expatiate on rariora in literature or in china, or talk cookery and wines over-much, without showing themselves prigs. It is not any beauty in the thing, but the delightful sense of their own culture or wealth which ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... 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 ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... the same officer who had won such well-deserved renown in Mexico. "In this enlightened age," wrote the future general-in-chief of the Confederate army, "there are few, I believe, but will acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it a greater evil to the white than to the coloured race, and while my feelings are strongly interested in the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... too ardently for the next day. She hadn't seen Cousin Ben yet so she went out to hunt him up, but discovering that he was hard at work over his studies she concluded not to disturb him but to go with the boys to hear them expatiate upon the qualities of the new pigeons, of the trade they had made with another boy and of various things which had been going on at ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard

... reduce the gait of the horses to a walk, there is sure to be a beggar. But do not imagine that he relies on his own powers of scream and hideousness alone,—not he! He has a friend, an ambassador, to recommend him to your notice, and to expatiate on his misfortunes. Though he himself can scarcely move, his friend, who is often a little ragged boy or girl, light of weight and made for a chase, pursues the carriage and prolongs the whine, repeating, with a mechanical iteration, "Signore! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... given, and heartily shaken, for the boys were charmed with Dan's pleasure, and crowded round him to shake hands and expatiate on the beauties of their gift. In the midst of this pleasant chatter, Dan's eye went to Mrs. Jo, who stood outside the group enjoying the ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... He 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 ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... barren sands; and he cries out in the midst of his happy home,—"This is not your rest!" Our tent-home may include every earthly cup, and all the riches and honors of the world, yet it satisfies not, and the Christian turns from it all to rest and expatiate in a life to come. Every home here is baptized with tears and scarred with graves. Its poverty is a burden, its riches are snares, its friends are taken from us; broken hearts agonized there; restlessness is tossed to and fro ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... There is a sort of opinions, anachronisms and anachorisms, foreign both to the age and the country, that maintain a feeble and buzzing existence, scarce to be called life, like winter flies, which in mild weather crawl out from obscure nooks and crannies to expatiate in the sun, and sometimes acquire vigour enough to disturb with their enforced familiarity the studious hours of the scholar. One of the most stupid and pertinacious of these is the theory that the Southern States were settled by a class of emigrants from the Old World socially ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... 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 ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various

... 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 ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... her beauty; I will not expatiate upon her intelligence, her quickness of perception, her powers of memory, her sweet consideration, from the first moment, for the slow-paced tutor who ministered to her wonderful gifts. I was thirty then; I am over sixty now: she is ever present to me in these hours as ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens

... things they have made me do!" he would exclaim with a lustrous eye. "C'est egal, of all the follies and stupidities I have committed for them I would not have missed one!" On this subject Newman maintained an habitual reserve; to expatiate largely upon it had always seemed to him a proceeding vaguely analogous to the cooing of pigeons and the chattering of monkeys, and even inconsistent with a fully developed human character. But Bellegarde's confidences greatly amused him, and rarely displeased him, ...
— The American • Henry James

... his hand, And threw my heart into the scalding pan; My heart that brought it (do you understand?) The offerer's heart. "Your heart was hard, I fear." Indeed 'tis true. I found a callous matter Began to spread and to expatiate there: But with a richer drug than scalding water I bath'd it often, ev'n with holy blood, Which at a board, while many drank bare wine, A friend did steal into my cup for good, Ev'n taken inwardly, and most divine To supple hardnesses. ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... exhausted. Gentlemen, it is under the full persuasion that you and his Lordship are also much oppressed with fatigue, that I can venture to promise you my address will not be very long. But I trust, that considering the point which it will be necessary for me to expatiate upon, you will be ultimately of opinion, that my address, although not long, is still effectual for the interest of ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney

... and was agreeable to the best apprehensions we are able to form upon the subject, viz. "That 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 ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... contemplation of mortal crimes, this character alone might serve as an antidote to the word of mental distempers, and awaken the most callous and sarcastic mind to confess the dignity of our Nature, and the beneficence of our God. In stating to you the merits of HOWARD, I might expatiate with delight on the various qualities of this incomparable man; I might trace his progress through the different periods of a life always singular and always instructive. I could not be checked by any fear of overstepping the modesty of Truth in ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley

... Taurus rides, Pour forth their populous youth about the hive In clusters; they among fresh dews and flow'rs Fly to and fro; or on the smoothed plank, The suburb of their straw-built citadel, New rubb'd with balm, expatiate, and confer Their state affairs. So thick the airy crowd Swarm'd and were straiten'd; till the signal giv'n, Behold a wonder! They but now who seem'd In bigness to surpass earth's giant sons, Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room Throng numberless, like that Pygmean ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... consequence is, being of no party, I shall offend all parties:—never mind! My words, at least, are more sincere and hearty Than if I sought to sail before the wind. He who has nought to gain can have small art: he Who neither wishes to be bound nor bind, May still expatiate freely, as will I, Nor give my voice ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... 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 ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... Franks. He proposed the recovery of Ptolemais, or Acre, thirty miles to the south of Tyre; and the place was first invested by two thousand horse and thirty thousand foot under his nominal command. I shall not expatiate on the story of this memorable siege; which lasted near two years, and consumed, in a narrow space, the forces of Europe and Asia. Never did the flame of enthusiasm burn with fiercer and more destructive rage; nor could the true believers, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... to go among persons of another class in the metropolis, we should probably find them collecting their entertainment from other topics. One would talk on the subject of some splendid route. He would expatiate on the number of rooms that were opened, on the superb manner, in which they were fitted up, and on the sum of money that was expended in procuring every delicacy that was out of season. A second would ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... not declaim, nor philosophers expatiate, on the disappointments of human life. Are they not legibly written on every page of our existence? Are they not predominantly prevalent over ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster

... my St. John, leave all meaner things To low ambition and the pride of kings; Let us, since life can little more supply Than just to look about us and to die, Expatiate free o'er all this scene ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various

... might select Devonshire, Somersetshire, Herefordshire, and others of the midland counties, as pre-eminent in this character of beauty, which, however, is too familiar to our daily observation to make it needful to expatiate upon it. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various

... the mind alone Beholds, nor half thy brightness can reveal Through those dim 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 ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... 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 ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... luxuries, and to these he would 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 bottle ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... Wodzinski she married a country gentleman, and subsequently became blind.] As the circumstances of the case and the motives of the parties are unknown to me, and as a biographer ought not to take the same liberties as a novelist, I shall neither expatiate on the fickleness and mercenariness of woman, nor attempt to describe the feelings of our unfortunate hero robbed of his ideal, but leave the reader to make his own reflections and ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... small knot that first gathered round me, by which some of those whom we expected might be made subservient to our sport. Every man has some favourite topick of conversation, on which, by a feigned seriousness of attention, he may be drawn to expatiate without end. Every man has some habitual contortion of body, or established mode of expression, which never fails to raise mirth if it be pointed out to notice. By premonitions of these particularities I secured our pleasantry. Our companion entered with his usual gaiety, and began to partake ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... 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 at ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer



Words linked to "Expatiate" :   contract, specify, specialize, expatiation, dilate, expand, particularise, elucidate, particularize, exemplify, clarify, specialise, lucubrate, instance, enlarge, flesh out, exposit, elaborate



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