"Expatiate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 the confinement ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... before 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 ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... is natural for an Englishman to be reticent on such matters; but I do not mind owning to you that Marian Nowell is unforgotten by me, and that the loss of her will have an enduring influence upon my life; and having said as much as that, Belle, I must request that you will not expatiate any more upon this poor girl's breach of faith. I have forgiven her long ago, and I shall always regard her as the ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... first place, report to me briefly and succinctly," said the king. "Reply to all my questions as pointedly and clearly as possible. Afterward we will expatiate on the most important points. Well, then, you saw ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... though foolish, was not intended for more than respect, and our Bishops did not desire it; at which he smiled. Then he went on to expatiate upon what he had seen in some of our churches (probably while on duty as Government servant): the display, as it seemed to him, so like this; the pomp, as he thought it, so fine, like this; the bowing and prostrating, and even on the part of those who did not do these ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... performances than to display their beauties, or to obviate the criticisms which they have occasioned; and, therefore, I shall not dwell upon the particular passages which deserve applause; I shall neither show the excellence of his descriptions, nor expatiate on the terrifick portrait of suicide, nor point out the artful touches, by which he has distinguished the intellectual features of the rebels, who suffer death in his last canto. It is, however, proper to observe, that Mr. Savage always ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... declaration of the Duke that his own signature was feigned; assuring her that these circumstances must prove more than sufficient to prevent the recognition of the deed in any court of law. When he found that this argument had produced the desired impression, he next proceeded to expatiate upon the benefit which she could not fail to derive from the gratitude of the Guises, should she voluntarily withdraw her claim without subjecting the Duke to the annoyance of a public lawsuit; ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... 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 ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... 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 a dry and scornful Manner, ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... hiss of rustling wings. As 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 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, ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... treat of through the medium of an interpreter. 'We know' (the 'cacique' said) 'that there is someone who dwells in heaven.' This vagueness put the missionary upon his mettle, and he set out at once to expatiate upon the attributes of God. They seemed to please the 'cacique', who inquired, 'What is it that displeases, then, the dweller in ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... famous Picture or Statue in all Italy, but could be easily buried under a mountain of printed paper devoted to dissertations on it. I do not, therefore, though an earnest admirer of Painting and Sculpture, expatiate at any length on famous Pictures ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... to expatiate upon subjects of philosophical importance and its no accomplishment. Three examples of the mental concavity sunk into by these barbarians. An involved episode which had the outward appearance of being otherwise than ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... that that is the right way to look at it," said Mrs. Tolbridge; and then she went on with her sewing, not caring to expatiate on the subject. Her husband appreciated only the advantages of La Fleur, but she knew something of her disadvantages. The work on which she was engaged at that moment would have been done by the maid, had not that ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... that day 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 ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... 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
... sins should be accounted new, that so they may be esteemed monstrous. They amit of monstrosity as they fall from their rarity; for men count it venial to err with their forefathers, and foolishly conceive they divide a sin in its society. The pens of men may sufficiently expatiate without these singularities of villainy; for as they increase the hatred of vice in some, so do they enlarge the theory of wickedness in all. And this is one thing that may make latter ages worse than ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... 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
... hermit proceeded 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 ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... Madam; the idolatry and absolute gold-worship of the miser Jaques in this early comic production of Ben Jonson's. Above all, hear Guzman, in that excellent old translation of the Spanish Rogue, expatiate on the "ruddy cheeks of your golden ruddocks, your Spanish pistolets, your plump and full-faced Portuguese, and your clear-skinned pieces-of-eight of Castile," which he and his fellows the beggars kept secret to themselves, and did ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... that the lady who had just gone out was not one of these; Caspar granted all Miss Stackpole's merits in advance, but had no further remark to make about her. Neither, after the first allusions, did the two men expatiate upon Mrs. Osmond—a theme in which Goodwood perceived as many dangers as Ralph. He felt very sorry for that unclassable personage; he couldn't bear to see a pleasant man, so pleasant for all his queerness, ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... 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 ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... curiously. She liked the man, but it was clear that his mental capacity had its limits. Though she would not have had him expatiate on the fact, she had expected him to realize that his mission was to uphold the white man's supremacy, and establish tranquillity, commerce and civilization in a barbarous land. It was, however, evident ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... underfed scrub lacking the one condition which goes far to alleviate the hardest lot, that of personal liberty. People who have never known what it is to be subject to the caprices of a petty tyrant, scarcely appreciate this alleviation at its true value. They expatiate upon the light labors, the abundance, the freedom from anxiety which characterize the lot of servants in good places, with an unction worthy of Southern slaveholders. What more any woman can want they cannot understand. They think it nothing that a servant has not, from week to week, and month to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... acquiescence of the people in such unheard-of burdens, seems to have utterly bewildered the khan's comprehension.[4] "All classes, from the noble to the peasant, are alike oppressed; yet it is amusing to hear them expatiate on the institutions of their country, fancying it the freest and themselves the least oppressed of any people on earth! They are constantly talking of the tyranny and despotism of Oriental governments, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • 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 ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... appeared at the distance of three or four miles, 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, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... 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 all with that of the Tachytes, ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... now, with the latter place, by seven miles of 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. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... 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
... 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 be abolished—don't you think ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... take wing; migrate, emigrate; trek; rove, 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, caracoler^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... 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. But even in this restricted ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... 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 of man; A mighty maze! but not without ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... unwilling 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
... 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 ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... began 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 he had already resolved to ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... a 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
... Christine began to expatiate on its beauty, though perhaps for the first time she looked at a fine picture without really seeing it. She was at a loss how to introduce the object of her visit, but at last said, "Your ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... humanity, and produced such an aversion to the government, as all the arts of a ministry could never totally surmount. A detail of the particulars was published at Paris, with many exaggerations, and the Jacobites did not fail to expatiate on every circumstance, in domestic libels and private conversation. The king, alarmed at the outcry which was raised upon this occasion, ordered an inquiry to be set on foot, and dismissed the master of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... they have rent us apart from Him, in so far as they make us unwilling to be near Him, incapable of receiving the truest nearness and blessedness of His presence, and sometimes desirous to hustle Him out of our thoughts, and, if we could, out of our world, rather than to expatiate in the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... 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 with ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... the divine 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 cannot but ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 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
... should endeavour to demonstrate, that all Ceremonies of Human Invention were superstitious, and that Kneeling down, where there were Pictures and Sculpture, was a manifest Token of Idolatry; if after this, by an easy Transition, he should go over to the Old Testament, expatiate on the Second Commandment, and produce several Instances of God's Vengeance on Idolaters, and the utter Destruction, that had often been brought upon them by God's own People, fighting under his Banner, and acting by his special Commission; ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... 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 ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... 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
... "Expatiate with glad step, and choose at will Whate'er bright spoils the florid earth contains, Whate'er the waters, or the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... noted 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
... 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
... girl awoke from a day-dream, and the car was stopped on the pretense that this marvelous landscape must be viewed in silence and at rest. She rejoined Mrs. Devar, and began instantly to expatiate on the beauties of Sussex, so Medenham ran slowly down the hill through Patcham and ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... when we lived magnificently at Percy-hall. I have not seen the Hungerfords yet; Colonel H. is, I hear, attached to Lady Elizabeth Pembroke. I know very little of her, but Caroline assures me she is an amiable, sensible woman, well suited to him, and to all his family. I need not, however, expatiate on this subject, for Caroline says that she wrote you a long letter, the day after she returned from ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... 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
... 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 of his nature ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... admonished by the look which I surprised on Mistress Callista's high-bred face, I quickly recalled an expression so unsuited to my position as guest, and, with a gush of well-simulated rapture, began to expatiate upon the interesting characteristics of the room, and express myself as delighted at the ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... expatiate on the transitory nature of passion and all glorious and acute experiences. Whole passages of that discourse Lewisham did not hear, so intent was he upon those roses. Why had Ethel gone back into the bedroom? Was it possible—? ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... church our personal concerns are judiciously reduced to the threefold distinction of mind, body, and estate. The sentiments of the mind excite and exercise our social sympathy. The review of my moral and literary character is the most interesting to myself and to the public; and I may expatiate, without reproach, on my private studies; since they have produced the public writings, which can alone entitle me to the esteem and friendship of my readers. The experience of the world inculcates a discreet reserve ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... 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 ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... affect to perceive a certain coldness in the manner of Mrs. Hazeldean, but began immediately to talk to her about Frank; praise that young gentleman's appearance; expatiate on his health, his popularity, and his good gifts personal and mental; and this with so much warmth, that any dim and undeveloped suspicions Mrs. Hazeldean might have formed ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... wanted so much to hear Elfie's 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
... summer of 1761 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
... COOKERY is one of the most thorough and comprehensive works of the kind. To expatiate on its abundant contents would demand pages ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne
... cousin,—he would have rejoiced for the sake 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
... 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
... never were there lies more gross and monstrous than those of the gipsies; 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, ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... a 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 ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... progress. He then gives to each of them presents of tobacco, and after an offering to Kitshi Manid[-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, or, as it is in this ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... those scenes of felicity, which slaves are said to enjoy. The first advantage which they are said to experience, is that of manumission. But here the advocates for slavery conceal an important circumstance. They expatiate indeed on the charms of freedom, and contend that it must be a blessing in the eyes of those, upon whom it is conferred. We perfectly agree with them in this particular. But they do not tell us that ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... 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; ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... to expatiate on the effect of this downright refusal of the woman's proposals. If there was anything like tenderness in her bosom—and no woman was probably ever entirely without that feminine quality—it all disappeared at this plain announcement. Fury, rage, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... haughward, or impounder of stray cattle at Eton, is one of the most singular characters I have ever met with. Among the ignorant Barney is looked up to as the fountain of local and legal information; and it is highly ludicrous to hear him expatiate on his favourite theme of "our birthrights and common rights;" tracing the first from the creation, and deducing argument in favor of his opinions on the second from doomsday book, through all the intricate windings of the modern inclosure acts. Barney is a great stickler ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... 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 ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... general; and I could not but pity such as were so weak, as to value what the common People say out of their own talkative Temper to the Advantage or Diminution of those whom they mention, without being moved either by Malice or Good-will. It will be too long to expatiate upon the Sense all Mankind have of Fame, and the inexpressible Pleasure which there is in the Approbation of worthy Men, to all who are capable of worthy Actions; but methinks one may divide the general ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... the Thoughts 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, whom he intrusted; this I have heard canvass'd over ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... 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 the editor ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... upon this Charming, and Fruitful Subject (I mean, concerning Gardening:) But this is not a Place to Expatiate, deterr'd, as I have long since been, from so bold an Enterprize, as the Fabrick I mentioned. I content my self then with an Humble Cottage, and a Simple Potagere, Appendant to the Calendar; which, Treating only (and that briefly) of the Culture ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... 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
... in theology, morals, and politics, appeared to him to sap the foundations of every higher principle in human nature, he was led by the whole tenour of his mind to dwell upon the existence in the soul of perceptions not derivable from the senses, and to expatiate on the immutable distinctions of right and wrong. Goodness, freed from all debasing associations of interest and expedience, such as Hobbes sought to attach to it, was the same, he was well assured, as it had existed from all eternity in the mind of God. To a ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... is time to draw to a close. We could expatiate much longer upon this topic, but want of space constrains us to leave unfinished these few desultory remarks—slender contributions towards a subject which has fallen sadly backward, and which, we grieve to say, was better understood by the king ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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
... brethren's settlement; as those who accompanied the expedition, and who, from their intercourse with the Europeans, had obtained many conveniences by barter, and from the teaching of the missionaries had acquired a knowledge of the gospel. These advantages the latter did not fail to expatiate upon to their heathen countrymen; and once the brethren met with Sybilla, Jonathan's wife, surrounded by a company of women under the shadow of a skin boat, set on edge, exhorting them with great simplicity and fervour to hear and believe the gospel. Even Uttakiyok ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... crabbed as his nature no doubt was, and bitter and spiteful at times, his conversation must yet have seemed like a perpetual feast of honeyed sweets to his farmer friend. Doubtless there was plenty of variety in it: now he would expatiate on the beauty of the green downs over which he had just ridden, the wooded slopes in their glorious autumn colours, and the rich villages between; this would remind him of Malthus, that blasphemous monster who had dared to say that the increase in food ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... animals, and men, were yet to be discovered and named. It might be found the richest land under the sun, exhaustless in fertility, yielding the most valuable productions, and unfailing in its resources. It was possible it would prove a sterile desert. Imagination could not but expatiate in this unbounded field and unexplored wilderness; and there are few persons entirely secure from the influence of imagination. The real danger attending the first exploration of a country filled with wild animals and savages; and the difficulty of carrying ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... 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 ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... 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
... 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. "People knew how to live and die in those days, and kept their infirmities out ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... returned to his home, than, to complicate his difficulties completely, he fell in love with Mademoiselle Natalie de Bellefonds, who had just returned from Paris, where she had been completing her education. To expatiate on the perfections of Mademoiselle Natalie, would be a waste of ink and paper: it is sufficient to say that she really was a very charming girl, with a fortune which, though not large, would have been a most desirable acquisition ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... 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 numberless—like ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... 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 scene ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... under the statesmen I have mentioned. How fare they with you under the worthies of our time? Is there any likeness or resemblance? I pass over other topics, on which I could expatiate; but observe: in this utter absence of competitors, (Lacedaemonians depressed, Thebans employed, none of the rest capable of disputing the supremacy with us,) when we might hold our own securely and arbitrate the claims of others, we ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... has!" Mr. Bayweather 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 to ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... 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 ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... earth," as Bishop Thirlwall 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 ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... liking for certain 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
... not to be disposed of by placing him in any ready-made and familiar class. If he had turned out a bad man, there would have been abundance in his early life to point the moralist's warning tale; as he turned out a very reputable one, there is scarcely less abundance for panegyrists to expatiate upon. Certainly he was a man to attract some attention and to carry some weight, yet not more than many another of whom the world never hears. At the time of his marriage, however, he is upon the verge of development; a new period of his life is about ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... ever impede the performance of them! to propound the example of Christ and his Apostles, and declare that a slaveholder imitates them! to enjoin an observance of the Lord's day, and drive the slaves from the temple of God! to inculcate every social affection, and instantly exterminate them! to expatiate upon bliss eternal, and preclude sinners from obtaining it! to unfold the woes of Tophet, and not drag men from its fire! are the most preposterous delusion, and the most consummate mockery.' * * * 'The Church of God ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... which bears upon moral or spiritual subjects, carries with it the strongest obligation to impart it. We have such large insights into God and His love as the Gospel gives us, not that we may eat our morsel alone, or merely sun ourselves in the light, and expatiate in the warmth of the beams that come to us, but that we may share them with all around: 'God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined into our hearts,' that we may 'give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... these and the general state of that multitude that most directly exposes the popular debasement. It certainly were ridiculous enough to fix on a laboring man and his family, and affect to deplore that he is doomed not to behold the depths and heights of science, not to expatiate over the wide field of history, not to luxuriate among the delights, refinements, and infinite diversities of literature; and that his family are not growing up in a training to every high accomplishment, after the pattern of some family in the neighborhood, favored by fortune, and high ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... every one else—each and all were perfect in their respective ways. But the creme de la creme, the essence of the whole affair, that on which the tongue of the poet and the pen of the romance-writer must alike rejoice to expatiate, was the conduct of Mr. Frampton; how he was seized, at one and the same moment, with two separate, irresistible, and apparently incompatible manias, one for kissing everybody, and the other for lifting and transporting ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... 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 not failed to frighten her, this course only reassured her. So she gave up without restraint ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... better 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, followed up by desultory remarks on those points of faith on which they ought not to ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... No one but Madame Ozhogin observed my solemn taciturnity, and she inquired anxiously after my health. I replied, of course, with a bitter smile, that I was thankful to say I was perfectly well. Ozhogin continued to expatiate on the subject of their visitor; but noticing that I responded reluctantly, he addressed himself principally to Bizmyonkov, who was listening to him with great attention, when a servant suddenly came in, announcing ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... 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, I found it to be "God save the King." 'Twas ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... subject on which every true lover of his country, and, at this crisis, every friend to the liberties of Europe, and of social order in every country, must dwell and expatiate with delight. I mean to wind up all my proofs of our astonishing and almost incredible prosperity with the valuable information given to the Secret Committee of the Lords by the Inspector-General. And here I am ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... The highest offer we had previously obtained was one hundred and sixty dollars for the largest of the two machines; but Bradley succeeded in coaxing the purchasers on—stopping now and then to expatiate on the mint of gold which, he guessed, he would warrant it to produce daily; and then calling to their minds the fact that this was "the identical cradle into which the lump of gold weighing two ounces and three-quarters—the largest piece ever found at the Mormon diggings—was about to have been ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... you with much more of this strain. The out-of-door enjoyments in Paris are so well known, and have been so frequently described—and my objects of research being altogether of a very different complexion—you will not, I conclude, scold me if I cease to expatiate upon this topic, but direct your attention to others. Not however but that I think you may wish to know my sentiments about the principal ARCHITECTURAL BUILDINGS of Paris—as you are yourself not ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... must not expatiate too much on the merits and capabilities of this part of inner Africa, lest I mislead any commercial inquirers; and it is as well to say at present, that the people near the coast are in such a state of helplessness ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... they were just the sort that suited Maroney, so that they had become the thickest of friends. Sometimes Maroney would take a hand in a social game of euchre at Patterson's, at other times he would take Porter or May out for a drive behind "Yankee Mary," and as they drove along expatiate ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... Servitude et Grandeurs Militaires, contains an account of the way in which he received his false tendency. Cherished on the "wounded knees" of his aged father, he listened to tales of the great Frederic, whom the veteran had known personally. After an excellent sketch of the king, he says: "I expatiate here, almost in spite of myself, because this was the first great man whose portrait was thus drawn for me at home,—a portrait after nature,—and because my admiration of him was the first symptom of my useless love of arms,—the first cause of one of the most complete delusions of ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... go among persons of another class in the metropolis, we should probably find them collecting their entertainment from other topics. One would talk on the subject of some splendid route. He would expatiate on the number of rooms that were opened, on the superb manner, in which they were fitted up, and on the sum of money that was expended in procuring every delicacy that was out of season. A second would probably ask, if it were really known, how much one of ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... return, was 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 ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... confidence the army have reposed in, the justice of their country. And here 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 defense 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 known perfectly to the whole world, and because (although the topics are inexhaustible) enough has already been said on the subject. To prove these assertions, ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... 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 of Man; 5 A mighty maze! but not without a plan; A Wild, where weeds and flow'rs promiscuous shoot; Or Garden, tempting with forbidden fruit. Together let us beat this ample field, Try what the open, what the covert yield; 10 The latent tracts, ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... conscious of it, and stop short with an abrupt turn to something else. With a real interest, which he gave humorous excess, he would celebrate some little ingenious thing that had fallen in his way, and I have heard him expatiate with childlike delight upon the merits of a new razor he had got: a sort of mower, which he could sweep recklessly over cheek and chin without the least danger of cutting himself. The last time I saw him he asked me if he had ever shown me that miraculous razor; and I doubt if he quite ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... completion of my fate; but since he was no more, I felt that it would be a preferable lot to be a beggar in the streets of a Scottish village, than, an abbess in this miserable house of Saint Bride; nor was even that poor object of ambition, on which my father used to expatiate when desirous of persuading me to enter the monastic state by milder means than throwing me off the battlements, long open to me. The old abbess died of a cold caught the evening of the fray; and the place, which might have been kept open ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... expatiate on those incidents of the war which had come under his own observation, three points impressed themselves on our hero: first, that the sergeant was evidently a man of serious, if not religious, spirit; second, that while he gave all due credit ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... tutors 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 details of ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... goes to its work hurriedly and 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 vigour,—that is tired prematurely, perverted, and corrupted; and all the knowledge ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... her smile with a sob clutching at her heart. The singer lady had taken Teether from the arms of his mother, who stood happily exchanging the topics of the times with the Hoover bride, who had not had thus far sufficient opportunity to expatiate on quite all the adventures of the wedding journey and kept on hand still a small store of happenings to recount to her sympathetic neighbors as they found time and opportunity. The rosy rollicking youngster she had ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... 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 ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... but a little appearance of water or 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 ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... baby-tending to some less useful employment—if his audience did not at once "do the needful." Then it occurred to me how much finer a spectacle my ebony friend would make; how well his six feet of manly sinew would grace those pulpit stairs; how eloquently the reverend gentleman might expatiate on the burning sin of shrouding the light of such an intellect in the mists of niggerdom, only to see it snuffed out in darkness; how he might enlarge on what the black could do in elevating his race, either as "cullud" assistant to "Brother Pease" ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... to consult Prue, and Jessie began to display her purchases before eyes that only saw a blur of shapes and colors, and expatiate upon their beauties to ears that only heard the words—"The splendid cousin is married ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... of astonished disapproval, and went on to expatiate on what would have been her own conduct in Deleah's place. How she would have listened to Sir Francis with apparent calm, saying nothing, leading him on to his own ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... guardians so much personal exertion if only they will let things take their course, those sharp, swift consequences that attend the actions of the impetuous. I might, indeed, if this were a sermon and there were a congregation unable to get away, expatiate on the habit these weapons have of smiting with equal fury the just and the unjust; how you only need to be a little foolish, quite a little foolish, under conditions that seem to force it upon you, and down they come, sure and relentless, and you are smitten with a ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... kind of 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 ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... regarded Abe sorrowfully. There were few occasions to which Linkheimer could not do justice with a cut-and-dried sentiment or a well-worn aphorism, and he was about to expatiate on ingratitude in ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... worst, as we have perceived; but the worst was really something she could not know, inasmuch as up to this time Verena chose as little to confide to her on that one point as she was careful to expatiate with her on every other. The change that had taken place in the object of Basil Ransom's merciless devotion since the episode in New York was, briefly, just this change—that the words he had spoken to her there about ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... When a good pair has been produced, the city friend will not have to look far among her town acquaintances for a "golf fiend," even if she herself is not one, and to him or her she must show the stocking and expatiate upon its merits: That it is not machine-made, but hand-knit; that it is thicker, softer, made of better material than woven ones, and above all, not to be found in any shop, but must be ordered from a particular woman who ...
— How to make rugs • Candace Wheeler
... wife, the hair split, and instead of continuing, he 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 and tackle ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... what intense 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, on ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... and bishops wished they could read the Greek. Far otherwise was it with the impending struggle of the Reformation: there the cleavage of sides followed very different lines. Into that wide field we cannot now expatiate; but it is important to notice an element which the German Renaissance contributed to the Reformation, and which played a considerable part in both movements—the ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... treaty the preeminence of rank, which might justly be claimed by the emperor of the East. Should pride and mistaken piety urge him to refuse these equitable conditions, the ambassadors were ordered to expatiate on the inevitable ruin which must attend his rashness, if he ventured to provoke the sovereigns of the West to exert their superior strength; and to employ against him that valor, those abilities, and those legions, to which the house of Constantine had been indebted for ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... real situation, as a suffering member of a suffering body. Take a view of the saints of God in history, sacred or profane, and compare your own individual suffering with theirs: I am apt to think that, great as it is, it will not rise to mediocrity. I could expatiate on this subject, from what comes every day within my own knowledge. The Lord is working in this way all around me; but of that another time. In your own case, try for a moment to shut out of view every thing without your own family, what you once were, ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... not expatiate upon the folly and the mischief which are countenanced and promoted by the modern practice of duelling. I need not give examples of friends who have murdered each other, in obedience to this savage custom, even while their hearts were melting ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... 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
... say anything, and so the magnate began to expatiate upon the artistic triumphs he would achieve. "I make such a picture fer you as de vorld never seen before. You can do shoost vot you vant in dat story—all de tings you like to do, and nuttin' you didn't like. I never said dat ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... Phidias can niche himself into the corner of a pediment, and Raffaelle expatiate within the circumference of a clay platter; but Pugin is inexpressible in less than a cathedral? Let his ineffableness be assured of this, once for all, that no difficulty or restraint ever happened to ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... to expatiate in its presence on the blessing of rain, and to teach it the enjoyment of all nature's varying moods, which ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Bible books she is the greatest reader that I know. I wish you could hear her expatiate on David and Isaiah; and she is in the right, too. They leave behind them, in a rude barbarism of religious ideas, Egypt and Greece. By the bye, is it not strange that the two great literatures of antiquity, the Hebrew and Grecian, should have appeared in territories not larger than Rhode Island? ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... narrator interrupted his story again to expatiate on the development of Mademoiselle ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... 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 Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... school in Bologna, and 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 ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... bargain, and this other thing was 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 ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... his son Edward and his daughter Julia, and he 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 ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... cases the god is represented as lending the money. It is obvious that such advances were made from the temple treasury.(653) It is usual from such instances to expatiate on the temple, or the priests, as the great moneylenders. This is a view easily misunderstood. It is quite true that the temples were great landowners, and had steady incomes, and possessed treasuries; but there is no ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... courtier-like declaration, which would have been excusable 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 ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger |
