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Expostulation   Listen
Expostulation

noun
1.
The act of expressing earnest opposition or protest.  Synonyms: objection, remonstrance, remonstration.
2.
An exclamation of protest or remonstrance or reproof.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Expostulation" Quotes from Famous Books



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

... if they might all be thrown into the ditch. Then mademoiselle, who was always rather nervous about driving, broke into shrill screams, with Marie joining in at intervals—Gilpin's flight was nothing to it—and the cart jolted and swayed so that calm expostulation was impossible. ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie

... Esq. July 5.-Expostulation on his love of visionary projects. Mr. M'untz. Visit to Chaffont. Bulstrode. Latimers. First visit to ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... out into maniacal movements of wrath, invoking some absent person, praying, beseeching, menacing some air-wove phantom; sometimes he slunk into solitary corners, muttering to himself, and with gestures sorrowfully significant, or with tones and fragments of expostulation that moved the most callous to compassion. Still he turned a deaf ear to the only practical counsel that had a chance for reaching his ears. Like a bird under the fascination of a rattlesnake, he would not summon up the energies ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... Everybody was smoking cigars, everybody was happily conscious of a warm glow at the pit of the stomach, everybody was firmly convinced that Silver Jack was the best fellow on earth. Morgan could do nothing. An attempt to eject Silver Jack, an expostulation even, would, he knew, lose him his entire crew. The men, their heads whirling with the anticipated delights of a spree, would indignantly champion their new friend. Morgan retired grimly to the "office." There, the ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White

... Nancy in a voice of grieved expostulation. "It is what Walter said to Muriel. I thought there couldn't ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall

... came another interruption, very different in tone from the mild expostulation of the studious Browse. The door was violently shaken, and from without came the sharp, peremptory order of the ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery

... sign of expostulation. "You really mustn't worry me about these matters, Aggy. A good many of us are in the storekeepers' or mortgage-jobbers' hands, and there's no doubt that if I have another good year at the Range I ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... hands. They were eloquent with patient expostulation. 'I mean their spiritual condition,' ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers

... as she came into the quay, and then to hold her against the Second Regulars and the Seventy-first, who had arrived a little too late, being a shade less ready than we were in the matter of individual initiative. There was a good deal of expostulation, but we had possession; and as the ship could not contain half of the men who had been told to go aboard her, the Seventy-first went away, as did all but four companies of the Second. These latter we took aboard. Meanwhile a General had caused ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt

... smoke from kitchen fires! And yonder, to the left, he saw at the end of an avenue of trees a large turreted chateau. He waited till evening, suffering frightfully from hunger, seeing nothing but flights of crows, hearing nothing but the silent expostulation ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

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

... water. Peter allowed Miss Dassonville to give the direction lest she should think it a liberty of him to have noticed and remembered it, but he added something to it that caused her, as they swung out into the canal, to enter an expostulation. ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin

... moderate amount of lavish sentiment. The servant Pumper is a man of feeling, who grieves that the horses trod the dewdrops from the blades of grass. Cast in the real Yorick mould is the scene in which Pumper kills a marmot (Hamster); upon his master's expostulation that God created the little beast also, Pumper is touched, wipes the blood off with his cuff and buries the animal with tenderness, indulging in a pathetic soliloquy; the whole being a variant of Yorick's ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer

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

... for a ride, Master Smart, my object was to see the big city," said Jack, in a tone of expostulation. ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... melted into compassion, and fell back, to make room for them between the armies. The sight of the women carried sorrow and commiseration upon both sides into the hearts of all, but still more their words, which began with expostulation and upbraiding, and ended ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

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

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

... with a cold look of sorrowful reproach. And then he saw Wildney, and cried out to him, "O Charlie, save me;" but Charlie ran away, saying, "Williams, you are a thief!" and then a chorus of voices took up that awful cry, voices of expostulation, voices of contempt, voices of indignation, voices of menace; they took up the cry, and repeated and re-echoed it; but, most unendurable of all, there were voices of wailing and voices of gentleness among ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... home his mother was asleep in the armchair. Her whole person rose and fell like a tropical sea. Her shut eyes were like those of a statue, behind the lids of which one knows there are no pupils. Her eyebrows were slightly raised, as if in expostulation at being obliged to breathe. Her figure expressed the dignity of old age, which may or may not ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... before I enter upon any new Scene, the Reader will pardon this melancholy Expostulation. How mortifying must it be to an Englishman, after he has found himself solac'd with a Relation of so many surprising Successes of her Majesty's Arms, under the Earl of Peterborow; Successes that have lay'd before our Eyes Provinces and Kingdoms ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe

... was walking now swiftly and stiffly towards the house, her face very pale and drawn, and Sir Isaac hurrying beside her in a white fury of expostulation. "I ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... despair of the Sisters, the brand plucked from the burning went back to the burning. All pleading with El-Soo was vain. There was much argument, expostulation, and weeping. Sister Alberta even revealed to her the project of sending her to the United States. El-Soo stared wide-eyed into the golden vista thus opened up to her, and shook her head. In her eyes persisted another vista. It was the ...
— Lost Face • Jack London

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

... learning; and, oddly enough, most of all by the acclamation of fashion. The Committee of Almack's put the thing exactly, when a certain Duchess, to whom they had refused invitations for a ball, writing in expostulation reminded them of her rank. They simply replied that "the Duchess of Newcastle, though undoubtedly a woman of rank, was not a woman of fashion." It was only to "persons of fashion" that the doors of Almack's stood ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... Blackstone, says he went from church to church to hear noted London preachers, and it was impossible for him to tell from their discourses whether these luminaries were followers of Confucius, Mahomet, or Christ. George III. felt compelled to address a letter of expostulation to Archbishop Cornwallis for giving balls and routs at Lambeth Palace on Saturday nights, so that they ran into Sunday morning.[2] The Church had given hardly a thought to either the religious or secular education of the masses. Gross ignorance pervaded the ranks of the ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... wrote to Temple on Nov. 3, 1780:—'I could not help smiling at the expostulation which you suggest to me to try with my father. It would do admirably with some fathers; but it would make mine much worse, for he cannot bear that his son should talk with him as a man. I can only lament his unmelting coldness to my wife and children, for I fear it is hopeless to think of ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... literary inquirers in Oxford have ever reason to be grateful, would seem to promise one soon, if it can be made. But, in the mean time, the knot is cut in a simpler way: neither Dorne, nor Henno Rusticus, his book, it is said, ever existed. Permit me one word of expostulation upon this. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 6. Saturday, December 8, 1849 • Various

... night and a day—the solitude, the glimpses from the window of great distances full of vague possibilities, made the abused ring potent as that of Gyges. He dreamed with his eyes open. From an Alnaschar vision he suddenly awoke. The coach had stopped. The voices of men, one in entreaty, one in expostulation, came from the box. Cass mechanically put his hand to ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... schoolboy reserve, where he was conscious or ashamed. And there were unpleasant reminiscences connected with that day—that unacknowledged sense of having been entrapped—that impossibility of forgetting his sister's expostulation—that disgust at being conspicuous—that longing for an excuse for flying into a passion—that universal hatred of everything belonging to the Mosses. He could not give a sentimental reason, and rather than let it be conjectured, he adduced every pretext but the true one; professed ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... competent to fulfil such a promise : openly, on the contrary, I assured her I was quite unequal to it. She had already, she said, written to Madame de la Roche, to come the next day, and if I would not meet her she must be covered with disgrace. Expostulation was now vain; I could only say that to answer for myself was quite, out ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

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

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

... he proceeds to show that, though Chatham's victorious administration had for a moment restored the self-respect of the country, the evils denounced by Brown were symptoms of a profound and lasting disease. The poems called the 'Progress of Error,' 'Expostulation,' 'Truth,' 'Hope,' 'Charity,' and 'Conversation,' all turn upon the same theme. Though Cowper is for brief spaces playful or simply satirical, he always falls back into his habitual vein of meditation. For the ferocious personalities of Churchill, the coarse-fibred friend of ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... reason, in Heaven's name," answered the matron, keeping her eyes firmly shut, and still shrewish in her expostulation, though in the very extremity of terror, "what is the reason that you should come and frighten a decent house, where you met naething, when ye was in the body, but the ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... and was afraid he would inspire me with the same sentiments. He saw," he said, "a coolness throughout my whole letter; but conjured me to remember the sacred promises and engagements that had passed between us." After this, I received several other letters from him, filled with the same sort of expostulation; and penned in the same desponding and disconsolate strain. I likewise received several letters from his mother, the old Lady Cranstoun, and Mrs. Selby, his sister, wrote in a ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead

... a riddle," she went on, receiving his expostulation with a smile. "But perhaps you don't know what a riddle is?" she ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner

... eight lines. What wouldst thou do under the heavy mettle that should have wrought such wonders at Pavia, if thou findest these petards so troublesome in discharging? Surely, the good doctor, had he entered at large on the subject, would have been very particular in urging this expostulation." ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor

... 1885, and it was matter for grave surprise to the elders that their usually obedient daughter, when the lawyer proceeded to plead, refused to hear, and peremptorily adjourned his cause without day. Maternal expostulation and paternal threats availed nothing. The because of Mary's contumacy was not far to seek. A stalwart Vulcan in the guise of an Antinous, known as Jonas Prescott, had wandered from his father's forge in Lancaster down the Bay Path to Sudbury. Mary and he had met, and the lingering of their ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... clenched her hands, and with a sort of fierce suppressed ejaculation, lifted her shining foot and planted it full on the rat's head. So sudden, so fierce, and so strong, was the stamp, that the rat was crushed flat, and uttered a sharp and indignant squeal of expostulation, while Sir Norman looked at her, thinking she had lost her wits. Still she ground it down with a fiercer and stronger force every second; and with her eyes still fixed upon it, and blazing with reddish black flame, she said, in ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming

... his mouth into what he meant for a smile, and answered, "As soon as possible, Sir Terence." Sir Terence, in a tone of jocose, wheedling expostulation, entreated him to have the carriage finished out of hand: "Ah, now! Mordy, my precious! let us have it by the birthday, and come and dine with us o' Monday at the Hibernian Hotel—there's ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

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

... a trifle startled. "But look here, sir," he said in a tone of expostulation, "you make a mistake. I myself know Mrs. Lavender's intentions. I don't go by any story of Mrs. Paterson's. Mrs. Lavender made over the money to me with express injunctions to place it at the disposal of Sheila whenever I should see fit. Oh, there's no mistake about it, so you ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

... in this mutual expostulation, Alice, all-unconscious of the impending situation in the drama, was busy in her own room,—for Mrs. Sandford had not yet decided how to break the news to her,—and having an errand that led her to the street, she put on her cloak ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... Enthusiastic reception of Kabale und Liebe. Don Carlos well in hand. A friend in trouble through mutual debts. Applies to his Father for unreasonable help. Annoyance at the inevitable refusal. His Father's loving and faithful expostulation. His Sister's proposed marriage with Reinwald. (273.)—Beginning of his friendly intimacy with the excellent Koerner. The Duke of Weimar bestows on him the title of Rath. No farther risk for him from Wuertemberg. At Leipzig, Dresden, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... reached her the lantern, and followed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright, sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under the red, naked tiles. The ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

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

... commonplace to the trappers, and quite unmindful of it Ed Matheson launched upon tales of stirring wilderness adventures in which his imagination was unrestrained, save by an occasional expostulation ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace

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

... sheets, with which he disappeared into the regions below. The staircase took a lazy curve and went up; under it, through an open window, the sun glistened upon the shifting white and green leaves of a pipal tree, and a crow sat on the sill and thrust his grey head in with caws of indignant expostulation. A Government peon in scarlet and gold ascended the stair at his own pace, bearing a packet with an official seal. The place, with its ink-smeared walls and high ceilings, spoke between dusty yawns of the languor and the ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... of justice had him so by the throat as to strangle expostulation for a moment, till he saw the soldier actually bearing off his quarry. Then he broke into ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... fatal shot, for Michel was still standing, gun in hand, and his poor wife sighing forth the last few breathings of her sad and troubled life. She had kept her word, and met her death without one cry or expostulation! It might have been heard from far, that groan of horror and dismay which sprung spontaneous from the one first witnessing the ghastly scene, and then from the whole ...
— Owindia • Charlotte Selina Bompas

... indignant quacking, a cloud of duck rose, and, circling after their fashion, as though reluctant to quit their resting-place, gave me several chances of a long shot before, working high into the air, they departed with loud expostulation to some ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... whose passions, as his virtues, were in unison with the powerful body they inhabited, and in such a crisis as the present but one of two reliefs were possible to him; either wrathful denunciation, expostulation and despair, or the abandon of a child. Against the former he had been struggling dumbly till Sylvia's words had turned the tide, and too entirely natural to feel a touch of shame at that which is not a weakness ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott

... Barry's door, and at Barry's door I fell over something in the darkness—something with hands of steel that saved me from an awkward tumble and hurried me down the passage and into the moonlit gallery before I could find a word of expostulation. Yoshio of course. I was naturally startled and angry in consequence. I demanded an explanation and after a great deal of hesitation he muttered something about Barry wanting him—which is ridiculous on the face of it. If Barry had really wanted him he ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... and flatly declined to accompany me to an inspection of the treasures contained in the Natural Historical Museum at South Kensington. I immediately prescribed for him a diet of bread and water, and an enforced retirement to bed. He spent the remainder of the day in loudly-expressed expostulation and lamentation. On the Sunday (after a consultation with his mother) I decided to adopt a home treatment of kindness, which I trusted would prevent the necessity of calling in our family doctor. I give the remainder of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various

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

... is solemnly engaged to you, and in pleading to me his honour, he silences both expostulation and authority. From your own words alone will he acknowledge his dismission; and notwithstanding my reluctance to impose upon you this task, I cannot silence or quiet him without ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

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

... of the somebody staggering along with him, not without considerable difficulty, over the rough stony ground of that South African plateau. He remembered also, as in a trance, some sound of angry voices—a loud expostulation—a hasty palaver—a long slow pause—a gradual sense of reconciliation and friendliness—during all which, as far as he could recover the circumstances afterwards, he must have been extended on the earth, with his back propped ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... expostulation which rose to her lips, Kate commenced to read. Ralph was enchanted, and, deliciously tickled at the idea that he was like someone in print, he chuckled under his breath. Soon they came to the part that had struck Kate as being so particularly appropriate to her husband. It ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore

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

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

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

... who answered well for himself, and showed that he was the better seaman in this action and in most others, and in regard of the cause of rejoicing which God had given them, and that they now were near the end of their voyage, Whitelocke held it not so good to continue the expostulation as to part friends with Captain Minnes and with all his fellow-seamen, and so they proceeded together lovingly and friendly ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... French, that we were foreign gentlemen, who had nothing to do either with the dead or the living of their country—and that it was a very despotic act to stop peaceable passengers in that manner. But this expostulation served only to irritate the raggamuffins; and one of them taking hold of my arm tried to force me into compliance with his orders. This was our trying moment; we all three made one desperate effort 'for liberty;' and, each of us having dealt his opponent a severe blow on the cheek, we broke from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various

... weakness, I imagined the very desire of speaking was extinguished by the persuasion that I had nothing to say. Yet, when I come to the moment of deciding the vote, I start back with dread from the edge of the pit into which we are plunging. In my view, even the minutes I have spent in expostulation have their value, because they protract the crisis, and the short period in which alone we ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... I retorted; and, finding expostulation of no avail, I tried retaliation, commencing now to hit out with my fists in return. "Two can play at that game, old fellow; and as you force me to do it, take ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... expostulation on this subject were fruitless. In pursuance of his definitive request, I formed a reduced list accompanied by a letter, a copy of which has been transmitted. An allowance was made for the Lafayette's ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... to say to me to-night, Lance," said Lady Marion, in a tone of gentle expostulation. "I wonder if that beautiful singer was really looking at you. It seemed to me that the moment her eyes caught yours she faltered ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay

... Constantine the great, finding that by the imperial law the revenue of wrecks was given to the prince's treasury or fiscus, restrained it by an edict (Cod. 11. 5. 1.) and ordered them to remain to the owners; adding this humane expostulation, "Quod enim jus habet fiscus in aliena calamitate, ut de re ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... were over, King Mycerinus must have got very sleepy; and the philosophic mind would certainly recall the parallel of Cleobis and Biton as to the best gift for man. Mr Arnold, however, draws no direct moral. The stanza-part of the poem, the king's expostulation, contains very fine poetry, and "the note" rings again throughout it, especially ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury

... woman to the helpless condition of infancy, and places the first and most trying scene of his misfortunes before us, with all that he must have suffered in the interval. How well the silent anguish of Macduff is conveyed to the reader, by the friendly expostulation of Malcolm—"What! man, ne'er pull your hat upon your brows!" Again, Hamlet, in the scene with Rosencrans and Guildenstern, somewhat abruptly concludes his fine soliloquy on life by saying, "Man delights not me, ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... she sunk her individuality in his that the remark was not uttered as an expostulation, and she immediately prepared to ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... length ceased entirely, while the process of elimination was continued with unimpaired activity. The drawing-room began to look empty: the baccarat was discontinued for lack of a banker; more than one person said good-night of his own accord, and was suffered to depart without expostulation; and in the meanwhile Mr. Morris redoubled in agreeable attentions to those who stayed behind. He went from group to group and from person to person with looks of the readiest sympathy and the most pertinent and pleasing talk; he was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... said, in a gentle voice; but there was no tenderness in it: it was but the firmness of self-control that made the voice so mild, and the expostulation, so deliberate. 'It's like using an old tool, when you have a new invention that would save half the labor. You'd laugh at a ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... enough to remain proud and critical and impatient after domestic experiences which would have gone far towards cowing the generation of women before her. Her mother had bowed beneath such experiences without so much as an inquiry or expostulation. As Marie hurried about with brush and duster, with black-lead and fire-fuel, as she stood over the purring stove, and watched toast and eggs and coffee come to their various perfections, each over its ring of flame, she was absorbed ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton

... trees, swaying them suddenly and fiercely like a keen passion, now sweeping them all one way as if the multitude of tops would break loose and rush away like a wild river, and now subsiding as suddenly, and allowing them to recover themselves and stand upright, with tones and motions of indignant expostulation. There was just one cold bar of light in the west, and the east was one gray mass, while overhead the stars were twinkling. The grass and all the ground about the trees were very wet. The time seemed more dreary somehow than the winter. Rigour was past, and ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... returned not to the cabin—he went below, surrounded by the Kroumen, who appeared to have devoted themselves to his protection. Once during the night Hawkhurst summoned them on deck, but they obeyed not the order; and to the expostulation of the boatswain's mate, who came down, they made no reply. But there were many of the pirates in the schooner who appeared to coincide with the Kroumen in their regard for Francisco. There are shades of villainy in the most profligate of societies; and among the pirate's ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... the kindness of her intentions, forbore any further expostulation, and quietly followed her to the drawing-room. But as the door was opened, she was struck with amazement upon finding that the apartment, which was spacious, lighted with brilliancy, and decorated with magnificence, was more than half ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney

... firm to my purpose, I was sallying forth, my mother, with a face of tender expostulation and alarm, stopped me, and entreated me to listen to her. My mother, whose health had always been delicate, had within these three last years fallen into what is called a very nervous state, and this, with her natural timidity and sensibility, inclined her now to a variety of superstitious ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... One of his black servants also began to linger, having suffered from the cold in the same manner as the Doctor. Partly by persuasion, and partly by force, they were got forwards; soon however they both declared that they would go no further. Sir Joseph had recourse again to entreaty and expostulation, but these produced no effect: when the black was told, that if he did not go on, he would shortly be frozen to death; he answered, that he desired nothing so much as to lie down and die. The Doctor ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

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

... street. I stepped into the arms of a half-dozen masked men who quietly laid me on my back, blindfolded me and bound me so that I could not move. I threatened and struggled; but to no purpose, and finally gave it up and tried expostulation. They told me that they intended no harm to me; but that I was their prisoner and they meant to keep me. They had come for their man, they said, and they meant to have him. They were perfectly quiet and acted with the ...
— The Spectre In The Cart - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page

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

... side. The subject is conspicuous in Albert Durer's Life of the Virgin, where Jesus is seated on high, as one having authority, teaching from a chair like that of a professor in a university, and surrounded by the old bearded doctors; and Mary stands before her Son in an attitude of expostulation. ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson

... Mr. Baron's expostulation and his own pressing interests induced Perkins to remain at home the following night. As Jute had seemed forgiving and friendly, the overseer asked him to bring two others and stay with him, offering some of the contents ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

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

... perfect discovery thereof. That general opinion, that the world grows near its end, hath possessed all ages past as nearly as ours. I am afraid that the souls that now depart cannot escape that lingering expostulation of the saints under the altar, "quousque, Domine?" how long, O Lord? and groan in the ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne

... not have meant it, but the imputation was clear, and it stirred one fiery expostulation. "Oh, but he hadn't time before Mr. Stocks came after me," she began, and then feeling it ungracious towards that gentleman to make him share a possibility of heroism with another, she was silent. More, a lurking fear which had never grown large enough for a suspicion, began to ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... People often wonder, 'How do you catch So-and-so? He is so shy! I have invited and invited, and he never comes.' We never invite, and he comes. We take no note of his coming or his going; we do not startle his entrance with acclamation, nor clog his departure with expostulation; it is fully understood that with us he shall do just as he chooses; and so he chooses to do much ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... into the domestic circle, might make a home tolerable at least, if not happy,—how a long-suffering husband, under the pretence of a conjugal caress, might so unhook his wife's condyloid process as to allow the flow of expostulation, criticism, or denunciation, to go on with gratification to her, and perfect ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

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

... no word of expostulation or complaint. He regarded everything that he now did as in the way of duty and merely as somewhat unpleasant incidents in the execution of the great task that lay before him, and he was content, if not quite as happy and comfortable ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... first opportunity he could find for having a talk with Swan, but while he waited he lost himself again, and appeared to see what went on as if it was a shifting dream that meant nothing; his eyes were upon, the children, and his ears received expostulation and entreaty: at last his ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... be rash. He'll never do't again; and sprigs like him think they've a right to make fun of old codgers like me," was grandpa's meek expostulation. ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes

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

... in bitterness of spirit, he saw a light flitting about amongst the dead bodies, and stopping every now and then; once he saw it pause, and heard a cry of expostulation, then a faint scream, and all was still; and he comprehended that this was no ministering angel, but one of those villainous beings who haunt the battlefield to prey upon the slain, and to despatch with short ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... that moans in anguish, and speaks with the majesty of righteous anger through Luther. An age of unparalleled ferment that had begun long before Luther has reached its culminating point, and lifts up its strident voice of long-restrained expostulation through Luther. Remove the conditions under which Luther had to live and labor, and the Luther whom men bless ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

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

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

... damp; the grass was found wet in the places sheltered from the current of wind, which had elsewhere formed hoarfrost over the field. This reminded us of the elevation we had reached to; and we all exclaimed as to the reasonableness of Jacob's expostulation with Laban, when he asserted that "in the day the drought [or heat] consumed him, and the frost by night," (Gen. xxxi. 40.) We were upon frozen ground in the month of May, after passing through a flight of locusts ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... considers it her duty to write a line of expostulation to her nephew, which she does, with faultless penmanship, in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... did use the word Milites, but when the magistrates spake to the people they did use the word Quirites. The soldiers were in tumult, and seditiously prayed to be cashiered; not that they so meant, but by expostulation thereof to draw Caesar to other conditions; wherein he being resolute not to give way, after some silence, he began his speech, Ego Quirites, which did admit them already cashiered—wherewith they were so surprised, crossed, and confused, as they ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon

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

... as he still was, he would be restrained no longer. To Gloucester he must go, and relieve his father. Expostulation was unavailing: go he must, he said, or his soul would tear itself out of his ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... at existence. The nurse said something in French which Maria could not understand. Ida answered also in French. Then the baby seemed to experience a convulsion; its whole face seemed to open into one gape of expostulation at fate. Then its feeble, futile ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

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

... omitte y^e rest, except upon other occasion I may have fitter opportunity. After their thorrow veiw of y^e place, they began to pitch them selves upon their land & near their house; which occasioned much expostulation betweene them. Some of which ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford

... had arrived in front of us, the old lady in measured tones of sorrow rather than anger, said: "We rather needed those walnuts—" Dear soul! she evidently thought that we had been filling our knapsacks with her nuts, and it took some little astonished expostulation on our part to convince her that we hadn't. This affront seemed to sink no little into Colin's sensitive Latin soul—and they were public enough walnuts, anyway, scattered, as they were, across the public road! But Colin couldn't get over it for some time, and ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne

... door was closed, and further expostulation was useless. The next moment Kate beheld a waving hand through the window. She responded, and, a moment later, as her sister passed from view, the smile died out of ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

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

... and the shadows deepened upon the grass. At last there was a vivid flash of lightning, a crash of thunder, and the sudden roar of rain. "Now," I said to myself, "I shall learn what all this secrecy has been about." But I was doomed to disappointment; after a few minutes of angry expostulation the sky suddenly uncovered itself, the clouds piled themselves against the horizon and disclosed their silver linings, and over the whole earth there spread a broad smile, as if the hypocritical performance had been part of the original deception. I am confident now that it was, for that brief ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... the matter in report for satisfaction's sake. Use also such persons as affect the business, wherein they are employed; for that quickeneth much; and such, as are fit for the matter; as bold men for expostulation, fair-spoken men for persuasion, crafty men for inquiry and observation, froward, and absurd men, for business that doth not well bear out itself. Use also such as have been lucky, and prevailed before, in things ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... nothing in Lyons' despatches, nor in the American newspaper extracts accompanying them, to warrant such accusation and expostulation. Lyons had merely commented that by some in America the project had been characterized as "odious and barbarous," adding, "The question seems to depend on the extent to which the harbours will be permanently injured[536]." It will be noted that Russell did not refer to information received ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... the truth as well as the value of those high and sacred principles from which his eminent piety and admirable consistency so evidently flowed. He called to mind, too, several occasions on which his father, partly by the force of reason, partly by that of tender expostulation, had exhorted him to abandon the vague and dangerous speculations to which he was prone. Some important changes in Mr. Hall's sentiments resulted from an inquiry conducted under such solemn impressions, and among these may be mentioned his renunciation of Materialism, which, he often declared, ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... he was not the best painter in the world, he was just about the worst punster. We hope to hear that our Royal Academicians, with their large-hearted and golden-tongued President at their head, will send a friendly expostulation to their Russian Brothers in oil, and obtain the abrogation of this unreasonable legislation, which is one effect of an anti-semitic cyclone, fit only for the Jew-ventus Mundi, but not for the world ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various

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

... disposed to listen with attention, and examine with candour the arguments we make use of in favour of our Church views. We should gain more of the sympathy of our countrymen who differ from us, by a calm expostulation than by bitter invective. Beautifully and wisely was it written by a sacred pen nearly three thousand years ago, "A soft ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... EXPOSTULATION.—Well then, sinner, what sayest thou? Where is thy heart? Wilt thou run? Art thou resolved to strip? Or art thou not? Think quickly, man! It is no dallying in this matter. Confer not with flesh and blood. Look up to heaven, ...
— The Heavenly Footman • John Bunyan

... basket of jellies and things which she had brought, as if she feared that it might be torn from her in the violence of the scene. Spinks, convulsed with anguish by the sight of his friend lying there unconscious, could only offer an inarticulate expostulation. It was the signal for the woman to burst into ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... the goodly form of a rosy beadle. Approaching the groups, he whispered the better-dressed and commanded the ragged, remonstrated with the old and lifted his cane against the young; and the result of all was, that the churchyard, not without many a murmur and expostulation, was cleared, and the crowd fell back in the space behind the gates of the principal entrance, where they swayed and gaped and chattered round the carriages, which were to ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... the earliest incidents that I remember is an expostulation with my father. I saw several strange people enter the chamber where my mother was. Somewhat suggested to my childish fancy that these strangers meant to take her away, and that I should never see her again. My terror ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

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

... which he had just passed. Nor was it yet over. He had laid it down in a broad way as his opinion that the whole truth in this matter should be declared to the world, let the consequences be what they might; and to this opinion Sir Thomas had acceded without a word of expostulation. But in this was by no means included all that portion of the burden which now fell upon Mr. Prendergast's shoulders. It would be for him to look into the evidence, and then it would be for him also—heavy and worst task of all—to break ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... Christ, so that he was contemporary with Jeremiah and Zephaniah. The theme of his prophecy is, first, the overthrow of Judea by the Chaldeans, and then the overthrow in turn of the Chaldean monarchy, each power in turn for its sins. In the first chapter he predicts in a dramatic form—that of expostulation with God on the part of the prophet, and God's answer—the approaching desolation of the land by the Chaldean armies, whose resistless power he describes in bold and striking imagery. In the second chapter ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... address of expostulation in those terms, Miss Garth led Norah to the library door, pushed Magdalen into the morning-room, and went on her own way sternly to the ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... the road-side once more, while Heathcote arranged with his creditors on the floor of the waggonette. When, at length, the order to proceed was given, that trusty Jehu ventured on a mild expostulation. "Look'ee here, young gem'an," said he, touching his hat. "You've got to get to Templeton by ten o'clock, and it's past nine now. I guess you'd better save up them larks for ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

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

... gate—half, no more. At his direction, it was explained gently to the Rahnians that the rest of the ransom remained under guard of the thermit-throwers. It would not be exposed to capture until the last of the captives were released. There was argument, expostulation. The rest of the women appeared. Aten, at Tommy's express command, piled Evelyn and his own wife into a ground vehicle and came racing madly to the tower from which Tommy could see all the circuit of ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... arise from his not being well; and Margaret looking wistfully at Norman, and saying she feared they had judged much amiss last spring. Norman heard in silence, and walked thoughtfully into the garden. Presently he caught Mary's voice in expostulation: "How could ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... punished!" he suddenly broke out in fervent expostulation. "I have nothing against him. I don't believe he intended to do any wrong. And I hope the jury ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train

... a tumult, horses were stamping, and plunging, and backing the carriages into one another; lights were flashing from every window of what had been apparently an uninhabited house, and the voices of the prisoners were still raised in angry expostulation. ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against the goad: "to contend with one so much mightier than thyself. By persecuting my church you make it flourish, and only prick and hurt yourself." This mild expostulation of our Redeemer, accompanied with a powerful interior grace, strongly affecting his soul, cured his pride, assuaged his rage, and wrought at once a total change in him. Wherefore, trembling and astonished, he cried ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... this indignant apostrophe, "Out of the vays, here, will you? You must always go and be a settin' on our steps, must you? You can't go and give a turn to none of the neighbours never, can't you?" Adding, even, a moment afterwards, with an aggrieved air of almost affecting expostulation, "You're always a being begged and prayed upon your bended knees, you are, to let our door-steps be? Can't you let 'em be?" Nothing more was seen or heard of that footman, and yet in the utterance of ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent

... those words have braced me he will never know, but I am a better man for them: 'The best only is God's will. What else would you have?' I resolved I would rage and fret no more, and that I would worry Mrs. Mavor with no more argument or expostulation, but, as my friend had ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor

... Expostulation took a sharper tone; old subjects of complaint were revived; and the armies on each side were already pressing towards the frontier when the unhappy Louis was brought down to the Assembly by his Ministers, and compelled to propose the ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

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

... ter talk. He don't sense nuthin'," cried old Clenk, with an eager note of expostulation, attesting that he was human, after all. "Don't do nuthin' else rash, Phineas Copenny, ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock

... Viscount Dax laid sacrilegious hands upon their property. Whether he was too strong for the carnal weapon or spiritual manifestations were deemed more appropriate to his particular case, history does not record, but certain it is that the rebellious noble, being deaf to expostulation, was excommunicated, and resenting that, was seized with a leprosy, of which he died. His successor, adopting the same line of policy as the deceased, was treated in the same way and with the same result. So that between the thunders of the church and the arms of the flesh, the ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... pamphlet. At the close of his theological arguments, he added the following passage: 'I feel it necessary, in concluding this answer, to state that Archbishop Manning has fallen into most serious inaccuracy in his letter of November 10th, wherein he describes 'my Expostulation as the first event which has overcast a friendship of forty-five years. I allude to the subject with regret; ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

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

... rather, let us say, the expostulation of the Trapper, was the best which, under the circumstances, could be given, but no directions, however correct, might prevent the dreadful catastrophe. The old man stuck heroically to his post, and the pig stuck with ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray

... you? Sling criticism ever since you been on ship, and 'fraid do it! 'Fraid, you hear? 'F-ic—'fraid, I say." Staniford slowly walked away forward, and Hicks followed him, threatening him with word and gesture. Now and then Staniford thrust him aside, and addressed him some expostulation, and Hicks laughed and submitted. Then, after a silent excursion to the other side of the ship, he would return and renew his one-sided quarrel. Staniford seemed to forbid the interference of the crew, and alternately soothed and baffled his tedious adversary, who could ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells

... certainly no time for expostulation. All the mother was awake in Ethelwyn's bosom. It would have been cruelty to make her go in, though she was indeed ill-fitted to ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald

... that he and all the other cavaliers present, according to his belief, stood upon the same footing: that they had harbored no thought of conspiracy, unless that name could attach to a purpose of open expostulation with his highness on the outraged privileges of their corporation as a university; that he wished not for any distinction of treatment in a case when all were equal offenders, or none at all; and, finally, that he believed the sentence ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... great orators and statesmen of two generations exerted themselves to remove the Roman Catholic disabilities, Burke, Fox, Pitt, Windham, Grenville, Grey, Plunkett, Wellesley, Grattan, Canning, Wilberforce. Argument and expostulation were fruitless. At length pressure of a stronger kind was boldly and skilfully applied; and soon all difficulties gave way. The Catholic Association, the Clare election, the dread of civil war, produced the Emancipation Act. Again, the cry of No Popery was raised. That cry was successful. A ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the centre of the bay. When morning dawned it was found to be afloat almost at the northern end of the bay, having been placed in that position, either from ignorance or treachery, by the French. There was no time for expostulation, the French were found already to have occupied the whole ground. To avoid the risk of a dispute, Sir Edmund Lyons, like a wise man, knowing that a similar landing-place existed a little farther to the north, also with a lake inside it, at once ordered the transports ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

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

... the country of his fathers, like a tamed lion, whom no one dared to contradict, lest they should awaken his natural vehemence of passion. So many years had elapsed since he had experienced contradiction, or even expostulation, that probably nothing but the strong good sense, which, on all points, his mysticism excepted, formed the ground of his character, prevented his proving an annoyance and terror to the whole neighbourhood. But Annot had no time ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... the name of my dignity as your sovereign, that I never will yield to men who defy me, nor will I ever forgive those who, by treasonable importunity, have sought to wring from me what I have not thought it expedient to grant to respectful expostulation!" ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... great measure founded thereon. He therefore hoped and believed the chaplain of the jail would come between him and his persecutor if he could be made to understand the case. Now it happened just after the justices had thrown cold water on Mr. Jones's little expostulation that Robinson was pinned to the wall, jammed in the waistcoat, and throttled in the collar. He had been thus some time, when, casting his despairing eyes around they alighted upon the comely, respectable ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

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

... to censure powers divine. To men this argument should stand for firm, A goddess did it, therefore it was good: We are not cruel, nor delight in blood.— But what have serious repetitions To do with revels, and the sports of court? We not intend to sour your late delights With harsh expostulation. Let it suffice That we take notice, and can take revenge Of these calumnious and lewd blasphemies. For we are no less Cynthia than we were, Nor is our power, but as ourself, the same: Though we have now ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson

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

... not appear that she anywhere in the poem addresses her husband, face to face. It is soliloquy throughout. In this section it does appear, more than in the others, that she is directly addressing him; but it's better to understand it as a mental expostulation. He wanted her love, and got it, in its fulness; though an expectation of all harvest and no dearth was not involved in that ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... addressed to him on his journey, and the other to Ischl, his destination. The prince does not expect any result. Baron Macchio, General Secretary of the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office, had received "with icy coldness" the prince's expostulation that the submission by Austria-Hungary of grievances against Serbia without permitting time for their examination was not consonant with international courtesy. The baron replied that one's interests sometimes exempted ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... perfectly waterlogged, and group themselves on the low, muddy shore, near a flat ferry-barge, evidently wanting but a hint of forza maggiore to go down with any thing put into it. A moment they dispute in pantomime, sending now and then a windy tone of protest and expostulation to our ears, and then they drop into a motionless silence, and stand there in the tempest, not braving it, but enduring it with the pathetic resignation of their race, as if it were some form of hopeless political oppression. At last comes the conductor to us and says, It is impossible ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... Warlock! is that you singin' o' the Sawbath day?" said the voice of a young woman behind him, in a tone of gentle raillery rather than expostulation. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

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

... her face with her hands, and stood trembling like a weed bowed before the rushing gale. She knew that neither expostulation nor entreaty would avail now, and she resolved to bear with fortitude what she could not avert. Lifting her head, she ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... with a calm expostulation upon my being so resolute to go to England; I defended it, and one hard word bringing on another, as is usual in all family strife, he told me I did not treat him as if he was my husband, or talk of my children as if I was ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... his yellow dog had drifted into town some few months before they had caused neither expostulation nor inquiry, as the cardinal virtue of that whole broad land was to ask a man no questions which might prove embarrassing to all concerned; judgment was of observation, not of history, and a man's past would reveal itself ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... Hallecks came, it appeared that Ben had engaged quarters for himself at the hotel, and no expostulation would prevail with him to come to Squire ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... same song with which Lady Ursula invariably brought blinding, bitter tears to the eyes of those assembled at picnics and hunt balls. It had an opposite effect upon Dorothea's auditors. With apparently one accord they burst into hilarious mirth, comment, and expostulation. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine



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



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