dilate upon

Until very recently, “patriarchy” was not something rightwing men were even supposed to believe in, let alone dilate upon with such apocalyptic relish.

In her 1831 introduction to the third edition of “Frankenstein,” the Gothic masterpiece she wrote when she was only 19, Mary Shelley tries to answer the question “frequently asked” by her readers: “How I, then a young girl, came to think of and to dilate upon so very hideous an idea?”

“How I, then a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?”

But she called on science, not psychology, in explaining how she "came to think of, and dilate upon, so very hideous an idea" at 18 years of age.

I shall not dilate upon these intrigues; they were washed away by all that followed.