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More "Digression" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I may be allowed, I should like to make a digression. In an early stage of my journeying, I spoke of the pleasure I had taken in reading "The Betrothal" and "The Espousals." I cannot suppose that it is of any consequence to the world whether I think well or ill of a poem, but the only way in which the world will ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... written nothing else, would have placed him among the first critics and the first poets, as it exhibits every mode of excellence that can embellish or dignify didactic composition, selection of matter, novelty of arrangement, justness of precept, splendour of illustration, and propriety of digression. I know not whether it be pleasing to consider that he produced this piece at twenty, and never afterwards excelled it: he that delights himself with observing that such powers may be soon attained, cannot but grieve to think that life ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... finished for the day, that of the Chief of the State began; and indeed it might already be said that the First Consul was the whole Consulate. At the risk of interrupting my narrative of what occurred on our arrival at the Tuileries, by a digression, which may be thought out of place, I will relate a fact which had no little weight in hastening Bonaparte's determination to assume a superiority over his colleagues. It may be remembered that when ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Pardon this astronomical digression. I have just returned from hearing an itinerant lecturer, and it will take a week to get the smoke of his magic lantern out of my eyes. If there is any error in these observations, blame ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... now began to unroll. Does this paragraph constitute a digression, or is it a useful amplification of the narrative? Does De Quincey exaggerate when he terms these experiences of the Tartars "the most awful series of calamities ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... This, however, is a digression, and as such must be forgiven. Returning to the arena of politics, Molyneux's chief claim to remembrance rests upon a work published by him in favour of the rights of the Irish Parliament in the last year but one of the seventeenth century, only seven years therefore ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... passed; writs of error have been filed and argued; the children have dragged out time in a prison-house. Is it in freedom's land a prison was made for the innocent to waste in? So it is, and may Heaven one day change the tenour! Excuse, reader, this digression, and let us ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... cruel filigree of as many low-hung chandeliers. My slightly bald spot, due to severe mental effort, or something, if examined closely would be found to resemble an old battlefield in France. But this is digression. As I was saying, Henry Jones was hewing at the big old cross-beam, trying to raise its lower sky-line a couple of inches with a foot-adz. I had not supposed that the job would be especially difficult. I did not realize that the old white-oak beam in a century and a half had petrified. ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... much needed. Few of the houses were more than four storeys in height, and the irregular architecture which then prevailed in Piccadilly—that most delightful of all the streets of the world—added to its attractiveness. But I must not be led into a digression upon London, a city so great and wonderful that a volume might easily be filled with the story of the associations it holds in ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... might not be unreasonable to expect that, when that even has occurred, the greatest civilizations of that vast territory will be found in the peninsula of California and the narrow stripe of country beyond the Rocky Mountains. This, however, is a digression. To return: it is also necessary for a civilization that at least a portion of the community should be placed above mean and engrossing toils. Man's mind becomes subdued, like the dyer's hand, to that it works in. In rude and difficult circumstances ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... rationality is a parenthesis and a digression. What we were discussing was the idea of a world growing not integrally but piecemeal by the contributions of its several parts. Take the hypothesis seriously and as a live one. Suppose that the world's author put the case to you before creation, saying: ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... since 1830, the Liberals have openly confessed in all its ramifications, would trench upon the domain of history and involve too long a digression. This glimpse of it is enough to show the double part which Philippe Bridau undertook to play. The former staff-officer of the Emperor was to lead a movement in Paris solely for the purpose of masking the real conspiracy ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... the brevity of this letter. You are not used to more from me than a bare statement of facts, without comment or digression. One fact I have omitted—that the Klesmers on the eve of departure have behaved magnificently, shining forth as might be expected from the planets of genius and fortune in conjunction. Mirah is rich with ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... however, is a digression; the question before us is whether Aristophanes really liked AEschylus or only pretended to do so. It must be remembered that the claims of AEschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, to the foremost place amongst ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... for this digression, and return to my subject by proposing some practicable methods for regulating of servants, which, whether they are followed or not, yet, if they afford matter of improvement and speculation, will answer the height of my expectation, and I ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... innocent amusements and gratifications of life; thus causing our Religion to wear a gloomy forbidding aspect, instead of her true and natural face of cheerfulness and joy. This is a charge of so serious a nature, that although it lead into a digression, it may not be improper to take some notice ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... soldier understood the digression, for he replied in a tone that would brook no dispute. "No, sir, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... ——Pardon me a short digression. To what small things our memory and our affections attach themselves! I remember, when I was a child, that one of the girls planted some Star-of-Bethlehem bulbs in the southwest corner of our front-yard. Well, I left ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... though these scenes out of every-day life are no digression from the principal events, nothing episodical which one may pass over. In order still sooner to arrive at a clear perception of this assertion, we will yet tarry a few moments in the house of Mr. Berger, the merchant; but in the mean time we have advanced three ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... be thought a digression (it may spare some unwelcome comparisons), if I endeavour to account for the dissatisfaction which I have heard so many persons confess to have felt (as I did myself feel in part on this occasion), at the sight of the sea for the first time? I think the reason usually ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... had to do with the subject, but suffered the digression patiently, for the feminine mind was not supposed to be coherent. "Yes, my love; ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... the very first thing he did on entering the palace was to make a memorandum which might lead him, at a leisure moment, to inquire into the nature of the writings and the general merits of Sir Cicero, the illustrious namesake of him of Rome. As soon as this little digression terminated he entered the palace, after again expressing the hope that "Sir Smees" would not fail to accompany "Sir Brown," in the visit which the functionary fully expected to receive from the latter, in the course of the next hour of two. The company ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the dwarf conducts him on the trace Of Doralice and Mandricardo bold. Behind, Hippalca him in ceaseless chase, Pursues with taunt and curses manifold. What came of this is said in other place. Turpin, by whom this history is told, Here makes digression, and returns again Thither, where ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... just written will seem like a digression to the careless reader, but he who has read carefully, or will take the trouble to glance back, will not fail to see, that although in appearance digressive, it is a strict and accurate comment on Charles ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... battle at Actium, it became a province under the dominion of Octavianus Augustus. We became masters of the dry Libya by the last will of king Apion. Cyrene and the other cities of Libya Pentapolis we owe to the liberality of Ptolemy. After this long digression, I will now return ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... of this spread of mercantile knowledge along the trade routes is so connected with the [.g]ob[a]r numerals, the Boethius question, Gerbert, Leonardo of Pisa, and other names and events, that a digression for its consideration now ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith
... doing, it passed over a long range of high hills, and a wide extent of flat, common ground upon the top, which was precisely the point whereat Wilton Brown had arrived, at the very moment we began this digression upon the state of the King's ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... of digression into which memories of Overton lead one. My only excuse is that part of the story, and indeed its emotional climax belongs to Overton, to that smoothly ordered country house with its huge sentinel ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... of the digression to state his business. He briefly recounted the circumstances of the discovery of the hidden wealth of Smith's Pocket, and exhibited the memorandum he had shown the doctor. When he had concluded, Judge Plunkett looked at him over his spectacles, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... laughter-moving figures, is dismissed in a line and a half; Mr. Toots, Captain Cuttle, Susan Nipper, Toodles, and the rest have no place in what is said of Dombey; and, to close with what has caused and must excuse my digression, Mr. Augustus Moddle is introduced as a gloomy maniac who makes us laugh and makes us shudder, and as drawn so truly for a madman that though at first sight agreeable, he is ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... a digression can be made to Shanid Castle, near Shanagolden. This towering mass of masonry, perched high on a hill—three sides of which are precipitous—is almost ignored by tourists. It was one of the strongholds ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... befel Sophia. The gallant behaviour of Jones, and the more dreadful consequence of that behaviour to the young lady; with a short digression in ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... are others who will not let the servant move to do that which is needful, unless they have ordered it. And because these variations are in men, I do not intend in the present work to show, for the digression would be enlarged too much, except as I speak in general, that such men as these are beasts, as it were, to whom reason is of little worth. Wherefore, if the servant know not the nature of his lord, it is evident that he cannot serve ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... methodical head; consequently, where he had once conceived a character in its leading idea, he followed it out with the utmost rigour; whatever, having no reference to this leading idea, served merely to give individual animation, appeared to him in the light of a digression. Hence his names are, for the most part, expressive even to an unpleasant degree of distinctness: and, to add to our satiety, he not unfrequently tacks explanatory descriptions to the dramatis personae. On the other hand, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... escape the attention of the ladies,—"purely as an exigency of verse, and that the inspired authoress might more easily express herself to a friend. My acquaintance with Mrs. M'Corkle has been only epistolary. Pardon this digression, my friends, but an allusion to the muse of poetry did not seem to me to be inconsistent with our gathering here. Let me briefly conclude by saying that the occasion is a happy and memorable one; I think I echo the sentiment of all present when I add that it is one which will not be ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... This digression from mathematics to classics did not surprise the hearers, though it somewhat confused them, no one being precisely aware what the line ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... wandering affections, nor of the attempt made by Mwres to utilise hypnotism as a corrective to this digression of her heart; he conceived he was on the best of terms with Elizabeth, and had made her quite successfully various significant presents of jewellery and the more virtuous cosmetics, when her elopement with Denton threw the world out of gear for him. His first aspect of the matter was rage begotten ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... against this digression; but Martens, whose voice was just as calm as when he began, maintained that this lay at the bottom of the whole question, and that modern unbelief formed, as it were, a background to all the questions they had been discussing, and that all the arguments that ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... with slighter means. The Chevalier de la Luzerne, who, having himself seen our soldiers, will give you a detailed and disinterested account of them, will doubtless tell you, as I do, that you may depend upon our regular troops. The result of this digression, sir, is, to insist still more earnestly on the necessity of sending money to put the American troops in movement, and to repeat that well-known truth, that a pecuniary succour and a naval superiority must be the two principal objects of ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... gone, and I am an elderly woman with an increasing tendency to live in the past. The contrast between my old doctor at home and the Casanova doctor, Frank Walker, always rouses me to wrath and digression. ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... this philosophic digression in respect to the peculiar feelings of a man who has just been "up in a balloon." Our air-ship had been anchored in the Champ de Mars two days, waiting for a fair wind. An hour before we started, a Yorkshireman, who had evidently never seen such a creation before, annoyed me with incessant ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... the Friar, like all Shakspeare's representations of the great professions, is very delightful and tranquillizing, yet it is no digression, but immediately necessary to the carrying ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... myself after this long digression, I and other two of the young Aberdeen lads were purchased by a farmer, and removed that afternoon to his home, about twelve miles from Baltimore. A more pitiable figure, as regards dress, never ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... of Niagara and of Mississagua have led to a digression quite unintentional and unforeseen, which must terminate for the present with a different view from that of the author of the Letters above-mentioned: and let us hope fervently that the New World has not yet arrived at such a consummation ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... Expression Touches religion rather than politics Hume on non-resistance Reason why rights of free speech do not exactly coincide with rights of free thought Digression into the matter of free speech Dissent no longer railing and vituperative Tendency of modern free thought to assimilate some elements from the old faith A wide breach still remains Heresy, however, no ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... stiffness in the regularity in which it grows, propped up by sticks; and it is so short, that one's fancy as to its luxuriance, (especially if formed from such poetry as Childe Harold,) is certainly disappointed. I made a digression from the road up the little river Aar, which falls into the Rhine near Sinzig. A more striking picture you cannot imagine. The stream is remarkably clear and rapid, the bottom rocky, and its banks, for a considerable distance, are literally perpendicular rocks. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... we had returned from this digression to the characters and incidents immediately connected with the action ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... all a digression, however, from the fact that I have been six months at home and am weary of it, and pleased at the new development of which I shall have to tell you. The practice here, although unremunerative, ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... peculiar mind: it is a unique one. Happily I do not mean to harm it: but, if I did, it would not take harm from me. The more you and I converse, the better; for while I cannot blight you, you may refresh me." After this digression ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... This practical digression had a good effect on Dorry. Rousing herself to make the effort, she bathed her face, smoothed her hair, and seizing her hat and shawl, started with a sigh to ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... that his eyes ever gave such evidence. He does not know that he has seen (and therefore quoad his consciousness has not seen) that which he has seen every day of his life. But to return from this digression, my understanding could furnish no reason why the knocking at the gate in Macbeth should produce any effect, direct or reflected. In fact, my understanding said positively that it could not produce any effect. But I knew better; I felt that it did; and I waited and ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... was to relieve the merchants from the inconvenience of a disadvantageous exchange. The revenue which has arisen from it was unforeseen, and may be considered as accidental. But it is now time to return from this long digression, into which I have been insensibly led, in endeavouring to explain the reasons why the exchange between the countries which pay in what is called bank money, and those which pay in common currency, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... the Governor, "that is as it should be, and as satisfactory as possible. Let me remind you, Mr. Barclay, that it was not I, but yourself, who introduced this digression." ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... on this digression, let me repeat the question I have repeated to myself ten thousand times. WHY DID I DRINK? What need was there for it? I was happy. Was it because I was too happy? I was strong. Was it because I was too strong? Did I possess too much ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... to pause and criticise the work of a writer of so much inspiration and promise as the author of this poem, and exhort him once again, to greater clearness of expression and less quaintness in the choice of his phraseology; but this is not the time or place for digression.' ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... Indian women." The journey continues by way of the intervening islands to Cuba, and thence to Mexico. This wonderful country is described briefly, with allusions to its history, social and economic conditions, etc. A digression is made to relate the discovery and first exploration of the province called New Mexico, one of the fifteen new provinces discovered from Mexico. The account of the voyage to the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... substituted for clay, the sculptor imitated these natural dabs or triangular imprints; and that was the origin of those mysterious and very learned-looking cuneiforms. This, I admit, is a palpable digression; but inasmuch as it throws an indirect light on the simple reasons which sometimes bring about great results, I hold it not wholly alien to ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... this digression. Sir Everhard Greaves did not seem to be very well pleased with the conduct of his son at London. He got notice of some irregularities and scrapes into which he had fallen; and the squire seldom wrote to his father, except to draw upon him for money; which he did so fast, that in eighteen months ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... proposed, but an initiation only by accidence into grammar, I consented to the proposal as a present expedient till a more qualified person should be found, without further treaty or mention of terms between us than that of mutual friendship. And to render this digression from my own studies the less uneasy to my mind, I recollected and often thought ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... ruined more young people, such as apprentices, journeymen, errand-boys, etc., than any other seminary of vice in town. But it is time that we should now return to the affairs of him who hath occasioned this digression. ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... much he liked certain thing of the other's; I even seized my advantage of his helplessness to read him a poem of mine which I had in my pocket; he advised me where to place it; and if the reader will not think it an unfair digression, I will tell here what became of that poem, for I think its varied fortunes were amusing, and I hope my own sufferings and final triumph with it will not be without encouragement to the young literary endeavorer. It was a poem called, with no prophetic sense of fitness, "Forlorn," and I ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Excuse this rather long digression, My pen has carried me astray; These schoolboy days make an impression From which 'tis hard ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... come mountebanking along in an ill-fitting, machine-made suit of second-hand flourishes, as though that were the best they could lay their hands on. They have not done themselves justice. But this is not the place for a digression; before returning to Pilate and his visitors, however, let me say distinctly that the music was the Italian Marcia Reale played, not as the other scraps were played, but with a loud and jaunty heartlessness as though the miraculous pen were jeering ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... you how I came to be in Nashville, and I assure you the digression brings as much tedium to me as it does to you. I was traveling elsewhere on my own business, but I had a commission from a Northern literary magazine to stop over there and establish a personal connection between the publication and one of its ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... have made too long a digression, but that it carries with it some instructions towards the preserving of the honour of your ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... but I put it before my readers with the utmost diffidence and with profound modesty, knowing that it may possibly jar with their feelings of confidence in their own ability to know and judge as to what is best and fittest in reference to their own affairs. But, to return from this digression, for which I humbly ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... to him, nor by way of irony, as thou wilt say, [for he was entirely a stranger to such an evil disposition of mind,] but he wrote this by way of attestation to what was true, as all that read histories may do. And so much shall be said concerning Justus [24] which I am obliged to add by way of digression. ...
— The Life of Flavius Josephus • Flavius Josephus
... laid down as the first principle of politics, that peace, and not war, is the true aim of the legislator, and briefly discussed music and festive intercourse, at the commencement of the third book Plato makes a digression, in which he speaks of the origin of society. He describes, first of all, the family; secondly, the patriarchal stage, which is an aggregation of families; thirdly, the founding of regular cities, like Ilium; fourthly, the establishment of ...
— Laws • Plato
... From this digression let us return to Rhodolph III., the heir to the titles and the sovereignties of his father the emperor. It was indeed a splendid inheritance which fell to his lot. He was the sole possessor of the archduchy ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... Atheling, on being reconciled to the king, was allowed a mark a day for his expenses, and he was thought to be allowed sufficiently, though he received it in some sort as an equivalent for his right to the crown. I venture on this digression, because writers in an ignorant age, making guesses at random, impose on more enlightened times, and affect by their mistakes many of our reasonings on affairs of consequence; and it is the error of all ignorant people to rate unknown times, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... be pardoned this long digression, thinking it my duty to protest against such a ludicrous method of treating French prosody; I do so both in the name of aesthetics and as a part of my task ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... disquisition, to such a point that the presiding judge interfered, whereupon he immediately sat down with a strange smile. His client was condemned to pay a considerable sum of money, a circumstance which did not, however, seem to cause Eugene the least regret for his irrelevant digression. He appeared to regard his speeches as mere exercises which would be of use to him later on. It was this that puzzled and disheartened Felicite. She would have liked to see her son dictating the law to ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... be permitted a little digression here to give a few extracts from Giles's book, "Australia Twice Traversed" (Sampson Low & Company), for this contains the version of the leader of the expedition himself as to the circumstances under which Gibson was lost. In all, it seems, Giles made five exploring ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... lordship's pardon for this digression from the true course of this epistle; but that it may not seem altogether impertinent, I beg that I may plead the occasion of it, in part of that excuse of which I stand in need, for recommending this comedy to your ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... narrative Mr. Browning makes a halt, and carries us off to Venice, where he muses on the various questions involved in Sordello's story. The very act of digression leads back to the comparison between Eglamor and Sordello: between the artist who is one with his work, and him who is outside and beyond it—between the completeness of execution which comes of a limited ideal, and the true greatness of those performances which "can ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... facts as this philosophical digression may seem, it is essential for a number of reasons. One of these is the continual necessity for keeping in mind a clear, balanced perspective. Another lies in the need of presenting aright the conditions in which Vanderbilt and magnates of his type were produced. Their ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... From this long digression we return to the government of the viceroy Don Antonio de Noronha, who arrived in the beginning of September 1564, as formerly mentioned. In consequence of the cruelties exercised on the Moors of Malabar by Mesquita, as formerly mentioned, those ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... A short digression must here be allowed, to narrate the remaining fortunes of that son, the ill-starred Seigneur de Montigny. His mission to Madrid in company of the Marquis Berghen has been related in a previous volume. The last and most melancholy scene in the life of his fellow envoy has been described in a recent ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of Laura,—for I find Digression is a sin, that by degrees Becomes exceeding tedious to my mind, And, therefore, may the reader too displease— The gentle reader, who may wax unkind, And caring little for the Author's ease, Insist on knowing what he means—a hard And hapless ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... insurmountable reason why we should refrain from developing this brilliant theory. It would cause a digression from the main theme of our work. In the situation which we have supposed to be that of a married establishment, a man who is sufficiently unwise to sleep apart from his wife deserves no pity for the disaster ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... to the word. This interpretation of the ceremonies observed by manslayers among many peoples might be supported by a large array of evidence; but to go into the matter fully would lead me into a long digression. I have collected some of the ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... positions in times of the country's need? And how should a volunteer, called into the service of his country without a particle of military education, be expected to understand the interminable routine of army red tape? I will dismiss this digression with a single instance of my experience in seeking information from one of the younger West Pointers. It occurred while I was still adjutant and shortly before my promotion. Some special detailed report was ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... this gate we may fitly make a digression, and in pious memory of a great Englishman, fare along the Avenue du Cimetire to the grave of John Stuart Mill, who with his wife lies buried within the cemetery under an elder-tree on the right and toward the end of Avenue 2. A plain stone slab ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... is introduc'd with a delineation of forest scenery, and pigs fattening on fallen acorns. Sketches of wild ducks and their haunts, of hogs settling to repose in a wood, and of wheat sowing, succeed. The sound of village bells suggests a most pleasing digression: of which the church and its pastor, the rustic amusements of a Sunday, the Village Maids, and a most pathetic description of a distracted Female, are the prominent features. Returning to rural business, Giles is drawn guarding the rising wheat from ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... teaches us, we have, as Christians, a present scale by which we may estimate the greatness of the power. For in the next chapter, after that glorious burst as to the dignity of his Lord, which we have not the heart to call a digression, the Apostle, recurring to the theme of my text, goes on to say, 'And you hath He quickened,' and then, catching it up again a verse or two afterwards, he reiterates, clause by clause, what had been done on Jesus as having been done on us Christians. If that Divine Spirit raised Him from ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... of this kind is of incalculable value to the farmer in removing at once from his fields the unsightly stumps that disfigure them, and which adds so much to the labor of cultivating those fields. Of the machine itself, I may be permitted to say, by way of digression, that it surpasses in the effectiveness of its operations anything of the kind which I have yet had an opportunity ...
— Address delivered by Hon. Henry H. Crapo, Governor of Michigan, before the Central Michigan Agricultural Society, at their Sheep-shearing Exhibition held at the Agricultural College Farm, on Thursday, • Henry Howland Crapo
... most sensible reflections on the many changes in their situation which so long a period had occasioned, on the advantages of some, and the disadvantages of others. From this subject she made a short digression to the instability of human pleasures and the uncertainty of their duration, which led her to observe that all earthly Joys must be imperfect. She was proceeding to illustrate this doctrine by examples from the Lives of great Men when the Carriage came to the Door ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... reason to fear that this discovery, which was thought would prove so much to their advantage, may, by their imprudence, become an occasion of much mischief to them. But it were too long to dwell on all that he told us he had observed in every place, it would be too great a digression from our present purpose: whatever is necessary to be told concerning those wise and prudent institutions which he observed among civilised nations, may perhaps be related by us on a more proper occasion. We asked him many questions concerning all ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... and to shining arms! O foul dishonour to my household's grave! O impious act, including all foul harms! A martial man to be soft fancy's slave! True valour still a true respect should have; Then my digression is so vile, so base, That it will live ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... was totally insensible to his surroundings; his mind was very busy with the interview from which he had come, and the interview to which he was speeding. Once he permitted himself a digression, that he might point a moral for the ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... this long digression, to return to my journal. After the service, Mr. Morgan, who had accompanied us to Baltimore with his daughter, introduced us to Dr. Cox, and we were invited by him to return on Thursday to a great missionary meeting, which is to be held in Baltimore; but this, I am afraid, we shall ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... One more digression suggested by the name of Arthur Sullivan; it shall be the last. I am not going back to the time when we were boys together in Leipsic, but will only mention him in connection with Carry; this time Carry in ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... foolish and wholly unnecessary digression—to return to Lamb. Elia, who had while a toil-worn clerk so carefully and frugally husbanded every odd moment and spare hour of time,—who, after his day's labor at India-House was over, had read so many massive old folios, and written ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... Latin and not a foreign cult. They showed this intimate and friendly feeling by permitting an altar to Hercules to be erected within the city proper, in the Forum Boarium. But in order to understand the significance of this act a word of digression is necessary. ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter
... is a digression, and I daresay there are many who will not agree with all this. Indeed, I am not sure that I quite agree with all my friend said on this subject, myself. There are many ways of looking at the same thing, and ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... from this digression. After "the fall of the Charter," November, 1684, the Congregationalists of Massachusetts Bay continued their government for two years, as if nothing had happened to their Charter; they promptly proclaimed and took the oath of allegiance to James the Second; and two years ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... that time frequent discussions between them on the same subject, for they were friends who could dare to discuss each other's modes of life; but the reader need not be troubled further now with this digression. The position which the Vicar held in the estimation of the Marquis of Trowbridge will probably ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... forgive a digression. We will leave Tyope and his companions on the brink of the Rito, and abandon them for a while to their sombre thoughts; nay, we will leave the Rito even, and transport ourselves to our own day. I desire to relate a story, an Indian folk-lore tale of modern ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... certain incident connected with the Wilderness campaign of which it may not be out of place to speak; and to avoid a digression further on ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... edition. The two most interesting chapters, largely anecdotal but continuously illuminating, are entitled "The Vagaries of Genius," wherein one may find an infinitude of details concerning the manner in which Balzac worked, and "The Chase for Gold," but tucked in somewhere else is a charming digression about realism in fiction and the bibliography should still be of use to students. Saltus tells us that Balzac took all his characters' names from life, frequently from signs which he observed on the ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... themselves. Until this happens, we must wait; for no man unites the experience and the temperament necessary. This could be proved, if proof were required; but, happily, proof of assertions is not always required, and proof of this one would lead us into a long digression, bristling with disputable matter, and requiring perhaps hardly less rare qualities than the task of writing the treatise itself. The modest scribe is reduced to telling how Claudia behaved, without pretending to tell why she behaved so, far less ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... approached within striking distance of each other, and there is some danger of our coming into hostile contact. Of this danger and the possibility of averting it I shall speak presently, but meanwhile I must make a little digression in order to anticipate an objection that may be ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... no man unites the experience and the temperament necessary. This could be proved, if proof were required; but, happily, proof of assertions is not always required, and proof of this one would lead us into a long digression, bristling with disputable matter, and requiring perhaps hardly less rare qualities than the task of writing the treatise itself. The modest scribe is reduced to telling how Claudia behaved, without pretending to ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... a very appropriate digression upon female modesty, which he wound up by asserting that that estimable virtue became more and more influenced by the secretive organ, in proportion as the favoured suitor approached near and nearer to a definite proposal. It was the duty of a gallant and honourable lover to make that ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... night. In March and April, when the mohwa-tree is in flower, it revels in the luscious petals that fall from the trees, even ascending the branches to shake down the coveted blossoms. The mohwa (Bassia latifolia) well merits a slight digression from our subject. It is a large-sized umbrageous tree, with oblong leaves from four to eight inches long, and two to four inches broad. The flowers are globular, cream coloured, with a faint greenish tint, waxy in appearance, succulent and extremely ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... faculty cannot produce contradictory effects. But the path of early reasoners is beset by thorny entanglements, and he will not proceed a step without first clearing the ground. This leads him into a tiresome digression, which is intended to explain the nature of contradiction. First, the contradiction must be at the same time and in the same relation. Secondly, no extraneous word must be introduced into either of the terms in which the contradictory proposition ...
— The Republic • Plato
... Lordship makes a long digression, trying to give me to understand what my office is and what I can do and what I can not do, and for this your Lordship makes distinctions of protector and bishop and commissioner. Your Lordship need not have taken so much trouble; for, as Captain Becerra dares to write to me not to take ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair
... simplicity. The Author,—whose name I lament that I am, in some degree, prevented from consecrating to immortal fame, by not knowing what it is—the Author, I say, has not branched his poem into excressences of episode, or prolixities of digression; it is neither variegated with diversity of unmeaning similitudes, nor glaring with the varnish of unnatural metaphor. The whole is plain and uniform; so much so indeed, that I should hardly be surprised, if some morose readers were to conjecture, that the poet had been ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... To return from this digression: David Trevarrow made up his mind, as we have said, to "go on," and, being a man of resolute purpose, he went on; seized his hammer and chisel, and continued perseveringly to smite the flinty rock, surrounded by thick darkness, which was not dispelled but only rendered visible by ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... France, and especially those of Paris. It has known most of our great criminals. But if it is the most interesting of the buildings of Paris, it is also the least known—least known to persons of the upper classes; still, in spite of the interest of this historical digression, it should be as short as the journey ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... [intimate] Wi' social nose whyles snuff'd and snowkit; Whyles mice and moudieworts they howkit; [moles, dug] Whyles scour'd awa in lang excursion, And worried ither in diversion; Until wi' daffin' weary grown, [merriment] Upon a knowe they sat them down, [knoll] And there began a lang digression About the lords of ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... Eleanor, ignoring the digression. "I don't know that you care, though. You've said you were bored to death ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... Mrs. Lasette, "this is a digression from our subject. What I meant to say is this, that in our Ward is an excellent school house with a half score of well equipped and efficient teachers. The former colored school house was a dingy looking building about a mile and a half away with only ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... time we had returned from this digression to the characters and incidents immediately connected with the action ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... and wholly unnecessary digression—to return to Lamb. Elia, who had while a toil-worn clerk so carefully and frugally husbanded every odd moment and spare hour of time,—who, after his day's labor at India-House was over, had read so many massive old folios, and written so many pleasant pages for the pleasure and solacement of himself, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... that slight digression because otherwise I should have conveyed a slightly false impression by the phrase "all Founders of religions." We mean amongst ourselves by the word "Master," when used accurately, a very distinctly ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... "Excuse the digression, madam," said Overtop, "but ought not these two gentlemen to change places in life? Is not the heavy one peculiarly adapted to the diving bell, and the light ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... narratives. Here, first, he possesses unfailing fluency. It was with rapidity, evidently with ease, and with masterful certainty, that he poured out his long series of vivid and delightful tales. It is true that in his early, imitative, work he shares the medieval faults of wordiness, digression, and abstract symbolism; and, like most medieval writers, he chose rather to reshape material from the great contemporary store than to invent stories of his own. But these are really very minor matters. He has great variety, also, of narrative forms: elaborate allegories; love stories of ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... question of this spread of mercantile knowledge along the trade routes is so connected with the [.g]ob[a]r numerals, the Boethius question, Gerbert, Leonardo of Pisa, and other names and events, that a digression for its ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith
... which, since 1830, the Liberals have openly confessed in all its ramifications, would trench upon the domain of history and involve too long a digression. This glimpse of it is enough to show the double part which Philippe Bridau undertook to play. The former staff-officer of the Emperor was to lead a movement in Paris solely for the purpose of masking the real conspiracy and occupying ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... The cheerfulness, self-denial, and fellow-feeling shown by those who were even partly convalescent, seemed to me to be scarcely less admirable than the bravery which had distinguished them on the battle-field. But this is a digression: let me hasten to relate how I was helped to a decision as to Christmas "goodies." One morning, going early to visit some wounded soldiers who had come in during the night, I found in one tent a newcomer, lying in one of the ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... forest scenery, and pigs fattening on fallen acorns. Sketches of wild ducks and their haunts, of hogs settling to repose in a wood, and of wheat sowing, succeed. The sound of village bells suggests a most pleasing digression: of which the church and its pastor, the rustic amusements of a Sunday, the Village Maids, and a most pathetic description of a distracted Female, are the prominent features. Returning to rural business, Giles is drawn guarding ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... to make a digression, which I trust my readers will pardon. It has often been urged that the white man has shown little gratitude and no pity for the aborigines of this country. This I wish to refute. The Indian that ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... from a long digression. Either Cuba or Puerto Rico might, in an ordinary case of war, have been selected as the first objective of the United States operations, with very good reasons for either choice. What the British island Santa ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... have digressed from the original purpose of my essay, but I hope for pardon, if, believing the digression to be of more value than the original matter, I have not checked my pen, but let it run on even as ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... I have appeared to defend, is so unlike those you ordinarily have before your honorable body, that I have, for a while, thrown off the armor of the soldier, and once more appear as the lawyer. You will pardon my apparent digression from the subject at issue, but as I see many looks of surprise at my seemingly strange conduct, I deem it but justice to myself that I should explain my motive for ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... reader's pardon for a personal digression—with the excuse that it may throw light on the scene to follow—it will be understood how easily the guard on duty at the gate might be "thrown off guard" by a carriage passing through it; especially on that day ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... struck down by the blow.' Ah! and well they might. Yet it was but one of a long series of bloody, and other most effectual blows, struck against their liberty and their lives. * But to return from our digression. ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... not a digression, it might be interesting to speculate upon the reason why, in view of their expressed opinions of Silverdale, both the Vicomte and Mr. Spence remained during the week that followed. Robert, who went off in the middle of it with his family to the seashore, described it to Honora ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... where to find her. I traced her myself a few days ago to a house in the Rue de Charonne, and she is not likely to have gone away from Paris while her husband was at the Conciergerie. But this is a digression, let me proceed more consecutively. The letter, as I have said, being written to-night by the prisoner to one of his followers, I will myself see that it is delivered into the right hands. You, citizen Heron, will in the ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... his failure in another line is owing to the malignity of the world at large. In one of his most characteristic Essays he asks whether genius is conscious of its powers. He writes what he declares to be a digression about his own experience, and we may believe as much as we please of his assertion that he does not quote himself as an example of genius. He has spoken, he declares, with freedom and power, and will not cease because he is abused for not being a Government tool. He wrote a charming character ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... Alice opening the front door came as a pleasant digression. A second later it became clear from the sound of voices that she had brought some one back with her, and Theron hastily stretched himself out again in the armchair, with his head back in the pillow, ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... said—why not cut the knot, and set the question at rest, by admitting at once that every man does, popularly speaking, believe in the existence of matter, and that he practically walks in the light of that belief during every moment of his life? This observation tempts us into a digression, and we shall yield to the temptation. The problem of perception admits of being treated in three several ways: first, we may ignore it altogether,—we may refuse to entertain it at all; or, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... isn't it digression? Again I don't know. You, the listener, sit opposite me. But you are so silent. You don't tell me anything. I am, at any rate, trying to get you to see what sort of life it was I led with Florence and what Florence was like. Well, she was bright; and she danced. ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... a tall trotter with slender legs, a genuine cocotte's horse, was returning from his digression, toward the middle of the street, with dancing steps, prancing gracefully up and down without going forward. Jansoulet dropped his satchel, and as if he had cast aside at the same time all his gravity, his prestige as a public man, he gave a mighty leap and grasped the animal's bit, holding him ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... was indeed—as Mr. Browning always believed—much more sympathetic, I can only record my astonishment; for there never was a large and cultivated intelligence one can imagine less in harmony than his with the poetic excesses, or even the poetic qualities, of 'Pauline'. But this is a digression. ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Chance it is whether ever a Writer comes to know it. Tho' Otway had so fine a Genius for the TENDER, it never appear'd till a little before he dyed. Thro' all his Plays we cannot trace even the least Glimpse of it, till his two last, The Orphan and Venice Preserv'd. But we run the Digression too far. ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... had originated, and what it was all about. He made the mistake of confounding the answer to a riddle with the crisis which unties the tangle of a plot and satisfies the suspended interest of a tale. None of the great model poems before him, however full of digression and episode, had failed to arrange their story with clearness. They needed no commentary outside themselves to say why they began as they did, and out of what antecedents they arose. If they started at once from the middle of things, they made their story, ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... reader will excuse this digression. It may not be altogether useless, at a time when declamations, springing from St. Simonian, Phalansterian, and Icarian books, are invoking the press and the tribune, and which seriously threaten the liberty of labour ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... were still in exile in England, where Ruthven died—seeing a vision of angels! Knox makes no drawback to the entirely and absolutely laudable character of the deed. He goes out of his way to tell us "in plain terms what we mean," in a digression from his account of affairs sixteen years earlier. Thus one fails to understand the remark, that "of the manner in which the deed was done we may be certain that Knox would disapprove as vehemently as any of his contemporaries." {251b} The words may ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... is most fair, at hearing whatever is most lovely? Is it the exiled spirit, yearning for its own? Is it the captive, to whom the ray of heaven's own glory comes through the crevice of his dungeon walls? But this is a digression. Returning, we examined the mansion, a fine specimen of the old French chateau; square-built, with high Norman roof, and a round, conical-topped tower at each corner. In front was a garden, curiously laid out in beds, and knots of flowers, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Doubtless the hidden laws of nature have reference to other beings than ourselves; and, beyond dispute, may be said to govern the creatures of an unknown world as well as exercising control over poor mortals like us." After this short digression, of which I give you the precise wording, the king continued as follows: "On the following day madame de Montchevreuil paid a visit to madame de Maintenon, in which she declared, that upon mature reflection, she could not proceed with the commission she had undertaken: that it was ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... the old nurse affably; her digression serving to break the gravity of the conversation, and make Madame Dort take a better ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... is in all probability the last of a series of writings, of which—disregarding certain earlier disconnected essays—my Anticipations was the beginning. Originally I intended Anticipations to be my sole digression from my art or trade (or what you will) of an imaginative writer. I wrote that book in order to clear up the muddle in my own mind about innumerable social and political questions, questions I could not keep out of my work, which it distressed me to touch ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... filigree of as many low-hung chandeliers. My slightly bald spot, due to severe mental effort, or something, if examined closely would be found to resemble an old battlefield in France. But this is digression. As I was saying, Henry Jones was hewing at the big old cross-beam, trying to raise its lower sky-line a couple of inches with a foot-adz. I had not supposed that the job would be especially difficult. I did not realize ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... cannot get heat, why, let them shiver their life away; and, while they remain addicted to their delights, or rather corrupt tastes, let them leave me to follow my own bent during the brief life that is accorded us. But this has been a long digression, fair ladies, and 'tis time to retrace our steps to the point where we deviated, and continue in the course ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... hood a crape veil! This was an innovation nothing short of revolutionary, and the brethren and sisters, to whom their prescribed form of dress was sacred, were bewildered to know how they ought to regard such a digression from their ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... any of these works is to discover the author's characteristic method: first, his framework or argument is carefully constructed so as to appeal to reason; then this framework is buried out of sight and memory by a mass of description, digression, emotional appeal, allusions, illustrative matter from the author's wide reading or from his prolific imagination. Note this passage from the ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... therefore, soon see, though these scenes out of every-day life are no digression from the principal events, nothing episodical which one may pass over. In order still sooner to arrive at a clear perception of this assertion, we will yet tarry a few moments in the house of Mr. Berger, the merchant; but in the mean ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... Tower of Babel never yielded such confusion of tongues as the Chaos of Melancholy doth of Symptoms"). The Second Partition is devoted to the Cure of Melancholy. As it is of great importance that we should live in good air, a chapter deals with "Air Rectified. With a Digression of the Air." Burton never travelled, but the study of cosmography had been his constant delight; and over sea and land, north, east, west, south—in this enchanting chapter—he sends his vagrant fancy flying. In the disquisition on "Exercise rectified of body and mind" he dwells ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... amusement and dissipation, and a means of influencing the men. It was not until the year 1864 that Mr. Gomes asked us to visit Lundu and welcome a little party of women, the first converts to the faith which their fathers and husbands had long professed. This is a long digression from the history of the Lundus' visit to Kuching in 1855, which was at the time a great event. I find the following passage in my journal: "Every evening, before late dinner, the Lundus go up to Mr. Gomes's room to say their prayers, ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... as that," with a feeble attempt at a pun. He paused to light a cigar, and absent-minded as usual, continued in digression. ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... particular Concretes. For that otherwise they are like to give us but a very imperfect account of the Origine of very many mixt Bodies, It would, I think, be no hard matter to perswade you, if it would not spend time, and were no Digression, to examine, what they are wont to alledge of the Origine of the Textures and Qualities of mixt Bodies, from a certain substantial Form, whose Origination they leave more obscure than what it is assum'd ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... to the point at which the foregoing disquisition—it is not a digression—became necessary. We had arrived at the general principle that the playwright's chief aim in his first act ought to be to arouse and carry forward the interest of the audience. This may seem a tolerably obvious ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... and fervent nature like hers perhaps alone is capable. Zarah was all that was left to her grandmother in the world, the sole relic remaining of the treasures which she once had possessed. It may be permitted to me here, as a digression, to give a brief account of Hadassah's former life, that the reader may better understand her position at the point reached ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... of a hero told in prose, but in set form, after a regular fashion that unconsciously complied with all epical requirements but that of verse—simple plot, events in order of time, set phrases for even the shifting emotion or changeful fortune of a fight or storm, and careful avoidance of digression, comment, or putting forward by the narrator of ought but the theme he has in hand; he himself is never seen. Something in the perfection of the saga is to be traced to the long winter's evenings, when the whole household, gathered together at their spinning, weaving, and ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... reading of the journal was interrupted by a digression on language, in which Messrs. Dodge, Monday, Templemore, and Truck were the principal interlocutors, and during which the pitcher of punch was twice renewed. We shall not record much of this learned discussion, which was singularly common-place, though a few ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... I doubt not but that you wonder why I have run off from my bias so long together, and made so tedious a digression from satire to heroic poetry; but if you will not excuse it by the tattling quality of age (which, as Sir William Davenant says, is always narrative), yet I hope the usefulness of what I have to say on this subject will qualify the remoteness of it; and this is the last time I will commit ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... my ideas,' he added, naively. 'It's all out of Mahan and those fellows. Well, the Germans have got a small fleet at present, but it's a thundering good one, and they're building hard. There's the—and the—.' He broke off into a digression on armaments and speeds in which I could not follow him. He seemed to know every ship by heart. I had to recall him to the point. 'Well, think of Germany as a new sea-power,' he resumed. 'The next thing is, what is her coast-line? ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... religious services—so that the heretic observer, and especially the representative of the Gazette, referred to by name, might couple the salvation of souls with the perdition of hens, to the great discredit of the faith. But this is a digression. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... moments, in the hope of interruption, and he continued for some moments to dwell on the terrible possibility of a state of affairs in which a gentleman could no longer settle a dispute with an enemy without being subjected to succeeding spiritual embarrassment. But all this digression fell ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... not set the bad example of calling polytheists "superstitious atheists." It probably did not occur to him that, by a parity of reasoning, the Unitarians might justify the application of the same language to the Ultramontanes, and vice versa. But, to return from a digression which may not be wholly unprofitable, Hume proceeds to show in what manner polytheism incorporated physical and moral allegories, and naturally accepted hero-worship; and he sums up his views of the first stages of the evolution of ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... initiation only by accidence into grammar, I consented to the proposal as a present expedient till a more qualified person should be found, without further treaty or mention of terms between us than that of mutual friendship. And to render this digression from my own studies the less uneasy to my mind, I recollected and often thought of that ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... to sanctity, written as they were upon his brow and gait, have given rise to the above digression, reached at length the extremity of the principal street, which terminates upon the park of Woodstock. A battlemented portal of Gothic appearance defended the entrance to the avenue. It was of mixed ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... Without swerving or digression to my Dora straight I sped, And she gazed at that expression, then she clapped her hands and said— "You have found it—who'd have thought it?—you have brought it me again!" "Yes!" I cried, "and as I've brought it, make me happiest of men." ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... her father. His name, well known, near a century ago, in the most splendid circles of London, has long been forgotten. His history is, however, so interesting and instructive, that it tempts us to venture on a digression. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... silence, and then, as though there had been no digression, Rankin went back to the former subject. "Yes," he said slowly, "I think you're right about those being Tom Blair's tracks." He turned and faced the younger man squarely. "If it is, Ben, it means he's been frozen ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... work of a writer of so much inspiration and promise as the author of this poem, and exhort him once again, to greater clearness of expression and less quaintness in the choice of his phraseology; but this is not the time or place for digression.' ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... dwelling on matters so long buried in oblivion! A maiden-woman, as independent as myself, need not envy any girl the doubtful blessing of a husband. I chose to be independent, and I am, and what more is there to be said about it? Pardon the digression. ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... enter into particulars, so that you may comprehend it; and, at the same time, in this trifling digression from the thread of my narrative, I hope, young friends, to teach you a lesson of political wisdom that may benefit both you and your country when you are old enough ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... the meal, at which the invitation was tendered to me which has occasioned this digression, was disposed of somewhat ravenously; and that the gentlemen thrust the broad- bladed knives and the two-pronged forks further down their throats than I ever saw the same weapons go before, except in the hands of a skilful ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... distinguish more distant objects. An "untamable fly" buzzed at my elbow with the same nonchalance as on a molasses hogshead at the end of Long Wharf. Even there I must attend to his stale humdrum. But now I come to the pith of this long digression.—As the light increased I discovered around me an ocean of mist, which by chance reached up exactly to the base of the tower, and shut out every vestige of the earth, while I was left floating on this fragment of the wreck of a world, on my carved plank, in cloudland; ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... of history—a digression absolutely necessary for the clear elucidation of Ferdinand and Isabella's conduct with regard to the events just narrated. The trial of Arthur Stanley they had resolved should be conducted with ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... committeth not kepyng instructed his people in the warre, the whiche those your wise men alledge for ensample, there is no man, (his particulare passions laied a side) that doeth not judge this fault, to be in thesame kyngdome, and this negligence onely to make hym weake. But I have made to greate a digression, and peradventure am come out of my purpose, albeit I have doen it to aunswere you, and to shewe you, that in no countrie, there can bee made sure foundacion, for defence in other powers but of their owne subjectes: and their own power, cannot be ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... 617, Menelaus.]—This digression about Menelaus is due, as similar digressions generally are when they occur in Greek plays, to the poet feeling bound to follow the tradition. Homer begins his longest account of the slaying of Agamemnon ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... had been suggested before by any person whatever; nor have I, in consequence of the discovery I have lately made of the opinions of these respectable authors, added or omitted a single thought in my treatise. But to return from my digression. ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of - our Ideas of Beauty, etc. • Frances Reynolds
... in the bleak northland. But the skillful resource and pluck of Jack and Noddy won the day. We now find them enjoying a holiday, with Captain Toby as host, at a fashionable hotel among the beautiful Thousand Islands. Having made this necessary digression, let us again turn our attention to the situation which had suddenly confronted the happy three, and which appeared to be ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... servant of the popes, in that long and valuable digression, which has resumed its place in the last edition, correctly published from the author's Ms. and printed in four volumes in quarto, under the name of Friburgo, 1775, (Istoria ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... which the writer arrived at his present position; yet it would be very hard to tell why he came hither, or to see how the journey up to this point will at all put him toward his destination. He has digressed; he has left the road. And he must get back to the road. By this digression he has wasted just as much time as it has taken to come from the direct road to this point added to the time it will take to go back. Do not digress; tell one story at a time; let no incident into your story which cannot answer the question, "Why are you here?" by "I help;" ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... us come back, after this long digression, to the conversation with the intelligent Englishman. We begin skirmishing with a few light ideas,—testing for thoughts,—as our electro-chemical friend, De Sauty, if there were such a person, would test for his current; trying a little litmus-paper for acids, ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... uncommonly clean in the run aft, she has enough bluffing off in the bows to keep her dry, and the lower berths are most of them double. She has a lot of advantages, but I won't cross in her again. Excuse the digression. I got on board. I hailed a steward, whose red nose and redder whiskers were ...
— The Upper Berth • Francis Marion Crawford
... answered, "everybody knows that. I have known it for years. My grandmother who lived in Milan told it to me. Doesn't the water look cool and pleasant?" was her abrupt digression, as she returned her gaze to the Rampio. "When it is hot like this, I should like to lie down in the water, and ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... to make any apology for this digression, for it is to record one more of the many acts of wisdom and tenderness that were so natural to this man of massive understanding. The incalculable results that he was destined to accomplish may well be allowed to obscure any human weakness that ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... little bearing, it is commonly supposed, on the subject of art. But you are, I trust, now in some degree persuaded that no art, Florentine or any other, can be understood without knowing these sculptures and mouldings of the national soul. You remember I first begun this large digression when it became a question with us why some of Giovanni Pisano's sepulchral work had been destroyed at Perugia. And now we shall get our first gleam of light on the matter, finding similar operations carried on in Florence. For a little while after ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... influences in many respects superior to those brought by the conqueror, influences which were in a sense only beginning to educate the conqueror himself. Let us here, for the sake of clearness, make a brief digression into ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... the hatchway; so that I lost the kiss to which I was entitled for my services. I consoled myself by the reflection that, "please the pigs," I might be more fortunate the next time that I officiated in my clerical capacity. This is a digression, I grant, but I cannot help it; it is the nature of man to digress. Who can say that he has through life kept in the straight path? This is a world of digression; and I beg that critics will take no notice of mine, as I have an idea that my digressions ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... we can proceed from that attitude," Lee explained, "it was a sort of digression. I want to do whatever is possible to break it up; ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... had come down from Westminster with Woodburn, and had been engaged by the latter to remain with his mother during his absence. Having thus glanced over the events which had occurred previously to the opening of this new scene of our story, we will now return to the point we left to make the digression. ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... after this anecdotical digression. Saadi gives this whimsical piece of advice to a pugnacious fellow: "Be sure, either that thou art stronger than thine enemy, or that thou hast a swifter pair of heels." And he relates a droll story in illustration ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... enlivened by illuminating figures of rhetoric and by humor, or rendered impressive by the striking way in which they express thought, e.g. "The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion." A pun, digression, or out-of-the-way allusion may occasionally provoke readers, but onlookers have frequently noticed that few wrinkle their brows while reading his critical essays, and that a pleased expression, such as photographers like, is almost certain to appear. He has the rare faculty of making his readers ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... will make a slight digression for the sake of our story. In 1548, just twenty-seven years after Cortes discovered the land of Mexico, Cabrillo's expedition had sailed up the Coast of California, and in 1602 Sebastian Vizcaino had made further discoveries accompanied by two Carmelite priests, ...
— Chimes of Mission Bells • Maria Antonia Field
... This long digression over, I revert to my father about whose respectable practice at the Four Courts I know nothing except that he allowed others to become judges, and did not find solicitors putting ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... up-hill—"on the collar"—all the way to Colfax, as is plainly evidenced by the heavy railroad grade. About a mile short of the town, we made a digression to an Italian vineyard of note. There, at a long table under a vine-covered trellis that connected the stone cellar with the dwelling-house, we were served with wine by a young woman having the true Madonna ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... is not better than one taken from a Vagabond Rope-dancer, or Tumbler, forty times over; but his sense and way of Writing he thinks will infallibly overcome censure; not with me I assure him, to confirm it I must remark him once more, and then my digression shall end. He tells ye Cleora, in the Tragedy of Cleomenes, is not very charming, her part is to tell you, her Child ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... is digression, and our narrative demands that we proceed to tell how a twopenny fare in a little steamboat from Uleborg brought us to the tar stores. On a Finnish steamboat one often requires change, so much paper money being in use, and ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... this resumption of their homeward journey marked a period in, rather than the conclusion of, their conversation. Some outside compelling force—so in any case it appeared to Carteret—encompassed them. It was useless to turn and double, indulge in gently playful digression. That force would inevitably make them face the innermost of their own thought, their own emotion, in the end. In obedience to which unwelcome conviction, Carteret presently brought himself to ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... Clare, I must return to you; [ii] And, sure, apologies are due: Accept, then, my concession. In truth, dear Clare, in Fancy's flight [iii] I soar along from left to right; My Muse admires digression. ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... now make what may well appear to be an uncalled-for digression; but it will only be a temporary digression, and will bring us back in a few minutes to the grape, the heavenly horse, ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... Well, this long digression ought to bring me on as far as Winchester, where we came yesterday afternoon, late. We should have been earlier (though our start was delayed by our guests' preparations), but Ellaline was fascinated ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... it usually occurs near the middle of the piece. From this point the action proceeds to the close or denouement. The knot is untied; the complications in which the leading characters have become involved are either happily removed or lead to the inevitable catastrophe. Avoiding every digression, the action should go forward rapidly, in order not to weary the patience and dissipate the interest of the spectator. The denouement should not be dependent upon some foreign element introduced at the last moment, but should spring ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... return from this digression to our experience of the asteroid. The latter being a body of some mass was, of course, able to impart to us a measurable degree of weight. Being five miles in diameter, on the assumption that its mean density was the same as that of the earth, ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... old man's voice, and they knew that he meant his own son Seffy. To add to their embarrassment, this same son was now appearing over the Lustich Hill—an opportune moment for a pleasing digression. For you must be told early concerning Old Baumgartner's longing for certain lands, tenements and hereditaments—using his own phrase—which were not his own, but which adjoined his. It had passed into a proverb of the vicinage; indeed, though the property in question belonged to one ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... Islander wanted to know about the wreck; and at another time I told him all about it. We were too much concerned in verifying our theory in relation to the robbery in Jacksonville to agree to any long digression. ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... that it seems wanting in vigor and picturesqueness; and those who live in its neighborhood become very much attached to the more peaceful character of its scenery. Perhaps my readers will pardon the digression, if I interrupt our geological discussion for a moment, to offer them a word of advice, though it be uncalled for. I have often been asked by friends who were intending to go to Europe what is the most favorable time ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the swell. Hateful word, yes, but having a perfectly legitimate niche, since in the minds of the hoi polloi it nicely describes the differences between the poor gentleman and the gentleman of leisure. To proceed with the digression, to no one is the word more hateful than to the individual to whom it is applied. Cutty would have blushed ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... to direct the course of public thought. It is difficult to estimate the part played by such enormous and miscellaneous repositories in the education of the people. But this (though interesting in itself) partakes of the nature of a digression; and what I was about to ask you was this: Are you yourself a student ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... story to reach the document, but it illustrates so well the manner in which maternal influence passes down from age to age, and throws so much light on the strange scenes which occurred at Charles's death, and is, moreover, so intrinsically excellent, that it well merits the digression. ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... This is another digression. It was occasioned by looking at poor Dennis's face while his wife was screeching (and, believe me, the former was the more pleasant occupation). Bottom tickled by the fairies could not have been in greater ecstasies. He thought ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... To return after this digression: Should the House, by the institution of Covode committees, votes of censure, and other devices to harass the President, reduce him to subservience to their will and render him their creature, then the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... shrinking, old-fashioned girl. Does a strenuous existence make against easy motherhood? It would seem so; it would seem the more masculine the occupations of woman become, the less able are they to carry out the truly female functions. But this is a digression from ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... be thought a Digression from my intended Speculation, to talk of Bawds in a Discourse upon Wenches; for a Woman of the Town is not thoroughly and properly such, without having gone through the Education of one of these Houses. But the compassionate Case ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... gained his freedom by entering the American army; at the South, only by entering the British army, which was joined by more than fifteen thousand colored men. Jefferson says 30,000 negroes from Virginia alone went to the British army. I make the digression simply to assert that had the colored men at the South possessed the same opportunity as those at the North, of enlisting in the American army, a large force of colored men would have been in the field, fighting ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... there was the guard of the guide to protect him from the—suggestions of doubts as to the correctness of his line. Everything must depend on one head, and any interruption might throw him off his course. As we were starting I heard a digression under the lamp. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... of it, it would be a great waste of time. Here am I no farther than perhaps a third of my journey, and I have already admitted so much digression that my pilgrimage is like the story of a man asleep and dreaming, instead of the plain, honest, and straightforward narrative of fact. I will therefore postpone the Story of the Hungry Student till I get into ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... to work straight. (But that mention of mankind calls me back for a moment, reminding me how he turns glossa into glotta, half robbing me of the tongue itself. Ay, you are a disease of the tongue in every sense, Tau.) But I return from that digression, to plead the cause of mankind and its wrongs. The prisoner's designs include the constraint, racking, and mutilation of their utterance. A man sees a beautiful thing, and wishes to describe it as kalon, but in comes Tau, and forces the man to say talon he must have ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
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