"Digress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Staffordshire Percys, a branch of the old house and has the black hair and pale, clear-cut face of the whole family. I cannot but refer it to vanity that he should heighten his personal advantages with black velvet or a red cross of considerable ostentation, and certainly—but I digress. ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... continued the vicar, completing his period, as if rounding a sentence in one of his sermons, wherein he was frequently prone to digress, "and I'm glad to learn from your acquiescent reply that you agree with me on ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... tells you. He knows what will sell, and we don't. Make a good, popular book, and get as much money as you can. By-and-by, when you've got a name, you can afford to digress, and have philosophical and metaphysical people in your novels," said Amy, who took a strictly practical view of ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... the boat who comes to moor you along the west gully in the Ramsgate Harbour; so is Longnose, the name of a buoy, and of a reef of rocks just north of the North Foreland; so are a great many other words. But I digress. I only put in these words to show you in case you had any dissolving doubts remaining upon the matter, that the kind of stuff you read is very often all nonsense, and that you must not take things for granted merely because ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... I must digress here a bit from my own personal adventures to explain briefly how the fall of Nu-Yok came about, as I learned ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... before he began to make ardent love to her. She was an extremely pretty girl, two years his senior, and, I am convinced, a most worthy and exemplary young woman. She became infatuated with the young man. He asked her to marry him. (Permit me to digress for a moment in order to state that while Courtney Thane was in his freshman year at college his father was obliged to pay out quite a large sum of money to a chorus-girl with whom, it appears, he had become involved.) To make a long story short, our client, trusting implicitly ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... "crazy" mother had held him up still acted upon his imagination. Brooding on these things he may have come to us perhaps only to see whether here he could sacrifice all or only "two roubles," and in the monastery he met this elder. I must digress to explain what an "elder" is in Russian monasteries, and I am sorry that I do not feel very competent to do so. I will try, however, to give a superficial account of it in a few words. Authorities on the subject ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Digress! That is an impossibility in an article without a topic. But even if I plead guilty, my impatient critic; did you ever take a walk in the country, and if so, did you choose those broad roads that lead to churches and the village stores and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... aspects of nature, but also as regards the quaint, droll, and humorous varieties of character, concur in rendering their conversation most delightful. I look back on these walks as among the brightest points in my existence. I have been led to digress on this subject. Although more correctly belonging to my father's life, yet it is so amalgamated with my own that it almost forms part of it, and it is difficult for me to separate the one from ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... I shall allow myself to digress. "Silk possesses the property of dismissing the evil spirits who inhabit the magnetic fluids of the atmosphere," says the Mantram, book v., verse 23. And I cannot help wondering whether this apparent superstition may not contain a deeper meaning. It is difficult, I own, to part with ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... let me digress for a little chat on the indispensable hatchet; for it is the most difficult piece of camp kit to obtain in perfection of which I have any knowledge. Before I was a dozen years old I came to realize that a light hatchet was a sine qua non in woodcraft and I also found it a most difficult ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... annals digress to relate an episode which has only collateral interest Hosuseri and Hohodemi made fishing and hunting, respectively, their avocations. But Hohodemi conceived a fancy to exchange pursuits, and importuned Hosuseri to agree. When, however, the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the schools would digress here, to the great confusion of the reader, into a discussion of the controversy in the economic cloister between the rival schools of economists as to whether cost governs value or value governs cost. The point needs no discussion here, but just such fleeting passing mention ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... have to digress a little to give you the history of the name. Every effect has a cause you know, and after I got old enough to reason things out, I wondered too why my name was Gullins, so I did some investigating and the ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... same rule of directness to the introduction of new characters in the scenes that follow. There is one main theme, one main line of development, in every well constructed story—and only one. See to it that you do not digress from it except as you bring up from the rear other essential parts of the action. There is absolutely no place in the photoplay ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... a breach Of nothing, but a form of speech; And goes for no more when 'tis took, Than mere saluting of the book. 210 Suppose the Scriptures are of force, They're but commissions of course, And Saints have freedom to digress, And vary from 'em, as they please; Or mis-interpret them, by private 215 Instructions, to all aims they drive at. Then why should we ourselves abridge And curtail our own privilege? Quakers (that, like to lanthorns, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... But to digress no further from the consideration of the Phaenomena, more immediately explicable by this Experiment, we shall proceed to shew, That, as to the rising of Water in a Filtre, the reason of it will be manifest ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... the vast number of enlightened Americans who continually visit Europe, and many for the purpose of seeing the grand and beautiful in art, tells the story. The English upper-classes are undoubtedly well-educated in art, but not the other classes. But I must not digress. ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... did, and we found it excellent. By the bye, Lord A., to digress to a different latitude, how did you succeed in your last ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 402, Supplementary Number (1829) • Various
... here digress from the main point of this chapter long enough to explain that equality is not synonymous with identity, as seems to be the impression among the many; a misconception which we regret to say is shared by the judge on the bench with the workingman on the construction gang, ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... Drury, were occasionally given; the number for March 15, 1766, containing a well-written criticism of 'The Clandestine Marriage; a New Comedy,' performed there. As the Chronicle thus had to leave politics for literature, we may perhaps, in our turn, digress from a consideration of its pages, to note briefly that this period was set in the very midst of the celebrated Georgian era, in which this country could boast of more distinguished men—especially in literature—than at any other period. In about twenty previous years, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... upon the world. I am now as if I had never been other than my own master. It is natural to me to go where I please, to do what I please. I find myself at eleven o'clock in the day in Bond-street, and it seems to me that I have been sauntering there at that very hour for years past. I digress into Soho, to explore a book-stall. Methinks I have been thirty years a collector. There is nothing strange nor new in it. I find myself before a fine picture in a morning. Was it ever otherwise? What is become of Fish-street Hill? Where is Fenchurch-street? Stones of old Mincing-lane, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... not of Balzac's competence in the matter but of the artistic value of his introduction of it. Perhaps his enthusiasm does a little run away with him; perhaps he gives us a little too much of it, and avails himself too freely of the license, at least of the temptation, to digress which the introduction of such persons as Elie Magus affords. And it is also open to any one to say that the climax, or what is in effect the climax, is introduced somewhat too soon; that the struggle, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... moment let me digress. The few of my age will remember, and the many younger will have been told, that at this time the Italian queen-mother was the ruling power in France. It was Catharine de' Medici's first object to maintain her ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... digress for the moment to relate an incident of the Federal march, to show the brutal cowardice and baseness of the Federals in making war upon the non-combatants—women and children—and also the unyielding spirit and inflexible courage ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... will help many readers if I digress a brief moment about the nature and validity of alternative paradigms. Not too many decades ago, scientists thought that reality was a singular, real, perpetual—that Natural Law existed much as a tree or a rock existed. In physics, for example, the mechanics of Newton were considered capital ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... "are almost certain to be fatal, for his wrist has a magnificent twist which reminds one of a top. I do not know where he learned this wrist movement, but almost invariably it leads him to kill his man. Last year I saw him—I digress. I must look to it that O'Ruddy has quiet, rest, and peace ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... lord, your lordship seeth I have made a long digression from my answer, but I trust your lordship can consider what moveth me thus to digress: Surely it behoveth me not only to live uprightly, but to avoid all probable arguments that may be gathered to render me suspected to her majesty, whom I serve with all dutifulness and sincerity; and therefore I gather this, that ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... But I digress. The thunder of our two brave cannon announced the Fourth of July, at daylight, to all who were awake. But many of us got our information at a later hour, from the almanac. All the flags were sent aloft except half a dozen ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... arouses the ire of teachers; but adults are little better. When a body of them meets for the discussion of a certain question, the probability is that, if the first speaker speaks directly to the point, the second will digress somewhat, the third will touch the subject only slightly, and the fourth will talk about a different matter. Many a discussion that has started off well leads to much excitement without any one's knowing definitely what the subject of dispute is. It is rarely the case that every page of ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... have to digress to show how often this instinct is prevented from going the direct road, how often it must yield to the difficulties arising from more important considerations: we shall, therefore, rest contented with affirming it to be a general natural law ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... strewing of oak leaves reconsecrated the altar. It is remarkable that drinking—hard drinking—should have been practised by the priesthood in those remote periods, but as they were pagan heathens any animadversions can be made in safety. I cannot digress upon it. White bulls were sacrificed, and it is a singular coincidence (too striking to be the effect of chance) that white bulls were sacrificed by the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... instituted "hiking." He and the young people and such of the neighbors as chose would start from Sagamore Hill and walk in a bee-line to a point four or five miles off. The rule was that no natural impediment should cause them to digress or to stop. So they went through the fields and over the fences, across ditches and pools, and even clambered up and down a haystack, if one happened to be in the way, or through a barnyard. Of course they often reached home spattered ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... alley that may excite my admiration or my curiosity—hurry through glittering saloons or crowded streets—pause at the cottage door or shop window, as it best suits my humour, so, in my intercourse with you, I shall digress, speculate, compress, and dilate, as my fancy or my convenience wills it. This is a blunt acknowledgment of my intentions; but as travellers are never sociable till they have cast aside the formalities ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 27, 1841 • Various
... High Pope of Birds lived in Rome and needed visiting, as, for instance, the Great Auk; or if some old primal relic sacred to birds was connected therewith, as, for instance, the bones of the Dodo.... But I digress. The point is that the straight line takes one over the Brienzer Grat, over the lake, and then over the Wetterhorn. That was manifestly impossible. But whatever of it was possible had to be done, and among the possible things was clambering over the high ridge of the Brienzer Grat instead of ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... At this point we digress to correct the widespread error in confusing sex-hygiene and eugenics. Many people who ought to know better use the two terms synonymously, perhaps because they are afraid of that comparatively novel but frank prefix in "sex-hygiene." The fact is that eugenics and sex-hygiene have ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... digressions in the world of books! There is no other occupation in which one may wander so innocuously. In most of the learned professions digressions are fatal to success. Anthony Despeisses was a lawyer who used frequently to digress. Beginning one day in Court to talk of Ethiopia, an attorney who sat behind him remarked 'Heavens! He is got into Ethiopia, he will never come back.' Despeisses, we are told, was so abashed with the ridicule that he chose rather to leave ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... this earth, who seem Born to give truth to PLATO'S dream, Since in their thoughts, as in a glass, Shadows of heavenly things appear. Reflections of bright shapes that pass Thro' other worlds, above our sphere! But this reminds me I digress;— For PLATO, too, produced, 'tis said, (As one indeed might almost guess), His glorious visions all in bed.[1] 'Twas in his carriage the sublime Sir RICHARD BLACKMORE used to rhyme; And (if the wits don't do him wrong) Twixt death and epics past his time,[2] Scribbling and killing all day ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the centre, found nothing on a road where its advanced guard itself had to subsist entirely on the leavings of the Russians; it could not digress from its direction, for want of time, in so rapid a march. Besides, the columns on the right and left consumed every thing on either side of it. In order to live better, it ought to have set out later every day, halted earlier, and then extended itself more on its ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... be in great agitation-of spirits; and Vivian was convinced that his mind must be interested in an extraordinary manner, because he did not, as was his usual practice, digress to fifty impertinent episodes before he came to the point. He only blew his nose sundry times; and then at once said, "I wish to speak to you, Mr. Vivian, about the proposal you did me the honour to make for my daughter Julia. Difficulties have occurred ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... letter. For as to what actually occurred on the day of your start, it supplied me with absolutely no subject for writing. But as when we are together we are never at a loss for something to say, so ought our letters at times to digress into loose chat. Well then, to begin, the liberty of the Tenedians has received short shrift,[570] no one speaking for them except myself, Bibulus, Calidius, and Favonius. A complimentary reference to you was made by the ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... opportunity for a discussion of nut shell utilization. The Northern Regional Research Laboratory feels that it has played an important role in what is now becoming a new industry of increasing magnitude. For the benefit of those who are not already acquainted with the Laboratory, permit me to digress momentarily to explain briefly ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... to feign a quite new matter, or to frame the history to the most tragical convenience? Again, many things may be told, which cannot be showed: if they know the difference betwixt reporting and representing. As for example, I may speak, though I am here, of Peru, and in speech digress from that to the description of Calicut; but in action I cannot represent it without Pacolet's horse. And so was the manner the ancients took by some "Nuntius," {85} to recount things done in former ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... returning to the Exchequer after an interval of thirteen years, made a much better Budget speech than one would have expected. It was longer, perhaps, than was absolutely necessary. Like the late Mr. GLADSTONE, he has a tendency to digress into financial backwaters instead of sticking to the main Pactolian stream. His excursus upon the impracticability of a levy on capital was really redundant, though it pleased the millionaires and reconciled them to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... digress.—The connexion of scenic exhibitions with the improvement or corruption of the manners of men, has been universally recognized: in other words, the presence or absence of poetry in its most perfect and universal form, has been found to be connected with good and evil in conduct or ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... do no harm to digress for a moment and explain exactly what the French did at the battle ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... quite impossible for But all is not done. But bear in mind that But by no kind of calculation can we But do not tell me that But further still But here we take our stand. But I am not quite sure that But I digress. But I do not desire to obtrude a But I recollect that But I shall go still farther. But I submit whether it But I will not dwell on But I will not pause to point out But if you look seriously at facts But in any case But in fact there is no reason ...
— Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study • Compiled by Grenville Kleiser
... nature, my friend," he contended, determined not to be forced to digress from the main subject. "Have you got everything you want? Isn't there anything besides what you already have that appeals to ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... jog, according to the mode, In one dull pace, in one dull road, What but that curse of heart and head To this digression could have led? Where plunged, in vain I look about, And can't stay in, nor well get out. Could I, whilst Humour held the quill, Could I digress with half that skill; Could I with half that skill return, Which we so much admire in Sterne, 970 Where each digression, seeming vain, And only fit to entertain, Is found, on better recollection, To have a just and nice connexion, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... But I digress. Throughout the contention that preceded the war, amid the passions that attended the war itself, not one bitter, proscriptive word escaped the lips of Abraham Lincoln, whilst there was hardly a day that he was not projecting his great personality ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... finished with the personal points that I was recommended to notice, I will forsake the immediate object of this Preface; and, leaving Late Lyrics to whatever fate it deserves, digress for a few moments to more general considerations. The thoughts of any man of letters concerned to keep poetry alive cannot but run uncomfortably on the precarious prospects of English verse at the present day. Verily the hazards and casualties surrounding the birth and setting ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... first water and magnitude, now makes his entre—the ghost of the late king! and here I must digress awhile, and like a raw notary's clerk, enter my feeble protest against the tame and unimpressive manner in which that supernatural personage is permitted to make his appearance. It should seem that our managers reserve all their decorations ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... I digress: of all appeals,—although I grant the power of pathos, and of gold, Of beauty, flattery, threats, a shilling,—no Method 's more sure at moments to take hold Of the best feelings of mankind, which grow More tender, as we every day behold, Than that all-softening, overpowering ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... notwithstanding their failures and the great mortality under such a system of treatment. They have not felt justified to go beyond the rules of symptomatology as adopted by their schools, with diagnosis, prognosis and treatment. Should they digress from the rules of the etiquette of their alma maters they would lose the brotherly love and support of the medical association to which they belong, under the belief that, "A bad name is as bad as death ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... scenery. Nor is it questionable that on these subjects he is seen, on the whole, at his best. True, his faults pursue him even here, and are aggravated by a sort of fashion of the time which made him elaborately digress into politics, into literature, even (God rest his soul!) into a kind of quasi-professional and professorial sermonising on morals and theology, in the midst of his sporting articles. But the metal more attractive of the main subject would ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... three by the Second Hand is subject to exactly the same rules as in the case of the original call by the Dealer. Precisely the same reasoning holds good and the same danger is apt to arise, should the Second Hand digress from the recognized principles of safety, and bid a long suit which does not contain the requisite high cards. The Second Hand will have an opportunity to declare his weak suit of great length on the next round, and there is no necessity for deceiving ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... be pardoned if I digress at this time to state that the party of one hundred and sixty-nine, both stern and opposite, besieged my castle on the next day but one, with the punctuality of locusts, and despite all of my precautions, all of my devices, all of my objections, effected an entrance and over-ran the place like ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... suppose to be upon Thorns at this and the like impertinent Digressions, but let him alone and he'll come to himself; at which time I think fit to acquaint him, that when I digress, I am at that time writing to please my self, when I continue the Thread of the Story, I write to please him; supposing him a reasonable Man, I conclude him satisfied to allow me this liberty, and so ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... name, I must here digress into a chapter of the history of manners in the nineteenth century, very well worth commemoration for its own sake. In some of the studios at that date, the hazing of new pupils was both barbarous and obscene. Two incidents, following one on the heels of the other, tended to produce an advance ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... grade, gradual, graduate, degrade, digress, Congress, aggressive, progressive, degree; (2) gradation, Centigrade, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... if I digress a little. But is not the knowledge of rare, curious, and beautiful Prints—so necessary, it would seem, towards the perfecting of illustrated copies—is not this knowledge of long and ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... But I digress. Tempus fugit,—which reminds me of a story "Billy" Hallowell once told at a meeting of the American Bar Association in Minneapolis, in 1906. Hallowell was perhaps the most brilliant after-dinner speaker I have ever heard—with the possible ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... when some of these associations come into consciousness ahead of time, it is often wise to digress from the question in hand long enough to jot them down. By all means preserve them, for if you do not write them down they may leave you and be lost. Sometimes very brilliant ideas come in flashes, and inasmuch as they are so fleeting, it is wise to grasp them ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... 15. I will digress a bit and explain how these stone-quarries were discovered. Pixodorus was a shepherd who lived in that vicinity. When the people of Ephesus were planning to build the temple of Diana in marble, and debating whether to get the marble ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... we bring this about? how tell what things you have been used to keep and what to give up? how keen a desire it is well to quell, and which ones? To reach this point, it is necessary to digress again in order to find the element of the magic touchstone which will tell us whether the thing we are looking at is made of gold or some ...
— A Jolly by Josh • "Josh"
... when He should preach to them. Why the spirits of these men, who lived before the flood, are singled out for special mention, is a question that does not really bear upon the point which we have in hand. And we had better keep to that point, and not be tempted to digress. What then follows from this? Two things are clear,—first, that from as far back as the days before the flood, that is to say, from the very beginning of human life on earth, souls in the Intermediate State had been waiting in safe keeping all these many thousand ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... eloquent dissertations, strike out into little flowery by-paths of your own, quite foreign to the grand paved-ways along which your friend supposes he is so kind as to be leading you. But however digressive your mind may be, do not suffer your eyes to digress. Whatever may be the intensity of your ennui, endeavor to preserve an animated expression, and your success is complete. This is all that is necessary. You will never be called upon for notes or comments. Your ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... not finished, the crisis of the drama was over, and Josephus, doubtless following his source, relaxes the narrative to digress about affairs in Rome and the East. The last book of the Wars is episodic and disconnected. It is a kind of aftermath, in which the historian gathers up scattered records, but does not preserve the dramatic ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... Ah cruel sex, and foe to all mankind, Either you love or else you hate too much! A glist'ring show of gold in you we find, And yet you prove but copper in the touch. But why, O why, do I so far digress? Nature you made of pure and fairest mould, The pomp and glory of man to depress, And as your slaves in thraldom them to hold; Which by experience now too well I prove, There is no pain unto ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... intuitive power has been of the greatest advantage in connection with the vast number of technical problems that have entered into his life-work, there have been many remarkable instances in which it has seemed little less than prophecy, and it is deemed worth while to digress to the extent of relating two of them. One day in the summer of 1881, when the incandescent lamp-industry was still in swaddling clothes, Edison was seated in the room of Major Eaton, vice-president of the Edison Electric Light Company, talking over business matters, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... to myself (from whence my zeal for the Public good is perpetually causing me to digress), I will let thee, Reader, into certain more of my peculiarities. I was born (as you have heard), bred, and have passed most of my time, in a crowd. This has begot in me an entire affection for that way of life, amounting to an almost insurmountable aversion from solitude and rural ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... as to Joint Supply and Joint Demand. Here, however, we are beginning to digress. Let us sum up in a general form our conclusions as to the way in which changes in the supply or demand of a commodity react upon the demand or supply of the other things with which it is jointly demanded or supplied. Everything turns, as we have seen, on the possibility of ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... that he was presently to make to his family. There was no one to interrupt him and nothing to embarrass him, and so he was able to set out everything very clearly and convincingly. There was perhaps a disposition to digress into rather voluminous subordinate explanations, on such themes, for instance, as sacramentalism, whereon he found himself summarizing Frazer's Golden Bough, which the Chasters' controversy had first obliged ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... apparent. Each sentence, stuffed with innumerable clauses of restriction, and other parenthetical circumstances, becomes a separate section—an independent whole. But, without insisting on Lord Brougham's oversights, or errors of defect, I will digress a moment to one positive caution of his, which will measure the value of his philosophy on this subject. He lays it down for a rule of indefinite application, that the Saxon part of our English idiom is to be favored at the expense of that part ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... I would here digress for a moment to deal with the argument advanced in the latter part of this sentence. It is very plausible, and, at first sight, appears convincing. It is also very commonly used. Over and over again, I have heard the ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... curve &c. 245; swerve, heel, bear off; gybe[obs3], wear. intervert[obs3]; deflect; divert, divert from its course; put on a new scent, shift, shunt, draw aside, crook, warp. stray, straggle; sidle; diverge &c. 291; tralineate|; digress, wander; wind, twist, meander; veer, tack; divagate; sidetrack; turn aside, turn a corner, turn away from; wheel, steer clear of; ramble, rove, drift; go astray, go adrift; yaw, dodge; step aside, ease off, make way ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... I will venture to transgress and digress anew, and mention here a kind of melodic malady, a singular obsession to which I am subject, and which I will call unconscious ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... resists the temptation to digress from his proper theme: e.g. xxxix. 48, 6, 'cuius belli et causas et ordinem si expromere velim, immemor sim propositi, quo statui non ultra attingere externa, ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... an address in Park Lane, where the butler would pay him his exact fare. This done, he sought the telegraph office and sent three more cablegrams, the concise wording of which he had carefully evolved on the way up from Southampton. These do not come into the story,—which may digress, however, so far as to tell that on receipt of one of them, the Vice-President of the Hands Across Central New York Office remarked to his secretary 'that the old warrior was losing no time. Leisure and ozone would appear to have bucked him up.' ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... not to digress too much from our subject, to preserve their health the Africans drink a great deal of wine; and this they do to help the digestion of the vast quantity of ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... proceeded far in, He found his subject somewhat barren. No ancestors of great renown; His sire of some unnoted town; Himself as little known to fame, The wrestler's praise was rather tame. The poet, having made the most of Whate'er his hero had to boast of, Digress'd, by choice that was not all luck's, To Castor and his brother Pollux; Whose bright career was subject ample, For wrestlers, sure, a good example. Our poet fatten'd on their story, Gave every fight ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... hope you will permit me to digress long enough to express something that is much ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... concealed.(45) But whither am I going! This copious and delightful topic has drawn me far beyond my design; I hasten back to my subject, and am guarded, for a time at least, against any further temptation to digress. ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... herbs, trees, roots, and plants In strength and growth are daily less, So all things have their wants: The heavenly signs move and digress; And honesty in women's hearts Hath not her former being: Their thoughts are ill, like other parts, ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... in a corner of my house; if anything comes into my head that I have a mind to search or to write, lest I should forget it in but going across the court, I am fain to commit it to the memory of some other. If I venture in speaking to digress never so little from my subject, I am infallibly lost, which is the reason that I keep myself, in discourse, strictly close. I am forced to call the men who serve me either by the names of their offices or their country; for names are very hard for me to remember. I can ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... "I will digress for a moment longer from the relation of those occurrences which developed out of Pym's love affair, to say a word concerning some of the physical effects of this artificial light, and to explain certain facts related by Poe ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... can be found farther from my intention, since the commencement of this history, than to digress, more than necessity required, from the course of narration; and, by embellishing my work with variety, to seek pleasing resting-places, as it were, for my readers, and relaxation for my own mind: ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... examination one finds the theater of human history to be one defined by a ludicrous melodramaticy, the soap opera of the gods," he answered. "But we digress far from our point, Jehu, which is a discussion concerning the implementation of our plans of action formed in preparation of our ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... entirely with the harassed and long-suffering gentleman who boasts the proud title of "spoil's officer." I admit—— But I grow warm, in addition to digressing unpardonably. The trouble is that I always do grow warm, and digress at the ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... must digress to allude to the fete which we held in our park in honor of three quite eminent artists, who have recently arrived in the spirit world and taken up ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... record of these annual contests. Each village hints that it has gained the greater number of victories; each is inclined in its heart to believe that the other one has actually done so—because, as I suppose, the agony of defeat leaves a more lasting impression than the joy of victory. But I digress. We have not even got ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various
... classic in their method, in their simplicity. They have scarcely changed since the days when Solomon built his Temple and draped it with such gorgeous hangings that even the inspired writers digress to emphasise their richness with long descriptions that could not possibly have assisted the cause ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... digress. I was speaking of the bank check cipher. At the First National Bank I was shown another of these remarkable indorsements. It ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... overtaken the camp. But now I must digress a moment to tell you something that the public—at least the public that has derived its knowledge of northern wilderness life from fiction—may find it hard to believe. And this is what I want to say: that every one in that whole brigade of wild men of the wilderness, from the lowest ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) Is it perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin? . . . . . . . . . Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises ...
— Poems • T. S. [Thomas Stearns] Eliot
... May I digress long enough to speak a little more of this remarkable horse. Dr. Holland says there is always hope for any man who has heart enough to love a good horse. Army life was well calculated to develop the sterling qualities of both man and beast. Hence, I suppose every man who had a good ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... is not foreign to the Matter in hand, the Reader will, I hope, pardon me if I digress a little, to shew why we cannot reasonably expect Prophets now. And it seems to me, that there are several Reasons to be given why there should be Prophets during the time of the Mosaical Dispensation, rather than after the Gospel had taken Root. For, the Promises made to ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... necessary to digress and state that documentary commercial bills are of two kinds—"acceptance" bills and "payment" bills. In the case of the first-named, the documents are delivered to the party on whom the bill is drawn as soon as he "accepts" the bill, which puts him in a position to get possession ...
— Elements of Foreign Exchange - A Foreign Exchange Primer • Franklin Escher
... Christians. And it is too great arrogancie for any man, or church [135] to thinke y^t he or they have so sounded y^e word of God to y^e bottome, as precislie to sett downe y^e churches discipline, without error in substance or circumstance, as y^t no other without blame may digress or differ in any thing from y^e same. And it is not difficulte to shew, y^t the reformed churches differ in many circumstances amongest ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... it may be interesting to digress a bit, and consider some of his earlier stories in Adventure Magazine, and more particularly as they apply to his books. No attempt is being made to give a complete listing of his magazine stories here. Adventure Magazine began publication in November 1910, but the earliest ...
— Materials Toward A Bibliography Of The Works Of Talbot Mundy • Bradford M. Day, Editor
... leading the way into an inner apartment of the house. As a new direction was given by this interruption, to the thoughts of the spectators of the foregoing scene, we shall also take the opportunity to digress, in order to lay before the reader some general facts that may be necessary to the connexion of the subsequent parts of ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... sight in your way, as if they were the natural oppressors of your sex; for, trust me, Belinda, they do sometimes spend their wages among wives and daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, and grandmothers; and the play is, really, not ALL Wolf and Red Riding-Hood, but has other parts in it." However, I digress. ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... from the Drama let me not digress, Nor spare my precepts, though they please you less. [xlii] Though Woman weep, and hardest hearts are stirred, [xliii] When what is done is rather seen than heard, Yet many deeds preserved in History's page Are better told than acted on the stage; The ear sustains ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... obvious quality of its realism has been pointed out already; the masterly use of the principles of suspense and stimulated interest will hardly pass unnoticed. A negative excellence is the absence of that discursiveness in composition, that tendency to digress into superfluous comment, which is this author's one prevailing fault. De Quincey was gifted with a fine appreciation of harmonious sound, and in those passages where his spirit soars highest not the least of ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... But I digress as my mind goes back to these early dates, and unless I break away, Charley and I will not reach Newmarket in time for the first race. It happened that when we made this memorable visit I had an uncle living at The Priory at Royston, which was some five-and-twenty miles ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... I am never weary of reading of these good, heroic, virtuous old times in Italy, and that I am here tempted to digress into declamation about them. There is no study more curious and interesting, and I am fond of tracing the two elements of character visible in Italian society, and every individual Italian, as they flow down from the remotest times to these: the ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... Districts. By strict abstention from beef, the adoption of Hindu rites, and to some extent of child-marriage, they get admission to the third group of castes from whom a Brahman cannot take water. It will be desirable here to digress from the main argument by noticing briefly the origin and affinities of the principal forest tribes of the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... doubting of this point, to Plato's Phaedon. Or if they desire philosophical proofs and demonstrations, I refer them to Niphus, Nic. Faventinus' tracts of this subject. To Fran. and John Picus in digress: sup. 3. de Anima, Tholosanus, Eugubinus, To. Soto, Canas, Thomas, Peresius, Dandinus, Colerus, to that elaborate tract in Zanchius, to Tolet's Sixty Reasons, and Lessius' Twenty-two Arguments, to prove the immortality of the soul. Campanella, lib. de sensu rerum, is large ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... to digress here just a little bit by quoting one thing that Mr. Best said. I wish, by the way, that we could incorporate some of his homey philosophy into some of our minutes so as to really benefit by some of his remarks. I was ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... digress from yourself else: for, believe it, your travel is your only thing that rectifies, or, as the Italian says, "vi rendi pronto all' attioni," makes you ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... way, I digress a little to inform you how I got my segars on shore. When we first went ashore I filled my pockets and hat as full as I could and left the rest in the top of my trunk intending to come and get them immediately. I came back and took another pocket load and left ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... says I, drawing breath, "if I sometimes digress, and turn down a Scripture path in search of scientific truth or illustration. I was saying that a woman in New York State is to all intents and purposes master of herself—herself and husband too. If she has money when a poor fellow ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... digress for a moment, especially as there are more of them in this state than there are Mormons, though you never can tell what will happen with this vain generation of young girls, that think more about wearing silk stockings than about minding their ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... in an exactly intermediate condition. So that we here have two bodies of sterile workers in the same nest, differing not only in size, but in their organs of vision, yet connected by some few members in an intermediate condition. I may digress by adding, that if the smaller workers had been the most useful to the community, and those males and females had been continually selected, which produced more and more of the smaller workers, until all the workers had come to be in this condition; we should then have had a species ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... Knowing the nature of his married life, I thought the dash and loyalty he showed delightful. 'Do not be afraid,' says he: 'if I am killed there is nobody to miss me.' It appears you subsequently thought of that yourself. But I digress. I explained to him it was impossible that I could fight! 'Not if I strike you?' says he. Very droll; I wish I could have put it in my book. However, I was conquered, took the young gentleman to my high favour, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
