"Digression" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... But this digression of thought was but superficial, and the sense that something serious underlaid it remained always latent. The professor leaned back in his chair, and sighed again heavily. It was true that he was growing old, and now that he contemplated action, he felt that in the last nine ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... the street, flooded the cellars of the village, and hissed upon our kitchen hearth. I give the history of the great whale that was landed on Whale Beach, and whose jaws, being now my gateway, will last for ages after my coffin shall have passed beneath them. Thence it is an easy digression to the halibut, scarcely smaller than the whale, which ran out six cod-lines, and hauled my dory to the mouth of Boston Harbor, before I could touch him ...
— The Village Uncle (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... digression of the last chapter I was recalled by the sight of the two letters which lay during my reverie unopened before me. I first broke the seal of Lady ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... that God loves either in man or woman. She hated sycophants and dissemblers. I hate them; and more than ever at this moment on her behalf. I wish she were but here—to give a punch on the head to that fellow who traduces her. And, coming round again to the occasion from which this short digression has started, viz., the question raised by the Frenchman—whether Kate were a person likely to pray under other circumstances than those of extreme danger? I offer it as my opinion that she was. Violent people are not always such from choice, but ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... profound belief that 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 ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... 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
... digression may be pardoned, occasion serves to say that if our writers of plays had the same chance that our writers of novels have, we might now have a school of American dramatists of which we should be as proud as of our school of American novelists. In dramatic composition, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... 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
... digression, shewing the diuersitie of writers in opinion, touching the computation of yeares from the beginning of the British kings of this Iland downewards; since Gurguintus time, till the death of Elidurus; and likewise till King Lud reigned in his roialtie, with the names ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (3 of 8) • Raphael Holinshed
... 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
... digression; it is clear that if the British forces had routed John Allan and his Indians out of Machias in 1779, as they might easily have done if a serious effort had been made, the American congress would then have ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... 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
... digression. The child, I was saying, wears about two hundred worth of visible clothing upon it; and I believe that if you were to take it up by its ten-dollar slipper and hold it upside down, you would see about fifty ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... 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
... digression. I had set out to say something of a day's experience of the French front, though I shall write with a fuller pen when I return from the Argonne. It was for Soissons that we made, passing on the way a part of the scene of our own early operations, including the battlefield of Villers Cotteret—just ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... digression, embracing facts and views which seemed essential to an intelligent discussion of the main subject, we pass on to examine the Appalachian outlet by which the great Western empire of America may find ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... 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
... This digression brings us a little nearer to Banawe; we leave the terraced hills behind us, after noting how free of all plants the retaining-walls are kept, the sole exception here and there being the dongola, with its ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... digression to Darwinism in its purest form, to Darwin himself, we have in the first place to resume the discussion entered upon as to the way and manner in which, according to Darwin, self-determination is originated. ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... 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 |
