"Digression" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... This digression giving Mr. Jorrocks a moment or two to recollect himself, he pretended to get into a thundering passion, and seizing the card out of the Yorkshireman's hand, he thrust it into the fire, swearing it was an application for admission into the Deaf and Dumb ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... 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
... a digression. As I was saying, I left Stonebridge House a good deal wilder, and more rackety, and more sophisticated, than I had entered it two years before. However, I left it also with considerably more knowledge of addition, ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... 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
... 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 if all were said that ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... a digression here that I stammered out a partial concurrence, and asked for some account of his ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... 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
... 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, ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... 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
... This digression will explain, not only the long feud as to precedence which the guild of drapers maintained for two centuries against the guild of furriers and also of mercers (each claiming the right to walk first, as being the most important ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... 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
... digression to our attendance of the Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia: one interesting part of the business was the annual report on education; from which it appeared, that the whole number of children, of an age for education, within the compass of this Yearly Meeting, was eighteen hundred and fourteen, and ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... 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
... This digression puts me in mind of another, and that is to warn the amateur not to "know too much," and think he has nothing to learn directly he can set up a bird or mammal, or anything else, in a fairly respectable ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... 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
... digression to the trivial value of recitations, so styled, {62b} and gives his suggestions about the copy being made up from the Reliques. When Scott's copy of 1806 agrees with the English version, Colonel Elliot ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... 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
... this digression. One great advantage of the councils would be that those who represent the workmen upon them will probably be men who are actually engaged in manual work in the trades concerned, or have been so engaged, ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... 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
... digression—the value of study lies in study. The reward of thinking is the ability to think—whether one comes to right conclusions or wrong matters little, says John Stuart Mill ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... 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
... this digression in order that the reader may not be at a loss to reconcile the apparent frivolity of Field's life and the mass of his writings at this period with the winnowed product as it appeared in the two volumes just mentioned. Out of the comedy of his nature came the sweetness ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... 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
... This digression was required through a grave and recent error. The memory of Bailly will not suffer by it, since it has afforded me the opportunity of establishing, beyond any reply, that in our fellow academician a noble firmness was on occasions allied to urbanity, mildness, and politeness. But what will ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... This, however, is a digression for which we beg the reader's pardon; but we could not let the occasion pass without rendering this honest tribute to the public spirited farmer, who had the discernment to perceive its merits, and the liberality to aid its introduction, of one of the most ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • 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
... 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
... 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
... digression to that which gave me the occasion of making it: And I believe you are now convinced, that if the Parliament of Ireland were as temptable as any other assembly within a mile of Christendom (which God forbid) yet the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... digression from orthodoxy, we cannot forget that consecration and purity of heart revealed in some of his sermons, and especially in the glowing pages of the Mission of the Comforter. His ministerial life was an example of untiring devotion, ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... 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
... 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 ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... 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
... 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 tragedians were held to ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... 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
... return 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 Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... this 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 had no foothold east of Saco, so that Portland ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... 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
... 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 ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... 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
... digression on the conditions and circumstances of our life at Borth, we have somewhat anticipated the narrative of events. But it was a plan agreeable to the facts of the case, that narrative should pass into description at the point where the stream of our little history, after descending ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... 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
... is a 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 he proceeded— ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... 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
... digression be allowable I might say that in the preparation of this work I have observed few of the restrictive rules of literary sequence and have not infrequently gone beyond the prescribed limits of conventional diction. To these ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head |
