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More "Digression" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nothing of her 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 ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... There was a digression for a moment or two while they waited for their drinks and imbibed them. And then Fred, with the air of one who utters a profound truth, and answers questions both spoken and unspoken, observed as he ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... yet discovered comes to this: that what is right in another man is right in a clergyman; and what is wrong in another man is much worse in a clergyman. Here, however, is one more proof of approaching age. I do not mean the opinion, but the digression. ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... day, that, by a similar method, even quicksilver may be frozen. —But we cannot at present indulge in any further digression. ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... 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
... would be talked of, though for doing mischief), I am confident the King had obtained that which, in reason, and at his first occasion, he ought to have received freely, and without condition. But pardon this digression, which is here remembered, not in the way of aggravation, but in true zeal of the public good, and presented IN CAVEAT of future times: for I am not ignorant how the genius and spirit of the kingdom now moves to ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... "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
... side roads that are supposed to relieve the tedium of life. But none had sufficed. The reason was that he knew what was to be found at the end of every street. He knew from experience and logic almost precisely to what end each digression from routine must lead. He found a depressing monotony in all the variations that the music of his sphere had grafted upon the tune of life. He had not learned that, although the world was made round, the circle has been squared, and that it's true interest is to ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... you why, even at the price of digression. Long ago, when Billy Louise was twelve or so, and lived largely in a dream world of her own with Minervy for her "pretend" playmate, she had one day chanced upon a paragraph in a paper that had come from town wrapped around a package ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... 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 ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... highly enough to analyze 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 ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... digression. To return to my story. The maliks of Logar, greatly to my relief, agreed to bring a certain amount of supplies; while Wali Mahomed Khan and the other Sirdars were full of protestations of loyalty ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... little account had mounted up to a very tidy sum, and the thrifty widow—or old maid—no one ever knew which she was—was generally referred to by the young artists of the Rubens Studios as a 'lady of means.' But this is a digression. ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... 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 mind of the government at its centre, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... 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 the plan for procuring ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... respective religions," he heard Celia say, as imperturbably as if there had been no digression ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... lord, 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 ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... But this is 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, ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... devotes a long 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 surmises that a modern person, familiar with the English, has written the coincident ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... formation of her mind. This was Samuel Crisp, an old friend of 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 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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 ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... for this digression, and returning to recollections of my own life, I may say that a longing had now come over me for a quiet term of life, and I accordingly settled down at home. Work was once more found for me at Messrs ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... whose pretensions 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 architecture, but on ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... And so all this digression has arisen from a laugh of the Curate's, to whom it is time to turn; or you will think we have been but bad company to each other. I will, however, end this passage with the remark, that a man may do a worse thing than laugh, and happy is he that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... 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 so many ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... return from this digression to the consideration of the bill. Whatever difference of opinion may exist upon other points, there is one on which I should suppose there can be none; that this bill rests upon principles which, if carried out, will ride over State sovereignties, and that ...
— Remarks of Mr. Calhoun of South Carolina on the bill to prevent the interference of certain federal officers in elections: delivered in the Senate of the United States February 22, 1839 • John C. Calhoun
... connected with the Wilderness campaign of which it may not be out of place to speak; and to avoid a digression further on I will ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... spent most of his time away from his farm in the mountains, no doubt prospecting for Le Fenu's mine. Whether he ever found it or not will never be known. Please to bear in mind the fact that for a couple of centuries at least Le Fenu's mysterious property was known as the Four Finger Mine. With this digression, I will go on to speak further of Van Fort's movements. To make a long story short, from his last journey to the mountains he never returned. His widow searched for him everywhere; I have seen her—a big sullen woman, with a cruel mouth and a heavy eye. From what ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... great speakers say, this is a digression. Do you know what that is? It is leaving off what you are about, to dance off to something else—just as I did up there about hope. Now ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... at the point at which this digression left it: On the day following the night tour of picket duty, after having ridden from one o'clock in the morning till after eight o'clock in the evening, and the march not yet ended, I became so famished ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... my readers something. Power is now an old acquaintance; to Sparks I have already presented them; of the adjutant they are not entirely ignorant; and it therefore only remains for me to introduce to their notice Major Monsoon. I should have some scruple for the digression which this occasions in my narrative, were it not that with the worthy major I was destined to meet subsequently; and indeed served under his orders for some months in the Peninsula. When Major Monsoon had entered the army or in what precise capacity, I never yet ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... 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
... fearing that any other expression of my wishes would lead to further digression. His lordship then, putting on his spectacles, and reading from a paper, commenced thus, I, all ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... long-winded digression is not to excite sympathy on behalf of Logotheti, but to forestall surprise at some of the things he did when he had convinced himself that of all the women he had ever met, Margaret Donne was the one that ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... to be somewhat irritated at this digression. "He was an uncommon drunk sort o' man," he said. "He'd ha' found hisself in the station if we hadn't been ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... When alabaster, or any other hard material, was 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
... home {p.017} to my uncle's (then my abode), musing what there could be in the spirit of authorship that could inspire its votaries with the courage of martyrs. He died within less than the period he assigned—with which event I close my digression. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... 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 paternal ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... pardon this digression. It would have been morally impossible for me to write a work on bees, without saying at least as much as ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... 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 ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... This digression may, perhaps, appear long, but we could not dispense with it for the honor of the religious and of the preceding ages; and, besides, it is connected with the life of St. Francis, who certainly approved of the Crusades, although, ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... moan and groan, he interrupted him, dragged him to a neighboring tavern, ordered coffee and began to put plain questions, without permitting the other the slightest digression: ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... Wainwright is 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
... from this long digression. When Sister Bourgeois arrived at Ville-Marie in 1672, she realized the full responsibility of governing and providing for so many young aspirants to religion, and began to think seriously of giving some regular form to the ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... 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
... duty of patriotic concord in defence of the safety and honour of their common country. His expostulations against the oppression and cruelty of the bishops, and his allusions to the martyrs who had suffered in the cause of truth, are full of interest; and his digression, in particular, upon the character and martyrdom of Patrick Hamilton, is a noble burst of eloquence and pathos. When he exhorts to national union he means union in the truth—union in the one great work of purifying religion and ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... reader will excuse this digression, due by way of condolence to my worthy brethren of Grub Street, for the approaching barbarity that is likely to overspread all its regions by this oppressive and exorbitant tax. It has been my good fortune to receive my education ...
— English Satires • Various
... 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
... into this trifling digression by speaking of the houses now built in that suburb of Birmingham inhabited by the wealthier classes. These residents are, as I have said, better educated than their fathers, and they have different notions ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... feminists won't have anything to do with you because you're so reactionary. We're both out of it. Fifty years ago; either of us could have been a real prophet, for the price of a hall and cleaning the rotten eggs off our clothes. Now we're too timid for any use. But this is a digression." ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... principal objects in writing this work are to amuse myself and to instruct society. In some future hook, probably the twentieth or twenty-fifth, when the plot logins to wear threadbare, and we can afford a digression. I may give ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... Emperor, while the Italians 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 ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... From the 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 Callonby's epistle, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... always struck me as the harshest, queerest, and most preposterous digression in the world. But there are several things in Pindar very like it. [Orelli makes an observation, much to the same effect, in his note on this passage in his ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... this little physical digression, with which I could not dispense, in order to make you understand the manner in which angels, who are purely spiritual substances, can be perceived ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... when he said that squaring the circle was too easy. He was right. It would have given you your Liebchen in five minutes. I squared the circle before I discarded pantalets. I will show you the work—but it would be a digression, and you are in no mood for digressions. Our first chance, therefore, lies in perpetual motion. Now, my good friend, I will frankly tell you that, although I have compassed this interesting problem, I do not choose to use it in your behalf. I too, Herr Tom, have a heart. The loveliest ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... that before I fell into this extensive digression about Lady Harman's upbringing, we had got to the entry of Mrs. Sawbridge into the house bearing a plunder of Sir Isaac's best roses. She interrupted a conversation of some importance. Those roses at this point are still unwithered ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... shall not only rise in the eyes of my contemporaries, but in the opinion of posterity. Every step I am advancing undermines your throne. In retreating a little, if I do not strengthen, I can never injure it." But I beg your pardon for this digression, and for putting the language of dignified reason into the mouth of a man as corrupt ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... experience; 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
... in this poems are mild, like the season they paint; but towards the end of it, the poet takes occasion to warn his countrymen against indulging the wild and irregular passion of love. This digression is one of the most affecting in the whole piece, and while he paints the language of a lover's breast agitated with the pangs of strong desire, and jealous transports, he at the same time dissuades the ladies from being too credulous in the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... 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 perhaps from situation. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... obtainable by man than comes of music, because it does give direct expression to the moods of the soul, yet there is a hitch that balks her of full triumph, namely the musical form in which these moods are expressed does not stay fixed. This statement is enriched by a digression upon the meaning ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... it, may be divided into three divisions: the first and last relate the adventures of Encolpius and his companions, the second, which is a digression, describes the Dinner of Trimalchio. That the work was originally divided into books, we had long known from ancient glossaries, and we learn, from the title of the Traguriensian manuscript, that the fragments therein contained ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... 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
... talked of what we had done, and each said how 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 tried ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... could, and perhaps may, at some future period, write volumes on this subject, we return for the present from a digression into which we have been insensibly led by the temporary excitement of ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... and a few spicy editorials serve 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... often sterilises the efforts of the teacher. Not that the efforts of the teacher would in any case be productive so long as the attitude of popular thought towards the Bible remained unchanged. To go into this burning question would involve me in an unjustifiable digression; but I must be allowed to express my conviction that the teaching of the Bible in our elementary schools will never be anything but misguided and mischievous until those who are responsible for it have realised that the Old Testament is the inspired ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... into Italy. Pompey, on the other side, judging it easier to destroy his forces in battle, than to seize his person in flight, resolved not to tire himself out in a vain pursuit, but rather to spend his leisure upon another enemy, as a sort of digression in the meanwhile. But fortune resolved the doubt; for when he was now not far from Petra, and had pitched his tents and encamped for that day, as he was talking exercise with his horse outside the camp, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... nature and its reflex in art will not call these remarks a digression; at least, not ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... transported from the interior, where much of the land is cultivated. I have obtained much more information in relation to this people, in a variety of ways, from individuals as well as from the published accounts, which are to be found at times in the Eastern prints; but as this digression has already extended to a great length, I trust that enough has been said to enable the reader to contrast it with the natives who inhabit the islands that dot the vast Pacific Ocean, and to make him look ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... said 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
... this (you say) is a digression. Why, true; and a digression is often the cream of an article. However, as you dislike it, let us regress as fast as possible, and scuttle back from the occult art of boiling potatoes to the much more familiar one of painting in oil. Did ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... few moments of silence, he said, "Do my generals go to court? they must cut a sad figure there." I waited for the end of this digression, in order to resume the thread of my discourse. As I was convinced that I could not possibly lead the conversation, I resolved to let the Emperor have it according to his own way, and I answered, "Yes, Sire, and they are furious to see themselves superseded in favour by emigrants who ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... fault which will be found with "The Mill on the Floss," and probably the only one, is, that the action moves too slowly and tamely in the first three or four books, and that the author shows an undue inclination to reflection and metaphysical digression. This will, indeed, be a great objection to the superficial reader, who will impatiently regret that the tedious growth of a miller's boy and girl should usurp so many pages which might better have been ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... from Hell or Boston." On this point, however, the world continues to differ from you and M. Baudelaire, and perhaps there is only the choice between our optimism and universal suicide or universal opium-eating. But to discuss your ultimate ideas is perhaps a profitless digression from the ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... When, after dancing out your breath, You pass the night in dissipating:— But that familiar harp with soul To play,—with grace and bold expression, And towards a self-erected goal To walk with many a sweet digression,— This, aged Sirs, belongs to you, And we no less revere you for that reason: Age childish makes, they say, but 'tis not true; We're only genuine ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... that, long as the Work is, there is not one Digression, not one Episode, not one Reflection, but what arises naturally from the Subject, and makes for it, and to ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson
... 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 - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... 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 ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... the page and commencing to read the description of sky, and moon, and clouds, which greet him outside the chapel. It is as a vision of the vision-bearing world itself, in one of its fine, though not, at first, one of its rarest moods. And here a short digression to notice like feelings in unlike dresses, one thought differently expressed will, perhaps, be pardoned. The moon is prevented from shining out by the "blocks" of cloud ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... 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 ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... is a digression: I must return to the Elizabethan garden, which I have hitherto only described as a great square, surrounded by wide, covered, shady walks, and with other similar walks dividing the central square into four or more compartments. But all this was introductory to the ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... is not under the same limitations of time, nor has he to contend against the same mental impatience on the part of his public. He may therefore linger where the dramatist must hurry; he may digress, and gain fresh impetus from the digression, where the dramatist would seriously endanger the effect of his scene by retarding its evolution. The novelist with a prudent prodigality may employ descriptions, dialogues, and episodes, which would be fatal in a drama. Characters may be introduced and dismissed without having any important ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... revolutionize it would be dangerous. Yet the interest that has been aroused at various times by discussions of the Brook Farm project, shows how strong the undercurrent is setting against the present order of things; and this is my chief excuse for making such a long digression on ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... good end, Entirely from our reach of thought cut off? So are the' Italian cities all o'erthrong'd With tyrants, and a great Marcellus made Of every petty factious villager. My Florence! thou mayst well remain unmov'd At this digression, which affects not thee: Thanks to thy people, who so wisely speed. Many have justice in their heart, that long Waiteth for counsel to direct the bow, Or ere it dart unto its aim: but shine Have it on their lip's edge. Many refuse To bear the common burdens: readier thine Answer ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... into his friend's ear, he pointed out the symptoms by which one could find out if a woman had passion. He even launched into an ethnographic digression: the German was vapourish, the French woman ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... but also in Numbers xi; and the rocky spring called forth by Moses at Massah and Meribah is both in Exodus xvii. and Numbers xx. In other words, the Israelites arrived at Kadesh, the original object of their wanderings, not after the digression to Sinai but immediately after the Exodus, and they spent there the forty years of their residence in the wilderness. Kadesh is also the original scene of the legislation. "There He made them statute ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... preliminary digression to the examinations. These examinations are of the most practical character and serve to develop the mental abilities and intelligent understanding of the clerks. To clearly understand the method, the clerk should be followed step by step from the time of his probationary appointment ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... 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 vitality? I don't know why I drank. I cannot ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hallucination; and can forgive every thing but the plain, downright, simple honest truth—such as we see it chalked out in the character of Emilius.—To return from this digression, which is a little ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... which I have often alluded in this volume, necessitate a short digression, because they and subsequent Returns of the same sort form the only official data upon which to estimate the present financial position ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... 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 of Austria, King of Bohemia and of Hungary, ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... love for God, and for God as his helper. Was that perfectly pure? However, this is a digression. I determined to help myself in my own way, and thought I would try the publishers. One morning I walked from Camden Town to Paternoster Row. I went straightway into two or three shops and asked whether they wanted anybody. I was ready to do the ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... 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 as ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... his life to become elucidated in the further progress of our story, we will here put an end to our long but important digression and return again to the unravelling of its main thread, by transporting the attention of our readers once more to the ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... would also advise you to read your Bibles and other good books, and never again to read or write another novel. And, dear ladies, if you have hitherto worn either bloomers or breeches, lay them aside. I must return from this digression to the ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... at last took her from me, and I lost the mainstay of my existence. Forgive this digression, but I am writing long after these events, and sorrows will have their ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... entered had to proceed nearly thirty yards betwixt the first and second wall, exposed, if their purpose were hostile, to missiles from both; and again, when the second boundary was passed, they must make a similar digression from the straight line, in order to attain the portal of the third and innermost enclosure; so that before gaining the outer court, which ran along the front of the building, two narrow and dangerous defiles were to ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... Isabel. She had no more decided disorder than the countess had had, yet death had marked her. She felt that it had, and in its approach she dreaded not, as she once had done, the consequences that must ensue, did discovery come. Which brings us back to the point whence ensued this long digression. I dare say you are chafing at it, but it is not often I ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... not wish to anticipate here any description of the terrors which threaten husbands from the symptoms of unhappiness which they read in the character of their wives. This digression has already taken us too far from the subject of boarding schools, in which so many catastrophes are hatched, and from which issue so many young girls incapable of appreciating the painful sacrifices by which ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... 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
... "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 ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... a digression, but, it came from contemplating the singular beauty of one woman's soul, among the tarnished multitude of victims to that social levity and those superficial virtues that society honors, and with which our modern fashionable women persuade ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... stories in company, unless they are very short indeed, and very applicable to the subject you are upon; in this case relate them in as few words as possible, without the least digression, and with some apology; as, that you hate the telling of stories, but the shortness of it induced you. And if your story has any wit in it, be particularly careful not to laugh at it yourself. Nothing is more tiresome and ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... from this digression. Lord A—, the defendant in that cause, was so conscious of the strength and merits of his injured nephew's case, and that a verdict would go against him, that he ordered a writ of error to be made out before the trial was ended; and the verdict ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... beginning to moan and groan, he interrupted him, dragged him to a neighboring tavern, ordered coffee and began to put plain questions, without permitting the other the slightest digression: ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... with the chilling impartiality of an historian. Pray read her accounts of the death of Turenne, and of the arrival of King James in France, and tell me whether you do not know their persons as if you had lived at the, time, For my part, if you will allow me a word of digression, (not that I have written with any method,) I hate the cold impartiality recommended to historians: "Si Vis me flere, dolendum est prim'um ipsi tibi:" but, that I may not wander again, nor tire, nor contradict you any more, I will finish now, and shall be glad if you will dine at Strawberry ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... "Caligari" which he and I have seen together and discussed during these past few days. Pattern in this connection would imply an emphasis on the intrinsic suggestion of the spot and shape apart from their immediate relation to the appearance of natural objects. But this is a digression. It simply serves to show the breadth and adaptability ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... the Educational Question first appeared as a series of articles in the Witness newspaper. They present, in consequence, a certain amount of digression, and occasional re-statement and explanation, which, had they been published simultaneously, as parts of a whole, they would not have exhibited. The controversy was vital and active at every stage of their appearance. Statements made and principles laid down ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... time, my lord, 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 ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... of digression upon the future of Islam may not be out of place here. The idea of a militant Christendom has vanished from the world. The last pretensions of Christian propaganda have been buried in the Balkan trenches. A unification of Africa under Latin auspices carries ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... personal confidence, the halting-point for conversation between these two. Both knew it and neither crossed the line. They merely waited until a digression should come naturally. Roberts it was who at last introduced it, and in a manner so matter of fact that the ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... a book about Greenwich Village and not a defence of Thomas Paine. Yet, since the reader has come with me thus far, I am going to take advantage of his courteous attention for just another moment of digression. Here is my promise: that it shall take up a ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... to 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 as biographer ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... This may appear a digression; though I cannot look at my grandmother's sampler without thinking that she had much to do with originating the Naesmyth love of the Fine Arts, and their hereditary adroitness in the practice of landscape and portrait painting, and other branches ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... fill volunteer 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 called for. There were so many of ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... discernment is in perfect order. The advantage of this is that he is enabled to make use of Don Quixote as a mouthpiece for his own reflections, and so, without seeming to digress, allow himself the relief of digression when he requires it, as freely as in ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... into the abyss and fluttered downward to the water nearly two miles below. He was about to make a second effort, when Peters stopped him, and then a pretty, though a really terrible thing happened—to relate which was the real purpose of this digression from my story proper. ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... be expected, it would not perhaps be endured, that I should swell this theological digression, by a minute examination of the eighteen creeds, the authors of which, for the most part, disclaimed the odious name of their parent Arius. It is amusing enough to delineate the form, and to trace the vegetation, of a singular plant; but the tedious detail of leaves without flowers, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... is a very long Digression, and for which I am to beg my Reader's Pardon, being an Error I slipt into from my abundant respect to these Gentlemen, and for their particular Instruction, I shall endeavour to make my Reader amends, by keeping more close to ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... institution. Its object 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, should generally appear to be in favour of ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... Consequent phrase is a complete affirmation of its Antecedent, agreeing in its melodic form with the latter until the cadence is nearly due, when an extra measure is inserted (as extension), and the usual digression into the necessary perfect cadence is made. The condition of Unity predominates, but a noticeable ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... domination and tyranny, and added that he could find a way to extricate himself from such an intolerable exigency. Napoleon reproached Murat of his more and more marked inclination to disobey, of his digression in language and conduct, and of his suspicious actions. He looked at him with a severe mien, spoke harsh words, and treated him altogether with severity. But then, suddenly changing his tone, he spoke to him in a language of friendship, of wounded ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... not obliged, in this place, to prove that God has forbidden the use of wine, though led into this digression from the desire to correct a general misapprehension of the Scriptures on this subject; for the inquiry now relates to ardent spirits. And what shall we say concerning the permission, above pointed out, for the Jews to use strong drink? I say, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... 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
... very fond of this exercise in "color memory"; it makes a lively digression for them, as they run with the image of a color in their minds and look for its corresponding reality in their surroundings. It is a real triumph for them to identify the idea with the corresponding reality and to hold in their hands the proof ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... that you will pardon me for this somewhat academic digression, but I felt it was necessary, and it has, at least, put me more at ease. And ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... time to return from this digression. Matters being now in a good train at Cape Palmas, we go to use our pacific ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... appearances, to live in a state of hallucination; and can forgive every thing but the plain, downright, simple honest truth—such as we see it chalked out in the character of Emilius.—To return from this digression, which is a ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... We are almost tempted 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
... physical digression, with which I could not dispense, in order to make you understand the manner in which angels, who are purely spiritual substances, can be perceived by ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... road to VIRE, twenty-three miles distant, it is tempting to make a digression to the town of Domfront (which the reader will see on the map, a few miles to the south-east); we should do so, to see its picturesque position, with the ancient castle on the heights, and the town, as at Falaise, growing round its feet; also an old church at the foot of ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... 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 ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... transformation of the king into a god—or of the Magician or Priest directly into the same? Perhaps in order to appreciate this, one must make a further digression. ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... little more than the average length of the Elizabethan minor epic. In the process, Mirrha is assigned lustful dreams not found in Ovid (p. 246), and is impelled to write a long letter to her father (pp. 247-250). Shortly thereafter, the author introduces an emphatically Christian digression on the horror of Mirrha's "fowle incestious lust" and on the importance of reading "Gods holy Bible" as a salve for sin (p. 253), and invents the Nurse's prolix arguments against such "filthy" ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... of her 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 ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... from this preliminary digression to the examinations. These examinations are of the most practical character and serve to develop the mental abilities and intelligent understanding of the clerks. To clearly understand the method, the clerk should be followed ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... are others who, without speaking, wish to be understood and served; and there 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 ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... great, wonderful, and ancient erection, is gone. The problem has been worked out—the ground is mined—the train is laid—a foreign force, in its nature transitory, alone stays the hand of those who would complete the process by applying the match. This seems, rather than is, a digression. When that event comes, it will bring about a great shifting of parts—much super-and much subter-position. God grant it may be for good. I desire it, because I see plainly that justice requires it. Not out of malice to the popedom; ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... water it extended. The boys soon tired of sitting idle in the boat and, as they had been forbidden to land on the treacherous ice of the reef, cast about for something to do. The professor soon provided a digression. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... applying his knowledge to the defence of a mother, a sister, or a wife, as well as "self." If it be objectionable to use the gloves because they represent the fist, then is it equally objectionable to use the foil because it represents the sword? But, pray, forgive this digression. Ten to one, in your case, reader, it is unnecessary, because sensible people are more numerous than foolish! Howbeit, whether right or wrong, Will Osten had, as we have said, acquired the by no means unimportant knowledge ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... Now a digression in narrative is ofttimes a dangerous parting of ways. But on this particular day Bobbie Burke had come to a parting of the ways unwittingly. He had left the plodding life of routine excitement of the ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... an enquiry into the nature of knowledge, which is interrupted by two digressions. The first is the digression about the midwives, which is also a leading thought or continuous image, like the wave in the Republic, appearing and reappearing at intervals. Again and again we are reminded that the successive conceptions of knowledge are extracted from Theaetetus, who in his ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... were 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
... 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 a digression from the topic of hallucinations caused by gazing into a clear depth. Forms of crystal-gazing, it is well known, are found among savages. The New Zealanders, according to Taylor, gaze in a drop of blood, as the Egyptians do in a drop of ink. In ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... with the most meagre knowledge of the proper way in which to meet accidents of all sorts, for where they are not taught during their school days they, for the most part, remain ignorant of matters of this kind throughout their maturer years. It is much to be hoped—though this is somewhat of a digression—that the old unscientific and senseless system of teaching, which persists even in the present time to a considerable degree, may in the future give way to a more rational and practical plan of instruction—one that will deal ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... lives, their chief 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, and sing, or rather chant, ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... had the chief share in the formation of her mind. This was Samuel Crisp, an old friend of 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
... this state of things which made possible the curious interlude of the "Know-Nothing" movement, which cannot be ignored, though it is a kind of digression from the main line of historical development. The United States had originally been formed by the union of certain seceding British colonies, but already, as a sort of neutral ground in the New World, their territory ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... backward several years in order to recount the past life of the newcomer. Frequently, before this parenthetic recital is completed, the reader has forgotten the scene from which the author turned to the digression. ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... lies all day in cool caves, emerging only at 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 sweet, but to my taste extremely ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... "This digression had only one point, sir: to show you that I do not count you among these unworthy scholars. You are really eager to know the origin of this name, Antinea, and that before knowing what kind of woman it belongs to and her motives for holding you and ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... undeniable fact, and one constantly evinced in their lavish support of artists, from the highest to the lowest grade. Among the musical aspirants to popular favor, none has of late enjoyed so large a share of notice and admiration as Mr. Gottschalk; and to return from our recent digression, we will proceed to the consideration of his compositions. Fragmentary and suggestive as are his ideas, there is infinite method and system in their treatment. Avoiding thus far what is termed 'sustained effort,' and which frequently implies ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the story at the point at which this digression left it: On the day following the night tour of picket duty, after having ridden from one o'clock in the morning till after eight o'clock in the evening, and the march not yet ended, I became so ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... 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
... 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. ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... gentleman, the Secretary of the Board of Control, had been in accordance with his precepts, if he had not, after exhorting us to confine ourselves strictly to the subject before us, rambled far from that subject, I should have refrained from all digression. For and truth there is abundance to be said touching both the substance and the style of this Proclamation. I cannot, however, leave the honourable gentleman's peroration entirely unnoticed. But I assure him that I do not mean to wander from the question before us to any great ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... private, he assists her; perhaps all this is not done without a reason. On the other hand, he commits a blunder by urging you to marry some young lady! Perhaps he knows that you took the place of his son, without knowing that you are a girl. But this digression might gradually carry us too far; let us return to that secret which I am ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... judged necessary to detail these transactions in a manner which may, to some readers, appear an impertinent digression from the narrative in which this history is at present engaged, in order to set in a clearer light some points of the greatest importance. In the first place, from the summary review of the affairs of Scotland, and from the complacency with which James looks back ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... for so personal a digression is that, when this period of literary and journalistic stress began, my rural notebooks and MSS., memoranda of conversations on social problems and a heterogeneous collection of reports and documents had to ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... transpositions are very frequent, and often very mischievous;(513)) as resulting from the boundless license which every fresh copyist seems to have allowed himself chiefly in abridging his author.—To skip a few lines: to omit an explanatory paragraph, quotation, or digression: to pass per saltum from the beginning to the end of a passage: sometimes to leave out a whole page: to transpose: to paraphrase: to begin or to end with quite a different form of words;—proves to have been the rule. Two copyists engaged on the same portion of Commentary are observed ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... at its height, knew little, but which, so recently as a couple of months prior to the date of writing, threatened to spell extermination to the foreigners in North-East Yuen-nan. And the reader, too, may welcome a digression ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... Herbert's Poems, The Notebooks of Samuel Butler, and Leaves of Grass. He took down The Anatomy of Melancholy, that most delightful of all books for midnight browsing. Turning to one of his favourite passages—"A Consolatory Digression, Containing the Remedies of All Manner of Discontents"—he was happily lost to all ticking of the clock, retaining only such bodily consciousness as was needful to dump, fill, and relight his pipe from time to time. Solitude is a dear jewel for men whose days are ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... young himself? Are his dreams and hopes for his own future an illusion? He agonises with the question in the famous digression on poetry and poetic fame. But he consoles himself by appeal to a Court where the success and the fame of this world are as straw in the furnace; and then, having duly performed the obsequies of his friend, with reinvigorated heart he turns ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... must beg your Pardon for this long Digression, upon a Subject which many will think does not deserve it: but if I have herein discover'd some of the greatest Beauties of our English Poets, it will be more excusable, at least for the respect that is intended to so noble an Art as theirs. But to suspect the worst, considering ...
— An Apology For The Study of Northern Antiquities • Elizabeth Elstob
... and Metternich near Coblentz, the former the birthplace, the latter the property, of Prince Metternich, lead M. Dumas into a little digression on the subject of the celebrated diplomatist. The family name, we are informed, was originally Metter, but received the addition of the last syllable in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... that is getting a bit heavy on the wing," answered Colville, with his wan and sympathetic smile. He sat forward in the chair in an attitude antipathetic to digression from the subject ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... end of the transept is a tomb built against the wall, with lions to guard it, and a statue of S. George high above. The tomb is that of Daniele Manin, and since we are here I cannot avoid an historical digression, for this man stands for the rise of the present Venice. When Lodovico Manin, the last Doge, came to the throne, in 1788, Venice was, of course, no longer the great power that she had been; but at any rate she was Venice, the capital of a republic with the grandest and noblest traditions. ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... After this digression we shall return to our study of the cause and development of acid diseases. Nearly every disease originating in the human body is due to or accompanied by the excessive formation of different kinds of acids in the system, the most important ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... passionate denunciation decreasing to gentle appeal, and dying away in tender pathos. This was education in the true sense of the word, and though I have wandered a long way from my immediate subject, I feel that the digression is not irrelevant in contrast with the mechanical instruction that goes by the name of education in the Board Schools. I cannot help recalling too that in the ancient IVth Form Room at Harrow, the roughest of old benches were, and I believe still ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... as I say, not in any way an eccentric or exorbitant character, the agent told it us a third time, with a digression here and there as to the deep friendships that members of his profession could form and cement if only they were decent fellows and not mere money-grubbing machines out for nothing but their commission. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... judging it easier to destroy his forces in battle, than to seize his person in flight, resolved not to tire himself out in a vain pursuit, but rather to spend his leisure upon another enemy, as a sort of digression in the meanwhile. But fortune resolved the doubt; for when he was now not far from Petra, and had pitched his tents and encamped for that day, as he was talking exercise with his horse outside the camp, couriers came riding up from Pontus, bringing good news, as was known at ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... sweeping torrent, nor eked out like the incessant patterings of a drizzling rain. Thus did not Paul. When he felt it his duty to reprove, he was careful to commend what was praiseworthy, and to throw in some expressions of kindness along with his censures. And here, though it be a digression, let me conjure you never to undertake the unthankful office of censor. You will find some inexperienced persons who will desire you, as an office of friendship, to tell them all their faults. Be sure, if you undertake this with ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... 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 ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... 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 benefit ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... But this is a digression. I was maintaining the goodness of Mrs. Lollipop—little Mrs. Lollipop! sweet little Mrs. Lollipop! I was going to say that she was far too good to be made the subject of whisperings and innuendoes. Her virtue is of such ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... above and linked his heart into a closer and fonder memory of sweeter hours. And these letters laden with love's tender offerings, with here and there some whisperings of loneliness, some unlooked-for digression embracing the gossip of the neighborhood, or some delicious speculation as to his ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... we possess it, may be divided into three divisions: the first and last relate the adventures of Encolpius and his companions, the second, which is a digression, describes the Dinner of Trimalchio. That the work was originally divided into books, we had long known from ancient glossaries, and we learn, from the title of the Traguriensian manuscript, that the fragments therein contained are excerpts ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... 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 ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... have hitherto said as necessary to my Undertaking; indulge me now, Sir, in a Digression that seems naturally enough to present it self, and may be better made here than afterwards; the Transition is easy, from the private, allow me to pass to the publick Life, of the Person I have been speaking: Here I might make a general Challenge and ...
— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous
... day: and yet not so entire, but that the large discourses thereof (to which in many Scriptures we are referred) are nowhere found. The fragments of other stories, with the actions of those kings and princes which shot up here and there in the same time, I am driven to relate by way of digression: of which we may say with Virgil: "Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto"; "They appear here and there floating in the great gulf ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... 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 when there were so many, by ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... The unexpected digression into contemporary satire made the whole cafe laugh. Gradually other atoms had drifted toward the new magnet. From the remotest corners eyes strayed and ears were pricked up. Pinchas was indeed a figure of mark, with somebody else's frock-coat on his meagre person, his hair flowing like ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... observation is in a great measure applicable to them. In cases in which a State might happen to be a party, it would ill suit its dignity to be turned over to an inferior tribunal. Though it may rather be a digression from the immediate subject of this paper, I shall take occasion to mention here a supposition which has excited some alarm upon very mistaken grounds. It has been suggested that an assignment of the public ...
— The Federalist Papers
... 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 ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... from poor Israelite parents, the chronicler makes a little digression, for the purpose of explaining, according to ancient accounts, who ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... I may well be allowed an unintended digression, as to whether Bunyan were really a Gipsy. In a previous chapter of this work, I, with little thought of Bunyan, narrated the fact that an intelligent tinker, and a full Gipsy, asked me last summer in ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... overwhelmed 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 ...
— The Village Uncle (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was, and I will no' deny it, At the first gliff a hantle tryit To see yoursel' in sic a station— It seemed a doubtfue' dispensation. The feelin' was a mere digression; For shuene I understood the session, An' mindin' Aiken an' M'Neil, I wondered they had duene sae weel. I saw I had mysel' to blame; For had I but remained at hame, Aiblins—though no ava' deservin' 't— They micht hae named ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... vice. Much may happen to the great love, but it is very real! A great love may merge into matrimony, and life may run on oiled wheels, and Darby and Joan may pass through the world, loving faithfully, and without digression, to the end. Or something may come between, and the great love may become the unattainable! It will not be ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... faddists and the self-seekers—the ignorant, the blatant bellowers of pitiful platitudes, the platform loafers who call themselves labor-leaders, but whom the real laborers repudiate. Mark my words, their doom is sealed; back to the desert and the ditch! My dear Holland, pardon this digression. I feel that I need say nothing more to you than I have already said. The surprise system of therapeutics is not suited to the existing ailments of the Church. Caution is what is needed if you would not defeat your ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... you, who can neither purchase nor peruse what is more voluminous (how worthy soever) the serious perusal, as of the whole of that savoury and grace-breathing peace, the fulfilling of the Scriptures; so therein that short but sweet digression, against black-mouthed Parker, wherein the gracious author takes out his own soul, and sets before thine eye, the image of God impressed thereon; for while he deals with that desperado by clear and ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... criticisms exhibit would be even more common than it unfortunately now is, if he were oftener equalled in conceit and arrogance. The pillorying of a humbug is so laudable an object that the reader will excuse the digression, which, moreover, may show what miserable instruments a poor biographer has sometimes to make use of. Another informant, unknown to fame, but apparently more trustworthy, furnishes us with an account of Soliva in Warsaw. The writer in question disapproves of the Italian master's drill-method ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... Lyons, both of them magnificent cities in Roman times, some very ancient books did linger, and here is room for a digression. Lyons had a Pentateuch in Latin which was a great rarity, for not only was it in uncials of the fifth century, but it was of the Old Latin version, that made from the Greek before St. Jerome made his version from the Hebrew, ...
— The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts - Helps for Students of History, No. 17. • M. R. James
... eclipse this last record. It is true that the same Nassau balloon, under his guidance, made many other most memorable voyages, some of which it will be necessary to dwell on. But, to preserve a better chronology, we must first, without further digression, approach an event which fills a dark page in our annals; and, in so doing, we have to transfer our attention from the balloon itself ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... to my tale 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
... Council of State he allows himself to run on, forgetting the business on hand; he starts off right and left with some digression or demonstration, some invective or other, for two or three hours at a stretch,[1214] insisting over and over again, bent on convincing or prevailing, and ending in demanding of the others if he is not right, "and, in this case, never failing ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... wholly unlike any movement of her smaller companions; up and down, slowly revolving on oblique planes, with rhythmical turns and sinkings—this continued for an hour, when I was called for lunch. And as if to punish me for this material digression and desertion, when I returned, in half an hour, the miracle ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... the health of English women, as coming from a woman, is of course doubly valuable; and it comes, too, as a mere digression in the article from which it is quoted, the subject of which is "Feminine Knowledge." It remains yet to be proved, it seems to us, that American women are, as a whole, suffering from more derangement of their peculiar functions than women of other countries. Do accurately compiled ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... an excursion to Waadi Mooza, or the Valley of Moses. He also visited Carrac; but the most important discovery of this gentleman relates to the site of the ancient Petraea, which was also visited by Burckhardt. Onr readers will recollect that this city has been particularly noticed in our digression on the early commerce of the Arabians, as the common centre for the caravans in all ages; and that we traced its ancient history as far down as there were any notices of it. Its ruins Mr. Bankes discovered in those of Waadi Mooza, a village in the ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... him, too, and I saw now that there would be a most-likely permanent digression. Too bad—I'd had a feeling that when he came to his point, it would have been a strong one. "Hungarian, do you suppose?" ...
— The Troubadour • Robert Augustine Ward Lowndes
... 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 perhaps ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... not 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 ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... 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 ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... pardon 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 ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... brilliant, and laboriously elaborated, still it is regarded generally by the critics as a failure. The long digression on the Jews is not artistic; and the subject itself is uninteresting, especially to the English, who have inveterate prejudices against the chosen people. The Hebrews, as they choose to call themselves, are doubtless a remarkable people, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... taste, he affirms, are open to contention. He then passes on to discuss the properties of matter: fire, moisture, cold, dryness, and vacuum. The last-named furnishes him with a text for a discourse on a wonderful lamp which he invented by thinking out the principle of the vacuum. This digression on the very threshold of the work is a sample of what the reader may expect to encounter all through the twenty-one books of the De Subtilitate and the seventeen of the De Varietate. Regardless of the claims of continuity, he jumps from principle to practice without the slightest ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... this long digression, necessary to explain how a middle-aged couple of slight pedestrian ability, and loaded with a heavy knapsack and basket, should have started out on a rough walk and climb, fourteen miles in all, we will return to ourselves, ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... 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 ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... though it be a digression from my text, I cannot help touching for a moment upon a yet sadder thought than that. There are desires that remain, when the gratification of them has become impossible. Sometimes the lust outlasts the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... introduce a short digression. In the case of animals and plants with separated sexes, it is of course obvious that two individuals must always (with the exception of the curious and not well understood cases of parthenogenesis) unite for each birth; but in the case of hermaphrodites this is far from ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... said I, "if I make a digression. I think there are two classes of minds commonly to be found among thinkers all over the world. The one seek to attain to knowledge, the others strive to acquire it. There is a class of commonplace intellects who regard knowledge of all kinds ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... at first through a natural meadow, overgrown with waist-high grass, and very spongy to the tread. Hornet-haunted also was this meadow, and therefore no place for idle dalliance or unwary digression, for the sting of the hornet is one of the saddest and most humiliating surprises of this ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... is a bird's-eye glimpse of the southeastern stretch of Florida, a region of glory and glow and fortunes and mystery. (Which is perhaps a momentary digression from our story, but will serve. for all that to fix its setting more vividly in the eyes ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... 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 ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... communications concerning brothers and sisters, the situation of some, the growth of the rest, and other family matters now passed between them, and continued, with only one small digression on James's part, in praise of Miss Thorpe, till they reached Pulteney Street, where he was welcomed with great kindness by Mr. and Mrs. Allen, invited by the former to dine with them, and summoned by the latter to guess the price and weigh the merits of a new muff and tippet. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... "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 go ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... was a fearful massacre; but, friend, fearful as it was, these eyes of mine had looked on one more dreadful before: thee would not believe it, friend, but thee knows not what them see who have spent their lives on the Injun border.—Well, friend," continued the narrator, after this brief digression, "while they were murdering the stronger, I saw the weakest of all,—the old grandam, with the youngest babe in her arms, come flying into the corn; and she had reached this very tree that has fallen but now, as if to remind me of the story, when the pursuer,—for it was but a ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... poems are mild, like the season they paint; but towards the end of it, the poet takes occasion to warn his countrymen against indulging the wild and irregular passion of love. This digression is one of the most affecting in the whole piece, and while he paints the language of a lover's breast agitated with the pangs of strong desire, and jealous transports, he at the same time dissuades the ladies from being too credulous in the affairs ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... method of teaching by means of objects has arisen. Rightly used, there is great value in this mode of instruction, but a serious perversion of its legitimate use has developed in connection with religious instruction of little children. Though the discussion of this may be a possible digression, it seems necessary in order to ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... 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 a military and political system, like that ...
— Laws • Plato
... and 2. Various Readings. 3. Digression on the Military Engines of the Middle Ages. 4. Mangonels of Coeur de Lion. 5. Difficulties connected with Polo's ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... monk thinks that he has said enough about this rather foreign subject, and apologizes for his digression in another paragraph that should remove any lingering doubt there might be with regard to the genuineness of his monastic character. At the end of the passage he makes the application in a very few words. The personal element in his confession is so naive and so simply straightforward that ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... Woman's Bible as a futile, questionable digression from the straight path of woman suffrage. To Clara Colby, who praised it in her Woman's Tribune, she wrote, "Of all her great speeches, I am always proud—but of her Bible commentaries, I am not proud—either of their spirit or letter.... I could cry a heap—every time I read or think—if ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
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