"Digression" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... 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 ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... to remind the reader that all this is a long digression; that the events just narrated occurred a few days before the return of Ruby, and that they have been recorded here in order to explain clearly the reason of the captain's appearance at the supper table of his sister, and the position which ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... purpose, have hardly any share of the graces of style; and his masterpiece, the famous History of the World, is made up of short passages of the most extraordinary beauty, and long stretches of monotonous narration and digression, showing not much grace of style, and absolutely no sense of proportion or skill in arrangement. The contrast is so strange that some have sought to see in the undoubted facts that Raleigh, in his tedious prison labours, had ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... 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 small, ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... 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
... any one thing,—say in their digressions. Whenever Tacitus digresses, it is always appropriately,—with taste and judgment. What, for instance, can be more fitting than that he should fall into a little digression about the Temple of Venus in Cyprus, when Titus visits that island (Hist. II. 2 & 3), because Titus had an amorous disposition? or, when he is about to relate such an important event and turning point in the history of the Jews as the destruction of Jerusalem, ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... incident 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 mention ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... After this digression on the subject of the conspiracies which had been previously imputed to us, but were now dropped out of Bielaski's list, I propose to return to the instances of illegal action which were ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... this digression, the several monologues of which the poem consists, with the exception of those of the Canon Caponsacchi, Pompilia, and the Pope, are each curious and subtle and varied exponents of the workings, without the guidance of instinct ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... the pet dog. I throw out these hints en passant, for my 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
... 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, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... improvement of this digression. I find a parallel to Mr. Sawin's fortune in an adventure of my own. For, shortly after I had first broached to myself the before-stated natural-historical and archaeological theories, as I was passing, haec negotia penitus mecum ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... not 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
... 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 of gallantry. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... introduction to his Third Book on 'The Condition of the British and Dutch Navies at the outbreak of and during the Second English War,' Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Zeewesen, vol. ii. part ii. pp. 132-141, and his digression on Tactics, pp. 290 et seq., and p. 182 note. De ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... 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
... Aurelian, did not at all lessen him in appearing for him: So that although Leonora was indeed mistaken, she could not be said to be much in the wrong. I could find in my Heart to beg the Reader's pardon for this Digression, if I thought he would be sensible of the Civility; for I promise him, I do not intend to do it again throughout the Story, though I make never so many, and though he take them never so ill. But because I began this upon a bare Supposition of his Impertinence, ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... complained, as he had done before, that he, as King of Naples, was an instrument of 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 and misunderstood friendship, ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... 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 North ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... of vesture is really a digression: I have more important matter in hand, and that is to consider the intercourse between fairy and mortal, as it is governed by appearance. How does a man, for instance, gain a fairy-wife? How does a woman give herself to a fairy-lover? I have given a careful ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... feet at once, and accompanied his daughter along the road. I suppose it was a very pretty example of the triumph of spirit over matter, and so my digression has at least the advantage of ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... were so constructed as to intensify the devotion of the worshipper by conducting him onward through a series of halls or chambers gradually diminishing in size. "The way through these temples is clearly indicated, no digression is allowed, no error possible. We wander on through the huge and massive gates of entrance, between the ranks of sacred animals. The worshipper is received into an ample court, but by degrees the walls on either side approach one another, the halls become less lofty, all is ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "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
... unexplained digression at this point. He discovered literature and became acquainted with the works of one Charles Dickens, of whose genius he made himself the sounding trumpet- call for the ears of ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... dependent on the 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 own worthy object, which, I know, ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... part of the British dominions, is so intimately connected with the great constitutional principle, that every man, whatever be his race or nation or previous condition, whose foot is once planted on British soil, is free from that moment, that it cannot be accounted a digression to mention the subject here. To our statesmen of Queen Anne's time traffic in slaves was so far from being considered discreditable, that the ministry of that reign prided themselves greatly on what was called the Assiento Treaty with Spain, by which ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... 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 ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of Defoe is his emphasis upon the advantage to an author of conversation, "the Aliment of Genius, the Life of all airy Performances" [p.32]. Likewise, his digression upon education [pp. 34f.], his charge that people of quality in England all too often neglect their children's education, his remarks upon the advantages of travel and the need of training in the vernacular, all will be ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... wisest are not exempt, and to which the mind clings so instinctively that not only the soldier advancing to almost inevitable death, but even the doomed criminal who goes to certain execution, shows an anxiety to array his person to the best advantage. But this is a digression. ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... in the Academy—to return from this digression—is the famous Madonna of Cimabue. This picture is astonishing. Although considered by many critics to manifest lingering traces of the Byzantine bandages, it seems to us, on the contrary, to be wonderfully free from stiffness ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... (what grand play we should get if it were always the word at football, you schoolboys! You may kick and run and scrimmage splendidly, but you are not steady—but this is digression). Steady is still the word, and every minute Saint Dominic's pulls better together. The forwards work like one man, and, lighter weight though they are, command the scrimmages by ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... all! not at all!" cried Barbican "A slight excess of velocity would have done no harm whatever had the direction of the Projectile been perfectly true. No. There must have been a digression. We ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... digression was necessary, in order to explain how it was that the 6th of the line was the regiment to enter Tarragona, and why the disorder and confusion, natural enough in a city taken by storm, degenerated for a ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... somewhat long digression into history we will now resume our discussion concerning the origin of the method of selecting cereals for isolation and segregate-cultivation. Some decades after Le Couteur, this method was taken up by the celebrated breeder Patrick ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... 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 ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... introduc'd with a delineation of forest scenery, and pigs fattening on fallen acorns. Sketches of wild ducks and their haunts, of hogs settling to repose in a wood, and of wheat sowing, succeed. The sound of village bells suggests a most pleasing digression: of which the church and its pastor, the rustic amusements of a Sunday, the Village Maids, and a most pathetic description of a distracted Female, are the prominent features. Returning to rural business, Giles is drawn guarding ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... this digression to Fiji, we may conclude with a fair degree of probability that when the side of a Fijian king's house was broken down to allow his corpse to be carried out, though there were doors at hand wide enough for the purpose, the original intention was to prevent the return ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... 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 ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... upon Marivaux with age; but we must return to his early years at Paris and to his first literary attempts, after this long digression, which has served, I hope, to give something of an idea of the milieu in which he moved, and of the influences at work upon the formation ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... heathen mythology, a discussion on the harmony of the spheres, and a doubt whether the enjoyment of this "astral music" be rightly placed among the delights of heaven. At length the marvellous state-paper draws to a close, "But since we have made this pleasing digression[98] (because it is always agreeable to talk about learning with learned men) let your Wisdom choose out for us the best harper of the day, for the purpose that we have mentioned. Herein will you accomplish a task somewhat like that ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... 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
... form—to beg she would leave my house: and I put her pupil into better hands, I hope, at a celebrated academy for young ladies. There she will, at any rate, be better instructed than she could be at home. I beg your pardon, my dear, for this digression on nursing and schooling; but I wanted only to explain to you why it was that, when I was weary of the business, I still went on in a course of dissipation. You see I had nothing at home, either in the shape of husband or children, to engage my affections. I believe it was this 'aching void' ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... is 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, subtraction, multiplication, and division; and that in ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... was saying before my digression, every Wednesday evening I walked with a light and joyous step along the road that led towards those distant rocks lying at the boundary of the plains, I went gayly towards that region of oak trees and mossy stones in which Limoise was situated,—my ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... the same tree. Manifestly any discussion of the treatment of these psychoses must of necessity touch upon the vastly broader problem of the treatment of the habitual criminal, the recidivist, and therefore a slight digression from the subject at ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... Digression is a little from my Story, however, since it contains some Proofs of the Curiosity and Daring of this great Man, I was content to omit ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... 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 ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... 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
... the letters from Bagdad, after this digression, Newman gives a very graphic account of the rafts used for travelling on ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... of the power that worketh in us, but as this same letter teaches us, we have, as Christians, a present scale by which we may estimate the greatness of the power. For in the next chapter, after that glorious burst as to the dignity of his Lord, which we have not the heart to call a digression, the Apostle, recurring to the theme of my text, goes on to say, 'And you hath He quickened,' and then, catching it up again a verse or two afterwards, he reiterates, clause by clause, what had been done on Jesus as having been done on us Christians. If that Divine ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... This digression serves a simple purpose. It introduces a sporty gentleman of unique integrity whose friendship for Kenneth Gwynne flowered as time went on and ultimately bore such fruits as only the most favoured of men may taste. ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... Pardon the digression. But I love the dear old bell. And its voice is musical to me, albeit I sometimes fancy, like many another singer's it is growing ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... 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
... much to dwell long upon such a digression; and, as I have no business to decide the question, I leave both that and my arguments to the taste of each particular reader, who will find what is to be said for or against it. My purpose was only to say of comedy, considered as a work of genius, all that a man of letters ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... mention the very many and dangerous plots of the Romanists against the Church and State; because what is principally intended in this digression, is an account of the opinions and activity of the Non-conformists: against whose judgment and practice Mr. Hooker became at last, but most unwillingly, to be engaged in a book-war; a war which he maintained not ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... of a lot of condemned outlaws were threatening an attack with general massacre, sent the famous message to Governor Nye: "All quiet in Aurora. Five men will be hung in an hour." And it was quiet, and the programme was carried out. But this is a digression and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... 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
... 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 ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... will pardon this digression, which evidently arose from the peculiar connection established in little Jane's history, between an epitaph inscribed on a grave-stone, and the word of God inscribed on her heart. When I arrived at Jane's cottage, I found her in ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... also should be allowed to rest, if the invalid be a person of thought and reflection; otherwise Butler's Analogy itself would not do her any harm. It is only "Lorsqu'il y a vie, il y a danger." This is a long digression, but one necessary to my subject; for I feel the importance of impressing on your mind that it can never be your duty to give up that which is otherwise expedient for you, on the grounds of its being ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... this digression, I must now carry the reader back to Cocachacra. Pursuing the road to the distance of three leagues further, we arrive at San Geronimo de Surco. The valley in this part becomes more contracted; but on the whole its character is unchanged, with the exception ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... shower-bath physically considered, so it is in regard to the moral douche, to bring my apparent digression to a pointed application. Properly taken, it nerves up the cerebral tissues; experienced unawares, at right angles to previous paths of thought and preparation, it reduces the patient to a temporary state of mental coma and ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... on this digression, let me repeat the question I have repeated to myself ten thousand times. WHY DID I DRINK? What need was there for it? I was happy. Was it because I was too happy? I was strong. Was it because I was too strong? Did I possess too much vitality? I don't know why I drank. I cannot answer, though ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... digression, but it suffices to explain why Caroline would have no other hand than William's to guide her chair, and why his society and conversation sufficed to give ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... us now return to the point whence we made our 82 digression and tell how the stock of this people of whom I speak reached the end of its course. Now Ablabius the historian relates that in Scythia, where we have said that they were dwelling above an arm of the Pontic Sea, part of them who held the eastern region and ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... certainly would not have blamed them; but, as I now write in my old age, I have learned that there is a rule far above the world's laws, and that says, "Do no wrong, or be guilty of any appearance of wrong, however important may seem the object to be gained." But this is a digression. ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... be pardoned for this digression, wherein I pay a just tribute of veneration and gratitude to one from whose writings and conversation I have received instructions of which I experience the value in ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... this digression. When I had crept within four yards of the throne, I raised myself gently upon my knees, and then striking my forehead seven times against the ground, I pronounced the following words, as they had been taught me the night before, Inckpling gloffthrobb squut serummblhiop mlashnalt ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... drifted too far adown the currents of the ocean. From our digression let us return to out special "Waifs." We left them making preparations to roast the shark-flesh,—not in single steaks, but in a wholesale fashion,—as if they had intended to prepare a "fish dinner" for the full ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... the reader for this digression; but if he be musical he will forgive me, for that tune was the "Serenade" of Schubert, and I had ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... at the analogy," continued the other, calmly disregardful of the digression; "now to apply it. Suppose a boy evince no noble quality. Then generously give him credit for his prospective one. Don't you see? So we say to our patrons when they would fain return a boy upon ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... have been forced into digression. But at the time, Snap and I clung together, whispering, as a group of workers pushed us down a descending incline. Snap, back there in Greater New York when Molo's contact light had burst into existence, had fallen, half unconscious. They picked him up. ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... From this long digression we return to the government of the viceroy Don Antonio de Noronha, who arrived in the beginning of September 1564, as formerly mentioned. In consequence of the cruelties exercised on the Moors of Malabar by Mesquita, as formerly mentioned, those of Cananor ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... talk with some one who loved Daniel and who had followed his career with pure motives. He had to think for a long while: where was there such a person? He thought of old Herold and went to him. He directed the conversation without digression to a point that was of prime importance to him. And in order to put the old man in as confidential a frame of mind as possible, he reminded him of a night when the three of them, Daniel, Herold, and Benda, had sat in the Mohren Cellar drinking wine and discussing things in general, important and ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... unwillingly compelled to neglect), and walked back to San Giorio. On my way, however, I saw a patch of Cima-da-Conegliano-looking meadow-land on a hill some way above me, and on this there rose from among the chestnuts what looked like a castellated mansion. I thought it well to make a digression to this, and when I got there, after a lovely walk, knocked at the door, having been told by peasants that there would be no difficulty about my taking a look round. The place is called the Castel ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... God loves either in man or woman. She hated sycophants and dissemblers. I hate them; and more than ever at this moment on her behalf. I wish she were but here—to give a punch on the head to that fellow who traduces her. And, coming round again to the occasion from which this short digression has started, viz., the question raised by the Frenchman—whether Kate were a person likely to pray under other circumstances than those of extreme danger? I offer it as my opinion that she was. Violent people are not always such from choice, but perhaps from situation. And, though ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the regularity in which it grows, propped up by sticks; and it is so short, that one's fancy as to its luxuriance, (especially if formed from such poetry as Childe Harold,) is certainly disappointed. I made a digression from the road up the little river Aar, which falls into the Rhine near Sinzig. A more striking picture you cannot imagine. The stream is remarkably clear and rapid, the bottom rocky, and its banks, for a considerable ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... result fatally; if he who meets it dies, he is remembered on the anniversary of his death; and if he does not die, he takes himself off to a sufficient distance from the scene of his mishap—and no more is thought about the matter. With this digression we will now resume the thread of ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... 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 ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson
... This autobiographical digression may give some idea of the reflections I was led to make in anticipation of Lambert's arrival. I was then twelve years old. I felt sympathy from the first for the boy whose temperament had some points of likeness to my own. I ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... 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 ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... the Syracusans, also, her courage and virtue, insomuch that she retained her dignity and princely retinue after the dissolution of the tyranny, and, when she died, the citizens, by public decree, attended the solemnity of her funeral. And the story, though a digression from the present purpose, was ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... that he would be equal to the work that was to fall to him when in a few weeks he should succeed Wilson. But to go on down the scale of rank, describing the officers who commanded in the Army of the Shenandoah, would carry me beyond all limit, so I refrain from the digression with regret that I cannot pay ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan
... spring of calm satisfaction, "without o'erflowing full," which is fed by the exercise of the kindly affections, and soon indeed must those stagnate where there are not proper objects to excite them. I have been forced into this painful digression ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... long digression, My pen has carried me astray; These schoolboy days make an impression From which 'tis hard to ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... 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 the former, and against ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... of a digression. The intelligent inquirer who has squared his initially materialistic system of morals with the problems arising out of the necessity of sustaining pride and preference, is then invited to explore an adjacent thicket ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... to put the thing in the very common form of a digression, and very nearly to forget that great subject of cheese which I had put at the very ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... busy with the kitchen as the skies! Now looking At some rich stew thro' Galileo's eyes,— Or boiling eggs—timed to a metronome— As much at home In spectacles as in mere isinglass— In the art of frying brown—as a digression On music and poetical expression, Whereas, how few of all our cooks, alas! Could tell Calliope from "Callipee!" How few there be Could leave the lowest for the highest stories, (Observatories,) And turn, like thee, Diana's calculator, However cook's synonymous with Kater! Alas! still let me ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... This digression from mathematics to classics did not surprise the hearers, though it somewhat confused them, no one being precisely aware what the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... if that be indeed a digression which by removing a formidable objection renders the truth of the positions we wish to establish more clear and less questionable, we may now resume the thread of our argument. Still intreating therefore the attention of those, who have not been used to think much ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... the spring, so particularly cross that I might have been tempted to exchange him for the undisputed possession of that stock of seeds, tools, and flower-pots which formed our chief subject of dispute. But this is a digression.) I took the lowest. Could I part with Sandy Tom for any money, or for anything that money could buy? I thought of a speaking doll, a miniature piano, a tiny carriage drawn by four yellow mastiffs, of a fairy purse that ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... this digression, I hope that this question shall never come to trial: his majesty's many movable forts will forbid the experience. And although the English will no less disdain, than any nation under heaven can do, to be beaten upon their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... unreasonable to expect that, when that even has occurred, the greatest civilizations of that vast territory will be found in the peninsula of California and the narrow stripe of country beyond the Rocky Mountains. This, however, is a digression. To return: it is also necessary for a civilization that at least a portion of the community should be placed above mean and engrossing toils. Man's mind becomes subdued, like the dyer's hand, to that it works in. In rude and difficult circumstances we unavoidably become rude, ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... 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 ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... but, (what is monstrous!) the idiot is not aware that his eyes ever gave such evidence. He does not know that he has seen (and therefore quoad his consciousness has not seen) that which he has seen every day of his life. But to return from this digression, my understanding could furnish no reason why the knocking at the gate in Macbeth should produce any effect, direct or reflected. In fact, my understanding said positively that it could not produce any effect. But I knew better; I felt that it did; and I ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... of envy; for while it lasted, I had many, many hours of pure happiness. Dream not, Coleridge, of having tasted all the grandeur and wildness of fancy till you have gone mad! All now seems to me vapid,—comparatively so. Excuse this selfish digression. Your "Monody" [3] is so superlatively excellent that I can only wish it perfect, which I can't help feeling it is not quite. Indulge me in a few conjectures; what I am going to propose would make it more compressed and, I think, more energetic, though, I am sensible, at the expense of many ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... 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 ...
— The Troubadour • Robert Augustine Ward Lowndes
... of this 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 suited him best, ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... brevity of this letter. You are not used to more from me than a bare statement of facts, without comment or digression. One fact I have omitted—that the Klesmers on the eve of departure have behaved magnificently, shining forth as might be expected from the planets of genius and fortune in conjunction. Mirah is rich with their ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... character of the Friar, like all Shakspeare's representations of the great professions, is very delightful and tranquillizing, yet it is no digression, but immediately necessary to the carrying on ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... who offers himself to his gods, and should the latter's courage momentarily fail him, the friend with the trusty blade (to which now I especially direct your attention) diverts the hierophant's mind from his digression, and rectifies his temporary breach of etiquette by severing the cervical vertebrae of the spinal column with the friendly blade—which you can reach quite easily, Dr. Petrie, if you ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... I observe that I have made a wide digression from my subject... But what matter?... You see, it is for myself that I am writing this diary, and, consequently anything that I jot down in it will in time be a valuable ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... him dead on the spot. The poor colored people all felt 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
... awaiting; 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 children still, in ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... a doubtful day off from where it is customary to take a boat. We had started somewhat late, stopped for the lack of umbrella, and now were committed to a digression for letters I expected at Shimonosuwa. I never order my letters to meet me on the line of march but I bitterly repent having chosen that special spot. There is always some excellent reason why it turns out most inconvenient. But as yet I was hopeful, for I thought I knew the speed of the ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... this digression on a subject which made some stir at the time, and is interesting as throwing light on the medium's own ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... off for that time. And, one way or other, I always found that to appoint to go away was always crossed by some accident or other, so as to disappoint and put it off again. And this brings in a story which otherwise might be thought a needless digression, viz., about these disappointments ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... conversation, testified a partiality for a few, which might be called stock subjects. Without noticing his favorite Pantisocracy, (which was an everlasting theme of the laudatory) he generally contrived, either by direct amalgamation or digression, to notice in the warmest encomiastic language, Bishop Berkeley, David Hartley, or Mr. Bowles; whose sonnets he delighted in reciting. He once told me, that he believed, by his constant recommendation, he had sold a whole edition of some ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... (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 Coleridge really understand ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... digression. Doctor Kane had accepted the conduct of the expedition, and at once embarked upon it. He went upon the supposition of the "open Polar Sea," and sailed in the Advance from New York, on the 30th of May, 1853. He had determined to penetrate as far up "Smith's Strait" as possible, ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... 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 ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... This digression brings us a little nearer to Banawe; we leave the terraced hills behind us, after noting how free of all plants the retaining-walls are kept, the sole exception here and there being the dongola, with its ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... Marie de France;[82] as an example of the other, the Dutch romance of Gawain (Walewein), which is taken from the French and exhibits the results of a common process of adulteration. Or, again, the story of Guinglain, as told by Renaud de Beaujeu with an irrelevant "courtly" digression, may be compared with the simpler and more natural versions in English (Libeaux Desconus) and Italian (Carduino), as has been done by M. Gaston Paris; or the Conte du Graal of Chrestien with the ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... mortal lover; these are compared to Browning the poet,—writing another poem. The only difference in his art is that the poet here speaks for himself in the first person, and not, as usual, dramatically in the third person. The idea of the poem may be found, stripped of digression and fanciful comparisons, in the eighth, twelfth, fourteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth stanzas. Something of the same ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... long digression we have now arrived once more at the point where Pudd'nhead Wilson, while waiting for the arrival of the twins on that same Friday evening, sat puzzling over the strange apparition of that morning—a girl in young Tom Driscoll's bedroom; fretting, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... pardon this digression, which introduces the visit of the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather to Elsie Veneer. It was mentioned to her that he would like to call and see how she was, and she consented,—not with much apparent interest, for she had reasons of her own for not feeling any very deep conviction of his ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... purifications in the sense which we attach to the word. This interpretation of the ceremonies observed by manslayers among many peoples might be supported by a large array of evidence; but to go into the matter fully would lead me into a long digression. I have collected some of ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... this digression: having fair weather and the winds hanging southerly I jogged on to the eastward to make the Cape. On the third of June we saw a sail to leeward of us, showing English colours. I bore away to speak with her, and found her to be the Antelope of London, commanded by Captain Hammond, and bound ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... 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
... After this digression let us return to the Virginian farmer, whose mind was not disturbed as yet by thoughts of the destiny of the United States, or considerations of the rights of man, but who was much exercised by the task of making an honest income out of his estates. To do this he grappled ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... expedition, deemed it an honor to take especial charge of the young wife, who by her gentle loveliness had endeared herself to all. But after they were out of sight Montgomery became very restless, and, remaining only a short time on the sofa where we left him, when we commenced this long digression, he arose and paced the floor in deep and anxious thought, and at length, as if to throw off the terrible weight that oppressed him, went to the door where he had parted from his darling, and oh! ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... digression to inform my young readers that, though I was a poor child, a mere pauper among a number of others who were not any poorer than myself, yet I was always treated with a great deal of respect both ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... 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 ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... Digression is just as dangerous as stagnation in the career of a young man in business. There is absolutely no position worth the having in business life to-day to which a care of other interests can be added. Let a man attempt to serve the interests of one master, ...
— The Young Man in Business • Edward W. Bok
... this digression illustrating an artistic law, of which Gounod has made such effective use in the church scene of his "Faust" in heightening its tragic solemnity. The wild goblin symphony in the fifth act has added some new effects ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... which a strong 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 ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... out a digression on the nature of odes, and the comparative excellence of the ancients and moderns. He mentions the chorus which Pope wrote for the duke of Buckingham; and thence takes occasion to treat of the chorus of the ancients. He then comes to another ode, of "The dying Christian ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... 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 it is somewhat original. In neat little ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... may be forgiven for a short digression on the subject of the dramatic Materia Medica, and poison-ology. The sleeping draughts of the stage are, for example, generally speaking, uncommon specimens of chemical perfection. When taken—even if the patient be ever so well shaken—nothing on earth, or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Caroline," said Eleanor, ignoring the digression. "I don't know that you care, though. You've said you were ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... 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 ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... 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 that ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... 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 ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... self-made man, partly from an instinctive unwillingness to embark upon the confession to which he was committed. However, he was far from being bored. "I'm about thirty myself," he remarked, "and I'm worth about thirty cents. But that's a digression." ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... showed was 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 ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... question of dramatic censorship invites a slight digression. Chesterton has a decided regard for a dramatic censorship. A book need not be censored, because it need not be finished by its reader, but it may be difficult to get out of a theatre in the course of a performance. And there are ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... agree with you there! After all, it is a digression from the purpose for which we are here! . . . Let me see, then: where were we? . . . Oh yes, I remember— Although, by the way, it was very ill-advised of you to speak your mind so openly in that man's presence! However . ...
— The Servant in the House • Charles Rann Kennedy
... where adversity and apprehension are at present discovered; and the seeds of a new and powerful nation may not be doomed to perish, before they have scarcely broken the ground which was intended for the scene of their growth and expansion. I shall, however, without farther digression, endeavour to point out other means of improving the settlement than such as relate to ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... admirable Jonson; always made, who never wrote comedy without seven or eight considerable humours. I never saw one, except that of Falstaffe, that was, in my judgment, comparable to any of Jonson's considerable humours. You will pardon this digression when I tell you, he is the man, of all the world, I most passionately admire for ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... He delights, indeed, chiefly by his strong delineation of ludicrous incidents and grotesque manners derived from this source. He does not hold our curiosity entangled by the involution of his story, nor suspend it by any artful protraction of the main event. He turns aside for no digression that may serve to display his own ingenuity or learning. From the beginning to the end, one adventure commonly rises up and follows upon another, like so many waves of the sea, which cease only because ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... seized up. And this made me desirous of death, that I might go there where she was."[N] Following upon the chapter in which this remarkable passage occurs is one which is chiefly occupied with a digression upon the immortality of the soul,—and with discourse upon this matter, says Dante, "it will be beautiful to finish speaking of that living and blessed Beatrice, of whom I intend to say no more in this book.... And I believe and affirm and am certain that I shall pass after this to another and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... I shall take occasion in a short digression, to discourse briefly the reason, why in all Ages there have been so many pretenders to Physic, and why some of them have got reputation in the World. One hath been mentioned before, viz. the great charges sick men are put to, caused ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett
... three centuries, had acquired a stability in some degree corresponding to its growth, he foolishly imagined it was still as susceptible of change and improvement as in the days of its infancy. Let the reader pardon the length of this digression, if for the sake of any future schemer who may chance to adopt a similar conceit, I cite from the preface to this volume a specimen of the author's practice and reasoning. The ingenious attorney had the good sense quickly to abandon this project, and content himself with less glaring innovations; ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... complaint in the 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; ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... This is 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 themselves ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... but this is a digression from the subject of the Lease. That terrible document was held over the heads of the children as the Herodian pronunciamento concerning small boys was over the ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... 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 in the light of a ladder; one ladder ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... became a province under the dominion of Octavianus Augustus. We became masters of the dry Libya by the last will of king Apion. Cyrene and the other cities of Libya Pentapolis we owe to the liberality of Ptolemy. After this long digression, I will now return to ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... mere digression to point the fact that Mr. Morris was known by many names. He was called "Cress," and "Ike," and "Tubby," and "Staley," according to the company ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... 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. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele |
