"Digression" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... few minutes after receiving the commands of his young mistress, Caesar reappeared, ushering into the apartment the subject of the foregoing digression. In person, the peddler was a man above the middle height, spare, but full of bone and muscle. At first sight, his strength seemed unequal to manage the unwieldy burden of his pack; yet he threw it on and off with great dexterity, and with as much apparent ease as if it had been filled with ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... This historical 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 time into a ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... nations, avowedly and in detail, but controlling by their armies the forms in which they will permit them to be governed; and reserving, in petto, the order and extent of the usurpations further meditated. But I will return from a digression, anticipated, too, in time, into which I have been led by reflection on the criminal passions which refused to the world a favorable occasion of saving it from the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... shrinking, old-fashioned girl. Does a strenuous existence make against easy motherhood? It would seem so; it would seem the more masculine the occupations of woman become, the less able are they to carry out the truly female functions. But this is a digression from our point. ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... 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. I am now concerned with the origin of the scientific doctrine of matter in Greek thought. In the Timaeus Plato asserts that nature is made of fire and earth with air and water as intermediate between them, ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead
... To return from a digression which can only serve to introduce the honest clergyman more particularly to our readers, Mr. Blattergowl had no sooner entered the hut, and received the mute and melancholy salutations of the company whom it contained, than he edged himself towards ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... I must take my jack-knife and cut short this digression. Let no man say this or that occurrence "will make no difference fifty years hence,"—a common, but dangerous phrase. I am now a man of three-score years. I can point my finger here to my ships, there to my warehouse. My name is well known in ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... the Romans felt it to be a Latin and not a foreign cult. They showed this intimate and friendly feeling by permitting an altar to Hercules to be erected within the city proper, in the Forum Boarium. But in order to understand the significance of this act a word of digression ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter
... But by this digression we have lost sight of the pack. The further discussion of that subject must be reserved for the "Book of Travels." The "grave sense" is still further off, and must wait a more fit occasion. As you are skilled in ancient mythology, I pray you to inform me whether ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... After this digression I must continue my narrative. We shot only two or three birds, and then had to hurry back to prepare for our departure. Our new canoe floated well, but was smaller than we could have wished. Over the centre was an awning of palm-leaves, under which was ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... to 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 ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... two kinds of maguey: the cultivated plant from which comes pulque, and one which grows wild in the desert parts of the country. From the latter is distilled a coarse liquor which is highly intoxicating, called mescal. This is a digression. Let us speak of our journey to Toluca. If this very interesting city did not possess any special attraction in itself, the unsurpassed scenery to be enjoyed on the route thither would amply repay the traveler for the brief ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... this digression to the subject of translations. In the passage already quoted, the reader has been presented with a proof how well Dryden could compress the words, without losing the sense, of his author. In the following, he has done precisely ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 40, Saturday, August 3, 1850 - A Medium Of Inter-Communication For Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, • Various
... Governor, "that is as it should be, and as satisfactory as possible. Let me remind you, Mr. Barclay, that it was not I, but yourself, who introduced this digression." ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... after this digression: Should the House, by the institution of Covode committees, votes of censure, and other devices to harass the President, reduce him to subservience to their will and render him their creature, then the well-balanced Government ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... digression, and it must be admitted that there is no such thing as a man's "creating". But anyhow, when you take up your pen you do something devilish pleasing: there is a prospect before you. You are going to develop a ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... 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 reminiscence ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... believed—much more sympathetic, I can only record my astonishment; for there never was a large and cultivated intelligence one can imagine less in harmony than his with the poetic excesses, or even the poetic qualities, of 'Pauline'. But this is a digression. ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... this digression, for the purpose of showing how inextricably my feelings and images of death were entangled with those of summer, as connected with Palestine and Jerusalem, let me come back to the bed chamber of my sister. From the gorgeous sunlight I turned around to the ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... With this digression we will return to our young travellers, who, having secured their horse under the sheltering trees by the roadside, and fortified their courage by doing justice to the lunch Mrs. Fremont had prepared for them, now entered the crowded church ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... 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, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... pretty maids in terms too Burgundian to be printed here. That inexhaustible subject carried them so far that before they knew it they saw the capital of the arrondissement over which Gaubertin reigned, and which we hope excites enough curiosity in the reader's mind to justify a short digression. ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... with slender legs, a genuine cocotte's horse, was returning from his digression, toward the middle of the street, with dancing steps, prancing gracefully up and down without going forward. Jansoulet dropped his satchel, and as if he had cast aside at the same time all his gravity, his prestige as a public man, he gave a mighty leap and grasped the animal's bit, holding him fast ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... 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 carry ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson
... 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
... digression, with which the reader may not be very well pleased, it is time for me to return to my sweetheart. The tenth day of my visit to Lausanne, I went to sup and sleep with my mistress, and that night was the happiest I remember. In the morning, while we ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... long and untranslatable digression about the different races and families of the then existing machines. The writer attempted to support his theory by pointing out the similarities existing between many machines of a widely different character, which served to show descent from ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... reciprocal influence and mutual cooeperation between mind and matter. If this be not the question at issue, both our contributor and ourselves are engaged in a fruitless attempt to enlighten each other. We are well aware that his digression from the main argument to the disputed question of free will, is made for the purpose of attempting to show that all spiritual agency must be like that which he claims for the soul of man—that is to say, it must have a free ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... called it, in the great swing under the chestnut-trees. Then, while they mended their stockings, Margaret would give Peggy a "talk-lesson," the only kind that she was willing to receive, on English history, with an occasional digression to the Trojan war, or the Norse mythology, as the case might be. Peggy detested history, and knew next to nothing of it, and this was ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... interfered, whereupon he immediately sat down with a strange smile. His client was condemned to pay a considerable sum of money, a circumstance which did not, however, seem to cause Eugene the least regret for his irrelevant digression. He appeared to regard his speeches as mere exercises which would be of use to him later on. It was this that puzzled and disheartened Felicite. She would have liked to see her son dictating the law to the Civil Court ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... Frogs and Mice; Virgil sung of Bees; Polycrates commended Tyranny; Phavorinus sets forth the praises of Injustice; and Cardan pronounced the eulogy of Nero. The Golden Ass of Apulcius is well known; Henry Cornelius Agrippa has employed his wit and learning on an elaborate "Digression in praise of the Asse." Other authors have discovered virtues and excellencies in this animal, though the generality of mankind have agreed in supposing it possessed nothing remarkable but dulness and obstinacy. Lucian exercised his genius ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... Deviation. — N. deviation; swerving &c. v.; obliquation|, warp, refraction; flection[obs3], flexion; sweep; deflection, deflexure[obs3]; declination. diversion, digression, depart from, aberration; divergence &c. 291; zigzag; detour &c. (circuit) 629; divagation. [Desultory motion] wandering &c. v.; vagrancy, evagation[obs3]; bypaths and crooked ways; byroad. [Motion sideways, oblique motion] sidling &c. v.; knight's move at chess. V. alter one's course, deviate, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... his profound belief that his failure in another line is owing to the malignity of the world at large. In one of his most characteristic Essays he asks whether genius is conscious of its powers. He writes what he declares to be a digression about his own experience, and we may believe as much as we please of his assertion that he does not quote himself as an example of genius. He has spoken, he declares, with freedom and power, and will not cease because he is abused for not being ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... least to my fancy, appears Not so much to be entering as boxing your ears, Is unfolding a tale (of herself, I surmise, 1210 For 'tis dotted as thick as a peacock's with I's), Apropos of Miranda, I'll rest on my oars And drift through a trifling digression on bores, For, though not wearing ear-rings in more majorum, Our ears are kept bored just as if we still wore 'em. There was one feudal custom worth keeping, at least, Roasted bores made a part of each ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... 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 ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... virtue of what were the brains of those times better ordered? The trees also would have been bigger and more beautiful; for if nature was then younger and more vigorous, the trees, as well as men's brains, would have been conscious of this vigour and this youth." ("Digression on the Ancients and the Moderns," vol. 4, ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... 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
... 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 ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... No—the world was full of lamentation, mourning and woe; and who could tell how Armageddon would turn? His quick mind travelled through all the alternative possibilities ahead, on fire for his country. But always, after each digression through the problems of the war, thought came back to the cottage at Rydal, and Nelly on the lawn, her white throat emerging from the thin black dress, her hands clasped on her lap, her eyes turned to him as ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the habits of life in which I had been hitherto brought up, that for the time my mind was completely bewildered. I appeared to have lost my powers of judgment, and to have relapsed, as far as intellect was concerned, into childhood again. My readers must excuse this digression, but it appeared to me necessary to explain how it was possible for a lad of fifteen to have been made the victim of such a palpably absurd deception without its involving the necessity of his not being "so ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... 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 Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... point I must ask pardon of the courteous reader for a seeming digression, and interpolate a short account of Dr. Leichardt's lost expedition—as to the fate of which nothing is known; and although no apparent connection exists between it and this narrative, it may be that in our journey we have happened ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... continued, with a slight increase of color in his smooth cheek which did not escape the attention of the ladies,—"purely as an exigency of verse, and that the inspired authoress might more easily express herself to a friend. My acquaintance with Mrs. M'Corkle has been only epistolary. Pardon this digression, my friends, but an allusion to the muse of poetry did not seem to me to be inconsistent with our gathering here. Let me briefly conclude by saying that the occasion is a happy and memorable one; I think I echo ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... feeling that digression is for him imperative only as affording him relief from the tradition of his medium. John Marin employs all the restrictions of water-color with the wisdom that is necessary in the case. He says that paper plus water, plus emotion will give ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... time, and bringing it to a full and final tragic close by the loves of Lancelot himself and Guinevere—this great achievement, it has been frankly confessed, is so much muddled and distracted with episode which becomes positive digression, that some have even dismissed its pretensions to be a whole. Even those who reject this dismissal are not at one as to any single author of the conception, still less of the execution. The present writer has stated his humble, but ever more and more firm conviction that ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... unpractised to entertain; and the very first thing he did on entering the palace was to make a memorandum which might lead him, at a leisure moment, to inquire into the nature of the writings and the general merits of Sir Cicero, the illustrious namesake of him of Rome. As soon as this little digression terminated he entered the palace, after again expressing the hope that "Sir Smees" would not fail to accompany "Sir Brown," in the visit which the functionary fully expected to receive from the latter, in the course of the next hour of two. The company now began to disperse, and Raoul ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to make this historical digression that the reader may understand how it happened, under Providence, that we were not detected in passing through the town, and how Bludger successfully accomplished what, I fear, was by no ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... This is a digression, but it perhaps explains Pauline and Pauline's wedding, and the joy with which all the people in the ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... rigid Cartesian to the end of his days. "Our nation," he says, "singularly eager as it is for novelties in all matters of taste, is in matters of science extremely attached to old opinions." This remark remains true of France to the present hour, and it would be an interesting digression, did time allow, to consider its significance. France can at all events count one master innovator, the founder of Cartesianism himself. D'Alembert points out that the disciples violate the first maxims of their chief. He describes the hypothesis ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... greatest consideration; but when all was said and done, could the bailiff's hypocritical regard for appearances save Eve and David from the disgrace of a suspension of payment? Let each judge for himself. A tolerably long digression of this kind will seem all too short; and ninety out of every hundred readers shall seize with avidity upon details that possess all the piquancy of novelty, thus establishing yet once again the trust of the well-known ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... The digression is a lengthy one; but even now a further step must be taken. The man has, in the dog, his one real intimate in the whole animal world. It will be generally admitted that the dog depends exceptionally upon the man and the man often largely ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... with, and which may or may not 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 ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... 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
... reason to fear that this discovery, which was thought would prove so much to their advantage, may by their imprudence become an occasion of much mischief to them. But it were too long to dwell on all that he told us he had observed in every place; it would be too great a digression from our present purpose: whatever is necessary to be told, concerning those wise and prudent institutions which he observed among civilized nations, may perhaps be related by us on a more proper occasion. We asked him many questions ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... human nature and its reflex in art will not call these remarks a digression; at least, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... galley of monotyped composition has been waiting during this digression. It is lifted off the machine by the attendant and a rough proof pulled, which is corrected by the proof-reader. The advantage of the individual types is then apparent, for the composition is corrected and otherwise handled precisely as would be the ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... 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
... New Guinea, on the western side of this great island, was on a part of the coast scarcely known to this day. It is in the part of the island claimed by the Dutch. Cook's insatiable desire to explore is well shown in this digression from his course to Batavia.) The land is very low, like every other part of the Coast we have seen here; it is thick and Luxuriously cloathed with woods and Verdure, all of which appear Green and flourishing. Here were Cocoa nutt Trees, Bread Fruit Trees, and Plantain ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... 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
... is judged proper that the majority should be obliged." She has no hesitation either in recommending parts of the story that "cannot fail of giving an agreeable sensation to every honest and good-natured reader," or in sparing him a "digression of no consequence to the history" which may be "read or omitted at discretion." But those who love to "read in an easy-chair, either soon after dinner, or at night just going to rest," will find in the tale "such things as the author ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... 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
... watching 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
... This digression has been made to call attention to the fact that while rumor was plentiful as to the future control of the Giants Mr. Brush was carefully "grooming" a young man—his son-in-law, Mr. H. ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster
... digression to the statement that the chief means of self-improvement are five: Observation, Conversation, Reading, ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... of this letter, that no attack on property should escape my pen, my only object being to justify myself before the public by a general recrimination. But I could not refrain from branding so odious a mode of exploitation, and I trust that this short digression will be pardoned. Property does not avenge, I hope, the injuries ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... excuse this digression. It may not be altogether useless, at a time when declamations, springing from St. Simonian, Phalansterian, and Icarian books, are invoking the press and the tribune, and which seriously threaten the liberty of labour ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... kindness and of practical assistance. To-day, I have some of the warmest and most grateful friends among the families of the men whom I was compelled to bring to justice, and in many cases the criminals themselves have acknowledged my actions, and have been better men in consequence. But this is a digression, and we will return to ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... 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
... digression, but it illustrates that hold on reality, that truth to fact, which was one of the sources of the force and simplicity of Mr. Webster's mature style. He, however, only obtained these good qualities of rhetoric by long struggles with constant temptations, in his early life, to ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... 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 ordinary policeman to embark upon ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... law fictions: Legal suppositions endless: The professional jargon of an attorney: An enquiry into the integrity of barristers and the equity of decisions at law: A. and B. or a case stated: A digression from law to philosophy ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... into this digression for the sake of mitigating the inference that is likely to be drawn from that characteristic of Dr. Cumming's works to which we have pointed. He is much in the same intellectual condition as that professor of Padua; who, in ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... being finished for the day, that of the Chief of the State began; and indeed it might already be said that the First Consul was the whole Consulate. At the risk of interrupting my narrative of what occurred on our arrival at the Tuileries, by a digression, which may be thought out of place, I will relate a fact which had no little weight in hastening Bonaparte's determination to assume a superiority over his colleagues. It may be remembered that when Roger Ducos and Sieyes bore the title of Consuls the three members ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... 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, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... 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
... 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 a dark cascade ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... a moment's silence, and then, as though there had been no digression, Rankin went back to the former subject. "Yes," he said slowly, "I think you're right about those being Tom Blair's tracks." He turned and faced the younger man squarely. "If it is, Ben, it means he's been frozen out from his hiding-place, wherever that is, and he's crazy desperate. ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... will be no impertinent digression to tell how the year before, Mr. Harrison had his house broken open between eleven and twelve o'clock at noon, upon Campden market-day, whilst himself and his whole family were away, a ladder being set up to a window of the second story, and an iron bar wrenched ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... principal character in the tale I have to tell, a digression is necessary to introduce him to the reader. Born of an old Irish family, a clan that has been settled in the west of Ireland for 300 years, and of which he is now the head, Sir Bindon Blood was educated privately, and at the Indian Military College at Addiscombe, and obtained a commission ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... this long digression of the early newspaper press of New York. A paper called the New York Chronicle was published during the years 1761-'62, and then died. The New York Pacquet was next published, in 1763, but how long it lived is not known. In 1766, Holt established the New York Journal, or General Advertiser, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... more fruitless pains to dear up the history and chronology of the former, than it would cost us to make a voyage, and be certainly informed of the character, learning and government of the latter. I shall be obliged to make a digression in order ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... situation with the readers of romances; who, though they know the whole to be one entire fiction, nevertheless agree to be deceived; and, as these find amusement, so do the others find ease and convenience in this concurrence. But, this being a subdigression, I return to my digression. ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... a somewhat uncalled-for digression. But, anyhow, it shows that when it pleases me to do so I move in the very ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... digression, I shall now endeavor to bring into one view the several parts which I have already stated, and form thereon some ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... In returning from this digression to Darwinism in its purest form, to Darwin himself, we have in the first place to resume the discussion entered upon as to the way and manner in which, according to Darwin, self-determination is originated. Love and sympathy, ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... of Alice opening the front door came as a pleasant digression. A second later it became clear from the sound of voices that she had brought some one back with her, and Theron hastily stretched himself out again in the armchair, with his head back in the pillow, and his feet on the other chair. He had come mighty near forgetting that he was an invalid, ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... 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, standing on the little bluff and gazing out ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... 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 make His Majesty amends on any occasion; and how desirous the subject is to expiate ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... royally on nothing a year. They hold no government bonds, they possess no real estate (our neighbors did own their house), they toil not, neither do they spin; yet they reap all the numerous soft advantages that usually result from honest toil and skilful spinning. How do they do it? But this is a digression, and I am quite of the opinion of the old lady in "David Copperfield," who says, ...
— Our New Neighbors At Ponkapog • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... 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 ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... "Mother always told me I suffered from swelled head. . . ." He pointed to the envelope still unaddressed, lying between them on the writing table. "After which slight digression—do ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... should be the last to censure, if, from very prostration of body and mind, she be sometimes betrayed into hasty words, that generally do more harm among children and domestics than total silence in regard to what is wrong. But this is a digression. ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... 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 ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... and as it were to range aside, to th'intent by such extraordinary meane to induce or inferre other matter, aswell or better seruing the principal purpose, and neuertheles in season to returne home where he first strayed out. This maner of speech is termed the figure of digression by the Latines, following the Greeke originall, we also call him the straggler by allusion to the souldier that marches out of his array, or by those that keepe no order in their marche, as the battailes well ranged do: of this figure there ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... bad 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
... 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 out ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... in some instances the repetition goes on indefinitely without any answer or conclusion. In other cases a second phrase follows along the track of a closely related chord, but I have never noticed a case in which a third phrase appeared, corresponding to the first, after a digression of the second phrase into another chord. Generally the rhythm runs out with a series of what might be called inarticulate drum-beats, as if an impulse existed still unsatisfied, blindly making itself felt in these insignificant pulsations; an impulse ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... tried to ascertain its thickness and how far under 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
... was up in arms on account of a too intimate association of his name with pepper, and now Mrs. Sinclair has bracketed me with the calf, a most useful animal, I grant, but scarcely one I should have chosen as a yokefellow; but this is a digression. To return to our veal. I had a notion that garlic had something to do with the triumph of the Tenerumi, and, this being the case, I think it would be well if the Marchesa were to give us a dissertation on the use ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... a digression; the question before us is whether Aristophanes really liked AEschylus or only pretended to do so. It must be remembered that the claims of AEschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, to the foremost place amongst tragedians were held to be as incontrovertible as those of Dante, Petrarch, Tasso and ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... simple, while particular care was lavished on the music. The female parts were played by women. The plays very rarely have long monologues, even the inevitable prologue being divided between two speakers, but a Hindu audience was tolerant of lyrical digression. ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... this digression will be forgiven.—I was going to observe that after the duty of our Sabbath was over (on the day in which I was more distressed and afflicted than ever) we were all on our way home as usual, when a remarkable black cloud ...
— A Narrative Of The Most Remarkable Particulars In The Life Of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, An African Prince, As Related By Himself • James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
... 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; indeed, though the property in question ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... imagine this a digression wide of the subject, but it leads insensibly to it. It shows that God accomplishes His work either in converted sinners, whose past iniquities serve as a counterpoise to their elevation, or in persons whose self-righteousness ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... to tell 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 of matches. ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... my table and wrote half a dozen or more brief letters home. These were filled with irrelevant anecdotes pertaining to my experience among the Wallencampers, a few desultory descriptions of character and scenery, with a philosophical digression or two. ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... thought a Digression from my intended Speculation, to talk of Bawds in a Discourse upon Wenches; for a Woman of the Town is not thoroughly and properly such, without having gone through the Education of one of these Houses. But the compassionate ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... the original exciting cause; they are passed on from one idea to another and go steadily forward, plodding along one line of thought in spite of the amplest concessions of the hearer, or wandering from it in endless digression in spite of his remonstrances. Now, if, as is very certain, no one would envy the madman the glow and originality of his conceptions, why must we extol the cultivation of that intellect, which is the prey, not indeed of barren fancies but of barren ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... with the Body-Guard in their memorable attack, but, as the Judge-Advocate of a Court of Inquiry into that affair, which was held at Springfield immediately after our arrival there, I became familiar with the field and the incidents of the battle. I trust it will not be regarded as an inexcusable digression, if I recite the facts connected with the engagement, which, as respects the odds encountered, the heroism displayed, and the importance of its results, is still the most ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... From this digression let us now return, To note what WILLIAM found with deep concern; That "'Tis not good for Man to be alone," As said by God, in Wisdom's solemn tone. This now appeared to him a serious truth, Far more than it had done in days of youth. The birds still paired, ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... 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 ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... 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 imagination ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... the unhappy Lady Alicia will have no part to play in the action of this narrative, her little story must be accepted as a perhaps excusable digression. ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... excellence and divinity of Michael Angelo in great part to the training he received from his father: he received absolutely no assistance from him;(9) nevertheless, Michael Angelo does not complain of it, nay, even praises Domenico both for his art and his manners. But this is a slight digression; let us ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... fight for them. It is enough if I call their assailants an ugly name or so, and at times begin to write what might be the opening pages of the preface to some very great work of the future. Alas! the first digression diverts the thread of the discourse; the task becomes troublesome, and the labour is abruptly broken off. And so in a life of seventy-three years De Quincey read extensively and thought acutely by fits, ate an enormous quantity of opium, wrote a few pages which revealed new capacities ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... of these works is to discover the author's characteristic method: first, his framework or argument is carefully constructed so as to appeal to reason; then this framework is buried out of sight and memory by a mass of description, digression, emotional appeal, allusions, illustrative matter from the author's wide reading or from his prolific imagination. Note this passage from the ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... monument in question be connected with the Chorister Bishop or not, there are so many records of the function with which popular credence has associated it, that a short digression is almost unavoidable. The pamphlet by John Gregory is elaborately minute and much too long to be quoted fully, yet some of the facts he brought together may be briefly noted. It seems that on the feast of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children, the choir-boys[9] elected one of their ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... 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, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... 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 ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... 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 every scene ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... near the middle of the piece. From this point the action proceeds to the close or denouement. The knot is untied; the complications in which the leading characters have become involved are either happily removed or lead to the inevitable catastrophe. Avoiding every digression, the action should go forward rapidly, in order not to weary the patience and dissipate the interest of the spectator. The denouement should not be dependent upon some foreign element introduced at ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... object. On Nov. 7th there was 5l. put anonymously into the letter box at my house, for my own personal expenses. The note was signed "H." On the same evening I received 2l. more. On Nov. 8th I received 1l. from Keswick. On Nov. 9th 1l. 14s. 6d., and today 20l. Though this is a digression from the immediate subject before me, yet, as I write chiefly for the comfort and encouragement of the children of God, and that their dependence upon God and their trust in Him may more and more be increased, ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... it would be very hard to tell why he came hither, or to see how the journey up to this point will at all put him toward his destination. He has digressed; he has left the road. And he must get back to the road. By this digression he has wasted just as much time as it has taken to come from the direct road to this point added to the time it will take to go back. Do not digress; tell one story at a time; let no incident into your story ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... the General, with an air of complete digression, but at the woebegone look that came into the young man's face, the old soldier burst into a laugh. John whisked around to the door and stood looking out, though seeing nothing, bitter in the thought that not for the Englishman's own sake, but for the sake of the British capital ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... turned on Clara, if I began by describing her kindness, her gentleness and goodness, her simple winning manners—I was sure to be led insensibly into a digression about her height, figure, complexion, and style of dress. The latter subject especially interested Margaret; she could question me on it, over and over again. What was Clara's usual morning dress? How did she wear her hair? What was her evening dress? Did she make a difference between ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... be a digression and somewhat outside the scope of this little work. I give it, however, to show the origin of the rifle, to which, after all, the bayonet is ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... held up his hands and checked what might have become a habit by thanking the convention for the timely and admirable interruption, explaining that the digression had given him an opportunity to regain command of ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... 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 ...
— An Apology For The Study of Northern Antiquities • Elizabeth Elstob
... this gate we may fitly make a digression, and in pious memory of a great Englishman, fare along the Avenue du Cimetire to the grave of John Stuart Mill, who with his wife lies buried within the cemetery under an elder-tree on the right and toward the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... 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" love as Mirrha desires (pp. 258-261).[17] The fact that the author follows Ovid's story as closely ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... we had given ten minutes of digression—the lessons in this picture would have been well worth it, I have not, in taking you to it, gone out of my own way. There is a special point for us to observe in those dark peacocks. If you look at the notes on the Venetian pictures in ...
— Lectures on Landscape - Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 • John Ruskin
... 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 Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... resist the temptation to tell just one more wasp incident, although I fear it will hurt the tender-hearted and religious reader's susceptibilities more than any of those I have already told. But it will be told briefly, without digression ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... entering the American army; at the South, only by entering the British army, which was joined by more than fifteen thousand colored men. Jefferson says 30,000 negroes from Virginia alone went to the British army. I make the digression simply to assert that had the colored men at the South possessed the same opportunity as those at the North, of enlisting in the American army, a large force of colored men would have been in the field, fighting for ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... to knighthood and to shining arms! O foul dishonour to my household's grave! O impious act, including all foul harms! A martial man to be soft fancy's slave! True valour still a true respect should have; Then my digression is so vile, so base, That it will ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... 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 Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... we had returned from this digression to the characters and incidents immediately connected with the action ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... suspected that. Well, you keep your eye on the respected Spink. If he doesn't fail some day, and make a lot of money, I'm a Dutchman. But go on. This is digression. By the way, just push that electric button. You're nearest, and it is too hot to move. ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... what may well appear to be an uncalled-for digression; but it will only be a temporary digression, and will bring us back in a few minutes to the grape, the heavenly horse, and ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... tedious but very essential digression, something must be said here as to the motives with which the Boers had for many years been quietly preparing for war. That the Jameson raid was not the cause is certain, though it probably, by putting the Boer Government into a strong position, ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in Expression Touches religion rather than politics Hume on non-resistance Reason why rights of free speech do not exactly coincide with rights of free thought Digression into the matter of free speech Dissent no longer railing and vituperative Tendency of modern free thought to assimilate some elements from the old faith A wide breach still remains Heresy, however, no longer traced to depravity ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... atheists." It probably did not occur to him that, by a parity of reasoning, the Unitarians might justify the application of the same language to the Ultramontanes, and vice versa. But, to return from a digression which may not be wholly unprofitable, Hume proceeds to show in what manner polytheism incorporated physical and moral allegories, and naturally accepted hero-worship; and he sums up his views of the first stages of the ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... reach the document, but it illustrates so well the manner in which maternal influence passes down from age to age, and throws so much light on the strange scenes which occurred at Charles's death, and is, moreover, so intrinsically excellent, that it well merits the digression. ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott |
