"Digression" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... this philosophic digression in respect to the peculiar feelings of a man who has just been "up in a balloon." Our air-ship had been anchored in the Champ de Mars two days, waiting for a fair wind. An hour before we started, a Yorkshireman, who had evidently never seen such a creation before, annoyed me with incessant questions ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... where to find her. I traced her myself a few days ago to a house in the Rue de Charonne, and she is not likely to have gone away from Paris while her husband was at the Conciergerie. But this is a digression, let me proceed more consecutively. The letter, as I have said, being written to-night by the prisoner to one of his followers, I will myself see that it is delivered into the right hands. You, citizen Heron, will in the meanwhile make all arrangements for the journey. We ought to start at ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... am not obliged, in this place, to prove that God has forbidden the use of wine, though led into this digression from the desire to correct a general misapprehension of the Scriptures on this subject; for the inquiry now relates to ardent spirits. And what shall we say concerning the permission, above pointed out, for the Jews to use strong drink? ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... 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 ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... I am trying to draw is a difficult one and cannot be understood without a short digression about the nature of the study of politics. Politics is the study or activity of government, of the management of the public or common affairs of men. We need 'politicians', men who will devote themselves to meeting the demand for the management ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... This lengthy digression must now be interrupted. It has gone almost too far, yet it was necessary in order that an account of the early experimental contributions of the exile might be introduced chronologically. As already remarked, Americans are most deeply interested in everything Priestley did during ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... this short digression may serve to illustrate the Arcadian simplicity of habits prevailing in these mountainous districts, and affords one more illustration of the axiom, not more trite than true, that human enjoyment and luxury are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... to return from this digression. Matters being now in a good train at Cape Palmas, we go to use ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... extracted therefrom part of a paper of "Maple Dew," and replenished his left cheek with an ample wad of "fine-cut." John took advantage of the break to head off what he had reason to fear might turn into a lengthy digression from the matter in hand by saying, "I beg pardon, but how does it happen that Mrs. Cullom is in such circumstances? Has the family ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... digression: suppose while you have been reading it that Mr. Roberts has passed one of the two terrible nights, his faithful Bill at one end of the rickyard and himself at the other. The second night they took up their positions in the same manner as soon as it was dark. There ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... Well, this long digression ought to bring me on as far as Winchester, where we came yesterday afternoon, late. We should have been earlier (though our start was delayed by our guests' preparations), but Ellaline was fascinated by the pretty village of Twyford. You ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... debacle! 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 ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his wisdom and foresight. Could he arise, good man of old, And modern Ottawa behold, He'd feel himself a stranger too— 'Mid scenes of wonder strange and new— In Hull, of little worth for tillage, The spot on which he built his village. Return I now, this slight digression Was worth the time, I've an impression; Clouthier, the Indian, was a giant, And "Squire Wright," strong, self-reliant, Was he who o'er the border came And gave to Hull its ancient fame; A man of enterprise and spirit Who in ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... This is a digression. But I am led to it by the recollection of many nights spent in camps and around campfires, pretty much as described above. I can smile today at the remembrance of the calm, superior way in which the old hunters of that day would look down on me, as from the upper branches of a tall hemlock, when ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... we had returned from this digression to the characters and incidents immediately connected with ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... 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 ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... digression, a background fading into nothingness, either as rest or as a closed circle of automatic movements, is the first condition of the ecstasy of mental production. The second is given in the character of its object. The object of high intellectual ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... to the advancement of the science of botany through popularization of Linnaeus' system of bisexual classification, but Hill's medical importance is summarized best as that of a compiler. His recommendation of the study of botany as a cure for melancholics is sensible but verges on becoming "a digression in praise of the author," a poetic apologia pro vita sua in ...
— Hypochondriasis - A Practical Treatise (1766) • John Hill
... But this is a digression, and I want to make you see with my eyes the beautiful glimpses of distant country lying around the bold wooded cliff on which we were standing. The ground fell away from our feet so completely in some places, that we could ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... being hurried along helter-skelter by the tyrannical exactions of that "young Rapid" in buskins and chiton called "THE HISTORIC MUSE," I would break off this chapter, open my window, rest my eyes on the green lawn without, and indulge in a rhapsodical digression upon that beautifier of the moral life which is called "Good Temper." Ha! the Historic Muse is ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... this digression. After Charley had two or three times recommended Kate (who was a little inclined to be quizzical) to proceed, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... not make too wide a digression, to the words of Epicurus when dying; and take notice how inconsistent his conduct is with his language. "Epicurus to Hermarchus greeting. I write this letter," says he, "while passing a happy day, which is also the ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... a digression, it might be interesting to speculate upon the reason why, in view of their expressed opinions of Silverdale, both the Vicomte and Mr. Spence remained during the week that followed. Robert, who went off in the middle of it with his family ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... most meagre knowledge of the proper way in which to meet accidents of all sorts, for where they are not taught during their school days they, for the most part, remain ignorant of matters of this kind throughout their maturer years. It is much to be hoped—though this is somewhat of a digression—that the old unscientific and senseless system of teaching, which persists even in the present time to a considerable degree, may in the future give way to a more rational and practical plan of instruction—one that will deal with perceptible ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... digression to the examinations. These examinations are of the most practical character and serve to develop the mental abilities and intelligent understanding of the clerks. To clearly understand the method, the clerk should be followed step by step from ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... this digression my friends Pat and Willie have been waiting on the banks of the 'Teljuga.' I reached their tents late at night, found them both in high spirits after a good day's execution among the ducks and teal, and preparations being ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... back from my digression, it was, as I have said, I had amazement at perceiving, in memory, the unknowable sunshine and splendour of this age breaking so clear through my hitherto most vague and hazy visions; so that the ignorance of, Aesworpth was shouted to me by the ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... orders all things, and passes through all things. At last, my friend, I find myself in far greater perplexity about the nature of justice than I was before I began to learn. But still I am of opinion that the name, which has led me into this digression, was given to justice for the reasons ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... 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 ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... Father had beene Victor there, Hee ne're had borne it out of Couentry. For all the Countrey, in a generall voyce, Cry'd hate vpon him: and all their prayers, and loue, Were set on Herford, whom they doted on, And bless'd, and grac'd, and did more then the King. But this is meere digression from my purpose. Here come I from our Princely Generall, To know your Griefes; to tell you, from his Grace, That hee will giue you Audience: and wherein It shall appeare, that your demands are iust, You ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... This, however, is a digression. To proceed with our tale. One night, when M'Pherson was absent, attending a market at some distance, an elderly female appeared at the door, with the usual demand of a night's lodging, which, with the usual hospitality of Morvane, was at once complied with. The stranger, ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... the word (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 reason of ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... failure in another line is owing to the malignity of the world at large. In one of his most characteristic Essays he asks whether genius is conscious of its powers. He writes what he declares to be a digression about his own experience, and we may believe as much as we please of his assertion that he does not quote himself as an example of genius. He has spoken, he declares, with freedom and power, and will not cease because ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... return from the digression and to conclude the story of Sailor's Creek, or the "Forgotten Battle." It may truthfully be said that it was not only the last general field battle of the war, but the one wherein more officers and men were captured in the struggle ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... hastened down the hatchway; so that I lost the kiss to which I was entitled for my services. I consoled myself by the reflection that, "please the pigs," I might be more fortunate the next time that I officiated in my clerical capacity. This is a digression, I grant, but I cannot help it; it is the nature of man to digress. Who can say that he has through life kept in the straight path? This is a world of digression; and I beg that critics will take no notice of mine, as I have an idea ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... physical digression, with which I could not dispense, in order to make you understand the manner in which angels, who are purely spiritual substances, can be perceived by ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... brushes to make him a painter, and the really gifted natures who appear only at wide intervals." He illustrates the position that noble qualities in the artist are indispensable to nobility in the work of art, by a digression on religious painting and sculpture. "In order to represent in some degree the adored image of our Lord, it is not enough that a master should be great and able. I maintain that he must also be a man of good conduct and morals, if possible a saint, in order that ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... 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, ...
— The Troubadour • Robert Augustine Ward Lowndes
... "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
... digression; I return to my landing. It would be endless to take notice of all the ceremonies and civilities that the Spaniards received me with. The first Spaniard whom, as I said, I knew very well, was he whose life I saved; he came towards the boat attended by ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... 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, ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... this digression. Lord A—, the defendant in that cause, was so conscious of the strength and merits of his injured nephew's case, and that a verdict would go against him, that he ordered a writ of error to be made out before the trial was ended; and the verdict was no sooner given, than he immediately ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... to finish off on the ground. The value of 'Cutting Lettuce' is better understood on the Continent than in this country. The small tender plants are in daily use, and appear in the salad bowl with Water Cress and Corn Salad, delicately dressed with delicious flavourings. After this brief digression it is necessary to add that a crowded Lettuce crop is an encumbrance to the ground; and one of the evils of the best system, that of sowing where the crop is to finish, is the tendency of the cultivator to be timid in the thinning, which should be ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... this gate we may fitly make a digression, and in pious memory of a great Englishman, fare along the Avenue du Cimetiere to the grave of John Stuart Mill, who with his wife lies buried within the cemetery under an elder-tree on the right and toward the end of Avenue 2. A plain stone ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... 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 to ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... threaded with so much diligence is not the least worthy of observation. Those who have been so fortunate as to have visited Italy, therefore, will excuse us if we make a brief, but what we believe useful digression, for the benefit of those who have not had ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... digression I must close here, and which, indeed, the recollection of my fair friends at Albany alone could have betrayed me into. Acquainted with so much that is attractive and admirable in private life in this country, I should be less than honest did I not feel a desire to do ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... different from the opposite one of the Alps. But I think it is only by contrast that it seems wanting in vigor and picturesqueness; and those who live in its neighborhood become very much attached to the more peaceful character of its scenery. Perhaps my readers will pardon the digression, if I interrupt our geological discussion for a moment, to offer them a word of advice, though it be uncalled for. I have often been asked by friends who were intending to go to Europe what is the most favorable time in the day and the best road to enter Switzerland in order to have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... it is removed only with grave danger to the afflicted. Everything, therefore, which may lighten our burdens and tend to relieve the situation should be the aim and study of our constituents. But this may be digression. ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... that, long as the Work is, there is not one Digression, not one Episode, not one Reflection, but what arises naturally from the Subject, and makes for it, and to carry ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson
... 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. ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... rage and anguish, ran out of the house to a neighbor's, borrowed a shotgun, and ran back and emptied it into the brute's body, killing him on the spot. Fifteen years in prison for that! Shall we rejoice and say that justice, at last, is satisfied?—But that is a digression. ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... Wainwright is gone, and I am an elderly woman with an increasing tendency to live in the past. The contrast between my old doctor at home and the Casanova doctor, Frank Walker, always rouses me to wrath and digression. ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the old monk thinks that he has said enough about this rather foreign subject, and apologizes for his digression in another paragraph that should remove any lingering doubt there might be with regard to the genuineness of his monastic character. At the end of the passage he makes the application in a very few words. The personal element in his confession is so naive and so simply ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... 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 Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... pardon for this digression. I set it down because now I remember how, when Drake at last broke the silence that had closed in upon the passing of that still, small voice the essence of ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... digression. In twenty minutes, shorn and shaven, I was back again in the Mayor's parlour. The tears of gratitude stood in his eyes. I learned afterwards that a decoration was contingent on his preservation of the public peace on the occasion ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... "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
... 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 of ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... the question at rest, by admitting at once that every man does, popularly speaking, believe in the existence of matter, and that he practically walks in the light of that belief during every moment of his life? This observation tempts us into a digression, and we shall yield to the temptation. The problem of perception admits of being treated in three several ways: first, we may ignore it altogether,—we may refuse to entertain it at all; or, secondly, we may discuss ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... appear to 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 but ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... of argument I wish in a brief section of this chapter to make a digression from our main inquiry to bring forward two examples—extreme cases of the imperious action of the sexual instincts—in which we see the sexes driven to the performance of their functions under peculiar conditions. Both occur among the invertebrates. I have left the consideration ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... the duty of patriotic concord in defence of the safety and honour of their common country. His expostulations against the oppression and cruelty of the bishops, and his allusions to the martyrs who had suffered in the cause of truth, are full of interest; and his digression, in particular, upon the character and martyrdom of Patrick Hamilton, is a noble burst of eloquence and pathos. When he exhorts to national union he means union in the truth—union in the one great work of purifying religion and reforming the corruptions of the church of God. ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... said the attorney, "I am not so miserly of my time, but at night every minute is precious. So be brief and concise. Go to the facts without digression. I will ask for any explanations I may consider ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... 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, and also ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... This digression puts me in mind of another, and that is to warn the amateur not to "know too much," and think he has nothing to learn directly he can set up a bird or mammal, or anything else, in a fairly respectable manner. The people who know everything, and imagine they cannot be taught, ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... with a pennyworth of brains, or the like precious amount of personal experience, or who has read a novel before, must, when Harry pulled out those faded vegetables just now, have gone off into a digression of his own, as the writer confesses for himself he was diverging whilst he has been writing the last brace of paragraphs. If he sees a pair of lovers whispering in a garden alley or the embrasure ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 English Sir ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... 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 order to disprove Galileo's discovery ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... indulged in a very appropriate digression upon female modesty, which he wound up by asserting that that estimable virtue became more and more influenced by the secretive organ, in proportion as the favoured suitor approached near and nearer to a definite proposal. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Excuse this digression, reader. What I wished to explain was that, if a man in a humble situation seeks to refine his pronunciation of English, and finds himself in consequence taxed with pride that will not brook the necessities of his rank, at all events, he is but integrating his ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... though these scenes out of every-day life are no digression from the principal events, nothing episodical which one may pass over. In order still sooner to arrive at a clear perception of this assertion, we will yet tarry a few moments in the house of Mr. Berger, the ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... have made this short digression because it appeared to me seasonable at a time when there is only too much tendency to overthrow natural religion to its very foundations. I return then to the Averroists, who were persuaded that their ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... it may seem a digression, I yield to the temptation to include here an extraordinary "snake story" taken from An Actor Abroad, which ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... part 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 of the Consular commission ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... accumulation of detail, instead of by a systematic and constructive plan which will take the reader step by step through the work to be done, and make clear constantly both the principles and the practice of garden making and management, and at the same time avoid every digression unnecessary from the practical point of view. Other books again, are either so elementary as to be of little use where gardening is done without gloves, or too elaborate, however accurate and worthy in other ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... for this digression brings me naturally to the next thing we saw at Novgorod. As we issued from the bazaar, the sunlit minaret greeted us through whirling dust and rising vapor, and I fancied I could hear the muezzin's musical cry. It was about time for the asser prayer. Droshkies were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... After this digression let us return to the megapodes of Borneo, whose appearance had strongly excited the curiosity of Captain Redwood and ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... digression, although in saying this I am nearer to what is generally called politics than I shall be again. I only want to show you what commercial war comes to when it has to do with foreign nations, and that even the dullest can see how mere waste must go with it. That is how ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... Menelaus.]—This digression about Menelaus is due, as similar digressions generally are when they occur in Greek plays, to the poet feeling bound to follow the tradition. Homer begins his longest account of the slaying of Agamemnon by asking "Where was Menelaus?" (Od. iii. 249). Agamemnon could be ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... slight digression because otherwise I should have conveyed a slightly false impression by the phrase "all Founders of religions." We mean amongst ourselves by the word "Master," when used accurately, a very distinctly marked rank in the Occult Hierarchy; He is a being who has attained what is called "liberation" ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... 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 ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... for that perennial 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 by unavoidable comparisons. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... may be deemed by the reader a digression, or otherwise, we have certainly felt ourself justified in making them; from the fact, that our story is designed to be historical in all its bearings; and because many months being supposed to elapse, ere our characters are again brought upon the ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... and tootlers on windy wood, labor beneath him transmuting the composer's mysterious symbols into living sound, and when it is all over we frequently find that it seems all to have been done for the greater glory of the conductor instead of the glory of art. That, however, is a digression which it is not ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... I pray you before ye goe further, let mee interrupt you here with a shorte digression: which is, that manie can scarcely beleeue that there is such a thing as Witch-craft. Whose reasons I wil shortely alleage vnto you, that ye may satisfie me as well in that, as ye haue done in the rest. For first, whereas the Scripture seemes to prooue Witchcraft ...
— Daemonologie. • King James I
... From which digression it is fair to conclude that Mr. Burtwell did not attach any great importance to his daughter's question or to his own answer. But Madge put away the promise in the safest recesses of her memory as carefully as she had tucked the letter to her "dear pickpocket" inside the red morocco ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... frequently enlivened by illuminating figures of rhetoric and by humor, or rendered impressive by the striking way in which they express thought, e.g. "The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion." A pun, digression, or out-of-the-way allusion may occasionally provoke readers, but onlookers have frequently noticed that few wrinkle their brows while reading his critical essays, and that a pleased expression, such as photographers like, ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... 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
... 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 ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... But this digression of thought was but superficial, and the sense that something serious underlaid it remained always latent. The professor leaned back in his chair, and sighed again heavily. It was true that he was growing old, and now that he contemplated action, he felt that ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... 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 ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... and to shining arms! O foul dishonour to my household's grave! O impious act, including all foul harms! A martial man to be soft fancy's slave! True valour still a true respect should have; Then my digression is so vile, so base, That it will live engraven ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... William discards the older ecclesiastical models and the annalistic form. Events are grouped together with no strict reference to time, while the lively narrative flows rapidly and loosely along with constant breaks of digression over the general history of Europe and the Church. It is in this change of historic spirit that William takes his place as first of the more statesmanlike and philosophic school of historians who began ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... about on the slippery ice 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
... both of them magnificent cities in Roman times, some very ancient books did linger, and here is room for a digression. Lyons had a Pentateuch in Latin which was a great rarity, for not only was it in uncials of the fifth century, but it was of the Old Latin version, that made from the Greek before St. Jerome made his version from the Hebrew, which we call ...
— The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts - Helps for Students of History, No. 17. • M. R. James
... Though this 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 ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... 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 case had the matter been set entirely by hand. ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... from this long digression, Lucy, Tilly, and Jacky bathed, while Mrs Brown watched and scolded. This duty performed, they returned to the house, where they found the remainder of the party ready for a journey on foot to Lake "What-you-may-call-it," which lake Lucy named the Lake of ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... asked permission to make a digression, and being greeted with cries of "Go on!" from all sides, began in brief, clear sentences to show how the commerce of Nuremberg from small beginnings had reached its present prosperity. Instead of the timid, irregular exchange of goods as far as the Rhine, the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... have 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
... that of his eyes, 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; ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... from this digression, Mr. Muller, not only during this illness, but down to life's sudden close, had a growing sense of sin and guilt which would at times have been overwhelming, had he not known upon the testimony of the Word that ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... is a digression, but remotely connected with Letterbeg and Mr. Heraty's window, to which in our forlorn ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... to 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: 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 which our fathers framed will be annihilated. This conflict has ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... in parentheses, are occasional starts of digression dictated by rage, and should be uttered passionately, we do not mean loudly, but with vehement indignation! So Mossop uttered them, changing his key and speaking the words with the rapidity expressive of rage—and then, after a struggle, falling down to the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... 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. Molo was ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... Excuse this rather long digression, My pen has carried me astray; These schoolboy days make an impression From which ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... if they exchanged styles. Yet Gibbon never denies himself a jest, and Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois was called L'Esprit sur les Lois. M. Renan's Histoire d'Israel may almost be called skittish. The French are more tolerant of those excesses than the English. It is a digression, but he who would fail can reach his end by not taking himself seriously. If he gives himself no important airs, whether out of a freakish humour, or real humility, depend upon it the public and the ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... a certain incident connected with the Wilderness campaign of which it may not be out of place to speak; and to avoid a digression further on I will mention ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... pardon us for having again fallen into digression; that man, who is a world in himself, has, against our will, swept us along ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... — A dreadful accident which befel Sophia. The gallant behaviour of Jones, and the more dreadful consequence of that behaviour to the young lady; with a short digression in favour of the ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Preface, as "the truest judge and most intelligent admirer of Shakespeare."(26) The scheme of his Elements of Criticism (1762) allowed him to deal with Shakespeare only incidentally, as in the digression where he distinguishes between the presentation and the description of passion, but he gives more decisive expression to Warton's view that observance of the rules is of subordinate importance to the truthful exhibition of character. The mechanical part, he observes, ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... sustains by God's order a position of dignity as head of a family, head of the woman. Any breaking down of this order indicates a mistake in the union, or a digression from duty. ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... there was a digression in that first paragraph which to the purist might seem of ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... digression. Saadi gives this whimsical piece of advice to a pugnacious fellow: "Be sure, either that thou art stronger than thine enemy, or that thou hast a swifter pair of heels." And he relates a droll ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... did return; my feet again trod the daisied meadows of England; the song of her birds was in my ears; I wept with delight to find myself once more wandering beneath the fragrant shade of her green hedge-rows; and I awoke to weep in earnest when I found it but a dream. But this is all digression, and has nothing to do with our unseen dwelling. The reader must bear with me in my fits of melancholy, and take ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... fine bracing mountain-air to be drawn from the material, as with a spigot, if you will only favor your mind with a digression from the tangible article to the wild-rose associations in which it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... wonderful, and ancient erection, is gone. The problem has been worked out—the ground is mined—the train is laid—a foreign force, in its nature transitory, alone stays the hand of those who would complete the process by applying the match. This seems, rather than is, a digression. When that event comes, it will bring about a great shifting of parts—much super-and much subter-position. God grant it may be for good. I desire it, because I see plainly that justice requires it. Not out of malice to the popedom; for I cannot at this moment ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley |
