If the reader will pardon a short digression, I shall explain the fact.

The importance of the present occasion will, I hope, excuse this short digression.

This is the close of a short digression about 'light.'

And here comes in a morsel of official history which will excuse a short digression.

After this short digression, of which I give you the precise wording, the king continued as follows:

This short digression leads naturally to another.

Here a short digression becomes necessary.

Here a short digression is necessary.

At this point, a short digression may be permitted on the subject of clerical dress during the last century.

A short digression must here be allowed, to narrate the remaining fortunes of that son, the ill-starred Seigneur de Montigny.

And here a short digression to notice like feelings in unlike dresses, one thought differently expressed will, perhaps, be pardoned.

But I could not refrain from branding so odious a mode of exploitation, and I trust that this short digression will be pardoned.

Under such colours is an atheist painted: a short digression must be suffered to examine this picture, and to disprove the assertions so sweepingly made.

-Pardonme a short digression.

The short digressions at the beginning of the third, seventh, and ninth books, might, doubtless, be spared; but superfluities so beautiful, who would take away?