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Parenthesis   /pərˈɛnθəsɪs/   Listen
Parenthesis

noun
(pl. parentheses)
1.
Either of two punctuation marks (or) used to enclose textual material.
2.
A message that departs from the main subject.  Synonyms: aside, digression, divagation, excursus.



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"Parenthesis" Quotes from Famous Books



... knowing the extravagant gullibility of the age, set their wits to work in the imagination of improbable possibilities—-of odd accidents, as they term them; but to a reflecting intellect (like mine," I added, in parenthesis, putting my forefinger unconsciously to the side of my nose,) "to a contemplative understanding such as I myself possess, it seems evident at once that the marvelous increase of late in these 'odd accidents' is by far the oddest accident ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... cant," said Sir Richmond in a fierce parenthesis, "that the supplies of oil are inexhaustible—that you can muddle about with oil anyhow.... Optimism of knaves and imbeciles.... They don't want to be pulled ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells

... he might be—he was the soul of honour, and might be trusted with a regiment of the fairest and purest; in perfect security that under his leadership they would come to no harm. Many of the girls—it may be noted in parenthesis—were not pure-minded at all, very much otherwise; but they no more dare betray their natural coarseness in M. Paul's presence, than they dare tread purposely on his corns, laugh in his face during a stormy apostrophe, or speak above their breath while some crisis of ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... Alert had yet many more days of Arctic experience in store for her, our government having placed her at the disposal of the United States authorities to take part in the relief of Lieutenant Greeley's Polar expedition.—I may here mention in parenthesis that the vessel subsequently successfully performed the task committed to her substantial frame; and it was mainly by means of the stores deposited by her in a cache in Smith Sound that the survivors of the expedition were enabled to be transported home again in safety.— ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson

... Mahomet interposed with a parenthesis of his own depreciatory of the Spaniards, whom he loathed and despised. He had fought against them in the war of 1839-1860, and the Shereef had also headed his countrymen, and had shown great courage and coolness in action. His presence had infused a high spirit of enthusiasm ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... about the West before he left home. Until this excursion he had never even crossed the Alleghanies, but he thought he appreciated the conditions thoroughly. This was because he was young. He could close his eyes and see the cowboys scouring the plain. As a parenthesis it should be noted that cowboys always scour the plain, just as sailors always scan the horizon. He knew how the cowboys looked, because he had seen Buffalo Bill's show; and he knew how they talked, because he had read accurate ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White

... territory to the Entente so long as I lacked the power to persuade Germany herself to such a step. But, as I will show, the most strenuous endeavours were made in this latter direction. And I may here in parenthesis remark that our military men throughout refrained from committing the error of the German generals, and interfering in politics themselves. It is undoubtedly to the credit of our Emperor that whenever ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... proved useless. Mrs. Wragge persisted—on evidence which, it may be remarked in parenthesis, would have satisfied many wiser ghost-seers than herself—in believing that she had been supernaturally favored by a visitor from the world of spirits. All that Magdalen could do was to ascertain, by cautious investigation, that Mrs. Wragge had not been quick enough to identify ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... you most afraid of? For Rosamond's salts and senna are different from mine, pretty often. I guess it's hers this time, by your putting her in that anxious parenthesis." ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... in time—ay, such provisory parenthesis was in my mind at the moment. But I drew hope from observing that the steed kept a ring cleared around him: his assailants ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... all about the hospital and the sick-leave, old cock, from the day when you set off in your bandages, with your snout in parenthesis! You must have seen something of the official shops. Speak then, ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... a capuchin wasting his time in quenching the darts of the flesh, though, by the way, in the whole sum of time wasted, the term expressing the time lost in satisfying the appetites of the flesh would probably be found to be decidedly the greater of the two.' This parenthesis is one of a hundred illustrations of Turgot's habitual refusal to be carried out of the narrow path of exact rationality, or to take for granted a single word of the common form of the dialect even of his best friends and closest associates. ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley

... he began, "it is probably H three C seven, parenthesis, H two C plus C four O five, close parenthesis, ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford

... strain, with an occasional glass of ale, by way of parenthesis, when the coach changed horses, did the stranger proceed, until they reached Rochester bridge, by which time the note-books, both of Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Snodgrass, were completely filled with selections ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... printer's "rule" or "dash" to separate the title of the latter from the last line of the Elegy. The poem is more correctly printed than in Dodsley's authorized edition; though, queerly enough, it has "winds" in the second line and the parenthesis "(all he had)" in the Epitaph. Of Dodsley's misprints noted above it has only "Their harrow oft" and "shapeless culture." These four errors, indeed, are the only ones worth noting, except "Or wake to extasy ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... excuse for thus naming the Epicureans with the Stoics, in conformity to the general opinion that the Epicureans were not so rigid in their morals as the Stoics, which is not true in the main, as he demonstrates at one view. This involved Montaigne in a tedious parenthesis, during which it is proper that the reader be attentive, that he may not entirely lose the thread of the argument. In some later editions of this author, it has been attempted to remedy this inconvenience, but without observing ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... enough; the difficulty lies in the determination of the periods to which they refer. He tells us that, after a brief interval from the time at which He was speaking, there would come a short parenthesis during which He was not to be seen; and that upon that would follow a period of which no end is hinted at, during which He is to be seen. The two words employed in the two consecutive clauses, for 'sight,' are not the same, and so they naturally suggest some difference ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... "Scott alone," Byron had inserted, in a parenthesis, "He will excuse the 'Mr.'—we ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... parenthesis, we may stop to explain the force of that expression, so common in Scripture, 'Thou hast said it.' It is an answer often adopted by our Saviour; and the meaning we hold to be this: Many forms in eastern idioms, as well as in the Greek occasionally, though meant interrogatively, are ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... petulantly to me, as "This is what you don't know, but what I know"? One thing I know, which you don't seem to know, that you are very uncivil.' BEAUCLERK. 'Because you began by being uncivil, (which you always are.)' The words in parenthesis were, I believe, not heard by Dr. Johnson. Here again there was a cessation of arms. Johnson told me, that the reason why he waited at first some time without taking any notice of what Mr. Beauclerk said, was because he was thinking whether he should resent it. But when ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... haply some of their terms have trod awry, or their tongues stumbled unwittingly on any man's content. In much corn is some cockle; in a heap of coin here and there a piece of copper: wit hath his dregs as well as wine; words their waste, ink his blots, every speech his parenthesis; poetical fury, as well crabs as sweetings for his summer fruits. Nemo sapit omnibus horis. Their folly is deceased; their fear is yet living. Nothing can kill an ass but cold: cold entertainment, discouraging scoffs, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... little used nowadays. The dash is preferred, probably because it disfigures the page less. The office of the parenthesis is to isolate a phrase which is merely incidental, and which might be omitted without detriment ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... Lamartine, his eulogist, found much to say in favour of the story. To the first part alone he gave his approval, likening it to the Song of Solomon. The rest he thought vulgar, and hinted that the heroine degenerates into a sort of hermaphrodite character. Brunetiere's estimate, given in a parenthesis, is not much more favourable. And Taine, when dipping into the book for examples of Balzac's style, neutralizes his praise of one portion by ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... distinctions; you could make war against the King's prerogative, without having the least design against his person. Oh Heaven forbid! But Heaven will hear and judge you. Set down the beverage, Phoebe"—(this was added by way of parenthesis to Phoebe, who entered with refreshment)—"Colonel Everard is not thirsty—You have wiped your mouths, and said you have done no evil. But though you have deceived man, yet God you cannot deceive. And ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... solitudes of ethical speculation loom always on the horizon about the sheltered dwelling of his mind, and he continually gets up from his books to rest and refresh his eyes upon them. He seldom invites us to alpine-climbing, and when he does, it is to some warm nook like the Jardin on Mont Blanc, a parenthesis of homely summer nestled amid the sublime nakedness of snow. If he glance upward at becoming intervals to the "primal duties," he turns back with a settled predilection to the "sympathies that are nestled at the feet like flowers." But it is within his villa that ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... and value a certain brightness of mind; but it must be admitted that few men care to marry intellectual women unless such women have the tact to keep their gifts somewhat in the background. (I may here say,—it is not worth more than a parenthesis—that the infallible rule for securing some kind of a husband is to be able to flatter a man, either by a real or pretended interest in him, or a real or pretended admiration of his powers. But I hope I have no reader who would wish for marriage on such terms, so I will not catalogue ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}

... else, was a woman still, and must reserve, not only the rights of her sex, but the privilege of her own good taste for the fitnesses of things. So she guardedly replies,—in a postscript, of course,—"When I see the cloth, I will send word what triminge will serve." In a modest parenthesis of another letter to her, dated October 29, 1629, he speaks of himself, as if all by the way, as "beinge chosen by ye Company to be their Governor." The circumstances of his election and trust, so honorable and dignified, are happily told with sufficient particularity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... Discontinuity.— N. discontinuity; disjunction &c. 44; anacoluthon[obs3]; interruption, break, fracture, flaw, fault, crack, cut; gap &c. (interval) 198; solution of continuity, caesura; broken thread; parenthesis, episode, rhapsody, patchwork; intermission; alternation &c. (periodicity) 138; dropping fire. V. be discontinuous &c. adj.; alternate, intermit, sputter, stop and start, hesitate. discontinue, pause, interrupt; intervene; break, break in upon, break ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... that there is nothing so slight, so simple or imperceptible but that our way of doing it enters in and betrays us: a fool neither comes nor goes, nor sits down, nor gets up, nor holds his tongue, nor moves about in the same way as an intelligent man. (And this is, be it observed by way of parenthesis, the explanation of that sure and certain instinct which, according to Helvetius, ordinary folk possess of discerning people of genius, and of getting out ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer

... first to her parenthesis, "how a woman of your good sense stumbled on that idea of hunting up the mother—!" but Mrs. Ansell answered, with a slight grimace: "My dear Henry, if you could see the house they live in you'd think I had been providentially guided there!" and, reverting to the ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... boy caught "flagrante delicto," he invariably looked out for some way to make it up to him later. It was the odd way he did it which endeared him to us, as if apologizing for the kindness. Thus, on one occasion, suddenly in most righteous anger, just as if a parenthesis to the remark he was making, he interposed, "Come and be caned, boy. My study, twelve o'clock." When the boy was leaving, very unrepentant after keeping the appointment, in the same parenthetical way ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... right in, Show Low. Glad to see you all!" cried Allen, as he, in turn, brought his hand down with ringing slaps upon shoulder and back. Meantime Parenthesis hopped about the outer edge of the ring, seeking an entrance. Failing to reach his host, he crowed: "How de doddle ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller

... degrees." Fractions, given alone, should be in words, and all other numerals occurring in a letter must follow the same rule, except quotations from stock and market reports. For extra precaution, sometimes sums of money are written, followed by figures representing the same, in parenthesis. ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... arts amidst the finest dispositions of nature. There is another antiquity of the place also to be visited at Segeste—its theatre; but we are too immediately below it to know any thing about it at present, and must leave it in a parenthesis. To our left, at the distance of eight miles, this hill country of harmonious and graceful undulation ends in beetling cliffs, beneath which the sea, now full in view, lies sparkling in the morning sunshine. We shall ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... supremely sheepish; the woman doesn't "turn a hair." She simply stares at the intruder as if she wanted him to see for himself how very attractive she is. The man, on the other hand, never meets the stranger's eyes. His expression invariably shows that he is wishing for the earth to open—which, in parenthesis, it never does when you most want it to. But the girl is quite unembarrassed. Even when it is she who is making love, a staring and smiling crowd will not force her to desist. She just goes on stroking her lover's face and kissing him. But the man looks a perfect fool, and, ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... were produced by the injection of a parenthesis. Once in an evening sermon in Plymouth Church, when Beecher was urging the reelection of Lincoln and defending the Republican party, a disputatious individual called out from the congregation, "What about Wendell Phillips?" ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis

... in parenthesis, "is why my second name is Chalmers—after the great Doctor. You will ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay

... is too much!" Lisle exclaimed. "I can't be cross-questioned in this fashion—even by you." The careless parenthesis was not without effect. "Wrong about it—no! But we'll leave the subject altogether, if you please. I won't trouble you ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... parenthesis, that in the interest of England and France and of the peace of the world, I have always felt inclined to doubt the wisdom of this grouping, however comprehensible and natural it was under the circumstances. Likewise, I have always doubted the wisdom of the creation ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn

... my net alone, Tom," cried his mother, in parenthesis.—"You see, Jacob, the whole long and short of it is this—I feel my toes more and more, and flannel's no longer warm. I can't tide it any longer, and I think it high time to lie up in ordinary and moor abreast of the old woman. Now, ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... to instinct: birds get wilder is printed in a parenthesis because it was apparently added as an after-thought. Nest without roof refers to the water-ousel omitting to vault its nest when building in a ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin

... the reader must indulge me in a long parenthesis. I beg him to bear me witness that I never made one before. This parenthesis is on the tense that I am obliged to use in sending to the press these minutes. The reader observes that the last transactions mentioned ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... friend is covered with a species of Neapolitan cap, (let me confess, in a parenthesis, that my ideas of such head- coverings are derived from the costume of graceful Signor Brignoli in "Masaniello,") which was once, in all probability, of scarlet hue, but now almost rivals in color the jet-black locks which it confines. His face— well, we will pass that over, and, on our return ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... if anything; don't you think so?" asked Flossy, trying not to look as well satisfied with herself as she really felt; adding, by way of parenthesis, "Johnny, ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May

... camp. The rain continued to fall heavily throughout the day, which could not under the circumstances, have increased the cheerfulness of the party. The Leader, however, closes the entry in his Diary with "Nil Desperandum" merely marking the day of the week in parenthesis as ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine

... perturbations (p. 203) in order:—The first is in parenthesis, because it is mere excentricity. It is not a true perturbation at all, and more ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... one can go! For every man must have somewhere to go. Since there are times when one absolutely must go somewhere! When my own daughter first went out with a yellow ticket, then I had to go... (for my daughter has a yellow passport)," he added in parenthesis, looking with a certain uneasiness at the young man. "No matter, sir, no matter!" he went on hurriedly and with apparent composure when both the boys at the counter guffawed and even the innkeeper smiled—"No matter, I am not confounded by the wagging of their heads; for ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... me to hunt on his grounds; he lived in the remotest part of the State, [Footnote: Brillat-Savarin uses the French words "derrieres de l'etat" and translates them in English, in parenthesis "Backwoods."] and promised me partridges, grey squirrels and wild turkeys. [Footnote: He also translates in the same manner "dindes sauvages" welp cocks.] He also permitted me to bring a friend or two ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin

... now, not I, but poetry is cursed; For Tom the second reigns like Tom the first. But let them not mistake my patron's part, Nor call his charity their own desert. 50 Yet this I prophesy: Thou shalt be seen (Though with some short parenthesis between) High on the throne of wit, and, seated there, Not mine, that's little, but thy laurel wear. Thy first attempt an early promise made; That early promise this has more than paid. So bold, yet so judiciously ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... speeches (except the parts enclosed in parenthesis, which are added for the purpose of illustration) are copied verbatim from the Morning Chronicle of the 1st of February last; and when the situation of the speakers is considered, the one in the opposition, and the other in the ministry, and both of them living at the public expence, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me!" Had that prayer been answered, never could one consolatory "word of Jesus" have been ours. "If it be possible;"—but for that gracious parenthesis, we must have been lost for ever! In unmurmuring submission, the bitter cup was drained; all the dread penalties of the law were borne, the atonement completed, an all-perfect righteousness wrought out; and now, as the stipulated reward of His obedience and sufferings, the ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... of Parenthesis (carefully curved), "We inclose what you well may omit; But we're often displaced by Miss Dash (in your haste), Whom you sadly ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller

... the poor child by asking him in its title, why he was going to Perdition?—a piece of curiosity that he really, in a frock and drawers, was not in a condition to satisfy—and which, for the further attraction of his infant mind, had a parenthesis in every other line with some such hiccupping reference as 2 Ep. Thess. c. iii, v. 6 & 7. There was the sleepy Sunday of his boyhood, when, like a military deserter, he was marched to chapel by a picquet of teachers three ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... appears to have escaped all the critics. The extraordinary effect which this simile produced when it first appeared, and which to the following generation seemed inexplicable, is doubtless to be chiefly attributed to a line which most readers now regard as a feeble parenthesis:— ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... beginning at the top, and proceeding from left to right. In the following list, against each number, is given the name of the occupant in 1692, and, in some cases, that of the recent occupant or owner of the locality is added in parenthesis.] ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... what followed, for it grew dark before his eyes; he might have been a drowning man trying to see through salt water. And yet, there it was written, plainly enough: "undertaker—a large coffin and a small one." And the word "dust" was added in parenthesis. ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg

... divine presence may compensate) [cujus absentia Divina repleatur praesentia. Lord Herbert translates it, "whose absence may the Divine presence attend," missing, I think, the point of the Archbishop's parenthesis] by and with the advice of the most learned in the law, and of persons of most eminent skill in divinity whom we have consulted in the premises, we have found it our duty to proceed to give our final ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... will not exhibit ugliness, disproportion, or vulgarity. We see plenty of examples where the designs have sunk much below this level; no building of dead walls, with holes in it for doors and windows, could cause us such disgust. Let me here say, by way of a parenthesis, that if you candidly consider that your design is more offensive than a dead wall, do not waste money and materials in making the wall more repulsive, ...
— The Brochure Series Of Architectural Illustration, Vol 1, No. 2. February 1895. - Byzantine-Romanesque Doorways in Southern Italy • Various

... person of infinite cleverness as well. I am delighted to hear such good accounts of your health. I was anxious to hear how you were. M. Grimod insists that I travel merely for curiosity, and not for the sake of health; and this moment, let me tell you in a parenthesis, he interrupts me to say he is sure I am writing my best, I look so pleased in writing to you. To-morrow we are going to breakfast in a ship, where the captain gives us a collation of all fine things, among others ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... said Mrs. Brett, in a pathetic parenthesis. "If there's one thing I've allers hankered after, more 'n another, ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards

... signatures, of which sixteen were proved to be genuine, five were doubtful, and all the rest fictitious. But the gentleman, whoever he was, who was the working partner in the scheme—and I may state, by way of parenthesis, that when Gunn of Gunn was subsequently arrested, petitions in process of signature were found under the mattress of his bed—calculated without his host. He either did not know, or had forgotten, that on receipt of such documents by a superior officer, ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... that his hearers have forgotten the connection of the beginning of the sentence, he should repeat what he has said; e.g. after the long parenthesis in the last sentence he should recommence, "it cannot, I say, be denied." In writing, however, this licence must ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott

... he names four times, as 'Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon;'—jealous doubtless for the honour of his brother Apostle, 'Jude ([Greek: Ioudas]) the brother of James[228]': and resolved that there shall be no mistake about the traitor's identity. Who does not at once recall the Evangelist's striking parenthesis in St. John xiv. 22,—'Judas (not Iscariot)'? Accordingly, in St. John xiii. 2 the Revisers present us with 'Judas Iscariot, Simon's son': and even in St. John xii. 4 they are content to read 'Judas Iscariot.' But in the two places of St. John's Gospel which remain to be noticed, viz. vi. 71 ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon

... closely to the remarks that fell one by one from Poiret's lips like water dripping from a leaky tap. When once this elderly babbler began to talk, he would go on like clockwork unless Mlle. Michonneau stopped him. He started on some subject or other, and wandered on through parenthesis after parenthesis, till he came to regions as remote as possible from his premises without coming to any conclusions ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... It seemed to be a part of his mode of thinking, this occasional parenthesis of silence. It was almost as though the man were leading me down a vast and dimly-lit corridor, laying his hand at times on various doors, and then withdrawing it, from some mysterious motive, and continuing ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... rationality is a parenthesis and a digression. What we were discussing was the idea of a world growing not integrally but piecemeal by the contributions of its several parts. Take the hypothesis seriously and as a live one. Suppose that the world's author put the ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... when he was drunk—"of which the immortal Bossuet says (and he was a judge of good liquor): 'In wine is courage, strength joy, and spiritual fervor'—when one has any brains," added Ninny Moulin, by way of parenthesis. ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... p.1298. (Dispatch of Lord Whitworth, Feb.21, 1803, conversation with the First consul at the Tuileries.)—Seeley, 'A Short History of Napoleon the First." "Trifles is a softened expression, Lord Whitworth adds in a parenthesis which has never been printed; "the expression he made use of is too insignificant and too low to have a place in a dispatch or anywhere else, save in the mouth of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... some one, with that looseness of family tradition and largeness of ancestral pride so common among the Creoles, in half-knowledge and half-ignorance should have ventured aside for an instant to attribute in pure parenthesis to an ancestral De la Houssaye the premature honor of a San Domingan war; or, incited by some tradition of the old Prime Minister's intimate friendship with Madelaine's family, should have imputed a gracious attention to the wrong Count de Maurepas, or ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... been commuted to penal servitude," or "My Uncle William, just come from Dartmoor Prison," your mind and perhaps your lips would faintly form the syllables "What for?" But evidently, under Turkish rule, being hanged was like being knocked down by a cab; it might happen to anybody. This is a parenthesis, since I am only dealing here with the superficial experience of the streets, especially in the snow. But it will be well to safeguard it by saying that this unpolitical carelessness and comprehensiveness of the indiscriminate Turk had its ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... striking failure may be reached without tempting Providence by any of these ambitious tricks. Our own stature will be found high enough for shame. The success of three simple sentences lures us into a fatal parenthesis in the fourth, from whose shut brackets we may never disentangle the thread of our discourse. A momentary flush tempts us into a quotation; and we may be left helpless in the middle of one of Pope's couplets, a white film gathering ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... mean by hussies?' interrupts a champion of the other party, who has evinced a strong inclination throughout to get up a branch fight on her own account ('Hooroar,' ejaculates a pot-boy in parenthesis, 'put the kye-bosk on her, Mary!'), 'What do you mean by hussies?' ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... appetite for muffins. An assault on our pockets, which in more barbarous times would have been made in the brusque form of a pistol-shot, is quite a well-bred and smiling procedure now it has become a request for a loan thrown in as an easy parenthesis between the second and ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... scyens a bydeth and is moost sure [spacing unchanged] Reuoule in mynde ryght ofte ententyfly [error for "Reuolue"?] Dyde go (se se [open parenthesis missing] Wo worthe bebate without extynguyshment [error for "debate"?] For lyke as Phebus dothe the snowe relente [text reads "Phehus"] And the releace of euerlastynge wo [initial "A" invisible] Put under the wynge of his benygnyte ...
— The Conuercyon of swerers - (The Conversion of Swearers) • Stephen Hawes

... (1) The part included in parenthesis is not found in the original text of "Heimskringla", but ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... a great wish to be kind. Mrs. Fordyce said she could never forget what she owed to us all, and could not think of blaming any of us. 'But,' she said, 'you are a sensible girl, Emily,'—'how I hate being called a sensible girl,' observed the poor child, in parenthesis,—'and you must see that it is desirable not to encourage her to indulge in needless discussion after she once understands the facts.' She added that she thought a cessation of present intercourse would be wise till the sore was in some degree healed. She ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... my father's death, I was nearly seven years old. In the next four years, during which we continued to live at Greenhay, nothing memorable occurred, except, indeed, that troubled parenthesis in my life which connected me with my brother William,—this certainly was memorable to myself,—and, secondly, the visit of a most eccentric young woman, who, about nine years later, drew the eyes of ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... analyses bacterium bacteria beau beaux cherub cherubim (or cherubs) crisis crises curriculum curricula datum data genus (meaning "class") genera genius {geniuses (persons or great ability) {genii (spirits) hypothesis hypotheses oasis oases parenthesis parentheses phenomenon phenomena seraph seraphim (or seraphs) stratum strata ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler

... In parenthesis, we find a clue to the standard of value of the time in this record: "1161: The visitation of Osraige was made by Flaitbeartac, successor of Colum Kill; the tribute due to him was seven score oxen, but he selected, as a substitute for these, four hundred ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston

... this author, published in American magazines between 1900 and 1914, are to be found indexed in "The Standard Index of Short Stories," by Francis J. Hannigan, published by Small, Maynard & Company, 1918. The figures in parenthesis after the title of a story refer to the volume and page number of the magazine. In cases where successive numbers of a magazine are not paged consecutively, the page number only is ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... written and often thus printed, we must, I think, be convinced that in copying an interlineated MS., the printer misplaced and misprinted that word, and transposed as, if the repetition of it be not also an error.—"For," commencing the parenthesis, "we would give much" stands for cause. The emphasis should, I think, be {387} laid on for; and commit be accented on the first syllable. Thus the line, though of twelve syllables, is not ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 54, November 9, 1850 • Various

... text reads "deset"; "dodh" may be error for "do[c]" and Hif, Ked, Plejr. text unchanged: error for "Ple[j]r" (Pleasure)? enoug[h], (corn enoug[h]) no open parenthesis in text So our Letters rat[h]er marr than mend our Language text reads "Letaers" as nothing, in know, show, and bo. text unchanged: error for "bow"? Put nature in arts Cradle, and its fet in the stox. text reads "its set in the ftox" with apparent ...
— Magazine, or Animadversions on the English Spelling (1703) • G. W.

... not the eldest brother, I quite saw the sort of story Master Rupert likes to spread—don't interrupt, please! When you were wool-gathering over the fire last night (in the lively and companionable way, permit me to remark in parenthesis, that you have adopted of late), and you thought I was with Tanty, I had marched off with my flat candlestick to the picture gallery to have a good look at the so-called lunatic. I dragged over a chair and lit the candles in the candelabra each side of the chimney-piece, and then standing ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... relation A: p is a case of causation. Now, the parenthesis, "as shown by the conformity, etc.," is an adscititious member of an Epicheirema, which may be stated, ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... King Nicomedes's experiences on Caesar (happily known only to the learned); and, in brief, recognizes that there is, on occasion, considerable beauty in that quarter of the human figure, when it turns on you opportunely. A most cynical profane affair: yet, we must say by way of parenthesis, one which gives no countenance to Voltaire's atrocities of rumor about Friedrich himself in this matter; the reverse rather, if well read; being altogether theoretic, scientific; sings with gusto the glow of beauty ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... continuation, though somewhat in parenthesis, a choice based on determined observation of a matter is quite another thing; and I tell you at once my experience as between spirit and oil varnish condemns the former, whilst it very strongly advocates the latter; and when one considers that it ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson

... not properly a part of the main sentence; as, I like these people (who would not?) very much. The words within the parenthesis should be read in a lower ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... parenthesis should be read more rapidly and in a lower key than the rest of the sentence, and should terminate with the same inflection that next precedes it. If, however, it is complicated, or emphatic, or disconnected from the main subject, the inflections ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... O'Donoghue. I ought, therefore, to have been elected, and I would have been elected, if Lalage had not turned the minds of the voters away from serious political thought. "I do not know," Titherington wrote in a sort of parenthesis, "whether these women hope to advance their cause by tactics of this kind. If they do they are making a bad mistake. No right-thinking man will ever consent to the enfranchisement of a sex capable of treating political life with the levity displayed here by ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham

... [171] This parenthesis shows that the censures were not directed against New England only, for the blockade so far declared did not ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... available water-power, and he put irrelevant queries concerning ineligible streams in other localities. No man comfortably mounted upon his hobby relishes an interruption. The surveyor would stop with a sort of bovine surprise, and break out in irritable parenthesis. ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... be of 'Corinthian Brass,' Which was a mixture of all metals, but The brazen uppermost). Kind reader! pass This long parenthesis: I could not shut It sooner for the soul of me, and class My faults even with your own! which meaneth, Put A kind construction upon them and me: But that you won't—then don't—I ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... uncle applied the tumbler to his face to conceal his emotion. "I brought to mind," he continued (ordering; in a parenthesis, another jug of boiling water), "I brought to mind the first time I had myself sported the envied 'wife-catchers' at the pattron of Moycullen. I was then as wild a blade as any in Connaught, and the 'tops' were in the prime of their beauty. In fact, I am not guilty of flattery ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various

... with any certainty, but the passage appears to have related the creation of small rivers and pools. It will be noted that the lines which contain the names of the five cities and their patron gods(1) form a long explanatory parenthesis, the preceding line ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King

... still adorned by a touch of the chivalrous; reckless, immoral, but scarcely cynical; not sceptical as to the existence of virtue, but only admitting morality by way of parenthesis to the habitual current of their thoughts, we recognise the kind of stuff from which to frame the Cavaliers who will follow Rupert and be crushed by Cromwell. A characteristic sentiment which occurs constantly in the drama of the period represents the soldier ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... destruction"; but I do not think these lines have a merely figurative import. The reference is to a period of real devastation, antedating the Danish incursions. "We might fairly find such a time in that parenthesis of bad government and of national tumult which filled the years between the death of Aldfrith in 705 and the renewed peace of Northumbria under Ceolwulf in the years that followed 729." (Brooke, Early Eng. ...
— Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book - with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary • C. Alphonso Smith

... 'he'd fetch three 'under'd guineas. Sir Richard would 'ave him in a minnit—that he would!' added he, with a stamp of his foot as he saw the animal beginning to set up his back and wince at the approach of the lad. (We may here mention by way of parenthesis, that Mr. Buckram had brought him out of Warwicksheer for thirty pounds, where the horse had greatly distinguished himself, as well by kicking off sundry scarlet swells in the gaily thronged streets of Leamington, as by running away with divers ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... used to. Very different from a husband out at odd hours, and never knowing when he will come home, and of a close, proud disposition, I think"—indiscreet Mrs. Vincy did lower her tone slightly with this parenthesis. "But Rosamond always had an angel of a temper; her brothers used very often not to please her, but she was never the girl to show temper; from a baby she was always as good as good, and with a complexion beyond anything. But my children are ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... he, 'that'll not go down: that cat'll not jump. I'm not green enough for that. So, say away—what's the damage?' We then explained that we had certainly a favor and a great one to ask: ['Ay, I'll be bound you have,' was his parenthesis:] but that for this we were prepared to offer a separate remuneration; repeating that with respect to the little place procured for his son, it had not cost us anything, and therefore we did really and sincerely decline to receive ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... This line may be taken as a parenthesis; then—'come too late' joins itself with 'to tell him.' Or we may connect 'hearing' with 'to tell him':—'the ears that should give us hearing in order that we ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... sufficiently illustrated without notes) will be found in the last movement of Beethoven's pianoforte sonata, op. 49, No. 2 (G major). Number the one hundred and twenty measures, and define the factors of the form with close reference to the following indications—the figures in parenthesis denoting ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius

... to prove to itself its superiority over that of the vulgar. I make a parenthesis in my ill-temper in favor of my vanity, and I bring together all the evidence ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre

... appearances about this time in the heaven's might prompt others, as well as myself, to this undertaking." I now had much conversation with and asked him many questions, having forborne to do so previously, except in the cases noted in parenthesis; but during his statement, I had, unnoticed by him, taken notes as to some particular circumstances, and having the advantage of his statement before me in writing, on the evening of the third day that I had been with him, I began a cross examination, ...
— The Confessions Of Nat Turner • Nat Turner

... these receive their color from the intensity of thought and feeling of which they are the symbols. For example, in the rendering of a parenthetical clause (since, as a rule, the thought expressed in the parenthesis is of less gravity than the thought in the main sentence), the voice will manifest itself in lighter force and generally in quicker movement, that is, in lighter, less contrasting colors; but whether ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... note, either a quarter or a dotted quarter, placed in parenthesis under the numeral, represents the length of one beat and ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens

... strange and sudden bound. This is my solution. At least I can find no better. The most obscure passage,—at least the strangest passage,—in all Horace may be explained by supposing that he was misled by Pindar's example: I mean that odd parenthesis in ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... continually haunted with the idea that a princess was to carry him off from his mistress in spectacles, Madame Art, and convey him to the land of Cocaigne, where they never make, only buy, paintings—of which articles, in parenthesis, Monsieur Achille had ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... and everything looks its blackest, and I told her she was making too much of it, but she wouldn't listen! I'm not sensitive myself, but she seems to think you're responsible for her father's death. Her father was a gentleman, you know," she added in emphatic parenthesis. ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres

... recorded of this person, so far as I know. The parenthesis describing how he "was ever contradictious of Ciaran" is probably a gloss; so far as the incident goes, the ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous

... spelled, with each syllable distinctly sounded, and the principal accent on the penult, as in Ah-wah'-nee, or the antepenult, as in Yo-sem'-i-te. Where doubt might exist, the accent will be indicated, or the pronunciation given in parenthesis.] ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark

... well fed. Is it impossible that Britannia, who confessedly rules the waves, should attend to the victuals a little, and that meat should be well cooked under a Union Jack? I just put in this question, this most interesting question, in a momentous parenthesis, and resume the tale.] ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... monument of their gratitude and magnificence. The assembly was grand and numerous, but without confusion. I sat next to Monsieur de Tulle, Madame Colbert and the Duke of Monmouth, who is as handsome as when we saw him at the palais royal. (Let me tell you in a parenthesis that he is going to the army to join the King.) A young father of the Oratory came to speak the funeral oration. I desired Monsieur de Tulle to bid him come down, and to mount the pulpit in his place; since nothing could sustain the beauty of the spectacle, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... most conformable to the rubric to mention the names of those who desire the prayers of the congregation, in substitution for the word 'those' in the parenthesis. But the names, especially when numerous, are commonly given out either before the five prayers at morning or evening prayer, or ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown

... concessions. We have rumours of the Prince of Bevern having beaten the Austrians considerably. I believe, upon review, that this is a mighty indefinite letter; I would have waited for certainties, but not knowing how long that might be, I thought you would prefer this parenthesis of politics. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... language as General Lee with reference to our neutrality, and to be much less bitter than Northerners generally— who, I must confess, in my own opinion, have much less cause to complain of our interpretation of the laws of neutrality than the South. I may mention here, by way of parenthesis, that I was, on two separate occasions (one in Washington and once in Lexington), told that there were many people in the country who wished that General Washington had never lived and that they were still ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... reality, of elaborate logical discrimination. With all its faults the style has the merits of masculine directness. The inversions are not such as to complicate the construction. As Boswell remarks, he never uses a parenthesis; and his style, though ponderous and wearisome, is as transparent as ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... valuable—intimacy with those he loves. An orator makes a false step; he employs some trivial, some absurd, some vulgar phrase; in the turn of a sentence he insults by a side wind, those whom he is labouring to charm; in speaking to one sentiment he unconsciously ruffles another in parenthesis; and you are not surprised, for you know his task to be delicate and filled with perils. "O frivolous mind of man, light ignorance!" As if yourself, when you seek to explain some misunderstanding or excuse ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... was that great sincerity in Narcissus that has always made us take him so seriously. And here I would remark in parenthesis, that trivial surface insincerities, such as we have had glimpses of in his dealings, do not affect such a great organic sincerity as I am speaking of. They are excrescences, which the great central health will sooner or later clear away. It was because he never held an opinion to which he was not, ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard

... a Comic Paper at all," said the First Traveler. "It may have been Punch. Very often an Englishman will Get Next almost immediately if the Explanation is put in Parenthesis. You have to Hand it to him with a Diagram and a Map and then give him a little Time, and then he Drops. This man is certainly an Englishman. Notice the Expression of Disapproval. He does not fancy our Farm Scenery. Get onto the Shoes, too. They ...
— More Fables • George Ade

... faith was really the one only law by which, in all ages, men had found acceptance with God. Long before law or circumcision, faith had been counted for righteousness. The whole Mosaic system was a parenthesis; and even in it, whoever had been accepted had been so because of his trust, not because of his works. The whole of the subsequent divine dealings with Israel rested on this act of faith, and on the relation to God into which, through it, Abram entered. He was not ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... less, what did it matter? Protestantism and Roman Catholicism were, after all, much the same thing. The priest would then regain his old faith through contact with the simple, steadfast belief of the girl. Here Carlino interrupted his story, avowing, in parenthesis, that he really did not know what kind of belief Noemi held. She flushed, and replied that she was a Protestant. Protestant, certainly; but a Protestant pure and simple? Noemi lost her patience. "I am a Protestant, that is enough," she exclaimed; ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowls of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him."—Gen., ii, 19, 20. This account of the first naming of the other creatures by man, is apparently a parenthesis in the story of the creation of woman, with which the second chapter of Genesis concludes. But, in the preceding chapter, the Deity is represented not only as calling all things into existence ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... time let me say, in parenthesis, that my wife, whose weakness is china, informed me that night, when we were by ourselves, that she was ordering secretly a teaset as a bridal gift for Marianne every cup of which was to be exquisitely painted with the wild flowers of America, from designs of her own,—a thing, by the by, that can ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... am so accustomed to hear nonsense spoken about all the arts, and the drama in particular, that I cannot refrain from saying 'Thank you,' for your paper. In my answer to Mr. James, in the December LONGMAN, you may see that I have merely touched, I think in a parenthesis, on the drama; but I believe enough was said to indicate our ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... articles. Figures without asterisks indicate abstracts, reviews, society reports, correspondence and discussions. The names of the authors ar given in parenthesis). ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... Virginia, and what must they have been to a generation that had just emerged from the close parlours of Richardson, the best of the sentimentalists of the pre-revolutionary type? May we not say, too, in parenthesis, that the man is the votary, not of wisdom, but of a bald and shapeless asceticism, who is so excessively penetrated with the reality, the duties, the claims, and the constant hazards of civilisation, as to find in ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley

... is not changed." It was upon this ground, as is apparent from his whole reasoning, that Sir William Scott rests his opinion in the case of the slave Grace. To use one of his expressions, the effect of the law of England was to put the liberty of the slave into a parenthesis. If there had been an act of Parliament declaring that a slave coming to England with his master should thereby be deemed no longer to be a slave, it is easy to see that the learned judge could not have arrived at the same conclusion. This distinction is very clearly stated and shown by ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard

... letter, so pull yourself together. I am here with twenty others of the 7th I.Y. on outlying picket, and although the affair began rather joylessly, we are getting on very well now. By way of parenthesis, it is more than passing strange that whenever I try to write a letter somebody always starts singing. At present, a man of the Dorsets is lifting his voice in anguish and promising to "Take Kathleen ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... brother! when such moments come to us, and they come to us all sooner or later—and I was going to add a parenthesis, which you will think strange, and say that they come to us all sooner or later, blessed be God!—when such moments come to us, do not let the black mass hide the light one from you, but copy this Psalmist, and in the energy ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... as another, provided they are both of the same age; still, how difficult is narration even to the man who is rich in well-selected evidence. What a tendency there is to round off a narrative into falsehood; or else by parenthesis to destroy its pith and continuity. Again, the historian knows the end of many of the transactions he narrates. If he did not, how differently often he would narrate them. It would be a most instructive thing to give a man the materials for the ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps

... Emmeline's, I may say in parenthesis, had given more trouble aboard ship than all of the rest of the ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... explaining verse 7, the commentator uses the words that I have enclosed within parenthesis. According to him, verse 9 hath reference to the robbed thief while he goes to the king ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... dress, a periphrasis must be used to explain the meaning of an idea which was instantly caught by the Greek or Roman ear. Many allusions which flashed like lightning upon the minds of the Senators must be explained in a parenthesis, and many a home-thrust and caustic sarcasm are now deprived of their sting, which pierced sharply at the moment of their utterance some ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... ugly word 'Gaul' before, and we must be quite sure what it means, at once, though it will cost us a long parenthesis. ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin

... where one stands in the matter, and one is aware that one part of the Conservative programme to be applied whenever that party returns to power is that of which someone has spoken as the detestable principle that to keep Ireland weak is the most convenient way of governing her. And here let me in parenthesis remark on one fact in the conditions of Irish representation—namely, its solidarity. It is one of the commonplaces of politics that office is the best adhesive which a party can enjoy, and the cold shades of opposition are apt ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... subsequent denial of the fact, that ten big-boned 'indusia' (or shirts) lay interleaved in one and the same 'coffer,' inter totidem niveas camisas[55] (or chemises)—all this framed itself as a little amusing parenthesis, a sort of family picture amongst the dreadful reports ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... would talk gibberish while the people were in an uproar of applause at his." Fanny Kemble further remarks: "In my own individual instance, I know that sometimes I could turn every word I am saying into burlesque,"—immediately observing here, in a reverential parenthesis "(never Shakspere, by-the-bye)—and at others my heart aches and I cry real, bitter, warm tears as earnestly as if I was in earnest." Reading which last sentence, one might very safely predicate that in the one instance, where she could turn her words into burlesque, she would ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent

... ink; cloth uncut and paper unsoiled; where is the preference? except that the tailor's materials are the more costly. In days of yore, the gentlemen of the thimble gave us plenty of stay-tape and buckram; the gentlemen of the quill still give us a quantum sufficit of hard words and parenthesis. The tailor has discovered that a new coat will sit more degage, and wear better, the less it is incumbered by trimmings: but though buckram is almost banished from Monmouth-street, it is still ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... adds, in this manuscript, a parenthesis, to say that she folded her undersleeves neatly, and her collar, before she slept, and put them between the cushions, upon which she slept. In the morning they had been ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale

... her book and welcomed her visitor with a warmth and cordiality that were evidently sincere. Strangers who saw Mrs. Godfrey for the first time were generally apt to remark that she was one of the plainest women they had ever seen; and they would add in a parenthesis, "It is such a pity, for the Colonel is so handsome." But even the most critical agreed that no woman could be more charming. She had spent a great deal of her life abroad, and her easy, well-bred manner, her savoir-faire ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey



Words linked to "Parenthesis" :   parenthetic, aside, excursus, divagation, substance, parenthetical, punctuation, message, subject matter, parenthesis-free notation, punctuation mark, content



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