“My work is digressive, and it is progressive too”

The expression “My work is digressive, and it is progressive too” states the novel’s governing formal principle: its departures from the apparent subject do not simply stop the narrative, but can carry it forward by another route. The narrator presents digression and progression as contrary motions that his work reconciles, making the movement of the telling itself part of the work’s design.

Meaning and Context

The claim follows the narrator’s account of beginning to sketch the character of Uncle Toby before Aunt Dinah and the coachman lead the narrative into a distant excursion through the planetary system. Although the planned outline of Uncle Toby cannot be completed at that point, the narrator says that familiar strokes and faint indications of the character have continued to appear along the way. The detour therefore changes the route without wholly abandoning the subject.

How Digression Progresses

The expression distinguishes forward movement from a straight, uninterrupted account. A digression may interrupt the broad contours of a character’s portrait, yet still add details that make the reader better acquainted with him. Progress is cumulative and indirect: the work advances not only by completing its announced topics, but also by distributing pieces of its subjects across excursions and returns.

Narrative Significance

By describing the work’s machinery as distinctive, the narrator turns a potentially disruptive feature into an explicit rule of composition. The two motions are not presented as alternatives, one of which must defeat the other; they are introduced together and reconciled. The expression thus serves both as a compact account of the book’s structure and as a defense of its characteristic movement: departure can itself be a mode of advance.