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More "Distract" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he entered, an empty one, some passenger had left a weekly periodical; Piers seized upon it gladly, and read to distract his thoughts. One article interested him; it was on the subject of national characteristics: cleverly written, what is called "smart" journalism, with grip and epigram, with hint of universal knowledge and the true air of British superiority. Having scanned the writer's comment on the Slavonic ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... affected by Men of small Intellects. These Men need not be concerned with you for the whole Sentence; but if they can say a quaint thing, or bring in a Word which sounds like any one Word you have spoken to them they can turn the Discourse, or distract you so that you cannot go on, and by consequence if they cannot be as witty as you are, they can hinder your being any wittier than they are. Thus if you talk of a Candle, he can deal with you; and if you ask him to help you to some ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... listening to what had been said with glowing cheeks, meaning to become a Camp Fire girl even though it was entirely impossible for her to join the summer camp. She was holding her small brother tight in her arms, trying to distract his attention with objects to be seen out the front window, and so entirely oblivious of the fact that the hastily adjusted hairpins had been slipping out of her hair, until one yellow braid now dangled ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... else for Smythe or P. T. to "discover." Readers must have been strangely disappointed on finding not a single word to throw light upon this subject, and merely a long account of the negotiations between Curll and P. T. The narrative might serve to distract attention from the main point, which it clearly did nothing to elucidate. But Curll now stated his own case. He reprinted the narrative with some pungent notes; he gave in full some letters omitted by P. T., and he added a story which was most unpleasantly significant. ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... with your "Nibelungen"? It will be a great joy to me to grasp your creation through your immediate aid. For heaven's sake, let nothing distract you from this, and continue to weld ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... half so impressed with the falls as I ought to have been. They don't seem so high as in the pictures, and the terrible buildings on one side distract one so it seems as if even the water can't be natural, and must be just arranged by machinery. But it was fun going under them, and those oilskin coats and caps are most becoming. You go down in a lift and then walk ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... of his day held fast to the idea that the enslavement of the African was socially, morally, and politically wrong. The new school was founded exactly upon the opposite idea; and they resolved, first, to distract the democratic party, for which the Supreme Court had now furnished the means, and then to establish a new government, with negro slavery for its corner-stone, as socially, morally, and ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... hovering near the poor old woman. The fact that Ted was contentedly munching a red apple told that he had already made his hawk-like descent on the stand of the market woman, and was now seeking to distract her attention so that his companion might also swoop down to seize a prize, when they would go off, laughing uproarously, as though they ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... "you're the best pedaller I ever had. You've got music in you. We'll practise up and give a concert. I'll ask some nobs in. We'll turn the piano so that seeing how the pedalling is done won't distract their attention from the music. But they won't hear our music, Rose. It will be better than that. They shall roll in it, bathe in it, ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... feathers made no wounds, and that a Roman spear would pierce a painted shield;" and to lessen the effect which the oath taken by the Samnites had upon the minds of the Romans, he said that such an oath must rather distract than strengthen those bound by it, since they had to fear, at once, their enemies, their comrades, and their Gods. In the battle which ensued, the Samnites were routed, any firmness lent them by religion or by the oath they ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... the very substance of my flesh were so many eyes looking out at will upon a world new created every day. The silence and darkness which are said to shut me in, open my door most hospitably to countless sensations that distract, inform, admonish, and amuse. With my three trusty guides, touch, smell, and taste, I make many excursions into the borderland of experience which is in sight of the city of Light. Nature accommodates itself to every man's necessity. If the eye is maimed, so that it does ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... The fellow is distract, and so am I; And here we wander in illusions: Some blessed power ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... books, and comments on European society; speaking with ease and remarkable knowledge of his subjects, and so pleasantly that Madame Patoff never perceived that he wished to amuse her, and was trying to distract her thoughts from the one subject which too easily beset them. Indeed, the professor in the society of a woman of the world was a very different man from the earnest, plain-speaking person who had dined with Paul ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... or even real lamb chops, but no power of special dishes served to distract the students from ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... the other half of the paper to try and distract her mind from the noises over the hedge. But every head-line seemed to dart at her sore consciousness as if it were a snake's head with a sting in it. Murder. Unrest. Strikes. Dissatisfactions. Change. The whole outlook was indescribably comfortless and depressing to her. She felt something akin ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... society around me," said she, "and will never be alone; the people about me shall always laugh and jest, to cheer me and distract my thoughts. Hasten, hasten—call my court; the most jovial men shall be most welcome! And, do you hear, above all things, bring me wine, the best and strongest wine. When I drink plenty of it, I shall again become gay and happy; it drives away all cares, and renders ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... bulletins both to his sister-in-law and to her mother at Ferrara. "There is no fresh news to give you here," he wrote on the 6th of October. "My whole days are spent at the bedside of my dear wife, endeavouring to distract her thoughts and amuse her mind as best ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... help I want, it is removing hindrances. I don't want to see anything to draw off my attention. I don't want a cornice, or an angle, or anything but a containing curve. I want diffused light and no single luminous centre to fix my eye, and so distract my mind from its one object of contemplation. The metaphysics of attention have hardly been sounded to their depths. The mere fixing the look on any single object for a long time may produce very strange effects. Gibbon's well-known story ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... this threat in execution, nothing could give me greater uneasiness: for her violence and volubility would almost distract you. ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... chain of men handing up buckets of water through the back garden," said someone else, as though trying to distract her thoughts. "They'll soon get the fiercest ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Robert's breast these emotions obtained yet more powerful dominion; again did remorse distract him, and there were moments of darkness, when his spirit questioned the justice of the Creator. Why was not his crime visited on his own head? Why did the guiltless and unstained fall thus around him, and he remain unharmed? and it needed all the eloquence ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... should bring the family high up in the dominant hierarchy of the South. She listened silently to the young girl's pleading prattle of the boy's bravery, his wit, his manliness. She did not say no, but she hoped to find a way to distract her daughter from a mesalliance, which would not only diminish her child's rank, but compromise the family politically. Such a sacrifice could not be. Fortunately, both were mere children, and the knot would unravel itself without perplexities that maturer ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... to the many and powerful impressions to which the mind is exposed, and in the uncertainty of all knowledge and of all science, more things occur to distract a man from the road he has entered upon, to make him doubt himself and others, than in any ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... hoping that thou wilt behave like a resigned Christian, who, art not so depressed by a sense of thy own grief, as to be incapable of ministering to the woes of others. Allow me to think of thee as one whose views are not bounded by the grave, and then I shall have no overwhelming terrors to distract my attention, or unfit me for improving every fair opportunity for my deliverance. But, should the worst happen, remember, Constantia, I shall continue to exist. Putting on the garment of immortality ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... every year all fall. Ding-dong, bing-bang, give and take, no quarter and pretty nearly everything fair. As I said, it wasn't considered exactly proper to burn a rival frat house in order to distract the attention of the occupants while they were entertaining a Freshman, but otherwise we did pretty nearly what we pleased to each other—only being careful to do it first. Of course a lot of things are fair in ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... forget—energetically, systematically. I tried to take an interest in somebody else. I tell you this because I want you to know I did my duty. I didn't succeed. It was for the same purpose I went abroad—as far away as possible. They say travelling distracts the mind, but it didn't distract mine. I've thought of you perpetually, ever since I last saw you. I'm exactly the same. I love you just as much, and everything I said to you then is just as true. This instant at which I speak to you ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... had had "a fit." When the doctor came, he gave no hope of her life. She had had heart disease for many years, he said. In the midst of this confusion, a letter came for the gentleman, which seemed absolutely to distract him. He bade Sal get the little Jan ready, and put his clothes together, and they started that evening for the mill. Sal believed it was the doctor who recommended Mrs. Lake as a foster- mother for the baby, having attended her child. The storm came on after they started. The ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... seems to me well-nigh perfect, whether he has pen, pencil, or stump of charcoal in his hand. It is the great merit of his work, as it appears to me, that it depends for the achievement of its intention solely on its own intrinsic qualities. It has no tricks, no mannerisms, no "fakements" to distract the attention and conceal weaknesses. It is straightforward, direct in its appeal, self-reliant ...
— Frank Reynolds, R.I. • A.E. Johnson
... temptations of the idle and the dissolute to seduce him from the quiet scenes of his youth (scenes so congenial to his taste) to the hollow and heartless society of cities, to the haunts of men who would court and flatter him while his name was new, and who, when they had contributed to distract his attention and impair his health, would cast him off unceremoniously to seek some other novelty. Of his again encountering the difficulties and privations he lately experienced there is no danger. Report speaks of honourable and noble friends already secured: ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... a poor complexion and beautiful brown eyes, who had cherished a rather hopeless inclination for Henry; now that he had lost that bold girl, she tremulously assured herself, perhaps it was not quite so hopeless. Laura, too, had an idea that such might possibly be the case, and hoping at least to distract her brother, about whom she was becoming quite anxious, she had Ida over to tea once or twice, and, by various other devices which with a clever woman are matters of course, managed to throw her ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... ever omit his conclusion. If there is only one contestant on each side, a conclusion is certainly necessary both for the sake of clearness and emphasis, and because an unfinished argument is not a unit. If there are several contestants on each side, the fact that the opposing speakers intervene and distract the attention of the audience makes it even more necessary that each debater end his argument with a formal conclusion, and by means of it bind his work to that ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... the succession of objects distract her. See the bridge of the Val surrounded by its lovely landscape: on the right, Paris with its grand monuments, which rise through the fog, or sparkle in the sun; on the left, Meudon, with its villas, its woods, its vines, and its royal castle! The two work-women look from ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... before seen a tinge of color in her face, nor any of the ordinary feelings of life glancing in her eyes. Now she seemed actually pretty. He had made a discovery—perhaps he had now another means to distract her from herself. Then the squirming trout drew his attention and he took ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... delirium, the same mournful desolation. What a life! oh, what a life! Better I had chosen death, than to be interred alive in this abyss, which incessantly racks my thoughts! Blind, solitary, and a prisoner! what can distract ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... had nothing to distract his attention, he might have thought too much about his handsome partner, and then gone home and dreamed about her, which is always dangerous, and waked up thinking of her still, and then begun to be deeply interested ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... I prevail with you then," I demanded,, interrupting him, "to leave off these long speeches, that tend to nothing but to distract my head, and detain me from my business? Shave me, I say, or begone:" with that I started up in anger, stamping my foot ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... enclose the problem. For by this time, what with Herbert's subaltern, Carey's pawn, and a cistern left me by an uncle who was dining with us that night, I had more than enough to distract me. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... in progress was caused by the immense crowd blocking the court, only pushed aside by archers on horseback, who separated the people. The marquise now went out, and the doctor, lest the sight of the people should completely distract her, put a crucifix in her hand, bidding her fix her gaze upon it. This advice she followed till they gained the gate into the street where the tumbril was waiting; then she lifted her eyes to see the shameful object. It was one ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... crowd drives hither and thither, now furiously commanding this thing to be done, now that. What is he that he should resist their will, and think or act for himself? Every moment new changes and new showers of deceptions to baffle and distract him. And when, by and by, for an instant, the air clears and the cloud lifts a little, there are the gods still sitting around him on their thrones,—they alone with ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... might be found—everything is possible; but such are devoted more or less to a variety of plants, and the departments are not all gathered beneath one roof. I confess, for my own part, a hatred of references. They interrupt the writer, and they distract the reader. At the place I have chosen to illustrate our theme, one has but to cross a corridor from any of the working quarters to reach the showroom. We may start upon our critical survey from the very dwelling-house. Pundits of agricultural ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... and bonds of sleep; Without whose power and sweet dominion Our life were hell, and pleasure painfulness. The sting of envy and the dart of love, Avarice' talons, and the fire of hate, Would poison, wound, distract, and soon consume The heart, the liver, life, and mind of man. The sturdy mower, that with brawny arms Wieldeth the crooked scythe, in many a swath Cutting the flowery pride on velvet plain, Lies ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... It was only requisite that there should be no delay, no procrastination; for success depended chiefly on securing beforehand commodious posts and proper allies: besides, Hannibal ought to be sent immediately into Africa, in order to distract ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... of the human mind, when set at liberty from ancient prejudices, and permitted to range in search of expected good, to become extreme in its calculations and projects of improvement, and to distract itself amidst the variety of its experiments. And more especially when its enterprises are favored by the encouragement of wealth, and sustained by the indiscriminate approval of the multitude. It is then, that overlooking the maxims of sound philosophy, and disregarding the safe ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... Countess Georges, from dying of grief." He writes to the Mniszechs on February 27th, 1847[*]: "Our dear adored Atala is in a charming and magnificent apartment (and not too dear). She has a garden; she goes a great deal to the convent" (to see Mlle. Henriette Borel). "I try to distract her and to be as much as possible Anna to her; but the name of her dear daughter is so daily and continually on her lips, that the day before yesterday, when she was enjoying herself immensely at the Varietes—in fits of laughter at the 'Filleul de ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... whisperingly a verse from the Women's Marseillaise. "There's many singing that song to-day in prison that would be glad to sit and breathe fresh air and look at a fine view as you're doing, so you ought to be thankful!" And indeed the view of the Castle did just for that moment distract her from the business of weeping, for there had been a certain violent alteration of the weather. The autumn sunshine, which had never been more than a sarcasm on the part of a thoroughly unpleasant day, had failed ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... to be persuaded; he was taken to the hospital, and Esther remained at home waiting for the fateful afternoon. Now that the dying man was taken from her she had no work to distract her thought. The unanswerable question—would Chasuble win?—was always before her. She saw the slender greyhound creatures as she had seen them at Epsom, through a sea of heads and hats, and she asked herself if Chasuble was the brown horse that had ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... that on that account alone his making my acquaintance gave him greater satisfaction. He then proceeded to tell Lord Blomfield and me how your father's name had become familiar to him, and so much valued in his eyes. He said that at one time Napoleon had arranged to distract the affairs of Britain by attacking her in her Canadian possessions—not by a direct descent upon them, but by a route which men expected would take England quite by surprise and ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... last days had been so full of excitement, she had been so hurried from one new sensation to another, that she had not had time to occupy herself exclusively with this great sorrow that had fallen upon her; but there was nothing to distract her now. Her father's death, which she had found so hard to understand in the midst of everyday life and familiar associations, she realized all too bitterly when such realization was aided by the blank convent walls and the dull convent routine; the sorrow that had been ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... time, reports of the near completion of Ouroboros II were monopolizing the newscasts, to distract public attention from what was happening at Force Command. Cargo was being collected for her; instead of washing their feet in brandy, next year people would be drinking water. Lorenzo Menardes had emptied his warehouses of everything over a year old; so had ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... might put off the sitting in view of the fact that the picture might have been painted any time these last six years," Herman said. "But Olga has been nervous about the ball we are going to have to-night, and I thought it best to bring her to-day to distract her. You know this is really a ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... city—so far could hatred stimulate a man consistent only in his ruling passion of revenge. But the mighty power of Persia now lowering over Lacedaemon, the Spartan citizens resolved to sacrifice even justice to discretion: it was not a time to distract their forces by new foes, and they invited Cleomenes back to Sparta, with the offer of his former station. He returned, but his violent career, happily for all, was now closed; his constitutional madness, no longer ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... cause of religion and liberty? This religion proclaims to him its own preponderance, and the weakness of its rival, — two-thirds of the power of Austria are now in arms against Austria itself, while a formidable confederacy, already formed in Transylvania, would, by a hostile attack, further distract even the weak remnant of its power. Could inducements such as these fail to awaken his ambition, or such hopes to ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... glad that she had not caught his last words. He felt that they were unwise, and he turned his back to distract his attention and ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... said Jackson, offering his canteen, after having drank himself, and with a view to distract attention from his companion. "You seem to have no liquor in the house, and I take it you require something hot as h-ll, and strong as d—n——n, after that ogre like repast ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... with her; but Dr. Barnett, who had fought eagerly and desperately with the dread disease, told them that it would do no good. The excitement might only hasten the end, and better to leave her quiet, and so contentedly happy as she seemed, than to bring new faces and new scenes to worry and distract the last feeble remnant of her strength. So they submitted themselves to his word, as one of authority, and took upon themselves the sad duty of watching a loved life drift peacefully out, and trying to say, as the end drew near: ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... bleak darkness. It seemed more terrible now that he was with his friends than when he was outside and alone. He kept on saying to himself that there were plenty more who would be spending the night out of doors. He strove to distract his mind by talking, but in the middle of his words a spatter of rain against the window ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... was merely digressing, which I admit is wrong, as you're apt to distract the attention of your hearer from the real subject. We'll return to Mademoiselle Julie. Do you think she's going ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... be a wonderful new process of evolving gas from dirt and city refuse. He had been explaining it gently to a woman in the chair, from pure intellectual interest, to distract the patient's mind. He was not tinkering with teeth this time, however. The woman was sitting in the chair because it was the only unoccupied space. She had removed her hat and was looking steadily into the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... piety of the islanders was edifying, the costumes worn by these strange converts were such as somewhat to distract the attention of the visitors. A black coat or the waistcoat of an English uniform was the only garment worn by some, whilst others contented themselves with a jacket, a shirt, or a pair of trousers. The most fortunate were wrapped in cloth mantles, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... moment When nothing can distract a Christian's thoughts I'll softly ope the door. For one brief second Your Highnesses will see his golden head; Then I shall close the door, and thus he'll rise, Not knowing he received, before the Court, As usage ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... the maddening gale, Starts reddens foams and screams and mutters loud, Like a fell fiend, her oracles of God. The dark enigma, by the pontiff scroll'd In broken phrase, and close in parchment roll'd, From his proud pulpit to the suppliant hurl'd, Shall rive an empire and distract the world. ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... said Merton sternly. 'Misplaced affections she might distract, but then, after she had distracted them, she might reciprocate them. As a conscientious manager I cannot recommend her ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... their efforts, who are working with the energy of the American character "for the cause." Alas, already the word was coming of a relaxation in the generosities, the devotions, the enthusiasms of these Americans. Other interests were coming into our rapid activities to distract us from last ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... On Monday, I am going with John in the yacht for a cruise amongst the Danish islands," said Mrs. Hardy, "do you think he would like to go with us? It would allow of his being better acquainted with us, and would distract his thoughts from dwelling on your ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... to her. For the first time she denied Kells admittance and she only vaguely sensed his solicitations. She had no ear for the murmur of voices in Kells's room. Even the loud and angry notes of a quarrel between Kells and his men did not distract her. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... to distract Sylvia's thoughts from Anna Wolsky. She now began each morning with a two hours' ride with Paul de Virieu. She had a graceful seat, and had been well taught; only a little practice, so the Count assured her, was needed to make her into a really good horsewoman, ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... external features of stupor in all akinetic catatonics, in marked depressive retardation, when there is a lack of interest, affect or will, in autism, with twilight states, as a result of negativism or, finally, when numerous hallucinations distract the patient's attention into a world of fancy. He notes that in all stupors (with the exception, perhaps, of "Benommenheit") the symptoms may disappear with appropriate psychic stimulation or that some reaction, no matter how larval, may be observed. He speaks, for ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... him. M. le Cure is not the man to flinch; and as he passed, walking as usual very quickly and straight, his soutane brushed against the blouse of Jacques. He gave one quick glance from beneath his eyebrows at the profane interruption, but he would not distract himself from his sacred errand at such a moment. It is a sacred errand when any one, be he priest or layman, carries the best he can give to the bedside of the dying. I said this to Jacques when M. le Cure had passed and the bell went tinkling on along the street. 'Jacques,' ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... very glad to go to Peking from time to time, for he liked the excitement of the barbaric capital, and besides, he thought it would be good for Li to be quite on his own in charge of the godowns, and might distract his thoughts from that obsession which was preying ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... I ever recite my experience to you if I did not enter upon these miserable details, which sorely distract the stranger upon his first arrival? Had I been a Government official, I had but wagged my finger and my quota of pagazis had been furnished me within a week; but as an individual arriving without the graces of official recognition, armed with no Government influence, I had to be ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... read many books, some of which seemed beyond a boy's ken, but he got something from each of them. His power of concentration already surprised his family. If he was absorbed in a chapter, nothing which went on outside of him, either noise or interruption, could distract his attention. His passion for natural his tory increased. At the age of ten, he opened in one of the rooms of his home "The Roosevelt Museum of Natural History." Later, he devoted himself more particularly to birds, and learned from a taxidermist ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... endowment of research, as they style themselves, raised some time ago against the simple proposal of the Oxford University Commission, that well-endowed professors should deliver some lectures on their own special subjects? Such a practice, they maintained, would utterly distract the mind from all original investigation of the sources. Such certainly was not the case with the Bollandists, who yet could make time carefully—far more carefully than most modern historians—to investigate the sources of ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... out in a broad line, chase them at the utmost speed of horse towards that quarter of the park where the nets are spread. Some two hundred yards in front of the nets two deerhounds are held, and slipped as the stag gallops past—not to injure or distress him, but to hurry him up and distract his attention from the long ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... class for women, in which fifteen matriculated. Mrs. Lockwood had been denied admission the previous year to the law class of Columbia College for the reason, as given by the trustees, "that it would distract the attention of the young men." About this time a young colored woman, Charlotte Ray of New York, was graduated from the law class of Howard University and admitted to the bar with the class. Of the fifteen women who entered the National University only two completed ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... good; and this is the foundation of all."[76] The senses and the memory, which collect and store up facts, must be assisted; there must be a ministration of the senses and another of the memory. For not only are instances required, but these must be arranged in such a manner as not to distract or confuse the mind, i.e. tables and arrangements of instances must be constructed. In the preliminary collection the greatest care must be taken that the mind be absolutely free from preconceived ideas; nature is only to be conquered ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... much to leave London. She feared lest, during her absence, something should occur to break off the wonted course of things, and that Waymark might not resume his visits on their return. After the feverish interval of those first weeks, she tried sometimes to distract her thoughts by reading, and got from a library a book which Waymark had recommended to her at their last meeting—Rossetti's poems. These gave her much help in restoring her mind to quietness. Their perfect beauty entranced her, and the rapturous purity of ideal ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... What can delay her? I have counted every moment. I have waited whole ages. I see, I see, that every thing conspires to cheat, and to distract me. Damon has not one friend left to whisper in his ear—to whisper what? That Delia is no more? That all her beauties are defaced, by some sacrilegious hand? That all her heaven of charms have been rifled? Oh, no. I must not think of that. But hark! I thought I heard a sound, ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... thoughts were never idle for a moment. So busy were they that the delicious calm of the night, the wonders of the following dawn, the glory of a magnificent sunrise over a green world of mountain, valley and plain, were quite lost to his unpoetic soul. The only things which seemed able to distract his concentrated thoughts were the fiercely buzzing mosquitoes, and these he cursed with whole-hearted enthusiasm which embraced a perfect vocabulary ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... naturally dispose them to reflection and study: and particular caution ought to be used, lest any interruption be suffered to dissipate their attention, or distract their meditations: for this reason, all visits and letters from ladies are strictly to be prohibited; and if any of the members shall be detected with a lapdog, pack of cards, box of dice, draught-table, snuffbox, or looking-glass, he shall, for the first offence, be confined for three months ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... is a mercy the fiddle is gone!' said Alda. 'I used to hear him playing it somewhere among the out-houses in the spring, and it was enough to distract ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... saw that it was not information about religion and customs that the emperor desired to hear, but talk about simple matters that would distract his thoughts from the cares of state. He talked, then, of his native village, of his mother with her maids at work around her, of hunting expeditions as a boy with Boduoc, and how both had had a narrow escape of being devoured ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... the greatest military position on the Atlantic coast of the United States; and although the two could not communicate by land, they did support each other as naval stations in a war essentially dependent upon maritime power. Philadelphia served no purpose but to divide and distract British enterprise. Absolutely dependent for maintenance upon the sea, the forces in it and in New York could not cooeperate; they could not even unite except by sea. When Clinton relieved Howe as commander-in-chief, though less than ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... this to herself some days, not knowing what to do; for she loves you, and admires you of all women. At last she revealed it, but in confidence, to Miss Biddulph, by letter. Miss Biddulph, in like confidence, being afraid it would distract me, were I to know it, communi- cated it to Miss Lloyd; and so, like a whispered scandal, it passed through several canals, and then it came to me; which was not till ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... course, there will be the biggest kind of an excitement, and you'll hear the shooting. The moment it begins give a yell; fire your guns; go whooping up the stream with the horses as though the whole crowd were trying to cut out that way, but get right back. The excitement will distract them and help me. Now, good-by, and good luck ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... his dramatic instinct was at play; recognizing the significance of Wylie's offer and its possible bearing upon Hanford's fortunes, he waved the waiter away, knowing better than to permit the rattle of dishes to distract his host's attention. ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... possessed of an independence that never would have been his had his life run on in the same easy, trusting, happy-go-lucky style in which he had spent the first two years of his army career. But in his isolation he had allowed himself no thought of anything that could for a moment distract him from the stern purpose to which he had devoted every energy. He would win back, command, compel, the respect of his comrades,—would bring to confusion those who had sought to pull him down; and until that stood accomplished ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... humanity, to advocate the interests of the weather-beaten sufferer, as the noble lord could be. There were, however, other times and other places for men to engage in discussion of party politics, and he therefore implored the noble lord not to distract the attention of the meeting by the introduction of these; and to keep solely in view that they had met as the friends of benevolence, not as the advocates of a party. His Royal Highness then proposed to alter the ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... up a book, and tried to shut his ears and distract his thoughts. As he stared unseeingly at the printed pages, there suddenly flashed into his brain the name of Count Vladimir, the owner of "The Witch." Here was the very man to whom he could confidently apply for help in the present difficulties, for the Russian had made it his business in ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... take his phials out; they watched him measure the particles of white powder; they watched him add drops of one precious liquid, and drops of another; they lost not the slightest movement; their eyes were riveted upon him with a fascination that nothing could distract. I believe they thought he was gifted like a god. When each individual got his portion of medicine, his eyes were radiant with joy —notwithstanding by nature they are a thankless and impassive race—and upon his face was written the unquestioning faith that nothing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to me of going away from places which constantly brought it back to my mind. Another sky, other customs, another language, grave responsibilities, a novel and difficult undertaking of uncertain outcome—I was willing to risk all simply to distract my attention and to forget. I have never in my life been a gambler, but that time I staked my artistic reputation upon a single card. Failure would have been a new emotion, severe and grievous, it is true, but still different from that which filled ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... A love from me to thee Is firm, what ere thou dost: It troubles me That I have call'd the blood out of thy cheeks, That did so well become thee: but good boy Let me not see thee more; something is done, That will distract me, that will make me mad, If I behold thee: if thou tender'st me, Let ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... thought over every possible evil which could happen, the princess tried to distract her mind by playing with the little dog. She spent the whole day near the fountain, but as night drew on she wondered what she should do, when she noticed that the little dog was ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself. The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than any ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... means—reason and argument, and appeals to patriotism on the present vexed question? And who can say that by 1875 or 1890, Massachusetts may not vote with South Carolina and Georgia upon all those questions that now distract the Country and threaten its ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... spelled slowly. "It is a savage creature with no manners, no morals, no clothes even. It lives in a hut or a tree, and eats roots and nuts, and nearly raw meat," Miss Wilder remarked, none too accurately, but slowly, in order to distract Isabelle's attention from the late subject of unpleasantness. The little girl considered her ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... journey of over a hundred and sixty miles; with the slow means of locomotion then available, it would occupy at least six days; and a considerable portion of it lay across a desert, where there was nothing to distract the mind from its own reflections. In this enforced leisure doubts arose. What else can be meant by the word with which the Lord saluted him: "It is hard for thee to kick against the goad!" The figure of speech is borrowed from a custom of Eastern countries: the ox-driver wields ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... expresses the opinion of the meeting that arbitrary arrests will have the effect to divide and distract those who should be united in suppressing the rebellion, and I am specifically called on to discharge Mr. Vallandigham. I regard this as, at least, a fair appeal to me on the expediency of exercising a constitutional power which I think exists. In response ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... himself with his son in a little cell, and living on alms, passed his days in fasting and prayer, being careful above all things to say nothing to the boy of any temporal matters, nor to let him see aught of the kind, lest they should distract his mind from his religious exercises, but discoursing with him continually of the glory of the life eternal and of God and the saints, and teaching him nought else but holy orisons: in which way of life he kept him not a few years, never suffering him ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... peaceful that Edward could embark on a crusade. At Acre he very nearly fell a victim to a fanatic belonging to a body which counted assassination a religious duty. His wife, Eleanor of Castile, who was tenderly attached to him, had to be led out of his tent, lest her bitter grief should distract him during an operation which the surgeons held to be necessary. In 1272 Henry III. died, and his son, though in a distant land, was ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... nation. How unimportant are all our differences of opinion upon minor questions of public policy compared with its preservation, and how scrupulously should we avoid all agitating topics which may tend to distract and divide us into contending parties, separated by geographical lines, whereby it may be ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... breeze dreamily stirred the foliage which hid from Lynde's view the gray facade of the gutted palace, still standing there, calcined and cracked by the fires of the Commune. Presently all this began to distract him, and when he returned to the hotel he was in a humor that would have been comparatively tranquil if so many tedious miles had not stretched between Paris ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... priesthood, with no family ties to distract attention, are organizing and employing devoted, self-denying women, all over the land, to perform the distinctive work that Protestant women, if wisely trained and organized by their clergy, could carry out in thousands of scattered ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... I seem to be quite away even from my villa, and I find it delightful to sit there, especially during the Saturnalia, when all the rest of the house rings with the merry riot and shouts of the festival-makers; for then I do not interfere with their amusements, and they do not distract ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... touched the surface of the rolling ground, where, in the hollows, on the heights, on the sloping sides of the dingles, knots of trees of yet more luxuriant and picturesque growth, planted or left by the cultivator's hand long ago, and trained by no hand but nature's, stood so as to distract a painter's eye; and just now, in the fresh gilding of the morning, and with all the witchery of the long shadows upon the uneven ground, certainly charmed Fleda's eye and mind both. Fancy was dancing again, albeit with one hand upon gravity's shoulder, ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Ypsilante, meantime, to approach the harbour; and when we reach the causeway, we will throw up a rocket, and she must commence a feigned attack on the mouth of the harbour, blazing away as hard as she can. This will distract the attention of the pirates, and make them fancy that they have most to fear from their enemies on that side. As soon as she opens her fire, we will rush on; and as the Greeks will have hurried to the defences of the fort towards the harbour, ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... might have something to distract my mind he gave me a stick that I might fashion it to support my steps as I walked along. When I had cut it to the required length I sprang up, saying I would go on some little way, at all events, begging his son to follow me; when we saw the young man approaching the cottage ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... me a grain of comfort, for she could not draw very much nearer, though, to be sure, she was near enough already if her gunners' eyes were but straight enough to hit us; my great hope was that her heavy rolling would distract their aim, and so cause their shot either to fall short of or to fly over us. But I had no time to meditate at length upon these chances; the two boats were drawing dangerously near, and I must stop them by hook or by crook before they actually got alongside. ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... and excited me for a time, and when things slackened, I whirled westward to Chicago—eating and drinking, I remember, in the train from shoals of little dishes, with a sort of desperate voracity. I did the queerest things to distract myself—no novelist would dare to invent my mental and emotional muddle. Chicago also held me at first, amazing lapse from civilisation that the place is! and then abruptly, with hosts expecting me, and everything settled for some days in Denver, ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... where man is," he replied, "and screeching owls in every brain. You can't get quit." Then, lowering his voice, "I am haunted, and yet live here in this Moated Grange! The difference is this: in the town the gaslight and eternal clatter distract a man like me who is plagued from within; here I find some concord between the inside and the out, only the owls in the inside are more ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... expatiates eloquently upon his merits, which are evident. The shady road, the fragrant air, the glimpses of the broad river glittering in the morning sun, and the purple cliff opposite, are indeed a dream of beauty. He more than half wishes there was no business to distract ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... is a gallant man and a courteous. He was so full of pretty ways and dainty devices for to distract my mind, I never thought of counting. Nor yet did he keep score. Needs therefore must I hold him quit ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... wills which are good. For I ask them, is it good to take pleasure in reading the Apostle? or good to take pleasure in a sober Psalm? or good to discourse on the Gospel? They will answer to each, "it is good." What then if all give equal pleasure, and all at once? Do not divers wills distract the mind, while he deliberates which he should rather choose? yet are they all good, and are at variance till one be chosen, whither the one entire will may be borne, which before was divided into many. Thus also, when, above, eternity ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... her coffee, turned to it half-heartedly, hoping to find some odd bit of news that might serve to distract her thoughts. ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... the Cabinet, ought never to have left it; what have been the motives consciously or unconsciously affecting Mr. Gladstone's course of action—these and a hundred other enquiries of the like sort, which engage the attention and distract the judgment of the public, possess, in the eyes of any serious thinker occupied in estimating the strength of the arguments for and against Home Rule, no material importance whatever. His concern is the merit or demerit of a legislative enactment. He is not concerned at all with the conduct ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... been known to come. Slowly the sun swept across the huge arch of the heavens, and as the shadows shifted from the black rocks which jutted upward from above his cell, so did the hermit regulate his terms of prayer and meditation. There was nothing on earth to draw his eye, or to distract his mind, for the grassy plain below was as void from month to month as the heaven above. So the long hours passed, until the red rim slipped down on the further side, and the day ended in the same pearl-grey shimmer with ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... way. I went to two or three different mediums so as to test them all. I found they had no objections to bringing your own slates and writing your own questions, but while they held the slate under the table they kept you talking to distract your attention, and from time to time they got convulsive jerks and movements by which it was quite possible for them to see what was written. Then you heard a scratching (the medium probably had a little bit of pencil in his finger-nail), and your answer was given ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... difficulties on religious matters, and should make herself ill over these unsubstantial troubles. Surely it was a woman's business to attend to her husband's comforts and to see after her children, and not to break her heart over misery here and hell hereafter, and distract her brain with questions that had puzzled the greatest thinkers and still remained unsolved! And, truly, women or men who get themselves concerned about the universe at large, would do well not to plunge hastily into marriage, for they do not run smoothly ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... all to see their young mistress, usually so gracious and responsive, wholly absorbed in her troubled revery; but to-day her maidens played their sweetest strains upon their silvery lutes, without her answering smile; the gentlemen of her court sought in vain for some diversion to distract her; even the Lady Margherita could do nothing for her pleasure, while she watched in unobtrusive tenderness, feeling that quiet, however unsatisfying, ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... weather that anyone can remember," but the procrastination over the arrangement and transfer of the lease as ample justification for the delay in fulfilling the engagement. Moreover, other matters were arising which tended to distract the attention of the directors from any passing squabble as to dates. The "overbearing leviathians" might have been quelled some years earlier, but they had not been killed, and at the beginning of 1861, movements were again afoot in North-Western circles to secure an ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... there were not many matters immediately without the doors of Cheeryble Brothers, to engage the attention or distract the thoughts of the young clerk, there were not a few within, to interest and amuse him. There was scarcely an object in the place, animate or inanimate, which did not partake in some degree of the scrupulous method and punctuality of Mr Timothy Linkinwater. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... doctrines really are, and on what sort of basis they rest. And I do this the more willingly, as I observe that already the hastier sort of critics have begun, not to review my friend's book, but to howl over it in a manner which must tend greatly to distract ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... of the impracticability of approaching Quebec on the side of the Montmorency, Wolfe again turned his whole attention to the St. Lawrence. To destroy some ships of war lying in the river, and at the same time to distract the attention of Montcalm by descents at different places, twelve hundred men were embarked in transports under the command of general Murray, who made two vigorous, but unsuccessful attempts, to land on the northern ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... unconscious of the adoration she excited. If a swarm of school-boys can not enter a country church without turning all their eyes toward one pew, is it not possible that, when a girl comes in and seats herself in that pew, the very focus of those burning glances, even Dr. Peewee may not entirely distract her mind, however he may rivet her eyes? As she takes her last glance at the Sunday toilet in her sunny dressing-room at home, and half turns to be sure that the collar is smooth, and that the golden curl nestles precisely as it should under ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... taught Mrs. Barton nothing; she knew but one set of tricks—if they failed she repeated them: she was guided by the indubitableness of instinct rather than by the more wandering light that is reason. Mr. Barton, who it was feared might talk of painting, and so distract the attention from more serious matters, was left in Galway, and amid eight or nine men collected here, there, and everywhere out of the hotels and barrack-rooms, the three ladies sat ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... my idiosyncrasies. I prefer a square, non-illegal style of business such as we are carrying on now. When I take money I want to leave some tangible object in the other fellow's hands for him to gaze at and to distract his attention from my spoor, even if it's only a Komical Kuss Trick Finger Ring for Squirting Perfume in a Friend's Eye. But if you've got a fresh idea, Andy,' says I, 'let's have a look at it. I'm not so wedded to petty graft that I would refuse something better ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... think, dear Anthony, that I am jealous of you and Juliet; oh, no, I love you too well for that. I know that I can never be as dear to you as Juliet; that she is more worthy of your love—Good Heavens! you are weeping. What have I said to cause these tears? Anthony, dear Anthony, speak to me. You distract me. Oh, tell me that I have ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... senior, "there will be nothing to distract you from your studies, and in spite of yourself every minute you will be imbibing history and ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... compositions are as overfilled as the sheets of an illustrated newspaper—witness the "Massacre of the Innocents," a scene of such magnificent artistic possibilities. Finally, irrelevant episodes and irrelevant groups of portraits do what they can to distract our attention from all higher significance. Look at the "Birth of John"; Ginevra dei Benci stands there, in the very foreground, staring out at you as stiff as if she had a photographer's iron behind her head. An even larger group of Florentine housewives in all their finery disfigures ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... owing to the fact that the carnal vices are further removed from the mind, that they distract the mind's attention to more remote things, so that they hinder the mind's contemplation all the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... already instructed in the amenities of wedded life—if they be like the pleasures of betrothal—though I cared not a whit what happened to Walter Butler, it is true, yet fell sick o' worry when you and Rosamund Barry went a-sailing—not that I feared you'd drown, either. O Carus, Carus, you distract me, you worry me; you tell me nothing, nothing, and I never knew what you were about there in New York when you were not with me!—doubtless a-courting every petticoat on Hanover ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... jealousies of families with their various alliances—all the animosities which agitate social life—all the intestine broils, ambitious emulations, endless contentions, and opposing interests that distract a state—all the melancholy wars that convulse nations and desolate empires, the record of which has stained the page of history in all ages—with every particular, form, and mode of evil, discoverable in ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... worked up in a random sort of way the careless sequence of incidents in a popular traditional tale. Just as the tellers of the stories in Campbell's Highland Tales, and other authentic collections, make no scruple about proportion where their memory happens to fail them or their irrelevant fancy to distract them, but go on easily, dropping out a symmetrical adventure here and there, and repeating a favourite "machine" if necessary or unnecessary; so the story of Constance forgets and repeats itself. The voice is the voice of Chaucer, and so are the thoughts, but the order or disorder ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... not distract your attention with the palaces of the Caesars, the Cenci, St. Angelo, and the remains of antiquity still to be seen here, but trust that when we meet again every wish that you formerly expressed regarding our stay in Rome will be realized ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... I beheld her as if raised from the dead to me; for an absence of eight-and-twenty years, in the short space of our duration, is almost equivalent to death. She arrived among us, still in great affliction for the loss she had had of the King; and I tried to distract her sad thoughts by all the dissipations possible. It is only by dint of such that one compels the mind to shift away from the fatal idea where grief has fixed it: this is not the work of a day, but of time, which in the end succeeds in everything. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... it,' said one. 'Selina, it WAS a gang. I was certain of it from the first. The children were not mad. They were sent to distract our attention while ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... Most worthy Sir, you therein throw away The absolute Soldiership you haue by Land, Distract your Armie, which doth most consist Of Warre-markt-footmen, leaue vnexecuted Your owne renowned knowledge, quite forgoe The way which promises assurance, and Giue vp your selfe meerly to chance and hazard, From ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... imitative in origin. Whether any of them are of value, as Lindley thinks, in arousing the brain to activity, or as Mueller suggests, in drawing off sensations or venting efferent impulses that would otherwise distract, we need not here discuss. If so, this is, of course, a secondary and late function—nature's way of making the best of things and ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... place for her," exclaimed the Governor-General. "No pleasures to distract her, an atmosphere of plodding commercialism, an abundance of health-giving nourishment! Perhaps the mere change of climate will have the desired effect. We will make the experiment. She is doomed if she remains here, and America seems to be our only hope. I suppose our beloved Monarch sends ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... picked up a pair of scissors, and proceeded to curl the feathers. The hat was already in so deplorable a condition that this belated home treatment was not likely to help it, but the diversion served its purpose, which was to distract the agent's attention away from ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... fluttering heart. Apply the lock which tallies with thy hair To this my head from which it was cut off. Look on this robe, the work of thine own hand, And trace the figures which thy shuttle wrought. But calm thee, let not joy distract thy soul, For near of kin we know is ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... disasters and recover in the most amazing manner. Their mental recuperation is on a par with their bodily powers of recovery. Nature is on their side. Let me urge you to go down and take food. If you can even lunch with your party I should. It will distract ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... thumped with joy o'er the cheering prospect. She kissed and fondled Louise and even teased her. Reading or chatting to the blind girl, sewing her frocks or performing a thousand and one kindly services, her sole thought was to distract and enliven the prisoned soul behind ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... all right, but the system all wrong; and that the proper thing was to adopt SULTAN OMAR'S plan, and give the supreme control of the War to a Cabinet of not more than four members, who with no administrative details to distract them might be able to "teach the doubtful battle ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various
... Ah, I was not wise enough! I was full of doubts and imagined evils—and why? Because of voices behind a wall! Surely a foolish cause for sorrow! I tried to extricate my mind from the darkness of despondency into which it had fallen, and to distract my attention from my own unhappy thoughts I glanced at the book which lay open before me. As I looked, its title, printed in letters of gold, flashed on my eyes like a gleam of the sun—'The Secret of Life.' A sudden keen expectancy stirred in me—I folded ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... the monarch into the vassal. She would try to memorize the page before her, and resolutely set herself to the task, but the wing of a snow-bird fluttering by the window, or the buzzing of a fly round the warm stove, would distract her attention and call up trains of thought as wild as irrelevant. Sometimes she would bend down her head, and press both hands upon it, to keep it in an obedient position; but all in vain!—her vagrant imagination would ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... there was a whole service of the same material, even to the handles of the knives and forks; and the choice variety of glass attracted Ferdinand's notice. The room was lofty and spacious; it was simply and soberly furnished; not an object which could distract the taste or disturb the digestion. But the sideboard, which filled a recess at the end of the apartment, presented a crowded group of gold plate that might have become a palace; magnificent shields, tall vases, ancient tankards, ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... quieter phase set in, Maudie had sent into Dawson for Potts, O'Flynn and Mac, that they might distract the Colonel's mind from the pardner she knew could not return. But O'Flynn, having married the girl at the Moosehorn Cafe, had excuse of ancient validity for not coming; Potts was busy breaking the faro bank, and Mac was waiting ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... still shrieking and scurrying, and passing to and fro like a stage-procession with the vain paraphernalia of a tea that never came. Our host still smiled from his cushions, resigned to Oriental delays. To distract the impatient westerners, a servant unhooked from the wall the cage of a gently-cooing dove. It was brought to us, still cooing, and looked at me with the same resigned and vacant eyes as the ladies I had just left. As it was being restored to its hook ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... cheerful." She whirled out of the room and back in a series of those swift, nervous movements peculiar to her. "There! that will amuse you, I know." She put the book down on the table before Lemuel, who silently submitted to have it left there. "It will distract your thoughts, if anything will. And I shall ask you to let me sit just here in the reception-room, so that I can call you ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... was caused by the immense crowd blocking the court, only pushed aside by archers on horseback, who separated the people. The marquise now went out, and the doctor, lest the sight of the people should completely distract her, put a crucifix in her hand, bidding her fix her gaze upon it. This advice she followed till they gained the gate into the street where the tumbril was waiting; then she lifted her eyes to see the shameful object. It was one of the smallest of carts, still ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... do anything for her, he tried to amuse and distract her as he best could. But in the middle of a ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... own, but have little power to dissuade me; I hear them all with civility and patience; but, to my recollection, I never made use of any but my own. With me, they are but flies and atoms, that confound and distract my will; I lay no great stress upon my opinions; but I lay as little upon those of others, and fortune rewards me accordingly: if I receive but little advice, I also give but little. I am seldom consulted, and still more seldom believed, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... happened to be a wonderful new process of evolving gas from dirt and city refuse. He had been explaining it gently to a woman in the chair, from pure intellectual interest, to distract the patient's mind. He was not tinkering with teeth this time, however. The woman was sitting in the chair because it was the only unoccupied space. She had removed her hat and was looking steadily into the lake. At last, when the little office clerk had left, the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... and weightiest matters will not long distract the attention of a black-leg, and the laughter having subsided without Jorrocks or the Baron being in the slightest degree disconcerted, the ring was again formed; horses' heads again turn towards the post, while carriages, gigs, and carts ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... what they mean who trade with it now? No—nothing of the sort. They use it to distract and perplex the public mind; to draw it off from the one paramount obligation which the times impose upon the nation—the obligation of saving the national existence by the military extinction of the rebellion, regardless of all other ends and aims. They trade upon the popular ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... have flung it all away at ducks and drakes.' And the children, on the other hand, are cursing and tearing the old skin-flints, most furiously, charging their fathers with being the authors of their misery, by leaving them twenty times too much, to distract them with pride and dissipation; whereas, a little, with a blessing, might have made them happy in both their states of existence." "Well," said Lucifer, "enough! enough! we have more need of arms than words. Sirrah, this hubbub is owing to some great neglect; go back, and pry ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... Captain Dodge quickly. "Don't distract his attention from what he is doing for a second. ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... them at his ease, to martyrize himself with delight by reading them, perhaps also to forge out of this correspondence a weapon for himself against the imprudent woman who had signed her name. But the rigorous correctness of the marquis made him afraid. How could he distract his attention—get him away? The opportunity occurred of its own accord. Among the letters, a tiny page written in a senile and shaky hand, caught the attention of the charlatan, who said with an ingenuous air: "Oh, oh! here is something that does not look much like a billet-doux. ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... she "liked to do everything herself"), my father generally fell asleep. I whiled away the time by playing with Rubens under the table, Aunt Maria "superintended" the music in a way that must have made any less stolid performer nervous, and Leo was apt to try and distract Polly's attention by grimaces and pantomime of a far from respectful nature behind ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... force abundantly adequate to the end in view, was his policy all the days of Nelson. The Mediterranean with its varied interests was to him at this time one of several means, by which he hoped to distract British counsels and to dissever British strength; but it was no part of his design to provoke Great Britain to measures which would convert her alarm for the Mediterranean peninsulas into open war with them, or in them, compelling France either to recede from thence, or to divert ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... connecting hall into the quaint parlor, or sitting-room, behind it. A matting covered the floor, candlesticks rested on the chimney-piece, and there was no meaningless bric-a-brac, nor other objects of suspected beauty to distract attention. As you enter the house, the library occupies the large right-hand corner room. It was simple to the verge of austerity, and the farthest possible removed from a "collection." There was no effort at arrangement—they were just books, for use and for their own ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... to rise, to the immense merriment of the cardinals; and that he had a daughter, Novella, so accomplished in law as to be able to read her father's lectures in his absence, and so beautiful, that she had to read behind a curtain lest her face should distract the attention of the students. He is said to have died at Bologna of the plague in 1348, and an epitaph in the church of the Dominicans in which he was buried, calling him Rabbi Doctorum, Lux, Censor, Normaque Morum, testifies to the public estimation of his character. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... place selected for receiving instruction must be a spot calculated not to distract the mind, and filled with "influence-evolving" (magnetic) objects. The five sacred colors gathered in a circle must be there among other things. The place must be free from any malignant influences hanging about ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky
... to a perfect dinner are noiseless attendants, and a precision in serving the various dishes of each course, so that they may all be placed upon the table at the same moment. A deficiency in these respects produces that bustle and delay which distract many an agreeable conversation and spoil many a pleasant dish. These two excellent characteristics were never wanting at the dinners of Sidonia. At no house was there less parade. The appearance of the table changed as if by the waving of ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... of the single wick he turned over its thin sheet to distract his thoughts; there was war news in east and west, Church news in his own diocese and elsewhere; news all ten days old and more; political news also, scanty and timidly related. The name of the stream running underneath the walls of Ruscino ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... hates the city. Wants to have an eye to the changes being made. Perhaps he thinks a little work of this kind may distract him." ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... Goldstein. On his left he had placed Mr. Jones, the representative of the title company, a gaunt, sandy-haired man of thirty-five who, by the device of a pair of huge horn spectacles, had failed to distract public attention from ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... outburst, resolves to withdraw into the lonely hills, that the fickle blaze may die down. If the disciples had remained with Him, He could not have so easily stolen away, and they might have caught the popular fervour. To divide would distract the crowd, and make it easier for Him to disperse them, while many of them, as really happened, would be likely to set off by land for Capernaum, when they saw the boat had gone. The main teaching of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... pass most of her time within doors, on account of the bad weather, she was not inclined to complain. Her journey, the unaccustomed sights and sounds of Paris, the novelty of life in a hotel, all combined to distract her thoughts from herself. She forgot her fears; a sort of haze enveloped the terrible scene at the Borderie; the clamors of conscience sank ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... occasionally in the course of his long discourse. His pinches must have been considerable, for every sniff lasted from two to three seconds, and could be heard distinctly all over the kirk. This had a tendency to distract our attention from his sermon, which, by the way, was a very good one; but, owing to his rather slow delivery, we experienced a feeling of relief when he reached the end, for it had ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... popularity, though the provision of funds for it would entail a degree of opposition. Moreover, though foreign wars might give extreme malcontents their opportunity, it is a commonplace of politics that they distract attention from domestic grievances. Thus it is easy to perceive how the benefits of the Spanish alliance would very definitely turn the scale. And we shall still find that Henry had no intention of expending an ounce of either blood ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... skipper, seeing his motive in trying to set our sad guest at his ease and to try and distract his thoughts from the awful anxiety and grief, under which he was labouring. "Have I heard the ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... much in evidence, Bobby. You would distract my mind from Mr. Arlt, and this is his party, you know. Even Mr. Thayer is subordinate. But, Beatrix child, where is Mr. Lorimer? I thought surely I should find him here, to-day. I've not congratulated him yet. That was one thing that brought ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... and lost no time in taking his advice. Captain Roy's foot had by this time so swollen that he could not put it in the stirrup. He was suffering a good deal, but at least the pain served to distract him from the gloom that lay heavy on his spirits. From the hillside far above the town we could see the lights of Inverness beginning to glimmer as we passed. A score of times we had to dismount on account ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... limited in range, technic, and variety of color than many another instrument. And it is artificially handicapped by the rather absurd custom which forces the singer to drag in poetry (much to the latter's disadvantage), and therewith distract his own attention and that of ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... with regard to memory and the "elan vital," with regard above all to the "true time," has done much to distract popular attention away from his real attitude towards the soul. But Bergson's attitude towards the existence of a substantial soul-monad is ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... round the vessel in the first act. Believe me, that must have been a sacrifice, though he wished it so. It pleased him to enclose this terrible drama within the four walls of a chamber of tragedy. There are hardly any choruses; there is nothing to distract one's attention from the mystery of human souls; there are only two real parts—those of the lovers; and if there is a third, it belongs to Destiny, into whose hands the victims are delivered. What a fine seriousness there is in this love play. Its passion remains sombre and stern; there is ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... always decry itself and extol its forbears Art is greater than Life Art that does not distract them without causing them to think Beauty! An awkward word—a perpetual begging of the question Certainty Death may be the end of man, or Death may be nothing Everything is worth the doing well Freedom from the dull tedium of responsibility Introspection causes ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger
... had been a Frenchman I would have kissed his ugly old mug for the sheer pleasure of seeing it. I knew now that Blythe had kept up the long distance fusillade in order to distract the attention of the defenders while Gallagher had crept close ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... closed, and Djama gave no sign. But the professor sought to comfort me and soothe our impatience by telling me how long the same work had lasted before I was recalled to life. I had sought also to distract my thoughts by talking with him and Francis Hartness of all that was to be done for the deliverance of my people, and the realisation of my dreams of empire when Djama's task should ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... is not this a heauie case To see thy Noble Vnckle thus distract? Publ. Therefore my Lords it highly vs concernes, By day and night t' attend him carefully: And feede his humour kindely as we may, Till ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... of parent, teacher, school principal, or governess is to be avoided. Contrary to what one might expect, these distract the child much more than a strange personality would do. Their critical attitude toward the child's performance is very likely to cause embarrassment. If the child is alone with the examiner, he is more at ease from the mere fact that he does not feel that there is a reputation to sustain. The praise ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... table at the head of his bed and read his political economy until dawn. It was, in fact, too hot for any nervous person to sleep. Now and then his thoughts wandered, the incessant drone of the night insects outside seemed to distract his attention from his book like some persistent clamor of nature recalling him to his leading-strings in which she had held him from the first. But resolutely he turned again to his book. At dawn he fell asleep, and woke an hour later to another ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... walls. He covered them with roofs and clothed them with beauty. He repaired the courts of the old temple with lofty walls and new roofs and strengthened it at the north and south sides with solid aisles and various arches. He added also many chapels, with sacred altars which distract attention from the threshold of the church, so that the stranger walking in the courts is at a loss where to turn, seeing on all sides doors open to him, without a certain path. He stands with wondering eyes until some experienced guide conducts ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Philip Walsingham Sergeant
... strength, and in her grandfather's mind sprang up a solicitude about her which never left him. From the time of his awakening to her weakness, never did he have any care for himself, any thought of his own comfort, which could distract his attention from the gentle object of his love and care, He would follow her up and down, waiting till she should tire, and lean upon his arm—he would sit opposite to her, content to watch and look, until ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... to be the price of safety from this moment on. Nothing must distract the attention of those who manipulated the motors of the three boats caught in ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... her in new things and to distract her mind. His methods were tactful. He knew perfectly well that the official manner of condolence that had gone down so well with the Radways wouldn't do for her. He just treated her as the child that he knew her to be, trying to induce her to join in a game of pretending that nothing had happened. ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... of passion with which he had bounded over stock and crag, in order to plunge himself into the Corri-nan-shian, and the sobered mood in which he now returned homeward, industriously seeking out the most practicable path, not from a wish to avoid danger, but that he might not by personal toil distract his attention, deeply fixed on the extraordinary scene which he had witnessed. In the former case, he had sought by hazard and bodily exertion to indulge at once the fiery excitation of passion, and to banish the cause of the excitement from his recollection; ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... something which kept their eyes clear and bright as they marched into battle, which made them look Death itself in the face, and fight even while the blackness crept over them. You see, your own people have so many interests, so many excitements, so much to distract. With us it is not so. In the heart of the Japanese comes the love of his parents, the love of his wife and children, and, deepest, perhaps, of all the emotions he knows, the strong magnificent background to his life, the love of the country ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "discover." Readers must have been strangely disappointed on finding not a single word to throw light upon this subject, and merely a long account of the negotiations between Curll and P. T. The narrative might serve to distract attention from the main point, which it clearly did nothing to elucidate. But Curll now stated his own case. He reprinted the narrative with some pungent notes; he gave in full some letters omitted ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... about the morrow. Do to-day's duty, fight to-day's temptation; and do not weaken and distract yourself by looking forward to things which you cannot see, and could not understand if you saw them. Enough for you that your Saviour for whom you fight is just and merciful; for he rewardeth every man according to his work. Enough for you that he has said, 'He ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... woman to distract the overworked Young Doctor by her freshness, drawn from the reservoir of her vitality; and that was a pity, because, as Patsy Kernaghan many a time said: "Aw, Doctor dear, what's the good of a tongue to a wagon if there's only wan horse to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "There's many singing that song to-day in prison that would be glad to sit and breathe fresh air and look at a fine view as you're doing, so you ought to be thankful!" And indeed the view of the Castle did just for that moment distract her from the business of weeping, for there had been a certain violent alteration of the weather. The autumn sunshine, which had never been more than a sarcasm on the part of a thoroughly unpleasant ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... have] from the Queen of Sweden. I beheld her as if raised from the dead to me; for an absence of eight-and-twenty years, in the short space of our duration, is almost equivalent to death. She arrived among us, still in great affliction for the loss she had had of the King; and I tried to distract her sad thoughts by all the dissipations possible. It is only by dint of such that one compels the mind to shift away from the fatal idea where grief has fixed it: this is not the work of a day, but of time, which in the end succeeds in everything. I ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... this! I notice with a certain shame and surprise that all I have been writing has been done in order to distract my thoughts. Yes, that is true. I speak about landscapes, homesickness, and so forth, while all my thoughts are at Ploszow. I did not want to acknowledge it, even to myself. I feel restless, and something seems to weigh me down. ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... importunities and tenderness. He returned to his former life, which had been most irregular. Fifteen years had passed thus, in a long martyrdom, supported by Madame de Lavardens with all the appearance of passive resignation. Nothing ever could distract her from, or cure her of, the love ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... right, and strode along side streets in which he had never been before in his life. He reached the old bridge by which the Yauza runs gurgling, and from which one can see long rows of lights in the windows of the Red Barracks. To distract his spiritual anguish by some new sensation or some other pain, Vassilyev, not knowing what to do, crying and shuddering, undid his greatcoat and jacket and exposed his bare chest to the wet snow and the wind. But that did not lessen his suffering either. Then he bent down over the rail of the bridge ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... a well-used metaphor is that it should completely fulfil this function: there should be no by-products of imagery which distract from the poet's aim, and vitiate and weaken the ...
— Tract XI: Three Articles on Metaphor • Society for Pure English
... know my idiosyncrasies. I prefer a square, non-illegal style of business such as we are carrying on now. When I take money I want to leave some tangible object in the other fellow's hands for him to gaze at and to distract his attention from my spoor, even if it's only a Komical Kuss Trick Finger Ring for Squirting Perfume in a Friend's Eye. But if you've got a fresh idea, Andy,' says I, 'let's have a look at it. I'm not so wedded to petty graft ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... the trains, the clangor of trucks, as they were whirled up and down the station platform by the baggagemen; the noise of the subway and surface cars, mingled with countless other sounds, were sufficient to distract any girl's attention, and Dorothy came out of her reverie and turned, only when Aunt Betty cried out from the ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... to-day; to-morrow, perhaps, we shall give it another name, softer or more alarming. In the meanwhile it holds simultaneous, impartial sway over life and death; furnishing the two irreconcilable sisters with the magnificent and familiar weapons that adorn and distract its bosom. ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... pictures of this school, accordingly, we find only the monotonous perfection of rounded and well-modelled limbs, classical features and straight noses. Colour, to the sincere Davidian, was a vain and frivolous accessory, serving only to distract attention from the real purpose of the work, which was to aim at moral elevation as well as at ideal beauty. Everything in the picture was to be equally dwelt upon; there was no sacrifice, no mystery. "These pictures," says Delacroix, "have no epidermis ...they ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... scepticism is not important as a contribution to philosophical thought, for his mind was devoid both of the method and of the force necessary for the pursuit and discovery of really significant intellectual truths. To claim for him such titles of distinction is to overshoot the mark, and to distract attention from his true eminence. Montaigne was neither a great artist nor a great philosopher; he was not great at all. He was a charming, admirable human being, with the most engaging gift for conversing endlessly and confidentially ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... lay opposite Fredericksburg, looking at the fortified heights where they had received so bloody a repulse at the beginning of the winter. Hooker decided to distract the attention of the Confederates by letting a small portion of his force, under General Sedgwick, attack Fredericksburg, while he himself took the bulk of the army across the river to the right hand so as to crush Lee by an assault ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... could not long remain at Charlotte for the country between that place and Camden, having been traversed by the contending armies, was quite exhausted. In order, therefore, to procure subsistence for his troops, as well as to distract and harass the enemy, Greene, though fully aware of the danger of such a measure, felt himself constrained ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... not be called upon to do so. We do not wish him to be startled by encountering any watchful eye. Irresponsible as he is, he must be allowed to move about without anything to distract his attention. Nothing must stand in the way of his following those impulses which may yield us a clew to his habits and the ways of this peculiar household. I propose to place you where the chances are least in favor of your being seen by him—in this parlor, madam, ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... winter season coming on apace, the two soon had plenty to do in preparing for its advent. This served to distract their attention from becoming morbid and dwelling on their loneliness, which was all the more dismal now from the fact of their being debarred from their hunting-ground on the plateau—Fritz having got strong and ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... discussion which caused Hannah to prophesy, with ominous nods, "That child ain't long for this world," he would turn about and set her fears at rest by some of the pranks with which dear, dirty, naughty little rascals distract and delight ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... an umbrella and a walking-stick as crutches. He was also nervous in crossing crowded thorough-fares, and particularly so at night; while he always liked to make Lehrs cross my threshold in front of him to distract the attention of Robber, of whom he stood in obvious terror. Our usually good-natured dog became positively suspicious of this visitor, and soon adopted towards him the same aggressive attitude which ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... distract the Public Councils and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... whose own work was excellent all through, pushed forward a brigade against Blackburn's Ford, toward the Confederate right, in order to distract attention from the real objective, which was to be the turning of the left. The Confederate outposts fell back beyond the ford. The Federal brigade followed on; when suddenly sharp volleys took it in front and flank. The opposing ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... every true convert becomes at once a Missionary. The changed life, shining out amid the surrounding darkness, is a Gospel in largest Capitals which all can read. Our Islanders, especially, having little to engage or otherwise distract attention, become intense and devoted workers for the Lord Jesus, if once the Divine Passion ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... should expect you to be actyve and stirring about the camp of the vagabonds, from sunrise to sunset, sarcumventing and contriving, as restless as a hound off the scent, and doing all manner of things to help me, and to distract the inimy, but two are oftener feebler than one, and we must take things as they are, and not as we want 'em ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... will you?" she murmured with a smile. "I wish your brother wasn't quite so uppish. Let's get on. Doesn't that church distract you?" ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... feel that to die is to be transferred suddenly, and with violence, into strange scenes, which must overwhelm and distract the senses. It seems to them that it must be like being whirled instantly into a distant, unknown city, and waking up amidst the confusion and strangeness of that place. We cannot believe that such is the experience ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... have no others to share our devotion, to distract our attention. Our only one should be, as near as a mother can make him ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... larger portion taking up a position opposite the town, which they forthwith commenced bombarding, while the rest were employed in landing troops at different points to co-operate with the Turks, and to distract the attention of the Egyptians. Suliman Pacha, Governor of Beyrout, in spite of the shot and shell showered into his fortress, held out bravely and fired away in return as hard as he could. It was the first time the three midshipmen of the Racer had been under ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... chatter away at top speed, though I tried to restrain myself, to show that I was nothing more than an uncle to her. I talked to distract her, to distract us both; I let my tongue wag—I could hear it buzzing. What could I say? A little of everything—a great deal, ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... of Jove Hath been a generous guest; view now her face, See if she bears resemblance to thy wife, And thus made happy bid farewell to grief. Adm. O, Gods, what shall I say? 'Tis marvelous, Exceeding hope. See I my wife indeed? Or doth some god distract me with false joy? Herc. In very deed dost thou behold thy wife. {1200} Adm. See that it be no phantom from beneath. Herc. Make not thy friend one that evokes the shades. Adm. And do I see my wife, whom I entomb'd? Herc. I marvel not that thou art diffident. Adm. ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... complaint, which was a simple one. He prescribed much exercise, change of air, and amusement, so as to distract her mind from the cares of State, and the evil passions to which she was giving way. He hoped thus to serve the Christians indirectly, for he saw clearly that the mere mention of their existence made her ill. Some ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... got with your "Nibelungen"? It will be a great joy to me to grasp your creation through your immediate aid. For heaven's sake, let nothing distract you from this, and continue to weld ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... what had been said with glowing cheeks, meaning to become a Camp Fire girl even though it was entirely impossible for her to join the summer camp. She was holding her small brother tight in her arms, trying to distract his attention with objects to be seen out the front window, and so entirely oblivious of the fact that the hastily adjusted hairpins had been slipping out of her hair, until one yellow braid now dangled over her ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... reflections, and particularly this one: How infinitely good that Providence is, which has provided, in its government of mankind, such narrow bounds to his sight and knowledge of things; and though he walks in the midst of so many thousand dangers, the sight of which, if discovered to him, would distract his mind and sink his spirits, he is kept serene and calm, by having the events of things hid from his eyes, and knowing nothing of the dangers which ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... a flood of splendor. Her deep gray eyes contained wells of womanly wisdom. Her skin, fair as a lily of Artois, had borrowed from the sun five or six faint freckles, just to prove the purity of her blood and distract the eye with a variety of charms. The Merovingian Princess, the long-haired daughter of kings, as she was fondly styled by the nuns, queened it wherever she went by right divine of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... opportunity to tell her how sorry he was, how ashamed? The doctor looked very grave, the nurse and Miss Virginia shook their heads and said, "No better." Norah was the only one who gave him any encouragement. She bade him not give up yet, and devised errands to distract him from his misery, and make him feel that he was of some use. He hung upon her words with such an appealing face her heart was touched, for she guessed that remorse mingled with ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... an independence that never would have been his had his life run on in the same easy, trusting, happy-go-lucky style in which he had spent the first two years of his army career. But in his isolation he had allowed himself no thought of anything that could for a moment distract him from the stern purpose to which he had devoted every energy. He would win back, command, compel, the respect of his comrades,—would bring to confusion those who had sought to pull him down; and until that stood accomplished he would know no other claim. In the exile of the mountain-station ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... under way, von Hindenburg had also launched an attack against the Russian army on the Narev. If he could force the lower Narev from that point, too, he could cut the railroad running east from the Polish capital. He had hoped that the attacks just described further east would distract the Russian attention so that he would find the Narev ill guarded. The advance began on February 22d, and after numerous battles captured Przasnysz, and found itself with only one division to oppose its progress to the railroad. On the 23d this force was attacked by the German right, but resisted ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... larger houses might be found—everything is possible; but such are devoted more or less to a variety of plants, and the departments are not all gathered beneath one roof. I confess, for my own part, a hatred of references. They interrupt the writer, and they distract the reader. At the place I have chosen to illustrate our theme, one has but to cross a corridor from any of the working quarters to reach the showroom. We may start upon our critical survey from the ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... serene and dilapidated villages, art and nature stand still, and the world forgets to turn round. The revolutions that distract other parts of this mutable planet reach not here, or pass over without leaving any trace. The fortunate inhabitants have none of that public spirit which extends its cares beyond its horizon, and imports trouble and perplexity from all quarters in newspapers. In fact, newspapers ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... masters of the important cities of Augsburg and Passau. Meanwhile the French army of the Upper Rhine and Moselle had beaten the allied armies opposed to them, and taken Treves and Landau. At the same time the discontents in Hungary with Austria again broke out into open insurrection, so as to distract the attention and complete the terror of the Emperor and his council ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... his doubts as to the possibility of winning Constance's love returning to him in full force once he had left her presence, had come down to the theatre with two objects. One to distract his thoughts from his hopes and fears, the other to arrange with Jasper for the entire transfer of the theatre to Ada. He meant this to be the last night as far as the Casket and ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... the report would strike upon the ears of the mias, might distract it from the triumph in which it was indulging, and bring it to the spot where they were standing. Then, with an empty gun in his hand, what defence could the youth make, either for himself or for ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... without my assistance; there were other professors, many of them. I did not permit the circulars that now began to pour in from Chickle University to distract me from my index. Striking as these circulars were—and I will instance ...
— How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee • Owen Wister
... of Elizabeth, and beaten down in that of James, so furiously triumphed under Charles. Their history exhibits the curious spectacle of a great religious body covering a political one—such as was discovered among the Jesuits, and such as may again distract the empire, in some new and ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... draw him out—as I did. I have no objection to people studying me when I don't care to study them; but when there is anything to be done for them you have got to understand them first, and to this end it is best to appear simple and not distract their minds from the contemplation and disclosure of their own qualities: you can play on their vanity if your own does not stand in the road. Hartman has a fine mind, but in his innocent rural way he ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... be valiant; but the effort exhausted her strength. As the days went on, even Aristide's inexhaustible conversation failed to distract her from brooding. She lost the trick of laughter. In the evenings, when he was most with her, she would sit, either in the shop or in the little room at the back, her blue childish eyes fixed on him wistfully. At first ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... {Fables} for me to write, but I purposely abstain; first, that I may not seem troublesome to you, whom a multiplicity of matters distract; and next, that, if perchance any other person is desirous to make a like attempt, he may still have something left to do; although there is so abundant a stock of matter that an artist will be wanting ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... unpublished, and I remain in doubt. But if Allan had an accessory in the crime, who was seen at the place, an accomplice who, for example, supplied the gun, perhaps fired the shot, while Allan fled to distract suspicion, that accessory was probably the person named by legend. Though he was certainly under suspicion, so were scores of other people. The crime does not seem to me to have been the result of a conspiracy in Appin, but the act of one hot-headed man or of two hot-headed men. ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... schoolboy. She liked boys, and prided herself on getting on with them. But this specimen had no conversation—at any rate for the female sex—and apparently only an appetite. He ate steadily through the dinner, and seemed rather to resent Doris's attempts to distract him from the task. So that presently Doris found herself reduced to long tracts of silence, when her fan was her only companion, and the watching of other ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... to the factions which distract my country, and to the enmity of the greatest powers of Europe, I have terminated my political career, and I come, like Themistocles, to throw myself upon the hospitality of the British people. I put myself under the protection of their laws; which I claim from your ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... In order to distract the enemy's attention and hold his troops away from the main battle-front, "subsidiary attacks" were made upon the German lines as far north as Bellewarde Farm, to the east of Ypres, and southward to La Bassee Canal at Givenchy, by the troops ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... laugh!" she said; "oh, that is well; for otherwise I should not know how to live. We must laugh low, not to make any noise and distract the old ones; but still, one must live. Tell me, you are the brother of Madame—Should I say Milady? In my novels they never do, but I do not know if the novels are ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... he passed the greater part of his time either under the shelter of the rock, where he could best avoid the hot sun, or when the sea-breeze blew on its summit. The frightful solitude offered to him absolutely nothing which could distract his thoughts, or prevent him from brooding upon the hopelessness ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... turned her back to the ice-bridge, at which she scarcely dared to look, and sat herself upon a rock. In doing so the jewels in the bag struck against her knee and jingled, and the thought came into her mind that she would examine them while she waited, partly because she desired to distract her thoughts from the vision of this new and terrible ordeal which lay before her, and partly to ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... four years," she said, coldly. "But you really must be careful of your driving, Lord Brompton. I distract ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... avoided, that the larger outline of the whole picture shall not suffer. The complete picture must ever claim the chief interest; details should not distract attention from it. In art, subordination of the parts to the whole is an art of itself. Everything must be fitted to the larger lineaments that should ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... Proposition we may give salt is soluble, or water rusts iron: the copulative exponible is exemplified by salt is savoury and wholesome; and so on. But this procedure has some disadvantages: it is often cumbrous; and it may distract the reader's attention from the point to be explained by exciting his interest in the special fact of the illustration. Clearly, too, so far as Logic is formal, no particular matter of fact can adequately ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... somewhat undecided as to what to do. Like the rest of her class she was fitted at the bow with a powerful beak or ram, just level with the surface of the water, the office of which was to pierce an enemy's ship about the water-line and so cause such a serious leak as to effectually distract the attention of the defenders. But in the present case there appeared to be some hesitation with regard to the adoption of this mode of attack, and George soon came to the conclusion that the galleon's cargo—the ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... threw myself down on the floor beside my children, and pressed them to my heart, while inwardly I thanked God that they were asleep, unconscious of danger, and unable by their cries to distract our attention from adopting any plan which might offer to ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... somebody else. I tell you this because I want you to know I did my duty. I didn't succeed. It was for the same purpose I went abroad—as far away as possible. They say travelling distracts the mind, but it didn't distract mine. I've thought of you perpetually, ever since I last saw you. I'm exactly the same. I love you just as much, and everything I said to you then is just as true. This instant at which I speak to you shows me again exactly how, to my great misfortune, you just insuperably ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... says the old Latin adage; and as the philosopher is a man before he is a philosopher, he must needs live before he can philosophize, and, in fact, he philosophizes in order to live. And usually he philosophizes either in order to resign himself to life, or to seek some finality in it, or to distract himself and forget his griefs, or for pastime and amusement. A good illustration of this last case is to be found in that terrible Athenian ironist, Socrates, of whom Xenophon relates in his Memorabilia that he discovered to Theodata, the courtesan, ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... foundation of all."[76] The senses and the memory, which collect and store up facts, must be assisted; there must be a ministration of the senses and another of the memory. For not only are instances required, but these must be arranged in such a manner as not to distract or confuse the mind, i.e. tables and arrangements of instances must be constructed. In the preliminary collection the greatest care must be taken that the mind be absolutely free from preconceived ideas; nature is only to be conquered ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... been a week in which Dudley, much of a doctor, had treated, with cheerful patience and skill, an infected and painful hand of the guide's, and this had won for him the love eternal of our Tin Lizzie. Little John Dudley thought, as he made jokes to distract the boy, and worked over his big throbbing fist, the fist which meant daily bread—little John thought where the plant of love springing from that seed of gratitude would at last blossom. Little he thought as the two sat on the gallery of the camp, and the placid lake broke in silver ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... over him; he was in a state of lethargy. "Am I going mad?" he said to himself more than once. No! he was not insane, not yet at any rate; he simply took no interest in life. Nothing seemed to distract him; he cared for nothing, spoke to no one except ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... victim to a fanatic belonging to a body which counted assassination a religious duty. His wife, Eleanor of Castile, who was tenderly attached to him, had to be led out of his tent, lest her bitter grief should distract him during an operation which the surgeons held to be necessary. In 1272 Henry III. died, and his son, though in a distant land, was quietly accepted as ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... for Miss Mayhew. She may possibly believe them. It would be all the same if I had the footfall of an elephant! Nothing short of siege-guns would distract your mind from that picture. It has ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... want to pick a quarrel out of our many just causes of complaint. But it will be as well that Lincoln and Seward should see that we are long patient, and do nothing to distract their attention from the arduous task they ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... disquietude, doubt and fear, and rejoicing in the plenitude of their charity, in their vast power with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to obtain grace and blessing day and night for the poor dwellers upon earth? It does not distract them from God, it does not interfere with the Vision, or make it waver and grow misty; it does not trouble their glory or their peace. On the contrary, it is with them as with our Guardian Angels—the ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... some minutes without moving, then he dropped his head suddenly on his arms with a heavy groan. The bright light was behind him, and Guy could see his clasped fingers twisting and tearing at each other, as if he wished to distract mental agony by the sense of bodily pain. The gazer saw that another besides himself had given up all hope; and, with a heavier heart than over, he stole away home—not to sleep, but to think, and wait ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... the State must not allow any conventional sympathies to distract it from its object and that "conditions may arise which are more powerful ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... me," said she, "and will never be alone; the people about me shall always laugh and jest, to cheer me and distract my thoughts. Hasten, hasten—call my court; the most jovial men shall be most welcome! And, do you hear, above all things, bring me wine, the best and strongest wine. When I drink plenty of it, I shall again become gay and happy; it drives away all cares, and renders ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... hand, the report would strike upon the ears of the mias, might distract it from the triumph in which it was indulging, and bring it to the spot where they were standing. Then, with an empty gun in his hand, what defence could the youth make, either for himself ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself. The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than any one. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn't it? ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... traveller, thou blowest hot and cold, life and death, in the same breath, with a view, no doubt, to distract me. How familiarly dost thou use the words, dying, dimness, tremor? Never did any mortal ring so many changes on so few bells. Thy true father, I dare swear, was a butcher, or an undertaker, by the delight thou seemest ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... looked in the canteen, and who is now here for justice for that skeleton. He's waited twenty years for it, Carey, but he's going to get it to-day. Don't squirm so. You distract my mind ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... under the lash, for refusing to reveal their imaginary treasures. The edifices of Rome, though the damage has been much exaggerated, received some injury from the violence of the Goths. At their entrance through the Salarian gate, they fired the adjacent houses to guide their march, and to distract the attention of the citizens; the flames, which encountered no obstacle in the disorder of the night, consumed many private and public buildings; and the ruins of the palace of Sallust [105] remained, in the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... paint it for, then see that the composition is so placed on your canvas that that characteristic is the main thing in evidence. With this done it is a very easy thing to concentrate on that characteristic, and to leave out whatever tends to break it up or distract from it. This is the only way you can simplify your subject. First by a distinct conception of what you paint it for, then by so much analysis of the whole field of vision as will show you what does and what does not help ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... harder then than now, and their teachers and their tools helped them less, so that they learned more thoroughly what they learned at all. And there was much less to distract a man then, when he had discovered his own talent, while there was everything to spur him. Amusements were few, and mostly the monopoly of rich nobles; but success was quick and generous, and itself ennobled the men who attained to it—that ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... which all lovers will understand, he gave himself the pleasure of pausing before his happiness; he would not even unseal that blissful note until the moment when, with closed doors and no interruptions to distract him, he could enjoy at his ease the delicious sensation of which his heart had ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... was to combat mental anguish by bodily exercise, to distract, if possible, the thoughts which hammered upon her brain by moving amid the life of the streets. In Camberwell Road she passed the place of business inscribed with the names 'Lord and Barmby'; it made her think, not of the man ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... L200 for his wedding-tour not been so imperative. He wandered about the streets talking to and sometimes strolling about with the light women, listening to their lamentable stories—"anything," he thought, "to distract my mind." He was to meet Lily on the staircase at one o'clock, and now it was half-past twelve, and giving the poor creature whose chatter had beguiled the last half-hour a louis, he returned ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... stay, dear youth (she said), or with thee take Thy Lydia, thine alike in life or death!" At Lydia's name, at Lydia's well known voice, He strove again to raise his drooping head And ope his closing eye, but strove in vain, And on her trembling bosom sunk away. Now other fears distract his weeping friends: But short their grief! for soon his life return'd, And, with return of ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... depressed by a sense of thy own grief, as to be incapable of ministering to the woes of others. Allow me to think of thee as one whose views are not bounded by the grave, and then I shall have no overwhelming terrors to distract my attention, or unfit me for improving every fair opportunity for my deliverance. But, should the worst happen, remember, Constantia, I shall continue to exist. Putting on the garment of immortality does not destroy identity. We shall ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... of devotion manifested by these people is very small; the most trifling circumstance suffices to distract their attention. For instance, my appearance seemed to create quite a sensation among them, and they made their remarks upon me to one another so openly both by words and gestures, that I found it quite impossible to give my mind to seriousness ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... was pleasant to me of going away from places which constantly brought it back to my mind. Another sky, other customs, another language, grave responsibilities, a novel and difficult undertaking of uncertain outcome—I was willing to risk all simply to distract my attention and to forget. I have never in my life been a gambler, but that time I staked my artistic reputation upon a single card. Failure would have been a new emotion, severe and grievous, it is true, but still different from that which ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... o'clock, the major, who was not a little anxious lest the "Two Marys" should come in collision with some larger craft, undressed and retired to his berth, where the trouble of the nation ceased for a time to distract his brain. All now went smoothly on until midnight, when, it being Luke's wife's watch on deck, the major awoke from his first nap, and hearing his pig running about the deck, making divers noises, as if in great distress, hastened to his relief in a condition not easily described in this history. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... darkness. It seemed more terrible now that he was with his friends than when he was outside and alone. He kept on saying to himself that there were plenty more who would be spending the night out of doors. He strove to distract his mind by talking, but in the middle of his words a spatter of rain against the ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... spoilt or lost during their carriage from Tostes to Yonville, without counting the plaster cure, who falling out of the coach at an over-severe jolt, had been dashed into a thousand fragments on the pavements of Quincampoix! A pleasanter trouble came to distract him, namely, the pregnancy of his wife. As the time of her confinement approached he cherished her the more. It was another bond of the flesh establishing itself, and, as it were, a continued sentiment of a more complex union. When from afar he saw her languid walk, and her figure without stays ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... a bachelor to distract me from my work, without adding to them those of a wife and family, and those little home lessons in the frailty of human nature, in which you advise me to copy ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... insignificant. The mad crowd drives hither and thither, now furiously commanding this thing to be done, now that. What is he that he should resist their will and think and act for himself? Every moment new changes and new showers of deceptions to baffle and distract him. And when, by and by, for an instant the air clears and the cloud lifts a little, there are the gods still sitting around him on their ...
— Life's Enthusiasms • David Starr Jordan
... log where he might study under the gracious sky. Across the road, a bill-board flaunted a many-colored advertisement, but it did not distract his attention—it had lost its novelty from over-production. There was to be a Street Carnival beginning July first. There would be a Fortune Teller, a Lion Show, a Snake Den, etc. The Fourth of July would be the Big Day; ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... I saw Matilda every day, and that helped to distract me. In the midst of this struggle and anxiety she was taken ill with a cold. Nothing was thought of it at first; but she grew rapidly worse, and fell into a consumption. I cannot tell you what I suffered. The ills that I have undergone in this life have been dealt out ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... in the Tuileries gardens beyond the breeze dreamily stirred the foliage which hid from Lynde's view the gray facade of the gutted palace, still standing there, calcined and cracked by the fires of the Commune. Presently all this began to distract him, and when he returned to the hotel he was in a humor that would have been comparatively tranquil if so many tedious miles had not stretched between ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... caused by the immense crowd blocking the court, only pushed aside by archers on horseback, who separated the people. The marquise now went out, and the doctor, lest the sight of the people should completely distract her, put a crucifix in her hand, bidding her fix her gaze upon it. This advice she followed till they gained the gate into the street where the tumbril was waiting; then she lifted her eyes to see the shameful object. It was one of the smallest of carts, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... for a moment, sniffed at the scent-bottle, smiled at the photographs on the wall. A green-eyed impersonator, a blue-eyed impersonator: the room could have been full of impersonators, for all he cared. Dark girls, yellow girls, fair girls, so many playthings to distract him from his rules and compasses. He was bored at once; turned to another at once; and it was all so amusing! He was the typical lover of the woman of the stage, with his little surface passions. And very amiable withal, knowing them all, and friendly with them, a ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... will not long distract the attention of a black-leg, and the laughter having subsided without Jorrocks or the Baron being in the slightest degree disconcerted, the ring was again formed; horses' heads again turn towards the post, while carriages, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... to be a wonderful new process of evolving gas from dirt and city refuse. He had been explaining it gently to a woman in the chair, from pure intellectual interest, to distract the patient's mind. He was not tinkering with teeth this time, however. The woman was sitting in the chair because it was the only unoccupied space. She had removed her hat and was looking steadily into the lake. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... I walked hand in hand with her to the village church. There was much there to distract my attention, particularly in that rare sight, the ample white wig (the last of the wigs of Connecticut!) on the head of the venerable minister, who, though too infirm for much active service, still held his place in the pulpit; but I listened ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... be especially taken care of, that, the body being then in a ferment and disturbed, no cares of the soul, no business about necessary affairs, no labor, should distract and seize it, lest they should corrupt and sour its humors, Nature not having had time enough for settling what has been disturbed. For, sir, all men have not the command of that happy ease and tranquillity which Epicurus's philosophy procured him; ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... experience to do that sort of thing so cleverly and safely. Does he do it often? Of course, not just that. But does he pick up cigars and things that I see they throw to the matador? Does he belong to the management? Mr. Briggs thinks the whole thing was a feint to distract the bull," she added, with a wicked glance at the geologist, who, I ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... as the afternoon was still early, French was anxious to find some occupation that might distract his thoughts. He decided to visit his aunt, whose conversation was usually startling enough to hold the attention of her hearers in any stress of agitation, and then when he was halfway up her steps repented the intention, on the ground that he needed soothing rather than ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... left Edinburgh, intrigues had begun to distract his councils. "An ill-timed emulation," remarks an eye-witness of the rebellion, "soon crept in, and bred great dissension and animosities: the council was insensibly divided into factions, and came to be of little use, when measures ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... ever. These last days had been so full of excitement, she had been so hurried from one new sensation to another, that she had not had time to occupy herself exclusively with this great sorrow that had fallen upon her; but there was nothing to distract her now. Her father's death, which she had found so hard to understand in the midst of everyday life and familiar associations, she realized all too bitterly when such realization was aided by the blank ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... his small attic. A walk before breakfast was part of the day's duties. At ten o'clock in the morning, whether the spirit moved him or not, he took up his pen and laboured hard until three o'clock. Nothing, not even the opening of the morning letters, was allowed to distract him. Then came walking, answering letters, and seeing friends.... In the evening he read and prepared for the work of ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... dislike to get rid of him. I shall do my best to prevent his being released from the responsibility of his misdoings till I meet your Lordship. I should like, if possible, to meet your Lordship where there is likely to be the least crowd of expectants and parade to take up your time and distract your attention. If at Cawnpore, I hope you will permit me to have my camp on the Oude side of the river, with a tent in your camp for business during the day. With your Lordship's commands to attend, ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... would recommend to the members of this Convention, to discountenance, by all just means in their power, any emigration to Liberia or Hayti, believing them only calculated to distract and ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... dash upon Arcot. He had, however, perceived that the operations there were wholly secondary, and that Trichinopoli was still the all-important point. The fall of that place would more than neutralize Clive's successes at Arcot; and he, therefore, did not suffer Clive's operations to distract his attention here. Strong reinforcements and a battering train were sent forward to the besiegers; and, by repeated messages, he endeavoured to impress upon Law and Chunda Sahib the necessity of pressing forward the capture ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... wearing a robe of a different color, together with ribbons or some other distinctive mark of favor from his mistress. The procession closed with a numerous troop of chulos, or banderilleros, a set of young men lightly and fancifully apparelled, whose business is to distract the attention of the bull from a fallen cavalier, and to harass the animal with the banderillas. In this splendid troop we perceived some traces of the ancient spirit of chivalry, although, strange to ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... roll and butter, revived exhausted nature. Ida paid for this temperate refreshment, went to the booking-office, made some inquiries about her ticket, and bought herself a book at the stall, wherewith to beguile the time and to distract her mind from brooding on its ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... making mutual concessions and patriotic considerations necessary at all times, yet they were spared the most dangerous of all feelings under which our country has suffered of late; for, amid all the perturbing causes to interfere with and distract their counsels, partisan animosity was at least unknown. There was in that day no such thing as political party in the ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... To distract his thoughts, he quitted the near view, and let his eye run along the edge of the horizon, until it rested upon a small speck, which he knew to be the lofty spire of Saint Paul's Cathedral. If, as he supposed, the Fair Geraldine was in attendance upon Anne Boleyn, at the palace ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... "these blockheads distract me. Out of my sight, Diego! and thou, Jaquez, tell me in one word, art thou sober? art thou raving? thou wast wont to have some sense: has the other sot frightened himself and thee too? Speak; what is it ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... have elevated dispositions yet more light and commonplace. You do not know what miracles love works! But now, what is there left for me? What matters it how frivolous and poor the occupations which can distract my thoughts, and bring me forgetfulness? Forgive me; I have no right to obtrude all ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book X • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Barre's attempts to distract the attention of the bystanders from the subject, they still persisted in desiring to discover the extent of the devil's knowledge of foreign languages, and at their suggestion the bailiff proposed to Barre to try ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... have relied upon his own resources to defend Richard's masterpiece. John made one attempt to succour the garrison. He brought his army across the level country and essayed to destroy the bridge of boats constructed by the French. This one effort proving unsuccessful he took no other measures to distract the besieging army, and left Roger de Lacy to the undivided attention of the Frenchmen. Then followed a terrible struggle. The French king succeeded in drawing his lines closer to the castle itself and eventually obtained possession of the outer fortifications and the village ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... short journey like that couldn't fatigue, and might distract her thoughts. Let her go by all means,—it would be the ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... T. to "discover." Readers must have been strangely disappointed on finding not a single word to throw light upon this subject, and merely a long account of the negotiations between Curll and P. T. The narrative might serve to distract attention from the main point, which it clearly did nothing to elucidate. But Curll now stated his own case. He reprinted the narrative with some pungent notes; he gave in full some letters omitted by P. T., and he added a story which was most unpleasantly significant. P. ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... the Robin. "I am absolutely freezing and must have something to distract my thoughts—ri ...
— More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme • Ada M. Marzials
... utterly out of sympathy. That's the worst of being a spinster, you can never count on your companions as a continuance! Kathie left me at the invitation of a man she had known a few months; Charmion regards me as a narcotic to distract her thoughts from another man, and flies off the moment his memory becomes troublesome; and now even Bridget! Men are a ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... hear the shooting. The moment it begins give a yell; fire your guns; go whooping up the stream with the horses as though the whole crowd were trying to cut out that way, but get right back. The excitement will distract them and help me. Now, good-by, and good luck ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... recovery. But now bottles and boxes had vanished, and her last trust was gone. One instinct only inspired her now—to be near Jeanne, never leave her, gaze at her unceasingly. The doctor, wishing to distract her attention from the terrible sight, strove, by assigning some little duties to her, to keep her at a distance. But she ever and ever returned, drawn to the bedside by the physical craving to see. She waited, standing erect, ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... usually so gracious and responsive, wholly absorbed in her troubled revery; but to-day her maidens played their sweetest strains upon their silvery lutes, without her answering smile; the gentlemen of her court sought in vain for some diversion to distract her; even the Lady Margherita could do nothing for her pleasure, while she watched in unobtrusive tenderness, feeling that quiet, however unsatisfying, was more welcome ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... this side of the water. The Fourth of July merely marks the day when we consecrated ourselves as a nation to this high thing which we pretend to serve. The benefit of a day like this is merely in turning away from the things that distract us, turning away from the things that touch us personally and absorb our interest in the hours of daily work. We remind ourselves of those things that are greater than we are, of those principles by which we believe our hearts to be elevated, of the more difficult things that we must undertake ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... Columbus, and threatened to take his life if he did not command the ships to be turned back toward Spain, but his patience did not give out, nor was his faith one whit the less. He cheered the hearts of the men as best he could, often telling them droll, funny stories to distract their thoughts from the terrible dread which now filled ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... was thrown on nursery and school-room for companionship—insipid pabulum to the vanity of a young lady in her first glimpse of conquest, and who believed she had stricken down a quarry worthy of her bow. Having nothing to distract her, she considered the problem exhaustively from morning till night, and, if she were not in love with him before, she had got him into her head now, if not into her heart. His being so much with Cecil did not strike her as any clue to the mystery. They were ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity. Now Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic. There is a very wide difference. If a man of science were told that the results of his experiments, and ...
— The Soul of Man • Oscar Wilde
... language in the cry of an infant, which to a mother is the most interesting of all languages, and which a thoughtful medical man can well interpret. The cry of a child, to an experienced doctor, is, each and all, a distract sound, and is as expressive as the notes of the gamut. The cry of passion, for instance, is a furious cry; the cry of sleepiness is a drowsy cry; the cry of grief is a sobbing cry; the cry of an infant when roused from ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... to herself some days, not knowing what to do; for she loves you, and admires you of all women. At last she revealed it, but in confidence, to Miss Biddulph, by letter. Miss Biddulph, in like confidence, being afraid it would distract me, were I to know it, communi- cated it to Miss Lloyd; and so, like a whispered scandal, it passed through several canals, and then it came to me; which was not till ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... not love her had been her protection until now. When her love for Debendra was but in the germ she smilingly confessed it to herself, but turned away from him without hesitation. When the full-grown passion pierced her heart she took service to distract her thoughts. But when she imagined he loved her she had no desire to resist. Therefore she now had to eat the fruit ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... actual and realised co-operation sets me on lines of thought that distract me, for the moment, from the first plan of this letter. The special Musketry School with which I had meant to open it, must wait till its close. I find my mind full instead—in connection with ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the afternoon I believe he read—Gertrude and I were out, as I have said, and at dinner we both noticed that something had occurred to distract him. He was disagreeable, which is unlike him, nervous, looking at his watch every few minutes, and he ate almost nothing. He asked twice during the meal on what train Mr. Jamieson and the other detective were coming, ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... foot, and your whip, if your master permit. "Why do you make coquette of your horse?" asked a French master of a pretty girl who was coaxingly calling her mount "a naughty, horrid thing," and casting glances fit to distract a man on the ungrateful creature's irresponsive crest. "Your horse does not care anything at all about you; don't you think he does!" pursued he, ungallantly. "You may coax me as much as you like," said a Yankee teacher to a young woman who was trying the "treat him kindly" ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... indeed, which they have constrained me to undertake, is one which they themselves could have executed more competently, but they were averse to distract their attention from the higher contemplations and sublime pursuits to which they are devoted, in order to turn their thoughts and pens to things of the earth earthy. I, therefore, in obedience to their orders, have rendered ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... long-sustained concentration. To set out upon a long journey, with a definite destination in view, is one thing, to remember that purpose and keep it uppermost in one's mind continually is quite another. There are so many things to distract one's attention ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... It would distract us from our purpose to give a full description of the grievances of the Spanish colonies in America. They were justified and it is useless to try to defend Spain. Granting that Spain carried out a wonderful work of civilization in the American continent, and that she is ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... what was going on, was found endeavouring to distract his mind by sketching the Goyle. He and Magdalen walked up and down the drive together, perfectly agreeing that it would be senseless cruelty to permit an early marriage between these two young people, and that it was a pity there ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Cologne's enthusiastic efforts to point out these beauties, as well as to distract Dorothy, she only answered with the most ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... bad, mother, so I ate them." Being afraid of dogs, this little girl of four years old has all kinds of dodges to disguise her fear, which she has evidently resolved to keep to herself. She will set up a sudden song to distract attention from the fact that she is placing herself out of the dog's way, and she will pretend to turn to gather a flower, while she watches the creature out of sight. On the other hand, prudence in regard ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... floor of a clearing station and the individual is lost in the crowd. When you see the one borne past, if there is nothing else to distract attention you always ask two questions: Will he die? Has he been maimed for life? If the answers to both are no, you feel a sense of triumph, as if you had seen a human play, built skilfully around a life to arouse your emotions, ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... Moslem call to prayer; but, alas! it was directed at a people who had sloughed all pretensions to be ranked among those who respond to such calls, to any calls which would distract them from their objective in the pelting pursuit of ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... You would have said that no scene on earth could have been more favorable to a lover's enterprise than these long, deserted roads and the vast, twilit moors; and that a young woman could have found nothing to distract her from her ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... however, no woman to distract the overworked Young Doctor by her freshness, drawn from the reservoir of her vitality; and that was a pity, because, as Patsy Kernaghan many a time said: "Aw, Doctor dear, what's the good of a tongue to a wagon if there's only wan horse to draw it! Shure, you'll think a lot more of yourself ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Antediluvians; at the close of which (circa 11.15 A.M.) Buncle proposes again. "You force me to smile (the illustrious Miss Noel replied), and oblige me to call you an odd compound of a man," and to distract his thoughts, she takes him round her famous grotto. The conversation, all repeated at length, turns on conchology and on the philosophy of Epictetus until it is time for dinner, when Mr. Noel and young Buncle drink a bottle of old Alicant, ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... do without my assistance; there were other professors, many of them. I did not permit the circulars that now began to pour in from Chickle University to distract me from my index. Striking as these circulars were—and I will instance ...
— How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee • Owen Wister
... And still be doing, never done; As if religion were intended 205 For nothing else but to be mended. A sect, whose chief devotion lies In odd perverse antipathies; In falling out with that or this, And finding somewhat still amiss; 210 More peevish, cross, and splenetick, Than dog distract, or monkey sick. That with more care keep holy-day The wrong, than others the right way; Compound for sins they are inclin'd to, 215 By damning those they have no mind to: Still so perverse and opposite, As if they worshipp'd God for spite. The self-same thing they will abhor ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... My gratious lord, he is with extreame pride Conceiued of yong Horatio, his sonne, And couetous of hauing himselfe The ransome of the yong prince, Balthazar, Distract, and in ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... his master was given over to a gloomy despair that verged upon madness, Jonathan resolved to distract his mind at all costs, and knowing that he was passionately fond of music, he engaged a box for him at the Opera. But Raphael was afraid above all things, of falling in love. Under the illimitable desire of passion the magic skin would shrivel up in an hour. So he used a strange, distorting ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... Most of them, however, seeing the uselessness of competing with these two horsemen, fell out of the line and mingled among the spectators, so that scarce six others remained on the ground with the two rival heroes. All the more interesting, therefore, the contest; for there will be nothing to distract the attention of ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... peril that we were in did not suffice to distract my mind from curious consideration of the strange state of affairs that existed among the folk dwelling in this hidden valley if our surmise in regard to the Priest Captain's knowledge of the outer matches, his acquaintance with fire-arms, and his knowledge of the Spanish tongue. ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... good reasons why Pitt and his colleagues should not commit themselves deeply to the Haytian embroglio. In that anxious time, the autumn of 1794, the most urgent needs were to save Holland from the Jacobins, to distract them by helping the Royalists of Brittany, and from our new base in Corsica to clog their attempts at an invasion of Italy. Owing to the slackness of our Allies, these enterprises proved unexpectedly difficult. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... road, an ambulance dashing up to lift his bruised hopes tenderly and take them off somewhere for sanitary treatment, or even some childish sympathy of theirs commissioned to run up and offer him a nosegay to distract him in his walk toward old disappointments and old cares. He only knew they were welcome visitants in his mind. Sometimes the mind seemed to him a clean-swept place, the shades down and no fire lighted, and these young creatures, in their heavenly implication of doing everything for their own ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... hour afterward he was in one of the principal hotels at Villebrumeuse, sitting at a neatly-ordered supper-table, with no power to eat; with no power to distract his mind, even for a moment, from the image of that lost friend who had been treacherously murdered in the thicket ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... admiring public, Guynemer would relax and breathe freely with his people at Compiegne, where he became once more a lively, noisy, indulged, but coaxing and charming boy, except when absorbed in work, from which nothing could distract him. He spent hours in pasting and classifying the snapshots he took of his enemies just before pulling the trigger of his machine-gun and bringing them down. One of his greatest pleasures when on leave was to arrange ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... long before the time when I should have to go up to bed, and to lie there, unsleeping, far from my mother and grandmother, my bedroom became the fixed point on which my melancholy and anxious thoughts were centred. Some one had had the happy idea of giving me, to distract me on evenings when I seemed abnormally wretched, a magic lantern, which used to be set on top of my lamp while we waited for dinner-time to come: in the manner of the master-builders and glass-painters of gothic days it substituted for the opaqueness of my walls an impalpable iridescence, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... did change; they changed essentially with the collapse of the Confederacy. There was no more organized armed resistance to the national government, to distract which loyal State governments in the South might have been efficacious. But there was an effort of persons lately in rebellion to get possession of the reconstructed Southern State governments for the purpose, in part, of using their power to save or restore as much of the system ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... things distract you from thinking about the vital necessity of saving your own life, Mr. Danley, you would not ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... heed the interruption.—"A book that will sell! A book that will prop up the fall of prices! A book that will distract your mind from its dismal apprehensions, and restore your affection to your species, and your hopes in the ultimate triumph of sound principles—by the sight of a favorable balance at the end of the yearly accounts. It is astonishing what a difference ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... west of the town. To the east there was an inlet where it might be possible to land troops, though perilously near the guns of the citadel. It was resolved to make a feint here, and to send parties to each of the three other points, so as to divide and distract the attention of the enemy. Wolfe was to take command of the landing at Freshwater Cove, which was the spot where Amherst most desired to make his first stand, and here the most determined attempt ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Boyson. Roger was sitting by the fire in the vicar's study, ministered to by Elsie French and her children. By common consent the dismal subject of the day had been put aside. There was an attempt to cheer and distract him. The little boy of four was on his knee, declaiming the "Owl and the Pussy Cat," while Roger submissively turned the pages and pointed to the pictures of that immortal history. The little girl of two, curled up on her mother's lap close by, listened sleepily, and Elsie, applauding and prompting ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of Poland, was a veteran soldier of great military renown. He placed himself at the head of other divisions of the army, and endeavored to distract the enemy and to divide their forces. At the same time, Alexis himself hastened to the theater of war that he might animate his troops by his presence. The Turks, finding themselves unable to advance any further, sullenly returned to their own country by the way of the Danube. ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... more than a year the perseverance of the Independents held in check the ardour and influence of their more numerous adversaries. Overpowered at last by open force, they had recourse to stratagem; and, to distract the attention of the Presbyterians, tendered to the assembly a plea for indulgence to tender consciences; while their associate, Cromwell, obtained from the lower house an order that the same subject ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... him. He ordered the most British luncheon he could think of, and reflected upon the superiority of the beer. He read the leaders in the Standard through to the bitter end, and congratulated himself and the newspaper that there was no rag of an absurd feuilleton to distract his attention from the importance of the news of the day. He remembered all sorts of acquaintances that Paris had foamed over for months; his heart warmed to a certain whimsical old couple who lived in Park Street and went out to walk every morning after breakfast with their poodle. He felt ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... such weather; both the maids have terrible colds, and Mary would not go if you asked her. Listen! It is frightful. I promise to go in the morning if we don't get a letter, but we probably shall. Let us play checkers for a while." With a forced stoicism she essayed to distract her mother's thoughts, but with poor success. The wretched afternoon drew to a close; and immediately after a show of dining, Mrs. Levice went to bed. At Ruth's suggestion ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... Harmony Peter slid his long figure, and met a tremulous bow and silence. From the head of the table Frau Schwarz was talking volubly—as if, by mere sound, to distract attention from the scantiness of the meal. Under cover of the Babel Peter spoke to the girl. Having had his warning his tone was friendly, without a hint of the intimacy of ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the dead to me; for an absence of eight-and-twenty years, in the short space of our duration, is almost equivalent to death. She arrived among us, still in great affliction for the loss she had had of the King; and I tried to distract her sad thoughts by all the dissipations possible. It is only by dint of such that one compels the mind to shift away from the fatal idea where grief has fixed it: this is not the work of a day, but of time, which in the end succeeds in everything. I congratulate your Royal ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... her mind entirely free till it craves openly for some counteraction. Her Italy and her music will not do. Let them be. My fear is that you have seen too clearly what a daughter of Italy I have found for you. But whatever you put up now to distract her, you sacrifice. My good Marini! bear that in mind. It will be a disgust in her memory, and I wish her to love her country and her Art when she recovers. So we treat the disease, dear friend. Let your Italy have no sorrows for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a sparkling Diadem. After her appeared St. Genevieve, surrounded by a number of Imps, who putting themselves into grotesque attitudes, drawing her by the robe, and sporting round her with antic gestures, endeavoured to distract her attention from the Book, on which her eyes were constantly fixed. These merry Devils greatly entertained the Spectators, who testified their pleasure by repeated bursts of Laughter. The Prioress had been careful to select a Nun whose disposition was naturally solemn ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... no one (save, possibly, the horse) had any twinges of conscience to keep him awake that night. The incident is brimful of pedagogy in that it shows that, in order to cure a horse of an attack of balking, you have but to distract his mind from his balking and get him to thinking of something else. Before this occurrence taught me the better way, I was quite prone, in dealing with a balking boy, to hold his mind upon the subject of balking. I told him how unseemly it was, how ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... Minstrel.' It was a timely and judicious truth, and I should have told it myself in the circumstances. But I should have stopped there. It was a stately truth, a lofty truth —a Tower; and I think it was a mistake to go on and distract attention from its sublimity by building another Tower alongside of it fourteen times as high. I refer to his remark that he 'could not lie.' I should have fed that to the marines; or left it to Carlyle; it is just in his style. It would have taken a medal ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... grace to be ever mindful of that mercy, and to keep those good resolutions she now makes in her sickness, so that no length of time nor prosperity may entice her to forget them. Let no thought of her misfortunes distract her mind, and prevent the means toward her recovery, or disturb her in her preparations for a better life. We beseech thee also, O Lord, of Thy infinite goodness, to remember the good actions of this Thy servant; that the naked she hath clothed, the ...
— Three Sermons, Three Prayer • Jonathan Swift
... curiously convenient, undiscriminating epithet. I use it here. The Dixville Notch is, briefly, picturesque,—a fine gorge between a crumbling conical crag and a scarped precipice,—a pass easily defensible, except at the season when raspberries would distract sentinels. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... a night, Wilhelm! I can henceforth bear anything. I shall never see her again. Oh, why cannot I fall on your neck, and, with floods of tears and raptures, give utterance to all the passions which distract my heart! Here I sit gasping for breath, and struggling to compose myself. I wait for day, and at sunrise the horses are to be at ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... a list of the things that most persistently distract your attention during study. What specific steps will you take to eliminate them; to ignore ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... furnished by Sidon, and on the heavier and clumsier of the triremes, and with these attacks were made upon the town in various places, all round the circuit of the walls, which, if they did nothing else, served to distract the attention of the defenders. To meet such assailants the Tyrians had let down huge blocks of stone into the sea, which prevented the approach of the ships, and hindered those on board from using the battering ram. These blocks the Macedonians endeavoured ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... disputes between the religious and secular clergy[10] at this period tended to distract the attention of both from their spiritual work, and to give rise to considerable disorder and discontent. On the one side, men like the Paris professor, John Poilly and Richard Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh, were ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... proportion and form there is, without doubt, much that is unsymmetrical in her designs. Interesting she always is, but to the trained eye scenes of minor importance are, strictly speaking, too long: descriptions in musical language sometimes distract the reader from the progress of the story. But this arose from her own joy in writing: much as she valued proportion, she liked expressing her mind better, not out of conceit or self-importance, but as the birds, whom she loved so ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... and lightness in the stubborn vehicle of stone. Nor do all the riches of the choir—those multitudes of singing angels, those Ascensions and Assumptions, and innumerable basreliefs of gleaming marble moulded into softest wax by mastery of art—distract our eyes from the single round medallion, not larger than a common plate, inscribed by him upon the front of the high altar. Perhaps, if one who loved Amadeo were bidden to point out his masterpiece, he would lead the way at once to this. The space is ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... can be attended by any one, friend or acquaintance, and no slight should be felt at the non-receipt of an invitation. Those attending should take especial pains to be in the church before the funeral procession arrives, and that they do nothing to distract from ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... only place worth living in just now, whilst we are in such terrible anxiety," he said boldly. "At least there are the papers and telegrams all day long, and none of this dreary, long waiting between the posts; and there are other things—to distract one's attention, ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... Mebodes, at the head of a small body of Romans, to create a diversion on the Mesopotomian side of the Tigris by a demonstration from Singara against Seleucia and Ctesiphon. He can hardly have expected to do more than distract his enemy and perhaps make him divide his forces. Bahram, however, was either indifferent as to the fate of the capital, or determined not to weaken the small army, which was all that he could muster, and on which his whole dependence was placed. He left Seleucia and Ctesiphon ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... Avenel's toilet was not completed with correspondent dispatch. On his bed, and on his chairs, and on his sofa, and on his drawers, lay trowsers, and vests, and cravats, enough to distract the choice of a Stoic. And first one pair of trowsers was tried on, and then another—and one waistcoat, and then a second, and then a third. Gradually that chef d'oeuvre of Civilization—a man dressed—grew into development and form; and, finally, Mr. Richard ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... time, you know, to fool with women. I don't pretend, of course, to any right to judge your private conduct, but—you can be so awfully useful, you know, and all that kind of thing, when you're paying strict attention. Women distract ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... the purpose of a maiden lady—perhaps because she has no minor domestic troubles to distract her; and when you have two maiden ladies working on the same problem, and both of them possessed ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
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