"Divert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... schoolroom with another boy, and, looking out of the window, had an opportunity of watching all that took place for a considerable space. There was a good deal of merriment to divert our attention, for there were clowns and merry-andrews passing along the highroad, with singlestick players, Punch and Judy shows, and other public amusers. Every one knows that the smallest event in the country will cause a good deal of ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... "teach me how to please you always. I am perhaps as pretty as those mistresses whom you mourn; if I have not their skill to divert you, I beg that you will instruct me. Act as if you did not love me, and let me love you without saying anything about it. If I am devoted to religion, I am also devoted to love. What can I do to make you ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... neither sight nor sound rewarded him, and the dinner-hour summoned him at length from the scene of disappointment. On the next, it rained; but nothing, neither business nor weather, neither prospective poverty nor present hardship, could now divert the young man from the service of his lady; and wrapt in a long ulster, with the collar raised, he took his stand against the balustrade, awaiting fortune, the picture of damp and discomfort to the eye, but glowing inwardly with tender and delightful ardours. Presently the window opened; and the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... perhaps, he was actuated by the apprehension that Richard, if refused a hearing, would disclose the secret of Wheal Danes, and wreck the scheme upon which his heart had been set for near half a century. One word from him would divert the unsuspected wealth, over which he had so long gloated in anticipation, into another's hand. But he did not like the young man better for the precious knowledge which he alone shared with him; far otherwise; he hated ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... young men of whom Perkins was the centre, who, by means of the saccharine medium known as conversation lozenges, were seeking to divert the attention of the band of young girls sitting before them. Among these sat Mandy. As his eye rested upon the billowy outlines of her figure, struggling with the limitations of her white blouse, tricked out with pink ribbons, he was conscious of a wave of mingled pity and disgust. Dull, ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... was long inconsolable for his loss, but religion, which she had always been taught to consider as the best comforter of the afflicted, came to her aid, and feeling the necessity of submission, she determined by active exertions to divert her ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... find any particular person, and two hours passed away in a vain search. But she was patient and determined, and there was but one idea in her mind. The music and the gayety of the assembled throng did not for one moment divert her, though this was the first scene of the kind that she had ever beheld, and its novelty might well have attracted her attention. The lights which flashed out so brightly through the gloom of night—the ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... young woman. If she's poor, people don't do such work for nothing; besides, it's wrong, gentlemen—I've given up all that,—I've a precious soul to look after, and I can't divert my attention from it. I wish ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... Venice to Vienna is joined by the line coming up from Fiume and Trieste. The Jugoslavs, recognizing that the possession of Klagenfurt would give them virtual control of the principal railway entering Austria from the south, and that such control would probably enable them to divert much of Austria's traffic from the Italian ports of Venice and Trieste to their own port of Fiume, which they confidently expected would be awarded them by the Peace Conference, lost no time in occupying the town with a considerable force ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... early hours of the evening as best they could, seeking to divert each other's thoughts. It had been long since the kind old banker was so garrulous, and Helen resolved to reward him by keeping up. Indeed, she shrank from retiring, feeling that through the sleepless ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... painful history," he warned her, taking the hint; "yet if it will serve to divert your mind from your own misfortune, I shall be honoured to confide it to you. Stay, the tenth invitation, which an accident prevented my dispatching, would explain the circumstances tersely: but I much fear that the room is too dark for you to decipher ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... Faith!—I am well enough to want to be down. How can you let the charms of society divert your mind from your books for a whole afternoon? Have you been so studious for the last few days only because you had nothing else ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... diminished, that it would be hard to say now what it is; but somehow the confusion of gables and excrescences have altogether a very picturesque effect, and luxuriant clematis and ivy conceal the architectural irregularities, or at least divert the eye from their observation. At the entrance to the house from the garden there is a porch, up a short flight of gray stone steps; its sides are of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... have," went on Ned, coolly. "You see, Tom, he admits that he was jealous of you. Now what is there to prevent him from hiring someone to dope your powder, and then, to divert suspicion from himself, faking up a letter and inviting ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... an emperor and Caesar to boot as the great Don of Germany, Charles the Fifth, was used to divert himself in his dotage by watching the gyrations of the springs and cogs of a long row of clocks, even so does an elderly Commodore while away his leisure in harbour, by what is called "exercising guns," and also "exercising ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... make a long day of it. It might have been a pleasant day in pleasant company; but Fleda's spirits were down to set out with, and Dr. Quackenboss was not the person to give them the needed spring; his long-winded complimentary speeches had not interest enough even to divert her. She felt that she was entering upon an untried and most weighty undertaking; charging her time and thoughts with a burthen they could well spare. Her energies did not flag, but the spirit that should have sustained them was not strong enough ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... this period she made a visit to the Isle of Wight, and there read the novels of Richardson. Her father died in 1849, and she was very much affected by this event. She grieved for him overmuch, and could find no consolation. Her friends, the Brays, to divert and relieve her mind, invited her to take a continental tour with them. They travelled extensively in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Her grief, however, was so excessive as to receive little relief, and her friends began to fear the results. On their return ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... compare it with his cheque-book. I suspect that Peters had been forging cheques and he saw here what would lead to discovery. Furthermore, there was a considerable sum of money in the safe, and the quarrel between uncle and nephew to divert suspicion. This, however, was mere conjecture—that trouser-pocket photo, Dawkins," said Malcolm Sage, turning to the photographer, who handed it ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... reason that a race of men capable of interplanetary travel have lived well into, or through, an atomic age. They have survived and they can tell us their secret of survival. Maybe the threat of an atomic war unified their planet and allowed them to divert their war effort to one of social and technical advancement. To such people a searchlight on a cloud or a bright star is ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... Rosamund, "very good indeed to my grandmother—he will sit with her, and hear her stories, and read to her, and try to divert her a hundred ways. I wonder sometimes he is not tired. She talks ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... added too, that Belden was showing some disposition to divert the house from its old conservative paths into the wild courses of speculation. His dash and daring found an outlet in an endeavor to manipulate the tea market, with less eye, perhaps, to profit than to prestige—to primacy in the trade. The old man had given but ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... afraid of their petitioning. However, their looseness of life is a sign that there is not much heart in what they do, and without the heart things are little worth. But go on, my masters; I will divert ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... to share his hopes. How could I doubt my own eyes? A vision, moreover, does not dash against a man and knock him down and stun him for hours. In all that Mr. Gregory could tell me I found no hope, but only vague suspicions of a plan to divert suspicion. Yet I found some comfort in one belief which would intrude itself upon me. He was yet guilty though this story of the fever were all true, but if it were true he was less base than I had ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... was at the beginning of the war. There are, of course, waves of indignation at such deliberate atrocities as the Lusitania outrage or the Zeppelin raids, Wittenberg will not easily be forgotten, but it would take many Sir George Makgills to divert British anger from the responsible German ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... I have in my trunks that reminds me of her goes through me like a spear. The silk lining she put in my travelling cap scalds my head. My imagination is horribly vivid about her—I see her—I hear her. There is nothing in the world of sufficient interest to divert me from her a moment. This was the case when I was in England: I cannot recollect, without shuddering, the time that I was a prisoner at Hunt's, and used to keep my eyes fixed on Hampstead all day. Then there was a good hope of seeing her again—Now!—O that I could be buried ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... and a large business was built up and is still continued.* The effect of this new competition on the non-Mormon establishments was, of course, very serious. Walker Brothers' sales, for instance, dropped $5000 or $6000 a month, and only the opportunity to divert their capital profitably to mining saved them ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... had not brought one with me, I was obliged to lie upon an old sail, with a bag of clothes for a pillow: however, I have no desire to consider comforts, when I am travelling, lest feather-bed indulgences, and luxurious appointments, should divert my attention from more useful objects. The latitude at noon to-day, was 1 deg. 36'. N, and longitude, 16 deg. 28'. W. by the Eden's calculation (the correctness of which I might venture to swear by, for no ship ever ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... the kingdom of Naples, the conquest of which was evidently premeditated by the king; and when Francis I., having arrived at Rome, had already done half the journey, Leo X. feared that it would be more difficult to divert him. He resolved to make to the king a show of deference to conceal his own disquietude; and offered to go and meet him at Bologna, the town in the Roman States which was nearest to Milaness. Francis accepted the offer. The pope arrived at Bologna on the 8th of December, 1515, and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to notice the sadness of her countenance, sadder than he had seen it for many days, and he exerted himself to entertain her and divert her thoughts, calling her attention to some new plants and flowers, consulting her taste in regard to improvements he designed making, and conversing with her about a book they had ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... would write one of his matchless editorial letters; at other times he would make a personal visit; if necessary, he would use any available friends in a wire-pulling campaign. At all odds he must "get" his man; once he had fixed upon a certain contributor nothing could divert him from the chase. Nor did the negotiations cease after he had "landed" his quarry. He had his way of discussing the subject with his proposed writer, and he discussed it from every possible point of view. He would take him to lunch or to dinner; in his quiet way ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... the pleasant Cemetery at Bologna, I found myself walking next Sunday morning, among the stately marble tombs and colonnades, in company with a crowd of Peasants, and escorted by a little Cicerone of that town, who was excessively anxious for the honour of the place, and most solicitous to divert my attention from the bad monuments: whereas he was never tired of extolling the good ones. Seeing this little man (a good-humoured little man he was, who seemed to have nothing in his face but shining teeth and eyes) looking ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... Paddington and the horde of lesser conspirators in their hire. We must recover your father's immense fortune, and find out how it was possible for them to divert it to their own channels. There is Mr. Hamilton to be thought of, too—his injury, his kidnaping! If we can succeed in unraveling this mysterious tangle of events without recourse to the fact of our knowledge of the murder, well and ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... is the result of forcing your mind to one set of thoughts and feelings. You become worn out—your feelings exhausted—deadness and depression ensues. Now, turn your mind off from these subjects—divert it by a cheerful and animated conversation, and you will find, after a while, that it will return to them ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... to the spot where I rose, that I clutched a rope thrown over for my rescue, and climbed to the lee channels without being perceived. As I leaped to the deck, I found one half the men in tumultuous assemblage around the struggling mate and sailor; but my sudden apparition served to divert the mob from its fell purpose, and, in a few moments, order was perfectly restored. Our captain was an intelligent and just man, as may be readily supposed from the fact that he exclusively controlled so valuable an enterprise. Accordingly, the ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... to the forward and the bold Frivolous and superficial pertness Gentlemen, who take such a fancy to you at first sight Guard against those who make the most court to you Have no pleasures but your own If you will persuade, you must first please Improve yourself with the old, divert yourself with the young Indiscriminately loading their memories with every part alike Insipid in his pleasures, as inefficient in everything else Labor more to put them in conceit with themselves Lay down a method for everything, and stick ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger
... The boy, younger than any of them, was flattered that three of the best known riders in the territory should make so much of him. Moreover, Stone had given him instructions to mix with Curly's crowd as much as he could. He had given as a reason that it would divert suspicion, but what he really wanted was to throw the blame of the hold-up on these friends after Sam was found dead ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... your devotion at certain times, and be sure to spend the Lord's Day entirely in those religious duties proper for it; and let nothing but an inevitable necessity divert you ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... would be fine, indeed, for people to come after him about business and find him gadding in the mountains for his pleasure. At that rate what would become of his government? In good truth, sir, hunting and such like pastimes are rather for your idle companions than for governors. The way I mean to divert myself shall be with brag at Easter and at bowls on Sundays and holidays; as for your hunting, it befits neither ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the village Bougden, the gate of which, built in a ravine, and which is closed at the will of the inhabitants of Bougden, serves as a passage to Akoush. The following was written by Ammalat, to divert the agony of his soul while preparing itself for the commission of a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... to them, till he yielded and went forth the house with them, that the will of God (blessed and exalted be He) might be fulfilled. 'Mount thy mule,' quoth they, 'and ride with us to such a garden, that we may divert us there and that thy grief and melancholy may depart from thee.' So he mounted and taking his slave, went with them to the garden in question, where they entered, and one of them went and making ready the morning- meal, brought it to them there. So they ate and made merry and ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... tale, that his curiosity led him to spare her head till she had finished the narrative. Of course she took good care to tell what the sailors call 'long yarns,' and the Sultan found out he could not live without her to divert him." ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... was. It is well for them that the light they need is not hidden under the bushel of any one churlish individual. But there were ample expedients remaining, and it required more than one discouragement to divert me from the object we were seeking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... a liberal supply of common sense in them!" cried the hostess, so delighted to have made a joke that she broke into cackling laughter, and laughed until failure of breath made her gasp and wriggle in her chair, an alarming spectacle. To divert attention, Constance began talking about the mill, describing the good effect it had wrought in certain families. Dyce listened with an air almost as engrossed as that of Mr. Gallantry, and, when his moment came, took up ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... Harry," she urged at last, still determined to divert his thoughts from Willits and the loss of the dance—"OUR guest," she went on—"so is everybody else here to-night, and we must do what everybody wants us to, not be selfish about it. Now, my darling—you couldn't be impolite to anybody—don't you know you couldn't? ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... understood to have been invented by the Lydians, when they were under the pressure of a great famine. To divert themselves from dwelling on their sufferings, they contrived the balls, tables, &c. and, in order to bear their calamity the better, were accustomed to play for the whole day together, without interruption, that they might not be rack'd with the thought ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... excellently worded but amusingly irrelevant passage about Voltaire and Rousseau, and the land that was enlightened by the one and inflamed by the other, brought the curious performance to a solemn close. High fantastic trifling of this sort, though it may divert a later generation to whose legislative bills it can do no harm, helps to explain the deep disfavour with which Disraeli was regarded by his severe and ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... smiles came as readily as ever. With Mrs. Cameron-Campbell on one side, and a minister's lady upon the other, his host two places distant, and a considerable audience of silent eaters within earshot, he successfully managed to divert the attention of quite half the table from the chieftain's ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... ever planned and executed. Its dimensions were sufficiently large to produce an impression of grandeur and sublimity, which was not disturbed by any obtrusive subdivision of parts; and, whether viewed at a small or greater distance, there was nothing to divert the mind of the spectator from contemplating the unity as well as majesty of mass and outline; circumstances which form the first and most remarkable characteristic of every Greek temple erected during the purer ages of Grecian ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... throat when I remember how those dear boys worked to divert me, until my strength revived. They rigged up a battered steamer-chair with furs and bath robes, put me in it, promising that as soon as I was rested they would see what could be done to get me up to the monastery. But I was not to worry. ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... lively temper, and loved to divert her cousin Hero, who was of a more serious disposition, with her sprightly sallies. Whatever was going forward was sure to make matter of mirth ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... scorned to take a mean advantage which offered itself against his adversaries. Arlington had made many enemies by his insolence, and Coventry was deeply involved in charges of malversation in dealing with the monies of the navy, and in selling offices in the Admiralty. Clarendon's friends urged him to divert the storm from himself by betraying the misdeeds of these his foes. The suggestion was made in vain. "No provocation," he declared, "should dispose him to do anything which would not become him." These men were Privy Councillors, ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... Margaret, the beautiful and gentle—Margaret, the heart-broken penitent. I love her as a brother; and what brother but yearns to conceal his erring sister's frailty? The faithful historian, however, is denied the privileges of fiction. He may not, if he would, divert the natural course of things; he cannot, though he pines to do it, expunge the written acts of Providence Let ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... remark the following passage may be quoted: "At supper" the queen "would divert herself with her friends and attendants; and if they made her no answer, she would put them upon mirth and pleasant discourse with great civility. She would then admit Tarleton, a famous comedian and pleasant ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... besides writing, while there, on the most diverse subjects. In 1672 he went to Paris, where he remained during four years with the exception of a short stay in London. The special purpose of the journey to Paris—to persuade Louis XIV to undertake a campaign in Egypt, in order to divert him from his designs upon Germany—was not successful; but Leibnitz was captivated by the society of the Parisian scholars, among them the mathematician, Huygens. From the end of 1676 until his death in 1716 Leibnitz lived in Hanover, whither he had been called by Johann Friedrich, as ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... repair the ravage he had indirectly caused. There was nothing equivocal in his position-nothing to disown. How others might look at it he did not consider and did not care. His impetuous soul was carried to a point where nothing came in to mar or divert. ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... Then every body looked astonished; some whispered their remarks, and others expressed them by their wondering eyes, till his brow knit, and his pallid cheeks became flushed with anger. Neither could he divert attention by eating; his parched mouth would not allow him to swallow any thing but liquids, of which, however, he indulged in copious libations; and it was an exceeding relief to him when the carriage, which was to convey them to St. Denis, being announced, ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... grimly. 'When they lose a thing they keep on looking till they find it again! Anyhow, my king and country need me now to cut potato sets for the back garden, so get you a knife and help me, Sophia Crawford. It will divert your thoughts and keep you from worrying over a campaign that you are not ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... divert me from my duty. My path of duty is distinctly traced; and if a thwarting hand withdraws me from it, it must ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... lodgment in his consciousness. There was not a sound or motion to divert, and the tale was a ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... would guess that we are thinking of establishing a trading station, and might send and make their own terms with the tumangong. There can be no doubt that, if we open a free port here, it will do great damage to them, and divert a large portion of the eastern trade here; being so much more handy for all the country craft trading with Siam and China, besides having the advantage of avoiding the heavy dues demanded ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... hand. Beckoning to some friendly Indians, he asked them to go to the river bank and signal to his men on the barges to come ashore with baskets to take back the corn for which he had traded the kettle. Meanwhile he kept up a brisk conversation with the old Werowance to divert his attention, assuring him that on the next day he and his men would leave their firearms on the ships, trusting to Powhatan's promise that no harm should ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... announce dinner, and Brett not only insisted that his new acquaintance should dine heartily, but also contrived to divert him from present anxieties by drawing upon the rich ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... hast been bred; to this end thou hast been instructed and placed where thou art to gain the ear of that wicked wanton whom thou seemest to serve. See thou forget it not; see that the luxury of yonder Court does not corrupt thy purity and divert thy aim, Charmion," and his eyes flashed and his small form seemed to grow till it attained to ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... reply, but sat down with a crushed expression, and set himself to devour bread and butter with an energy which he hoped would divert attention from his blushes; and almost immediately the Doctor looked at his watch and said, "Now, boys, you have half-an-hour for 'chevy'—make the most of it. When you come in I shall have something to say to you all. Don't rise, Mr. Tinkler, unless you have ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... adjacent land to the road ditches, the design must be modified to take this into account. Sometimes such water can be diverted by ditches well back from the road, and thus prevented from flowing into the side ditches along the roadway. It is especially desirable to divert water, which would otherwise flow down the slope of a cut, by means of a ditch on the hill-side above the upper edge of the ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg
... the solemn Exhortations of the several Divines who visited him, were able to divert him from this ludicrous way of Expression; he said, They were all Ginger-bread Fellows, and came rather out of Curiosity, than Charity; and to form Papers and ...
— The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard • Daniel Defoe
... To divert his mind, he began next morning to make an inventory of the goods in the store. It was high time, too: thanks to the recent disturbances he did not know where he stood. And while he was about it, he gave the place ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... diction in order to fit it for the drawing-room, and the decadent, which gets completely off the ground and raves incoherently in a telegraphic patois intended to represent the language of the soul—intended rather to divert the reader's attention from the author's utter lack of ideas. As for the right wing verists, I can only laugh at the frantic puerilities of these would-be psychologists, who have never explored an unknown district of the mind ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... lines of thought along which each can be approached. Here the fundamental "text-book" is the newspaper. Growing up in such a world as this of 1918, how can it be anything but sheer monasticism to divert the main part of a boy's intellectual energies away from this subject to anything else? Our educational "America ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... as spring arrived, the Spartans, true to their promise, sent off forty triremes, commanded by Alcidas, to raise the siege of Mytilene, and marched in full force into Attica, thinking thus to divert the attention of the Athenians, and prevent them from interfering with the voyage of Alcidas. They remained a long time in Attica, waiting for news from their fleet, and employing the time in a systematic ravage of the whole territory. But time passed, and no message arrived from Alcidas, ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... in digging a canal (to be filled, when finished, with dead, stagnant water) which is so designed that not only will no use be made by it of the life stream of the child's latent energies, but also costly culverts and other works will have to be constructed for it in order to divert and send to ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... pieces; not a drop of wine was left anywhere; the guests and servants had all stolen valuable cups and platters; and he, like the master of the house, stood sadly thinking that it would have been no feast. In vain did they try to cheer Taras and to divert his mind; in vain did the long-bearded, grey-haired guitar-players come by twos and threes to glorify his Cossack deeds. He gazed grimly and indifferently at everything, with inappeasable grief printed on his stolid face; and said softly, as he drooped his head, "My son, ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... evaporated, or all available or desired land is irrigated. Usually such streams are diverted from their courses, and they are often carried long distances out of their natural way. The second method is to divert a part of a river by means of a stone dam. The third method is still more artificial than the preceding — the water is lifted by direct human power from below the sementera and poured to run over ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... of his time when abroad in visiting the beautiful picture-galleries and other works of art in the towns to which his great work led him, but he never suffered himself to do so. He would not even read a newspaper, lest it should divert his thoughts from the one great purpose he had in view. I am not saying for a moment that he would have been wrong to indulge himself with relaxation in the shape of sight-seeing and reading the news; but surely when he made everything bend to his one grand self-imposed duty, ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... dryly. It was her custom when he began to bestow knighthood upon common clay to divert him with some new and irrelevant subject. "Here's an item in the Times this morning I fancy you didn't read. After describing the bride's dress and her beauty, it says, 'And the bride is a daughter of the late H. M. ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... said Trove, presently, "that the robber was a man that knew me and, being close pressed, planned to divert suspicion." ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... There is an epidemic of clairvoyants in the city. Five widows have been swindled. The police are combing the city for ... a prominent professor of sociology on the faculty of the local university interrupts. The prominent professor has been captured in a leading Loop hotel whither he had gone to divert himself with a suitcase, a handbook on sex hygiene, and ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... is strict that no officer's wife must be near the front. The idea is that she will divert her husband's mind from the work in hand. He will worry about her safety. But Mrs. B——, a Belgian, joined our women in Pervyse, and did useful work, while her husband, a doctor with the rank of ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... a period of political reaction, of indifference to public life, of social stagnation and carelessness. When the volcanoes were rumbling, the masses were always dancing. At all times when tyrants wanted to divert the attention of the crowd, they gave the dances to their people. A nation which dances cannot think, but lives from hour to hour. The less political maturity, the more happiness does a national community show in its dancing pleasures. The Spaniards and the Polish, the Hungarians and the Bohemians, ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... have to do many things before the problems are all solved, the difficulties all met. As a slight relief, and to answer a question raised a little earlier in the paper, I am suggesting the sports—those activities that both rejuvenate the physical man and also "divert and make mirth." Into these we can not carry our teaching and our preaching and our making of social calls. The goods of the merchant, the notes of the banker, the briefs of the lawyer, the annoyances of the teacher, and the cares ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... possibility of acquiring the Heim Vandyke, there was nothing said to give him an opportunity to speak and he was breathless for details, to learn if his ruse had succeeded. At last he called Brencherly, both Denning and Langley endeavoring to divert him from ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... slaughter-houses. 'Pray enter,' says a gentleman in bloody boots. 'This is a calf I have killed this morning. Having a little time upon my hands, I have cut and punctured this lace pattern in the coats of his stomach. It is pretty enough. I did it to divert myself.' - 'It is beautiful, Monsieur, the slaughterer!' He tells me I have the ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... that a little exertion might sweep away, into a funeral pall, the strong spirit is shorn of its might, and sorrow becomes our master. When troubles flow upon you, dark and heavy, toil not with the waves—wrestle not with the torrent!—rather seek, by occupation, to divert the dark waters that threaten to overwhelm you, into a thousand channels which the duties of life always present. Before you dream of it, those waters will fertilize the present, and give birth to fresh flowers that ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... statistics were Miss Van Vluyck's province, and she naturally resented any tendency to divert their guest's attention ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... impetuous courage. She must be calm, she knew; but she must divert him. "See," she began, "what it says about your mother in the paper!" She ran her finger down a long column of the fulsome description of the great Multon ball—the list of fashionables, the costumes. "Here it is! 'She was the loveliest woman at the dance.' That's me. 'All ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... it would divert the poor gentlewoman, and not altogether unsuitably, if I were to put her upon furnishing mourning for herself; as it would rouse her, by a seasonable and necessary employment, from that dismal lethargy of grief, which generally succeeds to the violent ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... golf has a defect, it is that it prevents a man being a whole-hearted lover of nature. Where the layman sees waving grass and romantic tangles of undergrowth, your golfer beholds nothing but a nasty patch of rough from which he must divert his ball. The cry of the birds, wheeling against the sky, is to the golfer merely something that may put him off his putt. As a spectator, I am fond of the ravine at the bottom of the slope. It pleases the eye. But, as a golfer, I have ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... this critical period of my life to real faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. This was done in a way I knew not, and moreover, in a way I little expected. I had promised a visit to Mr. Aitken, of Pendeen, to advise him about his church, which was then building; and now, in order to divert my thoughts, I made up my mind to go to him at once. Soon after my arrival, as we were seated comfortably by the fire, he asked me (as he very commonly did) how the parish prospered. He said, "I often take shame to myself when I think of all your work. But, my brother, ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... by the Welland Canal in Canada, which is its closest rival. Now that it is free, it will retain its position as the most popular water route to the sea from the great West. The Mississippi River will divert from it all the trade flowing to South America and Mexico; but for the northwest it will be the chief water ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... pretty sure, was still running, and all the faster as she approached it, on that fancy ball. Perhaps she suspected that ours was following the same turn, and knowing of old our habit of making observations upon insects, she, by a little womanly artifice, availed herself of it to divert their course. Pointing with her parasol to a long procession of brown ants, which were crossing the foot-worn area beneath the tree,—"Look," said she, "I suppose they are going home ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... connection with an affair that I had already grown heartily tired of hearing referred to, and that I fondly hoped would now be speedily forgotten by my friends, was distinctly disconcerting; I therefore seized upon the opportunity afforded me by the mishap to the general's sherry to divert the conversation into another channel, by turning to my lovely left-hand neighbour ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... bright, clear heavens, the big brown balloon swelling broadly above us. Phillip tried to keep up our spirits by calling attention to these things, but Kenneth said little or nothing, and looked so despondent that, wishing to divert his thoughts from his disappointment concerning myself, which I supposed was his trouble, I heedlessly blurted out that I was starving, and asked him to ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... strikingly that puts a truth which siren voices are constantly trying to sing us out of believing! Every sin is a blunder as well as a crime. And that for two reasons, because, first, God has made us for Himself, and to take anything besides for our life's end or our heart's portion is to divert ourselves from our true destiny; and because, second, that being so, every attempt to win satisfaction or delight by such a course is and must be a failure. Sin misses the aim if we think of our proper ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... expensive in the place. It was his opinion that he owed this mark of respect to Count Larinski; such duties he held to be very sacred, and he fulfilled them religiously. He was in a very melancholy mood, and set out for a promenade in order to divert his mind. In crossing the Plessur Bridge, he fixed his troubled eyes on the muddy waters of the stream, and he felt almost tempted to take the fatal leap; but in such a project there is considerable distance between the dream and its fulfilment, and ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... of course, the rambling and disjointed humorous story finishes with a nub, point, snapper, or whatever you like to call it. Then the listener must be alert, for in many cases the teller will divert attention from that nub by dropping it in a carefully casual and indifferent way, with the pretense that he does not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to the useful enterprises of the early settlers. It has paid the expenses of their governments and legislative assemblies out of the common Treasury, and thus relieved them from a heavy charge. Under these circumstances nothing can be better calculated to retard their material progress than to divert them from their useful employments by prematurely exciting angry political contests among themselves for the benefit of aspiring leaders. It is surely no hardship for embryo governors, Senators, and Members of Congress to wait until the number of inhabitants shall equal those of a ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... I would cheerfully gratify their humours. We are all a sort of children that must be soothed and managed. I think I am not austere or formal in my nature. I would bear, I would even myself play my part in any innocent buffooneries to divert them. But I never will act the tyrant for their amusement. If they will mix malice in their sports, I shall never consent to throw them any living, sentient creature whatsoever—no, not so much ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... dig a hole no power on earth, except brute force, could ever stop him till he sank exhausted. Not even the sight of a crab could divert his thoughts from this entrancing occupation, much less his mistress's shrill whistle; and this was strange, for on all other occasions it was his custom to display the most ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... this to people in the wilds, to those who have few interests and much time to think. The emotional side of their natures has been held in check until a trifle is sometimes sufficient to loose a torrent which nothing can then divert or check. ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... who was juggling aimlessly with a handsome objet d'art of the early Chinese school, a glance similar to that which had just disposed of his step-father. But Ogden required more than a glance to divert him from any pursuit in which he was interested. He shifted a deposit of candy from his right cheek to his left cheek, inspected Mrs. Crocker for a moment with a pale eye, and resumed his juggling. Mrs. Crocker meant nothing in his ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... starched, squeezed countenance, a stiff formal gait, a singularity of manners and habit, or any affected forms and modes of speech different from the reasonable part of mankind? Yet, if Christianity did not lend its name to stand in the gap, and to employ or divert these humours, they must of necessity be spent in contraventions to the laws of the land, and disturbance of the public peace. There is a portion of enthusiasm assigned to every nation, which, if it hath not proper objects to work on, will burst out, and ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... entertainment in this city there are millions who are like them. But I couldn't help thinking that if so much money seems really to be needed, and this Mr. LAW is really a public benefactor, it might not be a bad idea to try to divert some of the thousands of pounds being paid every day in London alone for sheer amusement. Of course if England had the misfortune to be at war most of these places ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... private entertainments among friends, for whom doth the table more justly make room or Bacchus give place than for Menander? To philosophers also and hard students (as painters are wont, when they have tired out their eyes at their work, to divert them to certain florid and green colors) Menander is a repose from their auditors and intense thinkings, and entertains their minds with gay shady meadows refreshed with cool and ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... from it, will almost be on a par with that which is perfect. It would be no difficult matter to show from many ancient or modern examples that no other profession acquires for men, greater honors, wealth, friendship, present and future glory, were it not degrading to the honor of letters to divert the mind from the contemplation of the most noble object, the study and possession of which is such a source of contentment, and fix it on the less momentous rewards it may have, not unlike those who say they do not so much seek ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... camp equipage which I have here for the Louisiana volunteers, is, by the letter of the secretary of war, expressly limited to white soldiers, so that I have no authority to divert them, however much I ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... the hour of midnight. That frightful coincidence so startled Leroux that he looked up and almost rose from his chair in his agitation. Indeed it startled Cumberly, also, but did not divert him from his purpose. ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... To divert his thoughts, and to impress upon himself and others the fact that he was an Oxford MAN, our freshman set out for a stroll; and as the unaccustomed feeling of the gown about his shoulders made him feel somewhat embarrassed as to the carriage of his arms, he stepped into a ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... This, added Colonel Carter, was also Mrs. Carter's opinion,—she was a woman of experience, and had a married daughter of her own. In the mean time Peter had better not broach the subject to his sister, but trust to the arrival of the strangers, who would remain for a week, and who would undoubtedly divert Mrs. Lascelles' impressible mind, and eventually make the ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... until an opportunity offered of seizing some kind of a vessel along the coast, in which we could make a journey from island to island, and so reach the nearest Russian port. Having thus made our plans, the first thing we determined to do was to divert the attention of the Japanese from us, by assuming a cheerful demeanor, and suffering no complaint to escape us. To our great joy, we were successful. It is true that the soldiers, who mounted guard, did not sleep at their posts during ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... made his way up Piccadilly—did some humourist divert himself, in days gone by, with dropping a shower of London names on Manchester streets?—and deposited his parcel. Then the great clock of the Exchange struck twelve, and the Cathedral followed close ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... caressing Ada and talking of something else. Emily had no opportunity of explaining that this was not Phyllis's usual condition, and she was afraid that Lady Rotherwood would never believe that it was accidental. She was much annoyed, especially as the catastrophe only served to divert Mr. Mohun and Claude. Of all the family William and Adeline alone took her view of the case. Ada lectured Phyllis on her 'naughtiness,' and plumed herself on her aunt's evident preference, but William was not equally sympathetic. ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Transvaal came very near to war with Great Britain. As before stated, Mr. Kruger was much bound up with the affairs of the Netherlands Railway Company and its Hollander-German promoters. He attempted to divert the stream of Johannesburg traffic to Delagoa Bay, for the purpose of keeping profit from the pockets of the British. The freights, however, were evaded by unloading the goods at the frontier, and taking them ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... her tears, and looking round to try and divert her thoughts by fixing them on present object, she caught her cousin Manasseh's deep-set eyes furtively watching her. It was with no unfriendly gaze, yet it made Lois uncomfortable, particularly as he did not withdraw his looks after he must have seen that she ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... have the good luck to fall asleep, they think themselves cur'd: They have told me frequently, that sleeping and sweating would cure the most stubborn Diseases in the World. When they are so weak that they cannot get out of Bed, their Relations come and dance and make merry before 'em, in order to divert 'em. To conclude, when they are ill, they are always visited by a sort of Quacks, (Jongleurs); of whom 't will now be proper to subjoin two or three ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... tell him what inconvenience will follow, what will be the event, all is one, canis ad vomitum, [2607]'tis so pleasant he cannot refrain. He may thus continue peradventure many years by reason of a strong temperature, or some mixture of business, which may divert his cogitations: but at the last laesa imaginatio, his phantasy is crazed, and now habituated to such toys, cannot but work still like a fate, the scene alters upon a sudden, fear and sorrow supplant those pleasing thoughts, suspicion, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... retaliation, the Czar occupied the Danubian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, characterising the step not as an act of war, but a material guarantee of Russia's just rights. The French Emperor, anxious to divert the attention of his subjects from domestic politics, was making preparations for war; and similar preparations were also being made ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... reading each morning was concluded, we danced, we sung, we played at blind-man's-buff, battledore and shuttlecock, and many other games equally diverting and innocent; and when tired of them, drew our seats round the fire, while each one in turn told some merry story to divert the company. ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... first of the Romans, and to war against Artavasdes and take the villages of Armenia; but it seems that he really feared the danger, and that he was on the watch to await the result, and that he put Surena in the front to try the fortune of a battle, and so to divert the enemy. For Surena was no person of mean estate: in wealth, birth, and consideration, he was next to the king; but, in courage and ability, the first of the Parthians of his time; and, besides all this, in stature and beauty of person he had no equal. He used always to travel, when he ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... last letter was very welcome, it was written with so kind an intention: you made it so interesting in order to divert my mind. I should have thanked you for it before now, only that I kept waiting for a cheerful day and mood in which to address you, and I grieve to say the shadow which has fallen on our quiet home still lingers round it. I am better, but others are ill ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... hands, I know some merchants, and promise you to sell her for the money she costs you, and to send her out of the way in spite of your son. For, if you would have him disposed for matrimony, we must divert this growing passion. Moreover, even if he were resolved to wear the yoke you design for him, yet this other girl might revive his foolish fancy, and prejudice him ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... both the matter and the manner of the speech. The London Times said: "Mr. Roosevelt has reminded us in the most friendly way of what we are at least in danger of forgetting, and no impatience of outside criticism ought to be allowed to divert us from considering the substantial truth of his words. His own conduct of great affairs and the salutary influence of his policy upon American public life ... at least give him a right, which all international critics do not ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... as interesting to her as they were mysterious to me. I questioned her in a breath touching her father's pigs and the swain she loved best in that little township, to all of which she answered me with a charming wit, which would greatly divert you did I but recall her words sufficiently to set them down. In five minutes we had become the best friends in the world, which was attested by the protecting arm that I slipped around her waist, as I asked her whether she ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... them were thinking of the dead boy and the threat to blacken his memory, but neither of them confessed it to the other. Wadley cast about for something to divert her mind and found it in an unanswered ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... who knew that her little niece was terribly in earnest, now tried to divert her with pictures; but Dotty was not to be ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... garden and no Tivoli, no London Exchange, no Paris Chamber of Deputies, no Berlin nor Vienna Theatres, no Strassburg Minster, nor Salzburg Alps,—no Grecian ruins nor fantastic Catholicism, in fine, nothing, which after one's daily task is finished, can divert and refresh him, without his knowing or caring how,—I consider the sight of a proof-sheet quite as delightful as a walk in the Prater of Vienna. I fill my pipe very quietly, take out my ink-stand and pens, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... next difficult weeks Quin devoted all his spare time to the grateful occupation of diverting the Martels' woe-begone little guest. Hardly a day passed that he did not suggest some excursion that would divert her without bringing her into contact with her own social world, from which she shrank with aversion. On Sundays and half-holidays he took her on long trolley rides to queer out-of-the-way places where she had never been before: ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... lift of arms, fly aloft, clapping heels. Her reflections were confused. Sir Willoughby was admirable with the lad. "Is he two men?" she thought; and the thought ensued, "Am I unjust?" She headed a run with young Crossjay to divert ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to this, these same unprincipled agents, with their hired accomplices and subsidised press, in order to hide the enormity of their crimes, and to divert attention from themselves and their crookedness, systematically and incessantly misrepresent and vilify the ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... the most worthy. I've known a Sharper, who could neither write nor read, made a Battano, in English, a Judge Advocate; and what rais'd him was his Dexterity at Gestaro, which is like the Play our School-boys divert themselves with, call'd Hussle-cap. ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... at her return to captivity in the car, and demanded to be released with a teasing persistence from which nothing she was shown out of the window could divert her. A large man leaned forward at last from a seat near by, and held out an orange. "Come here to me, little Trouble," he said; and Flavia made an eager ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... them ample room and congenial employment, whether profitable to the State or not, and the labor should be induced, not enforced, and always timed and suited to their malady. A variety of interesting occupations tends to divert ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... might. His bias toward the sea had strengthened with his advance to the years of manhood. From building a boat, he had now got on—with two journeymen at work under him—to building a decked vessel of five-and-thirty tons. Mr. Brock had conscientiously tried to divert him to higher aspirations; had taken him to Oxford, to see what college life was like; had taken him to London, to expand his mind by the spectacle of the great metropolis. The change had diverted Allan, but had not altered him in the ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins |
