"Distracted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Being just then distracted by a dozen emotions, Mrs. Charmond sunk into a mood of dismal self-reproach. "In refusing that poor man his reasonable request," she said to herself, "I foredoomed my rejuvenated girlhood's romance. Who would have thought such a business matter could have nettled my own heart like this? Now ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... could speak to us in Irish; the English was still a strange tongue on his lips and in the ears of those he lived among; and his work comes down distracted between the two languages, imperfect and halting, only with flashes of ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... the Old Tower, his youngest child succumbed to the ravages of a malignant fever. He and his wife were distracted, as, in spite of their pagan instincts and habits, their devotion to their offspring was a passion. They remembered Mr. Turnbull appealing to them to flee from the wrath to come by amending their ways, lest something terrible befell themselves or ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... at daybreak, both boys asleep. Jeremiah's mother, almost distracted by anxiety, met the four eagerly at the door, and, after a few words of whispered explanation by her husband, she ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... give a vivid picture of the uncertainties which distracted public opinion during the fatal first week of January. Caesar, it seems, might possibly have been consul had he been willing to retire at once into the condition of a private citizen, even though Pompey was still undisarmed. Whether in that position he would have lived to see the election-day is ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... become merely an automatic recording machine. Experienced stenographers say that they form the habit of recording so automatically that they fail utterly to comprehend the meaning of what is said. You as a student cannot afford to have your attention so distracted from the meaning of the lecture, therefore reduce your classroom writing ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... particularly irksome and jarring to the feelings. Grumbling, in a military man, is, however, downright folly, and they soon made themselves tolerably at home in their new quarters. It is needless to dwell upon the disturbed and distracted state of the country, or on the military movements of the time. After the regiment had been quartered at the town of —— for some months, Smyth obtained a week's leave of absence from the commanding officer, having received a pressing invitation to visit a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... the various dangerous heresies which distracted it in the second century by councils or gatherings of bishops ( 26). Although it was not difficult to bring about a condemnation of novel and manifestly erroneous doctrine, there was need of fixed norms and definite authorities to which to appeal. This was found in the apostolic tradition, ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... Form'd for the tragic scene, to grace the stage With rival excellence of love and rage; Mistress of each soft art, with matchless skill To turn and wind the passions as she will; 780 To melt the heart with sympathetic woe, Awake the sigh, and teach the tear to flow; To put on frenzy's wild, distracted glare, And freeze the soul with horror and despair; With just desert enroll'd in endless fame, Conscious of worth superior, Cibber[63] came. When poor Alicia's madd'ning brains are rack'd, And strongly imaged griefs her mind distract, Struck with her grief, I catch the madness too, My brain turns ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... delay In Zind's return, looked round him with dismay; The seat still vacant—but the bitter truth, Full soon was known to the distracted youth; Full soon he found that Zinda-ruzm was gone, His day of feasting and of glory done; Speedful towards the fatal spot he ran, Where slept in bloody vest ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... I understand. However, that is hardly sufficient for one who is distracted with suffering, you know. No, you do not know; you have never known. Ever and ever one must circle around the forbidden; it becomes a necessity continually to face one's fate. If, for instance, I had to pay for a moment like this with age-long wreck and ruin, why, I would gladly pay ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... they in earnest opposed it; and the reason for their doing so is to be sought partly in the contemporary hostilities between the Samnite nation and the Italian Hellenes, but principally in the remiss and distracted policy which ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... by Cnacion is meant the river, and by Babyce the bridge. Between these they held their assemblies, having neither halls, nor any kind of building for that purpose. These things he thought of no advantage to their councils, but rather a disservice; as they distracted the attention, and turned it upon trifles, on observing the statues and pictures, the splendid roofs, and every other theatrical ornament. The people thus assembled had no right to propose any subject ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... I maturely weighed everything, foreseen even this contingency, and firmly resolved in my own mind what, in that case, was to be done; and now, when I am called upon to act, I can with difficulty guard my mind from being again distracted by conflicting doubts. Is it expedient to seize the others if he escape me? Shall I delay, and suffer Egmont to elude my grasp, together with his friends, and so many others who now, and perhaps for to-day only, are in my hands? How! Does destiny control even thee—the ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... "What means this?"; and she replied, "O man, how blessed is the hour of thy coming! Thou hast saved a True Believer from slaughter, and it happed after this fashion. I was on the house-terrace, spinning,[FN170] when behold, there came up to me a youth, distracted and panting for fear of death, fleeing from yonder man, who followed upon him as hard as he could with his drawn sword. The young man fell down before me, and kissed my hands and feet, saying, "O Protector, of thy mercy, save ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... marry with me, In silks and in velvet my Bessee shall be; My heart lies distracted, oh! hear me,' quoth he, 'And grant me thy ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... been glad to learn more of her and less of her fraternal blessings. I afterward discovered why she surrounded herself with these as with a garment. It was from pure compassion for her father. He was a nervous invalid, and the proximity of those boys distracted him. Of course it did: I could enter into the old gentleman's feelings perfectly. It distracted me too. Don't smile, my dear fellow. The prancing young ubiquities were well enough in their way, I'll admit: I only objected to having them ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... we got on deck. There were too many on the companion ladder at the same time. While we were struggling upwards we heard that frantic bell ring often enough to drive the engine-room people distracted. I got to the ship's side in time to see a liner's bulk glide by. She would have been invisible but for her strata of lights. She was just beyond our touch. A figure on her, high over us, came to her rail, distinct in the blur of the light of a cabin behind him, and shouted at us. I remember ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... little wild and rambling—it was obvious that he was half distracted with the prospect of happiness to come. She sat quite still, listening silently, with eyes fixed to the ground. Only now and then she would look up—not at Andor, but at the paralytic who was gazing on her with the sad eyes of uncomprehension. Then she would nod and smile at him ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... grounds with lanterns, the whole house was turned topsy-turvy, in the midst of which the nurse returned, and finding her baby was gone, went into violent hysterics, while the young baroness, with flying hair and dilated eyes, rushed about, wringing her hands, and looking, as she felt, distracted with grief. ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... connected by marriage. Cornelia dying, Caesar took for his second wife Pompey's cousin, Pompeia; and, no doubt at Pompey's instance, he was sent into Spain to complete Pompey's work and settle the finances of that distracted country. His reputation as belonging to the party of Marius and Sertorius secured him the confidence of Sertorius's friends. He accomplished his mission completely and easily. On his way back he passed through northern ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... to Diana that she was anxious to make amends for the fit of alienation, and she was kissed in return warmly, quite forgiven, notwithstanding the deadly blank she had caused in the imagination of the writer for pay, distracted by the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... service of the country yet a youth, but with knowledge and maturity, even in civil affairs far beyond his years, he made this city the place of his adoption; and he gave the whole powers of his mind to the contemplation of the weak and distracted condition of the country. Daily increasing in acquaintance and confidence with the people of New York, he saw, what they also saw, the absolute necessity of some closer bond of union for the States. This was the great object of desire. He never appears to have lost ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... this work—it is outside my sphere; but I should be unjust to the reader did I not give him some information (not from the controversial standpoint) on a subject which will obtrude itself in any discussion on the merits of the conflict which has twice distracted Spain and may divide the country again. It is unfortunately indisputable that religion was poked into the quarrel. The struggle was described in El Cuartel Real as a religious war; the theological allegiance of the partisans of Don Carlos was appealed to, and their ardent attachment ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... she began slowly, "that neither you nor Simon, nor any of these who aspire to the control of Jerusalem, have come upon the plan which will best appeal to your distracted subjects?" ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... 1849, he reappeared in the Senate, to assist, if possible, in removing the slavery question from politics, he was an infirm and serious, but not sad, old man of seventy-two. He never lost his cheerfulness or his faith, but he felt deeply for his distracted country. During that memorable session of Congress he spoke seventy times. Often extremely sick and feeble, scarcely able, with the assistance of a friend's arm, to climb the steps of the Capitol, he was never absent on the days when the Compromise was ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... near the spot, all in flames. The surrounding buildings were burning too, and the streets in the neighborhood were piled up with furniture and goods which the wretched inmates of the dwellings had vainly endeavored to save. These inmates themselves were standing around, distracted with grief and terror, and gazing hopelessly upon the scene ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... is about to die. With her head resting on her shoulder, she has glided before the smoking altar. Her body has lost all rigidity on her bending legs, her arms hang down at her side; her glance is distracted; she has lost all volition in the use of her limbs; and she is there, sinking motionless, her throat scarcely distending with a breath, turning white under her crown of roses, which the painter's brush has made to pale in sympathy. ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... just leaving the pretty hotel at Barbizon, meaning to put in some hours of work after a distracted morning, when Felix emerged from the interior of a ramshackle cab that had carried him from Melun to the edge of the forest. Now, a cab drive of several miles, plus a journey from Paris, was a sufficiently rare event in Poluski's life to make Joan stare. His unexpected appearance ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... ploughing up a whole acre of boiling, luminous foam, to pour, hissing and roaring, far out from under her lee bow and flash glancing past in a bewildering swirl of buzzing, gleaming froth, while the din of the wild gale raved aloft, and its furious buffeting almost distracted one's senses, the gallant little barque thus fighting for her life would have presented an exhilarating spectacle to any one; while a seaman's appreciative heart would have thrilled with exultation ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... her attention to one thing and forgot the other, and gave her attention to the other and forgot the third, and remembering the third was distracted by the fourth, and made amends whenever she went wrong by giving the unfortunate fowls an extra spin, which made their chance of ever getting cooked exceedingly doubtful. But it was pleasant cookery too. Meanwhile Miss Lavinia, oscillating between the kitchen and the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... mechanically asked his distracted visitor to sit down, Jerome Fandor discreetly withdrew to the further side of the room; he was anxious that the magistrate should forget his presence, so that he might be a witness of what promised to ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... more reason," Mrs. Ansell persisted, rising at the sound of Mr. Tredegar's approach. "For don't you perceive, my poor distracted friend, that if Truscomb turns rusty, as he undoubtedly will, the inevitable result will be his manager's dismissal—and that thereafter there will presumably ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... condition of a righteous man. Good God! what inconsistency, what perplexity is here! With what different views of things, with what contradictory principles of action, must such a mind be torn and distracted! It was not unthinking carelessness, by which he ran on headlong in vice and folly, without ever making a stand to ask himself what he was doing: no; he acted upon the cool motives of interest and advantage. Neither was he totally hard ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... than these—the kingdom of God. 'Without observation,' as he promised, secretly, but mightily, it has been growing, spreading, since that first Whitsuntide; civilizing, humanizing, uniting this distracted earth. Men have fancied they found it in this system or in that, and in them only. They have cursed it in its own name, when they found it too wide for their own narrow notions. They have cried, 'Lo here!' and 'Lo there!' 'To this communion!' or 'To that set of opinions.' ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... old ruts, feeling his way, like a true American, into the career that best suited him, that Celia might be a type of the awakened American woman, who does not know exactly what she wants. To be sure, she wants everything. She has recently come into an open place, and she is distracted by the many opportunities. She has no sooner taken up one than she sees another that seems better, or more important in the development of her sex, and she flies to that. But nothing, long, seems the best thing. Perhaps men are in the way, monopolizing all ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... suppose so," said Kathleen, distracted, but not afraid; "only I thought you had to have the ring on before one could even ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... distracted woman ran on towards the hill alone, clapping her hands, and crying aloud the ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... whole world has abandoned, this is what is required to be done for me. The king is alone with a few gentlemen, whom he fears to lose every day; surrounded by the Scotch, whom he distrusts, although he be himself a Scotchman. Since Lord de Winter left him I am distracted, sirs. I ask much, too much, perhaps, for I have no title to request it. Go to England, join the king, be his friends, protectors, march to battle at his side, and be near him in his house, where conspiracies, more dangerous than the perils of war, are hatching ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... thick letter from Cossie, which her ungrateful and distracted relative tore up unread. Already, in his mind's eye, Shafto could see Cossie permanently established in Rangoon, informing everyone that she was his cousin, bombarding him with chits, worrying him for visits, treats and attentions. Heaven be praised! neither ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... consanguined still with our own, the danger of a violent revolution, over which we can have no control, must become more imminent every day. By a course of undecided action, determined by no policy but the vague will of a war-distracted people, we run the risk of precipitating that very revolutionary violence which ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... extensive anti-quagmire operations and strong pile-drivings, he finds half a furlong of his latest heavy piling clean gone. What in the world has become of it? Pooh, the swollen lake has burst it topsy-turvy; and it floats yonder, bottom uppermost, a half-furlong of distracted liquid-peat. Whereat his Majesty gave a loud laugh, says Bielfeld, [Baron de Bielfeld, Lettres Familieres (second edition, a Leide, 1767), i. 31.] and commenced anew. The piles now stand firm enough, like the rest of the Earth's crust, and carry strong ashlar houses ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... only see Mr. Eltinge," she murmured, after an hour of distracted thought and indecision. "There is no time to write—indeed, I could not write on such a subject, and—and—I'm afraid he'd advise me against it. He can't understand a woman's feelings in a case like this, at least ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... a stroke, and she is afraid Father is dying," sobbed Phil, who was running to and fro in a distracted fashion. ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... distracted at the galling fire, which considerably delayed our advance, though we suffered in the loss of horses rather than of men. He was riding again now, and well in front, with Castro and myself behind him. Suddenly, after a scattering volley, I felt my horse slip, and the next instant the poor beast ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... to be locked, that none might escape. Carriages were to be excluded from the streets. All citizens were ordered to be at home. The sections, the tribunals, the clubs were to suspend their sittings, that the public attention might not be distracted. All houses were to be brilliantly lighted in the evening, that the search might be more effectually conducted. Commissaries, accompanied by armed soldiers, were, in the name of the law, to enter every dwelling. Each citizen should show what arms he had. If any thing ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... Christian and Catholic in all the simplicity of the Gospel, and in all the humility of obedience to the church. The reproaches he had received from Rome for having ratified by his weakness the schism in France, wounded his conscience and distracted his mind. He had never ceased to negotiate officially or secretly with the pope, in order to obtain from the head of the church either an indulgent concession to the necessities of religion in France, or prudent temporising. It was on ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... great leap and a gurgle Baby precipitated himself towards her, his strong little hands clutching uncertainly at the brooch at her throat. Then the buttons distracted him, and then, after a serious look at her face, his eyes suddenly caught sight of the hat above it, and the irresistible gleam of some ornament on it. With wildly working hands he pulled himself to his feet, and, with one ...
— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren
... nothing to say and she sat down upon a wet rock to wait, while Noreen darted up the trail like a small, distracted animal ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... found not far from his own house with Paul's knife in his heart; and the evidence which would be surely adduced that Paul had been seen not far from Howden Clough that same morning, acting in a most strange and distracted manner. Added to this was the fact that Wilson was respected in the town; that he was not known to have an enemy in the world but Paul. No, no! Unless Paul could bring evidence of the strongest nature, the jury would ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... stroll up and down the station for a few minutes, mainly to look at the cosmopolitan crowd, and perhaps buy some fruit; but the babel of English, German, French, and Italian, mixed with scraps of Russian and Czech, that raged round a distracted conductor warned her that the wiser ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... dismay at Knype Station! Her blush as she asked for a ticket to London! The ironic, sympathetic glance of the porter, who took charge of her trunk! And then the thunder of the incoming train! Her renewed dismay when she found that it was very full, and her distracted plunge into a compartment with six people already in it! And the abrupt reopening of the carriage- door and that curt inquisition from an inspector: "Where for, please? Where for? Where for?" Until her turn was reached: "Where for, miss?" and her ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... that out of the two there grew something of more than usually keen intrinsic interest within the wide creed of his art. He worked with every nerve tense upon his conception of what he saw, which so excluded other considerations that now and then, in answer to some word of hers that distracted him, he spoke to her almost roughly. At which Elfrida, with a little smile of forgiving comprehension, obediently kept silence. She saw the artist in him dominant, and she exulted for his sake. It was to her delicious to be the medium of his inspiration, delicious and fit and sweetly ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... for her letter. A faint sickness stole over her for a moment but she thought, "Perhaps Julia means to tease me. I will appear very unconcerned and not ask for it." So when Julia entered the room, she found that her sister's attention was suddenly, distracted by something in the street; but Fanny was not accustomed to dissemble and the rosy flush on her cheek showed how ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... before the Allies in the East: to help Servia, and to attack Turkey, who had entered the War on 31 October. Both enterprises were "under consideration"—which means that the Entente Cabinets were busy discussing both and unable to decide on either. Distracted by conflicting aims and hampered by inadequate resources, they could not act except tentatively and in an ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... had knelt in a chair at the window to watch it, with that spasm of fear at her heart. Now it is winter! she thought. Aunt Candy must be home soon. Yet the whirling great flakes of snow were so lovely, that in a few minutes they half distracted ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... as the young woman had said, though it was a light load for the powerful Kentuckian; and he concluded at once that it must contain a considerable amount of gold. In the distracted condition of the State very few had any confidence in the banks, and some had turned their bills into coin for any emergency that might arise. Before he reached the road he saw another scout getting over ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... from those evils which threaten it by the turbulent and dishonest conduct of vagrants who are allowed to infest the country in every part; nor do we see any prospect of peace or happiness for our children in a country thus distracted ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... still humming, and this of itself distracted my mind from the lines before me; moreover, my eye was fascinated by the gleam of her flying needle, and I began to debate within myself what she was making. It (whatever it might be) was ruffled, and edged with lace, and caught here and there with little bows of blue riband, ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... there such a difference between us? She seems to do everything so well, though she is just newly conscious that there are things like this to do, and I have been acquainted with the fact all my life. I am distracted by doubts and fears—I, who have known the reality of God's love and goodness so long, and she, who only a few weeks ago wakened up to that reality, is able to rest in it without question or misgiving. Ah! that is the difference, I only know of its existence, while she ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... poetry. He had lost his teeth, and they were replaced by a set of false ones. This gave a certain slowness to his delivery, and there was a little odd clacking sound between his real palate and his artificial rubber palate, which often distracted the ear listening attentively to catch the beauty ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... will the FIRST SEA LORD be distracted from his primary duty of strafing the Hun by the necessity of looking after supplies. That function will now be discharged by an hon. and temp. Vice-Admiral, in the person of Sir ERIC GEDDES, late hon. and temp. Major-General and Director of Transportation to the Army in France, and now ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... only come back," moaned the distracted mother; "I'd send the lot of them out after the ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... she not call her companions, who were sleeping peacefully in the cabin, while she was torn and distracted by these agonizing fears? She dared not do so, lest one of them should speak and betray them all. Cyd was impetuous, and a word from him might render futile the labors ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... when I went in there an hour ago to go to bed myself, she was gone. I rushed for your cabin, dear, and you wasn't there, and I've hunted for you ever since, at every cabin down the gulch, and now I've come up again, and I'm that distracted and scared and heart-broke; but, thanks to God, I've found you at last, dear heart, and you'll find my child. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... castles, Roman camps, and other objects of historical and archaeological interest in the neighbourhood. On former similar occasions she had been in the habit of delivering a short lecture when on the spot; but, noticing that many of the girls were so distracted with gazing at the surroundings that they were not really listening, she determined that they should absorb the knowledge before visiting the place. She wrote careful notes, therefore, upon the subject of their next ramble, and giving them out in class, ordered each girl to copy them and ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... fencing in an academy of arms. This was done not only to repair an omission in his education, but also, and chiefly, to give him added grace and poise upon the stage. He found his mind that morning distracted by thoughts of both Climene and Aline. And oddly enough it was Aline who provided the deeper perturbation. Climene's attitude he regarded as a passing phase which need not seriously engage him. But the thought of Aline's conduct towards him kept rankling, and still more deeply ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... the morning; but I have been too much distracted to send by him; and have seen nobody but Mrs. Jervis or Rachel, and one I hate to see or be seen by and indeed I hate now to see any body. Strange things I have to tell you, that happened since last night, that good Mr. Jonathan's letter, and my master's harshness, put me into such a ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... went into perplexed raptures, his mind being distracted by the exuberant wealth of subjects which were presented to it all ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... discord; and it is this sad sight which grieves so deeply many distinguished minds who lived too long in a former age to be able to understand ours. Now, while the short-sighted spectator begins to despair of humanity, and, distracted and cursing that of which he is ignorant, plunges into scepticism and fatalism, the true observer, certain of the spirit which governs the world, seeks to comprehend and fathom Providence. The memoir on "Property," published last year by the pensioner of the Academy ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... woman, who up to this time had shown some spirit, had broken down. She now confessed that she had given her soul to the Devil. A clergyman was hastily sent for, who preached a sermon of repentance, upon which the distracted woman made a public confession. But on the next day, after she had been refreshed by sleep and had been in her own home again, she denied her confession. The constable now prepared to take the woman as well as her daughter to the Bishop of Lincoln, and the frightened ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... judicially incurred by sin. It is the withdrawal of that divine unction which enriches the acquiescent soul with moral power and pleasure. The subtraction leaves the mind enervated, obscured, confused, degraded, and distracted."—HOMO: ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... plans the King had been finding consolation in his son's book, an advance copy of which had reached him while Max was still abroad. Consolation is, perhaps, hardly the right word; it had distracted him in more ways than one; partly, and in a good sense, from his own personal depression over things gone wrong, but more with a scared apprehension of the terrible hubbub that would arise when its contents became known. The title, Government and the Governed, ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... the benefit. disipar dissipate, scatter, put to flight, drive away; —se be dissipated, be scattered. disolver dissolve, dissipate, scatter, disperse. disparate m. folly, piece of folly, blunder. distante adj. distant, afar. distinguir distinguish, see clearly. distrado, -a distracted, absentminded. diverso, -a various, dissimilar, different. divertir amuse. dividir divide, separate, cut, cleave. divino, -a divine, heavenly. do adv. where; a —— whither, where. d adv. interrog. where. doblar bend. doble m. tolling; dar ——s toll. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... sitting a prey to most distracted thoughts. When she went below with her child, she had a dull feeling at her heart that some great sorrow had come or was coming over her, and she had sat for some time almost without the power to think. He had never treated her ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... chosen by Suzanne to make known her scandal happened to be this farewell Wednesday,—a day on which Mademoiselle Cormon drove Josette distracted on the subject of packing. During the morning, therefore, things had been said and done in the town which lent the utmost interest to this farewell meeting. Madame Granson had gone the round of a dozen houses ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... centipede was happy quite, Until the toad, for fun, Said, 'Pray which leg goes after which?' This stirred his mind to such a pitch, He lay distracted in a ditch, Considering ...
— The Trained Memory • Warren Hilton
... recognize the States in rebellion as an independent power, and that England held him back by her reluctance, or France by her traditions of freedom, or he himself by his own better judgment and clear perception of events. But the republic of Mexico, on our borders, was, like ourselves, distracted by a rebellion, and from a similar cause. The monarchy of England had fastened upon us slavery which did not disappear with independence; in like manner, the ecclesiastical policy established by the Spanish council of the Indies, ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... white, Georgian room, divided into unequal parts by a two-sided fire-place, a group of officers stood anxiously talking. They were pale and distracted, and evidently hadn't slept. To one, an oldish man with a white beard, his uniform studded with decorations, who was pointed out as the Colonel, we showed our ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... chemist, it is possible that the enthusiasm of the friend outweighed the caution of the critic. But however that may be, it is beyond dispute that the man who actually was the greatest poet of that time might easily have taken the very highest rank as a scientist had not the muse distracted his attention. Indeed, despite these distractions, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe achieved successes in the field of pure science that would insure permanent recognition for his name had he never written ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... a little distracted. She could not think. Her thoughts would not come clearly. She waited, staring into the sun and the colour. Quietness came to her. Her life was now his. Nothing counted in her life but that. If they ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... circumstances, Renaissance sculpture knows nothing. A lesser art, for painting was then what sculpture had been in Antiquity; bound more or less closely to the service of architecture; surrounded by ill-grown, untrained bodies; distracted by ascetic feelings and scientific curiosities, the sculpture of Donatello and Mino, of Jacopo della Quercia and Desiderio da Settignano, of Michelangelo himself, was one of those second artistic growths which ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... understanding what he says, orders his removal; his friends, thinking him distracted, persuade him to be quiet while the utmost sentence—twenty years—is given. On hearing this, Cyril, with a loud cry, falls senseless. He remains in delirium many weeks. A pathetic farewell between Henry and Lilian, who is the only believer in his innocence, and who renews ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... his apartment. A heavy sleep had come over him, shortly after Harley and Randal had left the house in the early morning; and that sleep continued till late in the day. All the while the town of Lansmere had been distracted in his cause, all the while so many tumultuous passions had run riot in the contest that was to close or re-open for the statesman's ambition the Janus gates of political war, the object of so many fears and hopes, schemes and counter-schemes, had slumbered quietly as an infant in the cradle. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his head, and turned two eyes clouded with suffering upon her. He saw a buxom, blooming young woman, with remarkably dove-like eyes that dwelt with timid, kindly curiosity upon him. He looked at her in a half-distracted way, and then put his hand to the mug. "Here's perdition to all false women!" said he, and tossed half the wine down ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... into camp breathless, and began hysterically searching for their respective sweethearts or husbands among the prisoners. The scene was more than poetic; and it was pathetic in the extreme. It was a scene that had not occurred before on the broad surface of the earth—those fifty distracted squaws rushing into the jaws of death in their eagerness to rescue the ones without whom life would be empty, useless, aimless. It is said that it melted the heart of the very rocks about the place, so that to this day the surface of ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... latter on over her little evening dress. Some wisps of wavy hair had loosened from the bands at the side of her head and were straggling over her hot, red cheeks. She was angry, mortified, grief-stricken. Her large eyes were full of the anguish of tears, but her lids were not yet wet. She was distracted and uncertain, deciding and doing things without an aim or conclusion, and she had not the slightest conception of how ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... the Angel listened with about half an ear. His attention—and the attention of every man in the place—had been distracted by the entrance of Leda Crannon. She stepped in through a side door, walked over to Dr. Fitzhugh, and whispered something in his ear. He nodded, and ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... such a thought came to him, he could not say, but before he had finished reading his attention was partially distracted by a curious and instinctive conviction. He felt that he was not alone—that the solitude of his chamber, high up in the building and cut off, as it were, from the world, had been broken. He ceased reading, and although he was no coward he could feel his heart beating. ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... original picture must be enlarged and retouched. The place where that family lived had become to him too sacred a spot to be called simply "a certain village." Martha was more than "a certain woman," who though hospitable, was distracted in her housekeeping. Mary was fairer than Luke had painted her. John had seen her do more than sit at Jesus' feet. He manifestly felt that the resurrection of Lazarus was too great an event to be omitted from the gospel story, ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... now, child," said Mrs. Carroll, not crossly, but with a distracted air, pushing aside Angela's clinging, eager arms. "I've got more than enough to think of as it is. Of course ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... were estranged, and brothers were at deadly strife. There was no argument in the matter; for there was nothing upon which to predicate an argument. To introduce the subject was to promote a quarrel. Churches were distracted and at discord, and the pulpit, for the first time in Georgia, desecrated by political philippics. Pierce then, as now, was the leading minister of the Methodist Church in the State, and abstained in the pulpit, but made no secret of his preferences upon the street. Duffie travelled ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... one could divine, [p 16] Tho' they ponder'd, and ponder'd, at every line: And all only serving to puzzle them more, SIR ARGUS continued as wise as before. Distracted, he knew not well whither to go, This last disappointment afflicted him so; But at length, on reflection, thought only one fowl Cou'd have sense to inform him, and that was the OWL. To her he resolv'd, then, a visit to make, And ...
— The Peacock and Parrot, on their Tour to Discover the Author of "The Peacock At Home" • Unknown
... me to speak a message half so glad As that the doctor brings unto the fear-distracted dad. I wish that simple words of mine could change the skies to blue, And lift the care from troubled hearts, as those he utters do. I wish that I could banish all the thoughts that man annoy, And cheer him as the doctor does, ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... endearments or of their harsher violence I fail to remember. It was enough that the public nerve had at the moment been tried by the non-arrival of the Atlantic, several days overdue, to the pitch at last of extreme anxiety; so that, when after the fall of the curtain on the farce the distracted Mr. Mouser, still breathless, reappeared at the footlights, where I can see him now abate by his plight no jot of the dignity of his announcement, "Ladies and gentlemen, I rejoice to be able to tell you that the good ship Atlantic is safe!" the house broke ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... at once advanced to meet me. Tears were on her cheeks, but she walked very firmly, and took my hand with an inquiry in her soft eyes that almost drove me distracted. ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... on the two occasions when I had seen her that the prisoner exchanged words with her guards, and this convinced me that they spoke, or at least could make themselves understood by a common language. With this added incentive I nearly drove Sola distracted by my importunities to hasten on my education and within a few more days I had mastered the Martian tongue sufficiently well to enable me to carry on a passable conversation and to fully understand practically ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... great stoves struck in their faces; and Annie saw the big burner, erected in all its black hideousness in the middle of the front room, like a sort of household hoodoo, to be constantly propitiated, like the gods of Greece; and in the kitchen, the new range, with a distracted tea-kettle leaping on it, as if it would like to loose its fetters and race away over the prairie ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... the three distracted creatures to the Ingleside veranda. Gilbert and Anne were both away, having also gone to the House of Dreams, but Susan appeared in the doorway, ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... perturbation o f mind, inconsistent with the purposes of the grace, at the presence of venison or turtle. When I have sate (a rarus hospes) at rich men's tables, with the savoury soup and messes steaming up the nostrils, and moistening the lips of the guests with desire and a distracted choice, I have felt the introduction of that ceremony to be unseasonable. With the ravenous orgasm upon you, it seems impertinent to interpose a religious sentiment. It is a confusion of purpose to mutter out praises from a mouth that waters. The heats of epicurism put out the gentle flame ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... Fletcher's comedy of the 'Pilgrim', Pedro, the Pilgrim, a noble gentleman, has shown to him the interior of a Spanish mad-house, and discovers in it his mistress Alinda, who, disguised in a boy's dress, was found in the town the night before a little crazed, distracted, and so sent thither. The scene here shows various shapes ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... denied with passionate vehemence that he was in any way guilty. "I have sent the Negro[798] to be Rebuked, Tortur'd or whipt, till he confesse how this dire misfortune happen'd," he wrote the commissioners, "but I am soe distracted that I scarce know ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... and abhorred them. But it was impossible to make any impression upon the middling people and the working labouring poor. Their fears were predominant over all their passions, and they threw away their money in a most distracted manner upon those whimsies. Maid-servants especially, and men-servants, were the chief of their customers, and their question generally was, after the first demand of 'Will there be a plague?' I say, the next question was, 'Oh, sir I for the Lord's sake, ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... would not gratify you; now—Tedcastle came here, poor fellow, in a wretched state about Molly Massereene, whose secret he has at length discovered. About eleven o'clock last night he rushed in here almost distracted to get her address; so I went to Molly early this morning, obtained leave to give it,—and a love-letter as well, which you saw me deliver,—and all his raptures and tender epithets were meant for her, and not for me. Is it not a humiliating confession? Even when he kissed my hands ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... became aware that all the difficulties and steeps of life were yet to face. My exuberant self-esteem came to my aid; I had that intense belief in my destiny, which perhaps amounts to genius in those who will not permit themselves to be distracted by contact with the world, as sheep that leave their wool on the briars of every thicket they pass by. I meant to cover myself with glory, and to work in silence for the mistress I hoped to have one day. Women for me ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... so much of the President's message as relates to the present agitated and distracted condition of the country, and the grievances between the slaveholding and the non-slave holding States, be referred to a special committee of thirteen members, and that said committee be instructed to inquire into the present condition ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... one," his supervisor, Forester, said, sitting on the side of Eddie's desk. Normally exuberant, he was left melancholy and distracted by the ...
— New Apples in the Garden • Kris Ottman Neville
... one so virtuous and intelligent to commit so disgraceful and rash a theft. Indeed, the tide of suspicion had been fast turning against Victor himself, when it received a new direction by the discovery of the missing articles in Julia's reticule. Another examination ensued, the distracted Julia, as has been stated, being herself brought into the presence of the magistrate. In intense affliction, she declared her innocence: that she knew not how the articles had got into her reticule; she had not put them there; did not know they were there; had, indeed, never touched them at all. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... father's wishes; it was left for Lorenzo to be the first poet and natural prince of the Medici blood. Lorenzo continued to bank but mismanaged the work and lost heavily; while his poetical tendencies no doubt distracted his attention generally from affairs. Yet such was his sympathetic understanding and his native splendour and gift of leadership that he could not but be at the head of everything, the first to be consulted and ingratiated. Not only was he the first Medici poet but the first of the family ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... he cried. "Run, or I shall be left all alone in this horrible place," and then he broke down and commenced to weep. For a moment this new voice distracted the attention of the lion, who halted to cast an inquiring glance in the direction of the tree. Clayton could endure the strain no longer. Turning his back upon the beast, he buried his head in ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... by her unkindness. She turned his brain wishing that everything should be in scarlet, making him turn everything topsy-turvy at the least movement of her eyebrow, and when she was sad the seneschal distracted, would say to everything from his judicial seat, "Hang him!" Another would have died like a fly at this conflict with the maid's innocence, but Bruyn was of such an iron nature that it was difficult to finish him off. One evening that Blanche had turned the house upside-down, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... nursed at her breast, the one joy untinctured with bitterness that was left her. The bare chance that those little feet might never patter across the floor again, that little voice never wake her in the morning crying "Mom-mom," drove her distracted. ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... book at the back of the stable, and while I am reading, the boy will see me, jump from his mother's lap, and run towards me to be danced on my knee. He will come too near the horse's hoof, and, full of anger, I shall call to my wife, 'Take the baby; take him!' But she, distracted by some domestic work, does not hear me. Then I get up, and give her such a kick with my foot." While he thought this, he gave a kick with his foot, and broke the pot. All the rice fell over him, and made him quite white. Therefore, ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... mortal companions: many chubby babies; many bright-eyed boys and girls, whose distracted parents were still seeking them, far and wide, upon the earth. It would almost seem that the wonders of Fairy-land might make the little prisoners happy. There were countless treasures to be had for the taking, and the very dust in the little streets was precious with ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... Cathedral of St. Giles, on High Street, floated the melody of "The Bluebells of Scotland." No day was too bleak for bell-ringer McLeod to climb the shaking ladder in the windy tower and play the music bells during the hour that Edinburgh dined. Bobby forgot to dine that day, first in his distracted search, and then in his joy of ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... subsequently the critics took up the cry, and professed themselves to be so deeply shocked by the vulgar humours of the bailiffs that Goldsmith had to cut them out. But on the opening night the anxious author, who had been rendered nearly distracted by the cries and hisses produced by this scene, was somewhat reassured when the audience began to laugh again over the tribulations of Mr. Croaker. To the actor who played the part he expressed his warm gratitude when the piece was over; assuring him that he had exceeded his own conception of the ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... upon posterity by not observing these auspicious seasons and places, they make a great mistake. It is a matter of course that an auspicious day must be chosen so far as avoiding wind and rain is concerned, that men may bury their dead without their minds being distracted; and it is important to choose a fitting cemetery, lest in after days the tomb should be damaged by rain, or by men walking over it, or by the place being turned into a field, or built upon. When invited ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... are not satisfied? Don't go. Let me know how it is. I am sure Sarah is distracted about her—more than even Francis. I would not part with her for a great deal, not only on Peter's account, but on her own and Sarah's; but these ladies have raked up all manner of Charteris scandal, and we are quite in disgrace ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the top they formed in compact order, and attacked and carried with the bayonet the nearest French battery, a few rods distant. The division of Lawrence soon came up; and as the attention of the enemy was now distracted, they made their landing with little opposition at the farther end of the beach whither they were followed by Amherst himself. The French, attacked on right and left, and fearing, with good reason, that they would be cut off from the town, abandoned all their cannon ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... confused hum of voices, calls, the rattling of plates and glasses came from the open windows and large doors. The tables, set close together and filled with people eating, extended in long rows right and left of a narrow passage, up and down which ran the distracted waiters, holding along their arms dishes filled with ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... Joel Ham, startled from a dreamy drowsiness, heard with wonder fierce voices under his feet, the sounds of blows and of bumping heads, and saw his scholars all distracted. The master divined the truth ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... that forced the players to tremendous exertion in order to hold the house, which, by the way, he believes to have been very finely critical. An audience is more truly observant of plays and playing when its attention is not distracted by considering the cost of the costumes, by wondering if the marble pillars are solid, by curiosity as to how the lighting effects are contrived, and by asking whether the play will run long enough to earn ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... you think so? Are you quite sure?" It was a sort of hidden appeal. He wanted Maxime to state, to redouble his assertions. The news Maxime had brought added to the chaos, raised it to a climax, but at the same time it began to direct the distracted forces of his mind towards a fixed point, as the first bark of the shepherd's dog ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... sauntered leisurely back, wondering, in her distracted little brain, how he could be interested in anything when he ought to be as anxious as she. "But it isn't his mother and father," ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... think of her without recalling it to mind; and this ineffaceable trait in her history he has attempted, for the time, to obliterate from our memory. By this procedure, the imagination of the reader is divided and distracted. The picture presented by the poet is and is not a portrait of the historical figure which lives in our recollection. There are many points of resemblance; but the chief is omitted. And we always feel that it is omitted; for history here is too strong for the poet: he cannot ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... amid the multiplicity of embarrassing affairs which distracted his attention, this point especially filled his mind with apprehension, that Constantius, determining everything according to his own sole judgment, was not a man to admit of any excuse, or to pardon any error; but being, as he was, more ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... infinite charm of a summer day, the thousand invitations to idleness with which the air is full, the waving trees (though there were not many of them), the scent of the flowers, the singing of the birds, all distracted Geoff's attention, and sooth to say his mother's too. She would have been glad to sit quiet, to escape the boy's questioning, to put away the irksome lessons which she herself did not much more than understand, and to which she brought a mind unaccustomed ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... countenance; He covered the musky ringlets with his kisses, And his bride heard the kisses from above. Then he exclaimed: "That would not be right— May the bright sun never shine on such a day! It were to lay my hand on the life of one already distracted; It were to plunge the arrow-point into my own wounded bosom." Then he took his noose from his boy, and made a running knot, And threw it, and caught it on the battlement, And held his breath, and at one bound Sprang from the ground, and ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... walking near a little wood, he saw one of the queen's eunuchs running toward him, followed by several officers, who appeared to be in great perplexity, and who ran to and fro like men distracted, eagerly searching for something they had lost of great value. "Young man," said the first eunuch, "hast thou seen the queen's dog?" "It is a female," replied Zadig. "Thou art in the right," returned the first eunuch. "It ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... was almost ready to admit this, when, a week later, he seemed to be no nearer a solution of the problem than he was at first. He had tried everything he could think of, and he had Eradicate and Koku, the giant, almost distracted, by making them stay in small telephone booths for hours at a time, while the young inventor tried to get some reflection of one face or the other to come ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... which could never occur in Lady Cecilia's natural grace and acquired tact of manner. Helen was amused, as she followed her, in watching the readiness with which she knew how to exchange the necessary counters in the commerce of society: she was amused, till her attention was distracted by hearing, as she and Beauclerc passed, the whispered words—"I promessi sposi—look—La belle fiancee." These words were repeated as they went on, and Lady Cecilia heard some one say, "I thought it was broken off; that ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... vanished, confused and distracted the road Where many were seeking and jostling. Left behind were the trees and the flowers, The half-realized beauty of quiet, the sacred unconscious communing. And now he is come to a river, a line of gray, sullen water, Not blue and splashing, but dark, rolling somberly on to ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... Fairnihirst complained bitterly that those, who had instigated their invasion, durst not even come so far as Lauder, to shew countenance to their defence against the English. The bickerings, which followed, distracted the whole kingdom. One celebrated exploit may be selected, as an illustration of ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... being made simultaneously at different points, so distracted the enemy, that they knew not in which direction to proceed; scarcely had the flames burst out at one point than they saw fires blazing up at several others. The stores at Vodnia and Glofira having been destroyed, the squadron proceeded off Gheisk. Here, for full four miles, stacks ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... late brother's legal adviser for many years, I felt it incumbent upon me to come down," he said, fixing a grave glance on the distracted lady before him. "It seemed to me that I might be of some use, perhaps, assistance. That is ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... absurd answer, and is either scolded or laughed at. It isn't long before he falls into the attitude: "Well, I can't get it right, anyhow, no matter how I try, so I don't care." Up to five or ten years ago the puzzled and distracted teacher would simply report the child for stupidity, indifference, and even insubordination. In nine cases out of ten, when children are naughty or stupid, ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... German Social Democracy as having either the power or the serious intention of thwarting German Imperialism. If a man's achievement be rightly gauged by the difficulties he has overcome, then M. CLEMENCEAU, called unwillingly and unwilling at the most desperate crisis of the destiny of a distracted and dispirited France hammered by the enemy's legions and with the pass ready for sale by false friends, may well justify Mr. HYNDMAN'S verdict on him as the statesman of the Great War. The man who came into the War a mere Tiger will go out of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various
... became so great, and the excitement and terror of the animals so intense, that the soldiers had great difficulty in driving them forward. The poor beasts ran this way and that, half distracted, while the soldiers pressed steadily on behind them, and cut them off from every chance of escape by raising terrific shouts and outcries, and by brandishing weapons before them wherever they attempted ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... wasting away, and fading with swift disease, while her distracted husband holds her in his arms, entreating impossibilities. And now they are about to bring her out, for the dying Alcestis has a longing for one more sight of heaven and the radiant morning. The Chorus are plunged in despair: how ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... Doctor of Divinity, informed me with grief that on his various visitations he learned from your friends that you are afflicted with abnormal and strange thoughts pertaining to God's predestination, and are completely confused by them; also that you grow dull and distracted on account of them, and that finally it must be feared that you might commit suicide,—from which Almighty God may preserve you!... Your proposition and complaints are: God Almighty knows from eternity who are to be and who will be saved, be they dead, living ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... read one of the marked passages, beginning with, 'All that distinguishes a soldier in outward appearance from a citizen is so trifling—' but at this instant our hero's attention was distracted by seeing in a black-letter book this title ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... remarkable piece of autobiography. After being engaged in manual labor for about fifteen years, Mr. Miller was for some time manager of a bank that was established in his native town. While in this position, a pamphlet that he published, on the ecclesiastical controversies which then distracted Scotland, attracted the attention of the leaders of the party who now form the Free Church, and they invited him to be editor of the Witness newspaper, then about to be established for the advocacy of their principles. Mr. Miller had already published a volume ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... had been distracted and bedazed by the first catastrophe that had befallen, this second and even more dreadful and violent occurrence appeared to take away from him, for the moment, every power of thought and of sensation. All that perturbation of emotion ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle
... chosen stand out among the other moralists of France by their adoption of the maxim as their mode of instruction. When La Bruyere, distracted with misgivings about his "Caracteres," had made up his mind to get an introduction to Boileau, and to ask the advice of that mighty censor, Boileau wrote to Racine (May 19, 1687), "Maximilian has been out to Auteuil to see ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... two hundred and fifty years. The various members were involved in endless controversies with each other, often breaking out into savage wars, and the Saxons were also exposed to conflicts with their common enemies, the Britons. Their power was greatly impaired by the civil strifes which distracted them. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... of the Coromantee, hitherto distracted by conflicting emotions, had now but one thought. It was less purpose than a despairing instinct. It was to support the child who had been intrusted to him— the Lilly Lalee—above water as long as he should have strength; and then to go down along with her into that vast, fathomless ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... averse to lending a hand at times. In this manner then, the meal was made ready; and had a hungry wanderer come within fifty yards of that spot just then he must have sniffed the fragrant odors of frying ham and boiling Java coffee until he would be almost distracted. ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... away in great style; all in vain, however, as with tall Maria Newcome, the third girl who attempted the trial. Being a little near-sighted, she had borrowed her sister's eye-glasses, and thereby lessened her chance of success; for the pinch on her nose distracted her attention, and not one of her arrows went beyond the second ring, to her great disappointment. Billy did very well, but got nervous when his last shot came, and just missed the bull's-eye ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... in her flowing hair, and a real necklace with a pearl locket about her neck. She did her part capitally, especially the shriek she gave when she looked into the fatal closet, the energy with which she scrubbed the tell-tale key, and her distracted tone when she called out: "Sister Anne, O, sister Anne, do you see anybody coming?" while her enraged husband was roaring: "Will you come down, madam, or shall I come and ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... been acting mighty queer ever since Charley Norton was shot—distracted like! He says he noticed it, and that ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... he had his nephew Baldwin crowned in his stead. Educated by William of Tyre, Baldwin IV. came to the throne at the early age of thirteen; and thus the kingdom came under the regency of Raymund II. of Tripoli. Happily for the kingdom whose king was a child and a leper, the attention of Saladin was distracted for several years by an attempt to wrest from the sons of Nureddin the inheritance of their father—an attempt partially successful in 1174, but only finally realized in 1183. The problems of the reign of Baldwin ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... was now distracted by three parties. First, there were the Protestants, contending only in self-defense against persecution, and yet earnestly praying that, upon the death of the king, Henry of Navarre, the legitimate successor, ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... which I seem against, pleading lack of money, but I am glad of it in some respects because of getting her out of the way from this fellow, and my own liberty to look after my business more than of late I have done. So to prayers and to bed. This morning it seems Susan, who I think is distracted, or however is since she went from me taught to drink, and so gets out of doors 2 or 3 times a day without leave to the alehouse, did go before 5 o'clock to-day, making Griffin rise in his shirt to let her out to the alehouse, she said to warm herself, but her mistress, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Distracted in his mind, Forsook by heaven, forsaking human kind, Wide o'er the Aleian field he chose to stray, A long, forlorn, ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... They pushed eastward from the Irtish and founded Tomsk in 1604. Ten years later the Tartars united and attempted to expel the Russians. They surrounded Tomsk and besieged it for a long time. Russia was then distracted by civil commotions and the war with the Poles, and could not assist the Cossacks. The latter held out with great bravery, and at length gained a decisive victory. From that time the Tartars made ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... fixed upon some memory, some dream, perhaps, for whose realization he was waiting and hoping. It was all in vain to tell him of beautiful tresses, languishing eyes, and soft hands waiting for his acceptance. He listened with a distracted air, as if thinking ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... inquiries have been maid both at my privit ressddence, 'The Wheel of Fortune Otel,' and at your Hoffis, regarding the fate of that dear babby, James Hangelo, whose primmiture dissappearnts caused such hagnies to his distracted parents, I must begg, dear sir, the permission to ockupy a part of your valuble collams once more, and hease the public mind ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... carried the second reading of the Reform Bill; and then, scared at the consequences of their own headstrong timidity, they went in a fright to the Duke and his able adviser to extricate them from the inevitable result of their own conduct. The ultimate device of these distracted counsels, where daring and poltroonery, principle and expediency, public spirit and private intrigue, each threw an ingredient into the turbulent spell, was the celebrated and successful amendment to ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli |
