"Distraction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of cauliflower was set upon the table, he snuffed up volatile salts to keep him from fainting; yet this delicate person was the son of a cottager, born under a hedge, and had many years run wild among asses on a common. A fifth affected distraction: when spoke to, he always answered from the purpose. Sometimes he suddenly started up, and rapped out a dreadful oath; sometimes he burst out a-laughing; then he folded his arms, and sighed; and then he hissed ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... life—mingling with my native aristoxy. I breathe no sallible of blame against Miss H., but his a hilliterit cookmaid fit to set at a fashnable table? Do young fellers of rank genrally marry out of the Kitching? If we cast our i's upon a low-born gal, I needn say it's only a tempory distraction, pore passy le tong. So much for HER claims upon me. Has for THAT BEEST OF A DOCTOR'S BOY he's unwuthy the ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you, and you will not swear to obey me. But I will not crush you under the Prayer-book—no, dearest; but, indeed, to obey is a want of my nature, and I marry you to supply that want: and that's a story, for I marry you because I love and honor and worship and adore you to distraction, my own—own—own!" With this she flung herself passionately, yet modestly on his shoulder, and, being there, murmured, coaxingly, "You will let me ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... shall cure her too quickly; and then we shall lose her. But that was to be expected. I am very unfortunate in my attachments; I always was. If I fall in love with a woman, she is sure to hate me, or else die, or else fly away. I love this one to distraction, so she is sure to desert me, because she couldn't misbehave, and ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... and last. Better ones for the officers, naturally, just as the officers' mess is of better quality than that of the common soldiers. But always there are plenty of women. Never wives, who mean responsibility, but just women, who only mean distraction and amusement, just as food and wine. So wives are forbidden, because lowering to the morale, but women are winked at, because they cheer and refresh the troops. After the war, it is hoped that all unmarried soldiers will marry, but doubtless they will not marry these women ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... October 5.—O Heavens! pity the distraction of a wretch who is obliged to record the ruin of his dearest hopes and affections! This day my adored Louisa Matilda Hopkinson gave up the ghost! A complaint of the head and shoulders was the sudden cause of the event which has rendered ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... a seat, and sat down beside him. In the half light of the moon, despite her pallor and distraction, she was still very human, womanly, ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... is perhaps a questionable usage, Lord John Russell invited the retiring minister to explain his secession from office to the House. In the suspicion, distraction, tension that marked that ominous hour in the history of English party, people insisted that the resignation of the head of the department of trade must be due to divergence of judgment upon protection. The prime minister, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... almighty benevolence was a long way from securing all the success that had been foretold. For lack of knowledge, or of strength, or by distraction maybe, God missed his aim, and could not keep his word. Less sage than a chemist who should undertake to shut up ether in canvas or paper, he only confided to men the truth that he had brought upon the earth; ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... himself that this was very good advice. He resolved to shut up his lens-house entirely for a time, and think no more of the great work he had done within it, but apply himself to something which he had long neglected, and which would be a distraction and a recreation to ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... studied, sly, ensnaring art, Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling smooth! Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exiled? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, Points to the parents fondling o'er their child? Then paints the ruined maid, and their distraction wild! ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... (it seems doubly beautiful as I think of it now, from far away); and till last year most of my time was spent in the schoolroom, or walking, or pottering about in a pony carriage with one of the governesses I used to drive to distraction. When we had house parties I was kept out of the way, as Mother said it spoiled young girls to be taken notice of, and I should have my fun later. When the others went up to town for the Season, as they often did, I was left behind, and though Battlemead is within five-and-twenty miles of London, ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... chestnut hair was always stylishly arranged; in fact, her whole make- up caused the young fellows to speak of her as the "cityfied school- marm." Then came the merchant's son and all was going well, so well that they both pledged their love and plighted their troth. The temporary distraction of her lover's attention, deflected by the visiting brunette in silks, an inadvertently broken appointment (the train was late and he could not help it), and the first attack of the "jerks" among strangers is recorded. They ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... don't with looks of envy view, But I admire your happy state, and you. In all our farms severe distraction reigns, No ancient owner there in peace remains. Sick, I, with much ado, my goats can drive, This Tityrus, I scarce can lead alive; On the bare stones, among yon hazels past, Just now, alas! her ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... day in great anxiety and excitement, and not even the distraction of her new possession had been able to calm the beating of her heart or allay her fears. Prince Frederick William had arrived early in the morning, to bid her farewell, as he was to march in the course of the day with his regiments from Potsdam. With the tenderest assurances ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... people to distraction," remarked the young Duke, mentioning the names of the Baron du ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... soldiers. Although exercise is not compulsory, there is ample space in the central rectangle for out-door games of all sorts and for walking. No appropriate form of exercise, recreation, or amusement is denied the interned, and opportunities for distraction within the barracks lie largely in their own hands. Smoking is freely permitted, and English, French and Russian songs are sung without interference. The walls of one French officer's room were covered with good-natured caricature drawings. When ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... mischievous—they make their way out of all enclosures, and trespass everywhere. They butt at whatever is bright or new, or strange to them; and would drive an observer, who employed astronomical instruments on stands, to distraction. In an open country, where there are no bushes for a kraal, nets must be taken, and stakes cut, to make enclosures for the sheep. If they stray at all, the least thing scares them, and they will wander very far, and scatter. Goats are far more social and intelligent. If one, two, or three ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... narghile smoker. As a liquid it can be taken as an oily fluid or in alcohol. Taken in any of these forms, it literally makes the nerves walk, dance, and run. It heightens the feelings and sensibilities to distraction, producing what is really hysteria. If the weather is clear, this drug will make life gorgeous; if it rains, tragic. Slight vexation becomes deadly revenge; courage becomes rashness; fear, abject terror; and gentle affection or even a passing ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... necessarily mingled with curiosity that grew keener day by day. The circumstances attending the appearance of the stranger were a ceaseless topic of conversation and of endless conjecture, and soon became a benefit of a special kind, from the occupation and distraction of mind which was thus produced. They resolved that the stranger should not be allowed to escape the expression of their gratitude when he came to commemorate the next sad anniversary of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... mother to bear up better than they otherwise would have done. Had it not been for that I believe that my mother would have well nigh sunk beneath it. I was very glad when I got your letter, for active service will be a distraction to my sorrow. We have ever been together, Geoffrey and I, and I feel like one lost without him. You have not had much fighting here, I think, since I have ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... of mine lost his wife. They were young and he loved her to distraction. Between her death and the funeral he scandalized everybody by talking incessantly of the most trivial details—the cards, the mourning, the flowers, his own clothes. But the night of the funeral he ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... exceptions. The colonists possessed in eminent degree energy, determination, power of patient endurance and sacrifice. Their political genius, too, was striking in itself, and it becomes surprising if one compares Germany, in the unspeakable distraction of the Thirty Years' War, with America at the same period, 1618-1648, successfully solving by patience and debate the very problems which were ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... the drawbridge, the vestibule with its columns of twisted oak, even the grand salon with the stately courtiers and captains, the gracious dames and damsels of the family of Secondat gazing down from the walls, all these distract the eye and the mind. The distraction is agreeable, but still it is a distraction. It leads you from the biographical into the social and historical mood. You are delighted as at Meillant or Chenonceaux with a corner of ancient France, marvellously rescued from the red ruin of ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... like an artist, is apt to be a selfish brute, tending to ignore everything which does not make for the progress of his beloved manuscript. He resents every interruption every hindering distraction, as a hellish contrivance, maliciously designed to worry or obstruct him—At least I am that way. That I was a burden, an intolerable burden to my wife, at times—many times—I must admit—but she understood and was charitable. She ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... in a house. We are in Him by simple faith, by the trust that rests all upon Him, by the love that finds all in Him, by the obedience that does all for Him. And it is only when we are 'in Christ' that we rest, and realise peace. All else brings distraction. Even delights trouble. The world may give excitement, the world may give vulgar and fleeting joys, the world may give stimulus to much that is good and true in us, but there is only one thing that gives peace, and that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... landlady's library. It consisted of Derham's "Physico- and Astro-Theology," "The Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin," by one Taylor, D.D., "The Ready Reckoner or Tradesman's Sure Guide," and "The Path to the Pit delineated, with Twelve Engravings on Copper-plate." For distraction I fell to pacing the room, and rehearsing those remembered tags of Latin verse concerning which M. de Culemberg had long ago assured me, "My son, we know not when, but some day they will come back to you with solace if not with charm." Good man! My feet trod the carpet ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... avoid discordant and inharmonious company while practicing his psychic power. Many of the best psychometrists keep their physical eyes closed when practicing this power, thus allowing the inner senses to function without distraction ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... efforts of one woman against the united force of so many, and of such merciless monsters as I had here to deal with! One of them that could speak a little English, threatened me in return, 'that if I did not come out, they would burn me alive in the house.' My terror and distraction at hearing this is not to be expressed by words nor easily imagined by any person unless in the same condition. Distracted as I was in such deplorable circumstances, I chose to rely on the uncertainty of their protection, rather than meet with certain death in the house; and accordingly ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... the finger on the string; The doctors bid me fly the unlucky times And find distraction for my thoughts, or else ...
— The Countess Cathleen • William Butler Yeats
... personally attentive to us as the only Anglo-Saxon visitors in town. The tea might have been better, but it was as good as it knew how; and the small boy who came in with his mother (the Spanish mother seldom fails of the company of a small boy) in her moments of distraction succeeded in touching with his finger all the pieces of pastry except ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... touch. "Touch them yourself," she said to an old Dame Margaret; "your touch will be just as good as mine." But her faith in her mission remained as firm as ever. "The Maid prays and requires you," she wrote to Bedford, "to work no more distraction in France but to come in her company to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the Turk." "I bring you," she told Dunois when he sallied out of Orleans to meet her after her two days' march from Blois, "I bring you the ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... event. She looked back upon her own childhood with her own mother and reflected, fondly but clearly, affectionately but not blinded by affection, how very different was that. She was always with her mother. Her mother was often sad, often worried, often, in distraction of her worries, irritable in speech. Often sad! Why, she could remember time and again when her dear mother, hunted by her cares, was broken down and crying. She would go to her mother then and cry to see her crying, and her mother would put her arms around her and hug her ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... rest of his life. He thought, too, of Count L'Estrange; and the longer he thought, the more he became convinced that he knew him well, and had met him often. But where? He racked his brain until, between love, Leoline, and the count, he got that delicate organ into such a maze of bewilderment and distraction, that he felt he would be a case of congestion, shortly, if he did not give it up. That the count's voice was not the only thing about him assumed, he was positive; and he mentally called over the muster-roll of his past friends, who spent half their time at Whitehall, and the other ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... almost despaired of, my lord; she has not yet recovered her consciousness. Her brother is in a state of distraction." ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... herself with circumspection during her days of enforced solitude. Chris Wyndham, however, had been a tomboy all her life, and she could scarcely be expected to reform at such a juncture. She was not accustomed to solitude, and her restless spirit chafed after distraction. ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... good luck would have it, 75 comes in one Mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford's approach; and, in her invention and Ford's wife's distraction, they conveyed me into ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... The temporary distraction of attention which this incident caused emboldened another savage to pounce upon the other musket, which was carried by old Bob. He wrenched it out of the sailor's hand and bounded away with a shout, swinging it over his head. Unfortunately his ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... link his terrible destiny with hers: he cannot marry her: he cannot reveal to her, young, gentle, innocent as she is, the terrific influences which have changed the whole current of his life and purposes. In his distraction he overacts the painful part to which he had tasked himself; he is like that judge of the Areopagus, who being occupied with graver matters, flung from him the little bird which had sought refuge in his bosom, and with such angry violence, that ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... Manasseh from his study to plead before the English Parliament. Baruch Spinoza was spared such distraction. Into his self-contained life the affairs of the world could effect no entry. It is not quite certain whether Spinoza was born in Amsterdam. He must, at all events, have come there in his early youth. He may have been a pupil of Manasseh, but his mind was ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... a tempting of Providence, persuading her first to try some other house of entertainment; and at last she agreed. Now, whether our great distraction of mind gave us a haggard and sickly aspect, or whether 'twas merely the suspicion and hardness of heart bred in all people by terror, I cannot tell; but no one would take us in, some saying flatly they would receive no lodgers they did not know, and know to be sound. ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... the hour a message came from Miss Wilson, requesting Miss Wylie's attendance. The visitors were at a loss to account for the sudden distraction of the young ladies' attention which ensued. Jane almost burst into tears, and answered Josephs rudely when he innocently asked what the matter was. Agatha went away apparently unconcerned, though her hand shook as she put aside ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... multiplicity lies our difficulty. The narrative in the Autobiography doubtless gives a correct general outline of his life in Leipzig and of its main results for his general development, but its cool, detached tone leaves a totally inadequate impression of the froward youth, torn to distraction by conflicting passions and conflicting ideals. With the contemporary testimonies our difficulties are of another kind. The testimonies of his friends regarding his personal traits are often contradictory, and equally so are his own self-revelations. On one and the same day he writes ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... unto evil ways. Her form grew haggard and uncouth to see, And in her eye a dark defiance frowned. Her soul turned black unto its very core, And was polluted as a mountain stream Drugged with the fluid from a bloody war. Her brow was stamped with hatred and revenge. Woe and distraction, from these loathsome fonts, Fierce as hell-torrents, burst upon her path; And she did spurn repentance. And I saw The Evil One from depths of darkness come; And in her way he set a fearful pit, And death appeared the entrance thereunto. Then it ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... apprehension which was becoming his normal condition. He expected every moment to see or hear from the baffled ruffians, who would, no doubt, consider him responsible for their failure; but no word nor sign came from them, and the uncertainty drove him very near distraction. ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... if we forget for a moment that it is his conviction of the sufficiency of Christ's revelation which makes him so deadly a critic both of the ritualist and the socialist—two terms which on the former side at least tend to become synonymous. He would have no distraction from the mystery of Christ, no compromise of any kind in the world's loyalty to its one Physician. Simplify your dogmas; simplify your theologies. ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... over; whiff, gust, story, tempest; scene, breaking out, burst, fit, paroxysm, explosion; outbreak, outburst; agony. violence &c. 173; fierceness &c. adj.; rage, fury, furor, furore[obs3], desperation, madness, distraction, raving, delirium; phrensy[obs3], frenzy, hysterics; intoxication; tearing passion, raging passion; anger &c. 900. fascination, infatuation, fanaticism; Quixotism, Quixotry; tete montee[Fr]. V. be impatient &c. adj.; not be ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the sins of this day there is not one so God-defying, so Christ-humiliating, as damnable compliance': the boy standing before her meanwhile, and brokenly pursuing other thoughts, mainly of Haddo and Janet, and Jock Crozer stripping off his jacket. And yet, with all his distraction, it might be argued that he heard too much: his father and himself being 'compliers'—that is to say, attending the church of the parish ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he drew a pistol and shot him through the heart. The body was brought in, and it was only then the governor realised what had happened. The bride, who appears to have gone indoors before the tragedy occurred, then learned the fate that befell her husband, and in her distraction, rushed from the house and flung herself over the battlements. In despair at the double tragedy, her father shot himself ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... (upon which we could bore you to distraction) we are nothing concerned in our novel. Truly we offer you the pursuit of a girl; but my Mary would neither comprehend this matter nor wish to be other than her George's. From page 57 she waves to us; let us ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... Jim, you are so good always! It's a very unfair arrangement, and it would be horribly selfish to agree. I'd like well enough to have you coming down; it would be a distraction, and help to pass the time. I expect we shall be terribly quiet here, and I have always been accustomed to having some man to fly round and wait upon me. There is no one I would like better than you—wait a moment—no one ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... well not to let him into the secret either. Above all, you must not let your wife or Madam Imbert know any thing about it. I have had much trouble once or twice through women, and have determined never again to trust them. It is utterly impossible for a woman to keep a secret. She may love you to distraction, but confide a secret to her and she is never satisfied till she divulges it." Maroney eagerly listened to all White had to say, and then replied: "White, depend upon it, you are the right man for me! If you will only figure for ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... neither—to sink lower day by day! Must she decay there like one of these rotting logs? Worst of all, then, was the insinuating and ever-growing hopelessness. What was the use? What did it matter? Who would ever think of Ellen Jorth? "O God!" she whispered in her distraction, "is ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... of Amboise with the inclined planes of brickwork, which wind upward in the midst instead of staircases, were the result of the work which Charles set on foot as a distraction of his grief. These strange ascents had been partially restored by the Comte de Paris, the present owner of Amboise, before his exile stopt the work of repairing the chateau, and it is still possible to imagine the "charrettes, mullets, et litieres," of which Du ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... water, and eggs that were not half boiled were brought to the impatient Commissioner. As a rule Mr. Neverbend, when travelling on the public service, made a practice of enjoying his meals. It was the only solace which he allowed himself; the only distraction from the cares of office which he permitted either to his body or his mind. But on this great occasion his country required that he should forget his comforts; and he drank his tasteless tea, and ate his uncooked eggs, threatening the waiter as he did so with sundry ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... defiance, by the rebel blacksmith? So fierce his bearing, that he seems to be A bold confederate of this Feridun." Zohak replied: "I know not what o'ercame me, But when I saw him with such vehemence Of grief and wild distraction, strike his forehead, Lamenting o'er his children, doomed to death, Amazement seized my heart, and chained my will. What may become of this, Heaven only knows, For none can pierce ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... he took to wandering alone, in a state approaching distraction. He could not rest; he could not eat; and he would not see the doctor. One morning as I walked round the house I observed the master's window swinging open and the rain driving straight in. 'He cannot be in bed,' I thought, 'those showers ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... inspired them he lost little and gained much thereby. The years at Oxford in which he would have taken a temporary sameness, a sameness in the long run protective and strengthening, were spared him. In his letters we have him unspoiled, as the sentimentalists would say—not yet with the distraction of protective colouring. ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... is not due to the distraction of war, but America seems to be losing her dash. At a baseball match in New York the other day only three of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 9, 1917 • Various
... was in a state of mind bordering on distraction. Ought she to disobey her uncle and go with them? She felt sure that, although he would not confess it, Herbert was a novice in the art of sailing, and she feared what might happen should the wind increase. She could only hope that this would not be the case, that Maud would soon tire of ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... printing of the book unless Clare advanced the sum of L15, and this being impossible the negotiation fell through. Clare shortly afterwards, with the two-fold object of finding employment and obtaining relief from mental distraction by change of scene, was on the point of setting out for Yorkshire, when a copy of his prospectus fell under the notice of Mr. Edward Drury, a bookseller, of Stamford. Mr. Drury called upon Clare at his own home, and with difficulty induced him to show ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... day of the performance, so as not to be enervated by the effort of talking much, to say nothing of tiring the vocal chords. One prima donna of my acquaintance occupies herself in trimming hats on the day when she sings, believing that this provides a distraction and rests her nerves. It is just as well not to "pass through" the role that is to be sung on the day of the appearing, but in the morning a few technical exercises to keep the voice in tune, as it were, are to be recommended. The great Italian singers of other ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... forsaken lady's despair. Indeed, Juffrouw Laps's pain was not caused by any reflections as to the beauty or excellence of the vanished knight. There was another element in the matter that was filling her with horror and driving her to distraction. With all due respect for the suffering of other abandoned ladies, Asnath, Ariadne, Medea, Phaedra—but Juffrouw Laps had to face Walter's family. That ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... invariably forgot all anniversaries, even having to be reminded of their own wedding-day by his scandalized mother. What Mr. S. S. McClure called Fanny Stevenson's "robust, inconsequential philosophy of life" permitted her to accept with calm situations which would have driven another woman to distraction. Even in that sad colony of the sick she found compensations, and writing of ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... thy son, I saw him to be the likest of all creatures to the young lady; wherefore he reminded me of her and his sight revived the fire of passion in me and kindled anew in my heart the flames of love-longing and distraction. And such is the cause of my shedding tears!" Then he wept with sore weeping till he could no more and said, "O my lord, I conjure thee by Allah, open the door to me, so I may gang my gait!" Accordingly Abd al-Rahman opened the door and he ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... should be formed, actuated by such maxims as are avowed in this piece, the vices of the present ministry would become their virtues; their indolence would be the greatest of all public benefits, and a distraction that entirely defeated every one of their schemes would be our only ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... pleasure in looking through the little window across Stromness harbour, and, from his position at the desk, watching the movements of the shipping, it is probable he would have erected some curtain there. The window offered a distraction to us all, for it often took our attention from our tasks, and caused many interruptions in the course of the day. But, as I have indicated, Andrew was not a severe taskmaster, and that, perhaps, was one reason of ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... course. He got to calling rather often. I must say that I lured him on; I found his babble a distraction. Then, one day—Prather is nothing, if not transparent—he let out the fact that he was taking notes of ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... should not have done it. Then, genuine feelings are genuine feelings, and do not pass like a cloud. We are as happy as people can be, I do believe, yet are living in a way to try this new relationship of ours—in the utmost seclusion and perpetual tete-a-tete—no amusement nor distraction from without, except some of the very dullest Italian romances which throw us back on the memory of Balzac with reiterated groans. The Italians seem to hang on translations from the French—as we find from the library—not merely of Balzac, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... scene of fearful distraction. Furious tradesmen of every kind were ringing the house-bell, and rapping the knocker for admittance—such, at least, as could press through the crowd as far as the house. Bootmakers arrived with Hessians and Wellingtons—'as ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... and the longings of Canens. Her servants and the people run about through all the woods, and carry lights to meet him. Nor is it enough for the Nymph to weep, and to tear her hair, and to beat her breast; though all this she does, she rushes forth, and, in her distraction, she wanders through the Latian fields. Six nights, and as many returning lights of the Sun, beheld her, destitute of sleep and of food, going over hills and valleys, wherever chance led her. Tiber, last {of all}, beheld ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... sorrow! Flow tear upon tear— Lay the slain by the slayer, Made one on the bier! Our soul in distraction is lost, and we mourn o'er the ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... wrongs of the recent war, it is clearly absurd for Europe as a whole to pose in the presence of such doings as a qualified instructor in humanity and civilization. Many of those who are proudest of our fancied superiority escape when the chance offers from western civilization and seek distraction in exploration, and many who have spent their lives among what they consider inferior races are uneasy when they retire and settle at home. In fact European civilization is not satisfying and Asia can still offer something more attractive to many who are far from Asiatic in spirit. ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... lovers,' said her mother. 'I once had one; I was then in my sixteenth year, and superbly beautiful. My Angelo was a divine youth, and he loved me to distraction. Once, in a moment of intoxicating bliss, he swore to do whatever I commanded him, to test the sincerity of his life; and I playfully and thoughtlessly bade him go and kill himself for my sake. The words were forgotten by me, almost as soon as uttered. Angelo supped with me that night, ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion Could force his soul so to his own conceit That from her working all his visage wann'd; Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... in a full burst of flame, illuminating, with a ruddy glow, half the town, and all the faces of the inhabitants, who were collected to witness the catastrophe. Money, fiddle, shop-board—all were consumed! and when poor Hans danced and capered, in the very ecstasy of his distraction—"Ay," said his neighbors, "this comes of leaving a light in an empty house. It was just the thing to happen. Why don't you get somebody to take care ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... The thought staggered him, and he felt as if he had filled his mind with treason and sedition!... He could not say what Queen Victoria was, but with his own eyes he had seen London, and London had as little of romance in it as Hanging Sword Alley had. There were noise and scuffle and dingy distraction and mobs of little white-faced, nervous men and women, and a drab content with blotched beauty ... but none of these things had romance in them. He had been told that London flower-girls were pretty ... and he had seen only coarse and unclean women, with ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... magnifying glass with a universal joint in his mouth; so that one eye can see through it while he draws a beautifully small drawing of the new front of the house. I have just excited his envy even to clasping his hands in distraction, by telling him of a man I met with in the middle of Grainger's Worthies of England, who drew a mill, a miller, a bridge, a man and horse going over the bridge with a sack of corn, all visible, upon a surface that would just cover ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... and as infinite the modes of treating them in light and shadow and colour. "Whatever mode of composition is adopted, every variety and license is allowable." All that is absolutely necessary is, that there be no confusion or distraction, no conflicting masses—in fact, that the picture tell its tale at once and effectually. A very good plate is given by Mr Burnet of the "Marriage of Cana," by Paul Veronese. Sir Joshua avoids entering upon rules that belong to "the detail of the art." He meets with combatants, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... pictures and sculptures and the sights of Italy generally. I discerned from her remarks that she had traveled widely; indeed, she told me that both her father and mother were never happier than when moving from place to place in search of variety and distraction. We had entered the huge paneled hall of the Castle, and had passed up the quaint old stone staircase to the long banqueting hall with its paneled oak ceiling, which in these modern days had been transformed into a bright, pleasant drawing-room, from the windows of which was presented a marvelous ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... the Bride with proud song and humble feast, and sped her parting with optimistic symbolisms of fire and wine, of spice and light and shadow. All around their neighbors sought distraction in the blazing public-houses, and their tipsy bellowings resounded through the streets and mingled with the Hebrew hymns. Here and there the voice of a beaten woman rose on the air. But no Son of the Covenant was among the revellers or ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... whole ancient family into a hell of dishonour and contempt! It did indeed show what mere heartless windbags of effete theology those priests were! Skeletons they were, and no human beings at all!—Her father!—the thought of him was distraction! Her mother! Oh, if Leopold had had her mother for his too, instead of the dark-skinned woman with the flashing eyes, he would never have brought this upon them! It was all his mother's fault—the fault of her race—and of the horrible drug her people had taught him to take! And was he to go ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... is glittering sadness! Hark, I hear distraction's knell! Torture gilds my heart with madness! Now for ever ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... by Jack's unexpected abstention, which seemed to spare her pupils the distraction of his graces, Miss Mix smiled more amicably and retired with her charge. In the single glance he had exchanged with Sophy he saw that, although resigned and apparently self-controlled, she still appeared thoughtful and ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... sorrow. It is a long tale, that may be told hereafter. The worldly would call my love a madness. I did not reason on it then—I cannot reason on it now. Enough; death smote suddenly, terribly, and to me mysteriously, her whom I loved. The love lived on. Fortunately, perhaps, for me, I had quick distraction, not to grief, but to its inert indulgence. I was a soldier; I joined our armies. Men called me brave. Flattery! I was a coward before the thought of life. I sought death: like sleep, it does not come at our call. Peace ensued. As when the winds fall ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... the neighborhood without breathing a hint of it to any human being. I did not even think of doing so. Oh, Ishmael, I was in a state of distraction when I left home! Think of it! I had been tormented with anxiety for weeks before the receipt of these letters. For, listen: you know that Claudia sailed on the first of October. Well; I calculated it would take about two weeks for her to reach Liverpool, and about ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... Captain Carteret, "we might have purchased everything upon the Freewill Islands that we could have brought away. A few pieces of old iron hoop presented to one of the natives threw him into an ecstasy little short of distraction." At Otaheite the people were found generally well-behaved and honest; but they were not proof against the fascinations of iron. Captain Cook says that one of them, after resisting all other temptations, "was at ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... been broken forever. Any day she might take flight! She had said so very often. She would be going very soon—when the blossoms were off the orange-trees! What would be left for him then ... except to obey his mother? He would marry, and perhaps that would serve as a distraction. Little by little his affection for Remedios might grow. Perhaps in time he would even come to ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the blanket at the foot of the bed, she walked deliberately up to me, and began to lick my hand, while the look of gratitude and satisfaction she gave me amply repaid my interference in her behalf. It said, as plainly as possible, 'Now I have all I love about me, and without distraction can attend to you, my dear mistress, and not neglect my family. Now ...
— Minnie's Pet Cat • Madeline Leslie
... I may honestly admire. I bought an approved scheme of the noble art and mystery of stenography (which cost me ten and sixpence); and plunged into a sea of perplexity that brought me, in a few weeks, to the confines of distraction. The changes that were rung upon dots, which in such a position meant such a thing, and in such another position something else, entirely different; the wonderful vagaries that were played by circles; the unaccountable consequences that resulted from marks like flies' legs; ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... adoration in young girls is stronger than all social condemnations. To Bettina's thinking, justice had been deceived; if not, how could it have sentenced a man who had loved her for six months?—loved her to distraction in the hidden retreat to which he had taken her,—that he might, we may add, be at liberty to go his own way. Thus the dying girl inoculated her sister with love. Together they talked of the great drama which imagination ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... are consistent with a virtuous and elevated female mind. In short, all which esteem, gratitude, and pity, can inspire in such towards an agreeable man—indeed, all which the nicest delicacy can allow. In a word, she was in love with him to distraction. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... has lain so long unfinished, and I am now so engulfed in all sorts of worry, flurry, hurry, row, fuss, bustle, bother, dissipation and distraction, that it is vain hoping to add anything intelligible ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... to LOVBORG.] Firm as a rock! Faithful to your principles, now and for ever! Ah, that is how a man should be! [Turns to MRS. ELVSTED and caresses her.] Well now, what did I tell you, when you came to us this morning in such a state of distraction— ...
— Hedda Gabler - Play In Four Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... and his countenance was greatly disturbed. His resolutions in favour of the colonial interest, after all his labours, had been negatived by the committee on the 22nd, and on the 24th, his horse, Surplice, which he had parted with among the rest of the stud, solely that he might pursue without distraction his labours on behalf of the great interests of the country, had won that paramount and Olympian stake, to gain which had been the object of his life. He had nothing to console him, and nothing to sustain him except his pride. Even that deserted him before a heart which he knew at least could yield ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... and till death I'll love you to intense distraction; I'll spend for you my every breath, And we will live ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... forest of Chitraratha and inhabited by wild boars and various kinds of deer and birds, made it their home. Addicted to hunting as their chief occupation, the sons of Pritha peacefully dwelt in that forest for one year. There in a cavern of the mountain, Vrikodara, with a heart afflicted with distraction and grief, came across a snake of huge strength distressed with hunger and looking fierce like death itself. At this crisis Yudhishthira, the best of pious men, became the protector of Vrikodara and he, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... them coming, knew their errand—as who should better than the Terror of the Border?—and was glad. Death it might be, and such an one as he would wish to die—at least distraction from that long-drawn, haunting pain. And he smiled grimly as he looked at the approaching crowd, and saw there was not one there but he had ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... but the one most heavily underscored, and chief among them all, was the fact that the big girls did not seem to consider her a "little pitcher" or a "tag." No matter where they went or what they talked about, she was free to follow and to listen. It was interesting to the verge of distraction when they talked merely of Warwick Hall and the schoolgirls, or recalled various things that had happened at the first house-party. But when they discussed the approaching wedding, the guests, the gifts, the decorations, and the feast, she almost held her ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... a kind of distraction, but she remains standing at the entrance of the scene, where she with fearful curiosity looks on and off the combatants. The warriors go in ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... part in it, and without observing the characters of the persons, or the subjects of the conversation; but are either thinking of some trifle, foreign to the present purpose, or often not thinking at all; which silly and idle suspension of thought they would dignify with the name of ABSENCE and DISTRACTION. They go afterward, it may be, to the play, where they gape at the company and the lights; but without minding the very thing they went to, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... son's, and the first pull of the bell was not answered, her anxiety rose to distraction. The little mansion showed no sign of life from the ground to the ornamental roof-ridge, and, in spite of its much-admired style, had to her eyes a sinister appearance, as also had the adjoining lodging-house, not less architecturally admirable, but showing bills all along the high mullioned ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... to an end and a small fraction of the assembly filed out to the family burying ground on the hill behind the house. Here came a repetition of what had been enacted in the back parlour, only there was the distraction of the wind which would be playful and of a robin, perched on a near-by fence post, who would not be depressed but sang away its liquid, throaty warble as though the whole ceremony had been arranged for its own entertainment. It came quickly to an end. Mr. Mosby was sent on his ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... Primrose reduced to the verge of distraction yesterday because 'Willie would call her Leg ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... be myself. I cannot go on as I am. My faculties leave me: I think of nothing, I have no feeling about any thing but thee: thy sweet image has taken possession of me, haunts me, and will drive me to distraction. Yet I could almost wish to go mad for thy sake: for then I might fancy that I had thy love in return, which ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... compensation for this ruthless turning down Of the chief Elizabethan by a neo-Georgian clown, 'Tis averred that STOLL (Sir OSWALD), in a life of storm and stress, Finds distraction from his labours in the works of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... every human problem always opens another. People danced themselves into enormities of appetite and thirst. It was not that food was attractive in itself. Far from it. It was an interruption, a distraction from the tango; a base streak of materialism in the bacon of ecstasy. But it was necessary in order that strength might be ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... almost turns my dangerous nature wild] [W: mild] This emendation is specious, but even this may be controverted. To turn wild is to distract. An appearance so unexpected, says Timon, almost turns my savageness to distraction. Accordingly he examines with nicety lest his phrenzy, should ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... open and read. After some reflection, suggested by what he had heard of the lady-mother's state of mind, he recopied the letter, for the sake of embodying in it a certain suggestion. That letter was duly posted, and the next day brought the rich man almost in a state of distraction; but his chief and mastering terror was lest the mother of the already dead infant should hear, in her then precarious state, of what had happened. The tidings, he was sure, would kill her. Seeing this, the cunning husband of the nurse suggested that, for the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... the active annoyances are some sort of bitter distraction to the unfathomable grief—it is one little shade worse to lie solitary and motionless in the old scenes from which the sunlight ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... hatred of long years upon the little kingdom of England, and its only ally—the just organized commonwealth of the Netherlands—it would have been strange indeed if the dullest intellect had not dreamed of tragical events. It was not encouraging that there should be distraction in the counsels of the two States so immediately threatened; that the Queen of England should be at variance with her wisest and most faithful statesmen as to their course of action, and that deadly quarrels should exist between the leading men of the Dutch ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to prevent was, in the strangest and drollest, or at least in the most preposterous, way in the world, that not Cornelia's presence, but her very absence, with its distraction of his thoughts, the thoughts that lumbered after her, had made the difference; and without his being the least able to tell why and how. He put it to himself after a fashion by the image that, this distraction once created, his working round to his hostess again, his reverting to ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... in Nero's state of distraction, was eagerly embraced,—in such haste, indeed, that he left the palace without an instant's preparation, his feet destitute of shoes, and no garment but his close tunic, his outer garments and imperial robe ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... little reproach disguises the certitude that Caroline wishes to enjoy respecting the serious matters which Adolphe wishes to conceal. Adolphe then undertakes to narrate how he has spent the day. Caroline affects a sort of distraction sufficiently well played to induce the belief that ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... incredible. The statement of Hirsch, which was so absolutely fatal to his hopes, could by no means be admitted. It is true, too, that Hirsch's story had been told so incoherently, with such excessive signs of distraction, that it really looked improbable. It was extremely difficult, as the saying is, to make head or tail of it. On the bridge of the steamer, directly after his rescue, Sotillo and his officers, in their impatience and excitement, would ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... moral poisoners to poison themselves as well as their victims. This is a just retribution, and it fell upon this female Iago. Her wretched master now loved his wife to distraction, yet hated her to the death: and Ryder loved her master passionately, yet hated him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... suppose, by what has been before said, that the Lady on the Throne would have been almost frightened to Distraction, had she seen but any one of these Spectres; what then must have been her Condition when she saw them all in a Body? She fainted and dyed away at ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... solemn distraction, obviously thinking of something else. I suggested that he had better take the next city-ward tramcar. He was inattentive, and I perceived that he was profoundly perturbed. As Miss de Barral (she had moved out of sight) ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... phantasmagoria of diabolisms induce! The utmost patience fails to appease, the most industrious attendance fails to gratify, the deepest humility displeases. During these terrible transitions, which induce fierce distraction, Job himself would become irritable, insanely furious, and choleric. A man in such a state regards himself as the focus of all miseries. When recovered, he feels chastened, becomes urbane and ludicrously amiable, he conjures up fictitious delights from all things which, but yesterday, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... service, but cannot respond. Their hands are already filled. Yet Jesus whispers, "These for whom you are toiling, caring, and spending time and strength are mine, and in doing for them you are doing for me just as acceptable work as are those who are toiling without distraction or hindrance ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... knew her by sight—and she was in a very bad temper because she had been kept waiting. For the next half hour she badgered and worried Marcella to the point of distraction. Nothing suited her. Pile after pile, box after box, of shirtwaists did Marcella take down for her, only to have them flung aside with sarcastic remarks. Mrs. Liddell seemed to hold Marcella responsible for the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... announced, is after all a mere man in buckram; and I am almost sorry that in doing this, I shall be obliged to expose one more proof of Mr. Everett's having neglected the study of "the beggarly elements," in order to devote himself, without distraction, to the understanding of the delectable types and allegories of the New Testament. Mr. Everett certainly is a scholar and a man of talents, but he does not perfectly know, nor will [fn56] understand, ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... is of course a matter of no importance to Jerry. But since you ask, I don't mind telling you that I love her to distraction. Where are the boy's eyes? His ears? And all the rest of his receptive organs? If I were ten years younger—" and he patted his embonpoint regretfully, "I'd ask something of her charity, something immediate and practical. She should ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... particular, the poem concerning Alexei the Man of God, and all the multitude of other fair, but unsubstantial, forms wherein Russia has embodied her sad and terrified soul, her humble and protesting grief. Yet it was a process to depress one almost to the point of distraction. ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... sheltered us, would slip the scribblings into my hand at odd moments, but preferably before her husband's eyes. She demanded an account of every minute I spent apart from her, and never believed a syllable of my explanations; and in a sentence, she pestered me to the verge of distraction. ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... away, presumably to look after business interests, and Nancy thought that at such times the lawyer accompanied him. She had no friends of her own age, and Mrs. MacGregor wasn't, to say the least, companionable. And the books she was compelled to read bored her to distraction. She took it for granted they must be frightfully good, they were so frightfully dull! The deadliest, dullest of all seemed to be reserved for Sunday. She didn't mind going to church; in church you could watch other people, even though Mrs. MacGregor sat rigidly erect by your ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... errors to plead guilty to, he is less lenient to those of others. He was born an age too late. Had he lived a century or two ago, he would have been a happy as well as blameless character. But the distraction of the time has unsettled him, and the multiplicity of his pretensions have jostled with each other. No man in our day (at least no man of genius) has led so uniformly and entirely the life of a scholar from boyhood to the present hour, devoting himself to learning with the enthusiasm of ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... the wishes of friends being fresh in my mind to tax my ingenuity, I thought often and seriously of picking huckleberries; that surely I could do, and its small profits might suffice—for my greatest skill has been to want but little—so little capital it required, so little distraction from my wonted moods, I foolishly thought. While my acquaintances went unhesitatingly into trade or the professions, I contemplated this occupation as most like theirs; ranging the hills all summer ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... "The senses" he wrote, "are internecine. They shall have learned esprit de corps before they enslave us." This was one of his happiest flings to general from particular. "Visual distraction cries havoc to ultimate delicacy of palate" would but have pinned us a butterfly best a-hover; nor even so should we have had truth of why the aphorist, closing note-book and nestling back of head against that ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... of the moral excellence which should command love, by a flashing glance or a waving curl, she could bring the most exalted love down from the heavens. There was no question that Algernon had really loved her to distraction, and Algernon was a man of sense, of breeding, of distinction. As for Florrie, she had, of course, as little capacity for loving as she had ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... pets is as bad taste as to write in diary form, and, besides, I had made up my mind to have no pets on this expedition. They were a great deal of trouble and a source of distraction from work while they were alive; and one's heart was wrung and one's concentration disturbed at their death. But Kib came one day, brought by a tiny copper-bronze Indian. He looked at me, touched me tentatively with a mobile little paw, and my firm resolution melted away. A young ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... charity she has from her mother and the sterling honesty she gets from her father. John sometimes shrugs his shoulders at what he calls his wife's extraordinary faith in human nature, and both he and Mary are sometimes driven to the verge of distraction by Chrysophrasia's perpetual moaning over civilization; but no one is ever out of temper with Hermione, nor is Hermione ever impatient with any one of the three. She is the peace-maker, the one whose sympathy never fails, whose gentleness is never ruffled, and ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... subject hovered his thoughts; this gentle, quiet companion for the autumn of his life—the thought was singularly attractive—infinitely more so than the thought of Dora or Bee that had always possessed also an element of distraction alarming to ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... the role which she saw herself playing was that of a deft and courtly political intriguer, rallying the British element and making herself agreeable to the German element, a political inspiration to the one and a social distraction to the other. At the back of her mind there lurked an honest confession that she was probably over-rating her powers of statecraft and personality, that she was more likely to be carried along by the current of events than ...
— When William Came • Saki
... violent emotion the rapid and eager preparations for travel proved a useful distraction. There was no time to lose; and Natalie very speedily found that it was she herself who must undertake the duties of a courier, her mother being far too anxious and alarmed. Once or twice, indeed, the girl, regarding the worn, sad face, almost repented of having ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... mind the abnormal conditions in a prison—the misery of it, the dearth of variety and relaxation, the terrible yearning for some form, any form, of distraction and amusement. The male is parted from the female, and from the resource of children; his nerves are on edge, his natural propensities starved, his thoughts wandering and embittered; he finds no good anywhere, nor any hope of it. He will seize upon any means of abating or dulling his ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... in Council—for Cornaro and I, we had discussed the matter of the royal residence together, thinking it suited not with the Queen's dignity to remain longer in the fortress—a most mournful palace for one so young and who hath need of some distraction about her to keep her from oversadness. But Rizzo, being Chief of Council, would hear naught of the Queen's return to the Palace. Fabrici also ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... were less favored by practice, and the hits were distributed among the volunteer archers otherwise than they would have been in target-shooting. From this cause, perhaps, as well as from the twofold distraction of being preoccupied and wishing not to betray her preoccupation, Gwendolen did not greatly distinguish herself in these first experiments, unless it were by the lively grace with which she took her comparative failure. She was in white and green as on the day of the former meeting, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... distraction," said Peggy; "you are an angel, but I think you carry it too far. What would you say instead of 'brick?' how would you describe this boy—who simply is ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... you, stay. Don't you see that I love you to distraction? I have kept silent these many months. Now I must talk. ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... which is the saving grace of us all. Also the knowledge itself hurt him more than he could have believed. It seriously upset his equanimity for no less than a week; not indeed to the extent of damaging his appetite, or his sleep, but enough to make her society a distraction more bitter than sweet; enough to drive him into dining at the Strawberry Bank Hotel, though the cuisine of that mixed establishment compared very ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... different paths they tread, As blind impulse and wild distraction lead." —Eng. Poets: ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... very nearly the two hours of Henchard's estimate. Among the other urgent reasons for his presence had been the need of his authority to send to Budmouth for a second physician; and when at length Farfrae did come back he was in a state bordering on distraction at his ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... carriage we set out for the King's stand in the hunting-grounds, accompanied by a crowd of mounted game-keepers, who with great difficulty controlled the pack of sixty or seventy hounds, the dogs and keepers together almost driving me to distraction with their yelping and yelling. On reaching the stand, I was posted within about twenty' yards of a long, high picket-fence, facing the fence and covered by two trees very close together. It was from behind these that the King usually shot, and as I was ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... be difficult for any pen to paint the distraction of her father, thus placed in a state of divided apprehension between ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... rich, but my father had left me enough to keep me comfortably, and by living economically I had a sum at my command which enabled me to carry out my studies in a very complete way. When I returned to England I built myself a laboratory in a quiet country place where I could work without distraction or interruption. There I began a series of investigations which soon took me into regions of science to which none of the three famous men who ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Such has been the distraction of my mind in my story, that I have twice forgotten to tell you how much I liked the Modern Greek Songs. The article is printed and at press for the very next number as ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... admits, "but civility itself so thus uniform wearies and bothers me to death. If I do not mind I shall grow most stupid and sententious." With such apprehensions it is not surprising that he should have eagerly welcomed any distraction that chance might offer, and in December we find him joyfully informing his chief correspondent of the period, Mr. Foley—who to his services as Sterne's banker seems to have added those of a most helpful and trusted friend—that "there are a company of English strollers arrived here who are to ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill |
