"Distraction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... much desire of knowing, because great distraction and deception are found in it. Those who know, desire to seem and to be called wise. There are many things of which the knowledge is of little or no value to the soul, and the man is very foolish who turns to other things than those which ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... tore 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 ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... beauty, innocence, and simplicity. The most pathetic, perhaps, of all his works was never finished—Ophelia with the flowers she had gathered in her hand, sitting on the branch of a tree, which was breaking under her, whilst the moody distraction in her lovely countenance accounts for the insensibility to danger. Few painters have left so many examples in their works of the tender and delicate affections; and several of his pictures breathe a kindred spirit ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... from each other in dress rather than in face or thought. There are eminently manly men, that is to say men fearless, strong, honourable and active, to whom the common five o'clock tea presents as much distraction and offers as much womanly sympathy as they need; who choose their intimate friends among men, rather than among women, and who die at an advanced age without ever having been more than comfortably in love—and of such is the Kingdom of ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... dark; here was Uncle Reuben plotting Satan only could tell what; here was a white night-capped man coming bodily from the grave; here was my own sister Annie committed to a highwayman, and mother in distraction; most of all—here, there, and where—was my Lorna stolen, dungeoned, perhaps outraged. It was no time for shilly shally, for the balance of this and that, or for a man with blood and muscle to pat his nose ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... witnessed, constantly counteracted by the influence which Henry possessed over her, and an intense anxiety for the innocent girl she had committed to his reckless hands, had kept her in a state of mind bordering on distraction. Harding was one of those men, who, dogged and obstinate in one respect, was weak and manageable in all others. He blindly followed her dictates, as long as she persuaded him that her aim was to protect ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... own instructions as the leading text, and his pupil's knowledge took form according to these. In some cases, accident gave a text-in-chief, as when young Mill at ten years of age, studied Thomson's Chemistry, without the distraction of any other work. If there had been half-a-dozen Chemical manuals in existence, he would probably have read them all, and fared much worse. It happens, however, that, in the more exact sciences, there is a greater sameness in the leading ideas, ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... being derelict of God and Man, the misery of the idle, poor or rich. And this is one of the miseries of unoccupied childhood. The unoccupied adult, thus afflicted, tries many distractions which are, to say the least, unsuited to children. But one of them, the distraction of seeing the world, is innocent and beneficial. Also it is childish, being a continuation of what nurses call "taking notice," by which a child becomes experienced. It is pitiable nowadays to see men and women doing after the age of 45 all the travelling and sightseeing they should have done ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... 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, while expressing in terms of real feeling his admiration ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... overwhelmed, had to retire; opening his way by the bayonet; and before long, suddenly stopping short,—falling dead into Tebay's arms; shot through the heart. Two shots on the right side he had not regarded; but this on the left side was final: Keith's fightings are suddenly all done. Tebay, in distraction, tried much to bring away the body; but could by no present means; distractedly "rid for a coach;" found, on return, that the Austrians had the ground, and the body of his master; Hochkirch, Church and all, now ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... [Error in book: sxvelo] Distil distili. Distinct (clear) klara. Distinct neta, klara. Distinctive distingiga. Distinguish distingi. Distort tordigi. Distortion (grimace) grimaco. Distract distri. Distraction distreco. Distress cxagrenigi. Distress mizerigo. Distribute (scatter) dissxuti. Distribute (to share) disdoni. District kvartalo. Distrust malfidi. Distrust malfido. Distrustful malfidema. Disturb interrompi. Disturbance tumulto. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... Golden Lamb, engaged his room, made his ablutions, ordered, and, with his usual zest, partook of his evening meal; and then, feeling the pressure of that melancholic temperament which he so strangely associated with Herculean constitutions, roused himself up, and, seeking a distraction from thought, sauntered forth into ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... youth? Curse on his perjur'd arts! dissembling smooth! Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, Points to the parents fondling o'er their child? Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild? ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... obeyed all my brother's military commands with the utmost docility; and happy it made me that every sort of distraction, or question, or opening for demur, was swallowed up in the unity of this one papal principle, discovered by my brother, viz., that all rights of casuistry were transferred from me to himself. His was the judgment—his was the responsibility; and to me belonged only the sublime ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... loved play to distraction. One night, chagrined at a heavy loss, he pressed Nash to tie him up from deep play in future. The beau accordingly gave his Grace one hundred guineas on condition to receive ten thousand whenever he lost that amount at one sitting. The ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... 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 ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... blind; it was lost amidst a thousand shrieks of more selfish terror. Again and again she returned to the spot where they had been divided—to find her companions gone, to seize every fugitive—to inquire of Glaucus—to be dashed aside in the impatience of distraction. Who in that hour spared one thought to his neighbor? Perhaps in scenes of universal horror, nothing is more horrid than the unnatural selfishness they engender. At length it occurred to Nydia, that as it had ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... The Court of the municipal magistrate was a convenient common-ground and clearing-house for our manifold nationalities. It has now been, for all purpose of serious utility, abolished, and the result is distraction. There was a recent trumpery case, heard by Mr. Cooper amid shouts of mirth. It resolved itself (if I remember rightly) into three charges of assault with counter-charges, and three of abusive language with the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... made perhaps ten miles when there was a distraction. A horse came galloping toward them. A dozen rifles were drawn from their gunboats. When the horse drew near, it made a detour, avoiding them, and eyes accustomed to the darkness could see that it was riderless. With no pause, but commenting on ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... church bells which attends the sun's rising. There is terrible energy, not to say harshness, in thus ushering in the day. On a mountain side, or in some remote village, the distant sound of bells is musical enough, but here it is dinned into our ears to distraction; and there seems no method in the madness of these sturdy Catholics, for they make the tower of St. Pierre vibrate to most uncertain sounds. They ring out all at once with a burst and tumble over one another, hopelessly involved, en masse; a combination terribly dissonant to unaccustomed ears. ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... home for tonight. I want to be quite alone with my daughter; there are many things I wish to speak of to her, and to her alone. Perhaps, even tomorrow, I will be able to tell you also of them; but in the meantime there will be less distraction to us both if we are alone in the house." I quite understood and sympathised with his feelings; but the experiences of the last few days were strong on me, and with some hesitation ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... me with solemn distraction, obviously thinking of something else. I suggested that he had better take the next city-ward tram-car. He was inattentive, and I perceived that he was profoundly perturbed. As Miss de Barral (she had moved out of sight) could not possibly approach the hotel door as long ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... stand against her? If her power over him is lessened, it is that she has not chosen to exert it She has but to will it, and he is again her slave. Twenty-eight days! twenty-eight days of doubt and distraction.' And starting up, he walked out into the park, not choosing the swept path, but wading knee-deep in snow where it lay thickest in the glades. He was recalled to himself by sinking up to his shoulders in a hollow. He emerged with ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... of New York and unconditional supporters of the national government, convinced that a union of all loyal citizens of the United States upon the basis of a common patriotism is essential to the safety and honour of the country in this crisis of its affairs; that the present distraction and apathy which depress the friends of the Union threaten to throw the Government into the hands of its enemies; and that a convention of the people should be assembled to consider the state of the nation and to concentrate the union strength on some one candidate, who commands the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... begged of him not to affect himself so much—that he would resume his fortitude and trust to his own judgment—in short, I said a great deal which I remember now no more; my sensations were little short of distraction at that time. In an hour or two after he grew much worse, and Dr. Watson coming in persuaded him to go to bed, and giving him a ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... natural plan would be to sort them both out, and then design a school system expressly in order to fit one to the other. At present there was no fixed purpose, but a perpetual riot of changes, resulting in distraction of mind, discontinuity of purpose, and increase of cost, while happiness decayed because desires grew faster than possessions or the sense of achievement. The only really scientific basis for a ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... Bd. lvi, 1894, p. 319), tells us that, when a female white rat is introduced into the cage of a male, he at once leaves off eating, or whatever else he may be doing, becomes indifferent to noises or any other source of distraction, and devotes himself entirely to her. If, however, he is introduced into her cage the new environment renders him nervous and suspicious, and then it is she who takes the active part, trying to attract him in every way. The impetuosity during heat of female animals ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Andrew Drever took a secret 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 ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... fairly successful, the income would pay expenses, carry them along and help keep their capital intact. Dr. Everett heartily approved the plan, not only because it might prove a source of steady income, but also because it would be distraction for the widow and help her to forget. Mrs. Blaine somewhat reluctantly consented, and the girls set out enthusiastically ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... at his feet, it was a rose. She had cast it to him and now she was coming down the stairway towards him, where he stood, the rose in his hand and distraction ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... previously in a crescent state, actually dilated to a plenilunar orb. The Westmoreland people (for at the lakes it was we knew him) expounded his condition to us by saying that he was "maffled;" which word means "perplexed in the extreme." His wrath did not pass into lunacy; it produced simple distraction; an uneasy fumbling with the idea; like that of an old superannuated dog who longs to worry, but cannot for want of teeth. In this condition you will judge that he was rather tedious. And in this condition Coleridge took him up. Andrew's other idea, because ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... day he found himself thinking more of the unknown Englishwoman than was consistent with a strict performance of his duties. He was vexed with himself on account of this foolish distraction of mind. ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... holding between her thumb and finger a little china cup of tea well laced, she called it, with Cognac, remarked,—"They fairly run the Intendant down, Froumois: there is not a girl in the city but laces her boots to distraction since it came out that the Intendant admires a neat, trim ankle. I had a trim ankle myself when I was ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... society, which came into being before literature, and, in all the distraction of its multifarious concerns, can hardly keep a school for Style. It is rather a demonstration of the necessity, amid the wealthy disorder of modern civilisation, for poetic diction. One of the hardest of a poet's tasks is the search for ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... liberty gains ground, in spite of so much injustice and folly. I confess, however, that I sometimes feel the strange emotion that a man might experience on seeing, after the lapse of years, the lovely woman whom he loved to distraction at twenty, in the arms of a person whom he ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... madly in love with her, seriously intent on lawful wedlock. Luckily for me she threw me over for a neighbouring pork butcher, but at the time I took it hardly, and it made me sex-shy. I was a very poor man in those days. One feels one's griefs more keenly then, one hasn't the wherewithal to buy distraction. Besides, ladies snubbed me rather, on the rare occasions I met them. Later I fell in for a legacy, the forerunner of several; indeed, I may say I am beastly rich. My tastes are simple too, and I haven't any poor relations. ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... discovered by Tussie I do not know, but I imagine it would have been something bad. She was saved, however, by his being in bed, clutched by the throat by a violent cold; and there he lay helpless, burning and shivering and throbbing, the pains of his body increased a hundredfold by the distraction of his mind about Priscilla. Why, Tussie asked himself over and over again, had she looked so strange the night before? Why had she gone starving to bed? What was she doing to-day? Was the kitchenmaid taking proper ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... empty salle-a-manger Domini asked herself the question. She was restless, terribly restless in mind, and wanted distraction. The idea of going to her room, of reading, even of sitting quietly in the verandah, was intolerable to her. She longed for action, swiftness, excitement, the help of outside things, of that exterior life which ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... become marked which exist between them. Moreover, men undertake journeys for divers purposes, and a pilgrimage in Chaucer's day united a motley group of chance companions in search of different ends at the same goal. One goes to pray, the other seeks profit, the third distraction, the fourth pleasure. To some the road is everything; to others, its terminus. All this vanity lay in the mere choice of Chaucer's framework; there was accordingly something of genius in the thought itself; and even an inferior workmanship could hardly have left a description of ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... "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 of chair, ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... mother was sleeping peacefully, Mary put on her hat and went out. She wanted, in her then state of mind, to walk in the solitude which can only be found in crowded places, and also she wanted some kind of distraction. Her days had lately been so filled with adventure that the placid immobility of the top back room was not only irksome, but maddening, and her mother's hasty and troubled breathing came between her and her thoughts. The poor furniture of the room was hideous to her eyes, ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... The thought was distraction. She plucked out handfuls of her pale gold hair, the pretty blonde hair which had been almost as famous in Paris as Beaufort's or Madame de Longueville's yellow locks. The thought of De Malfort's ridicule cut her like a whalebone whip. She had ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... Robert's! It drove me to distraction, and every instinct to be wicked and attractive that I possess came up in me. I leaned over to Lady Ver, so that I must be close to him, and I said little things to her, never one word to him; but I moved my seat, making it certain the corner of his eye must catch sight of me, and I allowed ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... true," interrupted the Russian quickly. "I went from curiosity, for distraction. You see, since the war I have lived in Dublin. I had there a friend, very highly placed in the administration. He married. One lived terrible hours during the revolt. I decided to come to London, especially as—However, I do not wish to fatigue you ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... fastidious in my diet." Then he continued, in a wild and eccentric manner: "Gronow, do you remember the beautiful Martha, the Hebe of Spiers's? She was the loveliest girl I ever saw, and I loved her to distraction." ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... he is as yet undetermined what to do with himself. He is but just arrived. He fears every thing; his father's displeasure, and how his mistress may be disposed toward him. He loves her to distraction: on her account, this trouble and going ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... inspection of Carlsruhe. I would distinguish less honorably that small oblique looking-glass inserted in the bevel of the window-jamb, and common to all the dwellings of Carlsruhe—a handy article, an entertaining distraction, a discreet but immoral spy, which places at your mercy all the mysteries of the public street. This contrivance, which enables you to see the world without being seen, certainly gives you a tempting advantage over the untimely caller or the impertinent creditor; but it encourages, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... of the heart is in prayer of more consequence than the manner of expression. Yet an appropriate form of prayer is helpful in avoiding distraction and in inducing devotion. Our Divine Saviour taught His disciples to make use of a special form ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings
... not because the world has grown too familiar to us; on the contrary, it is because we do not see it in its aspect of unity, because we are driven to distraction by ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... silence and idleness, thinking of nothing but war and feeling nothing but war. He had war cold as the fragments of an exploded shell beside a dead man on a frozen road; war analysed and docketed for exhibition, without its noise, its distraction, and ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... that, however true his reflections were, he had chosen a bad moment for abandoning himself to them. Indeed, Madame Denis took so sovereign an air of dignity, that D'Harmental saw that he had not an instant to lose if he wished to efface from her mind the bad impression which his distraction had caused. ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... thesis cannot long remain in doubt. Through whatever amazement and distraction, it becomes clear enough at last. Clothes, which at once reveal and hide the man who wears them, are an allegory of the infinitely varied aspects and appearances of the world, beneath which lurk ultimate realities. But essential man is a naked animal, not a ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... He turned for distraction to the landscape, with its April clouds, trim hedgerows, homely coverts. But strange ideas would come, and he was discontented with himself; the conversation he had had, the personality of this young foreigner, disturbed him. It was all as though he had made a start ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... his good looks (for he was well made and handsome), the King's daughter found him very much to her liking, and the Marquis of Carabas had no sooner cast two or three respectful and somewhat tender glances than she fell in love with him to distraction. The King would have him come into the coach and take part in the airing. The Cat, overjoyed to see his plan begin to succeed, marched on before, and, meeting with some countrymen, who were mowing a ...
— The Tales of Mother Goose - As First Collected by Charles Perrault in 1696 • Charles Perrault
... earth. In his present interpositions in behalf of Zion, God mirrored forth his purpose to give her a final and universal victory. And so it was with all the other prophets. With their backs towards the gloom and distraction of the present, and their faces steadfastly turned towards the glory of the latter days, they uttered words of promise and comfort that can have their fulfilment only in Christ's kingdom, which is the true heir to all the promises made to the ancient Zion. ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... done—and oh, by Jove, Not altered by a fraction! If then they were too sweet to love, What are they now? Distraction. ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... snoring for me. After that night it required frequent bathing and much searching for a week or ten days before I felt free from the awful pests of that filthy den. Thus it was that my first crossing of the Jordan did not bring me to a "land of rest," but to an experience akin to distraction. ...
— My Three Days in Gilead • Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal
... it did not matter, and having exhausted this small vein of distraction she returned to the music-room and the Bach fugue, as one, who has had a fall, rises and tries to go on as before, ignoring the shock and the bruisings. But the shock had been too severe. Tom Gordon had proved ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... on the desk; and at the rear of the room a connecting door, leading presumably to the bedroom, was open. A clean-shaven, dark-eyed man of perhaps thirty-five, Kenleigh obviously, was pacing nervously up and down. His face was pale, his hair ruffled; and, in his distraction, apparently, he had forgotten to remove the cloak which he was wearing over his evening clothes. In the far corner of the room, Meighan, the detective, knelt upon the floor amidst a scene of grotesque disorder. ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... 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 ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... and at no time was he ever more amiable or anxious to please. He visited the manufactures, inspected dock-yards, reviewed troops, addressed the sailors, and attended the ball's given in his honor in all the towns through which he passed; and amid this life of seeming pleasure and distraction, he exerted himself almost more than in the quiet, monotonous life of the camp, and was affable, gracious, and accessible to all his subjects. But in these processions, in the very midst of these ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... upgrows the weeping alder, And the aspen of confusion, And the pine-tree of distraction, And the deep remorse of birch-tree? Where I sorrow, springs the alder; Where I tremble, sprouts the aspen; Where I weep, the pine is verdant; Where ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... and frightened, and had (my friend explained to me, in great choler) been endeavouring for some hours to apply leeches to his leg, and as yet had only got on two out of twenty. To this Unfortunate's distraction between a damp cloth on which he had placed the leeches to freshen them, and the wrathful adjurations of my friend to 'Stick 'em on, sir!' I referred the phenomenon I had encountered: the rather as two fine specimens were at that moment going out at the ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... of solitude, as well as student and dreamer, the church warden's favorite resort, when his duties left him at leisure, was a dense grove not far from the town. Thither he went when he wished to be free from all distraction, to think and dream over many things which would appear nonsensical to his sober, practical-minded neighbors. There he indulged in day dreams and poetic fancies; and once, when in a sentimental mood, he carved the initials of the lady of his love ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... Bunyan, of the town of Bedford, labourer," was indicted in the customary form for having "devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to church to hear Divine Service," and as "a common upholder of several unlawful meetings and conventions, to the great disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of the kingdom." The chairman of the bench was the brutal and blustering Sir John Keeling, the prototype of Bunyan's Lord Hategood in Faithful's trial at Vanity Fair, who afterwards, by his base ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... best and to carry it through as he could, unhampered by those popular suffrages and Parliamentary checks and privileges which he held to be mere euphemisms for ruin and mutual throat-cutting all through the British Islands in their then state of distraction; and it must therefore have been a serious consideration with him how far, in the public interests, or for his own comfort, he could put himself in new shackles for the mere name of King. What, for example, of the proposed restitution of the ninety-and-odd ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... seek distraction in my old College. I floated out into the untenanted meadows. Over them was the usual coverlet of white vapour, trailed from the Isis right up to Merton Wall. The scent of these meadows' moisture is the scent of Oxford. Even in ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... is humming, sirs, As a swarm of bees were bumming, sirs, And I fear distraction 's coming, sirs, My passion such a flame is. My very eyes are blinding, sirs, Scarce giant mountains finding, sirs, Nor height nor distance minding, sirs, The crag, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... gaining time, but really finally results in great loss of time in the recitation. By actual count, many teachers have been found to repeat as many as 75% of the answers given in the recitation. Besides the great waste of time, the repetition of answers is a source of distraction and annoyance to pupils. No one enjoys having his words said over after him constantly. Of course answers may sometimes need to be repeated to emphasize some important point. But when repetition has become a habit, no emphasis ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... are thus constituted. The gods, too, were just like this in Olympus. Diana and Venus, no doubt, abused the beautiful Alcmena and poor Io, when they condescended, for distraction's sake, to speak, amidst nectar and ambrosia, of mortal beauties, at the table ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... letter home, 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, ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... times I laugh bitterly at myself, and see clearly my own natural misery. I come then to see the exceeding favour of the Lord in that He ever holds this insane fool fast in prayer and holiness. What would those who love and honour me think if they saw their friend in this dotage and distraction? I reflect at such times on the great hurt our original sin has done us. For it is from our first fall that all this has come to us that we so wander from God, and are so often utterly incapable of God. But it is not so much Adam's sin as my own that works in me all this alienation ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... me signify my desire. Upon which I kneeled, and engaged to kiss her hand. She immediately, with an averted look, stretched it out: I imprinted on it an ardent kiss, and, bathing it with my tears, cried, "Dear Madam, I am an unfortunate gentleman, and love you to distraction, but would have died a thousand deaths rather than make this declaration under such a servile appearance, were I not determined to yield to the rigour of my fate, to fly from your bewitching presence, and bury my presumptuous passion in eternal silence." With these words I rose, and went away ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... June day, and out of the welter of din and rumble the cool plash of falling water came to his straining ears refreshingly. At once he considered the dog and, thankful for the distraction, stepped beneath the portico of a provision store and indicated the marble basin with a gesture ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... lamented; "here I have seen a man whom I do not like—once, for an hour—and he has so troubled my quiet that I cannot put my mind upon my work. What does it matter, and why should a stranger who displeases me have power to compel my thoughts? It was but a trifle—the distraction of an hour, nothing more—and, whether I like him or not, by to-morrow I shall have forgotten ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... 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
... their masters' advantage, so the mind of man, which at present is enslaved to the body and the service thereof, when once it becomes free from this slavery, will take care of itself, and spend its time in contemplation of truth without distraction or disturbance. Such were our discourses ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... of 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; it escaped, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... alternation of joy or fear, and shout advice or exhortation as though their voices could reach their distant friends.[1041] Marius, who conducted the assault at that portion of the wall which commanded this absorbing view, formed the idea of encouraging this distraction of attention by a feint and seizing the momentary advantage which it afforded. A remissness and lack of confidence was soon visible in the efforts of his men, and the undisturbed interest of the ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... eccentricities! Nevertheless, Mr. Morehouse thought it natural that her health and spirits should suffer; and because of his old and close friendship with Franklin Merriam he longed to find some wholesome distraction for Angela. ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... often arises, not from those mental efforts by which we obtain the mastery of the subject, but from those which are spent in recalling our wandering thoughts; and these efforts of attention would be much less fatiguing if the disturbing force of mental distraction could be removed. ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell
... 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 to pick the berries which came in my ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... to distraction. All her future depended on the character which she was able to maintain at school. She did not, and she knew it, belong to the best class of girls who attended Middleton School. Elma's father was a man ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... the bleak, loud whistling wind! Its crushing blast recalls to mind The dangers of the troubled deep; Where, with a fierce and thundering sweep, The winds in wild distraction rave, And push along the mountain wave With dreadful swell and hideous curl! Whilst hung aloft in giddy whirl, Or drop beneath the ocean's bed, The leaky bark without a shred Of rigging sweeps through ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... instantly, seeing that she was in a state of mind that bordered upon distraction, and that he could not safely leave her. He sat down beside her, therefore, making her as comfortable as he could; and she presently slept with her head upon his shoulder. It was but a broken slumber, however, and she awoke from it crying wildly that a man was being ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... as to refuse his present chance, she would never forgive him. She would bring up to him continually the golden opportunity he had let slip, and weary his very soul. She was the sort of soft, pretty woman who could nag a man to the verge of distraction. She knew that inestimable art to perfection. She felt, as she lay on the sofa and toyed with the ribbons of her pretty and expensive teagown, that she had her weapons ready to hand. Then, with an irritated flash, ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... had already tasted the bitter draft of war making. The people had become bitter to the point of losing care of their own safety. They were reckless, driven to distraction. ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... did, I must own, adopt rash counsels. But it is not their illegality so much as his weakness in threatening when he wanted strength to punish, that I condemn. If your objection to the royal cause be founded on the distraction and imbecility that have marked the measures by which it has been supported, I must cease to rouse your dormant loyalty. It is not in the defenceless tents of our Prince that we must seek for safety; we must leave him to his fate, on the ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... nomenclature, must vanish. Such tales may have their use; but they are not the proper food for soldiers. As little can we admit the sorrows and sympathies of the Homeric heroes:—Achilles, the son of Thetis, in tears, throwing ashes on his head, or pacing up and down the sea-shore in distraction; or Priam, the cousin of the gods, crying aloud, rolling in the mire. A good man is not prostrated at the loss of children or fortune. Neither is death terrible to him; and therefore lamentations over the dead ...
— The Republic • Plato
... came into his tent, and, with looks of the utmost embarrassment, big with some design which swelled his bosom, something that was too large and burdensome to conceal, and yet too critical to be told, appeared to be in a state of great distraction. The Major, seeing him in this condition, kindly, gently, like a fast and sure friend, employed (to use his own expression) some of those assurances that tend to make men fully open their hearts; and accordingly, ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... contumelious boy had dared to be guilty of such an act of gross impudence," cried the colonel, "I should be tempted to resume my arms, in my old age, to punish his effrontery. What! is it not enough that he entered my dwelling in the colony, availing himself of the distraction of the times, with an intent to rob me of my choicest jewel—ay! gentlemen, even of my brother Harry's daughter—but that he must also invade this hallowed island with a like purpose, thus thrusting his treason, as it were, into the presence of his abused ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Inclination to do her Injury. He seemed to recover himself, and smiling also proceeded in his Work. Immediately after the Operation he cried out, that he was the most unfortunate of all Men, for that he had open'd an Artery instead of a Vein. It is as impossible to express the Artist's Distraction as the Patient's Composure. I will not dwell on little Circumstances, but go on to inform you, that within three days time it was thought necessary to take off her Arm. She was so far from using Festeau as it would be natural to one of a lower Spirit to treat him, that ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... those newly ennobled dukes, his contemporaries and would-be brethren, whose monstrous claims to rank with himself and the other real magnificences among the ducs et pairs de France drove him to distraction. It was now let out to a multitude of families, who began downstairs in affluence and ended in the genteel or artistic penury of the garrets. The first floor was occupied by a deputy and ex-minister, one of the leaders of the Centre ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... her cup of bitterness had been filled anew, yet the distraction of a new grief, in which there was a certain remorseful self-reproach, had the effect of blunting the sharp edge of her first sorrow. In this new cause for dread she was compelled in some degree to forget herself. She saw the intense solicitude of her father and mother, who had been so readily ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... Mr. Secretary St. John's warrant for high treason, and brought before the Lords to be examined; there he stabbed Mr. Harley. I have told all the particulars already to the Archbishop. I have now, at nine, sent again, and they tell me he is in a fair way. Pray pardon my distraction; I now think of all his kindness to me.—The poor creature now lies stabbed in his bed by a desperate French Popish villain. Good-night, and God preserve you both, and pity me; I ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... Why, beside and along our railway lines. These are the great public parks of England; and through them travels daily a vast population held in enforced idleness, seeking distraction in its morning paper. Have you ever observed how a whole carriageful of travellers on the Great Western line will drop their papers to gaze out on Messrs. Sutton's trial-beds just outside Reading? A garish ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I felt increasing upon me that dreadful doubt as to my own identity—as to the continuity of my past and present existence—which is the first sign of that distraction which comes on those who have lost themselves in the bush. I had fought against this feeling hitherto, and had conquered it; but the intense silence and gloom of this rocky wilderness were too much for me, and I felt that my power of collecting myself ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... charming than the quaint, sententious phrases. What a delight to be with Peggy Saville again after those weeks of fashionable visiting! What a contrast she was to the society belles, who made the same remarks, laughed the same laugh, smiled the same forced artificial smiles! They had bored him to distraction, but there was no feeling bored in Peggy's society; she was always interesting, always bright, always charming. He felt no more doubts as to his own feeling, for absence had made him only the more appreciative of Peggy's charms. He loved her, he could not endure to part from her, she ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... in which the huge folly of these later days had been born. For her very coming seemed to have been at a chosen time—at one of those periods of weariness which a man must feel whose sympathy with and desire for life leads him into many and devious forms of distraction, only to find in time the same dregs at the bottom of the cup. The joy of her fresh childish beauty, her pure sweet trustfulness, at all times a delicate flattery to any man, just the more so to me, a little inclined towards self-distrust, was like a fragrant, a heart-stirring ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... illustration of the insignificant things that serve to call off our minds from the pursuit of holy studies. The devil would dispute through a whole service about a couple of flies, rather than permit a saint to wait upon God without distraction. It shows that we need to be very watchful against the influence of that arch enemy, even in the ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... and nothing about my neck; and he soothing me, with an aspect of pity and concern, I put my hand to his mouth, and said, O tell me, yet tell me not, what have I suffered in this distress? And I talked quite wild, and knew not what: for, to be sure, I was on the point of distraction. ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... maiden's life; but nothing of the highroad with its wayfarers, the convoys of provisions for the war, the fighting men that were coming and going. Yet these, too, must have filled a large part in the village life, and it is evident that a strong impression of the pity of it all, of the distraction of the country and all the cruelties and miseries of which she could not but hear, must have early begun to work in Jeanne's being, and that while she kept silence the fire burned in her heart. The love of God, and that love of country which ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... as the residents 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 is that our hearts should dwell in the Fortress, and should ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... comparison. Rudin was excellent at developing any idea, he was capital in argument, but his ideas did not come from his own brain; he borrowed them from others, especially from Pokorsky. Pokorsky was quiet and soft—even weak in appearance—and he was fond of women to distraction, and fond of dissipation, and he would never take an insult from any one. Rudin seemed full of fire, and courage, and life, but at heart he was cold and almost a coward, until his vanity was touched, then he would not stop at anything. He always tried ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... really!" Her eyes gazed up at him, limpidly clear, and emptied of self. "I have to run up and down stairs so many times to baby now that I couldn't go, no matter how much I was asked to. I'm only glad that you will have the distraction—you need it. I hope you'll ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... desires and the shafts of ridicule. She stroked her master's bright red hair and kissed him again. They felt very well content with themselves this morning. Archie certainly ought to have congratulated himself. He had a young wife, who loved him to distraction and who was extremely well-to-do, and, moreover, had no inconvenient relatives to "cut up ugly" over her imprudent step. There was only a trust company to reckon with, and what can a trust company do when it feels ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... distraction, carried her child, with the assistance of the sorrowing Abbe, into a cab, she turned towards the porch ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... in so far as they needed them, but to be intent on them, and for their sake to do whatever they are bidden to do in preaching the Gospel." Yet the possession of much wealth increases the weight of care, which is a great distraction to man's mind and hinders him from giving himself wholly to God's service. The other two, however, namely the love of riches and taking pride or glorying in riches, result only from ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... perusal of the poems is to counteract the impression often produced by the jaunty air assumed in the prose. The real substance of Arnold's thought is characterized by a deep seriousness; no one felt more deeply the spiritual unrest and distraction of his age. More than one poem is an expression of its mental and spiritual sickness, its doubt, ennui, and melancholy. Yet beside such poems as Dover Beach and Stagirius should be placed ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... game. Between trying to read into these other guy's brains and keeping them from opening mine, and blocking the Greek's sly stunt of tipping over the poker chips as a distraction, I was also concerned about the eight thousand bucks that was in the pot. The trouble was that all four of us fully intended to rake it in. My straight flush would be good for the works in any normal game with wild cards, but the way this bunch ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... again for a long time. The old man sat holding her hand; her mother sat on the farther side of the bed, leaning against one of the foot-posts, and watching the white face of her darling with eyes in which love ruled distraction. Dorothy sat in one of the window-seats, and listened to the music, which still came surging in, for still the fool blew the bellows, and the blind youth struck the keys. And still the clouds gathered overhead and sunk towards the earth; and ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... of his great faults, to create a respect in the minds of those around him, which is itself a great element of love. But there was something in his manner which told of love for others. He was one who could hate to distraction, and on whom no bonds of blood would operate to mitigate his hatred. He would persevere to injure with a terrible persistency; but yet in every phase of his life he had been actuated by love for others. He had never been selfish, thinking always of others ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... feel like distraction when I'm all stiff and starchy and uncomfortable," Patricia said; "I'd rather ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... handsome youth?" Replied the old woman, "I know nothing of him save that I think he must be some great King's son, for he attaineth comeliness in excess and extreme loveliness." And the Lady Dunya fell in love with him to distraction; the spells which bound her were loosed and her reason was overcome by his beauty and grace; and his fine stature and proportions strongly excited her desires sexual. So she said, "O my nurse! this is indeed a handsome youth;" and the old woman ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... impulse, and he asked his father to let him join the army, but was told, peremptorily, not to interrupt the first year of his studies. He submitted, and plunged into the study of the literature of the Romanticists, which, in its remoteness from actuality, offered distraction from his disappointment. During this time he fell ill of typhoid fever, from which he did not fully recover until the campaign had victoriously ended in the battle of Leipzig. He joined, however, after Napoleon's escape from Elba, the second ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... hunter answered gravely: "From distraction free, and strife, You could ponder very bravely ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... her room, she would begin laughing and crying at the same time, with a sort of tearless grief, or else relapse into convulsions, and scream out dreadful, incoherent words in a horrible voice. It was the first dire sorrow which she had known in her life, and it reduced her almost to distraction. She would begin accusing first one person, and then another, of bringing this misfortune upon her, and rail at and blame them with the most extraordinary virulence, Finally she would rise from her arm-chair, pace the room for ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... mind she hailed the festival of the Devil Dance as a welcome distraction. Not even the impertinent curiosity of the spectators could drive her from her balcony. She followed the many phases with interest, although she could not understand the meaning of them. For the performance was a curious mixture of religion and blasphemous mockery, of horse-play and ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... 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 ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... sight, he hears himself unexpectedly called to by name, and in a voice with which he is familiar. Not doubting that the voice proceeds from some of his comrades, the unhappy man is beguiled from the right direction; and soon finding himself utterly confounded as to the path, he roams about in distraction until he perishes miserably. If, on the other hand, this perilous separation of himself from the caravan should happen at night, he is sure to hear the uproar of a great cavalcade a mile or two to the right or left of the true track. He is thus seduced on one side: ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... move it towards diverse objects when it stops. He should not taste any pleasure (sukham) and by wisdom remain unattached, by strong effort making it motionless and still. When he neither passes into dissolution nor into distraction; when there is no sign, no appearance that is the perfect Brahman. When there is no object of knowledge to come into being, the unproduced is then called ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... extraordinarily instructive, though there is a good deal of quaint and not despicable erudition wrapped up in his apparently careless pages. It may be that he does not prove much; that he has, in fact, very little concern to prove anything. But in one of the only two modes of refreshment and distraction possible in literature, he is a very great master. The first of these modes is that of creation—that in which the writer spirits his readers away into some scene and manner of life quite different from that with which they are ordinarily ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... throughout these gallant fetes. Like the fascination of Venice, I do not know what veiled and sighing poetry in low tones holds here the charmed spirit. The man has passed across his work; and this work you come to regard as the play and distraction of a suffering thought, like the playthings of a sick child ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... lost her recollection and presence of mind. She has been assisted to filet de soles. Say that the only sauce ever taken with them is au macedoine—this is offered to her, and, at the same time, another, which to eat with the above dish would be unheard of. In her distraction she is about to take the wrong sauce—actually at the point of ruining herself for ever and committing suicide upon her fashionable existence, while the keen grey eyes of Sir Antinous Antibes, the arbiter of fashion, are fixed upon her. At this awful moment, which is ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the Earl, partly to avoid distraction from the mild Havana he was lighting, partly to consider ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... action. It seems, that after pronouncing some incantations over a certain composition, which he had prepared on the night preceding the action, he assured his followers, that by the power of his art, half of the invading army was already dead, and the other half in a state of distraction; and that the Indians would have little to do but rush into their camp, and complete the work of destruction with their tomahawks. "You are a liar," said one of the surviving Winnebagoes to him, after ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... a life! what manners! what distraction! A bride just coming home without a portion; A Music-Girl already there in keeping: A house of waste; the youth a libertine; Th' old man a dotard!—'Tis not in the pow'r Of Providence herself, howe'er desirous, To save ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... of 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
... tell you in a moment, but I must begin at the beginning. All this ruinous idleness and distraction is caused by the misery of our not being able to meet with freedom. The fear that something may snatch you from me keeps me in ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... far as this world was concerned, few persons in it had such reasons for wishing to live, or so much to render life attractive. But the feeling in her heart had become overpowering that no earthly happiness, no interest, no distraction, could any longer satisfy her, or give her content, away from Christ; and she longed to be with Him, where He is. During the past three months especially, she had passed through very unusual exercises of mind ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... distraction she had burst into tears, and had caught hold of the little one near her, pressing him to her breast as if to shield him from the other, the unknown son, the stranger, who by his resurrection threatened to thrust himself in some degree ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... it's not a thing to be refused. My supper must be cold at the inn of the 'Clock'; and your viands, smoking on their chafing dishes, have already caused me more than one fit of distraction. Besides, here are some yellow glass flutes, on which Fougas will not be at all reluctant ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... distraction by the horror of her predicament, he worked with a cool, swift efficiency. Only the pale, anxiety-drawn expression on his face showed how great was the strain. He finished the last spectrometer observation, snatched out a pad ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... a new gown that disclosed her firm, rounded young bosom, like a rosebud within its calyx—the distraction upon her brow somehow adding to the charm of her face—and Ben thought her the most wonderful girl he had ever known, so outwardly at ease and in command was she. "Could any one," he thought, ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... to keep the Church from being liberalised? there was such apathy on the subject in some quarters, such imbecile alarm in others; the true principles of Churchmanship seemed so radically decayed, and there was such distraction in the councils of the clergy. The Bishop of London of the day, an active and open-hearted man, had been for years engaged in diluting the high orthodoxy of the Church by the introduction of the Evangelical body into places of influence and ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... reviews, form in themselves a library great enough to stagger human weakness. Besides all this—in a sense a part of it, yet a miscellaneous and irrational part—come the newspapers, with their daily distraction. This is after all our world, and we cannot live in it and be absolute nonconformists. So we must submit to the newspaper, though it makes a heavy addition to our daily load of reading for information. But there ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... night to sleep "in de house." They were terrified. Their mattresses strewed the floors, and it really seemed as if they were a kind of protection, although they always fell asleep and snored so loudly as to drive the ladies, who wanted to listen for outside sounds, to the verge of distraction. Some one would occasionally interrupt the noise by administering to each in turn a good shake or insisting upon a change of position, but at best the lull was temporary. Soon one of the sleepers would give a suppressed snort, to be immediately joined by one after another, until the ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... Louisiana Purchase, between slavery and freedom, averted for another generation the great struggle between North and South. At peace with the rest of the world, the United States had time to devote to national development without the distraction of war, and financial questions, the tariff and internal improvements engrossed the attention of Congress and of the States. The opening of the Erie Canal, connecting Lake Erie with the Hudson River, in 1825, made central New York the great highway of commerce ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... suchlike mistakes. After a week he hired the cottage in which he now lives, bought his boat, leased from the steward the patch of ground in Dolphin Town, and set about building his house. He undertook the work, I am sure, for pure employment and distraction. He picked up the granite stones, fitted them together, panelled them, made the floors from the deck of a brigantine which came ashore on Annet, pegged down the thatch roof—in a word, he built the house from first to last with his own hands and he took fifteen ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... fellow so supine? Why is his work so ill done, when he ought most to exert himself? He disgusts the world with his hang-dog looks. Alas! with the need for action, the power of action is gone. Despair—distraction—the Furies sit with him. Stunned, stupid, and wild—always agitated—it is not easy to compose his sermons as finely as heretofore. He is always jotting down little sums in addition and subtraction. The cares of the world—the miseries ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... my court-martial I received a letter from Ellen, who appeared in a state of distraction from this accumulation of misfortune. She told me that my father was to be buried the next day, and that the new rector had written to her, to know when it would be convenient for the vicarage to be given up. That my father's bills ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... and his fecund imagination, always alert, had enfante a multitude of compositions so great that their very number astounds us (they exceeded two thousand), and forbids us almost to believe them the work of one man. This incessant tension of soul made imperious demands for the distraction of repose; far from this, he redoubled his work till nature, worn out, refused to Lassus the aid she had lavished. His ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... sensation at Rome. Caesar had also been guilty of an act of thoughtlessness, or perhaps merely of distraction, as might happen very easily to a man in his circumstances. When the senate had made its last decrees, conferring upon Caesar unlimited powers, the senators, consuls, and praetors, or the whole senate, in festal attire, presented ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... 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, ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... "An uncle 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 ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... while the prince was at dinner, Firrazzanu led a number of asses under his window, and made them bray so that the poor prince was driven almost to distraction. The author of the joke, as usual, took to his ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... 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
... Church of Westminster. Dr. William Twisse, President, preached the opening sermon from Christ's precious promise, "I will not leave you comfortless." These word's were as apples of gold in pictures of silver, in those days of woeful distraction. One week later they met again, when the oath was administered to every member present, ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... the Poultry at four o'clock, bringing welcome distraction to the clerks in every office. Soames was drinking a cup of tea when a note was brought in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... must think When one so great begins to rage, he's hunted Even to falling. Give him no breath, but now Make boot of his distraction:—never anger Made ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... 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 ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... had been ingenious and diversified. "She had seen Katherine at one of the windows,—the very picture of distraction." "She had been told that Katherine was breaking her heart about him;" also, "that Elder Semple and Councillor Van Heemskirk had quarrelled because Katharine had refused to see Neil, and the elder blamed Van Heemskirk ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... 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 I asked ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... well again, and dropped in to pay a neighborly call. Punch was occupying a rug on my library floor, virtuously engaged with building blocks. I am separating him from the other kindergarten children, and trying the Montessori method of a private rug and no nervous distraction. I was flattering myself that it was working well; his vocabulary of late has become ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... seeking distraction as they drove in the automobile along the Boulevard des Italiens. Julien sat with folded arms in the corner of the automobile. He had no fancy for his companion. He was anxious so far as possible to avoid speech with him. Estermen, on the contrary, seemed ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with his varied outdoor occupations, feels little craving for relief and relaxation. The factory hand, with his attention riveted for hours at a stretch on the wearisome iteration of machinery, requires recreation and distraction: naturally he is a prey to unwholesome stimulants, such as drink, betting, or the yellow press. The more educated and morally restrained, however, seek intellectual stimulus, and the modern popular demand for culture arises largely from the need ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... hand ached for his. It ached from the grasp it received, for he was a man whose self-control was absolute or non-existent. But she clung to him as long as she dared, and when she withdrew her hand she sought for distraction in ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... subjects he elucidated day after day for three weeks: for he took the Constitution to pieces bit by bit, and compelled them to listen to an analysis which, if propounded by another, would have bored them to distraction, vitally interested as they were. But he not only so illuminated the cold pages of the Constitution that while they listened they were willing to swear it was more beautiful than the Bible, but the torrent of his eloquence, never confusing, so sharp was every feature of the Constitution ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... three times, in his distraction of mind, he had stood in very light clothing, about Nattie's hour of returning home, full twenty-five minutes at the outer door of the hotel, with a cold wind blowing on him. But Nattie, utterly unconscious of this devotion, was enjoying the ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer |
