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More "Distract" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and to listen to what was going on. The bedroom door was half an inch open, and through the slit he could catch a glimpse of the clean-shaven face of the doctor, looking wearier and more anxious than before. Then he rushed downstairs like a lunatic, and running to the door he tried to distract his thoughts by watching what; was going on in the street. The shops were all shut, and some rollicking boon companions came shouting along from the public-house. He stayed at the door until the stragglers had thinned ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... In order to distract the enemy's attention and hold his troops away from the main battle-front, "subsidiary attacks" were made upon the German lines as far north as Bellewarde Farm, to the east of Ypres, and southward to La Bassee Canal at Givenchy, by the troops of the Second and ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... bosom all serene, Feels not, as yet, the internal tempest roll. Oh, ne'er may care distract thy placid mein! Ne'er may the shades of ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... at that moment were almost too bitter to be borne, and without so much as glancing at the books displayed for sale, I crossed the roadway, entered Museum Street, and, rather in order to distract my mind than because I contemplated any purchase, began to examine the Oriental Pottery, Egyptian statuettes, Indian armor, and other curios, displayed in the window of an ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... at this moment, saying and saying again to herself in her solitude at Grenoble, that these politicians, at least, owed her divorce, Vaudrey, not knowing what to do after a weary day of troubled rest, mechanically entered the Opera House to distract his eyes if ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... lengthiness; like the Drama, it must be kept doing. It avoids, as frigid, prolonged metaphysical soliloquy. Beauties themselves, if they delay or distract the effect which should be produced ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... nothing had eradicated it; for even religion, with her, was a mere graceful sham, a kind of theatrical effect used to tone down her natural hypocrisy. My own thoughts began to harass and weary me. I took up a volume of philosophic essays and began to read, in an endeavor to distract my mind from dwelling on the one perpetual theme. The day wore on slowly enough; and I was glad when the evening closed in, and when Vincenzo, remarking that the night was chilly, kindled a pleasant wood-fire in my room, and lighted the ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... lay this too aside, and take instead some appropriate etude, or perhaps a little prelude by Bach. If, in the place of these, you choose for instruction a ponderous sonata, in which the music would distract the attention of the pupil from the improved technique, you give up the most important aim of your instruction, and occupy yourself with secondary matters; you will censure and instruct in vain, and will never attain success. You must consider, reflect, and give your mind to the peculiar ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... the impracticability of approaching Quebec on the side of the Montmorency, Wolfe again turned his whole attention to the St. Lawrence. To destroy some ships of war lying in the river, and at the same time to distract the attention of Montcalm by descents at different places, twelve hundred men were embarked in transports under the command of general Murray, who made two vigorous, but unsuccessful attempts, to land on ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... Propagation of the Gospel, Church Building Metropolis, Church Commercial School, National Schools inquiry and correspondence, Upper Canada, Clergy, Additional Curates' Fund, Carlton Library, Oxford and Cambridge Club. These things distract and dissipate my mind.' Well they might; for in any man with less than Mr. Gladstone's amazing faculty of rapid and powerful concentration, such dispersion must have been disastrous both to effectiveness and to mental progress. As it is, I find little in the way ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... shooting. The moment it begins give a yell; fire your guns; go whooping up the stream with the horses as though the whole crowd were trying to cut out that way, but get right back. The excitement will distract them and help me. Now, good-by, and good luck to ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... with its forty pyramids (teocallis) and unnumbered palaces, adorned with all the luxury and magnificence of the most refined civilization, united with barbaric grandeur and inhumanity in so strange a combination as to distract our feelings between ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... sometimes glance in their direction, and the vision that meets me, as my eyes focus, distresses my soul. Their senses are like an imperfect mirror, magnifying all that is bad in one another, and distorting anything still partially good when that exists. All those things that might at least distract them are hollow, their misery being the inevitable result of the condition of mind to which they became accustomed on earth and which brought them to Cassandra. But let us turn to something brighter. "Though the solar system may seem complex, the sun is but ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... had had nothing to distract his attention, he might have thought too much about his handsome partner, and then gone home and dreamed about her, which is always dangerous, and waked up thinking of her still, and then begun to be deeply interested in her studies, and so on, through the whole syllogism which ends in Nature's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... managed to distract the child's thoughts from her troubles. Indeed, this was no difficult task for Phil Bradley. Already she had laughed at something he had said. When Phil heard what a sweet laugh that was he immediately ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... Hell: Yet, not rejoicing in his speed, though bold Far off and fearless, nor with cause to boast, Begins his dire attempt; which nigh the birth Now rolling boils in his tumultuous breast, And like a devilish engine back recoils Upon himself; horrour and doubt distract His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir The Hell within him; for within him Hell He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell One step, no more than from himself, can fly By change of place: Now conscience wakes despair, That slumbered; wakes the bitter memory Of what ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... predilection, but a plain statement of fact that renders this study an imperative need. There are other questions of interest—of very great interest—concerning alchemy: questions, for instance, as to the scope and validity of its doctrines; but we ought not to allow their fascination and promise to distract our attention from the fundamental problem, whose solution is essential ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... to distract the overworked Young Doctor by her freshness, drawn from the reservoir of her vitality; and that was a pity, because, as Patsy Kernaghan many a time said: "Aw, Doctor dear, what's the good of a tongue to a wagon ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... made in the afternoon at the Museum, were still spread open before him, and he suddenly closed the book, fearful of anything calculated to distract him from the mood of tense resistance. His life, and more than his life, depended upon his successfully opposing the insidious forces which beyond doubt, invisibly surrounded ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... uncheerfully. This breakfast gift had reached her with an ominous regularity on Mondays and Thursdays for a month, and the time had come when something must be done about it. But she did not permit unpleasant thoughts, if unpleasant they really were, to distract her from the casual delights of retrospection and the pleasures of her repast, which she finished with a thoroughness that spoke more eloquently of the wholesomeness of her appetite even than the real excellence of the cooking. Upon Titine, who ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... line of fortresses all fallen to the invader, the apparent calm on the Western front continued to be the marvel of the European campaign, as up to September 7 no development on the Western front indicated that any effort was being made to distract the Kaiser's attention from his victorious expedition into the territory ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... unreal age. She ate little of what was brought to her. For the first time she denied Kells admittance and she only vaguely sensed his solicitations. She had no ear for the murmur of voices in Kells's room. Even the loud and angry notes of a quarrel between Kells and his men did not distract her. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... and Tira, returning from the bedroom, the child in her arms, felt a mounting of compassion and was no longer afraid. She laid the child in its cradle and, with a cheerful clatter, put wood in the stove. The child cried fretfully and, still stepping about the room, she began to sing, as if to distract it, though she knew she was making the sounds of life about Tenney to draw him forth from the dark cavern where his spirit had taken refuge. But he did not look up, and presently she spoke ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... they will contain what the prophet has called 'sound learning,' and that there will be nothing in them to distract ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... enough as a bachelor to distract me from my work, without adding to them those of a wife and family, and those little home lessons in the frailty of human nature, in which you advise me ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... me," said she, "and will never be alone; the people about me shall always laugh and jest, to cheer me and distract my thoughts. Hasten, hasten—call my court; the most jovial men shall be most welcome! And, do you hear, above all things, bring me wine, the best and strongest wine. When I drink plenty of it, I shall again become gay and happy; it drives away all ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... harness. This failing, spread clean litter beneath the belly or turn the patient out on the dung heap. Some seek to establish sympathetic action by pouring water from one vessel into another with dribbling noise. Others soothe and distract the attention by slow whistling. Friction of the abdomen with wisps of straw may succeed, or it may be rubbed with ammonia and oil. These failing, an injection of 2 ounces of laudanum or of an infusion of 1 ounce of tobacco in water may ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... diversions caused by these attacks from the sea were of much consequence; and on other occasions the smaller steamers, gun and rocket-boats, were sent off the mouth of the harbour during the night to distract the attention ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... distract your attention with the palaces of the Caesars, the Cenci, St. Angelo, and the remains of antiquity still to be seen here, but trust that when we meet again every wish that you formerly expressed regarding our stay in Rome will ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... in the Place de la Concorde, and in the Tuileries gardens beyond the breeze dreamily stirred the foliage which hid from Lynde's view the gray facade of the gutted palace, still standing there, calcined and cracked by the fires of the Commune. Presently all this began to distract him, and when he returned to the hotel he was in a humor that would have been comparatively tranquil if so many tedious miles had not stretched between Paris ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... with a poor complexion and beautiful brown eyes, who had cherished a rather hopeless inclination for Henry; now that he had lost that bold girl, she tremulously assured herself, perhaps it was not quite so hopeless. Laura, too, had an idea that such might possibly be the case, and hoping at least to distract her brother, about whom she was becoming quite anxious, she had Ida over to tea once or twice, and, by various other devices which with a clever woman are matters of course, managed to ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... to enclose the problem. For by this time, what with Herbert's subaltern, Carey's pawn, and a cistern left me by an uncle who was dining with us that night, I had more than enough to distract me. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... companion and playmate both in quarters and the field, by expressions of sympathy and affection. The arrival of Paco, who established himself behind the esquilador, in a gap of the circle, was insufficient to distract their attention from the important and all-absorbing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... certain apprehensive shadow often lay upon him, a sense of being unequal to the claims of the day, a tendency to rehearse, without hopefulness or spring, the part he would have to play, to exaggerate difficulties and obstacles. Reading, as a rule, served to distract his thoughts; but it was hardly an intellectual so much as a meditative process; the thoughts and words of the writer, on such occasions, often seemed to him like beaters going through a covert, trampling the fern and rapping the tree trunks, starting from their lairs all ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... her it is goods we have had in the house for a long time. That is true. And I made this fudge on purpose to distract her attention. If she begins to ask questions, we must urge her to have more candy. Poor child!" she added very sympathetically. "Her heart is just set on a brand-new coat. I know she will be bitterly disappointed. If the members would just pay up we could ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... out your watch while he is talking, he drops his story in the middle of a sentence and shifts to some remark about the watch. He seems to have no impulse persistent enough to hold his thoughts steady. There are contrary insane conditions in which it is almost impossible to distract the patient from his own inner broodings, so much is he absorbed in ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... colors, such as red and green, may not be used in equal quantities in the dress, as they are both so positive in tone that they divide and distract the attention. When two colors are worn in any quantity, one must approach a neutral tint, such as gray or drab. Black may be worn with any color, though it looks best with the lighter shades of the different colors. White may ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... a Russian university graduate, smiled to himself over the interest and excitement of the two American nurses. He had been suffering intensely from the jolting and was glad for anything that would distract ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... at the slightest opportunity, eating filthily, sleeping in the dirt, in stuffiness, with fleas, stinks, smells, moral filth, and so on... And it's obvious that all our nice talk is only carried on to distract ourselves and others. Tell me, where are those creches we hear so much of? and where are those reading-rooms? People only write novels about them; they don't really exist. Only dirt, vulgarity, and ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... Countess Georges, from dying of grief." He writes to the Mniszechs on February 27th, 1847[*]: "Our dear adored Atala is in a charming and magnificent apartment (and not too dear). She has a garden; she goes a great deal to the convent" (to see Mlle. Henriette Borel). "I try to distract her and to be as much as possible Anna to her; but the name of her dear daughter is so daily and continually on her lips, that the day before yesterday, when she was enjoying herself immensely at the Varietes—in fits of laughter ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... capacity for social adaptation, and which render the individual in need of care, supervision, or control, are many and varied, and there is even some danger that too much reliance upon serial tests may distract from the adequate investigation of these qualities and defects and lead to totally ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews
... of another divinity. Ah! sire, I too shall be jealous of it, and want restored to me; and would not that a particle of it should be lost in the way. Therefore, sire, with your royal permission, I will choose one who shall appear to me the least likely to distract your attention, and who will leave my image intact and unshadowed ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... first did all the talking, led Madame Graslin to join in the conversation and so distract her thoughts; in fact, he left her almost recovered from the emotions of the day. Madame Sauviat, however, thought her daughter too violently agitated to be left alone, and she spent the night in ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... straggling matters under the control of a centre, she occupied her proper place among the planets of the solar system, like an emerald pendant in a necklace of diamonds. So with our soul. When the heat and motion of blind impulses and passions distract it on all sides, we can neither give nor receive anything truly. But when we find our centre in our soul by the power of self-restraint, by the force that harmonises all warring elements and unifies those that are apart, then all our isolated impressions reduce themselves ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... performance hardly served to distract his thoughts. He was out in the streets again before the ballet turn came on even. It had started to rain, a slight, indefinite drizzle; Leicester Square presented a drab and dingy appearance. The blaze of lights from the surrounding theatres ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... partial to the thinking woman—the wise ones have always foreseen danger. Long years ago, when women asked for an education, the world cried out that it would never do. If women learned to read it would distract them from the real business of life which was to make home happy for some good man. If women learned to read there seemed to be a possibility that some day some good man might come home and find his wife reading, and the dinner not ready—and nothing could ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... girl's mood and left her to herself. She had come to tell something but must tell it in her own way. To question, to intrude a thought, would only tend to confuse and distract her, so Polly took up her knitting and nodded cheerfully. She had a feeling that all along she ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... how are you to fix your attention when there are so many things going on around you to distract your thoughts? I can only answer, that as our minds are in many respects of different orders, so, no general rule can be given. If you will, each one, faithfully make the attempt, I have no doubt you will succeed, in just the same proportion as you ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... then the tutor had to spend half his time in chasing her to rescue his hat, a book, an ink-bottle, or some other article which she threatened to destroy; and, sometimes she was so depressed that he had to give up trying to teach her, and just do his best to distract her. In her eighth year she was able to follow the church-service in the prayer-book, and make out the hymns, but that ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... upon Arcot. He had, however, perceived that the operations there were wholly secondary, and that Trichinopoli was still the all-important point. The fall of that place would more than neutralize Clive's successes at Arcot; and he, therefore, did not suffer Clive's operations to distract his attention here. Strong reinforcements and a battering train were sent forward to the besiegers; and, by repeated messages, he endeavoured to impress upon Law and Chunda Sahib the necessity of pressing ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... is a clear-cut, straightforward policy. Those who can pursue its course with vigour needs must win through in the end. But the gods would not have it that such journey should be easy, so they have deputed the siren Sympathy to distract the wayfarer, to dim his vision with her ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... that distract my country, and to the enmity of the greatest powers of Europe, I have terminated my political career; and I come, like Themistocles, to seat myself on the hearth of the British people. I put myself under the protection of its laws, which I claim of ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... engaged a box for the season, and the girls attended nearly every matinee performance. The first few times Patty could scarcely listen to the music for her admiration of the wonderful building, but after she became more accustomed to its glories, it did not so distract her attention from the stage. Mr. and Mrs. Farrington occasionally gave opera parties, and dinner parties, too, but the girls were not allowed to attend these. Although indulgent in many ways, Mrs. Farrington was somewhat strict about the conventions for her young people; but so ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... chain of men handing up buckets of water through the back garden," said someone else, as though trying to distract her thoughts. "They'll soon get the ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... mouth, a tiger padded in her direction down a path of currant bushes. There are, it may be admitted, heroic exceptions. The chaffinch sits in the plum and blusters out his music, cat or no cat. To be sure, he only sings, a flush of all the colours, in order to distract our attention. He is not an artist but a watchman. If you look into the buddleia-tree beside him, you will see his hen moving about in silence, creeping, dancing, fluttering, as she gorges herself with insects. ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... and her hand was on mine for an instant. Indeed, the shudder which always shook me whenever I heard that dread infection mentioned had already passed. "He has the rank of major," she continued, hoping doubtless to distract my thoughts, "because he has been appointed adjutant-general of one of the districts, but somehow we rarely call him major, for he says he does not want the title until he has done something to ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... Baron my Cossacks became very attentive to me and sought to distract me with stories. They told me about their very severe struggles with the Bolsheviki in Transbaikalia and Mongolia, about the battle with the Chinese near Urga, about finding communistic passports on several Chinese soldiers from Moscow, about the bravery of Baron Ungern and how he would sit ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... manifest it. If he is sculpturing a group like the Laocoon, he must strike upon the supreme moment, that in which the whole tragedy reveals itself, and he must pass over those insignificant details of position and movement which serve only to distract our attention and weaken our emotions by dividing them. If he is writing a drama, he must not attempt to give us the complete biography of his character; he must depict only those situations which stand in direct subordination to the grand climax or denoument. As a final result, therefore. Taine ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... that was troubling the mind of Mr. Verner? That it was worldly trouble was certain. That other trouble, which has been known to distract the minds of the dying, to fill them with agony, was absent from his. On that score he was in perfect peace. But that some very great anxiety was racking him might be seen by the most casual observer. It had been racking him for a long ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... necessary both for the sake of clearness and emphasis, and because an unfinished argument is not a unit. If there are several contestants on each side, the fact that the opposing speakers intervene and distract the attention of the audience makes it even more necessary that each debater end his argument with a formal conclusion, and by means of it bind his work to that of ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... Hotchkisses upon the gunboats at the harbour's mouth, while our destroyers, pushing boldly in after us, opened fire upon the searchlights, hoping to destroy them, and endeavouring by every possible device to distract the attention of the gunners and to draw their fire from us. But in this they were unsuccessful; the Russians at once divined our intention to seal up the harbour, and recognised that it was vastly more important to them to frustrate our purpose ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... the greatest possible care, and in our opinion the small gold ones can only be worn by a perfect gentleman; for whilst they perform their required office, they do not distract the attention from the quality and whiteness of your linen. Some that we have seen were evidently intended for cabinet pictures, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... they. The young widow mourns the loss of her husband; by day as by night she is heard silently sobbing; she is a constant visitor to the place of rest; with the greatest reluctance will she follow the raised camp. The friends and relatives of the young mourner will incessantly devise methods to distract her mind from the thought of her lost husband. She refuses nourishment but as nature is exhausted she is prevailed upon to partake of food; the supply is scant, but on every occasion the best and largest proportion is deposited upon the grave ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... a doctor, had treated, with cheerful patience and skill, an infected and painful hand of the guide's, and this had won for him the love eternal of our Tin Lizzie. Little John Dudley thought, as he made jokes to distract the boy, and worked over his big throbbing fist, the fist which meant daily bread—little John thought where the plant of love springing from that seed of gratitude would at last blossom. Little he thought as the two sat on the gallery of the camp, and the placid lake broke in silver on pebbles ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... to result from her modest beginning, that Linda realized that she must proceed very carefully, she must concentrate with all her might, else her school work would begin to suffer in favor of the book. Recently so many things had arisen to distract her attention. Many days she had not been able to keep Eileen's face off her geometry papers; and again she saw Gilman's, anxious and pain-filled. Sometimes she found herself lifting her eyes from tasks upon which she was concentrating with ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... my imperfect representations of our actors and affairs, that you suppose our dissensions owing to French intrigues—we want no foreign causes; but in so precarious a letter as this I cannot enter into farther explanations; indeed the French need not be at any trouble to distract or weaken ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... that sort of thing so cleverly and safely. Does he do it often? Of course, not just that. But does he pick up cigars and things that I see they throw to the matador? Does he belong to the management? Mr. Briggs thinks the whole thing was a feint to distract the bull," she added, with a wicked glance at the geologist, who, I fancied, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... reality, reciprocal firing, at such short ranges, is almost always too high. The man who would fire sees himself already killed by the return fire. He throws stones, and not with great force, to avoid using his rifle, to distract the enemy, to occupy the time, until flight offers him some chance of escaping ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... eyed Dicksie benignly. "They are talking this nonsense to distract us, of course, but I am bound to read you what I have here, ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... fear. It is therefore the best plan to pass your hand beneath the child's clothes and to examine its stomach without altering its posture, while at the same time the nurse in whose arms it is talks to it to distract its attention, or holds it opposite the window, or opposite a bright light, which seldom fails to amuse an infant. If there is no tenderness of the stomach the child will not cry on pressure; or if during your examination the presence ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... herself and manage her affairs unaided filled her at first with dismay. Besides, there was the separation from her son, the feeling that she knew not whether she would ever again set eyes on him in this world, and the terrible uncertainty generally of the future, to further distract her; but at length the buoyancy and unquenchable hopefulness of Dick's spirit had its effect upon her; and, finally, when the moment of parting came, she had been brought to a frame of mind that enabled her to say the last words ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... you got with your "Nibelungen"? It will be a great joy to me to grasp your creation through your immediate aid. For heaven's sake, let nothing distract you from this, and continue to weld your ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... of the quickest ears of the forest. Motionless in his hut, like a spider in its web, nothing can put him off his guard—neither the view halloo of the passing huntsman, the cheerful notes of his horn, nor the music of the dogs, can distract his attention. All around is calm, solitude and gloom surround him, no voice interrogates him, no eye sees him; he is alone, quite alone, his blood circulates tranquilly through his veins, his faculties are all on the stretch, he waits, he bides his time. The ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... Marseillaise. "There's many singing that song to-day in prison that would be glad to sit and breathe fresh air and look at a fine view as you're doing, so you ought to be thankful!" And indeed the view of the Castle did just for that moment distract her from the business of weeping, for there had been a certain violent alteration of the weather. The autumn sunshine, which had never been more than a sarcasm on the part of a thoroughly unpleasant day, had failed altogether, and Edinburgh ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... have fortunately had so much to distract your thoughts that you have not had time to dwell upon your loss. Moreover, you have needed all your strength and your energy for your search for your sister, and right sure am I that your father, who was as sensible as ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... purpose of temporarily presiding over your deliberations. We have come together to secure a common and at the same time a most important object—to agree if we can upon some plan for adjusting the unhappy differences which distract the country, which will be satisfactory to ourselves and those we represent. We have assembled as friends, as brothers, each, I doubt not, animated ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... fellow is distract, and so am I; And here we wander in illusions: Some blessed power deliver us ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... the conclusion of the reading, let his hands fall heavily in his lap, while he plunged into a study which the messenger with his foreign airs could not distract. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... up until three in the morning, receiving the reports of the police, and having the ringleaders arrested. They had gone about in the coffee-houses, and had carried their effrontery so far as to say that the French army was again in motion, and that Napoleon's sole aim had been to distract ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... a hundred-and-fifty amateur brass bands are to play at the Crystal Palace on September 25th looks like an attempt to distract us from the miners' strike fixed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... inevitably occur. His eyes wander to the appearance and furniture of the boudoir suddenly put to so different use: the gorgeous hangings of crimson damask contrasting with the white shroud, the faded rose by the bedside, the scattered signs of revelry, distract and disturb him. Strange fancies come thick. The air seems other than that to which he is accustomed in such chambers of the dead. The corpse appears from time to time to make slight movements; even sighs seem to echo his own. At last he lifts the veil which covers her, and ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... ascetic. Here, like the inspired seer of Patmos, he could congratulate himself on having shaken off communion with mankind. Cliffs shattered by the warfare of the elements—a restless and irresistible sea, intersected by perilous reefs—and the blue firmament—were the only visible objects to distract the solemn contemplations of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... convenient, undiscriminating epithet. I use it here. The Dixville Notch is, briefly, picturesque,—a fine gorge between a crumbling conical crag and a scarped precipice,—a pass easily defensible, except at the season when raspberries would distract sentinels. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... to persons who go about upright on their legs. The four walls of her room concentrated her vision in bounding it. She saw few women and fewer men, but she saw them apart from those superficial activities which distract and darken judgment. Faces that she was obliged to see bending over her had another aspect for Edith than that which they presented to the world at large. Anne Majendie, who had come so near to Edith, had always put a certain distance between herself and her ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... he suddenly ceased to employ this distraction; he seems to have sacrificed it easily, under the stress of present necessities and cruel anxieties as to his uncertain future. "When we do not know where we shall be tomorrow nothing can distract ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... cardinals; and that he had a daughter, Novella, so accomplished in law as to be able to read her father's lectures in his absence, and so beautiful, that she had to read behind a curtain lest her face should distract the attention of the students. He is said to have died at Bologna of the plague in 1348, and an epitaph in the church of the Dominicans in which he was buried, calling him Rabbi Doctorum, Lux, Censor, Normaque Morum, testifies to the public estimation of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... States; and although the two could not communicate by land, they did support each other as naval stations in a war essentially dependent upon maritime power. Philadelphia served no purpose but to divide and distract British enterprise. Absolutely dependent for maintenance upon the sea, the forces in it and in New York could not cooeperate; they could not even unite except by sea. When Clinton relieved Howe as commander-in-chief, though less than a hundred miles away by land, he had ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... continue to distract the several parties into which the Cherokees are unhappily divided. The efforts of the Government to adjust the difficulties between them have heretofore proved unsuccessful, and there remains no probability that this desirable object ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... safe, I should feel comparatively happy; happiness, in its full extent, I never can hope to enjoy; but if he were only safe—if he were only safe, my dear Mrs. Brown! I know that he is hunted like a beast of prey, and under such circumstances as disturb and distract the country, ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... others, open to the impressions of near and striking events and to the seductions of intellectual fashion. Yet, if the larger thought is worth anything, it should enable those who follow it to look a little further beyond the present and a little deeper below the surface differences that distract the kindred peoples. If the thinkers are true to their thought it may be that from them will come the beginnings of the healing process which Europe will need. Much is being and will be said of the political reconstruction which is needed to ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... her arms. "Mon Dieu! Men are stupid! No. Listen. I had to wait an hour. I had to distract myself—well—you know the supplement to L'Illustration that has appeared every week during the war—the pages of photographs of the heroes of France. I found them all collected in a portfolio on the table. Ah! Some living, but mostly dead. It was heart-breaking. And do you know what I found? ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... were greatly afraid of him. They held back. Dr. Labarbe, who was smoking, sat down beside La Roque, and spoke to her in order to distract her attention. The old woman soon removed her hands from her face, and she replied with a flood of tearful words, emptying her grief in copious talk. She told the whole story of her life, her marriage, the death of her man, ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... the human wrecks with which our shores are lined. When the tempest has ceased to rage, and when the last dripping mariner has been safely landed we can, if we wish, with a peaceful conscience dissolve our partnership and renew the discussion of the minor differences, which divide, distract and weaken the human ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... when that same thought is receiving articulate birth on the tongue. Its purpose is to make the words grow large, as it were; to expand and emphasise their meaning; hence the wisdom of the advice—"Suit the action to the word, the word to the action." If the action distract the listeners' attention from the word ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... their young mistress, usually so gracious and responsive, wholly absorbed in her troubled revery; but to-day her maidens played their sweetest strains upon their silvery lutes, without her answering smile; the gentlemen of her court sought in vain for some diversion to distract her; even the Lady Margherita could do nothing for her pleasure, while she watched in unobtrusive tenderness, feeling that quiet, however unsatisfying, was more ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... examine the peculiarly Teuton ways of trade competition in their everyday guise, and without the glamour of political ideals to distract our attention, we are confronted with phenomena of a repulsive character. For the German's keen practical sense, his sustained concentration of effort on the furtherance of material interests, and his scorn of ethical ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... dear. The poacher was Marcella's friend, and she cannot now distract her mind from him sufficiently to marry Aldous, though every plan he has in the world will be upset by her proceedings. And as for his election, you may depend upon it she will never ask or know whether he gets in next Monday or no. That goes without saying. She is meanwhile absorbed ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... steal through life. That Genius visits not your lowly shed; For, ah, what woes and sorrows ever rife Distract his hapless head! For him awaits no balmy sleep, He wakes all night, and wakes to weep; Or by his lonely lamp he sits At solemn midnight, when the peasant sleeps, In feverish study, and in moody ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... to prefer not to notice what the hand is doing. He talks as long as he has an interlocutor, but, when the messages given through the hand distract the attention of this interlocutor, Phinuit often says, "I'll help him." What does he mean by this? It is a mystery. But if it is wished to continue the conversation with him, the ear must be addressed directly he is ready to resume. All this does not interrupt ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... referred to; in the Turner and Hansel, examples of our native species unmixed. To each of these classes might be added a score of other varieties which have been more or less popular, but they would serve only to distract the reader's attention. I have tested forty or fifty kinds side by side at one time, only to be shown that four or five varieties would answer all practical purposes. I can assure the reader, however, ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... at the sight of those evils his fellow-creature is obliged to endure,—makes his soul tremble in the contemplation of the misery arising from the despotism that crushes him—from the superstition that leads him astray—from the passions that distract him in a state of warfare against his neighbour. Although he knows that death is the fatal, the necessary period to the form of all beings, his soul is not affected in a less lively manner at the loss of a beloved wife,—at the demise of a child calculated to console his old age,—at ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... He also knew how to milk, and they both, volunteered to try. Much to my surprise and delight, the cows now behaved beautifully, perhaps owing to the fact that, obeying the injunctions of my two recruits, I provided each with a bundle of fodder to distract their attention during the milking process. There was more milk than I could possibly use, as nearly all the convalescents were absent. So I set several pans of it away, little thinking how soon it would ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... face.[1820] Amongst the Bedouins, whenever one utters praises he must add: "Mashallah," that is, God avert ill! The only other way to avert ill is to give the praised object to him who praised it.[1821] Glittering and waving objects are much used by Moslems on dress and horse caparisons to distract attention. They put texts of the Koran on streamers on their ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... screened the lower half of the window overlooking the water, and stood gazing out at a vessel lying beside the wharf beneath. Mrs. Greyson laid down her modeling tools, disturbed by the other's disquiet, and wondering how best to distract his attention from himself. Her glance roved inquiringly about the little room, noting every cast upon the dingy walls, bits of sculptured foliage, architectural forms, and portions of the human figure. Then her gaze rested an instant upon her own work, ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... misunderstood, particularly in one phase of its endeavors,—to forget the body. The truth of the matter is that the flesh and blood in their highest song toward which we should strive are so occupied with praising God that they completely lack self-consciousness, and do not distract the intellect or the will. God is with them in naked purity. It is His simplest and dearest starry music. He demands that our life should be a programme of infinite proportions. And yet I wonder if a saint can ever be both a great ...
— The Forgotten Threshold • Arthur Middleton
... memory perish with me? No, I was born for a better—a higher and more holy purpose. I was not born to pass a few moments on the stage of life and then disappear forever.... With a shudder I turn away and would gladly forget to think. O thought, thought! thou wilt distract me,—thou hast almost hurled reason from her throne. Thou bitter tormentor! depart, if but for a moment, and let me once more find peace. But no; the more I seek to elude still nearer the demon pursues. O thought, thought! it rushes forth ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... to what this dear angel says! She's going to take us to Paradise Valley, all by ourselves, with no men to bother and distract our attention.—Men are out of place in Paradise anyway; just think how Adam behaved! (this in a parenthesis).—It is to be a real old-fashioned "goloptious" picnic. Now, who would like to go ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... Garden this morning, and I simply couldn't resist the temptation. If God ever made anything more beautiful than a rose, Mr. Narkom, it is yet to be discovered. Sit down, and while you are talking I'll arrange these in this vase. No; it won't distract my attention from what you are saying, believe me. Somehow, I can always think better and listen better when there are flowers about me, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... thoughtfully he repeats this last phrase, until Dora, affrighted by the sudden change that has disfigured his face, speaks to him to distract his attention. ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... what did it mean? A few minutes ago it was not with her. She knew that it would not always be with her, yet it did not seem as if it would ever leave her. She could not think of herself as ever being happy again. But Ulick would distract this misery from her brain. She would send him to the piano, and the exalted sorrow in the music, which she could but faintly remember, would raise her above sorrow, would bear her out of and above the circle of personal despondency. Ulick might help her; she could ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... for the most inflexible, stern and immovable. The passions which agitate or distract the mind, never alter its expression, nor do the highest ecstacies of which their nature is susceptible, ever relax its rigidity. With the same imperturbability of feature, they encounter death from the hand of an enemy, and receive the ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... light clothing, and make unusually small purchases of food? Yet however scanty my service, food, and raiment may seem to you, I on the contrary regard them as ample and even excessive. Indeed I am desirous of still further reducing them, since the less I have to distract me the happier I shall be. For the soul, like the body, goes lightly clad when in good health; weakness wraps itself up, and it is a sure sign of infirmity to have many wants. We live, just as we swim, all the better for being but lightly burdened. For in this stormy life ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... and smiled in the darkness at the transparent plan to distract my attention from ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... very important thing for women to understand. In our achievement of facing the truth in the place of evasions about fundamental things, lies the path, I believe along which woman can escape, if ever she is to escape, from the confusion of purposes that distract her ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity. Now Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic. There is a very wide difference. If a man of science were told that the results of his ...
— The Soul of Man • Oscar Wilde
... began to squirm, and as soon as the tune was done and the scattering applause had died down, he reached over and grabbed Mr. Amasa Beard by the knee. Mr. Beard did not immediately respond, being at that moment behind logworks facing a rebel charge; he felt vaguely that some one was trying to distract his attention, and in some lobe of his brain was registered the fact that that particular knee had gout in it. Jethro increased the pressure, and then Mr. Beard abandoned his logworks and swung around with a snort ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... as she resignedly awaited the moment when the finished task would bring her sleep; but since the coming of Francois Paradis the long weekly vigil was very sweet to her, for she could think of him and of herself with nothing to distract her dear imaginings. Simple they were, these thoughts of hers, and never did they travel far afield. In the springtime he will come back; this return of his, the joy of seeing him again, the words he will say when they find themselves once ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... said "Good-morning," and "Good-night." If I was embarrassed, or worried, he would pretend not to notice it, but if I was happy, or sad, he would show his sympathy in a hundred ways—putting his head on my lap, or cutting absurd capers to distract my mind. ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... reason. Learn therefore to obey reason and reason only. Do not permit yourself to be drawn from the true path by fear of threats, even of death, nor by grief, even for your dearest friends. Such feelings warp your reason, distract your judgment, and deflect you from the right course. When passion—feeling—comes in conflict with reason, you must drive feeling away. Your reason may not always be right; nevertheless it is the best guide you have, and you must cultivate ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... be so intrinsically interesting that they distract the attention from what they are intended to illustrate. It would be injudicious to use candies or other inherently attractive objects to illustrate number facts in primary arithmetic. The objects, not the number facts, ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... Isolated and alone, prisoner in the cell of bone, with absolutely nothing to distract him, the Brain by common consent pounded a gavel, held a conference, appointed a chairman and settled down to do the one job that the Brain was assembled to do. In unison, ten to the sixteenth storage cells turned butter side up at the single ...
— Instinct • George Oliver Smith
... north-and-south line along the west face of the works, at about nine hundred yards distance. They were to be supported by forty gunboats and as many bomb vessels, besides the efforts of the ships-of-the-line to cover the attack and distract the garrison. Twelve thousand French troops were brought to reinforce the Spaniards in the grand assault, which was to be made when the bombardment had sufficiently injured and demoralized the defenders. At this time the latter numbered seven thousand, ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... afflict or wrongs oppress; If cares distract, or fears dismay; If guilt deject; if sin distress; In every case, still ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... be Brighthelmstone, where I do most humbly and fervently entreat you to write—do, dearest sir, write, if but one word—if but only you name yourself! Nothing but your own hand can now tranquillize me. The reports about London here quite distract me. If it were possible to send ine a line by the diligence to Brighton, how grateful I should be ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... mind back with some effort from the consideration of the greater issues to fix it on the smaller ones. In its way Drusilla's interference was a welcome diversion, since the point she raised was important enough to distract Olivia's attention from decisions too poignant to ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... student to the teacher. My reply usually is, "None: write your notes out carefully and fully; strive to understand them thoroughly; come to me for the explanation of anything you cannot understand; and I would rather you did not distract your mind by reading." A properly composed course of lectures ought to contain fully as much matter as a student can assimilate in the time occupied by its delivery; and the teacher should always recollect that his business is to feed, and not to cram the intellect. ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... time—it seemed impossible she should not come again after our interview; and for the next I had speedily ripened a fresh plan. A prisoner, if he has one great disability for a lover, has yet one considerable advantage: there is nothing to distract him, and he can spend all his hours ripening his love and preparing its manifestations. I had been then some days upon a piece of carving—no less than the emblem of Scotland, the Lion Rampant. This I proceeded to finish with what skill I was possessed of; and when at last ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... should have been much happier if I had had any one to talk to," she added, looking up into his face with a naivete of faint reproach; "it's very different for men, you know. They can always distract themselves with something. Although," she continued hesitatingly, "I've sometimes thought YOU would have been happier if you had had somebody to tell your troubles to—I don't mean the Padre; for, good as he is, he is a ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... pursuits than law, and the miscellaneous books which he was known to have read confirmed the accusation. This was urged as a reason why the post of Solicitor-General should not be conferred on a man of speculation, more likely to distract than to direct her affairs. Elizabeth, in the height of that political prudence which marked her character, was swayed by the vulgar notion of Cecil, and believed that Bacon, who afterwards filled the situation both of Solicitor-General and Lord Chancellor, was "a man rather of show than ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... back was getting very sore by this time, and he began to look about for the white side-streak which he had painted along the water-line of that new boat, to distract the meddlesome gaze of rivals from the peculiar curve below, which even Admiral Darling had not noticed, when he passed her on the beach; but Nelson would have spied it out in half a second, and known all about it in the other half. Dan knew that he should find ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... the remarks of the Chorus, where it takes part in the dialogue: that the action itself, the situation of Orestes, or Merope, or Alcmaeon, was to stand the central point of interest, unforgotten, absorbing, principal; that no accessories were for a moment to distract the spectator's attention from this; that the tone of the parts was to be perpetually kept down, in order not to impair the grandiose effect of the whole. The terrible old mythic story on which the drama was founded stood, before he entered the theatre, traced in its bare outlines ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... I felt inclined to cry, but the Mother Superior took me by the hand and, leading me to the Middle Wood, showed me where my garden would be. That was quite enough to distract my thoughts, for we found Pere Larcher there marking out my piece of ground in a corner of the wood. There was a young birch tree against the wall. The corner was formed by the joining of two walls, one of which bounded the railway line on the left bank of the river ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... relentless in stimulating suspicion, aggravating discontent, inflaming the fierce, and arguing with the timid. His less exalted station allowed him to mix more familiarly with the various Ionian officers than would have become the high-born Cimon, and the dignified repute of Aristides. Seeking to distract his mind from the haunting thought of Cleonice, he flung himself with the ardour of his Greek temperament into the social pleasures, which took a zest from the design that he carried into them all. In the banquets, in the sports, he was ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... on I made visits to the field, and every time more clearly it boded evil things, and my uneasiness grew more acute every time that I was lured to go and rest among the cool green grass under the beautiful osiers. Once to distract my thoughts I tried to gauge how fast the stream was trickling, but I found myself wondering if it ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... for a better—a higher and more holy purpose. I was not born to pass a few moments on the stage of life and then disappear forever.... With a shudder I turn away and would gladly forget to think. O thought, thought! thou wilt distract me,—thou hast almost hurled reason from her throne. Thou bitter tormentor! depart, if but for a moment, and let me once more find peace. But no; the more I seek to elude still nearer the demon pursues. O thought, thought! it rushes forth from my soul like ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... all of that,' said Tocqueville. 'He cannot sit down a mere quiet administrator. He must do something to distract public attention; he must give us a substitute for the political excitement which has amused us during the last forty years. Great social improvements are uncertain, difficult, and slow; but glory may be obtained ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... the purpose of a maiden lady—perhaps because she has no minor domestic troubles to distract her; and when you have two maiden ladies working on the same problem, and both of them possessed of wealth and ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... prose continuously, as prose is ordinarily and properly printed: and the poetry in verse lines, as poetry is ordinarily and properly printed. And I should print each on a page of one column, with none but the necessary notes and references, and these so arranged that they did not tease and distract the eye. ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... corner for sleep. When he had acquired a nut, a kernel of corn, or a piece of fruit, he sat him down and examined it thoroughly and conscientiously and then, conscientiously and thoroughly, he devoured it. No extraneous interest could distract his attention; not for a moment. That he had sounded the seriousness of life is proved by the fact that he had observed and understood the flighty character of Funny Face. When Funny Face acquired a titbit, Darwin took up a hump-backed position near at hand, his bright ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... grief." He writes to the Mniszechs on February 27th, 1847[*]: "Our dear adored Atala is in a charming and magnificent apartment (and not too dear). She has a garden; she goes a great deal to the convent" (to see Mlle. Henriette Borel). "I try to distract her and to be as much as possible Anna to her; but the name of her dear daughter is so daily and continually on her lips, that the day before yesterday, when she was enjoying herself immensely at the Varietes—in fits ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... experiences of life, and he who practises it has acquired an infinitely valuable possession. People fly to crowds for happinesss not knowing that all the happiness they find there they must take with them. Thus they divert and distract that within them which creates power and joy, until by flying always away from themselves, seeking satisfaction from without rather than from within, they become infinitely boresome to themselves, so that they can scarcely bear a moment of their ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... my Love, he cou'd not for so long a Time have endured the servile Offices to which he has been put—Some way his ingenious passion wou'd have found out to have revealed itself—No, no, he is neither a Lover nor a Gentleman, and I but raise Chimera's to distract myself ...but Ill [sic] retrieve all yet, Ill discharge him from my house and service—he is an Enchanter, and has bewitched me from my Reason, and never, never more ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... for women to understand. In our achievement of facing the truth in the place of evasions about fundamental things, lies the path, I believe along which woman can escape, if ever she is to escape, from the confusion of purposes that distract her at present. ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... out; they watched him measure the particles of white powder; they watched him add drops of one precious liquid, and drops of another; they lost not the slightest movement; their eyes were riveted upon him with a fascination that nothing could distract. I believe they thought he was gifted like a god. When each individual got his portion of medicine, his eyes were radiant with joy —notwithstanding by nature they are a thankless and impassive race—and upon his face was written the unquestioning ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... spoken, not having yet degraded into petr'l, a future squire will not be disqualified from airing his wit to his visitors by saying, as he points to his old stables, 'that is where I store my petrel', and when the joke had been illustrated in Punch, its folly would sufficiently distract the patients in a dentist's waiting-room for years to come, in spite of gentlemen and chauffeurs continuing to say petrol, as they do now; nor would the two petr'ls be more ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... surprise to have any thought for appearances, and there sat Bridgie looking on and crying copiously with happiness, and Esmeralda blinking the tears away and laughing furtively at Jack, who was grunting to himself, "Silly fuss! Silly fuss!" and putting on a great appearance of boredom to distract attention from the tears on his eyelashes. There sat Mr and Mrs Vane, too, beaming with pleasure that their prize should have gone to Pixie of all people, and Lottie rubbing her hands and growing hysterical in delight. Then ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... were a father and had a daughter, I believe I should love my daughter more than my sons, really," I began indirectly, as though talking of something else, to distract her attention. I ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... thee take Thy Lydia, thine alike in life or death!" At Lydia's name, at Lydia's well known voice, He strove again to raise his drooping head And ope his closing eye, but strove in vain, And on her trembling bosom sunk away. Now other fears distract his weeping friends: But short their grief! for soon his life return'd, And, with return of life, return'd ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... 1: The consideration of such things as are of a nature to awaken our love [*Ibid.] of God, causes devotion; whereas the consideration of foreign matters that distract the mind from such things is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... especially taken care of, that, the body being then in a ferment and disturbed, no cares of the soul, no business about necessary affairs, no labor, should distract and seize it, lest they should corrupt and sour its humors, Nature not having had time enough for settling what has been disturbed. For, sir, all men have not the command of that happy ease and tranquillity ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... who clattered about the head of the kitchen staircase, took pity upon her and told her the number of the bus that would bring her to the British Museum, assuring her that she would find a great deal there to distract ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... newly-opened Sub Rosa Tea Rooms, in Machin Street. She agreed, and, in passing the music-stool, gave a small parcel which she was carrying to Penkethman, and told him he might as well put it in the music-stool. She was glad to have tea with Charlie Woodruff. It would distract her, prevent her from thinking. The ecstasy had almost died out, and she had a violent desire not ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... these emotions obtained yet more powerful dominion; again did remorse distract him, and there were moments of darkness, when his spirit questioned the justice of the Creator. Why was not his crime visited on his own head? Why did the guiltless and unstained fall thus around him, and he remain unharmed? and it needed all the eloquence of Nigel, the pious ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... air—"that is to say, I believe in America and the League of Nations, but not in God. It's not the fashion to believe in God or have a conscience nowadays. They both went out with the war. After all, what's a conscience to a liver? But here I am, chattering on to distract my sad thoughts, although I can see in your eye that you have it in you to ask me some questions. Well, go ahead and ask them, and I will ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... said; "oh, that is well; for otherwise I should not know how to live. We must laugh low, not to make any noise and distract the old ones; but still, one must live. Tell me, you are the brother of Madame—Should I say Milady? In my novels they never do, but I do not know if the novels are ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... said, "that that fair-haired daughter of the Greeks, Madonna Elena, the slim, the rosy-fingered disturber of the repose of cities, hath appeared to distract this our city of Padua. Me at least she hath distraught. Fair friends, sister and brother poets, you shall understand that henceforth I devote myself to this lady and her praise. More, I vow a vow, and call upon you to register it in the ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... minutes posters were out, and eager groups were busy at the street-corners, discussing the news, scrappy indeed, and terribly deficient in all details, but how welcome, after all the vague native rumours we had had to distract us during the past weeks! We were content then to wait any length of time, and our lives varied very little as the weeks slipped by. The bombardment was resumed with vigour, and the old monster gun cruised right round the town and boomed destruction at us ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... worse than mine; that her love would have elevated dispositions yet more light and commonplace. You do not know what miracles love works! But now, what is there left for me? What matters it how frivolous and poor the occupations which can distract my thoughts, and bring me forgetfulness? Forgive me; I have no right to obtrude all this ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book X • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... be!" cried he, in a transport of rage; "cease, cease to distract me!—be content, ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... temperament, he seeks to sour our tempers, and promote habitual sullenness and despondency. If naturally cheerful, he prompts to the indulgence of levity. In private devotion, he stands between us and God, prevents us from realizing his presence, and seeks to distract our minds, and drive us from the throne of grace. In public worship, he disturbs our minds by wandering thoughts and foolish imaginations. When we have enjoyed any happy manifestations of God's presence, ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... has always shown a fair average of good sense in this matter, from the days of the fair Hypatia in Alexandria, who, we are told, gave lectures on philosophy behind a curtain, lest her charms should distract the attention of too impressible young men, down to those of Anna Dickinson. Mankind are not, after all, quite fools, and seem in these cases to have a reasonable idea that exceptional talents have exceptional laws, and make ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... by every prudent precaution, that it may at no time, however remote, be in danger of agitation; nor would it be prudent, in another point of view, to permit these gentlemen to mingle in occupations which must have an evident tendency to distract their attention from those arduous tasks which they would be called upon to fulfil, in a country where criminals must naturally abound. Numbers of persons are doubtless to be found in Great Britain who would ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... the risk he had incurred—was still incurring—sent a shiver through her. Her first impulse was to rush towards him. Then, realising that any movement of hers might distract his attention and so add illimitably to his danger, she forced herself by an almost superhuman effort to remain where she was. Motionless, with straining eyes, she watched while he slowly edged himself up. That his foothold was precarious was evident from ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... life. But now he was a boy, a wretched boy, controlled by a vulgar and narrow-minded woman! And this servitude must last for years; yes! years must elapse before he was his own master. Oh! if he could only pass them alone, without a human voice to disturb his musings, a single form to distract his vision! ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... in a more sparing use of punctuation than that employed by the well-known German editor. Wherever a variant reading is adopted, some good and recognized SHAKSPEREAN critic has been followed. In no case is a new rendering of the text proposed; nor has it been thought necessary to distract the reader's attention by ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous
... advance, And bathe in Guilt's warm blood thy burning lance; When all thy form its awful port assumes, And in the tempest shake thy crimson plumes, I mark thy lofty mien, thy steady eye, So fall thy foes! with tears of joy I cry. But ne'er may Anarchy, with eyes a-flame, And mien distract, assume thy awful name; Her pale torch sheds afar its hideous glare, And shows the blood-drops in her dabbled hair; 90 The fiends of discord hear her hollow voice, The spirits of the deathful storm rejoice: As when the rising blast with muttering sweep Sounds 'mid the branches ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... placed, Herman Mordaunt was wonderfully collected. For myself, I felt as if I had fifty lives to lose, Anneke being, uppermost in my thoughts. The females, however, behaved uncommonly well; making no noise, and using all the self-command they could assume, in order not to distract the exertions of their husbands and friends. Some of the wives of the sturdy settlers, indeed, actually exhibited a species of stern courage that would have done credit to soldiers; appearing in the court, armed, and otherwise rendering themselves useful. It often ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... of a century ago, especially in Great Britain and the United States, but also in other countries, the method of allaying discontent was to distract public attention from politics altogether by stimulating the chase after private wealth. But as private wealth is more and more difficult to attain, this policy is rapidly replaced by the very opposite tactics, to keep the people absorbed in the political chase after the material benefits of ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... the subject would quickly give her friends the cue to her new interest. She decided to visit the library of Father Peter in his absence, and from his housekeeper borrow some book giving such information. By talking to the good woman about her home work and children she could manage to distract her attention so she would not notice which book it ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... in the production of the astral tube, I shall endeavor to instruct you regarding its creation and use in as plain words as possible, omitting all reference to technical occult details which would only serve to distract your attention and confuse your mind. The advanced occult student will understand these omitted technicalities without being told of them; the others would not know what was meant by them, if mentioned, in the absence of a long stage of ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... a little further, for the automatic was always placed in the left-hand pocket. A movement of the left hand does not receive the same suspicious attention from a criminal. In fact, as he had several times discovered, it was possible to distract the attention by a movement of the right hand while quickly drawing the gun with the left, and at close quarters a gun in the left hand was just as effective as ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... himself as he crossed the room to Lady Grosville, and endeavored by an impartial criticism of the new curate's manner and voice, as they had revealed themselves in church that morning, to distract her ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of the human mind, when set at liberty from ancient prejudices, and permitted to range in search of expected good, to become extreme in its calculations and projects of improvement, and to distract itself amidst the variety of its experiments. And more especially when its enterprises are favored by the encouragement of wealth, and sustained by the indiscriminate approval of the multitude. It is then, that overlooking the maxims ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... her. She had no young acquaintances to teach her foolishness, or tell her of her mother's sin. She was allowed no money to fritter away on vanities, no silly novels to read, such as those your friends write, no frivolous pursuits which could distract her mind from duty—yet she is her mother over again, and, like her mother, runs away from my house by stealth, in the dead ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... could not distract the thoughts of the young Livonian even for an instant. She had left her hand in that of her companion, and turning to him, "At what distance are we ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... destroyed for ever.... Give us the order, sire, and we shall pursue them even to their places of security." French military composition, even in the time of the first Napoleon, was never of the highest order of merit, and the third Napoleon, whose policy it was to distract the attention of his people from reflecting on the questionable means by which he had attained his position, never lost an opportunity of earning popularity with any class of his subjects, particularly with the ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... me again into his arms:—"My dearest Pamela, if you love me, distract not my soul thus, by your dark and mysterious speeches. You are displeased with me, and I thought I had reason, of late, to take something amiss in your conduct; but, instead of your suffering by my anger, you have words and an air ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... how we got through that day. Stroeve could not bear to be alone, and I exhausted myself in efforts to distract him. I took him to the Louvre, and he pretended to look at pictures, but I saw that his thoughts were constantly with his wife. I forced him to eat, and after luncheon I induced him to lie down, but he could not sleep. He accepted willingly my invitation to remain for a few days ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... that Providence is, which has provided, in its government of mankind, such narrow bounds to his sight and knowledge of things; and though he walks in the midst of so many thousand dangers, the sight of which, if discovered to him, would distract his mind and sink his spirits, he is kept serene and calm, by having the events of things hid from his eyes, and knowing nothing of the dangers ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... that the Apaches would be sure to spend some few minutes in firing, partly to distract their enemies and partly to give them the cover of abundant smoke for their approach before they made their final rush; and taking off his feather head-gear, he secured it with a couple of stones so ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... incidents in a popular traditional tale. Just as the tellers of the stories in Campbell's Highland Tales, and other authentic collections, make no scruple about proportion where their memory happens to fail them or their irrelevant fancy to distract them, but go on easily, dropping out a symmetrical adventure here and there, and repeating a favourite "machine" if necessary or unnecessary; so the story of Constance forgets and repeats itself. The voice is the voice ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... minutes without moving, then he dropped his head suddenly on his arms with a heavy groan. The bright light was behind him, and Guy could see his clasped fingers twisting and tearing at each other, as if he wished to distract mental agony by the sense of bodily pain. The gazer saw that another besides himself had given up all hope; and, with a heavier heart than over, he stole away home—not to sleep, but to think, and wait for ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... is not 'mid the busy scenes of life, Where careworn mortals crowd along the way That leads to gain—shunning the light of day; In endless eddies whirl'd, where pain and strife Distract the soul, and spread the shades of night, Where love divine should dwell in ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... him, swallowed up in joy, but not forgetting us. It is not a land of oblivion in which Victor dwells. Heaven doth not harden or straiten hearts, but it maketh them more tender and compassionate it doth not distract minds, nor alienate them from us: it doth not diminish, but it increaseth affection and charity: it augmenteth bowels of pity. The angels, although they behold the face of their Father, visit, run, and continually ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... curtains parted and disclosed the stage, it was a little lighter, but not light enough for him; he could not find the plaids; or rather there were only plaids in the row; and there was also more than one head that resembled hers. To know that she was there was enough to distract him; and he was conscious of the music and action of the opera merely as something that was going on outside him, until he received another sharp nudge from ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... read, I write, I dream; I struggle against indolence, luxury, and pleasure. I wander all day among the arid mountains, the fresh valleys, and the deep caverns. I walk much on the banks of the Sorgue, where I meet no one to distract me. I recall the past. I deliberate on the future; and, in this contemplation, I find a resource against my solitude." In the same letter he avows that he could accustom himself to any habitation in the world, except Avignon. At this time he was meditating to ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... be. We are without cover—almost without defences—our vessel is unfit to receive thee, and this affair will be very different from that off Elba. Thou wouldst not willingly distract my mind with care for thee, at ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that year, and confined us to the house. Gloriana had borrowed a sewing-machine from a neighbour, and worked harder than ever, inflaming her eyes and our curiosity. We speculated daily upon her past, present and future, having little else to distract us in a life that was duller than a Chinese comedy. We waxed fat in idleness, but ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... She tried to propitiate the General after her usual manner towards him. It was as though she tried to distract ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... Irishmen, all of them of military age, who announced freely for the benefit of anyone who cared to listen—and it was not easy to avoid doing so—that they were Sinn Feiners. For a while Vane studied them, more to distract his own thoughts than for any interest in their opinions. It struck him that they were the exact counterpart of the new clique of humanity which has sprung up recently on this side of the Irish Sea; ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... always comparing himself, nothing short of which could satisfy his jealous ambition. He thought of nobler forms and nobler things than those he found about him. He lived apart, in the solitude of his own thoughts, carefully excluding from his mind whatever might distract its purposes or alloy its purity, or damp its zeal. "With darkness and with dangers compassed round," he had the mighty models of antiquity always present to his thoughts, and determined to raise a monument of equal height and glory, "piling up every stone of ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... had rather lost their interest in the subject. Neeld and Harry were in conversation. Iver sat down by Southend, and, while lunch was preparing, endeavored to distract his mind by giving him a history of the morning. Southend too was concerned in Blinkhampton. Gradually the curry was forgotten as he listened to the story ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... a fallen tree near him, but to reach it he would have to advance a few feet straight toward the fox. The heart of the tree was rotten and hollow, and to escape in this was Bumper's design. But how to distract Mr. Fox's attention until he could ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... who should have known better, that it has generally been accepted at its face value. The status of public education in the South in 1860, it is true, was not satisfactory, and the percentage of illiteracy was high. Any attempt to distract attention from these facts by pointing out the great proportion of the Southern white population in colleges and academies is as much to be deprecated as the denial of the existence of public schools ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... and from no other motive than transgressing the forbidden, I reached across to distract the attentive goodness of the prim little baggage; but—an iron grip lifted me ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... month; he had neglected her at Turin; he had spoken angry words in Milan; in fact, he had misused his treasure, and begged pardon;—'If you please, my poor bleeding angel, I am sorry. But do not, I entreat, distract me with petitions of any sort, though I will perform anything earthly to satisfy you. Be a good little boat in the wake of the big ship. I will look over at you, and chirrup now and then to you, my dearest, when I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... minds see nothing but signs: this is a source of power; but it is also a source of weakness; for in the practical affairs of life, and in the theoretical investigations of philosophy, a too active imagination is apt to distract the attention and scatter the energies of ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... attention and keeping the consciousness in the psychic realm. When hopes and fears are reckoned at their true worth, in comparison with lasting possessions of the Soul; when the outer reflections of things have ceased to distract us from inner realities; when argumentative - thought no longer entangles us, but yields its place to flashing intuition, the certainty which springs from within; then is the veil worn away, the consciousness is drawn from ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... I did with my fan was as much to distract your attention as anything else, and at the same time to identify myself to Mr. Rankin, whom I had never met. You knew him, ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... disputes between the religious and secular clergy[10] at this period tended to distract the attention of both from their spiritual work, and to give rise to considerable disorder and discontent. On the one side, men like the Paris professor, John Poilly and Richard Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh, were too extreme and seemed inclined to leave to the religious ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... The bedroom door was half an inch open, and through the slit he could catch a glimpse of the clean-shaven face of the doctor, looking wearier and more anxious than before. Then he rushed downstairs like a lunatic, and running to the door he tried to distract his thoughts by watching what; was going on in the street. The shops were all shut, and some rollicking boon companions came shouting along from the public-house. He stayed at the door until the stragglers had thinned down, and then came back to his seat by the fire. In ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... often, when, in the privacy of their household, she was about to offer a philippic on Washington and his followers, discretion sealed her mouth, and distrust beset her mind. In short, the whole conduct of the mysterious being she studied was of a character to distract the opinions of one who took a more enlarged view of men and life than came within ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... remaining {Fables} for me to write, but I purposely abstain; first, that I may not seem troublesome to you, whom a multiplicity of matters distract; and next, that, if perchance any other person is desirous to make a like attempt, he may still have something left to do; although there is so abundant a stock of matter that an artist will be wanting to the work, not work to the ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... that she is, she could control her muscles; but she could not control the beating of the blood in her brain. I felt that she was conscious of this betrayal, under the gaze of the policeman, and she laughed to distract his attention. My heart ached for her. I thought of a meadow-lark manoeuvering to hide the place where her nest lies. Poor, beautiful Maxine! In spite of her pride, her high courage, the veneer of hardness which her experience of the world ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... also Captain Winter's opinion; for he presently ran down under our stern and hailed me, stating his suspicions, and directing me to bear up and make the best of my way to leeward, while he and the Dolphin would endeavour to cover my retreat and distract the stranger's attention until I had got clear off. His orders were that I was to run to leeward until out of sight of the Frenchman, and then to haul my wind on the starboard tack, when he would do his utmost to rejoin me; but that, in the event of his failing to do so, I was to make the ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... staff brings to the commander's attention all the items necessary—but only those necessary—for his proper performance of his duties. Inordinate attention by the commander to unnecessary detail cannot but tend to distract his attention from his ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... themselves. He who can murder an innocent animal in cold blood, would find it impossible to show mercy to his fellow-man. Is hunting a proper employment for a thinking creature? A gentleman who hunts can only be forgiven if he does so rarely, and then to distract his thoughts from sad and earnest business matters. It would be wrong to deny sovereigns all relaxation, but is there a greater pleasure for a monarch than to rule well, to enrich his state, and to advance ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... of walk or gesture or vocal intonation are objectionable in an actor is that they distract the attention of the audience from the effect he is producing to his method of producing that effect. Mansfield's peculiar manner of pumping his voice from his diaphragm and Irving's corresponding system of ejaculating his phrases through his nose gave to the reading of those great ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... her. He simply remarked that it was well she now had nothing to distract her mind and that she would be able to devote herself entirely to her new life, and after counselling her not to argue about terms with Huddy, he led her back to the manager, and it was settled that she should ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... day which had, so to speak, cut his life in two, with a line of cleavage dividing the careless past from the ever-haunted future, he had been too busy, too much occupied in preparation for the brilliant career which he felt would one day be his, to allow thoughts of marriage to distract him from his chosen work. And since that fatal day, although his old enthusiasm, his old belief in himself and his capabilities, had long ago receded into the dim background, he had never consciously thought of any amelioration of the loneliness, the bitter, regretful ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... for Smythe or P. T. to "discover." Readers must have been strangely disappointed on finding not a single word to throw light upon this subject, and merely a long account of the negotiations between Curll and P. T. The narrative might serve to distract attention from the main point, which it clearly did nothing to elucidate. But Curll now stated his own case. He reprinted the narrative with some pungent notes; he gave in full some letters omitted by P. T., and he added a story which was most unpleasantly significant. ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... her purchases for an hour or more, and then wisely determined to distract her attention from all ghostly recollections in another way by taking her ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... risked by delay than by dispensing altogether with foreign aid. To forego this aid was perilous; to wait for it was ruin. It was resolved, therefore, to commence the insurrection on the 23d of May; and, in order to distract the government, to commence it by simultaneous assaults upon all the military posts in the neighborhood of Dublin. This plan was discovered, but scarcely in time to prevent the effects of a surprise. On the 21st, late in the evening, the conspiracy had been announced by the lord lieutenant's ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... mean?" Then, without waiting for an answer, "I don't care who she is or what she is or what the two of you want. Get out! This fool pill-roller in here thinks he can beat me playin' chess; you're in league with him to distract me, you traitor!" ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... afternoons, and Bluebell was thrown on nursery and school-room for companionship—insipid pabulum to the vanity of a young lady in her first glimpse of conquest, and who believed she had stricken down a quarry worthy of her bow. Having nothing to distract her, she considered the problem exhaustively from morning till night, and, if she were not in love with him before, she had got him into her head now, if not into her heart. His being so much with Cecil ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... Patrick Campbell playing "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray," and you will see it played exactly according to Mr. Pinero'a intention, and played brilliantly enough to distract our notice from what is lacking in the character. A fantastic and delightful contradiction, half gamine, half Burne-Jones, she confuses our judgment, as a Paula in real life might, and leaves us attracted and repelled, and, above all, interested. But Duse has no resources outside simple human ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... poorly concealed dislike of the man and his methods, the boys waited with what patience they could muster until the ordeal should be ended. Ned endeavored to distract their thoughts by commenting on the others, who ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... So had Boyson. Roger was sitting by the fire in the vicar's study, ministered to by Elsie French and her children. By common consent the dismal subject of the day had been put aside. There was an attempt to cheer and distract him. The little boy of four was on his knee, declaiming the "Owl and the Pussy Cat," while Roger submissively turned the pages and pointed to the pictures of that immortal history. The little girl of two, curled up on her mother's lap close by, listened sleepily, and Elsie, applauding and ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... leaves, disappeared in different directions. This brought the parent birds on the scene in an agony of alarm. Their distress was pitiful. They threw themselves on the ground at our very feet, and fluttered, and cried, and trailed themselves before us, to draw us away from the place, or distract our attention from the helpless young. I shall not forget the male bird, how bright he looked, how sharp the contrast as he trailed his painted plumage there on the dry leaves. Apparently he was seriously ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... wife of a great church dignitary in the neighbourhood, and she had undergone regeneration. How great may be the misery inflicted by an energetic, unmarried, healthy woman in that condition,—a woman with no husband, or children, or duties, to distract her from her work,—I pray that ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... myself think I took that which was not my own. My poor head suffers so;—so many grievous thoughts distract me, that I am like a child, and know not what I do." As he spoke thus he put both hands up to his head, leaning forward as though in anxious thought,—as though he were striving to bring his mind to bear with accuracy upon past ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... this to herself some days, not knowing what to do; for she loves you, and admires you of all women. At last she revealed it, but in confidence, to Miss Biddulph, by letter. Miss Biddulph, in like confidence, being afraid it would distract me, were I to know it, communi- cated it to Miss Lloyd; and so, like a whispered scandal, it passed through several canals, and then it came to me; which was not ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the first time she denied Kells admittance and she only vaguely sensed his solicitations. She had no ear for the murmur of voices in Kells's room. Even the loud and angry notes of a quarrel between Kells and his men did not distract her. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... One dog may distract the attention from another dog.[45] A very gaunt poodle came along at the moment. Gavroche felt compassion ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... had little on board except a quantity of round pebble stones. Other canoes came off along with them, having only women on board; and while these females were assiduously practising their allurements, by attitudes that could not be misunderstood, with the view, as it would seem, to distract the attention of the crew, the large double canoes closed round the ship; and as these advanced, some of the men began singing, some blowing conchs, and others playing on flutes. One of them, with a person sitting under a canopy, approached the ship so close, as to allow ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... go, and you'd better run as far as you can out behind the barn, so 't your noise won't distract your aunt Mirandy. I see Susan Simpson and the twins and Emma Jane Perkins hiding behind ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... you; but first I must explain the manner of it. When two Skraelingers see a bear they go up to him with spears. On approaching him they separate. One settles that he is to kill him, the other agrees to distract his attention. He who is to kill approaches on the side next the heart. His comrade goes up and pricks the bear on the other side. The bear turns full on him who wounds, exposes his heart-side, and is instantly thrust through by him who is to ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... Louise, my child, I only rose to rid you of a dream, the awakening from which will be deplorable. I consider it my duty to distract you from your insane fancies. The more I think of what you told me the more is my sympathy aroused. But I am compelled to tell you the truth, cruel as it is; beyond doubt the duke has placed Fernand in some compromising situation, so as to make it impossible for him ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... satisfaction. He then proceeded to tell Lord Blomfield and me how your father's name had become familiar to him, and so much valued in his eyes. He said that at one time Napoleon had arranged to distract the affairs of Britain by attacking her in her Canadian possessions—not by a direct descent upon them, but by a route which men expected would take England quite by surprise and ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... on the epilogue Mr. Vane had nothing to distract him from the congregation but a sanguinary sermon in five heads, so his eyes roved over the pews, and presently he became aware of a familiar face watching him closely. The gentleman to whom it belonged finding himself recognized ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... military position on the Atlantic coast of the United States; and although the two could not communicate by land, they did support each other as naval stations in a war essentially dependent upon maritime power. Philadelphia served no purpose but to divide and distract British enterprise. Absolutely dependent for maintenance upon the sea, the forces in it and in New York could not cooeperate; they could not even unite except by sea. When Clinton relieved Howe as commander-in-chief, ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... disaster of the impracticability of approaching Quebec on the side of the Montmorency, Wolfe again turned his whole attention to the St. Lawrence. To destroy some ships of war lying in the river, and at the same time to distract the attention of Montcalm by descents at different places, twelve hundred men were embarked in transports under the command of general Murray, who made two vigorous, but unsuccessful attempts, to land on the northern shore. In ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... which we call Punning is therefore greatly affected by Men of small Intellects. These Men need not be concerned with you for the whole Sentence; but if they can say a quaint thing, or bring in a Word which sounds like any one Word you have spoken to them they can turn the Discourse, or distract you so that you cannot go on, and by consequence if they cannot be as witty as you are, they can hinder your being any wittier than they are. Thus if you talk of a Candle, he can deal with you; and if you ask him to help you to some Bread, a Punster should think himself ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Its general function was to make the deity more real to the worshiper, to make the latter more sharply conscious of the divine presence, to fix the attention, and so far to further a real communion. On the other hand, it tended to produce a low physical conception of the divine person, and to distract the mind of the worshiper from the ethical side of worship. Its moral effect was dependent on the man's character and thought. When the image was regarded as the symbol of an ethically good Power, it was a reenforcement of pure religious feeling; when it was regarded as in itself a source ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... tickets for Atlantic City, where you must get what accommodations you can. Our little friend needs to be taken out of town,—not on business you understand, but to escape the unpleasantness here and to get such change as will distract her mind. Her mother cannot leave her duties, so you have undertaken to accompany the child. The rest leave to me. ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... gives a precious power of feeling to the whole body. Sometimes it seems as if the very substance of my flesh were so many eyes looking out at will upon a world new created every day. The silence and darkness which are said to shut me in, open my door most hospitably to countless sensations that distract, inform, admonish, and amuse. With my three trusty guides, touch, smell, and taste, I make many excursions into the borderland of experience which is in sight of the city of Light. Nature accommodates itself to every man's necessity. If the eye is maimed, so that it does not see the beauteous face ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... every time I do it I have a rush of love to the head. When you find a girl who combines all the qualities you have imagined in the ideal, and who has added a dozen or two on her own account, merely to distract you past all hope, why stand up and try to resist her charm? Down on your knees like a ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... can be attended by any one, friend or acquaintance, and no slight should be felt at the non-receipt of an invitation. Those attending should take especial pains to be in the church before the funeral procession arrives, and that they do nothing to distract from the solemnity ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... out, dissipate, emit, put forth, shoot forth, disgorge, distract, exude, radiate, throw off, disperse, eject, give up, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... of it until they find themselves drifting down the river in a mass. Then there will be great jostling and carrying away of bowsprits and bulwarks, and the confusion and shouting which will arise will tend to confuse the Danes and to distract their attention from us." ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... sacrifice. In his garden he cultivated fruit-trees, vegetables and medicinal plants, but fearing beauty even in flowers, he would have neither roses nor jasmine. He only allowed himself the innocent luxury of a few tufts of mignonette whose twisted stems, so modestly flower-crowned, would not distract his attention as he read his breviary among his cabbage-plots under the sky of our dear ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... himself their enemy. Then surely there could be no complaint at the disaster that would overtake him. He was clearly to blame. So why let the contemplation of it distract her? ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... season, and the girls attended nearly every matinee performance. The first few times Patty could scarcely listen to the music for her admiration of the wonderful building, but after she became more accustomed to its glories, it did not so distract her attention from the stage. Mr. and Mrs. Farrington occasionally gave opera parties, and dinner parties, too, but the girls were not allowed to attend these. Although indulgent in many ways, Mrs. Farrington was somewhat strict ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... charmed, was buried in deepest silence. The company which rendered every scene pleasant was gone, never to return: his sheep, his goats, nay, even the poultry, were often fed from his hand: every thing served to distract. As for my children, they were by kind friends kept for some time out of my sight; for not only to view them fatherless distressed me, but their thoughtless mirth and play was ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... 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, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... otherwise completely commanded by the batteries, proposed landing during the night preceding the day the squadron was to descend, with a number of Congreve rockets, which he suggested should be fired into the fort so as to distract the defenders, while the ships of war and merchant-vessels passed under it. His proposal was adopted. Fortunately, a bank was found parallel with the stream, which was of sufficient height to conceal the rocket party. Having made ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... (teocallis) and unnumbered palaces, adorned with all the luxury and magnificence of the most refined civilization, united with barbaric grandeur and inhumanity in so strange a combination as to distract our ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... to make him a king. Our Lord, fearing the outburst, resolves to withdraw into the lonely hills, that the fickle blaze may die down. If the disciples had remained with Him, He could not have so easily stolen away, and they might have caught the popular fervour. To divide would distract the crowd, and make it easier for Him to disperse them, while many of them, as really happened, would be likely to set off by land for Capernaum, when they saw the boat had gone. The main teaching of this miracle, over and above its demonstration ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... need of something to distract her attention by a stroke of exotic brilliancy and by the creation of some new object of hatred. Enmity for ever directed against France, was beginning somewhat to pall. This continually living on the strength of one's old triumphs, made Germany to appear ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... warm-heartedness is tempered with a most excellent discretion, and that thy speech is ever sincere. Assuredly, such is the maiden I would ask of the Lord as a most precious gift; but I never thought of this connection with thee. I came to this country solely on a religious visit, and it might distract my mind to entertain this subject at present. When I have discharged the duties of my ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... upon her. Whence had it come, and what did it mean? A few minutes ago it was not with her. She knew that it would not always be with her, yet it did not seem as if it would ever leave her. She could not think of herself as ever being happy again. But Ulick would distract this misery from her brain. She would send him to the piano, and the exalted sorrow in the music, which she could but faintly remember, would raise her above sorrow, would bear her out of and above the circle of personal despondency. Ulick might help her; she could not help herself. She was incapable ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... different orders, with some variety of rule, but the broad principle was the same in all. They were to live for others, not for themselves. They took vows of poverty, that they might not be entangled in the pursuit of money. They took vows of chastity, that the care of a family might not distract them from the work which they had undertaken. Their efforts of charity were not limited to this world. Their days were spent in hard bodily labour, in study, or in visiting the sick. At night they were on the stone-floors of their chapels, holding up their withered hands ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... occasion," said he. "When the oars are taken in we always begin to rejoice. And why not? Death is near—it is almost certain. Why should we do anything to distract our minds and mar our joy? For oh, dear friend, the glorious time has come when we can give up life—life, with all its toils, its burdens, its endless bitternesses, its perpetual evils. Now we shall have no more suffering from vexatious ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... changed essentially with the collapse of the Confederacy. There was no more organized armed resistance to the national government, to distract which loyal State governments in the South might have been efficacious. But there was an effort of persons lately in rebellion to get possession of the reconstructed Southern State governments for the purpose, in part, of using their power ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... the wall side by side, and in tiers. Then the compositions are as overfilled as the sheets of an illustrated newspaper—witness the "Massacre of the Innocents," a scene of such magnificent artistic possibilities. Finally, irrelevant episodes and irrelevant groups of portraits do what they can to distract our attention from all higher significance. Look at the "Birth of John"; Ginevra dei Benci stands there, in the very foreground, staring out at you as stiff as if she had a photographer's iron behind her head. An even ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... affair, wasn't it? I knew a great deal about suburban life. But—well, I suppose one can't really understand what one doesn't love, and one can't make good fun without real understanding. Besides, what chance of virtue is there for a book written merely to distract the author's mind? I had hoped to be healed by sea and sunshine and solitude. These things were useless. The labour of "Mr. and Mrs. Robinson" did help, a little. When I had finished it, I thought I might as ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... unto thy sire, What visions thus distract thee? Hold, abide; Great was thy victory, and shalt ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... interesting as introducing a certain new element into art—a concentration of energy on the originality of the first general effect, including nothing that does not interest, and yet giving the effect of completeness. In Alexander's portraits there is nothing to distract the interest from the personality of the sitter, and he usually achieves a delineation of ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... girl had so many things to distract her attention that she wondered how grown-up people could be so tranquil with all their knowledges and their cares. She began to realise the great difference in tastes and characteristics, though she would not have quite comprehended that long word. ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... failing, spread clean litter beneath the belly or turn the patient out on the dung heap. Some seek to establish sympathetic action by pouring water from one vessel into another with dribbling noise. Others soothe and distract the attention by slow whistling. Friction of the abdomen with wisps of straw may succeed, or it may be rubbed with ammonia and oil. These failing, an injection of 2 ounces of laudanum or of an infusion of ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... you will find in "the world," as anywhere else, that the person who succeeds is generally he who has been willing to give the most of his strength and mind to that one object, and has not allowed the flowers on the hillside to distract him from his path, remembering also that genius is often but the ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... is not this a heauie case To see thy Noble Vnckle thus distract? Publ. Therefore my Lords it highly vs concernes, By day and night t' attend him carefully: And feede his humour kindely as we may, Till time beget ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... consume away, and see not my love? My only fault is poverty: so, by Allah, I will go out from this land and wander afar in the plains and valleys; for my condition in this city is one of misery and I have no friend nor lover in it to comfort me; wherefore I will distract myself by absence from my native land, till I die and am at peace from abasement and tribulation." And he repeated ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... he said to me once: "If you have a bad business on hand, an unhappy or wounding affair, it is best to receive it fully and quietly. Let it do its worst, realise it, take it in—don't resist it, don't try to distract your mind: see the full misery of it, don't attempt to minimise it. If you do that, you will suddenly find something within you come to your rescue and say, 'Well, I can bear that!' and then it is all right. But if you try to dodge it, it's my experience that there ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a crimson battlefield of spring, but London was not afraid. Her smoke mitigated the splendour, and the clouds down Oxford Street were a delicately painted ceiling, which adorned while it did not distract. She has never known the clear-cut armies of the purer air. Leonard hurried through her tinted wonders, very much part of the picture. His was a grey life, and to brighten it he had ruled off a few corners for romance. The Miss Schlegels—or, ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... harshly and rudely), no interest at all, but is altogether indifferent: and whatsoever else thou hast heard and assented unto concerning either pain or pleasure? But the care of thine honour and reputation will perchance distract thee? How can that be, if thou dost look back, and consider both how quickly all things that are, are forgotten, and what an immense chaos of eternity was before, and will follow after all things: and the ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... society did not distract him from scientific research; nor did this period occupy much space in what is a very short and crowded life. Partly his natural dissatisfaction with such a life, once he had learned all it had to teach him, partly the influence of his saintly sister Jacqueline, partly increasing ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... passed him, but soon came galloping behind me, and again started aside when I looked round." How little I suspected then (or the bull-calf either, for that matter) that he was to frolic his way into literature, and go gambolling down the ages to distract the anxious soul of the lover of Hilda! Another walk of ours was to the huge, green mound of the Monte Testaccio; it was, at that period, pierced by numerous cavities, in the dark coolness of which stores of native ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... business, they would hardly get through without a scene, and during the past week there had been a number of mysterious interviews with lawyers going on.... What was it all about? To distract her thoughts she struck ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the woods in the spring, our self-consciousness leaves us and we speedily make ourselves at home. We take things for granted, and are not careful about trifles. A great many things are going on, but the multiplicity does not distract us. We do not need ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... Pitt and his colleagues should not commit themselves deeply to the Haytian embroglio. In that anxious time, the autumn of 1794, the most urgent needs were to save Holland from the Jacobins, to distract them by helping the Royalists of Brittany, and from our new base in Corsica to clog their attempts at an invasion of Italy. Owing to the slackness of our Allies, these enterprises proved unexpectedly difficult. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... in your husband's business affairs, and sympathize with the cares and anxieties which beset him. Distract his mind with pleasant or amusing conversation, when you find him nervous and ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... a Christian faith. If the dead live no more, what would memory be to us but a spectre and a sting? Should we not then seek to repress those tender recollections,—to close our eyes to those pale, sad visions of departed love? Should we not invoke the glare and tumult of the world to distract or absorb our thoughts? Would we not say, "Let it come, the pleasure, the occupation of the hour, that we may think no more of the dead, plucked from us forever,—let us drive thoughtlessly down this swift current of life, since thought only harrows us,—let us drive thoughtlessly ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... from places which constantly brought it back to my mind. Another sky, other customs, another language, grave responsibilities, a novel and difficult undertaking of uncertain outcome—I was willing to risk all simply to distract my attention and to forget. I have never in my life been a gambler, but that time I staked my artistic reputation upon a single card. Failure would have been a new emotion, severe and grievous, it is true, ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... jealousy in his heart, but there was bitterness, discontent, a savage self-pillorying. He was genuinely sorry that this young woman was so pretty; still, had she the graces of Calypso, he must have come. She would distract him, and he desired at that time distraction least of all diversions. Concentration and singleness of purpose—upon these two attributes practically hung his life. How strangely fate had stepped with him. ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... was alone with her he managed to distract her attention from her flowers and to make her listen to Marsden's message. He set the case before her plainly. Without ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... encouraged the patient, their constant companion and playmate both in quarters and the field, by expressions of sympathy and affection. The arrival of Paco, who established himself behind the esquilador, in a gap of the circle, was insufficient to distract their attention from the important and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... de Nevers, and myself did all that lay in our power to distract or relieve the sorrows of the Prince; but the loss of Mademoiselle de Chatillon, his charming spouse, was much more present with him than that of his states; the bitterness which he drew from it was out of the retch of all consolation possible. The Marquise de Thianges procured ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... of basis they rest. And I do this the more willingly, as I observe that already the hastier sort of critics have begun, not to review my friend's book, but to howl over it in a manner which must tend greatly to distract the ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... of what had occurred before that battle were none too clear. But, yes, he had wished Taggi and Togi present at that moment to distract the enraged beast. ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... it had not been for the two great tears that ran down her cheeks, she might have been taken for a marble statue lying on a tomb, the priests were singing the prayers for the dying, and in a corner of the room the little Bathilde, whom they had separated from her mother, that she might not distract her attention during her last act of religion, was seated on the ground, not daring to cry, frightened at seeing so many people she did not know, and hearing so ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... ye, boy! Ye distract me when I'm doin' a bit of thinkin' for a lady! When ye get good an' ready, then will be time enough to do your tellin'. Queer if I couldn't trust ...
— Judith Lynn - A Story of the Sea • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... company better than his own. After the desert's changeless, unfathomed silence, in which nothing new came day or night to break the fettering spell his mind was falling under, the clink and knocking of bottles was good to hear, and he listened for more, craving any sound that might liven or distract his haunted spirit. Instead of the sun and stars, here was a roof; instead of the pitiless clear air, here was tobacco smoke; and beneath his boot-heels a wooden floor wet with spilled liquids instead of the unwatered crumbling sand. Without drinking, he moved his chair near the noisiest drinkers, ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... details. If things have to be done, do them.... If babies must be hungry—why, I suppose it is a condition that must exist from time to time. The fault of their fathers.... However, I do not care to hear about them. I am engaged on an important literary work, as you know, and such things tend to distract me." ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... and execute great deeds in bodily weakness have my homage as truly heroic. For myself, I had not the spirit of a chicken as I jogged along at 'Mwanga's side. I wished he would begin to insult me, if only to distract my mind, but he kept obstinately silent. He was sulky, and I think ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... be selected with the greatest possible care, and in our opinion the small gold ones can only be worn by a perfect gentleman; for whilst they perform their required office, they do not distract the attention from the quality and whiteness of your linen. Some that we have seen were evidently intended for cabinet pictures, rifle targets ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... of stage magicians] 1. /v./ To gloss over a complex point; to distract a listener; to support a (possibly actually valid) point with blatantly faulty logic. 2. /n./ The act of handwaving. "Boy, what ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... was going on. The bedroom door was half an inch open, and through the slit he could catch a glimpse of the clean-shaven face of the doctor, looking wearier and more anxious than before. Then he rushed downstairs like a lunatic, and running to the door he tried to distract his thoughts by watching what; was going on in the street. The shops were all shut, and some rollicking boon companions came shouting along from the public-house. He stayed at the door until the stragglers had thinned down, and then came ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself. The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than any one. You know it is sometimes very pleasant ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... those not admitted, and he certainly would have held it against the Duke, had he still been Director; but Jean explained to him that Maurice had taken this means of making the rehearsal go more quickly. Genevieve, who was also excluded, kept the Count company, and tried to distract him; but he was in a very despondent humour. When he saw the Duke arrive so late, he said, somewhat crossly, "He is delaying ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... decisively, and without thanks. Concerning the proposed policies, domestic and foreign, the President said as little as was called for; he actually did not even refer to the scheme for inaugurating gratuitously a war with a large part of Europe, in order for a while to distract attention ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... attack both the upper and lower towns at the same time. The plan now resolved on was, to divide the army into four parts, and while two of them, consisting of Canadians under Major Livingston, and a small party under Major Brown, were to distract the attention of the garrison by making two feints against the upper town, at St. Johns and Cape Diamond; the other two, led, the one by Montgomery in person, and the other by Arnold, were to make real attacks on opposite sides of the lower town. After gaining possession of the ...
— An interesting journal of Abner Stocking of Chatham, Connecticut • Abner Stocking
... of his son Willie the inconsolable father mourned in particular on that day in each week, and even the military sights at Fortress Monroe to court a change failed to distract him. He was studying Shakespeare. Calling his private secretary to him, he read several passages, and finally that of Queen Constance's lament over ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... seated herself; and then pensively moved to the other end of the bench, because a slanting sunbeam fell there. Since it was absolutely necessary to blast Mr. Kennaston's dearest hopes, she thoughtfully endeavoured to distract his attention from his own miseries—as far as might be possible—by showing him how exactly like an aureole her hair was in the sunlight. Margaret always had ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... true boy, as well as a budding philosopher, for often, after a discussion which caused Hannah to prophesy, with ominous nods, "That child ain't long for this world," he would turn about and set her fears at rest by some of the pranks with which dear, dirty, naughty little rascals distract and delight ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... there among the beech leaves tired, finally, of its cooing and twig-snapping and slept the sleep of dreamless early childhood. He slept happily and noiselessly, but when he at last awoke his demeanor showed a change. He had nothing to distract him, unless it might be the breaking of twigs again. He had no toys, and, being hungry, he began to yell. So far as can be learned from early data, babies, when hungry, have always yelled. And, of old, as to-day, when a baby yelled, the woman who had borne it was likely ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... you err my friend, For on Trifles all depend. Trifles great effects produce, Both of pleasure and of use; Trifles often turn the scale, When in love or law we fail; Trifles to the great commend, Trifles make proud beauty bend; Trifles prompt the poet's strain, Trifles oft distract the brain; Trifles, trifles more or less, Give us, or withhold success; Trifles, when we hope, can cheer, Trifles smite us when we fear: All the flames that lovers know, Trifles ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... modern times have brought to politics a mind so trained in right thinking, or a spirit so full of that impressive quality, as Morley calls it, the presentiment of the eve: "a feeling of the difficulties and interests that will engage and distract mankind on the morrow." Long ago he foresaw the need in our industrial life of the scientific spirit, and in our democracy of a deeper and more profitable education. "Look at Scotland, the best educated nation; and at Ireland, the worst!" For these things he prepared. ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... not ashamed to talk like that! She sang and played the piano only to do me a kindness, because I positively entreated, almost commanded her to do so. I saw that she was sad, so sad; I thought how to distract her mind—and I heard that she had such marvellous talent! I assure you, Fedor Ivanitch, she is utterly crushed, ask Sergei Petrovitch even; a heart-broken woman, tout a ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... will be Brighthelmstone, where I do most humbly and fervently entreat you to write—do, dearest sir, write, if but one word—if but only you name yourself! Nothing but your own hand can now tranquillize me. The reports about London here quite distract me. If it were possible to send ine a line by the diligence to Brighton, how grateful I should be for such ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... was for the luncheon-hour rush: I could distract myself from the appalling disaster. That day I took rather more than my accustomed charge of the serving. I chatted with our business chaps, recommending the joint in the highest terms; drawing corks; seeing that the relish was abundantly ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... was now his constant companion, and tried by every means in his power, but without avail, to cheer his friend and distract his mind from the gloom and despondency that had taken ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... simply couldn't resist the temptation. If God ever made anything more beautiful than a rose, Mr. Narkom, it is yet to be discovered. Sit down, and while you are talking I'll arrange these in this vase. No; it won't distract my attention from what you are saying, believe me. Somehow, I can always think better and listen better when there are flowers about me, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... sent to Davide's Ferry, on the river, twenty-five miles below. Polignac's infantry, twelve hundred muskets, was posted on the Boeuf within supporting distance of the two last. Liddell's seven hundred newly-organized horse, with four guns, was of little service beyond making feints to distract ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... precious power of feeling to the whole body. Sometimes it seems as if the very substance of my flesh were so many eyes looking out at will upon a world new created every day. The silence and darkness which are said to shut me in, open my door most hospitably to countless sensations that distract, inform, admonish, and amuse. With my three trusty guides, touch, smell, and taste, I make many excursions into the borderland of experience which is in sight of the city of Light. Nature accommodates itself to every man's necessity. If the eye ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... seems," he said, "that that fair-haired daughter of the Greeks, Madonna Elena, the slim, the rosy-fingered disturber of the repose of cities, hath appeared to distract this our city of Padua. Me at least she hath distraught. Fair friends, sister and brother poets, you shall understand that henceforth I devote myself to this lady and her praise. More, I vow a vow, and call upon you to register it in the Golden Book of the Amorous Gests of Padua, that I will ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... at the thought of going out into the bleak darkness. It seemed more terrible now that he was with his friends than when he was outside and alone. He kept on saying to himself that there were plenty more who would be spending the night out of doors. He strove to distract his mind by talking, but in the middle of his words a spatter of rain against the window ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... has provided, in its government of mankind, such narrow bounds to his sight and knowledge of things; and though he walks in the midst of so many thousand dangers, the sight of which, if discovered to him, would distract his mind and sink his spirits, he is kept serene and calm, by having the events of things hid from his eyes, and knowing nothing of the dangers which ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... doctor, had treated, with cheerful patience and skill, an infected and painful hand of the guide's, and this had won for him the love eternal of our Tin Lizzie. Little John Dudley thought, as he made jokes to distract the boy, and worked over his big throbbing fist, the fist which meant daily bread—little John thought where the plant of love springing from that seed of gratitude would at last blossom. Little he thought ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... preponderance, and the weakness of its rival, — two-thirds of the power of Austria are now in arms against Austria itself, while a formidable confederacy, already formed in Transylvania, would, by a hostile attack, further distract even the weak remnant of its power. Could inducements such as these fail to awaken his ambition, or such hopes to animate and inflame ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... as a contribution to philosophical thought, for his mind was devoid both of the method and of the force necessary for the pursuit and discovery of really significant intellectual truths. To claim for him such titles of distinction is to overshoot the mark, and to distract attention from his true eminence. Montaigne was neither a great artist nor a great philosopher; he was not great at all. He was a charming, admirable human being, with the most engaging gift for conversing ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... an ambulance dashing up to lift his bruised hopes tenderly and take them off somewhere for sanitary treatment, or even some childish sympathy of theirs commissioned to run up and offer him a nosegay to distract him in his walk toward old disappointments and old cares. He only knew they were welcome visitants in his mind. Sometimes the mind seemed to him a clean-swept place, the shades down and no fire lighted, and these young creatures, ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... subordinate characters; or whether he qualifies the tragic state of his heroes by occasionally assigning lighter tasks to them; or whether he chooses to employ both modes of relieving the weight of misery through live long acts; it is obviously unnecessary that he should distract the attention of his audience, and destroy the regularity of his play, by introducing a comic plot with personages and interest altogether distinct, and intrigue but slightly connected with that of the tragedy. Dryden ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... usually open. I now felt tenfold anxiety concerning my tragedy. The bond I had given at six months would soon become due; failure would send me to prison, perhaps for life; it would disgrace me, would distract my family, would cut short my hopes of fame, and the grand progress which I sometimes fondly imagined I should make. Every way it would be fatal! I trembled at its possibility. Success, which had so lately appeared certain, seemed to become more ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... success. When the curtains parted and disclosed the stage, it was a little lighter, but not light enough for him; he could not find the plaids; or rather there were only plaids in the row; and there was also more than one head that resembled hers. To know that she was there was enough to distract him; and he was conscious of the music and action of the opera merely as something that was going on outside him, until he received another sharp nudge from Madeleine on ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... in my house distract me. I met a fine gentleman, when I inquired who He was—why, he came to Clarinda. I met A footman too, and he came to Clarinda. My wife had the character of a virtuous Woman—" ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... overboard, was striking out rapidly towards him. The attention of all on board was directed to the spot. Had it not been for fear of the voracious monster of the deep, many might have jumped overboard to assist, still they shouted and kept throwing in things, to distract, if possible, the attention of the shark, from the lad in the water. Denham knowing well the enemy he had to contend with, continued striking the water with all his might with his feet, as he swam forward, shouting at the same time. But young Lord Fitz ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... some one for Fleur. I want to distract her. She's going off on Saturday to Val Dartie and his wife; ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... (h)anxious to get ready for this gaime we've bin 'earing abaht. I should just like to remind 'im that we 'ave a bigger gaime on 'and, if 'e wants to get into it. Personally I don't 'ave no use for these 'ere gaimes. I 'ave seen the same kind of capitalistic dodge to distract the workin' man's (h)attention from 'is real gaime in life. ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... I see that I have here and there repeated myself. Do excuse it. I believe it is owing to the way the flies harass and distract me. ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... me how are you to fix your attention when there are so many things going on around you to distract your thoughts? I can only answer, that as our minds are in many respects of different orders, so, no general rule can be given. If you will, each one, faithfully make the attempt, I have no doubt you will succeed, in just the same proportion ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... chair beside Harmony Peter slid his long figure, and met a tremulous bow and silence. From the head of the table Frau Schwarz was talking volubly—as if, by mere sound, to distract attention from the scantiness of the meal. Under cover of the Babel Peter spoke to the girl. Having had his warning his tone was friendly, without a hint of the ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of the creek. We turned in early, tired out, and scarcely had we rolled ourselves in our blankets when a dismal howl made us "say things," and in half an hour all the dingoes in North Queensland seemed to have gathered around the camp to distract us. The noise they made was something diabolical, coming from both sides of the creek, and from the ranges. In reality there were not more than five or six at the outside, but any one would imagine that there were droves ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... studied carefully the language and literature, his tastes and opportunities leading him to lay the solid foundation of what was to be the main work of his life. The society that he met here was mainly that of the foreign diplomatists, but, agreeable as it was, it did not distract him from his studies or from his observation of the people among whom he was placed. In a letter to this country he said, "What seems mere fiction and romance in other countries is matter of observation ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... and to ask him three times to rise, to the immense merriment of the cardinals; and that he had a daughter, Novella, so accomplished in law as to be able to read her father's lectures in his absence, and so beautiful, that she had to read behind a curtain lest her face should distract the attention of the students. He is said to have died at Bologna of the plague in 1348, and an epitaph in the church of the Dominicans in which he was buried, calling him Rabbi Doctorum, Lux, Censor, Normaque Morum, testifies to the public estimation of his character. Andrea wrote a Gloss on ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... discovered. Several authors refer to the stratagem of the Magpie, who begins several nests at the same time; but only one is intended to receive the brood, and that only is completed. The aim of the others is merely to distract attention. It is around these latter that the bird shows ostentatious activity, while it works at the real nest only for a few hours during the day, in the ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... selecting me for the purpose of temporarily presiding over your deliberations. We have come together to secure a common and at the same time a most important object—to agree if we can upon some plan for adjusting the unhappy differences which distract the country, which will be satisfactory to ourselves and those we represent. We have assembled as friends, as brothers, each, I doubt not, animated by ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... the Karduchians were already on guard there. Two thousand Greeks, having the guide bound along with them, were accordingly despatched late in the afternoon, to surprise this post by a night-march; while Xenophon, in order to distract the attention of the Karduchians in front, made a feint of advancing as if about to force the direct pass. As soon as he was seen crossing the ravine which led to this mountain, the Karduchians on the top immediately ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... have you got with your "Nibelungen"? It will be a great joy to me to grasp your creation through your immediate aid. For heaven's sake, let nothing distract you from this, and continue to weld your wings with ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... is the worst day for a Commander. The operation overhangs him as the thought of another sort of operation troubles the minds of sick men in hospitals. There is nothing to distract him; he has made his last will and testament; his affairs are quite in order; he has said au revoir to his friends with what cheeriness he can muster. Looking back, it seems to me that during ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... and soreness," Pao-yue rejoined, "are of no consequence; but if you go on sleeping you'll be feeling very ill; so I'll try and distract you, and when we've dispelled this lassitude, you'll ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... worth living in just now, whilst we are in such terrible anxiety," he said boldly. "At least there are the papers and telegrams all day long, and none of this dreary, long waiting between the posts; and there are other things—to distract one's attention, ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... an inlet where it might be possible to land troops, though perilously near the guns of the citadel. It was resolved to make a feint here, and to send parties to each of the three other points, so as to divide and distract the attention of the enemy. Wolfe was to take command of the landing at Freshwater Cove, which was the spot where Amherst most desired to make his first stand, and here the most determined attempt was to be made. The Commander came and conferred with his ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... year, and confined us to the house. Gloriana had borrowed a sewing-machine from a neighbour, and worked harder than ever, inflaming her eyes and our curiosity. We speculated daily upon her past, present and future, having little else to distract us in a life that was duller than a Chinese comedy. We waxed fat in idleness, but ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... feared the attractions of the seaside, and also he feared completely rural isolation, for of old he knew it charms, and so he determined to find some unpretentious little town where there would be nothing to distract him. He refrained from asking suggestions from any of his friends, for he argued that each would recommend some place of which he had knowledge, and where he had already acquaintances. As Malcolmson wished to avoid friends he had no wish to encumber ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... back with some effort from the consideration of the greater issues to fix it on the smaller ones. In its way Drusilla's interference was a welcome diversion, since the point she raised was important enough to distract Olivia's attention from decisions too poignant ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... of the Mother, to whom Mademoiselle was most tenderly attached, that reduced her to a state of the most pitiable. The Sisters left at home each day would talk of the work and the fine weather—anything to distract the mind, that presented itself to them—but now, nothing was of any use. When the Reverend Mother came back at nightfall, behold a transformation. Mademoiselle would laugh and sing and chatter. Her eyes would shine like ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... I recovered speech, but my voice terrified her; the hapless girl had understood my look, and for worlds she would not that the tale of her heavy misery should have been shaped out and confirmed by hard, irrevocable words. Nay, she seemed to wish to distract my thoughts from the subject: she rose from the floor: "Hush!" she said, whisperingly; "after much weeping, Clara sleeps; we must not disturb her." She seated herself then on the same ottoman where I had left her in the morning resting on the beating heart of her Raymond; I dared not ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... happened to be a wonderful new process of evolving gas from dirt and city refuse. He had been explaining it gently to a woman in the chair, from pure intellectual interest, to distract the patient's mind. He was not tinkering with teeth this time, however. The woman was sitting in the chair because it was the only unoccupied space. She had removed her hat and was looking steadily into the lake. At last, when the little office clerk had left, the talk about the gas generator ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... the two air service boys had no hope of inflicting much damage on batteries or works outside the prison. By the dropping of some bombs they carried they hoped to distract attention from themselves long enough to drop the packages to Leroy. The bombs ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... I, 'you know my idiosyncrasies. I prefer a square, non-illegal style of business such as we are carrying on now. When I take money I want to leave some tangible object in the other fellow's hands for him to gaze at and to distract his attention from my spoor, even if it's only a Komical Kuss Trick Finger Ring for Squirting Perfume in a Friend's Eye. But if you've got a fresh idea, Andy,' says I, 'let's have a look at it. I'm not so wedded to petty graft that I would refuse something ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... through the halls and vacant rooms strange footsteps are frequently heard when all the family are trying to sleep; sounds loud enough to arouse every member of the household. Then the manifestations sometimes change to moanings and groanings sufficiently vehement and pitiful to distract all who hear them. Once upon a time, perhaps a dozen years ago, Jonathan Riggs lived in this house, and as the local gossips assert, Riggs caused the death of his wife by his brutal conduct and then swallowed ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... morning. What time was it then? he asked himself. Seven, at the latest. That meant eight long hours of agony, before anything happened! That is what the wounded love and long for—something to happen—something to distract the attention from the slow, insistent pain—something to liven drooping spirits, and ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... heard rumbling into the courtyard, with the guest arrived in safety, but, if one must confess one's self, perhaps forbidding at first sight. From a comfortless portico, with all the grotesqueness of the Middle Age, supported by brown, aged bishops, whose meditations no incident could distract, Our Lady looked out no better than an unpretending nun, with nothing to say the like of which one was used to hear. Certainly one was not stimulated by, enwrapped, absorbed in the great master's doings; only, with much private disappointment, ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... did not long distract her attention from the chief actors in the scene which was being worked out in front of her; the noises died away and she gave her entire attention to the men. She saw Dakota reach a point about thirty feet from the man in front of the saloon—Blanca. As Dakota continued ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... enclose the problem. For by this time, what with Herbert's subaltern, Carey's pawn, and a cistern left me by an uncle who was dining with us that night, I had more than enough to distract me. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... sadly. 'He's not so well' he said; 'he has been declining since last Christmas, when you saw him. A very strange case,' he added, giving it a long Latin name, 'a very singular case. But go and see him yourself' he urged; 'it may distract his mind ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... up their hearts to the enjoyment of the hour, walking already, as Alicia put it, in a wedding procession; and neither the rude solitude of the forest nor the cold of the freezing night had any force to shadow or distract their happiness. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... between the religious and secular clergy[10] at this period tended to distract the attention of both from their spiritual work, and to give rise to considerable disorder and discontent. On the one side, men like the Paris professor, John Poilly and Richard Fitzralph, Archbishop ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... blurring of fog still confused his vision and his judgment, vaguely suspicious that he missed the main intent of her speech. Suspicious as one who, listening to the clever patter of a conjurer, detects in it the effort to distract attention from some difficult feat of legerdemain, until that feat has passed from attempt merely into ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... any new habit or art, we must not employ any alarming excitements: small, certain, regularly recurring motives, which interest, but which do not distract the mind, are evidently the best. The ancient inhabitants of Minorca were said to be the best slingers in the world; when they were children, every morning what they were to eat was slightly suspended from high poles, and they were obliged to throw down their breakfasts ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... and gives them a superior degree of force and vivacity. But that the first hypothesis is erroneous, is evident from experience, which informs us, that the belief, attending any reasoning, consists in one conclusion, not in a multitude of similar ones, which would only distract the mind, and in many cases would be too numerous to be comprehended distinctly by any finite capacity. It remains, therefore, as the only reasonable opinion, that these similar views run into each other, and unite their forces; so as to ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... lips to kiss, Henry rushed to her—"Stop!" he cried, "Rebecca! do not wound your future peace. I plainly see under what prejudices you have been accused, under what fears you have fallen. But do not be terrified into the commission of a crime which hereafter will distract your delicate conscience. My requesting you of your father for my wife will satisfy his scruples, prevent your oath—and here I make ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... the blackness like rods of twisted crystal. He entered the narrow street, or rather alley, leading to the bridge. In the state of blank misery he was in his eye seized upon the smallest objects as if to distract his mind, and he observed—as he might not have done had he been happy—that in the lighted upper room of the corner house they had trained growing ivy along the low ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... houses might be found—everything is possible; but such are devoted more or less to a variety of plants, and the departments are not all gathered beneath one roof. I confess, for my own part, a hatred of references. They interrupt the writer, and they distract the reader. At the place I have chosen to illustrate our theme, one has but to cross a corridor from any of the working quarters to reach the showroom. We may start upon our critical survey from the very dwelling-house. Pundits of agricultural science ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... later, with a scratching, rattling sound, a most horrible and loathsome creature appeared from below and perched itself upon the side of the case. Even the unexpected fall of the Duke of Durham into the orchestra, which occurred at this moment, could not distract the petrified attention of the vast audience. The face of the creature was like the wildest gargoyle that the imagination of a mad medieval builder could have conceived. It was malicious, horrible, with two small red eyes as bright as points of burning ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... richly-carved altar-piece is now placed within it, and a few chairs. It is a quiet secluded room, having no communication with any other. The top of the walls and turrets of the old town, and a small patch of sky, may be seen by an upward glance at the window; but there is no feature to distract the denizen of the apartment: it is a place for concentration of mind, and such must have been Duerer's habits, as the enormous amount of his works show. Leaving this room and proceeding farther, we ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... him: while fifty others, dying or wounded, with as much variety as Homer's heroes, whose blood, trickling from them in several rivulets, pours into one general lake at the lowest level of the deck, are anxiously waiting their turn, and distract the purser's steward by their loud calls, in every direction at the same time for the tin-pot of water, with which he is relieving ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... vanities, which distract and divide the minde of worldlings; but zeale counts one thing needefull, to which it makes all other veile and stand by. Is there any so good an husband of his time, that will not steale some houre for his pleasure; that cannot spare his God and his soule halfe an houre, morning and ...
— A Coal From The Altar, To Kindle The Holy Fire of Zeale - In a Sermon Preached at a Generall Visitation at Ipswich • Samuel Ward
... To distract her attention, instantly Jones improvised a limerick. "There was a young man named Purdy, who was not what you'd call very sturdy. To be more of a sport, he drank gin by the quart, and danced ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... the railroad were being carried on, another matter arose to irritate Mr. McKettrick, and, in some measure, to take the keen edge off his attention. Scattergood usually endeavored to have some matter arise to irritate and distract when he was engaged on a major operation, and it was for this reason he had bought the four strips of land ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... importance these things that have crept in and disturbed social order and dissipated precious energies in fruitless discussion will disappear through lack of attention. On the other hand, persecution will attract attention to and arouse the fanatical support of them and distract the attention of the group from ...
— Church Cooperation in Community Life • Paul L. Vogt
... be a prize of the Bellevite long enough to distract the attention of the fleet," added ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... in a nutshell, and, the essence remaining always at the bottom, the idea of duty grows paramount in their minds and hearts, and every thing they do is illumined by that light of the human conscience, which, after all, is for each one of us the voice of God. False issues do not distract their minds, and give a wrong bias to the conscience. Hence Celtic tribes, by their ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... exhausted, but clinging to Tod still in a queer pathetic way, and letting him pull at her collar and her ribbons and her hair. The touch of his relentless baby hands and his pretty, tyrannical, restless ways seemed to help her a little and half distract her thoughts. ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... half so impressed with the falls as I ought to have been. They don't seem so high as in the pictures, and the terrible buildings on one side distract one so it seems as if even the water can't be natural, and must be just arranged by machinery. But it was fun going under them, and those oilskin coats and caps are most becoming. You go down in a lift and then walk along passages scooped out of the rock until you are underneath ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... These unsought allies were making a difficult situation a thousand times worse. A more acute observer than young Mr Martyn, he noted the tight lines about his mother's mouth and knew them for the danger-signal they were. Endeavoring to distract her with light conversation, he selected a subject which ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... of gazing and mooning?" asked Elfreda, with sudden brusqueness. "Please open that door, Mr. Symes. I shall certainly weep and wail disconsolately out of pure sentiment if you don't distract my attention with something else. Show me the furniture, or the boxes it came in, or anything else that won't call ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... in Spain—something about Andalusian wool—which his father made the ostensible reason for the journey. It would occupy him and distract his mind, besides giving him constant necessity of change. And, they say, travel is the best cure for the heart-ache. We hoped ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... was to combat mental anguish by bodily exercise, to distract, if possible, the thoughts which hammered upon her brain by moving amid the life of the streets. In Camberwell Road she passed the place of business inscribed with the names 'Lord and Barmby'; it made her think, ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... the acquisition of California, New Mexico, and Utah, as a means of extending slave power and slave population. Foreseeing a sectional controversy, and, as I conceived, seeing how much it would distract the Union, I voted against the treaty with Mexico. I voted against the acquisition. I wanted none of her territory, neither California, New Mexico, nor Utah. They were rather ultra-American, as I thought. They were far ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... Jesus forgetful of Paul, his mind now set on Jerusalem, whither he was going as soon as Paul was safely out of the way of the Jews. Each shut himself within the circle of his own mind, and the silence was not broken till Paul began to fear that Jesus was plotting against him, and to distract Jesus' mind from his plots, if he were weaving any, he ventured to compare the country they were passing through with Galilee, and forthwith Jesus began to talk to Paul of Peter and John and James, sons of Zebedee, mentioning their appearances, voices, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... did these pursuits distract Bacon's attention from a work the most arduous, the most glorious, and the most useful that even his mighty powers could have achieved, "the reducing and recompiling," to use his own phrase, "of ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... our parable; but I shall do no more. The decision of it here and now is by no means necessary: the interpretation of the parable does not in any measure depend upon it. It is an inquiry belonging to a different branch of Scripture exposition, and to discuss it here would tend to distract attention from ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... why Pitt and his colleagues should not commit themselves deeply to the Haytian embroglio. In that anxious time, the autumn of 1794, the most urgent needs were to save Holland from the Jacobins, to distract them by helping the Royalists of Brittany, and from our new base in Corsica to clog their attempts at an invasion of Italy. Owing to the slackness of our Allies, these enterprises proved unexpectedly difficult. In truth any two of them would ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... unbalanced on one point. Unless anything occurs to excite her in connection with that, time will effect a cure. She must not be opposed in her wishes, and I would suggest that she be taken out of London and an effort made to distract her. Plenty of society, outdoor amusements—anything to ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... sat down to her hook, thoughts of this kind would come and distract her. What to her were the kings of old Eastern lands, the conquests of Rome, the long chronicles dense with forgotten battle and woe? So easily she could have yielded to her former habits, and have passed hour ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... of paper on which I recognized the marks left by the carbon sheets. He set to work on another of those painstaking tasks of examination, and I retired to my typewriter, which I had moved into the next room, in order to leave Kennedy without anything that might distract attention ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... the control of a centre, she occupied her proper place among the planets of the solar system, like an emerald pendant in a necklace of diamonds. So with our soul. When the heat and motion of blind impulses and passions distract it on all sides, we can neither give nor receive anything truly. But when we find our centre in our soul by the power of self-restraint, by the force that harmonises all warring elements and unifies those that are apart, then all our isolated impressions reduce themselves to wisdom, ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... hours before the time at which his return could reasonably be looked for, she had taken her post at the window, and although, at the persuasion of her attendant, a simple country girl, recently installed as her doncella, she had more than once endeavoured to fix her attention on a book, or to distract it by some of her usual occupations, the effort had each time been made in vain, and she had again resumed her anxious watch. In every horseman, or muleteer, who turned the angle of the road, she thought she recognised the guide, who, two days previously, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... and coming off unscathed. I saw two of these exhibitions of insane self-confidence and I must say that Palus made good his reliance on his incredible skill. He pivoted about between his adversaries, giving them, apparently, every chance to attack simultaneously, distract him and kill him. Yet he so managed that, even if their thrusts appeared simultaneous, there was between them an interval, brief as a heart-beat, but long enough for him to dispose of one and turn on the other, or escape one and pierce the other. I could not credit my own eyes. With my ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... It would distract us from our purpose to give a full description of the grievances of the Spanish colonies in America. They were justified and it is useless to try to defend Spain. Granting that Spain carried out a wonderful work of civilization in the American continent, and that she is entitled ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... For nothing else but to be mended. A sect whose chief devotion lies In odd perverse antipathies: In falling out with that or this, And finding somewhat still amiss: More peevish, cross, and splenetic, Than dog distract, or monkey sick. That with more care keep holy-day The wrong, than others the right way: Compound for sins they are inclin'd to, By damning those they have no mind to: Still so perverse and opposite, As if they worship'd God ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... only to distract ourselves, but also with the laudable intention of endowing the ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... and the repression of them, will distract the King's conscience; Emigrant Princes and Noblesse will force him to double-dealing: there must be veto on veto; amid the ever-waxing indignation of men. For Patriotism, as we said, looks on from without, more and more suspicious. ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... out brighter when removed from irritation on the one side, or folly on the other. If she will not, I have no weight with her; and it is due to the service I am to undertake, to force myself away from a pursuit that could only distract me. I have no right to be a clergyman and choose a hindrance not a help—one whose tastes would lead back to the world, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lie only in a state of torpor, as it were, both the lately active thoughts that have lulled themselves to rest, and those which have not yet awoke. But thoughts come often undesired; they can touch the heart, they can distract the head, they can ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... more than love; a fervid idolatry now had possession of his soul, mind, and body. Yet its outward manifestations were the opposite of what one would have looked for in this gay and optimistic Southerner. It was rather priest-like worship, a calm imperturbability that nothing seemed to distract or upset, at least in the presence of the goddess who was its object. Every morning he would pass through my office headed straight for the little room she occupied as if it were his one objective point of the day, but once he heard his own "Good morning, Miss Sands," he seemed ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... advising that the sick be not suddenly interrupted so as to distract their attention, says that the rule applies to the well quite as much as to the sick. She adds: "I have never known persons who exposed themselves for years to constant interruptions who did not muddle away their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... knew the girl's mood and left her to herself. She had come to tell something but must tell it in her own way. To question, to intrude a thought, would only tend to confuse and distract her, so Polly took up her knitting and nodded cheerfully. She had a feeling that all along she ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... they had a right to end it, thinking that not only War, but every other act of the State, was for their decision. Their Governors, therefore, judged it wise to allow them this illusion to play with, so to distract their attention from the reality, which they would have resented. This illusion ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... I am, it is a little flesh and breath, and the ruling part. Throw away thy books; no longer distract thyself: it is not allowed; but as if thou wast now dying, despise the flesh; it is blood and bones and network, a contexture of nerves, veins, and arteries. See the breath also, what kind of a thing it is; air, and not always the same, but every moment sent out and again sucked in. The third, ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... synod—not to unite the incompatible difference of religion, but for the benefit of learning, to reduce it, as it lay at first, in a few and solid authors; and to condemn to the fire those swarms and millions of rhapsodies, begotten only to distract and abuse the weaker judgments of scholars and to maintain the trade ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... summer evenings, watching the graceful course of the river, and the distant landscape. In the morning she traversed these quays with holy zeal, in order to go to church, and that she might not meet in this lone road any thing to distract her attention. Her father, who liked her lofty studies, and was intoxicated at his daughter's success, was still desirous of initiating her in his own craft, and made her begin to engrave. She learned to handle ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... anyone can remember," but the procrastination over the arrangement and transfer of the lease as ample justification for the delay in fulfilling the engagement. Moreover, other matters were arising which tended to distract the attention of the directors from any passing squabble as to dates. The "overbearing leviathians" might have been quelled some years earlier, but they had not been killed, and at the beginning of 1861, movements were again afoot in North-Western circles to secure an extension ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... prevent his being released from the responsibility of his misdoings till I meet your Lordship. I should like, if possible, to meet your Lordship where there is likely to be the least crowd of expectants and parade to take up your time and distract your attention. If at Cawnpore, I hope you will permit me to have my camp on the Oude side of the river, with a tent in your camp for business during the day. With your Lordship's commands to attend, it will be desirable ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... the steamboat to distract our attention from the study of physical geography. All the fashionable travelers had gone on the previous boat or were waiting for the next one. The passengers were mostly people who belonged in the Provinces and had ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and bloodshed were protracted. Again foreign armies invaded Bohemia, and internal dissension continued to distract the nation. Those who remained faithful to the gospel were subjected ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... was placed, Herman Mordaunt was wonderfully collected. For myself, I felt as if I had fifty lives to lose, Anneke being, uppermost in my thoughts. The females, however, behaved uncommonly well; making no noise, and using all the self-command they could assume, in order not to distract the exertions of their husbands and friends. Some of the wives of the sturdy settlers, indeed, actually exhibited a species of stern courage that would have done credit to soldiers; appearing in the court, armed, and otherwise rendering themselves useful. It often happened that women of this class, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... Apaches would be sure to spend some few minutes in firing, partly to distract their enemies and partly to give them the cover of abundant smoke for their approach before they made their final rush; and taking off his feather head-gear, he secured it with a couple of stones so near the top of the rock which sheltered him ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... rather against her wishes, for she harboured a secret fear that the girl was trying to marry the rector. Besides, as she said to herself, with her eyes on Orlando's hand, how on earth could he do full justice to the pig if there was a pretty parishioner to distract ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... of feeling which all lovers will understand, he gave himself the pleasure of pausing before his happiness; he would not even unseal that blissful note until the moment when, with closed doors and no interruptions to distract him, he could enjoy at his ease the delicious sensation of which his heart ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... of betrothal—though I cared not a whit what happened to Walter Butler, it is true, yet fell sick o' worry when you and Rosamund Barry went a-sailing—not that I feared you'd drown, either. O Carus, Carus, you distract me, you worry me; you tell me nothing, nothing, and I never knew what you were about there in New York when you were not with me!—doubtless a-courting every petticoat on Hanover ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... presume. Well, then, I have spoken with Mr Smith, the master, who has promised me to give you the necessary instruction. You will commence to-morrow; you can sit at the table in the fore-cabin, where you will have nothing to distract your ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... first time, the difficulty of subduing such a people as the Greeks, resolved to resist unto death. His mind was perplexed, and he did not know what course to adopt. Had he accepted the advice of Demaratus, to make war on the southern coast of Laconia, and thus distract the Spartans and prevent their co-operation with Athens, he would ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... the certainty of being taken by his enemies, fairly turned tail, and darted off at full speed. Sikes clenched his teeth; took one look around; threw over the prostrate form of Oliver, the cape in which he had been hurriedly muffled; ran along the front of the hedge, as if to distract the attention of those behind, from the spot where the boy lay; paused, for a second, before another hedge which met it at right angles; and whirling his pistol high into the air, cleared it at ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... upon them all to see their young mistress, usually so gracious and responsive, wholly absorbed in her troubled revery; but to-day her maidens played their sweetest strains upon their silvery lutes, without her answering smile; the gentlemen of her court sought in vain for some diversion to distract her; even the Lady Margherita could do nothing for her pleasure, while she watched in unobtrusive tenderness, feeling that quiet, however unsatisfying, was ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... general function was to make the deity more real to the worshiper, to make the latter more sharply conscious of the divine presence, to fix the attention, and so far to further a real communion. On the other hand, it tended to produce a low physical conception of the divine person, and to distract the mind of the worshiper from the ethical side of worship. Its moral effect was dependent on the man's character and thought. When the image was regarded as the symbol of an ethically good Power, it was a reenforcement of pure religious ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... glory between to-day and us, these passing hours shall glitter and draw us, as the wildest romance and the homes of beauty and poetry? How difficult to deal erect with them! The events they bring, their trade, entertainments, and gossip, their urgent work, all throw dust in the eyes and distract attention. He is a strong man who can look them in the eye, see through this juggle, feel their identity, and keep his own; who can know surely that one will be like another to the end of the world, nor permit love, or death, or politics, or money, war, or ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... should have been a father, to gratify the ambition and the selfish malevolence of some priests, always aliens in the state which nourishes them, and who only style themselves members of the realm in order to domineer, to distract, to plunder, and ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... many events that served to distract Philip de Chamondrin's mind from his disappointment and delay his marriage to Antoinette de Mirandol. Anxious as the Marquis was to hasten this union, he shared the general apprehension too strongly to urge his son to marry at such ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... had been fishing at some distance from his father, rushed up when he saw him in this perilous situation and threw a stone at Sanza, hoping to distract his attention; but, before he could reach the spot, Sanza had delivered the death-blow, and Umanojo lay a corpse ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... and neglect of what is in their power, whereby men mislead themselves. This would make a volume, and is not my business. But whatever false notions, or shameful neglect of what is in their power, may put men out of their way to happiness, and distract them, as we see, into so different courses of life, this yet is certain, that morality established upon its true foundations, cannot but determine the choice in any one that will but consider: and he that will not be so far a rational creature as to reflect seriously upon INFINITE happiness ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... should only be clear faith. My dear friend, I must ask you to put away that thought. Let the feu sacre of the regenerator, the liberator, have full possession of you. How I should blame myself if I were to distract you from the aims to which you have devoted your life. I have no one to advise me; but this I know is right. You will, I think, not misunderstand me—you will not think it unmaidenly of me—if I confess to you that ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... the factions which distract my country, and to the enmity of the greatest powers of Europe, I have terminated my political career, and I come, like Themistocles, to throw myself upon the hospitality of the British people. I put myself under the protection of their laws; which I claim from your Royal Highness, ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... as they had been companions in that single action which had brought all of them to death, so there was nobody to share in that unhappy fate with them, nor were they disturbed with the sorrows of other criminals, which often distract one another's devotions at Tyburn. On the contrary, their behaviour was grave and decent, their public devotions were closed with a Psalm, and with many demonstrations of repentance they resigned their lives, on the 11th of August, 1727; Timms being about twenty-eight years of age, Perry near ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... retracing my steps during the long wandering reveries which distract my thoughts along the path through which I saunter at random, my soul takes wing, and suddenly I recall little incidents of a gay or sinister character which, emerging from the shades of the past, flit before my memory as the birds flit through ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... nater of man, more like a wild man than a Christian Methodist. For he was so wrought up and excited by havin' so much on his hands to do, and the onexpectedness of it, that he couldn't help actin' jest as he did act. I don't believe he could. And then Steve Yerden is enough to distract a leather-man, ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... to the cheerful chirrup of robins and the pleasant far-off sound of church bells. He liked the bells. They sounded different in the country he thought. You couldn't hear them in the city anyway. There were too many noises to distract you. There was no Sabbath stillness in the city. For that matter ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... the hammock, lighting a cigarette to aid her meditations. Truly matters had gone very crookedly. Maryon Rooke had been the first cause of all the trouble. Then she herself had intervened to distract Nan's thoughts by asking Peter to be a pal to her. And the net result of it all was that Peter, irrevocably bound to another woman, had fallen in love with Nan, while the latter was philandering desperately with a totally ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
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