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More "Divert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... appropriated according to a law enacted in 1732 which distributed it among the older towns as a reward for good schools. But, in 1738, the legislature passed a bill by which a majority vote of the town or parish could divert the money to the support of "the gospel ministry as by law in the colony established." Naturally this new law operated against all dissenters, who, equally anxious with the Congregationalists to have good schools, were an ignored ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... to divert the anger of Macdonald, his assistant made a mistake. "Say, Mac! Who do you think came up on the boat with me? I wondered if you ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... stories of Clive's boyish escapades: how he had bundled a watchman into the bulks and made him prisoner there by closing down and fastening the shutters; how he had thrown himself across the current of a torrential gutter to divert the stream into the cellar shop of a tradesman who had offended him; above all, that feat of his when, ascending the spiral turret stair of the church, he had lowered himself down from the parapet, and, astride upon a gargoyle, had worked ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... These latter could divert attention for but the moment from the gray man, their companion, whose face seemed set in a habitual, cynical smile, the intent of which was inscrutable. The deep creases running from the corners of the mouth to the narrow nostrils showed the expression was habitual and without the ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... against your own ardour. Ardour in well-doing is a misleading and a treacherous thing. It cries out loudly for employment; you can't satisfy it at first; it wants more and more; it is eager to move mountains and divert the course of rivers. It isn't content till it perspires. And then, too often, when it feels the perspiration on its brow, it wearies all of a sudden and dies, without even putting itself to the trouble of saying, "I've had enough ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... remorse,' said Apollonia. 'Their clever men can never forget that unfortunate affair of Galileo, and think they can divert the indignation of the nineteenth century by mock zeal about red sandstone or the origin ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... and they will be close on his heels; yet men have escaped such odds before this. But here comes Master Clarke. Heaven be praised that they have not spoken of him in this matter. Perchance the hunt after Garret will divert their minds from the question they have raised about the lectures ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... me carefully. After I had evinced so much interest in his White Orpington chicken he tried his best to divert my mind, and was particular to lock his hen house of nights. Gradually the tonic mountain air, the wholesome food, and the daily walks among the hills so alleviated my malady that I became utterly wretched and despondent. I heard of a country doctor who ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... away for the cure at Baden, returned to find him suddenly declining in health. To divert him, she took him for a drive, but he could talk only of his death and of his morbid conviction that he had been poisoned. Constanze, greatly alarmed, called in the family physician, Doctor Closset. He blamed Mozart's state to overwork and overabsorption in the composition of ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... de Chimay. At the sight the marquise reddened with shame, and turning to the doctor, said, "Is this man to strip me again, as he did in the question chamber? All these preparations are very cruel; and, in spite of myself, they divert my thoughts, from God." ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... man next him hung me up by the heels, and seared me on the bare"—Here honest job had just time to divert the current of his speech into ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... voice so low, and gazed upon her with an air so stern and strange, that Toby, to divert the current of his thoughts, inquired if his wife ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... comes to a laborer of the fields when he leaves his accustomed toil: all the trouble and annoyance of the past few hours made Germain long to be with his child and with his little neighbor. Even had he not been in love, he would have sought her to divert his mind and raise his spirits ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... a very beautiful edition of a very amusing book. The preface and notes of Mr. Mackenzie will commend it to scholars, while the stories themselves will divert both young and old. A book of this kind, which can keep life in itself for more than three hundred years, must have some real humor and force at bottom. It is as good a specimen of mediaeval fun as could anywhere be found. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... of their governments and legislative assemblies out of the common Treasury, and thus relieved them from a heavy charge. Under these circumstances nothing can be better calculated to retard their material progress than to divert them from their useful employments by prematurely exciting angry political contests among themselves for the benefit of aspiring leaders. It is surely no hardship for embryo governors, Senators, and Members of Congress to wait ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... perhaps still have as acute senses as animals, if thinking did not divert him from the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... Monsieur Seguret was standing. He crouched down as if a gun had been aimed at him; Clarissa, however, did not see him; she fixed her gaze awhile upon the sweeping clouds and then closed the window. The President remained standing at his post some time longer and was unable to divert the current of his thoughts. Whom is she deceiving? he pondered, distressed—herself, or people ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... of Protestants that the scepticism, which is so prevalent, affects the Catholic Church equally with Protestant sects. Now, this is a great and pernicious error, for it tends to divert sincere inquirers from seeking true, infallible doctrine in the church. When I witness the strenuous efforts made by Protestant writers against scepticism, and their ill success, I am led to execrate the miscalled "Reformation." ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... His good pleasure bring the same to light, I will hasten to the end of this tragedy, which must be knit up in the person of our General. And as it was God's ordinance upon him, even so the vehement persuasion and entreaty of his friends could nothing avail to divert him of a wilful resolution of going through in his frigate; which was overcharged upon the decks with fights, nettings, and small artillery, too cumbersome for so small a boat that was to pass through the ocean sea at that season of the ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes
... shut up in his cavern, but Cupid is a wanderer by night, who does not need a lantern to find the way to those fortunate individuals he favours with a visit," Leander replied, hoping to divert attention from the tell-tale bruises, that he had fancied ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... means have me confined; that it would injure my health, and that I should then take a country-house in some village, a good way off of the city, where it should not be known who I was, and that he should be there sometimes to divert me. ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... farms and their businesses to destroy and be destroyed for no good purpose that might not have been achieved better and sooner by neighborly means. I am thinking of the authentic news that no papers dare publish, not of the lies that they all publish to divert attention from the truth. In America these things can be said without driving American mothers and wives mad; here, we have to set our teeth and go forward. We cannot be just; we cannot see beyond the range of our ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... be the case. Finding he could not free himself, but must endure his bonds till the end of All Things, Loki tried to divert himself by enticing the earth people to him and teaching them to do every manner of evil. And so fast did knowledge of this evil spread, that the whole world soon became full of wickedness. Brothers fought and killed each other, men were for ever at war with other ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... from the original, but I was helpless before this girl in her conflict with conditions to which she could never yield and which she fought with all the fierceness of undisciplined strength. I could think of no word to comfort her. I sought to divert her. "Zura, listen! Do you remember the hat I wore the first day I came to see you? You do remember, for I saw you smiling at it. Well, I've worn it for eight years. Don't cry, Dearie; please don't; and I'll let you send to Yokohama and select ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... surcharged with Divine power. A sheriff, who had laughed about the meetings, came over from Utica. He felt this strange influence when he crossed the old canal, a mile west of town. When he sat in the hotel dining-room, he had to get up and go to the window two or three times to divert his attention and keep from weeping. After dinner he hurried away, ...
— The Art of Soul-Winning • J.W. Mahood
... testimony to the enabling presence of his Lord must divert his thought from the loving act of the Philippians. He seems about to dilate on the glorious theme of what he can be and do in Christ; the wonder of that experience on which he entered at the crisis detailed in 2 Cor. xii. is surely powerfully upon him; the ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... from the great crater, or ring, of Tycho in the southern hemisphere. The ray in question is more than 2,000 miles long, and, like its shorter congeners, it turns aside for nothing; neither "sea," nor peak, nor mountain range, nor crater ring, nor gorge, nor canon, is able to divert it from its course. It ascends all heights and drops into all depths with perfect indifference, but its continuity is not broken. When the sun does not illuminate it at a proper angle, however, the mysterious ray vanishes. Is it ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... crawling beneath some sticks; but the old bird kept swimming past the spot, and appeared to neither hear nor see the little ball of fur. Perhaps he was playing cunning; he may have imagined that the bird was invisible to me, and was trying to divert my attention ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... the first replied in kind, but soon had these gallants matters of more serious moment to divert them, for it began to be whispered about that Louis of Hochfels had determined to push forward. The unwonted activity in the camp ere long gave credence to the rumor; the troopers commenced looking to their weapons; squires hurried here and there, while ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... States in vindication of the "Monroe doctrine," i.e. expulsion of monarchies established on this continent by European powers. This aims at France, and to aid our commissioners in their endeavors to divert the blows of the United States from us to France. The resolution was referred to the Committee ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... will not be slight, and which will follow by maintaining these islands. For if we had a fleet sufficient to be able to pursue the enemy, they could not maintain themselves from that day on which we would thus oblige them to divert their attention from their gains and trading, in order to join together for defense. It is quite certain that, in that case, there would be no one in this archipelago who would do anything to lessen respect for your Majesty's arms. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... preliminary agonies of a new book, which I hope to begin publishing (in twelve numbers, not twenty) next March. The coming readings being all in London, and being, after the first fortnight, only once a week, will divert my attention very little, ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... is more legitimate to acquire. The Russian Ministries of Commerce and Finance always imagined that they could overrule economic laws by decrees and stratagems. For instance, they were perpetually endeavouring to divert the flow of trade from its accustomed channels to some port they wished to stimulate artificially into prosperity, by granting rebates, and by exceptionally favourable railway rates. Large quantities of jute sacking ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... gradual decay of which I had frequently heard them lament, was capable of expressing any other matters than those which related to horses, mules, and Gypsy traffic. It was in this cautious manner that I first endeavoured to divert the attention of these singular people to matters of eternal importance. My suggestion was received with acclamations, and we forthwith proceeded to the translation of the Apostles' creed. I first recited in Spanish, in the usual manner and without ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... left the animal standing in the pool. I thought I could do no better than follow his example, and accordingly procuring a rope from the mill, I led my own horse into the water. "It will refresh their blood, Don Jorge," said the herrador; "let us leave them there for an hour, whilst we go and divert ourselves." ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... of marriage. A youth and maiden, meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy, when they are apart, and, therefore, conclude that they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness before had concealed; ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... the practice may be continued, even when the manners are otherwise far removed from savage life. It may have been a long time before civilization has made such a progress as to deprive superstition of its cruelty, and to divert it from barbarous rites to ceremonies which, though foolish enough, are ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... My mouth fell open, and my eyes felt as if they were straining to leap from my head. It was Laura—the loved, adored Laura—my Laura! My friends heard me repeat the name, and marked with surprise and concern my inexplicably miserable condition. They gathered round me, and endeavoured to divert my attention from the dead and now gory body. It was in vain. I heeded not their words, but gazed steadfastly at the sad features of Laura, with my hands still uplifted. I was speechless, deaf, and immovable. No tear moistened my eyes, but burning thoughts rushed through my brain. My ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... is jealous of the attention I am receiving in the Press and wants to divert some ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... for a party of twelve men while engaged in making collections for public institutions. Never was assistance better deserved. Then he returned to Illinois and obtained from the trustees of the Normal University permission to again divert his salary and the other funds to Western work. The trustees of the Illinois Industrial University allotted him five hundred dollars, and the Chicago Academy of Sciences, through the influence of Dr. Andrews, the curator, also contributed two hundred and fifty or five hundred dollars. In ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... from our rear, having made a three day march through what had been reported as impassable swamp. He occupied our rearmost village, which was undefended, and attacked our hospital. This forward attack was merely a ruse to divert the attention of our troops in that direction, while the enemy directed his main assault at our rear and undefended positions for the purpose of gaining our artillery. Hundreds of the enemy appeared as if by magic from the forests, swarmed in upon the hospital village and immediately ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... broken,—they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay," (Dan. ii. 42, 43.) And doubtless these internal commotions among the common enemies of the saints of God, have tended, in divine mercy, to divert their attention occasionally from the witnesses. While they have been made the instruments of mutual punishment, the Lord's people have been "hid in the day of his fierce anger." (Zeph. ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... mathematical diagram illustrating a proposition in Euclid, should we really be satisfied with the statement that it represented the random pencil-strokes made by a blindfolded child ignorant of geometry? On the other hand, if a fretful baby is allowed to divert himself by hammering the piano keys, is the result ever remotely akin to a tune? We know perfectly well that we never get harmony, order, beauty, rationality by accident; and there is only one other alternative—design, purpose, ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... President's personal participation in the peace negotiations that a very probable explanation for his determination to be present at the Conference is the assumption that the idea had become so firmly embedded in his mind that nothing could dislodge it or divert him from his purpose. How far the spectacular feature of a President crossing the ocean to control in person the making of peace appealed to him I do not know. It may have been the deciding factor. It may have had no ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... some slight addition to the evidence. Stopping over a boat at Dieppe, a few summers ago, I happened to see my good friend Mme. Vezin registered at the Casino, where I recognised an acquaintance or two. That decided me to spend the night and call at her villa. Her salon never failed to divert me, for, drawing together the most disparate people, she handled them with easy generalship. Under her chandelier ardent art students from the Middle West and the poor relations of royalty might be heard ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... Richard's expedition are variously stated by different authors. That usually assigned by the English—a desire to divert his mind from brooding over the loss of his wife, "the good Queen Anne," seems wholly insufficient. He had announced his intention a year before her death; he had called together, before the Queen fell ill, the Parliament at Westminster, which readily voted him ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... your devotion at certain times, and be sure to spend the Lord's Day entirely in those religious duties proper for it; and let nothing but an inevitable necessity divert you from it." ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... flannel wrappers, he set them down by the fire, telling stories in the meantime to divert their thoughts from the ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... which governments that are founded and sustained, 'by cutting off and keeping low the grandees and nobility' of a nation, naturally seek to propitiate and divert the popular mind,—those amusements which the peoples who sustain tyrannies are apt to be fond of—'he loves no plays as thou dost, Antony,'—that 'pulpit,' from which the orator of Caesar stole and swayed the hearts of ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... dragging weight at her heart. Hateful memory!—she had forced her way in to Louie with the letter, thinking in her innocence that the knowledge of the brother's bereavement must touch the sister, or at least momentarily divert her attention: and Louie had dashed it down with the inconceivable words,—Dora's cheek burnt with anguish and shame, as she tried to put them out ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... rate, Mrs. Bargrave thought that a fit was coming upon her, and so placed herself on a chair just before her knees, to keep her from falling to the ground, if her fits should occasion it; for the elbow-chair, she thought, would keep her from falling on either side. And to divert Mrs. Veal, as she thought, took hold of her gown-sleeve several times, and commended it. Mrs. Veal told her it was a scoured silk, and newly made up. But, for all this, Mrs. Veal persisted in her request, and told Mrs. Bargrave she must not deny her. And she would ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... accompanied me to interrogate Mr. Scott, to be satisfied as to the feasibility of the Tennessee. The interview was prolonged some time. At the close I told Mr. Scott it was my purpose to try and induce the Government to divert the Mississippi expedition up the Tennessee, and asked him to give me a memorandum of the most important facts elicited in the conversation, as I wished them for this object. I further stated my intention to pen the history of the war, and requested ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... scrubbed, the scrubbing and scolding agreeing in time and rhythm. The scolding was the vocal music, the scrubbing an accompaniment. The concordant discord was perfect. Just at the moment I speak of there was a lull in her scolding. The symphonious scrubbing went on as usual. Julia, wishing to divert the next thunder-storm from herself, erected what she imagined might prove a conversational lightning-rod, by asking a question on a topic foreign to the theme of the last march her mother had played and sung so sweetly ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... Men to whom these Scenes are able to give no Delight, and who hurry away from all the Varieties of rural Beauty, to lose their Hours, and divert their Thoughts by Cards, or publick Assemblies, a Tavern Dinner, or the Prattle of ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... with great accuracy and deliberation. Only a month before I had seen him regaling himself upon cherries in the garden and orchard; but as the dog-days approached he set out for the streams and lakes, to divert himself with the more exciting pursuits of the chase. From the tops of the dead trees along the border of the lake, he would sally out in all directions, sweeping through long curves, alternately mounting and descending, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... be a night light at the head of the bed. Not just a decorative glow-worm effect, but a light that is really good to lie in bed and read by. And always there should be books; chosen more to divert than to engross. The sort of selection appropriate for a guest room might best comprise two or three books of the moment, a light novel, a book of essays, another of short stories, and a few of the latest magazines. Spare-room books ought to be especially ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... hill from the deserted house which we could see above us at the top was an underground passage which had been built to divert part of the water above the falls for power. Through it the water surged and over this boiling stream ran a board walk, ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... preserved. If the materials have been introduced by a fissure, the cave will probably become ultimately filled to the roof, and the aperture of admission thus blocked up. If a river has flowed through the cave, the surface configuration of the district must be altered so far as to divert the river into a new channel. And if the cave is placed in the side of a river-valley, as in fig. 256, the river must have excavated its channel to such a depth that it can no longer wash out the contents of the cave even ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... description. His view is that the true remedy against crime is to remove individual defects and social disadvantages where it is possible to remove them. He shows that punishment has comparatively little effect in this direction, and is apt to divert attention from the true remedy—the individual and social amelioration of the population ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn
... his History of the French Academy, says, that Menage did not compose that famous Requete des Dictionaires, in which he ridicules all the academics, on account of any aversion he had to them, but purely to divert himself, and not to lose the witty turns that came into his head upon that subject. In the same manner, I declare that I did not undertake this work on account of any zeal I have for wine, you must think, but only to divert myself, and not ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... leaders of the Peace Democracy intend to carry on one more campaign on the old and rotten platform of prejudice against colored people. They seek in this way to divert attention from the record they made during the war of the rebellion. But the great facts of our recent history are against them. The principles of the fathers, reason, religion, and the spirit of ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... and nearer to the familiar breeding places there was more and more earnestness in Laska's exploration. A little marsh bird did not divert her attention for more than an instant. She made one circuit round the clump of reeds, was beginning a second, and suddenly quivered with ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... her tone had the tinge of melancholy. Mr. and Mrs. Grayson looked at her more than once, as if they were about to refer to some particular subject, but always they refrained; instead, they sought by light talk to divert attention from her, and they succeeded in every case but ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... of the Bible is perhaps even more in danger of missing its real secret. An interest in the literature and history of Israel may divert the mind from that which is, after all, the heart of these "letters," and the core ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... to think, that she was in the hands of a man, to whom it was even possible they could apply. At length, considering, that reflection could neither release her from her melancholy situation, or enable her to bear it with greater fortitude, she tried to divert her anxiety, and took down from her little library a volume of her favourite Ariosto; but his wild imagery and rich invention could not long enchant her attention; his spells did not reach her heart, and over her sleeping fancy they ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... contrary, saw in the success of the French people, in their overthrow of kings and nobles, a cheerful encouragement to their own struggle against the aristocratic Federalists, and would allow no sanguinary irregularities to divert their sympathy from the great Democratic triumph abroad. The gay folds of the tricolor which floated over them seemed to shed upon their heads a mild influence of that Gallic madness that led them into absurdities ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... this gentleman, sir, that I owe my presence here. He was my fellow-prisoner, and but for his quick wit and stout arm I should be stiff by now. Anon, sir, you shall hear the story of it, and I dare swear it will divert you. This gentleman is Sir Crispin Galliard, lately a captain of horse with whom I ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... this class and deriving their incentive to scientific investigation and speculation from the discipline of a life of leisure. Some such result is to be looked for, but there are features of the leisure-class scheme of life, already sufficiently dwelt upon, which go to divert the intellectual interest of this class to other subjects than that causal sequence in phenomena which makes the content of the sciences. The habits of thought which characterize the life of the class run on the personal relation of dominance, and on the derivative, invidious concepts of ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... sometimes—my dear Pen and I have been such friends that I have long wanted to tell you my story such as it is, and would have told it to you earlier but that it is a sad one and contains another's secret. However, it may do good for Arthur to know it—it is that every one here should. It will divert you from thinking about a subject, which, out of a fatal misconception, has caused a great deal of pain to all of you. May I please ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was approaching. It suddenly occurred to me how I could divert his mind until I could fall back upon my military base. My pail was nearly full of excellent berries, much better than the bear could pick himself. I put the pail on the ground, and slowly backed away from it, keeping my eye, as beast-tamers ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... giving me pain was his object he has that hellish gratification." Erskine, Fame's counsel, protested in advance against the reading of this letter (of which he had heard), as containing matter likely to divert the Jury from the subject of prosecution (the book). Lord ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... for they could spake to each other, whereas I could not have a word of conversation, for the ould thaif of a rector had ordered them to send me to 'Coventry,' telling them that I was a gambling cheat, with morals bad enough to corrupt a horse regiment; and whereas they were allowed to divert themselves with going out, I was kept reading and singing from morn till night. The only soul who was willing to exchange a word with me was the cook, and sometimes he and I had a little bit of discourse ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... on; and late in the evening the Honda docked at the pretentious town of Maganguey, the point of transfer for the river Cauca. Like the other passengers, from whom he had held himself reservedly aloof, Jose gladly seized the opportunity to divert his thoughts for a few moments by going ashore. But the moments stretched into hours; and when he finally learned that the boat would not leave until daybreak, he lapsed into a state of sullen desperation which, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... to watch unto prayer. When you approach the mercy seat, watch against a careless spirit. Suffer not your mind to be drawn away by anything, however good and important in itself, from the object before you. If the adversary can divert your mind on the way to that consecrated place, he will be almost sure to drive you away from ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... travelers came north by railroad. Harry made several stops by the way, in order to divert the thoughts of his beautiful young bride from dwelling too much on the fate of her aunt. He knew that home would revive all these recollections painfully, and wished to put off the hour of their return, until time had a little weakened Rose's regrets. For this reason, he ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... borne himself as a man concerned only with his daughter. But at this moment Dixon Mallaby caught a gleam from his eyes which assured him that the least familiarity or impertinence of Melchard's would be resented in a manner likely to divert the crowd's lingering anger from Mut-mut to his master. Much as he disliked Melchard and his indefinitely unpleasant reputation, he was not going to have his match spoiled by the beating and kicking to a jelly of a scented and ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... lectures, and generally in that time of world-dementia pretended to be the national mind, were busy in both countries, with a sort of infernal unanimity, exhorting—and not only exhorting but successfully persuading—the two peoples to divert such small common store of material, moral and intellectual energy as either possessed, into the purely destructive and wasteful business of war. And—I have to tell you these things even if you do not believe them, because they are vital ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... get it, the Rogans, by this peculiar red metal alloy, manage to trap and divert the permanent lines of force, the magnetic field, of Jupiter itself. So the whole red spot is highly magnetized, which somehow upsets natural gravitational attraction. I suppose it is responsible for the discoloration ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... lounging on the settee in the sitting-room, trying to read his Boston Transcript and divert his mind from its irritation and discontent under a condition of things which made it impossible for him to command Tillie's time whenever he wanted a companion for a walk in the woods, or for a talk in which he might unburden ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... of stratagems and pretences to divert approaching danger from the nest where her ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... formal gait, a singularity of manners and habit, or any affected forms and modes of speech different from the reasonable part of mankind? Yet, if Christianity did not lend its name to stand in the gap, and to employ or divert these humours, they must of necessity be spent in contraventions to the laws of the land, and disturbance of the public peace. There is a portion of enthusiasm assigned to every nation, which, if it hath not proper objects to work on, will burst out, and ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... there. He gave the driver Mrs. Klingmayer's address. It was about two o'clock in the afternoon now and Muller had had nothing to eat yet. But he was quite unaware of the fact as his mind was so busy that no mere physical sensation could divert his attention for a moment. Muller never seemed to need sleep or food when he was on the trail, particularly not in the fascinating first stages of the case when it was his imagination alone, catching at trifles unnoticed by others, combining them in masterly ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... little souls with a useless leave-taking? Go to them and comfort them; divert their minds with an expedition to ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... learnt that Mr. Glenthorpe intended to take a large sum of money out of the bank. Penreath's chance arrival at the inn on the day that the money was drawn out, probably set him thinking of the possibility of murdering and robbing Mr. Glenthorpe in circumstances that would divert suspicion to the stranger. Penreath unconsciously helped him by leaving his match-box in the room where he had dined with Mr. Glenthorpe. Benson found the match-box on looking into the room to see that everything ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... number of populous villages were threatened by the lurid lava streams, the most endangered being Bosco Trecase, with its 10,000 inhabitants. Toward this devoted town poured steadily the irresistible flood of molten rock. The soldiers who had been hurried to the front sought to divert its flow by digging a wide ditch across its course and throwing up a high bank of earth, but they worked in vain. The demon of destruction was not to be robbed of its prey. The liquid stream advanced like a colossal serpent of fire, turning its head like ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... the valley of Assam, and this, in Chinese eyes, is of considerable value. If the Serpentine is found, specimens should be sent to Mogoung. As the Shan-Chinese are reported to be a most penurious race, a small reduction in the price below that of the Burmese, would suffice to divert the current of the trade into Assam. Another interesting product, although of no value, exists in the shape of an Alkaline spring on the Sapiya Khioung, which hence derives its name. The water of this spring bubbles up sparingly and quietly ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... I'm going to be Executor, better for thee, Jewel. B'ye Chargee, one Buss!—I'm glad thou hast got a a Monkey to divert thee ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... divert the water into this canal, it was necessary to raise its level 5 meters. The dam, then, had to support a strong pressure, and it could not be built upon sand. It therefore became necessary to build a temporary dam ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... year 1849 found him preaching publicly on the Sabbath, with a Scripture exposition Thursday evening, and several young men much impressed by these ministrations. The disturbed political condition of Europe at that time, had a tendency, no doubt, to divert the public attention. One fact deserves mention. Just as a new paper was about to be published at Athens, with the special design of holding up Protestant missions to popular indignation, a British fleet appeared in the offing, ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... cheery, genial, detached, with an air of playing at work. As likely as not, in a quarter of an hour he will have asked you round to the club and offered you a whisky and soda. Dine with him, and the talk will turn on golf or racing, on shooting, fishing, and the gymkhana. Or, if you wish to divert it, you must ask him definite questions about matters of fact. Probably you will get precise and intelligent replies. But if you put a general question he will flounder resentfully; and if you generalise yourself you will see him dismissing you as a windbag. ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... reach us than the actual existence of the future in the present. It is true—to do complete justice to neospiritualism—that its position offers certain advantages from the point of view of the almost inconceivable problem of the preexistence of the future. It can evade or divert some of the consequences of that problem. The spirits, it declares, do not necessarily see the future as a whole, as a total past or present, motionless and immovable, but they know infinitely better than we do the numberless ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... might hear you who would not understand, as I do, that you are talking theory.' Stephen's habit of thought stood to her here. She saw that her aunt was distressed, and as she did not wish to pain her unduly, was willing to divert the immediate channel of her fear. She took the hand which lay in her lap and held it firmly whilst she smiled ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... time I went to see Aunt Agnes I received an explanation of this conduct, though my name had appeared once or twice before during the past few years in uncomplimentary paragraphs. She upbraided me at once with a renewed attempt to divert the attention of Mr. Spence from his labors to myself. Miss Kingsley had come to her with tears in her eyes, and described the Babylonian influences by which I had sought to seduce him. He had gone, she said, at the call of duty to accomplish ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... and her hollow cheek told the tale of expiation and suffering. Among the spectators who looked on most eagerly there was a certain young man with strongly marked features, glowing eyes, and brown hair, whom we shall meet again later on in our narrative; but we will not divert our readers' attention, but only tell them that his name was James of Aragon, that he was Prince of Majorca, and would have been ready to shed every drop of his blood only to check one single tear that hung on Joan's eyelids. The queen spoke in an agitated, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... of more than two thousand years ago. But so long as there was a palace-guard about the gates to secure the safety of the Sultan and his corrupt military oligarchy, so long as there were houris to divert their leisure, tribute of youths to swell their armies, and taxes wrung from starving subjects to maintain their pomp, there was not one of those who held the reins of government who cared the flick of an eyelash for the needs ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... secret, Raffaello continued to divert himself beyond measure with the pleasures of love; whence it happened that, having on one occasion indulged in more than his usual excess, he returned to his house in a violent fever. The physicians, therefore, believing that ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... left, while flying messengers followed each other in quick succession to spur on Massena with urgent pleas of immediate necessity. It was hoped that he might come up to join an attack which, though intended mainly to divert the Austrians from Davout, could by his help be turned into ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... being done, the others were throwing up earthworks to divert the course of the blazing streams, or to dam the oil in such places as it could burn without damage to other property; and it can safely be imagined that but little time was spent in watching what the ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... about 12 or 15 inches from the branch below to one bud just above the buds whence the branches are to spring. From this one bud the upright leader will grow. The branches should be about a foot apart. Stop the topmost in summer (if very strong) to divert the sap into other parts. Stop strong horizontals to strengthen the weak and to promote fruit-buds. Stop shoots on the branches late in June or in July at six full leaves, if the tree is flourishing, ...
— The Book of Pears and Plums • Edward Bartrum
... Now I will divert your private grief by talking to you of what is called the public. The King and Princess are grown as fond as if they had never been of different parties, or rather as people who always had been of different. She discountenances all opposition, and he all ambition. Prince ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... planned and executed. Its dimensions were sufficiently large to produce an impression of grandeur and sublimity, which was not disturbed by any obtrusive subdivision of parts; and, whether viewed at a small or greater distance, there was nothing to divert the mind of the spectator from contemplating the unity as well as majesty of mass and outline; circumstances which form the first and most remarkable characteristic of every Greek temple erected during the purer ages of Grecian ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... friendly, visited me frequently. I liked the little Frenchman; his gaiety served to divert my mind from reflections on the past, which like spectres would sometimes stalk grimly before me when unoccupied, I sought the quiet of ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... Richard with something to replace the courage that had oozed out overnight. Young Richard, never loath to fortify himself, proved amenable enough to the stiffly laced Canary that his friend set before him. Then, to divert his mind, Vallancey, with that rash freedom that had made the whole of Somerset know him for a rebel, set himself to talk of the Protestant Duke and his right to ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... a lively temper and loved to divert her cousin Hero, who was of a more serious disposition, with her sprightly sallies. Whatever was going forward was sure to make matter of mirth ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... hoax—even more elaborate, indeed, than we at the moment expected; for the king not only vigorously disclaimed any propensity toward slave-hunting or slave-dealing, but went the length of strenuously denying that the river was ever used at all by slavers; also he several times endeavoured to divert the conversation into another channel by pointedly hinting at his readiness to accept a cask of rum as a present, to which hint the skipper of course turned a deaf ear. Then, having got out of the old boy all the information that we could extract—which, when we ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... said the fat landlord, "ye will pay me for board and bed, I trust, by a show of your craft. I have two right worshipful lodgers up yonder, whose lattice looks on the yard, and whom ye may serve to divert." ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the senior tutor was doing with the rising generation he took no note at all. His attention was probably first attracted by rumors of the Brattle Church revolt, for not till 1697 was he able to divert his thoughts from himself long enough to observe that all was not as it should be at Cambridge. Then, at length, he made an effort to get rid of Leverett by striking his name from the list of fellows when a bill for incorporation was brought into the legislature; ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... Marquis. An hour afterwards two gentlemen on noble English steeds—the best the stables of the Marquis afforded—rode toward Sorrento. One of these riders, Rovero, was melancholy, so that even the French amiability of the Marquis could not divert him from gloomy meditations. Ever and anon a smile hung on his lips, till chased away by some painful memory. The Marquis de Maulear, satisfied that Taddeo concealed a secret from him, avoided any allusion to it, with the delicacy ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... from the coast on the crest of Jebel Akhdar, here sunk to a low downland. It owed its early prosperity to its easy access to the sea, and to the fact that natural conditions in Cyrenaica and the [v.03 p.0391] Sahara behind it, tend to divert trade to the west of the district—a fact which is exemplified by the final survival of Berenice (mod. Bengazi). Merj stands in a rich but ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... cities, are so unconcealed, none of my opponents has ever said that he was bringing about war? Why is it those who advise you not to allow it, not to make these sacrifices, that they accuse, and say that they will be the cause of the war? I will inform you. {57} It is because[n] they wish to divert the anger which you are likely to show, if you suffer at all from the war, on to the heads of those who are giving you the best advice in your own interests. They want you to sit and try such persons, instead of resisting Philip; and they themselves are to be the prosecutors, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... tales, which were her mother's delight, that she often sat up far into the night to finish the course of some absorbing adventure. At this juncture, her father, fearing that this excitement might be harmful, tried to divert her mind by putting in her way books of pious origin, wherein the various trials and tribulations of the Christian martyrs were described in a most graphic and realistic style. Soon Teresa was even more interested in these stories than in those ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... The Wench gives it out only to vex thee, and to ruin me in thy good opinion. 'Tis true, I go to the House; I chat with the Girl, I kiss her, I say a thousand things to her (as all Gentlemen do) that mean nothing, to divert myself; and now the silly Jade hath set it about that I am married to her, to let me know what she would be at. Indeed, my dear Lucy, these violent Passions may be of ill consequence to ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... she replied; but there was no kindling of the eye, no joy of soul at the thought, for Ruth knew that her earthly love was stronger and more absorbing than the heavenly. "There, now, we will go and see about Miss Agnes's dinner," she added, glad to divert his thoughts. ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... that day in the palace, and the sultaness, who never left the princess, forgot nothing to divert her, and induce her to take part in the various diversions and shows; but she was so struck with the idea of what had happened to her in the night, that it was easy to see her thoughts were entirely taken up with it. Neither was the grand vizier's son in less tribulation, though ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... no more reposeful holiday than to step on board one of these barges wedged together in a Rotterdam canal, and never lifting a finger to alter the natural course of events—to accelerate or divert—be earned by it to, say, Harlingen, in Friesland: between the meadows; under the noses of the great black and white cows; past herons fishing in the rushes; through little villages with dazzling milk-cans ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... by a series of weirs or dams, with sluices to divert the high waters of the period into natural depressions within the desert, to form reservoirs at high levels for the supply of Egypt in seasons of scarcity, the command of the water-supply would be far preferable to the chances of rain in the most favoured country. Water, like fire, should ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... provides ample scope for indulgence in that direction. How we long for the settlement you cannot imagine, nor can you imagine with what disgust and impatience we regard every endeavour on the part of the pro-Boers, as they are called, to divert the natural and inevitable course of things. You will not be surprised at hearing this from a one-time Dutch Republican when you take into consideration that all of us who have surrendered are fully aware of the fact that we were the aggressors, and that our statesmen are to blame for our ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... dim shadows, that a little exertion might sweep away, into a funeral pall, the strong spirit is shorn of its might, and sorrow becomes our master. When troubles flow upon you, dark and heavy, toil not with the waves—wrestle not with the torrent!—rather seek, by occupation, to divert the dark waters that threaten to overwhelm you, into a thousand channels which the duties of life always present. Before you dream of it, those waters will fertilize the present, and give birth to fresh flowers that may brighten the future—flowers that will become pure and holy, in the ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... our work. Consciousness of a mission, fixed determination to carry it out, and consequent contempt of hindrances, belong to all noble lives, and especially to true Christian ones. Perils and hardships and possible evils should have no more power to divert us from the path which Christ marks for us than storms or tossing of the ship have to deflect the needle ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... London alone who are being forcibly kept in the country to go on entertaining and playing the fool for the same sedative purpose. These youths are all healthy and fit, but it is held that their true function is to work in the theatres and halls to beguile the audiences and divert their thoughts from the terrible reality of German invasion. With each step that the Germans draw nearer the mummers redouble their efforts to excite laughter. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... you," answered Lloyd, "but they are engaged in serious business. You surely don't expect to divert their attention from the pursuit of their noble art. Why, who, or what do you conceive yourself ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... there," he said, and led Fandor just behind the guillotine, to the side where the severed head would fall into the basket. "We shall see the poor devil get out of the carriage, and being fastened on to the bascule, and pulled into the lunette." He went on talking as if to divert his own mind from the thing before him. "That's the best place for seeing things: I stood there when Peugnez was guillotined, a long time ago now, and I was there again in 1909 when ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... it is in many another field; the false generalizations and hasty inductions serve a temporary purpose. Our only quarrel with them is that they tend through a sort of inertia to go forever unchanged. It requires a powerful thrust to divert the aggregate mind of our race from a given course, nor is the effect of a new impulse immediately appreciable; that is why the masses of the people always lag a generation or two behind the advanced thinkers. A few receptive minds, cognizant of new observations that refute an old generalization, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... threatened by a school of whales, a tub is thrown into the sea to divert their attention. Hence to mislead an enemy, or to create a diversion in order to avoid ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... employment of reading each morning was concluded, we danced, we sung, we played at blind-man's-buff, battledore and shuttlecock, and many other games equally diverting and innocent; and when tired of them, drew our seats round the fire, while each one in turn told some merry story to divert the company. ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... and I began to see that pride, and not humility, might have interfered with my happiness. As I firmly believed it was now too late, however, I began to wish the subject changed; for I felt it grating on some of my most sacred feelings. With a view to divert the conversation to another channel, therefore, I remarked with some emphasis, affecting an indifference I did ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... subject, one should first determine: What is the aim of conversation? Should the intention be to make intercourse with our fellows a free school in which to acquire information; should it be to disseminate knowledge; or should the object be to divert and to amuse? It might seem that any person with a good subject must talk well and be interesting. Alas! highly cultivated people are sometimes the most silent. Or, if they talk well, they are likely to talk ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... certain of the sirdars, who felt the pressure of the demands of the army to be so urgent, and its present attitude and temper so perilous to their existence, that they desired to turn the thoughts of the troops to objects which might divert their attention from making extortionate demands for higher pay, by employing their energies in hostile ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... of that now, but think of yourself and of what you will do," said the man, soothingly, anxious to divert Toby's mind from the monkey's death ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... autobiography of a thief as Mr. Hapgood has given us? It is this. Professional crime is one of the overprosperous branches of industry in our large cities. As a nation we are casting around for means to check it, or, in other words, to divert the activities of the professional criminals into some other industry in which these men can satisfy their peculiar talents and at the same time get a living with less inconvenience to the mass of citizens. The criminal, ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... on a spot recently occupied by some engineers of the United States Conservation Department, who had been trying to determine if it was feasible to dam the river at this place. The plan was to flood the hole of Brown's Park and divert the water through the mountains by a tunnel to land suitable for cultivation and in addition, allow the muddy water to settle and so prevent the vast amount of silt from being washed on down, eventually to the mouth of the Colorado. ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... romance, about giants, and lions, and goblins, and warriors, sometimes fighting with monsters and sometimes regaled by fair ladies in stately palaces. The loose atheistical wits at Will's might write such stuff to divert the painted Jezebels of the court: but did it become a minister of the gospel to copy the evil fashions of the world? There had been a time when the cant of such fools would have made Bunyan miserable. But that time was passed; and his mind was now in a firm ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... because his health demanded that he should. The Navy Department was not dissatisfied with him. But the opportunity for heavy fighting came after Perry took the command. From the beginning of the siege the fleet kept up a heavy firing on the city and castle so as to divert the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... gone, and Perry, Mrs. Nelson looked disconcertingly at her son. He mentally searched for something to hide his uneasiness and divert their ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... to be said on both sides of this question. It may be said, in favour of the system of voting supplies for this purpose, that the arts enlarge, elevate, and harmonize the soul of a nation; that they divert it from too great an absorption in material occupations; encourage in it a love for the beautiful; and thus act favourably on its manners, customs, morals, and even on its industry. It may be asked, what would become of music in France without her Italian ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... 'illness' when one noticed it, said to me several times: 'It is late, I wish you had done,'—'EH, MON DIEU!' I answered, 'let me have enough of dancing this one new time; it may be long before it comes again.'— 'That may well be!' said she. I paid no regard, but continued to divert myself. She returned to the charge half an hour after: 'Will you end, then!' said she with a vexed air: (you are so engaged, you have eyes for nothing.'—'You are in such a humor,' I replied, 'that I know not what to make of it.'—'Look at the Queen, then, Madam; ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... potent an emperor and Caesar to boot as the great Don of Germany, Charles the Fifth, was used to divert himself in his dotage by watching the gyrations of the springs and cogs of a long row of clocks, even so does an elderly Commodore while away his leisure in harbour, by what is called "exercising guns," and also "exercising yards and sails;" causing the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... disposition of banditti rather than of enemies; for so far was any hope not only of taking but even of approaching the walls of Rome[112] from taking possession of their minds, and so thoroughly did the sight of the houses in the distance, and the adjacent hills, divert their thoughts, (from such an attempt,) that, a murmur having arisen in every direction throughout the entire camp, "why they should waste time in indolence without booty in a wild and desert land, amid the putrid decay of cattle and of human beings, when they might repair to places uninjured ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... which was exactly what the Dutch had foreseen. But, though the Susuhunan and the Sultan had been goaded into hating each other with true Oriental fervor, they hated the Dutch even more. In order to divert this hostility toward themselves into safer channels, the Dutch evolved still another scheme, which consisted in installing at the court of the Susuhunan, as at that of the Sultan, a counter-irritant in the person of a rival prince, ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... the settee in the sitting-room, trying to read his Boston Transcript and divert his mind from its irritation and discontent under a condition of things which made it impossible for him to command Tillie's time whenever he wanted a companion for a walk in the woods, or for a talk in which he might unburden himself of ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... inclined to entertain any of your friends this evening, especially when you are not present. But, really, Jessie, I think it might do you good to go—the lights, and the music, and the gay throng, might divert your thoughts from yourself, and act as a wonderful panacea in banishing ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... market in the world. Every farm paper in Canada and all the important farm organizations supported reciprocity. Its opponents, therefore, did not trust to a direct frontal attack. Their strategy was to divert attention from the economic advantages by raising the cry of political danger. The red herring of annexation was drawn across the trail, and many a farmer followed it to ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... canon law, the histories of the martyrs, and the Holy Scriptures he sought for advice and consolation. On a mind naturally firm and unbending, such studies were likely to make a powerful impression; and his friends, dreading the consequences, endeavored to divert his attention to other objects. But their remonstrances ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... really soothing; intended as a present from a Husband after First Quarrel. These cameo ear-rings were never known to fail. Judiciously presented, in a velvet case, they may be depended upon to at once divert a young Wife from Returning to her Mother, as she has threatened. Ah! Mr. DROOD cares for no more jewelry than his watch, chain and seal-ring? To be sure! when Mr. BUMSTEAD was in yesterday for the regular daily new crystal in his own watch—how does ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... been away, something has happened," he continued. After all, it was perhaps as well, he reflected, that Payton had come. His coming, even if Flavia did not encounter him, would divert her thoughts, would suggest an external peril, would prevent her dwelling too long or too fancifully on that room in the Tower, and on the man who famished there. She hated the Colonel, Asgill believed. She had hated him, he was sure. But how long would ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... success at the Hippodrome did not divert him from the end he had in view. "Bridging the Abyss," for him, was but a means of making money, to enable him to climb higher. He thought of nothing but that: getting on, climbing higher; and this obsession of the future made him scorn or rather overlook the temptations of the stage. He would ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... case in our returns carries a bit of wood in his vest-pocket and bites it when he begins to feel the aura of temper. Girls often play the piano loudly, and some think best of all. One plays a particular piece to divert anger, viz., the "Devil's Sonata." A man goes down cellar and saws wood, which he keeps for such occasions. A boy pounds a resonant eavespout. One throws a heavy stone against a white rock. Many go off by themselves and indulge in ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... tone: "Hello, Gang! See you kept your nerve with you!" and then he gave her a grin all across his dirty, tired face, and moved away as if he were half ashamed of his emotion. But it was Bud again who came and talked with her to divert her so that she wouldn't notice when they shot her horse. He talked loudly about a coyote they shot the night before, and a cottontail they saw at Keams, and when he saw that she understood what the shot meant, and there were tears in her eyes, he gave her hand a rough, bear squeeze and said, ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... ancient one. The priest, indeed, is the primitive physician, the belief that diseases are supernaturally caused indicating him as the agent of their cure. And it is only to be expected that when the attempt is made to divert the treatment of disease from priestly hands the effort should be met with determined opposition. Quite naturally, too, the first gropings after a scientific theory of disease show a curious mixture of rationalism and superstition. Thus, in Greece, the temple hospitals devoted to the mythical ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... perfect which human genius ever planned and executed. Its dimensions were sufficiently large to produce an impression of grandeur and sublimity, which was not disturbed by any obtrusive subdivision of parts; and, whether viewed at a small or greater distance, there was nothing to divert the mind of the spectator from contemplating the unity as well as majesty of mass and outline; circumstances which form the first and most remarkable characteristic of every Greek temple erected during the purer ages of Grecian taste ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... into the hands of his clerks, and had concluded to sell out and permanently retire from active life. He went with his wife on a journey to the seaside, to a quiet watering-place, hoping that change of scene might divert his attention from his sorrows and enable him, at least to some extent, to recover his wonted health and spirits. But he returned unbenefited, and his wife and friends began to have grave fears for his life. They consulted an eminent physician, who advised him not to give up his business, ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... Poort. Immediately French planned its capture. One detachment was sent to occupy Bastard's Nek, another defile to the west of Plessis Poort. Covered by a cross-fire from the artillery, the infantry were to move forward and seize the road. In order to divert the Boers' attention from these matters, a demonstration was ordered along the whole British line. Advancing carefully the infantry met with little opposition, a fact which made French suspicious. As the silence continued he abruptly ordered the "Retire." ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... of the Relief was in sight, when the commotion visible in the enemy's laagers suggested a poked-up ant-hill, and seemed to confirm the report, there was a brief flicker of excitement. Mounted men rode out in force, guns were limbered up and galloped out north and west, to divert General Huysmans' attention, and give Grumer, conjectured to be waiting for it, the opportunity for an eagle-like swoop down upon the harassed tortoise sprawling on her sand-hills. But the rainy dark came down ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... to the company, much pleased with the confidence which had been placed in him, and with the share he had in the success of this adventure. He put himself into the best humour imaginable in order to divert the attention of his guests; he severely satirised those, whose rage for gaming induced them to sacrifice to it every other consideration; he loudly ridiculed the folly of the Chevalier upon this article, and ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... institution soon manifested its utility, was imitated by other towns, and in other provinces. The libraries were augmented by donations; reading became fashionable; and our people, having no publick amusements to divert their attention from study, became better acquainted with books, and in a few years were observ'd by strangers to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same rank generally are ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... a feeling at the back of my head that I had been devoting more time than I should have done to play. Had I not made up my mind when General Downes had told me of my first appointment to the staff that nothing should divert my thoughts from my work? The fact that the social obligations I had undertaken would necessitate frequent absences from my command should have weighed with me more. Such were my thoughts. Then there came back vividly to my mind some words of advice which my kinsman General Gordon, ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... Admiral Hawke in one of the most daring feats in British naval annals. Thurot got away but did not divert any of the main force guarding the Channel. The Toulon fleet also eluded the English for a time but went to pieces outside the Straits largely on account of mismanagement on the part of its commander. The remnants were either captured or driven to shelter in neutral ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... Commissioners agreed to the proposal of the Governors to extend the Class-rooms. Those already standing had been built in such a way that it was an easy undertaking to add to them. The road up High Rigg alone stood in their way, but permission was obtained to divert it and make a better road further South. On the ground-floor two new Class-rooms were built and connected by a corridor on the West side, while above it Big School, eighty feet long by thirty feet broad, absorbed one of the former Class-rooms, and supplied what had previously been a great defect ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... thinking of the last time she had been there, and how it was likely that the pale, wan look must still be upon Arthur's face. Mr. Howard perhaps divined her thought, for he watched her for a long time without speaking a word, and then at last he said gently, as if to divert her attention, "Miss Davis, I think that you are not the first one whom the sight of the ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... supposed it wholly impossible for them to execute his order, he retired to rest, laughing most heartily at the chimerical sort of employment he had given to his industrious workmen. Early in the morning, however, he got up and took a walk at the break of day down to the shore to divert himself at the fruitless labours of his zealous workmen. But on reaching the spot, what was his astonishment to find the formidable piece of work allotted to them only a few hours before already nearly finished. Seeing the great damage the commercial class of the community would sustain ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... Ohio the leaders of the Peace Democracy intend to carry on one more campaign on the old and rotten platform of prejudice against colored people. They seek in this way to divert attention from the record they made during the war of the rebellion. But the great facts of our recent history are against them. The principles of the fathers, reason, religion, and the spirit of the age are ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... a tide of excitement running in his arteries. Why were this woman and her husband setting back the clock thirty-five minutes? Was it to divert suspicion from themselves? Was it to show that this stranger must have been in Cunningham's rooms for almost an hour, during which time the millionaire promoter ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... tube from which all the atmosphere has been extracted so that it is a practical vacuum. Within this are placed electrodes so as to divert the action of the electrical discharge in a particular direction, and this light, when discharged, is of such a peculiar character that its discovery made a sensation in the ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... annoyed at this result. But what could be done? To divert his thoughts, he listened to his colleagues' communications. The Minister of War commenced to speak, and in a tone of irritated surprise, instead of the lofty, patriotic considerations that Vaudrey expected of him, Vaudrey heard him muttering behind his moustache about soldiers' cap-straps, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... cometh, I will ask one of them to carry me with them, whither they go." So when the time came and their complexion changed and their forms altered, I went in to one of the townsfolk and said to him, "Allah upon thee! carry me with thee, that I might divert myself with the rest and return with you." "This may not be," answered he; but I ceased not to solicit him and I importuned him till he consented. Then I went out in his company, without telling any of my family[FN94] or ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... is given in his diary: 'Letters from home; thank God, all well, but evidently anxious. I am glad they do not know how this day's work may affect their fortunes. Read letters and papers and try to divert myself ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... said nothing of yourself, Laura," he said, wishing to divert her mind from anything unpleasant. "Tell me something of your own life—it could only be a cheerful theme, for you have means and leisure, and a perfect environment. Tell me of your occupations, your hopes, ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... with a crushing clumsiness to divert this strain of explanation, with questions about the quality of the soil in the wood where the ground was to be cleared and levelled ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... a journey, his wife shall not divert herself by play, nor shall see any public show, nor shall laugh, nor shall dress herself with jewels and fine clothes, nor shall see dancing, nor hear music, nor shall sit in the window, nor shall ride out, nor shall behold anything ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... speculate about Richter's visit. He had come at some risk and seemed sorry for her, but he had urged her to stay in the house, as if she expected her father to return. This could be of no advantage to the latter, and she wondered whether the man had meant to make use of her to divert suspicion from himself and his friends. It seemed uncharitable to think so, but she was very bitter and ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... spelling of the manuscripts would only have served to divert attention from Shelley's poetry to my own ingenuity in disgusting the reader according to the rules of editorial punctilio. (I adapt a phrase or two from the preface to "The Revolt of Islam".) Shelley was neither ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... counsel given only as a matter of policy, and was not capable of being wilfully unjust. Palmerston, essentially superficial, delighted in banter, and knew how to divert grave opposition by playful levity; LINCOLN was a man of infinite jest on his lips, with saddest earnestness at his heart. Palmerston was a fair representative of the aristocratic liberality of the day, choosing for his tribunal, not the conscience of humanity, but the House of Commons; ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... twenty years, and even then it was only accomplished by the stern will and unbending policy of President Jackson, who made its payment a leading measure of his Administration. He resisted the attempts which were made to divert the public money from that great object and apply it in wasteful and extravagant expenditures for other objects, some of them of more than doubtful ...
— 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
... not but Blank Verse may be also used: and content myself only to assert that in serious Plays, where the Subject and Characters are great, and the Plot unmixed with mirth (which might allay or divert these concernments which are produced), Rhyme is there, as natural, and more effectual ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... it or not. And, strictly, they should have been paid to the pastor of the parish and for its benefit. But by a scandalous corruption, often protested against by both Parliament and the Church, the Lords of lands were allowed to divert the tithes, which they were already bound to pay, to congested ecclesiastical centres, sometimes to cathedrals, more often to religious houses of 'regulars.' After this was done the monastery or religious House enjoyed ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... change, not had perceived merchandises in several shops. The curiosity take him, he come near of a exchange desk:—"Sir, had he beg from a look simple, tell me what you sell." The loader though that he may to divert of the personage:—"I sell, was answered him asse's heads."—"Indeed, reply to him the countryman, you make of it a great sale, because it not remains more ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... defended Cluentius. At the expiration of his Praetorship, he refused to accept a foreign province, the usual reward of that magistracy;[109] but, having the Consulate full in view, and relying on his interest with Caesar and Pompey, he allowed nothing to divert him from that career of glory for which he now ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... marvels;" and accordingly the Wazir obeyed his lord's be hest, and the Warlock replied, "To hear is to obey." He then said, "Bring hither to me a chauldron full of water;" and when it was brought he asked the Courtiers, "Which of you would divert himself?" "I," quoth the Wazir; when quoth the Sage, "Do thou rise to thy feet and doff thy robes and gird thee with a zone:" whereto said the other, "Bring me a waistcloth;" and when it was brought he did therewith as he was bidden. Hereat said the Warlock, "Seat thee in the centre ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... looked a purple black. He took off his hat, placed his hand upon his heart, and hurried towards her muttering and gesticulating feverishly. But William caught him by the sleeve and touched a flower with the tip of his walking-stick in order to divert the old man's attention. After looking at it for a moment in some confusion the old man bent his ear to it and seemed to answer a voice speaking from it, for he began talking about the forests of Uruguay which he had visited ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf
... titles when in fact the keen-eyed critic is the only one who finds them too many. The average spectator is none too alert.... The sub-title should be in complete harmony with the story and should never divert interest from the story. It should never be obtrusive. It should be there only because it belongs there. Therefore all sub-titles should be couched in language that harmonizes with the story. Every word should be weighed. Nothing should ever shock ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... year the volume of trade was more than eighty-four millions. The agreement ended from a variety of causes, economic and political. Canada had raised the tariff on American manufactures in order to meet {154} her increasing expenditure; and she tried to divert American commerce from its regular routes to a profitable transit through Canadian territory. But the chief cause was the bitterness of the United States at the attitude of Britain during the Civil War. ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... go and play on 'Jackeen's beach.' It is the little people I rely upon chiefly, after all. I wish you could have seen them cataract down the staircase to greet her this morning. I notice that she tries to make me divert their attention when Dr. Gerald is present; for it is a bit suggestive to a widower to see his children pursue, hang about, and caress a lovely, unmarried lady. Broona, especially, can hardly keep away ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a pleasant fellow, and when Antipholus was dull and melancholy he used to divert himself with the odd humors and merry jests of his slave, so that the freedoms of speech he allowed in Dromio were greater than is usual between masters and ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... am sure if I had some one to speak to me in a cheerful, pleasant way, when poor dear Mr. Browne died, I should never have fretted after him as I did; but the children were too young, and there was no one to come and divert me with any news. If I'd been living in Combehurst, I am sure I should not have let my grief get the better of me as I did. Could you get up a quiet rubber in the evenings, ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... special interests must get out of politics. The old-style leaders, seeking to switch public attention away from this one absorbing and overwhelming issue are pitifully ridiculous and out of date. To try to divert the march of an aroused public conscience from this righteous inevitable conflict by means of obsolete political catchwords is like trying to dam the Mississippi ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot
... forehead still free from every wrinkle, and eyes now sparkling with something of their former brilliancy. She extended her hand to Margaret, who affectionately kissed it; and then, apprehensive that further excitement could not but be injurious to her mistress, the faithful creature endeavoured to divert her thoughts into another channel, by inviting her to partake of the little feast provided by the kindness of her employer. Margaret being in the habit of taking her meals in the house where she worked, ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... would sometimes suggest that what he did could not be agreeable to God; at other times, that his labors and difficulties were too heavy for man to bear. These and the like attempts of the devil he defeated by watching and prayer, in which he passed the whole night; and the devil strove in vain to divert him from this holy exercise by shaking his whole cell, and threatening to bury him in the ruins. Five years of grievous interior conflicts and buffetings of the enemy, wrought in him a great purity of heart, and prepared him for most extraordinary ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... was hacked to death. Then issued from a neighbouring house at the sign of Our Lady, Jean sans Peur, a tall figure concealed in a red cloak, lantern in hand, who gazed at the mutilated corpse. "C'est bien," said he, "let's away." They set fire to the house to divert attention and escaped. Four months before, the house had been hired on the pretext of storing provisions, and for two weeks a score of assassins had been concealed there, biding their time. On the morrow, Burgundy with the other princes went to asperse the dead body with ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... prospective wives with small or nonexistent fortunes, Moll slyly devises a plan to keep her relative poverty a secret from the charming and (as she has every reason to believe) wealthy plantation owner who has fallen in love with her. To divert attention from her own financial condition, she repeatedly suggests that he has been courting her only for her money. Again and again he protests his love. Over and over she ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]
... tender, so that he shrinks instinctively from the monstrous injustice of contributing for the sake of his own pleasure to the ruin of another. As soon as manhood dawns, he must also have his attention absorbed on some object which will divert his thoughts intellectually or ideally; and by slight yet constant pressure, exercised not by fits and starts, but day after day, directly and indirectly, his father must form an antipathy in him to brutish, selfish sensuality. Above all, there must be no toying with passion, ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... group of animals there is often considerable diversity of opinion. It is obvious that all this work has little or nothing to do with the manner in which species are formed. Indeed, the effect of Darwin's Origin of Species was to divert attention from the way in which species originate. At the time that it was put forward his explanation appeared so satisfying that biologists accepted the notions of variation and heredity there set forth and ceased to take any further interest in the work of the hybridisers. ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett
... time was actively engaged in picketing and scouting the country along the Cumberland river, and on one or two occasions went into Tennessee to divert General Pegram's attention from ...
— History of the Seventh Ohio Volunteer Cavalry • R. C. Rankin
... so low, and gazed upon her with an air so stern and strange, that Toby, to divert the current of his thoughts, inquired ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... herself with a book for three minutes together. See, she has a yellow-backed French novel now, and she is only able to read five lines at a time; then she gets tired and glances about her listlessly. What she wants is someone gay, laid on, to divert her all the time ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... I can get it, the Rogans, by this peculiar red metal alloy, manage to trap and divert the permanent lines of force, the magnetic field, of Jupiter itself. So the whole red spot is highly magnetized, which somehow upsets natural gravitational attraction. I suppose it is responsible for the discoloration of ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... most, both of his sons, although they were well-formed and beautiful, grew no more in stature, but remained children still. Every day they resembled each other more and more, and they never ceased to sport and divert themselves in the innocent ways ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... his superior discernment, this cold-hearted man of society now went on to divert himself, as he says, with the credulity of Goldsmith, whom he was accustomed to pronounce "an inspired idiot"; but his mirth was soon dashed, for on asking the poet what had become of this Chatterton, he was answered, doubtless in the feeling tone of one who had experienced ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... therefore, official notice was issued in December, 1530, that the clergy lay all under a premunire, and that the crown intended to prosecute. Convocation was to meet in the middle of January, and this comforting fact was communicated to the bishops in order to divert their attention to subjects which might profitably occupy their deliberations. The church legislature had sate in the preceding years contemporaneously with the sitting of parliament, at the time when their privileges were being discussed, and when their conduct had been so angrily challenged: but ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... She must be calm, she knew; but she must divert him. "See," she began, "what it says about your mother in the paper!" She ran her finger down a long column of the fulsome description of the great Multon ball—the list of fashionables, the costumes. "Here it is! 'She was the loveliest ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... Wynne may have made them in order to divert suspicion by making people think that Pritchard must have fallen, and so killed himself. The holders of this theory base their belief on the absolute want of cause for Pritchard's trying to scale the ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... throat when I remember how those dear boys worked to divert me, until my strength revived. They rigged up a battered steamer-chair with furs and bath robes, put me in it, promising that as soon as I was rested they would see what could be done to get me up to the monastery. But I was not to worry. All of them set about ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... Sovereign's heart. So secure she thought herself of her supremacy that she not only took the French beauty into favour, but actually encouraged Charles in his pursuit of her, probably little realising how dangerous a rival she was taking to her bosom. It is said that this was but an artifice to divert Charles's attention from an intrigue that she was carrying on with that rakish beau, Henry Jermyn; but, whatever the cause, there is no doubt that for a time she lost no opportunity of throwing her Royal lover and the fair Stuart together. She even looked ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... school, was always found by the water-side or on board of the vessels. In the summer-time I was half the day in water, and was a very good swimmer. My mother perceived my fondness for the profession, and tried all she could to divert my thoughts some other way. She told me of the dangers and hardships which sailors went through, and always ended with my father's death and ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... executed mathematical diagram illustrating a proposition in Euclid, should we really be satisfied with the statement that it represented the random pencil-strokes made by a blindfolded child ignorant of geometry? On the other hand, if a fretful baby is allowed to divert himself by hammering the piano keys, is the result ever remotely akin to a tune? We know perfectly well that we never get harmony, order, beauty, rationality by accident; and there is only one other alternative—design, ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... be signified: but until she saw what the Emperor and allies were ready to do, she would neither promise nor engage for any thing." At the same time Mr. St. John told Hoffman, the Emperor's resident here, "That if the Prince had a mind to divert himself in London, the ministers would do their part to entertain him, and be sure to trouble him with no ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... the Iroquois to master all this traffic, conquer the tribes who had possession of it, and divert the entire supply of furs to themselves, and through themselves to the English and Dutch. That English and Dutch traders urged them on is affirmed by the French, and is very likely. The accomplishment of the scheme would have ruined ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... when Benedek had been allowed to attack and disperse the French-Italian troops on their left wing, while at Solferino itself the Austrian army was destroyed. So it would be here. It was supposed that this slight victory was allowed to the Prussians, so as to divert their attention from the movements of MacMahon and Bazaine, who were certain to crush them all at ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... children, that I stated when I first took it in hand to narrate to you these passages of my life, that the hopes of Monmouth's party rested very much upon the raid which Argyle and the Scottish exiles had made upon Ayrshire, where it was hoped that they would create such a disturbance as would divert a good share of King James's forces, and so make our march to London less difficult. This was the more confidently expected since Argyle's own estates lay upon that side of Scotland, where he could raise five thousand swordsmen among his own ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a few days ago. In his kind of business, he don't always tell who he is. No doubt he will tell you before night who he is. What have you been doing down here so long?" asked the skipper, wishing to divert the conversation into some ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... a constant state of ferment. His business must come first, he decided. Having settled this point to his temporary satisfaction, he opened his afternoon paper and leaned back in his seat, meaning to divert his mind from personal matters, by learning what was going on in the ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... that an attempt will ever be made to divert the public revenues of the outlying dependencies of Great Britain to the Imperial Exchequer. The lesson taught by the loss of the American Colonies has sunk deeply into the public mind. Moreover, the example of Spain ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... protested, in the strongest terms conceivable, that they might kill her, they might tear her limb from limb, yet she would not change her mind; had she two lives, she would lay them both down in such a cause. It would be better, she said, for the Pope to try to divert the King from his design; he would then be able to trust all the more in the inclination of her kinsman the Emperor to help ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... subsisting war in Europe, my proclamation of the 22d of April, 1793, is the index to my plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice, and by that of your representatives in both Houses of Congress, the spirit of that measure has continually governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... grimly. 'When they lose a thing they keep on looking till they find it again! Anyhow, my king and country need me now to cut potato sets for the back garden, so get you a knife and help me, Sophia Crawford. It will divert your thoughts and keep you from worrying over a campaign that you are not called ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... his sisters' flannel wrappers, he set them down by the fire, telling stories in the meantime to divert their thoughts from the ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... to look startled, and Sir Mark hurriedly fixed upon her to become the scapegoat for his awkward allusion, and divert ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... approach, even fat Mrs. Huxter insisting on my taking her warm place, at the head of the room. But Bob Leroy—you know him—as gallant a gentleman as ever lived, put me down at the right point, and kept me there. He only meant to divert me, yet gave me the only place where I could quietly inspect all the younger ladies, as dance ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... through it and falls into the Anider. The inhabitants have fortified the fountain-head of this river, which springs a little without the towns; that so, if they should happen to be besieged, the enemy might not be able to stop or divert the course of the water, nor poison it; from thence it is carried, in earthen pipes, to the lower streets. And for those places of the town to which the water of that small river cannot be conveyed, they have great cisterns for receiving ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... said. But he did not exactly see how he had become the friend of a mummy for which he had just paid twenty-five louis. To divert the conversation, he said to Clementine: "I have not yet shown you all the nice things I brought. His majesty, the Emperor of all the Russias, made me a present of a little enamelled gold star hanging at the end of a ribbon. Do you ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... head gloomily. "You wish to divert me from my question," he said, "which proves that you have heard it. I will repeat it. What were you doing with that dress when ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... used to it in a few days. It seems very beautiful to me here. And then you will have so much life to divert you." ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... sir, I have my eye on our original conditions; I do not want to divert the word-stream; it might confuse your memory with its irregular flow. However, I will do what I can in the way of a mere summary for this branch of the subject; as for a detailed examination of it, that ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... questions to people, not so much because we want an answer, as to elicit from them conversation and friendly feeling, and from a wish to fit them for company, as Socrates drew out Theaetetus and Charmides. For it is all one to run up and kiss one who wishes to be kissed by another, or to divert to oneself the attention that he was bestowing on another, as to intercept another person's answers, and to transfer people's ears, and force their attention, and fix them on oneself; when, even if he that was asked declines to give an answer, it will be well to ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... prince reminded Marquis Civitella of a romantic incident which happened to himself a short time since, and, to divert the prince, he offered to relate it. I will give it you in his own words; but the lively spirit which he infuses into all he tells will be lost in ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... a portion at least of his time when abroad in visiting the beautiful picture-galleries and other works of art in the towns to which his great work led him, but he never suffered himself to do so. He would not even read a newspaper, lest it should divert his thoughts from the one great purpose he had in view. I am not saying for a moment that he would have been wrong to indulge himself with relaxation in the shape of sight-seeing and reading the news; but surely when he ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... general thing, sit in our churches. It is not common to have benches or pews for them. Carpenters and other tradesmen also sit down either on a board, or on the ground, or on their legs, when they work. It would divert you much to see their manoeuvring. If a carpenter, for instance, wants to make a little peg, he will take a small piece of board, and place it in an erect position between his feet, the soles of which are turned inward so as to press upon the board. He then takes his chisel in ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder
... to gain this important place proved fruitless. He battered the walls and made breaches; but, by the vigilance of Leyva, new retrenchments were instantly thrown up behind the breaches: he attempted to divert the course of the Tesin, which ran by one side of the city and defended it; but an inundation of the river destroyed in one night all the mounds which the soldiers during a long time, and with ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... frightened the bird, but startled little Edward also, which made his cousins laugh heartily. The children all thought they had rather lose the apples than such a pretty bird, and were not quite satisfied with Mr. Wilson for sending him away. To divert their minds, he told them to put on their hats, and take a ramble in the fields with him, and perhaps he would walk with them up the high hill near his farm, if their little visitor thought his legs were strong enough to climb so high. Edward thought they were; so they set off, shouting and racing ...
— Happy Little Edward - And His Pleasant Ride and Rambles in the Country. • Unknown
... whose health was suffering severely under his privations. Ivan, however, had recommended himself in the same way as Leo, by his perfections as a cook, and moreover he was a capital buffoon. His fetters were sometimes taken off that he might divert the villagers by his dances and strange antics while his master played the guitar. Sometimes they sang Russian songs together to the instrument, and on these occasions the Major's hands were released that he might play on it; but one day he was unfortunately ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... diverting the attention of the people: for, as he had established the principle that on the field of battle it is necessary to divide the enemy in order to beat him, he conceived it no less advisable to divert the people in order to enslave them. Bonaparte did not say 'panem et circenses', for I believe his knowledge of Latin did not extend even to that well-known phrase of Juvenal, but he put the maxim in practice. He ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... letter was very welcome, it was written with so kind an intention: you made it so interesting in order to divert my mind. I should have thanked you for it before now, only that I kept waiting for a cheerful day and mood in which to address you, and I grieve to say the shadow which has fallen on our quiet home still lingers round it. I am better, but others are ill now. Papa is not well, my sister ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... breakfast we muster again and a gentleman talks to us in a voice that would lead you to believe that he thought we were all in hiding somewhere in New Rochelle. Then there are any number of things to do to divert our minds—scrub hammocks, pick up cigarettes, drill, hike and attend lectures. As a rule we do all of these things. From 5 p.m. until 8:45 p.m. if we are unfortunate enough not to have a lecture party we are free to give ourselves over to the riotous joy of the moment, which ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... she said sighing, 'it seemed to me that it might divert her thoughts a little from the actual horror of her own summons. Anything is better than the torture of that one fixed ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... saintly monarch was not quite agreeable to his family or his subjects, any more than to his mother, Blanche of Castille; and many of his lords made earnest efforts to divert him from his purpose. But remonstrance proved unavailing. Clinging steadfastly to his resolution, Louis summoned a Parliament at Paris, induced the assembled magnates to take the Cross, occupied three years with preparations on a great scale, and ultimately, having ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... continued Peter dutifully, "that this is exactly playing the quiet onlooker, as my orders read. As I said last night, I consider that this excursion into politics will help our little business, not interfere with it. It will divert attention. It will seem to explain why we are here. But if you don't agree with me, if you want ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... more attractive, and are necessary in their place; these you may be inclined to cultivate, at the expense of the one enjoined by our Lord in the text. But we solemnly and earnestly entreat you, not to suffer your inclination to divert your attention from your duty and your true interest. We tell you, with confidence, that next to the affectionate and filial love of God in your heart, there is no feeling or principle in the whole series that will be of such real solid service ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... him an easy dupe of Spanish artifice. While his son-in-law was ruined, and the inheritance of his grandson given to others, this weak prince was imbibing, with satisfaction, the incense which was offered to him by Austria and Spain. To divert his attention from the German war, he was amused with the proposal of a Spanish marriage for his son, and the ridiculous parent encouraged the romantic youth in the foolish project of paying his addresses ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... repel their false confession, and even Lady Angleby felt for a moment disturbed. Only for a moment, however. She wished that Mr. Burleigh would leave his country manners at home, and ascribing Bessie's shy irritation to alarmed modesty, introduced a pleasant subject to divert her thoughts. ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... like that the word was no more, no less, than the fabled bundle of rags or haunch of venison hurled back from a wolf-pursued sleigh to divert the pursuer even temporarily from the main issue. While Flame's Mother paused to consider the particularly flavorous sweetness of that entreaty,—to picture the flashing eye, the pulsing throat, the absurdly crinkled nostril that invariably accompanied all Flame's entreaties, Flame ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... hung me up by the heels, and seared me on the bare"—Here honest job had just time to divert the current of his speech ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... not able to throw off the memories of his vacation so easily as he had at first imagined. The busy week that followed his return to Schwarzburg furnished enough excitement to divert his thoughts for a time into a more cheerful channel, and he was further reassured by the fact that his father's letter contained nothing that could alarm him. Everything was going on at Greifenstein as usual. Hilda and her mother had returned to Sigmundskron. The shooting ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... To-night to divert Bruce's thoughts from his wife, Baird started him talking of his work. In six weeks Bruce had crammed his mind with the details of skyscraper building, and his talk was bewildering now, bristling with technical terms, permeated through and through with ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... Rebecca great joy and happiness in her prospect, which he did in so kind and gentle a manner, that she was fain to turn away her head to hide her tears. When Robert saw this, he turned the discourse, and did endeavor to divert her mind in such sort that the shade of melancholy soon left her sweet face, and the twain talked together cheerfully as had been their wont, and as ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... be such a foolish little prude," said the artful woman, affecting anger: "I invited you to go in hopes it would divert you, and be an agreeable change of scene; however, if your delicacy was hurt by the behaviour of the gentlemen, you need not go again; so there let ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... of the power of her own charms, strove with all the unsuspecting confidence of youth to amuse a visitor whom her honoured brother pronounced worthy of esteem and pity, and willingly exerted her arch vivacity to divert a melancholy of which no one knew the cause. Evellin soon discovered that he interested the fair recluse, and though she was not the first lady who viewed him with favour, he was flattered by an attention which he could not impute to extrinsic qualities. "She certainly pities me," observed ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... certain hours were left for recreation. At such times as he was called upon to teach, the class-room, of course, had the first claims. After the lecture he would walk in the shade outside the city walls, then return to his dinner, then divert himself with music, and afterwards go fishing in the pools and streams hard by the town. In the course of time he obtained other employment, being appointed physician to the Augustinian friars. The Prior of this Order, Francesco Gaddi, was ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... return, this noble marquis being very much solicited to repair to court, and no doubt he himself inclined to wait on a prince on whose head he had set the crown, and though some of his best friends used several arguments to divert him from his purpose till matters were better settled, yet from the testimony of a good conscience, knowing that he was able to vindicate himself from all aspersions, if he was but once admitted to the king's ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... effectually contribute than the amputation which was proposed; that his body, as well as his mind, would profit by the change; because he would have no dangerous appetite to gratify, and no carnal thoughts to divert him from the duties of his profession; and his voice, which was naturally sweet, would improve to such a degree, that he would captivate the ears of all the people of fashion and taste, and in a little time be celebrated under the appellation ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... have a large Newfoundland dog, equally famous for his good-nature and his love of the water. With this dog Tommy had been long forming an acquaintance, and he used to divert himself with throwing sticks into the water, which Caesar would instantly bring out in his mouth, however great might be the distance. Tommy had been fired with the description of the Kamtschatkan dogs, and their method of drawing sledges, and meditated ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... points of doubtful disputation, those especially which relate to particular or universal redemption, I profess myself attached neither to the one nor the other. I neither think of them myself nor preach of them to others. If they happen to be started in conversation, I always endeavour to divert the discourse to some more edifying topic. I have often observed them to breed animosity and division, but never knew them to be productive of love and unanimity.... Therefore I rest satisfied in this general and indisputable truth, that the Judge of all the earth will assuredly do right,' &c. ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... paid another visit to Ireland. His exactions and oppressions had made him very unpopular in England, and it is probable that this expedition was planned to divert the minds of his subjects. If this was his object, it failed signally; for the unfortunate monarch was deposed by Parliament the same year, and was obliged to perform the act of abdication with the best grace he could. His unhappy end belongs to English history. ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... important domestic news could be told in a few columns. All this tended to keep the newspapers within moderate proportions, and although they were numerous, it is safe to say that they did not make such a demand on the reader's time as to divert his attention from a more serious kind of literature. People had, therefore, plenty of leisure for careful perusal of the magazines, and these, by giving in many cases a summary of the news, decreased the ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... began to improve. The members of the family and acquaintances tried not to recall the sad incident of that night before Sonya. Only indifferent and pleasant matters were mentioned in the poor girl's presence in order to divert her. A number of visitors were invited one evening for this purpose. Some were asked by letter, others by Doctor Svetilovitch in person. He visited the Rameyevs and Trirodov in his carriage, which was harnessed to ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... said Holmes, smiling. "It was a dangerous, reckless attempt in which I seem to trace the influence of young Alec. Having found nothing, they tried to divert suspicion by making it appear to be an ordinary burglary, to which end they carried off whatever they could lay their hands upon. That is all clear enough, but there was much that was still obscure. What I wanted above all was to get the missing part ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... from Ghausgarh, and from the frontiers of Rohilkand. Why he did not, on leaving Dehli, march due north to Ghausgarh cannot be now positively determined; but it is possible that, having his spoil collected in that fort, he preferred trying to divert the enemy by an expedition in a more easterly direction; and that he entertained some hopes of aid from his connection, Faizula Khan of Rampur, or from the Bangash ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... corpse, even into the tomb; and when the body had been placed in the vault, in accordance with the Greek custom, she began to stand vigil over it, weeping day and night! Neither parents nor relations could divert her from punishing herself in this manner and from bringing on death by starvation. The magistrates, the last resort, were rebuffed and went away, and the lady, mourned by all as an unusual example, dragged through ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... formations, and combinations, than the English language. The legitimate province of philology, however, as I humbly conceive, has, in some instances, been made to yield to that of philosophy, so far as to divert the attention from the combinations of our language which refinement has introduced, to radical elements and associations which no way concern the progress of literature, or the essential use for which language ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... have had better opportunities than most people for studying one aspect of it, its moral aspect, and therefore I trust I may be forgiven if I make a personal reference. Seeing, in the earliest days of the war, that Germany was doing her best to divert the eye of the world from the crime she had committed in Belgium, and being convinced that Britain's hope both now and in the future lay in keeping the world's eye fixed on that outrage, I moved the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph to the ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... why the count wanted to divert my attention for some minutes, that his steward might have time to execute his secret commission!" cried the colonel stamping his foot passionately. "We ought to have reflected that we had sly foxes to deal with, and guarded every outlet beforehand. ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... President granted a six-year extension. Even with this the French franchise would revert to Colombia in 1910. Colombia wished delay. The United States transcontinental railroads did not want a canal, as it would divert from them heavy, bulky, and imperishable freight. They therefore joined Colombia in seeking delay, playing off the Nicaragua plan against the ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... of the bronze-coloured woman. The maidens in attendance, seeing their lady deeply moved, and wishing to banish her melancholy, bade the tire-woman bring the old stranger hither. Hildegardis forbade it not, hoping that she should thus divert the attention of her maidens, while she gave herself up more deeply and earnestly to the varying imaginations which ...
— Aslauga's Knight • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... by Bedford was in itself a patent of dishonor, but it was a profitable patent to Rigby. The Duke, who was accused at times of a shameful parsimony, was generous to profusion towards the bloated buffoon who was able and willing to divert him, and from that hour Rigby's pockets never wanted their supply of ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... were thinking of the dead boy and the threat to blacken his memory, but neither of them confessed it to the other. Wadley cast about for something to divert her mind and found it in an unanswered question ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... has Mrs. Gibby to send you a bath-robe? Don't prevaricate! Remember that the truth is the only thing that can save you. Matters must have gone pretty far, when a woman could send you anything so—intimate. What are you staring at with that paper? You needn't hope to divert my ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... (to use an excellent term of French cookery), here and there, with another new form of Sensibility. He did it quite admirably, and he taught the simpler device—the compound one hardly—to pupils, some of whom still divert, or at least distract, the world. I am not at all ashamed to say that I think the best of his and their work capital stuff, continuing worthily one of the oldest and most characteristic strains of French literature; displaying no contemptible artistry; and contributing very considerably ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... whose affections have been blighted is presented with a Scotch Collie to divert her mind, and the roving adventures of her pet lead the ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... to show that we cannot reasonably expect civilization to divert nations from the ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... girl,—two beautiful little creatures who danced and went through all sorts of antics, much to the amusement of the ogre. The ogre was, however, suspicious as to how they had come into the house, and whence they had come, for the doors were not open. So he determined just to divert himself awhile by watching their frolics, and then to kill them. Meanwhile the rat had nibbled a hole in the box. Then getting into it, he rescued the charm, and went out again through the passage in the ground. The little ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... not to toss from side to side for very restlessness, till, growing weary of this, he called Masrur and said to him, "Ho, Masrur, find me some one who may solace me in this my wakefulness." He answered, "O Prince of True Believers, wilt thou walk in the palace-garden and divert thyself with the sight of its blooms and gaze upon the stars and constellations and note the beauty of their ordinance and the moon among them rising in sheen over the water?" Quoth the Caliph, "O Masrur, my heart inclineth not to aught of this." Quoth he, "O my lord, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... that, far from lowering me in your estimation, you will judge me, in spite of my youth, capable of keeping a secret and worthy of being your wife. Certain that your heart is mine, I do not blame you for having made a mystery of certain things, and not being jealous of what can divert your mind and help you to bear patiently our cruel separation, I can only delight in whatever procures you some pleasure. Listen now. Yesterday, as I was going along one of the halls, I dropped a tooth-pick which I held in my hand, and to get it again, I was compelled to displace ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... which is far larger than the high chiefe street, and it runs from the Kirkland to the Well Trees, in which there have been many pretty buildings, belonging to the severall gentry of the countrey, who were wont to resort thither in winter, and divert themselves in converse together at their owne houses. It was once the principall street of the town; but many of these houses of the gentry having been decayed and ruined, it has lost much of its ancient beautie. Just opposite ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and looking round to try and divert her thoughts by fixing them on present object, she caught her cousin Manasseh's deep-set eyes furtively watching her. It was with no unfriendly gaze, yet it made Lois uncomfortable, particularly as ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to and fro in the room until I was weary, I thought of trying to divert my mind from the sad thoughts that oppressed it by reading. The one candle which I had lighted failed to sufficiently illuminate the room. Advancing to the mantel-piece to light the second candle which stood there, I ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... have been felt as a new ground of resentment by some youths in Deronda's position, and the timid Lady Mallinger with her fast-coming little ones might have been images to scowl at, as likely to divert much that was disposable in the feelings and possessions of the baronet from one who felt his own claim to be prior. But hatred of innocent human obstacles was a form of moral stupidity not in Deronda's grain; even the indignation which had ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the real; he demands the ideal also. Even in the course of exertions which he relishes as conducing to his material interests, he every now and then requires a change of scene and of occupation. Something to divert the mind from its ordinary series of ideas—something to enable us to lose ourselves in a temporary illusion, were it only a jocular supposition of our being something a good deal worse than we are—something, above all, to stir the hearty laugh, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... rights of their neighbours. This, you will say, is no more than human nature, which renders all men selfish. True; but the concerns of few nations being as extensive, varied, and artificial, as those of England, the people of other countries are not liable to be influenced by so many appeals to divert them from a sound and healthful state of feeling. England, as a nation, has never been a friend of liberty in other nations, as witness her long and bitter hostility to ourselves, to France and Holland, and her close alliance with Turkey, Persia, etc., ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... All those, said Luther, that concur not with us, and have not this doctrine before their eyes, the same do feign unto themselves but only a speculated Divinity, according to their carnal sense and reason, and according as they use to censure in temporal causes; for no man can divert them from these opinions, namely, "Whoso doth good works, and liveth an honest and civil kind of life, the same is an upright Christian, and he is well and safe;" but they are therein far deceived; ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... look different—your gown is wonderfully becoming, and what lovely slippers!" Mrs. Plunkett inspected the aged debutante with kindly eyes. "But remember, my dear, we mustn't let frivolities like this divert our attention from the cause. A bit more of the good fight and we shall ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... to perish to save your other children," said Albert de Gondi. "Do, then, as the great signors of Constantinople do,—divert the anger and amuse the caprices of the present king. He loves art and poetry and hunting, also a little girl he saw at Orleans; ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... such like matters, which are in their nature mere subjects of discretion, and where there are no natural presumptions of justice or right in favor of one course over the other. But no banking corporation allows a majority, or any other number of its members less than the whole, to divert the funds of the corporation to any other purpose than the one to which every member of the corporation has legally agreed that they may be devoted; nor to take the stock of one member and give it to another; nor to distribute the dividends among the stockholders ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... anything to do with Bezukhova and don't advise you to; however, if you've promised—go. It will divert your thoughts," she added, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... on my temples hang, This quivering lip, these eyes of dying flame; These the dread signs of many a secret pang, These are the meed of him who pants for fame! Pale Moon, from thoughts like these divert my soul; Lowly I kneel before thy shrine on high; My lamp expires;—beneath thy mild control These restless dreams are ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... been callous to the white, woeful face under one of the bridal wreaths. He set himself to think how most pleasantly to divert the thoughts of Clarice; and the result of his meditations was a request to Father Miles that he would induce the Countess to invite the parents of Clarice on a visit. The Countess always obeyed Father Miles, though had she known whence the suggestion came, she might have been less ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... than this one. Again he would turn to Fogarty and talk of the sea, of the fishing outside the inlet, of the big three-masted schooner which had been built by the men at Tom's River, of the new light they thought of building at Barnegat to take the place of the old one—anything to divert their minds and lessen their anxieties, stopping only to note the sound of every cough the boy gave or to change the treatment as the little sufferer struggled ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Diderot with a laugh sat down and wrote what was wanted. The graver occasions of life found him no less ready. Damilaville lost one of his children, and his wife was inconsolable. It was Diderot who was summoned, and who cheerfully went for days together to soothe and divert her mind. For his correspondent and for us he makes the tedium of his story beautiful by recalling the fine saying of a grief-stricken woman in Metastasio, when they tried to console her by the example of Abraham, who was ready even to slay his son at the command of ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... to be astonished at the expenditure made upon them? Or the manner in which each of them was placed in a river so deep, in water so full of eddies, on ground so slimy? It was impossible, you note, to divert the course of the river in any direction. I have spoken of the breadth of the river; but the stream is not uniformly so limited, since it covers in some places twice and elsewhere thrice as much ground, but the narrowest point, and the one ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... disgust at the country, her complaining of everything. These things were just what Joan must have expected, had she not lived away from her aunt, and so lost her proper focus. Joan did her best to appease her. She strove by every art of her simple mind to interest her and divert her thought and mood into channels less harsh. But she had little success, and it quickly became apparent that the lapse of time since her going from home had aggravated rather than improved the strange mental condition under which her ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... form at an earlier date—say immediately after the poem was written, and when his parting from his Italian friends was quite recent.] There was, I confess, an additional cause for my silence in that most turbulent state of our Britain, subsequent to my return home, which obliged me to divert my mind shortly afterwards from the prosecution of my studies to the defence anyhow of life and fortune. What safe retirement for literary leisure could you suppose given one among so many battles of a civil war, slaughters, flights, seizures ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... juice, and peace will cure all ills, and he gets five hundred dollars a lecture for saying it. Billy Sunday gets thousands of dollars for dragging hell out into the limelight. They are both popular forms of amusement. They divert the mind. Why shouldn't they be paid? There are far worse moving-picture shows than ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... lady is within, I follow Parker to the drawing-room, my knees shaking under me at the prospect of committing some solecism in his sight. Lady DeWolfe's husband has been noble only four months, and Parker of course knows it, and perhaps affects even greater hauteur to divert the attention of the vulgar commoner from the ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... seated about an hour Buttons entered. He had not been able to find Francia. To divert his melancholy he proposed that Meinheer Schatt should play a game of chess with the Senator. Now, chess was the Senator's hobby. He claimed to be the best player in his State. With a patronizing smile he consented to play with a tyro like Meinheer Schatt. At the end of one game Meinheer ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... golden age of the river trade. Each year it grew steadily in volume, reaching a point of prosperity in 1860 never equalled before or since. Until the railroads began to divert the traffic in flour and provisions after 1850, the cities on the Ohio River sent most of the produce collected at their markets to New Orleans to be shipped to Europe and the Eastern States or to be sold to the planters of the cotton belt. After 1850, as the surplus agricultural produce of the Ohio ...
— Outline of the development of the internal commerce of the United States - 1789-1900 • T.W. van Mettre
... in helpless desperation, saw, some distance beyond, a rise of dry ground. The sight appeared to divert him, and he stood looking at it. He had the appearance of having forgotten Tito, and the child, uneasy at this sudden stillness as he was ready to be at anything the tramp ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... manners of life which foster neither inertia, reverence, nor mystic meditation. Essentially man of action, in ideal action he finds his only true comfort; and no attempts to discover for him new gods and symbols will divert him from the path made for him by the whole trend of his existence. I am sure that padres at the front see that the men whose souls they have gone out to tend are living the highest form of religion; that in their comic courage, unselfish humanity, ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... She was quite serious now. Grey paused, and the ticking of the grandfather's clock on the other side of the room pounded heavily in the twilight The murmur of the old ladies' voices occasionally reached the lovers, but it did not interrupt them or divert their attention from their ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... hero, for by their means he had a better opportunity of seeing the world, and knowing mankind, than most of our youths who make the grand tour; for, as he had none of those petty amusements and raree-shows, which so much divert our young gentlemen abroad, to engage his attention, it was wholly applied to the study of mankind, their various passions and inclinations; and he made the greater improvement in his study, as in many of his ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... some occasions!]—to escort the Princess to Stralsund, where two Swedish Senators and different high Lords and Ladies awaited her. Her Majesty the Queen-Mother, judging by the movements of her own heart that the moment of separation would produce a scene difficult to bear, had ordered an Opera to divert our chagrin; and, instead of supper, a superb collation EN AMBIGU [kind of supper-breakfast, I suppose], in the great Hall of the Palace. Her Majesty's plan was, The Princess, on coming from the Opera, should, almost on flight, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... associated exclusively with the lower classes, and when I offered to give him letters of introduction to Wm. F. Skene, Robert Chambers, Joseph Robertson, etc., he declined to accept them. His mother died lately and he was travelling, he said, to divert and throw off his melancholy. He talked very freely on all subjects that one broached, but not with precision, and he appeared to me to be an amiable man and a gentleman, but, withal, something of a projector, if not an adventurer. He is certainly eccentric. I asked him ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... the base of the brain) in cold water, and rub down vigorously with a crash towel. Fifthly, resolutely form cleanly habits of mind, as well as body; take up a course of good reading to occupy the mind, and divert it into healthy channels, and shun all reading of a sensational nature. Sixthly, avoid thinking impure and lascivious thoughts, and do not allow your mind to dwell upon your condition, but cultivate self- control. The ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... Ridotto ('tis a place To which I mean to go myself to-morrow,[228] Just to divert my thoughts a little space Because I'm rather hippish, and may borrow Some spirits, guessing at what kind of face May lurk beneath each mask; and as my sorrow Slackens its pace sometimes, I'll make, or find, Something shall leave ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... been the bearer of other communications, with the nature of which he had not yet acquainted himself; but he saw by the superscriptions that they were of great importance. Still, however, even in the solitude and privacy of his own chamber, it was not on the instant that he could divert his thoughts from the ruin of his fortunes: the loss not only of Evelyn's property, but his own claims upon it (for the whole capital had been placed in Douce's hands), the total wreck of his grand scheme, the triumph he had afforded to Maltravers! He ground his teeth in impotent rage, and ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... tears, and looking round to try and divert her thoughts by fixing them on present object, she caught her cousin Manasseh's deep-set eyes furtively watching her. It was with no unfriendly gaze, yet it made Lois uncomfortable, particularly as he did not withdraw his looks after he must have seen that she observed him. She was glad when her ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... TRUE MANHOOD.—The question for each one is, "In what way are you going to divert the courses of the streams of energy which pertain to youthful vigor and manhood?" To be destitute of that which may be described as raw material in the human frame, means that no really vigorous manhood can have place; to burn up the juices of the system in the fires ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... shouldest do as the merchants do and sell thy merchandise at credit for a fixed period, on a contract drawn up by a notary and duly witnessed; and employ a Shroff to take thy dues every Monday and Thursday. So shalt thou gain two dirhams and more, for every one; and thou shalt solace and divert thyself by seeing Cairo and the Nile." Quoth I, "This is sound advice," and carried the brokers to the Khan. They took my stuffs and went with them on 'Change where I sold them well taking bonds for the value. These bonds I deposited with a Shroff, a banker, who gave ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... hold equal rank with men in the temples of male deities; they there formed a kind of harem whence the god took his mystic spouses, his concubines, his maidservants, the female musicians and dancing women whose duty it was to divert him and to enliven his feasts. But in temples of goddesses they held the chief rank, and were called hierodules, or priestesses, hierodules of Nit, hierodules of Hathor, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... river cut through a section of land and eliminated the loop upon which the town stood. Fortunately, however, the Yazoo emptied into the Mississippi above Vicksburg, and it was found possible, by digging a canal, to divert the latter river from its course and lead its waters into the loop left dry by the whim of the greater stream. Thus the river life, out of which Vicksburg was born, and without which the place would lose its character, was retained, ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... said he, in very excellent English, "you have come to Paris to finish your studies. But have you no fear, young gentleman, that the attractions of so gay a city may divert your mind from graver subjects? Do you think that, when every pleasure may be had for the seeking, you will be content to devote yourself to the dry ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... the end of October the Belgian army mortgaged great tracts of their ground for many years by opening the canal sluices and letting in the sea, the Germans were enabled to divert the Third Reserve Corps southwards. The movements of troops from this area were observed by the Royal Flying Corps, and General Headquarters on the 1st of November issued this summary: 'The coast road ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... years from this most anxious period, the translation continued as it was; and though, in the hope of its being able to divert his melancholy, I had attempted more than once to introduce it to its Author, I was every time painfully obliged to desist. But in the summer of ninety-six, when he had resided with me in Norfolk twelve miserable months, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... [II.] from my dear father in answer to it; and that marked [III.] mine in reply to his) will (at the same time that they may convince your ladyship that I will conceal nothing from you in the course of this correspondence, which may in the least amuse and divert you, or better explain our grateful sentiments), in a great measure, answer what your ladyship expects from me, as to the happy fortnight we ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... resolutions to manage better for the future, crowded into our thoughts; we formed a thousand projects, all of which we rejected. At last, the shame of seeing ourselves reduced to so low a condition, and not daring to tell your majesty, made us contrive this stratagem to relieve our necessities, and to divert you, which we hope your majesty ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... on a fine summer's evening when the school-hours were at an end, and the young ladies were admitted to divert themselves for some time, as they thought proper, in a pleasant garden adjoining to the house, that their governess, who delighted in pleasing them, brought out a little basket of apples, which were intended to be divided equally amongst ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... Amuba and Jethro, and indeed most of the captives, had acquired some knowledge of the Egyptian language. Jethro had from the first impressed upon the young prince the great advantage this would be to them. In the first place, it would divert their thoughts from dwelling upon the past, and in the second, it would make their lot more bearable ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... followed by a farce: and so it is with these sanguinary crimes in Hillsborough; they are always followed by a repudiation, and offers of a trumpery reward quite disproportionate to the offense, and the only result of the farce is to divert attention from the true line of inquiry as to who enacted the tragedy. The mind craves novelty, and perhaps these delegates will indulge that desire by informing us for once, what was the personal and Corsican feud which led—as they would have us believe—to this outrage; and will, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... other towns of lower Kansas in turn made bids for prominence as cattle marts. Agents of the Chicago stockyards would come down along the trails into the Indian Nations to meet the northbound herds and to try to divert them to this or that market as a shipping-point. The Kiowas and Comanches, not yet wholly confined to their reservations, sometimes took tribute, whether in theft or in open extortion, of the herds ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... than was customary, and among others M. de Luxembourg. Everybody was compelled to be masked. M. de Luxembourg spoke on this subject to M. le Prince, who, malicious as any monkey, determined to divert all the Court and himself at the Duke's expense. He invited M. de Luxembourg to supper, and after that meal was over, masked him according to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... off on some tangent from which it would need all her coaxing wit to divert him. With wide eyes painfully intent, her little, jeweled fingers very still in their locked grip in her lap, the color draining from her cheeks, she sat waiting ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... them to feel a disgust for the filthy and degrading dissipation which they indulge in. But I have never been able to give any advice in the disposal of their means, from the fact that I know of no channels into which to divert them." ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... drive into Barchester she had not much opportunity of reflecting on Mr Arabin. She had been constrained to divert her mind both from his sins and his love by the necessity of conversing with her sister, and maintaining the appearance of parting with her on ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... sat down and waited; I looked at happy things, zealously avoided the sight of anything unhappy, and by degrees a little trickle of the happiness of this blissful world began to filter into me. The trickle grew more abundant, and now, my dear fellow, if I could for a moment divert from me into you one half of the torrent of joy that pours through me day and night, you would throw the world, art, everything aside, and just live, exist. When a man's body dies, it passes into trees and flowers. Well, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... of the man awakening into life out of a condition into which he had been plunged, for all I knew, before I was born, came upon me very violently in the darkness. There being nothing to divert my thoughts, I gave my mind wholly to it, and I tell you I found it an amazing terrifying thing to happen. Indeed, I do not know that the like of such an adventure was ever before heard of, and I well recollect thinking to myself, "I would give my left hand ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... the earth? Whether rain enough might not fall, at some time or other, to extinguish all the fires? And whether, by means of such a rain, Wahu might not become as cold as Russia? I endeavoured to cut the matter as short as possible; and, in order to divert her thoughts to other subjects, set wine before her; she liked it very much, and I therefore presented her with a bottle; but her thirst for knowledge was not thus to be quenched, and during a visit of two hours, she asked such incessant questions, that I was not a little relieved ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... constant friend and companion, Henrich, she naturally devoted herself more to her younger brother, and little Ludovico became not only her lively play-fellow, but also her intelligent pupil; and the occupation which she found in the care of the engaging child served to divert her mind from the first real grief she had ever known. Her mother's sorrow, though borne with the most perfect resignation, had greatly affected her health; and as she had entire confidence in Edith's steadiness, she was glad to leave the care of Ludovico principally to her, especially when ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... which law and custom tend to establish. The radical error seems to be that the law commands; whereas such a relation cannot mould itself according to external arrangements, but depends wholly on inclination; and wherever coercion or guidance comes into collision with inclination, they divert it still farther from the proper path. Wherefore it appears to me that the State should not only loosen the bonds in this instance and leave ampler freedom to the citizen, but that it should entirely withdraw its active solicitude from the institution ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Do not mimic her. You divert me against my conscience. And, upon my word, I do not think Mr. Knightley would be much disturbed by Miss Bates. Little things do not irritate him. She might talk on; and if he wanted to say any thing himself, he would only talk louder, and drown her voice. But the question is not, whether ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... eternity; they had the sweetness and indefiniteness of the dawn. Soon the mystery of the grotto spread like a perfume throughout the land; it was a ground of joy and edification for pious souls, and corrupt men endeavoured, though in vain, by falsehood and calumny, to divert the faithful from the springs of grace that flowed from the saint's tomb. The Church took measures so that these graces should not remain reserved for a few children, but should be diffused throughout all Penguin Christianity. Monks took up their quarters in the grotto, they ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... gentlemen he is to meet to-morrow night.—Entertaining, I mean for his humourous description of their persons, manners, &c. but such a description as is far from being to their praise. Yet he seemed rather to design to divert my melancholy by it than to degrade them. I think at bottom, my dear, that he must be a good-natured man; but that he was spoiled young, for want of ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... material, the physical and mental labor of turning over and reading bound volumes of newspapers is the most severe, and I remember my feeling of relief at being able to divert my attention from what Edward L. Pierce called this back-breaking and eye-destroying labor, much of it in public libraries, to these convenient books in my own private library. A mass of other materials, notably Nicolay and Hay's contributions, military narratives, biographies, private correspondence, ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... true that the text 'Doing works here,' &c., is meant to divert him who knows the Self from knowledge and restrict him to works. For there is no special reason to hold that that text refers to works as independent means of a desirable result: it may as well be understood to refer to works ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... public and was only made possible by a oneness of aim and desire—that is to say cooeperation. Before cooeperation comes in any line, there is always competition pushed to a point that threatens destruction and promises chaos; then to divert ruin, men devise a better way, a plan that conserves and economizes, and behold, ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... interest as it could be in France—for religion up to that epoch was the true frontier between nation and nation—debated the question most earnestly while it was yet doubtful. It was proposed to send a formal deputation to the king, in order to divert him, if possible, from the fatal step which he was about to take. After ripe deliberation however, it was decided to leave the matter "in the hands of God Almighty, and to pray Him earnestly to guide the issue to His glory and the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... together; sometimes he would lie still one day, then two days; whereupon he said, considering the Earl of Essex was in the west, with what success he then knew not, he moved Manchester several times to quicken his march to the west, for relief of Essex, if he were beaten, or to divert the King's forces from following of Essex; but he said Manchester still refused to make any haste; and that one day he said, 'If any man but yourself, Lieutenant, should so frequently trouble me, I would call him before a Council of War. We have beaten the King's forces in the ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... himself. He must fight against the melancholy of his obsession. His eyes chanced to rest on the crumpled sheet of scented note-paper tossed into the empty grate. Stooping, he picked it up and smoothed it out. This problem of Maisie would at least divert him—besides, he had promised to do what he could for Adair. He noted the Chelsea address and reread the contents with its sly humility and hint of coquetry: "I have been given to understand that you are exceedingly anxious to make my acquaintance. If this is so, ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... bathing served to divert, temporarily, the girls' keen interest in holding a True Tred meeting immediately. Every one wanted to go straight back to the island—no dogs had devoured them, no lunatics were discovered up trees, no ghosts had been noticed ambling about the grove, ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... And I want to make bold to beg you to let grandmother go and live in the country with Aagot—or let Aagot come and live here, whichever they prefer. It would divert Aagot's mind if she had the care of grandmother; and she is ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... dramatis personae, as well as the whole chorus) were properly introduced into the nature of the poem, which is mixed of farce and tragedy. The adventure of Ulysses was to entertain the judging part of the audience, and the uncouth persons of Silenus and the Satyrs to divert the common people ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... politics, it is understood that a hint from them to the potentates of Europe is sufficient. In short, as a lover (talk of what you will) brings in his mistress at every turn, so these persons contrive to divert your attention to the same darling object—they are, in fact, in love with themselves, and, like lovers, should be left to ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... spirit whose light adorned the world around it." Her husband grieved greatly. He was ordered to travel to divert his despair. He visited Gibraltar, and there the dormant martial spirit of his ancestors was aroused by his environment. Though then forty-three years of age, he immediately entered the army as a volunteer. He rapidly rose in ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... To divert Curtis from this theme, on which, with the accustomed mal a propos of an awkward man, he wished to talk, the young men led him to the subject of Donogan ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... who had gained entrance to the bank came out by the side door, and this served to divert attention to Franklin Street for a moment. There were cries that a woman who had received her money had been robbed, and this increased ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... my hands, I set out for Creech's with no weightier purpose than to divert myself and have some merry talk over a bowl of punch; but, as I entered, Blake, who was throwing dice with Dundas at the other end of the room, called to me to ask if I had heard whether Mr. Pitcairn ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... hand, the country is very beautiful, and of an excellent quality, abounding with plains and meadows, which favour the excursions of the Chicasaws, and which they will ever continue to make upon us, till we have the address to divert them from their ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... the judicature of the people will be so frequent as to hold the prerogative in continual employment, the Senate, a main part of whose office it is to teach and instruct the people, shall duly (if they have no greater affairs to divert them) cause an oration to be made to the prerogative by some knight or magistrate of the Senate, to be chosen out of the ablest men, and from time to time appointed by the orator of the house, in the great hall of the Pantheon, while the ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... invisible comes suddenly out of the future to assume distinct proportions which either make or mar us, so did this unknown cantatrice come out of the fog that night and enter into Hillard's life, to readjust its ambitions, to divert its aimless course, to give impetus to it, and a directness which hitherto ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... Seventh and Fourteenth Iowa moved up to the left of the position reached by Colonel Veatch, and a detachment of sharpshooters was posted so as to reach with their fire the men in the trenches and divert their fire. At night Lauman withdrew his command to the place of the previous night's bivouac. Colonel Cook's brigade advanced, the morning of the 13th, on the right of Lauman's. The left of his line came also in front of Hanson's works. The valley was here filled ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force
... sank lower and lower. The tears rose again. It would only irritate him if he came and found her crying. She tried to divert her mind by looking about ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... excused for abandoning all attempt to behave as a woman of the world should at a supper party. Nevertheless, she continued good-naturedly and conscientiously in the performance of her duty to charm, to divert, and to enliven. After all, the ladies were there to captivate the males, and if Aida and Alice dishonestly flouted obligations, Christine would not. She would, at any rate, show them how ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... replied Peg, "and this is her hat I've got an' here's her bag—" Peg was striving her utmost to divert Mrs. Chichester's attention from Ethel, who was in so tense and nervous a condition that it seemed as if she might faint at any moment. She thrust the dressing-bag into the old lady's hand. Mrs. Chichester opened it immediately and found just inside it Ethel's jewel-box. ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... tabor, and let us go and divert our master and his son's friend, as we sometimes do ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... a mistake, was now deeply impressed upon his mind, since it would necessarily inaugurate another bloody war. Self banished from Rome, this great and true patriot wandered from place to place to divert his mind. But neither the fascinations of literature, nor the attractions of Tusculum, Puteoli, Pompeii, and Neapolis, where he had luxurious villas, could soothe his anxious and troubled soul. Religious, old, and experienced, he could only ponder on the coming and final prostration ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... corresponded to nothing in her own nature; but she comforted Gaga because it was her impulse to do so. She did not dislike him in this mood. She felt pity for him. It was only for his tremulous persistency in caress that Sally felt contempt. Gradually she began to be able to divert his mind to other matters—to their own future, and the flat they were to take and to furnish; and to the plans they must make for a slow change of her position in the business. Already Sally was obtaining a grasp of the details, but ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... getting thoroughly warm he toiled on with his oar, wondering whether Bob would be more amiable when the day came, and trying to think of something to say to divert his thoughts and make him cease ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... before when he felt this queer shock, his mind travelled back and he seemed to hear the series of discharges running up at short intervals to the great catastrophe. . . . To divert his thoughts, he turned to study the view of Venice above the chimney-piece . . . and on a sudden ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in the fields of shipping and banking. One consequence is that American enterprise has now the golden opportunity to capture a good share of each. The outbreak of the war and the simultaneous opening of the Panama Canal will tend to divert the course of trade from Europe to South America. Probably our merchant marine can be developed more successfully for this South American trade than it could for the European trade. New York can largely take the place of London as the world's exchange centre for ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... this town; the house indeed is old built, but very commodious; it is called Christ Church, having been, as it is said, a priory or religious house in former times. The green and park is a great addition to the pleasantness of this town, the inhabitants being allowed to divert themselves there with ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe
... glasses, and looked unutterably at Mrs. Dagon. But Mrs. Dinks, on her side, knowing the limitations of Alfred's income, and believing in the Newt resources, did not wish to divert from him any kindness of the Newts. So ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... to me so much more desolate than that of this unhappy lady, who had, I imagined, much to console her. It even seemed to me that the grief I had witnessed was somewhat morbid and overstrained; and, thinking that it would perhaps divert her mind from brooding too much over her own troubles, I ventured, when she had grown calm again, to tell her some of my memories. I asked her to imagine a state of the world and the human family, in which ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... the seeking of worth-while truth, are ever profitable employments, paying present and future dividends, and meanwhile those acts positively divert the thought from ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... woes of the Lady Blanchefleur, were quite incapable of making him forget the very disagreeable present. Then he tried rebuilding and newly furnishing a part of his house; but that proved even less potent to divert his thoughts than the books. Next he went into company, laughed and joked with empty-headed people, played games, sang, and amused himself in sundry ways, and came home at night, to feel more solitary and miserable than before. Then, in desperation, he ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... arrival at court, from other provinces of Japon, of tonos, lords, captains, and soldiers, whom the combaco in his lifetime had kept busy in the wars with Coray [i.e., Corea] and the king of China, in order to divert them from the affairs of his kingdom, the men began to become restless and corrupt. The result was that the four governors entertained suspicions of, and quarreled with, Yeyasudono, for they feared from his manner of governing and procedure that he was preparing, on account ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... industrial experiments were begun by the Central Committee on Women's Employment. The Government appointed a Chemical Products Supply Committee with a view to stimulating the production of dyes and drugs at home. These proposals are in the main an attempt to divert the trade of foreign countries, especially Germany, into British channels. The second line of action is fuller provision of home needs which cannot be satisfied by foreign producers, but are essentially ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... injustice," he admitted humbly. "But I was fearfully shocked by the scene. I strove to divert suspicion by insisting that Jimmie died from angina pectoris, and then you came, Helen, and demanded ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... feet, and learn what you could teach us. Then Esmeralda sighed and clasped her hands, and says she, 'It's tired to death I am of my own family, and longing to meet somebody who has seen more of the world than Bally William. Couldn't we tell the Pixie to bring home one of her friends with her, to divert us during the Christmas holidays?' and at that we all called out together, for we have been dull without you, little one, and looking forward to a frolic on Christmas. Last year we were all too sad thinking of the dear mother, but this year she ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... crossed the room, he passed by a mirror. His own sullen despair looked at him in the reflection of his face. "She will be back directly," he remembered; "she mustn't see me like this!" He went on to the window to divert his mind (and so to clear his face) by watching the stream of life flowing by in the busy street. Artificial cheerfulness, assumed love in Sydney's presence—that was what his life had ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... it that there is a certain stream of irritability that is continually fretting upon the wheels of life, which finds sufficient food to play with in straws and feathers, while great objects are too much for it, either choke it up, or divert its course into serious and thoughtful interest? Some attempt might be made to explain this ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... that I despised them; but I must own that I used to think within myself that, in the main, to be a prisoner of State was of all others the most afflicting. All the relaxation I had from my studies was to divert myself with some rabbits on the top of the donjon, and some pigeons in the turrets, for which I was indebted to the continual solicitations of the Church of Paris. I had not been a prisoner above nine days when one of my guards, while his comrade who watched ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... its vigorous flow, he was conscious of reviewing his attitude towards the "undeveloped affair" in some such train of thought, and finding in it nothing to condemn, rather to commend, in fact; for not for the fractional part of a second did he allow a thought of it to divert his mind from the constant end in view: the making for himself a recognized place of power in the financial world of affairs. He knew that Mr. Van Ostend was aware of this steadfast pursuit of a purpose. He knew, ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... it is no more than fact, that the larger portion of all truth has sprung from the collateral; and it is but in accordance with the spirit of the principle involved in this fact, that I would divert inquiry, in the present case, from the trodden and hitherto unfruitful ground of the event itself, to the contemporary circumstances which surround it. While you ascertain the validity of the affidavits, I will examine the newspapers more generally than you have as yet done. So far, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... patient to whom I must instantly go, and whom I may not be able to leave for hours. You can do all that I would do,—I believe,"—then he felt my pulse again, and nodding his head with a sort of grim professional satisfaction, which no amount of emotion could wholly divert from its delight in the steady nerves and undisturbed currents of a healthy body,—resumed, "You have but one thing to do: when she wakes, look perfectly composed; if she speaks, answer her in a perfectly natural voice; give her two drops of this ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... almost complete annihilation of life. I am bored with inventing causes for my hatred. There is a diversion on earth called humanity—creatures full of enamelled lusts and arrogant decays who go about smiling and slyly obeying laws which protect them from each other. But they no longer divert me. ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... found Governor Morton and all the State officials busy in equipping and providing for the new regiments, and my object was to divert some of them toward Kentucky; but they were called for as fast as they were mustered in, either for the army of McClellan or Fremont. At Springfield also I found the same general activity and zeal, Governor Yates busy in providing for his men; but these men also had been ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... as a college; but it certainly is not so now. Located in a Presbyterian community, it is natural that most of its trustees and faculty should be of that denomination, though the rector, president, and several of the professors are members of the Episcopal Church. It is furthest from my wish to divert any donation from the Theological Seminary at Alexandria, for I am well acquainted with the merits of that institution, have a high respect for its professors, and am an earnest advocate of its object. I only give you ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... below, saying that she was the very opposite of Dido, who, after the departure of AEneas, had done nothing but look at the waves, while she, Mary, could not take her eyes off the land. Then everyone gathered round her to try to divert and console her. But she, growing sadder, and not being able to respond, so overcome was she with tears, could hardly eat; and, having had a bed got ready on the stern deck, she sent for the steersman, and ordered him if he still saw land at daybreak, to come and wake ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... little Theodosia cannot hear you spoken of without an apparent melancholy; insomuch, that her nurse is obliged to exert her invention to divert her, and myself avoid the mention of you in her presence. She was one whole day indifferent to everything but your name. Her attachment is not of ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... negotiations that a very probable explanation for his determination to be present at the Conference is the assumption that the idea had become so firmly embedded in his mind that nothing could dislodge it or divert him from his purpose. How far the spectacular feature of a President crossing the ocean to control in person the making of peace appealed to him I do not know. It may have been the deciding factor. It may have had no effect at all. How far the belief ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... laid down her arms, and that the town is now garrisoned with troops of the line;—the Marseilles army requires the withdrawal of this garrison.—In vain the garrison departs. Rebecqui and his acolytes reply that "nothing will divert them from their enterprise; they cannot defer to anybody's decision but their own in relation to any precaution tending to ensure the safety of the southern departments."—In vain the Minister renews his injunctions ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... [London] will make considerable advances, but I believe this can't arrive in time for the Market, as aplication has not yet been made to Monsr. la force [Paris Mont Martell]. I think I can easily divert them from this, as I can convince St. Sebastien [Young Pretender] in case I see him, that they would leave him in the lurch. This proposal comes from your side the watter. I find Mrs. Strange [Highlanders] will readly except of any offer from Rosenberge [King of ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... less than in anticipation, certainly I did not hope that, but that it would range itself with the old feelings of simple reverence and sympathy and friendship, that I should love you as much as I supposed I could love, and no more) but in the confidence that nothing could occur to divert me from my intended way of life, I made—went on making arrangements to return to Italy. You know—did I not tell you—I wished to see you before I returned? And I had heard of you just so much as seemed to make it impossible such a relation ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... favor to me, I will ask you to bear with him as long as possible. Can you not send him to your factory near New York on some errand? New scenes will divert his thoughts, and sudden and acute attacks, like his, usually ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... of the horrible reptile that had scared me from my friend's corpse. Pointing to that part of the drawing, Taee put to me a few questions respecting the size and form of the monster, and the cave or chasm from which it had emerged. His interest in my answers seemed so grave as to divert him for a while from any curiosity as to myself or my antecedents. But to my great embarrassment, seeing how I was pledged to my host, he was just beginning to ask me where I came from, when Zee, fortunately entered, and, overhearing him, said, "Taee, give ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... not suffice her that she tricked thee into marrying her and kept thee prisoner with her a whole year, but she must also make thee swear by the oath of divorce, that thou wilt return to her on the same night before morning, and not allow thee to divert thyself with thy mother or me, nor suffer thee to pass one night with either of us, away from her? How then must it be with one from whom thou hast been absent a full year, and I knew thee before she did? But Allah have mercy on thy cousin Azizah, for there befel her what never befel any and she ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Granby has arrived. She is all that I once was—easy, sprightly, debonnaire. Already has she done much towards relieving my mind. She endeavors to divert and lead my thoughts into a different channel from that to which they are now prone. Yesterday we had each an invitation to a ball. She labored hard to prevail on me to go, but I obstinately refused. I cannot ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... would drink and make merry at times, keeping their hate in the background until a victim appeared. Young Cousin carried his hate in his face as well as in his heart at all times. There was nothing on earth, so far as I ever learned, no friendships, no maiden's smile, which could divert him from the one consuming ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... thousand. But this I like better for it will raise my character for generosity to the skies." In a letter to his daughter, he writes thus: "I have sent you two hundred and fifty denarii, which I gave to every one of my guests; in case they were inclined at supper to divert themselves with the Tali, or at the ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... stand in line for breakfast. After breakfast we muster again and a gentleman talks to us in a voice that would lead you to believe that he thought we were all in hiding somewhere in New Rochelle. Then there are any number of things to do to divert our minds—scrub hammocks, pick up cigarettes, drill, hike and attend lectures. As a rule we do all of these things. From 5 p.m. until 8:45 p.m. if we are unfortunate enough not to have a lecture party we are free to ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... too deeply skilled in the sorrows of a wounded heart, appeared warmly to compassionate the distress which had robbed her favourite of all presence of mind; and rising evidently to divert the attention of the circle, whose malignant smiles were instantly repressed, she invited us to follow her into the adjoining gallery, at that time occupied by Sir Peter Lely for the completion of his exquisite series of portraits of the beauties of Charles's court. ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... for the colossal which was common to most of the despots shows itself on the largest scale. He undertook, at the cost of 300,000 golden florins, the construction of gigantic dikes, to divert in case of need the Mincio from Mantua and the Brenta from Padua, and thus to render these cities defenseless. It is not impossible, indeed, that he thought of draining away the lagoons of Venice. He founded that most wonderful ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... producing Hatred, and that Revenge) if they were not only very little inform'd as to what God requires of them; but also very Ignorant in regard of any kind of Ingenious Knowledge, whereby they might delightfully employ themselves, and divert those displeasing Thoughts which (otherwise) will incessantly Torment, and Prey upon their Minds. She who has no Inclinations unbecoming a Vertuous Woman, who prefers her Husbands Affection to all things in the World; and who can no longer find that pleasure in the ordinary Circle ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... lash, the blood-hound, or the fiery stake, could divert her from her self-imposed task of leading as many as possible of her people "from the land of Egypt, from ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... lofty mountain-top that I see on the edge of the horizon away to the north, just fading in the twilight?" inquired Salome, partly to divert the dame from her ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... woman well round the corner and into Park Avenue before she appreciated how interesting her tempestuous flight from that rather thoroughly burglarised mansion would be apt to seem to a peg-post policeman. And then she pulled up short, as if reckoning to divert suspicion with a semblance of nonchalance—now that ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... Now that there is nothing left for my guest to anticipate, it is evident that memory ceases to excite." And I could but feel that, had our provisions been more abundant, the stranger's appetite would not have been so easily appeased. With something of regret in my voice, I sought to divert his mind from that sense of disappointment which I judged from his countenance threatened to ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... is well for them that the light they need is not hidden under the bushel of any one churlish individual. But there were ample expedients remaining, and it required more than one discouragement to divert me from the object we were seeking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... If, as we suspected, he already had a considerable body of adherents on shore, he could land and reconnoiter without very great danger of falling into the colonel's hands. Finally, even if he didn't come, we hoped the letter would be enough to divert his attention from any thought of fugitive boats and runaway lovers. I could have made the terms of it even more alluring, but the signorina, with that extraordinarily distorted morality distinctive of her sex, refused ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger. I divert his senses by other objects of sense; I trace another course for his spirits by which I distract them from the course they would have taken; it is by bodily exercise and hard work that I check the ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... to promote at home. What I object to is the immoderate use of the power,—exclusions and prohibitions; all of which, as I think, not only interrupt the pursuits of individuals, with great injury to themselves and little or no benefit to the country, but also often divert our own labor, or, as it may very properly be called, our own domestic industry, from those occupations in which it is well employed and well paid, to others in which it will be worse employed and worse paid. ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... denied us, if we are told off to sit among a row of supers, drinking and whispering on a bench, while the great characters soliloquize, let us be sure that we drain our empty cup with zest, and do our whispering with intentness; not striving to divert attention to ourselves, but contributing with all our might to the naturalness, ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... given up my meals rather than lose one minute from the interest excited by the story I was perusing. Having read Gil Bias, however, I felt an irrepressible passion for adventure, which nothing could divert; in fact, I was as much the creature of the impulse it excited, as the ship is of the helmsman, or the steam-engine of the ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... electorate that the only true way of resisting Socialism is by means of Liberal reforms, while at the same time (with doubtful consistency) asking for Socialist support on the ground that it goes 'part of the way.' But its best chance is probably to divert public attention from Socialism to other matters, and this the Prime Minister evidently feels. The existence of the Liberal party is incompatible with the existence of intellectual honesty in its leaders. And with all his faults Sir Henry is too fundamentally honest ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... this loan; but his directors thought that a reasonable degree of participation was "indicated." The bank's name went down, with the names of some others; and the clerks who had been working over hours on the new and exacting minutiae of the undertaking were given a chance to divert their savings toward the novel securities. The bank displayed the Nation's flag, and the flags of some of the allies. It all made a busy corner. McComas thought of his son in khaki, and felt himself warming ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... over by the sensible though not brilliant Monroe, and by the shrewd, scholarly, and positive younger Adams, a man succeeded to the Executive Chair whose course was destined to revolutionize parties, to carry party bitterness to a height of great violence, and to divert the political destinies of the country into new channels. Andrew Jackson was well fitted by his strong will and stubborn courage to do the dangerous work of ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... here and there, neither welcome nor unwelcome at present, watching the cow-boys at their play. Saving Trampas, there was scarce a face among them that had not in it something very likable. Here were lusty horsemen ridden from the heat of the sun, and the wet of the storm, to divert themselves awhile. Youth untamed sat here for an idle moment, spending easily its hard-earned wages. City saloons rose into my vision, and I instantly preferred this Rocky Mountain place. More of death ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... therefore, from the corrupting influence of all immoral associations. Be not carried away by the pomp and glare of refined and decorated wickedness. Let not the ornaments and magnificence of mere outward life divert your attention from those hidden principles which prompt to action. In the choice of companions for your children in the parlor, look to the ornaments of the heart rather than to those of the body. Be ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... to play, though," said Graham; "and so will everybody be; and I'm certain it'll be good for you. The game will divert your thoughts." ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... act the king would become madly suspicious and resolve upon his son's death. Then there was to be a gleam of hope: the ambition of Carlos would awaken and begin to prevail over his love, while Posa would divert the king's suspicion to himself and fall a sacrifice to friendship. Then a new danger would arise: the king would discover Don Carlos in a seeming 'rebellion', and decree his death. The dying declaration of Carlos would prove his innocence and the ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... treated, and with little fear for the future. He was merely a spectator, having taken no part in the war; there were old friends of his parents among the English nobility: no great harm was likely to come to him. So he felt free to divert himself; and here was a toy ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... to return it to him. Whilst she was gone, a footman in a livery, laced with silver, who belonged to the coach that stood at the shop door, as he was lounging with one of his companions, chanced to spy the weaving pillow, which she had left upon a stone before the door. To divert himself (for idle people do mischief often to divert themselves) he took up the pillow, and entangled all the bobbins. The little girl came back out of breath to her work; but what was her surprise and sorrow ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... soft in hot weather; passing trucks will accentuate the ruts to a point where substantial repair will be needed. Dirt roads also can be scooped out. If you are a road laborer, it will be only a few minutes work to divert a small stream from a sluice so that it runs over ...
— Simple Sabotage Field Manual • Strategic Services
... me to remind you of what you know so well, that in reading you should choose only the best books. We may without harm divert the mind for a little each day by light miscellaneous reading, but young people especially need to be warned against indiscriminate novel or story reading. Here again the virtue of self-control comes in to help do the right and avoid the wrong. ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... who came into our office that July Saturday, just in time to interfere with the outing Bob Brownley and I had laid out, and who was destined to divert my chum's heretofore smooth-flowing river of existence and turn it into an alternation of roaring rushes and deadly calms, was truly the most exquisite creature one could conceive of, I know my thought ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... scholasticus, and some thirty or forty prebends. This little army of Church officers required to be fed, and fed well—and the people of Sweden had to pay the bill. It was but natural, therefore, that, Sweden being heavily involved in debt, the monarch should seek to stay this wasteful extravagance and divert a portion of the ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... what to say to her. I still thought what she had related was but a delusion, but to her it was a reality, and I knew her outward calmness was but the expression of intense excitement of mind. Thinking I might divert her mind, I read to her a letter I had received but a few minutes before. It was from my sister, who had just returned from Europe, with her husband and children; and had taken a house in our native village. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... evil, And posts, like the commandments of a king, Sans check, to good and bad. But when the planets, In evil mixture, to disorder wander, What plagues and what portents! what mutiny! What raging of the sea, shaking of the earth, Commotion of the winds, frights, changes, horrors, Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixture! Oh, when degree is shaked, Which is the ladder of all high designs, The enterprise is sick. How could communities, Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... King's College Council objected to the Bill, and employed counsel to oppose it, on the ground that the Legislature had no right to interfere with their charter, or to divert any portion of King's College funds in aid of other institutions. To this plea of the King's College Council an individual member of the Victoria College Board offered an argumentative reply, contending that ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... came, at Alexndra Ivnovna's invitation, to divert me from my errors and direct me in the path of truth. If that is so, don't let us beat about the bush, but let us get to business at once. I do not deny that I disagree with the teaching of the Church. I used to agree with it, and then ...
— The Light Shines in Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... the other hand, disappointed of assistance from Adolph, king of the Romans, which he had purchased at a very high price, and finding many urgent calls for his presence in England, was desirous of ending, on any honorable terms, a war which served only to divert his force from the execution of more important projects. This disposition in both monarchs soon produced a cessation of hostilities for two years; and engaged them to submit their differences to the arbitration of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... at the sleeping child with mild wonder in his small blue eyes, and his wife sought to divert ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... guests, Dr. Kramr declared that "the Czech nation is stronger to-day than ever before. There is no worse policy than that which gives in before danger. I am sure that our people will not give way. We have suffered so much that there is no horror which could divert us from the path we follow. Happily enough, we see that what we want is also desired by the whole world. We see that we are not alone. To-day the representatives of other nations, which have suffered in the same way as ourselves, have come to us. Of course, they ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... the tombs yesterday. Fancy that Omar witnessed the destruction of some sixty-eight or so of the most exquisite buildings—the tombs and mosques of the Arab Khaleefehs, which Said Pasha used to divert himself with bombarding for practice for his artillery. Omar was then in the boy corps of camel artillery, now disbanded. Thus the Pasha added the piquancy ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... promise. Then came the complexities. There was another girl, Rose Effick (a rich relation of the socialist), to whom Callender should have been engaged but for a misunderstanding. It is her business to divert him back to his old love. You would naturally say that, if it is Callender's object to disgust Doris with the life of the people, so that she may change her mind and take him for what he actually is, it will be Rose's object, since her aim is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... them four days after my recovery. All that time I felt a vague, a growing craving to look once more on whatever remained of the little life that seemed so happy and bright in my past. It was a mere hopeless desire to feast upon my misery. They dissuaded me. They did all they could to divert me from this morbidity. But at last I could resist the impulse no longer, and, promising faithfully to return to them, and parting, as I will confess, from these four-day friends with tears, I went out again into the ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
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