"Distraction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... completely happy event. She looked back upon her own childhood with her own mother and reflected, fondly but clearly, affectionately but not blinded by affection, how very different was that. She was always with her mother. Her mother was often sad, often worried, often, in distraction of her worries, irritable in speech. Often sad! Why, she could remember time and again when her dear mother, hunted by her cares, was broken down and crying. She would go to her mother then and cry to see her crying, and her mother would put her arms around her and ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... after morning and evening after evening. The time of the journey might be spent in useful and happy thought; it is passed in rapid and feverish speculation. There is no question of reviving the brain; it is not recreation that is gained, but distraction, and the brain, instead of being ready to concentrate its power upon work, is enfeebled and rendered vague and flighty. Supposing a youth spends but one hour per day in handling pieces of pasteboard and trying to win his neighbour's ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... he found Captain Cameron in a state of distraction that rendered him incapable of either coherent thought or speech. "What now, Rae? Where have you been? What news have you? My God, this thing is driving me mad! Penal servitude! Think of it, man, for my son! Oh, the scandal of it! It will kill me and kill ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... already once, between the Seven Years' War and the assembly of the States General, saved human progress in face of the political fatuity of England and the political nullity of France; and they are now, amid the distraction of the various representatives of an obsolete ordering, the only forces to be trusted at once for multiplying the achievements of human intelligence stimulated by human sympathy, and for diffusing their beneficent results ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... men forego marriage and homes and children, and nobody imagines that it disqualifies them for public duties. Nobody challenges them as jurors, and demands if they have discharged the family obligation. Rather it is held wise in them to give themselves wholly to their pursuits, without the distraction of conjugal joys, until they have achieved success. Why should the family requirement, which man throws off so easily, be made a yoke for woman? There is something more fundamental than nursing babies or coddling the appetites ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... of this wrought upon my fellow-sufferers even to distraction; and one of them, being a carpenter, in his mad fit, swam off to the ship in the night, though she lay then a league to sea, and made such pitiful moan to be taken in, that the captain was prevailed with at last to take him in, though they let him lie ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... people it means but the last ten days of the season, when festivities crowd upon each other till pleasure fights for minutes as for jewels; when tables are spread all night and lights are put out at dawn; when society dances itself into distraction and poor men make such feasting as they can; when no one works who can help it, and no work done is worth having, because it is done for double price and half its value; when affairs of love are hastened to solution or catastrophe, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... partly because I thought it probable that amongst these people I should hear the case of Agnes peculiarly the subject of conversation; and so, in fact, it did really happen,—but partly, and even more, I believe, because I now awfully began to shrink from solitude. Tumult I must have, and distraction of thought. Amid this mob, I say, it was that I passed two days. Feverish I had been from the first,—and from bad to worse, in such a case, was, at any rate, a natural progress; but, perhaps, also amongst this crowd of the poor, the ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... engagement that he would preach no more, had been indicted as "a person who devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to church to hear divine service, and a common upholder of unlawful meetings and conventicles, to the great disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... and up the Rue Dauphine and Rue de Monsieur le Prince for Boulevard St. Michel, the lively young women distributing confetti in liberal doses and taking similar punishment in utmost good humor, Jean not sorry for the time being at finding this temporary distraction. He had generously replenished the pretty bags from the first baraque, though they were quickly emptied again in the narrow Rue de Monsieur le Prince, where a hot engagement between students and "filles du quartier" ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... him a glance at once of terror and of despair, but there was for him no possible escape. He was shut tight in the room with his dead victim, like a rat in a trap. Nothing remained for him but to obey the summons from without. Indeed, in the very extremity of his distraction, he possessed reason enough to perceive that the longer he delayed opening the door the less innocent he might hope to appear in the eyes of ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... was founded in 1913, and was preparing to enter on its activities, when the declaration of war in Aug. 1914 determined the Committee to suspend proceedings until the national distraction should have abated. They met again after the Armistice in 1918 and agreed to announce their first issues for October 1919. Although present conditions are not as favourable as could be wished, it would seem that ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 1 (Oct 1919) • Society for Pure English
... Many a time, no doubt, he had cursed her in the solitude of his prison; but even when he was most furious against her, a feeling of pity had risen in his heart for her whom he had once loved so dearly; for he did not disguise it to himself, he had once loved her to distraction. Even in his prison he trembled, as he thought of some of his first meetings with her, as he saw before his mind's eye her features swimming in voluptuous languor, as he heard the silvery ring of her voice, or inhaled the perfume she loved ever to have about her. ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... now. And I know her metier even better than you do, Bertie, dear. She might go to her grave loving you to distraction, but she would never have an ex-convict for the father of her children—not if she knew it. It's in the Everton blood. Anybody who knew Phineas Everton as you and I did in the old school-days, ought to know exactly what ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... place, the child is peculiarly susceptible to the appeals of change, novelty, chance, or happy suggestion; and often the failure to respond to a stimulus is due to distraction or to discomfort rather than to lack of intrinsic interest. Again, fatigue is a matter of considerable importance. In respect to fatigue, I should say that the first signs of restlessness, or arbitrary loss of interest, in a series of stimulations, is sufficient warning, and ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... which, although it could not restore it to its pristine elegance, enabled him to play with great effect sundry doleful airs, whose influence, when performed at night, usually sent his companions to sleep, or, failing this, drove them to distraction. ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... evil to promote good. On the other hand, if the opinion is incorrect, its evil consequences render it a duty to prove and exhibit its unsoundness. It is under the deep impression that the primary assumption of the abolitionists is an error, that its adoption tends to the distraction of the country, and the division of the church; and that it will lead to the longer continuance and greater severity of slavery, that we have felt constrained to do what little we ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... Liddell—Marcella knew her by sight—and she was in a very bad temper because she had been kept waiting. For the next half hour she badgered and worried Marcella to the point of distraction. Nothing suited her. Pile after pile, box after box, of shirtwaists did Marcella take down for her, only to have them flung aside with sarcastic remarks. Mrs. Liddell seemed to hold Marcella responsible for the lack of waists that suited her; her tongue grew sharper and sharper and her ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the occasion, the lovers spoke few words. They had said much, and, when the opportunity should again come, they would say a great deal more; but they were fleeing for their lives, and any distraction of their whole interest and effort was likely ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... personality, his power to judge what was best and to carry it through as he could, unhampered by those popular suffrages and Parliamentary checks and privileges which he held to be mere euphemisms for ruin and mutual throat-cutting all through the British Islands in their then state of distraction; and it must therefore have been a serious consideration with him how far, in the public interests, or for his own comfort, he could put himself in new shackles for the mere name of King. What, for example, of the proposed restitution of the ninety-and-odd excluded members to the present ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... of the lady-mother's state of mind, he recopied the letter, for the sake of embodying in it a certain suggestion. That letter was duly posted, and the next day brought the rich man almost in a state of distraction; but his chief and mastering terror was lest the mother of the already dead infant should hear, in her then precarious state, of what had happened. The tidings, he was sure, would kill her. Seeing this, the cunning husband ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... whose passions were become more violent by restraint, was in a state of mind little better than distraction: one moment he determined to seize upon the person of ALMEIDA in the night, and secrete her in some place accessible only to himself; and the next to assassinate his brother, that he might at once destroy a rival both in empire and in love. But these ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... apologize," he said to him, "for the hasty and unjust expressions of which I made use last evening. May I hope that, in consideration of my mental distraction and the causes of it, you will ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... wide domains, was a stake worth playing high for, and a stake which appealed strongly to a houseless, landless man, with not even a name worth leaving to his son. Thus, while the Countess lavished her affection on young Wilhelm, noticing nothing of her husband's distraction in this excessive happiness, Count Herbert sat alone in the lofty Knight's Hall, his elbows resting on the table before him, his head buried in his hands, ruminating on the strange transformation that had taken place, endeavouring to weigh the evidence pro and con with the ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... they can be compared only with the woodcuts of Albrecht Duerer's "Apocalypse." To our right on entering, the "Rain of Fire" shoots in heavy lines from the hands and bodies of demons with outspread wings. The distraction of the people on whom it falls is well rendered. In the foreground armed men on horse and foot seek wildly to escape the shafts, which have already precipitated some to the ground. In the middle distance the flames pursue a flying mob of terrified women clutching their infants, ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... Hugh made the great change of his life, and, as a Catholic, found his dreams realized and his hopes fulfilled. He found, indeed, the life which moves and breathes inside of every faithful creed, the power which supplements weakness and represses distraction, the motive for glad sacrifice and happy obedience. I can say this thankfully enough, though in many ways I confess to being at the opposite pole of religious thought. He found relief from decision and rest ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... sentiments of man. New characters appear from time to time in continual succession, exhibiting various forms of life and particular modes of conversation. The pretended madness of HAMLET causes much mirth, the mournful distraction of OPHELIA fills the heart with tenderness, and every personage produces the effect intended, from the apparition that in the first act chills the blood with horror, to the fop in the last that exposes ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... own trouble over that line of diffident distrust which had always divided her from the hearts of her poorer neighbours. She was astonished at her own indelicacy, asking questions, prying into their troubles, pushed on by a secret aching for distraction; and she was surprised how well they took it—how, indeed, they seemed to like it, as though they knew that they were doing her good. In one cottage, where she had long noticed with pitying wonder a white-faced, black-eyed girl, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... after her, and then a second one, for the same reward, had started to meet her, when, encountering the murderer with the scalp, which he recognized by the peculiar color and length of the hair, he hastened, in a state bordering on absolute distraction, to the fatal scene. A British officer, with a few attendants, had, in the mean time, removed the corpse to a wagon by the road side, and was guarding it, when the lover arrived to claim it. But his lamentations ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... ever even half-witted people passed. We have spent them in chasing round after people for whom we cared nothing, and being chased by them. My story isn't finished yet, and what part of it is done bears the fatal marks of haste and distraction. Of course, I haven't put pen to paper yet on the play. I wring my hands and beat my breast when I think of how these weeks have been wasted; and how I have been forced to waste them by the infernal social circumstances from which I ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... whatever. I was born under a mad moon with some wild humor in my blood from an earlier incarnation and I can't—I simply can't be conventional. I've tried doing as other—and nicer—girls do but it wearies me to the point of distraction. Their lives are so pale, so empty, so full of pretensions. They have always seemed so. When I used to romp like a boy my elders told me it was an unnatural way for little girls to play. But I kept ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... have seemed to him an amusing and clever thing, and would not have left more impression on his mind than a shot fired at a hare; but he had experienced a profound emotion at the murder of this child. He had, in the first place, perpetrated it in the distraction of an irresistible gust of passion, in a sort of spiritual tempest that had overpowered his reason. And he had cherished in his heart, cherished in his flesh, cherished on his lips, cherished even to the ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... distraction of the Unsophisticated Guest, who is getting quite interested in LOBELIA BANGS whom he suddenly discovers, much to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various
... gaze may have expressed something more than the mere distraction I intended; but I noticed—though a more indifferent observer might easily have failed to notice—how the great yellow face, expanded in childish interest in the childish game, seemed suddenly to grow gray and harden; how the fat smile became ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... understand that, however true his reflections were, he had chosen a bad moment for abandoning himself to them. Indeed, Madame Denis took so sovereign an air of dignity, that D'Harmental saw that he had not an instant to lose if he wished to efface from her mind the bad impression which his distraction had caused. ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... into the secret either. Above all, you must not let your wife or Madam Imbert know any thing about it. I have had much trouble once or twice through women, and have determined never again to trust them. It is utterly impossible for a woman to keep a secret. She may love you to distraction, but confide a secret to her and she is never satisfied till she divulges it." Maroney eagerly listened to all White had to say, and then replied: "White, depend upon it, you are the right man for me! If you will only figure for me as well ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... sheriff and the constable, his companion, and they had charged down within fifty yards of him before they discovered their mistake. They were not slow in making this an excuse for abandoning their quest as far as Lowville: in fact, after quitting the distraction of Mrs. Beasley's presence they had, without in the least suspecting the actual truth, become doubtful if the fugitive had proceeded so far. He might at that moment be snugly ensconced behind some low wire-grass ridge, watching their own clearly ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... ask us when a letter of condolence should be written? As soon as possible. Do not be afraid to intrude on any grief, It is generally a welcome distraction; to even the most morbid mourner, to read a letter; and those who are So stunned by grief as not to be able to write or to read will always have some willing soul near them who will read and ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... all the fleet, or money in his treasury to procure them; whereas the Parliament had all his navy, and ordnance, stores, magazines, arms, ammunition, and revenue in their keeping. And this I take to be another defect of the king's counsel, and a sad instance of the distraction of his affairs, that when he saw how all things were going to wreck, as it was impossible but he should see it, and 'tis plain he did see it, that he should not long enough before it came to extremities secure the navy, magazines, and stores of war, in the hands of his trusty servants, that would ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... seaport towns of New England, there had been one or two men in every generation who had followed the sea. Her own father had been among the number, and the closets of the old house were well provided with rare china and fine old English crockery that would drive an enthusiastic collector to distraction. The carved woodwork of the railings and wainscotings and cornices had been devised by ingenious and patient craftsmen, and the same portraits and old engravings hung upon the walls that had been there when its mistress could first remember. She had always been so well suited with her home that ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... explode or petrify. From this congestion of thought there arose the first deep rumblings, precursors of uproar, and another moment would have heard the thunder of her varied malediction, but that Brigid Beg began to cry: for, indeed, the poor child was both tired and parched to distraction, and Seumas had no barrier against a similar surrender, but two minutes' worth of boyish pride. This discovery withdrew the Thin Woman from her fiery contemplations, and in comforting the children she forgot ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... temptations, has God's church met with from that day till now! Nor is he content with persecutions and general troubles; but oh! how doth he haunt the spirits of the Christians with blasphemies and troubles, with darkness and frightful fears; sometimes to their distraction, and often to the filling ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the notice of the squire, but not so of Sophia. She soon perceived these agitations of mind in Jones, and was at no loss to discover the cause; for, indeed, she recognised it in her own breast. In a word, she was in love with him to distraction. It was not long before Jones was able to attend her to the harpsichord, where she would kindly condescend for hours together to charm him with the most ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... If Pelle laid down his work a moment in order to glance at it, there was Ellen nipping his ear with her lips; his free time belonged to her, and it was a glorious distraction in work-time, to frolic as carelessly as a couple of puppies, far more delightful than shouldering the burden of the servitude of the masses! So the paper was given up; Ellen received the money every week for her savings-bank. She had discovered a corner in Market Street ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... is the first day of Dora's written matriculation. Father wanted her to withdraw because she looks so ill, but she would not for she said it would be a distraction for her and that she would like to finish with the High School. Next year she is to go to a preparatory school for the Gymnasium. She ought really to go to a dancing class, for she is nearly 17, but since she is in mourning it is quite impossible ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... was that, although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind, and although also he affected a certain quiet primness of dress, he was none the less in his personal habits one of the most untidy men that ever drove a fellow-lodger to distraction. Not that I am in the least conventional in that respect myself. The rough-and-tumble work in Afghanistan, coming on the top of a natural Bohemianism of disposition, has made me rather more lax than befits a medical man. But with ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the moment she began to sing; and she at once conjectured the object that led her thither. But when hour after hour passed without any tidings from Pandaenus or Clinias, she was in a state of anxiety bordering on distraction; for she soon perceived sufficient indication that the smooth hypocrisy of Alcibiades was assumed but for ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... then we shall be including the commonest sources of mischief which befall mankind. How many are ruined by their fair faces at the hand of admirers driven to distraction (54) by the sight of beauty in its bloom! how many, tempted by their strength to essay deeds beyond their power, are involved in no small evils! how many, rendered effeminate by reason of their wealth, have been plotted against and destroyed! (55) how many through fame and political ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... the floor with nervous, uneven strides. He plunged his hand into his coat pocket and drew out the letter again. He re-read it, with hot eyes and straining thought. Every word seemed to sear itself upon his poor brain, and drive him to the verge of distraction. Why? Why? And he raised his bloodshot eyes to the roof of his hut, and crushed the ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... probably having sheltered Eustacie; and Philip, after one visit paid to the convent at Bellaise, was always in hopes of making such another. His boyish admiration of Madame de Selinville was his chief distraction, coming on in accesses whenever there was a hope of seeing her, and often diverting Berenger by its absurdities, even though at other times he feared that the lad might be led away by it, or dissension sown between them. Meetings were rare—now and ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the general situation to see at a glance that she had misunderstood it thoroughly and even amazingly. I proved it to her very quickly. But her mistake was so ingenious in its wrongheadedness and arose so obviously from the distraction of an acute mind, that I couldn't help looking at ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... the noble mother of Vittoria breaks off her daughter's first interview with Brachiano—spares, and commends to God's forgiveness, the son who has murdered his brother before her eyes—and lastly appears "in several forms of distraction," "grown a very old woman in two hours," and singing that most pathetic and imaginative of all funereal invocations which the finest critic of all time so justly and so delicately compared to the watery dirge of Ariel. There is less refinement, ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... have now been mentioned, of business, of science, and of religion, on my attention created not the least distraction on my mind, but, on the contrary, appeared to ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... gaze on the orchestra, whence issued by turns groans, shrieks, and screams, from sundry foully-abused instruments of music; accompanied by equally appalling sounds from flat, shrill signorinas, quavering to distraction, backed by gigantic "basses," (double ones surely,) who, with voices like the "seven devils" of the old Grecian, bellowed out divers sentimentalisms about dying for love, when assuredly their most proximate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... that he had at first cultivated the intimacy with Wilhelmina more perhaps from distraction than with any definite purpose, is certain; but he soon found that her attractions were too great to permit him to continue it, if he had not serious intentions. When he had entered his own room, before he had been a week in the house, he had taxed ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... mention of her devils, she fell into the old rage, and renewed twice a-day, the execution of the poor little girl; never taking breath, never for one minute staying the frightful torrent, until at least the other in her wild distraction, "with one foot in hell"—to use her own words—should have fallen into a convulsive fit, and begun beating the flags with her knees, her body, her ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... not return, and a sickening sensation of dread took possession of her. Where had he gone? What was he doing? Doubtless enjoying himself—what bitterness there was in the thought! She did not grudge him any pleasure, but it was hard that he should find so little in her company. Why was there no distraction for her? The torment of her mind was awful; should she try his remedy? She went to the sideboard and poured herself out some whisky, but even as she raised it to her lips she felt it unworthy to have recourse to it, and put the glass ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... consideration of her bereavement, of going to the comedy, under Tonelli's protection and along with Pennellini and his sister, while the poor signora afterwards had real qualms of patriotism concerning the breach of public duty involved in this distraction of her daughter. She hoped that no one had recognized her at the theatre, otherwise they might have a warning from the Venetian Committee. "Thou knowest," she said to the Paronsina, "that they have even admonished the old Conte Tradonico, who loves the ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... trade's done for the day, an' the night's dismal an' sodden with rain; an' with a fire in the bogie-stove aboard, an' no lively maids t' draw un ashore to a dance or a scoff o' tea an' cakes in a strange harbor, a man seizes the distraction that seeks un out, and makes the best of it that he can. More than that, an' deep an' beyond it, 'twas entertainment, an' a good measure of it, that had come blinkin' down the deck. Afore we had time or cause for complaint o' the botheration o' childish company, we was involved ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... time to command a few slaves to follow him; then, springing on his horse, he rushed forth in the deep night along the empty streets toward Laurentum. Through the influence of the dreadful news he had fallen as it were into frenzy and mental distraction. At moments he did not know clearly what was happening in his mind; he had merely the feeling that misfortune was on the horse with him, sitting behind his shoulders, and shouting in his ears, "Rome is ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... to her work for distraction from the ceaseless torture of her thoughts, but not all the work in the world had been able to silence ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... could not procure unhappy Wentworth a day's respite, His Majesty did, I must own, adopt rash counsels. But it is not their illegality so much as his weakness in threatening when he wanted strength to punish, that I condemn. If your objection to the royal cause be founded on the distraction and imbecility that have marked the measures by which it has been supported, I must cease to rouse your dormant loyalty. It is not in the defenceless tents of our Prince that we must seek for safety; we must leave him to his fate, on the same principle that we ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... Yours received; also interesting copy of P. WHISTLES. 'In the multitude of councillors the Bible declares there is wisdom,' said my great-uncle, 'but I have always found in them distraction.' It is extraordinary how tastes vary: these proofs have been handed about, it appears, and I have had several letters; and - distraction. 'AEsop: the Miller and the ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... urged on through the hills by a mood of mind which set his whole being in a turmoil of distraction; such a state as this he had hitherto never experienced, and he was inclined to take it for a seduction of Satan, since several thoughts arose in his mind which in the very next minute he could not help regarding as diabolical. He could not recover his self-composure, still less form any decisive ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... impressing of the character is concerned, void of wholesomeness, and barren of solid, lasting results; and, viewed in this way, an activity really akin to indolence. With the craving for hunting subdued, the Indian may take up, with less distraction, and devote himself, to good advantage, to his farming, ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... The thought was distraction. She plucked out handfuls of her pale gold hair, the pretty blonde hair which had been almost as famous in Paris as Beaufort's or Madame de Longueville's yellow locks. The thought of De Malfort's ridicule cut her like a whalebone whip. She had fancied herself his Beatrice, ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... of the thing you found to say to him of me, and which makes me smile, and would have made him wonder if he had not been suffering probably from some legal distraction at the moment, inasmuch as he knew perfectly that you had just left me. My sisters told him down-stairs and he came into this room just before he set off on Saturday, with a, ... 'So I am to meet Mr. Browning?' But he made no observation afterwards—none: and if he heard ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... he was laughed at and interrupted by their clamours, for the violence of his manner threw him into a confusion of periods and a distortion of his argument; besides he had a weakness and a stammering in his voice, and a want of breath, which caused such a distraction in his discourse that it was difficult for the audience to understand him. At last, upon his quitting the assembly, Eunomous the Thriasian, a man now extremely old, found him wandering in a dejected condition in the Piraeus, and took upon him to set ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... speeches to the same purpose, which caught her ear as they passed on, she insisted that her guide should proceed to Kenilworth with all the haste which the numerous impediments of their journey permitted. Meanwhile, Wayland's anxiety at her repeated fits of indisposition, and her obvious distraction of mind, was hourly increasing, and he became extremely desirous that, according to her reiterated requests, she should be safely introduced into the Castle, where, he doubted not, she was secure of a kind reception, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... with a certain earnest, grave, official mien, beside the student Anselmus, taking his hand, and saying: "How are you, Herr Anselmus?" The student Anselmus was like to lose his wits, for in his mind there was a mad distraction, which he strove in vain to soothe. He now saw plainly that what he had taken for the gleaming of the golden snakes was nothing but the reflection of the fireworks in Anton's Garden: but a feeling unexperienced till now, he himself knew not whether it was rapture or pain, cramped ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... not true. I do love you. I love you to distraction. I have loved you ever since I first saw you. I told Dave that. Heckewelder knows it; even the Indians know it," cried George, protesting vehemently against the disparaging allusion to his affections. He did ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... first; the amazons had, in the fray, reduced each other from the waist upwards to nearly a state of nudity. On either side the partisans were numerous, the combatants eager to renew the fight, and the spectators, the majority of whom were of Irish distraction, anxious for the result, when the officious interposition of official authority, terminated the "tug of war," and the honor of the ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... be Abbot of Jarrow, because "the office demands household care, and household care brings with it distraction of mind, which hinders ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... that his purpose would prove of a consistency with his habits, and determined to dismiss him from her thoughts, found sufficient pleasure and distraction in her daily life. She made her short skirts—several hemmed strips gathered into a belt!—and walked about the island in the early morning. The negroes singing in the golden cane fields, the women walking along the white road with their swinging hips, immense baskets poised on their heads, ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... saw herself playing was that of a deft and courtly political intriguer, rallying the British element and making herself agreeable to the German element, a political inspiration to the one and a social distraction to the other. At the back of her mind there lurked an honest confession that she was probably over-rating her powers of statecraft and personality, that she was more likely to be carried along by the current ...
— When William Came • Saki
... Gesammte Physiologie, Bd. lvi, 1894, p. 319), tells us that, when a female white rat is introduced into the cage of a male, he at once leaves off eating, or whatever else he may be doing, becomes indifferent to noises or any other source of distraction, and devotes himself entirely to her. If, however, he is introduced into her cage the new environment renders him nervous and suspicious, and then it is she who takes the active part, trying to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... boy to distraction and became filled with unreasoning anxiety the moment he was out of sight. Her attitude toward her husband was the same. He could never leave the home or return to it without being kissed. The moment he was outside the kitchen ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... tell you something, Collins," interrupted Alf, in a tone now free from all trace of the distraction and constraint which made it painful to listen to him. "Like poor Cross, I feel impelled to place my tragedy on record, but in one man's memory only. I trust entirely to your discretion. Did you know I ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... pleasure and distraction in exciting the enthusiasm of the soldiers. She often repaired to the caserns of the guards, and her mildness and affability won for her the hearts of the rough soldiers accustomed to slavish subjection. When she rode through the ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... to have the tea-things removed and a message sent to the nursery that the children might descend without further delay. It was still a few minutes before the orthodox hour, but the conversation had reached a point when a distraction would be welcome, and Jack and Patsie were invariably prancing with impatience from the moment when the smell of hot potato cakes ascended ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... The new communion had a joy and a sweetness which she had never known before, and her character grew daily stronger and deeper under the influence of sorrow nobly borne. Her mother's tenderness, moreover, manifested itself in a hundred little schemes for her distraction, and Nan's demonstrative affection heartened her for the fight. The world was not all lost because Ned had chosen another; and, so far from neglecting her old duties, Maud worked away more industriously than ever, finding her ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... same, to yourself, Louis lad?" said I. He laughed the merry, heedless laugh that had been the distraction of the class-room. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... or display the mind— All man could bear, with heart unflinching bear, Did not a dearer part his sufferings share— Worse than the captive's fate—wife, child, his all, The husband, and the father's name, appall His very soul, and bid him thrilling feel Distraction, as he makes the vain appeal. Upon his brow, where manhood's hand had seal'd Its perfect dignity, is now reveal'd A haggard wanness; from his livid eye The manly fire has faded; cold and dry, No more it glistens to the light. His thought, To the last ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... drift of her new life, Vanessa was undisguisedly glad when distraction offered itself in the person of Mr. Dobrinton, a chance acquaintance whom they had first run against in the primitive hostelry of a benighted Caucasian town. Dobrinton was elaborately British, in deference perhaps to the memory of his mother, who was said to have derived ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... to prevent was, in the strangest and drollest, or at least in the most preposterous, way in the world, that not Cornelia's presence, but her very absence, with its distraction of his thoughts, the thoughts that lumbered after her, had made the difference; and without his being the least able to tell why and how. He put it to himself after a fashion by the image that, this distraction once created, ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... counsels in art; sometimes tender lessons from Nature; sometimes noble words from his own earnest soul; sometimes sympathy in sorrow; sometimes strength in weakness; sometimes only the indirect, but real help that comes from the mere distraction wrought by his sportiveness, and wild, winsome mirth; but all kindly, hearty, honest, sympathetic,—indignation softening, even while it surges, into pity and love, and itself finding or framing excuses for the very outrage which it lashes: thinking of this, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... And did he search for you, & could not find you? Fal. You shall heare. As good lucke would haue it, comes in one Mist[ris]. Page, giues intelligence of Fords approch: and in her inuention, and Fords wiues distraction, they ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... observing the characters of the persons, or the subjects of the conversation; but are either thinking of some trifle, foreign to the present purpose, or often not thinking at all; which silly and idle suspension of thought they would dignify with the name of ABSENCE and DISTRACTION. They go afterward, it may be, to the play, where they gape at the company and the lights; but without minding the very thing they ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... hear me mention a Word of Mr Hancocks Election - that a conversation happend between Mr John Cotton & my self (Mr Gray being present) relative to Mr Otis - that Mr Cotton said Mr Otis' Conduct must be the Effect of Distraction or Drunkeness - that I said I did not think so - but that it rather proceeded from Irritation - that he (Mr Gray) said if Mr Otis is distracted why should Mr Hancock pursue him - & that I answerd that Mr Hancock might be stirred up by others to do it, but I thought he had better not or it was a pity ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... the name of Pickles who was constantly being mentioned by name, in conjunction with the powers of light or darkness; as, 'Great Heaven! Pickles?'—'By Hell, 'tis Pickles!'—'Pickles? a thousand Devils!'—'Distraction! Pickles?'"[254] ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... worships' excellencies, that—you—can't come it! it's no go!' this chicken won't fight It means that the fat's in the fire, and the cat's out of the bag! It means confusion! distraction! perdition! and a tearing off of our wigs! It means the game's up, the play's over, villainy is about to be hanged and virtue about to be married, and the curtain is going to drop and the principal performer—that's ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... swords with him. If they ever drop their weapons for an instant, and allow the din of warfare to subside so that they can listen to their own heart-beats, they will discover that they love each other to distraction." ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... disorder in the dress Kindles in clothes a wantonness: A lawn about the shoulders thrown Into a fine distraction: An erring lace, which here and there Enthrals the crimson stomacher: A cuff neglectful, and thereby Ribbons to flow confusedly: A winning wave, deserving note, In the tempestuous petticoat: A careless shoe-string, ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... has expressed himself so well that I have nothing to add in excuse of my negligence or idleness, influenza or distraction, or, or, or—you know I explain myself better in person; and when I escort you home to your mother's house this autumn, late at night along the boulevards, I shall try to obtain your pardon. I write to you without knowing what my pen is scribbling, because Liszt is at this ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... the latter system thus taps the measure gently on the sole of the performer's foot, and special signals, as may be arranged, are sent to him by preconcerted combinations of taps. The absence of any distraction from the music itself will soon be gratefully felt by audiences, and the playing of a symphony in the twentieth century, in which the whole orchestra moves sympathetically in obedience to the "nerve-waves" of the electric current, will be the highest possible ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... answered. "Where I live, there always I make my native city. I have lived in Vienna and Berlin, Budapest and Palermo, Florence and London. It is not an affair of the place. Yet of all these, if one seeks it, there is most distraction to be found here. Monsieur does not agree with me," he added, glancing into my face. "There is one thing more which I would tell him. Perhaps it is the explanation. Paris, the very home of happiness and ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... same in the agonies of their distemper: and this part was very affecting. Some went roaring, and crying, and wringing their hands, along the street; some would go praying, and lifting up their hands to heaven, calling upon God for mercy. I cannot say, indeed, whether this was not in their distraction; but, be it so, it was still an indication of a more serious mind when they had the use of their senses, and was much better, even as it was, than the frightful yellings and cryings that every day, and especially in the evenings, were ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... quarter which had supplied him with that very black plug of tobacco which he brought forth shortly afterward. The one was the complement of the other, and each was handled with equal love and care. Soon the occupation of cutting up the tobacco and rubbing it gave a temporary distraction to his thoughts, which distraction was prolonged by the further operation of pressing the tobacco into the ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... dragged out of a cesspool where in her distraction my mother, the servant of an inn, had thrown me." Another said: "I was born of a child with an enormous head that had a red gap in the forehead. My father killed my mother, and ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... loved Rose absolutely to distraction. To say that he would have laid his coat in the mud for her to walk over does not—the condition of the coat being remembered—imply a very superior sort of devotion. He would have done more than this; he would ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... experienced the effects of our kindness,—the respect and approbation of those whose esteem we feel to be valuable,—and the return of similar affections and good offices from other men. On the other hand, we have to keep in mind the mental agony and distraction which arise from jealousy, envy, hatred, and resentment,—the sense of shame and disgrace which follow a certain line of conduct,—and the distress which often arises purely from the contempt and disapprobation of our fellow-men. "Disgrace," says Butler, "is as much avoided as bodily pain;" ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... duty, now. He tried that revolutionary female the other day, who, though she was in full work (making shirts at three-halfpence a piece), had no pride in her country, but treasonably took it in her head, in the distraction of having been robbed of her easy earnings, to attempt to drown herself and her young child; and the glorious man went out of his way, sir—out of his way—to call her up for instant sentence of Death; and to tell her she had no ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... describe it? Magnificence, illuminations, all France, dresses all gold and brocade, jewels, braziers full of fire, and stands full of flowers, confusions of carriages, cries out of doors, lighted torches, pushings back, people run over; in short, a whirlwind, a distraction; questions without answers, compliments without knowing what is said, civilities without knowing who is spoken to, feet entangled in trains. From the midst of all this, issue inquiries after your health, which not being answered as quick as lightning, the inquirers pass on, contented ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... diffused throughout these gallant fetes. Like the fascination of Venice, I do not know what veiled and sighing poetry in low tones holds here the charmed spirit. The man has passed across his work; and this work you come to regard as the play and distraction of a suffering thought, like the playthings of a sick ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... and his writings it is impossible that there should be any distraction of interest, so intimately are the two interwoven: in this case more so than in that of any known author. Particularly is this true of his more impassioned writings, which are a faithful rescript of his all-impassioned life. Hierophant we have called him,—the prince of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... rocked, the shelves clattered, the small bells rang, and in some places public clocks were heard to strike. Many persons, roused by this terrible visitation, started naked from their beds, and ran to their doors and windows in distraction; yet no life was lost, and no house overthrown by this concussion, though it was so dreadful as to threaten an immediate dissolution of the globe. The circumstance, however, did not fail to make a deep impression upon ignorant, weak, and superstitious minds, which were the more affected by the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... to have no medium in their attachments; they were either quite insensible to the soft passion, or loved almost to distraction. On the wane, they had the rage for marrying, and many of them found men who, preferring fortune to honour, disgraced themselves by such alliances. Some of these ladies, if handsome, were not unfrequently taken by a man of fortune, and kept from mere ostentation, just as he would sport ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... belief that artistic work, in spite of its disappointments, proved a relief and a distraction to my husband; but it is much to be regretted that his own standard should have been so high, for it prevented him from completing and keeping many etchings and pictures which, if not perfect, still possessed great charms. It is also a subject for regret ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... again, and I shall hear him," said Jeanne Marie, weeping. "I hear every thing now that goes on in the Temple, and whenever you strike, the youngster, I feel every blow in my brain, and that gives me pain enough to drive me to distraction." ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... him, for private writing, all through that journey—a fit emblem of the broken life which it records. A healthier source of distraction was his drawing, in which he had received a fresh impetus from the exhibition of David Roberts' sketches in the East. More delicate than Prout's work, entering into the detail of architectural form more thoroughly, ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... weeping alder, And the aspen of confusion, And the pine-tree of distraction, And the deep remorse of birch-tree? Where I sorrow, springs the alder; Where I tremble, sprouts the aspen; Where I weep, the pine is verdant; Where ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... how rarely the wits and labours of men have been converted to the severe and original inquisition of knowledge; and in those who have pretended, what hurt hath been done by the affectation of professors and the distraction of such as were no professors; and how there was never in effect any conjunction or combination of wits in the first and inducing search, but that every man wrought apart, and would either have his own way or else would go no further than his guide, having in the one case the honour of a first, ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... money—had he meditated the beauty of Marcella Boyce and the chances and difficulties of his relation to her. As he saw her less, he thought of her more, instinctively looking to her for the pleasure and distraction that life ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... been so much misunderstanding that I hardly know what to choose. Take those watches. I did not say that watches were "a mere distraction." You have put the words into my mouth. What I said was that watches, especially watches at a Tariff Reform meeting, were not worth the risk. Of course a hatful of watches, such as your Uncle Robert would bring home from fires, or better still, such ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... pleading at a little distance, "why won't you go to supper? Do! It would be so pleasant. I have so little happiness; and this would at least give me an hour of distraction." ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to die! Why? He was going to kill himself stupidly because he was afraid of a shadow-afraid of nothing! He was still rich and in the prime of life. What folly! All he needed was distraction, absence, a voyage ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... violent passion is alleged against him, and no adequate motive appears for the act. For a year or two past he has been unusually restless by day and by night, has slept poorly, and his countenance has worn an expression of distraction and anxiety. Various little details of conduct are related of him, which, though not morally censurable, were offensive to good taste and opposed to the ordinary observances of society. His friends are sure he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... is almost despaired of, my lord; she has not yet recovered her consciousness. Her brother is in a state of distraction." ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... they hotly argued and raised their voices in donner-und-blitzen style, as Germans have been known to do. Yet they were friends, and the honest Zelter's yearly visits were as a godsend to the old poet, who was often pestered to distraction by visitors who only voiced the conventional, the inconsequential and absurd. Here was a man ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... Saviour! I began this year with prayer, and in these last days I have been subject to distraction and ill-disposed. When I look backward, I find, alas! that I have not become better; but I have entered more profoundly into life, and, should occasion present, I now feel ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - KARL-LUDWIG SAND—1819 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... one measureless rout; and like King Porus' elephants in the Indian battle with Alexander, they seemed going mad with consternation. In all directions expanding in vast irregular circles, and aimlessly swimming hither and thither, by their short thick spoutings, they plainly betrayed their distraction of panic. This was still more strangely evinced by those of their number, who, completely paralysed as it were, helplessly floated like water-logged dismantled ships on the sea. Had these Leviathans been but a flock of simple sheep, pursued over the pasture by three fierce wolves, they ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... paper was hung. These wallpapers were weak when examined critically, but nobody worried as long as a light bright pastel effect was obtained. Jackson's vigorous drawing and woodcutting were out of place in this field. They were, like his tonal exactitude that made holes in the wall, a distraction and an ...
— John Baptist Jackson - 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut • Jacob Kainen
... she admitted, "but I think that's a pretty good average, don't you?" and she turned to find something in Browning that bore on the subject. She was the only person he ever met who could look up passages and quotations to show him in the middle of the conversation, and yet not be irritating to distraction. She did it constantly, with such a serious enthusiasm that he grew fond of watching her golden hair bent over a book, brow wrinkled ever so little at ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... was wrung by the broken words uttered by his companion: "Not going to shoot me, are they? Don't let them do that, comrade." While, as the weary procession continued its way on to the next village, where they were about to halt, Pen had another distraction, for as he trudged painfully on by the side of the creaking wagon a hand was suddenly placed on ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... and the fire was lighted in her heart and, as her longing waxed fiercer, she clung to him and cried, "By Allah, we will not sleep save side by side!" "Allah forefend!" he replied and prevailed against her and lay apart till the morning, when love and longing redoubled on her and distraction and eager thirst of passion. They abode after this fashion three full told months, which were long and longsome indeed, and every time she made advances to him, he would refuse himself and say, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... you your child, surely her loss would grieve me equally."—"Yes, but such love is foolishness and wrong in itself, and ought to be conquered," answered Adams; "it savours too much of the flesh."—"Sure, sir," says Joseph, "it is not sinful to love my wife, no, not even to doat on her to distraction!"—"Indeed but it is," says Adams. "Every man ought to love his wife, no doubt; we are commanded so to do; but we ought to love her with moderation and discretion."—"I am afraid I shall be guilty of some sin in spite of all my endeavours," says ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... good advice. He resolved to shut up his lens-house entirely for a time, and think no more of the great work he had done within it, but apply himself to something which he had long neglected, and which would be a distraction and a recreation to his ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... the illusion that talking effects great results. As a matter of fact, words are, as a rule, the shallowest portion of all the argument. They but dimly represent the great surging feelings and desires which lie behind. When the distraction of the tongue is removed, the ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... tower, the moat with its running water, the drawbridge, the vestibule with its columns of twisted oak, even the grand salon with the stately courtiers and captains, the gracious dames and damsels of the family of Secondat gazing down from the walls, all these distract the eye and the mind. The distraction is agreeable, but still it is a distraction. It leads you from the biographical into the social and historical mood. You are delighted as at Meillant or Chenonceaux with a corner of ancient France, marvellously rescued from the red ruin ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... slim supper, was not so interesting as usual. At intervals we consulted the clock; how the hours lagged! Croesus poured his gold upon the table in utter distraction. The maidens, who sat in sack-cloth and ashes, sorrowing for our sins, left the room at intervals to assure themselves that the larder was intact. We, also, quietly withdrew from time to time. Once, all ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... think the sun is he; or haply I catch sight of him unexpectedly and am confounded and the blood and the life fly my body and I abide in unreasoning plight a week or e'en a se'nnight." Said I, "Excuse me, for I also have suffered that which is upon thee of love longing and distraction of soul and wasting of frame and loss of strength; and I see in thee pallor of complexion and emaciation, such as testify of the fever fits of desire. But how shouldst thou be unsmitten of passion and thou a sojourner in the land of Bassorah?" ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... indeed, only serve to strengthen its cult for a simple, correct beauty, the models of which are found in Greece and Rome. Why dream of penetrating the darkness of our origin? Contemporary society is far too self-satisfied to seek distraction in the study of a past which it does not comprehend. The subjects and heroes of domestic history are also prohibited. Corneille is Latin, Racine is Greek; the very name of Childebrande suffices to cover an epopee with ridicule.—Pellissier, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... clearing and defining of theological opinions, that were incidental to the Great Awakening, were a preparation for more than thirty years of intense political and warlike agitation. The churches suffered from the long distraction of the public mind, and at the end of it were faint and exhausted. But for the infusion of a "more abundant life" which they had received, it would seem that they could hardly have survived the stress of that ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... bushy undergrowth known by this odd name. For one thing, snakes abounded there; for another, it was only too easy to lose one's bearings, wander farther and farther into the wood, and eventually die of thirst and starvation, utterly unable to find the way home again. To Eustace's distraction, in his dream Becky would insist on playing hide-and-seek, and kept constantly disappearing and returning, flitting on in front of them now and ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... on her truly exceptional character. As when the player's finger rests in distraction on the organ, it was without measure and disgusted his own hearing. Nevertheless, she had been so good as to diminish his apprehension that the marriage of a lady in her thirtieth year with his cousin Vernon would ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... at Rome. Caesar had also been guilty of an act of thoughtlessness, or perhaps merely of distraction, as might happen very easily to a man in his circumstances. When the senate had made its last decrees, conferring upon Caesar unlimited powers, the senators, consuls, and praetors, or the whole senate, in festal attire, presented the decrees ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... first distraction of grief it seemed as though her unequalled promise had been entirely blighted, and as though she would be remembered only by her single book. But as her father examined her papers, one completed work after another revealed itself. First a selection from the sonnets of the Comte de Grammont, ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... stirred at this threat. All seemed lost except the phenomenon of David living, by which, in her distraction, she hoped somehow to justify herself. To the amazement of the world one might oppose the fact of genius miraculously unfolding through her sacrifice. But she thought, "The world! What is that?" ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... to the third section. "I think," said he, "that it imperils the whole measure under consideration. What will continue to be the condition of the country if you adopt this feature of the proposed plan? Continual distraction, continued agitation, continued bickerings, continued opposition to the law, and it will be well for the country if a new insurrection shall ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... consulted for a full account of the activity, the interest in details, the minuteness of the administrative investigations which, at Duesseldorf as everywhere else, characterized Napoleon in these laborious journeys, on which, under pretext of seeking distraction, he kept himself in almost as active movement as if he were at war. The Count who once played whist at Duesseldorf with Marie Louise for his partner, against the Duchess of Montebello and the Prince of Neufchatel, says in speaking ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... inexpressibly shocked by this fatal catastrophe, the more so because we all felt that we might have been of use had we been told the truth. The grief and distraction of the son and daughter, who had thus lost a parent, very possibly prevented them from taking the best measures in a case of such emergence; whereas strangers, anxious to be of service, and having all their presence of mind at command, might have afforded very important ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... faithful to her chum. There was a law that Nancy should go with them on whatsoever outings they might take. Dan bore the extra burden heartily and in good cheer. It might be said that Lou furnished the color, Nancy the tone, and Dan the weight of the distraction-seeking trio. The escort, in his neat but obviously ready-made suit, his ready-made tie and unfailing, genial, ready-made wit never startled or clashed. He was of that good kind that you are likely to forget while they are present, but remember ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... Amusements for this class are not provided; they can laugh, they rarely do. The thing that they seek—let me repeat: I cannot repeat it too often—in the minimum of time that remains to them, is distraction. They do not want to read; they do not want to study; they are too tired to concentrate. How can you expect it? I heard a manufacturer say: "We gave our mill-hands everything that we could to elevate them—a natatorium, a reading library—and these halls fell into disuse." I ask him now, ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... through a mistake of my man's charging my pistols unknown to me. Him I have murdered for it. Such is my wedding day. I will immediately follow my wife to her grave, but before I throw myself upon my sword, I command my distraction so far as to explain my story to you. I fear my heart will not keep together till I have stabbed it. Poor good old man! Remember, he that killed your daughter died for it. In the article of death, I give you my thanks and pray ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... Jane Holland they had lost sight of her celebrity. They had not referred to it since the day, three months ago, when she had first come to them, a brilliant, distracting alien. They were still a little perturbed by the brilliance and distraction, and it was as an alien that she moved ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... Mr. Wyse (and by a swift sucking motion, Diva drew into her mouth several serpents of dependent macaroni in order to be able to listen better without this agitating distraction), "my sister, I hope, will come to England this winter, and spend several weeks ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... had the heart to paint, though his bitter grief sorely needed the mechanical distraction which labor is wont to give, was surrounded by friends who agreed with one another never to leave him entirely alone. Thus it happened that Bixiou, who loved Joseph as much as a satirist can love any one, was sitting in the atelier with ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... drove her cook to distraction with divers dieting systems, from Banting's and Dr. Salisbury's to the latest exhortations of some unknown newspaper prophet. She bought elaborate gymnastic appliances, and swung dumb-bells and rode imaginary horses and propelled ...
— Different Girls • Various
... dismayed at first, but when I had seen my intended my dismay took flight—he was such a handsome fellow, dressed with so much taste, and wore his sword with so much grace and spirit. At the end of two days he loved me to distraction and I doted on him. I brought him to my nurse's cabin and told her all our plans of marriage and all my happiness, not observing the despair of poor Joseph, who had always worshiped me and who had not doubted he would have me to love. But who would have thought it—a laboring gardener lover of ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... look and voice Of proud defiance, by the rebel blacksmith? So fierce his bearing, that he seems to be A bold confederate of this Feridun." Zohak replied: "I know not what o'ercame me, But when I saw him with such vehemence Of grief and wild distraction, strike his forehead, Lamenting o'er his children, doomed to death, Amazement seized my heart, and chained my will. What may become of this, Heaven only knows, For none can pierce ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... a short, impressive silence. Then piercing through the profound gloom came the clamorous cries and shrieks of frightened women, . . the horrible, selfish scrambling, pushing and struggling of a bewildered, panic-stricken crowd, . . the helpless, nerveless, unreasoning distraction that human beings exhibit when striving together for escape from some imminent deadly peril,—and though the King's stentorian voice could be heard above all the tumult loudly commanding order, his alternate threats and persuasions were ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... I, three days in Valedolmo, with seven more stretching before me. I have plenty of towels and soap and soft-boiled eggs, if that is what you mean; but a man's spirit cannot be nourished on soap and soft-boiled eggs. What I need is food for the mind—diversion, distraction, amusement—no, Gustavo, you needn't offer me the Paris Herald again. I already know by heart the list of guests in every hotel ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... a distraction to the more serious work of writing 'Paracelsus', which was to be concluded in March 1835, and which occupied the foregoing winter months. We do not know to what extent Mr. Browning had remained in communication with Mr. Fox; but ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr |
