"Distract" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no others to share our devotion, to distract our attention. Our only one should be, as near as a mother can make ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... warmly, and lost no time in taking his advice. Captain Roy's foot had by this time so swollen that he could not put it in the stirrup. He was suffering a good deal, but at least the pain served to distract him from the gloom that lay heavy on his spirits. From the hillside far above the town we could see the lights of Inverness beginning to glimmer as we passed. A score of times we had to dismount on account of the roughness of the ground to lead our horses along the steep incline of ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... in a flood of splendor. Her deep gray eyes contained wells of womanly wisdom. Her skin, fair as a lily of Artois, had borrowed from the sun five or six faint freckles, just to prove the purity of her blood and distract the eye with a variety of charms. The Merovingian Princess, the long-haired daughter of kings, as she was fondly styled by the nuns, queened it wherever she went by right divine of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... he said, "that that fair-haired daughter of the Greeks, Madonna Elena, the slim, the rosy-fingered disturber of the repose of cities, hath appeared to distract this our city of Padua. Me at least she hath distraught. Fair friends, sister and brother poets, you shall understand that henceforth I devote myself to this lady and her praise. More, I vow a vow, and call upon you to register it in the Golden Book of the Amorous Gests of Padua, ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... enormous power and patronage of the State into the hands of the Aristocratic party. If the Republicans were to attempt holding a Convention to select a candidate for President, their meetings would be promptly suppressed by the Police and the Bayonet. This may distract and scatter them, though I trust it will not. Their Presidential candidate will doubtless be designated by a Legislative Caucus or meeting of Representatives in the Assembly, simply because no fairer and fuller expression of the party's ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... and to listen to what was going on. The bedroom door was half an inch open, and through the slit he could catch a glimpse of the clean-shaven face of the doctor, looking wearier and more anxious than before. Then he rushed downstairs like a lunatic, and running to the door he tried to distract his thoughts by watching what; was going on in the street. The shops were all shut, and some rollicking boon companions came shouting along from the public-house. He stayed at the door until the stragglers had thinned ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... In order to distract the enemy's attention and hold his troops away from the main battle-front, "subsidiary attacks" were made upon the German lines as far north as Bellewarde Farm, to the east of Ypres, and southward to La Bassee Canal at Givenchy, by the troops of the Second and ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... bosom all serene, Feels not, as yet, the internal tempest roll. Oh, ne'er may care distract thy placid mein! Ne'er may the shades of ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... at that moment were almost too bitter to be borne, and without so much as glancing at the books displayed for sale, I crossed the roadway, entered Museum Street, and, rather in order to distract my mind than because I contemplated any purchase, began to examine the Oriental Pottery, Egyptian statuettes, Indian armor, and other curios, displayed in the window of an ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... at this moment, saying and saying again to herself in her solitude at Grenoble, that these politicians, at least, owed her divorce, Vaudrey, not knowing what to do after a weary day of troubled rest, mechanically entered the Opera House to distract his eyes if ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... lengthiness; like the Drama, it must be kept doing. It avoids, as frigid, prolonged metaphysical soliloquy. Beauties themselves, if they delay or distract the effect which should be produced ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... nothing had eradicated it; for even religion, with her, was a mere graceful sham, a kind of theatrical effect used to tone down her natural hypocrisy. My own thoughts began to harass and weary me. I took up a volume of philosophic essays and began to read, in an endeavor to distract my mind from dwelling on the one perpetual theme. The day wore on slowly enough; and I was glad when the evening closed in, and when Vincenzo, remarking that the night was chilly, kindled a pleasant wood-fire in my room, and lighted the ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... lay this too aside, and take instead some appropriate etude, or perhaps a little prelude by Bach. If, in the place of these, you choose for instruction a ponderous sonata, in which the music would distract the attention of the pupil from the improved technique, you give up the most important aim of your instruction, and occupy yourself with secondary matters; you will censure and instruct in vain, and will never attain success. You must consider, reflect, and give your mind to the peculiar ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... the impracticability of approaching Quebec on the side of the Montmorency, Wolfe again turned his whole attention to the St. Lawrence. To destroy some ships of war lying in the river, and at the same time to distract the attention of Montcalm by descents at different places, twelve hundred men were embarked in transports under the command of general Murray, who made two vigorous, but unsuccessful attempts, to land on ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... Propagation of the Gospel, Church Building Metropolis, Church Commercial School, National Schools inquiry and correspondence, Upper Canada, Clergy, Additional Curates' Fund, Carlton Library, Oxford and Cambridge Club. These things distract and dissipate my mind.' Well they might; for in any man with less than Mr. Gladstone's amazing faculty of rapid and powerful concentration, such dispersion must have been disastrous both to effectiveness and to mental progress. As it is, I find little in the way ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... shooting. The moment it begins give a yell; fire your guns; go whooping up the stream with the horses as though the whole crowd were trying to cut out that way, but get right back. The excitement will distract them and help me. Now, good-by, and good luck to ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... with its forty pyramids (teocallis) and unnumbered palaces, adorned with all the luxury and magnificence of the most refined civilization, united with barbaric grandeur and inhumanity in so strange a combination as to distract our feelings between ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... sometimes glance in their direction, and the vision that meets me, as my eyes focus, distresses my soul. Their senses are like an imperfect mirror, magnifying all that is bad in one another, and distorting anything still partially good when that exists. All those things that might at least distract them are hollow, their misery being the inevitable result of the condition of mind to which they became accustomed on earth and which brought them to Cassandra. But let us turn to something brighter. "Though the solar system may seem complex, the sun is but ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... had had nothing to distract his attention, he might have thought too much about his handsome partner, and then gone home and dreamed about her, which is always dangerous, and waked up thinking of her still, and then begun to be deeply interested in her studies, and so on, through the whole syllogism which ends in Nature's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... managed to distract the child's thoughts from her troubles. Indeed, this was no difficult task for Phil Bradley. Already she had laughed at something he had said. When Phil heard what a sweet laugh that was he immediately ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... Hell: Yet, not rejoicing in his speed, though bold Far off and fearless, nor with cause to boast, Begins his dire attempt; which nigh the birth Now rolling boils in his tumultuous breast, And like a devilish engine back recoils Upon himself; horrour and doubt distract His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir The Hell within him; for within him Hell He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell One step, no more than from himself, can fly By change of place: Now conscience wakes despair, That slumbered; wakes the bitter memory Of what ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... predilection, but a plain statement of fact that renders this study an imperative need. There are other questions of interest—of very great interest—concerning alchemy: questions, for instance, as to the scope and validity of its doctrines; but we ought not to allow their fascination and promise to distract our attention from the fundamental problem, whose solution is essential ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... to distract the overworked Young Doctor by her freshness, drawn from the reservoir of her vitality; and that was a pity, because, as Patsy Kernaghan many a time said: "Aw, Doctor dear, what's the good of a tongue to a wagon ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... made in the afternoon at the Museum, were still spread open before him, and he suddenly closed the book, fearful of anything calculated to distract him from the mood of tense resistance. His life, and more than his life, depended upon his successfully opposing the insidious forces which beyond doubt, invisibly surrounded ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... uncheerfully. This breakfast gift had reached her with an ominous regularity on Mondays and Thursdays for a month, and the time had come when something must be done about it. But she did not permit unpleasant thoughts, if unpleasant they really were, to distract her from the casual delights of retrospection and the pleasures of her repast, which she finished with a thoroughness that spoke more eloquently of the wholesomeness of her appetite even than the real excellence of the cooking. Upon Titine, who ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... line of fortresses all fallen to the invader, the apparent calm on the Western front continued to be the marvel of the European campaign, as up to September 7 no development on the Western front indicated that any effort was being made to distract the Kaiser's attention from his victorious expedition into the territory ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... unreal age. She ate little of what was brought to her. For the first time she denied Kells admittance and she only vaguely sensed his solicitations. She had no ear for the murmur of voices in Kells's room. Even the loud and angry notes of a quarrel between Kells and his men did not distract her. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... and Tira, returning from the bedroom, the child in her arms, felt a mounting of compassion and was no longer afraid. She laid the child in its cradle and, with a cheerful clatter, put wood in the stove. The child cried fretfully and, still stepping about the room, she began to sing, as if to distract it, though she knew she was making the sounds of life about Tenney to draw him forth from the dark cavern where his spirit had taken refuge. But he did not look up, and presently she spoke ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... they will contain what the prophet has called 'sound learning,' and that there will be nothing in them to distract ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... enough as a bachelor to distract me from my work, without adding to them those of a wife and family, and those little home lessons in the frailty of human nature, in which you advise me ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... me," said she, "and will never be alone; the people about me shall always laugh and jest, to cheer me and distract my thoughts. Hasten, hasten—call my court; the most jovial men shall be most welcome! And, do you hear, above all things, bring me wine, the best and strongest wine. When I drink plenty of it, I shall again become gay and happy; it drives away all ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... harness. This failing, spread clean litter beneath the belly or turn the patient out on the dung heap. Some seek to establish sympathetic action by pouring water from one vessel into another with dribbling noise. Others soothe and distract the attention by slow whistling. Friction of the abdomen with wisps of straw may succeed, or it may be rubbed with ammonia and oil. These failing, an injection of 2 ounces of laudanum or of an infusion of 1 ounce of tobacco in water may ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... diversions caused by these attacks from the sea were of much consequence; and on other occasions the smaller steamers, gun and rocket-boats, were sent off the mouth of the harbour during the night to distract the attention ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... distract your attention with the palaces of the Caesars, the Cenci, St. Angelo, and the remains of antiquity still to be seen here, but trust that when we meet again every wish that you formerly expressed regarding our stay in Rome will ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... in the Place de la Concorde, and in the Tuileries gardens beyond the breeze dreamily stirred the foliage which hid from Lynde's view the gray facade of the gutted palace, still standing there, calcined and cracked by the fires of the Commune. Presently all this began to distract him, and when he returned to the hotel he was in a humor that would have been comparatively tranquil if so many tedious miles had not stretched between Paris ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... with a poor complexion and beautiful brown eyes, who had cherished a rather hopeless inclination for Henry; now that he had lost that bold girl, she tremulously assured herself, perhaps it was not quite so hopeless. Laura, too, had an idea that such might possibly be the case, and hoping at least to distract her brother, about whom she was becoming quite anxious, she had Ida over to tea once or twice, and, by various other devices which with a clever woman are matters of course, managed to ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... to enclose the problem. For by this time, what with Herbert's subaltern, Carey's pawn, and a cistern left me by an uncle who was dining with us that night, I had more than enough to distract me. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... companion and playmate both in quarters and the field, by expressions of sympathy and affection. The arrival of Paco, who established himself behind the esquilador, in a gap of the circle, was insufficient to distract their attention from the important and all-absorbing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... certain apprehensive shadow often lay upon him, a sense of being unequal to the claims of the day, a tendency to rehearse, without hopefulness or spring, the part he would have to play, to exaggerate difficulties and obstacles. Reading, as a rule, served to distract his thoughts; but it was hardly an intellectual so much as a meditative process; the thoughts and words of the writer, on such occasions, often seemed to him like beaters going through a covert, trampling the fern and rapping the tree trunks, starting from their lairs all ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... her it is goods we have had in the house for a long time. That is true. And I made this fudge on purpose to distract her attention. If she begins to ask questions, we must urge her to have more candy. Poor child!" she added very sympathetically. "Her heart is just set on a brand-new coat. I know she will be bitterly disappointed. If the members would just pay up we could ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... out your watch while he is talking, he drops his story in the middle of a sentence and shifts to some remark about the watch. He seems to have no impulse persistent enough to hold his thoughts steady. There are contrary insane conditions in which it is almost impossible to distract the patient from his own inner broodings, so much is he absorbed in ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... colors, such as red and green, may not be used in equal quantities in the dress, as they are both so positive in tone that they divide and distract the attention. When two colors are worn in any quantity, one must approach a neutral tint, such as gray or drab. Black may be worn with any color, though it looks best with the lighter shades of the different colors. White may ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... a Russian university graduate, smiled to himself over the interest and excitement of the two American nurses. He had been suffering intensely from the jolting and was glad for anything that would distract ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... at the slightest opportunity, eating filthily, sleeping in the dirt, in stuffiness, with fleas, stinks, smells, moral filth, and so on... And it's obvious that all our nice talk is only carried on to distract ourselves and others. Tell me, where are those creches we hear so much of? and where are those reading-rooms? People only write novels about them; they don't really exist. Only dirt, vulgarity, and ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... Countess Georges, from dying of grief." He writes to the Mniszechs on February 27th, 1847[*]: "Our dear adored Atala is in a charming and magnificent apartment (and not too dear). She has a garden; she goes a great deal to the convent" (to see Mlle. Henriette Borel). "I try to distract her and to be as much as possible Anna to her; but the name of her dear daughter is so daily and continually on her lips, that the day before yesterday, when she was enjoying herself immensely at the Varietes—in fits of laughter ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... capacity for social adaptation, and which render the individual in need of care, supervision, or control, are many and varied, and there is even some danger that too much reliance upon serial tests may distract from the adequate investigation of these qualities and defects and lead to totally ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews
... of another divinity. Ah! sire, I too shall be jealous of it, and want restored to me; and would not that a particle of it should be lost in the way. Therefore, sire, with your royal permission, I will choose one who shall appear to me the least likely to distract your attention, and who will leave my image intact and unshadowed ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... first did all the talking, led Madame Graslin to join in the conversation and so distract her thoughts; in fact, he left her almost recovered from the emotions of the day. Madame Sauviat, however, thought her daughter too violently agitated to be left alone, and she spent the night in ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... straggling matters under the control of a centre, she occupied her proper place among the planets of the solar system, like an emerald pendant in a necklace of diamonds. So with our soul. When the heat and motion of blind impulses and passions distract it on all sides, we can neither give nor receive anything truly. But when we find our centre in our soul by the power of self-restraint, by the force that harmonises all warring elements and unifies those that are apart, then all our isolated impressions reduce themselves ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... performance hardly served to distract his thoughts. He was out in the streets again before the ballet turn came on even. It had started to rain, a slight, indefinite drizzle; Leicester Square presented a drab and dingy appearance. The blaze of lights from the surrounding theatres ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... partial to the thinking woman—the wise ones have always foreseen danger. Long years ago, when women asked for an education, the world cried out that it would never do. If women learned to read it would distract them from the real business of life which was to make home happy for some good man. If women learned to read there seemed to be a possibility that some day some good man might come home and find his wife reading, and the dinner not ready—and nothing could ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... girl's mood and left her to herself. She had come to tell something but must tell it in her own way. To question, to intrude a thought, would only tend to confuse and distract her, so Polly took up her knitting and nodded cheerfully. She had a feeling that all along she ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... how are you to fix your attention when there are so many things going on around you to distract your thoughts? I can only answer, that as our minds are in many respects of different orders, so, no general rule can be given. If you will, each one, faithfully make the attempt, I have no doubt you will succeed, in just the same proportion as you ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... then the tutor had to spend half his time in chasing her to rescue his hat, a book, an ink-bottle, or some other article which she threatened to destroy; and, sometimes she was so depressed that he had to give up trying to teach her, and just do his best to distract her. In her eighth year she was able to follow the church-service in the prayer-book, and make out the hymns, but that ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... upon Arcot. He had, however, perceived that the operations there were wholly secondary, and that Trichinopoli was still the all-important point. The fall of that place would more than neutralize Clive's successes at Arcot; and he, therefore, did not suffer Clive's operations to distract his attention here. Strong reinforcements and a battering train were sent forward to the besiegers; and, by repeated messages, he endeavoured to impress upon Law and Chunda Sahib the necessity of pressing ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... is a clear-cut, straightforward policy. Those who can pursue its course with vigour needs must win through in the end. But the gods would not have it that such journey should be easy, so they have deputed the siren Sympathy to distract the wayfarer, to dim his vision with her ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... that distract my country, and to the enmity of the greatest powers of Europe, I have terminated my political career; and I come, like Themistocles, to seat myself on the hearth of the British people. I put myself under the protection of its laws, which I claim of ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... engaged a box for the season, and the girls attended nearly every matinee performance. The first few times Patty could scarcely listen to the music for her admiration of the wonderful building, but after she became more accustomed to its glories, it did not so distract her attention from the stage. Mr. and Mrs. Farrington occasionally gave opera parties, and dinner parties, too, but the girls were not allowed to attend these. Although indulgent in many ways, Mrs. Farrington was somewhat strict about the conventions for her young people; but so ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... chain of men handing up buckets of water through the back garden," said someone else, as though trying to distract her thoughts. "They'll soon get the ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... mouth, a tiger padded in her direction down a path of currant bushes. There are, it may be admitted, heroic exceptions. The chaffinch sits in the plum and blusters out his music, cat or no cat. To be sure, he only sings, a flush of all the colours, in order to distract our attention. He is not an artist but a watchman. If you look into the buddleia-tree beside him, you will see his hen moving about in silence, creeping, dancing, fluttering, as she gorges herself with insects. ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... and her hand was on mine for an instant. Indeed, the shudder which always shook me whenever I heard that dread infection mentioned had already passed. "He has the rank of major," she continued, hoping doubtless to distract my thoughts, "because he has been appointed adjutant-general of one of the districts, but somehow we rarely call him major, for he says he does not want the title until he has done something to ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... Baron my Cossacks became very attentive to me and sought to distract me with stories. They told me about their very severe struggles with the Bolsheviki in Transbaikalia and Mongolia, about the battle with the Chinese near Urga, about finding communistic passports on several Chinese soldiers from Moscow, about the bravery of Baron Ungern and how he would sit ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... manifest it. If he is sculpturing a group like the Laocoon, he must strike upon the supreme moment, that in which the whole tragedy reveals itself, and he must pass over those insignificant details of position and movement which serve only to distract our attention and weaken our emotions by dividing them. If he is writing a drama, he must not attempt to give us the complete biography of his character; he must depict only those situations which stand in direct subordination to the grand climax or denoument. As a final result, therefore. Taine ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... that was troubling the mind of Mr. Verner? That it was worldly trouble was certain. That other trouble, which has been known to distract the minds of the dying, to fill them with agony, was absent from his. On that score he was in perfect peace. But that some very great anxiety was racking him might be seen by the most casual observer. It had been racking him for a long ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... necessary both for the sake of clearness and emphasis, and because an unfinished argument is not a unit. If there are several contestants on each side, the fact that the opposing speakers intervene and distract the attention of the audience makes it even more necessary that each debater end his argument with a formal conclusion, and by means of it bind his work to that of ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... Hotchkisses upon the gunboats at the harbour's mouth, while our destroyers, pushing boldly in after us, opened fire upon the searchlights, hoping to destroy them, and endeavouring by every possible device to distract the attention of the gunners and to draw their fire from us. But in this they were unsuccessful; the Russians at once divined our intention to seal up the harbour, and recognised that it was vastly more important to them to frustrate our purpose ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... the greatest possible care, and in our opinion the small gold ones can only be worn by a perfect gentleman; for whilst they perform their required office, they do not distract the attention from the quality and whiteness of your linen. Some that we have seen were evidently intended for cabinet pictures, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... they. The young widow mourns the loss of her husband; by day as by night she is heard silently sobbing; she is a constant visitor to the place of rest; with the greatest reluctance will she follow the raised camp. The friends and relatives of the young mourner will incessantly devise methods to distract her mind from the thought of her lost husband. She refuses nourishment but as nature is exhausted she is prevailed upon to partake of food; the supply is scant, but on every occasion the best and largest proportion is deposited upon the grave ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... a doctor, had treated, with cheerful patience and skill, an infected and painful hand of the guide's, and this had won for him the love eternal of our Tin Lizzie. Little John Dudley thought, as he made jokes to distract the boy, and worked over his big throbbing fist, the fist which meant daily bread—little John thought where the plant of love springing from that seed of gratitude would at last blossom. Little he thought as the two sat on the gallery of the camp, and the placid lake broke in silver on pebbles ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... to result from her modest beginning, that Linda realized that she must proceed very carefully, she must concentrate with all her might, else her school work would begin to suffer in favor of the book. Recently so many things had arisen to distract her attention. Many days she had not been able to keep Eileen's face off her geometry papers; and again she saw Gilman's, anxious and pain-filled. Sometimes she found herself lifting her eyes from tasks upon which she was concentrating with ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... my imperfect representations of our actors and affairs, that you suppose our dissensions owing to French intrigues—we want no foreign causes; but in so precarious a letter as this I cannot enter into farther explanations; indeed the French need not be at any trouble to distract or weaken ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... that sort of thing so cleverly and safely. Does he do it often? Of course, not just that. But does he pick up cigars and things that I see they throw to the matador? Does he belong to the management? Mr. Briggs thinks the whole thing was a feint to distract the bull," she added, with a wicked glance at the geologist, who, I fancied, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... reality, reciprocal firing, at such short ranges, is almost always too high. The man who would fire sees himself already killed by the return fire. He throws stones, and not with great force, to avoid using his rifle, to distract the enemy, to occupy the time, until flight offers him some chance of escaping ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... eyed Dicksie benignly. "They are talking this nonsense to distract us, of course, but I am bound to read you what I have here, ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... fear. It is therefore the best plan to pass your hand beneath the child's clothes and to examine its stomach without altering its posture, while at the same time the nurse in whose arms it is talks to it to distract its attention, or holds it opposite the window, or opposite a bright light, which seldom fails to amuse an infant. If there is no tenderness of the stomach the child will not cry on pressure; or if during your examination the presence ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... herself and manage her affairs unaided filled her at first with dismay. Besides, there was the separation from her son, the feeling that she knew not whether she would ever again set eyes on him in this world, and the terrible uncertainty generally of the future, to further distract her; but at length the buoyancy and unquenchable hopefulness of Dick's spirit had its effect upon her; and, finally, when the moment of parting came, she had been brought to a frame of mind that enabled her to say the last words ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... you got with your "Nibelungen"? It will be a great joy to me to grasp your creation through your immediate aid. For heaven's sake, let nothing distract you from this, and continue to weld your ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... of the quickest ears of the forest. Motionless in his hut, like a spider in its web, nothing can put him off his guard—neither the view halloo of the passing huntsman, the cheerful notes of his horn, nor the music of the dogs, can distract his attention. All around is calm, solitude and gloom surround him, no voice interrogates him, no eye sees him; he is alone, quite alone, his blood circulates tranquilly through his veins, his faculties are all on the stretch, he waits, he bides his time. The ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... Marseillaise. "There's many singing that song to-day in prison that would be glad to sit and breathe fresh air and look at a fine view as you're doing, so you ought to be thankful!" And indeed the view of the Castle did just for that moment distract her from the business of weeping, for there had been a certain violent alteration of the weather. The autumn sunshine, which had never been more than a sarcasm on the part of a thoroughly unpleasant day, had failed altogether, and Edinburgh ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... have fortunately had so much to distract your thoughts that you have not had time to dwell upon your loss. Moreover, you have needed all your strength and your energy for your search for your sister, and right sure am I that your father, who was as sensible as ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... purpose of temporarily presiding over your deliberations. We have come together to secure a common and at the same time a most important object—to agree if we can upon some plan for adjusting the unhappy differences which distract the country, which will be satisfactory to ourselves and those we represent. We have assembled as friends, as brothers, each, I doubt not, animated ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... fellow is distract, and so am I; And here we wander in illusions: Some blessed power deliver us ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... the conclusion of the reading, let his hands fall heavily in his lap, while he plunged into a study which the messenger with his foreign airs could not distract. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... up until three in the morning, receiving the reports of the police, and having the ringleaders arrested. They had gone about in the coffee-houses, and had carried their effrontery so far as to say that the French army was again in motion, and that Napoleon's sole aim had been to distract ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... a hundred-and-fifty amateur brass bands are to play at the Crystal Palace on September 25th looks like an attempt to distract us from the miners' strike fixed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... inevitably occur. His eyes wander to the appearance and furniture of the boudoir suddenly put to so different use: the gorgeous hangings of crimson damask contrasting with the white shroud, the faded rose by the bedside, the scattered signs of revelry, distract and disturb him. Strange fancies come thick. The air seems other than that to which he is accustomed in such chambers of the dead. The corpse appears from time to time to make slight movements; even sighs seem to echo his own. At last he lifts the veil which covers her, and ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... ascetic. Here, like the inspired seer of Patmos, he could congratulate himself on having shaken off communion with mankind. Cliffs shattered by the warfare of the elements—a restless and irresistible sea, intersected by perilous reefs—and the blue firmament—were the only visible objects to distract the solemn contemplations of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... convenient, undiscriminating epithet. I use it here. The Dixville Notch is, briefly, picturesque,—a fine gorge between a crumbling conical crag and a scarped precipice,—a pass easily defensible, except at the season when raspberries would distract sentinels. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... to persons who go about upright on their legs. The four walls of her room concentrated her vision in bounding it. She saw few women and fewer men, but she saw them apart from those superficial activities which distract and darken judgment. Faces that she was obliged to see bending over her had another aspect for Edith than that which they presented to the world at large. Anne Majendie, who had come so near to Edith, had always put a certain distance between herself and her ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... he suddenly ceased to employ this distraction; he seems to have sacrificed it easily, under the stress of present necessities and cruel anxieties as to his uncertain future. "When we do not know where we shall be tomorrow nothing can distract ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... cardinals; and that he had a daughter, Novella, so accomplished in law as to be able to read her father's lectures in his absence, and so beautiful, that she had to read behind a curtain lest her face should distract the attention of the students. He is said to have died at Bologna of the plague in 1348, and an epitaph in the church of the Dominicans in which he was buried, calling him Rabbi Doctorum, Lux, Censor, Normaque Morum, testifies to the public estimation of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... States; and although the two could not communicate by land, they did support each other as naval stations in a war essentially dependent upon maritime power. Philadelphia served no purpose but to divide and distract British enterprise. Absolutely dependent for maintenance upon the sea, the forces in it and in New York could not cooeperate; they could not even unite except by sea. When Clinton relieved Howe as commander-in-chief, though less than a hundred miles away by land, he had ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... continue to distract the several parties into which the Cherokees are unhappily divided. The efforts of the Government to adjust the difficulties between them have heretofore proved unsuccessful, and there remains no probability that this desirable object ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... safe, I should feel comparatively happy; happiness, in its full extent, I never can hope to enjoy; but if he were only safe—if he were only safe, my dear Mrs. Brown! I know that he is hunted like a beast of prey, and under such circumstances as disturb and distract the country, ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... others, open to the impressions of near and striking events and to the seductions of intellectual fashion. Yet, if the larger thought is worth anything, it should enable those who follow it to look a little further beyond the present and a little deeper below the surface differences that distract the kindred peoples. If the thinkers are true to their thought it may be that from them will come the beginnings of the healing process which Europe will need. Much is being and will be said of the political reconstruction which is needed to ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... her arms. "Mon Dieu! Men are stupid! No. Listen. I had to wait an hour. I had to distract myself—well—you know the supplement to L'Illustration that has appeared every week during the war—the pages of photographs of the heroes of France. I found them all collected in a portfolio on the table. Ah! Some living, but mostly dead. It was heart-breaking. And do you know what I found? ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... were greatly afraid of him. They held back. Dr. Labarbe, who was smoking, sat down beside La Roque, and spoke to her in order to distract her attention. The old woman soon removed her hands from her face, and she replied with a flood of tearful words, emptying her grief in copious talk. She told the whole story of her life, her marriage, the death of her man, ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... the human wrecks with which our shores are lined. When the tempest has ceased to rage, and when the last dripping mariner has been safely landed we can, if we wish, with a peaceful conscience dissolve our partnership and renew the discussion of the minor differences, which divide, distract and weaken the human ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... when that same thought is receiving articulate birth on the tongue. Its purpose is to make the words grow large, as it were; to expand and emphasise their meaning; hence the wisdom of the advice—"Suit the action to the word, the word to the action." If the action distract the listeners' attention from the word ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... their young mistress, usually so gracious and responsive, wholly absorbed in her troubled revery; but to-day her maidens played their sweetest strains upon their silvery lutes, without her answering smile; the gentlemen of her court sought in vain for some diversion to distract her; even the Lady Margherita could do nothing for her pleasure, while she watched in unobtrusive tenderness, feeling that quiet, however unsatisfying, was more ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... examine the peculiarly Teuton ways of trade competition in their everyday guise, and without the glamour of political ideals to distract our attention, we are confronted with phenomena of a repulsive character. For the German's keen practical sense, his sustained concentration of effort on the furtherance of material interests, and his scorn of ethical ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... dear. The poacher was Marcella's friend, and she cannot now distract her mind from him sufficiently to marry Aldous, though every plan he has in the world will be upset by her proceedings. And as for his election, you may depend upon it she will never ask or know whether he gets in next Monday or no. That goes without saying. She is meanwhile absorbed ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... steal through life. That Genius visits not your lowly shed; For, ah, what woes and sorrows ever rife Distract his hapless head! For him awaits no balmy sleep, He wakes all night, and wakes to weep; Or by his lonely lamp he sits At solemn midnight, when the peasant sleeps, In feverish study, and in moody ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... to prefer not to notice what the hand is doing. He talks as long as he has an interlocutor, but, when the messages given through the hand distract the attention of this interlocutor, Phinuit often says, "I'll help him." What does he mean by this? It is a mystery. But if it is wished to continue the conversation with him, the ear must be addressed directly he is ready to resume. All this does not interrupt ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... referred to; in the Turner and Hansel, examples of our native species unmixed. To each of these classes might be added a score of other varieties which have been more or less popular, but they would serve only to distract the reader's attention. I have tested forty or fifty kinds side by side at one time, only to be shown that four or five varieties would answer all practical purposes. I can assure the reader, however, ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... at the sight of those evils his fellow-creature is obliged to endure,—makes his soul tremble in the contemplation of the misery arising from the despotism that crushes him—from the superstition that leads him astray—from the passions that distract him in a state of warfare against his neighbour. Although he knows that death is the fatal, the necessary period to the form of all beings, his soul is not affected in a less lively manner at the loss of a beloved wife,—at the demise of a child calculated to console his old age,—at ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... He also knew how to milk, and they both, volunteered to try. Much to my surprise and delight, the cows now behaved beautifully, perhaps owing to the fact that, obeying the injunctions of my two recruits, I provided each with a bundle of fodder to distract their attention during the milking process. There was more milk than I could possibly use, as nearly all the convalescents were absent. So I set several pans of it away, little thinking how soon it would ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... face.[1820] Amongst the Bedouins, whenever one utters praises he must add: "Mashallah," that is, God avert ill! The only other way to avert ill is to give the praised object to him who praised it.[1821] Glittering and waving objects are much used by Moslems on dress and horse caparisons to distract attention. They put texts of the Koran on streamers on their ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... screened the lower half of the window overlooking the water, and stood gazing out at a vessel lying beside the wharf beneath. Mrs. Greyson laid down her modeling tools, disturbed by the other's disquiet, and wondering how best to distract his attention from himself. Her glance roved inquiringly about the little room, noting every cast upon the dingy walls, bits of sculptured foliage, architectural forms, and portions of the human figure. Then her gaze rested an instant upon her own work, ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... misunderstood, particularly in one phase of its endeavors,—to forget the body. The truth of the matter is that the flesh and blood in their highest song toward which we should strive are so occupied with praising God that they completely lack self-consciousness, and do not distract the intellect or the will. God is with them in naked purity. It is His simplest and dearest starry music. He demands that our life should be a programme of infinite proportions. And yet I wonder if a saint can ever be both a great ...
— The Forgotten Threshold • Arthur Middleton
... memory perish with me? No, I was born for a better—a higher and more holy purpose. I was not born to pass a few moments on the stage of life and then disappear forever.... With a shudder I turn away and would gladly forget to think. O thought, thought! thou wilt distract me,—thou hast almost hurled reason from her throne. Thou bitter tormentor! depart, if but for a moment, and let me once more find peace. But no; the more I seek to elude still nearer the demon pursues. O thought, thought! it rushes forth ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... to what this dear angel says! She's going to take us to Paradise Valley, all by ourselves, with no men to bother and distract our attention.—Men are out of place in Paradise anyway; just think how Adam behaved! (this in a parenthesis).—It is to be a real old-fashioned "goloptious" picnic. Now, who would like to go ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... Garden this morning, and I simply couldn't resist the temptation. If God ever made anything more beautiful than a rose, Mr. Narkom, it is yet to be discovered. Sit down, and while you are talking I'll arrange these in this vase. No; it won't distract my attention from what you are saying, believe me. Somehow, I can always think better and listen better when there are flowers about me, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... thoughtfully he repeats this last phrase, until Dora, affrighted by the sudden change that has disfigured his face, speaks to him to distract his attention. ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... what did it mean? A few minutes ago it was not with her. She knew that it would not always be with her, yet it did not seem as if it would ever leave her. She could not think of herself as ever being happy again. But Ulick would distract this misery from her brain. She would send him to the piano, and the exalted sorrow in the music, which she could but faintly remember, would raise her above sorrow, would bear her out of and above the circle of personal despondency. Ulick might help her; she could ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... for the most inflexible, stern and immovable. The passions which agitate or distract the mind, never alter its expression, nor do the highest ecstacies of which their nature is susceptible, ever relax its rigidity. With the same imperturbability of feature, they encounter death from the hand of an enemy, and receive the ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... to distract her grief, telegraphed to New Haven, where his yacht, the Sea-Bird, was lying to have her brought over to meet him at Dieppe, took his duchess down to that little seaport and embarked with her for a voyage ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... light clothing, and make unusually small purchases of food? Yet however scanty my service, food, and raiment may seem to you, I on the contrary regard them as ample and even excessive. Indeed I am desirous of still further reducing them, since the less I have to distract me the happier I shall be. For the soul, like the body, goes lightly clad when in good health; weakness wraps itself up, and it is a sure sign of infirmity to have many wants. We live, just as we swim, all the better for being but lightly burdened. For in this stormy life ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... and smiled in the darkness at the transparent plan to distract my attention from ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... very important thing for women to understand. In our achievement of facing the truth in the place of evasions about fundamental things, lies the path, I believe along which woman can escape, if ever she is to escape, from the confusion of purposes that distract her ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity. Now Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic. There is a very wide difference. If a man of science were told that the results of his ...
— The Soul of Man • Oscar Wilde
... began to squirm, and as soon as the tune was done and the scattering applause had died down, he reached over and grabbed Mr. Amasa Beard by the knee. Mr. Beard did not immediately respond, being at that moment behind logworks facing a rebel charge; he felt vaguely that some one was trying to distract his attention, and in some lobe of his brain was registered the fact that that particular knee had gout in it. Jethro increased the pressure, and then Mr. Beard abandoned his logworks and swung around with a snort ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... as she resignedly awaited the moment when the finished task would bring her sleep; but since the coming of Francois Paradis the long weekly vigil was very sweet to her, for she could think of him and of herself with nothing to distract her dear imaginings. Simple they were, these thoughts of hers, and never did they travel far afield. In the springtime he will come back; this return of his, the joy of seeing him again, the words he will say when they find themselves once ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... said "Good-morning," and "Good-night." If I was embarrassed, or worried, he would pretend not to notice it, but if I was happy, or sad, he would show his sympathy in a hundred ways—putting his head on my lap, or cutting absurd capers to distract my mind. ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... reason. Learn therefore to obey reason and reason only. Do not permit yourself to be drawn from the true path by fear of threats, even of death, nor by grief, even for your dearest friends. Such feelings warp your reason, distract your judgment, and deflect you from the right course. When passion—feeling—comes in conflict with reason, you must drive feeling away. Your reason may not always be right; nevertheless it is the best guide you have, and you must cultivate ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... be so intrinsically interesting that they distract the attention from what they are intended to illustrate. It would be injudicious to use candies or other inherently attractive objects to illustrate number facts in primary arithmetic. The objects, not the number facts, ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... Isolated and alone, prisoner in the cell of bone, with absolutely nothing to distract him, the Brain by common consent pounded a gavel, held a conference, appointed a chairman and settled down to do the one job that the Brain was assembled to do. In unison, ten to the sixteenth storage cells turned butter side up at the single ...
— Instinct • George Oliver Smith
... north-and-south line along the west face of the works, at about nine hundred yards distance. They were to be supported by forty gunboats and as many bomb vessels, besides the efforts of the ships-of-the-line to cover the attack and distract the garrison. Twelve thousand French troops were brought to reinforce the Spaniards in the grand assault, which was to be made when the bombardment had sufficiently injured and demoralized the defenders. At this time the latter numbered seven thousand, ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... afflict or wrongs oppress; If cares distract, or fears dismay; If guilt deject; if sin distress; In every case, still ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... be Brighthelmstone, where I do most humbly and fervently entreat you to write—do, dearest sir, write, if but one word—if but only you name yourself! Nothing but your own hand can now tranquillize me. The reports about London here quite distract me. If it were possible to send ine a line by the diligence to Brighton, how grateful I should be ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... mind back with some effort from the consideration of the greater issues to fix it on the smaller ones. In its way Drusilla's interference was a welcome diversion, since the point she raised was important enough to distract Olivia's attention from decisions too poignant to ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King |
