"Distracted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gasps makes you pity yourself so much that your heart nearly breaks. I was sobbing out loud, presently, which made Vivace whine, and I had almost begun to enjoy my utter forlornness and the distinction of being the most miserable person in the whole world when a distracted voice exclaimed: ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... allows me to press her hand to my lips, and listens to the sighing accents of love. Love her I certainly do. Would to Heaven I could marry her! Would to Heaven I had preserved my fortune, or she had one to supply its place! I am distracted at the idea of losing her forever. I am sometimes tempted to solicit her hand in serious earnest; but if I should, poverty and want must be the consequence. Her disappointment in the expectation of affluence and splendor, which I believe her ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... Author: 'In God we trust;' and from this legend I augur deliverance from the troubles that beset us, the vindication of outraged laws, the Union of dissevered fragments, the return of peace to our distracted land, the integrity of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... President is equally wandering and indefinite. First, it is to be done by a more vigorous prosecution of the war in the vital parts of the enemy's country; and after apparently talking himself tired on this point, the President drops down into a half-despairing tone, and tells us that "with a people distracted and divided by contending factions, and a government subject to constant changes by successive revolutions, the continued success of our arms may fail to secure a satisfactory peace." Then he suggests the propriety of wheedling ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... the car met us, poor Dawson apoplectic with distress and confusion. The engine had gone wrong, and he had had a terrible time getting it put right, and was distracted because he could find no way of sending on the hampers. We tumbled in and whirled home in peace and safety, but some of us were glad it had ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... starts up as if distracted. "Yelp, yelp!" Ah! poor Fido! although your master seems evidently out of humor, he would not have kicked your beautiful spotted coat had he seen you! There, he caresses you—so fold back your ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... so soon comprehend the state of affairs, (probably because I am near-sighted,) and rushed to the front yard. Here I saw two rebels who seemed perfectly distracted, and were throwing their guns wildly about and exclaiming: "What shall we do? O! what shall we do?" Not thinking them very dangerous, I darted past them, but was checked by a stream of less frightened guards pouring through the gate. ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... began to freshen, and one high mountain in the east to glimmer with the morning; when, wearied with anxiety, she retired to her couch, where she found it utterly impossible to sleep, for joy, tenderness, doubt and apprehension, distracted her during the whole night. Now she rose from the couch, and opened the casement to listen; then she would pace the room with impatient steps, and, at length, return with despondence to her pillow. Never did hours appear to move so heavily, as those of this anxious night; after ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... ashamed, I withdrew into the corner and tried to talk to Mlle. Helouin about poetry and art, but at last, upset and distracted, I arose and walked out of the room. Mlle. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... brought a gleam of reason to the distracted girl's face, and springing to her feet—apparently now forgetful of Nellie's presence—she begged Joe to take her from the tent to Harry. Not for a moment did she appear to realize the dreadful ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... came to an end, she had to think of herself. The day had been more trying even than her worst anticipations of it. But now at last she had stormed that citadel of Impossible Belief in the mind of both mother and daughter, and nothing she could do could bring them, strained and distracted by the incredible revelation, nearer to a haven of repose. She had spoken the word: the rest lay with the powers of Nature. Probably she felt what far different circumstances have caused many of us to feel, on whom the unwelcome task has devolved of bringing the news of a death. How consciously ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... never heard the story of the lost girl? who less than a year ago, bewildered and distracted, wandered away into the endless woods, in the night, mid darkness and storm; and who, o'ercome with fright and weariness and cold, lay down to die, and was covered over with snow; and that a young man with strength and courage, was conducted by God to her rescue, and carried ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... a feeble constitution, the regularity of his habits, sustained through a life of great exertions and vicissitudes, produced a vigor and equanimity which are seldom the accompaniments of a laborious mind or of a distracted life. "I do not remember," he says, "to have felt lowness of spirits one quarter of an hour since I was born." "Ten thousand cares are no more weight to my mind than ten thousand hairs are to my head." "I have never lost a night's sleep in my life." "His face was remarkably fine, his complexion ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... yielded to them; cabals and factions took place among those who were anxious to please, for the purpose of guiding the people; rash measures were adopted, the councils and the power of Carthage became distracted and weak, and its ruin was precipitated ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... cape, they anchored in a large bay, where was a plant resembling sneezwort, which they found serviceable in the scurvy; also another plant, which rendered those who eat of it distracted for a time. They here fell in with two ships belonging to the fleet under Verhagen, which had been driven back out of the South Sea, one of which was commanded by Sebaldt de Weert, who told them he had been five months in the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... been able to hit upon some escape from the nonplus, their attention was distracted by a rabble of men, women, and boys, who suddenly swept around a corner and flooded down the street toward them. With a premonition of coming evil, Janice sprang to the knocker, and rapped desperately, but their ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... from a cottage where she had assisted Mr. Mappin in a painful and dangerous operation, she stood for a moment in reverie, looking up at the hills, whose peace had been shrilly broken a few hours before by that distracted waif of the world, fleeing from the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the Iconoclasts, which distracted the Church for more than one hundred years, under Leo III., the Isaurian, and his immediate successors. Such were the extravagances of superstition to which the image-worship had led the excitable Orientals, that, if Leo had been a wise and temperate reformer, he might have ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... had just made an end of speaking when the slave came in and cast himself at the king's feet. 'My lord,' said he, 'I am very sorry to be the messenger of ill news to your majesty, which I know must create you fresh affliction. The prince is distracted, my lord; and his treatment to me, as you may see, too plainly proves it.' Then he proceeded to tell all the particulars of what Prince Camaralzaman had said to him, and the violence with which he ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... enthusiastic in their devotion. As usual in such cases, the real contest was between the partisans themselves; each successive demonstration on either side was provocative or retaliatory, and when they were apparently rendering homage to their idols they were really distracted by and listening to each other. At last, Hathaway's party being reinforced by fresh visitors, a tall brunette of the opposition remarked in a professedly confidential ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... And though the Baron is himself of German race, his conduct presents no appearance of design, how much less of conspiracy! Doubtless certain journals will so attempt to twist it; but to the candid it will seem no more than the distracted evolutions of a weak man in a series ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... am distracted, dear Severine, to think that today of all days I should have brought you ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... averted. All kinds of queer ideas were racing through his brain, fragments of nursery rhymes, scenes from his regimental life in India, memories of the front, which he had deliberately summoned up to keep his attention distracted from those merciless eyes, like twin search-lights pitilessly playing ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... almost distracted. If before his mind had been absorbed by one subject, how much more completely was it engrossed, now that the certainty of the monster's living again pressed upon his thoughts. His sister's attentions were now unheeded, and ...
— The Vampyre; A Tale • John William Polidori
... from his wheel-house called to them, threateningly and beseechingly, commanding every one to go back or she'd be going over whatever. As usual no one heeded him and so the accident happened. Perhaps it was the lure of the Piper, now skirling madly from the bow, with flying ribbons, that distracted the captain, as well as the disobedience of the passengers; whatever was the reason, the Inverness, generally so stately and staid, suddenly gave a lurch, and went crash into the wharf as though she intended to ride right over ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... simultaneously at different points, so distracted the enemy, that they knew not in which direction to proceed; scarcely had the flames burst out at one point than they saw fires blazing up at several others. The stores at Vodnia and Glofira having been destroyed, the squadron proceeded off Gheisk. Here, for full four miles, stacks of ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... Louisa's song scena was the success of the show. It was called "The Haunted Kaiser," and it began with a distracted demented Tommy Thurlow, with the familiar Potsdam moustache and an excellent wig from London, rushing on with his fingers in his ears. No doubt as to who it was—the WAR LORD in a state bordering on delirium. Having calmed down a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... in the old bark-mill. There was but a moment's rest allowed him even here, for Mopsey and the Captain, furiously threatening all sorts of death and destruction, presently rushed in at the door, and sent him scampering about the ring like a distracted colt, in his first day's service; a game of short duration, for the Captain and Mopsey, closing in upon him from opposite directions compelled him to retreat again into the open air. How much longer the chase might have continued, ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... directing the governors of those provinces, in case of war, to attack the French possessions in India and to seize the Dutch settlements in the name of the stadtholder. His prompt measures had the effect of overawing the court of Versailles, and being likewise distracted by its own financial embarrassments, it was under the mortifying necessity of abandoning those designs on the United Provinces, which had long been among its most cherished projects. In the meantime, on the 13th of September, the Duke of Brunswick, who commanded the Prussian forces ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... night-gown, and at the funeral of her first cousin the horses attached to the hearse had run away and smashed the coffin, precipitating her relative into an open man-hole before the eyes of his distracted family. ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... beads, made of pure gold and as large as peas, lay before her. They had been her mother's,—given to her when the distracted state of American currency made a wedding-present of the precious metal as welcome as it was valuable. Three several times, under circumstances of great pecuniary urgency, had the beads sufficed, one by one, to restore the family to comfort,—to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... "Stop!" cried the distracted officer, left with his bleeding fellow, and springing up the steps after Johnny. But he found a door already bolted in his face; and cursing Johnny for a treacherous and murderous scoundrel, he began vainly denouncing his barbarity in leaving his comrade thus to perish, and ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... throne, I verily believe he would have put down with a strong hand these same marauders who devastate the country more than war itself. Things were beginning to improve after the long and disastrous civil strife, and we fondly told ourselves that the worst was over, and that the distracted country would taste something of the blessings of peace again. But since that haughty earl men call the King Maker has gone to France to make his peace with the Lancastrian queen, and has returned to place her husband (poor man, it is no fault of his that he ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... incident was not the only external affair that distracted his attention from the monotonous routine work of building forts on a set, but faulty and mistaken, plan. Glad as he was of any work, in preference to the dull existence of a prolonged holiday in the domestic circle, ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... barge crew shout back, but are finally out-shouted and haul clear. The foreman, seeing that he will now lose the game and have thus prematurely to take the party over, suddenly perceives the advancing P. & O., now not much more than a mile away. He draws the distracted officer's attention to the phenomenon and leads him to understand that to start now would lead to an inevitable collision and a watery grave. The polyglot argument waxes furious, the men taking it up in their turn, when their ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... hereditary gallantry of the House of Bourbon, "Heaven forbid I should abandon the lamb to the wicked wolf, or noble ladies to the oppression of faitours. I am a man of peace, though my abode now rings with arms, but be assured I will care for your safety as for my own, and should matters become yet more distracted here, which, with Our Lady's grace, we trust will be rather pacified than inflamed, we will provide for your safe conduct to Germany, for not even the will of our brother and protector, Charles of Burgundy, shall prevail with us to dispose of you in any respect ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... having taken and held Tarragona, concentrated to the eastward, so that by his holding Aragon and Catalonia for Napoleon, Joseph could set up a government temporarily at Valencia. Wellington, hampered by the distracted condition of English politics, had felt bound, in spite of victory, to withdraw ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... blood becomes more consanguined still with our own, the danger of a violent revolution, over which we can have no control, must become more imminent every day. By a course of undecided action, determined by no policy but the vague will of a war-distracted people, we run the risk of precipitating that very revolutionary violence which we ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... her supper with toothless impotency, renewed her youth vicariously, and, while she quarrelled with her daughter from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same, she added the last straw to the burden of the distracted suitors by announcing what a comfort Eudora was to her and how handy she ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... continued, but I did not hear the rest of the sentence, my attention being distracted by the passing of the conductor and a new traveller. When silence was restored, I again heard the lawyer's voice. The conversation had passed from a special ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... can be seen. La Gueera Rodriguez told us that on an estate of hers, one woman of that race was in the habit of attending church, and that she was so fearfully hideous, the priest had been obliged to desire her to remain at home, because she distracted the attention ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... which excludes females from the Crown of France, should have survived monarchy itself; otherwise the tender compassion excited by the youth, beauty and sufferings of the Princess, might yet have been the means of procuring peace to this distracted country. But the French admire, lament, and leave her to ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... this maneuver, Deerslayer had proceeded promptly, for, while he did not in the least doubt that he was both watched and followed by the foe, he believed he distracted their movements, by the apparent uncertainty of his own, and he knew they could have no means of ascertaining that the rock was his aim, unless indeed one of their prisoners had betrayed him; a chance so improbable in itself, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... life," says Bassompierre, who was present, "saw a man so distracted or in so violent ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... that—" began the Prefect, still smiling as he looked at the lad; but his remark was cut short and his attention pleasantly distracted. ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... latter came over to his side. "Say, that's about the slickest scrapper round these parts. Gee-whizz, 'e went fur me like the tail end o' a cyclone when I took your plug to the barn. It was they curs that kind o' distracted his attention. Mebbe thar's more wolf nor dog in him. ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... (out of the carriage window) speeding along the platform, looked very much like a common, flustered mortal who has made a very near thing of catching his train: the starting wild eyes, the tense and excited face, the distracted gait, all the common symptoms were there, rendered more impressive by his native solemnity which flapped about him like a disordered garment. Had he—I asked myself with interest—resisted his wife to the very last minute and then bolted up the ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... divided between the creditor and debtor, and possibly a free fight would have begun, but the general attention was distracted by the arrival of another spectator. A voice heard above all the tumult caused a score of heads to turn, it was the voice of a ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... her. From the house of death, the corpse of an aged female was carried out amidst the shrieks and imprecations of both men and women! The sick child that clung with faintness to the bosom of its distracted mother, was put out under the freezing blast of the north; and on, on, onward, from house to house, went the steps of law, accompanied still by the increasing tumult of misery. This was upon Christmas eve—a day of "joy ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... (i. e. State-Councillor Grasshopper), a loose, zigzag figure in "Sartor," a mend and blind admirer of Teufelsdroeckh's, an incarnation of distraction distracted, and all the counsellor the "editor" had to advise him and encourage him in his work; a victim to "timidity" and preyed on by an uncomfortable sense of mere "physical cold," such as the majority of the State counsellors ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... was followed very shortly by the emergence of McCarthy, disheveled, hatless, staring, gasping. The boss had stumbled into the street, hesitated, then started south on a run. Before any one could stop him, he had turned a corner and disappeared. The excitement at the Atlas Building had distracted attention from him. Nobody wondered at his getting rattled and running away. The few tenants remaining in the building had stumbled forth, vowing never to return to such a—assorted adjectives—building. That was all there seemed to ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... now but two days' water—doled out as it is drop by drop. Look at their emaciated, broken-down, wasted forms, and yet see how they cling to money, which probably they will never have occasion for, even if they gain the land. I am distracted!" ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... Aaron King—too distracted to paint—idled all the afternoon in the glade. But the girl did not come. When it was dark, he returned to camp; telling himself that she would never come again; that his rude yielding to the lure of her wild beauty had rightly broken forever the charm ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... beings,' may exercise on the mind of an individual. They will often seem to open a new world to him, like the religious conceptions of faith or the spirit of God. The difficulties of ethics disappear when we do not suffer ourselves to be distracted between different points of view. But to maintain their hold on us, the general principles must also be psychologically true—they must agree with our experience, they must accord with ...
— Philebus • Plato
... thy inhuman wrath; whilst thou, fulminating with swift beating of wings and twisted tail, raised in the sea a sudden storm with buffeting and sinking of ships and tossing of waves, filling the naked shores with terrified and distracted fishes. ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... without her dinner. At last she managed to persuade her that sweets were bad for the teeth, and that over-eating spoiled the figure. Thus Sophy overcame her faults; and when she grew older other tastes distracted her from this low kind of self-indulgence. With awakening feeling greediness ceases to be the ruling passion, both with men and women. Sophy has preserved her feminine tastes; she likes milk and sweets; she likes pastry and made-dishes, but not much meat. She has never tasted wine ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... children were gorged with food and distracted by many presents. They were seated everywhere, many on the floor, and the room was a chaos of dolls, trumpets, toy-horses, and drums. The chatter of the children and the noise of the instruments was fearful. But Morley seemed to enjoy the riot, and even his wife's grave ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... All this distracted my brain entirely. To nothing could I give myself an answer, and no one came to me from whom I ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... classes of the people together in the bonds of a common sorrow, had only intensified the conflicts of parties and social grades. But in due time the Communist rising itself was suppressed, and peace at last fell to the lot of distracted France. ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... Terrified and distracted with grief, the Princess carried the lifeless body of her lover into the palace and laid it on a couch in her own apartment. There, exhausted with the effort, she fell upon it, weeping bitterly. She called his name, but he did not answer. His ears were deaf, his eyes were closed, his pale ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... justice to General Greene, I take occasion to observe that the public is much indebted to him for his judicious management and active exertions in his present department. When he entered upon it, he found it in a most confused, distracted, and destitute state. This, by his conduct and industry, has undergone a very happy change and such as enabled us, with great facility, to make a sudden move, with the whole army and baggage, from Valley Forge, in pursuit ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... who was in raptures over Miss Schley's performance, had got up to speak to Fritz, but found the latter being steadily hypnotised by Mrs. Leo's trumpet, which went up towards his mouth whenever he opened it. He bellowed distracted nothings but could not make her hear, obtaining no more fortunate result than a persistent flutter of pink eyelids, and a shrill, reiterated "The ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... attention exhausted; only, as it is, the elaborate philological preparation goes on, but the authors are little known and less enjoyed. So with the investigator of "historic origins" in poetry. He ought to enjoy the true classic all the better for his investigations; he often is distracted from the enjoyment of the best, and with the less good he overbusies himself, and is prone to over-rate it in proportion to the trouble which it ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... necessarily reduced to embrace a measure which ought to have been the result of reason and sound policy: he made peace with the two crowns against which he had hitherto waged a war, entered into without necessity, and conducted without glory. Notwithstanding the distracted and helpless condition of England, no attempt was made either by France or Spain to invade their enemy nor did they entertain any further project than to defend themselves against the feeble and ill-concerted expeditions of that kingdom. Pleased that the jealousies and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... prepare valuable maps. He collected an immense amount of scientific material. He studied the manners and customs of the inhabitants, and made careful observations on the political state. He found the whole land distracted with incessant warfare, and broad tracts of country, fertile and apt for the occupation of white men, given over to desolation. It was then that he realised the curse of slave-raiding, the abolition of which was to become the great object of his future activity. His strength was small, ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... let herself think the brilliant Benjamin was dead, that he would be sewn up in a shroud just like his poor mother, who had no literary talent whatever, but she wondered whether he was groaning like the grandmother. And so, half distracted, pricking up her ears at the slightest creak on the stairs, Esther waited for news of her Benjy. The hours dragged on and on, and the children coming home at one found dinner ready but Esther still waiting. A dusty sunbeam streamed in through the garret window as though to give ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... By the time they had reached the parlor door opposite the office, near which they proposed to wait for the travellers, now momentarily expected, Mrs. Muir was compelled to acknowledge the correctness of Madge's taste. Her costume no more distracted attention from herself than would the infolding calyx of a rosebud. In its exquisite proportions her fine figure was outlined by close white drapery, which made her appear taller than she really was. A single half-open Jacqueminot rose, like the one she had sent ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... kind of mute horror there expressed; wondering at which, the popular belief flashed upon me at once, and I gave small Bob a look which puzzled him exceedingly. 'Can it be then,' said I, chasing this thought about in a distracted manner, 'can it be possible that their mother would not have defended them from small Bob?—but that, on the contrary, (it is a horrible thought,) she would—would have anticipated that nigger? Were they born with an instinctive dread of that mother? Did they look shudderingly from ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... thrust into the horrible cell again. She collapsed on the hard floor in a state which was partly a fainting-fit, and partly the sleep of exhaustion. Dreams and images swept over her brain like low-flying clouds. It seemed to her distracted fancy that only one person could save her—Geoffrey, her husband! He must be coming soon. She thought that she could hear ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... talk we went out of doors. The evening after our visit to the debating hall we moved towards Portland Place, and walked up and down there for an hour or more. M'Kay had a passionate desire to reform the world. The spectacle of the misery of London, and of the distracted swaying hither and thither of the multitudes who inhabit it, tormented him incessantly. He always chafed at it, and he never seemed sure that he had a right to the enjoyment of the simplest pleasures so ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... growing up. But when he thought of them they seemed remote, prattling youngsters whom Minnie was forever worrying over and who seemed to have been always under the heels of his horse, or under the wheels of his wagon, or playing with the pitchfork, or wandering off into the sage while he and their distracted mother searched for them. For a long while—how many years Brit could not remember—they had been living in Los Angeles. Prospering, too, Brit understood. The girl, Lorraine—Minnie had wanted fancy names for the kids, and Brit apologized whenever he spoke of them, which was seldom—Lorraine ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... They distracted and delayed us By the pleasant pranks they played us, And what marvel, then, if troopers, even of regiments of renown, On whom flashed those eyes divine, O, Should forget the countersign, O, As we tore CLINK! CLINK! back to ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... that there was no help for it; he must even renounce the pleasure of seeing "his goot Bons" opposite him at the dinner-table, for the sake of Pons' welfare; and he did not know whether he could give him up; the mere thought of it drove him distracted. ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... the English robin-redbreast, a most lovable little creature, who, every morning, hopped confidingly on our window-sill and took bread-crumbs almost from our hands. The old American diplomatist and President that was to be (though he vehemently disclaimed any such possibility) distracted our attention from robin for a day or two. He had the aspect, perhaps cultivated for political and democratic purposes, of a Pennsylvania farmer; he was, I believe, born on a farm in Franklin County, in that State, ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... last, for it took her a little while to thoroughly grasp the application, partly distracted as her thinking powers were in trying to find a deeper meaning than the one intended. "Yet peace is a thing that no one can enjoy in this world. How should they when the law of life is struggle—struggle ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... man will cease from its bickerings, the tongue of woman will settle down into a steady and respectable trot, the golden age of duelling will retreat into the shadowy past until it shall seem contemporary with the half-fabulous chivalry of the middle ages, distracted maidens will no longer die of broken hearts, nor disappointed ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... next surge—for the spray was now bursting over us at every swell—I laid hold of his hand to drag him higher up the cliff after me. As if the grasp had given him a renewed life, he sprang on his feet, and saying, in a distracted tone, which I alone could hear, "Better be drowned than ruined!" he cried out with the voice of a maniac, "Boys, sink or swim, here I go! Five guineas for every man who gets on board." Tearing off his heavy coat, he rushed forward at the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... The feeble, isolated and distracted colonies of 1864 have given place to a commonwealth which, if not in strictness a nation, possesses all the elements and possibilities of nationality, with a territory open on three sides to the ocean, lying in the highway of the world's ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... rather location, of the enclosure wherein we manipulators of melody are penned up. I know not what cause or provocation the architect of BOOTH'S Theatre may have had, but certain it is that he entertains a horrible spite against musicians. He may have been distracted by diabolical hand-organs, or driven wild by bungling buglists, but why should he include worthy and unoffending artists in his hatred? The revenge of a BORGIA was not more terrible or cruel than that of this architect. He has put the orchestra ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... And pardon me for my distracted thought. Thou knowest best, and I am wrong indeed: I did but pine to see thee more with us, To see ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... for ever. Insensible to objects in which she once delighted; to afflictions which had blasted her blooming prospects, and drained the streams of life, she lay like blossomed trees of spring, overthrown by rude and boisterous winds. The deep groans which convulsed the distracted bosom, and shocked the trembling frame of Alonzo, broke the delusive charm: he awoke, rejoiced to find it but a dream, though it impressed his mind ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... names," said I, "of those three deceivers?" "The farthest, yonder," said he, "is called Pride, the eldest daughter of Belial; the second is Pleasure; and Lucre is the next to us: these three are the trinity which the world adores." "Pray, has this great, distracted city," said I, "any better name than Bedlam the Great?" "It has," he replied, "it is called The City of Perdition." "Woe is me," said I, "are all that are contained therein people of perdition?" "The whole," said ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... close her eyes. All was quiet in the cabin, save for the sufferer's labored breathing, and an occasional sob, while her wondering nurse smoothed her luxuriant hair, and whispered those meaningless little phrases which have such magic influence on the distracted nerves of woman-kind. There was hardly a sound on the ship, beyond an unexplained creaking ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... preoccupation with her was so vivid that it distracted him even while he was teaching that most teachable subject, algebra, and by the end of the school hours the issue was decided and the Career in headlong rout. That afternoon he would go, whatever happened, and see her and speak to ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... who hated war must captain his dear people through their long and mighty struggle and share in his gentle heart their great sacrifices. As the kindly harmonizer of jealous rivals, as the unifier of a distracted people, as the sagacious leader of discordant factions, he proved his true greatness in the hours of the nation's peril. In many a grave crisis when it seemed that the Confederacy would win and the Union be lost the ...
— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers
... ward off a blow. For Peter had once been a good Catholic and knew he was committing a deadly sin in harbouring these Orange heretics; and here, surely, were the hosts of the Evil One, coming with shrieks of wrath to snatch away his guilty soul in the midst of his iniquity. His distracted wife bounded after him, a half-washed frying pan in one hand, a dishcloth in the other; and seeing what was descending upon them she dropped both utensils and wailed, "Och, the Powers come down, Pater! is it ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... suddenly ran out. In consequence of all this that mountain, though it was reduced to a very pitiable plight, still assumed a very beautiful aspect. The vidyadharas dwelling on its summits soared into the air. The kinnaras also became very anxious, distracted by the fear caused by the fall of Skanda's dart. The Daityas then, by hundreds and thousands, came out of that blazing mountain, all clad in beautiful ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... a moment that my attention was distracted by the ladies and by thoughts of mademoiselle. A gentleman was speaking (Mr. Lewis told me it was Mr. Ross of Pennsylvania) in a most impassioned manner, and the magic word "Mississippi" caught my ear and charmed my attention. ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... with business. Here he was going at things backward, whirling out to the oil fields when he should be with McWade and Stoner. They would probably be distracted at his nonarrival, but—this was business, too. And she would drive out to get him. There would be the long ride back. Far away across the undulating prairie fields the horizon was broken by a low, dark barricade, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... expressed perfect tranquillity. So keenly did I feel the joy of reconciliation that, fearing in any way to dispel it, I took hasty leave of him, and, without looking to one side of me or the other (in order that my attention might not be distracted), left the grounds and re-entered the rickety, battered drozhki. Yet the joltings of the vehicle and the variety of objects which flitted past my eyes soon dissipated that feeling, and I became filled with nothing but the idea that the priest ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... not remember whether Bagehot has anywhere given his reasons for his preference—the open avowal whereof drove Crabb Robinson well-nigh distracted; and it is always rash to find reasons for a faith you do not share; but probably they partook of the nature of a complaint that Elia's treatment of men and things (meaning by things, books) is often ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... to the lot of most boys. Conway was certainly a cloud. Within school-bounds he seldom ventured to be aggressive; but whenever we met about town he never failed to brush against me, or pull my cap over my eyes, or drive me distracted by inquiring after my family in New Orleans, always alluding to them as highly respectable ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Janujangha, the royal sage Kakshasena, and many others not named (in history). That man who rising at early dawn takes the names of these kings at the two twilights, viz., at sunset and sunrise, with a pure body and mind and without distracted attention, acquires great religious merit. One should hymn the praises of the deities, the celestial Rishis, and the royal sages and say, 'These lords of the creation will ordain my growth and long ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... pleased with its glittering! He did so very readily, begging my pardon for not having done it on my first appearance, saying he did not know what he did, and indeed he had the countenance and gesture of a man distracted. I did not endeavour a defence; that seemed to me impossible; but represented to him, as well as I could, the crime of a murder, which, if he could justify before men, was still a crying sin before God; the disgrace he would bring ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... an Ivan—burst at times from the feverish lips of this child of circumstance. Infinite Father—Divine Influence—Spirit of Love—whatever Thou art—wilt Thou not illumine the thought-processes of this distracted youth and thus provide the way of escape from impending destruction? Can it be Thy will that this fair mind shall be utterly crushed? Do the agonized words of appeal which rise to Thee from his riven soul fall broken against ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... has brought forth this most perfect embodiment of purity among the nations. This is of itself one of those miracles which captivate the mind and charm the imagination, the living paradox in which the soul delights. How did she come out of that stolid peasant race, out of that distracted and ignoble age, out of riot and license and the fierce thirst for gain, and failure of every noble faculty? Who can tell? By the grace of God, by the inspiration of heaven, the only origins in which the student of nature, ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... said, 'Come marry with me, In silks and in velvet my Bessee shall be; My heart lies distracted, oh! hear me,' quoth he, 'And grant me thy ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... she knew what this meant. Fear and trouble wrought with her physical weakness to drive her almost distracted. She sprang up, caught the child by the shoulders, and shook her as ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... was her father—looked like a man of culture and breeding, but melancholy and with a distracted air, as one whose life had met some fatal cross or blight. He saluted hardly anybody except his entertainers and the Doctor. One would have said, to look at him, that he was not at the party by choice; and it was natural enough to think, with Susy Pettingill, that it must have been a freak ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... be absurd as well as monstrous to try and compel her citizens to be slave-owners against their will. But he does not appear to have had any comprehensive plan of pacification to offer for the quieting of the distracted Union, and, before he could fully develop his policy, whatever it may have been, he died and bequeathed his power to Millard Filmore, the Vice-President, a typical "good party man" ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... Lavernoux, seeing that he took the trouble to indulge in optical telegraphy at the risk of his life.... Lord, what a fool I am!... Why, of course, why, of course, that's it!... By Jove, this is too exciting!... Lupin, you must count ten and suppress that distracted beating of your heart. If ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... King (whom Almighty Allah keep!) that the legist Shurayh [FN491] was wont, during the days of the plague, to make a visitation to Al-Najaf; and, whenever he stood up to pray, there came a fox which would plant himself facing him and which, by mimicking his movements, distracted him from his devotions. Now when this became longsome to him, one day he doffed his shirt and set it upon a cane and shook out the sleeves; then placing his turband on the top and girding its middle with a shawl, he stuck it up in the place where he used to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... for all that. The long political strife in England, the gross mismanagement of colonial affairs under Germain, and the shameful blunders that made Saratoga possible, all combined to encourage foreign powers to take the field against the king's incompetent and distracted ministry. France, Spain, and Holland joined the Americans in arms; while Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, and all the German seaboard countries formed the Armed Neutrality of the North. This made stupendous odds—no less than ten to one. First of the ten came ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... destitute of sensibility; for example, he never passed by the king's picture (if any strangers were present) but he shed tears of emotion. But his great application to business, the numerous occupations, the divers enterprises which have agitated his life, have, if we may so express it, so long distracted his thoughts that he has at length felt the necessity of concentrating ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... chamber, without window or other issue. So I gave myself up for lost and said, 'There is no power and no virtue save in God the Most High, the Supreme!' Then I looked to the top of the vault and saw in it a range of glazed lunettes; so I clambered up for dear life, till I reached the lunettes, and I distracted [for fear]. I made shift to break the glass and scrambling out through the frames, found a wall behind them. So I bestrode the wall and saw folk walking in the road; whereupon I cast myself down to the ground and God the Most High preserved me, so that I reached the earth, ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... again! If I am not laid up forever after the fatigue of this last week, I shall always maintain I have a Constitution. But it all seems nothing in this confusion; everything is almost as bad as ever. Besides that, I have been flying around to get Miriam a wagon. I know she is half distracted at being there alone. Mother chose staying with all its evils. Charlie's life would pay the penalty of a cotton burner if he returned, so Lilly remains at Greenwell with him. We three will get on as best we can here. I wrote to the country to get a wagon, sent a pass from Headquarters, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... be no doubt about it that, to Tom, Polly Powell looked very alluring. She was rather older than he, and her beauty was of a highly coloured order. At that moment Tom's mind was much distracted, nevertheless as the sound of the deep-toned bell in the Town Hall tower died away he determined to take ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... her company all the morning, and with the pertinacity of her kind soon guessed the very obvious secret. Her gushing congratulations drove the girl distracted. She praised the good Stocks, and Alice drank in the comfort of such words with greedy ears. From one young man she passed to another, and hung lovingly over the perfections of Mr. Haystoun. "He has the real distinction, dear," ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... two o'clock in the morning by a loud knocking on a door and the distracted voice of the local justice of the peace calling upon the landlord to rouse himself and fly. The English, so the voice informed the various guests, as door after door was thrown open upon the court-yard, were at Ventersburg ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... dispersed, the gunboats proceeded to engage the batteries higher up the river. The howitzer battery was now landed, and at 1.30 began to bombard the Mahdi's Tomb. This part of the proceedings was plainly visible to us, waiting and watching on the ridge, and its interest even distracted attention from the Dervish army. The dome of the tomb rose tall and prominent above the mud houses of the city. A lyddite shell burst over it—a great flash, a white ball of smoke, and, after a pause, the dull thud of the distant explosion. Another followed. At the third shot, instead of the ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... transitory charm. Images he thought idolatrous in churches and he said outright: "It would be a ridiculous and inept imitation of the papists to fancy that we render God more worthy service in ornamenting our temples and in employing organs and toys of that sort. While the people are thus distracted by external things the worship of God is profaned." So it was that the Puritans chased all blandishments not only from church but from life, and art came to be looked upon ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... the news of a settlement of this question which will relieve them from the daily shame they feel, every time they meet their Allies, in the consciousness that their country, Ireland, for which they are facing death, is distracted and disunited and a source ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... suddenly into her ancient strength," Froude truly remarks, "and tear Gibraltar from us, our mortification would be faint, compared to the anguish of humiliated pride with which the loss of Calais distracted the subjects ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... and the one man who has its secret is shaken to despair about himself. Yet the Word with which he is charged not only fulfils itself in event after event but holds its distracted prophet fast to the end of his abhorred ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... you see?" she implored, her heart leaping, then falling. But for once, the courtesy due to an honored guest was forgotten, and the distracted Frau Yorvan fled from the room ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... got a lucid interval just then, and distracted their attention. I stood for a moment, my head bent as though I ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... disappeared. She left her father's house last night after the family had retired, but no one knows where. She left a few lines on her table, stating that they would hear from her soon. Poor Mr. Wilson was here to-day—he is half distracted—and the whole town is full of the scandal. Mrs. St. Felix told me this morning that she has discovered that within the last week she has been seen walking on the London Road with Lord ——. Is ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... for ever dear, for ever kind, Once tender friend of my distracted mind! I left thee fresh in life, in beauty gay; Now find thee cold, inanimated clay! What woes my wretched race of life attend! Sorrows on sorrows, never doom'd to end! The first loved consort of my virgin bed Before these eyes in fatal battle bled: My three brave brothers in one mournful day ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... enemy, and there was a fight, and my father was killed, after he had struck down six of the enemy's crew on their own deck; for my father was a big man, as I have heard, and knew tolerably well how to use his hands. And when my mother heard the news, she became half distracted, and ran away into the fields and forests, totally neglecting her business, for she was a small milliner; and so she ran demented about the meads and forests for a long time, now sitting under a tree, and now by ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... the scene a few moments later he found Andrea, well-nigh distracted, hugging his wounded pet to his breast, and whispering over and ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... wife at all in the sight of the law? that some other woman was his father's lawful consort? The bare possibility of such an issue was too horrible for any son on earth to face undismayed. So, tortured and distracted by his divided duty, Granville Kelmscott shrank alike ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... impossible to count the tricks that Diva made, for she had a habit of putting her elbow on them after she had raked them in, as if in fear that her adversaries would filch them when she was not looking, and Miss Mapp, distracted with other interests, forgot that no-trumps had been declared and thought it was hearts, of which Diva played several after their adversaries' hands were quite denuded of them. She often ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... treason, entire and unqualified devotion to the Union, shone with additional brightness from its contrast with surrounding darkness. In all portions of the South were found examples of this patriotic devotion, and nowhere did it display itself more nobly than in the distracted city of Baltimore. The Union people were near enough to the North with its patriotic sentiment, and sufficiently protected by the presence of Union soldiery, to be able to act with the freedom and spontaneity denied to their compatriots of the extreme South, and ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... endless controversies with each other, often breaking out into savage wars, and the Saxons were also exposed to conflicts with their common enemies, the Britons. Their power was greatly impaired by the civil strifes which distracted them. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... other morning to a Circulating Library, for the express purpose of lounging away an hour in digesting the politics and news of the day; but the curious scenes to which I was witness during this short period, so distracted my attention, that, despite of the grave subjects on which I was meditating, I could not resist lending an attentive ear to all that passed around me. There was something of originality in the countenance of the Master of the Library which struck ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... turned their backs, trying to look unconcerned; others, with averted heads, sent half-reluctant glances out of the corners of their eyes. They resembled criminals conscious of misdeeds more than honest men distracted by doubt; only two or three stared frankly, but stupidly, with lips slightly open. All expected James Wait to say something, and, at the same time, had the air of knowing beforehand what he would say. He leaned his back ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... hurte or dislocation soever it be." "A conserve of these buds," said Dr. Short of Sheffield, 1746, "is a specific in the rickets; and the roots stamped in water or gin till the liquor becometh a stiff mucilage, has cured many most deplorable pains of the back, that have confined the distracted sufferers close to bed for several weeks." This mucilage was to be rubbed over the vertebrae of the back each night and morning for five or six days together. Also for rickets, "take of the powdered roots with ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... born at Newark; was bishop of Gloucester; was author of the famous "Divine Legation of Moses," characterised by Gibbon as a "monument of the vigour and weakness of the human mind"; is a distracted waste of misapplied logic and learning; a singular friendship subsisted between the author and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... knowest not how to love men, like men! O foolish man that I then was, enduring impatiently the lot of man! I fretted then, sighed, wept, was distracted; had neither rest nor counsel. For I bore about a shattered and bleeding soul, impatient of being borne by me, yet where to repose it, I found not. Not in calm groves, not in games and music, nor in fragrant spots, nor in curious banquetings, nor in the pleasures of the bed ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... speculations ended. I think they were not so much ended as distracted by the distant thudding of the guns that were opening fire at ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... fishable ground, for you know not the moment a good fish may rise. Certain it is that unless you keep your flies constantly going, you cannot expect to have the same basket as the angler who does. Keep your eyes on your flies in a general way, and do not let your attention be distracted so long as they are in the water. Every angler has experienced the annoyance of missing fish when looking elsewhere for a single moment—either at another boat, or at a fish "rising to itself," or at the sky, or at something else. When the eyes were turned to the point from ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior |
