"Distraught" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Do-nothing, Jenny Discretion, Jenny Wait-for-the-Gods: Once upon a time in a tropical island a man lay sick; so ill that he could not rise to trouble his neighbours for help; so weak that it was lifting a mountain to get up from his bed; so hopeless of succour that the last spark of distraught wisdom perching on his brains advised him to lie where he was and trouble not himself, since peace at least he could command, before he passed upon the black highroad men call our kingdom of peace: ay, he lay there. Now it chanced that this man had a mess to cook for his nourishment. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Berkeley is indeed greater than anything that he did, and one wonders not as one explores the young preacher's noble and endearing character that the distraught Vanessa fastened upon him, though she knew him only by reputation, as one who would make it his sacred duty to do all in his power to set her memory ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... his summer wages. He was glad to do a good deed in secret, and yet so near heaven. The man received it as his due, like a toll-keeper; and soon after departed, leaving the traveller alone. And the traveller went his way down the mountain, as one distraught. He stopped only to pluck one bright blue flower, which bloomed all alone in the vast desert, and looked up at him, as if to say; "O take me with you! leave me not ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... mightier in show, Than in effect, by which the prince was prest; So that poor Isabel, distraught with woe, Felt her heart severed in her frozen breast. The Scottish prince, all over in a glow, With anger and resentment was possest, And putting all his strength in either hand, Smote full the Tartar's ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... mazy cares distraught. Around her sudden angry storm-clouds rise, Dark, dark! and comes the look into her eyes Of eld. All that herself herself hath taught She cons anew, that courage new be caught Of courage old. Yet comfortless still lies Snake-like in her warm bosom (vexed with ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... ear of Cadet, who, foreboding some terrible catastrophe, rushed into the room where the secret door stood open. The light glared up the stair. He ran down and saw the Intendant on his knees, holding in his arms the half raised form of a woman which he kissed and called by name like a man distraught with ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... our children's songs that come With bells and bleatings of the sheep; And there, in yonder English home, We thrive on mortal food and sleep!' She laugh'd. How proud she always was To feel how proud he was of her! But he had grown distraught, because The Muse's ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... back to the shore he appeared for the first time to recognise Susannah, and stopped before her, but at first with a distraught manner, as if he were trying to recollect some dream that eluded him. He still had his hand familiarly on Halsey's arm, for he had been conducting ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... the box, she replied that in the box there were several family papers, and among them a general confession which she desired to make; when she wrote it, however, her mind was disordered; she knew not what she had said or done, being distraught at the time, in a foreign country, deserted by her relatives, forced ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... fled from villages lying in the path of the advancing hordes to the neighboring towns, and there separated, crowding into the nearest Caves Voutees. Most of these poor women carried a baby and were distraught with fear besides; the older children must cling to the mother's skirts or become lost ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... that when he saw her that afternoon and found out his mistake, he had no thought except to recall me. He actually came to London for that purpose, vowed to her solemnly that he would bring me back; it was only in England, that, to use his own distraught phrase, the Devil entered into possession of him. His half-insane ramblings gave me a very vivid idea of that fortnight during which he lay hid in London, trembling like a guilty thing, fearful at every moment that he might ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... November 1st.—Bath at last, which, must please poor Mrs. Hambledon exceedingly, for she certainly did not enjoy the transit. I cannot conceive how people can allow themselves to be so utterly distraught by illness. I feel I can never have any respect for her again; she moaned and lamented in such cowardly fashion, was so peevish all the time on board the vessel, and looked so very begrimed and untidy and plain ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... agonised and distraught eye that he had not come merely to exchange civilities. "What can I do for you?" ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... educated man would set aside Issachar's wild vision as the vapourings of a mind distraught. But Aziel lived in the time of Solomon, when men of his nation guided their steps by the light of prophecy, and believed that it was the Divine pleasure, by means of dreams and wonders and through the mouths ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... for a moment with the wild, distraught look of one who sees a sight altogether beyond belief or reason, then he made to spring forward. But he was chained to the Kachins who stood upon either side of him, and two more leapt forward from their posts by the wall to check his movements. And again the mocking ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... too, was strangely altered; much of his old stiffness of manner gone; and it was with genuine affection that he spoke of Branwell, and almost with despair that he touched on his increasing miseries. When Mr. Grundy's message had come, the poor, self-distraught sufferer had been lying ill in bed, apparently too weak to move; but the feverish restlessness which marked his latter years was too strong to resist the chance of excitement. He had insisted upon coming, so his father said, and would immediately be ready. Then the sorrowful half-blind ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... has the mountain heaved and brought forth such a ridiculous mouse. Curtis did actually laugh; even his distraught companion tittered in ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... which was acid to the raw spot of her anger! Again that assumption that she must desert her own home because uninvited guests would make it the theatre of their quarrel! How clear and unassailable her reply in the purview of her distraught logic! ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... me as if either he or I were mad. Then, of a sudden his face changed; and he nodded. I could see how distraught ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... kind; but really it is impossible not to feel for the solemn aristocracies of German Grand-Duchies (who, if they be despots, are extremely amiable) when, poor people, they are in the least put out of their way: they are so dreadfully fussy, so fearfully piteous, so distraught, so inconsolable. I was glad therefore that, the revolution being put down, they could retire in peace to their coffee, their picquet, and their metaphysics. Doubtless Thalermacher (some Hebrew millionaire, perhaps) and Kugelblitz (a fire-eater, for certain) had headed a frightful ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... shown such fearful excitement. He swung his arms, and in his wild agitation uttered some of his words in Murhapa, but his meaning was caught by Ashman, who was infected by his overwhelming emotion. He was distraught for the moment, and ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... well-nourished. This was reported to Angus, and by him to Mananan, and Mananan by his wisdom discovered the cause of it. One of the lords of the Danaans, happening to be on a visit with Angus, was rendered distraught by the maiden's beauty, and one day he laid hands upon her and strove to carry her away to his own dwelling. Ethne escaped from him, but the blaze of resentment at the insult that lit up in her soul consumed in her the fairy nature, that knows not of good or evil, and the nature of ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... the lights with an air that implied reproof, or could not have failed of that effect if the man at the desk had been conscious of the act. He was hopelessly distraught and his face appeared no less pallid in daylight than in the electric glare in which Rose had found him. As the girl warmed her hands at the radiator in the reception room the telephone chimed cheerily. The telephone provides ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... his tuft of hair. His face was distraught with indignation and with the bitterness of a thwarted love of mankind; it was also illuminated by the distant dream of a world as he would have it, so that though he brought down his fist on the corner of Sir Joseph's table with some weight, the baronet ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... they are flibustiers, and pirates, and robbers; and Mrs. Lightfoot's boy came and said Stead Kenton was shot dead at his house door, and then I was neither to have nor to hold, but I ran off here like one distraught, for I never loved anyone like ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... after the train had pulled out of a station, Enoch asked for the newspapers that had been brought aboard from the desert city. Charley Abbott, who had been with the newspaper men on the observation platform for an hour or so, answered the Secretary's request with a curiously distraught manner. ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... had fled. "No matter," said the doctor, "I will see McFeckless." He did. He found him gloomy, distraught, baleful. He felt his pulse. "The mixture as before," he said briefly, "and a little innocent diversion. There is an Aunt Sally on the esplanade—two throws for a penny. It will do you good. Think no more of this woman! Listen,—I ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... so distraught could ramble here, From gentle beech to simple gorse, From glen to moor, nor cease to fear The world's impetuous bigot force, Which drives the young before they will, And when they will ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... the quaint little town which has scarcely altered since the days when Madame du Barry was dragged hence, screaming and wringing her hands, to Paris, to prison, and to the guillotine. Vanderlyn's distraught imagination saw something sinister in the profound quietude of the place; it was full of shuttered villas, for through the winter each village in the neighbourhood of Paris hibernates, those whom the peasants style les bourgeois still regarding country life ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... persisted Rob. "'Tis well known that the King never looked at him the first time he was shown the little imp, and next time, when he was not so distraught, he lifted up his hands and said he wotted nought of the matter. Hap what hap, King Harry may roam from Church to shrine, from Abbey to chantry, so long as he lists, but none of us will brook to be ruled or misruled by the foreign woman and the Beauforts in his name, nor ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... towards the door, but I caught her back with a sudden mind-vision of Aunt Olivia flying bareheaded and distraught ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... wanting to make this scene bewildering in sublimity? One? No. The auditor is Job, sitting in the ruin of home and love, and friendships and consequence among men, and good repute, and if, bending low, you will hear him, you shall know he is sobbing for children that are not. One lonely, distraught, mystified, sorely-beleagured, and still surely-trusting man,—this is the audience. The scene is a tawny desert, once sown to oases of flowers, and billowing grain, and stately palm-tree, and olive-groves, now harvestless, flowerless, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... There were two doctors and four or five nurses, with a dozen soldiers under command of Lieutenant Bray. It was while the apparently dead Bansemer was being moved to the improvised hospital that Jane presented herself, distraught with fear, to the young Southerner who had so plainly shown his love for her. She pleaded with him to start at once for Manila with the wounded, supporting her extraordinary request with the opinion that they could not receive proper ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... on in front of him—at the battery. He now saw clearly the figure of a red-haired gunner with his shako knocked awry, pulling one end of a mop while a French soldier tugged at the other. He could distinctly see the distraught yet angry expression on the faces of these two men, who evidently did not realize what they ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... thoughtfully, "Of course I didn't know then that it wouldn't always be there. Schoolboys have limited imaginations. I suppose I thought it was an awfully jolly thing to have it there, to know my way back to it, but there was the school tugging at me. I expect I was a good deal distraught and inattentive that morning, recalling what I could of the beautiful strange people I should presently see again. Oddly enough I had no doubt in my mind that they would be glad to see me... Yes, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... small talk with Miss Prendergast. They were the longest twenty minutes I have ever spent. I was dead tired in any case, but my desperate position kept my thoughts so busy that, for all my endeavours to be polite, I fear my conversation was extremely distraught. ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... thou wilt be distraught, poring over these matters that were never meant for lads like us! Do but come and drive them out for once with mirth and ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... railways. His eyes leaped from moundlike piles of tailings, the powdery crush spit out by the concentrating mills, to boulder-like heaps of rocks that had been wheeled away to save the teeth of the mills, and his ears turned distraught from the groaning clank of unwieldy iron tubs, swinging up through skeleton shafts, to the sputtering plunk-plunk of drill engines and ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... Consul afterwards told the pastor of Benz, clenched my fists and answered, "What, thou arch rogue, didst thou not crawl about the room in the shape of a reptile?" whereupon he would hearken to me no longer, thinking me distraught, nor would he make the constable take an oath, but left me standing in the midst of the room, and got ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... his uncle, never ventured to question him as to what was done with the money acquired by his labor and that of his wife and daughter. He walked the streets with a bowed head, hiding from every eye his stricken, dull, distraught face. He felt, with self-reproach, that the cloth he wore ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... is distraught by cares or pleasantry, or tortured by the violence of his wishes and desires, the genius in him is enchained and cannot move. It is only when care and desire are silent that the air is free enough for genius to live in it. It is then that the bonds of matter ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... what she wanted, and he had promptly married her. To-night a very different sort of girl—driven wild by doubts and youth, by poverty and riches—had let him see the fierceness of her nature. She went out still distraught, not knowing or caring what she had shown him. But to Archie knowledge of that sort was obligation. Oh, he was the same old ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... expected. However, his stilts were soon in working order, and whilst the watchers held their breath for fear, the man accomplished his task. Smashing a pane of glass, he roused the little sleeper, who, owing to the terrible mistake of a well-nigh distraught maid, had been left alone in ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... no idea," Ruth replied calmly. "But I think that when we are nervous and distraught as you are, we magnify our sins as well as ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... winds, whose fitful sound Seems from some faint Aeolian harp-string caught; Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thought As Hermes with his lyre in sleep profound The hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound; For I am weary, and am overwrought With too much toil, with too much care distraught, And with the iron crown of anguish crowned. Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and cheek, O peaceful Sleep! until from pain released I breathe again uninterrupted breath! Ah, with what subtile meaning did the Greek Call thee the lesser mystery at ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... hang on you as heavy as your chains of gold, to drag you down to him in whose name you have thought to cast out devils. Do not think that these things are harmless vanities. Nothing can fill the human heart and be harmless. If your thoughts be not of God, they will keep your minds distraught from His grace as effectually as the blackest broodings of crime. 'Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number, saith the Lord God.' Yes, your minds are too puny to ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... old, shaggy and blear-eyed: he had been young with his dead mistress, and had seemed to grow old when she died. He had fretted incessantly during that year of her husband's widowhood, whimpering and moaning about the house like a distraught creature, and following the man in a heavy melancholy when he made his pilgrimages to the grave. He continued those pilgrimages after the man had forgotten, but the heavy iron gate of the Abbey clanged in his face, and since he could not reach the grave his ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... them, the timid, harmless little thing, like a creature distraught. "Didn't you see it? ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... him now, standing self-confidently on his own private quay, with the most chic of Virginian cigarettes smouldering between his aristocratic lips and the very latest and most elegant of Bond Street Khaki Neckwear distinguishing him from the mixed crowd about him. Every one else is distraught; even matured Generals, used to the simple and irresponsible task of commanding troops in action, are a little unnerved by the difficulties and intricacies of embarking oneself militarily. He on whom all the responsibility rests remains aloof. A smile, half cynical, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... fourth. None appeared whose meek graces were sufficiently attractive, or whose dowries were sufficiently large. Meantime the nine olive-branches grew wild, the servants revelled, the ministerial digestion suffered, the sacred shirts went buttonless, and their wearer was wellnigh distraught. At this crisis he saw Prudence, and fell into a way of seating himself before the well-endowed spinster, with a large cambric pocket-handkerchief upon his knee, a frequent tear meandering down his florid countenance, and volcanic sighs agitating his ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... appealingly round, the other old woman took her hand, and pressing it led her to a chair. Two of the men sprang quickly up the stairs. They were absent but a short while, and then they came down like men bewildered and distraught. No need to speak. A low wail of utter misery rose from the women, and was caught up and repeated by the crowd outside, for the only man who could have set their hearts at rest had escaped the perils of the deep, and died ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... around him with a distraught look. O God! Yes, that was also in vain—would also be in vain. Despite all his courage he felt weak as he stood there. Here was night and loneliness and the wood and the water—he had seen it all before, it was familiar to him—but ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... madness, and is this picture of the distraught priest, setting forth to sail the seas with his dead lady, not an invention that Nanteuil might have illustrated, and ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... the attention of the mob was diverted from the door. A woman had torn into the corridor and was struggling frantically to make a lane for herself. There was something compelling about her, something in her pale, distraught face that commanded the respectful surrender of the crowd. They made a passage for her, ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... the summer in his house of treasure in the rue Fortunee, he again left, in September, 1848, for Wierzchownia, this time determined to return with his shield or upon it. During his prolonged stay of eighteen months, while his distraught mother was looking after affairs in his new home, his health became so bad that he could not finish the work outlined during the summer. No sooner had he recovered from one malady than he was overtaken by another. ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... was revealed in all its revolting nudity. Mrs. Delancy recalled, with new understanding of its fatal significance, the aloof manner recently worn by the young husband in his home. So, this was the ghastly explanation of the change: The man was a bigamist! The distraught woman had hardly ears for the words her niece ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... thorns in the unfrequented paths of the forest. His head was bare of covering, his locks disheveled; his face and hands were of an uneven dark color as though stained with some decoction unskilfully applied. His whole manner was so distraught that Francis ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... tired, distraught! You don't know what you are saying! You are to go straight home and sleep, for hours, then come out refreshed and gloriously happy to meet me where and when you like! And we will fix everything down to the very smallest detail, oh! dear heart, think of it! and this ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... her intensely, pleadingly, his finger on his lips—"but I—never felt like that before. I got terribly—nervous, and I felt that if I did not get away from that house I should go mad." Even the recollection made Nina look so distraught that her aunt's indignation turned to anxiety, and she put her arm around the girl and led ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... more turbulence, more danger and disquiet, more of my people's blood!" He motioned to the young man, and drawing him to the window, while Adam returned to his model, put the papers in his hand. "Allerton," he said, "thou lovest me, but thou art one of the few in this distraught land who love also God. Thou art not one of the warriors, the men of steel. Counsel me. See: Margaret demands my signature to these papers; the one, empowering and craving the levy of men and arms in the northern counties; the other, promising ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was spoilt for him. He sat distraught, fingering his bread between the courses which he scarcely tasted, and giving answers at random, after pauses, to the Bishop's small-talk. He was wounded. He had lived for years a life as happy as any that ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... books and papers, and the poor author on his return went mad, beating his head against the door of his palace, and raving blasphemous words. In vain his friends tried to comfort him, and the poor man wandered away into the woods, his mind utterly distraught by the ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... time she found that she had left her chair and was ranging wildly to and fro between the door and window. She halted, and the mirror of her dressing-table mocked her with the counterfeit presentment of herself, pallid and distraught in all the petty prettiness of ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... Marc'antonio, "we have seen him at length and had word with him. When we told him that you were here in Genoa, he looked at us for a moment like a man distraught—did he ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... distraught between suspense and hope for her little one, who had been missing for six long hours, blinked away a tear on her lashes and ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... had ceased to love in the world's way was nearer to him, more closely, more divinely his, than she had been in the hour of his greatest ecstasy. The appeal she made to him now, lying there helpless, distraught and unlovely, was an appeal which is woven of the strongest fibres in the heart of man—the appeal to the immortal soul to arise and discover its immortality. Connie cried out to him to save her—to save her from the world, from herself, from the hovering powers of evil, and he knew now that ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... Charmian up again. Antony had been unable to continue the conflict when parted from me. Now he sat in front of the cabin with his head resting on his hands, staring at the planks of the deck like one distraught. He, he—Antony! The bravest horseman, the terror of the foe, let his arms fall like a shepherd-boy whose sheep are stolen by the wolves. Mark Antony, the hero who had braved a thousand dangers, had flung down his sword. Why, why? Because a woman had yielded to idle fears, obeyed the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... cried, and being distraught He called not to her, but he looked again: She wore a tattered cloak, but she had naught Upon her head; and she did quake amain, And spread her wasted hands and poor attire To gather in ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... communicated. Be it understood, then, that these experiences are given as those of a person whose will, whose very soul and proprium had been temporarily subjugated by some other will or wills; and whose natural powers of discrimination were as much distraught as are those of the subjects of the itinerant biologist; who are made to believe, most firmly, that cayenne pepper is sugar, that water is fire, that a cane is a snake. As for the readers of this periodical who still insist that even animal and spiritual magnetism are humbugs, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... at night, when she suddenly found herself awake in the black loneliness, remembering Channing. Then she would jump out of bed and run into her husband's room, a distraught, white ghost of a figure, and climb in beside him to hide her head in the ready ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... unhealthy red, his hand trembled. Anger seized him, and he mumbled the words over and over again to himself. Twice or thrice, as the paper lay in one hand, he struck it with the clinched fist of the other, muttering and distraught. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... I would retrace. These walls, this melancholy room, O'erpower me with a sense of gloom; The space is narrow, nothing green, No friendly tree is to be seen And in these halls, with benches filled, distraught, Sight, hearing fail me, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... like questions beset her the whole way home to Quebec, amid the frequent pauses of the talk, and underneath whatever she was saying. Half the time she answered yes or no to them, and not to what Dick, or Fanny, or Mr. Arbuton had asked her; she was distraught with their recurrence, as they teased about her like angry bees, and one now and then settled, and stung and stung. Through the whole night, too, they pursued her in dreams with pitiless iteration and fantastic change; and at dawn she ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... people. When he got into the big dark station Hugh saw thousands of people rushing about like disturbed insects. Unnumbered thousands of people were going out of the city at the end of their day of work and trains waited to take them to towns on the prairies. They came in droves, hurrying along like distraught cattle, over a bridge and into the station. The in-bound crowds that had alighted from through trains coming from cities of the East and West climbed up a stairway to the street, and those that were out-bound tried to descend ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... was like a man distraught. He leapt up from the table and faced full upon his guests, and cried, "Now you know what it is; and now you know why you are bidden to this supper! You are here to rejoice with me over my enemies! Drink! drink! Confusion ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... Men. And on the tenth day after the battle, Iron-face and his two sons and Stone-face were sitting about sunset under a great oak-tree by that stream-side which ran through the Mote-stead; there also was Folk-might, somewhat distraught because of his love for the Bride, who was now mending of her hurts. As they sat there in all content they saw folk coming toward them, three in number, and as they drew nigher they saw that it was old Hall-ward of the Steer, and the Sun-beam and Bow-may following ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... that any human being has ever been called upon to bear. It was by the merest accident that I heard of you. I have been to the police; they cannot—will not—act without I furnish them with certain information which it is not in my power to give them. Then when I was half distraught with despair, a kindly agent there spoke to me of you. He said that you were attached to the police as a voluntary agent, and that they sometimes put work in your way which did not happen to be within their own scope. He also said that sometimes ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... be other than straightforward?" Thorpe said, breathing hard, and making an evident effort at self-control. "I have nothing to conceal, and if I seem distraught, it is, ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... when your friend proves himself to be distraught, the proper friendly thing to do is to think for him, became ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... work for me; but it was not so much you as mother that we were thinking of. It will be terrible for her when the news comes that her father and brothers are all killed, and that you are lying here sorely wounded. It will be well nigh enough to drive her distraught. But if she were to come over here at once she would, while busying about you, have less time to brood over her griefs; and, indeed, I see not why she should be told what has happened at Vordwyk ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... "Avery, hush! You are distraught. You don't know what you are saying." Mrs. Lorimer drew her back to her chair with tender insistence. "Sit down, darling! And try—do try—to be quiet for a little! You are worn out. I don't think you can ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... conscious best as she recognised his, which was that of a man of men, splendid in his strong prime. And she told him who she was, and a few other things, as they stood on the pavement—she so graceful in her mature self-possession, he staring at her, stupidly distraught, like ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... the republican Baburin. After the conversation with my grandmother, he went at once to his room and began packing up. He did not vouchsafe me one word, one look, though I was the whole time hanging about him, or rather, in reality, about Punin. The latter was utterly distraught, and he too said nothing; but he was continually glancing at me, and tears stood in his eyes ... always the same tears; they neither fell nor dried up. He did not venture to criticise his 'benefactor'—Paramon ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... friends. A total wreck. Nothing was left to provide for them. They had all three an uncompromising feeling for moral purity, which made their suffering all the greater from the dishonor of which they were innocent. Of the three Antoinette was the most distraught by their sorrow, because she had never really known suffering. Madame Jeannin and Olivier, though they were racked by it, were more inured to it. Instinctively pessimistic, they were overwhelmed but not surprised. The idea of death had always been a refuge to them, as it ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... weary afternoon, and not alone to Polly. The children were distraught and restless, and things went wrong. The bell for dismissal struck ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... O'Brien had been growing progressively distraught, and his face now had the gray-over-brown hue of a walnut gunstock that has been out in the rain all day. "It'll take an hour or so to send for them ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... the same moment I fell upon the brocaded satin state bed and tore off my hat and gloves like one distraught. ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... breakfast on the tiny terrace of a restaurant overlooking Bryant Park, where, during the first days of their honeymoon, they had always breakfasted. For sentimental reasons they now revisited it. But Dolly was eager to return at once to the flat and pack, and Carter seemed distraught. He explained that he had had ...
— The Man Who Could Not Lose • Richard Harding Davis
... with facetious intent, called "the Boss of Little Arcady" now began to wear a mien of defiance. From being confessedly distraught, he displayed, as the days went by, a spiritual uplift that fell but little short of arrogance. He did not permit any reason to be revealed for this marked change of demeanor. He was confident but secretive, serene but ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... she died in the reign of Ptolemy Auletes, who is named the Piper, so did the old wife, Atoua, told me, my mother took a golden uraeus, the snake symbol of our Royalty of Egypt, from a coffer of ivory and laid it on my brow. And those who saw her do this believed that she was distraught of the Divinity, and in her madness foreshadowed that the day of the Macedonian Lagidae was ended, and that Egypt's sceptre should pass again to the hand of Egypt's true and Royal race. But when my father, the old High Priest Amenemhat, whose only child ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... mechanically. His body told him to eat, and so he ate without knowing or caring what. His distraught mind was traveling swiftly through the barren paths of hopelessness and despair, while yet he had to keep his children in countenance under their fire of childish prattle. Many times he could have flung aside his mask and given up, but the ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... She stood—wrapped apparently in painful abstraction—a creature lovely and distraught. The masses of her fair hair loosened by the breeze on the canal had fallen about her cheeks and shoulders; her black hat framed the white brow and large, feverish eyes; and the sable cape she had ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... taken substance. She saw pale faces staring at her; she saw on the rusty truckle-bed a figure which rose up and held out frantic, desperate arms toward her. But it was no dream—no phantom. Mrs. Cary, wild-eyed and distraught, struggled to rise to her feet ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... prolonged—weakened nature reasserted her rights and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance. She pillowed the loved one's head upon her breast, she kissed the dear, tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality, ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... less distraught, Hester might have marked and sighed over his sudden relapse into odiousness. But she had risen with a white face; for scream folllowed scream overhead, and ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the Channel at night. My mother, who was living in England, was roused up in the middle of the night by the apparition of my father. She declares that she saw him quite distinctly standing by her bedside, looking anxious and distraught. Knowing that at that moment he was in mid-Channel, she augured that some disaster had overtaken him or the boy. She said, 'Is there some trouble?' He said, 'There is; the boy——' and then he faded from her sight. The curious ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... with the dark, Byway, where the ears may hark; Live and fierce when day is done, You, that do without the Sun:— What's this game you bring to nought?— Muttering like a thing distraught, Reckoning like a simpleton? (Since the hearing must be brief,— Living or a dying thief!) Cobbled with the anguished stones That the thoroughfare disowns; Stones they gave you for your bread Of the disinherited! Where the Towers of Hunger ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody
... faithful vow of endless love, Thy heart inflamed may kindly move With equal fire; O then my joys, So long distraught, shall rest, Reposed soft in thy chaste breast, Exempt ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... minutes, and looked like one newly awakened and very much amazed, then, to the great surprise of those about her, she rose without any aid, and stood holding by her high staff, while, with a slightly distraught air, she bowed to them, first ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... but not a crime; but that if I would not pardon her, she, too, would die. All that sincere repentance has of tears, all that sorrow has of eloquence, she exhausted in order to console me; pale and distraught, her dress deranged, her hair falling over her shoulders, she kneeled in the middle of her chamber; never have I seen anything so beautiful, and I shuddered with horror as my senses ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... granite; while others, at opposite angles of the walls, are practicing signals with flags, the maneuvers of the latter being quite entertaining as they wave the banners, now slowly, now rapidly, diagonally, vertically, horizontally, or frantically overhead, as if suddenly distraught. Probably this exercise could be seen in any of our forts; but as we are now beyond the borders of the United States, every detail interests us, and we have become astonishingly observant. The gloomy and massive bomb proof walls of the soldiers' quarters appear quite prison-like, ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... better take some one with you?" I heard the "King" call after me, but I was too distraught to reply, plunging headforemost through the tangled darkness—my brain boiling like a cauldron with anger and a thousand fears, and my heart stung too with wild unreasoning remorse. After ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... but his pride had softened him, so he drew off. Then other red dragons came upon him in his wounds and beat him sore, which seeing, the white dragon dashed upon them all—and I awoke. Merlin, tell me what this may mean, for my mind is sore distraught with the vision.' ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... Government had led the way of flight. They were afraid, and there was panic in their exodus, but even that was not hysterical, and men and women kept their heads, though they had lost their hopes. It was rare to see a weeping woman. There was no wailing of a people distraught. Sadly those fugitives left the city which had been all the world to them, and the roads to the south were black with their multitudes, having left in fear but full of courage on the road, dejected, but even then finding a comedy in the misery of it, laughing —as most French women will laugh ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... she became as she were the full moon when it shineth forth. So they displayed her in this, for the first dress, before King Shah Zaman, who rejoiced in her and well-nigh swooned away for love-longing and amorous desire; yea, he was distraught with passion for her, whenas he saw her, because she was as saith of her one of her ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... mind is not so well balanced but that he bores my Lady, who, after a languid effort to listen, or rather a languid resignation of herself to a show of listening, becomes distraught and falls into a contemplation of the fire as if it were her fire at Chesney Wold, and she had never left it. Sir Leicester, quite unconscious, reads on through his double eye-glass, occasionally stopping to remove his glass and express approval, as "Very true indeed," "Very properly put," ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Faithful, give me three days' delay," and the Caliph rejoined, "I have granted this to thee." Hereupon Ja'afar went forth like unto one blind and deaf, unseeing nor hearing aught, and he was perplext and distraught as to his affair and continued saying, "Would Heaven we had not forgathered with this youth, nor ever had seen the sight of him." And he ceased not faring till he arrived at his own house, where he changed ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... by the window lay the little girl, heavy-eyed and crimson. The elder boy had come to the stupor that precedes death, the other was restless with a half delirium. Jenny Byrne's round rosy cheeks had vanished, and her eyes had a distraught look, the lurking fear of coming woe. She stared at Jack a moment, then stretched out her hand, ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... of a great career and of a great romance of love. Leonie Leon was half distraught at the death of the lover who was so soon to be her husband. She wandered for hours in the forest until she reached a convent, where she was received. Afterward she came to Paris and hid herself away in a garret of the slums. All the light of her life had gone out. She ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... terrified and distraught; she began to shift from foot to foot without moving from the place, and spluttered comically, as if she wanted to say something and couldn't. I waited to see what would come of all this, and I saw and ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... commerce. In addition to all this paid "advice," there is of course the unpaid, voluntary "advice," equally disinterested and helpful, of the various foreign legations in Peking. No wonder the poor old Chinese Government is distraught and, as some one said last evening, in a state of anarchy. Who wouldn't be in the circumstances? I wonder how long Washington would tolerate such a string of "advisers," all appointed willy-nilly, and paid for by the American Government. They say that some one once wrote a book entitled, ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... ago. As to your wedding, naturally we chaffed, Knowing the length of time it takes to do A simple thing like that in this slow world. Indeed, Max, 'twas a dream. Forgive me then. I'll burn the drug if you prefer." But Breuck Muttered and stared,—"A lie." And then he hurled, Distraught, this word at Franz: "Prove it. And when It's proven, I'll believe. That thing shall be ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... wool hat on the back of his unkempt woolly poll, his jaw dropping in idiotic amazement at sight of the party—he was a ludicrous figure in the bath of late sunshine that brought out every uncomely item of the picture. Preoccupied and distraught as I was, I saw how the dust from the stable floor floated in golden clouds to the cobwebbed rafters, as the sun struck past the man in the doorway and glorified the ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... could see that his face was colorless. His eyes were sunken, but shone with a peculiar brilliancy, and great beads of perspiration stood on his forehead. His whole appearance was that of a man distraught. Here was another tragedy! ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... King! We have all supped full of sorrow for his sake. We have cursed and hated his enemies, and drawn and quartered their vile carcases, and have dug them out of the darkness where the worms were eating them. We have been distraught with indignation, cruel in our fury; and I look back to-day, after fifteen years, and see but too clearly now that Charles Stuart's death ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... The distraught young man stood in the middle of the road and glared back at the town. He did not know the reporter George Willard and had no special feeling concerning the tall boy who ran about town gathering the town news. The reporter ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... after the funeral of the old queen, Bertrand of Artois came to Joan, distraught, dishevelled, in a state of agitation ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... expectation. He came into the room a quaint, stump figure of a man, whose effect of long trunk and short limbs was heightened by his fashionless trousers being let down too low. He had a noble face, with tossed hair, a distraught eye, and a fine aquilinity of profile, which made me think at once of Don Quixote and of Cervantes; but his nose failed to add that foot to his stature which Lamb says a nose of that shape will always give a man. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Do you recall the distraught lady in Ruddigore, who was always charmed into silence by the mystic word "Basingstoke"? More than once during Mr. CLAVELL SALTER'S over-elaborated speech I hoped that he would remember his constituency and take the hint. But he went on and on, occasionally dropping into a vein of sentiment and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... is the senseless use of certain words and phrases, which a good writer uses only when he must, Mr. Beckett always when he can. We give without comment a mere list of these:—maugre, 'sdeath, eke, erst, deft, romaunt, pleasaunce, certes, whilom, distraught, quotha, good lack, well-a-day, vermeil, perchance, hight, wight, lea, wist, list, sheen, anon, gliff, astrolt, what boots it? malfortunes, ween, God wot, I trow, emprise, duress, donjon, puissant, sooth, rock, bruit, ken, eld, o'ersprent, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... ashes hear or care? Nay, praise and fame are by the living sought; But he is wise who scorns their flattery, And who escapes the tongue of calumny May count himself an angel or a naught: Lo over Byron's grave a maggot writhes distraught. ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... influence that Wordsworth confessed it was; while as for the history of the matter, there are who hold that 'Sir Patrick Spens,' for example, is the work of Lady Wardlaw, which to others, myself among them, is a thing preposterous and distraught. ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... noted the door-handles, as to their brightness, rated poor Ike about the table appointments, and pointed out when and how work should be done—told how he managed in his business, and how we should manage in ours. I was almost distraught with annoyance; and, kind as my aunt had been, I wished for the time of her departure silently, but as earnestly as did my servants. Heaven pardon me for my inhospitality ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... the Condy's Fluid, chlorine-water, and carbolic acid washes. Mrs. Mallowe kept to her own rooms she considered that she had made sufficient concessions in the cause of humanity and Mrs. Hauksbee was more esteemed by the Doctor as a help in the sick-room than the half-distraught mother. ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... innocence, and proffered help. But the prisoner refused legal aid, and conducted his own defence—how ably history records. Madeline was present at the closing scene, in her wedding dress. Her father was all but broken in his grief for daughter and friend. Walter was distraught by the havoc he had caused, and in doubt whether, after all, his action had not been too impetuous. The court was deeply impressed by the prisoner's defence. But the judge's summing-up was all against the accused, and the verdict was "Guilty!" ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... pulled this way and that, and is half distraught; but he has stated with as much positive assurance as such a man can assume, that the match must be regarded as broken off unless you will ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... authoritative tone of voice to see Xaxaguana. It was perfectly evident, even to one less experienced than Huanacocha in matters pertaining to the temple routine and its discipline, that some very unusual occurrence had happened, for everybody about the place seemed excited, agitated, distraught; but Huanacocha was, of course, well known to every inhabitant of the City of the Sun, and presently someone was found possessing enough authority to deal with the great man's request, or command, rather, and in the course of ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... aloud for the house of my lover; the open road and the shelter of a roof are all one to her who has lost the city of her husband. My heart finds no joy in anything: my mind and my body are distraught. His palace has a million gates, but there is a vast ocean between it and me: How shall I cross it, O friend? for endless is the outstretching of the path. How wondrously this lyre is wrought! When its strings are rightly strung, it maddens the heart: but when the keys are broken and the strings ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... She was so distraught that she could not stay in the dining room. With a sudden violent movement she grasped his arm and dragged him away with her upstairs to the bedroom, where she threw herself exhausted on the sofa. ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... the doctor safe voyage to Wreck Cove; and all that day, and all the next, while the gale still blew, my sister was nervous and downcast, often at the window, often on the heads, forever sighing as she went about the work of the house. And when I saw her thus distraught and colourless—no warm light in her eyes—no bloom on her dimpled cheeks—no merry smile lurking about the corners of her sweet mouth—I was fretted beyond description; and I determined this: that when the doctor got back from Wreck Cove ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan |
