"Diverting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... undergraduates as well as their betters, to minister to their comfort and enjoyment. And he was well repaid. There was something perfectly new to the ladies, and very piquaut in the life and habits of the place. They found it very diverting to be receiving in Tom's rooms, presiding over his breakfasts and luncheons, altering the position of his furniture, and making the place look as pretty as circumstances would allow. Then there was pleasant occupation for every spare hour, and the fetes and amusements were all ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... story, he laughed till he fell backward and said to Bakoun, "O my nurse, this is indeed a rare story; I never heard its like. Hast thou any more?" "Yes," answered she and went on to tell him diverting stories and laughable anecdotes, till sleep overcame him. Then she sat by him till the most part of the night was past, when she said to herself, "It is time to profit by the occasion." So she unsheathed the dagger and drawing near to Kanmakan, was ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... the rear gate of the Elmhurst grounds, and she had given him accurate information concerning the movements of the girl campaigners. The description she gave of the coming reception to the Woman's Political League was so humorous and diverting that they were both laughing heartily over the thing when the young people passed them, and thus Mr. Hopkins failed to notice who the occupants ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... these, it were kinder and wiser to give diverting thoughts, and a new outlook, and to open up avenues for pleasure, and entertainment, and profit, in place of tears ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... only to perjure herself subsequently, by creating rotten boroughs and dispensing titles and millions of gold, for the purpose of controlling those very same affairs, not only more effectually than ever, but with the further view of diverting all the resources of the country out of their legitimate channels into her own hands, so that she should be at once the tyrant, and the purse and conscience keeper of our race. They remember all this, we say, and now they are about to call upon her for an account of her stewardship, and make her ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... overlarded his vocabulary. In the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson] or any other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca. "His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most complete exposure, and a ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... customs of the country, they were passing a very innocently diverting afternoon; and Margaret, though secretly annoyed at finding that Barker would not talk about Claudius, or add in any way to her information, was nevertheless congratulating herself upon the smooth termination of the interview. She had indeed only accepted the invitation in the hope of ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... officer. The boys had now gone on ahead, leaving the prisoners' escorts posted here and there along the trench to guard them. This Prussian officer was standing a few feet away from Billy, on his right, and something diverting Bill's attention from him, the Prussian officer, in strict accordance with the Prussian code of honor, seized the opportunity, grabbed a rifle, and was about to plunge the bayonet into Billy, but he turned just in time to catch him in the act and avoid him. He ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... serious, more pleasant, and more diverting withal, than a boy's brooding or exultation—one is the complement of the other—over his first girl. As, to a great extent, a man is moulded by the woman he marries, so to no less a degree is a boy's character turned and shaped by the girl he adores. Either he descends ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... to supper till late, and in order to amuse themselves while the beef was preparing, a Mandingo was desired to relate some diverting stories, in listening to which, and smoking tobacco, they spent three hours. These stories bear some resemblance to those in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, but in general are of a ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... sincerely honest eyes. "Are there blacks on my nose?" Although she had distinctly refused him at Kalsing, as became a girl destitute of vanity and coquetry and attached to some one else, she had not found him the less fluent, omnipresent, persuasive, at Niagara. It was diverting to see them seated side by side on Goat Island, he waving his hand toward the blue sky, apostrophizing the water, the foliage, the clouds, and what not, in prose and verse, quite content if he but got a quiet glance and assenting word now and then, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... sans-culottes workmen" have been drawn up in each section, and six francs a head is allowed them, payable by the Convention, as indemnity for their temporary suspension from work;[34151] this is a premium offered to voters, and as nothing is more potent than cash in hand, Pache provides the funds by diverting 150,000 francs intended for the colonists in San Domingo; the whole day on the 2nd of June, trusted men go about among the ranks distributing five-franc assignats.[34152] Vehicles loaded with supplies accompany each battalion, the better to keep the men under arms;[34153] the stomach needs ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Without the masses, novenaries, and processions, where will you find games of panguingui to entertain them in their hours of leisure? They would then have to devote themselves to their household duties and instead of reading diverting stories of miracles, we should then have to get them works ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... current issues: government water control projects have drained most of the inhabited marsh areas east of An Nasiriyah by drying up or diverting the feeder streams and rivers; a once sizable population of Shi'a Muslims, who have inhabited these areas for thousands of years, has been displaced; furthermore, the destruction of the natural habitat poses serious threats to the area's wildlife populations; inadequate ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... madmen's cunning and diverting suspicion, and relapsed into silence. Trevor seized the opportunity to make the proposal he had come to make, that Donaldson's v. Seymour's should be played ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... Pieces of pleasantry and mirth have a secret charm in them to allay the heats and tumults of our spirits, and to make a man forget his restless resentment. The main design of this weekly paper will be to entertain the town with the most comical and diverting incidents of human life, which in so large a place as Boston will not fail of a universal exemplification. Nor shall we be wanting to fill up these papers with a grateful interspersion of more serious morals which may be drawn from the most ludicrous ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... had the whimsical habit of diverting herself, when visiting portrait galleries, by looking for faces that resembled those of her heroines. She was continually on the watch for Elizabeth, but never came upon her. She found Mrs. Bingley, "in a white gown with green ornaments," but not Mrs. Darcy ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... thereby what must otherwise have been a brilliant victory was turned into a miserable defeat. He had insisted upon the movement from Cape Colias being aided by the march of the main body of the army direct from the Piraeus to the hills, thus diverting the attention of many of the Turks while the advancing party and the garrison were uniting; but Zavella, to whom this part of the work had been entrusted, never moved at all. He had urged yet more ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... himself in theatrical costume (to amuse his parents), but those fellows haven't sufficient spirit to come in some stage togs and try and make you have a laugh, dear ancestor. I've however succeeded, after ever so much exertion, in so diverting you as to induce you to eat a little more than you would, and in putting everybody in good humour; and I should be thanked by one and all of you; it's only right that I should. But can it be that you will, on the contrary, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the speaker had already overstepped his time, looking nervously at his program as if something of enormous importance had been forgotten, and doing a dozen similar things, most of them unconsciously, but none the less continuously diverting the attention of the audience from ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... alleviate the loss or want of fortune or reputation, or any other advantages which it is not in man's power to bestow upon himself, they might have been justly mentioned as instances of a philosophical mind, and very properly proposed to the imitation of multitudes, who, for want of diverting their imaginations with the same dexterity, languish under afflictions which might ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... green, and handfuls of sweets were tossed into my lap; while laughter, and gay badinage greeted us from every side. Cassion took this rather grimly, and gave stern word to the soldier escort, but I found it all diverting enough, and had hard work to retain my dignity, and not join in the merriment. It was darker at the foot of the hill, yet the crowd did not diminish, although they stood in ankle deep mud, and seemed less vivacious. Now and then I heard some voice name Cassion as we passed, recognizing ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... her for something diverting. At no great distance was a little baby in a blue cloak. Not a very attractive baby, but a great deal better ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
... in possession of information which led them to suppose that we intended to apply pressure on the right of our line, and that their great attack upon Ypres on the 7th, 8th, and 9th was undertaken with a view to diverting ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Sarah!" Blue Bonnet exclaimed, grateful to Knight for so tactfully diverting the subject. "That reminds me of the day she first rode Comanche at the ranch. The girls made such fun of her, but she stayed with him gloriously. That was Sarah's first experience with a horse with ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... still doing its work of deception. Under various forms it exhibits the same spirit as in the days of Luther, diverting minds from the Scriptures, and leading men to follow their own feelings and impressions rather than to yield obedience to the law of God. This is one of Satan's most successful devices to cast ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... at "The Wilderness." Mrs van Huysman did not contribute much wisdom to it beyond the assertion of her conviction that such things were wicked and should be stopped by law, at which her daughter was sufficiently unfilial to draw a diverting picture of a stalwart policeman trying to arrest an elusive adept who could probably make himself invisible at will, or call to his aid fire-breathing dragons, just as easily as he could make a tennis ball evaporate into thin air, or grow ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... I were reading confidential suggestions for diverting attention and explaining away the sightings; suggestions made by Project members and probably ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... spirit. She herself, spurred to emulation, told her favourite story, which began, "In the Great Exhibition of Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-one, when her Majesty—long may she reign!—partook of a public luncheon—" and contained a most diverting incident about a cherry-pie. And always, at decent intervals, ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... night, superior to annoyance, yet unable always to control herself when her whole soul was given to the care of her child, Henriette needed the support of a friendship which might lighten the burden of her life, were it only by diverting her husband's mind. Though I was now most impatient to rival the career of my brother, who had lately been sent to the Congress of Vienna, and was anxious at any risk to justify Henriette's appeal and become a man myself, freed from all vassalage, ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... commonplaces, nearly all hypocritical in their origin, became very funny, very engaging, when they were uttered in Lena's soft voice, with her caressing intonation and arch naivete. Nothing could be more diverting than to hear Lena, who was almost as candid as Nature, call a leg a "limb" or a ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... she carried on, in addition, an animated correspondence with numberless frauds—antique dealers, charities, professional poor relations, social workers, and others of that ilk—which proved tremendously diverting to her amanuensis, especially when it transpired that Mrs. Gosnold had a mind and temper of her own, together with a vocabulary amply adequate to her powers of ironic observation. This last gift came out strongly in her diary, a daily record of ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... things on earth, and that to be scandalized by them was infantile. Sophia, thrust suddenly into a strange civilization perfectly frank in its sensuality and its sensuousness, under the guidance of a young man to whom her half-formed intelligence was a most diverting toy—Sophia felt mysteriously uncomfortable, disturbed by sinister, flitting phantoms of ideas which she only dimly apprehended. Her eyes fell. Gerald laughed self-consciously. She would not eat any ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... him instead of weakening it. The fact that he could ask advice so calmly made her think that, probably, he would be calm in taking it if she could offer it. It steadied her and helped her think. And then she saw him spring, and, actually with a smile, strike in the air above her head, diverting from its downward path which would have landed it upon her, a flaming fragment of pine-top fully five ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... this day, so much as put his foot outside the door of his room, but sat all alone sad and dejected, simply taking up his books, in order to dispel his melancholy fit, or diverting himself with his writing materials; while he did not even avail himself of the services of any of the family servants, but simply bade Ssu ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... when she raised her eyes, after conquering the laugh, was amazed to find how far advanced was the state dinner, usually so interminable. Her inquiries after the Athenian owl led to a diverting history of its capture at the Parthenon, and the adventures in bringing it home. She was sorry when she found Lady Martindale rising, while Mr. Fotheringham, as he drew back his chair, said, 'How shall you get on with Prae-Raffaelitism? I should like ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... arrangement similar to that shown in Fig. 18. [Footnote: PLATE IV] In this case calculations must be made to ascertain the depth at which the sewage will flow in the pipes at the time it is diluted to the required extent; this gives the level of the lip of the diverting plate. The ordinary sewage flow will pass steadily along the invert of the sewer under the plate until it rises up to that height, when the opening becomes a submerged orifice, and its discharging capacity becomes less than when the sewage was flowing freely. This restricts the flow of the ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... he was diverting them, began to make absurd mistakes on purpose, so that Elizabeth was forced to call him to order. Anne thought it best to leave the room, and Helen followed her, saying, 'We had better leave Lizzie to manage him by herself; she always ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... upon him, as she was wont to do, and to daunt men she knew not, stirred the blood of the young gentleman, insomuch as his colour went and came; which the Queen observing, called unto him, and gave him her hand to kiss, encouraging him with gracious words, and new looks, and so diverting her speech to the lords and ladies, she said that she no sooner observed him but she knew there was in him some noble blood, with some other expressions of pity towards his house; and then, again demanding his name, she said, "Fail you ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... appropriated term, with sensibility. How great the distance is in all, and that the lowest degrees are adopted as the exponent terms, not for their own sakes, but merely because they may be used with less hazard of diverting the attention from the kind by peculiar properties arising out of the degree, is evident from the third instance, unless the theorist can be supposed insane enough to apply sensation in good earnest to the effervescence of an acid or ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... inquiry was struck by the expression of Derues' countenance and by this half answer, which appeared to hide a mystery and to aim at diverting attention by offering a bait to curiosity. He might have stopped Derues at the moment when he sought to plunge into a tortuous argument, and compelled him to answer with the same clearness and decision which distinguished ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... materials for a bowl of punch were brought and the flame of burning rum soon cheered us with varied lights. The piano was abandoned for the table; then we had cards; everything passed off as I wished and we succeeded in diverting ourselves ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... dear cousin," (he continued, speaking lower, though there was no one else in the room) "in one point, I am sure, we must feel alike. We must feel that every addition to your father's society, among his equals or superiors, may be of use in diverting his thoughts from those ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... mass of steers, their hoofs pounding like distant artillery, their horns rattling like a continuous crash of riflery. Before them at a distance of a hundred yards or more a mounted Indian rode toward the farther side of the funnel and took his stand at the very spot at which there was some hope of diverting the rushing herd from the cut-bank down ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... pleasing and diverting company. There was Mere Killigrew, a quaint little old lady who deplored her daughter's occupation but admitted that without her success, Heaven only knew how they would have got along. There was the genial Thomas O'Mally, a low-comedian ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... and where they were kept. Through her crystal gazing she was able to conjure women's secrets without their realizing that they, not she, gave them to the light. And aboard the Monarchic was not by any means the first time that Madalena had been invaluable in diverting suspicion by throwing ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the depth of his troubles he speaks of a talk with a Scotch antiquary and herald as one of the things which soothed him most. "I do not know anything which relieves the mind so much from the sullens as trifling discussions about antiquarian old womanries. It is like knitting a stocking, diverting the mind without occupying it."[7] Thus his love of romantic literature was as far as possible from that of a mind which only feeds on romantic excitements; rather was it that of one who was so moulded by the transmitted and acquired love of feudal institutions with all their incidents, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... of sustained application. In a way he had been dimly suspicious of this since the day he had begun this pretence of work for his grandfather's old friend. To-day, at sight of a girl's steady concentration upon a wearisome task in spite of his own supposably diverting presence, it had been brought home to him with force that he was unquestionably reaping that inevitable product of protracted idleness: the loss of ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... and diverting of all," he says, "is the 'Mug-House Club,' in Long Acre, where every Wednesday and Saturday a mixture of gentlemen, lawyers, and tradesmen meet in a great room, and are seldom under a hundred. They have a grave old gentleman in his own grey hairs, now within a few months ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... manners and allusions are English, while the persons have Greek and Roman names significant of their tempers or positions. Here, again, the characterization is diversified and sustained with no little skill, while many of the incidents and situations are highly diverting. Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of the play is Cacurgus, a specimen of the professional domestic Fool that succeeded the old Vice. And he is one of the most remarkable instances of his class that have survived; ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... for a man trained as he, and, as for poetry, one can only expect to be "two years writing a Play, and sollicit three more to get it acted; and for present Sustenance one's forc'd to scribble The Diverting Post, A Dialogue between Charing-Cross and Bow Steeple, and Elegies upon People ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... not wanting other grounds for the suspicion that the articles were placed in the thicket with the view of diverting attention from the real scene of the outrage. And, first, let me direct your notice to the date of the discovery of the articles. Collate this with the date of the fifth extract made by myself from the newspapers. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... husband had treated the beauty very roughly on the wedding night, chastising her for what he regarded as a stain on his honour. Lyamshin, who was almost a witness of the affair, because he got drunk at the wedding and so stayed the night, as soon as day dawned, ran round with the diverting intelligence. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... inn-keeper, his mismated sentimental daughter, her worthless husband, and her former lover. They tangle themselves up in a series of low intrigues and are finally unmasked as one and all poor miserable sinners. Technically it is a good play—lively, diverting, well put together. But one can ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... and when "Jocund Johnny" was very commonly his croupier. There are stories enough of practical jokes upon such occasions, some of them near akin to those which the author of Humphrey Clinker has thought fit to record of his own suburban villa, in the most diverting of young Melford's letters to Sir Watkin Philips. I have heard, for example, a luculent description of poor Allister Campbell, and another drudge of the same class, running a race after dinner for a new pair ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... little while ago, that I happen'd (in Conversation) to meet with a long List of the Magistrates of that Age, in a neighbouring Country, that is to say, the Men of Fame among them; and it was a very diverting Thing to see the Judgment which was pass'd upon them among a great deal of good Company; it is not for me to tell you how many white Staves, Golden Keys, Mareshals Batoons, Cordons Blue, Gordon Rouge and Gordon Blanc, there were among them, or by what Titles, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... me. But your eminent men are all men of one idea, and that not a diverting one, politics! politics! politics! The storm in ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... still more diverting. Here under sheets of leaky awning, were exposed for sale rows of gilded gingerbread kings and queens, and I cannot remember how many men and women held me fast by the arms, determined to force me into buying a pound of them. We paused at the sign: ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... inflict her poem upon his patient ears, while he lay flat upon the grass looking up to the sky; Emily and Jane had promised to join them there in process of time, and the four younger ones were, as usual, diverting themselves among the farm buildings ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Though it wouldn't be more diverting to listen for hours to you improvising enharmonic variations on the Lament for Old Terra ...
— Control Group • Roger Dee
... his voice. She had found him amusing in the first days of their acquaintance, and possibly she might again find him diverting, but this afternoon he had chosen ill for his call. She was quite sure she detested him. For the first time she measured him by standards of which he could know nothing, and found no good thing in him. What had Marsh ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... may see you off. 4th. Are you any way comfortable? Don't be uneasy in your mind: we'll take care of you. Down with the landlords and agents. God save Ireland." Such communications as this are agreeable and amusing enough when addressed to a distant friend, but are hardly so diverting when directed to one's self. It is also disquieting to hear people say, as one passes, "He will not hear the ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... scouting expeditions, simply to provide him with action and diverting excitement. One of these expeditions determined the impossibility of entering the city through the railroad yards because of the trestle-work and the barricade of freight cars at the ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... alone to be subdued by harmony. Scarcely had I snatched some slight refreshment, before I flew to the great organ at St. Justina's, but tried, this time, to compose myself in vain. M. de R., finding my endeavours unsuccessful, proposed, by way of diverting my attention, that we should set out immediately for one of the Euganean hills about five or seven miles from Padua, at the foot of which some antique baths had very lately been discovered. I consented, without hesitation, little concerned whither I went, ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... the early privatization will involve converting state firms into joint-stock companies. The selling of shares to the public has not yet been worked out. Furthermore, the government has halted the old policy of diverting food from domestic consumption to hard currency export markets. So far, the government does not seem willing to adopt a thoroughgoing market system, that is, there is great caution in decontrolling prices because of public opposition. The government has sharply ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... living would deny Cinna the Applause of an agreeable and facetious Wit; or could possibly pretend that there is not something inimitably unforced and diverting in his Manner of delivering all his Sentiments in Conversation, if he were able to conceal the strong Desire of Applause which he betrays in every Syllable he utters. But they who converse with him, see that all the Civilities they could do to him, or the kind Things ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Don't be afraid, you may do it very easily, do as you have often done, that by some Elegancy we may rise from Table more learned; nor are you ignorant that the Ancients over the second Course used to dispute of some more diverting Subjects. Come on then, by what, and after how many Ways may this Sentence be vary'd, ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... He was forcibly struck with the impracticability of executing that part of it which was to be undertaken by the United States, should the British armies continue in their country; and with the serious mischief which would result to the common cause, as well from diverting so considerable a part of the French force from other objects to one which was, in his opinion, so unpromising, as from the ill impression which would be made on the court and nation by the total ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... began to run as fast as he could, taking the nearest way, and the little girl went by that farthest about, diverting herself in gathering nuts, running after butterflies, and making nosegays of such little flowers as she met with. The Wolf was not long before he got to the old woman's house. He knocked at the ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... although they were inured to the hardships and privations of incessant war. To all appearance the city was impregnable, and could be taken only by unusual methods. But the genius of the Persian conqueror, according to traditional accounts, surmounted all difficulties. Who else would have thought of diverting the Euphrates from its bed into the canals and gigantic reservoirs which Nebuchadnezzar had built for purposes of irrigation? Yet this seems to have been done. Taking advantage of a festival, when the whole population ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... our schools, we must let reason have fair and full play. If we reason, we must submit to the conditions of reason. We cannot use it by halves; we must use it as proceeding from Him who has also given us Revelation; and to be ever interrupting its processes, and diverting its attention by objections brought from a higher knowledge, is parallel to a landsman's dismay at the changes in the course of a vessel on which he has deliberately embarked, and argues surely some distrust either in the powers of Reason on the one hand, or the certainty of Revealed ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... hides. Obedient to the requisition of Constantine, they prepared, under the conduct of their magistrate Diogenes, a considerable army, of which the principal strength consisted in cross-bows and military chariots. The speedy march and intrepid attack of the Chersonites, by diverting the attention of the Goths, assisted the operations of the Imperial generals. The Goths, vanquished on every side, were driven into the mountains, where, in the course of a severe campaign, above a hundred ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Buell, wrest from the South the possession of Tennessee and Alabama—as a base for attack upon Georgia and cutting through to the seaboard; and to push the army under Grant down through Mississippi to the Gulf. These movements would not only weaken the Confederacy, by diverting so many men, ill to be spared, to watch the various columns; but would, moreover, wrest from it the great grain-producing and cattle-grazing sections from which the armies were mainly fed. Simultaneously with these ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... I shall tell you is of a trick which was actually played by a fair lady upon a booby religious, and which every layman should find the more diverting that these religious, being, for the most part, great blockheads and men of odd manners and habits, do nevertheless credit themselves with more ability and knowledge in all kinds than fall to the lot of the rest of the world; whereas, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Roger is diverting himself in the woods or the fields, is a very venerable man who is ever with Sir Roger, and has lived at his house in the nature of a chaplain above thirty years. This gentleman is a person of good sense ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... who in the mean time was diverting herself with his astonishment, opened the curtains of her bed suddenly, and bending her head forward, "My dear lord," said she, with a soft, tender air, "what do you do at the door? You have been out of bed a long time. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... And as nothing of an unusual nature occurred on the following night, we soon recovered our former cheerfulness, to the prejudice of the old Baronesses; for though there did still continue to be something ghostly about them and their odd manners, yet it emanated from a diverting ghost which the old gentleman knew how to call up in a ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... he could not, without breach of duty, either have chased or sent ships to chase out of the line." It is to be noted that the word "chase" is here used in the strictest technical sense, not merely to exclude Lestock from diverting a ship to some other purpose than that of the engagement, but even from shifting her place in the general order in the view of furthering the engagement; for the Court says again: "The Vice-Admiral could not send any ships of his division to the relief of the Namur and Marlborough ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... not easily discouraged; and, by dint of wit and impudence, for some time baffled the authorities. He invited his friends to attend the theatre, at noon, and "drink a dish of chocolate with him." He promised that he would "endeavour to make the morning as diverting as possible;" and notified that "Sir Dilbury Diddle would be there, and Lady Betty Frisk had absolutely promised." Tickets, without which no person would be admitted, were to be obtained at George's Coffee House, Temple Bar. Some simple visitors, no doubt, expected that chocolate ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... knows—at least every schoolboy has known—that a passage of Homer, rolling along in the hexameter or trumped out by Pope, will give one a hot glow of pleasure and raise a finer throb in the pulse; one knows that Homer is the easiest, most artless, most diverting of all poets; that the fiftieth reading rouses the spirit even more than the first—and yet we find ourselves (we are all alike) painfully pshaw-ing over some new and uncut barley sugar in rime, which a man in the street asked us if we had read, or it may be some learned lucubration about ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... the minority from deceiving and exploiting the majority? To disseminate knowledge? All this has been tried, and is being done with great fervor. All these imaginary methods of improvement represent the chief methods of self-oblivion and of diverting one's attention from the consciousness of inevitable perdition. The boundaries of States are changed, institutions are altered, knowledge is disseminated; but within other boundaries, with other organizations, with increased ...
— "Bethink Yourselves" • Leo Tolstoy
... are not respectable, but one does not hate them; and the gulls are perfection. If any character could be spared it is the "Angry Boy," a young person whose humours, as Jonson himself admits of another character elsewhere, are "more tedious than diverting." The Alchemist was followed by Catiline, and Catiline by Bartholomew Fair, a play in which singularly vivid and minute pictures of manners, very amusing sketches of character, and some capital satire ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... dear D'Artagnan, all that is opposite to what I formerly loved, and that is what must happen at the end of life, which is opposite to the beginning. A little of my odd pleasure of former times still comes to salute me here, now and then, without diverting me from the road of salvation. I am still of this world, and yet every step that I take brings ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... often find a pair of unsophisticated little girls won to her by her frankness and kindness, and dazzled by her goodness and greatness. How she awoke Fiddy's laugh with the Chit-Chat Club and the Silence Stakes. What harmless, diverting stories she told them of high life—how she had danced at Ranelagh, sailed upon the Thames, eaten her bun at Chelsea, mounted one of the eight hundred favours which cost a guinea a piece when Lady Die became a countess, and called upon Lady ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... that right soon. Sleep stimulates thought, and sometimes a pipe will bring sleep, but trust it not of itself for either thought or strength. It combats ennui, lassitude, and intolerable vacuity, soothing the nerves and diverting attention from self. Sam Johnson came very near the mark: 'I wonder why a thing that costs so little trouble, yet has just sufficient semblance of doing something to break utter idleness, should go out of fashion. To be sure, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... boat can go through any sea, and it is generally from want of care that accidents occur. On one occasion in Manilla Bay, I have been swamped solely from that cause, and the fright of a companion, whose alarm induced the catastrophe by diverting the men's attention. However, as an American whaler was luckily near and saw our situation, they lowered a whale-boat ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... buyers, he can easily enough secure them by reaching out through the columns of the daily and inducing people from other sections to come to him. Every time he influences a customer of a competitor he is not only irrigating his own field but is diverting the streams upon which a non-advertising merchant depends for existence. Men and women who live next door to a shop that does not plead for their custom will eventually be drawn to an establishment miles away because they have been made to believe ...
— The Clock that Had no Hands - And Nineteen Other Essays About Advertising • Herbert Kaufman
... pine-woods and the Alp. The whole of the nineteen copy books were actually read by Babie to Sydney and Armine; and Lord Fordham, over his sketches, submitted to hear a good deal. He told his mother that the story was the most diverting thing he had ever heard, with its queer mixture of childish simplicity and borrowed romance, of natural poetry and of infantine absurdity, of extraordinary knowledge and equally comical ignorance, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is really a very diverting farce. I observed that, in England also, they represent school-masters in ridiculous characters on the stage, which, though I am sorry for, I own I do not wonder at, as the pedantry of school- masters in England, they tell me, is carried at ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... by dialectics and by reasoning to conciliate opinions and beliefs, the disapprobation would have been general; but, as the conciliating and syncretic spirit manifested itself naturally in a diverting story, every one accepted and approved it, each one drawing from my book the conclusions that best suited himself. Thus it was that, from the most orthodox Jesuit father down to the most rabid revolutionist, and from the ultra-Catholic ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... negative thoughts, complaining endlessly about my irresponsible father and about how much she disliked him for treating her so badly. These emotions and their irresponsible expression were very difficult for me to deal with as a child, but it taught me to work on diverting someone's negative thoughts, and to avoid getting dragged into them myself, skills I had to use continually much later on when I began to manage mentally and physically ill clients on a ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... motives for his mission had failed him; already he perceived, though he scarce knew why, that William the Norman was the last man to whom he could confide his ambition, or trust for aid. One day, as, during a short truce with the defenders of the place they were besieging, the Normans were diverting their leisure with martial games, in which Taillefer shone pre-eminent: while Harold and William stood without their tent, watching the animated field, the Duke abruptly exclaimed to Mallet de Graville, "Bring me my bow. Now, Harold, let me see if ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of a novelty to be approved by the Hampshire mind. It was quite true that she could not watch that little adventurous spirit with the same absence of anxiety as she had felt for her own son in her younger days, and Anne had to devote herself to soothing and diverting her mind, till Dr. Woodford knocked at the door to read ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a diverting performance in sleeping-cars, and one objection to their use would be actually utilized as an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... Constantinople, such as his having been taken up on suspicion of a design of penetrating the seraglio, etc.; but, with the deepest convincement of this gentleman's own veracity, we think that some of the stories are of that whimsical, and others of that romantic nature, which, however diverting, would be out of place in a narrative of this kind, which aims not only at strict truth, but at avoiding the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... followed me. She had heard from Rosville all that had happened, but did not expatiate on it. Her letters were full of minute details respecting her affairs. It was her way of diverting me from the thoughts which she believed troubled me. "L.N." was expected soon. Since his last letter, she had caught herself more than once making inventories of what she would like to have in the way of a wardrobe for ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... Cecil maintained an offended silence, and Jim was too angry to talk, while Norah was silent and a little pale. However, Cecil retired to his room immediately he had finished; and the boys set themselves to the task of diverting Norah, fearful lest the evening's adventure should have any bad effect on her. They succeeded so well that by bedtime Norah had forgotten all her troubles, and was weak with laughter. When Wally set out "to blither," as he said, he did not do ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... find forces in the world which they partially understood; it was their merit to know how to manipulate those forces; it was their misfortune and their demerit that they proved themselves incapable of diverting those forces to any wholesome end. In Italy a succession of worldly Popes, Paul III., Julius III., Pius IV., and Gregory XIII., heaped favors and showered wealth upon the order. The Jesuits incarnated the political spirit of the Papacy at this epoch; they lent it a potency for good and evil ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... meet him," proposed old Abdullah, still bent on diverting her mind from its maddening grievance. "He cannot be far off, and to smell the air is ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... of Voltaire. France had outgrown the system that had brought her through the Middle Ages. The further development of her national life was fatally hindered by the tight bonds of an old order, which clung with the hardy tenacity of a thriving parasite, diverting from the roots all their sustenance, eating into the tissue, and feeding on the juices of the living tree. The picture has often been painted, and we need not try to paint it once more in detail here. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... this, le pere et la mere Jaurion sold their cheap goodies, and jealously guarded the gates that secluded us from the wicked world outside—where women are, and merchants of tobacco, and cafes where you can sip the opalescent absinthe, and libraries where you can buy books more diverting ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... cashiered. I suppose "he" (as Rogers calls everybody's husband) went out hunting with the idea of diverting his mind from dwelling on its ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... quick enough to balk our folk of their salvage: all day long—even while the ship was going to pieces—they swarmed upon her; and they loaded their punts again and again, fearlessly boarding, and with infinite patience and courage managed to get their heavensent plunder ashore. 'Twas diverting to watch them; and when the twins, who had been among the most active at the wreck, came at last to their father, I laughed to know that, as Timmie said, they had food enough ashore to keep the wrinkles out of their ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... describing the behaviour of Charles II. when in hiding after the battle of Worcester, says:—Under all the apprehensions he had then upon him, he shewed a temper so careless, and so much turned to levity, that he was then diverting himself with little household sports, in as unconcerned a manner, as if he had made no loss, and had been in no danger at all.—Swift. This might admit a more ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... of diverting the reader from myself to characters more worthy of his attention, has led me far beyond my 455 first intention; but it is not unimportant to expose the false zeal which has occasioned these attacks ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Virgin, in a gallery outside the great cathedral, near the roof, I fancied that the great piazza of the Winged Lion was a blaze of cheerful light, and that its whole arcade was thronged with people; while crowds were diverting themselves in splendid coffee-houses opening from it—which were never shut, I thought, but open all night long. When the bronze giants struck the hour of midnight on the bell, I thought the life and animation of the city were ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... neighbors, however,—the friends of the house—had smiled and passed on. They had no such forebodings. On the contrary nothing so diverting—nothing so enchanting—had happened around Kennedy Square in years. In fact, when one of these humorists began speaking about it, every listener heard the story in a broad grin. Some of the more hilarious even nudged each ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... concentrate all my energies upon that object, I am kept for months chafing under the petty tyrannies of a bullying officer, and deprived of most of the comforts that I have heretofore regarded as necessary to my existence. What good can be accomplished by diverting forces which should be devoted to the main struggle into this ignoble channel? That's what puzzles and ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... tremendous depth of conviction. At all events, supported by such writers as Weil, Sprenger, and Muir, we will say that it was a powerful religious movement founded on sincerest conviction, but gradually turned aside, and used for worldly purposes and temporal triumphs. And, in thus diverting it from divine objects to purely human ones, Mohammed himself led the way. He adds another, and perhaps the greatest, illustration to the long list of noble souls whose natures have become subdued to that which they worked in; who have sought high ends by low means; who, talking of the noblest ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... middle of the following afternoon Jerkline Jo's freight outfit, minus the diverting Mr. Tweet of the twisted nose, was wending its way empty back toward the distant mountains, hauling the necessary water ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... small force while the main bulk of his levies were gathering for the siege of Milan. The attack on Crema was cordially seconded by the citizens of the neighbouring Cremona, who gave their assistance in diverting the watercourses which ran through the city, and lent Frederic the most famous of living engineers to make his siege-machines. Crema was completely invested; and every known method of assault was tried. The ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... both their minds. Dwellings closely packed together destroy, or disturb, the finer vision of the grandeur, sternness, and depth of life. At Catesby, the solitude and the waves exercised their power over the spirit, diverting it from trivial speculations to awe and wonder. There, where the unseen could move freely and the invisible manifest itself on the perpetual rocks, the towering trees, the still green fields, and the vast acres of the ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... is not the time to analyze our diverting little domestic dissensions, and occupy ourselves with the quiet joys of our happy union! Your grace is, above all things, regent, and must give your attention to state affairs. Without are standing three most worthy, corpulent, tobacco-scented ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... own side. There had, indeed, been a question whether every Guinea-pig, whatever his private initial, ought not to yell for the G's, and every Tadpole for the T's; but it was eventually decided that each should yell "on his own hook," and the effect was certainly far more diverting. ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... on closer view a most agreeable companion. He diversified his art cleverly with anecdotes and scandals; he told us exactly which famous painters had married their cooks, and which had only married their models; and otherwise showed himself a most diverting talker. Among other things, however, he happened to mention once that he had recently discovered a genuine Rembrandt—a quite undoubted Rembrandt, which had remained for years in the keeping of a certain obscure Dutch family. It had always ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... my story to her as briefly as she could. The two Londoners found it very diverting, and laughed heartily, while the tears stood in my eyes as I thought of my dear parents, one in the grave, and the other I might never ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... chase. A third player at any point in the chase may run between the one who is It and the one whom he is chasing, whereupon this third player becomes the object of the chase instead of the second. At any time a fourth player may run between this player and the chaser, diverting the chase to himself, and so on indefinitely. In other words, whenever a player crosses between the one who is It and the one being chased, the latter is at once relieved of the chase and ceases to be a fugitive. ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... purchasing peace not only gave rise to many internal hardships, but, whilst it weakened the kingdom, it inspired such a desire of invading it to the enemy, that Sweyn, King of Denmark, came in person soon after with a prodigious fleet and army. The English, having once found the method of diverting the storm by an inglorious bargain, could not bear to think of any other way of resistance. A greater sum, 48,000l., was now paid, which the Danes accepted with pleasure, as they could by this means exhaust their enemies ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... may be said that the broadsides of the ships-of-the-line were opposed from end to end to the heavy central batteries on the mole, while the lighter vessels engaged the flanking works on the shore to the southward, thus diverting the fire which would have harassed the chief assailants,—a service in which the Dutch squadron, composed entirely of frigates, rendered important assistance. The bomb vessels from the rear threw their shells ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... importance in our moral system. You have already seen certain examples of it. Thus, when I explained to you how servants could carry with a clear conscience certain harmful messages, you must have seen that it was by diverting their intention from the evil of which they are the bearers and by turning it to the gain which they receive for their service. This is what we call 'directing the intention.' In the same way you have seen that those who give money in return for benefices would be ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... story.... Immensely interesting and diverting, and as a romance it certainly has a unique ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... she revolts. Or, it can permit her to choose whether she shall become a mother and how many children she will have. It can go on trying to crush that which is uncrushable, or it can recognize woman's claim to freedom, and cease to impose diverting and destructive barriers. If we choose the latter course, we must not only remove all restrictions upon the use of scientific contraceptives, but we must legalize and encourage ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... Nutcrackers of Nutcracker Lodge The History of Tip-Top Miss Katy-Did and Miss Cricket Mother Magpie's Mischief The Squirrels that live in a House Hum, the Son of Buz Our Country Neighbours The Diverting ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... diverting half-hour. He had lingered for the fray. Waving a broken sabre snapped off at the hilt, he charged with Gallic verve and got himself knocked under his kicking and wounded horse, and pummeled by Liberal muskets ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... about his head in violently rigid and entangled tufts, rendering it a matter of wonder how anything in the shape of a hat could stick on. His brow was a countless mass of ever-varying wrinkles, which gave to his sly visage an aspect of humorous anxiety that was highly diverting—and all the more diverting when you came to know that the man had not a spark of anxiety in his composition, though he often said he had. His dress, like that of most Jack tars, was naturally rugged, and he contrived to make it more so ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... as I to deceive, she never questioned my lie, but led me on to some fresh feat, some brook or fence to leap, or inaccessible flower or berry to bring her. Already I got out of difficulties by changing the subject, by evading the challenge and diverting her to some other object, play or plan to which she as readily listened. How proud, how important and superior I felt and with what trust the little siren permitted it. Among all my apprenticeships this ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... a diverting creature for all his appearance of ostentatious prosperity. Good fortune had undoubtedly been his, and his whole being seemed to have become absorbed in the trade which had so generously treated him. Before ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... but seemingly only in deference to the royal opinion; for he instantly adds, that, in his own judgment, the scene was necessary to make the piece go off smartly, and was, in the estimation of good judges, the most diverting of ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... can't tell you!" returned Bridgie, truthfully enough. "And— excuse me, me love, it's not a very diverting suggestion for the time of year! Let me keep my millionaire, if it's only for the day, for by the same token I'm quite attached to him in prospect! Will you come and visit me, Therese, when I'm comfortably established in ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... diverting the conversation to grouse, custards, and bride- cake, Mr. Goodchild followed in the same direction. The bride-cake was as bilious and indigestible as if a real Bride had cut it, and the dinner it completed was an ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... seasons of the year; as, for instance, they celebrated one day at the arrival of their wild birds, another upon the return of the hunting season, and for the maturity of their fruits; but the greatest festival of all was at harvest time. They then spent several days in diverting themselves, and enjoyed most of their amusements, such as martial dances and ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward |
