"Distraction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wife of the soldier her babe fondly press'd; Not a word could she utter, no tear gave relief, But sorrow convulsively heaved her soft breast. Now nearer she presses—now severed for life The waves bear the lord of her bosom from view; Distraction suspends the red current of life, And she sinks on the beach ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... a law that Nancy should go with them on whatsoever outings they might take. Dan bore the extra burden heartily and in good cheer. It might be said that Lou furnished the color, Nancy the tone, and Dan the weight of the distraction-seeking trio. The escort, in his neat but obviously ready-made suit, his ready-made tie and unfailing, genial, ready-made wit never startled or clashed. He was of that good kind that you are likely ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... appearance I made, and nothing about my neck; and he soothing me, with an aspect of pity and concern, I put my hand to his mouth, and said, O tell me, yet tell me not, what have I suffered in this distress? And I talked quite wild, and knew not what: for, to be sure, I was on the point of distraction. ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... have been sent to speak to you by one who does know you, Miss—one who loves you to distraction—he has seen you before at Mrs. West's. He is so grieved to think you should walk—you ought, he says, to have every luxury—that he has sent his carriage for you. It is on the other side of the yard. Do come now;" and he laid his ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... conventional arrangement; but in the family an influence more potent than that of contracts and conventionalities, and which everywhere underlies humanity, has indicated that the husband shall fill the necessity which exists for a head. Dissension and distraction quickly arise when this necessity is not answered. The harmony of life, the real interest of both husband and wife, and of all dependent upon them, require it. In obedience to that requirement and necessity, the husband is the head—the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... complicated offices of a family, and no bakery, cookshop, or laundry to turn to for alleviation. A lovely, refined home becomes in a few hours a howling desolation; and then ensues a long season of breakage, waste, distraction, as one wild Irish immigrant after another introduces the style of Irish cottage life into ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... squeeze in between two benches, and then between the table and the line of those seated at it she rolled on like a billiard ball. In her course she brushed past our young man, and, catching a flounce on some one's knee, slipped a little, and in her distraction supported herself on the shoulder of Thaddeus. Politely begging his pardon, she took her seat between him and his uncle, but she ate nothing; she only fanned herself, or twirled the handle of her fan, or adjusted her lace collar, ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... and went down, determining to set about something; but what was I to do?—there was the difficulty. I ate no breakfast, but walked about the room in a state of distraction; at last I thought that the easiest way to do something was to get into Parliament, there would be no difficulty in that. I had plenty of money, and could buy a seat: but what was I to do in Parliament? Speak, of course—but could I speak? ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... to motives of which I was shamefully innocent. In point of fact, I had lurked at home because I could not bear company. I preferred the deserted schoolroom, though Heaven knows what I would not have given for the dull distraction of work—an hour of Rule of Three with Captain Branscome, or Caesar's Commentaries with Mr. Stimcoe. But Mr. Stimcoe lay upstairs chattering, and Captain Branscome appeared to be taking a protracted holiday. It hardly occurred to me to ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... his mother irefully. "Not while Mr. Evringham has his wits. They haven't a particle of right to ask him. Harry has worried him to distraction already. The child would be sure to ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... time Miss De Grammonts' popularity was on the wane. Dowagers looked askance and matrons posed in a patronizing manner, the flippant correspondents of society journals and the compilers of sonnets in which that very hammock had been eulogized and metaphored to distraction now waited upon her, if at all in an entirely different manner. Strange how all classes began to recall the many peculiar or unaccountable things she had done, the extraordinary costumes she had worn, the fact ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... assailed us, and the counsel of injudicious friends, from taking the due precautions for her safety. She hesitated to fly till flight was rendered impracticable. Her death added to the helplessness and distraction of the family. They were successively seized and destroyed ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... chances of the storm, one solitary being alone beheld them without terror. The mind of Ferdinand Armine grew calm, as nature became more disturbed. He moralised amid the whirlwind. He contrasted the present tumult and distraction with the sweet and beautiful serenity which the same scene had presented when, a short time back, he first beheld it. His love, too, had commenced in stillness and in sunshine; was it, also, to end in ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... that on so solemn an occasion I should set an example myself. I must ask you henceforth to consider our intimacy entirely at an end. You must retire to Fontevrault, where Madame de Montemart will take care of you and afford you distraction by her charming society. Your children are in good hands; do not be in the least uneasy about them. Farewell. I wish you all the firmness and well-being ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Oxford in which he would have taken a temporary sameness, a sameness in the long run protective and strengthening, were spared him. In his letters we have him unspoiled, as the sentimentalists would say—not yet with the distraction of ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... gentle-eyed animals. It was not that he did not feel some disgust at the work; but it meant bread to the men he was with, and he might as well help them. It was an experience, and, above all, it was distraction. When the women had seen him at work they welcomed him with demonstrative joy to the hot meals which they prepared twice a day for the hunters. Caius was not quite sure what composed the soups and stews of which he partook, but they tasted ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... stillness—a suspension of thought and sensation—ensued; and when this passed, he found himself seated on a rock which crowned the summit of one of the hills, his handkerchief loosened, his waistcoat open, his hat thrown off, his temples burning and throbbing with a feeling of distraction, and the agitated beatings of his heart almost stifling his ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this is a way that women have of betraying their love. You all swear that you despise us; all the while loving us to distraction. You and I have gone too far to recede. You, because you allowed me to take you from your husband's house; I, because I gave in to your rather exacting whims, and came to Paris as your valet. But you promised to reward me, and I must ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... circumstance he concludes will be a sufficient consolation to both for any little crosses in the affections. Why don't you invite the Pelets to ——shire, Crimsworth? I should so like to see your first flame, Zoraide. Mistress, don't be jealous, but he loved that lady to distraction; I know it for a fact. Brown says she weighs twelve stones now; you see what you've lost, Mr. Professor. Now, Monsieur and Madame, if you don't come to tea, Victor and ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... conception of a new object, considered in itself, is of the same nature as other conceptions; hence, I do not include wonder among the emotions, nor do I see why I should so include it, inasmuch as this distraction of the mind arises from no positive cause drawing away the mind from other objects, but merely from the absence of a cause, which should determine the mind to pass from the contemplation of one object to ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... shares His repose with none, and considers the nature of His own administration, intent upon such thoughts as are meet unto Himself. So should we also be able to converse with ourselves, to need none else beside, to sigh for no distraction, to bend our thoughts upon the Divine Administration, and how we stand related to all else; to observe how human accidents touched us of old, and how they touch us now; what things they are that still have power to hurt us, and how they may be cured or removed; ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... Herod's feet, and begged his pardon for what he had done, and confessed that he had acted very wickedly, and was guilty of every thing that he had been accused of, and lamented that disorder of his mind, and distraction which his love to a woman, he said, had brought him to. So when Archelaus had brought Pheroras to accuse and bear witness against himself, he then made an excuse for him, and mitigated Herod's anger towards him, and this by using certain domestical examples; for that when ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... VI. Then would have broken out the quarrel that came to a head at the beginning of the next generation, but for two circumstances. The first was, that the King's uncles were able men, and maintained their brother's policy, and so continued that foreign distraction which prevented the occurrence of serious internal troubles for some years. The second was, that the Clarence or Mortimer party ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... court-martial I received a letter from Ellen, who appeared in a state of distraction from this accumulation of misfortune. She told me that my father was to be buried the next day, and that the new rector had written to her, to know when it would be convenient for the vicarage to be given up. That my father's bills had been sent in, and amounted to twelve hundred pounds already; ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... Mrs. Liddell—Marcella knew her by sight—and she was in a very bad temper because she had been kept waiting. For the next half hour she badgered and worried Marcella to the point of distraction. Nothing suited her. Pile after pile, box after box, of shirtwaists did Marcella take down for her, only to have them flung aside with sarcastic remarks. Mrs. Liddell seemed to hold Marcella responsible for the lack of waists that suited her; her tongue grew sharper and sharper and her ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the young man was more excited than he cared to confess, even to himself. He talked, as others whistle, to "keep up his courage." Yet the implication that he needed distraction or stimulation would have angered him. Youth and courage are twins, or should be, and a man of twenty-two takes it for granted. At forty, a man may confess to turning tail and yet save his self-respect. I ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... and tides of the day." Quoth the Princess in herself, "If what the Wazir's daughter says be true, these are assuredly the traits of the baffled, the wretched Ali Nur al-Din. Would I knew if indeed he be the youth of whom she speaketh." At this thought, love-longing and distraction of passion redoubled on her and she rose at once and walking with the maiden to the lattice, looked down upon the stables, where she saw her love and lord Nur al-Din and fixing her eyes steadfastly upon him, knew him with the bestest knowledge ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... followed were spent in mournful motionlessness at the back of that room where the trembling host of lights seemed to give animation to dead things. During the two days various activities brought me distraction, at first ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... petulant child! You do not know me! I do not know myself! I am full of evil! I feel it sensibly, when I am near you! You develop the worst of me! Should you marry me, the very demon would rise in my bosom! I should drive you to distraction!" ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... that talking effects great results. As a matter of fact, words are, as a rule, the shallowest portion of all the argument. They but dimly represent the great surging feelings and desires which lie behind. When the distraction of the tongue ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... it was lost amidst a thousand shrieks of more selfish terror. Again and again she returned to the spot where they had been divided—to find her companions gone, to seize every fugitive—to inquire of Glaucus—to be dashed aside in the impatience of distraction. Who in that hour spared one thought to his neighbor? Perhaps in scenes of universal horror, nothing is more horrid than the unnatural selfishness they engender. At length it occurred to Nydia, that as it had ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... and villain! What then art thou? For shame, put up thy sword! What boots a weapon in a wither'd arm? I fix mine eye upon thee, and thou tremblest! I speak—and fear and wonder crush thy rage, 185 And turn it to a motionless distraction! Thou blind self-worshipper! thy pride, thy cunning, Thy faith in universal villainy, Thy shallow sophisms, thy pretended scorn For all thy human brethren—out upon them! 190 What have they done for thee? Have they given thee peace? Cured thee of starting in thy sleep? or made The darkness pleasant, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Later she opened it to the tale of Tomlinson. She did not entirely grasp it, but she could not entirely miss what it said. She hurried on; she wondered vaguely at the call of the Red Gods; here again, seeking distraction, she was whipped back to reality. There were the lines, staring at her, as though ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... there; for another, it was only too easy to lose one's bearings, wander farther and farther into the wood, and eventually die of thirst and starvation, utterly unable to find the way home again. To Eustace's distraction, in his dream Becky would insist on playing hide-and-seek, and kept constantly disappearing and returning, flitting on in front of them now ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... in her real colours. Sir John Hawkins has recorded of Dr. Johnson, that when suffering under that disease which ended in his dissolution, he addressed his friends in the following words:—"You see the state I am in, conflicting with bodily pain and mental distraction. While you are in health and strength, labour to do good, and avoid evil, if ever you wish to escape the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various
... my Lord, taken away by force—two ruffians seized and carried her away, while she screamed in vain to me for help, and tore her hair in distraction." ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... old priest on his knees, a crucifix clasped to his breast, his white face upturned, shouting ave marias and pater nosters at the top of his aged voice as if fearful they would not ascend above the saturnalia on the roof. The Devil added to his distraction by loud bursts of ribald laughter; but the father, revolving his head as if it were on a pivot, continued to pray. Satan began to ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... threatened in the streets of London. The vital question was how were we to keep the Church from being liberalised? there was such apathy on the subject in some quarters, such imbecile alarm in others; the true principles of Churchmanship seemed so radically decayed, and there was such distraction in the councils of the clergy. The Bishop of London of the day, an active and open-hearted man, had been for years engaged in diluting the high orthodoxy of the Church by the introduction of the Evangelical body into places of influence and ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... State-Councillor Grasshopper), a loose, zigzag figure in "Sartor," a mend and blind admirer of Teufelsdroeckh's, an incarnation of distraction distracted, and all the counsellor the "editor" had to advise him and encourage him in his work; a victim to "timidity" and preyed on by an uncomfortable sense of mere "physical cold," such as the majority of the State counsellors ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... of a single aristocrat and how far the love of money can lead; in the latter, what gifts can do, and how they can embolden those who are bribed by them. Let Appian of Alexandria then picture to you the distraction of citizens and civil war, with banishment and its consequences. He understands well how to relate briefly every thing that is noteworthy. Whoever begins, can not lay his book down, ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... in most cases, a bare, naked place where the gray color of the walls and the white muslin curtains over the windows preclude any alleviation for the senses. The object of this depressing environment is to prevent the distraction of the scholar's attention by stimuli, and concentrate it upon the teacher who speaks. The children, seated, listen motionless hour after hour. When they draw, they have to reproduce another drawing exactly. ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... the cause of liberty gains ground, in spite of so much injustice and folly. I confess, however, that I sometimes feel the strange emotion that a man might experience on seeing, after the lapse of years, the lovely woman whom he loved to distraction at twenty, in the arms of a person whom he did not ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... printing of the book unless Clare advanced the sum of L15, and this being impossible the negotiation fell through. Clare shortly afterwards, with the two-fold object of finding employment and obtaining relief from mental distraction by change of scene, was on the point of setting out for Yorkshire, when a copy of his prospectus fell under the notice of Mr. Edward Drury, a bookseller, of Stamford. Mr. Drury called upon Clare at his own home, and with difficulty induced him to show him a few of ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... in quite a fervor of self-pity. I was in one of those moods when life suddenly seems to become irksome, when the future stretches blank and gray in front of one. In such a mood it is imperative that one should seek distraction. The shining example of Mr. Harry Hawk did not lure me. Taking to drink would be a nuisance. Work was what I wanted. I would toil like a navvy all day among the fowls, separating them when they fought, gathering in the eggs when they ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... than Mr. Kneebone—she was too well acquainted; having, more than once, been obliged to repel his advances; and, though his impertinence would have given her little concern at another season, it now added considerably to her distraction. But a far greater affliction was in ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Bribery and clandestine Methods, in the Countries procuring these Feathers; never was the Moon in such an uproar about picking and culling the Feathers, such Bribery, such Drunkenness, such Caballing, especially among the High Solunarian Clergy and the Lazognians, such Feasting, Fighting and Distraction, as the like ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... Physiologie, Bd. lvi, 1894, p. 319), tells us that, when a female white rat is introduced into the cage of a male, he at once leaves off eating, or whatever else he may be doing, becomes indifferent to noises or any other source of distraction, and devotes himself entirely to her. If, however, he is introduced into her cage the new environment renders him nervous and suspicious, and then it is she who takes the active part, trying to attract him in every way. The impetuosity during heat of female animals of various species, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... perhaps a questionable usage, Lord John Russell invited the retiring minister to explain his secession from office to the House. In the suspicion, distraction, tension that marked that ominous hour in the history of English party, people insisted that the resignation of the head of the department of trade must be due to divergence of judgment upon protection. The ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... have thrown the line for her, in his distraction let her drop her oar and throw the line herself, and then we scrambled aboard without hearing any ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... here was Jeremy Stickles stealing upon every one in the dark; here was Uncle Reuben plotting Satan only could tell what; here was a white night-capped man coming bodily from the grave; here was my own sister Annie committed to a highwayman, and mother in distraction; most of all—here, there, and where—was my Lorna stolen, dungeoned, perhaps outraged. It was no time for shilly shally, for the balance of this and that, or for a man with blood and muscle to pat his nose and ponder. If I left my Lorna so; ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... which they did not hesitate to discuss before their sister—geisha, assignation houses, and the licensed quarters. Yae's mind was formed to the idea that for grown-up people there is one absorbing distraction, which is to be found in the ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... sweetheart gives you one, you will be lured by artful wiles to the verge of distraction by woman's charms, but inner forces will hold you ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... my mobility of temper, my flexible character. What would become of me without this power of self-distraction? You know all in my life, and you ought to understand that but for that happy turn of mind which makes me quickly forget a sorrow, I should be disagreeable and perpetually withdrawn into myself, useless to others, insensible to ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... it any longer, the now empty street offering no distraction, she undressed and went to bed, hoping for relief in sleep. But sleep would not be wooed. She tossed from side to side, ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... immediately wrapped in soundest slumber. On the other the Emperor, to whom the god of sleep was less benignant, tossed almost the whole night through, and if he arose to try to quiet his excited nerves by walking, the sole distraction that his eyes encountered was a pair of engravings that were hung to right and left of the chimney, one depicting Rouget de Lisle singing the Marseillaise, the other a crude representation of the Last Judgment, the dead rising from their graves at the sound of the Archangel's ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... even from remote and infidel countries, to receive his benediction; by which many sick recovered their health. Some were not satisfied unless they also touched him. The saint, to remove these causes of distraction, projected for himself a new and unprecedented manner of life. In 423, he erected a pillar six cubits high, and on it he dwelt four years; on a second twelve cubits high, he lived three years; on a third, twenty-two cubits high, ten years: and on a fourth, forty cubits ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... the hair that God gave him did not please him so well as that which he bought of the perruquiers. Since we cannot be satisfied with the causes, we must be satisfied with the fact—he wore a wig; and, in the distraction of mental perplexity, when Monsieur Cherfeuil was essaying to get the poet out of the absent into the conditional mood, the man of verse, staring abstractedly upon the man of tense, would thrust his hand under his peruke, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... his wife—and she caught his burning hand, and pressed it to her throbbing heart—'cease such wild and desperate words! Would you drive me to distraction, by thus throwing yourself into the power of your bitter and relentless enemies? Who in Boston would stand up to defend your cause? Who could deliver you from the evil intentions of these cruel men? It is true that the Governor has shown himself your friend—I ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... put out, the priest retired, and then the sobbing broke forth once more, the people crowded round the coffin and one by one kissed the little dead one, kissed her again and again. Most of all the little children kissed her, and the father in distraction stood by, calling out in broken treble, "Say good-bye ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... to occupy her mind she hailed the festival of the Devil Dance as a welcome distraction. Not even the impertinent curiosity of the spectators could drive her from her balcony. She followed the many phases with interest, although she could not understand the meaning of them. For the performance was a curious mixture of religion and blasphemous mockery, ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... came to Baden for distraction. It's nice. So near Vienna.—Ah, my dear, My nerves are troublesome; they say I'm thinner— And growing very like Madame de Berry. 'Twas Vitrolles said so. Now I do my hair Like her. Why did not Heaven take me too? This villa's small, of course; but 'tisn't bad; Metternich ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... sitting of parliament still delayed in London the squire's habitual visitors during the later summer; so that—a chasm thus made in his society—Mr. Hazeldean welcomed with no hollow cordiality the diversion or distraction he found in the foreigner's companionship. Thus, with pleasure to all parties, and strong hopes to the two female conspirators, the intimacy between the Casino and Hall rapidly thickened; but still not a word ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in mind the abnormal conditions in a prison—the misery of it, the dearth of variety and relaxation, the terrible yearning for some form, any form, of distraction and amusement. The male is parted from the female, and from the resource of children; his nerves are on edge, his natural propensities starved, his thoughts wandering and embittered; he finds no good anywhere, nor any hope of it. He will seize upon any means of abating or dulling ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... such conditions, he hath (since such a time) devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to church to hear Divine service, and is a common upholder of several unlawful meetings and conventicles, to the great disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of this kingdom, contrary to the laws of our sovereign lord the ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... to his beard," continued Malvoisin, coolly, "that you love this captive Jewess to distraction; and the more thou dost enlarge on thy passion, the greater will be his haste to end it by the death of the fair enchantress; while thou, taken in flagrant delict by the avowal of a crime contrary to thine oath, canst ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... he had at first cultivated the intimacy with Wilhelmina more perhaps from distraction than with any definite purpose, is certain; but he soon found that her attractions were too great to permit him to continue it, if he had not serious intentions. When he had entered his own room, before he had been a week in the house, he had taxed himself severely as to ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... that time he has published a great many volumes of poems, drama, and fiction. A great writer, he perhaps meets the wishes of that large class of readers who seek in literature agreeable rest and distraction, rather than excitement or aesthetic gratification. He is one of the greatest spirits that survived the bankruptcy of Romanticism. He excels in the description of country nooks and corners; of that polite rusticity which knows nothing of the delving ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... Jack Wyndham?" "Oh, I love him to distraction! Light the candle, Aunt Saidie, and let me read his letter. I can tell you, word for word, what is in it before I break the seal. Six months ago I went into a flutter at the sight of his handwriting. Six months before that I was madly in love with Dick Bright—and ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... and his father were here to-day for dinner. Well, you know Grant is in a kind of obsession of love for that little motherless child Mrs. Adams left; Grant mothers him and fathers him and literally loves him to distraction. And Grant's growing so manly, and so loyal and so strong in the love of that little boy—he doesn't realize it; but I can see it in him. Oh, Tom, can you see it ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... while Virginia continued in school. If they were only fairly successful, the income would pay expenses, carry them along and help keep their capital intact. Dr. Everett heartily approved the plan, not only because it might prove a source of steady income, but also because it would be distraction for the widow and help her to forget. Mrs. Blaine somewhat reluctantly consented, and the girls set out enthusiastically ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... me wisdom," he announced. "It is your duty to obey me!" Eagerly they listened, glad of any distraction, but when Piang explained that he wanted them to abandon their safe bamboo floats for the treacherous flats, home of crocodiles and vermin, there was a murmuring protest. Anger blazed in ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... and the sights of Italy generally. I discerned from her remarks that she had traveled widely; indeed, she told me that both her father and mother were never happier than when moving from place to place in search of variety and distraction. We had entered the huge paneled hall of the Castle, and had passed up the quaint old stone staircase to the long banqueting hall with its paneled oak ceiling, which in these modern days had been transformed into a bright, pleasant drawing-room, ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... crossed, after the manner of the hands of very fancy, old-fashioned piano-players, skipping from base to treble—over cracks. The whole performance would have driven a sensitive drill-sergeant or ballet-master to distraction. And when they came to a brick sidewalk they would go all around the block to avoid it. They could cross Hudson Street on the cobblestones with great effort, and in great danger of being run over; but they could not possibly travel upon a brick pavement, and avoid the cracks. ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... himself that when the opportunity came he would take time to think out some things which had grown indistinct to him. At present the discomfort and sorrow of not feeling at liberty to make love to the woman he loved was some excuse for avoiding thought, and he found distraction in hard work and social engagements. With regard to Sophia he stayed his mind on the belief that if he dared not woo she was not being wooed, either by any man who was his rival, or by those luxuries and tranquillities of ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... violent emotion the rapid and eager preparations for travel proved a useful distraction. There was no time to lose; and Natalie very speedily found that it was she herself who must undertake the duties of a courier, her mother being far too anxious and alarmed. Once or twice, indeed, the girl, regarding the worn, sad face, almost repented of having accepted that impulsive offer, ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... for my future justification, if need be, and so we broke up, and all parted, Sir W. Coventry being not very well, but I believe made much worse by this night's sad discourse. So I home by coach, considering what the consequence of all this must be in a little time. Nothing but distraction and confusion; which makes me wish with all my heart that I were well and quietly settled with what little I have got at Brampton, where I might live peaceably, and study, and pray for the good of the King and my country. Home, and to Sir W. Batten's, where I saw my Lady, who ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... followed him. Her cloak having fallen off, now displayed her fine form in all the fervor of grief and distraction. She rung her fair and jewelled arms in despair, and with accents rendered more piercing by the anguish of her mind, exclaimed, "What! You hate me? You throw me from you? Cruel, barbarous Constantine! Can you drive from your feet the woman who adores you? Can you cast her ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... well knew, had been well-nigh insupportable. So far as this world was concerned, few persons in it had such reasons for wishing to live, or so much to render life attractive. But the feeling in her heart had become overpowering that no earthly happiness, no interest, no distraction, could any longer satisfy her, or give her content, away from Christ; and she longed to be with Him, where He is. During the past three months especially, she had passed through very unusual exercises of mind with reference to this subject; and it seemed to her as if ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... and manner with Christ himself, and enjoyed thereby a glorious immunity from the trammels of all laws human and divine. Inwardly transported by this blissful persuasion, though outwardly presenting in their aspect and manners a shocking air of lunacy and distraction, the sectaries roamed from place to place, attired in the most fantastic apparel and begging their bread with wild shouts and clamour, spurning indignantly every kind of honest labour and industry as an obstacle to ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... demanded that Fledra be brought to him. At length the parrying of his questions by Miss Shellington aroused his suspicions, so that he grew nervous and fretful. Five o'clock came, and yet no tidings of the girl. Ann's anxiety had now become distraction; for her brother's absence threw upon her shoulders the responsibility of the girl's disappearance, and the care of Floyd should he suffer a relapse. Her perturbation became so unbearable that she put her pride from her, and sought the aid of ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... last letter Reeve wrote with his own hand. For several months he had been very much of an invalid, though he had persisted in continuing his work, in which he found distraction and relief. And no complaint passed his lips. 'The kindest thing you can do for me,' he said to his anxious wife, 'is to leave me alone.' He made a point of coming down to breakfast; but his strength was gradually failing, and ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... it does not interfere too much with your studies. Sometimes there is distraction in change of scene and habit. When you enter Miss North's school, you will be under her supervision, ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... knows he raged, and rail'd at me, And cal'd a Lady Whore, so innocent She understood him not; but it becomes Both you and me too, to forgive distraction, ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... ticking. And if I listened hard, I could hear the big clock in the hall take up the tune like a duet. Then the one in the front room above would join in, then the one in the kitchen, until there was such a clamor of ticking that it would drive a body to distraction with a sound like a hundred typewriters all ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... effort of almighty benevolence was a long way from securing all the success that had been foretold. For lack of knowledge, or of strength, or by distraction maybe, God missed his aim, and could not keep his word. Less sage than a chemist who should undertake to shut up ether in canvas or paper, he only confided to men the truth that he had brought upon the earth; it escaped, then, as one might have ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... becoming richer from being poorer, or poorer from being richer. The form of law which I should propose as the natural sequel would be as follows:—In a state which is desirous of being saved from the greatest of all plagues—not faction, but rather distraction;—there should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty, nor, again, excess of wealth, for both are productive of both these evils. Now the legislator should determine what is to be the limit of poverty or wealth. Let the limit of poverty be the value of the lot; ...
— Laws • Plato
... scene of fearful distraction. Furious tradesmen of every kind were ringing the house-bell, and rapping the knocker for admittance—such, at least, as could press through the crowd as far as the house. Bootmakers arrived with Hessians and Wellingtons—'as per order'—or the most delicate ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... cup of bitterness had been filled anew, yet the distraction of a new grief, in which there was a certain remorseful self-reproach, had the effect of blunting the sharp edge of her first sorrow. In this new cause for dread she was compelled in some degree to forget herself. She saw the intense solicitude of her father ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... time and all his strength in making it, and he was successful. He had many ships on the sea, and much gold in the bank. He had also a charming little wife, who prayed in secret that God would deliver her husband from his false god, and he had a dear little daughter who loved him to distraction in spite of his 'business habits!' Well, one year there came a commercial crisis. Mr Getall eagerly risked his money and over-speculated. That same year was disastrous in the way of storms and wrecks. Among the wrecks ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... was written ... amidst inconvenience distraction, in sickness and in sorrow.' Preface to Johnson's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... the manufactures, inspected dock-yards, reviewed troops, addressed the sailors, and attended the ball's given in his honor in all the towns through which he passed; and amid this life of seeming pleasure and distraction, he exerted himself almost more than in the quiet, monotonous life of the camp, and was affable, gracious, and accessible to all his subjects. But in these processions, in the very midst of these fetes, amid all this acclamation of whole cities rushing out to meet him, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... upon him as only hungry scouts can descend. Pee-wee's glowing promises which decorated the woods (and which he could not fulfill) had brought the party to a state of distraction. It was a big Crackerjack touring car overflowing with scouts and driven by a smiling scoutmaster. It seemed as if they ought to have been pressed in and down with a shovel like ice cream in a ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... other hand, judges can be severely personal at times, and Lord Justice Chitty was almost brutal in a case where counsel had been arguing to distraction on a bill of sale. "I will now proceed to address myself to the furniture—an item covered by the bill," counsel continued. "You have been doing nothing else for the last hour," ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... his own instructions as the leading text, and his pupil's knowledge took form according to these. In some cases, accident gave a text-in-chief, as when young Mill at ten years of age, studied Thomson's Chemistry, without the distraction of any other work. If there had been half-a-dozen Chemical manuals in existence, he would probably have read them all, and fared much worse. It happens, however, that, in the more exact sciences, there ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... what a history you have told me! At your entrance into life you found an adorable woman, a perfect mistress, who thought of your future, made you a peer, loved you to distraction, only asked that you would be faithful to her, and you killed her! I know nothing more monstrous. Among all the passionate and unfortunate young men who haunt the streets of Paris, I doubt if there ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... my gracious mistress," cried Norris, "and do not let your grief and distraction place you in the power of your enemies. All ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... a picture of distraction. "But I don't even begin to understand," he cried. "What bill? ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... time, talents, and fortune to the service of God; and their two husbands likewise, whose business it has been to instruct the ignorant negroes without fee or reward. Had it not been for this family, I know not where the distraction of my mind might have ended." * ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... sensibility and aspirations to divine communion, it is quite apparent that they were practiced by him, in modes and to an extent that cannot be commended, leading to much self-delusion and to extravagances near akin to distraction of judgment, and a disordered mental and moral frame. He would abstain from food—on one occasion, it is said, for three days together—and spend the time, as he expresses it "in knocking at the door of ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... that, hastily bidding her brother meet her in the forest of Arden, she vanished from the sight of both, by means of the enchanted ring. Argalia, seeing this, took to his horse of swiftness, and dashed away in the same direction; Ferragus, in distraction, pursued Argalia; and Astolfo, thus left to himself, took possession of the golden lance, and again issued forth—not, indeed, with quite his usual confidence of the result, but determined to run all risks, in any thing that might ensue, for the sake of the emperor. In fine, to ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... like a ship without a helm; attempted to tell a story which took up almost all the evening. * * * In one word, Otis will spoil the club. He talks so much, and takes up so much of our time, and fills it with trash, obsceneness, profaneness, nonsense, and distraction, that we have none left for rational amusements or inquiries. * * * I fear, I tremble, I mourn, for the man and for his country; many others mourn over him ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... hands were pressed to her forehead, as though to compel her fevered brain to think without distraction. "I see, I see," she murmured, presently; "his fate hangs upon my word. 'So help me, God,' is what I have first to ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... pets is as bad taste as to write in diary form, and, besides, I had made up my mind to have no pets on this expedition. They were a great deal of trouble and a source of distraction from work while they were alive; and one's heart was wrung and one's concentration disturbed at their death. But Kib came one day, brought by a tiny copper-bronze Indian. He looked at me, touched me tentatively with a mobile little paw, and my firm resolution melted away. A young ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... drawbridge, the vestibule with its columns of twisted oak, even the grand salon with the stately courtiers and captains, the gracious dames and damsels of the family of Secondat gazing down from the walls, all these distract the eye and the mind. The distraction is agreeable, but still it is a distraction. It leads you from the biographical into the social and historical mood. You are delighted as at Meillant or Chenonceaux with a corner of ancient France, marvellously rescued from the ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... Bunker, who seemed not unwilling that his friend should find some entertaining distraction in St Egbert's, would look at the owners of these faces with a prospector's eye and his own ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... Besides, he is harmless. The Archduchess is all ears for the very man of whom he is jealous. This is my reply: You told me to marry: I obeyed. My heart 's in the earth, and I must have distractions. My present distraction is De Pyrmont, a good Catholic and a good Austrian soldier, though a Frenchman. I grieve to say—it's horrible—that it sometimes tickles me when I reflect that De Pyrmont is keen with the sword. But remember, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... her mistress?" she replied, "that, in her judgment, she was going as fast as possible." There are moments, when any creature that lives, has power to drive one into madness. I seemed to know the absurdity of this reply; but that was of no consequence. It added to the measure of my distraction. A little after seven I intreated a friend to go for Mr. Carlisle, and bring him instantly wherever he was to be found. He had voluntarily called on the patient on the preceding Saturday, and two or three times since. He had seen her that morning, and had been earnest in ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... journalism, and unsuccessful attempts to raise money—had he meditated the beauty of Marcella Boyce and the chances and difficulties of his relation to her. As he saw her less, he thought of her more, instinctively looking to her for the pleasure and distraction that life was temporarily ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... off the bridge and up the Rue Dauphine and Rue de Monsieur le Prince for Boulevard St. Michel, the lively young women distributing confetti in liberal doses and taking similar punishment in utmost good humor, Jean not sorry for the time being at finding this temporary distraction. He had generously replenished the pretty bags from the first baraque, though they were quickly emptied again in the narrow Rue de Monsieur le Prince, where a hot engagement between students and "filles ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... then," replied Woodward. "Alas! yes, it is too true, and my unfortunate brother lies with life barely in him, but without the slightest hope of recovery. As for myself I am in a state of absolute distraction; and were it not that I possess the consciousness of having done everything in my power as a friend and brother to withdraw him from this unfortunate intrigue, I think I should become fairly crazed. Miss Goodwin has for some time past been aware ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... not know what I have in my heart," pleaded the other—"what pain, what distraction—nor whence it arises. I can understand that you should exult in Robert's greatness and goodness; so do I, in one sense, but in another I feel so miserable. I am too far removed from him. I used to be nearer. Let me alone, Shirley. Do let me cry a ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... multitude of sins under the plea of business," said Mrs. Holt, shaking her head. I can't say I think much of your method of distraction. Why any one desires to get into an automobile, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a sad distraction from the sorrow for the dead. The three old people, who now formed the household in the Chapel-house, went about slowly and dreamily, each with a dull wonder at their hearts why they, the infirm and worn-out, were left, while she was taken in ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the ghosts of four dead wives and the wraith of the sole survivor, is not a figure precisely calculated to inspire patriotic fervour. Still, the circumstances of the play are sufficiently national, and it should serve well enough as a permissible distraction for non-combatants. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 16, 1914 • Various
... the will, "and all that it may contain, especially commending to her the volumes in my library, and advising her to pursue the study of botany, which has ever been a solace and a distraction to me amidst the various ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... it is to be feared he did) he made up in pep, and the surprises that he was forever springing on the camp were a perpetual joy. I suspect that he was not well versed in his scoutmasters' handbook. He was a sort of human north wind. He adopted the pose of being driven to distraction by "those kids" and he denounced them roundly and said there were too many of them and that he was going to pick out one and drown the rest. Then he would show up with a new one. He was a sort of free-lance scoutmaster and I wonder how he ever ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... of Queen Leonor. It was the death of the baby Queen of Scotland, by whose betrothal to Prince Edward the King had vainly hoped to fuse the northern and southern kingdoms into one. It left Scotland in a condition of utter distraction, with no less than eleven different claimants for the Crown, setting up claims good, bad, and indifferent; but every one of them persuaded that all the others had not an inch of ground to stand on, and that he was the sole true and ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... They were terrified. Their mattresses strewed the floors, and it really seemed as if they were a kind of protection, although they always fell asleep and snored so loudly as to drive the ladies, who wanted to listen for outside sounds, to the verge of distraction. Some one would occasionally interrupt the noise by administering to each in turn a good shake or insisting upon a change of position, but at best the lull was temporary. Soon one of the sleepers would give a suppressed snort, to be immediately ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... fate of moral poisoners to poison themselves as well as their victims. This is a just retribution, and it fell upon this female Iago. Her wretched master now loved his wife to distraction, yet hated her to the death: and Ryder loved her master passionately, yet hated him intensely, by fits ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... returned home; carrying to all quarters of France, such notions of deficit, decrepitude, distraction; and that States-General will cure it, or will not cure it but kill it. Each Notable, we may fancy, is as a funeral torch; disclosing hideous abysses, better left hid! The unquietest humour possesses ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Compensation ceasing to be visions of the heated brain, and gaining some footing on the Earth as facts. Prince Karl is here actually in Elsass, master of the strong passes; elate in heart, he and his; France, again, as if fallen paralytic, into temporary distraction; offering for resistance nothing hitherto but that universal wailing of mankind, Hero-worship of a thrice-lamentable nature, and the Prayers of Forty-Hours! Most Christian Majesty, now IN EXTREMIS, centre of the basest ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... can be made to more senses than are being reached by the distraction. The phonograph music hits only the ears of your prospect. Besides slapping your hands together or changing your tone, you can supplement such appeals to his tone sense by an appeal to his sense of sight. You can make a gesture, or display ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... Mourning.—Mourning, however, is sometimes a distraction. In deciding about trimmings and the width of crepe hems many a woman forgets her woe, for a time at least. Mourning wear is expensive, and to clothe a whole family in black totals no inconsiderable sum. Many families ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... people whom he knew as though they were total strangers; he amazed those whom he did not know by the loyal confidence he voluntarily placed in them. He forgot to put on his hat when he walked along the street; the distraction he revealed was the source of constant merriment to passersby and on-lookers. He would not know when it was noon; he would come home at three o'clock, thinking it was twelve. Once he came nearly being run over by a team of galloping horses; another time he ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... length opened by the attorney-general, the witnesses examined, and turned over to us for cross-examination. This part of the duty was performed by my associate. The business fairly begun, my distraction was lessened. My mind, driven to a point, made a decisive stand; and the sound of Edgerton's voice, as he proposed his questions, served still more to dissipate my confusion. I furnished him with sundry ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... mother," which Adeline, in her distraction, failed to hear. The scene was changing its character. Crevel was becoming "master of the situation," to use his own words. The vastness of the sum startled Crevel so greatly that his emotion at seeing this handsome woman in tears at his feet was ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... thousands against impregnable and exciting gambling combinations at the tables. With no feeling of self-abasement, leading officials, merchants, bankers, judges, officers, and professional men crowd the royal El Dorado. Here they relax the labors of the day with every distraction known to human dissipation. ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... on her book, she was proudly conscious that everyone else's eyes were on her. Even the rector must have seen her—as indeed from his elevated position on the bottom deck of the pulpit he could scarcely help doing—and his distraction was marked by occasional stutters and the intrusion of an evening Collect. He was a nervous, deprecating little man, terribly scared of his flock, and ruefully conscious of his own shortcomings and the shortcomings of his church. Visiting priests had told him that ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... turned slowly his eyes, and fixed them upon Carwin. Every joint in the frame of the latter trembled. His complexion was paler than a ghost's. His eye dared not meet that of Wieland, but wandered with an air of distraction from one ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... to prevent was, in the strangest and drollest, or at least in the most preposterous, way in the world, that not Cornelia's presence, but her very absence, with its distraction of his thoughts, the thoughts that lumbered after her, had made the difference; and without his being the least able to tell why and how. He put it to himself after a fashion by the image that, this distraction once created, his working round to his hostess again, his reverting to the matter of ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... was not sullied with the impressions of indecency, and the baseness of looser desires. She understood not the innuendos of Roderic, and she remarked not with an eager and inquisitive eye the distraction of his visage. She replied therefore only to the more obvious tendency of what he said. "And is this, Edwin, all the consolation you bring me? Ah how poor, how heartless, and how cold! If we accomplish not that flight upon which my hopes and wishes are suspended, what utility and ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... waited for no further permission, but promptly knelt down on the grass and set to work to untie the knotted ends of the checked handkerchief. The surrounding guests gathered around in a laughing circle, being in the gay and gratified frame of mind when any distraction is met halfway, and ensured of a favourable reception. What was this pretty girl about? What joke was hidden away in ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... and longed for rest. I was in that state when one could truly say that life would be tolerable but for its amusements. It is usual for most people to insist in such cases that what the sufferer needs is "excitement" and "distraction of the mind," change of scene or gaiety, when in reality the patient should be most carefully trained to repose, which is not always easily done, for so very little attention has been paid to this great truth, that ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... revenge, or even through bravado, would have seemed to him an amusing and clever thing, and would not have left more impression on his mind than a shot fired at a hare; but he had experienced a profound emotion at the murder of this child. He had, in the first place, perpetrated it in the distraction of an irresistible gust of passion, in a sort of spiritual tempest that had overpowered his reason. And he had cherished in his heart, cherished in his flesh, cherished on his lips, cherished even to the very tips of his murderous fingers, a kind of ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... of Herbert's letters are given, and these alone would go to stamp him as a wonderful man. His conscience was awakened by the popular outcry against his sin of simony, he plunged into his new duties at Thetford with ardour in the vain hope of distraction, but failed to find that consolation he had hoped to; and so about 1093 he determined on a visit to Rome to tender his resignation and confess his sin to Pope Urban. He journeyed to Rome and was kindly ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. H. B. Quennell
... before him was worried to distraction. He had the unhappy, panic-stricken eyes of an over-driven bullock that scents the slaughterhouse. And yet his dress was immaculate; he was tailored and laundered as though for an occasion of joy. Everything that he wore was discreetly festive, from the ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... assemblies; the Yearbooks, and statute books must give place to some French and Italian pamphlets, which handle the doctrines of duels, which, if they be in the right, transeamus ad illa, let us receive them, and not keep the people in conflict and distraction between two laws. Again, my lords, it is a miserable effect, when young men full of towardness and hope, such as the poets call "Aurorae filii," sons of the morning, in whom the expectation and comfort of their friends consisteth, shall be cast away and destroyed in such a vain manner. But much ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... papers. And yet I thought it was better to run that risk, more manly, more sensible, than to give way to the fears which made my flesh tremble as did Sir Cloudesley Shovel's. For myself the labor has been a distraction, and one which came at a time when it was needed. Sometimes, as in one of those poems recently published,—the reader will easily guess which,—the youthful spirit has come over me with such a rush that it made me feel just as I did when I wrote ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Henriette experienced a strange sensation of fear. He had been no protection to her, that scrubby urchin, but his chatter had been a distraction; he had kept her spirits up by his way of making game of everything, as if it was all one huge raree show. Now she was beginning to tremble, her strength was failing her, she, who by nature was so courageous. The shells ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... are none of them very profound or exalted studies in psychology; but they are truthful, natural, and ingenious; and it needed a sure and delicate hand to make them interesting and life-like. The feeble, solemn, timid, vacillating bishop, driven to distraction by some clerical scandal in his tea-cup of a diocese; the pompous ecclesiastic with wounded dignity and family quarrels; the over-sensitive priest whose conscience is more acute than his brain; the weak, generous, cowardly owner of an embarrassed ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... waitings, delayed explanations and mute avowals that the dwellers at Cinq-Cygne paid no attention to the public drama of the Emperor's coronation. At times these passions made a truce and sought distraction in the violent enjoyment of hunting, when weariness of body took from the soul all occasions to wander in the dangerous meadows of reverie. Neither Laurence nor her cousins had a thought now for public affairs; each day brought ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... certain king of Arabia they were relating the story of Laila and Mujnun, and his insane state, saying: "Notwithstanding his knowledge and wisdom, he has turned his face towards the desert, and abandoned himself to distraction." The king ordered that they bring him into his presence; and he reproved him, and spoke, saying: "What have you seen unworthy in the noble nature of man that you should assume the manners of a brute, and forsake the ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... instruments of the tyrant. Hope died away in the bottom of my heart. Shut up for the first night in my dungeon, I was seized at intervals with temporary frenzy. From time to time, I rent the universal silence with the roarings of unsupportable despair. But this was a transient distraction. I soon returned to the sober recollection of myself ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... and affording a pleasant distraction by fantastic humour on common subjects, the "Ingoldsby Legends" have been highly successful, and they are recommended by an occasional historical allusion, especially at the expense of the old monks. Being written by a man of knowledge and cultivation, they rise considerably above the standard ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... hours. His home life was the standard ideal one. That is, he got up at the same time every morning, left punctually at the same hour, took the L, arrived at the office on the minute, worked with his nose close to the ruled pages, steadily, without a distraction, till 12.30, had his macaroon tart and cup of coffee at Konrad's Bakery, smoked his five-cent cigar in the nearby square till 1.30, worked again till 5.30, returned home on the L, pressed tight like a lamb on the way to the packing-house, had a cozy little dinner upon which Dolly had spent ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... Heron has given them into my charge, and I am glad of it. Not that I care for all children," said Elizabeth, with the cool impartiality that was wont to drive Percival to the very verge of distraction. "I dislike some children very much, indeed, but, you see, I happen—fortunately for myself—to be fond ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... of Madame Lyon and enjoyed no one more, she was so independent, so lively of mind, and so ready for anything. She went with me on two of my trips in the War Zone, being only too glad of mental distraction; for like all the mothers of France she dreads the ring of the door-bell. She told me that several times the ladies who worked in her ouvroir would come down with beaming faces and read extracts from letters just ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... easy access to the city, but was remote enough to discourage casual or undesired callers. It had sufficient land to carry on farming and to sustain the necessary horses and domestic cattle. Mrs. Roosevelt supervised it; he simply loved it and got distraction from his more pressing affairs; if he had chosen to withdraw from these he might have devoted himself to the pleasing and leisurely life of a gentleman farmer. For a while his chief occupation was ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... rarely the wits and labours of men have been converted to the severe and original inquisition of knowledge; and in those who have pretended, what hurt hath been done by the affectation of professors and the distraction of such as were no professors; and how there was never in effect any conjunction or combination of wits in the first and inducing search, but that every man wrought apart, and would either have his own way or else would go ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... second one, for the same reward, had started to meet her, when, encountering the murderer with the scalp, which he recognized by the peculiar color and length of the hair, he hastened, in a state bordering on absolute distraction, to the fatal scene. A British officer, with a few attendants, had, in the mean time, removed the corpse to a wagon by the road side, and was guarding it, when the lover arrived to claim it. But his lamentations were so terrible, and his conduct so frantic, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... Ava bore its fruits; peace was confirmed, the Birmese were taught a salutary fear of British power, and deprived of the resources by which they might again make war upon our Indian empire. There were various matters of moment to India. Oude was, like Ireland, in chronic distraction; and the policy pursued towards it by the governor-general of India and the board of control was neither salutary, nor even safe. The space allotted to this History does not allow of even a review of the affairs of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... looked with amazement on the place. In the past twelve hours it had doubled in size and increased twenty-fold in its fever. The face of the desert was literally alive with men and animals. Half of Goldite and practically all of a dozen lesser camps were there. Confusion, discomfort, and distraction seemed hopelessly enthroned. The "rush" was written in men's faces, in their actions, in their baggage, words, ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... may bind, To weigh the courage or display the mind— All man could bear, with heart unflinching bear, Did not a dearer part his sufferings share— Worse than the captive's fate—wife, child, his all, The husband, and the father's name, appall His very soul, and bid him thrilling feel Distraction, as he makes the vain appeal. Upon his brow, where manhood's hand had seal'd Its perfect dignity, is now reveal'd A haggard wanness; from his livid eye The manly fire has faded; cold and dry, No more it glistens to the light. His thought, To the last pitch of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... she, who managed things badly, and was such a dunce, should be blamed. Still she was rather flurried by Mrs. Jones's scolding; and almost wished that she had taken Jenny home again. Her lessons were not well said, owing to the distraction ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... says that Lady Winsleigh was fond of you, Sir Philip,—then, that she was fond of Sir Francis Lennox,—and yet she has a husband of her own all the time! It is so very strange!" And the little maiden's perplexity appeared to border on distraction. "They would think such a woman quite mad in Norway! But what is worse than anything is that you—you, Sir Philip,—oh! I won't believe it," and she stamped her foot passionately, "I can't believe it! . . . and yet everybody says that you go to see a dreadful, painted ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... ye know not of, treasures that can only be gathered by the pure in heart and patient in spirit. Here around you, in your quiet German home, are the elements of all your strength. Here there is no distraction. Riches shall not allure you. Honorable poverty shall minister to your purity"; and young Bach knew that the voice was true, and, heeding it, there came to him likewise an inner voice, relating spiritual things, even as the voice of Nature related ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... the same tidings, he loved his father more than he cared for his own pain, and in his distraction plunged deeply into his foot the spear he chanced to be holding, dead to all bodily troubles in his stony sadness. For he wished to hurt some part of his body severely, that he might the more patiently bear the wound in his soul. By this act he showed at once his ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... in this state of distraction, antagonistic khans began to court the aid of the Russian princes, and a successful Tartar chieftain, who had poignarded his rival, and thus attained the throne, deposed Dmitri of Souzdal, and declared a young ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... drift of her new life, Vanessa was undisguisedly glad when distraction offered itself in the person of Mr. Dobrinton, a chance acquaintance whom they had first run against in the primitive hostelry of a benighted Caucasian town. Dobrinton was elaborately British, in deference perhaps to the memory of his mother, who was said ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... waste of time; when the youth of the Italian legion in Napoleon's campaign perished amidst the snows of Russia, their brothers and sisters, and fathers and mothers, must have found intrigues and operas and fashions but a poor sort of distraction. By these terrible means the old forces of society were destroyed, not quickly, but irreparably. The cavaliere servente was extinct early in this century; and men and women opened their eyes upon an era of work, the ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... sometimes beautiful, these dwellings. Deformed people, ciphers, ran about like gray mice in the tortuous streets from morning till evening; and their eyes, full of covetousness, looked for bread or for some distraction; other men placed at the crossways watched with a vigilant and ferocious air, that the weak should, without murmuring, submit themselves to the strong. The strong were the rich: everyone believed that money alone gives power and liberty. All wanted power because all were ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... pitty Distraction should have roome in you; I would Not for the love you beare my daughter, have ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... experience had made my eye learned in the valuing of motion; and I saw that we were now running thirteen miles an hour. I pretend to no presence of mind. On the contrary, my fear is that I am miserably and shamefully deficient in that quality as regards action. The palsy of doubt and distraction hangs like some guilty weight of dark unfathomed remembrances upon my energies when the signal is flying for action. But, on the other hand, this accursed gift I have, as regards thought, that in the first step ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... depicted in their faces. Others were flogging their images with might and main, calling upon them to allay the storm. One of the passengers from England had got hold of a bottle of rum and, with an air of distraction and deep despair imprinted on his face, was stalking about ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick |
