"Distracted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... recognized it as made by a whole and free spirit. The king had information that the orders appointed for the conquest of Philipinas were not sufficient for the total conversion and reduction of the many pagans; and, even if they were sufficient, that they had not exerted all their strength, distracted by other and less important cares. The proposition of the father provincial was very much in keeping with the royal intentions. Accordingly, without any delay, it was decreed that the father and his associates should prepare to go to the Philipinas Islands, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... but she had replied that she would meet us in the dining room. She entered now, a tall and beautiful woman of thirty, reserved and self-possessed to a remarkable degree, very different from the tragic and distracted figure I had pictured. It is true that her face was pale and drawn, like that of one who has endured a great shock; but her manner was composed, and the finely moulded hand which she rested upon the edge of ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and now in another, that I couldn't make speeches—that I had been brought up without a university education—and that I could enjoy a ride on horseback without galloping after a wretched stinking fox or a poor distracted little hare. These three unlucky defects of mine are not excused, it seems, in a country gentleman (especially when he has dodged a public reception to begin with). I think I got on best, upon the whole, with the wives and daughters. ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... to be distracted from the advancing danger by movement. The cavalrymen who go at the enemy, if left to themselves, would start at a gallop, for fear of not arriving, or of arriving exhausted and material for carnage. The same is true of the Arabs. Note what happened in 1864 to the ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... his supervisor, Forester, said, sitting on the side of Eddie's desk. Normally exuberant, he was left melancholy and distracted by the accident. "You ...
— New Apples in the Garden • Kris Ottman Neville
... but have felt her pulse," said Dinah Plait to herself, "I could have prescribed something that, maybe, would have done her good, poor distracted thing! Now it was well done of John Barker to leave this purse for her—but how is this?—poor thing! she's not fit to be trusted with money—here she has left her own purse ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... over Beatrice. Torn and distracted as she had been of late, this last discovery was almost too much for her. She could only stand there with her hand upon her heart to still ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... succeeded each other for the space of, at least, an hour and a half, after which they ceased, but left her in such a state of weakness and terror that she might be said, at that moment, to hover between life and death. She was carried in her distracted father's arms to bed, and after they had composed her as well as they could, her ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... and productive of the most intense suffering in after years, of any with which we are familiar. Some times it seems to me that my whole life has been one long, abject apology for photographs that I have shed abroad throughout a distracted country. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... behind Selsea Bill, where Lisle proposed to run them down in the dark, taking advantage of the tide. But they had an enemy to deal with worse than Lisle, on board their own ships, which explained their distracted movements. Hot weather, putrid meat, and putrid water had prostrated whole ships' companies with dysentery. After a three weeks' ineffectual cruise they had to hasten back to Havre, break up, and disperse. The first great armament which was to have recovered ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... sickness stole over her for a moment but she thought, "Perhaps Julia means to tease me. I will appear very unconcerned and not ask for it." So when Julia entered the room, she found that her sister's attention was suddenly, distracted by something in the street; but Fanny was not accustomed to dissemble and the rosy flush on her cheek showed how ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... he was compelled to lead. With these recruits, he felt himself in sufficient strength to cross over to the continent, and resume military operations in the proper theatre for discovery and conquest. From the Indians of Tumbez he learned that the country had been for some time distracted by a civil war between two sons of the late monarch, competitors for the throne. This intelligence he regarded as of the utmost importance, for he remembered the use which Cortes had made of similar dissensions among the tribes ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... dragged a little and annoyed him some. Suddenly a whole handful of sand was thrown into the cogs, and the cogs have been grinding it and the hammer striking continuously ever since. His brain is distracted, his soul is sorely perplexed, and his mind is like an infant in house-cleaning time, strangely in the way and infinitely aware of it. Here lies proud-riding vanity, thrown from his high saddle. Kindnesses are showered on him of which he feels ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... understand profoundly the difference of races that brings with it the feeling of romance or awakens hate. My gorge rose at Manuel's song. I hated his lamentations. "Alas, alas; in vain, in vain." He strummed with vertiginous speed, with fury, and the distracted clamour of his voice, wrestling madly with the ringing madness of the strings, ended in a ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... in the distance through the trees, till the green meadows blossom with them, and sparkle like a lawn of daisies; we may hear the ringing laughter of the girls to whom market day seems an occasion of great rejoicing, and we may be somewhat distracted with the steady droning patois of the old women; but we come to see rather than to hear, and, returning to the town for the last time, we take our station at the corner of the market-place, and make a sketch of a group of Norman maidens who are ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... great differences among children in the readiness with which they adopt suggestions or follow orders. Some children are easily dissuaded from a line of action in which they are engaged. Their attention is not very closely filed, and they are easily distracted, and may be sent from one thing to another without resenting the interruptions. Such children quickly learn to obey, and some seldom offer resistance to suggestion; but they deserve no special praise or credit ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... anything. This does not, however, prevent her from becoming a cause of infinite trouble to others. Her maid is worn to a shadow by the perpetual search for handkerchiefs and eau de Cologne, with which to bathe the aching forehead of her mistress. Her friends are distracted by the recital of her tales of shattered nerves, and merciless migraines; her husband finds his existence embittered by a constant change of butlers, and a perpetual succession of cooks, over whom his feeble wife exercises about as much control as the President of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 12, 1890 • Various
... denied that his whole appearance is extremely repulsive. He is a horribly ill-made little man, and is always absent-minded, which gives him a distracted air, as if he were really crazy. When it could be the least expected, too, he will fall over his own walking-stick. The folks in the palace were so much accustomed to this in the late King's time, that they used always to say, when they ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... the grey walls of the Grifoni palace would rise before them! Beppo even began to modify his opinion about Teresina. Her ruff and streamers would have been as welcome a sight to him just then as an oasis to travellers in the desert. But alas! Teresina was at that moment many miles away, and distracted with anxiety and grief. The bewildered Beppina now began ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... of sharpness and wit, for which his hunch gave him the authority. As we penetrated finally into the immense crypt, long like a street, provided with iron railways for handling the stores, and threaded now and then by heavy wagons and Normandy horses, my interest in the surrounding wonders was distracted by apprehensions of the fate awaiting the unfortunate ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... his assembly of all the distracted company before the arrival of the police. But when he first began to comment once more on the young architect's delay in putting in an appearance, he found himself in the presence of a minor mystery, and a psychological development of ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... passed him. He recognized them at once as blockade runners who had probably come up from Wilmington to sell their goods for a better price at the capital. While wondering what they had brought, his attention was distracted by one of the auctioneers, a large man with a red face ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... successive administrations at Washington. Proud and confident, they indulged the belief that their great political prestige would continue to serve them among their late party associates in the North, and that the counsels of the adversary would be distracted, and his power weakened, by the fatal effects of dissension. All warlike sentiment and capacity was believed to be extinct among the traders and manufacturers, 'the shopkeepers and pedlars,' of the Middle and Eastern States. Hence a vigorous attack in arms against the Federal ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... have taken them. I came here distracted—half mad. My uncle tried to be kind, but he has no imagination and could rise to nothing higher than reading me passages from 'Moby Dick.' Doria was of my own generation and he has a feminine quality ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... slanderously accused of wishing to abolish the Sabbath, the observance of which he inculcated with the strictness of the Puritans. He introduced congregational singing, but would not allow the ear or the eye to be distracted. The music was simple, dispensing with organs and instruments and all elaborate and artistic display. It is needless to say that this severe simplicity of worship has nearly passed away, but it cannot be doubted that the changes ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... there poor and desolate and forsaken, unknowing where she should ever again find any of them, she fell down aswoon upon the strand, calling upon her husband and her children. There was none there to recall her distracted spirits with cold water or other remedy, wherefore they might at their leisure go wandering whither it pleased them; but, after awhile, the lost senses returning to her wretched body, in company with tears and lamentations, she called long upon her children and went ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... we have heard, not only in your prefecture but in other places also, to the prejudice of our guardianship,—which wrongs could not be prosecuted outside of Paris in any way which would prevent them from being distracted from their studies, to their serious prejudice and that of the aforesaid University, and from being harassed by serious struggles and expense,—therefore we entrust and commit to you their protection and custody, and in addition thereto the restraint of those persons who, to the prejudice of ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... "His distracted mother sits by me; I would entreat you to extend your kindness towards her, but I fear she will soon require no earthly aid. Still, soothe her last moments with a promise to protect the orphan, and may God bless you ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... you see?" she implored, her heart leaping, then falling. But for once, the courtesy due to an honored guest was forgotten, and the distracted Frau Yorvan fled from the room without ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... leave the King of Prussia and the Elector of Cologne, to protest and remonstrate as much as ever they please. The former is too wise, and the latter too weak in every respect, to act in consequence of these protests. The distracted situation of France, with its ecclesiastical and parliamentary quarrels, not to mention the illness and possibly the death of the Dauphin, will make the King of Prussia, who is certainly no Frenchman in his heart, very cautious how he acts ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... Pria Veneziana, poi Christiane: "First Venetian, and then Christian!" condenses the whole spirit of their ancient Republic into the smallest space possible. Their political proverbs no doubt arose from the extraordinary state of a people sometimes distracted among republics, and sometimes servile in petty courts. The Italian says, I popoli s'ammazzano, ed i principi s'abbracciano: "The people murder one another, and princes embrace one another." Chi prattica co' grandi, l'ultimo a ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... a cigarette in his mouth, sat in a big arm-chair at his desk, tracing circles and squares upon a sheet of paper, his habit when distracted. Now and then he scratched his head. He was attentive to the report, still drawing his circles, but making no comment, except that his lips ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... altogether. It is one great advantage of academical education, that a definite course of reading is marked out for you. When a young man,—indeed, when any man,—is left entirely to his own choice, he is apt to be distracted by the many different branches of study, the many different books, which present themselves, and to fall into a habit of desultory reading, productive of little lasting benefit. You are saved from this distraction and perplexity, throwing upon ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... to essay its power—with all the vanity of a frivolous fine lady, all the capricious waywardness of a child—was amusing herself, during her husband's absence, by playing with the passion of a clever but heartless man, distracted (so he said) with love, the love that combines readily with every petty social ambition of a self-conceited coxcomb. Mme. d'Aiglemont, whose long experience had given her a knowledge of life, and taught her to judge of men ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... indifferent politicians in the Mother Country neglected to push home the fruits of victory on behalf of the colony which the struggle had convulsed, and the direct consequence of this neglect may be seen in the French fishery claims, which long distracted the occasional leisure of the Colonial Office. Newfoundland has indeed been hardened by centuries of trial. For years its growth was arrested by the interested jealousy of English merchants; and its maturity was vexed by French exactions, against which Canada or Australia would ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... Simon halt betwixt two ways like one distracted, but only he did mingle a mass of sacred words with his arguments which seemed to me nought but profanity, his sole concern being the gain of money. Then he falls to the old excuses Don Sanchez had told us of, saying he had no money ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... having, during a short time, excited alarm, soon sank into obscurity and contempt, but which, in obscurity and contempt, continued to drag on a languid existence during several generations. The little Church, without temples, revenues or dignities, was even more distracted by internal disputes than the great Church, which retained possession of cathedrals, tithes and peerages. Some nonjurors leaned towards the ceremonial of Rome; others would not tolerate the slightest departure from the Book of Common Prayer. Altar was set up against altar. One phantom ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Halloran. "You mean we must be moving." He linked arms with Tom and fell into step with him; he clung to that rigid arm, moreover, despite Tom's surly displeasure. Not until a friend stopped them for a word or two was the distracted parent enabled to escape from that spidery embrace; then, indeed, he slipped it as a filibustering schooner slips its moorings, and made off as rapidly ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... Hurrying her distracted mother to the train, the girl settled into a corner and remained in unbroken silence until ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... himself the position he now holds; and though his path to greatness has been deluged with the blood of the bravest nobles of the land, it must be admitted that the peace and prosperity which Nepaul now enjoys would never have been possessed by her while distracted and convulsed by the struggles of hostile factions; and much less would she ever have experienced the blessings of an enlightened administration, if these struggles had not resulted in the elevation of General Jung Bahadoor to ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... speeches would be to encourage the spirit of rebellion which unhappily prevails in the Colony over a large area, and ministers regard it as an imperative duty to do everything in their power to subdue that rebellious spirit, and restore peace and good-will to the distracted country."[284] ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... together in struggle, and sent them forth on reckless adventure. It has been said that art is decay, the pearl in the oyster; but such belief seems at variance with any reading of history. The Greek sculptors came after Salamis and Marathon; the Italian renaissance came when Italy was distracted with revolution and was divided into opposing states. Great empires have not produced great men. Art came upon Holland after heroic wars in which the Dutchmen vehemently asserted their nationhood, defending their country against the Spaniard, even to the ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... he alone remained away. This naturally pointed suspicion at him. When the messengers had gone to seek him, his mother refused them admission, declaring in incoherent phrases, betraying great agitation, that her son was gone distracted with grief and could see no one. On this it was determined to order his arrest. The police went, the house was searched, and the ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... Malroy's been acting mighty queer ever since Charley Norton was shot—distracted like! He says he noticed it, and that Tom ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... said not merely "I remember," but "I remember just what you remember"; almost, indeed, as though her memory had aided his, her glance flung back on their recaptured moment its morning brightness. Certainly, when their distracted Ambassadress—with the cry: "Oh, you know Mrs. Leath? That's perfect, for General Farnham has failed me"—had waved them together for the march to the dining-room, Darrow had felt a slight pressure of the arm on his, a pressure faintly but unmistakably emphasizing the exclamation: "Isn't ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... prodigal,—weak, foolish, easily imposed upon, and "led away," as people say. All that we had heard had passed actually in life, the Doctor said. The young man had come home thus a day or two after his mother died,—who was no more than the housekeeper in the old house,—and distracted with the news, had thrown himself down at the door and called upon her to let him in. The old man could scarcely speak of it for tears. To me it seemed as if—Heaven help us, how little do we know about anything!—a ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... against the insurgents, and again and again they were baffled in their attempts to overtake and crush them. The soldiers became worn out by forced marches, in running from one place to another to disperse assemblies in the Desert. They were distracted by the number of places in which the rebels made their appearance. Cavalier ran from town to town, making his attacks sometimes late at night, sometimes in the early morning; but before the troops could come up he had done all the mischief ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... visitors; the intellectual light of the women visitors, whatever it was, was much dispersed and intercepted by the screen behind which they were placed. I do not know why the women should be thus obscured, for, if the minds of members were in danger of being distracted by their presence, I should think they would be still more distracted when the element of mystery was added to it by the grille. Seen across the whole length of the House from the men's gallery the women looked as if tightly pressed ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... Academy. Will that young lady ever again sleep quietly in her bed? I should hope not. An opinion was expressed to me that there should be no hotel in such a place—that there should be no ferry, no roads, no means by which the attention of the students should be distracted—that these military Rasselases should live in a happy military valley from which might be excluded both strong drinks and female charms—those two poisons from which youthful military ardor is supposed to ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... French and Spanish ambassadors had obliged her to suspend its execution, there is no reason to suppose that the design was relinquished, when this unexpected stroke rendered it for ever impracticable. The regency of Scotland, too, was now to be contested by the enraged factions of that distracted country, and it was of great importance to Elizabeth that the victory should fall to the party of the young king; yet such were the perplexities of her political situation, that it was some time before she could satisfy herself that there would not ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... character totally unknown in the south. Two children, of seven and eight years old, went out to collect firewood a short distance from their parents' home, which was a quarter of a mile from the village, and were kidnapped; the distracted parents could not find a trace of them. This happened so close to the town, where there are no beasts of prey, that we suspect some of the high men of Shinte's court were the guilty parties: they ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... derisively, waved fond and fantastic salutations to the disappointed vendor of pigeons, and moved backwards on tiptoe till he could see him no more; then we went noiselessly down a steep incline out into an open space of distracted and dishevelled beauty on our way ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... off in a half sob. Cantankerous as the old man had shown himself to be, and grasping withal, the boys could not help but feel sorry for the stricken old fellow. He looked pitifully bowed and old and wretched in the midst of his distracted farm hands, who were running about and shouting and not doing ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... Desgrais came to President La Regnie pale and perturbed, quite distracted in fact. "What's the matter? What news? Have you got a clue?" cried the President "Oh! your excellency," began Desgrais, stammering with rage, "oh! your excellency—last night—not far from the Louvre—the Marquis de la Fare[13] was ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... are, my love—so different from every other individual that comes to see me. It is good for my poor nerves to have my attention distracted to any other trivial matter? Tell me, dearest, why you are so pallid. I do trust the story is exciting—I need excitement, my darling. Is it an affair of ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... brought up from Catskill that afternoon were full of the kidnapping. Master Harrington's distracted mother was under the care of a dozen or so specialists, six or eight servants had been discharged for neglect, Mr. Harrington offered a reward of five thousand dollars, somebody had seen the child in Detroit, ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... IV. came to the throne at the early age of thirteen; and thus the kingdom came under the regency of Raymund II. of Tripoli. Happily for the kingdom whose king was a child and a leper, the attention of Saladin was distracted for several years by an attempt to wrest from the sons of Nureddin the inheritance of their father—an attempt partially successful in 1174, but only finally realized in 1183. The problems of the reign of Baldwin IV. may be said to have been two—his sister Sibylla and the fiery ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... sensations emanating from all points of the organism and, more particularly, from the viscera. One cannot imagine the degree of sharpness, of acuity, which may be obtained during sleep by these interior sensations. They doubtless already exist as well during waking. But we are then distracted by practical action. We live outside of ourselves. But sleep makes us retire into ourselves. It happens frequently that persons subject to laryngitis, amygdalitis, etc., dream that they are attacked by their affection and experience a disagreeable ...
— Dreams • Henri Bergson
... morning came. When I was called down to breakfast, the sight of his empty seat distracted me. I returned to my room, though I thought it my duty to take some nourishment. I had it brought to me. Alas, I could nowhere turn my eyes but the sight was connected with this dear idea, and recalled past delights, never more to return. Our back ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... your eyes to our new and distracted world. This new world?—you ought to be thankful that you cannot see it. I wish I did not have to see it. But you don't want to hear me talk? You don't want philosophizing? I'm afraid I'm not very happy in ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... war should be prosecuted, and the means, as well, by which it could be prosecuted. Consider, also, that this work was done by a man called to the head of an administration that had no predecessor, to the management of the affairs of a government distracted by civil war, its navy scattered, its treasury bankrupted, its foreign relations disturbed by a traditional and almost universal hostility to republican institutions, and all while he was threatened constantly by an adverse public judgment in that section of the country in which his hopes rested ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... mate, I was seized, when I was crossing Tower Wharf, by a press-gang; and on my resistance, was disarmed, taken prisoner, and carried on board; where, after being treated like a malefactor, I was thrust down into the hold among a parcel of miserable wretches, the sight of whom well nigh distracted me. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... suspicious about this action of Masinissa called him and censured him for having so speedily married a woman taken captive from the enemy without the commanding officer's consent, and he bade him give her up to the Romans. Masinissa, thoroughly distracted, rushed into the tent where Sophonis was and cried out to her: "If I might by my own death ensure thee liberty and freedom from outrage, I would cheerfully die for thee; but since this is impossible, I send thee before me whither I and all shall come." With these words he held out poison to her. ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... English, besides learning Portuguese; and Ellen and Arthur spared no pains in their endeavours to instruct them in the more important truths of religion. Don Jose and his faithful Isoro returned at length to Ecuador, when peace was once more established in that long distracted province; and the cacique wrote whenever an opportunity occurred for sending a letter down the Amazon. Senhor Pimento and his family after a time returned to their estate, and we never failed to pay them a visit when we went up the river. The rebellion of the natives was at length happily ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... body-snatchers of history, who dig up dead reputations for malignant dissection.' If only that he imparted, in a black time, when it appeared but too likely that the Alliance might falter and succumb from mere sick-headache, his own defying, ardent, and invincible spirit to a tired, puzzled, distracted and distrustful nation; if only that he dispelled the vapours, inspired a new hope and resolution, brought the British people to that temper which makes small men great, assured our Allies that their cause was in the fullest sense our ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... she began to scream for him not to touch her. She writhed and rolled on the floor. The door opened. Aunt Lison came running in with Widow Dentu, then the baron, and finally little mother, puffing and distracted. ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... covered with networks of economic relations which, without being always emanations of the governmental brain, were never devoid of a definite political purpose. While Great Britain, and in a lesser degree France, distracted by parliamentary strife or intent on domestic reforms, left trade and commerce to private initiative and the law of supply and demand, the German Government watched over all big commercial transactions, interwove them with political interests, ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... is to become of those mother little girls. I wish I could take them into my own home, but, of course, that is not even to be thought at this juncture. Ernest says their father seemed nearly distracted when Amelia died, and that his uncle is going to send him off ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... the heart of an Ivan—burst at times from the feverish lips of this child of circumstance. Infinite Father—Divine Influence—Spirit of Love—whatever Thou art—wilt Thou not illumine the thought-processes of this distracted youth and thus provide the way of escape from impending destruction? Can it be Thy will that this fair mind shall be utterly crushed? Do the agonized words of appeal which rise to Thee from his riven soul fall ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... and conveyed it away. They were sent, it was said, by Caesonia, the wife of the murdered man. Caesonia had an infant daughter at this time, and she remained herself with the child, in a retired apartment of the palace while these things were transpiring. Distracted with grief and terror at the tidings that she heard, she clung to her babe, and made the arrangements for the interment of the body of her husband without leaving its cradle. She imagined perhaps that there was ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... never occur in Lady Cecilia's natural grace and acquired tact of manner. Helen was amused, as she followed her, in watching the readiness with which she knew how to exchange the necessary counters in the commerce of society: she was amused, till her attention was distracted by hearing, as she and Beauclerc passed, the whispered words—"I promessi sposi—look—La belle fiancee." These words were repeated as they went on, and Lady Cecilia heard some one say, "I thought it was broken off; that was all slander ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... door softly, but rich men with many hundred pounds worth of bric-a-brac buy themselves very well made doors that fasten with singularly cunning locks. Then the lift returned with the boy in charge, and, so soon as his Sunday and rather distracted attention was drawn to the state of affairs, he suggested that Sister Ursula should go down to the basement and speak to the caretaker, who doubtless had a duplicate key. To the basement, therefore, Sister Ursula went with the medicine-bottle ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the triumph of the Pelhams—the grotesque Duke of Newcastle and his brother, who owed their success mainly to skill in the art of parliamentary management. The opposition had ousted Walpole by taking advantage of the dumb instinct which impelled us to go to war with Spain; and distracted by the interests of Hanover and the balance of power we had plunged into that complicated series of wars which lasted for some ten years, and passes all powers of the ordinary human intellect to understand or remember. For what particular reason Englishmen were ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... she? I could only conclude that her nerves were badly shaken, and that she was temporarily unhinged. Upstairs, I heard a door bang, loudly, and I knew that she had taken refuge in her room. I put the flask down on the table. My attention was distracted by a noise in the direction of the back door. I went toward it, and listened. It appeared to be shaken, as though some of the creatures struggled with it, silently; but it was far too strongly constructed and ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... his people of his safety by showing himself daily to them at a certain window, and some musicians, thinking to arouse his sympathy, brought beneath this window a funeral bier, and set up a doleful wailing. Distracted by the noise, the emperor appeared and demanded what it all meant? 'Melody is dead,' was the dejected reply, 'and we are taking it to the graveyard.' 'Very good,' answered the annoyed ruler; 'make the grave so deep ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... Tristram Shandy with appreciation, but Geoffrey could not read. He sat, indeed, with a book open on his knee, but his eyes were fixed on the carpet. The knowledge of the girl's presence in his house distracted him like a lantern swung before his eyes. He gave himself up to steeping himself in his emotion, which, in some situations, is the nearest ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller
... continually passing. He was one of those frivolous little minds with whom the present is all in all, caring little for the past, and still less for the future. It was no marvel, therefore, that he preferred the utter abandonment of his distracted country for the luxury and ease attending the court and camp of Edward, to the great dangers and little recompense attending the toils and struggles of a patriot. The only emotion of any weight with him was the remembrance ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... last many minutes. The traders did their best, and although by no means formidable opponents, distracted the attention of the robbers, who were startled by the fall of two of their party. Geoffrey received a sharp cut on the head, but at the same moment ran his opponent through the body, while Gerald Burke cut down ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... one time was an old tin can with a string attached, out of which they tortured the most savage and ear-splitting discords. The police were obliged to interfere and suppress the nuisance. On another occasion, at Christmas, they all came forth with tin horns, and nearly drove the town distracted with the hideous uproar. ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... that power became secularized, and passed into the hands of unbelievers, the Jewish people lived less and less for the earth, and became more and more absorbed by the strange fermentation which was operating in their midst. The world, distracted by other spectacles, had little knowledge of that which passed in this forgotten corner of the East. The minds abreast of their age were, however, better informed. The tender and clear-sighted Virgil seems to answer, ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... that the village had put on its wonted air of neglect and decay, or that Peter looked around him in vain for traces of those novelties which had so puzzled and distracted him upon ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Featherhead ran distracted with terror up and down, through the bundles of hay, between barrels, and over casks, but with the barking terrier ever at his heels, and the boys running, shouting, and cheering his pursuer on. He was glad at last to escape through a crack, though he left half of his ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... glory of their king without procuring the least advantage to the people, who received not the smallest benefit from it even in time of peace; and that, their manners being corrupted by a long war, robbery and murders everywhere abounded, and their laws fell into contempt; while their king, distracted with the care of two kingdoms, was the less able to apply his mind to the interest of either. When they saw this, and that there would be no end to these evils, they by joint counsels made an humble address to their ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... of crime seems to be perpetuated in this distracted capital: suicides, pillage, and assassinations, are daily committed, and are still suffered to pass unnoticed. But what renders our situation still more deplorable, is the existence of an innumerable band of spies, who infest all public places, and all private societies. More than ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... in these districts, he made a methodical survey of the country, and was able to prepare valuable maps. He collected an immense amount of scientific material. He studied the manners and customs of the inhabitants, and made careful observations on the political state. He found the whole land distracted with incessant warfare, and broad tracts of country, fertile and apt for the occupation of white men, given over to desolation. It was then that he realised the curse of slave-raiding, the abolition of which was to become the great object of his future activity. His strength was small, and, ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... our slaves' blood becomes more consanguined still with our own, the danger of a violent revolution, over which we can have no control, must become more imminent every day. By a course of undecided action, determined by no policy but the vague will of a war-distracted people, we run the risk of precipitating that very revolutionary violence which we seem seeking ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... she found her none the worse, the flesh all over her face and person had however become emaciated and parched up. She readily sat with Mrs. Ch'in for a long while, and after they had chatted on one thing and another, she again reiterated the assurances that this illness involved no danger, and distracted her for ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... is preparing for a vigorous Campaign. It is prudent for us to enquire of the Watchman What of the Night? The Caution given us on another occasion may with propriety be adapted to this. Be ye ready; lest when the Time of Danger approaches, ye be found distracted with the eager Pursuit of Riches, or sleeping in the delusive Lap of pleasure & Dissipation. But this is a Digression from the intended Subject of my Letter. You ask my opinion of two Men who have lately appeard on the publick Stage; and ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... the actors who can thus wield at will the passions of the spectators. What we are anxious to observe is, that the general impression, from the play must be less profound, when the mind is thus distracted by a variety of powerful feelings succeeding each other so rapidly, and when the interest, which would naturally increase of itself as the performance proceeds, in the history and moral tendency of the tragedy, is thus broken, as it were, by the influence ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... must have held him in talk while contemplating the crime, sir. The murderer and his victim must almost have been breast to breast, and while the attention of the latter was distracted in some way, the assassin must have shot him at ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... her house in Spring Garden should be open to him. Charming as he was, and without any manner of doubt a pretty fellow, Jocasta hath such a regiment of the like continually marching round her standard, that 'tis no wonder her attention is distracted amongst them. And so, though this gentleman made a considerable impression upon her, and touched her heart for at least three-and-twenty minutes, it must be owned that she has forgotten his name. He is a dark man, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for a time in quiet, after which disturbances are introduced. A bell rings, a phonograph record is played, perhaps a perfect bedlam of noise is let loose; with the curious result that the subject, only momentarily distracted, accomplishes more work rather than less. The distraction has acted as a stimulus to greater effort, and by this effort {260} is overcame. This does not always happen so in real life, but it shows the possibilities of ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... papers mention a gigantic raid in motion from Tennessee to Selma, Montgomery, and Mobile, Ala., consisting of 40,000 cavalry and mounted infantry, a la Sherman. They are resolved to give us no rest, while we are distracted among ourselves, and the President refuses to change ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... look upon God, and in the act of looking past themselves to Him they are unconsciously united. The sailor was right when he saw the little boy fall overboard and waited a minute before he plunged to his rescue. When the distracted mother asked him in agony why he had waited so long, he sensibly replied: "I knew that if I went in before he would clutch and drag me down. I waited until his struggles were over, and then I was able to help him when he did not grasp me ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... distracted was my mind thereon, whether I should engage in conflict, and death dispense, valiant in arms, for my brother's quarrel. That would then be world-widely known, and to many a one bring ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... boding mind 365 Fancied, foresaw, or felt what they desgn'd. Trembling, alive to all she sees or hears, Suspecting ev'ry thing, she doubts, she fears, While Fame that wounded feeling never spar'd, The crews on board announced, the fleet prepar'd: 379 Till mad'ning flames within her bosom rise; Distracted, furious, o'er the town she flies, Wild as the Woodnymph when the frantic rite And Bacchanalian shout, to rage excite Madder and louder as the God invades, 375 She hears him bounding ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... Reilly, "I have, as I said, provided for you both; what that provision is I will not mention now. Mr. Hastings will inform you. But if you have a wish to leave this unhappy and distracted country, even without Connor, why, by applying to him, you will be enabled to do so; or, if you wish to stay at home and take a ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... ladies hold aloof and wait to be sought; but here among the Kosekin, women have as much liberty in making love as men, and there is no law or custom about it. If a woman chooses she can pay the most desperate attentions, and play the part of a distracted lover to her heart's content. In most cases the women actually take the initiative, as they are more impressible and impulsive than men; and so it was that Layelah made me the object of her persistent ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... until after dinner that she mentioned the concerto to him, snatching an opportunity when they chanced to find themselves alone for a few minutes. Some distracted young married woman from the village had called to ask Lady Gertrude's advice as to how she should deal with a husband who seemed to find his chief entertainment in life in beating her with a broomstick and in threatening to "do her in" altogether if the application of the broomstick proved ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... pride, I suppose—he's Scotch too, isn't he? Blarney's no go with him. Faith, it's like trying to butter short-bread with the thermometer at zero. By Jove, there he is ahead of us. Alister, man! Not the ghost of a look will he give me. He's fine-looking, too, if his hair wasn't so insanely distracted, and his brow ridged and furrowed deep enough to plant potatoes in. What in the name of fortune's he ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... dependence on the First Consul's will might provoke too much comment, but at Lyons. To that city, accordingly, there repaired some 450 of the chief men of Northern Italy, who braved the snows of a most rigorous December, in the hope of consolidating the liberties of their long-distracted country. And thus was seen the strange spectacle of the organization of Lombardy, Modena, and the Legations being effected in one provincial centre of France, while at another of her cities the peace of Europe and the fortunes of two colonial empires were likewise at stake. Such a conjunction ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... from under the bedclothes, and with a purposeless uncertain grasp took hold of a stick which was loosely tied to the side of the bed. After some poking about with this instrument, in the course of which his face assumed a variety of distracted expressions, Mr. Barkis poked it against a box, an end of which had been visible to me all the time. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... created, which is in itself a sovereignty, which has subverted empires and set up new dynasties, and has not only made war, but war against its legitimate sovereign! Under the influence of this power we have seen rise a South Sea Company, and a Mississippi Company, that distracted and convulsed all Europe, and menaced a total overthrow of all credit and ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... attention was soon distracted, for a baby wailed in the house on the other side, and a fish cart went past ringing a loud bell to warn the women to run out with their dishes. The bell was harsh in tone, filling the street with clamour, and when the cart started again after a purchase the bell pealed afresh ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... the convention drew near, the supporters of the rival candidates redoubled their exertions; there was hurrying to and fro, writing of letters and continued consultation, all of which inevitably distracted the attention of the Father. He did perceive, however, that Philip was troubled, and nothing could have been more tender or considerate than his attitude. He did not talk to Ashe about Maurice, but he contrived to make his deacon understand that no blame ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... have none," cried Mr. Thomas. "I need all that I can get myself. I am distracted, Mr. Babington, ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... grew, however, to be very critical at Mesket. Famine at last broke out, and the people were well-nigh distracted, as no assistance or relief could be expected from without. It was therefore decided to attempt a last sortie in order to die at least with glory. There was just sufficient powder left for one more ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde |
