"Distraction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Wimple, I beseech you! I knew not what I said; forgive me, ah, forgive me!—for you are merciful, as you are pure and true. If you were aware of all, you would know that I could not insult you, if I would. Trouble, distraction, have made me coarse,—false, too, to myself as unjust and injurious to you; for I know your virtues, and believe in them as I believe in little else in this world or the next. If in my hour of agony ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... distracted by a commotion in my vicinity. Thus concentration produced by any form of attention is easily destroyed by a legion of possible disturbances. If I desire to increase my concentration to the maximum, I must remove every possible cause of distraction. ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... in its course I shut out every obstacle, every extraneous idea, I stop my ears and inhibit all attention to the sounds which come from the next room. And then, feeling that my mind is growing fatigued without having any success to report, I compel it for a change to enjoy that distraction which I have just denied it, to think of other things, to rest and refresh itself before the supreme attempt. And then for the second time I clear an empty space in front of it. I place in position before my mind's eye the still recent taste of that first mouthful, and I feel something start within ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... be embodied and represented is a matter of 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
... by Jack's unexpected abstention, which seemed to spare her pupils the distraction of his graces, Miss Mix smiled more amicably and retired with her charge. In the single glance he had exchanged with Sophy he saw that, although resigned and apparently self-controlled, she still appeared thoughtful and melancholy. She had ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... outside of respectable composure have turmoiled the tides of such remorse and pain as only a man at once largely and finely made can feel. Added to the mental excitement carried through many phases to the point of distraction, have been bodily exertion and want of food and sleep. The apparition of unnatural ugliness, of behavior strange as her looks, coming upon him in this untoward condition, needed not the heat of the conservatory and stupefying perfume of the flowers to bring ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... his tumultuous crew of rabble; and the forces raised afterwards by the Catholic lords and gentlemen of the English pale, in defence of the King after the English rebellion began. It is well known, that His Majesty's affairs were in great distraction some time before, by an invasion of the covenanting, Scottish, kirk rebels, and by the base terms the King was forced to accept, that they might be kept in quiet, at a juncture when he was every hour threatened at home by that fanatic party, which soon after set all in a flame. And, if ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... to the barn without another word. His going was almost precipitate, but not from any fear of Jake. It was himself he feared. This merciless brute drove him to distraction every time he came into contact with him, and the only way he found it possible to keep the peace with him at all was by avoiding him, by getting out of his way, by shutting him out of mind, ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... partisanship. Nobody ever dared to hold the senator responsible for her promises, even while enjoying the fellowship of both, and it is said that the worthy man singularly profited by it. Looking upon the invitation as a possible distraction to his gloomy thoughts, Brant ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... however true his reflections were, he had chosen a bad moment for abandoning himself to them. Indeed, Madame Denis took so sovereign an air of dignity, that D'Harmental saw that he had not an instant to lose if he wished to efface from her mind the bad impression which his distraction had caused. ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... first letter home, but the one most heavily underscored, and chief among them all, was the fact that the big girls did not seem to consider her a "little pitcher" or a "tag." No matter where they went or what they talked about, she was free to follow and to listen. It was interesting to the verge of distraction when they talked merely of Warwick Hall and the schoolgirls, or recalled various things that had happened at the first house-party. But when they discussed the approaching wedding, the guests, the gifts, the decorations, ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... open window. At the corner of the block a Salvation Army meeting was in progress, and he was surprised that he had not noticed the fact, although this practice of the Salvationists holding meetings near his flat had before now driven him to utter distraction. ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... years devoted their hearts, 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 ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... a stern resolution of endurance—lips firmly compressed, eyes fixed in a stony gaze on the orchestra, whence issued by turns groans, shrieks, and screams, from sundry foully-abused instruments of music; accompanied by equally appalling sounds from flat, shrill signorinas, quavering to distraction, backed by gigantic "basses," (double ones surely,) who, with voices like the "seven devils" of the old Grecian, bellowed out divers sentimentalisms about dying for love, when assuredly their most proximate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... of two servant-girls, who came from the part of Madame Hsing of the other mansion, to bring him a few kinds of fruits, and to inquire whether he was able to walk. "If you can go about," they told him, "(our mistress) desires you, Mr. Pao-yue, to cross over to-morrow and have a little distraction. Her ladyship ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... conducted her to the bedside of her son. I was sitting with him when the interview between him and his mother took place, and I assure you that it was almost too much for my nerves—his joy and gratitude were so great at once more beholding his parent, while the grief and distraction of the poor woman, on seeing him in a dying state, was agonising; and she gave vent to her feelings in uttering the most hearty curses against the country, and the persons who by their unkindness had been the cause of his ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... his son had fallen upon him, or stood by him with a sword in his hand; and thus was his mind night and day intent upon this thing, and revolved it over and over, no otherwise than if he were under a distraction. And this was the sad ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... 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 that she lived alone, and the other fact that she made so few ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... on. His father's taunts and gibes, always becoming more bitter, drove David almost to distraction. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... almost despaired of, my lord; she has not yet recovered her consciousness. Her brother is in a state of distraction." ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... a little dismayed at first, but when I had seen my intended my dismay took flight—he was such a handsome fellow, dressed with so much taste, and wore his sword with so much grace and spirit. At the end of two days he loved me to distraction and I doted on him. I brought him to my nurse's cabin and told her all our plans of marriage and all my happiness, not observing the despair of poor Joseph, who had always worshiped me and who had not doubted he would have me to love. But who would ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... The Advance, the official journal of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, gives us his opinion regarding the religion of labor. "It lulls the social underdog with a sham consolation for the oppression and exploitation which are his lot, and furnishes the exploiter and oppressor with graceful distraction and absolution from his daily practice and meanness. This is the actual basis of Church activity to-day. The religion of labor is godless, for it seeks to restore the ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... tools," says Captain Carteret, "we might have purchased everything upon the Freewill Islands that we could have brought away. A few pieces of old iron hoop presented to one of the natives threw him into an ecstasy little short of distraction." At Otaheite the people were found generally well-behaved and honest; but they were not proof against the fascinations of iron. Captain Cook says that one of them, after resisting all other temptations, "was at length ensnared by the charms of basket of nails." ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... of Henchard's estimate. Among the other urgent reasons for his presence had been the need of his authority to send to Budmouth for a second physician; and when at length Farfrae did come back he was in a state bordering on distraction at ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... called him, was one of the gilders in the book-bindery—a tall, handsome, manly young fellow of four-and-twenty, whose only failing was that he loved little Dorothy Glenn to distraction. ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... 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
... a bond and a distraction. They brought out Baumgartner's simple side, and they emphasised the schoolboy's simplicity. Both played a strenuous game, the doctor a most deliberate one; his brows would knit, his mouth shut, his eyes calculate, ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... me most about medicine today is that there seems to be ever fewer hygienists practicing. The young holistic practitioner is overwhelmed with confusing data and approaches and is increasingly less able to discern what is really important and what is distraction, and is increasingly intimidated by the AMA, made fearful of accepting people with serious conditions. Too many young practitioners become ideologues, clinging to the rightness of a single rigid discipline, missing the truths that exist in other approaches ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... her bereavement, of going to the comedy, under Tonelli's protection and along with Pennellini and his sister, while the poor signora afterwards had real qualms of patriotism concerning the breach of public duty involved in this distraction of her daughter. She hoped that no one had recognized her at the theatre, otherwise they might have a warning from the Venetian Committee. "Thou knowest," she said to the Paronsina, "that they have even admonished the old ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... dear, if 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
... 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 ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... the portrait of Fortnoye, or Francine, or yourself, or Kranich, or Mrs. Ashburleigh. Ever since Noisy I have been meandering through the folds of a mystery. My head is turning with it. If you want to save me from distraction, sit down in this chair and answer me a long catechism, without saying a word but in reply to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... as it came, but then it took fright at something and flew away. He said a prayer which referred to his abandonment of the world, and hastened to finish it in order to send for the merchant with the sick daughter. She interested him in that she presented a distraction, and because both she and her father considered him a saint whose prayers were efficacious. Outwardly he disavowed that idea, but in the depths of his soul he considered it to ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy
... of the "blind beggar of Bethnal Green," a lady by birth, a sylph for beauty, an angel for constancy and sweetness. She was loved to distraction by Wilford, and it turned out that he was the son of lord Woodville, and Bess the daughter of lord Woodville's brother; so they were cousins. Queen Elizabeth sanctioned their nuptials, and took them under ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... towers of Amboise with the inclined planes of brickwork, which wind upward in the midst instead of staircases, were the result of the work which Charles set on foot as a distraction of his grief. These strange ascents had been partially restored by the Comte de Paris, the present owner of Amboise, before his exile stopt the work of repairing the chateau, and it is still possible to imagine the "charrettes, mullets, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... like it. She has inherited the fine old superstition that art's pardonable only so long as it's bad—so long as it's done at odd hours, for a little distraction, like a game of tennis or of whist. The only thing that can justify it, the effort to carry it as far as one can (which you can't do without time and singleness of purpose), she regards as just the dangerous, ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... the way he cluttered up the parsonages where he lodged was a distraction to good housewives: birds' nests, feathers, skins, claws, fungi, leaves, flowers, roots, stalks, rocks, sticks and stones—and when one meddled with his treasures, there was trouble. And there was always trouble; for the boy possessed a temper, and usually ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... liver suffered because the brain was ill, and sent no nervous energy to it, or poisoned what it did send. The sharp racking pain in the forehead was the cry of suffering from the anterior lobes, driven by their master to distraction, and turning on him wild with weakness and fear and anger. It was well they did cry out; in some brains (large ones) they would have gone on dumb to sudden and utter ruin, as in apoplexy or palsy; but he did not know, and no one told him their ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... however, the while, to think what she was doing. She had indeed utterly resigned herself; she desired to continue to exert herself to the extent of her power for Charlotte, for the child, for Edward. But she could not see how it would be possible for her. Nothing could save her from utter distraction, except patiently to do the duty which each ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... so many, and of such merciless monsters as I had here to deal with! One of them that could speak a little English, threatened me in return, 'that if I did not come out, they would burn me alive in the house.' My terror and distraction at hearing this is not to be expressed by words nor easily imagined by any person unless in the same condition. Distracted as I was in such deplorable circumstances, I chose to rely on the uncertainty of their protection, rather than meet with ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... him than his name, and yet he ought to have some interest for us, as he was one of the many enthusiastic young Spaniards who sailed in the Great Armada. He had been disappointed in some love affair. He was an earnest Catholic. He wanted distraction, and it is needless to say that he found distraction enough in the English Channel to put his love troubles out of his mind. His adventures brought before him with some vividness the character of the nation with which his ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... could answer such questions! But Jack Scott came in and entered into the "game," as he called it, with ardour. Nothing would do but to try the experiment on the white rabbit then and there. I was willing that Boris should find distraction from his cares, but I hated to see the life go out of a warm, living creature and I declined to be present. Picking up a book at random, I sat down in the studio to read. Alas! I had found The King in Yellow. After a few moments, which seemed ages, ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... London I went into lodging-houses and thieves' haunts, and every filthy place. It gave me a power I could not otherwise have had.' And this was years before 'slumming' became fashionable and figured in the pages of Punch; it was no distraction caught up for a week or a month, but a labour of fifty years! We have an account of him as he appeared at this period of his life: 'above the medium height, about 5 feet 6 inches, with a slender and extremely graceful figure... curling dark hair in thick masses, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... remember no good of her father. It was his habit to wear the Irish manner of distraction, as he walked the streets with his chin projected and his eyes focussed in the middle distance to make them look wild, but his soul was an alert workman who sat tightening screws. By neat workmanship he could lift from negligences any reproach of negativeness and turn them into positive wounds. ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... Mr. Direck to Matching's Easy, the task that Massachusetts society had sent him upon, the task of organising the mental unveiling of Mr. Britling. Mr. Direck saw Mr. Britling only in the daylight, and with an increasing distraction of the attention towards Miss Cecily Corner. We may see him rather more clearly in the darkness, without ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... lodging chambers, which have their outlets into the same gallery. Perhaps, after all, if we could think so, the ancient method, as it is the easiest, is also the most natural, and the best. For variety, as it is managed, is too often subject to breed distraction; and while we would please too many ways, for want of art in the conduct, we please in none[2]. But we have given you more already than was necessary for a preface; and, for aught we know, may gain no more by our instructions, than that ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... inhabited by wild boars and various kinds of deer and birds, made it their home. Addicted to hunting as their chief occupation, the sons of Pritha peacefully dwelt in that forest for one year. There in a cavern of the mountain, Vrikodara, with a heart afflicted with distraction and grief, came across a snake of huge strength distressed with hunger and looking fierce like death itself. At this crisis Yudhishthira, the best of pious men, became the protector of Vrikodara and he, of infinite ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... 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 going ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... of posterity. The house in Saint-Simon's day had belonged to one of those newly ennobled dukes, his contemporaries and would-be brethren, whose monstrous claims to rank with himself and the other real magnificences among the ducs et pairs de France drove him to distraction. It was now let out to a multitude of families, who began downstairs in affluence and ended in the genteel or artistic penury of the garrets. The first floor was occupied by a deputy and ex-minister, one of the leaders of the Centre Gauche—in the garrets it was possible ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... have they done—and oh, by Jove, Not altered by a fraction! If then they were too sweet to love, What are they now? Distraction. ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... the first step in a fight I can't remember even now without a sinking at the heart. The farmers of Jackson County, of which Pulaski was the county seat, found in litigation their chief distraction from the stupefying dullness of farm life in those days of pause, after the Indian and nature had been conquered and before the big world's arteries of thought and action had penetrated. The farmers took eagerly to litigation to save themselves from stagnation. ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... carrying Julie to London entered Victoria Station. On the platform stood the little Duchess, impatiently expectant. Julie was clasped in her arms, and had no time to wonder at the pallor and distraction of her friend before she was hurried into the brougham ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... opens in a College study—time, midnight. Minos, an examiner, is discovered seated between two immense piles of manuscripts. He is driven almost to distraction in his efforts to mark fairly the papers sent up, by reason of the confusion caused through the candidates offering various substitutes for Euclid. Rhadamanthus, another equally distracted examiner, comes to ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... upon his face, no gibe at my simplicity. Even now, when all had recovered, he was still quivering with something that looked like a nobler pain. His face was very grave, the lines deeply drawn in it; and he seemed to be seeking no amusement or distraction, nor to take any part in the noise and tumult which ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... distraction, when last night, the messenger, returning post-haste, brought me word, that she had not been heard of since Friday morning! and that a letter lay for her at her lodgings, which came by the post; and must ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... to have no medium in their attachments; they were either quite insensible to the soft passion, or loved almost to distraction. On the wane, they had the rage for marrying, and many of them found men who, preferring fortune to honour, disgraced themselves by such alliances. Some of these ladies, if handsome, were not unfrequently taken by a man of fortune, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... but really finally results in great loss of time in the recitation. By actual count, many teachers have been found to repeat as many as 75% of the answers given in the recitation. Besides the great waste of time, the repetition of answers is a source of distraction and annoyance to pupils. No one enjoys having his words said over after him constantly. Of course answers may sometimes need to be repeated to emphasize some important point. But when repetition has become a habit, no emphasis ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... granted, have in many cases been rendered worse than nothing, for the legal rights in the enjoyment of them have been held at nought; their land has been rendered unsaleable, and, in some cases, only a source of distraction and care. Under this system of internal management, and weakened from other evil influences, Upper Canada now pines in comparative decay; discontent and poverty are experienced in a land supremely blessed with ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... into the fire, which cast responsive flickers over her face, giving a shadowed emphasis to the faint line which had begun to display itself, not unattractively, between her eyebrows and the irregular curve of her brown hair. She was growing very weary of it all, the distraction which she had sought, the forgetfulness of self which she had hoped to achieve, by living perpetually in a crowd. Indeed, to such a point had she carried her endeavours, that Mrs. Lightmark's beauty was already becoming a matter of almost public interest. She was a person to be recognised and recorded ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... is in this world,) was the absolute necessity of my heart. To contend with somebody was still my fate; how to escape the contention I could not see; and yet for itself, and the deadly passions into which it forced me, I hated and loathed it more than death. It added to the distraction and internal feud of my own mind—that I could not altogether condemn the upper boys. I was made a handle of humiliation to them. And in the mean time, if I had an advantage in one accomplishment, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • 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 all men; ferments, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... bread, or cook the steak, or sweep the parlors, or do one of the complicated offices of a family, and no bakery, cook-shop, 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 ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... made and very handsome in his person), the King's daughter took a secret inclination to him, and the Marquis of Carabas had no sooner cast two or three respectful and somewhat tender glances but she fell in love with him to distraction. The King would needs have him come into the coach and take part of the airing. The Cat, quite overjoyed to see his project begin to succeed, marched on before, and, meeting with some countrymen, who were mowing a meadow, he ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... Italian lovers,' said her mother. 'I once had one; I was then in my sixteenth year, and superbly beautiful. My Angelo was a divine youth, and he loved me to distraction. Once, in a moment of intoxicating bliss, he swore to do whatever I commanded him, to test the sincerity of his life; and I playfully and thoughtlessly bade him go and kill himself for my sake. The words were forgotten by me, almost as soon as uttered. Angelo supped with me ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... placid Leman! thy contrasted lake, With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing To waft me from distraction; once I loved Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved, That I with stern delights should e'er ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... resolves that on the same afternoon, or the next at the very latest, he will contrive an accidental meeting, or even find some excuse for a call. But then comes office-work, or the Times, or some other distraction, and later on perhaps a visit from some matter-of-fact friend with an unromantic taste for "bitter," or a weakness for the Burlington Arcade. One day slips away, and by the next the image of the evening's idol has waxed comparatively faint. At least it is not sufficiently vivid to inspire him with ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... us is the record of a second residence in Italy, of about two years. This in itself is an advantage; since a renewed experience, after an interval of absence and distraction, enables us to distinguish what had merely interested us by its strangeness from what is permanently worthy of study and remembrance. In a second visit we know at least what we do not wish to see, and our first impressions have so defined themselves ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... the greater glory of God, yet haunted in sleep and waking by the dim ghosts of ruin and defeat. He prophesied not, and he saw no visions, but he who was almost the world's physician in his day felt fever in its pulse and heard distraction in the piercing note ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... doesn't give you the run of the Mermaid Club. Is there any one you want to see, or anything of that sort?' and doing it as steadily as possible for fear that he should mistake the carelessness of whisky for the distraction of fear, I got my candle alight. I turned on him, holding it. 'What are ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... 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 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... beneficent impressing of the character is concerned, void of wholesomeness, and barren of solid, lasting results; and, viewed in this way, an activity really akin to indolence. With the craving for hunting subdued, the Indian may take up, with less distraction, and devote himself, to good advantage, to his farming, and ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... opened before she can answer, FLORA receives a parting bow of Grandisonian elegance from Mr. BUMSTEAD, and hastens up stairs to her room in a distraction of mind not uncommon to those having conversational relations with ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... costume is distraction to a public worship. You know very well there are a good many people who go to church just as they go to the races, to see who will come out first. Men and women with souls to be saved passing the hour in wondering where that man ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... new wife, Mary de' Medici, at Lyons, she had disgusted him, and she disgusted him more every day by her cantankerous and headstrong temper; but on the 27th of September, 1601, she brought him a son, who was to be Louis XIII. Henry used to go for distraction from his wife's temper to his favorite, Henriette d'Entraigues, who knew how to please him at the same time that she was haughty and exacting towards him. He set less store upon the peace of his household than upon ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... express the vizier Khacan's distraction at this account of the insolence of his son. "Ah!" cried he, beating his breast, and tearing his beard, "miserable son! unworthy of life! hast thou at last thrown thy father from the highest pinnacle of happiness into a misfortune that must inevitably involve thee also in his ruin? ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... trunks as well. It was very warm; still there was a great deal going on, so we didn't mind the heat, at least I didn't. Heat in London during the season is such a different thing from heat in Switzerland or some dull seaside place, where there is not sufficient distraction to take your mind off it. I was doing something every minute. That's the charm of London. Every hour of the day there is something, and if there ever was a dull interval I dropped into one of the picture galleries. You know you have to do that sort of thing over here. People ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... feature—empty and perpetual fears—concerns confessions which are sufficient, according to all the rules of prudence; prayers, which are said with overwrought anxiety, lest a single distraction creep in and mar them; and temptations, which are resisted with inordinate contention of mind, and ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... 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 ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... Henson declined to begin the 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, ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... loved Philip to distraction should be the first to abuse and defame him was agony near to madness, for Kate knew where she stood. It was not merely that Philip's success was separating them, not merely that the conventions of life, its usages, its manners, and its customs were putting worlds between them. The pathos ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... not matter, and having exhausted this small vein of distraction she returned to the music-room and the Bach fugue, as one, who has had a fall, rises and tries to go on as before, ignoring the shock and the bruisings. But the shock had been too severe. Tom Gordon had proved himself a ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... exclaimed the former, who was almost in a state of distraction. "The villain has announced his intention of going to Malkin Tower, and Mistress Nutter will assuredly fall into his hands. Oh! that I could stop him, or get there ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... 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 ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... excited. So Dolly carried her burden alone, and found it very heavy; and debated her questions with herself, and could find an answer to never a one of them. How should she give her mother the rest and distraction of travelling? The doctor said, and Dolly believed, that it would be the best thing for her. But she could not even get speech of her father to consult over the matter with him Mr. Copley was caught in embarrassments of his own, worse than nervous ones. What could Dolly do, to break ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... non-fulfilment of other fatal ordinations. Of course no professional fortune-teller would inform an old man that some dark or fair man was 'after' his old woman; but nothing is more probable than the converse, and much family distraction has frequently resulted from such perverse revelation of 'the cards.' In like manner your clever fortune-teller will never promise half-a-dozen children to 'an old lady,' but she will very probably hold forth that pleasant prospect—if ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... steer, thinking perhaps to take advantage of the distraction, started out after the first one, and directly behind Dave. With lowered head the animal took after the horse and rider, seemingly with the intention ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... see through so deep a scheme and only hoped that he would shortly forget, in the changes of the marching life, those beautiful wives he had left behind him, which Bombay in his generosity tried to persuade me was the cause of his mental distraction. ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... her lover in deed he was in desire Importance of mundane matters became increasingly grave Intolerable to be squeezed out slowly, without a say yourself Ironical, which is fatal to expansiveness Ironically mistrustful Is anything more pathetic than the faith of the young? It was their great distraction: To wait! Know how not to grasp and destroy! Law takes a low view of human nature Let her come to me as she will, when she will Little notion of how to butter her bread Living on his capital Longing to escape ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of John Galsworthy • John Galsworthy
... can't deceive what on airth eddication is coming to. When I was young, if a girl only understood the rules of distraction, provision, multiplying, replenishing, and the common dominator, and knew all about the rivers and their obituaries, the covenants and domitories, the provinces and the umpires, they had eddication enough. But now they are to study bottomy, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... the other necessaries of life, with society into the bargain, for L16 a year! The attendance is of course somewhat rough and ready. We saw a stalwart, rough-haired, rather masculine-looking female setting one of the dinner-tables with a clatter that would drive the fastidious to distraction. But the good soul had evidently her heart in her work, and I dare aver that single-handed she got through as much as three English housemaids with ourselves. Would such a scheme answer in England? I doubt it. The Anglo-Saxon character is the reverse of sociable, and class distinctions are so ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... now perceived that in the distraction of my thoughts I had been carrying my mask in this manner since my ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Stuart, however, had the same wish and requested to have the calash on the same occasion. The Queen retired in disdain from such a contest, while the King was driven to distraction between the cajoling and threats of the two ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... I know her metier even better than you do, Bertie, dear. She might go to her grave loving you to distraction, but she would never have an ex-convict for the father of her children—not if she knew it. It's in the Everton blood. Anybody who knew Phineas Everton as you and I did in the old school-days, ought to know exactly what to expect of ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... clung to him and cried, "By Allah, we will not sleep save side by side!" "Allah forefend!" he replied and prevailed against her and lay apart till the morning, when love and longing redoubled on her and distraction and eager thirst of passion. They abode after this fashion three full told months, which were long and longsome indeed, and every time she made advances to him, he would refuse himself and say, "Whatever belongeth to the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... tea!" entreated Pocahontas. "Berke will take you home afterward. We haven't looked on a white face except our own for two whole days. We are pining for change and distraction, and beginning to hate each other from very ennui. Take pity ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... specialization has also important psychological effects. A farmer, with his varied outdoor occupations, feels little craving for relief and relaxation. The factory hand, with his attention riveted for hours at a stretch on the wearisome iteration of machinery, requires recreation and distraction: naturally he is a prey to unwholesome stimulants, such as drink, betting, or the yellow press. The more educated and morally restrained, however, seek intellectual stimulus, and the modern popular demand for culture arises largely from the need of something ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... there. Taking advantage of Peter's momentary distraction, he had slipped through the door ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... she drawled, "I love you to distraction! But as a daily companion?" Vaguely her eyebrows lifted. "As a real playmate?" Against the starch-white of her pillows the sudden flutter of her small brown throat showed with almost startling distinctness. "But as a real playmate," she persisted evenly, "you are ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... ambition, intrigue, 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
... consideration. Mr Westwood, therefore, said that he could not permit Will to see Flora again, except to bid her farewell, and advised him to have patience until he should return to England, where, he said frankly, he would be happy to see him. Will thereupon left the cottage, in a state of distraction, to lay his case before ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... out before him, straight and stark in the road. A bolt of lightning which at that moment tore its way through the heavens brought into startling view her face, white with distraction, framed in a mass of iron-gray ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... and Duke have left the army, which is marching to winter-quarters in Flanders, He will not be here by his birthday, but it will be kept when he comes. The parliament meets the 22d of November. All is distraction! no union in the Court: no certainty about the House of Commons: Lord Carteret making no friends, the King making enemies: Mr. Pelham in vain courting Pitt, etc. Pultney unresolved. How will it end? No ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... the indifference caused by fear of what the results of attention might be. It is sometimes broken in upon, and men are in danger of having their eyes opened, then with an effort they fling themselves into some distraction, and sleep again. As the text says, 'Their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren |
