"Distract" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... group like the Laocoon, he must strike upon the supreme moment, that in which the whole tragedy reveals itself, and he must pass over those insignificant details of position and movement which serve only to distract our attention and weaken our emotions by dividing them. If he is writing a drama, he must not attempt to give us the complete biography of his character; he must depict only those situations which stand in direct subordination to the grand climax or denoument. As a final result, ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... The fellow is distract, and so am I; And here we wander in illusions: Some blessed ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... separating report from truth. If Johnson then lamented that so little had ever been said about Butler, I might with more reason be led to complain that so much has been said about himself; for numberless informers but distract or cloud information, as glasses which multiply will for the most part be found also to obscure. Of a life, too, which for the last twenty years was passed in the very front of literature, every leader of ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... and value Ireland, and wish her well from the bottom of my heart. I am confident the meeting on St. Patrick's day ought to be one of charity and good humour, and totally void of those politics which unfortunately distract that unhappy country; in your Grace's hands, I am sure the business will be ably conducted to the utter exclusion of topics which might produce discord, and I shall be happy, as Earl of Munster, to assist your Grace in supporting the object of charity, and in preserving ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... which all lovers will understand, he gave himself the pleasure of pausing before his happiness; he would not even unseal that blissful note until the moment when, with closed doors and no interruptions to distract him, he could enjoy at his ease the delicious sensation of which his ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... the peculiarly Teuton ways of trade competition in their everyday guise, and without the glamour of political ideals to distract our attention, we are confronted with phenomena of a repulsive character. For the German's keen practical sense, his sustained concentration of effort on the furtherance of material interests, and his scorn of ethical restraints render him a formidable ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... distinct races. Those who have need of others, whom others distract, engage, soothe, whom solitude harasses, pains, stupefies, like the forward movement of a terrible glacier, or the traversing of the desert; and those, on the contrary, whom others weary, tire, bore, silently torture, while isolation calms them, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... stronger sense of family than he. And as for the girl—the little dancing, flirting girl!—why the thing happened every day. His wife should not be too strenuous, taken up with problems and questions of her own. She should cheer, amuse, distract him. Marcella endeavoured to think of it all with the dry common-sense her mother would have applied to it. One thing at least was clear to her—the curious recognition that never before had she considered Aldous Raeburn, in and ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... concealed. In the next column are two reports of Parish Elections, which afford more speculation than we are prone to indulge, as the turning-out of old parties and setting-up of new, and many of the petty feuds and jealousies that divide and distract parishes or large families, the little circles of the great whole. At the foot of this column a paragraph records the death of a miserly bachelor schoolmaster, who had worn the same coat twenty years, and on the tester of whose ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... no use to wait any longer. Pearl was determined not to take his eyes off the skipper. Dory fussed a moment with the sheets, trying in this manner to distract the attention of the villain. Finally he let go the jib-sheet, and it ran out. With the key in his hand, he rushed forward, as if to secure the rope, but really to unlock ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... seems," he said, "that that fair-haired daughter of the Greeks, Madonna Elena, the slim, the rosy-fingered disturber of the repose of cities, hath appeared to distract this our city of Padua. Me at least she hath distraught. Fair friends, sister and brother poets, you shall understand that henceforth I devote myself to this lady and her praise. More, I vow a vow, and call upon you to register it in the Golden Book of the ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... and you'd better run as far as you can out behind the barn, so 't your noise won't distract your aunt Mirandy. I see Susan Simpson and the twins and Emma Jane Perkins ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... names has been obtained, the caption is cut off, and the list of signatures attached to an abolition caption and sent here to excite one section of the Union against the other, to disturb the country, and distract the legislation of Congress, to execute which we have our seats in this Chamber. For the reasons first stated, I voted to receive the resolutions that were presented by the Senator from North ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... Behold, a trusty scout Back, through Latinus' palace, speeds his way, And fills the town with tumult and dismay. The Trojans—see!—the Trojans,—down they swarm From Tiber. See the meadows far away Alive with foes! Rage, turmoil and alarm In turns distract the town. "Arm," cry the young ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... to the cheerful chirrup of robins and the pleasant far-off sound of church bells. He liked the bells. They sounded different in the country he thought. You couldn't hear them in the city anyway. There were too many noises to distract you. There was no Sabbath stillness in the city. For that matter there wasn't ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... departments, he asserted that the men were all right, but the system all wrong; and that the proper thing was to adopt SULTAN OMAR'S plan, and give the supreme control of the War to a Cabinet of not more than four members, who with no administrative details to distract them might be able to "teach the doubtful ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various
... you mean by society; it's a very general and inexact term. If you mean formal dinners, dances, parties, receptions, and all that, the lightest housekeeping would distract from the duties to it; but if you mean congenial friends willing to come in for tea in the afternoon, or to a simple lunch, or not impossibly a dinner, light housekeeping is not incompatible with a conscientious recognition ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... the season, and the girls attended nearly every matinee performance. The first few times Patty could scarcely listen to the music for her admiration of the wonderful building, but after she became more accustomed to its glories, it did not so distract her attention from the stage. Mr. and Mrs. Farrington occasionally gave opera parties, and dinner parties, too, but the girls were not allowed to attend these. Although indulgent in many ways, Mrs. Farrington was somewhat strict ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... Battalion remained for nearly seven months. The sector had been held by the New Zealanders, and was one of the quietest on the whole British front, but orders were now given to liven things up in order to keep as many enemy troops opposite the sector as possible, and distract their attention from the impending operations at Messines on the left. This object was achieved by considerable activity, patrols, and artillery bombardments. The extent of the front held entailed a good deal ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... instrumentalist of a new type, who, without any instrument of his own, played on the whole body of musicians under his command. Of late, he has become so prominent in the eyes of the public, and his personality has been so insisted upon, that there is danger often lest he may distract attention from the music to himself. As Mr. Henderson records calmly: "We have beheld the curious spectacle of people going, to hear not Beethoven or ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... after them. As they were proceeding cautiously, keeping tinder cover as much as possible, King observed White creeping along the opposite bluff, rifle in hand, looking for a chance at the savages huddled below, and hoping to distract their fire so they would do as little damage as possible to the soldiers who were ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... on the Chickahominy will cover his passage of the bridge. General Longstreet will support him. General Magruder with General Huger and the reserve artillery will be left before Richmond. They will so demonstrate as to distract General McClellan's attention from the city and from his right and General Porter. General Stuart will take position on your line of march from Ashland, and General D. H. ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... and the repression of them, will distract the King's conscience; Emigrant Princes and Noblesse will force him to double-dealing: there must be veto on veto; amid the ever-waxing indignation of men. For Patriotism, as we said, looks on from without, more and more suspicious. Waxing ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the vestibule with its columns of twisted oak, even the grand salon with the stately courtiers and captains, the gracious dames and damsels of the family of Secondat gazing down from the walls, all these distract the eye and the mind. The distraction is agreeable, but still it is a distraction. It leads you from the biographical into the social and historical mood. You are delighted as at Meillant or Chenonceaux with a corner ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... trinkets—together they represented many millions of livres. With her own hands she packed away the more precious and portable of them, while she arranged with her brother for the safe-keeping of the others. All day she was at work in a mood of feverish energy, doing anything and everything which might distract her thoughts from her own defeat and her rival's victory. By evening all was ready, and she had arranged that her property should be sent after her to Petit Bourg, to which castle she ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that they were mere visitors upon this planet—that they were here to be prepared for a greater and more important life. Deliberately they turned their backs upon a world which was filled with suffering and wickedness and injustice. They pulled down the blinds that the rays of the sun might not distract their attention from that chapter in the Apocalypse which told them of that heavenly light which was to illumine their happiness in all eternity. They tried to close their eyes to most of the joys of the world in which they lived that they might enjoy those which awaited them in the ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... no one said a word, for both Lieutenant Beverly and Jack Parmly realized that it would be dangerous to distract Tom's attention from his work just at the ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... his favourites being La Fontaine's Fables, Anquetil's History of France, and Voltaire's Dictionnaire Philosophique, "to get the hang of things," as he put it. His sister made fruitless efforts to distract his attention with some stinging criticism of the neighbours or a question about "our fat friend who had not come back," for she made a point of never ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... disfranchisement of the blacks of the South and a world-wide attempt to restrict democratic development to white races and to distract them with race hatred against the darker races. This program, however, although it undoubtedly helped raise the scale of white labor, in much greater proportion put wealth and power in the hands of the great European Captains of Industry and made ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... of his greeting sent a chill to his already benumbed heart and increased his desperation. He was nervous, excited, depressed, and feeling the need of something to distract his thought from his troubles, he sat down and began to play; but from the first deal ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... notice that the man had not spoken of his love for her. There were so many other things for her to consider, so many other things to distract her mind. Nor did the man notice that Kitty herself had failed to speak in any way that little word, which, rightly understood, holds in its fullest, deepest meaning, all of life's happiness—of labor and accomplishment—of ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... the other half of the paper to try and distract her mind from the noises over the hedge. But every head-line seemed to dart at her sore consciousness as if it were a snake's head with a sting in it. Murder. Unrest. Strikes. Dissatisfactions. Change. The whole outlook was indescribably comfortless and depressing to her. She felt something akin ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... over these unsubstantial troubles. Surely it was a woman's business to attend to her husband's comforts and to see after her children, and not to break her heart over misery here and hell hereafter, and distract her brain with questions that had puzzled the greatest thinkers and still remained unsolved! And, truly, women or men who get themselves concerned about the universe at large, would do well not to plunge hastily into marriage, for they do not run ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... hurt, and reasoned that the man was excitable, and got into range unconsciously. The duty of the Geneva Society properly begins after, and not during a combat; and when gentlemen are busy at the game of professional manslaughter, no philanthropic outsider has any right to distract them from their occupation by indiscreet obstruction. The Parisian did not view it in that light, and downfaced me that these rustics, to whose aid he was actually going, tried to murder him of malice prepense. It was useless ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... his own fault than that of others. Decide ye rather for the good than the ill of the common weal. If ye wish it ill, make Charles sovereign; if ye hold to its prosperity, crown Hugh, the illustrious duke. Let attachment to Charles seduce nobody, and let hatred towards the duke distract nobody, from the common interest. . . . Give us then, for our head, the duke, who has deeds, nobility, and troops to recommend him; the duke, in whom ye will find a defender not only of the common weal, but ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... follow a great shock. She is mentally unbalanced on one point. Unless anything occurs to excite her in connection with that, time will effect a cure. She must not be opposed in her wishes, and I would suggest that she be taken out of London and an effort made to distract her. Plenty of society, outdoor amusements—anything to ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... some mechanical way of dealing with it. I remember that he said to me once: "If you have a bad business on hand, an unhappy or wounding affair, it is best to receive it fully and quietly. Let it do its worst, realise it, take it in—don't resist it, don't try to distract your mind: see the full misery of it, don't attempt to minimise it. If you do that, you will suddenly find something within you come to your rescue and say, 'Well, I can bear that!' and then it is all right. But if you try to dodge it, it's my experience that there comes a kind ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... weightiest matters will not long distract the attention of a black-leg, and the laughter having subsided without Jorrocks or the Baron being in the slightest degree disconcerted, the ring was again formed; horses' heads again turn towards the post, while carriages, gigs, and carts form an outer circle. A solemn silence ensues. The ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... guns spoke out again. Evidently the gunners were told to be as careful as they could, for some of the shots went wide on the left, others on the right. A few struck the rock below me. The situation was not pleasant, but I thought that at a thousand yards they ought not to hit me, and I tried to distract my attention by thinking out what I should do under ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... of his dead was, almost visibly set up. To this room, during the many years of his mother's mental illness, he had come back daily after work; and had ministered to her, suiting his speech to her passing humour, trying to distract her brooding melancholy, and to soothe and amuse her as though she was an ailing child. Thank God, there was nothing ugly to remember regarding her. She had never been harsh or unlovely in her ways. Still, the strain of constant intercourse ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... abject bubbles. We call it Nature to-day; to-morrow, perhaps, we shall give it another name, softer or more alarming. In the meanwhile it holds simultaneous, impartial sway over life and death; furnishing the two irreconcilable sisters with the magnificent and familiar weapons that adorn and distract ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the high character of the composition, will baffle and mislead you; while, at the same time, the incessant tingling of the little silver bells suspended from the corners of scarlet velvet bags, which are handed along the pews (at the end of a stick), during the whole of the sermon, will distract and irritate you. It is thus they collect alms for the poor. Yet even to one ignorant of the language, there is a fullness and vigour in the style and manner of delivery that would almost persuade you that you had understood, and felt convinced of the truth of what you had heard. As we ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... the interests of the weather-beaten sufferer, as the noble lord could be. There were, however, other times and other places for men to engage in discussion of party politics, and he therefore implored the noble lord not to distract the attention of the meeting by the introduction of these; and to keep solely in view that they had met as the friends of benevolence, not as the advocates of a party. His Royal Highness then proposed to alter the motion ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... list of the things that most persistently distract your attention during study. What specific steps will you take to eliminate them; ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... the direction of the village, they began the descent of a steep hill, and Mr. Harum, careful of loose stones, gave all his attention to his driving. Our friend, respecting his vigilance, forebore to say anything which might distract his attention until they reached level ground, and then, "You ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... theirs. These torments, added to my desolate life—receiving nothing but torments, and where I should look for some comfort, together with the consideration of my cruel destiny, my days and times worn out in trouble and imprisonment—is sufficient either utterly to distract me, or to make me curse the time that ever I was born into the world, and had ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... let me know what it is; come, don't distract yourself alone; let me bear a share of your grief, as well as I have ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... one side, and the mountains of Cuba on the other, were discernible. In spite of the heat, therefore, our voyage soon became truly delightful. Secure of getting on under the influence of the trade winds, we had nothing to distract our thoughts, or keep us from feasting our eyes upon the glorious shores of these two islands; whilst in addition to the sight of land, which of itself was cheering, we were amused with water-spouts, apparently playing about us in every direction. One of these, however, began ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... my dear, I think you hard better not break in upon the pious meditations of the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker in his private study. A monk's cell and a minister's library are hardly the places for young ladies. They distract the attention of these good men from their devotions and their sermons. If you think you must go, you had better take Mrs. Hopkins with you. She likes religious conversation, and it will do her good too, and save a great deal of time for the ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and always by reason. Learn therefore to obey reason and reason only. Do not permit yourself to be drawn from the true path by fear of threats, even of death, nor by grief, even for your dearest friends. Such feelings warp your reason, distract your judgment, and deflect you from the right course. When passion—feeling—comes in conflict with reason, you must drive feeling away. Your reason may not always be right; nevertheless it is the best guide you have, and you must ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... first," cried Burnett. "If he does not fall, do you try to hit him; and should you also fail to bring him to the ground, gallop off on one side till you can get behind a tree to reload, while I take the opposite direction, so as to distract his attention. We shall thus ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... underbrush that fringed the eastern side of the grove. But some men were shot, some sabred, and others captured before they could mount and extricate themselves. The majority, however, of the Union forces were galloping swiftly away, scattering at first rather than keeping together, in order to distract the pursuit which for a time was sharp and deadly. Not a few succumbed; others would turn on their nearest pursuer in mortal combat, which was soon decided in one way or the other. Graham more than once wheeled and confronted ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... impossible. Napoleon, however was as skillful in the arrangement of the minutest details, as in the conception of the grandest combinations. Though he resolved to take the mass of his army, forty thousand strong, across the pass of the Great St. Bernard, yet to distract the attention of the Austrians, he arranged also to send small divisions across the passes of Saint Gothard, Little St. Bernard, and Mount Cenis. He would thus accumulate suddenly, and to the utter amazement of the enemy, a body of sixty-five ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... thirty-five Syracusan galleys sailed according to appointment against the enemy from the great harbour, and the forty-five remaining came round from the lesser harbour, where they had their arsenal, in order to effect a junction with those inside and simultaneously to attack Plemmyrium, and thus to distract the Athenians by assaulting them on two sides at once. The Athenians quickly manned sixty ships, and with twenty-five of these engaged the thirty-five of the Syracusans in the great harbour, sending the rest to meet those sailing round from the arsenal; and ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... turn a deaf ear to, turn one's back upon. abstract oneself, dream, indulge in reverie. escape notice, escape attention; come in at one ear and go out at the other; forget &c. (have no remembrance) 506. call off the attention, draw off the attention, call away the attention, divert the attention, distract the mind; put out of one's head; disconcert, discompose; put out, confuse, perplex, bewilder, moider[obs3], fluster, muddle, dazzle; throw a sop to Cerberus. Adj. inattentive; unobservant, unmindful, heedless, unthinking, unheeding, undiscerning[obs3]; inadvertent; mindless, regardless, respectless[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... you, it is a life-and-death struggle; all is hazarded on the one throw. For it will of course occur to you, that if you are rejected at the first trial, you will never pass current with any one else. A thousand different feelings now distract you. You are jealous of your rivals (for we will assume that there is competition for the post); you are dissatisfied with your own replies; you hope; you fear; you cannot remove your eye from the countenance of your judge. Does he pooh-pooh your efforts? ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... little occurred to disturb the even tenor of my way. In a sense the duties of my new position were simple. There were no such things as joint lines, joint station working, running powers or joint committees, as in England and Scotland, to distract attention or consume time which could more usefully be devoted to the affairs of one's own railway. Gradually I grew familiar with out-door matters, and duties that seemed strange at first grew as ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... grace to be ever mindful of that mercy, and to keep those good resolutions she now makes in her sickness, so that no length of time, nor prosperity, may entice her to forget them. Let no thought of her misfortunes distract her mind, and prevent the means towards her recovery, or disturb her in her preparations for a better life. We beseech Thee also, O Lord, of Thy infinite goodness to remember the good actions of this Thy servant; that the naked she hath clothed, the hungry she hath fed, the sick and ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... foot), but most of them raw soldiers, and such as had never handled a weapon before. Besides, they had wholly neglected all religious usages, had not obtained favorable sacrifices, nor made inquiries of the prophets, natural in danger and before battle. No less did the multitude of commanders distract and confound their proceedings; frequently before, upon less occasions, they had chosen a single leader, with the title of dictator, being sensible of what great importance it is in critical times to have the soldiers united under one general with the entire and absolute ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... of the city. It covered her like a veil down to her knees when she chose to let it down in a flood of splendor. Her deep gray eyes contained wells of womanly wisdom. Her skin, fair as a lily of Artois, had borrowed from the sun five or six faint freckles, just to prove the purity of her blood and distract the eye with a variety of charms. The Merovingian Princess, the long-haired daughter of kings, as she was fondly styled by the nuns, queened it wherever she went by right divine of youth, wit, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... said Hazard. "Now let us come to business. All Esther wants is time. I am as certain as I can be of any thing in this uncertain world, that a few weeks, or at the outside a few months, will quiet all her fears. What I want is to stop this immediate strain which is enough to distract any woman." ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... might put off the sitting in view of the fact that the picture might have been painted any time these last six years," Herman said. "But Olga has been nervous about the ball we are going to have to-night, and I thought it best to bring her to-day to distract her. You know this ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... piano, and book-cases well stocked with grammars and histories, and the fire was guarded by a high fender, effectually dissipating any frivolous notion of sitting with the feet on it. There was neither dog nor cat, nor even a stray doll, to distract attention from the serious business ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... see the idea now? That aeroplane arrival is a ruse to distract everybody's attention. There's never been an aeroplane up here before. This is the first time most of that crowd, except the guests, have ever seen one. When we get into the house you'll find it completely deserted—or apparently so. But some of the gang will be busy there, that ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... had treated, with cheerful patience and skill, an infected and painful hand of the guide's, and this had won for him the love eternal of our Tin Lizzie. Little John Dudley thought, as he made jokes to distract the boy, and worked over his big throbbing fist, the fist which meant daily bread—little John thought where the plant of love springing from that seed of gratitude would at last blossom. Little he thought as the two sat on the gallery ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... peacock, were, nevertheless, of the ordinary flight of their time. They were birds of a feather; they were birds come from a very simple breeding; they were much in the open heaven. They were beginning, when there was so little to distract their attention, to show that they could live upon fundamental principles of government. We talk those principles, but we have not time to absorb them. We have not time to let them into our blood, and thence have them translated into the plain ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... long that the fount had ceased to flow. So the next day she was obliged to face the phalanx, or her house go dry. She drew near slowly, but with the less tremor, that she saw a man at the well talking to them. He would distract their attention, and besides, they would keep their foul tongues quiet if only to blind the male to their real character. This conjecture, though shrewd, was erroneous. They could not all flirt with that one man; so the outsiders indemnified themselves by ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... read the Psalms for the day, and one sermon in Clark. Scruples distract me, but at church I had hopes to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... she forgot to enclose the problem. For by this time, what with Herbert's subaltern, Carey's pawn, and a cistern left me by an uncle who was dining with us that night, I had more than enough to distract me. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... and soon the sinking of heart with which she had set out, began to disappear before the necessity of setting one foot before the other in a steady walk. The irritating pain of rheumatism began, too, to vex her and distract her thoughts. It was not a very familiar country to her after she had passed the Ashley high road. There were fewer houses. The farms were larger, and portions of an old forest remained here and there uncut. But there was no variation in the gloom of the sky or the folding curtain of rain. ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... he. "A short journey like that couldn't fatigue, and might distract her thoughts. Let her go by all means,—it would be the very ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... who, art not so depressed by a sense of thy own grief, as to be incapable of ministering to the woes of others. Allow me to think of thee as one whose views are not bounded by the grave, and then I shall have no overwhelming terrors to distract my attention, or unfit me for improving every fair opportunity for my deliverance. But, should the worst happen, remember, Constantia, I shall continue to exist. Putting on the garment of immortality ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... and safely reforming; above all to proceed as fast as the innumerable difficulties which impede their course will let them, in bringing Ireland into a state of quiet and contentment, and to pave the way for some definite settlement of the great questions which distract that country. This I believe to be the object of Lord Melbourne and Lord John Russell, but at the same time they have colleagues and supporters who have more extensive and less moderate views, and who would ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... fat landlady, the mother of the ten children who clattered about the head of the kitchen staircase, took pity upon her and told her the number of the bus that would bring her to the British Museum, assuring her that she would find a great deal there to distract her attention. ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... to what was going on. The bedroom door was half an inch open, and through the slit he could catch a glimpse of the clean-shaven face of the doctor, looking wearier and more anxious than before. Then he rushed downstairs like a lunatic, and running to the door he tried to distract his thoughts by watching what; was going on in the street. The shops were all shut, and some rollicking boon companions came shouting along from the public-house. He stayed at the door until the stragglers ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... To distract him Karoline sings a song. But after all he is but mad north-north-west, and though he would study the singer's conceits 'as a new philosophy,' he also thinks to ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... for us and for you to think upon it; so far as our words suit the current of your own thoughts, use them and listen to them; so far as they are a too unworthy expression of what we ought to think and feel, follow your own reflections, and let the words neither offend you nor distract you. ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... easily be destroyed and the population enslaved. Unless the State took thought for its citizens it might easily decay. What was still more important, there was no opposition of church and state, no fissure between political and religious life, between the claims of the secular and the spiritual, to distract the allegiance of the citizens, and to set the authority of conscience against the duties of patriotism. It was no feat of the philosophical imagination, but a quite simple and natural expression of the facts to describe such a community as an association of men for the purpose of ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... up the little assegai which he had offered to me and with its blade raked our ashes from the fire that always burnt in front of him. While he did so, he talked to me, as I thought in a random fashion, perhaps to distract my attention, of a certain white man whom he said I should meet upon my journey and of his affairs, also of other matters, none of which interested me much at the time. These ashes he patted down flat and then on them drew a map with the point of his spear, ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... It was an army of monks, once poor men and hard-working soldiers, but now rich and idle, and abandoned to all the temptations of riches and idleness. There was still some fine talk about Jerusalem, pilgrims, and crusades. The popes still kept these words prominent, either to distract the Western Christians from intestine quarrels, or to really promote some new Christian effort in the East. The Isle of Cyprus was still a small Christian kingdom, and the warrior- monks, who were vowed to the defence of Christendom ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... imbibe the same feeling, now that years had multiplied my ties in the world. Above all, the anxious mother, my own beloved and drooping Idris, claimed my earnest care; I could not reproach the anxiety that never for a moment slept in her heart, but I exerted myself to distract her attention from too keen an observation of the truth of things, of the near and nearer approaches of disease, misery, and death, of the wild look of our attendants as intelligence of another and yet another death ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... live no more, what would memory be to us but a spectre and a sting? Should we not then seek to repress those tender recollections,—to close our eyes to those pale, sad visions of departed love? Should we not invoke the glare and tumult of the world to distract or absorb our thoughts? Would we not say, "Let it come, the pleasure, the occupation of the hour, that we may think no more of the dead, plucked from us forever,—let us drive thoughtlessly down this swift current of life, since thought only harrows us,—let us drive thoughtlessly down, ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... the tumult and the glare of light; otherwise I should have chosen a discreeter hostelry where the footfalls of the waiting-men were noiseless and the walls in quiet shadow, where there was nothing but the mellow talk of friends to distract the mind from the consideration of exquisite flavours. But in these palaces of clashing splendour, the stunned brain fails to receive impressions from the glossopharyngeal nerve, and one eats unthinkingly like a dog. But this matters little ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... what sort of basis they rest. And I do this the more willingly, as I observe that already the hastier sort of critics have begun, not to review my friend's book, but to howl over it in a manner which must tend greatly to distract the public mind. ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... breast these emotions obtained yet more powerful dominion; again did remorse distract him, and there were moments of darkness, when his spirit questioned the justice of the Creator. Why was not his crime visited on his own head? Why did the guiltless and unstained fall thus around him, and he ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... incident, in itself trivial, disclosed the discord prevailing in the cabinet on Irish affairs, and, though O'Connell was defeated on a motion against the union by a crushing majority of 523 to 38, the disturbed state of Ireland continued to distract the ministerial councils. The ingenious devices of Stanley and Littleton for solving the insoluble Irish tithe question had proved almost abortive; the government officials employed to collect tithe were almost as powerless to do so as the old tithe-proctors, and a new proposal to convert ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... they had a right to end it, thinking that not only War, but every other act of the State, was for their decision. Their Governors, therefore, judged it wise to allow them this illusion to play with, so to distract their attention from the reality, which they would have resented. This illusion was known ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... as if struck by the remark. "Thou hast spoken truth in that, Mark, wert thou the blackest Puritan whom hell ever vomited, to distract an unhappy country." ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... heavy that year, and confined us to the house. Gloriana had borrowed a sewing-machine from a neighbour, and worked harder than ever, inflaming her eyes and our curiosity. We speculated daily upon her past, present and future, having little else to distract us in a life that was duller than a Chinese comedy. We waxed fat in idleness, ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... the Apaches would be sure to spend some few minutes in firing, partly to distract their enemies and partly to give them the cover of abundant smoke for their approach before they made their final rush; and taking off his feather head-gear, he secured it with a couple of stones so near the top of the rock which sheltered ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... minds would now range over the adventures of thousands of years in the past. It would encompass a vast drama with countless loves and hates, of many lives filled with pathos and tragedy. Thus to distract the mind from the present life would retard our progress. There will come a time in human evolution when the average person will be able to recall his past incarnations, and then there will be no need or argument that we have lived here ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... bachelor is generally very precise and exact in his habits. He has no one but himself to look after, nothing to distract his attention from his own affairs; and Mr. Dodgson was the most precise and exact of old bachelors. He made a precis of every letter he wrote or received from the 1st of January, 1861, to the 8th ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... indifferent to Larkin's collapse, began to dance a jig behind the bar. A look of scowling reproach instantly appeared on Sonora's face. It was uncalled-for since, far from being heartless and indifferent to the man's misfortunes, the little barkeeper had taken this means to distract the miners' ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... and Lovelace dispensed it to his friends, talking gaily the while in an effort to distract Errington from his ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... stood and watched him. Fearful that the fellow was about to drag him over or suggest that the victim be seized, if only in order to release him from his irksome duty, Birnier snatched up the cigarette lying in the grass and asked for a light to distract the man's attention. The sentry shook his head and pointed to the fire. Hastily Birnier searched his pockets for a match; recollected that he had used the last, and took out a small tin box of wax vestas ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... the shaken nerves of Front-de-Boeuf heard, in this strange interruption to his soliloquy, the voice of one of those demons who, as the superstition of the times believed, beset the beds of dying men, to distract their thoughts, and turn them from the meditations which concerned ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... married, and his mother had gone abroad to a watering-place, and he, having his essay to write, resolved to spend the summer with his aunts. It was very quiet in their secluded estate and there was nothing to distract his mind; his aunts loved their nephew and heir very tenderly, and he, too, was fond of them and ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... she comes tripping into the room after breakfast, in her little round hat, and, putting her hand upon my shoulder, asks me in the most musical of voices whether I have finished with my paper, and am ready for a walk, I feel ashamed that I have allowed myself to distract my attention even for ten minutes from her charming self, to read stupid leading articles and wretched police cases. But men are utterly without sentiment. Reading the Times in the honeymoon! I wonder how the delightful creatures can give us two minutes' thought. Carrie, ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... on nursery and school-room for companionship—insipid pabulum to the vanity of a young lady in her first glimpse of conquest, and who believed she had stricken down a quarry worthy of her bow. Having nothing to distract her, she considered the problem exhaustively from morning till night, and, if she were not in love with him before, she had got him into her head now, if not into her heart. His being so much with Cecil did not strike her as any clue to the mystery. They were relations, of course, or ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... abhors lengthiness; like the Drama, it must be kept doing. It avoids, as frigid, prolonged metaphysical soliloquy. Beauties themselves, if they delay or distract the effect which should be produced on the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself. The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than any ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... people followed, until the whole yard was full of men surging here and there, some firing, others waving their torches, apparently to distract our attention, while the more determined ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... favor of the 26th of October did not reach my hands, till the middle of December. Time enough, you will say, to have given an answer ere this. Granted. But a variety of important occurrences, continually interposing to distract the mind and withdraw the attention, I hope will apologize for the delay, and plead my excuse for the seeming but not real neglect. I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me, in the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... it was to hear her voice raised in appeal at his door. If he closed his eyes, it was to see her image more plainly on the background of his consciousness. The stillness into which the house had sunk aided this absorption and made his battle a losing one. There was naught to distract his mind, and when he dozed, as he did for a while after midnight, it was to fall under the conjuring effect of dreams in which her form dominated with all the force of an unfettered fancy. The pictures which his imagination thus brought before ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... I consented; and smiled in the darkness at the transparent plan to distract my attention ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... they left me? the mist which obscures my sight allows me to distinguish nothing; the objects which surround me seem all confused; a thousand wild distorted images distract my ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... you retained for that wretch one particle of the love of which he was never worthy, I would die before I would distract you by telling you what I feel. No! were your husband the master of your heart, I might perhaps love you; but you should never ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... at the back of the fort, and guessed at once that, under cover of the noise that Drusie and Helen were making, Jim was creeping up with the intention of rescuing him. And Hal had probably allowed himself to be taken prisoner on purpose to distract attention from this manoeuvre. ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... No Hedwig again, to distract Nikky's mind. The lesson went on; trot, canter, low jumps. And then what Nikky called "stunts," an American word which delighted ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... less with the spectators. The impression had become so firmly fixed in the public mind and in that of certain officials as well, that my early hesitations and misstatements were owing to a brotherly anxiety to distract attention from Arthur whose clothing they believed me to have recognised in these articles I have mentioned—that I rather gained than lost by what, under other circumstances would have seriously damaged my testimony. That I should ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... the opening of our tale, but upon the night in question, Leonard fancied he discerned some agitation in Amabel's manner towards him, and in consequence of this notion, he sought to meet her gaze, as before related, after prayers. While trying to distract his thoughts by arranging sundry firkins of butter, and putting other things in order, he heard a light footstep behind him, and turning ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... native species, forming the second class referred to; in the Turner and Hansel, examples of our native species unmixed. To each of these classes might be added a score of other varieties which have been more or less popular, but they would serve only to distract the reader's attention. I have tested forty or fifty kinds side by side at one time, only to be shown that four or five varieties would answer all practical purposes. I can assure the reader, however, that it will be scarcely possible to find a soil or climate where some of these ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... this time managed to distract the child's thoughts from her troubles. Indeed, this was no difficult task for Phil Bradley. Already she had laughed at something he had said. When Phil heard what a sweet laugh that was he immediately ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... chain of men handing up buckets of water through the back garden," said someone else, as though trying to distract her thoughts. "They'll soon get the ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... I know, I feel that that's truth," replied Sarah, quickly; "but oh, how wrong I am," she exclaimed, "to mention that or anything else here that might distract him! Ah," she proceeded, addressing Mave, "I did you injustice—I feel I did, but don't be angry with me, for I ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... her and wheedling, gave her cards to play patience and so on, but finding nothing would distract her from going out, his temper began to rise, and he told her plainly that she must wait his pleasure and that he had as much natural obstinacy as she had. But to all that he said she paid no heed whatever but only scratched the harder. Thus he let her ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... greet a higher nature.' Speaking with reference to the pursuits of men of literary and artistic genius, it is written: 'Almost any worldly state in which a man can be placed is a hinderance to him, if he have other than mere worldly things to do. Poverty, wealth, many duties, or many affairs, distract and confuse him.' One sentence more is all that can be added here; and if it seems to be suggested by an aphorism of Bacon, it is equal to it in pith and penetration:—'Every felicity, as well as wife and children, is a hostage ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... Countess Georges, from dying of grief." He writes to the Mniszechs on February 27th, 1847[*]: "Our dear adored Atala is in a charming and magnificent apartment (and not too dear). She has a garden; she goes a great deal to the convent" (to see Mlle. Henriette Borel). "I try to distract her and to be as much as possible Anna to her; but the name of her dear daughter is so daily and continually on her lips, that the day before yesterday, when she was enjoying herself immensely at the Varietes—in fits of laughter at the 'Filleul de Tout le Monde,' ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... these things that have crept in and disturbed social order and dissipated precious energies in fruitless discussion will disappear through lack of attention. On the other hand, persecution will attract attention to and arouse the fanatical support of them and distract the attention of the group from matters of more ...
— Church Cooperation in Community Life • Paul L. Vogt
... my lunch at Eliza's in Birchin Lane. Twenty minutes was the official allowance for the meal, and I took my twenty minutes at two o'clock. The St. Stephen's Gazette was lying near me. I picked it up. Anything to distract my thoughts from the trouble to come. That was how I felt. Reading mechanically the front page, I saw a poem, and started violently. ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... attention, lacking energy for superfluous movements of any sort. With no longer a companion to distract her, Tess fell more deeply into reverie than ever, her back leaning against the hives. The mute procession past her shoulders of trees and hedges became attached to fantastic scenes outside reality, ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... My reply usually is, "None: write your notes out carefully and fully; strive to understand them thoroughly; come to me for the explanation of anything you cannot understand; and I would rather you did not distract your mind by reading." A properly composed course of lectures ought to contain fully as much matter as a student can assimilate in the time occupied by its delivery; and the teacher should always recollect that his business is to feed, and not to cram the intellect. Indeed, I believe ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... or with thee take Thy Lydia, thine alike in life or death!" At Lydia's name, at Lydia's well known voice, He strove again to raise his drooping head And ope his closing eye, but strove in vain, And on her trembling bosom sunk away. Now other fears distract his weeping friends: But short their grief! for soon his life return'd, And, with return of ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... never want to come home again—that is, if she goes on the stage. When it was decided that we were to go abroad mother suggested to Mrs. Wharton that she let Polly come over and join us later. She thought it would be very much more apt to distract her attention than if she stayed on here with nothing ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... she knew that he never let excitement or enthusiasm run away with his judgment. So she sat as still as she could, striving to catch her breath in the face of the wind; and refraining from speech, lest she distract Bill's ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... columns on either bank of the Adige, drive the French from Rivoli and push on towards Mantua: and yet a third division, led by Davidovich from the district of Friuli on the east, received orders to march on Vicenza and Legnago, in order to distract the French from that side, and possibly relieve Mantua if the other ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... a cab directing the driver to go to Bolton Street and to stop at his club as he passed. There might be letters for him there, he thought—something which would distract his mind a little. As it chanced there was a letter, marked "private," and a telegram; both had been delivered that evening, the porter said, the former about an ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... and Vera. His naturalness and genuine affection, the friendly intimacy of his conversation, his straightforwardness, his talkative humour, and the gleaming play of his fancy were a distraction and a consolation to both of them. He often drew a laugh from them, but he tried in vain to distract them from the grief which hung like a cloud over them both and over the whole house. He himself was sad when he saw that neither his esteem nor Tatiana Markovna's kindness could give back to poor Vera her courage, her pride, her confidence and her ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... {Fables} for me to write, but I purposely abstain; first, that I may not seem troublesome to you, whom a multiplicity of matters distract; and next, that, if perchance any other person is desirous to make a like attempt, he may still have something left to do; although there is so abundant a stock of matter that an artist will be wanting to the work, not work to the artist. I ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... to distract the Public Councils and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments occasionally ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... for Tor Glen, and one that might well distract the whole school's attention. Two discreet ponies were picking their way down the zig-zag path, while behind walked a man. But greatest wonder! on each pony was seated a real lady. Erect and gracefully, too, did they keep their seats, as the ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... and excited me for a time, and when things slackened, I whirled westward to Chicago—eating and drinking, I remember, in the train from shoals of little dishes, with a sort of desperate voracity. I did the queerest things to distract myself—no novelist would dare to invent my mental and emotional muddle. Chicago also held me at first, amazing lapse from civilisation that the place is! and then abruptly, with hosts expecting me, and everything settled for ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... but her answer carried conviction. "I do not yet understand just how or when Felix discovered that the King's life was threatened," she said; "but there can be no doubt it was a ruse on his part to distract the attention of the mob when he told his Majesty that I was in the hotel.—I chanced to be looking out—and I was very angry with Felix when I saw that he had stopped the King and was evidently informing ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... birth on the tongue. Its purpose is to make the words grow large, as it were; to expand and emphasise their meaning; hence the wisdom of the advice—"Suit the action to the word, the word to the action." If the action distract the listeners' attention from the word ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... else about the place, rather dingy. She was far less absorbed than her father, and raised a quick, wistful brown eye whenever he made the least sound, or shuffled his papers. Indeed, it seemed that she was reading in order to distract her anxiety rather than ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... would be glad to lose his Fee, by a Reprieve. What then will become of Polly!—As yet I may inform him of their Design, and aid him in his Escape.—It shall be so—But then he flies, absents himself, and I bar myself from his dear dear Conversation! That too will distract me.—If he keep out of the way, my Papa and Mama may in time relent, and we may be happy.—If he stays, he is hang'd, and then he is lost for ever!—He intended to lie conceal'd in my Room, 'till the Dusk of the Evening: If they are abroad ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... from no other motive than transgressing the forbidden, I reached across to distract the attentive goodness of the prim little baggage; but—an iron grip lifted me bodily from ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... it is closed by a plug of down rammed into it by the shot. The fly takes up her position without separating the feathers or uncovering the wound. She remains here for two hours without stirring, motionless, with her abdomen concealed beneath the plumage. My eager curiosity does not distract her from her business for ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... he slipped to the edge of the stone, flicked out a long, red tongue, and tore the insect from its honeyed perch. Here were beauty, life and death; and I had been weary for something to look at, to think about, to distract me ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... the patient: but a friend that is wholly acquainted with a man's estate will beware, by furthering any present business, how he dasheth upon the other inconvenience. And therefore, rest not upon scattered counsels: they will rather distract and mislead, than ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray," and you will see it played exactly according to Mr. Pinero'a intention, and played brilliantly enough to distract our notice from what is lacking in the character. A fantastic and delightful contradiction, half gamine, half Burne-Jones, she confuses our judgment, as a Paula in real life might, and leaves us attracted and repelled, and, above all, interested. But Duse has no resources outside ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... did he and I terme one another sworne brother: but this commixture, dividence, and sharing of goods, this joyning wealth to wealth, and that the riches of one shall be the povertie of another, doth exceedingly distemper and distract all brotherly alliance, and lovely conjunction: If brothers should conduct the progresse of their advancement and thrift in one same path and course, they must necessarily oftentimes hinder and crosse one another. Moreover, the correspondencie and relation that begetteth these true and mutually ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... the fiddle is gone!' said Alda. 'I used to hear him playing it somewhere among the out-houses in the spring, and it was enough to distract one, added ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... memories of friends' behaviour, speech, appearance, to chat of with her husband, so as to keep thought away. For Gyp, her dress, first worn that day, Betty's breakdown, the faces, blank as hats, of the registrar and clerk, were about all she had to distract her. She stole a look at her husband, clothed in blue serge, just opposite. Her husband! Mrs. Gustav Fiorsen! No! People might call her that; to herself, she was Ghita Winton. Ghita Fiorsen would ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... wouldn't mind looking after Paul a little bit for me. I am so afraid he will miss me, because I've always been with him. The housekeeper will take good care of him, of course, but I know he will be lonely if there is nothing to distract his mind. And I couldn't be happy, even on my wedding journey, if I thought my little Bye-Bye ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... "Yes." Anselmo left Lyons in company with the lonely child. He worked hard to place Jane above want, and tenderly loved her. Gradually he tried to win the young girl's confidence; he comprehended that Jane was on the brink of despair, and to distract her he began to ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... have society around me," said she, "and will never be alone; the people about me shall always laugh and jest, to cheer me and distract my thoughts. Hasten, hasten—call my court; the most jovial men shall be most welcome! And, do you hear, above all things, bring me wine, the best and strongest wine. When I drink plenty of it, I shall again become gay and happy; it drives away all cares, and renders ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... the way he looks up and sighs, I conclude that my effort to distract him has simply increased his longing. The proverb is right. "You can't reason with a lover." [Aloud.] Well, she told me to tell you that she would have to come here this evening. I suppose ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... Manfred; "these blockheads distract me. Out of my sight, Diego! and thou, Jaquez, tell me in one word, art thou sober? art thou raving? thou wast wont to have some sense: has the other sot frightened himself and thee too? Speak; what is it ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... in their endeavors to secure to all the children within the State a good, solid, and practical education, according to the religious convictions and circumstances of all. This, they claim, is not, and cannot be furnished on the present plan. They do not, as falsely charged, desire to distract or divide, or introduce sectarianism into the Public Schools; on the contrary, they wish to satisfy conscience by yielding to all others what they claim for themselves, and cannot help denouncing the present system as practically resulting ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... another man with the utmost effort fails to accomplish, there are some available remedies that can palliate the disease. Society, travel and other amusements can do something, and such words as 'diversion' and 'distraction' embalm the truth that the chief virtue of many pleasures is to divert or distract our minds from painful thoughts. Pascal considered this a sign of the misery and the baseness of our nature, and he describes as a deplorable spectacle a man who rose from his bed weighed down with anxiety and grave sorrow, and who could ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... let prosperity corrupt you, Philip. Wouldn't seeing what the press is saying of it distract you from the real aim ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the saloon the hardier passengers were striving to subdue the ennui of an interval before they sought their cabins. Some talked. One hardened reprobate strummed the piano. Others played cards, chess, draughts, anything that would distract attention. ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... of his son Willie the inconsolable father mourned in particular on that day in each week, and even the military sights at Fortress Monroe to court a change failed to distract him. He was studying Shakespeare. Calling his private secretary to him, he read several passages, and finally that of Queen Constance's lament ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... unaided filled her at first with dismay. Besides, there was the separation from her son, the feeling that she knew not whether she would ever again set eyes on him in this world, and the terrible uncertainty generally of the future, to further distract her; but at length the buoyancy and unquenchable hopefulness of Dick's spirit had its effect upon her; and, finally, when the moment of parting came, she had been brought to a frame of mind that enabled her to say the last words of farewell almost with calmness. ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... said, and was just pulling out the letters to read them through, but he thought better of it, and put off reading them so as not to distract his attention before ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... who considers the extent of our subject, limited only by the bounds of nature and of art, the task of selection and method will appear sufficient to overburden industry and distract attention. Many branches of commerce are subdivided into smaller and smaller parts, till, at last, they become so minute, as not easily to be noted by observation. Many interests are so woven among each other, as not to be disentangled without long inquiry; many arts are industriously kept ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... them by distracting their attention by some pleasant or conspicuous object which makes them forget that they want to cry. Most nurses excel in this art, and rightly used it is very useful; but it is of the utmost importance that the child should not perceive that you mean to distract his attention, and that he should be amused without suspecting you are thinking about him; now this is what most ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... before breakfast was part of the day's duties. At ten o'clock in the morning, whether the spirit moved him or not, he took up his pen and laboured hard until three o'clock. Nothing, not even the opening of the morning letters, was allowed to distract him. Then came walking, answering letters, and seeing friends.... In the evening he read and prepared for the work of ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... spots, vales, hamlets, remote among our river's lovelier reaches, where annually the tides have mirrored at sunrise our gala companies and the green woods responded to our innocent mirth? Why on this consecrated eve distract our hitherto faithful swains and lead their steps divergent at an angle of something like thirty degrees?' I have reason to believe that some such tender complaints have made themselves audible, and it is painful to me to suffer the imputation of lack ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... colors, such as red and green, may not be used in equal quantities in the dress, as they are both so positive in tone that they divide and distract the attention. When two colors are worn in any quantity, one must approach a neutral tint, such as gray or drab. Black may be worn with any color, though it looks best with the lighter shades of the different colors. White may also be worn with any color, though it looks best with ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... fifty-four heavy guns. These were to anchor in a close north-and-south line along the west face of the works, at about nine hundred yards distance. They were to be supported by forty gunboats and as many bomb vessels, besides the efforts of the ships-of-the-line to cover the attack and distract the garrison. Twelve thousand French troops were brought to reinforce the Spaniards in the grand assault, which was to be made when the bombardment had sufficiently injured and demoralized the defenders. At this time the latter numbered seven thousand, their land opponents thirty-three ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... him: while fifty others, dying or wounded, with as much variety as Homer's heroes, whose blood, trickling from them in several rivulets, pours into one general lake at the lowest level of the deck, are anxiously waiting their turn, and distract the purser's steward by their loud calls, in every direction at the same time for the tin-pot of water, with which he is relieving their ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... mills, the church and the market town, extends the fertile plain which I have just endeavored to describe to you, and which I cannot praise too much. Oh! charming landscape! This afternoon I was occupied in feasting my eyes upon it, when a white goat came to distract my attention, followed at a distance by a little girl whom I suspected of being very pretty; but I forgot them both in watching a steamboat passing up the river towing a flotilla of barges, covered with awnings and attended by their lighters, and a ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... their constant companion and playmate both in quarters and the field, by expressions of sympathy and affection. The arrival of Paco, who established himself behind the esquilador, in a gap of the circle, was insufficient to distract their attention from the important and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... Kensington,' and I must indulge myself with that. I assure you we make quite a picture. Mac lies at my feet, and Spot generally curls himself up on my lap. Tim prefers lying on the lawn and keeping an eye upon the kitten. She is such a droll little creature, and her antics quite distract me. ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... spurs into the horse, crouched very low, and swerved in his flight in order to distract the other's aim. And still the shot did not come. With each jump of the horse, the woods sprang nearer. They were only two hundred yards away and still the ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... we measured and photographed carried babies; the disposition of the children while the mothers were being examined was something of a problem. When given to another woman they usually cried lustily, and so conducted themselves as to distract the attention of their mothers and interfere seriously with our work. In the crowd of lookers-on there chanced to be a little girl, surely not more than ten years old, who seemed to be a born caretaker. Upon her ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr |
