"Distract" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... feel shame in recalling, it would be a man, a man of restless and versatile intellect, who, not content with an equivocal success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions, and skilled appeals ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... mother's large estate near Moscow. But that year his sister had 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 of their simple, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... endless disputes between the religious and secular clergy[10] at this period tended to distract the attention of both from their spiritual work, and to give rise to considerable disorder and discontent. On the one side, men like the Paris professor, John Poilly and Richard Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh, were too extreme and seemed inclined to leave to the ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... it would have been better. She would perhaps have been able to distract herself with the thousand and one subjects which are now got up for examinations, or she would perhaps. have seriously studied some science, which might at least have been effectual as an opiate in suppressing sensibility. She was, however, in Eastthorpe ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... rest of Mr. Avenel's toilet was not completed with correspondent dispatch. On his bed, and on his chairs, and on his sofa, and on his drawers, lay trowsers, and vests, and cravats, enough to distract the choice of a Stoic. And first one pair of trowsers was tried on, and then another—and one waistcoat, and then a second, and then a third. Gradually that chef d'oeuvre of Civilization—a man dressed—grew into development and form; and, finally, Mr. Richard Avenel emerged into the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... sigh, and teach the tear to flow; To put on frenzy's wild, distracted glare, And freeze the soul with horror and despair; With just desert enroll'd in endless fame, Conscious of worth superior, Cibber[63] came. When poor Alicia's madd'ning brains are rack'd, And strongly imaged griefs her mind distract, Struck with her grief, I catch the madness too, My brain turns round, the headless trunk I view! 790 The roof cracks, shakes, and falls—new horrors rise, And Reason buried in the ruin lies! Nobly disdainful of each slavish art, She makes her first attack upon the heart; Pleased with ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... eyes on these figures, tangled in some rare knot of Fate, and of Desire: these he painted, not attending much to the bustle of existence that surrounded them, not permitting superfluous elements to mingle with them, and to distract him. ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... the first. There was no power of coercion anywhere. All that Congress could do was to try to frame laws that would reconcile differences, and bring thirteen supreme governments upon some common ground of agreement. To distract and perplex it still more, it stood face to face with a well-disciplined and veteran army which might at any moment, could it find a leader to its mind, march upon Philadelphia and deal with Congress as Cromwell dealt with the Long Parliament. There were ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... people have intended to sanction the extreme and mischievous views of some of the candidates, who, here and there, have secured their election. Factious divisions in the loyal States, at this critical period, would be ruinous to the cause of the Union. They would distract the public mind and weaken the arm of the Government, so as to endanger its success in the war. There is no indication of any such intention on the part of the people, whatever may be the designs of some of those who have been ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... roads leading from the west to the east of the Jordan. The object of this preliminary move was to prevent the Turks west of the river escaping by this route to the east, and also to draw the attention of the enemy towards the Jordan Valley and distract ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... never suffered the cares of Government to distract his attention from the great object of life. On one occasion, for example, being detained in consultation with Napoleon beyond the appointed hour of dinner—it is said that the fate of the Duc d'Enghien was the topic ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... have lost him!' was the voice that spoke in Angela's soul. She had courage enough to beat down the feelings of wretchedness which threatened to distract her heart; and for that reason—namely, that she possessed ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... the enchanted palace which my true love has promised me," she said gayly in order to distract Ulysses from ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a kind of theatrical effect used to tone down her natural hypocrisy. My own thoughts began to harass and weary me. I took up a volume of philosophic essays and began to read, in an endeavor to distract my mind from dwelling on the one perpetual theme. The day wore on slowly enough; and I was glad when the evening closed in, and when Vincenzo, remarking that the night was chilly, kindled a pleasant wood-fire in my room, and ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... loving kindnesse, and therefore 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 ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... some business in Spain—something about Andalusian wool—which his father made the ostensible reason for the journey. It would occupy him and distract his mind, besides giving him constant necessity of change. And, they say, travel is the best cure for the heart-ache. We hoped ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... be selected with the greatest possible care, and in our opinion the small gold ones can only be worn by a perfect gentleman; for whilst they perform their required office, they do not distract the attention from the quality and whiteness of your linen. Some that we have seen were evidently intended for cabinet pictures, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... been a week in which Dudley, much of a doctor, 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 of the camp, and the placid lake broke in silver on pebbles ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... ironical, Picard. I was merely digressing, which I admit is wrong, as you're apt to distract the attention of your hearer from the real subject. We'll return to Mademoiselle Julie. Do you think she's going to ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and, taking out her hat, picked up a pair of scissors, and proceeded to curl the feathers. The hat was already in so deplorable a condition that this belated home treatment was not likely to help it, but the diversion served its purpose, which was to distract the agent's attention ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... who it appeared had sprung overboard, was striking out rapidly towards him. The attention of all on board was directed to the spot. Had it not been for fear of the voracious monster of the deep, many might have jumped overboard to assist, still they shouted and kept throwing in things, to distract, if possible, the attention of the shark, from the lad in the water. Denham knowing well the enemy he had to contend with, continued striking the water with all his might with his feet, as he swam ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... arguments did the evil that was in her whisper in her ear, and she could not shut the whisperings out. All day long her restlessness increased. Her solitude became unbearable. She longed for the world of men and women, hungered to hear laughter and the sound of voices—anything to distract her from her thoughts. That evening she went to Court, beautiful, reckless, heartless to all seeming, ready to be flattered and to flatter—a dangerous mood for such a woman ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... judgment, other men's reasons may serve to fortify my own, but have little power to dissuade me; I hear them all with civility and patience; but, to my recollection, I never made use of any but my own. With me, they are but flies and atoms, that confound and distract my will; I lay no great stress upon my opinions; but I lay as little upon those of others, and fortune rewards me accordingly: if I receive but little advice, I also give but little. I am seldom consulted, and still more seldom believed, and know no concern, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... 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 had thinned down, and then came back to his seat by the fire. ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... bad taste to distract your companion's interest from the performance, even if you find it ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... ground chosen by the sirdar was impeded by a jungle, to avoid which, and to distract the enemy's attention, Lord Gough took a considerable detour to the right. He succeeded in avoiding the intricacies of the jungle, but not in distracting the attention of Shere Singh. That general moved from his encampment, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... fear. They brought back—absurd as it may sound—a sense of companionship: for although half-wild, they showed a disposition to be sociable, and we had found that a wave of the arm sufficed to drive them off when their advances became embarrassing. On the other hand, they would certainly distract some attention which I could ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... 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 master him, depend ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... beings too." He found a place for the last of the litter on the crowded mantel-shelf, and came to sit before Mr. Cupples on the table. "The great thing about a hotel sitting-room is that its beauty does not distract the mind from work. It is no place for the May-fly pleasures of a mind at ease. Have you ever been in this room before, Cupples? I have, hundreds of times. It has pursued me all over England for years. I should feel lost without it if, in some fantastic, far-off hotel, ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... staid, And beat more temperate in his liuer-vaine, Onely he could not choose but praise the maid, Whose eies fr[o] his such womanish drops did strain Did not thy face (sigh'd he) such faires containe, It could not be, my heart thou couldst distract, But all abstracts of rarities are laid, In thy faire ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... to drown Pompey in the Nile, something inside was asking, "Has Anthony fallen in love with Monny Gilder?" "What scrapes has that blessed girl got into?" "Has anything happened to worry Biddy?" Even that nameless but incomparable tomb on the hill of Kom esh-Shukafa could not distract my thoughts from the sealed envelopes; and three very modern handwritings came obstinately between my eyes and the matchless wall-paintings—paintings as fresh in their underground hiding-place as if finished yesterday instead of in days when it was dowdy ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... the flag-ship, the squadron stood in, the larger portion taking up a position opposite the town, which they forthwith commenced bombarding, while the rest were employed in landing troops at different points to co-operate with the Turks, and to distract the attention of the Egyptians. Suliman Pacha, Governor of Beyrout, in spite of the shot and shell showered into his fortress, held out bravely and fired away in return as hard as he could. It was the first time the three midshipmen of the Racer had been under fire, but as ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... fight, yet never for a moment forgot that he was called upon to act as a general rather than a soldier. His operations were planned as clearly and commanded as distinctly in the midst of the hottest conflict, as if no tumult had raged around him, and no danger had been near to distract his attention; yet his horse was killed under him in the early part of the battle; and at one moment, a Bavarian dragoon was seen holding him by the coat with one hand, while he levelled a pistol at his head with the other. One of the Imperialists, however, coming up at the moment, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... to bestow all its energies on the wants of others, there is at least a reflection of the same sublimity in the character of that human being who has so quieted and governed the world within, that nothing is left to absorb sympathy or distract ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... whole of this old drama is incomparably and in every respect superior to Shakespeare's adaptation. It is so, first, because it has not got the utterly superfluous characters of the villain Edmund and unlifelike Gloucester and Edgar, who only distract one's attention; secondly because it has not got the completely false "effects" of Lear running about the heath, his conversations with the fool, and all these impossible disguises, failures to recognize, and accumulated deaths; and, ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... happened to be a wonderful new process of evolving gas from dirt and city refuse. He had been explaining it gently to a woman in the chair, from pure intellectual interest, to distract the patient's mind. He was not tinkering with teeth this time, however. The woman was sitting in the chair because it was the only unoccupied space. She had removed her hat and was looking steadily into the lake. At last, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... distract your attention with the palaces of the Caesars, the Cenci, St. Angelo, and the remains of antiquity still to be seen here, but trust that when we meet again every wish that you formerly expressed regarding our stay in Rome will ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... fearless, nor with cause to boast, Begins his dire attempt; which nigh the birth Now rolling boils in his tumultuous breast, And like a devilish engine back recoils Upon himself; horrour and doubt distract His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir The Hell within him; for within him Hell He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell One step, no more than from himself, can fly By change of place: Now conscience wakes despair, That slumbered; ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... colorless and exhausted, but clinging to Tod still in a queer pathetic way, and letting him pull at her collar and her ribbons and her hair. The touch of his relentless baby hands and his pretty, tyrannical, restless ways seemed to help her a little and half distract ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... distract us from our purpose to give a full description of the grievances of the Spanish colonies in America. They were justified and it is useless to try to defend Spain. Granting that Spain carried out a wonderful work of civilization in the American continent, and that ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... touches, that lives and flourishes; and from whatsoever it is removed, that withers away and dies; such a degree is there in it of immortality. Let me produce the state of sleep as a most evident demonstration of the truth of what I say; wherein souls, when the body does not distract them, have the sweetest rest depending on themselves, and conversing with God, by their alliance to him; they then go every where, and foretell many futurities beforehand. And why are we afraid of death, while we are pleased with the rest that we have in sleep? And how ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... 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 also of your private interests. Thanks to his benevolence, ye will have in him a ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... placed, Herman Mordaunt was wonderfully collected. For myself, I felt as if I had fifty lives to lose, Anneke being, uppermost in my thoughts. The females, however, behaved uncommonly well; making no noise, and using all the self-command they could assume, in order not to distract the exertions of their husbands and friends. Some of the wives of the sturdy settlers, indeed, actually exhibited a species of stern courage that would have done credit to soldiers; appearing in the court, armed, and otherwise rendering themselves useful. It often happened that ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... the impracticability of approaching Quebec on the side of the Montmorency, Wolfe again turned his whole attention to the St. Lawrence. To destroy some ships of war lying in the river, and at the same time to distract the attention of Montcalm by descents at different places, twelve hundred men were embarked in transports under the command of general Murray, who made two vigorous, but unsuccessful attempts, to land ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... men and women—women especially—in whose presence he felt himself as diffident as she did in his. He was thinking of ladies in velvet dresses and diamonds, who could talk wittily of pictures and theatres and books, who could amuse him and distract him. And meanwhile she went about in her old stuff dress, her cotton apron and rolled-up sleeves, cooking and washing and cleaning—for her child and for him. She felt through every nerve that he was ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Charles the Great constitutes a preface to the history of the later Middle Ages. He holds the balance between nascent forces which are to distract the future by their conflicts. He pays impartial homage to ideas which statesmen less imperious or more critical will afterwards regard as irreconcilable. He is at one and the same time an autocrat, the head of a ruling aristocracy, and a popular ruler who solicits ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... voluptuousness of Syria and Persia sapping the rude but masculine simplicity of the Arabian desert. Above all, the single-mindedness of Mahomet and his two immediate successors is at an end. Other objects besides the mere advancement of Islamism distract the attention of its leading professors; and the struggle for worldly wealth and worldly sway, for the advancement of private ends, and the aggrandizement of particular tribes and families, destroy ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... 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 ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... coming preoccupied Ramuntcho, was late. But, to distract his mind for a moment, a "convoy" advanced slowly; a convoy, that is a parade of parents and nearest neighbors of one who had died during the week, the men still draped in the long cape which is worn at ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... 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 smoothly in the double-harness of that honourable ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... 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, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... weeping from morning till night, and that is saving me. One would really end by going mad or dying, if one could not weep. I am all alone, too. My husband is making some little trips around the country, and I insisted that he should take Annette with him, to distract and console her a little. They go in the carriage or on horseback as far as eight or ten leagues from Roncieres, and she returns to me rosy with youth, in spite of her sadness, her eyes shining with life, animated by the country air and the excursion she has had. How ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... yet remaining {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 request that you will give the reward to my brevity ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth, With full as many signs of deadly hate, As lean-fac'd Envy in her loathsome cave. My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words; Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint; Mine hair be fix'd an end, as one distract; Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban; And even now my burthen'd heart would break, Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink! Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste! Their ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... so gay, the repast would have promised to be most agreeable, if Rouletabille had not noticed that Matrena Petrovna and Natacha were uneasy and downcast. The reporter soon saw, too, that all the general's joviality was a little excessive. Anyone would have said that Feodor Feodorovitch spoke to distract himself, to keep himself from thinking. There was sufficient excuse for him after the outrageous drama of the other night. Rouletabille noticed further that the general never looked at his daughter, even when he spoke to her. There was too formidable a mystery lying between them for ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... Christ" as hardly a defect; it is in keeping with the sad solemnity of the scene. But if color should not be so brilliant as to overpower the expression of form and sentiment, still less should it be so inharmonious as to distract the mind from it, as is sometimes the case with Scheffer. The "Dante and Beatrice" is a familiar instance. We can see no reason why Beatrice should be dressed in disagreeable pink, and Dante in brick-red. Surely, such color is neither agreeable to the eye nor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... Madame de Nevers, and myself did all that lay in our power to distract or relieve the sorrows of the Prince; but the loss of Mademoiselle de Chatillon, his charming spouse, was much more present with him than that of his states; the bitterness which he drew from it was out of the retch of ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... a flock of ducks going over, or heard the honk-honk of wild geese," she answered. "It does not take much to distract them from labor—and they have a ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... of the chorus, where it takes part in the dialogue: that the action itself, the situation of Orestes, or Merope, or Alcmaeon,[11] was to stand the central point of interest, unforgotten, absorbing, principal; that no accessories were for a moment to distract the spectator's attention from this, that the tone of the parts was to be perpetually kept down, in order not to impair the grandiose effect of the whole. The terrible old mythic story on which the drama was founded stood, before he entered the ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... her husband had found a curate and made all arrangements. It must have been very inconvenient not to come home; but, no doubt, she wanted to prevent any more partings. Then they went abroad, travelling slowly, and seeing all the sights that came in their way, to distract Ellen's thoughts. She was not allowed to hear what ailed her; but believed her languor and want of interest in everything to be the effect of the blow she had received, struggling to exert herself, and to enter gratefully into the enjoyments provided for ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that's what it is. Because I did not prevent him from going to America. Therefore Withers was very glad to go to Peking from time to time, for he liked the excitement of the barbaric capital, and besides, he thought it would be good for Li to be quite on his own in charge of the godowns, and might distract his thoughts from that obsession which was preying ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... threw his 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 Night-Born • Jack London
... their double line of fortresses all fallen to the invader, the apparent calm on the Western front continued to be the marvel of the European campaign, as up to September 7 no development on the Western front indicated that any effort was being made to distract the Kaiser's attention from his victorious expedition into the ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... you have fortunately had so much to distract your thoughts that you have not had time to dwell upon your loss. Moreover, you have needed all your strength and your energy for your search for your sister, and right sure am I that your father, who was as sensible as he was wise—and the two things do not ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... ever had been a reality, or whether it might not be, after all, only a dream. I think my father was afraid of the fascination of the cape for us boys—afraid its charms, if we once partook of them freely, might distract our attention from the order and duties of school life. To be sure, we always went to the country with our parents for a month or six weeks, and enjoyed it exceedingly, laying up a stock of trout, squirrel, and badger stories to last us through the winter. ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... resources to defend Richard's masterpiece. John made one attempt to succour the garrison. He brought his army across the level country and essayed to destroy the bridge of boats constructed by the French. This one effort proving unsuccessful he took no other measures to distract the besieging army, and left Roger de Lacy to the undivided attention of the Frenchmen. Then followed a terrible struggle. The French king succeeded in drawing his lines closer to the castle itself and eventually obtained possession of the outer fortifications ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... designedly fostered, Barras having led Wolfe Tone to believe that France would fight on for the freedom of Ireland. The influence of Bonaparte told more and more against an expedition to her shores; but the Irish patriots were left in the dark, for their rising would serve to distract the energies of England, while Bonaparte won glory in the East. To save appearances, the French Government sent three small expeditions in August to October; but they merely prolonged the agony of a dying cause, and led that deeply wronged people to ask what might ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... morning, and I simply couldn't resist the temptation. If God ever made anything more beautiful than a rose, Mr. Narkom, it is yet to be discovered. Sit down, and while you are talking I'll arrange these in this vase. No; it won't distract my attention from what you are saying, believe me. Somehow, I can always think better and listen better when there are flowers ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... was not calculated to distract or dissipate the mind. The bricks were so much alike that the eye naturally sought and reposed on or followed the salient feature. Having descended the spout as far as the window-sill permitted, the eyes ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... kill 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, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... come in the line of his duty) for a man. I doubt the expediency of sending missionary ladies to perish here. Indeed, it may well be questioned whether a missionary ought, in any country, to be a married man. The care of a family must distract his attention and weaken his efficiency; and herein, it may be, consists one great advantage which the Catholic missionary possesses over the Protestant. He can penetrate into the interior; he can sleep in the hut, and eat the simple food of a native. But, if there be a wife and children, ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... man is," he replied, "and screeching owls in every brain. You can't get quit." Then, lowering his voice, "I am haunted, and yet live here in this Moated Grange! The difference is this: in the town the gaslight and eternal clatter distract a man like me who is plagued from within; here I find some concord between the inside and the out, only the owls in the inside are ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... how we got through that day. Stroeve could not bear to be alone, and I exhausted myself in efforts to distract him. I took him to the Louvre, and he pretended to look at pictures, but I saw that his thoughts were constantly with his wife. I forced him to eat, and after luncheon I induced him to lie down, but he could not sleep. ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... reason why mannerisms of walk or gesture or vocal intonation are objectionable in an actor is that they distract the attention of the audience from the effect he is producing to his method of producing that effect. Mansfield's peculiar manner of pumping his voice from his diaphragm and Irving's corresponding system of ejaculating his phrases through his nose gave to the reading of those great artists ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... lightening the burdens of the French exchequer, it compelled England to keep a large fleet in the Mediterranean for the protection of Egypt, and thereby weakened her defensive powers in the Straits of Dover. To distract his foes, and compel them to extend their lines, was ever Napoleon's aim both in military and naval strategy; and the occupation of Taranto, together with the naval activity at Toulon and Genoa, left it doubtful ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... my house distract me. I met a fine gentleman, when I inquired who He was—why, he came to Clarinda. I met A footman too, and he came to Clarinda. My wife had the character of a virtuous ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... that moment were almost too bitter to be borne, and without so much as glancing at the books displayed for sale, I crossed the roadway, entered Museum Street, and, rather in order to distract my mind than because I contemplated any purchase, began to examine the Oriental Pottery, Egyptian statuettes, Indian armor, and other curios, displayed in the window of ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... you want to distract you? Theatres, evening parties, dinners in town? You knew, however, when you came here, that you ought not to expect ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... easily up here on mules or donkeys from Pella. The Signor Antonio-Pericles has gold ears for everything that concerns the signorina. 'A patriot is she!' he says; and he is jealous of your English friends. He thinks they will distract you from your studies; and perhaps"—Luigi nodded sagaciously before he permitted himself to say—"perhaps he is jealous in another way. I have heard him speak like a sonnet of the signorina's beauty. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... understand. This would be splendid if she, like Sylvia Reed, for instance, had to look to her wits to solve her life problems; but it will distract her along the ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... purchases of food? Yet however scanty my service, food, and raiment may seem to you, I on the contrary regard them as ample and even excessive. Indeed I am desirous of still further reducing them, since the less I have to distract me the happier I shall be. For the soul, like the body, goes lightly clad when in good health; weakness wraps itself up, and it is a sure sign of infirmity to have many wants. We live, just as we swim, all the better for being but lightly burdened. For in this stormy life as ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... only walk when we get home?" asked Rumple, who had noticed the noise Rupert was making, and was anxious to distract the attention of Ducky ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... patience!" said 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 he fancies he ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... 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 to Carlotta. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... piety of the islanders was edifying, the costumes worn by these strange converts were such as somewhat to distract the attention of the visitors. A black coat or the waistcoat of an English uniform was the only garment worn by some, whilst others contented themselves with a jacket, a shirt, or a pair of trousers. The most fortunate were wrapped in cloth ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... be valiant; but the effort exhausted her strength. As the days went on, even Aristide's inexhaustible conversation failed to distract her from brooding. She lost the trick of laughter. In the evenings, when he was most with her, she would sit, either in the shop or in the little room at the back, her blue childish eyes fixed on him wistfully. ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... German regiments. They touched upon the Cologne negotiations, and the fruitless attempt of the patriots upon that occasion to procure freedom of religion, while the object of the royalists was only to distract and divide the nation. Finally, they commented with sorrow and despair upon that last and crowning measure of tyranny—the ban against ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... laugh!" she said; "oh, that is well; for otherwise I should not know how to live. We must laugh low, not to make any noise and distract the old ones; but still, one must live. Tell me, you are the brother of Madame—Should I say Milady? In my novels they never do, but I do not know if the novels are just ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... no labour, no dramatic display in that leadership; nothing to distract the attention, or to break the spell of the music. All the toil of art, the consideration of effects, the sharp and vehement assertion of authority, lay ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... as long as he could. There was no jealousy in his heart, but there was bitterness, discontent, a savage self-pillorying. He was genuinely sorry that this young woman was so pretty; still, had she the graces of Calypso, he must have come. She would distract him, and he desired at that time distraction least of all diversions. Concentration and singleness of purpose—upon these two attributes practically hung his life. How strangely fate had stepped with him. What if there ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... I am a free man, retired from business; and it will give me something to do, something to distract me. I am ready to take him with me at once, the poor little thing—[looks at Mme. de Ronchard] unless Madame, who is so fond ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... One dog may distract the attention from another dog.[45] A very gaunt poodle came along at the moment. Gavroche ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... so many things to distract her attention that she wondered how grown-up people could be so tranquil with all their knowledges and their cares. She began to realise the great difference in tastes and characteristics, though she would not have quite comprehended ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Brother Dobigel," he continued, "let me give you some advice. The next time you try to get near a victim with one of those things, don't do it by talking to him about things he already knows. It doesn't distract him enough." ...
— Heist Job on Thizar • Gordon Randall Garrett
... of Greenwich will naturally dispose them to reflection and study: and particular caution ought to be used, lest any interruption be suffered to dissipate their attention, or distract their meditations: for this reason, all visits and letters from ladies are strictly to be prohibited; and if any of the members shall be detected with a lapdog, pack of cards, box of dice, draught-table, snuffbox, or looking-glass, he shall, for the first offence, be confined for three months to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... pretty!' in a coaxing voice. An instant later, with a scratching, rattling sound, a most horrible and loathsome creature appeared from below and perched itself upon the side of the case. Even the unexpected fall of the Duke of Durham into the orchestra, which occurred at this moment, could not distract the petrified attention of the vast audience. The face of the creature was like the wildest gargoyle that the imagination of a mad medieval builder could have conceived. It was malicious, horrible, with two small red ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... see that I have here and there repeated myself. Do excuse it. I believe it is owing to the way the flies harass and distract me. ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... 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 its bosom. ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... never have cause to exercise your talents at my expense; so that you tease yourself and me to no purpose. Come, Sophy, let us walk home again."—"Good God! madam," cried the lover, with great emotion, "why will you distract me with such barbarous indifference? Stay, dear Emilia!—I conjure you on my knees to stay and hear me. By all that is sacred, I was not to blame. You must have been imposed upon by some villain who envied my good fortune, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... into the larger tent (there were no three rings, I beg to say, maliciously calculated to distract the attention! One, of a goodly size, was quite enough for us!) a little voice piped up, "The snake's got loose!" How we surged and panted, and fought one another for our sacred lives! In vain were we urged to stand still; we strove the more. And when ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... sides, and so small that he was completely surrounded. Finding his retreat cut off he boldly stood up and seemed deliberately to scan the most practicable mode of breaking his way through us all, but he was so incessantly plied with stones as entirely to distract him. When a well-aimed blow struck him he wreaked his vengeance on the stone, and, diving after it to the bottom, gnashed upon it with his teeth. At last a gun was brought by one of the party and a well-directed shot under the ear laid him ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... illuminated by the reflection of the good, vanished giant, by that touching reflection that comes from the dead to those souls they have so profoundly stirred. The worship of Flaubert was a religion from which nothing could distract him, neither work, nor glory, nor slow moving waves, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... himself to be persuaded; he was taken to the hospital, and Esther remained at home waiting for the fateful afternoon. Now that the dying man was taken from her she had no work to distract her thought. The unanswerable question—would Chasuble win?—was always before her. She saw the slender greyhound creatures as she had seen them at Epsom, through a sea of heads and hats, and she asked herself if Chasuble was the brown horse that had galloped in first, or the chestnut ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... "When the oars are taken in we always begin to rejoice. And why not? Death is near—it is almost certain. Why should we do anything to distract our minds and mar our joy? For oh, dear friend, the glorious time has come when we can give up life—life, with all its toils, its burdens, its endless bitternesses, its perpetual evils. Now we shall have no more suffering from vexatious and oppressive riches, from troublesome honors, from a ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... merriment of the cardinals; and that he had a daughter, Novella, so accomplished in law as to be able to read her father's lectures in his absence, and so beautiful, that she had to read behind a curtain lest her face should distract the attention of the students. He is said to have died at Bologna of the plague in 1348, and an epitaph in the church of the Dominicans in which he was buried, calling him Rabbi Doctorum, Lux, Censor, Normaque Morum, testifies to the public estimation of his character. Andrea ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... hopes of thousands of Englishmen. They are, we are persuaded, even more universally the belief and hopes of the Women of England, whose hearts the complicated difficulties of politics and the miserable jealousies of national rivalry do not distract from the great principles underlying the contest. The failure of English sympathy whereof you complain is but partial at the most, and for that partial failure we deeply and sorrowfully grieve. But the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... "ghostly finger tips of sleet" on the window-panes, is the central event, but we soon realize that this storm merely serves to focus intensely the New England life with which he was familiar. The household is shut in from the outside world by the snow, and there is nothing else to distract the attention from the picture of isolated Puritan life. There is not another poet in America who has produced such a masterpiece under such limitations. One prose writer, Hawthorne, in The Scarlet Letter, had indeed taken even more unpromising materials and achieved one of the greatest successes ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... next morning 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 ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... nothing else but to be mended. A sect, whose chief devotion lies In odd perverse antipathies; In falling out with that or this, And finding somewhat still amiss; 210 More peevish, cross, and splenetick, Than dog distract, or monkey sick. That with more care keep holy-day The wrong, than others the right way; Compound for sins they are inclin'd to, 215 By damning those they have no mind to: Still so perverse and opposite, As if they worshipp'd God ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... had not yet risen, but the starry sheen of the sky dimly outlined everything. He was gazing upon the peaceful scene of a ranch when night has spread her soft, velvety wings. There were few sounds to distract his thoughts. The air still hummed with the busy insect life; one of the prowling ranch dogs occasionally gave tongue, its fiercely suspicious temper no doubt aroused by some vague shadow which surely no other eyes than his ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... all other links that bound them to a past which they cherished the more passionately because it guarded a defeated cause. Like the soft apologetic murmur of Mrs. Pendleton's voice, which was meant to distract attention rather than to impart information, this impassioned memory of the thing that was dead sweetened the less romantic fact of the things that were living. The young were ignorant of it, but the old knew. Mrs. Pendleton, who was born a great lady, remained ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... causes in the production of accessory ornamental plumes, I have elsewhere suggested[134] that crests and other erectile feathers may have been useful in making the bird more formidable in appearance, and thus serving to frighten away enemies; while long tail or wing feathers might serve to distract the aim of a bird of prey. But though this might be of some use in the earlier stages of their development, it is probably of little importance compared with the vigour and pugnacity of which the plumes are the indication, ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... touch to the quick; possess the soul, pervade the soul, penetrate the soul, imbrue the soul, absorb the soul, affect the soul, disturb the soul. absorb, rivet the attention; sink into the mind, sink into the heart; prey on the mind, distract; intoxicate; overwhelm, overpower; bouleverser [Fr.], upset, turn one's head. fascinate; enrapture &c (give pleasure) 829. agitate, perturb, ruffle, fluster, shake, disturb, startle, shock, stagger; give one a shock, give one a turn; strike all of a heap; stun, astound, electrify, galvanize, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... 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. ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... lips of Katherine, as she followed his directions, and first beheld the frigate through the medium of the fluctuating colors of the morning. The undulating outline of the lazy ocean, which rose and fell heavily against the bright boundary of the heavens, was without any relief to distract the eye as it fed eagerly on the beauties of the solitary ship. She was riding sluggishly on the long seas, with only two of her lower and smaller sails spread, to hold her in command; but her tall masts and heavy yards were painted against the fiery sky in strong lines of deep black, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... dear Anthony, that I am jealous of you and Juliet; oh, no, I love you too well for that. I know that I can never be as dear to you as Juliet; that she is more worthy of your love—Good Heavens! you are weeping. What have I said to cause these tears? Anthony, dear Anthony, speak to me. You distract me. Oh, tell me that I ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... prospect for a moment, then she nerved herself to face it. After all, she could never be happy at Shorne Mills again. Every tree, every rock, every human being would remind her of Drake, of the lover she had lost. With Dick gone, there would be nothing for her to do, nothing to distract her mind from the perpetual brooding over the few past weeks of happiness, and the long, gray life before her. With these people there would be sure to be some work for her, something that would save her from spending every hour in ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... Singh mounted them with scarcely an effort, as a man who could master Bagh well might, and at the top his middle-aged back was straight and his eye clear. The cunning, curtained lights did not distract him; so he did not make the usual mistake of thinking that the Loveliness ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... he must do without my assistance; there were other professors, many of them. I did not permit the circulars that now began to pour in from Chickle University to distract me from my index. Striking as these circulars were—and I will instance but one ...
— How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee • Owen Wister
... husband. What if I should find him out and betray him? The anxiety occasioned by this possibility made her hate me. The agony of her little one's departure, the fear of some dire discovery, the consciousness of guilt near enough of vicinage almost to seem her own, combined to nearly distract her mind, and it seemed like a joyful relief when I departed. The sudden release from that constant pressure of fear (she knew I could do nothing against them without money, credit, or friends) ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... to combat mental anguish by bodily exercise, to distract, if possible, the thoughts which hammered upon her brain by moving amid the life of the streets. In Camberwell Road she passed the place of business inscribed with the names 'Lord and Barmby'; it made her think, not of the man who, from being an object of her good-natured contempt, was now ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... marched out of the room, feeling jarred and irritated, and utterly out of sympathy. That's the worst of being a spinster, you can never count on your companions as a continuance! Kathie left me at the invitation of a man she had known a few months; Charmion regards me as a narcotic to distract her thoughts from another man, and flies off the moment his memory becomes troublesome; and now even Bridget! Men are ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... and man's work are just anything they can do for each other," he rejoined. "I wonder if I should get on any quicker with a change of treatment. Resignation is generally prescribed for rheumatism, and a variety of drugs which distract attention from the seat of pain to other parts of the person, and so relieve the mind. My head is being racked just now by that last dose I took. I should ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... 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 does not destroy identity. We shall still continue members of that large family ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... about the lips, as if her will was asserting itself. But soon her face had the peaceful and serious expression becoming the place and hour, and he saw that she had no thoughts for him whatever. He was determined to distract her attention, and by restlessness, by looking fixedly at her, sought her eye, but only secured the notice of some young girls who thought him "badly ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... shots from Arnold's automatic. As the reader knows, the snake, Harry and Arnold were in direct line with Harry between the snake and Arnold. Therefore Arnold was unable quickly to shoot the snake. He tried to distract the attention of the reptile by creating a disturbance, but, as we know, in this he was unsuccessful. The temporary diversion was sufficient, however, to enable the stranger to grasp the situation as he came through a clump ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... and hope had been taken from her since she had been forbidden to see her mother and sister. The present was dreary, the future nothing but gloom and apprehension, and she had little to distract her attention. She strove hard to fulfil what she knew were duties, her household concerns and the readings she had fixed as tasks; but these over, she did not try to rouse her mind from her cares; nor had she perhaps the power, for her ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... in front of him, Baya would drone him monotonous tunes with a guitar in her fist; or else, to distract her lord and master, favour him with the Bee Dance, holding a hand-glass up, in which she reflected her white teeth ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet |
