"Distracted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... into fuel, with about two thousand other unactable manuscripts, which of course were in great peril, if not actually consumed. Now was not this characteristic?—the ruling passions of Pope are nothing to it. Whilst the poor distracted manager was bewailing the loss of a building only worth 300,000 l., together with some twenty thousand pounds of rags and tinsel in the tiring rooms, Bluebeard's elephants, and all that—in comes a note from a scorching author, requiring at his hands ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... civility and good treatment from the people of power at Boston, insomuch, sir, that I should do injustice to the feelings of generosity did I not make this particular information with pleasure and satisfaction. I have now to request of you that, so soon as the distracted state of this unfortunate controversy will admit, you will be pleased to take an early opportunity of settling a cartel for myself ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... greatness so satisfactorily as this, that at his death Rome relapsed at once into civil war and strife as violent as that to which Caesar had put an end, and that the man who brought lasting peace and unity into the distracted state, was the man of Caesar's choice. But in endeavouring to realize his supreme wisdom, nothing helps us more than the pettiness of the accusations brought against him by such historians as Suetonius—that ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... Kate, my love, that's just what I know nothing about. If they'd let me receive them in my own way, I'd do it well enough; but that abominable Mrs. Taddi-what's her name-has quite addled my brains and driven me distracted with trying to get me to understand what she ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... Martin supposed that she tried to forget him, but her opinion changed on this point one night when she overheard her mother praying with intense earnestness and in affectionate terms that her dear Dick might yet be saved. Still, however much or frequently Granny's thoughts might at any time be distracted from their main channel, they invariably returned thereto with the cheerful assurance that "he would soon ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... day, after eating some cherries from the palace gardens, she was seized with a violent pain. All the skill of the Court doctors could do as little to assuage her agony as to save her life; and within a few hours she died, clasped to the breast of her distracted lover! ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... of all men; running to and fro, forsooth, and present everywhere, troublesome, restless—nay, impudently curious they would have him; that is, if he is close at every deed, interferes in all places, while he can neither attend to each as being distracted through the whole, nor suffice for the whole as being engaged about each. Think, too, of their threatening fire, meditating destruction to the whole earth—nay, the world itself with its stars!... Nor content ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... the girl watched them go and then, when the entry of a fresh body of mummers into the courtyard distracted the attention of the spectators from her, she withdrew quietly to her room. She was alone, the nun having gone long ago to witness the Devil Dance from among the crowd. Muriel opened the door leading to a broad stone staircase and peered cautiously ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... doctor, "I think you are mistaken about Mlle, d'Aubray. You may see by her letter what are her feelings towards you, and you must pray with this rosary up to the very end. Let not your prayers be interrupted or distracted, for no guilty penitent must cease from prayer; and I, madame, will engage to deliver the rosary where ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... cried, "and end This strife! bring peace again, or soon Messina Shall bow to other lords." Your stern decree Prevailed; this heart, with all a mother's anguish O'erlabored, owned the weight of public cares. I flew, and at my children's feet, distracted, A suppliant lay; till to my prayers and tears The voice of nature ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of me?' this young man exclaimed; and he began to tell her something about her sister and to ask her at the same time if he might not go with her—help her in some way. He made no inquiry about Mr. Wendover, and she afterwards judged that that distracted gentleman had sought him out and sent him to her assistance; also that he himself was at that moment watching them from behind some column. He would have been hateful if he had shown himself; yet (in this later meditation) there ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... scene of bloody dissensions between two rival parties, one led by the local janissaries, the other by the sherifs (religious); and the Ottoman governors took the side, now of one, now of the other, in order to plunder a distracted city, too far removed from the centre to be controlled by the sultans, and too near the rebellious pashalik of Acre and the unsettled district of Lebanon not to be affected by the disorders natural to a frontier province. This state of things led to the suspension of the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... up at once and entirely, the bone of contention between us. Thus only shall we disarm, if anything in reason or in nature can, our enemies of their slanderous weapons of offence, and secure in as far as possible, a speedy and safe return of peace and prosperity to the "distracted" colony.—Without this sacrifice on our parts, we see no shelter from our sufferings—no amelioration of present wrongs—no hope for the future; but on the contrary, a systematic and remorseless train laid for the ultimate ruin of every proprietor in the country. With this sacrifice ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... disposition, has won the confidence and favor of his entire command, and is an ever-welcome guest wherever he may chance to offer his presence. But one instance can be recorded wherein the parson has met with refusal of friendship and favor—and this can be credited to nothing but the present distracted condition of our unfortunate country. But, even in this instance, the kind and accommodating nature of the chaplain was fully manifested; forgetting all party or political prejudices, he viewed all the circumstances with a happy mind and Christian ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... and other knights; combining all this into a single story, and storing it with incident for a time, and bringing it to a full and final tragic close by the loves of Lancelot himself and Guinevere—this great achievement, it has been frankly confessed, is so much muddled and distracted with episode which becomes positive digression, that some have even dismissed its pretensions to be a whole. Even those who reject this dismissal are not at one as to any single author of the conception, still less of the execution. The present writer has stated his humble, but ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... however, was soon distracted from this witching scene— the exquisite beauty of which is not to be described in mere words—by a noise of singing and shouting on Merlani's island. Presently a feeble flickering fame became visible on the sandy beach, which, ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... being meek and answering 'Madam' I shall presently go distracted. Call me something else—anything—just to see how we like it. Tell me, do ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... as the young woman had said, though it was a light load for the powerful Kentuckian; and he concluded at once that it must contain a considerable amount of gold. In the distracted condition of the State very few had any confidence in the banks, and some had turned their bills into coin for any emergency that might arise. Before he reached the road he saw another scout getting ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... life, she opened her blue eyes wide and barely suppressed a chuckle. She professed penitence and even asked forgiveness for all the anxiety she had caused, but she could not see that what had happened possessed the tragic importance that Mademoiselle assigned to it. According to her distracted governess, she had almost better have been drowned. For the life of her, Chris ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... everybody was "sore" about it. The builders complained that they could not accomplish half the work they should, because of the annoyance of having so many children trotting around, and bothering them. And the teachers were almost distracted on account of the constant pounding together with the presence of rough men, who broke in upon classes, and forced them to vacate certain rooms because they had to ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... only been here a few hours, I should judge, but it did seem an eternity. Are they not going to send for my friends? They will be distracted. I have been away from them ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... through all the servants, ran up stairs, and found out lady Walladmor's room: lady Walladmor was then ill, and sitting in her dressing-room: but she (God love her!) was the kindest creature in the world: and she was easily won to come and beg for the poor distracted mother. In the great hall she kneeled to Sir Morgan: but all wouldn't do. I have heard Sir Morgan say that his heart relented even at that time: and he had a sort of misgiving upon him that night, as he looked back ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... precipice. An instant they hung there, distinctly visible amid the foaming waters. Every brain grew dizzy at the sight. But a shout of exultation burst from the spectators, when they saw the boy held aloft by the right arm of the young hero. And thus he brought the child back to the distracted mother. ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... grasps in the end the moral elements that surround it, and sees in them the makings of the future. The woman who loves feels the same presentiments that later illuminate her motherhood. Hence a certain melancholy, a certain inexplicable sadness which surprises men, who are one and all distracted from any such concentration of their souls by the cares of life and the continual necessity for action. All true love becomes to a woman an active contemplation, which is more or less lucid, more or less profound, ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... Fire and Sword disturbs the World, and measures his possessions by the wast that lys about him: Augustus in the remotest East fights for peace, but how tedious were his Voyages? how troublesome his Marches? how great his disquiets? what fears and hopes distracted his designs? whilst Tityrus contented with a little, happy in the enjoyment of his Love, and at ease under ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... what is to become of the Board of Control, I have not a guess. I can't believe Peel will, at such a moment, plunge himself in such a troubled lake, nor can I see to what quarter they can look, in their present distracted and unsettled state, for a connexion; it is another thing supporting the measures that may be ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... father, a daughter, may become such an object, as is illustrated with melancholy frequency. But when parents and children possess those high qualities of soul which naturally give pleasure, create affection, and evoke homage; and when they are not too early separated, or too much distracted in alien pursuits, a firm and ardent friendship must spring up between them. The mere parental and filial relation will become subordinated, as a sober central thread in a wide web of colored embroidery. The parental instinct and the ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... made their report Hulot's attention was distracted momentarily from Marche-a-Terre. The Chouan at once sent his owl's-cry to an apparently vast distance, and before the men who guarded him could raise their muskets and take aim he had struck them a ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... had escaped from two fires in her night-gown, and at the funeral of her first cousin the horses attached to the hearse had run away and smashed the coffin, precipitating her relative into an open man-hole before the eyes of his distracted family. ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... daybreak on an expedition to play the zither and sing at a village fete. She came back safe and sound, but Geraldine was already packed up to take her to Munich, where Charles Audley and Stella now were, and to leave her under their charge before she had driven Mr. Grinstead distracted. ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Marquis of Montacute, was certainly strangely distracted on his twenty-first birthday. He stood beside his father, the Duke of Bellamont, in the famous Crusaders' gallery in the Castle of Montacute, listening to the congratulations which the mayor and corporation of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... apology, and hot on his heels was the colonel, with the final arrangements for the meeting. He ran to the door, bareheaded, took the stairs three and four at a bound. But the energetic Anglo-Indian had gone down in bounds also; and when the distracted artist reached the street, the other was nowhere to be seen. Apparently there was nothing left but to send another apology. Rather than perform so shameful and cowardly an act he would have cut off ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... being, a person of the highest refinement, a Demoiselle Afchin; he spoke to her with respect, maintained a slightly humble and timid attitude toward her, gave her money without counting it, indulged her most extravagant caprices, her wildest whims, all the strange conceits of a Levantine's brain distracted by ennui and idleness. A single word justified everything; she was a Demoiselle Afchin. And yet they had nothing in common; he was always at the Kasbah or the Bardo, in attendance on the bey, paying his court to him, or else in his counting-room; she passed her day in bed, ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... strong party of Sir John Winter's forces kept garrison in the church, and the fort adjoining," (on a spot which has been turned lately into public pleasure grounds,) "of considerable strength, who at that instant were much daunted and distracted by the losse of Congrave, their governor. Our men were possest of the town without opposition, and recovered the houses, by which they got nere the workes. The Governour (Massy) commanded a blind of faggots to be made athwart the street, drew up two pieces of ordnance ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... The feeble, isolated and distracted colonies of 1864 have given place to a commonwealth which, if not in strictness a nation, possesses all the elements and possibilities of nationality, with a territory open on three sides to the ocean, lying in the highway of the ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... him. The count made some awkward excuses, at the same time that he persisted in complaining of the king's obstinate pretensions and underhand ways. A serious incident now happened, which for a while distracted the attention of the two rivals from their mutual recriminations. Duke Philip the Good, who had for some time past been visibly declining in body and mind, was visited at Bruges by a stroke of apoplexy, soon discovered to be fatal. His son, the Count ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... her face to him, all shining and open. It was as if he might enter straight into the source of her radiance. His face became a little distracted. ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... United States that was so divided and distracted about the Philippine question was unanimous as to the pre-eminent merits as a naval commander of George Dewey, though he was the embodiment of all the anti-Americans railed at. This is the official ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... camps, and other objects of historical and archaeological interest in the neighbourhood. On former similar occasions she had been in the habit of delivering a short lecture when on the spot; but, noticing that many of the girls were so distracted with gazing at the surroundings that they were not really listening, she determined that they should absorb the knowledge before visiting the place. She wrote careful notes, therefore, upon the subject of their next ramble, and giving them out in class, ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... Square; and those Murillos at a distance from the window were scarcely visible. We were so vexed on Henry's account. We spent the afternoon in writing letters, bathing our faces with milk, and hoping the mosquito bites, which have driven us well-nigh distracted, will be less conspicuous to-morrow, when we are to spend the morning at the Palace, and be presented ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... 'friends, his comrades in the field, his colleagues in the establishment of the Commonwealth, he encountered the most obstinate resistance. . . . At no time were the prisons fuller; the number of political prisoners was estimated at 12,000 . . . The failure of his plans soured and distracted him.' It was, in fact, wholly 'beyond his power to consolidate a tolerably durable political constitution.'—To the disquiet caused by constant attempts against Cromwell's life, Ranke adds the death ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... Co. are driven distracted by the horse-flies. I took Jezebel into a stream to-day, but she started to sit down! So the flies must just bite, I fear. Large ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... and good go with you!' They with protrusive upper lip snort dubiously; signifying that Europe, Asia, Africa and America be somewhat out of their beat: that what cartage may be wanted there is not too well known to them. They can find no cartage. They gallop distracted along highways, all fenced in to the right and to the left. Finally under pains of hunger, they take to leaping fences; eating foreign property, and—we know ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... Julia broke away through the crowd and, followed by Louise and Helen, she made her way to the room of the distracted parent and ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... of how the miller's pony strayed away on the common and was lost for two days, or of how Godfrey and Nancy missed their way when out blackberrying, and came home after dark to find the aunts half distracted and Rogers and Pete searching, ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... venerable powers, which had hitherto seemed to be so closely connected that those who were true to one could not be false to the other, should be divided by a deadly enmity, what course was the orthodox Royalist to take? What situation could be more trying than that in which he would be placed, distracted between two duties equally sacred, between two affections equally ardent? How was he to give to Caesar all that was Caesar's, and yet to withhold from God no part of what was God's? None who felt thus could have watched, without deep concern and gloomy ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... go over together. It's a lovely moonlight night for a drive, anyway, and even if it were pitch dark, or pouring in torrents, I should want to get that baby back to her mother just as quickly as possible. I don't wonder the poor woman is distracted." ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... this very moment the confused murmur of voices and music stops all regular proceedings: old women and children tattling; apes, bears, and show-boxes under the windows; French rattling, English swearing, outrageous Italians, frisking minstrels; tambours de basque at every corner; myself distracted; a confounded squabble of cooks and haranguing German couriers just arrived, their masters following open-mouthed; nothing to eat, the steam of ham and flesh-pots all the while provoking their appetite; Mynheers very busy with ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... was for the present distracted. He had naturally returned full of information about Russia. The English ministry were involved in various negotiations with Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, the purpose of which was to thwart the designs of Russia in the East. Bentham wrote three letters ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... was an undertaking not to be achieved by unaided Italian effort, or in a single generation. The skill and daring of many captains might find the way, but discovery was futile unless backed by conquest, for which the support of a powerful government was essential. Not from Italian states, weak and distracted by inter-city wars, or absorbed in established and profitable Levantine trade, was such support to come, but from the rising nations of the Atlantic, which profited least by the established commercial system. Lying at the extreme end of the old trade routes, the merchants ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... altogether. It is one great advantage of academical education, that a definite course of reading is marked out for you. When a young man,—indeed, when any man,—is left entirely to his own choice, he is apt to be distracted by the many different branches of study, the many different books, which present themselves, and to fall into a habit of desultory reading, productive of little lasting benefit. You are saved from this distraction and perplexity, throwing upon other shoulders the trouble and responsibility ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... heard the gate, but he did not come in, so we looked out and saw that there he was talking to a distracted-looking man on a piebald horse—one ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... in this distracted environment strikes us very much. Peter is careering, tumbling about, on all manner of absurd broomsticks, driven too surely by the Devil; terrific-absurd big Lapland Witch, surrounded by multitudes smaller, and some of them less ugly. Will be ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... and in a State is room but for one army. I will have my King so strong that ne Pope ne priest ne noble ne people shall here have speech or power. So it is now; I have so made it, the King helping me. Before I came this was a distracted State; the King's writ ran not in the east, not in the west, not in the north, and hardly in the south parts. Now no lord nor no bishop nor no Pope raises head against him here. And, God willing, in all the world no prince shall ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... serious efforts. Pope's ambition was directed into the same channel by his innate propensities and by the accidents of his position. No man ever displayed a more exclusive devotion to literature, or was more tremblingly sensitive to the charm of literary glory. His zeal was never distracted by any rival emotion. Almost from his cradle to his grave his eye was fixed unremittingly upon the sole purpose of his life. The whole energies of his mind were absorbed in the struggle to place his name as high as possible in that temple of fame, which he painted ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... same, oct. 12.-Conduct of Sir Horace's father. The army in Flanders in winter quarters. Distracted state of parties. Patapaniana. Imitation of an epigram ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... together by a sort of faintly federative tie, which rested rather in a common understanding than upon any legal instrument, and whose observance was always subject to the passion of the moment. The communities which dwelt to the north-east, beyond the Vaal River, while distracted by internal feuds chiefly arising from personal or family enmities, were left undisturbed by the colonial government. They lived hundreds of miles from the nearest British outpost, and their wars with the Kafirs scarcely affected those tribes with ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... minister, John Maitland, brother of Lethington, died, and early in 1596 an organisation called "the Octavians" was made to regulate the distracted finance of the country. On April 13, 1596, Walter Scott of Buccleuch made himself an everlasting name by the bloodless rescue of Kinmont Willie, an Armstrong reiver, from the Castle of Carlisle, where he was illegally held by Lord Scrope. The period was ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... Archie quickly distracted our attention from the phantom pillar. We had been drifted to just south of Lille, possibly the hottest spot on the whole western front as regards anti-aircraft fire. Seeing one machine four to five thousand feet below its companions, the gunners very ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... gazed at her. This was the hour when he most loved the church. He forgot the woeful figure on the cross, the Victim bedaubed with carmine and ochre, who gasped out His life behind him, in the chapel of the Dead. His thoughts were no longer distracted by the garish light from the windows, by the gayness of morning coming in with the sun, by the irruption of outdoor life—the sparrows and the boughs invading the nave through the shattered panes. At that hour of night Nature was dead; shadows hung the ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... approach her save with her consent and fell to presenting her with ornaments and raiment; but her aversion to him only increased. Meanwhile, the youth her master abode expecting her; but she returned not and his heart already tasted the bitter draught of separation; so he went forth at hap-hazard, distracted and knowing not what he should do, and began strewing dust upon his head and crying out, "The old woman hath taken her and gone away!" The little boys followed him with stones and pelted him, crying, "A madman! A madman!" Presently, the king's Chamberlain, who was a personage of years ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... The distracted man shuddered again and again: no, he knew it now—oh, how distinctly he felt it—nobody could do anything against that invisible power. Everything ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... Henry not only unhappy, but dispirited—palsied his courage, and made him wish to leave the army and take refuge in some vast solitude where he could mourn over the misfortunes of his distracted country. Accordingly he wrote to the king ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... only knew who it is, he would fear him as much, or more. Knowing not, he continues his flight, doubting, distracted. He has but one clear thought, the instinct common to all chased creatures—to ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... Hermies, entering. "What are you reading? The anatomy of the mass? Oh, it's a poor thing, for Protestants. I am just about distracted. Oh, my friend, what brutes those people are," and like a man with a great weight on his ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... as she did, that tears can ever be exhausted. And I, for my part, though I could scarcely cry for eager listening, was worse off perhaps than if I had wetted each sad fact as it went by. At any rate, be it this way or that, a heavy and sore heart was left me, too distracted for asking questions, and almost ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... a nervous manner Lady Sellingworth had never noticed in her before. Her face was very pale. There were dark rings under her eyes. She looked apprehensive, distracted even. ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... about trains. The mention of the subject distracted my attention for the moment from the Loreleien, stirred my drugged sense of duty, and reminded me that I ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... passed by the House of Representatives, as Lincoln had eagerly desired, so that the requisite voting of three quarters of the States in its favour could now begin. Before that time the Confederate Congress had, on March 13, 1865, closed its last, most anxious and distracted session by passing an Act for the enlistment of negro volunteers, who were to become free on enlistment. As a military measure it was belated and inoperative, but nothing could more eloquently have marked the practical ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... brought upon posterity by not observing these auspicious seasons and places, they make a great mistake. It is a matter of course that an auspicious day must be chosen so far as avoiding wind and rain is concerned, that men may bury their dead without their minds being distracted; and it is important to choose a fitting cemetery, lest in after days the tomb should be damaged by rain, or by men walking over it, or by the place being turned into a field, or built upon. When invited to a friend's or neighbour's funeral, a man ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... dog's means and the example of energy that she sets, he is instrumental in effecting the rescue of Victoria's father. Then, as the distracted girl throws herself at his feet, and calls him "her saviour and deliverer sent by God," even Ben Azra has to admit that the credit is not in reality his. "Not in the least, my child," he exclaims. "You must thank my teacher, ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... ensued; which was only once or twice interrupted by an exclamation of discontent from the aunt. Each became busied with their own thoughts: mine were distracted by doubts and apprehensions, concerning the manner in which I ought to act. I could come to no determination. To be seen by the aunt would not only have wounded her pride, and if possible have rendered her more implacably ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Neigh—waiting in the vestibule to receive them, just as if he lived there. Ladywell had not arrived. It was a long time before Ethelberta could get back to Milton again, for Neigh was continuing to impend over her future more and more visibly. The objects along the journey had distracted her mind from him; but the moment now was as a direct renewal and prolongation of the declaration-time yesterday, and as if in furtherance of ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... First, it is to be done by a more vigorous prosecution of the war in the vital parts of the enemy's country; and after apparently talking himself tired on this point, the President drops down into a half-despairing tone, and tells us that "with a people distracted and divided by contending factions, and a government subject to constant changes by successive revolutions, the continued success of our arms may fail to secure a satisfactory peace." Then he suggests the propriety of wheedling the Mexican ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... distracted idleness, until there came a day when the need to see Amy was so imperative that it mastered every consideration. He donned his best clothes, and about four o'clock presented himself at Mrs Yule's house. By ill luck there happened to be at least half a dozen callers in the drawing-room; the ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... poor soul these little wretches had distracted with the very sleeplessness the madhouse professed to cure, not create, in conjunction with the opiates, the confinement and the gloom of Silverton House, they had driven many a feeble mind across the line that divides the weak and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... of trouble, they procured carriages and were taken to the hotel. Mrs. Wainwright's impulses now dominated the others in the family. She had one passion after another. The majority of the servants in the hotel pretended that they spoke English, but, in three minutes, she drove them distracted with the abundance and violence of her requests. It came to pass that in the excitement the old couple quite forgot Marjory. It was not until Mrs. Wainwright, then feeling splendidly, was dressed for dinner, that she thought ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... Madame des Ursins intended to marry him; and the opinion, as well as the fear, became general. The King (Louis XIV.), was infinitely alarmed; and Madame de Maintenon, who had twice tried to be proclaimed Queen and twice failed, was distracted with jealousy. However, if Madame des Ursins flattered herself then, it ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... spared no pains in their endeavours to instruct them in the more important truths of religion. Don Jose and his faithful Isoro returned at length to Ecuador, when peace was once more established in that long distracted province; and the cacique wrote whenever an opportunity occurred for sending a letter down the Amazon. Senhor Pimento and his family after a time returned to their estate, and we never failed to pay them a visit when we went up the river. The rebellion ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... shall always maintain I have a Constitution. But it all seems nothing in this confusion; everything is almost as bad as ever. Besides that, I have been flying around to get Miriam a wagon. I know she is half distracted at being there alone. Mother chose staying with all its evils. Charlie's life would pay the penalty of a cotton burner if he returned, so Lilly remains at Greenwell with him. We three will get on as best we can here. I wrote to the country to get a wagon, sent a pass from Headquarters, but I will ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... divinely instituted in the Garden of Eden,—an indulgence which weakened the moral sense and unchained the passions? Polygamy, under any circumstances, is the folly and weakness of kings, as well as the misfortune and curse of nations. It divided and distracted the household of David, and gave rise to incessant intrigues and conspiracies in his palace, which embittered his latter days and even undermined ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... stream, and put up at the "King's Arms" in Albany. The town was full of the militia of the province, breathing slaughter against the French. Governor Clinton was there himself, a very busy man, and, by what I could learn, very near distracted by the factiousness of his Assembly. The Indians on both sides were on the war-path; we saw parties of them bringing in prisoners and (what was much worse) scalps, both male and female, for which they were paid at a fixed rate; and I assure you the sight was not encouraging. Altogether, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... distracted, picked the key up from the floor, All stained with blood; and with much fear she shut and locked the door. She tried in vain to clean the key and wash the stain away With sand and soap,—it was no use. Bluebeard came back that ...
— The Sleeping Beauty Picture Book - Containing The Sleeping Beauty; Bluebeard; The Baby's Own Alaphabet • Anonymous
... and the departure had been put off because Gianluca's condition seemed altogether too precarious. It would be an even more serious matter to convey him safely to Muro; and between her extreme anxiety for his health, and her wish that he might be able to go, the Duchessa was almost distracted. But neither she nor her husband knew that the doctors despaired of his life. The truth had been kept from them, and Taquisara had extracted it from one of the physicians with considerable difficulty, having more than half guessed it during ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... commit so disgraceful and rash a theft. Indeed, the tide of suspicion had been fast turning against Victor himself, when it received a new direction by the discovery of the missing articles in Julia's reticule. Another examination ensued, the distracted Julia, as has been stated, being herself brought into the presence of the magistrate. In intense affliction, she declared her innocence: that she knew not how the articles had got into her reticule; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... got up again, his fingers twitching with impatience. "Lavendar," he began—another bird trilled, and snarling with annoyance, he pulled the blue apron from the first cage and threw it over the second. "These creatures drive me distracted! ... Lavendar, to get Sam out of Old Chester, I might almost consent to see his— mother, if there was no other way ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... risk she ran—the possible end of her noble adventure—against the dissuasions and the prayers of all her friends here. She stood in the doorway there, and saw you cross the garden when you first came to seek her—saw you, her father, distracted with grief and fear, and she suffered you to go away. As you may know, nothing is more sacred to a Moor than the laws of hospitality, and by those laws Sidi was bound to respect the wishes of one who had claimed his ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... the first smart of her widowhood. 'Lias was just dead, and she was withering physically and mentally under the heart-hunger of her loss. The arrival of the pallid, half-conscious child—David's sister, with David's eyes—for a time distracted and appeased her. She nursed the poor waif, and sent word to Needham Farm. Reuben came for the girl, and Margaret, partly out of compassion, partly out of a sense of her own decaying strength, bribed her to go ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... When one boy was late, he punished the whole form. "I can't help it," he would say, as if he was a power of nature. As a teacher he was rather dull. He curbed his own enthusiasms, finding that they distracted his attention, and that while he throbbed to the music of Virgil the boys in the back row were getting unruly. But on the whole he liked his form work: he knew why he was there, and Herbert did not overshadow ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... spark to visit her if ever he came to London, where her house in Spring Garden should be open to him. Charming as he was, and without any manner of doubt a pretty fellow, Jocasta hath such a regiment of the like continually marching round her standard, that 'tis no wonder her attention is distracted amongst them. And so, though this gentleman made a considerable impression upon her, and touched her heart for at least three-and-twenty minutes, it must be owned that she has forgotten his name. He is a dark man, and may be eight-and-twenty years old. His dress is sober, though ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his hopes and gave ease to his mind. But he looked his oldest when, after pausing at another of the many time-pieces, he echoed in answer to its special refrain, Yes! yes! yes! yes! and fled the spot with shaking body and a distracted air. ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... to recognise the States in rebellion as an independent power, and that England held him back by her reluctance, or France by her traditions of freedom, or he himself by his own better judgment and clear perception of events. But the republic of Mexico, on our borders, was, like ourselves, distracted by a rebellion, and from a similar cause. The monarchy of England had fastened upon us slavery which did not disappear with independence; in like manner, the ecclesiastical policy established by the Spanish council of the Indies, in the days of Charles the Fifth and ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... he announced to them his intention of paying a visit to the castle of Alcantra. It was there that Magdalena first saw the light, and it was there that her mother closed her eyes upon the world, leaving her husband almost distracted; he immediately removed with his little children from the scene of this great affliction. It was soon after this sad event that the old and faithful mayordomo died; he had long been intrusted with the entire control of the estate, and was greatly beloved ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... secession and treason, entire and unqualified devotion to the Union, shone with additional brightness from its contrast with surrounding darkness. In all portions of the South were found examples of this patriotic devotion, and nowhere did it display itself more nobly than in the distracted city of Baltimore. The Union people were near enough to the North with its patriotic sentiment, and sufficiently protected by the presence of Union soldiery, to be able to act with the freedom and spontaneity denied to their ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... tried to represent to myself exactly what elements there were in Frank that had such an effect upon this wise and positive old man. He had been a very upsetting visitor in many ways. He had distracted his benefactor from a very important mouse that had died of leprosy; he had interfered sadly with working hours; he had turned the house, comparatively speaking, upside down. Worse than all, he had—I will not say modified ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... hair flying on the wind, with wild looks? Her dress was disordered; her eyes stared in anguish; her lips stammered, making confused sounds, which at first had no meaning to the startled hearer. But he heard—oh, he heard and understood, when the distracted woman grasped his arm, ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... vacant and we occupied it. The momentary interruption and the change in her physical attitude broke the spell. The solemnity was gone out of her voice. She resumed in a distracted and somewhat listless manner, but she soon ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... have to nurse a little green dragon. To nurse a small crocodile or alligator, or even a young hippopotamus, would have been bad enough, but a green dragon, with claws and a long wriggling fork-pointed tail, was out of the question; the very idea was enough to drive her distracted. The Lord High Steward was a man who always took the bull by the horns in a dilemma, and so he resolved forthwith to take steps to solve the mystery. He had heard that in the Black Forest in Germany there lived a powerful enchantress, Kalyb by name, who would, without doubt, be able at ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... taught, on a razor's edge; hot, red-hot, flushed, feverish; all of a twitter, in a pucker; with quivering lips, with tears in one's eyes. flaming; boiling over; ebullient, seething; foaming at the mouth; fuming, raging, carried away by passion, wild, raving, frantic, mad, distracted, beside oneself, out of one's wits, ready to burst, bouleverse[obs3], demoniacal. lost, eperdu[Fr], tempest-tossed; haggard; ready to sink. stung to the quick, up, on one;s high ropes. exciting, absorbing, riveting, distracting &c. v.; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... distracted by the rattle of gravel on the window at which they were sitting. Langford shook his fist at a ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... to the reader that the country-house belonging to Doctor Griffon, where the Count de Saint Remy temporarily dwelt, was built on the hillside, near the shore where La Louve was wandering, half-distracted. ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... minute of the time, deary. Don't forget to finish running up the facing; I've basted it carefully, and would do it if my head didn't ache so, I really can't hold it up any longer," answered Pris, who had worked like a disinterested bee, while Kitty had flown about like a distracted butterfly. ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... physician. If either of us have broken faith, may the false one fail of his desire! There is nought goodlier than a lover who is faithful to a cruel beloved one.' Then, for a subscription, he wrote, 'From the distracted and despairing lover, him whom love and longing disquiet, from the captive of passion and transport, Kemerezzeman, son of Shehriman, to the peerless beauty, the pearl of the fair Houris, the Lady Budour, daughter of King Ghaiour. Know that by night ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... in the town hall had shown waning interest in this discussion. There seemed to be matters outside that distracted the attention ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... place of repose nor means of subsistence, wandered through the town and country, occupied with no other thought than that of attacking and robbing the living. He it was who, gliding into the house during the night, revealed himself to its inhabitants with such a frightful visage as to drive them distracted with terror. Always on the watch, no sooner does he surprise one of his victims than he falls upon him, "his head against his victim's head, his hand against his hand, his foot against his foot." He who has been thus attacked, whether man or beast, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... maturely weighed everything, foreseen even this contingency, and firmly resolved in my own mind what, in that case, was to be done; and now, when I am called upon to act, I can with difficulty guard my mind from being again distracted by conflicting doubts. Is it expedient to seize the others if he escape me? Shall I delay, and suffer Egmont to elude my grasp, together with his friends, and so many others who now, and perhaps for to-day only, are in my hands? How! Does destiny control even thee—the uncontrollable? How long ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe |
