"Distracting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will not be disturbed. Of course, not always and very rarely can you obtain this condition. Never mind. Do your best where you are and the great law will at least find for you all necessary conditions. Shut out all distracting conditions and impressions from the outer world. After a little effort you will be able to do so anywhere, at any time, and under any condition. All mental ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... a moment. But a distracting thought seized me. Had they carried off the pinnace? if so, every hope was gone. Jack, in his distress, had never thought of remarking this; but, the instant I named it, Fritz and he ran to ascertain the important circumstance, Ernest, in the mean time, supporting me, ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... not move from the spot where he left her. Out under the palms in the hall, the orchestra was beginning one of Strauss' most distracting waltzes; her fingers tapped the time. Suddenly she held out her ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... coos Eulalia, glidin' up and huggin' her impetuous, "how could anyone keep their heads straight before such absolutely distracting beauty? See, you have inspired them all with the spirit of chivalry. And now you must put them to the test. Name some heroic deed for each to perform. Begin with Reggy. Now what shall ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... and the tones of her voice were less soft than those in which she usually addressed her, "it seems to me that you are wasting your time a great deal. You hardly practise at all; you do almost nothing at the 'cours'. I don't know what can be distracting your attention from your lessons, but I have received complaints which should make a great girl like you ashamed of herself. Do you know what I am beginning to think?—That Madame de Monredon's system of education has done ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... are shown forms of vapor sustaining at every instant all kinds of varying local influences; beneath, fastened down by mountain attraction, above, flung afar by distracting winds; here, spread abroad into blanched sheets beneath the sunshine, and presently gathered into strands of coiled cordage in the shade. Their total existence is in metamorphosis, and their every aspect a ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... transferred from Vienna to Pesth had indeed been brought to pass. While in the western half of the Monarchy the central authority, still represented by a single Parliament, seemed in the succeeding years to be altogether losing its cohesive power, and the political life of Austria became a series of distracting complications, in Hungary the Magyar Government resolutely set itself to the task of moulding into one the nationalities over which it ruled. Uniting the characteristic faults with the great qualities of a race marked out by Nature and ancient habit for domination over more numerous but less ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... reading. His books were almost always Greek or Latin, so that I am ignorant of the subjects of his study; but he was content that either Constance or I should play on the pianoforte, saying that the melody, so far from distracting his attention, helped him rather to appreciate what he was reading. Constance always begged me to allow her to take her place at the instrument on these occasions, and would play to him sometimes for hours without receiving a word ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... true of only too many that they cannot be got to see that if they would really divide upon principles all danger of conflict would disappear and the solution would be both speedy and peaceful; for it is the division upon race lines that alone raises the distracting prospect of war. ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... however, on the other hand, have anticipated, that in proportion to the strength of character required for the effort, and to the absence of distracting sentiments, whether respect for precedent, or affection for ideal beauty, would be the energy exhibited in the pursuit of the special objects which the youths proposed to themselves, and ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... marble room, with inviting pure white marble tanks large enough to swim in, and surrounded by tiny glass mirrors let into the walls at such angles as to reflect a figure myriads of times, quite distracting to look upon. All departments of this remarkable royal residence are exquisitely finished, showing no less of refined, artistic taste, than of lavish expenditure. The courts, chambers, boudoirs, fountains, pavilions, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... Law Reform in Ireland (1906), the Departmental Commission on Vagrancy, the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded, and the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws (Majority Report). The study of all these reports is a rather distracting business. They establish between them an urgent need for reform; on the methods, and even principles, of reform there are wide differences of opinion. I propose to set out here, so far as may be possible, a summary of those reforms on which the ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... described as typically academic. Such persons confine their interest in life within the boundaries of their own immediate pursuits; they are absorbed so completely by their avocations that the hurly-burly of the world seems needlessly distracting and a little vulgar. No doubt the thoughts of those who cry out most loudly against disturbance by the intruding claims of the world are, for the most part, hardly worth disturbing; the attitude to extrinsic things of those who are absorbed by their work ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... not every other woman gushed over him and called him splendid and some of them "lovely," while she had never yet dared speak of it at all? He had simply laughed off their adulation; but he was not laughing now. She never saw such intensity in his face. Why! this very silence was dangerous, distracting. If she—she cared for him she could not be more nervous and shy. With sudden effort she looked up ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... in beforehand, as M. Comte had done, an ample stock of materials, he may be justified in thinking that he will contribute most to the mental wealth of mankind by occupying himself solely in working upon these, without distracting his attention by continually taking in more matter, or keeping a communication open with other independent intellects. The practice, therefore, may be legitimate; but no one should adopt it without being aware of what he loses by it. He must resign the pretension of arriving ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... the lights were lowered again, the curtain rose, and a most distracting hour began for Michael. His neighbour was never still for a single moment. Now he would shift in his chair, now with his hand he would beat time on the red velvet balustrade in front of him, and a stream of whispered ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... the whole train again sang a canticle—the rhymed story of Bernadette, that endless ballad of six times ten couplets, in which the Angelic Salutation ever returns as a refrain, all besetting and distracting, opening to the human mind the portals of the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... dress before, save for its spiritual whiteness. Susceptible though he was to beautiful shoulders, Winifred's enchanting face had been sufficiently distracting. Now the thought of physical bruises gave him a second spasm of righteous horror. That delicate rose-leaf flesh ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... said Rosey, blushing, and showing a distracting row of little teeth in one of her infrequent laughs, "oh, you know what I mean." She withdrew her arm gently, and became interested in the selection of certain wayside bay leaves as they passed along. "All the same, I don't believe in this treasure," she said abruptly, as if to change ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... I think her complexion one of her chief charms. It is a warm paleness; it looks thoroughly healthy. And that delicate nose with its gradual little upward curve is distracting. And then her mouth—there never was a prettier mouth, the lips curled backward so ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... have I had to write to you, Honey, since the first wee note, and I've been here a whole three days. It's the most distracting thing in the world when you've nothing to do, and takes up more time than you'd believe. I think of you all in the morning in the dear little house, every one bustling round, and only longing for more hands and legs to get along the quicker, while here we sit, the six of ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... some extent on the size of the dose. Sometimes it slows me down physically and mentally. At other times there were no effects that I could tell until the kwil wore off. Then I'd have hallucinations for a while—that can be very distracting, of course, when there's something you have to do. Those hangover hallucinations seem to ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz
... within itself, every thing necessary for its being fully understood. Many persons of historical importance are merely introduced in passing; the preparatory and concurring circumstances are not sufficiently collected into masses to avoid distracting our attention. The principal personages, however, are most emphatically distinguished by lineament and colouring, and powerfully arrest the imagination. In Antony we observe a mixture of great qualities, weaknesses, and vices; violent ambition and ebullitions ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... at Captain Middleton in this distracting fashion. It started tremblingly at the corners of her mouth, and then—quite suddenly—her wan little face became dimpled and beseeching and ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... gentleness like thine. Thy sight is death to me; and yet 'tis dear. The gaudy trappings of assumptive state Drop at the voice of nature to the earth, Before thy feet—I cannot force myself To hate thee, to renounce thee; yet—Covilla! Yet—oh distracting thought! 'tis hard to see, Hard to converse with, to admire, to love - As from my soul I do, and must do, thee - One who hath robbed me of all pride and joy, All dignity, all fondness. I adored Roderigo—he was brave, and in discourse Most voluble; the masses of his mind Were vast, but ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... clean-washed shirts; higher up, on a shelf, volumes display their freshly marbled edges; women sing, husbands whistle, children shout; the carpenter saws his planks, a copper-turner makes the metal screech; all kinds of industries combine to produce a noise which the number of instruments renders distracting. ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... the first development of art in America and it led to the working of metals, followed by drawing and portraiture. Among the Americans, as soon as that term ceased to mean Indians, art took a most distracting turn. Europe was old in pictures, great and beautiful, when America was worshipping at the shrine of the chromo; but the chromo served a good turn, bad as it was. It was a link between the black and white of the admirable wood-cut ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... ever maintaining their mad uproar, circled about the fight, or dashed in and out, distracting the bear. When the animal turned to meet such flanking assaults, the man leaped in and the club came down. Angered afresh by every such blow, the bear would rush, and the man, leaping and skipping, avoiding the dogs, went backwards or circled to one side or the other. ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... into manhood, nor even reached the blossom of youth. To live was then in itself a delight, because living implied seeing. Even at a small party, the company was a pleasure to behold; the richly varied hues of the assembly in a church or theatre are said to have more than once proved too distracting for our greatest teachers and actors; but most ravishing of all is said to have been the unspeakable magnificence of a ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... to black head, her black lashes and his disclosed dark eyes curiously alike in the distracting glance of them; even the colouring of the faces was similar, for both showed the warm and peachy hues laid ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... one, who greeted his mates with a cheery grin, as though conscious of having done very well, under such distracting conditions. ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... Penhallow had his own distracting troubles. The financial condition which became serious in the spring and summer of 1857 was beginning to cause him alarm, and soon after the new year came in he felt obliged to talk over his affairs and to advise his wife to loan the mill company ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... patrician. Gradually and carefully the illustrious travellers moved through the crowd around them to the city gate; and thence, amid incessant shouts of applause, raised with imposing unanimity of lung, and wrought up to the most distracting discordancy of noise, Vetranio and his lively companion departed ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... the merchant, pleasurably immersed in the calculation of an estimated profit on a junk-load of birds' nests, sharks' fins and other seasonable delicacies, there came a distracting interruption occasioned by a wandering poet who sat down within the shade provided by Wong Pao's ornamental gate in the street outside. As he reclined there he sang ballads of ancient valour, from time ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... these good mothers can conceive what it is to write a story in words of one syllable, and make it interesting, sensible, and grammatical? If they can not, I entreat them to try a page or two of this utterly distracting style of composition; they will very soon have a realizing sense of the pleasing emotions of a lunatic confined in a strait-jacket. Above all, let them try a tale of joy or woe, all in words of three letters and less. Mother Goose could never have made her precious ...
— The First Little Pet Book with Ten Short Stories in Words of Three and Four Letters • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... course he loved her, too; but the bishop knew her too well to suppose that the professor would ever captivate her imagination. He had always been within her horizon, and he served the useful purpose, from the bishop's point of view, of distracting her attention from more ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... get away, and Buisson will stay because he feels somewhat responsible. These complications are interesting enough to cold-blooded folk like myself who have an eye for the dramatic element, but they are distracting and demoralizing to young people with any serious ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... blending of confused sentiments, of powerful sympathies, of vague apprehensions, suddenly seized on the breast of the young Countess! One can hardly imagine their force—to the very verge of distracting her. She turned on her fauteuil and closed her beautiful eyes, as if to keep back the tears which rolled under the fringe ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... save us by distracting them until we could get away," he went on, "just as the wolves stop to devour the dogs and give the sleigh another start. But—I see no chance of any other ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... and personality of this lover of freedom and rebel against restraint. Not at all. She was a most lovable and clinging person, when she could get hold of anything worth clinging to, with a mellifluous Irish voice at once soothing and distracting, a voice with pockets in it but not a trace of a brogue or only the very faintest suspicion. Yet when she spoke she had the Irish turn of words and she used the word "sure" in a manner ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... his superficial differences with the poor girl under the warm rush of deep and distracting love for her which ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... obstinacy is the cause of their tears, there is a sure way of stopping them by distracting their attention by some pleasant or conspicuous object which makes them forget that they want to cry. Most nurses excel in this art, and rightly used it is very useful; but it is of the utmost importance that the child should not perceive that you mean to distract ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... fell again into new hopes and projects distracting his purposes. For at the same time some persons arrived from Sicily, offering into his hands the cities of Agrigentum, Syracuse, and Leontini, and begging his assistance to drive out the Carthaginians, and rid the island of tyrants; and others brought ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... her letters could arrive; and his father, with more attention to his supposed benefit than to his wishes, carried him at once, without returning home, to a round of visits among all his acquaintance most likely to furnish a distracting amount of Christmas gaieties. In the midst of these, there occurred a vacancy in the representation of a borough chiefly under the influence of Sir Miles Oakstead; and, as it was considered expedient that he should be brought into Parliament, his father repaired with him at ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... book for an apology, staring down into the black old roaring pot. It has a sort of hypnotic effect after a time. And you'd be surprised how quickly one gets used to the noise. To me it's even less distracting than sheer silence. You don't know, after all, what on earth sheer silence means—even at Widderstone. But one can just realize a water-nymph. They chatter; but, thank Heaven, it's not articulate.' He handed Lawford a cup with a certain niceness ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... Turkey carpet and oasis of clustered divans and gilded tables; the great dining-room, with porphyry columns, and walls and ceilings shining with allegory—all these things which had attracted his youthful wonder without distracting his correct simplicity of taste he now began to comprehend. It was the bank's money "at work." In the clatter of dishes in the dining-room he even seemed to hear ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... and to whet their curiosity. As everyone around you is answering questions and trying to explain score-keeping, there is not the embarrassment which is usually attendant on being overheard by unattached fans in the vicinity. There is also not the distracting sound of breaking pencils and modified cursing to interfere with unattached fans' enjoyment ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... placed opposite Mr. Gladstone as he worked, and they spent the mornings together, Mr. Gladstone writing away, and the clay figure of himself less than a yard off gradually assuming shape and form. Anything more distracting I can not conceive, but it had no effect on the busy patient. And now let me make a short digression. I saw recently in your newspapers that there was some complaint of the manners of the rising generation ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... masterpiece of English tragedy. He will find a crowning example of the famous theorem, that "the plot is of no use except to bring in the fine things." The plot is in this instance absurd to a degree so far beyond the most preposterous conception of confused and distracting extravagance that the reader's attention may at times be withdrawn from the all but unqualified ugliness of its ethical tone or tendency. Two of Webster's favorite types, the meditative murderer or philosophic ruffian, and the impulsive impostor who is liable to collapse into the ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Greeks and Latins in their surviving works, is like walking amid the stars and constellations, a high and by way serene to travel. Indeed, the true scholar will be not a little of an astronomer in his habits. Distracting cares will not be allowed to obstruct the field of his vision, for the higher regions of literature, like astronomy, are ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... for us frequently to remember that the silence of the dead is no true exponent of their real state. Incoherent and wild as the thoughts and feelings sometimes are, under the distracting influence of affliction and death, and all uncertain as we are about the departure of the soul, we are not left without sure and most satisfying information respecting ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... without my feeling it, and amid all the distracting cares and pressing thoughts that embarrassed me, I only awoke when the roll of the caleche sounded beneath my window, and warned me that I must be stirring and ready ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... elimination of the question from our politics. On the contrary, it has been so intensified as an issue that many voters are disposed to make all political decisions with reference to this single question. It is distracting the public mind and prejudicing the judgment of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Warren Harding • Warren Harding
... of the Canaletto," he said, compelling a pleasant smile, "but may I plead an even more distracting vision? I came here expecting to meet an elderly gentleman of the class which flippant Americans describe as 'high-brow,' and I am suddenly brought face to face with a Romney 'portrait of a lady' in real life. Is it ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... The distracting beauty of this coast is what are called gulches— narrow deep ravines or gorges, from 100 to 2,000 feet in depth, each with a series of cascades from 10 to 1,800 feet in height. I dislike reducing their glories to the baldness of figures, but the depth ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... noise. A number of the buggies trailed a string of old cans or tied laths to scrape on the wheel-spokes, and thus add no little to the deafening clatter of the drive. As Rabbits have marvellously sensitive hearing, a noise that is distracting to mankind, is likely ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... finger under her chin and tilting her face up to his. "You just repeated what you'd been taught to say. Use your brains, Eleanor. What possible harm can there be in our quietly sitting out under the light of the stars, instead of on this crowded piazza with that distracting din going on inside?" ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... sense together with reason, but with the very light of the mind in her own clearness searches into the very truth of each; he who has got rid, as far as he can, of eyes and ears and, so to speak, of the whole body, these being in his opinion distracting elements which when they infect the soul hinder her from acquiring truth and knowledge—who, if not he, is likely to attain the ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato
... wildly beseeching glance and Beth and Rob began at the same time to ply her with distracting questions. I think she seemed to divine that there was something in the situation that was not to be ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... proportion, once more shall extend To all the kindred powers of social bliss A common mansion, a parental roof. There shall the Virtues, there shall Wisdom's train, Their long-lost friends rejoining, as of old, Embrace the smiling family of Arts, 50 The Muses and the Graces. Then no more Shall Vice, distracting their delicious gifts To aims abhorr'd, with high distaste and scorn Turn from their charms the philosophic eye, The patriot bosom; then no more the paths Of public care or intellectual toil, Alone by footsteps haughty and severe ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... Paul, you must go and play bridge. They are waiting for you. Don't bother about me —I'll amuse myself quite well strolling round and talking to my friends." I made up a rubber of bridge, chiefly with the idea of distracting my thoughts. Presently, while my partner was playing the hand, I rose and crossed the room to the sideboard for some cigarettes. I found Lady Enterdean peering about with her lorgnette fixed to her ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in so quiet a situation in the bosom of the other conspirator; his mind was tost in all the distracting anxiety ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... thousand minute particulars, which are all crowding upon his attention at once, and which he cannot group together, or combine, or simplify. He must by some means or other attend to them in all their distracting individuality. And in a large and complicated school, the endless multiplicity and variety of objects of attention and care, impose a task under which few intellects can ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... William denied to his feudatories the right of coining money or making laws; and by other wise restrictions upon their power, he saved England from those endless contentions and petty wars that were distracting almost every ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... very curious, and seem to show that the mind, when set in any train of thought by intense concentration, may pursue it after consciousness has been withdrawn. And the result indicates that the mind acts with innate logic when not disturbed by distracting considerations, and can be trusted to do more correct work when thus set going and left to run of itself than when consciously held to its work. Yet an examination of every recorded instance of this kind strongly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... Pahang and Selangor. They went, at the invitation of the British Government, to bring to a final conclusion the protracted struggles, in which Malay Rajas, foreign mercenaries, and Chinese miners had alike been engaged for years, distracting the State of Selangor, and breaking the peace of the Peninsula. A few months later, the Pahang Army, albeit sadly reduced by cholera, poured back again across the mountains, the survivors slapping their chests and their ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... heard of. He has, I should have said, a younger brother remarkably like him in character and appearance, who greatly assisted in his escape. This brother, Michael, made his appearance now in one part of the country, now in another, letting it be supposed that he was Brian; thus distracting the attention of those in search of the culprit. He is himself, from what I have heard, fully as determined a ruffian as Brian, and has long followed ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... careless of these unfinished courts and unroofed galleries amid the splendour of their purfled silks and the glitter of their torchlight pageantry, has yielded to sullen cynicism—the cynicism of arrested ruin and unreverend age. All that was satisfying to the senses and distracting to the eyesight in their transitory pomp has passed away, leaving a sinister and naked shell. Remembrance can but summon up the crimes, the madness, the trivialities of those dead palace-builders. An atmosphere of evil clings to the dilapidated walls, as though the tainted spirit ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... has 'heavenly eyes,' 'distracting legs,' and 'a melting voice?'" asked Christie maliciously, quoting Lucy's own rapturous speeches ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... worrying!" cried Philip. "I can think of fifty things that may happen to her when she thinks she is safe. This is distracting! First, I am going to run up to see my father. Then, I'll let you know what we have decided. Is there anything I can do ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... Congress by irresistible argument, and eloquence unequalled—though twice defeated, he succeeded in establishing the compromise line of 36 deg. 30'—and thereby erected a barrier which severed the angry currents of opinion on this distracting theme, and which was as valuable to this nation as the isthmus at the equator, holding in check the mighty ocean on either side. The North has compromised before; let her do it again. Let our friends at the South take as little ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... Nevertheless this work has not the suppressed intensity, completeness of outline, and artistic symmetry possessed by The Scarlet Letter. The chief defects of The Marble Faun are a vagueness of form, a distracting variety of scene, and a lack of the convincing power of reality. The continued popularity of this romance, however, is justly due to its poetic conception, its atmosphere of ancient mystery, ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... poison at a great banquet; the Gaulish provinces, by delivering them up for pillage to the army; the city, by again setting it on fire, whilst, at the same time, a vast number of wild beasts was to have been turned loose upon the unarmed populace—for the double purpose of destroying them, and of distracting their attention from the fire. But, as the mood of his frenzy changed, these sanguinary schemes were abandoned, (not, however, under any feelings of remorse, but from mere despair of effecting them,) and on the same day, but after a luxurious dinner, the imperial monster grew ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... a woman to be perpetually on the alert she might now have supposed that Lord Mountclere knew all about her; a mechanical deference must have restrained such an illusion had he seen her in any other light than that of a distracting slave. But she answered ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... Such was this distracting paragraph.—'Good God!' exclaimed Waverley, 'am I then a parricide?—Impossible! My father, who never showed the affection of a father while he lived, cannot have been so much affected by my supposed death as to hasten his own. No, I will not believe it,—it were distraction to entertain for ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... surprise. While thus engaged, four different persons, all at once, and as if they had acted by concert, started each from behind a tree, and approached Donald from four different points, with the purpose, evidently, of distracting his attention. At once perceiving their intention, and not doubting that their purposes were hostile, the intrepid Celt, to prevent himself being surrounded, hastily retreated to a wall which formed part of the structure of the fountain on which ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... at the entrance desk instead of presenting their cards. Psychologists and experience have taught them that the card is distracting and that even if the interview is granted it is harder to get the attention of the other man if he has a card to twiddle between his fingers. It is more conventional to send in a card (a good card is a letter of introduction in itself) but if the ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... suffer thus every day. I have had to do a hundred times what Richardson did but once. Lovelace has a thousand forms, for social corruption takes the hues of the medium in which it lives. Clarissa, on the contrary, the lovely image of impassioned virtue, is drawn in lines of distracting purity. To create a variety of Virgins it needs a Raphael. In this respect, perhaps literature must ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac
... she refuse to profit by it? But here was no thought of giving in return. A woman seldom meets but one man in the world to whom she will give without a shadow of the desire for the value in return. What was there in the world now to prevent her from taking what life offered of its small, distracting pleasures? A moment of recklessness brought a deceptive lift to ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... ever the way with the innocent and single-minded! This is what we sincere and diffident men have to contend with in affairs of the heart. Our bosoms may be torn with ten thousand distracting cares, and yet the modesty of a truly virtuous female heart shall be so absorbed in its own placid serenity as to be indifferent to the ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... buzzing, over her head; they planted themselves under the lace of her sleeve. If she moved her left hand to frighten them off from one point, another band fixed themselves upon her right hand. Not only did they flutter and sting, but they sang in a heathenish manner, distracting her attention as she tried to write, as she tried to waft them off. Nor was this all. Myriads of June-bugs and millers hovered round, flung themselves into the lamps, and made disagreeable funeral-pyres of themselves, tumbling ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... was the reply; "and I think we will enjoy it in a greater degree than if we were surrounded by a crowd of distracting friends, though I believe it is usually considered the one time in a person's life when friends are most appreciated. Why it should be so I cannot see, if all love is like ours. I have obtained my heart's desire at last. This happy day has been long delayed, but is none the less ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... the homes, and slowly wended their way to church. When the congregation had gathered, and the service was about to begin, heavy iron chains were drawn tightly across the streets adjacent to the various places of worship. It was the hour for serious meditation. No distracting noise was to be allowed to fall upon those ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... place is regarded; in festive meetings, peace conventions, or gatherings of any kind, where men of various lands and views are notoriously congregated, and where no reply could be made without disturbing the harmony and distracting the attention of the assemblage, the disciples of Cobden are sure to interlard their harangues with advice to foreigners substantially thus—"N. B. Protection is a great humbug and great waste. Better abolish your tariffs, stop your factories and buy at our shops. We're ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... In the hope of distracting his thoughts from his disappointment, Prince Pueckler decided to make a lengthened tour through Wales and Ireland, and with this object in view he set out in July 1828. Before his departure, however, he had an interesting rencontre at a dinner-party given by the Duchess of St. Albans-the ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... the ceiling. "It's all very well for you, sir, who can never wear anything but a black coat and hat, but consider the fascinations of summer fashions to poor defenceless women! Mrs Asplin and I want to look at the shops, and groan in chorus over all the distracting fripperies which we want so badly, and can't afford. We pretend we have weighty business; but that is the true ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... as the student in question has already set himself to the task, he has the greatest literary pleasure of his life yet to come. Type, size of book, excellent as a library edition; and the illustrations, so far as they have gone, are good, and not too distracting. And so, after this unequivocal expression of his sentiments, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 8, 1893 • Various
... clear as those which bereft Samson of his locks or left the lone figure of Marius seated amid the ruins of Carthage. And yet, even in the face of time-worn contradictions apparent to the most superficial and credulously minded, pretty, distracting Bessie Van Ashton had begun to cast her eyes in the direction of Dick Yankton, the handsome, open-handed, devil-may-care son of nature who regarded the world of fashion to which she belonged with about as much concern as he did the dust ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... guns from the batteries of Fort William. Hastings allowed them only seventeen. They landed in ill-humour. The first civilities were exchanged with cold reserve. On the morrow commenced that long quarrel which, after distracting British India, was renewed in England, and in which all the most eminent statesmen and orators of the age took active part on one ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of which they could speak without fear. Despard could talk of his Byzantine poets, and the chants of the Eastern Church, without being in danger of reawakening painful memories. The piano stood close by, and always afforded a convenient mode of distracting attention when it became too ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... force of this manoeuvre, which would have the effect of distracting attention from the Neck—executed the order with a grin. "You're a knowing one, Dandy ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... men lie down under it, allow themselves to be rolled over by it, that the modern newspaper, against its will, has become the great distracting machine of modern times. As I live and look about me, everywhere I find a great running to and fro of editors across the still earth. Every editor has his herd, is a kind of bell-wether, has a great paper ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... the tide turned. Mrs. Jesup, in the midst of her distracting grief, sent a munificent check which enabled us to order essential items of special supplies and equipment which required time ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... able to put forth the most strenuous exertions at a pinch. Let us name some typical examples. Turner was a man of phenomenal industry, but at intervals his temperament craved for some excitement more violent and distracting than any that he could get from the steady strain of daily work. He used to go away to Wapping, and spend weeks in the filthiest debauch with the lowest characters in London. None of his companions guessed who he was; they only knew that he had more money than ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... Afterwards he disappeared. As to the ship, I need not say that, although she was presently swallowed up in one of the blackest nights I can remember, she did not disappear. In truth, I don't fancy that there had ever been much danger of that, but certainly the experience was noisy and particularly distracting— and yet it is the memory of a very ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... Abbey stood open. Ruth, striving to collect her thoughts, saw the sunlight beyond it spread broad upon the city's famous piazza. Sounds, too, were wafted in through the doorway, penetrating the hush, distracting her; rumble of workday traffic, voices of vendors in distant streets; among these—asserting itself quietly, yet steadily, regularly as a beat in music—a footfall on the pavement outside. . . . She knew the footfall. She distinguished it from every other. Scores of times ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... had disappeared now she was that most distracting of all pictures of woman, a pretty girl overwhelmed with grief. She crouched curled upon the sofa, with shoulders heaving, sobbing as though her heart ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... into fits of laughter at the long and quizzical shadows on the ground. When the cadets dance a figure, their shadows look like a company of sickly, melancholy monkeys, which dodge about in a distracting way, and look so irresistibly funny, that everybody shouts with laughter—and it is ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... spoke to him, or whether holding on perilously with one hand to the trellis while she gesticulated with the hammer, pointing out the divisions of the plantation from her coign of vantage, he thought she was as clear and convincing to his intellect as she was distracting to his senses. ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... sighing heavily, "there have been times when I have felt almost disposed to do so too; what a blessed relief it would be to me if I could believe it altogether! It is these distracting doubts which are wearing both my life and my reason away, and it was those same doubts which prevented my enjoying your company when you were a child, and almost succeeded in destroying my natural affection for you; it was those doubts which caused me to neglect you as I did when you were most ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood |
