"Distraught" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Flame! O God, Beast, Mystery, come! Thy mystic maids Are hunted!—Blast their hunter with thy breath, Cast o'er his head thy snare; And laugh aloud and drag him to his death, Who stalks thy herded madness in its lair! [Enter hastily a MESSENGER from the Mountain, pale and distraught.] ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... Good Friend,—This comes from one nearly distraught with grief of mind and sickness of body. My boy, my boy! They have stolen him from me. Can you find him for me? He is in the hands of Jesuits—it may be at Douay—I dare say no more. I cannot say more. ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... know this island even as I know the streets of Norwich, as you may well believe seeing that it is but a small place and I upon it for near a year. Should I land after dark, I could win my way to the King's house, and if he be not dead or distraught with drink I could have speech with him alone, for I know his ways and his hours and how he may be found. I would ask only that Aylward the archer may go with me, that I may have one friend at my side if things ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... temple cast, Appall'd the town, Appall'd the lands, lest Pyrrha's time Return, with all its monstrous sights, When Proteus led his flocks to climb The flatten'd heights, When fish were in the elm-tops caught, Where once the stock-dove wont to bide, And does were floating, all distraught, Adown the tide. Old Tiber, hurl'd in tumult back From mingling with the Etruscan main, Has threaten'd Numa's court with wrack And Vesta's fane. Roused by his Ilia's plaintive woes, He vows revenge for guiltless blood, And, ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... heavy as your chains of gold, to drag you down to him in whose name you have thought to cast out devils. Do not think that these things are harmless vanities. Nothing can fill the human heart and be harmless. If your thoughts be not of God, they will keep your minds distraught from His grace as effectually as the blackest broodings of crime. 'Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number, saith the Lord God.' Yes, your minds are ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... of a number of verses in this way, the DAYONG seems to become more and more distraught and unconscious of his surroundings; and when the singing ceases he behaves in a strange manner, which strikes the attendant crowd with awe, starting suddenly and making strange clucking noises. Then he produces the tube mentioned above, and pressing ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... for him," she told her. "I expect he has only strayed away and lost sight of you amongst all these people. Four years old and wearing a little red coat, did you say? I'll find him for you; you sit down here." And she pushed the poor distraught creature down on a pile of shattered woodwork. "Don't be frightened," she added reassuringly. "I feel certain ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... that afternoon and evening Kitty was disturbed and troubled. At times she wanted to laugh at the professor's ridiculous proposal; and again, her cheeks burned with anger; and she could have cried in her shame and humiliation. And with it all her mind was distraught by the persistent question: Was not the professor's conception of an ideal mating the legitimate and logical conclusion of those very advanced ideas of culture which he represented, and which she had so much admired? If she sincerely believed the life represented by the professor ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... acutely in the flesh, his soul was puffed and lofty. A mile down the hill, on the edge of the pine-forest, two half-frozen men—one powerfully sick at intervals—were varying mutual recriminations with the most poignant abuse of the Babu, who seemed distraught with terror. They demanded a plan of action. He explained that they were very lucky to be alive; that their coolies, if not then stalking them, had passed beyond recall; that the Rajah, his master, was ninety miles away, and, so far from lending them money and a retinue ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... restaurant overlooking Bryant Park, where, during the first days of their honeymoon, they had always breakfasted. For sentimental reasons they now revisited it. But Dolly was eager to return at once to the flat and pack, and Carter seemed distraught. He explained that he ...
— The Man Who Could Not Lose • Richard Harding Davis
... behind court and society, wealth, "respectability," and the comfortable life. And even while he had lived in lipservice to that complaisant compromise, this true God had been here, this God he now certainly professed, waiting for his allegiance, waiting to take up the kingship of this distraught and bloodstained earth. The finding of God is but the stripping of bandages from the eyes. Seek and ye ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... of Berkeley is indeed greater than anything that he did, and one wonders not as one explores the young preacher's noble and endearing character that the distraught Vanessa fastened upon him, though she knew him only by reputation, as one who would make it his sacred duty to do all in his power to set her memory ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... days we spent our time making purchases and preparing for our departure; then a young man presented himself at our apartments: he brought letters to Brigitte. After their interview, I found her sad and distraught; but I could not guess the cause, unless the letters were from N——-, that village where I had confessed my love and where Brigitte's only ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... Gavrilo ran back out of the rain. Like a bird he flew up to Chelkash, dropped down beside him, and began to turn him over on the ground. His hand dipped into a warm, red stickiness. He shuddered and staggered back with a face pale and distraught. ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... nice-looking young man, but obviously nervous. He giggled in a distraught sort of way as he ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... Mrs. Slifer's hand she led them up the terraces and towards the house. "The poor child is ill, distraught. She had parted from her husband—fled from him. Ah, it has been a miserable affair, that marriage. But now, all will be well. Bon Dieu! what joy! What peace of heart you have brought me! I shall be with her to-morrow. I start at once. And you, my good friends, let me hear your plans. Let ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... blind body of man, The tongue of this dumb people; shalt thou not See, shalt thou speak not for them? Time is wan And hope is weak with waiting, and swift thought Hath lost the wings at heel wherewith he ran, And on the red pit's edge sits down distraught To talk with death of days republican And dreams and fights long since dreamt out and fought; Of the last hope that drew To that red edge anew The firewhite faith of Poland without spot; Of the blind Russian might, And fire ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... she grew strangely terrified and distraught; she began to shift from foot to foot without moving from the place, and spluttered comically, as if she wanted to say something and couldn't. I waited to see what would come of all this, and I saw and felt that, apparently, I had made a great ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... Baroness, being ignorant of the excellence of his purpose, and knowing only that he had deceived her in one matter, and that the descent to Avernus is easy, passed a number of very miserable days. That heart-breaking "us both" kept her awake at nights and distraught throughout the day, and when for a little she managed to explain the phrase away, and tried to anchor her trust in Rudolph once more, the vision of the St. Petersburg window overlooking the crops would come to shatter her confidence. She wrote a number ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... beauty at its conscious best as she recognised his, which was that of a man of men, splendid in his strong prime. And she told him who she was, and a few other things, as they stood on the pavement—she so graceful in her mature self-possession, he staring at her, stupidly distraught, ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... we are on our knees to you, so to speak. We do not know everything and, desperately, we need the aid of a man of your caliber. In behalf of the distraught people of Venus, I am asking you bluntly to make a great sacrifice. Will you face the dangers of a trip to Venus and use your knowledge to aid us in exterminating these creatures of hell?" There was positive pleading ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... the walls, distraught, And mark the dust-cloud and the mail-clad train. These through the brushwood, where the road lies short, Move on in arms. The war-shout peals again, The hard hoofs clattering shake the crumbling plain. And now, where, cold with crystal waves, is found Fair ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... the fact that Louise, dreamy and distraught, stood at her bedroom bureau that night, scribbling "Washington" here and there over a sheet of paper. But there was something significant in the fact that she scratched the word out every time she wrote it; examined ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... right-hand fingers played amidst her hair, And with her reverie wandered here and there: The other hand sustained the only dress That now but half concealed her loveliness; And pausing, aimlessly she stood and thought, In virgin beauty by no fear distraught." ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... by remembering that the racial instincts and traditions of the first colonists were overwhelmingly English, and that their political and ethical views were the product of a turbulent and distraught time, it is even more important to note how the physical situation of the colonists affected their intellectual and moral, as well as their political problems. Among the emigrants from England, as we have seen, there were great varieties of social status, religious opinion, individual ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... irresistibly clove their way through the wooden side and decks of the ship; a loud twanging aloft told of severed rigging; there was a terrifying crash of breaking spars overhead; and then, all in a moment, as it seemed, the main deck and poop became alive with shrieking, shouting, distraught people rushing aimlessly hither and thither, and excitedly demanding of each ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... King. And now they are all gone, Master Philip and all, and master says they are flibustiers, and pirates, and robbers; and Mrs. Lightfoot's boy came and said Stead Kenton was shot dead at his house door, and then I was neither to have nor to hold, but I ran off here like one distraught, for I never ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that in the box there were several family papers, and among them a general confession which she desired to make; when she wrote it, however, her mind was disordered; she knew not what she had said or done, being distraught at the time, in a foreign country, deserted by her relatives, forced ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... of Tantalus. Suddenly the young wife of the cotton manufacturer gave a deep sigh. Every head turned towards her; she was as white as the snow outside, her eyes closed, her head fell forward—she had fainted. Her husband, distraught with fear, implored assistance of the whole company. All lost their heads till the elder of the two Sisters, who supported the unconscious lady, forced Boule de Suif's drinking-cup between her lips and made her swallow a few drops of wine. The pretty creature stirred, opened her eyes, smiled ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... time to change for dinner. They entered the dining-room somewhat weary and distraught. They were awaited there by their father Rameyev, the two Matovs—the student Piotr Dmitrievitch and the schoolboy Misha, sons of Rameyev's lately deceased cousin to whom ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... mechanically. His body told him to eat, and so he ate without knowing or caring what. His distraught mind was traveling swiftly through the barren paths of hopelessness and despair, while yet he had to keep his children in countenance under their fire of childish prattle. Many times he could have flung aside his mask and given up, but the babyish laughter held him ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... I waited on her at the usual hour of my morning visit, and found her not a little distraught. "The scenes have begun," she said; "you know I told you I shouldn't get through without them! You made me nervous last night—I haven't the least idea what you meant; but you made me horribly nervous. She ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... regarded Hicks long and intently and in, silence. His magnificent mind was at work. If Betty had been distraught he had not observed any sign of it the previous day. If Ware were better informed as to her true mental state why had he chosen this time to ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... allowed itself to be borne along for a while on these currents of thought, then it reacted against them, repeating again the old formula that to think, here, on other things than the moment and the material was to die or go distraught. ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... have spring with us again," answered his wife. "I think, though, that in winter I am happier. In summer I am always worried. I am afraid for the children to be out of my sight, and when you are away on a hunt I am distraught until ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... the end of a great career and of a great romance of love. Leonie Leon was half distraught at the death of the lover who was so soon to be her husband. She wandered for hours in the forest until she reached a convent, where she was received. Afterward she came to Paris and hid herself away ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... to answer. Foes distraught Pierced the thinned peoples in a brute-like blindness, Philosophies that sages long had taught, And Selflessness, were as an unknown thought, And "Hell!" and "Shell!" ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... and France was urging James to attack England. He saw, and wrote to the King of Denmark, that, if France were down, the turn of Scotland to fall would follow. In March 1513, an English diplomatist, West, found James in a wild mood, distraught "like a fey man." ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... aware of his presence, Inga turned and saw Dirk and he realized, by the expression on her face, that she was distraught and nervous. She came toward him quickly, after a few words to Zitlan, and the face of the latter darkened. There was hatred in his expression as ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... days any educated man would set aside Issachar's wild vision as the vapourings of a mind distraught. But Aziel lived in the time of Solomon, when men of his nation guided their steps by the light of prophecy, and believed that it was the Divine pleasure, by means of dreams and wonders and through the mouths of chosen seers, to declare the will of Jehovah upon earth. To this ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... not, honey; you're coming along o' me. Don't I see as yer white with the grief, and half distraught like. There, I'm alone tonight, unless Will should drop in; come and have a cup o' ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... appeared on the right as a sign that he was the bringer of divine mercy."[2232] But such things never occurred to the examiner. Thinking to embarrass Jeanne, he asked how she came to see the light if it appeared at her side.[2233] Jeanne made no reply, and as if distraught, she said: ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... us all! I think my wife will go distraught with the terror of this visitation, if it goes on much longer. What is a man to do for the best? She raves at me sometimes like a maniac for not having taken her away ere the scourge spread as it is doing now. But when I tell her that if she is bent upon it ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... accident that I heard of you. I have been to the police; they cannot—will not—act without I furnish them with certain information which it is not in my power to give them. Then when I was half distraught with despair, a kindly agent there spoke to me of you. He said that you were attached to the police as a voluntary agent, and that they sometimes put work in your way which did not happen to be within their own scope. He also said that sometimes ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the owner, so I fled, distraught with fear, To the Main Drain sewage outfall while he snorted in my ear— Reached the four-foot drain-head safely and, in darkness and despair, Felt the brute's proboscis fingering my ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... and I toward the ancient Poet turned my steps, reflecting on that speech which seemed hostile to me. He moved on, and then, thus going, he said to me, "Why art thou so distraught?" And I satisfied his demand. "Let thy memory preserve that which thou hast heard against thyself," commanded me that Sage, "and now attend to this," and he raised his finger. "When thou shalt be in presence of the sweet radiance of her whose beautiful eye sees everything, from her ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... the place where Psyche was abandoned, wept loudly among the rocks, and called upon her by name, so that the sound came down to her, and running out of the palace distraught, she cried, "Wherefore afflict your souls with lamentation? I whom you mourn am here." Then, summoning Zephyrus, she reminded him of her husband's bidding; and he bare them down with a gentle blast. "Enter now," she said, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... of the house. Be quiet! You're in no danger; but if you hinder me—Linton, I love papa better than you!' The mortal terror he felt of Mr. Heathcliff's anger restored to the boy his coward's eloquence. Catherine was near distraught: still, she persisted that she must go home, and tried entreaty in her turn, persuading him to subdue his selfish agony. While they were thus ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... so that he staggered across the slanting floor toward the door. When he brought himself up by catching hold of its frame, he was under the threat of his own pistol in Lanyard's hands. He lingered for a moment, showing Lanyard a distraught and vacant face, then apparently realising his danger faded away into ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... their public esteem, and the desertion of their friends. A total wreck. Nothing was left to provide for them. They had all three an uncompromising feeling for moral purity, which made their suffering all the greater from the dishonor of which they were innocent. Of the three Antoinette was the most distraught by their sorrow, because she had never really known suffering. Madame Jeannin and Olivier, though they were racked by it, were more inured to it. Instinctively pessimistic, they were overwhelmed but not surprised. ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... Judy's expression was distraught and puzzled. Maria's eyes were closed so tightly that her entire face seemed closed. The pause ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... counter-revolution has distraught the neighboring Republic of Mexico. Brigandage has involved a great deal of depredation upon foreign interests. There have constantly recurred questions of extreme delicacy. On several occasions very difficult situations have arisen ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... distributed the colonists into a series of settlements up and down the river for farming and live-stock tending; they spurred the willing workers by assigning them three-acre private gardens; and they mercilessly coerced the laggard. They transformed the colony from a distraught camp into a group of severely disciplined farms, owned by the London Company, administered by its officials, and operated partly by its servants, partly by its tenants who paid rent in the form of labor. That is to say, Virginia ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... I can't say anything more." Her clasp tightened again on his arm and he felt the warm spirit of forgiveness, of love communicating with his own miserable self. No word came to either as they faced the cutting wind, bound they knew not whither, so distraught were they with ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... moaning and distraught from that room of awful revelation, put her into the car, and brought her back to Northlands. It was the only thing to be done. Barbara's instinct foresaw madness if we took her to the flat in St. John's Wood. Her father's house, her natural refuge, was equally impossible. For what explanation ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... that tale I can indorse. The Prince, I call to mind, took in no word Of what I said; distraught I've seen him oft, But never yet in such degree removed From blood and bone, never, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... one who is trying to understand a puzzling proposition but cannot quite do it. She said, in a distraught fashion: ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... his summer wages. He was glad to do a good deed in secret, and yet so near heaven. The man received it as his due, like a toll-keeper; and soon after departed, leaving the traveller alone. And the traveller went his way down the mountain, as one distraught. He stopped only to pluck one bright blue flower, which bloomed all alone in the vast desert, and looked up at him, as if to say; "O take me with you! leave ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... all incoherent, nearly incomprehensible, covered with blots, every other word scratched out. One could see that the girl was quite distraught, and Mrs Griffith's keen eyes saw the trace of tears on the paper.... It was a long, bitter cry of repentance. She begged them to take her back, repeating again and again the cry of penitence, piteously ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... your own shade of hair. Peters is a man of volcanic passions, and, when, after she had given him to understand that his love was returned, she informed him one day that she was engaged to a fellow at Ealing West, he went right off his onion—I mean, he became completely distraught. I must say that he concealed it very effectively at first. We had no inkling of his condition till he came in with the pistol. And, after that ... well, as I say, we had to dismiss him. A great pity, for he was a ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... that descent! With what sensations of awe, horror, and strange, distraught admiration, must a doomed victim, once within that whirl, gaze about him!—for he has leisure to observe. The downward draught of those swift, wide-sweeping, spirally-whirling water-walls is comparatively slow. The victim clinging to his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various
... Mrs. Sewell in a low voice; but she kept her eyes upon Lemuel all the time; and when Sewell took him and his mother the length of the front drawing-room away, she was quite distraught, and answered at random till he ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... young man as he stepped out of the door, could see the conduct of the girl now left alone in the drawing-room. She saw the Lady Catharine sink down upon the seat, her head drooped in thought, her hand lying languidly out before her. Pale now and distraught, the Lady Catharine Knollys wist little of what went on before her. She had full concern with the tumult which waged riot in ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... have been drawn to the window by the cries of the massacred, and at least have glanced at the revolting scene in the stadium. She would have thought it more natural if she had found Melissa overcome by the horrors she had witnessed, half distraught or paralyzed by distress and rage. And there sat the young creature, whom she knew to be soft-hearted and gentle, smiling and with beaming eyes—though those eyes must have rested on the most hideous spectacle—looking ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the costumes were dazzling enough—from a distance; but when you've said that you've said everything. The situations were impossible and absurd. The speeches were bombast. The sentiment was silly and untrue. And Sardanapalus himself was none so distraught by his unpleasant dream and all his other troubles but that he was looking forward to his glass of whiskey-and-water between the acts. No, he didn't impose on me one bit. I didn't believe in Sardanapalus for a moment, even before I had the privilege of seeing and hearing him as Mr Buskin in his ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... indulgence! Where the loyal love of a husband means less than the flatteries of a tame cat...." As suddenly as the eruption had come it subsided. He raised both hands. "Forgive me," he implored, "I didn't mean that. But I am distraught and financial affairs are very precarious, Loraine. We may stand on the brink of a disastrous panic. It lies in Hamilton Burton's power to make me or break me—absolutely. Don't you see ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... distraught Henry's soul; he stopped in his walk and looked full at the priest, his fine, distinguished face working with suffering. The Pere Anselme thought to himself that he would have done very well for the model of a martyr of old. It distressed him deeply ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... I did not descend to share your peril; but it was necessary that I should go to the storey above that you reached to bring down my wife, who, as you see, is grievously sick. Her two maids were very nearly distraught with terror, and, if left to themselves, would never have carried their mistress below. Having had some experience of popular tumults in Bruges, my native town, I had this hiding-place constructed when ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... not melodious madness, and is this picture of the distraught priest, setting forth to sail the seas with his dead lady, not an invention that Nanteuil might have illustrated, and the clan of ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... at least tried to, for the next few days. Mrs. Morton quite forgot how badly she had wanted Ernest to have an education, when she learned that he could only come home once a year, and then only for a short month. She sighed so much and was so distraught, that the family were almost afraid to rejoice with Ernest, when he came home jubilantly waving ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... with the dark, Byway, where the ears may hark; Live and fierce when day is done, You, that do without the Sun:— What's this game you bring to nought?— Muttering like a thing distraught, Reckoning like a simpleton? (Since the hearing must be brief,— Living or a dying thief!) Cobbled with the anguished stones That the thoroughfare disowns; Stones they gave you for your bread Of the disinherited! Where the Towers of Hunger loom, Crowding in the dregs of doom; ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody
... healthy and well-nourished. This was reported to Angus, and by him to Mananan, and Mananan by his wisdom discovered the cause of it. One of the lords of the Danaans, happening to be on a visit with Angus, was rendered distraught by the maiden's beauty, and one day he laid hands upon her and strove to carry her away to his own dwelling. Ethne escaped from him, but the blaze of resentment at the insult that lit up in her soul consumed in her the fairy nature, that knows not of good or evil, ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... "Di Sorno, half distraught, flung himself into a cab and drove to all the hotels in Grenada" (he overlooked the police station), and, failing to find Margot, becomes mad. He goes about ejaculating "Mad, mad!" than which nothing could be more eloquent of his complete mental inversion. In his paroxysms the Countess di Morno ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... not as yet, Before the mother calls the name aloud Or bids her grieving maidens beat the breast, While still she marks the glazing eye, and soothes The stiffening limbs and gazes on the face, In nameless dread, not sorrow, and in awe Of death approaching: and with mind distraught Clings to the dying in a ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... tremendously in the heavy seas. But his thoughts were so centered upon the situation in which he found himself that he had not particularly noticed the vessel, although passing ships were infrequent sights off the port of La Guayra. Pale, haggard, and distraught from his mental struggle he had crossed the pass at the summit of the mountain and descended into the fertile valley now adrip with rain and looking almost cold under the gray sky, and had presented himself at the palace ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... wedding, naturally we chaffed, Knowing the length of time it takes to do A simple thing like that in this slow world. Indeed, Max, 'twas a dream. Forgive me then. I'll burn the drug if you prefer." But Breuck Muttered and stared,—"A lie." And then he hurled, Distraught, this word at Franz: "Prove it. And when It's proven, I'll believe. That thing shall be ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... position afforded me not the slightest dismay. On the contrary, I think my feelings were rather of relief. I had not known whither I should repair—so distraught was my mood—and now chance had settled the matter for me by decreeing that I ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... stood for a moment with the wild, distraught look of one who sees a sight altogether beyond belief or reason, then he made to spring forward. But he was chained to the Kachins who stood upon either side of him, and two more leapt forward from their posts by the wall to check ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... of her distraught state by degrees, but in an instant, Miss Havisham said, "Let me see you two play cards; why have you not begun?" With that, we returned to her room, and sat down as before; I was beggared, as before; ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... and at once he sped the ship onward through the midst of the sea past the Bithynian coast. But Jason with gentle words addressed him in reply: "Tiphys, why dost thou comfort thus my grieving heart? I have erred and am distraught in wretched and helpless ruin. For I ought, when Pelias gave the command, to have straightway refused this quest to his face, yea, though I were doomed to die pitilessly, torn limb from limb, but now I am ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... terrible, and the red dragon fought with him; but his pride had softened him, so he drew off. Then other red dragons came upon him in his wounds and beat him sore, which seeing, the white dragon dashed upon them all—and I awoke. Merlin, tell me what this may mean, for my mind is sore distraught ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... aire I dar not wel for drede ne for daunger And for vnknowen tellen how the fyre Of loues bronde is kyndlid in my breste Thus am I murdred and slayn atte leste So priuely wit[h]yn my thought O lady venus whom I haue sought So wysse me now what me is best to doo That am distraught wit[h] my self so That I ne wote what way for to torne Sauf by my self soleyn for to morne Hangyng in balance betwix hope and drede Wit[h] oute comfort remedye or rede For hope biddet[h] pursue and assaye ...
— The Temple of Glass • John Lydgate
... guests were breathlessly dancing to the divine lilt of the fiddler's melody. All except Elisinde who, when her betrothed came forward to lead her to the dance, pleaded fatigue, and remained seated in her chair, pale and distraught, and staring at the fiddler. This did not, to tell the truth, displease her betrothed, who was a clumsy dancer and had no ear for music. Breathless at last with exhaustion the guests begged the untiring ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... Gawain cometh as fast as his horse may carry him toward Marin the Jealous. And when Marin seeth him coming, he avoideth his buffet and lowereth his spear and cometh to his wife that was right sore distraught, and wept as she that suffered blameless, and smote her through, out the body and slew her, and then turneth him again so fast as his horse might carry him toward his hold. Messire Gawain seeth the damsel ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... shed tears over the love-distracted grandee, and die of laughing at the old Alcalde. The play is twice a success. The author, who writes it, it is said, in collaboration with one of the great poets of the day, was called before the curtain, and appeared with a love-distraught damsel on each arm, and fairly brought down the excited house. The two dancers seemed to have more wit in their legs than the author himself; but when once the fair rivals left the stage, the dialogue seemed witty at once, a triumphant proof of the ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... in a distraught way—as if he had forgotten something—as if he had forgotten everything, even to his own name and himself—acknowledged the visitor's presence, and stepped further back into the shadow of the wall behind him. But, he was so pale that his face stood out in relief again the dark wall, ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... Those were the nights when Puck came dancing up from Tupelo with Titania's fairy rout a-twinkle at his heels; when the great Hindu Raj floated from India in his canopied barge across the moonlit waters of Lake Waban; when Tristram and Iseult, on their way to the court of King Mark, all love distraught, cast anchor in the little cove below Stone Hall and played their passion out; when Nicolette kilted her skirts against the dew and argued of love with Aucassin. Those were the nights when the Countess Cathleen—loveliest of Yeats's ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... words, who were all the King of the Saxons' men. They were in such force that they took King Arthur, who foresaw naught of this, and had but few folk with him, as he but went a-hunting. Thereof are his people sore troubled, and the queen above all—she is well nigh distraught in that the king is captive. She knows not whither the folk who took him in the forest have led him, or what may since have befallen him. Thereof is many a heart sorrowful. The forest standeth by the sea shore, whence ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... you won't remember what I said. I did not mean it, and I was distraught." I did not make reply; but I held her hands and kissed them. There are different ways of kissing a lady's hands. This way was intended as homage and respect; and it was accepted as such in the high-bred, dignified way which marked Miss Trelawny's ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... such words or think such thoughts of your son or of the child. She is as harmless as any flower that blows out there in the garden, and he is a noble youth, though now, by the wickedness of me, distraught and off his head. What makes you revile ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... all solicitude, and to her and her daughter's ministrations Madge was left, while Graydon waited, with intense anxiety, in the porch, explaining what had occurred, with a manner much distraught, in answer to ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... in him on that Monday morning, when it was discovered that Climene had not yet returned from her excursion of the previous day in the coach of M. le Marquis, were already wicked enough without the spurring they received from the distraught Leandre. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... came Every Knight and every Dame, 'Twixt son and daughter all distraught, With mournful mind The ancient King reclined, Gazed at them ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... I felt distraught from gazing over-much At thy great beauty; and I fear'd to touch The dainty hand which Envy's self hath praised. I fear'd to greet thee; and my soul was dazed And self-convicted in its new design; For I was mad to hope to call thee mine, Aye! mad as he ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... distraught with the agony through which her soul has passed— the traces of which she fancies must be observable on her face—before making appearance in the brilliantly-lighted saloon, she passes around the corner of ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... is peace," sung the nightingale; "There alone is peace," sung the lilies; "There alone is peace," sung the chiming waters. She drew nearer to them. Heaven only knows what ideas were in that overbalanced brain and distraught mind. Looking in the clear waters she saw the golden stars shining; perhaps she thought she was reaching to them. A little low cry fell on the night air. A cry that startled the ring-doves, but fell ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... moving mass appears, lengthens, takes on shape, then shoots suddenly aloft, clearing the encircling tops of the bending, twisting and tormented trees, straight into the heart of the gale, where for one breathless moment it whirls madly about like a thing distraught, then in slow but triumphant obedience to the master hand that guides it, steadies and mounts majestically upward till it is lost to their view in ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... Chubb's "Fly-by-day," as Dr. Travis called the one automobile that Miller's Notch boasted, chugged busily over the mountain roads. John Westley started out very early to find his friends at Cobble; then he had to drive back to Wayside to appease a distraught manager and half a dozen angry guides and also to pack his belongings; for the Allans would not let him stay anywhere else but with them at Cobble. Then, after he had been comfortably established in the freshly painted and papered guest-room ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... muttering to himself and calling the gods to witness that he was unjustly treated and that no such misfortune had ever before happened to any other man; and he was beating his hands wildly together and was forgetting to salute his friends. Seeing him thus distraught Socrates plucked him by the sleeve as he passed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various
... celebrated poems. "The Isles of Greece" is made to masquerade as "The Glory that was Greece"; "Auld Lang Syne" becomes "The Goal of Life," and "Tom Bowline" is converted into "The Perfect Sailor." This surely (again I use the words of Mr. HENLEY) "is a thing preposterous, and distraught." On the whole, I cannot think that Mr. HENLEY has done his part well. His manner is bad. His selection, it seems to me, is open to grave censure, on broader grounds than the mere personally equational of which he speaks, and his choppings, and sub-titles, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... winds, whose fitful sound Seems from some faint Aeolian harp-string caught; Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thought As Hermes with his lyre in sleep profound The hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound; For I am weary, and am overwrought With too much toil, with too much care distraught, And with the iron crown of anguish crowned. Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and cheek, O peaceful Sleep! until from pain released I breathe again uninterrupted breath! Ah, with what subtile meaning did the Greek Call thee the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... desire, Or faithful vow of endless love, Thy heart inflamed may kindly move With equal fire; O then my joys, So long distraught, shall rest, Reposed soft in thy chaste breast, Exempt ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... Joan, distraught though she was, felt that he had given way. Without another word she assisted in packing the carriage with their canvases and other belongings. The old Greek caretaker hobbled after them when he saw that they were going without depositing their paraphernalia ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... angry with me,' she pleaded; 'I have not left my convent walls for many years and I am distraught with grief. I seek a poison of the deadliest. I ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... came because I am distraught, and you are a better friend than none at all, and—where else should I go? Also my poor father with his last words to me, although he was so angry with you, bade me seek your help if there were need—and—oh! Christopher, ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... by, distraught and gloomy, and listened to each stirring tale; his beard was long, his eyes were rheumy, his nose was red, his aspect stale. And this old pilgrim, dour and hoary, on all our pleasure drew the noose; for, at the end of every story, he'd sadly ask: ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... known some time, it seems, of this order, has had made in readiness several large oval dishes and beautiful big- bellied jars: he gives one of each to each of his pupils,—to myself, to Berengario, to Tito, and Zenone. The master is sorely distraught that his eyesight permits him not himself to execute the duke's commands; but it is no secret that should one of us be so fortunate as to win the duke's approbation, the painter who does so shall become his partner here and shall have the hand of Pacifica. Some say ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... exclaimed over and over again, like one distraught. My noble, my beautiful Louise, if anything could increase the fervor of my devotion or confirm my belief in your delicate moral intuitions, it would be the new light which your words have thrown upon my ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... at opposite angles of the walls, are practicing signals with flags, the maneuvers of the latter being quite entertaining as they wave the banners, now slowly, now rapidly, diagonally, vertically, horizontally, or frantically overhead, as if suddenly distraught. Probably this exercise could be seen in any of our forts; but as we are now beyond the borders of the United States, every detail interests us, and we have become astonishingly observant. The gloomy ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... knowledge of polite salutes. Not one of the boys or girls would have been ill at ease in a drawing-room; and I found their educational standard quite up to that of any Board school known to me. These nice little folk were certainly in no wise pallid or distraught; and, when they danced on the stage, the performance was a beautiful and delightful romp which suggested no idea of pain. To see the "prima donna" of the company trundling her hoop on a bright morning was as pretty a sight as one would care to see. The ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... amazed minister she seemed for a moment to have stepped into the mud house from his garden. Her eyes danced, however, as they recognised him, and then he hardened. "This is no place for you," he was saying fiercely, when Nanny, too distraught to think, fell crying at the ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... be incredulous. His brother had told a lie, out of hatred and jealousy. But yet, how could he have been so vile as to say such a thing of their mother if he had not himself been distraught by despair? Besides, stamped on Jean's ear, on his sight, on his nerves, on the inmost fibers of his flesh, were certain words, certain tones of anguish, certain gestures of Pierre's, so full of suffering that they were irresistibly convincing; as ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... You are distraught. You don't know what you are saying." Mrs. Lorimer drew her back to her chair with tender insistence. "Sit down, darling! And try—do try—to be quiet for a little! You are worn out. I don't think you can have ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... "My poor, distraught Peregrine!" she sighed. "My poor, poor boy. So thus I leave you because I must. But some day, when your stubborn will is broken, when your proud head is bowed with grief and shame, come back, dear prodigal, come back, and you shall find these arms outstretched in eager welcome, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... treacherously betrayed," burst into tears. He then narrated with many expressions of horror the cause of his distress. Bothwell had made a proposal to him to carry off the Queen and place her in Dunkeld Castle in Arran's hands (who was known to be half distraught with love of Mary), and to kill Murray, Lethington, and the others that now misguided her, so that he and Arran should rule alone. The agitation of the unfortunate young man, his wild looks, his conviction that he was himself ruined and shamed for ever, seem ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... while she got on her things for the walk with unusual gayety; and, with the consciousness of unknown guilt depressing him, he followed the ladies upon their errand, subdued, distraught, but gradually forgetting his sin, as he forgot everything but his history. His wife hated to see him so miserable, and whispered at the shop-door where they parted, "Don't be troubled, Owen! I didn't ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... "The Soul, distraught by the joy of union, heart-broken at having still to live, only aspires now to escape for ever from the Gehenna of the flesh; thus it beseeches the Bridegroom with the uplifted arms of its towers, to take pity on it, to come to fetch it, to take it by the clasped hands of its ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... Smiles give Way to Tears! Here is a Letter from deare Mother, taking noe Note of what I write to her, and for good Reason, she is soe distraught at her owne and deare Father's ill Condition. The Rebels (I must call them such,) have soe stript and opprest them, they cannot make theire House tenantable; nor have Aught to feede on, had they e'en a whole Roof over theire Heads. The Neighbourhoode is too hot to ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... hum, the old man paused, looking at first a little distraught, but settling at last into his usual self as he started forward upon his course. Did some whisper, hitherto unheard, warn him that it was the last time he would tread that weary round? Who can tell? He was trembling very ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... that the rest were silent, they too were silent. And so they held broken discourse; and ever the young Knight spoke in Margaret's ear, so that Paul was much distraught, but dared not seem to intervene, or to speak with the maiden, when he ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Who so distraught could ramble here, From gentle beech to simple gorse, From glen to moor, nor cease to fear The world's impetuous bigot force, Which drives the young before they will, And when they will not drives ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... not see his face, a black hood covered it: two gleaming eyes alone were visible, eyes that to the distraught girl seemed lit by ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... request, my lord," replied the monk, "it is that our poor distraught brother, William Haydocke, be spared the quartering block. He meant ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... longer know anything, having no more papers, and we can't trust the rumours which fly among the distraught population. ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... and following Helen stepped into the centre of the hall. There he stopped, indeed, for down it came the Queen, her hair streaming, all her robes disordered, and her face stained with tears. She was alone save for Kurri the Sidonian, who followed her, and she walked wildly as one distraught who knows not where she goes nor ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... overtaken him, anxiety for the lad had been Faxon's only thought. But as each labouring step carried them nearer to the spot he had been fleeing, the reasons for his flight grew more ominous and more insistent. No, he was not ill, he was not distraught and deluded—he was the instrument singled out to warn and save; and here he was, irresistibly driven, dragging the ...
— The Triumph Of Night - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... celebrated journalist, with whose appearance he was reasonably familiar, as if regarding a phase of masculine aberration with which he was even more familiar. He grinned sympathetically, and Clavering was not too distraught to detect the point of view of the young philosopher. He had been running his hands through his hair and no doubt his eyes were injected with blood. He told him to wait, and went into his bedroom. But the note was brief and required no answer. "I believe you." That was all, and it was enough. He ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... victim to the eternal struggle between good and evil without the strength and the unquenchable hope of Christianity. The Misanthrope is a shriek of despair uttered by virtue, excited and almost distraught at the defeat she forebodes. The Tartuffe was a new effort in the same direction, and bolder in that it attacked religious hypocrisy, and seemed to aim its blows even at religion itself. Moliere was a long time working at it; the first acts had been ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... a canoe to receive M. d'Artagnan and himself. At sight of this he became almost distraught ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... wherewith I had subdued all the Immortals to mortal women in love, my purpose overcoming them all; for now, lo you, my mouth will no longer suffice to speak forth this boast among the Immortals, {180} for deep and sore hath been my folly, wretched and not to be named; and distraught have I been who carry a child beneath my girdle, the child of a mortal. Now so soon as he sees the light of the sun the deep-bosomed mountain nymphs will rear him for me; the nymphs who haunt this great and holy mountain, being of the clan neither of mortals nor of immortal Gods. Long is ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... question my good estate is my not having experienced conversion in those particular steps wherein the people of New England, and anciently the dissenters of old England, used to experience it." Poor Jonathan! How many have been so distraught! But the supreme folly of any man's spiritual life is to try thus to run himself into the mold of any other man's experience. There is no regular routine in spiritual transformation. Some men come in on a high tide ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... town and on to a road that ran between cornfields. He was an athletic looking man and wore loose fitting clothes. He went along distraught and puzzled. In a way he felt like a man capable of taking a man's place in life and in another way he didn't ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... I leaned back in my chair with half-closed eyes, while night, that master phantom maker, played upon my harried nerves and distraught mind. Stealthily out of his murky caldron the ghosts and goblins crept. I saw the spectres of all my dearest dreams trail slouching by, jostled and driven by sneering bullies. I saw a great company of scowling men, wailing women, and little children, with drawn, pinched faces, and they ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... from the door, and in his last position it would have required the most delicate of scientific instruments to measure the distance between his ear and the keyhole. He heard nothing save the wail of a Bones distraught, and the firm ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... I scarce recognize my own voice. Marcelle, if I seem distraught and unreasonable, promise me you will pay no heed. For ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... agonised and distraught eye that he had not come merely to exchange civilities. "What can I do for you?" asked ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... my Angel! I mustn't lose her!" cried Take-a-Stitch, distraught at seeing her treasure swept off her tiny feet ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... returned his sister, with a gesture toward the study where Cousin Jasper, distraught, worried, and forlorn, must even then ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... night he stole you away from me? Or was he content to spend the night like a chaste widow?" Wiping his eyes the lad, in carefully chosen words took oath that Ascyltos had used no force against him. (The truth of the matter is, that I was so distraught with my own misfortunes that I knew not what I was saying. "Why recall past memories which can only cause pain," said I to myself. I then directed all my energies towards the recovery of my lost manhood. To achieve this I was ready even to devote myself to the gods; ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... distraught," he said. "What shall God do to men that rob their brothers of His noblest gift—the gift ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar |
