"Diverting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I conceived a new fancy in relation to it; and that was, having heard him make a deep, howling groan at his death, I endeavoured to persuade myself, and at last verily believed, that the voices I had so often heard in the dark weather proceeded from numbers of these creatures, diverting themselves in the lake, or sporting together on the shore; and this thought, in its turn, contributed to ease ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... at the bear with a furious burst of barks, and fixed his teeth in the monster's hind leg, so diverting its attention that it stopped to strike at the ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... led to another, so one blow was usually the prelude to a thrashing. Johnnie saw that he must stop the thing right there; must have instant help in diverting Barber. Taking a quick, deep breath, he sounded his call for aid—a ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... wax, and hides. Obedient to the requisition of Constantine, they prepared, under the conduct of their magistrate Diogenes, a considerable army, of which the principal strength consisted in cross-bows and military chariots. The speedy march and intrepid attack of the Chersonites, by diverting the attention of the Goths, assisted the operations of the Imperial generals. The Goths, vanquished on every side, were driven into the mountains, where, in the course of a severe campaign, above a hundred thousand were computed to have perished by cold ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... folk of their salvage: all day long—even while the ship was going to pieces—they swarmed upon her; and they loaded their punts again and again, fearlessly boarding, and with infinite patience and courage managed to get their heavensent plunder ashore. 'Twas diverting to watch them; and when the twins, who had been among the most active at the wreck, came at last to their father, I laughed to know that, as Timmie said, they had food enough ashore to keep the wrinkles out of their ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... this when, after his sublime discoveries in science had been accomplished, he said, "I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem only like a boy playing upon the seashore, and diverting myself by now and then finding a choice pebble, or a prettier shell than ordinary; while the great ocean of truth lies all undiscovered ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... heaviest when he would and should be lightest—owing apparently to a certain infusion of contempt for light comedy as something rather beneath him, not wholly worthy of his austere and ambitious capacity. The parliament of pages in this play is a diverting interlude of farce, though a mere irrelevance and impediment to the action; but the boys are less amusing than their compeers in the anonymous comedy of "Sir Giles Goosecap," first published in the year preceding: a work of genuine humor and invention, excellent in style if somewhat ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... standards would be small compared with the standards already enforced by most of the trade unions. Consequently, so far as adult male workers are concerned (and they are of course the great bulk of organized labor), labor in America would scarcely be justified in diverting even a part of its energy from trade unionism to a relatively unprofitable seeking of redress through ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... Hence comedy derives itself; which is properly an image of private life. Its design is to expose defects and vices upon the stage, and, by affixing ridicule to them, to make them contemptible; and, consequently, to instruct by diverting. Ridicule, therefore, (or, to express the same word by another, pleasantry,) ought to ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... account of the author's interview with a pious, humble woman, is an agreeable episode, which relieves the mind without diverting it from the serious object of the treatise. It was probably an event which took place in one of those pastoral visits which Bunyan was in the habit of making, and which, if wisely made, so endears a minister to the people of his charge. Christ and a crust is the common saying to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... people, and aided by that conciliatory spirit which has ever characterized their course on great emergencies, were relied upon for a satisfactory settlement of the question. Already has this anticipation, on one important point at least—the impropriety of diverting public money to private purposes—been fully realized. There is no reason to suppose that legislation upon that branch of the subject would now be embarrassed by a difference of opinion, or fail to receive the cordial support of a large majority ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... the comical pair, finding them infinitely diverting; and was only brought back to his immediate duty by the insistence of ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... he was held in check by the resistance of Crema, which he had planned to reduce with a small force while the main bulk of his levies were gathering for the siege of Milan. The attack on Crema was cordially seconded by the citizens of the neighbouring Cremona, who gave their assistance in diverting the watercourses which ran through the city, and lent Frederic the most famous of living engineers to make his siege-machines. Crema was completely invested; and every known method of assault was ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... consternation at the sight of Doctor Nelson had been panic! He could hardly eat. Naturally, the preoccupation of the two Curtises threw the burden of talk upon the others. Doctor Nelson gave himself up to his hostess, and Morton found Edith's ardors, upon every subject under heaven, most diverting; he teased her and baited her, and her eyes grew more shining, and her cheeks pinker, and her gayety more contagious with every repartee she flung back at him. Mrs. Morton struggled heroically with Maurice's ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... horns rattling like a continuous crash of riflery. Before them at a distance of a hundred yards or more a mounted Indian rode toward the farther side of the funnel and took his stand at the very spot at which there was some hope of diverting the rushing herd from the cut-bank down ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... distinguish one waiter from another much as we pick our hat from the rack. We could have plotted a murder safely before William. He never presumed to have opinions of his own. When such was my mood he remained silent, and if I announced that something diverting had happened to me he laughed before I told him what it was. He turned the twinkle in his eye off or on at my bidding as readily as if it was the gas. To my "Sure to be wet to-morrow," he would reply, "Yes, sir;" and to Trelawney's "It ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... mother's sake, the while robbing him of his small change; who was so struck by the fine points of his Honolulan horse that he hung his hat on one of them; who rode glaciers as gaily as he rode Mexican plugs, and found diverting programmes of the Roman Coliseum, in the dust and rubbish of two ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... passing. It has contented us to let the record speak for itself, to attach infamy where it is due, to extort praise where praise is merited. We have not shown an ungenerous exultation at the embroilments of European politics, as diverting the hostile attention of enemies from our own affairs. "We are content," says Mr. Seward, in a despatch to Mr. Adams, "to rely upon the justice of our cause, and our own resources and ability to maintain it." We have not sought the aid of any power; we ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Vera Cruz was neither old nor severe, as the men selected to govern communities of youthful religious are accustomed to be. On the contrary, he was in the flower of his age, and had all the manner of a joyful and diverting youth. His fathership, as they told us, had acquired the priory by means of a gift of a thousand ducats, which he had sent to the Father Provincial. After dinner he invited some of us to visit his cell, and there it ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... overlarded his vocabulary. In the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson] or any other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca. "His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most complete exposure, and a picturesqueness ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry the Eighth (published by Sir H. Nichols, in 1827), are many entries concerning this Domingo, most of which relate to payments of money that he had won from the king at cards and dice. He was evidently, as Sir Harris Nichols observes, one of King Henry's "diverting vagabonds," and seems to have accompanied his majesty wherever he went, for we find that he was with him at Calais in 1532. In all these entries he is only mentioned as Domingo; his surname, and the fact of his being a Lombard, we learn ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.26 • Various
... booths was still more diverting. Here under sheets of leaky awning, were exposed for sale rows of gilded gingerbread kings and queens, and I cannot remember how many men and women held me fast by the arms, determined to force me into buying a pound of them. We paused at the sign: "SIGNOR URBANI'S ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... wished to know why the second reading was to be contended for to-day, when it was diverting the attention of the members from the great object that was before the committee of the whole? Is it because the feelings of the Friends will be hurt, to have their affair conducted in the usual course of business? Gentlemen who advocate the second reading ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... describes it as a piece of Gothic architecture. "It is in the nose that the arch of the forehead properly rests, the weight of which, but for this, would mercilessly crush the cheeks and the mouth." He enters into the philosophy of noses with diverting enthusiasm, and finally concludes, "Non cuique datum est habere nasum:"—it is not every one's good fortune to have a nose! A sharp nose has been considered the visible ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 367 - 25 Apr 1829 • Various
... decorous, and well-dressed person who fell helplessly into a stream off a stepping-stone. I had no wish that he should fall, and I was perfectly conscious of intense sympathy with his discomfort; but I found the scene quite inexpressibly diverting, and I still simmer with laughter at the recollection of the disappearance of the trim figure, and his furious emergence, like an oozy water-god, from the pool. It is not in the least an ill-natured laughter. I did not desire ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the libretto of Serse, Handel seems to have been making a desperate attempt to keep up with the taste of the day. Humour he had in plenty; one has only to recall Acis and Galatea. But the humour of Serse, diverting as it is to the modern historical student, is neither the musical nor the dramatic humour of 1737; the plot bears no resemblance whatever to the Neapolitan comic operas of Vinci and Pergolesi, but rather ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... his greatness of vision, he had the humbleness of a true scientist. A short time before his death he said: "I know not what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble, or a prettier shell, than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... their proper charges, gratifie the common people with them, as an argument of a fatherly affection, and loving goodnesse towards them: and that in populous and frequented cities, there should be Theatres and places appointed for such spectacles; as a diverting of worse inconveniences, and secret actions. But to come to my intended purpose there is no better way to allure the affection, and to entice the appetite: otherwise a man shall breed but asses laden with Bookes. With jerks of rods they have their satchels full of learning given them to ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... destroy all its effects. For example, a mother was in the habit, when her little boy ran beyond his prescribed play-ground, of putting him into solitary confinement. On such occasions, she was very careful to have some amusing book or diverting plaything in a conspicuous part of the room, and not unfrequently a piece of gingerbread was given to solace the runaway. The mother thought it very strange her little boy should so often transgress, ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... which increased in proportion as the other stared at him. "A merry way of waking, and ludicrous enough," said the Chevalier; "what is the matter, and whom do you laugh at!" "Faith, Chevalier," said Matta, "I am laughing at a dream I had just now, which is so natural and diverting, that I must make you laugh at it also. I was dreaming that we had dismissed our maitre-d'hotel, our cook, and our confectioner, having resolved, for the remainder of the campaign, to live upon others ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... house, had had an eye to its defence. He therefore had enclosed the acre or so of ground in which it stood with a high palisade, on the outside of which ran a deep ditch, and this could be filled by diverting a stream from the falls above, ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... neighbourhood which was so far cultivable as it rose above the level of desolate and foggy swamps. But the drainage of the fens and the making of good roads over what had once been an area of amphibious uncertainty, neither wholly land nor wholly water, had the effect of largely diverting business to Boston. Trade that came to Donington when it stood over its own tract of fen, like the elderly and respectable capital of some small island, now went to the thriving and historic port on the Witham. Donington stopped growing, stagnated, declined. On ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... the difficulty now indeed was to choose, for explicit tribute of admiration, between the varieties of her nobler aspects. She carried it off, to put the matter coarsely, with a taste and a discretion that held our young woman's attention, for the first quarter-of-an-hour, to the very point of diverting it from the attitude of her overshadowed, her almost superseded companion. But Adam Verver profited indeed at this time, even with his daughter, by his so marked peculiarity of seeming on no occasion to have an attitude; and so long as they were in the ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... was diverting. Things were constantly happening and George Arnold put aside some of his unhappiness ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... It should be remembered, however, that his comedies while more realistic are not so real as his tragedies. They are, as he himself insists, entertainments; to which jovial sensuality, witty falsehood, and even hypocrisy when it is not morose are admitted, as diverting in their very aberration from the mean rule of life. So that a touch of rascality is a genuine element in comedy, as a touch of danger in sport, and the provocation of the moral sense is part of the fun. But they are all under guard. The moment they pass a certain boundary ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... bursts of laughter were so loud and frequent that the actor was several times obliged to stop in the midst of his part. Bonaparte alone (and it struck me as being very extraordinary) was silent, and coldly insensible to the humour which was so irresistibly diverting to everyone else. I remarked at this period that his character was reserved, and frequently gloomy. His smile was hypocritical, and often misplaced; and I recollect that a few days after our return he gave us one of these specimens ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... That will be lots more diverting than a room-mate who has always done the same common-place things that I have. Oh, you've no idea how hard I'm going to work to deserve all this! I wrote to Jack last night that I intend to tackle school this year just the way I used to kill ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... individual able to arouse him from the alternate contemplation of his official duties at the college and of the sombre cloud hanging above his home. All at once, it came to Brenton that the professor himself might also be a candidate for sympathy, a grateful recipient of diverting conversations which did not focus themselves entirely upon Reed. The first experimental visit to the private laboratory proved to be such an entire success that others followed it until, by degrees, Brenton slid back into ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... crew of desperate villains swore that the odds should be only three to one. By this the whole matter had presented itself to them as an entertainment more diverting than bullfight or bearbaiting. They that follow the sea, whether honest men or black-hearted knaves, have in their composition a certain childlikeness that makes them easily turned, easily led, and easily pleased. The wind of their passion shifts quickly ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... thicker and finer; the Stories better, longer, and more curious for the most part than his: And tho' there's much confusion, huddle and precipitation in the generality of 'em; yet the great variety and number of Incidents tho' ill manag'd, will have several Charms, and be mighty diverting, especially to a vulgar Audience, like the Sight of a large City at a distance, where there is little of Regularity or Uniformity to be discern'd just by. Next, we do much excel Terence in that which we call Humour, that is in our Comical Characters, in which we have shewn ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... name of Bickerstaff in a satirical pamphlet against Partridge, the maker of almanacks. Partridge had been fool enough to publish a furious reply. Bickerstaff had rejoined in a second pamphlet still more diverting than the first. All the wits had combined to keep up the joke, and the town was long in convulsions of laughter. Steele determined to employ the name which this controversy had made popular; and, in 1709, it was announced that Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was about to publish ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... quarters. He made only the feeblest resistance, before permitting himself to be borne backward to the floor, and then as he lay pinned beneath his opponent he did not even try to guard the blows that rained upon him; as a matter of fact, he continued to laugh as if the experience were highly diverting. ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... providing their investment to a certain amount, or that the deficiencies then subsisting must terminate in an open rupture with France. The Directors, pressed by the large payments in England, were not free to abandon their system; and all possible means of diverting the manufactures into the Company's investment were still anxiously sought and pursued, until the difficulties of the foreign companies were at length removed by the natural flow of the fortunes of the Company's servants into Europe, in the manner ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... rue du Bac and the Boulevard St. Germain rises the statue of Claude Chappe, rising like a rock in the midst of the stream of traffic, and like a rock splitting the stream and diverting it into currents which flow east and west, north and south, smoothly and without collision. In guiding the stream of traffic and directing its orderly flow, the statue of Claude Chappe is greatly assisted by the presence of an agent de police, with a picturesque cape and a picturesque sword, and ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... the modern stage, which hath not thought proper to adopt it, is even, with the advantage of, sometimes, the justest moral painting and sublimest imagery, but a very faint shadow of the old; as must needs appear to those who have looked into the ancient models, or, diverting themselves of modern prejudices, are disposed to consult the dictates of plain sense. For the use of such, I once designed to have drawn into one view the several important benefits arising to the drama from the ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... make them more savage than before, and, in spite of the fire kept up by the party, they advanced close to the sledge, apparently determined on making an instant attack. To preserve the party, therefore, the pig was thrown to the wolves, which had for a moment the effect of diverting their attention. While this was going forward, the horse, driven to desperation by the near approach of the wolves, struggled and plunged so violently that he broke the shafts to pieces, galloped off, and made good his escape. The pig was devoured, and the wolves again threatened ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... connexion with England would be felt to be unnatural, and that it was certain to be broken. For England the loss of these possessions was no disaster; it was indeed as great a blessing as to France. The chief gain was that it cut off many diverting interests from the barons of England, just at a time when they were learning to be jealous of their rights at home and were about to enter upon a struggle with the king to compel him to regard the law in his government of ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... will ever make it into a comedy. You may add a lot of knockabout and perhaps get an acceptable farce, or you can write in sensation and get travesty, but you cannot by these means change the unfit into comedy, and the broad use of 'comedy' to apply to anything intended to be diverting is a misuse of an ancient and honorable word.... To my way of thinking comedy is first of all a good story. It is a story and not merely an incident or a collection of incidents. There must be a plot ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... not diverting the language of my text from its true meaning, but simply opening its depth, when I say that the condition of the inflow of this unwearied and immortal life into our poor, fainting, dying humanity is simply the trust in Jesus Christ the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... part such a stranger to man, that we are but little aware of its peculiarities. We know indeed that the hare is good to hunt and good to eat; but in all other respects poor Puss is a neglected subject. In the year 1774, being much indisposed, both in mind and body, incapable of diverting myself either with company or books, and yet in a condition that made some diversion necessary, I was glad of anything that would engage my attention without fatiguing it. The children of a neighbour ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... provoking sallies of humour. He was not quick at seeing a joke. And when middle age was well past with him, he did not always see when he had himself been provocative of an upset of gravity on the part of the students. He did not always discover in time the pranks and designs for diverting the course of true knowledge in which the average young Englishman loves to indulge. He had not a very close focus for this sort of thing, and probably the reason was, that he was so absolutely absorbed in the subject which he was teaching or upon ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... look about her for something diverting. At no great distance was a little baby in a blue cloak. Not a very attractive baby, but a great deal better ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
... submit to every kind of monopoly, except of woman; and to pretend an exclusive right to her is, in their opinion, only worthy of a barbarian. But the most forward and tormenting of them all is my quondam friend, the Count; who is half a lunatic, but of so diverting a kind that, ere a man has time to be angry, he either cuts a caper, utters an absurdity, or acts some mad antic or other, that sets ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... issues: government water control projects have drained most of the inhabited marsh areas east of An Nasiriyah by drying up or diverting the feeder streams and rivers; a once sizable population of Shi'a Muslims, who have inhabited these areas for thousands of years, has been displaced; furthermore, the destruction of the natural habitat poses serious threats to the area's ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... they of the Massachusetts,—hunting, fishing, and fowling more, and working on the land less. Nor do they keep the Lord's Day so strict; many of the young people going abroad, both riding and walking, visiting each other, and diverting themselves, especially after the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the better must be gradual, and can only be accomplished by bringing the thought current of an all-round symmetrical strength to bear on it,—by demanding of the Supreme Power to be led in the best way, by diverting your mind from the many unhealthy thoughts which habitually have been flowing into it without your knowing it, to ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... find his role less diverting and to curse the stupid curiosity, the imprudent heedlessness which had thrown him into a position as ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... The adventures of those who, for the sake of supplying themselves with money for their debaucheries, have betaken themselves to the desperate trade of knights of the road, often have in them circumstances diverting enough and such as serve to show us what sort of amusements they are by which vice betrays us to ruin, and how the fatal inclination to gratify our passions ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... not pay much attention to the little peoples of the country and at the same time keep their eyes upon each other. Afterwards the Balkan countries found that it was better for them when the Great Powers fought each other there than when they came to friendly understandings. It was profitable and diverting for Albania when the Austrians and the Italians glowered at each other in that silent land: it was terrible in 1878 for Bosnia and Herzegovina when the Great Powers were on such good terms with one another that they allowed one of themselves to make off with those ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... betraying apprehensions of personal safety, prevailed over my first impulse. Accordingly, I thanked Taee for his courteous consideration for my amusement, and professed my willingness to set out with him on so diverting ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... he takes an interest in is of a very limited nature. The most excellent work may therefore be tedious subjectively to this or that person, just as, vice versa, the worst work may be subjectively diverting to this or that person: because he is interested in either the subject or the ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... snake which is said to contain in its body a remedy for the poison of its fangs, become, as it enlarged my mind, a source of discontent at my humble situation; but, at the same time, the only solace in my unhappiness, by diverting my thoughts from the present. Pass, then, nearly two years, reader, taking the above remarks as an outline, and filling up the picture from the colours of your imagination, with incidents of no peculiar value, and ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... with the man to whom the Empress wished to speak. He now did not succeed in attracting his attention till he stood close at his elbow, for he formed the centre of a small group of men and women who were hanging on his words. What he was saying in a subdued voice must have been extraordinarily diverting, for it could be seen that his hearers were making the greatest efforts to keep their suppressed laughter from breaking out into a shout that would shake the very hall, a noise the Empress detested. When the prefect came up to Verus, a young girl, whose pretty head was crowned by a perfect ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... we robbed the Church of Saint Maturin,—I abridge the list of our gambols. Now we harvest. Rene de Montigny's bones swing in the wind yonder at Montfaucon. Colin de Cayeux they broke on the wheel. The rest—in effect, I am the only one that justice spared,—because I had diverting gifts at rhyming, they said. Pah! if they only knew! I am immortal, lass. Exegi monumentum. Villon's glory and Villon's shame will ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... Suddenly Cynthia looked up, and caught Roger's gaze of intent admiration too fully for her to be unaware that he was staring at her. She coloured a little, but after the first moment of rosy confusion at his evident admiration of her, she flew to the attack, diverting his confusion at thus being caught, to the defence ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... before an image of the Virgin, in a gallery outside the great cathedral, near the roof, I fancied that the great piazza of the Winged Lion was a blaze of cheerful light, and that its whole arcade was thronged with people; while crowds were diverting themselves in splendid coffee-houses opening from it—which were never shut, I thought, but open all night long. When the bronze giants struck the hour of midnight on the bell, I thought the life and animation of the city ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... do? I had no book to read. And yet, unless I found out some method of diverting my mind, I felt certain that I was in the condition to imagine all sorts of horrors; to rack my brain with forebodings of every possible and impossible danger; in short, to pass the night in suffering all ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... on in silence for a few moments, torn by doubts and misgivings. Landover's sarcastic analysis was like a douche of cold water. Perhaps he was right. It had been a spectacular, not to say diverting, exhibition. Her eyes darkened. An expression of pain ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... had some glimpses of it in passing, from certain maxims which I mentioned to you. For example, when I was showing you how servants might execute certain troublesome jobs with a safe conscience, did you not remark that it was simply by diverting their intention from the evil to which they were accessory, to the profit which they might reap from the transaction? Now, that is what we call directing the intention. You saw, too, that, were it not for a similar divergence of the mind, those who give money for benefices ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... all the details with an interest and animation which rather amused Dr. Masham. Venetia listened and suggested, and responded to the frequent appeals of Cadurcis to her judgment with an unconscious equanimity not less diverting. ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... being choked, for there was no chimney. Besides the room was full of men and women, "blacker than Devils and clad like Beggars ... always some of 'em impudently grating on a sorry Guitar."[280] Even the large cities were not diverting, for though they were handsome enough and could show "certain massie and solid Braveries," yet they had few of the attractions of urban life. The streets were so ill-paved that the horses splashed water into one's carriage at every step.[281] A friend ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... Stanzas on a Favourite Canary, Lines on a Butterfly. What is much more to the point is, that at the age of eight he was able not only to read, but to take delight in Pope's translation of Homer. He used to go about declaiming certain couplets with an air of intense earnestness highly diverting to ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... to get along without stage manager or prompter—this reality which frequently never gets to the fifth act, merely because the hero happens to be struck on the head by a brick in the second. I make the curtain rise when the plot takes a diverting turn, and I drop it the moment I have proved ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... "and it's evidently a subject of the utmost satisfaction to his mother, so I won't make carping criticisms, but take it as a moral for the necessity of due humility over one's own productions. Perhaps mine would be as diverting to an Academician as his are ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... the future—save that money and perhaps become miserly and covetous? Without the masses, novenaries, and processions, where will you find games of panguingui to entertain them in their hours of leisure? They would then have to devote themselves to their household duties and instead of reading diverting stories of miracles, we should then have to get them works that ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... "meddling"—so his father put it—in the affairs of the town, the state, and the nation, as well as those of the Lossing furniture company. But, though he was pleased to make rather cynical fun of his son's political enthusiasm, esteeming it in a sense a diverting and therefore reprehensible pursuit for a business man, the elder Lossing had a sneaking pride in it, all the same. He liked to bring out Harry's ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... when it is elevated beyond its natural pitch.' The effect of punch, after wine, was to make a philosopher argue hotly against his profoundest beliefs; yet it is to Godwin's supper that we owe this diverting palinodia. And all Englishmen should be grateful to Godwin for having written the tragedy of Antonio; for not only was it most justly damned, but it also elicited some letters to the unlucky author that are unmatched ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... and, by an over-easiness, they are inclined to spoil both their sense of distinction and their children. Yes, they consent to theatres that degrade them, because they distract and amuse; and read journals that are smart and diverting at the expense of dignity and truth—in the same way as they smile at the child whom reason bids them reprove, and with the like tragic result; for they become incapable of enjoying works of art, as the child is incapacitated for the best of social ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... DIVERTING in extreme there is a play, Which oft resumes its fascinating sway; Delights the sex, or ugly, fair, or sour; By night or day:—'tis sweet at any hour. The frolick, ev'ry where is known to fame; Conjecture if you ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... bubble in The Patriot office with promise of hotter upheavals to come. The Laird administration had shown its intention of diverting city advertising, and Marrineal had countered in the news columns by several minor but not ineffective exposures of weak spots in the city government. Banneker, who had on the whole continued to support the administration in its reform plans, decided ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... long horns in the spokes of the wheel, the next blundered on to it and forced it to its knees, another blundered on to that, until in about a minute and a half there was piled up a most effectual rampart of struggling beasts, which effectually checked the onrush from behind, diverting it ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... this duty finished, liked nothing better than a friendly chat. She knew the history of Pont-a-Mousson and Montauville and the inhabitants thereof by heart; she had tales to tell of the shrewdness of the peasants and diverting anecdotes of their manners and morals. These stories she told very well ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... choice of the sword or Christian baptism. Therefore the happy emperor sat at his ease in a wide-spreading orchard. Around him stood Roland, Olivier, Samsun the duke, Anseis, Gefrei d'Anjou, and Gerier. At least fifteen thousand French knights were diverting themselves with different games in the beautiful orchard, where, under a pine-tree, the great King of France sat upon a golden chair. His white hair and flowing white beard added majesty to his already majestic figure, so that the olive-bearing messengers ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... a kind of mania for organisation which is the sworn enemy of order; in its efforts to discover the best place for everything, it ends by diverting everything from its right function and locality, and making everything as inopportune as itself. It was a mistake to cut off all the lights this evening, on some pretext or the other. The rooms of the old mansion are not packed with bales of cotton, but with men who have ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... the Premier, he replied: 'Oh, his extraordinary readiness at seeing the humorous side of anything, his almost boyish love of fun. He seems to have a power of dismissing the weight of public affairs, of diverting himself with the playfulness of youth.' Sir George was living in Park Place, St. James's, and on returning from Windsor the Premier drove him there. His rooms were at Number 7, and here the street ended in a sharp ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... voyage to China, he was met half-way by the news of the Indian Mutiny; how promptly and magnanimously he took on himself the responsibility of sacrificing the success of his own expedition by diverting the troops from China to India; how, after many weary months of enforced inactivity, the expedition was resumed, and carried through numberless thwartings to a successful issue—these are matters of history with which every reader must be acquainted. But those who are most familiar ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... obscure, perplexed and vulgar; and his frequent play with words, his oppositions of contradictory terms, his mixture of tragick and comick, of serious and burlesque, are all flat; and his jocularity, if you examine it to the bottom, is all false. Menander is diverting in a more elegant manner; his style is pure, clear, elevated, and natural; he persuades like an orator, and instructs like a philosopher; and, if we may venture to judge upon the fragments which remain, it appears that his ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... graceful, his shapely golden head ruffled, his chin pressed against his chest. His expression was indescribably sweet and boyish, the shadow of anxiety and pain accentuating a wistful if determined cheerfulness. He was deliberately entertaining Bella, diverting her mind from its agony of apprehension. She saw through him, but like a sick child she took the ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... Ottoman—not earthquake, plague, or conflagration, though by all it was smitten—overwhelmed the city whose place in Europe had been so distinguished. The decadence of enterprise, the growing discredit put upon industry, the final discovery by Vasco da Gama of the passage around the Cape of Good Hope, diverting traffic into new channels—these laid their silent and tightening grasp on the power ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... eat at that time,' he said, 'but milk and stirabout and potatoes, and there was a fine constitution you wouldn't meet this day at all. I remember when you'd see forty boys and girls below there on a Sunday evening, playing ball and diverting themselves; but now all this country is gone lonesome and bewildered, and there's no man knows ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... camel, to be known, must be examined and compared with other quadrupeds, but that the great arts can be judged out of the depths of a penny-a-liner's inner consciousness, and to be rated and ranked need not be compared inter se. Applying the microscope to the method of the novelist, but diverting the glass from the learned judge's method in Biography, the learned historian's method in History, and the daily chronicler's method in dressing res gestoe for a journal, this little addle-pate has jumped to a comparative estimate, not based on comparison, so ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... with mixed feeling, her sense that his "Arcadia" was of far too fleshly and soul-beguiling an order of literature, battling with her admiration for his character as a man, and making a diverting conflict between reason and inclination. As with Queen Elizabeth, she compromised by merely hinting her opinion of certain irregularities, and hastened to cover any damaging admission with a mantle of ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... scholar says in Hampstead Heath that no profession nowadays offers much prospect of success for a man trained as he, and, as for poetry, one can only expect to be "two years writing a Play, and sollicit three more to get it acted; and for present Sustenance one's forc'd to scribble The Diverting Post, A Dialogue between Charing-Cross and Bow Steeple, and Elegies upon People that ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... at her, but Missy didn't mind father's jokes at her expense so much as most grown-ups'. Besides she was grateful to him for diverting attention from her ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... in silent gloom while sixty minutes were drummed out by the flying hoofs. The hills folded in about the way, diverting it hither and yon with raw, seamed spurs, whose flanks flung back harsh and heavy echoes of the tonga's flight through riven gulch and scrub-grown valley. And then it was that Ram Nath proved his mettle. Hardened himself, he showed no mercy to his passenger, and never once drew rein, though the ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... it down with a stick, and having recovered it, I brought it home, but it was some years before I could make him speak. However, at last I taught him to call me by my name very familiarly: but the accident that followed, though it be a trifle, will be very diverting in ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... Nevis, and she recovered completely, although forced to shroud not the least of her desires. But the wild despair of Warner while she was in danger, and his following devotion, his inspired ingenuity in diverting her during her term of sadness and protest, made her feel that to cherish disappointment even in her inmost soul would be flying in the face of providence; her spirits struggled up to their normal high level, and once ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... care, Regina anticipated her wishes, indulged all her varying caprices, devoted herself assiduously to the task of diverting her mind, and comforting her heart by the tender ministrations of her own intense filial affection. By day she read, talked, sang to her. When in the tormenting still hours of night her mother refused the ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... withstand his command for an instant. He pretended that he recognised this sprite by some marks which were invisible to the company, to whom he turned with a smile, and said, 'This sort of spirit does not often do much harm, and is always very diverting.' To hear him talk, one would have imagined that he knew all about spirits,—their names, their rank, their numbers, their employment, and all the functions they were destined to; and he boasted of being much better acquainted with the intrigues of demons than he was with the affairs ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... it, when the humour's upon on him he doth thunder and lighten like your true King; now where got he that trick? See him scribble and scratch away contentedly at his meaningless pot-hooks, fancying them to be Latin and Greek—and except my wit shall serve me with a lucky device for diverting him from his purpose, I shall be forced to pretend to post away to-morrow on this wild errand he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... an inquisitive mind, there was something of interest to be seen and speculated over, in the lighted windows of houses all about him. People could be seen eating their late suppers, rocking by the fire, playing the piano, dancing, taking a rubber at whist or euchre, or diverting themselves with other recreations of winter house life. In one upper chamber, a physician was presenting a child just born to the proud father. In another, there was a mysterious spectacle, which a closer examination might have proved to be the ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... coming from the direction of the railway- station, you see it frame with its sharp compass-line the perfect picture, the reach of the Canal on the other side. But the backs of the little shops make from the water a graceless collective hump, and the inside view is the diverting one. The big arch of the bridge—like the arches of all the bridges—is the waterman's friend in wet weather. The gondolas, when it rains, huddle beside the peopled barges, and the young ladies from the hotels, vaguely fidgeting, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... judge him by yourself. Boys of to-day are not having the early training that fell to your lot, and their latent ability is just that much slower in showing itself. You see so much of the serious side of life, it will be diverting to hear the frank expressions of one of the younger generation. I am curious to know what you ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... Church, who wanted to abolish their chair of Logic in the New College, but could not well do so so long as they had its present incumbent on their hands. A doggerel parody on John Gilpin, entitled "The Diverting History of John Cairns," in which a highly coloured account is given of the supposed genesis of the pamphlet, was written and found wide circulation. The first two stanzas of ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... latter had told him how an old woman had once escaped from a wode[215:1] by climbing up a mountain ash. And if, reasoned Vernand, the ash is a protection against one form of evil spirits, why not against another? He recollected that there was an ash-tree close at hand, and diverting his course, he instantly headed for it. Not a moment too soon. As he swarmed up the slender trunk, his pursuers—three monstrous werwolves—came to a dead halt at the foot of the tree. However, after giving ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... (probably about 457 B.C.) the Athenians had transferred the common treasury from Delos to Athens, and diverting the tribute from its original purpose, were beginning to spend it, not in the prosecution of war against the Barbarians, but in the execution of home enterprises, as though the treasure ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... brave were foiled by the armour of Hobaddan; for the enchantress Hapacuson, studious of diverting the attention of the Sultan Misnar, had assisted Hobaddan with her counsel and with invulnerable arms; wherefore, seeing their labour vain and fruitless against the pretended and unconquerable ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... kept. Through her crystal gazing she was able to conjure women's secrets without their realizing that they, not she, gave them to the light. And aboard the Monarchic was not by any means the first time that Madalena had been invaluable in diverting suspicion by throwing it ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... readily agreed to this proposal. Indeed, in the circumstances, any proposal that offered the faintest hope of diverting their minds from present trouble would have been welcome to them at that moment. The marine was nothing loath to fall in with the fancy of his irrepressible comrade, but we do not propose to follow them in the talk that ensued. We will rather turn at once to those events ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... ideas. I have examined the matter and I have come to the conclusion that you must be amused. It is therefore my duty to provide you with amusement. As I cannot sing, nor dance, and as you do not play cards, I cannot think of any more fitting method of diverting you than by reading aloud. German literature offers much variety. You have only to choose the author you prefer, and I will read as ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... her mother and smiled, and blushed a little in a charming acknowledgment of feminine power to sway the minds of the sterner half of humanity. Then she grew thoughtful again, not even flattery diverting her long ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... ability to judge correctly of evidence. Most of us, Mr. Mill says, are very unsafe hands at estimating evidence, if appeal cannot be made to actual eyesight. Indeed, if we think of some of the tales that have been lately diverting the British Association, we might perhaps go farther, and describe many of us as very bad hands at estimating evidence, even where appeal can be made to actual eyesight. Eyesight, in fact, is the least ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 1: On Popular Culture • John Morley
... go to supper till late, and, in order to amuse ourselves while our beef was preparing, a Mandingo was desired to relate some diverting stories, in listening to which, and smoking tobacco, we spent three hours. These stories bear some resemblance to those in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, but, in general, are ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... weaponless into the arena to be mangled by lions or bears or other huge beasts: others are left clad in their tunics; some of these are allowed the semblance of a weapon; a club, knife, dagger or light javelin; so that their appearance of having some chance may make their destruction more diverting to the spectators: others, in order to prolong their agonies, are furnished with real weapons, as a sword, a pike, a trident, even a hunting spear with a full-sized triangular head, its edges honed sharp as razors; others are left completely clad, with or without sham weapons or actual arms, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... to Father Buzachini I say that he acted just as the others, sitting up late in the nunnery, diverting himself, and letting the usual disorders go on. There were several nuns who had love affairs on his account. His own principal mistress was Odaldi, of St. Lucia, who used to send him continual treats. He was also in love with the daughter of our factor, of whom ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... their power of diverting or containing a larger force than their own that justifies the breach of the law ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... grace, fumbling with his watch chain, looking at his watch as if the speaker had already overstepped his time, looking nervously at his program as if something of enormous importance had been forgotten, and doing a dozen similar things, most of them unconsciously, but none the less continuously diverting the attention of the audience from the speaker ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... Bob, or collectively as "the three B's." They roomed on the top floor of the Westcott House and were famous in the house for being at the same time prime favorites of the matron and the ringleaders in every plot against her peace of mind, and outside for their unique and diverting methods of recreation. It was they who had successfully gulled Mary Brooks with a rumor as absurd as her own; and accounts of the "spread" they had handed out to the night-watchman in a tin pail, and dangled just ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... Street in front of the village stores, the merchants and hangers-on discussed the affair. It was diverting that a graduate of Harvard should come back to Hooker's Bend and immediately drop into such a fracas. Old Captain Renfrew, one-time attorney at law and representative of his county in the state legislature, ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... of this new brisker man of quality; so that after some pros and cons the whole matter was thus concluded on between these two young persons, who neither wanted wit nor beauty; and both crowed over the little contrivance, as a most diverting piece of little malice, that should serve their present turn, and make them sport for the future. The next thing that was considered was a letter which was to be sent in answer, and that Sylvia being to write with her own hand begot a new doubt, insomuch as the whole ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... and curious, and occasionally we had a real piece of dramatic "fat," in the shape of charges of witchcraft. Assaults or threatening language "likely to cause breaches of the Peace" were also regarded as highly diverting. Charges of witchcraft were usually levelled by one old lady against another. One might hear accounts of how intrepid men and women nailed down the footsteps of the witch, of how deadly-nightshade was grown over ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... of consciousness which we are giving to the fact of its transition. Thus, when the mind is unoccupied and suffering from ennui, we feel time to move sluggishly. On the other hand, interesting employment, by diverting the thoughts from time, makes it appear to move at a more rapid pace. This fact is shown in the common expressions which we employ, such as "to kill time," and the German Langweile. Similarly, it is said that when we are eagerly ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... been, nor what they had seen, nor how they had missed us; and Dermot invented for the nonce a legend about a fairy in the hill, who made people gyrate round it in utter oblivion of all things; thus successfully diverting the attention of Miss Sandford, who took it all seriously. Yes, she ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have the consolation of marrying Papillette, or beholding our grandchildren. Of two monarchs so worthy of her, one has lost his reason, the other has cast himself into the sea; and while we continue to weep, she, already consoled, thinks only of diverting herself!" ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... his diverting simplicity, complained one day, in a mixed company, of Lord Camden. 'I met him (said he) at Lord Clare's house[914] in the country, and he took no more notice of me than if I had been an ordinary man.' The company having laughed heartily, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill |
