"Distract" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Saint-Genevieve, whither Lucien was going, he had come to know a stranger by sight; a young man of five-and-twenty or thereabouts, working with the sustained industry which nothing can disturb nor distract, the sign by which your genuine literary worker is known. Evidently the young man had been reading there for some time, for the librarian and attendants all knew him and paid him special attention; the librarian would even allow him to take away ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... whose bosom, all serene, Feels not fierce Passion's raving tempest roll! Oh, ne'er may Care distract that placid mien! Oh, ne'er may Doubt's ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... your husband's business affairs, and sympathize with the cares and anxieties which beset him. Distract his mind with pleasant or amusing conversation, when you find him nervous and fagged in brain ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... impression on the young girl. Jenkins became immediately her friend, confidant, a vigilant and kind guardian. Occasionally, when, in the studio, somebody—her father most likely of all—uttered a risky jest, the Irishman would contract his eyebrows, give a little click of the tongue, or perhaps distract Felicia's attention. ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... the thrilling sensations extracted from incidents wholly unlike anything possible in their lives, but near enough to reported facts to be able to astonish and excite them. Such improbable but ingeniously contrived events are enough to distract them, and if there be more in Mr. Hyne's stories imparted by his personal eagerness and honesty, it escapes them, or at ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... to distract his thoughts. He was out in the streets again before the ballet turn came on even. It had started to rain, a slight, indefinite drizzle; Leicester Square presented a drab and dingy appearance. The blaze of lights from the ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... a century ago, especially in Great Britain and the United States, but also in other countries, the method of allaying discontent was to distract public attention from politics altogether by stimulating the chase after private wealth. But as private wealth is more and more difficult to attain, this policy is rapidly replaced by the very opposite tactics, ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... still be to thy steerage just, Nor change thy course with every sudden gust; Like supple patriots of the modern sort, Who turn with every gale that blows from court. Weary and sea-sick, when in thee confined, Now for thy safety cares distract my mind; As those who long have stood the storms of state Retire, yet still bemoan their country's fate. Beware, and when you hear the surges roar, Avoid the rocks on Britain's angry shore. They lie, alas! too easy ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... (the chief rejoin'd), Deeds full of fate distract my various mind, In contemplation wrapp'd. This hostile crew What single arm hath prowess to subdue? Or if, by Jove's and thy auxiliar aid, They're doom'd to bleed; O say, celestial maid! Where shall Ulysses shun, or how sustain Nations embattled ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... thought that you retained for that wretch one particle of the love of which he was never worthy, I would die before I would distract you by telling you what I feel. No! were your husband the master of your heart, I might perhaps love you; but ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... moment, endeavoring to abstract her thoughts from all outward objects, so as the more readily to determine what course to adopt. But for a while it seemed as though it was impossible for her to fix her mind aright. Each instant some intruding trifle interfered to distract her attention from the only great object which now should claim it. A long-forgotten incident of the past would come into her mind—or perhaps some queer conceit which at the time had caused laughter. She did not laugh now, but none the less would she find herself revolving the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and betray him? The anxiety occasioned by this possibility made her hate me. The agony of her little one's departure, the fear of some dire discovery, the consciousness of guilt near enough of vicinage almost to seem her own, combined to nearly distract her mind, and it seemed like a joyful relief when I departed. The sudden release from that constant pressure of fear (she knew I could do nothing against them without money, credit, or friends) made her ill for a time, quite ill, she said. She knew not what was done for her during ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... will endeavour to keep thee from hearing of the word, by suggesting unto [thee] this and the other worldly business which must be performed; so that thou wilt not want excuse to keep thee from the ordinances of Christ, in hearing, reading, meditation, &c., or else, he seeks to disturb, and distract thy mind when thou art conversant in these things, that thou canst not attend to them diligently, and so they become unprofitable; or else if thou art a little more stirred, he labours to rock thee asleep again, by casting thee upon, and keeping ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... brought to him every six months, fasted, starved himself, prayed day and night. Often sunrise found him still in prayer. "O sun," cried he, "why hast thou risen and prevented my contemplating the true light?" He felt himself surrounded by demons, who, under every form, sought to distract him from his religious thoughts. When he became old and revered by all Egypt, he returned to Alexandria for a day to preach against the Arian heretics, but soon repaired to the desert again. They besought him ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... 1681-82, to cure which 'recourse was had to bathing my legs in milk up to ye knees, made as hot as I could endure it', Evelyn made his will and put all his affairs in order 'that now growing in yeares, I might have none of the secular things and concerns to distract me when it should please Almighty God to call me from this transitory life'. In November 1682 he was asked by many friends to stand for election as president of the Royal Society, in succession to Sir Christopher Wren, but pleading 'remote dwelling, and now frequent infirmities' he declined ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... talk,' said Karenin. 'There must be all sorts of lively-minded people here. Let them come and gossip with me. It will distract me—and I can't tell you how interesting it makes everything that is going on to have seen the dawn of ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... sat Bridgie looking on and crying copiously with happiness, and Esmeralda blinking the tears away and laughing furtively at Jack, who was grunting to himself, "Silly fuss! Silly fuss!" and putting on a great appearance of boredom to distract attention from the tears on his eyelashes. There sat Mr and Mrs Vane, too, beaming with pleasure that their prize should have gone to Pixie of all people, and Lottie rubbing her hands and growing hysterical in delight. Then Pixie was marched up to ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... "A short journey like that couldn't fatigue, and might distract her thoughts. Let her go by all means,—it would be the ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... horrible and loathsome creature appeared from below and perched itself upon the side of the case. Even the unexpected fall of the Duke of Durham into the orchestra, which occurred at this moment, could not distract the petrified attention of the vast audience. The face of the creature was like the wildest gargoyle that the imagination of a mad medieval builder could have conceived. It was malicious, horrible, with two small red eyes as bright as points of ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... round pebble stones. Other canoes came off along with them, having only women on board; and while these females were assiduously practising their allurements, by attitudes that could not be misunderstood, with the view, as it would seem, to distract the attention of the crew, the large double canoes closed round the ship; and as these advanced, some of the men began singing, some blowing conchs, and others playing on flutes. One of them, with a person sitting under a canopy, approached the ship so close, as to allow this ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... Machin Street. She agreed, and, in passing the music-stool, gave a small parcel which she was carrying to Penkethman, and told him he might as well put it in the music-stool. She was glad to have tea with Charlie Woodruff. It would distract her, prevent her from thinking. The ecstasy had almost died out, and she had a violent desire not ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... afternoon I believe he read—Gertrude and I were out, as I have said, and at dinner we both noticed that something had occurred to distract him. He was disagreeable, which is unlike him, nervous, looking at his watch every few minutes, and he ate almost nothing. He asked twice during the meal on what train Mr. Jamieson and the other detective ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... how are you to fix your attention when there are so many things going on around you to distract your thoughts? I can only answer, that as our minds are in many respects of different orders, so, no general rule can be given. If you will, each one, faithfully make the attempt, I have no doubt you will succeed, in just the same proportion as ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... myself, I felt as if I had fifty lives to lose, Anneke being, uppermost in my thoughts. The females, however, behaved uncommonly well; making no noise, and using all the self-command they could assume, in order not to distract the exertions of their husbands and friends. Some of the wives of the sturdy settlers, indeed, actually exhibited a species of stern courage that would have done credit to soldiers; appearing in the court, armed, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... on with all his power, resolving to attack the sea bastion by means of three castles well stored with cannon and ammunition, which were built upon a ship of vast size; within the castles were 200 Turks, who were intended to distract the attention of the defendants by continually pouring in all sorts of artificial fireworks. This device was however abortive, as Jacome Leite went by night in two small vessels with twenty men, and though discovered he succeeded in setting the floating ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... now rich and idle, and abandoned to all the temptations of riches and idleness. There was still some fine talk about Jerusalem, pilgrims, and crusades. The popes still kept these words prominent, either to distract the Western Christians from intestine quarrels, or to really promote some new Christian effort in the East. The Isle of Cyprus was still a small Christian kingdom, and the warrior- monks, who were ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... (save, possibly, the horse) had any twinges of conscience to keep him awake that night. The incident is brimful of pedagogy in that it shows that, in order to cure a horse of an attack of balking, you have but to distract his mind from his balking and get him to thinking of something else. Before this occurrence taught me the better way, I was quite prone, in dealing with a balking boy, to hold his mind upon the subject of balking. I told him how unseemly it was, how ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... easy as when one follows a plow up a furrow and down a furrow. You are quite alone, and there is nothing to distract you but the crows hopping about picking up worms. The thoughts seemed to come to the man as readily as if some one had whispered them into his ear. Only on rare occasions had he been able to think as quickly and clearly as on that day, and the thought of it gladdened and encouraged him. ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... verse from the Women's Marseillaise. "There's many singing that song to-day in prison that would be glad to sit and breathe fresh air and look at a fine view as you're doing, so you ought to be thankful!" And indeed the view of the Castle did just for that moment distract her from the business of weeping, for there had been a certain violent alteration of the weather. The autumn sunshine, which had never been more than a sarcasm on the part of a thoroughly unpleasant day, had failed altogether, ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... little more than a sweeping gesture indicating the line I was to follow. No doubt his sudden rising from behind the gorse-bush, his curious swiftness, and the way he peered into my face, and even touched me on the shoulder, all combined to distract my attention somewhat from the actual words he used; and the fact that I was travelling at a wrong angle, and should have come out a mile too far to the right, helped to complete my feeling that his gesture, pointing the way, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... chose to let it down in a flood of splendor. Her deep gray eyes contained wells of womanly wisdom. Her skin, fair as a lily of Artois, had borrowed from the sun five or six faint freckles, just to prove the purity of her blood and distract the eye with a variety of charms. The Merovingian Princess, the long-haired daughter of kings, as she was fondly styled by the nuns, queened it wherever she went by right divine of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... dash upon Arcot. He had, however, perceived that the operations there were wholly secondary, and that Trichinopoli was still the all-important point. The fall of that place would more than neutralize Clive's successes at Arcot; and he, therefore, did not suffer Clive's operations to distract his attention here. Strong reinforcements and a battering train were sent forward to the besiegers; and, by repeated messages, he endeavoured to impress upon Law and Chunda Sahib the necessity of pressing forward the ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... Clarkson, Washington, U.S.A., have appealed to the Government to protect them against a plague of frogs. The Federal authorities have informed the Press that these insidious attempts to distract the Government from its Prohibition programme must ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... Priests, and the repression of them, will distract the King's conscience; Emigrant Princes and Noblesse will force him to double-dealing: there must be veto on veto; amid the ever-waxing indignation of men. For Patriotism, as we said, looks on from without, more and more suspicious. Waxing tempest, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the factions which distract my country, and to the enmity of the greatest powers of Europe, I have terminated my political career, and I come, like Themistocles, to throw myself upon the hospitality of the British people. I put myself under ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... the newly-elected King of Poland, was a veteran soldier of great military renown. He placed himself at the head of other divisions of the army, and endeavored to distract the enemy and to divide their forces. At the same time, Alexis himself hastened to the theater of war that he might animate his troops by his presence. The Turks, finding themselves unable to advance ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... presence he felt himself as diffident as she did in his. He was thinking of ladies in velvet dresses and diamonds, who could talk wittily of pictures and theatres and books, who could amuse him and distract him. And meanwhile she went about in her old stuff dress, her cotton apron and rolled-up sleeves, cooking and washing and cleaning—for her child and for him. She felt through every nerve that he was constantly aware of details of dress or menage that jarred upon ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the cardinals; and that he had a daughter, Novella, so accomplished in law as to be able to read her father's lectures in his absence, and so beautiful, that she had to read behind a curtain lest her face should distract the attention of the students. He is said to have died at Bologna of the plague in 1348, and an epitaph in the church of the Dominicans in which he was buried, calling him Rabbi Doctorum, Lux, Censor, Normaque Morum, testifies to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... either of the last two than the first. There was no power of coercion anywhere. All that Congress could do was to try to frame laws that would reconcile differences, and bring thirteen supreme governments upon some common ground of agreement. To distract and perplex it still more, it stood face to face with a well-disciplined and veteran army which might at any moment, could it find a leader to its mind, march upon Philadelphia and deal with Congress as Cromwell dealt with the Long Parliament. There were some men, probably, in that body, who would ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... down. Aside.] From the way he looks up and sighs, I conclude that my effort to distract him has simply increased his longing. The proverb is right. "You can't reason with a lover." [Aloud.] Well, she told me to tell you that she would have to come here this evening. I suppose she isn't satisfied with the necklace and is coming to ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... depended on his reaching the station with exactly the right time to spare. He was rather anxious about it, since his plan would be spoiled at the start if the train were late. By striking a match in the shelter of the screen, he could see his watch, but it did not seem prudent to distract John's attention often. ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... seemed impossible she should not come again after our interview; and for the next I had speedily ripened a fresh plan. A prisoner, if he has one great disability for a lover, has yet one considerable advantage: there is nothing to distract him, and he can spend all his hours ripening his love and preparing its manifestations. I had been then some days upon a piece of carving—no less than the emblem of Scotland, the Lion Rampant. This I proceeded to finish with what skill I was possessed of; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Let grief distract the sufferer's breast, And night obscure his way; They hasten him to endless rest, And ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... proportion and form there is, without doubt, much that is unsymmetrical in her designs. Interesting she always is, but to the trained eye scenes of minor importance are, strictly speaking, too long: descriptions in musical language sometimes distract the reader from the progress of the story. But this arose from her own joy in writing: much as she valued proportion, she liked expressing her mind better, not out of conceit or self-importance, but as the birds, whom she loved ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... distracted glare, And freeze the soul with horror and despair; With just desert enroll'd in endless fame, Conscious of worth superior, Cibber[63] came. When poor Alicia's madd'ning brains are rack'd, And strongly imaged griefs her mind distract, Struck with her grief, I catch the madness too, My brain turns round, the headless trunk I view! 790 The roof cracks, shakes, and falls—new horrors rise, And Reason buried in the ruin lies! Nobly disdainful of each slavish art, She makes her first attack upon the heart; Pleased with the summons, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... Marguerite d'Angouleme, sister of Francis I.; and the wanton and libertine young maids who formed a galaxy of youth and beauty about Louise of Savoy, and were by her used to fascinate her son and thus distract him ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... Apaches would be sure to spend some few minutes in firing, partly to distract their enemies and partly to give them the cover of abundant smoke for their approach before they made their final rush; and taking off his feather head-gear, he secured it with a couple of stones so near the top of the rock which sheltered him and his companion ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... when, in the privacy of their household, she was about to offer a philippic on Washington and his followers, discretion sealed her mouth, and distrust beset her mind. In short, the whole conduct of the mysterious being she studied was of a character to distract the opinions of one who took a more enlarged view of men and life than came within the ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... he laughed at the idea of his health being injured by incessant application, and seemed to be afraid that variety of employment would distract his attention. So he went on from week to week, and month to month, preparing his mind for usefulness, but his body for the grave. His pale brow grew yet paler, his cheek hollow, and his hand thin and colourless, but still he declared himself to ...
— Effie Maurice - Or What do I Love Best • Fanny Forester
... which were intended as much to distract the attention of the marksman as for anything else, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... shunned those excitements by which he had so long sought to occupy his time or distract his thoughts, the gloom of his calmer hours became deeper and more continuous. He ever and especially dreaded to be alone; he could not bear his new companion to be absent from his eyes: he rode with her, walked with her, and it was with visible reluctance, which almost partook of horror, that ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... from the German lines. I painted this picture of the battle of the Aisne from a captive balloon. Here is a picture of the surrender of Maubeuge, showing two of the 40,000 French prisoners. I can usually paint better during a battle because there's nobody looking on over my shoulder to distract my attention. I have about 140 sketches done in all. His Majesty has most of them now, to pick out those he wants painted. This sketch of a pretty young Frenchwoman is 'Mlle. Nix zu Macken,' so nicknamed by some sixty-odd hungry but good-natured Landsturm men quartered in a tavern of a ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... mad imagining, which he vainly endeavored to make clear to himself, threatened to distract his reason, and he groaned aloud; the sound of his own voice brought him back ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... upon me, in selecting me for the purpose of temporarily presiding over your deliberations. We have come together to secure a common and at the same time a most important object—to agree if we can upon some plan for adjusting the unhappy differences which distract the country, which will be satisfactory to ourselves and those we represent. We have assembled as friends, as brothers, each, I doubt not, animated ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... To distract her mind I told her tales of the grey city of the North where I had been colleged. I told of the bleak and biting winds which cut their way to the marrow of the bones. I described the students rich and poor, but mostly poor, swarming into the gaunt quadrangles, ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... Now it is but fair to say that when Miss Muffet dances across a room there is no international crisis in all this world which would distract any man's frank admiration. When Miss Muffet steps it on a sunny day, her hair being what it is, and her little feet in her strap shoes being such as they are, then your mood dances in accord, and your thoughts ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... its awful port assumes, And in the tempest shake thy crimson plumes, I mark thy lofty mien, thy steady eye, So fall thy foes! with tears of joy I cry. But ne'er may Anarchy, with eyes a-flame, And mien distract, assume thy awful name; Her pale torch sheds afar its hideous glare, And shows the blood-drops in her dabbled hair; 90 The fiends of discord hear her hollow voice, The spirits of the deathful storm rejoice: As when the rising blast with muttering sweep ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... direction of the village, they began the descent of a steep hill, and Mr. Harum, careful of loose stones, gave all his attention to his driving. Our friend, respecting his vigilance, forebore to say anything which might distract his attention until they reached level ground, and then, "You ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... smaller office—the adjutant's—and beyond that the room where sat the sergeant-major and his clerks. The windows, snow-battered and frost-bitten, gave abundant light from the skies, but none on the surroundings—the view being limited to scratch-hole surveys. There was nothing to distract attention from what might be going on within, and all eyes were on the two burly captains who entered at 8.30, fur-capped, fur-gloved, in huge overcoats and arctics. The wind had begun, even earlier than usual, to whine and stir as it swept down from the bleak northwest, and the mercury ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... me? No, I was born for a better—a higher and more holy purpose. I was not born to pass a few moments on the stage of life and then disappear forever.... With a shudder I turn away and would gladly forget to think. O thought, thought! thou wilt distract me,—thou hast almost hurled reason from her throne. Thou bitter tormentor! depart, if but for a moment, and let me once more find peace. But no; the more I seek to elude still nearer the demon pursues. O thought, thought! it ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... bent Sally stitched busily on, never allowing ambition to distract her from the immediate task. Baffled, the girls fell again to their work. That Sally Minto was deep—you couldn't tell what she was doing, what she was thinking. She was deep. Under her breath Sally was humming ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... lady, about that which is bootless," said old Dickson, "and distract not your own attention and mine from preserving you, whom it is the Douglas's wish to rescue, and whom, so please God and St. Bride, I consider as placed by my Chieftain under my charge. Believe me, this youth's death is ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... thoughtfully he repeats this last phrase, until Dora, affrighted by the sudden change that has disfigured his face, speaks to him to distract ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... sort of speeches for Miss Mayhew. She may possibly believe them. It would be all the same if I had the footfall of an elephant! Nothing short of siege-guns would distract your mind from that ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... your poor mother used to sing; Monsieur Godefroid wants to hear it; I have told him about your voice," said the old man, endeavoring to distract her mind from the ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... from no other motive than transgressing the forbidden, I reached across to distract the attentive goodness of the prim little baggage; but—an iron grip lifted ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... taught, practice must also be the whole he will ever know: if he be uninstructed in the elements and first principles upon which the rule of practice is founded, the least variation from established precedents will totally distract and bewilder him: ita lex scripta est[o] is the utmost his knowlege will arrive at; he must never aspire to form, and seldom expect to comprehend, any arguments drawn a priori, from the spirit of the laws and the natural foundations ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... fix my attention sharp, to be sure whether it ever had been a reality, or whether it might not be, after all, only a dream. I think my father was afraid of the fascination of the cape for us boys—afraid its charms, if we once partook of them freely, might distract our attention from the order and duties of school life. To be sure, we always went to the country with our parents for a month or six weeks, and enjoyed it exceedingly, laying up a stock of trout, squirrel, and ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... a crimson battlefield of spring, but London was not afraid. Her smoke mitigated the splendour, and the clouds down Oxford Street were a delicately painted ceiling, which adorned while it did not distract. She has never known the clear-cut armies of the purer air. Leonard hurried through her tinted wonders, very much part of the picture. His was a grey life, and to brighten it he had ruled off a few corners for romance. The Miss Schlegels—or, to speak more accurately, his interview with them—were ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... We turned in early, tired out, and scarcely had we rolled ourselves in our blankets when a dismal howl made us "say things," and in half an hour all the dingoes in North Queensland seemed to have gathered around the camp to distract us. The noise they made was something diabolical, coming from both sides of the creek, and from the ranges. In reality there were not more than five or six at the outside, but any one would imagine that there were droves of them. Not liking to discharge our guns on account of C———'s mustering, ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... numbers. By twelve o'clock scarcely one left of all those joyous youths, those jolly sires and grandsires, those happy children, matched in size with their ponies, as the elders were in their different mounts, remains to distract the eye from the occupants of the two rows of penny chairs and the promenaders ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... having forgotten the lateness of the hour, and departed. To shake off the depression under which I was labouring, I turned into the brilliantly-lighted streets, thinking that the excitement would distract my thoughts from their gloomy objects; and after walking for some little time, I entered a coffee-house, at that period much frequented by young lawyers. Here I ordered a cup of tea, and took up a newspaper to read; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... "driver" had caused enough stir in the tap-room to distract attention from the entry at the back of a stoutly built man with a bestial face, known by the title ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... element in Athens to distract the mind from memories of its most glorious past. Walk into the theatre of Dionysus. The sculptures that support the stage—Sileni bending beneath the weight of cornices, and lines of graceful youths and maidens—are still in their ancient station.[1] The pavement of the orchestra, once trodden ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... was rotten of me—I don't say it wasn't. But I forgot. I told her I forgot. Didn't I come straight down here and tell her? Left those fellows—left a jack-pot! O my aunt! And that's all I get for it—a decent and reasonable fellow like me to be called such names just because I distract myself with the only one or two things that can delude one into believing that life is worth living in this rotten country! Drunkard and gambler—fine words to fling ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... ice-bridge, at which she scarcely dared to look, and sat herself upon a rock. In doing so the jewels in the bag struck against her knee and jingled, and the thought came into her mind that she would examine them while she waited, partly because she desired to distract her thoughts from the vision of this new and terrible ordeal which lay before her, and partly to gratify a not ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... and safely. Does he do it often? Of course, not just that. But does he pick up cigars and things that I see they throw to the matador? Does he belong to the management? Mr. Briggs thinks the whole thing was a feint to distract the bull," she added, with a wicked glance at the geologist, who, I ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... in high spirits, now that they were actually on their way to the marvelous Cave of Gold; and, boylike, they allowed no thoughts of the threatening perils from Ugger and Quinley and their band of cut-throats to trouble their minds or to distract their attention from the wonderful scenes constantly unfolding before them, as they advanced along the trail leading to Humbug Canyon, where something interesting or beautiful or both met their eyes each moment, no matter in what direction they looked. Now it was some wonderful ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... traveller, thou blowest hot and cold, life and death, in the same breath, with a view, no doubt, to distract me. How familiarly dost thou use the words, dying, dimness, tremor? Never did any mortal ring so many changes on so few bells. Thy true father, I dare swear, was a butcher, or an undertaker, by the delight thou seemest to take ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... your whip, if your master permit. "Why do you make coquette of your horse?" asked a French master of a pretty girl who was coaxingly calling her mount "a naughty, horrid thing," and casting glances fit to distract a man on the ungrateful creature's irresponsive crest. "Your horse does not care anything at all about you; don't you think he does!" pursued he, ungallantly. "You may coax me as much as you like," said ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... her complaint, which was a simple one. He prescribed much exercise, change of air, and amusement, so as to distract her mind from the cares of State, and the evil passions to which she was giving way. He hoped thus to serve the Christians indirectly, for he saw clearly that the mere mention of their existence made her ill. Some slight administrations ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... eyes, who had cherished a rather hopeless inclination for Henry; now that he had lost that bold girl, she tremulously assured herself, perhaps it was not quite so hopeless. Laura, too, had an idea that such might possibly be the case, and hoping at least to distract her brother, about whom she was becoming quite anxious, she had Ida over to tea once or twice, and, by various other devices which with a clever woman are matters of course, managed to throw ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... Posey, my dear, I think you hard better not break in upon the pious meditations of the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker in his private study. A monk's cell and a minister's library are hardly the places for young ladies. They distract the attention of these good men from their devotions and their sermons. If you think you must go, you had better take Mrs. Hopkins with you. She likes religious conversation, and it will do her good too, and save a great deal of time for the minister, conversing with two at once. She is of discreet ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... she denied Kells admittance and she only vaguely sensed his solicitations. She had no ear for the murmur of voices in Kells's room. Even the loud and angry notes of a quarrel between Kells and his men did not distract her. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... was intensely agreeable to Scott Seagrave. No social demands interfered with a calm and dignified contemplation of the Rose-beetle, Melolontha subspinosa, and his scandalous "Life History"; there was no chatter of girls from hall and stairway to distract the loftier inspirations that possessed him, no intermittent soprano noises emitted by fluttering feminine fashion, no calflike barytones from masculine adolescence to drive him to the woods, where it was always rather ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... fresh explanations were wanted. Le Brun wrote to Malebranche on July 8, 1689, to tell him that the wand only turned over what the holder had the intention of discovering. {190} If he were following a murderer, the wand good-naturedly refused to distract him by turning over hidden water. On the other hand, Vallemont says that when a peasant was using the wand to find water, it turned over a spot in a wood where a murdered woman was buried, and it conducted the peasant to the murderer's house. ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... let us come to business. All Esther wants is time. I am as certain as I can be of any thing in this uncertain world, that a few weeks, or at the outside a few months, will quiet all her fears. What I want is to stop this immediate strain which is enough to distract any woman." ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... down, he reached over and grabbed Mr. Amasa Beard by the knee. Mr. Beard did not immediately respond, being at that moment behind logworks facing a rebel charge; he felt vaguely that some one was trying to distract his attention, and in some lobe of his brain was registered the fact that that particular knee had gout in it. Jethro increased the pressure, and then Mr. Beard abandoned his logworks and swung around with a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... ten committees on hand: Milbank, Society for Propagation of the Gospel, Church Building Metropolis, Church Commercial School, National Schools inquiry and correspondence, Upper Canada, Clergy, Additional Curates' Fund, Carlton Library, Oxford and Cambridge Club. These things distract and dissipate my mind.' Well they might; for in any man with less than Mr. Gladstone's amazing faculty of rapid and powerful concentration, such dispersion must have been disastrous both to effectiveness and to mental progress. As it is, I find little in the way ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... back; his memories of what had occurred before that battle were none too clear. But, yes, he had wished Taggi and Togi present at that moment to distract the enraged beast. ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... over this, I see that I have here and there repeated myself. Do excuse it. I believe it is owing to the way the flies harass and distract me. ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... this what they mean who trade with it now? No—nothing of the sort. They use it to distract and perplex the public mind; to draw it off from the one paramount obligation which the times impose upon the nation—the obligation of saving the national existence by the military extinction of the rebellion, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... horrible to hear, Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth, With full as many signs of deadly hate, As lean-fac'd Envy in her loathsome cave. My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words; Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint; Mine hair be fix'd an end, as one distract; Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban; And even now my burthen'd heart would break, Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink! Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste! Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress-trees! Their chiefest prospect murthering basilisks! Their ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... could not long remain at Charlotte for the country between that place and Camden, having been traversed by the contending armies, was quite exhausted. In order, therefore, to procure subsistence for his troops, as well as to distract and harass the enemy, Greene, though fully aware of the danger of such a measure, felt himself constrained to ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... jurisdiction, empowered it to use torture, and was constant in his attendance on its meetings and autos da fe.[26] But now that his plans for the expulsion of the Spaniards had failed, and his nephews had been hurled from their high station into the dust, there remained no other interest to distract his mind. Every day witnessed the promulgation of some new edict touching monastic discipline, simony, sale of offices, collation to benefices, church ritual, performance of clerical duties, and appointment to ecclesiastical dignities. It was his favorite boast that there would ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... man threw his spurs into the horse, crouched very low, and swerved in his flight in order to distract the other's aim. And still the shot did not come. With each jump of the horse, the woods sprang nearer. They were only two hundred yards away and ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... quite away even from my villa, and I find it delightful to sit there, especially during the Saturnalia, when all the rest of the house rings with the merry riot and shouts of the festival-makers; for then I do not interfere with their amusements, and they do not distract ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... and her brow was ornamented with a sparkling Diadem. After her appeared St. Genevieve, surrounded by a number of Imps, who putting themselves into grotesque attitudes, drawing her by the robe, and sporting round her with antic gestures, endeavoured to distract her attention from the Book, on which her eyes were constantly fixed. These merry Devils greatly entertained the Spectators, who testified their pleasure by repeated bursts of Laughter. The Prioress had been careful to select a Nun whose disposition was naturally solemn and saturnine. ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... memory, which collect and store up facts, must be assisted; there must be a ministration of the senses and another of the memory. For not only are instances required, but these must be arranged in such a manner as not to distract or confuse the mind, i.e. tables and arrangements of instances must be constructed. In the preliminary collection the greatest care must be taken that the mind be absolutely free from preconceived ideas; nature is only to be conquered by obedience; man must be merely receptive. "All depends ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... said "Good-morning," and "Good-night." If I was embarrassed, or worried, he would pretend not to notice it, but if I was happy, or sad, he would show his sympathy in a hundred ways—putting his head on my lap, or cutting absurd capers to distract my mind. ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... to seduce him from the quiet scenes of his youth (scenes so congenial to his taste) to the hollow and heartless society of cities, to the haunts of men who would court and flatter him while his name was new, and who, when they had contributed to distract his attention and impair his health, would cast him off unceremoniously to seek some other novelty. Of his again encountering the difficulties and privations he lately experienced there is no danger. Report speaks of honourable and noble friends ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... had made in the afternoon at the Museum, were still spread open before him, and he suddenly closed the book, fearful of anything calculated to distract him from the mood of tense resistance. His life, and more than his life, depended upon his successfully opposing the insidious forces which beyond doubt, invisibly surrounded ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... modern fashion. I did so for this simple reason, that these defects form a charm in his juvenile letters, from being in accordance with their boyish contents, while, with regard to the others, they only tend to distract the attention from the substance of the letters, instead of imparting additional interest to them. Biographers can, and ought always to render faithfully the original writing, because quotations alternate with the text of the biographer; but in a regular and uninterrupted series ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... the current of your own thoughts, use them and listen to them; so far as they are a too unworthy expression of what we ought to think and feel, follow your own reflections, and let the words neither offend you nor distract you. ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... sparks; Whose mind, the vast machine of endless haste, Took up but solids for its glowing seal. The hungry love, that fish-like creatures feel, Impelled for prize of hooks, for prey of sharks, His night's first quarter sicklied to distaste, In warm enjoyment barely might distract. A head that held an Europe half devoured Taste in the blood's conceit of pleasure soured. Nought save his rounding aim, the means he plied, Death for his cause, to him could point appeal. His mistress was the thing of uses tried. Frigid the netting ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... let prosperity corrupt you, Philip. Wouldn't seeing what the press is saying of it distract you from the real aim ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... growing coldness, and reciprocate as it deserved the affection with which he was so lavish. The result of these mental exercises was to impart a humility and constrained cordiality to her air very opposite to its usual piquancy and impulsiveness, and, by a sense of her own shortcomings, to distract her mind from speculation, which she might otherwise have indulged, over the sudden development of so many unpleasant qualities in her lover. Though, indeed, had her speculations been never so active and ingenious, ...
— Potts's Painless Cure - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... to distract the overworked Young Doctor by her freshness, drawn from the reservoir of her vitality; and that was a pity, because, as Patsy Kernaghan many a time said: "Aw, Doctor dear, what's the good of a tongue to a wagon if there's only wan horse ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Hawthorne, doubly fortunate for us who read him, that he could withstand the influence of Emerson, and go on writing in his own way; his dreams and fancies were undisturbed by the clear vision which sought so earnestly to distract him from his realm ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... votes were not all alike. Some had one distinction, some another. But, not to distract attention by the discussion of several transactions instead of one, and because one in the present instance actually determined the result, I will confine my observations to a single vote. For this purpose let us take one of the votes from Louisiana, that, for instance, of Orlando ...
— The Vote That Made the President • David Dudley Field
... his dramatic instinct was at play; recognizing the significance of Wylie's offer and its possible bearing upon Hanford's fortunes, he waved the waiter away, knowing better than to permit the rattle of dishes to distract his host's attention. ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... truth like a soldier. You are not well! Excuse me, my dear fellow, but it is the truth; everyone about you has been noticing it for a long time. Dr. Yevgeny Fyodoritch has just told me that it is essential for you to rest and distract your mind for the sake of your health. Perfectly true! Excellent! In a day or two I am taking a holiday and am going away for a sniff of a different atmosphere. Show that you are a friend to me, let us go together! Let us go for a jaunt as ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... and through the halls and vacant rooms strange footsteps are frequently heard when all the family are trying to sleep; sounds loud enough to arouse every member of the household. Then the manifestations sometimes change to moanings and groanings sufficiently vehement and pitiful to distract all who hear them. Once upon a time, perhaps a dozen years ago, Jonathan Riggs lived in this house, and as the local gossips assert, Riggs caused the death of his wife by his brutal conduct and then swallowed poison ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray," and you will see it played exactly according to Mr. Pinero'a intention, and played brilliantly enough to distract our notice from what is lacking in the character. A fantastic and delightful contradiction, half gamine, half Burne-Jones, she confuses our judgment, as a Paula in real life might, and leaves us attracted and repelled, and, above all, interested. But Duse has no resources outside simple human ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... would recommend to the members of this Convention, to discountenance, by all just means in their power, any emigration to Liberia or Hayti, believing them only calculated to distract and ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... perfect dinner are noiseless attendants, and a precision in serving the various dishes of each course, so that they may all be placed upon the table at the same moment. A deficiency in these respects produces that bustle and delay which distract many an agreeable conversation and spoil many a pleasant dish. These two excellent characteristics were never wanting at the dinners of Sidonia. At no house was there less parade. The appearance ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... hath used me well, and now at length In peace and quietness I sit me down To feed upon the fruits of my hard toils. Ambition doth no more distract my breast,— I've reached the height my spirit strove to gain; Here will I rest, and watch ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... distract, and so am I; And here we wander in illusions: Some blessed power deliver ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... fancy I shall try not to think, and shall force myself to take interest in some trifle simply to distract my own attention from the menacing darkness, ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... off these webs of death, Distract this leaden yearning of thine eyes From lichened banks of peace, sad mysteries Of dust fallen-in where passed the flitting breath: Turn thy sick thoughts from him that slumbereth In mouldered linen to ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... of the Bride of Abydos while the poem was still in the press. It was written, he says, to divert his mind, "to wring his thoughts from reality to imagination—from selfish regrets to vivid recollections" (Diary, December 5, 1813, Letters, ii. 361), "to distract his dreams from ..." (Diary, November 16) "for the sake of employment" (Letter to Moore, November 30, 1813). He had been staying during part of October and November at Aston Hall, Rotherham, with ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... God clearly revealed to him, swallowed up in joy, but not forgetting us. It is not a land of oblivion in which Victor dwells. Heaven doth not harden or straiten hearts, but it maketh them more tender and compassionate it doth not distract minds, nor alienate them from us: it doth not diminish, but it increaseth affection and charity: it augmenteth bowels of pity. The angels, although they behold the face of their Father, visit, run, and continually assist us; and shall they now forget ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... along side streets in which he had never been before in his life. He reached the old bridge by which the Yauza runs gurgling, and from which one can see long rows of lights in the windows of the Red Barracks. To distract his spiritual anguish by some new sensation or some other pain, Vassilyev, not knowing what to do, crying and shuddering, undid his greatcoat and jacket and exposed his bare chest to the wet snow and the wind. But that did not lessen ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Boy kept up any pretence of spirits, and I knew well that his counterfeited buoyancy was merely to distract attention from guilt. If it had not been for him, we should all have been tucked away in some corner or other of the "Dejeuner." No doubt he would have dropped, had he not feared an "I told ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... almost shouted the aged patient; "I have crushed my finger in a door, and it hurts most confoundedly. You are something to look at in this hole, and distract my attention." ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... being in a weak and low condition; moving from one place to another, for translation from one office, dignity, or dominion, to another; great earthquakes, and the shaking of heaven and earth, for the shaking of kingdoms, so as to distract or overthrow them; the creating a new heaven and earth, and the passing away of an old one, or the beginning and end of the world, for the rise and ruin of the body politic ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton
... sake at least as much as hers, awoke to a sense of what he owed her, and what those miseries had made her. Never, no, never once, in one unguarded moment from that time to the end, did any care for himself, any thought of his own comfort, any selfish consideration or regard distract his thoughts from the gentle ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... the previous evening, they sat before the fire, and she began to talk of various things in order to distract him. But what their lips did not say, their eyes, on meeting, expressed with more intensity than ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... it catches. Then from below, quite savory too, I scent the steam of onion stew. At length my master enters gay, Fresh for the business of the day. On Saturday a worthy priest Should keep his room, his house at least; Not visit or distract his brain, Turning his thoughts to things profane. My master was not tempted so, But once—don't let it out, you know— He squandered all his precious wits Making a titmouse trap for Fritz— Right here, and talked and had ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... the United States, to perform certain functions exactly defined by law. Whatever were his wishes, it was no less duty than policy to mark out for himself a line of action that would not further distract the country, by raising before their time questions which plainly would soon enough compel attention, and for which every day was making ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... army lay opposite Fredericksburg, looking at the fortified heights where they had received so bloody a repulse at the beginning of the winter. Hooker decided to distract the attention of the Confederates by letting a small portion of his force, under General Sedgwick, attack Fredericksburg, while he himself took the bulk of the army across the river to the right hand so as to crush Lee by an assault ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... had nothing to distract his attention, he might have thought too much about his handsome partner, and then gone home and dreamed about her, which is always dangerous, and waked up thinking of her still, and then begun to be deeply interested in her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... said Mr. Noah, 'and real food—food that you can eat and enjoy—only serves to distract the mind from the serious affairs of life. Many of the most successful caterers in your world have grasped ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... stone. Nor do all the riches of the choir—those multitudes of singing angels, those Ascensions and Assumptions, and innumerable basreliefs of gleaming marble moulded into softest wax by mastery of art—distract our eyes from the single round medallion, not larger than a common plate, inscribed by him upon the front of the high altar. Perhaps, if one who loved Amadeo were bidden to point out his masterpiece, he would lead the way at once to this. The space is small: yet it includes the whole ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... face with the blazing eyes pressed against the glass, the flash, the wreath of smoke, the faint, exciting smell of gunpowder, and the spot of blood upon that alabaster shoulder. It had been murder attempted at least. No occupation could distract his thoughts from that. The horror of it seemed ever chilling his veins. He longed to share his knowledge with some one, to talk it over with her. Neither was possible. Solitude had never oppressed him more. He grew ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... useful to his friend, whose unsteadiness in walking obliged him to use an umbrella and a walking-stick as crutches. He was also nervous in crossing crowded thorough-fares, and particularly so at night; while he always liked to make Lehrs cross my threshold in front of him to distract the attention of Robber, of whom he stood in obvious terror. Our usually good-natured dog became positively suspicious of this visitor, and soon adopted towards him the same aggressive attitude which he had shown to the sailor Koske ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... not say that the witness of the Spirit is dependent upon our health, but there are some forms of nervous and organic disease that seem to so distract or becloud the mind as to interfere with the clear discernment of the witness of the Spirit. I knew a nervous little child who would be so distracted with fear by an approaching carriage, when being carried across the street in her father's arms, that she seemed ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... seem requisite, I am not inclined to assent to the notion of those who would have it extend to more than three parts. Indeed, when the parts are too many, they escape the judge's memory and distract his attention; but a cause is not scrupulously to be tied down to this number, as it may ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... decay, was present like a charged thunder-cloud ready to burst at any moment, if she allowed him to approach the chief subject of her thoughts. Though not in love with Mrs. Thrale, he had a very intelligible feeling of jealousy towards any one who threatened to distract her allegiance. Under such circumstances we might expect the state of things which Miss Burney described long afterwards (though with some confusion of dates). Mrs. Thrale, she says, was absent and agitated, ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... Maurice, he scarcely knew why, felt slightly uncomfortable and longed to create a diversion. He looked at the book he was holding in his hand and saw that it was The Thousand and One Nights, in Italian. He wanted to do something definite, to distract his thoughts—more than ever now after his conversation with Gaspare. An idea ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Captain Dodge quickly. "Don't distract his attention from what he is doing for a second. It's ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... handing up buckets of water through the back garden," said someone else, as though trying to distract her thoughts. "They'll soon get the fiercest ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... can observe the external features of stupor in all akinetic catatonics, in marked depressive retardation, when there is a lack of interest, affect or will, in autism, with twilight states, as a result of negativism or, finally, when numerous hallucinations distract the patient's attention into a world of fancy. He notes that in all stupors (with the exception, perhaps, of "Benommenheit") the symptoms may disappear with appropriate psychic stimulation or that some reaction, no matter how larval, may be observed. He speaks, for instance, ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... good reasons why Pitt and his colleagues should not commit themselves deeply to the Haytian embroglio. In that anxious time, the autumn of 1794, the most urgent needs were to save Holland from the Jacobins, to distract them by helping the Royalists of Brittany, and from our new base in Corsica to clog their attempts at an invasion of Italy. Owing to the slackness of our Allies, these enterprises proved unexpectedly difficult. In truth any two of them would have strained ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... island to another, in order to meet feigned attacks by the enemy who were ready to turn any of those diversions into a real assault, on finding the Jersey people unprepared. The Lieutenant-Governor had no choice but to distract and weary his men, marching them backwards and forwards to S. Aubin, S. Clement, and Gorey, according as the invaders appeared at one or other of those landing-places. The militiamen were worn out by these tactics, and were moreover of the class on whom Carteret's oppressive taxations had ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... mother to her, she turns all colours. She does not believe in her mother. She does not say an unkind word of her, but she does not believe in her. Of that I am sure. I cannot bear to see Busie weeping. I sit down beside her, and try to distract her ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... my idiosyncrasies. I prefer a square, non-illegal style of business such as we are carrying on now. When I take money I want to leave some tangible object in the other fellow's hands for him to gaze at and to distract his attention from my spoor, even if it's only a Komical Kuss Trick Finger Ring for Squirting Perfume in a Friend's Eye. But if you've got a fresh idea, Andy,' says I, 'let's have a look at it. I'm not so wedded to petty graft that I would refuse something better in the way ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... Life hangs upon me, and becomes a burden; And yet, when I behold the charming maid, I'm ten times more undone; while hope and fear, And grief and rage, and love, rise up at once, And with variety of pain distract me. ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison
... sweetly, the Old Lady was left alone and was rather glad of it. She enjoyed her conversation with Sylvia much more in thinking it over after she got home than while it was taking place. When an Old Lady has a guilty conscience, it is apt to make her nervous and distract her thoughts from immediate pleasure. She wondered a little uneasily if Sylvia really did suspect her. Then she concluded that it was out of the question. Who would suspect a mean, unsociable Old Lady, who had no friends, and who gave only five cents ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... severe dress, after all, has better answered the true purpose of dress, in setting forth the woman, than our modern costume, where the woman is but one item in a flying mass of colors and forms, all of which distract attention from the faces they are supposed to adorn. The dress of the Philadelphian ladies has always been celebrated for its elegance of effect, from the fact, probably, that the early Quaker parentage ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... and confined us to the house. Gloriana had borrowed a sewing-machine from a neighbour, and worked harder than ever, inflaming her eyes and our curiosity. We speculated daily upon her past, present and future, having little else to distract us in a life that was duller than a Chinese comedy. We waxed fat in idleness, but the ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... mean? A few minutes ago it was not with her. She knew that it would not always be with her, yet it did not seem as if it would ever leave her. She could not think of herself as ever being happy again. But Ulick would distract this misery from her brain. She would send him to the piano, and the exalted sorrow in the music, which she could but faintly remember, would raise her above sorrow, would bear her out of and above ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... generally fell asleep. I whiled away the time by playing with Rubens under the table, Aunt Maria "superintended" the music in a way that must have made any less stolid performer nervous, and Leo was apt to try and distract Polly's attention by grimaces and pantomime of a far from respectful ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... slumber;— All earthly pangs and troubles cease, Nor dare invade that house of peace. On that pillow, ozier drest, The worn, the "weary are at rest." Thy broken heart shall cease to sigh, And tears forsake that sunken eye;— No dreams distract that holy sleep— No tempests break that calm so deep. Come, then!—forsaken, wearied, come! Here is for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... illuminated by the reflection of the good, vanished giant, by that touching reflection that comes from the dead to those souls they have so profoundly stirred. The worship of Flaubert was a religion from which nothing could distract him, neither work, nor glory, nor slow moving ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... other hand, the report would strike upon the ears of the mias, might distract it from the triumph in which it was indulging, and bring it to the spot where they were standing. Then, with an empty gun in his hand, what defence could the youth make, either for himself ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... me. That exasperated me still more. The secret? Why, I had a secret worth twenty of his! I dashed at the canvas furiously, and tried some of my bravura tricks. But they failed me, they crumbled. I saw that he wasn't watching the showy bits—I couldn't distract his attention; he just kept his eyes on the hard passages between. Those were the ones I had always shirked, or covered up with some lying paint. And how he saw ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... of her family, for well she knew the outburst of condemnation, incredulity, and grief that would assail her there. They could not help her yet; they would only augment perplexities, weaken convictions, and distract her mind. When she was sure of herself she would tell them, endure their indignation and regret, and steadily execute the new purpose, whatever ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... the room after breakfast, in her little round hat, and, putting her hand upon my shoulder, asks me in the most musical of voices whether I have finished with my paper, and am ready for a walk, I feel ashamed that I have allowed myself to distract my attention even for ten minutes from her charming self, to read stupid leading articles and wretched police cases. But men are utterly without sentiment. Reading the Times in the honeymoon! I wonder how the delightful creatures ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... bade his soldiers be of good cheer, telling them "that feathers made no wounds, and that a Roman spear would pierce a painted shield;" and to lessen the effect which the oath taken by the Samnites had upon the minds of the Romans, he said that such an oath must rather distract than strengthen those bound by it, since they had to fear, at once, their enemies, their comrades, and their Gods. In the battle which ensued, the Samnites were routed, any firmness lent them by religion or by the oath ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... little while he succeeded in controlling his emotion, and in a comparatively calm voice he exclaimed: "But it is useless to distract one's mind with an incurable evil. Let us speak of yourself, M. Ferailleur. To what do I owe the ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau |
