"Distraction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him from his motionless and mute despair: he would never see me. He seemed insensible to the presence of any one else, but if, as a trial to awaken his sensibility, my aunt brought me into the room he would instantly rush out with every symptom of fury and distraction. At the end of a month he suddenly quitted his house and, unatteneded [sic] by any servant, departed from that part of the country without by word or writing informing any one of his intentions. My aunt was only relieved of her anxiety concerning his fate by a letter ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... meanwhile Lisle walked on rapidly, disregarding the ache that the motion started in his injured arm and shoulder. In his dejected mood, the twinge at every step was something of a welcome distraction. Since a sacrifice must be made, it should, he resolved, be made by him; Millicent should not suffer, though he admitted that he had no reason for supposing that she would have been willing to do so. She had ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... disqualifies them for public duties. Nobody challenges them as jurors, and demands if they have discharged the family obligation. Rather it is held wise in them to give themselves wholly to their pursuits, without the distraction of conjugal joys, until they have achieved success. Why should the family requirement, which man throws off so easily, be made a yoke for woman? There is something more fundamental than nursing babies or coddling the appetites of husbands. The sentiment, "Give me liberty, or ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the trust that rests all upon Him, by the love that finds all in Him, by the obedience that does all for Him. And it is only when we are 'in Christ' that we rest, and realise peace. All else brings distraction. Even delights trouble. The world may give excitement, the world may give vulgar and fleeting joys, the world may give stimulus to much that is good and true in us, but there is only one thing that gives peace, and that is that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... floor, which, they say, the old count himself brought from Bagdad. And the books—all her library—have gone to the convalescent hospitals, or to the poilus in the trenches. For they, poor men, need the distraction of reading." ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... careful housekeeper, his wife. She rejoiced his heart by the birth of a son, but the poor child did not live long; it died in the spring, and in the summer, by the advice of the doctors, Lavretsky took his wife abroad to a watering-place. Distraction was essential for her after such a trouble, and her health, too, required a warm climate. The summer and autumn they spent in Germany and Switzerland, and for the winter, as one would naturally expect, they went to Paris. In Paris, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... do well to take Mrs. Armstrong with you,' Laurent said. 'She is in need of change and distraction. This quiet, dead-alive existence is not good for her. You must insist upon her shaking herself free of the habits of seclusion into which she is falling. I should urge you very strongly to find some good creature of her own sex who would ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... Stuart, however, had the same wish and requested to have the calash on the same occasion. The Queen retired in disdain from such a contest, while the King was driven to distraction between the cajoling and threats ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... desire of knowing, because great distraction and deception are found in it. Those who know, desire to seem and to be called wise. There are many things of which the knowledge is of little or no value to the soul, and the man is very foolish who turns to other things than those which subserve his health. Many words ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... felt that her cup of bitterness had been filled anew, yet the distraction of a new grief, in which there was a certain remorseful self-reproach, had the effect of blunting the sharp edge of her first sorrow. In this new cause for dread she was compelled in some degree to forget herself. She saw the intense solicitude of her father and mother, who had been so readily ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... far succeeded as to come to my knowledge. I read the paper, was seized with horror at the information, and immediately wrote in answer. It was too late! My mother was dead! and I left in that state of distraction to which by a single moment's weakness I had ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... moment that it is his conviction of the sufficiency of Christ's revelation which makes him so deadly a critic both of the ritualist and the socialist—two terms which on the former side at least tend to become synonymous. He would have no distraction from the mystery of Christ, no compromise of any kind in the world's loyalty to its one Physician. Simplify your dogmas; simplify your theologies. Christ ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... and as the fine clothes he had given him set off his good looks (for he was well made and handsome), the King's daughter found him very much to her liking, and the Marquis of Carabas had no sooner cast two or three respectful and somewhat tender glances than she fell in love with him to distraction. The King would have him come into the coach and take part in the airing. The Cat, overjoyed to see his plan begin to succeed, marched on before, and, meeting with some countrymen, who were mowing a ...
— The Tales of Mother Goose - As First Collected by Charles Perrault in 1696 • Charles Perrault
... roamed about the city, striving to find distraction in the amusements offered but feeling strangely alone and out of place. Under other circumstances he would have keenly enjoyed the brief vacation and the change from the desert life and work, but now he could think of ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... began this year with prayer, and in these last days I have been subject to distraction and ill-disposed. When I look backward, I find, alas! that I have not become better; but I have entered more profoundly into life, and, should occasion present, I now feel strength ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... effective point made by Emser and the other defenders of the old Church system, was the old charge that Luther, one man, presumed to oppose the whole of Christendom as hitherto constituted, and by the overthrow of all foundations and authorities of the Church, to bring unbelief, distraction, and disturbance upon Church and State. Thus Emser says once in German ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... When he saw how tired she was, he would accept her excuses and give her another day for the large and more important piece. She did not have to leave the house until four o'clock, and as Martha was to be out most of the day, she could work on without distraction of any kind. ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... 'mid desolate ruins, Of Lovers,—past counting at least! In their bridal night's wild distraction, And in truth at their own ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... to seek distraction from my thoughts within the house. Now there came over me a great longing for music. Once, when in the drawing-room on that famous evening of the abortive fete, which was the only time I ever was there, I had noticed a magnificent ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... self-controlled, serene, sorrow-accepting temperament, should be driven to such an act of unholy madness. Yet Maurice allowed the frightful fantasy to work within his brain until it clothed itself with a shape like reality, and drove him to the verge of distraction. ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... opposing diversion occurred he would sometimes carry on his share in it as long as the teacher's breath would last out. For Mordecai threw into each repetition the fervor befitting a sacred occasion. In such instances, Jacob would show no other distraction than reaching out and surveying the contents of his pockets; or drawing down the skin of his cheeks to make his eyes look awful, and rolling his head to complete the effect; or alternately handling his own nose ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... marshalling, to be ready at the Katzbach by daylight, heard of this strange news; which probably he could not entirely believe till seen with his own eyes. What a spectacle! One's beautiful Plan exploded into mere imbroglio of distraction; become one knows not what! Daun's watch-fires too had all been left burning; universal stratagem, on both sides, going on; producing—tragically for some of us—a TRAGEDY of Errors, or the Mistakes of a Night! Daun sallied out again, in his collapsed, upset condition, as soon ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... I?[10] Is it not monstrous that this Player heere,[11] But in a Fixion, in a dreame of Passion, Could force his soule so to his whole conceit,[12] [Sidenote: his own conceit] That from her working, all his visage warm'd; [Sidenote: all the visage wand,] Teares in his eyes, distraction in's Aspect, [Sidenote: in his] A broken voyce, and his whole Function suiting [Sidenote: an his] With Formes, to his Conceit?[13] And ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... dear, if it does not interfere too much with your studies. Sometimes there is distraction in change of scene and habit. When you enter Miss North's school, you will be under her supervision, ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... conspiracies which marked the first quarter, or the first half of this century. Great Britain, if left to herself, could act with all the force, consistency, and energy given by unity of sentiment and community of interests. The distraction and the uncertainty of our political aims, the feebleness and inconsistency with which they are pursued, arise, in part at least, from the connection with Ireland. Neither Englishmen nor Irishmen are to blame for the fact that it is difficult for communities differing ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... exist between them. Moreover, men undertake journeys for divers purposes, and a pilgrimage in Chaucer's day united a motley group of chance companions in search of different ends at the same goal. One goes to pray, the other seeks profit, the third distraction, the fourth pleasure. To some the road is everything; to others, its terminus. All this vanity lay in the mere choice of Chaucer's framework; there was accordingly something of genius in the thought itself; and even an inferior workmanship could hardly have ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... Taking advantage of Peter's momentary distraction, he had slipped through the door ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... ill-health, as I well knew, had been well-nigh insupportable. So far as this world was concerned, few persons in it had such reasons for wishing to live, or so much to render life attractive. But the feeling in her heart had become overpowering that no earthly happiness, no interest, no distraction, could any longer satisfy her, or give her content, away from Christ; and she longed to be with Him, where He is. During the past three months especially, she had passed through very unusual exercises of mind with reference to this subject; and it seemed to her as if she had ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... had been wronged all around and all the way through. They felt that the whole world was against them; and when, by a train of mischievous influences, hell itself seemed to be let loose upon them, it is not strange that they were driven to distraction. ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... now, when all had recovered, he was still quivering with something that looked like a nobler pain. His face was very grave, the lines deeply drawn in it; and he seemed to be seeking no amusement or distraction, nor to take any part in the noise and tumult which was ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... that we must never have more than one cat at a time. Although this very law may argue that predilection, at an early age, for harboring everything feline which came in my way, which has since become at once a source of comfort and distraction. ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... specialization has also important psychological effects. A farmer, with his varied outdoor occupations, feels little craving for relief and relaxation. The factory hand, with his attention riveted for hours at a stretch on the wearisome iteration of machinery, requires recreation and distraction: naturally he is a prey to unwholesome stimulants, such as drink, betting, or the yellow press. The more educated and morally restrained, however, seek intellectual stimulus, and the modern popular demand for culture arises largely from the need of something to relieve the ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... that you avoid me as you do, and will not allow me one moment's speech with you? You are driving me to distraction." ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... affairs. "What progress might men make in the several parts of knowledge," he says very truly, in one of these moods, "if they could only pursue them with the same eagerness and assiduity as are exerted by lawyers in the conduct of a suit." But this distraction between the tastes of the book-man and the pursuits of public business, united with a certain quality of his constitution to produce one great defect in his character, and it was the worst defect that a statesman can have. He became the most irresolute and vacillating of men. He wastes the first ...
— Burke • John Morley
... incredible. The statement of Hirsch, which was so absolutely fatal to his hopes, could by no means be admitted. It is true, too, that Hirsch's story had been told so incoherently, with such excessive signs of distraction, that it really looked improbable. It was extremely difficult, as the saying is, to make head or tail of it. On the bridge of the steamer, directly after his rescue, Sotillo and his officers, in their impatience and excitement, would not give the wretched ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... her and betrayed her, and, having got from her all she had to give, was probably just about to cast her off into the abyss which yawns for such women as Louie. He had thought of her flight to him before as the frenzy of a nature which must have distraction at any cost from the unfamiliar and intolerable weight ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for her disobedience that Demetrius had formerly professed love for her dear friend Helena, and that Helena loved Demetrius to distraction; but this honorable reason, which Hermia gave for not obeying her father's command, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... woman in a Castle who had three Knights devoted to her. She loved one, and her vanity was pleased with the other two. While she continued to play with them all, they all loved her to distraction; but presently her preference for the one Knight became evident, and the two others, after doing their utmost to supplant the third without success, at last left the Castle and rode away. They were no sooner gone, and things had become quiet, and no combats occurred to ...
— The Damsel and the Sage - A Woman's Whimsies • Elinor Glyn
... close application a day, six full days a week, at half a crown a day. But already Marguerite Audoux's defective eyesight was causing anxiety, and upsetting the regularity of her work, so that in the evenings she was often less fatigued than a sempstress generally is. She wanted distraction, and she found it in the realization of an old desire to write. She wrote, not because she could find nothing else to do, but because at last the chance of writing had come. That she had always loved reading is plain from certain incidents in this present book; her opportunities ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux
... ill-washed heads above their gloomy garb. He had painted what he saw; fear and hypocrisy were reflected in the eyes of that world. In the jesters, fools and humpbacks immortalized by Don Diego was revealed the forced merriment of a dying nation that must needs find distraction in the monstrous and absurd. The hypochondriac temper of a monarchy weak in body and fettered in spirit by the terrors of hell, lived in all those masterpieces, that inspired at once admiration and sadness. Alas for the artistic treasures wasted in immortalizing a period ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... firmly compressed, eyes fixed in a stony gaze on the orchestra, whence issued by turns groans, shrieks, and screams, from sundry foully-abused instruments of music; accompanied by equally appalling sounds from flat, shrill signorinas, quavering to distraction, backed by gigantic "basses," (double ones surely,) who, with voices like the "seven devils" of the old Grecian, bellowed out divers sentimentalisms about dying for love, when assuredly their most ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... freed himself for the nonce from its controlling power. To escape all further contemplation of it he would work. These letters deserved attention. He would carry them to Oswald, and in their consideration find distraction for the rest of the day, at least. Oswald was a good fellow. If pleasure were to be gotten from these tokens of good-will, he should have his share of it. A gleam of Oswald's old spirit in Oswald's once bright ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... feelings. Yes, I am ready to do anything that will procure her forgiveness. I plead guilty. But she must in return forgive the Judge. He is hard in law matters—that is, we of the law consider him so—now and then; but laying that aside, he is one of the best old fellows in the world, loves Anna to distraction; nor has he the worst opinion in the world of you, George. Fact is, I have several times heard him refer to you in terms of praise. As I said before, being the man to do you a bit of a good turn, take my advice as a friend. The Judge has got you in his grasp, according ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... the brain is no longer directed by a power which dictates psychical acts and phenomena, yet its automatic action is not destroyed, and to this the apparent reality of images seen is owing, since there is no longer any distraction from the external world, or, at all events, its impulses are so attenuated as to be unobserved. In such conditions past images recur with an appearance of reality owing to the mnemonic and automatic action of the brain; such a ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... calm, Binkie; we must be calm." He talked aloud for the sake of distraction. "This isn't nice at all. What shall we do? We must do something. Our time is short. I shouldn't have believed that this morning; but now things are different. Binkie, where was Moses when the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... Philip to distraction should be the first to abuse and defame him was agony near to madness, for Kate knew where she stood. It was not merely that Philip's success was separating them, not merely that the conventions of life, its usages, its manners, and its customs were ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... this scene was perhaps the most interesting in the drama. What then must it have been when done by Garrick. A critic now before us speaking of Garrick and Mrs. Pritchard in this part, says, "His distraction of mind and agonizing horrors were finely contrasted by her apathy, tranquillity, and confidence. The beginning of the scene, after the commission of the murder, was conducted in terrifying whispers. Their ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... such reverend assemblies; the Yearbooks, and statute books must give place to some French and Italian pamphlets, which handle the doctrines of duels, which, if they be in the right, transeamus ad illa, let us receive them, and not keep the people in conflict and distraction between two laws. Again, my lords, it is a miserable effect, when young men full of towardness and hope, such as the poets call "Aurorae filii," sons of the morning, in whom the expectation and comfort of their friends consisteth, shall be cast away and destroyed in such a vain manner. But ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... visions of the heated brain, and gaining some footing on the Earth as facts. Prince Karl is here actually in Elsass, master of the strong passes; elate in heart, he and his; France, again, as if fallen paralytic, into temporary distraction; offering for resistance nothing hitherto but that universal wailing of mankind, Hero-worship of a thrice-lamentable nature, and the Prayers of Forty-Hours! Most Christian Majesty, now IN EXTREMIS, centre of the basest ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the most miserable. Your daughter lies dead at my feet, killed by my hand, through a mistake of my man's charging my pistols unknown to me. Him I have murdered for it. Such is my wedding day. I will immediately follow my wife to her grave, but before I throw myself upon my sword, I command my distraction so far as to explain my story to you. I fear my heart will not keep together till I have stabbed it. Poor good old man! Remember, he that killed your daughter died for it. In the article of death, I give you my thanks and pray for you, ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... had burst over me; and such was my condition that I could not speak a word [to express my wishes]: nor yet could I live separated from him. I had no means of relief; O God, what could I do; a strange kind of uneasiness came over me, and in consequence of my distraction I addressed myself to the same eunuch [who was in all my secrets], and said to him, 'I wish to take care of this youth. In fact, the best plan is for you to give him a thousand gold pieces, to set him up in a jeweller's shop in the chauk, that he may from the profit of his trade live ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... a head at the beginning of the next generation, but for two circumstances. The first was, that the King's uncles were able men, and maintained their brother's policy, and so continued that foreign distraction which prevented the occurrence of serious internal troubles for some years. The second was, that the Clarence or Mortimer party ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... speculations under Virginia patents that would be vitiated if Pennsylvania, now becoming aggressive, should succeed in planting her official machinery at Ft. Pitt, which was garrisoned by Virginia; again, his colonists were in a revolutionary frame of mind, and he favored a distraction in the shape of a popular Indian war; finally, it seemed as though a successful raid by Virginia militia would clinch Virginia's hold on the country and the treaty of peace that must follow would widen the area of provincial lands and encourage Western settlements. April 25, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... more especial manner, which are devoted to the conversion of souls, and shall employ your whole time therein, some of which must otherwise be taken up in the distribution of alms, which cannot be performed without much trouble and distraction. In fine, by this means, you shall prevent the complaints and suspicions of a sort of people who interpret all things in the worst meaning, and who might perhaps persuade themselves, that, under the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... on pleading in her distraction; and perhaps said things that would have been better ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... are likely to do so with great violence when they once give themselves up to it, and Charlotte's rending sobs drove poor Melina to the verge of distraction. At last she gathered the girl's slender figure into her arms and sat down ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... due to the distraction of war, but America seems to be losing her dash. At a baseball match in New York the other day only three of the spectators ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 9, 1917 • Various
... horrified. I put the thing away and went home. All that night I lay awake in a state of distraction, quite unable to decide what to do. To let the cameo go out of my possession was impossible. Sooner or later the forgery would be discovered, and my reputation—the highest in these matters in this country, I may safely claim, and the growth of nearly fifty years of honest application ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... May that Burns and Highland Mary had parted; in June he wrote to a friend about ungrateful Armour, confessing that he still loved her to distraction, though he would not tell her so. But all his letters about this time are wild and rebellious. He raves in a tempest of passion, and cools himself again, perhaps in the composition of a song or poem. Just about the time this letter was written, his poems were ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... every thing I sell. O! I'll go and pray!" And he accordingly departed. The sutler reported, in the morning, that he had prayed, and felt much relieved. It so wrought upon his mind that the joke had to be explained to him, to prevent his being driven to distraction. ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... to dismiss the thought, but it persisted uncomfortably. He argued with himself and told himself that he mustn't get jumpy, that the surest way to get shot was to be nervous about being shot, that the job was bad enough but was only made worse by worrying about it. As a relief and distraction to his own thoughts, he listened to catch the low remarks that were passing between the ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... strange excitement of the occasion, the lovers spoke few words. They had said much, and, when the opportunity should again come, they would say a great deal more; but they were fleeing for their lives, and any distraction of their whole interest and effort was likely ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... Easy Chair saw that remarkable man, Henry Thoreau, he came quietly into Mr. Emerson's study to get a volume of Pliny's letters. Expecting to see no one, and accustomed to attend without distraction to the business in hand, he was as quietly going out, when the host spoke to him, and without surprise, and with unsmiling courtesy, Thoreau greeted his friends. He seated himself, maintaining the same habitual erect posture, which made it seem impossible that he could ever lounge or slouch, ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... at me with solemn distraction, obviously thinking of something else. I suggested that he had better take the next city-ward tram-car. He was inattentive, and I perceived that he was profoundly perturbed. As Miss de Barral (she had moved ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... went on Harry. "No difficulty about that. She has another beau who loves her to distraction, and who doesn't in the least suspect—a decent sort of a fellow, a young farmer ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... to calling rather often. I must say that I lured him on; I found his babble a distraction. Then, one day—Prather is nothing, if not transparent—he let out the fact that he was taking notes of ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... as yet undetermined what to do with himself. He is but just arrived. He fears every thing; his father's displeasure, and how his mistress may be disposed toward him. He loves her to distraction: on her account, this trouble and going abroad ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... tobacco," he exclaimed. "That pipe always was too strong." He turned away to the open window, feeling an irresistible need of distraction, of amusement, and he remained there resting on his elbows, listening and looking, ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... the great parterre; or like so many several lodging chambers, which have their outlets into the same gallery. Perhaps, after all, if we could think so, the ancient method, as it is the easiest, is also the most natural, and the best. For variety, as it is managed, is too often subject to breed distraction; and while we would please too many ways, for want of art in the conduct, we please in none[2]. But we have given you more already than was necessary for a preface; and, for aught we know, may gain no more by our instructions, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... remedy; he lifted up his eyes, and fixing them upon her again, with a look of tender dejection, "Cut off," said he, "from the possession of what my soul held most dear, I wished for death, and was visited by distraction. I have been abandoned by my reason—my ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... mind the abnormal conditions in a prison—the misery of it, the dearth of variety and relaxation, the terrible yearning for some form, any form, of distraction and amusement. The male is parted from the female, and from the resource of children; his nerves are on edge, his natural propensities starved, his thoughts wandering and embittered; he finds no good anywhere, nor any hope of it. He will seize upon any means of abating or dulling ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... they went, Mr. Arnold first with the keys, Hugh next with Mrs. Elton and Lady Emily, and the Bohemian, considerably to Hugh's dissatisfaction, bringing up the rear with Euphra. — This misarrangement did more than anything else could have done, to deaden for the time the distraction of feeling produced in Hugh's mind by the events of the last few minutes. Yet even now he seemed to be wandering through the old house in a dream, instead of following Mr. Arnold, whose presence ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... mezzo which is quite plainly written; and he translates it "fait lui une petite ouverture dans le mur," adding in a note: "les mots 'dans le mur' paraissent etre de trop. Leonardo a du les ecrire par distraction" But 'nel mezzo' is clearly legible even on the photograph facsimile given by Ravaisson himself, and the objection he raises disappears at once. It is not always wise or safe to try to prove our author's absence of mind or inadvertence by apparent difficulties in ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... clergyman. He was energetic and devout; he was polite and handsome; his fame grew in the diocese. At last he began to be spoken of as the probable successor to the old Archdeacon of Chichester. When Mrs. Manning prematurely died, he was at first inconsolable, but he found relief in the distraction of redoubled work. How could he have guessed that one day he would come to number that loss among 'God's special mercies? Yet so it was to be. In after years, the memory of his wife seemed to be blotted ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... Missourians had gotten sufficiently wonted to the spectacle of one body feeding two heads to feel composed and reconciled in the presence of so bizarre a miracle. And even after everybody's mind became tranquilized there was still one slight distraction left: the hand that picked up a biscuit carried it to the wrong head, as often as any other way, and the wrong mouth devoured it. This was a puzzling thing, and marred the talk a little. It bothered the widow to such a degree that she presently dropped out of the conversation ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... renewed in a louder and more agonized tone than ever, and were plainly heard in Mrs. Elwyn's sitting-room, where, in a state bordering on distraction, she was hurriedly pacing the floor, at times almost determined to insist upon being admitted to the library, that she might take her unhappy son to her arms, and dismiss his inexorable tutor; and then deterred from this course by the promise she had made, and the deep respect which ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... the day of the funeral, now nearly a fortnight ago, Damaris had kept within the sheltering privacy of the house and grounds. That day, one of soft drizzling rain and clinging ground fog, had also been to her one of hardly endurable distraction. Beneath assumption of respectful silence, it jarred, boomed, took notes, debated, questioned. Beneath assumption of solemnity, it peeped and stared. Her flayed nerves and desolated heart plagued ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... loud and unearthly scream, and his head sunk upon his breast. At this instant, the aroused and horrified mother was seen on her bended knees, with clasped hands, and eyes in which distraction rioted, at the feet of the destroyers. But nature, which had given her strength for the effort, now deserted her, and she fell lifeless at the feet of her apparently murdered son. Even the heart of Clavers was somewhat moved at ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... of the town of Bedford, labourer, being a person of such and such conditions, he hath (since such a time) devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to church to hear Divine service, and is a common upholder of several unlawful meetings and conventicles, to the great disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of this kingdom, contrary to the laws of our sovereign ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... instantly, seeing that she was in a state of mind that bordered upon distraction, and that he could not safely leave her. He sat down beside her, therefore, making her as comfortable as he could; and she presently slept with her head upon his shoulder. It was but a broken slumber, however, and she awoke from ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... being tried, the court is well filled by lay persons in need of a thrill. Their presence seems to be rather resented as a note of frivolity, a discord in the solemnity of the function, even a possible distraction for the judge and jury. I am not a lawyer, nor a professionally solemn person, and I cannot work myself up into a state of indignation against the interlopers. I am, indeed, one of them myself. And I am worse than one of them. I do not merely go to this or that court ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... whiskey as I could stan' up to, an' dee'd pay for it; an' de jedge distracted 'em to tu'n me loose. P'laski, he wuz sort o' bothered; he ain' know wherr to be disapp'inted 'bout de hangin' or pleased wid bein' set up so as de centre of distraction, tell ole Mis' Twine begin to talk 'bout 'restin' of him. Dat set him back; but I ax 'em, b'fo' dee 'rest him, couldn' I have jurisdictionment on him for a leetle while. Dee grant my be-ques', 'cuz dee know I gwine to erward him accordin' ...
— P'laski's Tunament - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... book. "Work," my father used often to say to me, "is the best healer of sorrow. In grief or disappointment, try hard work; it will not fail you." And certainly during these three sad months, I have proved the truth of this saying. He could not have left me a surer comfort or more welcome distraction than the duty of preparing for press these pages, the last fruits of that mind which remained active and ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... a sense of the ludicrous singularly nice, he has often reminded us in his genial moments, when indulging most freely, of a happy child at play in the presence of its father. Never was there an equal amount of wit more harmlessly indulged, or from which one could pass more directly or with less distraction to the contemplation of the matters which pertain to eternity. And no one could be long in his company without having his thoughts turned towards that unseen world to which he has now passed, or without receiving emphatic testimony regarding that ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... one may enjoy the place thoroughly without any distraction, and feel amid the lonely vistas of the woods as if buried in the loneliest solitude of the Apennines. And truly on such occasions I know no place so fascinating, so like an earthly Eden! The whole scene thrills one like lovely ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... the flag-ship, was to keep the vessels in constant movement, changing scene, and thereby maintaining expectation of something exciting turning up. "Our men's minds," he said, "are always kept up with the daily hopes of meeting the enemy." As the Confederacy had practically no navy, this particular distraction was debarred our blockaders; but in the matter of food, we in the early sixties had not got beyond his prescription for the opening years of the century. The primitive methods then still in vogue, for preserving meats and vegetables fresh, accomplished ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... extremely erudite, had arrived a few weeks before with a whole trunkful of books. Should any guests drop in at times of an evening, the Chevalier need not put himself about—unless, indeed, after the labors of the day, cheerful conversation or a game of cards might offer welcome distraction. Directly Casanova heard of the niece, he decided he would like to make her acquaintance, and after a show of further reluctance he yielded to Olivo's solicitation, declaring, however, that on no account would he be able to leave Mantua for more than a day or two. ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... background of desert, and a pale blue sky closed all. There was Egypt even as the Pharaohs, their engineers and architects, had seen it—land to cultivate, folk and cattle for the work, and outside that work no distraction nor allurement of any kind whatever, save when the dead were taken to their place beyond the limits of cultivation. When the banks grew lower, one looked across as much as two miles of green-stuff packed like a toy Noah's-ark with people, camels, sheep, goats, oxen, ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... answered Anna Mikhaylovna, "God grant you never know what it is to be left a widow without means and with a son you love to distraction! One learns many things then," she added with a certain pride. "That lawsuit taught me much. When I want to see one of those big people I write a note: 'Princess So-and-So desires an interview with So and-So,' and then I take a cab and go myself two, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... on arriving to take the government of Ireland, found that unhappy country in a state of more than ordinary turbulence, distraction, and misery. Petty insurrections of perpetual recurrence harassed the English pale; and the native chieftains, disdaining to accept the laws of a foreign sovereign as the umpire of their disputes, were waging innumerable private wars, which at ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... Let me tell you something. Grant Adams and his father were here to-day for dinner. Well, you know Grant is in a kind of obsession of love for that little motherless child Mrs. Adams left; Grant mothers him and fathers him and literally loves him to distraction. And Grant's growing so manly, and so loyal and so strong in the love of that little boy—he doesn't realize it; but I can see it in him. Oh, Tom, can you ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... done would look like rival's malice, false friendship to my lord, and base self-interest. Let me perish first, and from this hour avoid all sight and speech, and, if I can, all thought of that pernicious beauty. Ha! But what is my distraction doing? I am wildly talking to myself, and some ill chance might have directed malicious ears this way. [Seems ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... of Henchard's estimate. Among the other urgent reasons for his presence had been the need of his authority to send to Budmouth for a second physician; and when at length Farfrae did come back he was in a state bordering on distraction at his misconception of ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... Amid the distraction of pleasant society and a long walk, the matter passed from his mind, and he only remembered it at nine o'clock that evening as a knock sounded on the door and the sallow face of Mr. Heard was thrust into ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... Rebellion there had become related in a strangely complex manner to the struggle between the King and the Parliament. Whatever share the King may have had, through the Queen, in first exciting the Roman Catholics, he had come to regard the Irish distraction as a magazine of chances in his favour. If he could get into his own hands the command of the Protestant forces employed in putting down the Rebellion, he would have an army in Ireland ready for his service generally, and the policy would then be to come ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... heart leads to destruction (perdition?) and all rectitude leads to Brahman (spiritual excellence). If this and this only is the aim and object of all true wisdom, then what can mental distraction do (to one who understands this)? Thy Karma has not yet been annihilated, nor have thy enemies been subjugated, for thou dost not yet know the enemies that are still lurking within thine own flesh. I shall (therefore) relate to thee ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... said he, in a deep tremulous voice, "forgive me; do—do forgive me! I knew not what I said. I scarce knew what I did" (here he seized her hand). "I know but one thing, Kate, and tell it you will, if it should cost me my life. I love you, Kate, to distraction, and I wish you to be my wife. I have been rude, very rude. Can you ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... lack of good-will on the part of the Christian princes, nobles, and governors. The Spanish veterans in Sicily were rusting for want of employment, the levies on the African littoral welcomed anything in the way of war as a distraction from the deadly monotony of their lives. The soldier in these days who rested too long upon his arms became in time practically useless for the purpose for which he existed; but such rulers as Charles V. ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... whether I despised them or thought them superior I dropped my eyes almost every time I met anyone. I even made experiments whether I could face so and so's looking at me, and I was always the first to drop my eyes. This worried me to distraction. I had a sickly dread, too, of being ridiculous, and so had a slavish passion for the conventional in everything external. I loved to fall into the common rut, and had a whole-hearted terror of any kind of eccentricity in myself. But how could I live up to it? I was morbidly ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... his eyes in the engagement, and so fatigued her opponent by repeated attacks of spur and bill, that in the space of twelve minutes, during which time the conflict lasted, she put a final period to the nocturnal invader's existence; nimbly turned round, in wild but triumphant distraction, to her palpitating nestling, and hugged it in ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... beautiful light tread, rambled about the garden deep in love," sometimes here, sometimes there, always under his own sympathetic and admiring observation, until one day, down by the pond, he heard Master Harry say, "Adorable Norah, kiss me and say you love me to distraction." Altogether Cobbs seemed exactly, and with delicious humour, to define the entire situation when he declared, that "on the whole the contemplation of them two babies had a tendency to make him feel as if he was in love himself—only he didn't know ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... he had filled his mind with treason and sedition!... He could not say what Queen Victoria was, but with his own eyes he had seen London, and London had as little of romance in it as Hanging Sword Alley had. There were noise and scuffle and dingy distraction and mobs of little white-faced, nervous men and women, and a drab content with blotched beauty ... but none of these things had romance in them. He had been told that London flower-girls were pretty ... and he had seen only coarse and unclean women, ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... these fits of lunacy or distraction I fell down and struck my face against the corner of a pallet-bed, in which my mistress lay, and with the blow the blood gushed out of my nose; and the cabin-boy bringing me a little basin, I sat down and bled into it a great deal; and as the blood came from me ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... him again, and I shall hear him," said Jeanne Marie, weeping. "I hear every thing now that goes on in the Temple, and whenever you strike, the youngster, I feel every blow in my brain, and that gives me pain enough to drive me to distraction." ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... cooperate with any government which may emerge in promoting the welfare of the people of China. They have always had our friendship, and they should especially merit our consideration in these days of their distraction and distress. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge
... after long practice, the virtue of silence; for when I recognized the voice of my old friend, I was thunderstruck. I'm sure I would have said something very emphatic, but my habits restrained me. But I regret to say it was all a source of distraction to me in the celebration of the Divine Mysteries, and during the day. What had occurred? I was dying to know; but it would not be consistent with the dignity of my position to ask. To this day, I congratulate myself on my reticence; for, who could help asking how? when face to face with ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... ministerial system should be formed, actuated by such maxims as are avowed in this piece, the vices of the present ministry would become their virtues; their indolence would be the greatest of all public benefits, and a distraction that entirely defeated every one of their schemes would be ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of that moment. My pace slackened. I stopped, and was obliged to support myself against a wall. The sickness that had seized my heart penetrated every part of my frame. There was but one thing wanting to complete my distraction.—"My lady," said I, "believed her fate to be blended with that of Wiatte. Who shall affirm that the persuasion is a groundless one? She had lived and prospered, notwithstanding the general belief that her brother was dead. She would not ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... in Nero's state of distraction, was eagerly embraced,—in such haste, indeed, that he left the palace without an instant's preparation, his feet destitute of shoes, and no garment but his close tunic, his outer garments and imperial robe having ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... wholesale scale, half military and half theatrical); and I suppose I shall find it when I come to Paris - he says I shall. I know nothing about it, except that I pay him his small fee, and pocket the ticket he gives me, and sit upon a counter, involved in the general distraction. ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... son-in-law's house under a curse? The yellow-haired woman in the open carriage drove up to the door at half-past ten this morning, in a state of distraction. Felicia and I saw her from the drawing-room balcony—a tall woman in gorgeous garments. She knocked with her own hand at the door—she cried out distractedly, "Where is he? I must see him!" At the sound of her voice, Marmaduke (playing with his little ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... of stone. The perfect Man of Sympathy—controlling His sympathy, yet radiating it to all the world and its sins—was Jesus Christ. His compassion had none of the corrosive qualities which drove Nietzsche to distraction. He could retain the consciousness of all the suffering which men inflict on fellow-creatures and yet keep ever abundant the measure of His pity and the regenerating power of His love. He saw the root of our evil, the one cause and the one remedy. ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... and magnificent Structure in Ruins, and turned into a Prison, and a Lazar-house, or Hospital; wherein lie Millions of Criminals, and Rebels against their Creator, under Condemnation to Misery and Death, who are at the same time sick of a mortal Distemper, and disorder'd in their Minds, even to Distraction: Hence proceed those infinite Follies, which are continually practised here; and the righteous Anger of an offended God is visible in ten thousand Instances: yet there are Proclamations of Divine Grace, Health, and Life, sounding amongst them; either with a louder Voice, ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... drawn into the glare of Rome. Tibullus is described as of great personal beauty, and of a candid [18] and affectionate disposition. Notwithstanding his devotion Delia was faithless, and the poet sought distraction in surrendering to the charms of another mistress. Horace speaks of a lady named Glycera in this connection; it is probable that she is the same as Nemesis; [19] the custom of erotic poetry being to substitute a Greek name of similar scansion ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... natural distraction of Thy thoughts at such a moment makes the question Merit forgiveness; else a doubt like this Against a just and paramount tribunal Were deep offence. But question even the Doge, And if he can deny the proofs, believe him Guiltless ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... homes; Faster and faster Woe, sorrow, anguish throng; Blood dyes disaster! Men doubt their fellow men: Hate and distraction Curse many a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... fairly settled herself in her new apartments, and the tumult of delight began to subside, it occurred to her that something must be done for poor Harry, whom she had left in the hands of a brother officer, in a state little short of distraction. She accordingly went in search of her brother, to request his advice and assistance, and found him, it being nearly dark, preparing to set out on his morning's ride. Upon hearing the situation of his brother-in-law he declared himself ready to assist Mr. Douglas as far as he was able; ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... point than formerly, consented to. Trusting that such a pigmy as the Yellow Dwarf would not dare to contend with so gallant a person as the King of the Golden Mines, she fixed upon that prince for her husband. He was exceedingly rich and powerful, and loved her to distraction. The most superb preparations were made for the nuptials, and the happy day was fixed when, as they were proceeding to the ceremony, they saw moving towards them a box, upon which sat an old woman remarkable ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... nuisance!" returned Rosa, peevishly. "And of all tiresome ones that I ever saw, Florence is the most trying. She doesn't talk after I bid her hold her tongue, but her big, solemn eyes see and her ears hear all that passes. If there is one thing that pushes me nearer to the verge of distraction than another it is to have my own words quoted to me when I have forgotten that I ever uttered them. And she—literal little bore!—is always pretending to take all that I say in earnest. If I were ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... matter, and having exhausted this small vein of distraction she returned to the music-room and the Bach fugue, as one, who has had a fall, rises and tries to go on as before, ignoring the shock and the bruisings. But the shock had been too severe. Tom Gordon had proved himself a wretch, beyond the power of speech to portray, and—she loved him! Not all ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... keep his eyes open and his heart receptive. After all, as he meditated the situation in the quiet of his little cottage that evening, he was not sorry that circumstances kept him longer in Simiti. For he had long been meditating a plan, and the distraction incident upon a complete change of environment certainly would delay, if not entirely defeat, its consummation. He had planned to translate his Testament anew, in the light of various works on Bible criticism which the explorer ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... her eyes glued to her book, and when that was not in use, upon the mittened hands crossed before her, resolute against distraction, and every prayer turning into a petition for her sister's welfare; but Eugene gazed, open-eyed and open-mouthed, oblivious of his beloved hole, and Harriet, though keeping her lids down, and her book open, contrived to make a full inspection of the ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not despicable erudition wrapped up in his apparently careless pages. It may be that he does not prove much; that he has, in fact, very little concern to prove anything. But in one of the only two modes of refreshment and distraction possible in literature, he is a very great master. The first of these modes is that of creation—that in which the writer spirits his readers away into some scene and manner of life quite different from that with which they are ordinarily conversant. With this Peacock, even in his professed ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury |
