"Distractedly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Nora (gropes distractedly about, seizes HELMER'S domino, throws it round her, while she says in quick, hoarse, spasmodic whispers). Never to see him again. Never! Never! (Puts her shawl over her head.) Never to see my children again either—never again. ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... St. Pierre. The flames enveloped the town in every quarter with such rapidity that it was impossible that any person could be saved. As I have said, the day was suddenly turned to night, but I could distinguish by the light of the burning town people distractedly running about on the beach. The burning buildings stood out from the surrounding darkness like black shadows. All this time the mountain was roaring and shaking, and in the intervals between these terrifying sounds I could hear the cries ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... kept in such perfect order. The women wandered aimlessly from one place to another; their caps were crushed and in disorder from their frequently putting their hands upon their heads; they stood before the kitchen fire and sighed distractedly. Sarah's eyes were red; her husband, Ber, had two deep wrinkles on his forehead, a sure sign to her that he suffered grievously. He did not open his lips to her, but sat with his head resting upon his hand, looking vacantly at his brothers-in-law. ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... and paced the room distractedly. "The generous girl!" I exclaimed, "she lays not a particle of blame on me. But, by Jove! I'd like to take all the blame, and have it out with him here and now. Blame! What blame is there? The poor child! Why can't she see that ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... surrounded it, and its passengers were to be seen, in the distance, descending, with the baby cap among them. At this instant, an excited French official darted out from a doorway by the side of the road near us, raising his arms distractedly, and throwing his sentences up at the conductor, who understood him to say that there was no going on; that a whole garden had come tumbling down across the road just at the entrance to Mentone, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... distractedly with her hair and ribbons, in preparation for her encounter with Mrs. Corey. She now drew in a long quivering breath, stared at her daughter without seeing her, and hurried downstairs. It was true that when she met Mrs. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... that Madame Joubert would be much more lenient to their own little inevitabilities of bad conduct and lessons if Pupasse did not invariably comb her the wrong way every morning after prayers, by dropping something, or sniffling, or sneezing. Therefore, while they distractedly got together books, slates, and copy-books, their infantile eyes found time to dart deadly reproaches toward the corner of penitence, and their little lips, still shaped from their first nourishment, pouted anything but sympathy for the occupant ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... eyes, and then took some more whiskey. He tried to draw me into a discussion about alcohol, professing to have saved my life with it. He seemed anxious to lay stress on the fact that I owed my life to him. I answered him distractedly. ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... Distractedly she seized the lunch that the char-woman brought at eleven o'clock—a roll of black bread with two dripping chops—and she swallowed it in a few hurried mouthfuls. Then, wiping her furrowed face with her dirty, greasy apron, she walked over to her niece's stall, planted herself ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... eleemosynary appeal under the thin pretext of offering an equivalent. This beggar—an aged female in a rusty bonnet—I unconsciously precipitated upon myself in an evil moment. On our first meeting, while distractedly turning over the ballads, I came upon a certain production entitled, I think, "The Fire Zouave," and was struck with the truly patriotic and American manner in which "Zouave" was made to rhyme in different stanzas with "grave, brave, save, and glaive." As I purchased it at once, with a ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... said the Ashes' butler, as he looked distractedly round the drawing-room. "I believe her ladyship will be in directly. Will you kindly ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... money for my next stage. But I had to leave too soon—the old story!—this time it was the proprietor's son. What beasts men are, my Karl! And yet to me you are above all other men, a prince amongst your fellows, and never did I love you so distractedly as that first night at the shooting-box, when I read the scorn in your eyes as you rejected me. I have no shame in telling you this. Am I not already in the grave? And then I must be silent and can ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... into Christian's ear, while Roxane distractedly tears a piece of linen from his breast, which she dips into the water, trying to stanch the bleeding): I told her all. ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... umbrella. Cowper gathered that he might take his japanned dispatch-box; he seized the brass handles and rushed towards the side, but at the last moment he had the good impulse to return to me, holding out his hand, and spluttering distractedly, "God bless you, God bless you." After a time he remembered that I had rescued his wife and child, and he asked God to bless me for that too. "If it is ever necessary," he said, "on my honour, if you escape, ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... will, perhaps, recall the critical situation in which we left Quasimodo. The brave deaf man, assailed on all sides, had lost, if not all courage, at least all hope of saving, not himself (he was not thinking of himself), but the gypsy. He ran distractedly along the gallery. Notre-Dame was on the point of being taken by storm by the outcasts. All at once, a great galloping of horses filled the neighboring streets, and, with a long file of torches and a thick column of cavaliers, with free reins and lances in rest, these furious sounds debouched ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... ran so high that by the time he reached the crossing, the passenger train was already in sight. Jires, helpless and terrified at his post, was distractedly shouting directions from his little ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... CAN'T go! Who'll turn you in bed?" exclaimed Rebecca, walking the floor and wringing her hands distractedly. ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... 'and now, Colonel, I have left her in hysterics almost, lest there should be any quarrel between you, and that confounded Marky should put a bullet through your head. Its my belief,' says my friend, 'that that woman is distractedly in love with you.' ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... from the inhabitants, and amongst others an old woman had an only daughter, whom she parted with for a necklace of beads. The unhappy girl, who was about thirteen or fourteen years of age, on being dragged away from the threshold of her parent's hut, clung distractedly around the knees of her unfeeling mother, and looking up wistfully in her face burst into a flood of tears, exclaiming with passionate vehemence:—"O mother! do not sell me; what will become of me? what will become of yourself in your old age if you send me from you? who will fetch ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... stopping to put them on, they tumbled into the boats, and seized their oars ready to shove off. Among them, pale with terror, appeared poor Tom Stokes and another youngster in their shirts. They hurried distractedly from boat to boat. At each they were saluted by, "We don't want you here, lads. Off ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... home again; we must get home!" she cried, starting up so vehemently that the baby in her arms screamed, and Lois walked up and down distractedly hushing him, and then, as he still wailed, sat down once more and bared her white bosom to quiet him. "We shall have to get back; Dosia, we must ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... view of me; indeed so much, That sure, methought, her eyes had lost her tongue, For she did speak in starts, distractedly." ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... over for a look at me, and scrambled down by the steps of his dickey, just as Mrs. Stimcoe emerged from the office. She was pale and agitated, and stood for a moment gazing about her distractedly, when Jim blundered against her, whereat she put out a hand and spoke to him. I saw Jim fall back a step and touch his hat. He was listening, with a very serious face. I could not hear ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... the serene attitude of the Son of God is unalterable. Without exaggerated contractions or violent action He remains fixed on the cross, His head bowed in mute contemplation of the figures below Him. These, on the contrary, are the prey of sorrow and despair, they cover their faces, or weep distractedly at His feet. ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... near the window, distractedly looked out of doors, and dreamed. Generally speaking, he mingled in these juvenile assaults with passion. But today it seemed to him a humming of idle words which he listened to from so far away, oh, so far away! in a bored and mocking demi-torpidity. Plunged in their discussions, ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland
... the staircase—on, on they come, crossing the long upper hall, pausing at the threshold. Then they try the door; swift, crushing blows are rained upon it, the door is burst open, and they come rushing distractedly in. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... do than I can possibly accomplish in the next six hours. You ask me to buy the ribbon. I attend accurately for the moment, think distractedly, "How can I do it all?—but I will"—and crowd the intention into an already overburdened corner of my mind, fail to associate it with the other thoughts already there, and return six hours later without ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... not that, it is not that!" she murmured, distractedly; but Lady Kynaston went on as if she had not ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... the girl cried, pointing to the Thing half limping, half running distractedly before them. They followed, tugging at the hand-sleigh, while nearer and nearer came the roaring march of the ice. At last the fields round them cracked and starred in every direction, and the cracks ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... "you can go to the new house with the first van. He'll be less in the way there," she confided distractedly ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... sympathise with me. I am not very strong; you know I have been ill: this blow seems almost more than I can bear; I thought I would ask you if you could suggest anything—if you would see him, and try to arrange something." She looked at Piers distractedly. "Perhaps money would help. My husband has been having money from me; perhaps if we offered him more? Ought I to see him, myself? But there is ill-feeling between us; and I fear he would be glad to ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... in spite of it! And stay on, when every word I said about him must have—have fairly crucified each one of you! Oh, forgive me! forgive me!" he cried distractedly. He saw it all now; he understood at last. It was not on Gerald's account that they could not talk of flying and of Chev, it was because—because their hearts were broken over Chev himself. "Oh, forgive me!" ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... Billsmethi, thus renounced, forthwith began screaming in the loudest key of her voice, at the rate of fourteen screams a minute; and being unsuccessful, in an onslaught on the eyes and face, first of the lady in gauze and then of Mr. Augustus Cooper, called distractedly on the other three-and-seventy pupils to furnish her with oxalic acid for her own private drinking; and, the call not being honoured, made another rush at Mr. Cooper, and then had her stay-lace cut, and was carried off to bed. Mr. Augustus Cooper, not being ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... said. 'Good heaven, what is it? Why did he tell me last night to prepare for a long journey, and why have you brought us back like criminals? Dear Mr Pinch!' she clasped her hands distractedly, 'be merciful to us. Whatever this dreadful secret is, be merciful, and God ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... violently and ran her fingers through her golden hair distractedly, but she partly regained her composure, came forward and told the servant to show him into the room. She was a woman of instant determination. She drew the curtains closer, so that the room would be almost dark to one entering from the sunlight. Then she stood with her ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... infinitesimal. And, worse, she did not appear to mind. She was cheerful and apparently quite content to be engulfed in a crowd. Probably, he thought with some melancholy, if she met his eye and noted in it a distracted gleam, she put it down to the cause that made other eyes in the company gleam distractedly during this week. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... seem to realize the seriousness of the matter," choked the Grand Chew Chew. "He will set fire to the island and make us all slaves." At this, the courtiers began banging their heads distractedly ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... America; and, according to Mr. Matthews, they then hold their heads erect, frown, and often stalk away with long strides. Mr. Bridges states that the Fuegians, when enraged, frequently stamp on the ground, walk distractedly about, sometimes cry and grow pale. The Rev. Mr. Stack watched a New Zealand man and woman quarrelling, and made the following entry in his note-book: "Eyes dilated, body swayed violently backwards and forwards, head inclined forwards, fists clenched, now thrown ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... do her good to model something strong and natural. She'll never amount to anything if she keeps on making namby-pamby gods and pet kittens,' answered irreverent Dan, remembering that when he was last here Bess was vibrating distractedly between a head of Apollo and her Persian ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... in his trance, as motionless as if some genii out of the "Arabian Nights" had suddenly turned him into stone (a trick they were much addicted to), and destined him to remain there an ornamental fixture for ever. Ormiston looked at him distractedly, uncertain whether to try moral suasion or to take him by the collar and drag him headlong down the stairs, when a providential but rather dismal circumstance came to his relief. A cart came rattling along the street, a bell was loudly rang, ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... and following on after him as fast as he could break his way through the woods. Suddenly, as in the trials before, the baying ceased, but before the baffled dog had had time to grow discouraged, the men came up to find him beating distractedly about in a small, freshly burned area among the bushes, his nose full of strong ashes, the trail hopelessly lost. With the help of the men the fox was dislodged, and the dog carried him on in a course that was to his new ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... exclaimed the disconcerted trainer, dancing about distractedly. "I've got all I could scrape on him myself. Where can ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... old gate seemed determined that it never should be again. A wren shot away from the porch, as the Judge and his protege entered it, and went fluttering in and out through the green branches waving over it quite distractedly, as if she had never seen a human being there in her ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... said so. If he had come there with any formed plan at all, his intention was to make love to the lady without uttering any such declaration. It was, however, quite impossible that he should now deny his love. He had, therefore, nothing for it, but to go down on his knees distractedly against the sofa, and swear that he did love her with a love passing the love ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... Heathcliff reached a point at last at which he called on his servants one day to turn him out of the Grange, whereupon Heathcliff's revenge took the form of an elopement with Linton's sister. Six weeks later I received a letter of bitter regret from Isabella, asking me distractedly whether I thought her husband was a man or a devil, and how I had preserved the common sympathies of human nature at Wuthering ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... looked distractedly,—but keenly, at her for about half a minute—but there she sat, calm, pale, and unconscious. At length she turned her eyes upon Ellen—for ever since the girl's entrance she had been gazing ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... down upon a rock and watched Casey distractedly bungle his cooking. She must have had a great deal of initiative for a squaw, for she plunged straight into the subject which most nearly concerned Casey, and she was frank to the point of appalling him with her bluntness. Casey is a rather case-hardened bachelor, ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... marrying his daughter to the teacher of history and geography. The wedding festivities were going off most successfully. In the drawing room there was singing, playing, and dancing. Waiters hired from the club were flitting distractedly about the rooms, dressed in black swallow-tails and dirty white ties. There was a continual hubbub and din of conversation. Sitting side by side on the sofa, the teacher of mathematics, Tarantulov, the French teacher, Pasdequoi, and the junior assessor of taxes, Mzda, were ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... before Ogareff should betray the city. At last, after a most painful fourteen days' journey, he is at the very gate of the Governor's palace. Entrance is easy, for confusion reigns everywhere. But Michael is in time. With his trusty companion he goes distractedly through the passages. No one heeds him. Michael opens one of the doors and enters a room flooded with light, and there he stands face to face with the one whose villainous hand would one instant later have betrayed all ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... voice was shrill with excitement as she pulled back from the encircling arms, her lips quivering, her eyes staring distractedly first at the younger man ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... with a book he was not reading, as if he needed to soothe some inner turmoil of his own by the touch of leathern covers, apparently did not hear this low-toned interchange. He glanced into the orchard from time to time, and once drummed on the window when a dog dashed across and ran distractedly back and forth along the brick wall. When Anne heard the front door close she met ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... I looked at her distractedly. She smiled tenderly, and slightly smoothed down and rearranged a fold of her dress to cover ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... looks distractedly round him, wrenches open the door, and a moment later the street door is heard to shut ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... all, later than his time. It is of a curious structure as a bridge; there being three rows of building along it, containing shops, with two roadways for passengers. One crosses backwards and forwards, muttering: 'On the Rialto thou hast rated me,' &c.; goes distractedly into a shop, to purchase a breastpin, as a memorial of the place; and then plunges down the stairs, to resume his place in the gondola. We took a couple of hours to pay a visit to the Armenian monastery, on the island of San ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... Gallilee's strength of mind—as I was about to say, if you had listened to me—resisted the shock. What the effort must have cost her you will presently understand. Our interesting young lady was accompanied by a hideous old foreign woman who completely lost her head. She smacked her hands distractedly; she called on the saints (without producing the slightest effect)—but she mixed up a name, remarkable even in Italy, with the rest of the delirium; and that was serious. Put yourself in Mrs. ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... a daughter of INACHOS (q. v.), beloved by Zeus, whom Hera out of jealousy changed into a heifer and set the hundred-eyed Argus to watch, but when Zeus had by Hermes slain the watcher, Hera sent a gadfly to goad over the world, over which she ranged distractedly till she reached Egypt, where Osiris married her, and was in connection ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... noise, cried out, that, on account of their continued alarms, they would end their lives. So they repaired to a certain pond, into which, in their despondency, they were going to throw themselves. Alarmed at their approach, some Frogs fled distractedly into the green sedge. "Oh!" says one {of the hares}, "there are others too whom fear of misfortune torments. Endure existence as ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... French fleet may have been, there was certainly no apparent lust for aggrandizement. We may be certain that Napoleon's orders were to carry out vigorous bombardments on British possessions, and instead of doing so, Villeneuve seems to have been distractedly and aimlessly sailing about, not knowing what to do or whither to go. Apparently without any definite object, he arrived off Antigua on the 9th June, and had the good fortune, whether he sought for it or not, of capturing fourteen British merchant vessels; but he would appear ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... away on his errand, and the King, moving back to the window, gazed fixedly at the spire, as though it could still in some way inform him of the tragedy consummated below. Then he returned to his desk and looked distractedly at his papers, but it was no use—back he ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... now there was no answer at all. Again and again I asked Raffles if he was there; the only sound to reach me in reply was the low metallic hum of the live wire between his ear and mine. And then, as I sat gazing distractedly at my four safe walls, with the receiver still pressed to my head, there came a single groan, followed by the dull and dreadful crash of a human body ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... you was an encumbrance your dad had to pay me to take off his hands," blurted Johnny distractedly. "Our being engaged doesn't make ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... still more value to Grace in the surgeon's eyes: it rendered her adorable. "But cannot you say?" he pleaded, distractedly. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... bonnet and dress, disordered though they were, rather than by the haggard face which looked distractedly around, that he recognized the woman to whom he ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... the effort to cross and returned to his place on the curb, interlacing his fingers distractedly. And yet this young fellow had pushed through barbed wire entanglements and gone across No Man's Land, without so much as a shudder in the very ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... you," repeated my mother; "devotedly, distractedly in love with you. Why, my dear, what is there wonderful in it; look in the glass, and look at these," she continued, pointing with a smile to the jewels which I had just removed from my person, and which now lay a glittering heap upon ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... found her and sent her to the Association. She could not be persuaded to give up her plan, but consented to wait for a few days to "think it over." As she was leaving the office in company with a representative of the Association, they met the young man, who had been distractedly searching for her and had just discovered her whereabouts. She was married the very same day and of course the Association ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... sort went on briskly while fans waved, programs rustled, and ushers flew about distractedly, till an important gentleman appeared, made his bow, skipped upon the leader's stand, and with a wave of his baton caused a general uprising of white pinafores as the orphans led off with that much-enduring melody ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... morning we are wakened up at an unseasonable hour by a furious ringing at the door-bell—Joe Manton pulls off his nightcap and slowly descending the stairs opens the door and finds Mr. Thorn, who enquires distractedly whether Miss Ringgan has arrived; and being answered in the negative gloomily walks off towards the East river—The state of anxiety in which his mother is thereby kept is rapidly depriving her of all her flesh—but ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... and slower. It wanted to stop. It should not stop. I gave it another swing. On it went, at first somewhat distractedly, next more regularly, then with slowly retarding movement. But ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... happen to me!' said Mrs Griffith, distractedly. 'What have I done to deserve it? Why couldn't it happen to Mrs Garman or Mrs Jay? If the Lord had seen fit to bring it upon them—well, I ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... something!" Lorraine cried distractedly. "Never mind now how it happened, or whether he was drunk or not—bring him to his senses first, and let him explain. If there's whisky, wouldn't that help if he swallowed some now? And there's medicine for dad's bruises in the house. I'll get it. And Swan! Won't you please ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... silent, dumb, and as though turned to ice. She had expected everything, but never this. She burned with resentment but not a single tear clouded her eye. She gazed about her distractedly, for that hoarse cry still rang in her ears: "Get out of here! . ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... She looked distractedly at the little faces smiling with delight and eager to plunge into the pleasures of the fair. Since Dickie had once run away quite alone to go to the circus she had always been more nervous ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... Where? Heavens! Where? Oh! why had he allowed that doctor to go! Imbecile that he was. But no! It was the only right course, he reflected distractedly, while the messenger waited downstairs chatting agreeably to the officers. It was in that scoundrelly doctor's true interest to return with positive information. But what if anything stopped him? A general prohibition ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... MRS. ROBERTS (distractedly). Why, that's just what I can't tell. It was bad enough when they were all filled up, but now since the people have begun to come out of them, and some of them are made ...
— The Sleeping Car - A Farce • William D. Howells
... no ring with her; what means this lady? Fortune forbid my outside have not charm'd her! She made good view of me; indeed, so much, That methought her eyes had lost her tongue, For she did speak in starts distractedly. She loves me, sure: the cunning of her passion Invites me in this churlish messenger. None of my lord's ring! why, he sent her none. I am the man; —if it be so,—as 'tis,— Poor lady, she were better love a dream. Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness Wherein the ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Vanel. "Such is my nature. I do not forgive neglect—I cannot endure infidelity. When I leave any one who weeps at my abandonment, I feel induced still to love him; but when others forsake me and laugh at their infidelity, I love distractedly." ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... replied distractedly, "George Haverstraw. I'm an accountant. That's my wife back there," he cried, pointing to the closed galley ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael
... be killed rather than give the slightest countenance to an audacious hope. Besides, she was now the woman who knows that she is passionately loved and is conscious of her power. She repulsed me, therefore, with scorn; and as I followed her distractedly, she raised her whip and threatened to leave a mark of ignominy on my face if I dared to ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... you? Your whole brood is turning out to be the kind that pines to be 'in the swim' for itself. Still, you didn't cluck distractedly when Joyce went to New York and Holland into the Navy, and you followed Jack up here when he struck out for himself, and you know Norman's chosen work is liable to take him anywhere on the face of the globe. So I don't see ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Avrillia's own bed-room, which was upholstered entirely in pink morning-glory satin, with hangings of opalescent mist; Sara thought it was quite the most ravishing place she had ever seen; at least she though so until Pirlaps distractedly led her down into the basement to Avrillia's kitchen. A smell of something delectable scorching enveloped them as they opened the door. And there beside the stove, all deliciously sticky and comfortable, lay Yassuh, fast asleep and half melted; while little wisps ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... legs and that there is no more seductiveness in them than in their faces, the love of man for woman will undergo the same evolution that his estimate of her business efficiency has undergone. He will judge her by what she is in her interior nature; and his sexual desires, now manifested distractedly in mere love of the female, will become concentrated in love of the one woman to whom his soul turns in irresistible sex-attraction, as unerringly as the needle turns to the pole to which ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... and covering his eyes] No. Stop. Hide your face again. [Shutting his eyes and distractedly clutching at his throat and heart] Let me ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... hens fled clucking from the sudden tumult, pigeons circled overhead and cooed distractedly, children were driving dogs away with stones and curses. Khalil, the musician, stood to lead the way, making his concertina speak occasionally as a protest against further waiting. Iskender was to follow next to him as donor of the honoured picture; then the males ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... Randolph's invitation driven altogether from his mind by more urgent matters, was pacing the streets, through the first snow- flurries of the winter, and was wondering, rather distractedly, just where he stood. Precisely what words, at a very brief yet critical juncture, had he said, or not said? Exactly how had he phrased—or failed to phrase—the syllables which constituted, perhaps, a ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... who can tell—unless he is the very devil?" cried the sergeant, distractedly. "The handcuffs were on the floor, the door was open, and he was gone in a breath! ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... felt like tearing out his red beard. "And to think that I have not yet arranged the matter!" he thought distractedly. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... bit off the end of a cigar nervously and read the letter through again, fumbling distractedly in his pockets for matches, while the waiter kept trying to call his attention to the box he had just placed before him. At last Oscar came out, as if the idea had ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... the city; three dismounted hussars had seated themselves in a doorway and were sharing a loaf of bread; two others were walking their mounts up and down, leading them by the bridle, not knowing where to look for stabling for them; officers were hurrying to and fro distractedly, seemingly without any distinct purpose. On the Place Turenne a lieutenant counseled him not to loiter unnecessarily, for the shells had an unpleasant way of dropping there every now and then; indeed, a splinter had just demolished ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... the composure of a man to whom nothing in the way of action is quite new or disturbing, he opened the door and went out into the corridor. All the lights that were anywhere burning had been blown out. Servants, men and women, were rushing distractedly downstairs, those who slept above; those who slept below were rushing distractedly upstairs. It was a confused scene ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... hypothesis, more tenacious, more pitiless than ever. We have reached one of those prophetic epochs when society, scornful of the past and doubtful of the future, now distractedly clings to the present, leaving a few solitary thinkers to establish the new faith; now cries to God from the depths of its enjoyments and asks for a sign of salvation, or seeks in the spectacle of its revolutions, as in the entrails of ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... us, perhaps almost satisfied with His creature. And he called up before him the joys of those abbeys in which Jesus abode. He remembered that astonishing convent of Unterlinden, near Colmar, where in the thirteenth century not only one or two nuns, but the whole convent, rose distractedly before Christ with cries of joy, nuns were lifted above the ground, others heard the songs of seraphim, and their emaciated bodies secreted balm; others became transparent or were crowned with stars; all these phenomena of the contemplative life were ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... Scudder came to tell him of Mary's consent. He made a gesture backward, without speaking, that she should leave the apartment; and Miss Prissy left, with a guilty kind of feeling, as if she had been striking a knife into her pastor, and, rushing distractedly across the entry into Mary's little bedroom, she bolted the door, threw herself on the bed, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... of them. This terrible brute was slowly approaching with gleaming teeth, bristling yellow hair, and terrible inward rumblings. Scarcely knowing what she did, Elizabeth caught up the shivering little terrier and rolled him under her pinafore. She looked about distractedly for Charles Stuart, but both he and John had driven the horses to the sheds. Elizabeth slowly approached the door in an agony of uncertainty. It would be dreadfully wicked to take a dog into church, ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... me!" he moaned; "what a miserable death to die! Harry! Harry! Harry!" he cried distractedly, "come and help me; I am here below drowning! ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... us look into the summer-house at the top of the garden." So we hurried up the grass walk; and just as we got to the door, I was in the very act of stepping into the bower, and old Morgan close on my heels, when a man, with a handkerchief held to his eyes, rushed distractedly upon us, and rolled us both down the steps, as if we had been pushed by a bull; and in a minute or so, when I came to myself; I found my heels in a gooseberry bush, and my head tight-jammed into a flower-pot; old Morgan had rolled over into the next bed, which was prepared for celery, and he lay ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... though that is not to say that the events narrated did not actually take place as recorded. But Joshua had faith; and faith in the hearts of the champions of right begets fear in the hearts of supporters of wrong, and the defenses they have so laboriously built up tumble distractedly about their ears when the trumpets of the Lord blow and the people who believe in Him utter a mighty shout. Our jails are our Jericho; the evils which they encompass and protect are greater than the sins of that strong city; but a breath may shatter them into irretrievable ruin. Not compromises; ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... is it on me!' exclaimed Fakredeen, distractedly. 'A stain! I shall be branded like Cain. No, I will never enter Damascus again, or any of the cities of the coast. I will give up all my castles to my cousin Francis El Kazin, on condition that he does not pay my creditors. I will retire ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... no Ring with her: what meanes this Lady? Fortune forbid my out-side haue not charm'd her: She made good view of me, indeed so much, That me thought her eyes had lost her tongue, For she did speake in starts distractedly. She loues me sure, the cunning of her passion Inuites me in this churlish messenger: None of my Lords Ring? Why he sent her none; I am the man, if it be so, as tis, Poore Lady, she were better loue a dreame: Disguise, I see ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... around distractedly and stood still, his head bowed, his fingers working nervously before his hands parted in a shrugging, outspread gesture of relief; then, his head rising, his body stiffening, once more his arbitrary self, he started up the stairs with ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... poor mite down by the roadside and leave it," said Miss Carr distractedly. "Whatever can have ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... rector, entering his study, and throwing himself distractedly into a seat—'to what a dreadful disclosure have I listened—Josephine the murderess of her father! Mrs. Franklin the murderess of her husband! Can it be possible?—Alas, I cannot doubt it; for why should that woman, at the awful moment of her dissolution, tell a falsehood? I remember now ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... named go; the nameless, if they have an accuser. Necklace Lamotte's Husband is in these Prisons (she long since squelched on the London Pavements); but gets delivered. Gross de Morande, of the Courier de l'Europe, hobbles distractedly to and fro there: but they let him hobble out; on right nimble crutches;—his hour not being yet come. Advocate Maton de la Varenne, very weak in health, is snatched off from mother and kin; Tricolor Rossignol (journeyman goldsmith and scoundrel ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... my little girl?" so distractedly that she did not glance down at the ground. Suddenly she saw the corpse, stopped short, clasped her hands and raised both her arms while she uttered a sharp, heartrending cry—the cry of a wounded ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... afterward he came noisily into the library at Chericoke and aroused the Major from his Horace by stamping distractedly about the room. ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... hour of the afternoon the day's work of tramping the rounds of the agents' offices is over. Past you, as you ramble distractedly through the mossy halls, flit audible visions of houris, with veiled, starry eyes, flying tag-ends of things and a swish of silk, bequeathing to the dull hallways an odor of gaiety and a memory of frangipanni. Serious young comedians, with versatile Adam's apples, gather ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... beseeching her to open her eyes. At nightfall he returned to his palace, but with the dawning he took his bow, and, dismissing all his attendants on the pretext of hunting alone, flew to his beautiful Princess. So he passed day after day, kneeling distractedly beside the lovely Aubergine, beseeching her to rise; but ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... him to the messenger, noticing for the first time that the latter was an under-officer of police. He shook his head distractedly. It appeared that his suspicions concerning Birken had been ...
— Exile • Horace Brown Fyfe
... Edward Waverley was setting out for his morning walk, he found the castle of Bradwardine by no means the enchanted palace of silence he had first discovered. Milkmaids, bare-legged and wild-haired, ran about distractedly with pails and three-legged stools in their hands, crying, "Lord, guide us!" ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... craft over force? If I were your secretary, Monsieur le baron, you'd soon be prime-minister, because it would be my interest to have you so. Do you want a specimen of my talents in that line? Well then, listen; you love Mademoiselle Modeste distractedly, and you've good reason to do so. The girl has my fullest esteem; she is a true Parisian. Sometimes we get a few real Parisians born down here in the provinces. Well, Modeste is just the woman to help a man's career. She's got that in her," he cried, with a turn of his wrist ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... more complex society of their time, though it was not yet so multitudinous and chaotic as the literary class has become in our own. Talk could still be good, because the comparatively small society was constantly meeting, and each prepared to take his part in the game, and was not being swept away distractedly into a miscellaneous vortex of all sorts and conditions of humanity. Another fact is conspicuous. The environment, we may say, of the man of letters was congenial. He shared and uttered the opinions ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... malady which they feed. The caterer generally gets infected in a superficial cutaneous sort of way. He has often a collection himself, which he eyes complacently of an evening as he smokes his pipe over his brandy-and-water, but to which he is not so distractedly devoted but that a pecuniary consideration will tempt him to dismember it. It generally consists, indeed, of blunders or false speculations—books which have been obtained in a mistaken reliance on their ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... him distractedly, he rushed into the bar.—The landlord bound and fastened to his chair; the place dismantled, stripped, and pulled about his ears;—nobody could ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Emily (entering distractedly in bridal costume, with a large rent in her train). You have no eyes, I tell you, let me help. It must be found, or I am all undone! In vain my cushion I have cut in two—'twas void of all but stuffing.... Gracious Heavens, to think that all my future bliss depends on the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... the danger he was in, that the more he endeavored to remember the word "Sesame," the more his memory was confounded, and he had as much forgotten it as if he had never heard it mentioned, He threw down the bags he had loaded himself with, and walked distractedly up and down the cave, without having the least regard to the ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... you ascertained whither they have gone?" said the clergyman, distractedly. "Will you not ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... Sunday, talking all manner of allotria. It was not till towards evening on Sunday, when I began to vomit and threw up green bile (no wonder!), that I got somewhat better. About this time Pastor Benzensis came to my bedside, and told me how distractedly I had borne myself, but so comforted me from the word of God, that I was once more able to pray from my heart. May the merciful God reward my dear gossip, therefore, at the day of judgment! For prayer is almost as brave a comforter ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... suffer it!" cried Nigel distractedly. "This man has come with me from my own home. He has stood between me and death before now. It goes to my very heart that he should call upon me in vain. I pray you, Raoul, to use your wits, for mine are all curdled in my head. Tell me what I should ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... opening of her trial. This letter, beyond all doubt a forgery, was first brought into effectual notice by the Spectator somewhere about 1710; and, whether authentic or not, is most injudiciously composed. It consists of five paragraphs, each one of which is pulling distractedly in contradictory directions. ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... irresistible current carried him to the south-west. He went along the southern coast of Ireland and turned sharply towards the north. In the evening the wind freshened. In vain did Mael attempt to furl the sail. The vessel flew distractedly towards the ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... spoke for a little. Evelyn was wondering distractedly how she could escape from Kathleen, when they reached New York, without arousing suspicion on the part of the newspaper girl. Kathleen, whose intuition as well as her eyes told her that all was not well with Evelyn, racked her brain for the words which ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... yeh?" There was no reply to her sharp call. She rose and distractedly looked about among the furniture, as if he inight somehow be a cat and be hiding in a corner somewhere. Then she went upstairs where the boy slept, her hard little heels making a curious tunking noise on the bare boards. The moon fell across ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... huts were burning, and the twisting stems burst in the smoke and flew off like arrows; black shadows ran about distractedly on the red horizon. They could hear the shrieks of those who were in the huts; the elephants, oxen, and horses plunged in the midst of the crowd crushing it together with the stores and baggage that were being rescued from the ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... a hundred doubts and misgivings. Reproaching himself fiercely for a fool, a dolt, he posted himself at the approach to the dock and strained his eyes and ears for the first sight of Grace Vernon. Other people went aboard, but an hour passed before he gave up all hope and distractedly made up his mind to institute a search for the missing girl. He conjectured all manner of mishaps, even to the most dreadful of catastrophes. Runaway accident, robbery, abduction, even murder harassed his imagination until it became unbearable. The only cheerful alternative ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... the ridge pole, and from half an inch to two inches deep! Every pack was black with them on the march, and the wagon carried its millions. When the shadow of a branch would cross that slowly lumbering vehicle, the swarm would rise and bumble around distractedly for a moment before settling down again. They fairly ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... estate agent who had charge of the auction, and took over the mortgage which too great an indulgence in roses had forced upon Dr. Theophilus. In my luncheon hour I rushed up to the house, where I found Mrs. Clay, with a big wooden ladle in her hand, wandering distractedly between the outside kitchen and the little garden, where the doctor was placidly spraying his roses with a solution ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... of love rankled in his heart, and he became the very example of lovers, and grew faint and feeble. At last his confidants searched his heart and lifted the veil from the face of his love, and then set the matter before his father, King Saman-lal-posh. 'Your son, Prince Tahmasp, loves distractedly the Princess Mihr-afruz, daughter of King Quimus, son of Timus.' Then they told the king all about her and her doings. A mist of sadness clouded the king's mind, and he said to his son: 'If this thing is so, I will in the first place send a courier with ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... them bonds!" he exclaimed, distractedly. He did not think so much of the house: house and furniture were insured; if they were burned, the inconvenience would be great indeed, and at any other time the thought of such an event would have been a sufficient cause for trepidation,—but now his chief, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... at the farm and at the keeper's, so great was the demand for space. At last the unexpected arrival of an elderly relative, who had been asked months before, but scarcely expected, caused great commotion. My aunts went about wringing their hands distractedly. Lady Speldhurst was a personage of some consequence; she was a distant cousin, and had been for years on cool terms with us all, on account of some fancied affront or slight when she had paid her LAST visit, about the time of ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... Rachel, distractedly. "There are some men here. They will throw you out of the apartment. ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... letter, and folded up the bank-note in it. She had just taken the directed envelope from Moody, and had just placed the letter inside it, when a scream from the inner room, in which Isabel was nursing the sick dog, startled everybody. "My Lady! my Lady!" cried the girl, distractedly, "Tommie is in a fit? ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins |
