"Distraction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when the surprise is not extraordinary their actions are wild. When Tom Pinch calls upon John Westlock in London, after no very long separation, John, welcoming him at breakfast, puts the rolls into his boots, and so forth. And this kind of distraction comes upon men and women everywhere in his books—distractions of laughter as well. All this seems artificial to-day, whereas Dickens in his best moments is the simplest, as he is the most vigilant, of men. But his public was as present to him as an actor's audience ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... her thumb and finger a little china cup of tea well laced, she called it, with Cognac, remarked,—"They fairly run the Intendant down, Froumois: there is not a girl in the city but laces her boots to distraction since it came out that the Intendant admires a neat, trim ankle. I had a trim ankle myself when I was ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... liberty gains ground, in spite of so much injustice and folly. I confess, however, that I sometimes feel the strange emotion that a man might experience on seeing, after the lapse of years, the lovely woman whom he loved to distraction at twenty, in the arms of a person whom ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... prejudice his (Mr Hancocks) Election. Mr Gray declard to me that he did not hear me mention a Word of Mr Hancocks Election - that a conversation happend between Mr John Cotton & my self (Mr Gray being present) relative to Mr Otis - that Mr Cotton said Mr Otis' Conduct must be the Effect of Distraction or Drunkeness - that I said I did not think so - but that it rather proceeded from Irritation - that he (Mr Gray) said if Mr Otis is distracted why should Mr Hancock pursue him - & that I answerd that Mr Hancock might be stirred up by others to do it, but I thought he had ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... of dread took possession of her. Where had he gone? What was he doing? Doubtless enjoying himself—what bitterness there was in the thought! She did not grudge him any pleasure, but it was hard that he should find so little in her company. Why was there no distraction for her? The torment of her mind was awful; should she try his remedy? She went to the sideboard and poured herself out some whisky, but even as she raised it to her lips she felt it unworthy to have recourse to it, and ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... turned her back on Marjorie, in order to study her lesson without distraction, turned round suddenly and gave an exclamation of dismay. This startled Marjorie, and she dropped her sponge full of ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... are very mischievous—they make their way out of all enclosures, and trespass everywhere. They butt at whatever is bright or new, or strange to them; and would drive an observer, who employed astronomical instruments on stands, to distraction. In an open country, where there are no bushes for a kraal, nets must be taken, and stakes cut, to make enclosures for the sheep. If they stray at all, the least thing scares them, and they will wander very far, and scatter. Goats are far more social and intelligent. If one, two, or three sheep ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... manners! what distraction! A bride just coming home without a portion; A Music-Girl already there in keeping: A house of waste; the youth a libertine; Th' old man a dotard!—'Tis not in the pow'r Of Providence herself, howe'er desirous, To save from ruin ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... death of the baby Queen of Scotland, by whose betrothal to Prince Edward the King had vainly hoped to fuse the northern and southern kingdoms into one. It left Scotland in a condition of utter distraction, with no less than eleven different claimants for the Crown, setting up claims good, bad, and indifferent; but every one of them persuaded that all the others had not an inch of ground to stand on, and that he was the sole true and ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... conforming to the wishes of friends being fresh in my mind to tax my ingenuity, I thought often and seriously of picking huckleberries; that surely I could do, and its small profits might suffice—for my greatest skill has been to want but little—so little capital it required, so little distraction from my wonted moods, I foolishly thought. While my acquaintances went unhesitatingly into trade or the professions, I contemplated this occupation as most like theirs; ranging the hills all summer to pick the berries which came in my way, and thereafter carelessly dispose of them; so to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... desired marks, he bends over the desk, twists his foot round the leg of his chair, screws up his face, {163} and in other ways reveals the great effort he is making. An adult, engaged in some piece of mental work, and encountering a distraction, such as the sound of the phonograph downstairs, may, of course, give up and listen to the music, but, if he is very intent on what he is doing, he puts more energy into his work and overcomes the distraction. When he encounters a baffling problem of any sort, he does not like to give it up, even ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... are all so contradictory, that the warfare of hope and fear increases, and becomes violent, almost to distraction! Clifton is openly countenanced by Sir Arthur, treated kindly by her, and is incessant in every kind of assiduity. His qualities are neither mean, insignificant, nor common. No: they are brilliant, and rare. With a person as near perfection as his mind will permit ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... letter home, but the one most heavily underscored, and chief among them all, was the fact that the big girls did not seem to consider her a "little pitcher" or a "tag." No matter where they went or what they talked about, she was free to follow and to listen. It was interesting to the verge of distraction when they talked merely of Warwick Hall and the schoolgirls, or recalled various things that had happened at the first house-party. But when they discussed the approaching wedding, the guests, the gifts, ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... sworn to erase from his heart and brain. He has no thought to link his terrible destiny with hers: he cannot marry her: he cannot reveal to her, young, gentle, innocent as she is, the terrific influences which have changed the whole current of his life and purposes. In his distraction he overacts the painful part to which he had tasked himself; he is like that judge of the Areopagus, who being occupied with graver matters, flung from him the little bird which had sought refuge in his bosom, and with such angry violence, that ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... he admitted, laughing. But under his careless gaiety an ugly determination had been hardening; he meant to go no more to Palla; he meant to welcome any distraction of the moment to help tide him over the long, grey interval that loomed ahead—welcome any draught that might mitigate the bitter waters he was tasting—and was destined to drain ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... a word that would shatter the hope she was building upon his sudden revulsion of feeling for Nellie. She could not bring herself to repeat their interview—that would come later, when they were safe and out of danger; now not even the secret of his birth must come between them with its distraction, to mar their perfect communion. She faltered that Dunn had fainted from weakness, and that she had dragged him out of danger. "He will never interfere with us—I mean," she said softly, "with me again. I can promise you that as well as if he had ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... could in any degree recall 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 from ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... he left England. It was this which had occupied so much of his thoughts. All was arranged with his solicitors, and nothing remained for him to do. He had come to the Continent without any well-defined plans, merely in search after relaxation and distraction of mind. His eventful illness had brought other things before him, the most prominent thing among which was the extraordinary devotion of this woman, from whom he had been planning an eternal separation. He could not now accuse her of baseness. Whatever she ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... who failed visibly day by day, and in that service she could sometimes forget her own unhappiness. She went with the intrepid old lady (who continued to ignore the revolution as much as possible) wherever they could find distraction—to the play and to the houses of their friends still left in Paris, where a little dinner or a game of quinze or whist could still ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... fit!" cried a woman, hurrying to Virginia's assistance; "you've druv her to distraction; you shouldn't a ben so abusive; I could hear ye clear into my room a scoldin' and accusin' of her of makin' ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... chess for a distraction till the fate of that book was pronounced or sealed—it was always chess in the hours of my distress and anxiety—and I once again faced Charles Kenny, and once again wondered if he knew, and how much he knew, whilst he was deep in his king's gambit or his giuoco-piano; but he ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of the heart is in prayer of more consequence than the manner of expression. Yet an appropriate form of prayer is helpful in avoiding distraction and in inducing devotion. Our Divine Saviour taught His disciples to make use of a special form of prayer, ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings
... 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 grey monotony ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... of the distraction of the waiter's presence to slip the map from the table into my pocket. After this I breathed freer, for it is scarcely necessary to say that in the struggle for the map—and by this time I had quite made up my mind that there would be fought out a campaign for its possession—I ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... these Feathers; never was the Moon in such an uproar about picking and culling the Feathers, such Bribery, such Drunkenness, such Caballing, especially among the High Solunarian Clergy and the Lazognians, such Feasting, Fighting and Distraction, as the like has ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... enthusiastic affection. That character, high as it was, sunk in my estimation from the calamitous delay concerning the promised pension of Cowper, a delay which allowed that dear and now released sufferer to sink into utter and useless distraction before the neglected promise was fulfilled. Will you make me some amends for the affectionate concern I suffered for the diminution of your glory in that business by expediting now a pension eagerly but ineffectively solicited by many great people, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... attentive to us as the only Anglo-Saxon visitors in town. The tea might have been better, but it was as good as it knew how; and the small boy who came in with his mother (the Spanish mother seldom fails of the company of a small boy) in her moments of distraction succeeded in touching with his finger all the pieces of pastry except those ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... through bravado, would have seemed to him an amusing and clever thing, and would not have left more impression on his mind than a shot fired at a hare; but he had experienced a profound emotion at the murder of this child. He had, in the first place, perpetrated it in the distraction of an irresistible gust of passion, in a sort of spiritual tempest that had overpowered his reason. And he had cherished in his heart, cherished in his flesh, cherished on his lips, cherished even to the very tips of his murderous fingers, a kind of bestial ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... of such merciless monsters as I had here to deal with! One of them that could speak a little English, threatened me in return, 'that if I did not come out, they would burn me alive in the house.' My terror and distraction at hearing this is not to be expressed by words nor easily imagined by any person unless in the same condition. Distracted as I was in such deplorable circumstances, I chose to rely on the uncertainty of their protection, ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... or mortgaging his farms. The priest added, "He is a very charming young man, so steady and quiet, though there is very little to amuse him in the country." The baron said, "Bring him in to see us, Monsieur l'Abbe, it will be a distraction for him occasionally." After the coffee the baron and the priest took a turn about the grounds and then returned to ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... fuer die Gesammte Physiologie, Bd. lvi, 1894, p. 319), tells us that, when a female white rat is introduced into the cage of a male, he at once leaves off eating, or whatever else he may be doing, becomes indifferent to noises or any other source of distraction, and devotes himself entirely to her. If, however, he is introduced into her cage the new environment renders him nervous and suspicious, and then it is she who takes the active part, trying to attract him in every way. The impetuosity during heat of female animals of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... not be returned to these remarks, according to the good nature of the players, but in any event, they serve their purpose of distraction. ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... caused sad distraction, And I come for satisfaction, Which if he denies to give, One of ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... moods, distraction for my cares, solace for my griefs, gossip for my idler moments, tears for my sorrows, counsel for my doubts, and assurance against my fears—these things my books give me with a promptness and a certainty and a cheerfulness which ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... had made to save the unhappy murderer was the last feeble glimmering of a flame about to be extinguished. He sank almost immediately afterward into a state of gloom and inactivity, until he was at length brought to perfect distraction by learning that he was to be summoned as a witness against the prisoner, ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... Upon her, and upon her alone, depended a man's life, and, adding to her distraction, she knew the man—the Sparrow, who had already done time; that was the vile ingenuity of it all. And there would le corroborative evidence, of course; they would have seen to that. If the Sparrow disappeared and was never heard of again, even a child would deduce ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... sang, the best she had was unavailable; she could not break through to it, and every sort of distraction and mischance came between it and her. But this afternoon the closed roads opened, the gates dropped. What she had so often tried to reach, lay under her hand. She had only to touch an idea to make ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... regain him. Of course she will succeed. What rivalry could stand against her? If her power over him is lessened, it is that she has not chosen to exert it She has but to will it, and he is again her slave. Twenty-eight days! twenty-eight days of doubt and distraction.' And starting up, he walked out into the park, not choosing the swept path, but wading knee-deep in snow where it lay thickest in the glades. He was recalled to himself by sinking up to his shoulders in a hollow. He emerged with some difficulty, and retraced his steps to the house, thinking ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... Joan sat listening to her feet echoing down the stairs; a mouse could set the whole house creaking. She felt very much alone; Shamrock House, full as it had been of uncongenial companions, had yet been able to offer some distraction ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... wholesome state to be in; and knowing this, a Good Samaritan, our acting consul, Mr. G——, proposed as a distraction trips to neighboring places of interest, especially to Ephesus and Magnesia. They were both to be reached by rail, and so near as to require but a single day's absence, which was of importance to us, as we were expecting orders to sail at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... distinguished citizen from an Eastern State, which was afterwards renewed under the auspices of a President from the Southwest, she will awake to a knowledge of the futility of her present purpose of sowing dissensions among us or producing distraction in our councils by attacks either on particular States or on persons who are now in the retirement of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... this, Lucretia, and till death I'll love you to intense distraction; I'll spend for you my every breath, And we will ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... has become more lively; several persons have come from the city and the neighborhood to present their homage to the palatine. They might perhaps afford me amusement; and yet I do not even find a passing distraction in their presence. I have seen Michael Chronowski, my father's former chamberlain; how the poor young man is changed! The prince palatine, in consequence of my father's recommendation, placed him at the bar in Lublin. They say he is doing very well, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... not blame the finger on the string; The doctors bid me fly the unlucky times And find distraction for my thoughts, or else Pine to ...
— The Countess Cathleen • William Butler Yeats
... him perfectly. In the first place, at the time of their first meeting she had been a mere bread-and-butter miss, the easiest of preys for any one who might wish to get a few hours' amusement and distraction out of her temper and caprices. In the next place, even supposing he had been ever inclined to fall in love with her, which her new sardonic fairness of mind obliged her to regard as entirely doubtful, he was a man to whom marriage was impossible. How could any one expect such a superfine dreamer ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... boards they be too, some on 'em) and lots of other projects and enterprizes — be on the go the hull winter, with a dress so tight she couldn't breathe instead of her good loose robes, and instead of her good comfortable sandals have her feet upon high-heeled shoes pinchin' her corns almost unto distraction. And then to Washington to go all through it agin, and more too, and Florida, and Cuba; and then to the sea-shore and have it all over ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... distraction, while traveling as fast as possible—for he was anxious to be in Paris by the twenty-third—stopped from time to time to fly the magpie, a pastime for which the taste had been formerly inspired in him by de Luynes, and for which he had always preserved a great predilection. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... written in April, 1802, at a time when, after sickness, opium, domestic unhappiness and the consequent paralysis of his poetic faculty had driven him to seek distraction in the study of metaphysics, he made a visit to Wordsworth at Dove Cottage and in that vitalizing presence experienced a brief return of his powers—enough to give wonderful expression to perhaps the saddest thoughts that ever visited ungoverned genius. The earliest known form of the poem, preserved ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Jane? He had left Lyons, hoping that a change of scene would go far toward restoring cheerfulness to Jane. Vain hope. She never forgot her mother, nor that mother's life. She learned with marvelous rapidity. Study was her best distraction. From this Sanselme hoped much. He taught her himself all that he had formerly learned, and wondered at the progress ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... so unmindful of external affairs, but that she could find voice enough to tell the women and children without, to "leave their skirling, and look after the cows that she couldna get minded, what wi' the awfu' distraction of her mind, what wi' that fause slut having locked them up in their ain tower as fast as if they had been in ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... composure have turmoiled the tides of such remorse and pain as only a man at once largely and finely made can feel. Added to the mental excitement carried through many phases to the point of distraction, have been bodily exertion and want of food and sleep. The apparition of unnatural ugliness, of behavior strange as her looks, coming upon him in this untoward condition, needed not the heat of the conservatory and stupefying perfume of the flowers to bring on the brief delirium and final unconsciousness. ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... usurps a mother's hallowed name, To us, her children, so unmotherly. Surely to say what I would fain believe, That this fair offering from Orestes comes Dearest of men, I dare not, yet I hope. Oh, would it had a voice to speak to me, And so to end distraction in my soul; That I might cast it scornfully away, If it were taken from a hated head. If from a head I love, that it might pay With me sad homage to ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... wretch whom adverse fates pursue, While sad experience, from his aching sight, Sweeps the fair prospects of unprov'd delight Which flattering friends and flattering fancies drew. When want assails his solitary shed, When dire distraction's horrent eye-ball glares, Seen 'mid the myriad of tumultuous cares That shower their shafts on his devoted head. Then, ere despair usurp his vanquish'd heart, Is there a power, whose influence benign Can bid his head in pillow'd peace recline, And from ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... distraction. She plucked out handfuls of her pale gold hair, the pretty blonde hair which had been almost as famous in Paris as Beaufort's or Madame de Longueville's yellow locks. The thought of De Malfort's ridicule cut her like a whalebone ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... kingdom of the Muses. Rival wits assail one another—Dryden and Shadwell. Nec dis nec viribus aequis. This is a duel—impar congressus Achillei. But when Pope undertakes to hunt down the vermin of literature, this is no distraction of the Parnassian realm by civil war. This is the lawful magistrate going forth, armed perhaps with extraordinary powers, to clear an infested district of vulgar malefactors ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... the bottom of my heart. Shut up for the first night in my dungeon, I was seized at intervals with temporary frenzy. From time to time, I rent the universal silence with the roarings of unsupportable despair. But this was a transient distraction. I soon returned to the sober recollection of myself ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... his soliloquy he shook his head in a disconsolate manner, and betook himself to a novel by way of distraction. ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... me, which gratitude and love alike require that I should accept. Ere this letter reaches you, I shall myself be nearing England. The provision our dear Roger has made has emboldened me to resign my commission, so that I may devote my whole time without distraction to my new charge. You know, dear cousin, the special bond of sympathy that unites us; your boy has been robbed of a parent; my children long since have had to mourn a mother. I cannot leave them here. They accompany me to ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... memorable day I spent in a state of delightful distraction, as if I had been ravished into the seventh heaven, and feared to be cast out again presently, as my unworthiness deserved. What if it were possible, after all?—this, what Carlos wished, what he had said. The heavens shook; the ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... It was very warm; still there was a great deal going on, so we didn't mind the heat, at least I didn't. Heat in London during the season is such a different thing from heat in Switzerland or some dull seaside place, where there is not sufficient distraction to take your mind off it. I was doing something every minute. That's the charm of London. Every hour of the day there is something, and if there ever was a dull interval I dropped into one of the picture galleries. You know you have to ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... assembled, it was discovered Mr. Pilkington was missing, and a party, headed by Lawless, proceeded to his rooms, which were on the same staircase, and brought him down, vi et armis, in a state of mind bordering on distraction, picturesquely attired in a dressing-gown, slippers, and smoking-cap, of a decidedly oriental character; and how, when they had forced him into a seat of honour at Mr. Frampton's right hand, that gentleman discovered in him a striking likeness ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... the scene of fearful distraction. Furious tradesmen of every kind were ringing the house-bell, and rapping the knocker for admittance—such, at least, as could press through the crowd as far as the house. Bootmakers arrived with Hessians and Wellingtons—'as per order'—or ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... note-book. "The senses" he wrote, "are internecine. They shall have learned esprit de corps before they enslave us." This was one of his happiest flings to general from particular. "Visual distraction cries havoc to ultimate delicacy of palate" would but have pinned us a butterfly best a-hover; nor even so should we have had truth of why the aphorist, closing note-book and nestling back of head against that of ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... Work was a joy by itself; the rest from it as great a joy; and these alternations were enough to fill a life. To how many great artists had they sufficed! and what happy lives had been led, with no other distraction, and how glorious and successful! Only the divine Julia, in all the universe, was worthy to be weighed in the scales with these, and she was not for the likes of Mr. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... commodities sold were candles and soap. At one end of the shop was a range of books on a shelf; and while the very civil master was gone to look for those more choice volumes which we required, his housekeeper stood by, in a state bordering on distraction at the sacrilege committed by us, in daring to remove from their positions tomes which her master evidently did not permit her to lay a finger on. In Basque, and all the French she had, did she clamour to us to desist, assuring us it was a thing ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... Fortunately it came at a time when there was no distraction. For had it occurred whilst we were at a station, we might not have secured the necessary calm and isolation. Mrs. Harker yielded to the hypnotic influence even less readily than this morning. I am in fear that her power ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... seeking distraction in almonds and raisins, but now they only choked instead of consoling him, and he gave them up and sat brooding silently over his hard lot instead, with a dull, blank dejection which those only who have gone through the same thing in their boyhood will ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... however, is sometimes a distraction. In deciding about trimmings and the width of crepe hems many a woman forgets her woe, for a time at least. Mourning wear is expensive, and to clothe a whole family in black totals no inconsiderable sum. Many families have been financially swamped ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... entrance of the palace we saw Lentelli's "Aspiration," that had been the cause of so much criticism and humorous comment during the first few weeks of the Exposition. "Lentelli had a hard time with that figure. It drove him almost to distraction. Perhaps a genius might have solved the problem of making the figure seem to float; but I doubt if it could have been solved by anyone. The foot-rest they finally decided to put under it didn't ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... bore his part in the sad trials of the time, but the era of war with all its gory glory faded for him before the heroic discoveries of thought made by a new Newton, the German Einstein, in the midst of the general distraction. ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... if the opinion is incorrect, its evil consequences render it a duty to prove and exhibit its unsoundness. It is under the deep impression that the primary assumption of the abolitionists is an error, that its adoption tends to the distraction of the country, and the division of the church; and that it will lead to the longer continuance and greater severity of slavery, that we have felt constrained to do what little we could ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... than realities, the strong yearnings, the urgent struggles of nature towards the melting relief, and the extreme self-agitations I had used to come at it, had wearied and thrown me into a kind of unquiet sleep: for, if I tossed and threw about my limbs in proportion to the distraction of my dreams, as I had reason to believe I did, a bystander could not have helped seeing all for love. And one there was it seems; for waking out of my very short slumber, I found my hand locked in that of a young man, who was. kneeling at my bed-side, and begging my pardon for his ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... length the dissolution, the general election, the change in the Commissions of Peace and Lieutenancy, and finally the debates on the two Abjuration Bills, threw Shrewsbury into a state bordering on distraction. He was angry with the Whigs for using the King ill, and yet was still more angry with the King for showing favour to the Tories. At what moment and by what influence, the unhappy man was induced to commit a treason, the consciousness of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... proved at least a welcome distraction, and under its genial influence Mrs. Briggs's spirits rose. She was quite cheery by the time her two visitors took their leave. They left her waving farewell from her doorstep, the patches of paste still upon her ruddy countenance, but with ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... something about a five-hundred-pound note and a gambling-table—a heavy throw of the dice, and a heavier speech on the vices of gaming, by a likeness of the portrait of Dr. Dilworth that adorns the spelling-books. The hero rushes off in a state of distraction, and is followed by the jack-boots in pursuit; the enormous strides of which leave the pursued but little chance, though he has got ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... poor or rich. And this is one of the miseries of unoccupied childhood. The unoccupied adult, thus afflicted, tries many distractions which are, to say the least, unsuited to children. But one of them, the distraction of seeing the world, is innocent and beneficial. Also it is childish, being a continuation of what nurses call "taking notice," by which a child becomes experienced. It is pitiable nowadays to see men and women doing after the age of 45 all the travelling and sightseeing they ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... 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 ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... a hot June day, and out of the welter of din and rumble the cool plash of falling water came to his straining ears refreshingly. At once he considered the dog and, thankful for the distraction, stepped beneath the portico of a provision store and indicated the marble basin with a ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... proceeded to rush along the deck towards the bow; each rope tripped him up, and each fall caused him to see different-coloured lights. After a succession of somersaults, he arrived at the fore end of the vessel wide awake, but in a state of distraction. He called to the look-out man to point out the light he had reported, and a deep, sepulchral voice came from a tall figure robed in white, warning the officer of approaching disaster because of his neglect of duty. Suddenly a trumpet sounded, and in an instant the vision ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... up to prevent was, in the strangest and drollest, or at least in the most preposterous, way in the world, that not Cornelia's presence, but her very absence, with its distraction of his thoughts, the thoughts that lumbered after her, had made the difference; and without his being the least able to tell why and how. He put it to himself after a fashion by the image that, this distraction once created, his working round to his hostess again, his reverting ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... the little handful of waiters ran to and fro wildly. Imperious and importunate cries rang at them from all directions. "Gustave! Adolphe!" Their faces expressed a settled despair. They answered calls, commands, oaths in a semi-distraction, fleeting among the tables as if pursued by some dodging animal. Their breaths came in gasps. If they had been convict labourers they could not have surveyed their positions with countenances of more unspeakable ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... problem always opens another. People danced themselves into enormities of appetite and thirst. It was not that food was attractive in itself. Far from it. It was an interruption, a distraction from the tango; a base streak of materialism in the bacon of ecstasy. But it was necessary in order that strength might be kept up for ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... obeyed all my brother's military commands with the utmost docility; and happy it made me that every sort of distraction, or question, or opening for demur, was swallowed up in the unity of this one papal principle, discovered by my brother, viz., that all rights of casuistry were transferred from me to himself. His was the judgment—his ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... I tamely acquiesced in this state of affairs, or allowed my old friend an undisturbed possession of the Kanaka quarters behind the bakery. Late or early I gave him no peace, and plagued him, I dare say, to the very verge of distraction. But I might as well have tried to argue with his bread or soften his brick furnace for any impression I succeeded in making upon him. In his crazy obstinacy he would listen to nothing, and I would find myself, after one of these interviews, in a state of indescribable exasperation and determined ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... flinging themselves off, and drivers dismounting in all directions, making their escape up flights of steps and common stairs—mothers or nurses with broods of young children flying hither and thither in distraction, or standing on the very crown of the causeway, wringing their hands in despair. The wheel-barrows were easily disposed of—nor was there much greater difficulty with the gigs and shandrydans. But the hackney-coaches stood confoundedly in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 286, December 8, 1827 • Various
... my poor father—who was always thinking of the dogs—used to call "on your hind-legs," walking about very stately and very miserable. There were three or four covered dishes on the table that nobody tasted; and an old man in red breeches ran about in half-distraction, and said, "Sherry, my lord, or Madeira?" Many's the time I laughed over it since.' And, as though to vouch for the truth of the mirthfulness, she lay back in her chair and shook with ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... without speaking (for who would presume to trouble one so occupied?) we went away again. We divined that, for the little space of time which was all that he could secure for the refreshment of his mind, he allowed himself a holiday from the distraction of other people's business, and did not wish to be interrupted; and perhaps he was afraid lest eager listeners should invite him to explain the harder passages of his author, or to enter upon the discussion of difficult topics, and hinder him from perusing as many ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... verses too, and wrote them in a pretty album she bought for the purpose. They relieved her heart a little—at any rate it was a distraction to think of the rhymes. She would have shown them to Carrie, if she had had the slightest encouragement, but as Carrie gave no encouragement, there was no one ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... am I? whither is't you lead me? Methinks I read distraction in your face, Something less gentle than the fate you tell me. You shake and tremble too! your blood runs cold! Heav'ns guard my love, and ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... day of March brought no faintest promise of anything that looked like snow. Applehead sharpened his hoe and went pecking at the soil around the roots of his grape-vine arbor, thereby irritating Luck to the point of distraction. He had reached a nervous tension where he could not eat, and he could not sleep, and life looked a nightmare of hard work and disappointments, of hopes luring deceitfully only to crush one at ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... all the same. She carried on a conversation with an imaginary person till the occupants of the room were driven to distraction. Now and again her voice dropped as though she were going off to sleep, then suddenly she cried out in a shriller voice, and those who had dropped off into a slumber awoke with a start and frightened her badly, but despite their ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... Battlemead (it seems doubly beautiful as I think of it now, from far away); and till last year most of my time was spent in the schoolroom, or walking, or pottering about in a pony carriage with one of the governesses I used to drive to distraction. When we had house parties I was kept out of the way, as Mother said it spoiled young girls to be taken notice of, and I should have my fun later. When the others went up to town for the Season, as they often did, I was left behind, and though Battlemead ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... unsuccessful attempts to raise money—had he meditated the beauty of Marcella Boyce and the chances and difficulties of his relation to her. As he saw her less, he thought of her more, instinctively looking to her for the pleasure and distraction that life ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... silence, Mrs Clennam turned to Rigaud. 'You see and hear this foolish creature. Do you object to such a piece of distraction remaining where she is?' ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... secret pleasure in looking through the little window across Stromness harbour, and, from his position at the desk, watching the movements of the shipping, it is probable he would have erected some curtain there. The window offered a distraction to us all, for it often took our attention from our tasks, and caused many interruptions in the course of the day. But, as I have indicated, Andrew was not a severe taskmaster, and that, perhaps, was one reason of ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... by himself for a minute. When he was in the bank, of course, where Cyrus had found him a place as a clerk on an insignificant salary, it might be safely assumed that he was cheered by the unfailing company of his fellow-workers; but when he came home, the responsibility of his distraction and his cure rested upon Virginia and the children. And since her opinion of her own power to entertain was modest, she fell back with a sublime confidence on the unrivalled brilliancy and the infinite variety of the children's prattle. ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... has been assisted to fillet de soles. Say that the only sauce ever taken with them is au macedoine—this is offered to her, and, at the same time, another, which to eat with the above dish would be unheard of. In her distraction she is about to take the wrong sauce—actually at the point of ruining herself for ever and committing suicide upon her fashionable existence, while the keen grey eyes of Sir Antinous Antibes, the arbiter of fashion, are fixed upon her. At this ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... threatened in the streets of London. The vital question was how were we to keep the Church from being liberalised? there was such apathy on the subject in some quarters, such imbecile alarm in others; the true principles of Churchmanship seemed so radically decayed, and there was such distraction in the councils of the clergy. The Bishop of London of the day, an active and open-hearted man, had been for years engaged in diluting the high orthodoxy of the Church by the introduction of the Evangelical body into places of influence and trust. He ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... one or the other will pay the forfeit if this goes on. I know how much I am asking, and how little right I have to ask anything; but I think you will listen to me as it is for my father. Oh, Mr Bold, pray, pray do this for us;—pray do not drive to distraction a man who has ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... 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, 1774, he issued a proclamation ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... In such distraction, and with such wild cry, the night of Pequita's long-looked-for dance before the King ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... mistake for nel 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
... activity, so far as any beneficent impressing of the character is concerned, void of wholesomeness, and barren of solid, lasting results; and, viewed in this way, an activity really akin to indolence. With the craving for hunting subdued, the Indian may take up, with less distraction, and devote himself, to good advantage, to his farming, and ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... speak of the drapery of the arms, which showed the elaborate lace of the sleeve beneath, and sometimes also the pearly whiteness of that rounded arm. This was a sight which would almost drive Macassar to distraction. At such moments as that the hopes of the patriotic poet for the good of the Civil Service were not strictly fulfilled in the heart of Macassar Jones. Oh, if the Lady Crinoline could but ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... an agreeable distraction to Maggie's grief, and her tears gradually subsided as she trotted along by Luke's side to his pleasant cottage, which stood with its apple and pear trees, and with the added dignity of a lean-to pigsty, at the other end of the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... her touch. "Touch them yourself," she said to an old Dame Margaret; "your touch will be just as good as mine." But her faith in her mission remained as firm as ever. "The Maid prays and requires you," she wrote to Bedford, "to work no more distraction in France but to come in her company to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the Turk." "I bring you," she told Dunois when he sallied out of Orleans to meet her after her two days' march from Blois, "I bring you the ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... forever. Any day she might take flight! She had said so very often. She would be going very soon—when the blossoms were off the orange-trees! What would be left for him then ... except to obey his mother? He would marry, and perhaps that would serve as a distraction. Little by little his affection for Remedios might grow. Perhaps in time he would even ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... she had been three times to Castle Richmond, and had thrice driven Aunt Letty into a state bordering on distraction. If she could only get the Castle Richmond people to take it up as they ought to do! It was thus she argued with herself,—and with Aunt Letty also, endeavouring to persuade her that these two young people would undoubtedly ruin each other, unless those who ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... were a bond and a distraction. They brought out Baumgartner's simple side, and they emphasised the schoolboy's simplicity. Both played a strenuous game, the doctor a most deliberate one; his brows would knit, his mouth shut, his eyes calculate, and his hand obey, as though his cue were a surgical instrument ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... of horror depicted in their faces. Others were flogging their images with might and main, calling upon them to allay the storm. One of the passengers from England had got hold of a bottle of rum and, with an air of distraction and deep despair imprinted on his face, was stalking about in his ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... passive manner without that participation of the "ego." This occurs when our attention is diverted in any particular direction or concentrated on a certain thought, and when its continuity for one or another reason is broken up, which, for instance, occurs in cases of so-called distraction. In these cases the object of the perception does not enter into the personal consciousness, but it makes its way into other spheres of our mind, which we call the general consciousness. The general consciousness ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... in the special functions of ecclesiastical life, where the Church is all-sufficient and requires no extraneous aid, will naturally see at first in the problems of public life, the demands of modern society, and the progress of human learning, nothing but new and unwelcome difficulties,—trial and distraction to themselves, temptation and danger to their flocks. In time they will learn that there is a higher and a nobler course for Catholics than one which begins in fear and does not lead to security. They will come to see how vast a service ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... hold, dear Gardee, I have a, a, a, a, a Monkey shut up there; and if you open it before the Man comes that is to tame it, 'tis so wild 'twill break all my China, or get away, and that wou'd break my Heart; for I am fond on't to Distraction, next thee, dear Gardee. (In a ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... those yellow eyes he caught the flash of capricious resentment at the reminder. Then, indifferently, she brushed the distraction away. ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... us his opinion regarding the religion of labor. "It lulls the social underdog with a sham consolation for the oppression and exploitation which are his lot, and furnishes the exploiter and oppressor with graceful distraction and absolution from his daily practice and meanness. This is the actual basis of Church activity to-day. The religion of labor is godless, for it seeks to restore the divinity ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... I, too, want something sour, and that's not a mere chance feeling, for I notice the same mood in others around me. It is just as if they had all been in love, had fallen out of love, and now were looking for some new distraction. It is very possible and very likely that the Russians will pass through another period of enthusiasm for the natural sciences, and that the materialistic movement will be fashionable. Natural science is performing ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... worn out with watching, set down my faithful presence to motives of which I was shamefully innocent. In point of fact, I had lurked at home because I could not bear company. I preferred the deserted schoolroom, though Heaven knows what I would not have given for the dull distraction of work—an hour of Rule of Three with Captain Branscome, or Caesar's Commentaries with Mr. Stimcoe. But Mr. Stimcoe lay upstairs chattering, and Captain Branscome appeared to be taking a protracted holiday. It hardly occurred to me to ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... to have imputed a reserve of speech and manner during dinner, to which I cannot but plead guilty, to a fastidiousness which, situated as I am, (and he bowed to the General, and Commodore,) would have been wholly misplaced. My distraction, pardonable perhaps under all the circumstances, was produced entirely by a recurrence to certain inconveniences which I felt might arise to me from my imprisonment. The captive bird," he pursued, while a smile for the first time ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... another person has already told me—it is, perhaps, what all the world would tell me—it is what I am sometimes disposed to tell myself. But look at me, madam, for I will now come before you, and tell me if there is madness or distraction in my look and word, when I repeat to you again, that I have fixed my affections on this ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... her mother described her,—one whose headlong will, whose jealousy, and whose vanity nothing could restrain. She has none of those soft foibles, half allied to virtues, by which weak women fall away into misery or perhaps distraction. She does not want to love or to be loved. She does not care to be fondled. She has no longing for caresses. She wants to be admired,—and to make use of the admiration she shall achieve for the material purposes ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... cried Delvile, with encreasing vehemence; "if you force me, madam, from her, you will drive me to distraction! What is there in this world that can offer me a recompense? And what can pride even to the proudest afford as an equivalent? Her perfections you acknowledge, her greatness of mind is like your own; she has generously given me her heart,—Oh sacred and fascinating charge! Shall I, after such ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit, That, from her working, all his visage wann'd; Tears in his eyes, distraction in 's aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing! Hamlet, act ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... the visits of her sister, or any other relations, friends, or acquaintance. This usage, she thought exceeding barbarous, and it grieved her the more excessively, since she married him only because she imagined he loved and doated on her to distraction; for as his person was but ordinary, and his age disproportioned, being twenty-years older than she, it could not be imagined that she was in love with him.—She was very uneasy at being kept a prisoner; but her husband's fondness and ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... from hence a thousand leagues. All this tiresome way have I come in search of you. My whole life has been spent in amassing wealth, to enrich one only son, whom I doted on to distraction. It is now five years since I have given him up all the riches I had laboured to get, only to make him happy. But, alas how am I disappointed! His wealth enables him to command whatever this world produces; and yet the poorest wretch that begs his bread cannot ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... There was no sneer upon his face, no gibe at my simplicity. Even 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 ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... seized with a kind of frantic rebellion against fate—the same futile passion which causes a convict to wrench madly at the bars of his cell. The glimpse of that illuminated stretch of road across the flooded stream drove him to distraction. Baffled, powerless, his wonted stolidness left him, and he cast his eyes here and there with a sort of challenge born ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... said after a long monologue that was meant to bring distraction from the noise of the inferno. "I wish as 'ow we was a bit closer to the devils so that they couldn't shell us. I'd like to get me 'and round some blighter's ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... the account of the victuals of the fleete, and late at it, and then home to supper and to bed. This evening, Sir W. Pen come into the garden, and walked with me, and told me that he had certain notice that at Flushing they are in great distraction. De Ruyter dares not come on shore for fear of the people; nor any body open their houses or shops for fear of the tumult: which is a ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... point and object, just as a concave mirror concentrates all the rays of light thrown upon it. Noisy interruption prevents this concentration. This is why the most eminent intellects have always been strongly averse to any kind of disturbance, interruption and distraction, and above everything to that violent interruption which is caused by noise; other people do not take any particular notice of this sort of thing. The most intelligent of all the European nations has called "Never interrupt" the eleventh ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... natural that she should turn to Tessa for consolation and distraction. The child was original in all her ways. Her ideas of death were wholly devoid of tragedy, and she was too accustomed to her father's absence to feel any actual sense ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... caused burn at London) yet the dissatisfied party continued still in their jealousies, and even of the king himself whom they doubted most of all. This party was called Protesters and Remonstrators as the other was called Resolutioners, which names occasioned lamentable distraction" (History of the Church of Scotland p. 53). A more particular account of this unhappy controversy, so fatal in its results to both parties, may be seen in ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning |
