"Distraction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... keeping the distractions away. With this definition of attention, we see that in order to increase the effectiveness of attention during study, we must devise means for overcoming the distractions peculiar to study. Obviously the first thing is to eliminate every distraction possible. Such a plan of elimination may require a radical rearrangement of study conditions, for students often fail to realize how wretched their conditions of study are from a psychological standpoint. They attempt to study in rooms with two or three ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... principle when you are speaking. If you feel deeply about your subject you will be able to think of little else. Concentration is a process of distraction from less important matters. It is too late to think about the cut of your coat when once you are upon the platform, so centre your interest on what you are about to say—fill your mind with your speech-material and, like the ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... not realise her father's mental condition, and pointed out that whatever his past faults he was now lying in my house a dying man, and dying of a broken heart. I hoped and believed that my description of his anguish and his distraction would ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... your wife or Madam Imbert know any thing about it. I have had much trouble once or twice through women, and have determined never again to trust them. It is utterly impossible for a woman to keep a secret. She may love you to distraction, but confide a secret to her and she is never satisfied till she divulges it." Maroney eagerly listened to all White had to say, and then replied: "White, depend upon it, you are the right man for me! If you will only figure for me as well as you have done for yourself, ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... The distraction and perplexity of the teacher's life are, as was explained in the last chapter, almost proverbial. There are other pressing and exhausting pursuits, which wear away the spirit by the ceaseless care which they impose, or perplex and bewilder the intellect by the multiplicity and intricacy of their ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... so, I imagined, from, the viewpoint of poor Kauf. Manton, at the heels of his new director, was doing all he could to help. Phelps, following Manton about, seemed to be urging haste upon the promoter. The result was far from advantageous to picture making; it was concentrated distraction. ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... unavailing victim to an amiable but excessive attachment, seventeen days before the death of her lord.' The period, though not very remote, was one in which the intelligence of events travelled slowly; and in this instance the distraction of the family must have served to retard it beyond the ordinary time. Her Ladyship's mother, when hastening from Edinburgh to her assistance, alighted one day from her carriage at an inn, and, on seeing two hearses standing ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... disturbed soul of the suffering chief of Ellerslie. "Ah! then," murmured she to herself, "are there two men in Scotland who will speak thus?" She looked up in his face. The plumes of his bonnet shaded his features; but she saw they were paler than on his entrance, and a strange expression of distraction agitated their before composed lines. His eyes were bent to ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... the drift of her new life, Vanessa was undisguisedly glad when distraction offered itself in the person of Mr. Dobrinton, a chance acquaintance whom they had first run against in the primitive hostelry of a benighted Caucasian town. Dobrinton was elaborately British, in deference perhaps to the memory of his mother, who was said to have derived part of her origin ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... dear," she drawled, "I love you to distraction! But as a daily companion?" Vaguely her eyebrows lifted. "As a real playmate?" Against the starch-white of her pillows the sudden flutter of her small brown throat showed with almost startling distinctness. "But as a real playmate," she persisted evenly, "you ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... is perhaps a questionable usage, Lord John Russell invited the retiring minister to explain his secession from office to the House. In the suspicion, distraction, tension that marked that ominous hour in the history of English party, people insisted that the resignation of the head of the department of trade must be due to divergence of judgment upon protection. The prime minister, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... could never think her handsome. She has really a good shape and complexion but no mein; and no woman has the use of her beauty without mein. Her charms are dumb, they want utterance. But whither does distraction lead me ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... blustering into a sixth marriage, and haunted by the ghosts of four dead wives and the wraith of the sole survivor, is not a figure precisely calculated to inspire patriotic fervour. Still, the circumstances of the play are sufficiently national, and it should serve well enough as a permissible distraction for non-combatants. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 16, 1914 • Various
... you?" he exclaimed at length, in a voice trembling with emotion; "speak, if you would not drive me to distraction. Tell me whence you come, and why you now come ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... much importance to words. They are under the illusion that talking effects great results. As a matter of fact, words are, as a rule, the shallowest portion of all the argument. They but dimly represent the great surging feelings and desires which lie behind. When the distraction of the tongue is removed, the ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... resolved not to again open them, that I might not be influenced by external objects, for distraction had gradually taken possession of me until I hardly knew what ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... '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 agin with sea ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... intimating by the slight movement of her head towards him, that their conversation was to become a tete-a-tete. "Well," she continued, "I suppose that life is that with all of us, only you see with us poor frivolous people, a search means nearly always the same thing—a search for amusement or distraction, whichever ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... those, also, who had thus nobly and fearlessly administered it in the critical hour of its mortal danger. A contrary course would only lead to disaster in the momentous operations of the war, and to distraction and weakness among the people, whose duty and disposition it is to sustain the Government in all honest efforts to conquer the rebellion. The temptation insensibly to depart from this pure and patriotic policy is great and almost irresistible. It is so easy and so natural for one in power to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... then how rarely the wits and labours of men have been converted to the severe and original inquisition of knowledge; and in those who have pretended, what hurt hath been done by the affectation of professors and the distraction of such as were no professors; and how there was never in effect any conjunction or combination of wits in the first and inducing search, but that every man wrought apart, and would either have his own way or else would go no further than his guide, having in the one ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... distraction without mama, anyhow," declared Kittie, departing for the kitchen, with her hands full of dishes, and scowling defiantly at the stove, where the fire was sizzling with a lazy sputter, while the dish-water taking advantage of the lull ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... down with a stern resolution of endurance—lips firmly compressed, eyes fixed in a stony gaze on the orchestra, whence issued by turns groans, shrieks, and screams, from sundry foully-abused instruments of music; accompanied by equally appalling sounds from flat, shrill signorinas, quavering to distraction, backed by gigantic "basses," (double ones surely,) who, with voices like the "seven devils" of the old Grecian, bellowed out divers sentimentalisms about dying for love, when assuredly their most proximate danger was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... 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
... that waiting! In my longing for Berna I had worked myself up into a state that bordered on distraction. It seemed as if a cloud was in my brain, obsessing me at all times. I felt I must question this man, though it raised my gorge even to speak of her in his presence. In that atmosphere of corruption the ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... violence above the natural sentiments of man. New characters appear from time to time in continual succession, exhibiting various forms of life and particular modes of conversation. The pretended madness of HAMLET causes much mirth, the mournful distraction of OPHELIA fills the heart with tenderness, and every personage produces the effect intended, from the apparition that in the first act chills the blood with horror, to the fop in the last that exposes affectation to ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... husbands. They wear a very pretty dress, and all have a great air of independence and self-respect; and the real Malays are very handsome. I am going to see one of the Mollahs soon, and to look at their schools and mosque; which, to the distraction of the Scotch, they call ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... not Billy, had been the movable quantity, and that the time she had given him had been hours of keen enjoyment to herself. Theodora was no saint. She was humanly tempestuous, superhumanly jealous. She could love her friends to distraction; she could give her time and strength and thought to them unreservedly; but in return she demanded a soleness of affection which ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... black and men in uniform, up and down the pillared spaces of the ball-room. People had not been asked to dance, and they seemed to walk about chiefly for observation. There was, of course, the opportunity of talking and of listening to the band which discoursed in a corner behind palms, but the distraction which is the social Nemesis of bureaucracy was in the air, visibly increasing in the neighbourhoods of the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief, and made the commonplaces people uttered to each other disjointed and fragmentary, while it was plain that few were aware ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... to get assistance for the unfortunate victim; and crying "Help! help!" as she saw the wretched man forced over the walls, she looked in a state of distraction towards her husband. "Dear Jane," said that individual, smiling blandly, "I told you you had overtired yourself with walking." Jane gazed round; there was Reginald sitting beside her, with her head reclining ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... Chevalier Bayard! Such innocent happiness, too, in all seeming—only a little animated rambling talk upon all manner of subjects, from the loftiest problems in philosophy to the frothiest gossip of the Faubourg St. Honore; only the presence of two people who loved each other to distraction. A dim firelit room; a little commonplace woman coming in and out; two young men disputing in the dusk; and Clarissa in her low chair by the fire, listening to the magical voice that was now the only music of her dreams. If it could have gone on for ever thus—a sweet sentimental ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... documents. But one will have greater indulgence for a great passion, because it is nearer to madness. The Romans punished with the utmost severity the priests of the God Apis, when these had prostituted the chastity of a noble lady to a knight who loved her to distraction, making him pass as their god; while it was found enough to send the lover into exile. But if someone had done evil deeds without apparent reason and without appearance of passion the judge would be tempted to take him for a madman, especially if it proved that ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... 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
... chains that held him to the stone, at a single bound, as the iron entered him, and trampling to death one of his drivers, dashed forward to wreak his vengeance upon the first object that should come in his way. That, to the universal terror and distraction of the now scattered and flying crowds, was the chariot of the Queen. Her mounted guards, at the first onset of the maddened animal, putting their horses to their speed, by quick leaps escaped. The horses attached to the chariot, springing forward to do the same, urged ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... other hand, a vigorous mind shut out from outer stimuli[1] finds in this circumstance the time to develop leisurely, finds a freedom from distraction that leads to clear views of life and a proper expression. A periodic retirement from the busy, too-busy world is necessary for the thinker that he may digest his material, that he may strip away unessential beliefs, that he may find what it is he really needs, strives for and ought ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... supplied him with that very black plug of tobacco which he brought forth shortly afterward. The one was the complement of the other, and each was handled with equal love and care. Soon the occupation of cutting up the tobacco and rubbing it gave a temporary distraction to his thoughts, which distraction was prolonged by the further operation of pressing the tobacco into the ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... been compelled to keep indoors. Of course, money has not been plentiful, and I could not afford a nurse. Consequently I myself have been compelled to nurse him. Monsieur, if you were a woman, you would know what men are when they are ill—how fretful, how difficult. There is not much distraction for the woman who nurses them. So, as I am in the house most of the day, I find what amusement I can in watching the doings of my neighbours. ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... misguided people, who completely misunderstand the situation, hold that footballers should go to the Front and fight; but the Government take a more prudent view and will not allow this, holding that their agility on the field in League Matches and so forth is of high service as an anodyne and distraction. I have heard of more than one case of a well-known herculean player, accustomed not only to big money but applause and hero-worship, seriously wondering if fighting were not his real duty and if he ought not to make a bolt for the Front, but being compelled to acquiesce in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... what 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 ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... much violent emotion the rapid and eager preparations for travel proved a useful distraction. There was no time to lose; and Natalie very speedily found that it was she herself who must undertake the duties of a courier, her mother being far too anxious and alarmed. Once or twice, indeed, the girl, regarding the worn, sad face, almost repented of having accepted that ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... her disobedience that Demetrius had formerly professed love for her dear friend Helena, and that Helena loved Demetrius to distraction; but this honorable reason, which Hermia gave for not obeying her father's command, moved not ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... seek distraction in my old College. I floated out into the untenanted meadows. Over them was the usual coverlet of white vapour, trailed from the Isis right up to Merton Wall. The scent of these meadows' moisture is the scent of Oxford. Even in hottest noon, one feels that the sun has not dried ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... not like—once, for an hour—and he has so troubled my quiet that I cannot put my mind upon my work. What does it matter, and why should a stranger who displeases me have power to compel my thoughts? It was but a trifle—the distraction of an hour, nothing more—and, whether I like him or not, by to-morrow I shall have ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... white; the light hair falling down below the linen folds. She has turned suddenly towards you; and there is an expression in the eyes—although they are very tender and gentle—as if the wildness of a momentary terror, or distraction, had been struggled with and overcome, that instant; and nothing but a celestial hope, and a beautiful sorrow, and a desolate earthly helplessness remained. Some stories say that Guido painted it, the night before her execution; some other stories, that ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... conscience, to the greater glory of God, yet haunted in sleep and waking by the dim ghosts of ruin and defeat. He prophesied not, and he saw no visions, but he who was almost the world's physician in his day felt fever in its pulse and heard distraction in the piercing note ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... been ingenious and diversified. "She had seen Katherine at one of the windows,—the very picture of distraction." "She had been told that Katherine was breaking her heart about him;" also, "that Elder Semple and Councillor Van Heemskirk had quarrelled because Katharine had refused to see Neil, and the elder blamed Van ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... placid, slow sort of mind. He went through his tasks without any excitement or distraction, although occasionally a vague curiosity as to what Elsie could want the atlas for, and what the letter said about them, did wander through his brain. When school was ended he slipped out unobserved with a small atlas, which he had had difficulty ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... distraction, picked up the stones within his reach, and threw them at him, but did no ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... great-grandpapa). Charles and he must swear eternal friendship, and then he will pick up his sword, and exit right centre, waving the golden shield, to find his Princess. It will look very well, and as he goes out the Princess can enter left in distraction about the combat, and she and Charles can fall in each other's arms, and be blessed ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... heard this short dialogue. He was rather bored; he did not find Cacouna very amusing, and had not yet found even that last resource of idle men—a woman to flirt with. He was in the very mood to be tempted by anything that promised the slightest distraction, and there was undeniably something irritating in the idea of there being in the neighbourhood one sole and unapproachable beauty, and of that one being given up by common consent to a boy, a mere Canadian boor! Of course he could not understand that no one else could have seen this matter ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... madame, that on so solemn an occasion I should set an example myself. I must ask you henceforth to consider our intimacy entirely at an end. You must retire to Fontevrault, where Madame de Montemart will take care of you and afford you distraction by her charming society. Your children are in good hands; do not be in the least uneasy about them. Farewell. I wish you all the firmness and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... in pep, and the surprises that he was forever springing on the camp were a perpetual joy. I suspect that he was not well versed in his scoutmasters' handbook. He was a sort of human north wind. He adopted the pose of being driven to distraction by "those kids" and he denounced them roundly and said there were too many of them and that he was going to pick out one and drown the rest. Then he would show up with a new one. He was a sort of free-lance scoutmaster ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... and their old father were afraid; And to his sons afflicted Jacob said, You of my children have bereaved me, Joseph and Simeon now do cease to be; And of my Benjamin you would deprive me, These things do ev'n into distraction drive me. Then Reuben said, My father I resign To thy disposing these two sons of mine; Give me the lad, and let them both be slain, If I do not return him safe again. But he reply'd, I will not let him go, For why his brother is deceas'd you know; And if upon the way some evil ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... convention. For instance, the wind is always "most discreetly, most discreetly" ready, as indeed it was in Mlle. de Scudery's own chaste stories, to blow up sleeves or skirts a little, and achieve the distraction of the beholders by what it reveals. But on the whole, as was hinted above, Gauthier de Costes de La Calprenede is the most natural ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... offered knife an instant with distraction in his eyes, and the Don (not to carry this risky business too far), taking his hesitation for refusal, claps up the blade in his waist-cloth, where it lay mighty convenient ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... so much the more fuller of horror, as in such cases horror and fear use to overrun the troubled and overmastered senses of all, while (taken up with amazement) the ears lay so sensible to the terrible cries, and murmurs of the winds and distraction of our Company, as who was most armed and best prepared, was not ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... the year before I came here, where I had to room with a girl who almost drove me to distraction. She was a mild, modest little thing, ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... not seen wringing her hands and tearing her hair in distraction; nor is she heard to utter intemperate language against his persecutors, or to manifest resentment at the dispensations of Heaven: she neither curses man, nor blasphemes God; nor do we observe her fainting beneath the pressure of accumulated ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... And I know her metier even better than you do, Bertie, dear. She might go to her grave loving you to distraction, but she would never have an ex-convict for the father of her children—not if she knew it. It's in the Everton blood. Anybody who knew Phineas Everton as you and I did in the old school-days, ought to know exactly what to expect ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... had 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
... sister Mary was as nothing, after the constant exercise I had been provided with for a whole month. Ever since I had practised that little deception on Miss Evelyn by attributing to her embraces the evident distraction I was in on the day of Mr. Benson's return, she had increased her pressures of my person, and could not but feel my stiff prick throbbing against her thigh, while she closely pressed my body against it with her arm. I ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... just this. I am not worth an honest man's love. I used to think I worshipped the ground poor Leslie walked on—I'm sure I loved him to distraction," the girl went on passionately. "Very well; suppose George asked me to marry him and I consented. In all probability, in the light of what has gone before, I should be tired of him in a year, ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... he was capital in argument, but his ideas did not come from his own brain; he borrowed them from others, especially from Pokorsky. Pokorsky was quiet and soft—even weak in appearance—and he was fond of women to distraction, and fond of dissipation, and he would never take an insult from any one. Rudin seemed full of fire, and courage, and life, but at heart he was cold and almost a coward, until his vanity was touched, then he ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... harassed key-attendant, hurrying up with the burden of his own distraction. "There's a silly fathead got in what thinks this is a left-luggage office, so far as I can ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... tavern an' have much whiskey as I could stan' up to, an' dee'd pay for it; an' de jedge distracted 'em to tu'n me loose. P'laski, he wuz sort o' bothered; he ain' know wherr to be disapp'inted 'bout de hangin' or pleased wid bein' set up so as de centre of distraction, tell ole Mis' Twine begin to talk 'bout 'restin' of him. Dat set him back; but I ax 'em, b'fo' dee 'rest him, couldn' I have jurisdictionment on him for a leetle while. Dee grant my be-ques', 'cuz dee know I gwine to erward him accordin' to his becessities, ...
— P'laski's Tunament - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... President. At one time, when he was in London, he said to an intimate friend: "I never intended to engage in politics, but meant to follow my profession strictly. But my prospects and plans were all changed by a most sad event, which happened at Lancaster when I was a young man. As a distraction from my grief, and because I saw that through a political following I could secure the friends I then needed, I accepted ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... when the same roof sheltered us, would slip the scribblings into my hand at odd moments, but preferably before her husband's eyes. She demanded an account of every minute I spent apart from her, and never believed a syllable of my explanations; and in a sentence, she pestered me to the verge of distraction. ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... the alleged hollowness of their days with an extraordinary amount of running about. There was incessant shifting of interest from one focal point to another of the colony, a perpetually restless swarming hither and yon to some new centre of distraction, a continual kaleidoscopic parade of the most wonderful and extravagant clothing the ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... my bed, Dave!" squealed Frank, in mock distraction. "I've always expected to find a man under ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... flute together with waxed thread, which, although it could not restore it to its pristine elegance, enabled him to play with great effect sundry doleful airs, whose influence, when performed at night, usually sent his companions to sleep, or, failing this, drove them to distraction. ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... a new source of distraction. It broke out before the tower was finished, stimulating Hawthorne's nerves, but disturbing that delicate mental equilibrium upon which satisfactory procedure of his writing depended. On May 26, 1861, he wrote to ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... of them very profound or exalted studies in psychology; but they are truthful, natural, and ingenious; and it needed a sure and delicate hand to make them interesting and life-like. The feeble, solemn, timid, vacillating bishop, driven to distraction by some clerical scandal in his tea-cup of a diocese; the pompous ecclesiastic with wounded dignity and family quarrels; the over-sensitive priest whose conscience is more acute than his brain; the weak, generous, cowardly owner of an embarrassed ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... percentages were his hourly food; he received them even from programme sellers. At nine o'clock the hall was rather less than half full, and this was rightly regarded as very promising, for the management, like the management of every place of distraction in Paris, held it a point of honour to start from twenty to thirty minutes late—as though all Parisians had many ages ago decided that in Paris one could not be punctual, and that, long since tired of waiting ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... instead of the rival candidate, Francis I of France. By this election the king of Spain, who had not yet been in Germany and who never learned its language, became its ruler at a critical juncture, when the teachings of Luther were producing unprecedented dissension and political distraction. We shall hereafter refer to him by his ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... entered the service of the Church "was released from the distraction of family cares and the seduction of family ties. The Church was his country and his home and its interests were his own. The moral, intellectual, and physical forces, which throughout the laity were divided between the claims of patriotism, the selfish struggle ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... him go on in this way, felt prompted, with the idea of affording his mind some distraction, to think of this and to devise that expedient; but everything had been indulged in with surfeit by Pao-yue, and there was only this resource, (that suggested itself to him,) of which Pao-yue had not as yet had any experience. Bringing ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... He got to calling rather often. I must say that I lured him on; I found his babble a distraction. Then, one day—Prather is nothing, if not transparent—he let out the fact that he was taking notes of ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... possible." There are moments, when any creature that lives, has power to drive one into madness. I seemed to know the absurdity of this reply; but that was of no consequence. It added to the measure of my distraction. A little after seven I intreated a friend to go for Mr. Carlisle, and bring him instantly wherever he was to be found. He had voluntarily called on the patient on the preceding Saturday, and two or three times since. He had seen her that morning, and ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... Indian battle with Alexander, they seemed going mad with consternation. In all directions expanding in vast irregular circles, and aimlessly swimming hither and thither, by their short thick spoutings, they plainly betrayed their distraction of panic. This was still more strangely evinced by those of their number, who, completely paralysed as it were, helplessly floated like water-logged dismantled ships on the sea. Had these Leviathans been but a flock of simple ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... efforts, I seemed to be engaged in a hopeless struggle, without motive or end: and his idea, which was perpetually recurring to me, brought such bitter anguish with it, that I shut up the work with feelings bordering on distraction. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... female. A woman doctor (to instance another open calling) is rightly regarded as a doctor who happens to be a woman, not as a woman who happens to be a doctor. She undergoes the same training, and submits to the same tests, as the young men who find their distraction in the music-halls and flirt with nurses. Her sex is properly sunk, except where it may prove an advantage, and certainly it is never allowed to pose as an excuse for limitations, a palliative for shortcomings. Least of all is she credited (or debited) with any abnormality on account of it. But ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... Man lay unread. If Pelle laid down his work a moment in order to glance at it, there was Ellen nipping his ear with her lips; his free time belonged to her, and it was a glorious distraction in work-time, to frolic as carelessly as a couple of puppies, far more delightful than shouldering the burden of the servitude of the masses! So the paper was given up; Ellen received the money every week for her savings-bank. She had discovered a corner ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... 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 ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... yield up the last retreat of love and gentleness within me, or to be a new misfortune on its innocent object—driven from each to each, and beset by one when I escaped the other—my anger rose almost to distraction against both I do not know against which it rose higher—the ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... him to the last; and on those occasions, when the nurse used to meet him in her walks, would enquire of her with the tenderest anxiety as to his health and looks. When the intelligence of his death, too, arrived, her grief, according to the account of this same attendant, bordered on distraction, and her shrieks were so loud as to be heard in the street. She was, indeed, a woman full of the most passionate extremes, and her grief and affection were bursts as much of temper as of feeling. To mourn at all, however, for such a husband was, it must be allowed, a most gratuitous stretch of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... pair met next morning, they neither looked at nor spoke to each other. Days passed full of depression and gloom for the young wife, who spent most of her time in seclusion, whilst the king sought distraction in the society of his courtiers. The chancellor, after his second interview with the queen, absented himself from court, not wishing to be furthermore drawn into a quarrel which he saw himself powerless to heal. During his absence the king ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... taken away!' I cried, starting up, and with streaming eyes, gazing on the building which, though I stamped my feet in my distraction, I was afraid to approach. 'Oh, is mamma taken away? Where is she? Where ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... especially to women, it seems to me that such talk is annoying to me, at any rate at present. When I get to your age, possibly my ideas may change. I don't for a moment wish to judge you or others; you apparently enjoy it, and it is a distraction from our serious work. I say simply that it is an amusement which I do not understand. You must remember that I entered the Order in consequence of a solemn vow of my dead father, that I regard the profession we make as a very serious one, and that my present intention is to devote my life ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... twisted oak, even the grand salon with the stately courtiers and captains, the gracious dames and damsels of the family of Secondat gazing down from the walls, all these distract the eye and the mind. The distraction is agreeable, but still it is a distraction. It leads you from the biographical into the social and historical mood. You are delighted as at Meillant or Chenonceaux with a corner of ancient France, marvellously rescued from the ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... talking it over at supper tonight?" Pembroke proposed. "Maybe with less distraction I'll have a better picture of you—as ...
— The Perfectionists • Arnold Castle
... 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
... so supine? Why is his work so ill done, when he ought most to exert himself? He disgusts the world with his hang-dog looks. Alas! with the need for action, the power of action is gone. Despair—distraction—the Furies sit with him. Stunned, stupid, and wild—always agitated—it is not easy to compose his sermons as finely as heretofore. He is always jotting down little sums in addition and subtraction. The cares of the world—the miseries of what the world calls 'difficulties' ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... still been a pleasure, but a much smaller one. I love your intellect to distraction, Clementine, but tell me, do you think it possible to love the intellect without ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... him from the temptations of distraction. He knew no women. He did not put himself in the way of meeting them. He kept away from theatres. He sunk himself in a routine of labour which, viewed from the outside, seemed dull and monotonous. Viewed from his stand-point of acquisition, of achievement, it was just ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... held firm. On the whole, however, Oberstein thought he could answer for his own troops: Upon Van Ende's division, although the crafty colonel dissembled his real intentions; very little reliance was placed. Thus there was distraction within the walls. Among those whom the burghers had been told to consider their defenders, there were probably many who were ready to join with their mortal foes at a moment's warning. Under these circumstances, Champagny hesitated about admitting these fresh troops from Brussels. He ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... courses. Then in a carriage we set out for the King's stand in the hunting-grounds, accompanied by a crowd of mounted game-keepers, who with great difficulty controlled the pack of sixty or seventy hounds, the dogs and keepers together almost driving me to distraction with their yelping and yelling. On reaching the stand, I was posted within about twenty' yards of a long, high picket-fence, facing the fence and covered by two trees very close together. It was from behind these that the King usually ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... at Roger's elbow John was watching like a hawk for all the little ways and means of pushing up the business. What a will the lad had to down bodily ills, what vim in the way he tackled each job. His shrewd and cheery companionship was a distraction and relief. ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... struggled for and the things that are most envied are not those which give either the most intense or the most unmixed joy. Ambition is the luxury of the happy. It is sometimes, but more rarely, the consolation and distraction of the wretched; but most of those who have trodden its paths, if they deal honestly with themselves, will acknowledge that the gravest disappointments of public life dwindle into insignificance compared with the poignancy of suffering endured ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... against her was singularly striking and unanswerable—and he knew the world too well, not to feel extraordinary alarm at the possible consequences. In London, alone, without friends or acquaintances, a glance into the future almost drove him to distraction. At moments he was half mastered by the impulse to bear Caroline away, by a sudden coup de main; but his hand was held by the reflection, that even were such a wild scheme possible, success would be no means of security, inasmuch as Mrs. Clifford had given her address; ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... 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 ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... (if any Man had Pretensions to greater Faculties than any other Mortal) was the Person; but such a Way of acting is Childish, and inconsistent with the Manner of our Being. And it appears from the very Nature of Things, that there cannot be any thing effectually dispatched in the Distraction of a Publick Levee: but the whole seems to be a Conspiracy of a Set of Servile Slaves, to give up their own Liberty to take ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Melissa, is it possible my father can be so cruel! Is he so unfeeling as to banish me from his house, and confine me within the walls of a prison, like a common malefactor?" She flung herself on the bed in a state little inferior to distraction. Her aunt told her it was all owing to her own obstinacy, and because she refused to be made happy—and ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... state of distraction, was eagerly embraced,—in such haste, indeed, that he left the palace without an instant's preparation, his feet destitute of shoes, and no garment but his close tunic, his outer garments and imperial robe having been discarded in his distraction. The utmost he did was to ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... 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
... book shut. Later she opened it to the tale of Tomlinson. She did not entirely grasp it, but she could not entirely miss what it said. She hurried on; she wondered vaguely at the call of the Red Gods; here again, seeking distraction, she was whipped back to reality. There were the lines, staring at her, as though King had ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... wood by pieces of wall we were firing on the Russians, we heard behind us the bugle sounding 'Retreat' at the order of ——. At this moment my captain, indignant, ordered 'Forward' sounded to reestablish confidence which had been shaken by the distraction or by the inadvertance ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... soldier her babe fondly press'd; Not a word could she utter, no tear gave relief, But sorrow convulsively heaved her soft breast. Now nearer she presses—now severed for life The waves bear the lord of her bosom from view; Distraction suspends the red current of life, And she sinks on the beach as he sighs ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... morrow, and you know I am inclined to let things go on quietly as long as they will. Thus far I have merely gone to an office as I did before the war, or else have been absent on trips that were apparently civilian in character, and it has been essential that I should have as little distraction of mind as possible. I have lived long in hope that some decisive victory might occur; but the future grows darker, instead of lighter, and the struggle, instead of culminating speedily, promises to become more deadly and to be prolonged. There is but one way out ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... friends used to put up, and where we used to go to see parents, and to have salmon and fowls, and be tipped. It had an ecclesiastical sign,—the Mitre,—and a bar that seemed to be the next best thing to a bishopric, it was so snug. I loved the landlord's youngest daughter to distraction,—but let that pass. It was in this Inn that I was cried over by my rosy little sister, because I had acquired a black eye in a fight. And though she had been, that Holly-Tree night, for many a long year where all tears are dried, the Mitre ...
— The Holly-Tree • Charles Dickens
... cannot change his nature so as to be like the Quiet above him (ll. 144-5). Hence, like the fish, Setebos had a dissatisfied consciousness of a bliss he was not born for. Discontent with himself, spite, envy, restlessness, love of power as a means of distraction, are the motives that, according to Caliban's reasoning, actuated Setebos in his ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... on and ended, with a good deal of distraction, caused by the dogs, and a mild little remark now and then from Mrs. Tempest, or an occasional wise interjection from Miss McCroke, who in a manner represented the Goddess of Wisdom in this somewhat frivolous family, and came ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... beside himself, but Mrs. Bumpkin had taken the precaution to hide the gun and the powder-flask, for she could not tell what her husband might do in his distraction. Possibly she was right. Tom's rage knew no bounds. Youth itself seemed to be restored in the strength of his fury. He saw dimly the men standing around looking on; he saw, as in a dream, the man cutting on the rick, and he ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... notable castles and two wide domains, was a stake worth playing high for, and a stake which appealed strongly to a houseless, landless man, with not even a name worth leaving to his son. Thus, while the Countess lavished her affection on young Wilhelm, noticing nothing of her husband's distraction in this excessive happiness, Count Herbert sat alone in the lofty Knight's Hall, his elbows resting on the table before him, his head buried in his hands, ruminating on the strange transformation that had taken place, endeavouring ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... my dear count, what a history you have told me! At your entrance into life you found an adorable woman, a perfect mistress, who thought of your future, made you a peer, loved you to distraction, only asked that you would be faithful to her, and you killed her! I know nothing more monstrous. Among all the passionate and unfortunate young men who haunt the streets of Paris, I doubt if there is one who would not stay virtuous ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... popularity was on the wane. Dowagers looked askance and matrons posed in a patronizing manner, the flippant correspondents of society journals and the compilers of sonnets in which that very hammock had been eulogized and metaphored to distraction now waited upon her, if at all in an entirely different manner. Strange how all classes began to recall the many peculiar or unaccountable things she had done, the extraordinary costumes she had worn, the fact that she lived alone, and the other fact that she made ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... curled, and her face took on some slight vestige of colour. Her spirit was a thing for which I might then have come to love her had it not been that already I loved her to distraction. ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... made evident by his determined struggles to accompany us at the last; and it was not till he had been forcibly shut up in the coach-house that we were able to start. My grief at parting with him was lessened by the distraction of another question. ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... mind she hailed the festival of the Devil Dance as a welcome distraction. Not even the impertinent curiosity of the spectators could drive her from her balcony. She followed the many phases with interest, although she could not understand the meaning of them. For the performance was a curious mixture of religion and blasphemous mockery, of horse-play and coarse ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... move it towards diverse objects when it stops. He should not taste any pleasure (sukham) and by wisdom remain unattached, by strong effort making it motionless and still. When he neither passes into dissolution nor into distraction; when there is no sign, no appearance that is the perfect Brahman. When there is no object of knowledge to come into being, the unproduced is ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... with him, whilst the cool evening wind played about us, I listened to a scheme he unfolded to me. He said he loved me to such distraction that he could not leave me, it would kill him; he could not wait until his marriage was set aside. He swore that he believed himself conscience free to marry, and swore a great oath that nothing should ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... exposed on the Ti'ber, and at length divulged his suspicions to Rom'ulus. Nu'mitor made the same discovery to Re'mus. From that time nothing was thought of but the tyrant's destruction. He was beset on all sides; and, during the amazement and distraction that ensued, was taken and slain; while Nu'mitor, who had been deposed for forty years, recognised his grandsons, and was once more placed on ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... devotion, would have been taken as a harmless platonic protestation. Unfortunately, the teeth of censure had fastened themselves upon some phrases, with the tenacity of ants; they might have escaped notice in the general distraction of thought, if it ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... instances have been recorded; once meeting with a book in an apothecary's, which he had been long looking for, he opened it, and read from morning till night without being roused from his pursuit by the distraction and tumult occasioned by a great wedding passing through the street. For some time he roved about Italy in an indigent and distressed condition, till he was hospitably received by the Lord of Ravenna, his patron ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 352, January 17, 1829 • Various
... passed, he found himself seated on a rock which crowned the summit of one of the hills, his handkerchief loosened, his waistcoat open, his hat thrown off, his temples burning and throbbing with a feeling of distraction, and the agitated beatings of his heart almost ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... quarter past the hour a message came from Miss Wilson, requesting Miss Wylie's attendance. The visitors were at a loss to account for the sudden distraction of the young ladies' attention which ensued. Jane almost burst into tears, and answered Josephs rudely when he innocently asked what the matter was. Agatha went away apparently unconcerned, though her hand shook as she put ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... place a guard at the door of the legislative hall and keep the members in it; where they could, he satirically remarked to a friend, have full time to make some wholesome laws for the State without distraction from outside matters. ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... falsehood. The approbation of the preceptor respects only what comes directly under his cognizance, and cannot be disguised. Even here, remembering the volatility and sprightliness, inseparable from the age, humanity will induce him not to animadvert with warmth upon the appearances of a casual distraction, but he will rather solicit the return of attention ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... as the close of January she had decided that she was well, and that to be well you must get rid of doctors. She told the great physician as much, and he left her in vast disgust. Society she would now have had for remedial distraction, but the war had made of it a dismal wreck. The Tories had been warned or sent away; the moderates hardly fared better; and the old gay set was broken up. Nevertheless it was not until far later, in July, '77, that Mr. Chew, Mr. Penn, and other as important neutrals, were ordered ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell |
