"Distracted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... details of these ecclesiastical squabbles distracted him at a time when he should soon leave this fretful earth behind him. ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... out of the vehicle. At other times during an entr' acte Lemaitre would disappear from the theatre, and when the curtain was ready to go up again could nowhere be found. "Frederic! where is Frederic?" the distracted manager would cry. Frederic was down stairs in the cafe under the theatre playing games where the stakes were high, and almost always losing. "Monsieur Frederic, the curtain is up!" the prompter would rush in to say. "Ciel! What can I do?" the imperturbable actor would reply. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... place. So much so, indeed, that, the devil aiding, the priest's mignonette soon covered a vast extent of his little garden. It overflowed into the paths and pulled at the good priest's cassock as he passed, until, distracted by the foolish plant, he would pause as often as twenty times an hour while he ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... conversation with the old man and says that he delights in solitary spots, where his attention is not distracted and where his converse with himself is uninterrupted, and proceeds to a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... grant me reformation. Grant that I may be no longer distracted with doubts, and harassed with vain terrors. Grant that I may no longer linger in perplexity, nor waste in idleness that life which Thou hast given and preserved. Grant that I may serve Thee in firm faith and diligent endeavour, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... exclaimed; and he began to tell her something about her sister and to ask her at the same time if he might not go with her—help her in some way. He made no inquiry about Mr. Wendover, and she afterwards judged that that distracted gentleman had sought him out and sent him to her assistance; also that he himself was at that moment watching them from behind some column. He would have been hateful if he had shown himself; yet (in this later meditation) there was a ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... held him in talk while contemplating the crime, sir. The murderer and his victim must almost have been breast to breast, and while the attention of the latter was distracted in some way, the assassin must have shot ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... and amazement of Major Belwether, already distracted by his non-participation, through his own fault, in Plank's consolidation of Amalgamated with Inter-County, was pitiable to the verge of the unpleasant. Like panic-stricken rabbits, his thoughts ran in circles, ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... to be distracted from the stage—my attention, I mean—by seeing too many people," she whispered, in explanation of her action. "You are quite right to keep at the back. One can listen much better if one doesn't see ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... hundred great temples, an hundred altars, and consecrated the wakeful fire that keeps watch by night before the gods perpetually, where the soil is fat with blood of beasts and the courts blossom with pied garlands. And he, distracted and on fire at the bitter tidings, before his altars, amid the divine presences, often, it is said, bowed in prayer ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... having been kept for two days without seeing her father, by the order of the physicians, her conscience, or rather fear, began to trouble her; she told the maid she should go distracted if she did not see her father, and sent a message to beg to see him. Accordingly she was admitted. The conversation between them was this—"Papa, how do you do?" "My dear, I am very ill." She immediately fell upon her knees and ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... next turned to getting ready things to take with me. Having opened upon myself the sluice gates of advice, I rapidly became distracted. My friends and their friends alike seemed to labour under the delusion that I intended to charter a steamer and was a person of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. This not being the case, the only thing to do was to gratefully listen and let ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... Bagehot has anywhere given his reasons for his preference—the open avowal whereof drove Crabb Robinson well-nigh distracted; and it is always rash to find reasons for a faith you do not share; but probably they partook of the nature of a complaint that Elia's treatment of men and things (meaning by things, books) is often fantastical, unreal, even a shade insincere; ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... within as well as without. Some of the "suspects" were members of her official household. Her Minister of Interior was thrown into prison. She was distracted with fear. Her existence was at stake. Under such circumstances excesses were sure to be committed. But it is precisely at such times that American citizens most need and are most entitled to the protection of their ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... went too straight to Mrs. Dornell's heart for her to hear it unmoved. Yet, things having come to this pass, what could she do? She was distracted, and for a moment was on Betty's side. Her original thought had been to write an affirmative reply to Reynard, allow him to come on to King's-Hintock, and keep her husband in ignorance of the whole proceeding till he should arrive from Falls on some fine day after his recovery, and find everything ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... Bishop. When Aunt Aggie was in her normal state it was the Bishop in whom the Archdeacon was to confide. But sometimes in the evenings after a glass of cowslip wine, her imagination took a bolder flight. The Archbishop himself was to be the confidant of the distracted cleric. This presented no real difficulty after the first moment, for the Archbishop was in the flower of his age—the Archdeacon's age—and might easily have been at school with him. Aunt Aggie had once seen ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... but the fire took a sudden freak and came down Long Street; and though the house is standing, it had to be emptied and deluged with water to save it. I never knew Pettitt had a mother till I found her mounting guard, like one distracted, over her ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Evans, who had ruined me by her delay. Then I said, 'My dear Mrs. Betty, for the love of God, run quickly and bring her with you; you know my lodging, and if you ever made dispatch in your life, do it at present: I am almost distracted with this disappointment.' The guards opened the door, and I went down stairs with him, still conjuring him to make all possible dispatch. As soon as he had cleared the door I made him walk before me, for fear the sentinel should take notice of his walk, but I continued ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... in to administer remedies, but his voice was a mere croak. Aunt Clara felt of his head and found a high fever. She promptly ordered him to stay in bed and set herself to the task of breaking up the cold. Hinpoha wandered around distracted all day. ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... you don't want the kingdom of heaven to come, don't pray for it but if you do want it to come you must do more than pray for it.' Women must vote as well as pray. Whoever is able to make peace in this distracted world is the one who should be allowed ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... Enjoy'd her; and some Witches fancy they have been at the Sabbath, and Caress'd by the Devil, whose Privy Parts were full of Bristles, Scaly, and the Seed cold as Ice; but this has proceeded only from a distracted Brain: Besides we learn from Scripture that Devils being pure Spirits, are quite different Substances from those of Men. That they have neither Flesh nor Blood, nor Privities, and consequently no Seed for Generation. That though they sometimes assume Bodies, these Bodies are only ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob
... and she ran off to join the procession following the two babies,—alarmed nurses, distracted ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... solving such problems as: 3 4 - 6, or [121rt] 3, or 14/2 4, or 3^2, and he seldom makes a mistake, even when the sum he may be asked merely resembles the form of arithmetic he has learnt. But he generally gives up after two or three sums and is generally distracted. He can read the figures too, and generally gives a correct solution to sums which have been written down for him and which I myself have not read. Like Rolf, he only looks at the paper sideways. He reads very reluctantly. His memory is excellent; especially quick ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... singular good fortune. What he particularly admired was the union of success and merit. When he compared the abundance of these works, tossed off apparently as in play, and the young man's cheerful evenness of temper with his own torn, distracted existence, a feeling came upon him that he had never before had, the feeling that he was an outcast, a feeling of discouragement and helpless defeat. While the light of the candles glided over the creations of the man who had infused form and soul ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... gives her another claim on my attention. I shall endeavour as much as possible to keep my intimacies in their proper place, and prevent their clashing. Among so many friends, it will be well if I do not get into a scrape; and now here is Miss Blashford come. I should have gone distracted if the Bullers had staid . . . . When I tell you I have been visiting a countess this morning, you will immediately, with great justice, but no truth, guess it to be Lady Roden. No: it is Lady Leven, the mother of Lord Balgonie. ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... struggling against the infirmities of age, had escaped the hands of the man-seller, served his master with but one object-his soul's love-and relieved his necessities, until death, ending his troubles, left no more to relieve. Now, distracted between joy at meeting Harry, and sorrow for the death of master, the poor old man is lost in the confusion of his feelings. After saluting Franconia, he turned to Harry, threw his arms around his neck, buried his head in his bosom, and wept like a child. "Home-home ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... your kind encouragement, my Drama of the Angels (The Seraphim) has not been touched until the last three days? It was not out of pure idleness on my part, nor of disregard to your admonition; but when my thoughts were distracted with other things, books just began enclosing me all around, a whole load of books upon my conscience, and I could not possibly rise to the gate of heaven and write about my angels. You know one can't sometimes sit down to the sublunary ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... sauntered leisurely back, wondering, in her distracted little brain, how he could be interested in anything when he ought to be as anxious as she. "But it isn't his mother and father," she ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... might seem, I still fancied some other as promising to be worse. And I was not sorry when an audience, by mustering in strength through all parts of the house, began to divide my responsibility as to burning down the building, and, at the same time, to limit the caprices of my distracted choice. At last, and precisely at half-past seven, the curtain drew up; a thing not strictly correct on a Grecian stage. But in theatres, as in other places, one must forget and forgive. Then the music began, of which in a moment. ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... in that instance show their secret sense of a preference from the distracted eagerness with which they fly backwards and forwardwise between ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... this a question of race.[347] He says: "The Indo-European race, distracted by the variety of the universe, never by itself arrived at monotheism. The Semitic race, on the other hand, guided by its firm and sure sight, instantly unmasked Divinity, and without reflection or reasoning attained the purest ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... I am half distracted with thinking. What can we do? Captain Coke simply swept aside my first attempt to speak plainly to him. But, make no mistake—he knows that I heard his very words, and there is something in his manner, a curious sort of quiet confidence, that ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... Everything influenced and distracted me; everything I saw made a fresh impression on me. Flies and tiny mosquitoes stick fast to the paper and disturb me. I blow at them to get rid of them—blow harder and harder; to no purpose, the little pests throw themselves on their backs, make themselves ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... little comfort to the distracted Marchioness. There was much in it so cold that it offended her deeply, and for a moment prompted her almost to divorce also Lady Persiflage from her heart. Lady Persiflage seemed to think that Fanny ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... yourself," replied Abou Hassan; "I tell you once more I am the commander of the faithful, and God's vicar on earth!" "Ah! child," cried the mother, "is it possible that I should hear you utter such words that shew you are distracted! What evil genius possesses you, to make you talk at this rate? God bless you, and preserve you from the power of Satan. You are my son Abou Hassan, and I am ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... transmit to their children. In proportion with their numbers, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its directions, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass. I may appeal to experience during the present contest for a verification of these conjectures. But if they be not certain in event, are they not possible? are they not probable? Is it not safer to wait with patience twenty-seven years and three months longer for the ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... moment her attention was distracted by a sound of groans and laughter coming from behind. She looked round to see that the wretched Jewish general, Simon, had sunk fainting to the ground, overcome by the heat, or the terrors of his mind, or by the sufferings ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... being exchanged between Mr. Bob Sawyer and Mr. Benjamin Allen; and while the boy in the gray livery, marvelling at the unwonted prolongation of the dinner, cast an anxious look, from time to time, towards the glass door, distracted by inward misgivings regarding the amount of minced veal which would be ultimately reserved for his individual cravings; there rolled soberly on through the streets of Bristol, a private fly, painted of ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... the peregrine appears speeding through the air in a straight line at a great height, the feathered world, as far as one able to see, is thrown into the greatest commo-tion, all birds, from the smallest up to species large as duck, ibis, and curlew, rushing about in the air as if distracted. When the falcon has disappeared in the sky, and the wave of terror attending its progress subsides behind it, the birds still continue wild and excited for some time, showing how deeply they have been moved; for, as a rule, fear ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... that in such circumstances the bereaved father should be distracted with anxiety as to which party he should join, and it was also natural that one whose life had been so long devoted to the special service of his God should, before deciding on the point, ask, on his ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... a most awful spectacle! more by token to me, who was likely to be intimately concerned with it; and beating my brow with my clenched nieve, like a distracted creature, I saw that the labour of my whole life was likely to go for nought, and me to be a ruined man; all the earnings of my industry being laid out on my stock in trade, and on the plenishing of our bit house. The darkness of the latter days came over my spirit ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... he had not returned that night, but had sent a messenger to his valet, ordering him to forward clothes and letters by the bearer. Strong knew that he should have a visit or a message from him in the course of that or the subsequent day, and accordingly got a note beseeching him to call upon his distracted friend F. C. at Short Hotel, Blackfriars, and ask for Mr. Francis there. For the Baronet was a gentleman of that peculiarity of mind that he would rather tell a lie than not, and always began a contest with fortune by running away and hiding himself. The Boots of Mr. Short's establishment, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... became a terror to it, and a general feeling of devout thankfulness was experienced by the whole community, when the rightful spiritual shepherd of the little flock returned from his sojourn abroad to take up the reigns of government, and restore law and order to his tiny distracted commonwealth. Fortunately for the peace of Weircombe, the frantic rush of social events, and incidents in which actual "news" of interest has no part, is too persistent and overwhelming for any one occurrence out of the million to occupy more than a brief passing notice, which is in ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... early winter, when the first snow is falling, and he has been watching it for some time from the window in wonder and delight, "Mother, what makes it snow?" Now, if the mother imagines that she must give any thing like a full answer to the question, her attention must be distracted from her work to enable her to frame it; and if she does not give up the attempt altogether, and rebuke the boy for teasing her with "so many silly questions," she perhaps suspends her work, and, after a moment's ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... anxiety possessed almost every one present, there came from the staircase without a sudden cry of woe—a woman's shriek, long and shrill, ominous as the wail of the banshee. There was a rush to the door, and the women crowded, out in a distracted way. Lady Laura was fainting in her husband's arms, and George Fairfax was standing near her reading ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... children are often under foot when she is busiest, when, indeed, she is so distracted as to not be able to think about manners, but if she would acknowledge to herself that she ought to be polite, and that when she fails to be, it is because she has yielded to temptation; and if, moreover, she would ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... a method. Suddenly he uttered a piercing yell and fell sideways as in the manner of one about to receive a communication from Tarum; but instead of the habitual seizure and cries and groans he lay rigid and silent. The divergence from the usual distracted ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... trembling limbs, but old age had not led to death. As soon as Isis heard of this infernal treachery, she cut her hair, clad herself in a garb of mourning, ran thither and yon, a prey to the most cruel anguish, seeking the body. Weeping and distracted, she never tarried, never tired ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... us brief visits; he generally came down on Saturday evening and remained until Monday. Miss Ruth could never coax him to stay longer; I think his business distracted him, and kept his trouble at bay. In this quiet place he would have grown restless. He had bought the Brambles to please his wife, and she, and not Miss Ruth, had furnished it. They had spent happy summers there when Flurry was a baby. The little ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity." Ah! in this book in which poor man at his highest is allowed to give voice to his deepest questions, in which all the chaos, and darkness, the "without form and void" state of his poor, distracted, disjointed being is seen; death is indeed the King of Terrors, upsetting all his reasonings, and bringing the wisdom and folly, between which he had so carefully discriminated, to one level in a moment. But here, death is looked upon in relation to ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... weak and distracted government may often assume the appearance, and produce the effects, of a treasonable correspondence with the public enemy. If Alaric himself had been introduced into the council of Ravenna, he would probably have advised the same measures which were actually pursued by the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... many miles an hour the flowing of the stream, here the rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet, upon this road that steadily runs away; while you, upon your flowing road of time, are so capricious and distracted. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... invocation, the war-cry of Spain was heard hard by, and the gallant company of Villena was seen scouring across the plain to the succour of their comrades. The deadly attention of Muza was distracted from individual foes, however eminent; he wheeled round, re-collected his men, and, in a serried charge, met the new enemy ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... friend outweighed the caution of the critic. But however that may be, it is beyond dispute that the man who actually was the greatest poet of that time might easily have taken the very highest rank as a scientist had not the muse distracted his attention. Indeed, despite these distractions, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe achieved successes in the field of pure science that would insure permanent recognition for his name had he never written a stanza of poetry. Such is ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... distracted yelping of the Toad-woman, who was strangling a dog. Faint, almost reeling, I saw an iris-girl fall in convulsions; the stupefying smoke blew into my face, choking me. I staggered back into the ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... house, besides all those billeted on the surrounding villages who have to be invited to dinner and cannot be allowed to perish in peasant houses; so that my summer has for a time entirely ceased to be solitary, and whenever I flee distracted to the farthest recesses of my garden and begin to muse, according to my habit, on Man, on Nature, and on Human Life, lieutenants got up in the most exquisite flannels pursue me and want to play tennis with me, a game ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... every moment. Her usual practice in such cases as the present was to say nothing, but stare at him, without taking her eyes off his face for an instant. This manoeuvre, as she well knew, could drive Gania distracted. ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... sovereignty of Burgundy and the Low Countries, and to his younger brother, Ferdinand, the empire together with the original heritage of the House of Austria, and retiring personally to the monastery of Yuste, in Estramadura, there to pass the last years of his life, distracted with gout, at one time resting from the world and its turmoil, at another vexing himself about what was doing there now that he was no longer in it. Before abandoning it for good, he desired to do his son Philip the service of leaving him, if ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... After being engaged in manual labor for about fifteen years, Mr. Miller was for some time manager of a bank that was established in his native town. While in this position, a pamphlet that he published, on the ecclesiastical controversies which then distracted Scotland, attracted the attention of the leaders of the party who now form the Free Church, and they invited him to be editor of the Witness newspaper, then about to be established for the advocacy of their ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... went with Comte de B. That was rather worse, for he shot much oftener than W., and I was quite distracted with the noise of the gun. We were nearer the other shooters, too, and I fancied their aim was very near my ankles. It was a pretty view from the top of the ladder. I climbed up when the battues were over. We looked over the park and through the trees, quite bare and stripped of their leaves, ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... air of importance, and looking at me out of the most innocent eyes in the world, "my sister Grace married Brian Beck because he had such a lot of money. But you know he is dissipated, and at first Grace almost went distracted. Then she made up her mind to let him go his own gait, and she has as good a time as she can on his money. His Irish name Brian is her thorn in the flesh, and he teases her nearly out of her wits about it. We have great fun on the yacht every summer. ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... remarkable than the girl herself; it was like a velvet pillow slip with neither beginning nor end. It was low in the neck and had no sleeves worth mentioning. How she got into it or out of it was a problem that distracted me half the night, when I was trying to plan for her soul's salvation. I could not hide my amazement at her appearance. She as closely resembled my idea of an American girl as a cartoon does a miniature; but I had ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... express driver, had a sick wife, and Carpenter heard about her and insisted upon going to see her. Apparently there was no end to this business of the poor being sick. It was a new thing to me—this world swarming with dirty and miserable and distracted people. Of course, I had known about "the poor," but always either in the abstract, or else as an individual, or a family, that one could help. But here was a new world, thickly peopled, swarming; that was the terrible ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... our room, we felt sure we could squeeze them in—and we did. I got six beginners, and Rose captured the Cowans, root and branch—four instead of two; for it seemed they were not proficient in mathematical pursuits, and their mother was delighted to get them off her distracted hands. All our friends know that Rose adores sums and problems, and she ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... filial tenderness. Her bosom, heaving in the snowy whiteness of virgin purity; her face, radiant with the softest blooms of youth; all seemed to frame an object which malignant fiends had conjured up to blast her stepdame's hope. "Wallace will behold these charms!" cried her distracted spirit to herself, "and ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... appealed to by a poor man who seemed almost distracted. He had a wife and five children; one of them ill; had been sick himself for three months, and owed rent for the whole of that time. The landlord had served him with a writ of ejectment, and he could get no other tenement, unless he could pay five dollars ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... going on in the drawing-room, Harry was tutoring his father in the study, and putting that poor gentleman through a course of questions that nearly drove him distracted; for Harry got out the hardest books he could find, and selected the most puzzling subjects. A dusty old history was rummaged out also, and classical researches followed, in which papa's memory played him false more than once, calling ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... and I had not got our feminine tongues still, the next day, when John came back, in the middle of the forenoon, with another riddle, to drive our womanly curiosity still more distracted. He was requested to call immediately—so a note, he had just received, read—at Mr. —— & Co's, and "accept the head clerkship, at a salary of $1,400 a year; being highly recommended by a person whose name ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... audience is distracted by a thousand non-essentials. The speaker, though ever so eloquent, cannot escape the restlessness of the crowd, with the inevitable result that he will fail to strike root. In all probability he will not even do ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... they were engaged in riveting tighter the chains of bondage, were engaged in the care and protection of their defenceless families. Mr. Chairman, I ask, is this the mode to bring about harmony and prosperity? Will this tranquilize this already distracted country? No, sir. On the contrary, it will raise to its highest temperature the ill feelings of an outraged people, and cause them to adopt for their redress lex talionis, in opposition to the Edgefield lex loci, as Mr. McDuffe truthfully says, "God has ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... hushed, the watch-dogs, quieted or distracted, their attentive scent preoccupied by something else. The vast silence has returned, less reassuring, ready to break, perhaps, because beasts are watching. And, at a low command from Itchoua, the men begin again their march, slower and more hesitating, in the night of the plain, a little ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... First, it is to be done by a more vigorous prosecution of the war in the vital parts of the enemy's country; and after apparently talking himself tired on this point, the President drops down into a half-despairing tone, and tells us that "with a people distracted and divided by contending factions, and a government subject to constant changes by successive revolutions, the continued success of our arms may fail to secure a satisfactory peace." Then he suggests ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... vaguely that "all sections have an equal right in the common Territories." The parties which support these candidates, however, all agree in affirming that the election of its special favorite is the one thing that can give back peace to the distracted country. The distracted country will continue to take care of itself, as it has done hitherto, and the only question that needs an answer is, What policy will secure the most prosperous future to the helpless Territories, which our decision is to make or ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... would all own how wisely he had acted, and would see the true dignity which had refused, unlike common minds, to let his complaisance draw him into giving any sanction to what he so strongly disapproved. Laura, too, would pass through this trying time better if she was not distracted by watching him; she would understand the cause of his absence, and he could trust her to love and comprehend him at a distance, better than he could trust her to hear the marriage-service in his presence ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... storm, which not only control the wave, but gild the leaden mass with crimson and unexpected gold, whose brightness may reach some storm-driven sail, giving it the light of hope, bringing the ship to a well-defined and hospitable shore, and regulating, with a new attraction, the lately distracted compass. Therefore, we do not hesitate to say that the philosophy, and the creed, and the manners of the optimist are good for society. However, his excellence may well be criticised; it may even sometimes take its place amid those excesses which ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... distracted," said old Balla, in the kitchen; "settin' a pen in them woods for to ketch hogs,—with the gap open! Think hogs goin' stay in pen with gap open—ef any wuz ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... My brother is a defaulter in the —— Bank, of which he was president. He left the city last night, for parts unknown. His wife is half distracted, and has gone home to her father. She has ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... judicious; for heavenly wisdom does, by the confession of men, far exceed all the subtlety and prudence of this world. The heathen priests of old never delivered oracles but when they were drunk and mad or distracted, and who knows why our modern oracles may not as well use the same method in all their proceedings? Howsoever, he is as ably qualified to govern as that sort of opinion that is said to govern all the world, and is perpetually false ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... a pause. Rachel was calm and resolute; her father almost distracted. After a time ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... a dinner. She was not an easy hostess. Like most women of futile lives she lacked a sense of proportion, and the small and unimportant details of the service absorbed her. Such conversation as she threw at random, to right and left, was trivial and distracted. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... advanced farther south, in order to establish the Roman supremacy in Phoenicia, Coele-Syria, and Palestine. The latter country was at this time distracted by a civil war between Hyrcanus and Aristobulus. Pompey espoused the side of Hyrcanus, and Aristobulus surrendered himself to Pompey when the latter had advanced near to Jerusalem. But the Jews refused to follow the example of their king, ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... with glowing looks and thoughts distracted, and as the queen then turned to the rest of her suite, and, surrounded by her ladies and lords, received their congratulations, a slight sign from the princess called Thomas Seymour ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... very elements, "wild thunder, tempest and rain-deluges," playing chorus to them on the occasion. [Voigt, vii. 82. Busching, Erdbeschreibung (Hamburg, 1770), ii. 1038.] Ritterdom fought lion-like, but with insufficient strategic and other wisdom; and was driven nearly distracted to see its pride tripped into the ditch by such a set. Vacant Reich could not in the least attend to it; nor can we farther ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... retired early to his bed, from whence he never again arose. An hour or two served to convince us, that he was seized with the fatal disorder; and so rapid was its progress, that a few more decided that no hopes of recovery could be entertained. My poor dear distracted mistress quitted not his bedside night or day, though I plainly perceived by her looks on the third morning, that she had taken the infection. I too was growing very ill, but of myself I could take ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... through this distracted Europe was a Frenchman named Arculf, a Christian bishop. When he had visited the Holy Land and Egypt his ship was caught in a violent storm and driven on to the west coast of Scotland. After many adventures Arculf found himself ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... Eliphaz. "Thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for nought, and stripped the naked of their clothing; thou hast not given water to the weary, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry;" and so on through a series of mere distracted lies. But the time was past when words like these could make Job angry. Bildad follows them up with an attempt to frighten him by a picture of the power of that God whom he was blaspheming; but Job cuts short his harangue, and ends ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... account of the healing of the demoniacs at Gadara. Those wretched maniacs, spurning all restraint, writhing, foaming, raging, were filling the air with their cries, doing violence to themselves, and endangering all who should approach them. Their bleeding and disfigured bodies and distracted minds presented a spectacle well-pleasing to the prince of darkness. One of the demons controlling the sufferers declared, "My name is Legion: for we are many."(908) In the Roman army a legion consisted of from three to five thousand men. Satan's hosts also are marshaled ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... fiercely, but none of the shots reached the bank where we were. We had to repeat the trying process of crossing the swaying bridge by fours at walking pace. I led off with four troopers. It was not so tedious this time, as my eyes were distracted by the view of the green meadows on the ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... for fight. The wild confusion, and the swarthy glow Of flames on high, and torches from below; The shriek of terror, and the mingling yell— 760 For swords began to clash, and shouts to swell— Flung o'er that spot of earth the air of Hell! Distracted, to and fro, the flying slaves Behold but bloody shore and fiery waves; Nought heeded they the Pacha's angry cry, They seize that Dervise!—seize on Zatanai![216] He saw their terror—checked the first despair That urged him but to stand and perish there, Since far too early and too well obeyed, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... river fog shrouded the land, wetting the parched leaves; dew drummed on the rotting porch like the steady patter of picket-firing; the widow bird's distracted mourning filled the silence; the kitten crept to its food, ate indifferently, then, settling on the Messenger's knees, stared, round-eyed, at the dark. But always at dawn the sun burned off the mist, rising in stupefying splendor; the oily river glided on; not a leaf moved, ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... in the portraits of that time look, as it were, like masks put on artificially with the perruque. A strange unreality broods over the period. Distracted as we are with civic mysteries and problems we can afford to rejoice. Our tears are less desolate than their laughter, our restraints are ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... formed, and party spirit ran very high. Tumults were continually breaking out about the palaces, which threatened the personal safety of the king and queen. Henrietta herself was a special object of the hatred which these outbreaks expressed. The king himself was half distracted by the overwhelming difficulties of his position. Bad as it was in England, it was still worse in Scotland. There was an actual rebellion there, and the urgency of the danger in that quarter was so great that Charles ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... understand. However, that is hardly sufficient for one who is distracted with suffering, you know. No, you do not know; you have never known. Ever and ever one must circle around the forbidden; it becomes a necessity continually to face one's fate. If, for instance, I had to pay for a moment like this with age-long wreck and ruin, why, I would gladly pay ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... finally out-shouted and haul clear. The foreman, seeing that he will now lose the game and have thus prematurely to take the party over, suddenly perceives the advancing P. & O., now not much more than a mile away. He draws the distracted officer's attention to the phenomenon and leads him to understand that to start now would lead to an inevitable collision and a watery grave. The polyglot argument waxes furious, the men taking it up in their turn, when their leader falls ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... bark of Aaron Burr was sailing under no propitious following wind. Distracted, he paced up and down his apartment in the home where he was a guest, preoccupied, absorbed, almost ready to despair. He spoke but little, but time and again he cast an estimating eye upon the ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... "New Learning" which had been slowly spreading from Italy over all Europe, did not markedly affect England until the sixteenth century. There the long Wars of the Roses had not only gone nigh to exterminating the old nobility, but had so distracted men's minds from more peaceful pursuits that little note was taken of the intellectual movement abroad. Under Henry VII and Henry VIII all this changed. These Tudor monarchs were indeed tyrants over England, but they brought her peace—and time for thought. Under the leadership ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... cassock and then raised my head again. The face of the priest expressed perfect tranquillity. So keenly did I feel the joy of reconciliation that, fearing in any way to dispel it, I took hasty leave of him, and, without looking to one side of me or the other (in order that my attention might not be distracted), left the grounds and re-entered the rickety, battered drozhki. Yet the joltings of the vehicle and the variety of objects which flitted past my eyes soon dissipated that feeling, and I became filled ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... too, isn't he? Blarney's no go with him. Faith, it's like trying to butter short-bread with the thermometer at zero. By Jove, there he is ahead of us. Alister, man! Not the ghost of a look will he give me. He's fine-looking, too, if his hair wasn't so insanely distracted, and his brow ridged and furrowed deep enough to plant potatoes in. What in the name of fortune's he doing to ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Sometimes, even after a long struggle, no candidate was able to secure a majority, and a deadlock occurred. Thus, on the one hand, a state might be deprived of representation in the Senate for weeks or months, while, on the other hand, the attention of the legislature was so distracted by the senatorial struggle that purely state interests suffered. As the result of a long agitation growing out of these evils, the Federal Constitution was amended (1913) to permit the direct election ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... only WERE, Mr. Bemis, perhaps I could persuade Edward that he was too: I KNOW he is. Edward, don't exert yourself! Aunt Mary, will you STOP him, or do you all wish to see me go distracted here before your eyes?' ...
— The Garotters • William D. Howells
... had five of the staff with me) turned to at their work with a will, and did a day's labour in a couple of hours. If we had not come in as we did, I should have lost L350, and Albany would have gone distracted. You may conceive what the flood was, when I hint at the two most notable incidents of our journey:—1, We took the passengers out of two trains, who had been in the water, immovable all night and all the previous day. 2, We ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... frustrated. But Richard, though he reached a throne, and by that means was exempt from the sufferings of the subject, yet could not divest himself of his nature, but was forced to give way to the workings of the heart, and bear the tortures of a distracted mind. The expression in his face is a master-piece of execution, and was a great compliment paid by Mr. Hogarth to his friend Garrick; yet not unmerited, as all that have seen him in the part must acknowledge the greatness of the ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... When I speak of business and quietude at Ashfield House it must, of course, be understood as comparative, for the quietest evening in that renowned academy would have furnished noise enough to have distracted half the quiet parlors in the kingdom—and on this particular evening there was quite enough to cover the bashful entrance of the former bully. Hamilton was writing, and doubly engaged in keeping Louis from listening to an interesting history, ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... AFFECTS OUR MANNERS.—A man who is badly dressed, feels chilly, sweaty, and prickly. He stammers, and does not always tell the truth. He means to, perhaps, but he can't. He is half distracted about his pantaloons, which are much to short, and are constantly hitching up; or his frayed jacket and crumpled linen harrow his soul, and quite unman him. He treads on the train of a lady's dress, and says, "Thank you", sits down on his hat, ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... returned. He was accosted by his mother and sister, pale with fatigue, shame, and rage. They told him what had taken place, with cries and tears, and Kamco added, fixing her distracted eyes upon him, "My son! my son! my soul will enjoy no peace till Kormovo and Kardiki destroyed by thy scimitar, will no longer exist to bear witness to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Versailles, where high-rouged dames of the palace are even now dancing with double-jacketted Hussar officers; and also on this roaring Hell-porch of a Hotel de Ville. Babel-tower, with the confusion of tongues, were not Bedlam added with the conflagration of thoughts, was no type of it. One forest of distracted steel bristles endless in front of ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... found to be rhetoric in the study. The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and heart of mankind, to all in any age who can ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... moment imagined that Luke had abandoned him, and heaped curses upon his head; at the next, convinced that he had fallen, he bewailed with equal bitterness his grandson's fate and his own. He paced the tomb like one distracted; he stamped upon the iron plate; he smote with his hands upon the door; he shouted, and the vault hollowly echoed his lamentations. But Time's sand ran on, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... holds a seat In this distracted globe. Remember thee? Yea, from the table of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, That youth and observation copied there; And thy commandment all alone shall live Within the book and volume of my brain. Hamlet, Act ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... spoke not a word. Oh, what happiness it would have been to throw herself at the old man's feet, and to confess everything, here, where Cardo and she had plighted their troth—to have told him of her ignorance of his fate, of her distracted longing for his return. Surely, surely he would have forgiven her! She was torn with conflicting feelings. But, no! Had she borne the contempt and scorn of all her acquaintances and friends to break down now, and disclose her secret to the man of all others from whom Cardo desired ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... observe all the obligations of political friendship and of good neighborhood, obstacles to this have arisen in some of them from their own insufficient power to cheek lawless irruptions, which in effect throws most of the task on the United States. Thus it is that the distracted internal condition of the State of Nicaragua has made it incumbent on me to appeal to the good faith of our citizens to abstain from unlawful intervention in its affairs and to adopt preventive measures to the same end, which on a similar occasion had the best results in reassuring the peace ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... contemporaries by his striking presence and chivalric accomplishments as well as by his high character and generous aims, "a man just, religious, and strenuous in arms," having been elected Emperor, as Henry VII., prepared to enter Italy, with intent to confirm the imperial rights and to restore order to the distracted land. The Pope, Clement V., favored his coming, and the prospect opened by it was hailed not only by the Ghibellines with joy, but by a large part of the Guelfs as well; with the hope that the long discord and confusion, from which all had suffered, might be brought to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... watchword of woman's charter—Liberty!" and they froze me. I felt imperatively how necessary to me was Honorine's consent, and how impossible it was to wring it from her. Could she guess the storms that distracted me when I left as ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac |
