"Diversion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the commonplace. She could imagine positively nothing less romantic. She thought of the ground floor on chill March mornings with no fires anywhere save a red gleam in the dining-room, and herself wandering about in it idle, at a loss for a diversion, an ambition, an effort, a real task; and she thought of the upper floor, a mainly unoccupied wilderness of iron bedsteads and yellow chests of drawers and chipped earthenware and islands of carpets, and her mother plaintively ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... found her only diversion in occasional week-ends at other people's country houses, or in long flights by evening in Dick's motor. Her husband was self-absorbed and often silent, another person, as she frequently and querulously rubbed into him, from the ardent creature of ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... round in extreme agony, his eyes rested on the black pall. Could it be, or was it from the expiring glimmer of the lamp? The drapery appeared to move. Another and a deeper groan! De Vessey for a space was unable to move; but his courage came apace, inasmuch as it was some relief, and a diversion from the awful mysteries of that grim cabinet. He approached the pallet hastily, throwing off the heavy coverlet. The recumbent body was yet beneath, but convulsed, as though struggling to free itself from an oppressive burden. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... gracious and responsive, wholly absorbed in her troubled revery; but to-day her maidens played their sweetest strains upon their silvery lutes, without her answering smile; the gentlemen of her court sought in vain for some diversion to distract her; even the Lady Margherita could do nothing for her pleasure, while she watched in unobtrusive tenderness, feeling that quiet, however unsatisfying, was more ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... disappointed at this result of measures from which they had looked for so important a diversion in their favor, now resolved on a vigorous exertion of their own energies, and determined to undertake a naval expedition of a magnitude greater than any they had hitherto attempted. The force of public opinion was at this period ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... whites. Col. Brodhead was in command at Fort Pitt until the end of 1781. At the time that General Sullivan ravaged the country of the Six Nations, he had led a force up the Alleghany and created a diversion by burning one or two Iroquois towns. In 1781 he led a successful expedition against a town of hostile Delawares on the Muskingum, taking it by surprise and surrounding it so completely that all within were captured. Sixteen noted warriors ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... relief from the long strain of the trenches was a bathe in the sea, but any diversion while in rear of the firing line was exhilarating. We used to gather on the moors that lay between Geoghegan's Bluff and Bruce's Ravine, Turkish cartridge boxes made by the Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken at Karlsruhe and labelled with inscriptions in German and Turkish, innumerable spent ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... stranger's appearance; and so the better to take in all the points of the magnificent horse which the young Californian was riding, not to mention a commendable desire to give his only passenger a bit of pleasant diversion on the long journey, he slowed his horse ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... over India would be established, and the power of the English in India destroyed. The great deed to be done was to raise the siege of Trichinopoly. This Clive coolly proposed to do by effecting a counter-diversion in besieging Arcot, the favored home of the Nabobs. With a little handful of an army—200 Europeans and 300 Sepoys—Clive marched through the wildest weather to Arcot, captured it, and prepared to ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... has been servant rather than helpmeet. Upon her have fallen the reproaches of the unbridled temper of other members of the family; upon her have rested the burdens that others have shirked. Husband and children have been free to find diversion elsewhere; family responsibilities or broken health have confined her at home. Her husband might even find sex satisfaction away from home, but public opinion would be more lenient with him than with her if she offended. The time has come when it is right that these ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... neglect, as if it came in part, perhaps, from a reluctance to disturb old associations. It was significant of the national character, that a sort of elegant gentleman farming, as we say, had been much affected by some of the most cultivated [15] Romans. But it became something more than an elegant diversion, something of a serious business, with the household of Marius; and his actual interest in the cultivation of the earth and the care of flocks had brought him, at least, intimately near to those elementary conditions of life, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... dropped her long eyelashes, and examined the toe of a smart brown shoe with a wistful resignation. Courtenay was politely incredulous, but the arrival of the steward with the replenished tea-tray created a diversion. ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... taking place. A backward glance showed him that Fraser had drawn his pursuers to the street. He had broken away and dodged out into the open, where the other officers responded at a call and seized him as he apparently undertook to break through the cordon. This diversion served an unexpected purpose. Not only did it draw attention from Emerson's retreat, but it also gave the mob its long-awaited opportunity. Recognizing in the officers' quarry the supposed figure of Emerson, the hated cause of all this strife, ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... world, my lord, would be content to allow you a seventh day for rest; or, if you thought that hard upon you, we would not refuse you half your time: if you came out, like some great monarch, to take a town but once a year, as it were for your diversion, though you had no need to extend your territories. In short, if you were a bad, or, which is worse, an indifferent poet, we would thank you for our own quiet, and not expose you to the want of yours. But when you are so great, ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... and refinements; often challenging each other out of a vain emulation, till at length they degenerated into a profession of people, who, without any other employment or merit, exhibited themselves as a sight for the diversion of the public. Our dancing-masters are not unlike them in this respect, whose natural and original designation was to teach youth a graceful manner of walking, and a good address; but now we see them mount the stage, and perform ballets in the garb of comedians, capering, jumping, skipping, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... a diversion. Leaving, she wished to consult about the purchases for to-morrow's work, and madame moved towards the hall with her, talking in her careful English, while Miriam bent towards the ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... hard task to keep up their fighting spirit. It was rumored that Gage was preparing an aggressive movement from Boston, which might mean pillage and massacre in the surrounding country, and it was decided to draw in closer to Boston to give Gage a diversion and prove the mettle of the patriot army. So, on the evening of June 16, 1775, there was a stir of preparation in the American camp at Cambridge, and late at night the men fell in near ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... Diversion came at a moment when he was never more thankful for it. The shrill treble of the boy reached them across the stretch ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... pronounce these women bright, cultivated, and often remarkably handsome. They would not require to be amused or even entertained after the manner of his own countrywomen; they would appear before him amply capable of yielding rather than exacting diversion, and often through the mediums of nimble wit, engaging humor, or an audacity at once daring and picturesque. But after a little more time our titled stranger would begin to perceive that behind all this feminine sparkle and freshness, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... amount transferred to other purposes. The interest of the Bureau of Municipal Research in municipal budgets that tell for what purposes money is voted and then prevent transfers without full publicity, preserved this particular fund. Moreover, the discussion that prevented its diversion from physical examinations strengthened the health department's interest in this important responsibility. Neither physicians nor nurses have been adequately supervised. Instead of seeing that defects were removed, ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... his happiness carved out of the labour and ruin of a thousand such reptiles as myself I might with satisfaction exclaim, Sic, sic juvat: but when I behold one GREAT MAN starving with hunger and freezing with cold, in the midst of fifty thousand who are suffering the same evils for his diversion; when I see another, whose own mind is a more abject slave to his own greatness, and is more tortured and racked by it, than those of all his vassals; lastly, when I consider whole nations rooted out only to bring tears into the eyes of a GREAT MAN, not indeed ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... fort on its territory—induced the Lacedaemonians to send their fleet to Pylus, instead of Corcyra. Forty-three triremes, under Thrasymelidas, and a powerful land force, advanced to attack Demosthenes, intrenched with his small army on the rocky promontory. When the news of this new diversion reached the Athenian fleet at Corcyra, it returned to Pylus, to succor Demosthenes. Here a naval battle took place, in which the Lacedaemonians were defeated. This defeat jeopardized the situation of ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... felt unutterably bored. The sensation of lassitude, even in its less acute degrees, was rare with her; for she possessed a nature of so fresh a buoyancy that she was able, as a rule, to extract diversion from any environment. Her mind took impressions with the vivid clearness of a mirror, and also, it should be owned, with a mirror's transient objectivity. To-day, however, the mirror was clouded. She looked out of the window; a level row of grey houses frowned at her across the ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... Spain in one word and two motions, that all of this preparation for threatened conflict with Spain is much ado about little; that the United States will get up early some morning and administer the paternal slipper to the Spanish pantaloon, simply by way of diversion or to get up an appetite for breakfast. The result of the scrap may show that the job had best be ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... unfriendly to any portion of the community is a wrong thing, however great may be the threats and promises by which it is commended. And still worse, the reference of right and wrong to his arbitrary will as a standard, the diversion of the allegiance of the moral sense from the community to him, is the most insidious and fatal of ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... at Basle until the 1st of the Tenth Month, and then returned by way of Berne to Neufchatel. At Berne a sudden diversion was given to the current of their thoughts by the intelligence of the death of Thomas Yeardley. J.Y. has left a memorandum of the occurrence, and of the singular foreshadowing of it upon his own mind ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... a Tuesday club at the "Cross-keys" in Crossmichael, where the young bloods of the country-side congregated and drank deep on a percentage of the expense, so that he was left gainer who should have drunk the most. Archie had no great mind to this diversion, but he took it like a duty laid upon him, went with a decent regularity, did his manfullest with the liquor, held up his head in the local jests, and got home again and was able to put up his horse, to the admiration of Kirstie ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... letter will be in the nature of a confession. Last spring, discovering by accident that I could mesmerize, I took up mesmerism as a diversion for the amusement of myself and friends. I had long believed in it entirely and carefully watched its processes, but I wished to study its philosophy and find out, if I could, the cause and the limits of ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... was growing tired of his Duke of Marlborough and his State secrets, and seeking diversion. "Odds fish, it's a hard road that leads to fortune. You are happy, Mr. Waverton. You ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... country are very pleasant and merry, especially the young ones, and delight in singing and dancing, taking this diversion only at night by moonlight; and their manner of dancing is very different from that of the Italians. Many things in our ships seemed wonderful to the Negroes, particularly our cross-bows; but much more our artillery. When some of them were on board my ship, I caused one of the guns ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... the contrary, the ponderable and tangible realities of the immediate situation counselled neutrality. They were revolted by the hideous brutality of the war and its colossal waste. Participation must be purchased with a similarly colossal diversion of American energy from constructive to destructive work, the imposition of a similarly heavy burden upon the future production of American labour. It implied the voluntary surrender of many of those advantages which had tempted ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... walking to Markton, when, passing Myrtle Villa, he saw Sir William De Stancy ambling about his garden-path and examining the crocuses that palisaded its edge. Sir William saw him and asked him to come in. Somerset was in the mood for any diversion from his own affairs, and they seated ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... between the Venetian Ambassador and Grotius, when they both were waiting in a hall for the King, the Introductors of Ambassadors placed their seats in such manner, that the Swedish Ambassador might be dissatisfied. They expected a quarrel, which would have afforded them diversion. Grotius disappointed them by chusing rather to stand, than take the seat intended for him. It was on this occasion he wrote to the High Chancellor, desiring him to consider, whether, to avoid all those ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... yet with cunning, running forth and back into our ranks as each was delivered; and between the blows he capered, uttering shrill inarticulate cries. This diversion indeed saved us. For the rabble, pressing up to see the fun, left a space more or less clear on the far side of the Market Strand, and for this space we stampeded, dragging ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... is, I think, a powerful one; indeed, he does write very strongly. I am quite proud of his editorials; they are well studied, earnest, and dignified. I think he will make a first-rate writer. Both our pieces have gone to press to-day, with Charles's article on music, and we have had not a little diversion about ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... rector of St. Antipas paced the floor with nicely measured steps, or sat at his desk to make endless squares, circles, and triangles. He was engrossed in the latter diversion when he heard the bell sound below. He sat back to hear the steps of the maid, the opening of the door; then, after an interval, her steps ascending the stairs and stopping at his own ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... trust me. Good Lord you surely can trust me with her! Let me teach her and bring a little diversion into her life. What she wants is what all young things want—freedom and fun—pure, simple fun. Don't let her think you are expecting evil of her; ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... colleges in England, nor wear gowns; they lodge and diet in the town, as at the colleges in Holland, and are required to attend at their several classes from eight in the morning till twelve, and from two to four. I wonder how a college in a town used to so much business and diversion to take off from the study of youth, should ever produce ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... Yet St. Lubin brings me full many a sad And weary hour. I, therefore, thought to gain Some slight diversion and amusement too To soothe my woe. Thou know'st the joy I have Of mingled masses of bright colored things Both ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... defend La Guillette's fireside. The huge spit was twisted like a screw in the powerful hands that struggled for possession of it. A pistol-shot set fire to a small store of hemp in skeins that lay on a shelf suspended from the ceiling. That incident created a diversion, and while some hastened to smother the germ of a conflagration, the grave-digger, who had climbed to the attic unperceived, came down the chimney and seized the spit, just as the drover, who was defending it near the hearth, raised it above his head to prevent its being snatched ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... (Chancellor of Oxford), and other great personages, presented an address to her majesty, congratulating her on her arrival. The prince, having read the address, retired with the usual profound obeisances, which not only amused the spectators, but afforded much diversion to her majesty, whose mode of smiling indicated how much she enjoyed the burlesque of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... o'clock, and Fanny was so interested in the five girls that she persuaded them to go home with her to enjoy the evening together. It promised a pleasant diversion, for the five girls had been hard at work several days and had not met a single ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... taking another lady to bear her company, repaired, by way of diversion, to Federigo's little house and enquired for the latter, who, for that it was no weather for hawking nor had been for some days past, was then in a garden he had, overlooking the doing of certain little matters of his, and hearing that Madam Giovanna asked for him ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... steps were heard approaching at the expected hour; and the boys stood in ambush to enjoy the diversion of the sight. It was a dark night; the fiery eyes of the skeleton glared suddenly upon the dancing-master, who was so terrified at the spectacle, and in such haste to escape, that his foot slipped, and he fell down the stone steps: his ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... where he goeth when he comes thus abroad, is to a Bankqueting-house built by a Pond side, which he has made. It is not above a Musquet shot from his Palace. Where he goeth for his diversion. Which I shall by and ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... lose much of their ideal value. A nation bent upon a policy of social invention would make its tools an incident. But just this perception is lacking in many propagandists. That is why their issues are so sterile; that is why the absorption in "next steps" is a diversion ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... garden, where two cross-looking children, a boy and a girl, about the same age as Jean-Christophe, were apparently sulky with each other. Jean-Christophe's advent created a diversion. They came up to examine the new arrival. Jean-Christophe, left with the children by the lady, stood stock-still in a pathway, not daring to raise his eyes. The two others stood motionless a short distance away, and looked him up and down, nudged ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... reached the Contarini secretly from Rome," said one senator to another, as the Consultore passed them, "that they have found themselves a new diversion before the palace of the Vatican, and that some of our great ones here are burned in effigy to instruct the populace. A pile of Fra Paolo's writings doth light the funeral pyre; and all that he hath written or may hereafter write is placed ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... faltered presently, when this little diversion appeared to be ended. As I led the way into the parlour my heart was in my ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... by Don Egidio, the parocco of the little church across the street. The doctor and his wife came only on feast days, but the overseer and Don Egidio were regular patrons. The former was a quiet saturnine-looking man, of accomplished manners but reluctant speech, and I depended for my diversion chiefly on Don Egidio, whose large loosely-hung lips were always ajar for conversation. The remarks issuing from them were richly tinged by the gutturals of the Bergamasque dialect, and it needed but a slight acquaintance with Italian types to ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... fondness for this sort of diversion lasted until he was thirteen years old. In the mean time, however, his chosen career was kept steadily in view. He was sent to the Latin school, from which, if his marks should be good, he might hope to advance in about five years to one of the so-called convent schools ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... after two o'clock a diversion occurred. Henriques succeeded in crossing the road three miles east of Main Drift. He had probably left the kraal early in the night and had tried to cross farther west, but had been deterred by the patrols. East ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... in excellent trim again, only, however, to see and attend to Shaw, who was in turn taken sick. By the 22nd July Shaw was recovered, then Selim was prostrated, and groaned in his delirium for four days, but by the 28th we were all recovered, and were beginning to brighten up at the prospect of a diversion in the shape of a ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... of the broken cart wheel, or hide-and-seek by moonlight, that I wish to speak here, but of another diversion next day, and of a mysterious stranger who arrived at nick of time ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... discovered. Neither were there any indications of a struggle. Yet it was Toby's firm conviction that the ruffians had entered the house, and seized him; that Pepperill was in the plot, the object of whose visit was merely a diversion, while Ropes and the rest accomplished the abduction. This could not, of course, have been done without the aid of magic and the devil; but Toby believed in magic and the devil. The fact that Dan had taken advantage of the confusion ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... toward the door, pulled up, and hung in hesitation, frowning absently at the woman; who, without moving, laughed quietly and watched him with a twinkle of malicious diversion. ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... diversion was made in his favour. The native woman had crouched stolidly in rear of the combat, until she saw the Kachin about to empty his weapon into his English foe. Now she rose swiftly to her feet, a heavy stone in ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... were leaving the chateau a pleasant diversion came in the form of a call from M. La Tour, who had motored over from his father's country seat to dine with us to-night. I was glad to see him, as I wished to thank him for a book which we found at the hotel, when we reached here yesterday, which has added so much to our ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... those terrible creatures that are killed the better, at all events," said John Mangles, "so let's seize the chance, and it will not only give us a little diversion, but be doing a ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... be discovered its mountain basin. Such EXTINGUISHED torrents, if I may use the expression, are numerous." [Footnote: Surrell, Les Torrents des Hautes Alpes, chap. xxiv. In such cases, the clearing of the ground, which, in consequence of a temporary diversion of the waters, or from some other cause, has become rewooded, sometimes renews the ravages of the torrent. Thus, on the left bank of the Durance, a wooded declivity had been formed by the debris brought down by torrents, which had extinguished themselves after ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... cure to you, you bloody thief; you didn't spare me with my arm broke'—(Another general shout.) 'Bad end to it, isn't it a poor case entirely, that I can't even throw up my caubeen, let alone join in the diversion.' ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... to appease the bitterness of the good man; while the memories of his escape, offering a diversion to Henri's mind, put him in sympathetic humor ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... the paper mechanically. He wanted it as a diversion to the conversation merely, for his interest in the doings of Surrey and Yorkshire had waned to the point of complete indifference in competition ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... reckon on this little diversion. When they heard it they probably departed for other regions. They won't be coming around just yet, that's a safe wager. Mighty lucky, eh? Think what Ar targets we'd make, up here in ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... Verneuil, whither he had been accompanied by the Marquise. It was in vain that M. de Sully—to whom the King had given strict charge to endeavour by every method in his power to reconcile the Queen to his absence, and to provide for her amusement every diversion of which she was in a condition to partake—exerted himself to obey the command of the monarch; Marie was too deeply wounded to derive any consolation from such puerile sources, nor was it until the return of her royal consort, when his evident anxiety ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... former. The Germans had collected their military powers, and moved along the opposite banks of the river, with a design of destroying the bridge, and of preventing the passage of the Romans. But this judicious plan of defence was disconcerted by a skilful diversion. Three hundred light-armed and active soldiers were detached in forty small boats, to fall down the stream in silence, and to land at some distance from the posts of the enemy. They executed their orders with so much boldness and celerity, that ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... about thy business, for we are none of the woman-tribe who are neither thine nor another's.[FN310]" And he answered, "O my lady, I said nothing ill." Quoth she, "Thou soughtest to divert thyself[FN311] and thou hast had thy diversion; so wend thy ways." Quoth he, "O my lady, belike thou wilt give me a draught of water, for I am athirst." Whereupon she cried, "How canst thou drink of a Jew's water, and thou a Nazarene?" But he replied, "O my lady, your water is not forbidden to us nor ours unlawful to you, for we are all as ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... followed by black coffee. When it was finished we spent the evening by the camp fire, smoking and talking of the three men retreating down our old trail, and trying to calculate at which one of the camping places they were bivouacked. Every night since our parting this had been our chief diversion, and I must confess that with each day that took us farther away from them an increased loneliness impressed itself upon us. Solemn and vast was the great silence of the trackless wilderness as more and more we came to realize our utter isolation from all the rest of the ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... production, distribution, and exchange. On questions of production not much advance has been made since his day; and his rules of taxation are now classic. He attacked vigorously the balance-of-trade theory, and the unnatural diversion of industry in England by prohibitions, bounties, and the arbitrary colonial system. In brief, he held that a plan for the regulation of industry by the Government was indefensible, and that to direct private persons ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... international peace. German contemporary history illustrates once more a general law of history, that the dread of a civil war is often a direct cause of a foreign war, and that the ruling classes are driven to seek outside a diversion from internal difficulties. Thus political unrest ushered in the wars of the Revolution and the Empire; thus the internal difficulties of Napoleon III. brought about the Franco-German War; thus the internal upheaval of Russia in our ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... A splendid diversion was caused one day when the Huns came over in full force (thirty to forty Gothas) in a daylight raid. I was delighted! This was something I really did understand. It was topping to hear the guns blazing ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... letter to Hunter comprised my written instructions. A junction with this general was not contemplated when the expedition was first conceived, but became an important though not the paramount object after the reception of the later information. The diversion of the enemy's cavalry from the south side of the Chickahominy was its main purpose, for in the presence of such a force as Lee's contracted lines would now permit him to concentrate behind the Chickahominy, the difficulties of crossing ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... The other diversion, which the Turks were used to create against the Entente, was in Egypt. British rule, in spite of the vast benefits it conferred, was not universally acceptable to the Egyptian people and still less to Egyptian officials; and chief among those who resented their restriction to the straight ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... was an agent of the other side) and ... he is an old man, not very strong. Once indoors, I had little trouble with him. He's now enjoying perfect peace, with a gag to insure it, beneath his own charpoy. Ram Nath happened along opportunely and created a diversion with his gin-bottle. That seems to be all, and I'm afraid we mayn't talk much longer. I must be going—and so ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... sake, and not the music which is imported like the Paris fashions. This winter it will be a question between whether we can afford to pay for it, and whether we can afford to do without it. We think the absolute necessity of some diversion, something to lift the leaden cloud, and keep us in a state of natural buoyancy and courage, already settles the question. Music we shall have, simply because we need it. Or view it from the opposite side, from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... functionally very active after the first year, or in precocious animals after the first few months of life. The breeding cow, on the other hand, is subjected to all the disturbances attendant on the gradual enlargement of the womb, the diversion of a large mass of blood to its walls, the constant drain of nutrient materials of all kinds for the nourishment of the fetus, the risks attendant and consequent on abortion and parturition, the dangers of infection from the bull, the risks of ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... recourse to, when tired with his other studies. What an Idea does it raise of His abilities, to find that a Work of such labour and learning, as would have been a sufficient employment and glory for the whole life of another, was to him diversion only, and amusement! The Subject is in its nature incapable of that demonstration upon which his other writings are founded, but his usual accuracy and judiciousness are here no less observable; And at the same time that he supports his suggestions, with all ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton
... work, provided my pen do not for a moment cease writing." And Vyasa said unto that divinity, 'Wherever there be anything thou dost not comprehend, cease to continue writing.' Ganesa having signified his assent, by repeating the word Om! proceeded to write; and Vyasa began; and by way of diversion, he knit the knots of composition exceeding close; by doing which, he dictated this work according ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... amply rewarded. People who require the household cat to rear her offspring in some remote attic or dark corner of the cellar have no idea of all the diversion and pleasure that they lose. It is delightful to watch the little, blind, sprawling, feeble, helpless things develop swiftly into the grace and agility of kittenhood. It is delightful to see the mingled ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... towards Mdlle. C—— C—— as an honest man nor as a libertine. I could not hope to obtain her hand, and I almost fancied I would stab anyone who advised me to seduce her. I felt that I wanted some diversion: I went to the gaming-table. Playing is sometimes an excellent lenitive to calm the mind, and to smother the ardent fire of love. I played with wonderful luck, and I was going home with plenty of gold, when in a solitary narrow street I met a man bent down less by age ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Boulogne! It's always Salvat! He's the inexhaustible subject for articles. The mere mention of him suffices to send up a paper's sales! The bribe-takers of the African Railways shout 'Salvat!' to create a diversion. And the battles which wreck ministers are waged round his name. One and all set upon him and make use of him and ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... finest fugues for a stipend of sixteen pounds a year." He lingered in the porch, waiting for the organist to descend the awkward little stair-case. In the weary trouble of his mind, and with the prospect of getting through the five hours in the best way he could, Mr. Audley was glad to cultivate any diversion of thought, however idle. He therefore freely indulged his curiosity about the ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... months believed the Baroness to be amusing herself with his society. He had not flattered himself that a woman of her age, who had seen so much of the world, and whose ambitions were so unmistakable, could regard him otherwise than as a diversion. ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... he spoke with a certain doggedness. Maurice, he scarcely knew why, felt slightly uncomfortable and longed to create a diversion. He looked at the book he was holding in his hand and saw that it was The Thousand and One Nights, in Italian. He wanted to do something definite, to distract his thoughts—more than ever now after his conversation with Gaspare. An idea occurred ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... next method therefore that I would propose to fill up our time, should be useful and innocent diversion. I must confess I think it is below reasonable creatures to be altogether conversant in such diversions as are merely innocent, and having nothing else to recommend them but that there is no ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... wish that many of his rhymes were not merely difficult but impossible. At a dinner given by Sir Leslie Stephen he met successfully the challenge to produce a rhyme for "rhinoceros," and for Tennyson's diversion he delivered himself of an impromptu in which rhymes were found for "Ecclefechan" and "Craigenputtock." But in rhyming ingenuity Browning is inferior to the author of "Hudibras," in a rhymer's elegant effrontery he ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... answer posed the American, and Barny took advantage of the diversion in his favor, and changed ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... to remain up long; and though Katherine was less than an hour from her chamber, the day was much shortened by the diversion. As night approached she became more and more anxious about Christopher. Indeed, it seemed to her as if the moments were hours after candle-light. And she moved restlessly about her chamber and listened and sighed for the return ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... expected to obey her. He then resolved to prepare, in a day or two, an autobiography full of details that should satisfy Zoe's curiosity, and win her admiration and her love. But he could not do it all in a moment, because his memory of his real life obstructed his fancy. Meantime he operated a diversion. He said, "Set a poor fellow an example. Tell me something about yourself—since I have the bad taste, and the presumption, to be interested in you, and can't help it. Did you spring from the foam of the Archipelago? ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... the landowner's daughter. The priest was longing feverishly for the moment of departure, for lie had been left to himself for several days. He could hardly bear the look of his snow-covered courtyard any more, having no diversion except watching a man chop wood, and hearing the cawing of rooks. He paced to and fro, thinking that another quarter of an hour must have gone, and was surprised to find it was only a few minutes since he had last looked at his watch. He ordered the samovar and lit his pipe. Then ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... perhaps he guessed at her reference, or perhaps he saw her too feeble to be attacked with exciting topics. He shut his mouth and said nothing; and just then the servant entered bearing the tray with Matilda's supper. That made a nice diversion. I think David was glad of it. At any rate he made himself useful; brought up the little table to Matilda's side; set the tea-pot out of her way and spread her napkin on her lap. Then, hearing that Mrs. Laval was detained ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... had believed the sole effect of the rapid inhalation was due to mere diversion of the will, and this was the only way nature could so violently exert herself—that of controlling the involuntary action of the lungs to her uses by the safety valve, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... youth, ordered a deer hunt to be prepared in the Escorial grounds; and during the diversion His Majesty happened to shoot Valenzuela in the muscle of his arm, whether intentionally or accidentally is not known. However, the terrified Queen-mother fainted and fell into the arms of her ladies-in-waiting. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... nightly in the studied simulacrum of her former self, was no part of her code. She felt she should tell every man that came near her that she hated him, and the reason why. Nor was hers the temperament for suspense without diversion. She could live through the next six weeks with change of scene, but not otherwise. She made a full confession to her father and received the severest reprimand of her life; but Colonel Belmont took ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... found leisure to write fourscore books, some of which occasioned diversion enough in their time, and were thought worthy to be collected in a folio volume. Mr. Wood observes, that had he had learning equal to his natural genius, which was excellent, he might have equalled, if not excelled, many who claim a great share in ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... his prey was practically within his clutches. The idea that the harmless clicking of the hammer had frightened him was too ridiculous to entertain. However, we had not long to wait before we could at least guess at the cause of the diversion, for from without came mingled growls and roars and the sound of great bodies thrashing about until the earth shook. The bear had been attacked in the rear by some other mighty beast, and the two were now locked ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and adjusted, proved to be the best part of the wagon, and, better than all else, had provided a season of mirth to the whole company, which, considering the all too serious environments of our march, was really a much needed tonic and diversion. ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... take up this subject a second time would be distasteful to both of us. So let's finish what we've started. I repeat: it isn't just for myself that I raise this issue. To me, research is a relief, a potent diversion, an enticement, a passion that can make me forget everything else. Like you, I'm a man neglected and unknown, living in the faint hope that someday I can pass on to future generations the fruits of ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... is in every constitution a certain solstice, when the stars stand still in our inward firmament, and when there is required some foreign force, some diversion or alternative, to prevent stagnation. And, as a medical remedy, travel seems one of the best. Just as a man witnessing the admirable effect of ether to lull pain, and, meditating on the contingencies of wounds, cancers, lockjaws, rejoices in Dr. Jackson's benign ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... often met in the world young men who were absolutely starlings in love and complete dupes of a friendship which women pretended to show them, women who felt themselves obliged to make a diversion and to apply a blister to their husbands as their husbands had previously done to them! These poor innocents pass their time in running errands, in engaging boxes at the theatre, in riding in the Bois de Boulogne by the carriages of their pretended ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... spirited encounter between Don and Billykins, who had taken to what they called wrestling, but which in reality amounted to a lively round of punching each other black and blue. Both small boys were considerably upset at being stopped in this entirely novel diversion, and declared that Rupert was neither public-spirited nor sporting to put a veto upon it; but he was firm, and threatened to send one of them to bed if they did not desist, and so they had been forced to find some ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... officers' houses on the post on Saturday or Sunday afternoon if invited; he was at liberty to take a walk—within cadet limits. Or, if he felt the need of something really "wild" in the way of diversion, the lucky plebe was permitted to go over to the Academic Building and examine the mineralogical or ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... of soil and groundwater with agricultural chemicals, pesticides; salinization, water-logging of soil due to poor irrigation methods; Caspian Sea pollution; diversion of a large share of the flow of the Amu Darya into irrigation contributes to that river's inability to replenish the ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... could say what they must do, there was a diversion in our proceedings which took all interest in them clean away from me, and made me forget whatever mystery there was about Carstairs, Smeaton, or anybody else. A page lad came along with a telegram in his hand asking was there any gentleman there of the ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... by getting into action, our artillery was now focusing the attention and drawing the fire of the Russian guns, for most of the latter's shells whined harmlessly above us, being aimed at the batteries in our rear. Considerably relieved by this diversion, we resumed our forward movement after about fifteen minutes of further rest, our goal being the little chain of hills which our advance guard had previously occupied pending our arrival. Here we were ordered to take ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... slightest suspicion. Equitan, far from being startled at this atrocious proposition, assured her of his concurrence, and she continued thus: "Return, sir, for the present, to your court; then come to pursue your diversion in this forest, and again take up your abode under our roof. You must once more pretend to be indisposed; cause yourself to be blooded; and on the third day order a bath, invite my husband to bathe and ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... officers for the ships are made in Mexico, thus causing great and unnecessary expense. The ships lost in the Philippine trade, and the causes of such loss are enumerated; and the kinds of merchandise therein are mentioned. The citizens of the Philippines are discontented at the partial diversion of their trade to the American colonies. A violation of the royal decrees is interpreted by the Mexicans to be not a mortal sin, accordingly they disregard them; Castro advises more leniency in both the prohibition and the penalty. Some ecclesiastics recommend that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... diversion was a battle on the forecastle, one afternoon, between the mate and the steward. They had been on bad terms the whole voyage, and had threatened a rupture several times. Once, on the coast, the mate had seized the steward, when the steward suddenly ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... to dig holes in the carefully groomed lawn. It is as natural for them to delve for underground animals as for a setter or spaniel to flush birds. Retrievers are usually gentle, well disposed animals and not only make good pets but are excellent in a family where hunting is a diversion. Very popular just now in this class are the spaniels, especially the cockers. They have beauty, an affectionate disposition, are most intelligent and are excellent watch dogs. They fit into nearly any household large ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... existence when, during the first years of Cristina's Regency, Mendizabal, the patriotic merchant of Cadiz and London, then First Minister of the Crown, carried out the dismemberment of the religious orders, and the diversion of their enormous wealth to the use of the nation. Don Carlos, the brother of Ferdinand VII., thereupon declared himself the Defender of the Faith and the champion of the extreme clerical party. Hinc illae ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... the Merry-Lwyd was by no means a diversion exclusively Welsh is corroborated by the fact noticed in your Number of the 23rd of Feb., of its being found to exist in Cheshire. And we know that many ancient customs lingered in the principality long after they fell into disuse ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 20, March 16, 1850 • Various
... thought; but as Kate collected herself, and regained contact with the outer world, her preoccupation yielded to surprise. It was unusual for Mrs. Peyton to pay visits. For years she had remained enthroned in a semi-invalidism which prohibited effort while it did not preclude diversion; and the girl at once divined a special ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... and that's all I care about. They are my pupils, I tell you, and I've brought them here with their mother for a little diversion. I've the training of them every morning for a couple of hours, and thirty pounds a year paid every month. Jack and I make enough between ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... shot-gun against the large creature, whose attention it was his duty to attract, he staked all on the marksmanship of his friends. Not considering this, however, he stood his ground, having the thumb-piece on his Winchester magazine shoved up and ready to make a noisy diversion if necessary in behalf of either wing. Having aroused the monster's curiosity, Cortlandt sprang up, waving his arms and his gun. The dinosaur lowered his head as if to charge, thereby bringing it to a level with the rifles, either of ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... Grandval I saw through a whole play without suspecting it was he. Alas! four-and-twenty years make strange havoc with us mortals! You cannot imagine how this struck me! The Italian comedy, now united with their opera comique, is their most perfect diversion; but alas! harlequin, my dear favourite harlequin, my passion, makes me more melancholy than cheerful. Instead of laughing, I sit silently reflecting how everything loses charms when one's own youth does not lend it ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... shed tears much more than any grief—-that husband so dear to me, and of whom thou hast heard me speak so much, is one of the captives whose lives I have saved—-the other is my father, and the young lad my brother. The horror of seeing my father die for the diversion of a people to whom I am Queen, has pierced me with so lively an affliction, that I wonder the apprehension of it did not a second time deprive me of my reason—-my husband, partaker of the same fate, his melancholy, his ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown
... own pleasant self, and she defended Patricia so stoutly against this statement that Ted declared he was green with jealousy and began a counter-charge of neglect of his talents, which moved Judith to swift retort and afforded great diversion to ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... the island. The rats gnawed his feet and clothes when he was asleep, which obliged him to cherish the cats, by feeding them with goats flesh, so that many of them became so tame that they used to lie beside him in hundreds, and soon delivered him from the rats. He also tamed some kids, and for his diversion would at times sing and dance with them and his cats: So that, by the favour of Providence and the vigour of his youth, for he was now only thirty years of age, he came at length to conquer all the inconveniences of his solitude, and to be ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... Under cover of this diversion Duncan was making one last effort to slip away; but before he could gather together his impedimenta and get to the door ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... I had of Germany in the early period of the war; but I was never with the German army, which made Americans particularly welcome for obvious reasons. Between right and wrong one cannot be a neutral. In foregoing the diversion of shaking hands and passing the time of day on the Germanic fronts, I escaped any bargain with my conscience by accepting the hospitality of those warring for a cause and in a manner obnoxious to me. I was among friends, living ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... the Countess gave her attention once more to the crystal. For a time she could see nothing. The mysterious current had been severed by the diversion, and had slowly to be rewoven by ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... they been given the opportunity. It was a small division, divided into two brigades. General Davies led one of them, but General Custer was taken away and entrusted with the command of an important diversion designed to attract the attention of the enemy by an attack on his left flank, while Kilpatrick passed around his right and by a quick march reached the confederate capital. That portion of Custer's brigade ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... diversion for the long winter evenings. Occasionally some of the young people visited her, and they sang and danced, roasted apples, popped chestnuts, and played games. Often Wetzel and Major McColloch came in after supper. Betty would come down and sing for them, and ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... boast is the possession of one million idols, which, of one kind and another, I can well believe. The great Hindoo festival of the Holi was now celebrating, and the city more than ordinarily crowded; throwing red powder (lac and flour), with rose-water, is the great diversion at a festival more childish by far than ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... perpetuation, that they are utterly powerless in the presence of a system which imposes great and needless burdens upon their patrons, but which will die the day the Government takes possession of the railways, as then there will be no corporations ready to pay for the diversion of traffic. ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... I couldn't possibly do nothing—I do not mean this in the ungrammatical sense in which it is so often used—I thought I would be obliged to take up some new calling or diversion. Time hung heavily on my hands and I thought too much about myself, as usual. A mental healer had told me that I was too imaginative and thought of too many different things. He said: "A part of the time try to think of absolutely nothing; ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... the mob of Paris will be stirring. Let us go down towards the Hotel de Ville; that is always the centre of mischief. If all is quiet there, it may be that this story is correct, and that it is really only a court diversion. But that does not explain why the streets should be lighted ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... and therefore also of labor, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and diversion of labor increases, in the same proportion the ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... amphitheatre. West of the city was a sort of Water Park, enclosed by a wall 30 li in circumference, full of lakes, tanks, and canals from the Wei, and within this park were seven fine palaces and a variety of theatres and other places of public diversion. To the south-east of the city was an artificial lake with palaces, gardens, park, etc., originally formed by the Emperor Hiaowu (B.C. 100), and to the south of the city was another considerable lake called Fan. This may be the Fanchan Lake, beside which Rashid says that Ananda, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... a happy diversion for Lucy. She assented gayly. David ran for his fiddle, and then for Pepper. Pepper wagged his tail, but, strong as his musical taste was, would not follow the fiddle. But at this juncture Master Reginald dawned on the stable-yard with a huge slice of bread and butter. Pepper ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... something of which a Mendoza or a Belcher might have been proud. He fought strongly and silently, inspiring his fellow townsmen by his example. The new leader had entirely turned the tide of battle, but just as the defeat of the men of Menheniot seemed certain, a diversion was created by the arrival of the local constables. Now that their own villagers were on the verge of disaster, there was no longer any reason why they should remain in the background. They made a determined effort to arrest the leader of the ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... side lay his servant, who had died in the attempt to drag him out to the comparative safety of the open trench. Nearly two years since another friend gave up his life for his country; nearly two years since another mother in England learned that her son had been killed in a "slight diversion ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... two vessels the fire-ships were to be conducted. The "Imperious" and three other frigates anchored about a gun-shot and a half from the boom to support the boats accompanying the fire-ships. Five or six sloops-of-war and brigs were placed near the east end of the island to make a diversion, while a bomb-vessel and several small craft, supplied with rockets, took up their stations ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... at times by having Mr. Baker into his rooms of a morning, that the management of the estate might be discussed with his friend; and he also expressed his wish to see the family solicitor, as he desired to draw his will. Thinking that any diversion of this nature could not but be beneficial to him, we sent to Dorchester for our solicitor, Mr. Jeffreys, who together with his clerk spent three nights at Worth, and drew up a testament for ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... cheerful notary and the daily visits of the leech, an elderly man, who had depressed rather than cheered him by informing him of many cases like his own which all proved incurable, had been his sole diversion. True, the heads of the Greek residents of Tennis had also sometimes sought him: the higher government officials, the lessees of the oil monopoly and the royal bank, as well as Gorgias, who, next to Archias the Alexandrian, owned the largest weaving establishments, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... situation recognized in the course of the attempt during the war to standardize the wages of the stevedores and longshoremen employed in the South Atlantic ports. Here straightforward and unmodified standardization would have caused, it was judged, the diversion of certain freight carrying steamship lines from ports in which they ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... During this diversion of the Mongol arms, Bajazet had two years to collect his forces for a more serious encounter. They consisted of four hundred thousand horse and foot whose merit and fidelity were of an unequal complexion. We may discriminate ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... This diversion had cost me a good fifty yards. I knew well enough that the lane sooner or later must lead out into the high-road, and made sure that if my fellows gained it first they would head back for Farnham. (What would ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... 'tis neither wit nor diversion to tell you every day where I dine; neither do I write it to fill my letter; but I fancy I shall, some time or other, have the curiosity of seeing some particulars how I passed my life when I was absent from MD this time; and so I tell you now that I dined ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... conferred on them, and fled either to be the companions of the monks in the desert or elsewhere so as to be safe from the crushing load of Imperial distinction. Mr. Hodgkin and others have pointed out that the diversion of local funds to the Imperial Exchequer was one of the proximate causes which led to the downfall of the empire. Whilst the municipal system lasted, it produced admirable results. Dealing with Northern Africa, whose progress was eventually arrested by the withering hand of Islam, Mr. Reid speaks ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... see you take on so, dear Belle," said I. "I really have given you no cause to be so unhappy; surely teaching you a little Armenian was a very innocent kind of diversion." ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... as an Historian, for our improvement and diversion, how glorious an account could he give us of Noah's Voyage round the world, in the famous Ark! he could resolve all the difficulties about the building it, the furnishing it, and the laying up provision in it for all the collection of kinds that he had made; He could tell us whether all the ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... gallows liberally applied availed naught to check the popular licence. Every prohibitory edict became a dead letter. In such a season the Jews might well tremble, made over to the facetious Christian; always excellent whetstones for wit, they afforded peculiar diversion in Carnival times. On the first day a deputation of the chief Jews, including the three gonfaloniers and the rabbis, headed the senatorial cortege, and, attired in a parti-colored costume of red and yellow, marched across the whole city, from ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill |
