"Distracted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... into a handsome, smoke filled room, where four men with intent faces were gathered around a card table. Enoch, in his shirt sleeves, was dealing as Jonas set a steaming cup at his elbow. Perhaps the intensity of the colored man's gaze distracted Enoch's attention for a moment from the cards. He looked up and when he met Jonas' eyes he deliberately laid down the deck, rose, took Jonas by the arm and led him ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living' (Psa 27:13,14). As if he should say, the devil did so rage and my heart was so base, that had I judged according to my own sense and feeling, I had been absolutely distracted; but I trusted to Christ in the promise, and looked that God would be as good as his promise, in having mercy upon me, an unworthy sinner; and this is that which encouraged me, and kept me from fainting. And ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... presently, to my great relief, I saw the stimulant take effect, and life come slowly surging back in colour to his cheeks, in strength to his whole prostrate frame. He straightened himself a little, and turned upon me a less distracted gaze ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... distracted Fay and interrupted the scolding she was gleefully receiving from Jane. The sound was not the light-spirited trot that Bells made when Lassiter rode him into the outer court. This was slower and heavier, and Jane did not recognize in it any of her other horses. The appearance of ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... trample on human nature and lower its merits too much. Still such a peevish and condemnatory verdict as this has a tendency to make people milder in their rage, for it is the sudden and unexpected that makes people go distracted. And we ought, as Panaetius somewhere said, to imitate Anaxagoras, and as he said at the death of his son, "I knew that I had begotten a mortal," so ought every one of us to use the following kind of language in those ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the current, was at last abandoned, I hastened to the hotel, and inquired for Madame Sendel. She came to me in a state of great agitation. Van Haubitz had not returned, but she thought less of that than of the state of her daughter, who, since recovering from a long swoon, had been almost distracted with anxiety. She knew some one had been drowned, and her mind misgave her it was her husband. The foraging-cap, which Madame Sendel immediately recognised, removed all uncertainty. The only hope remaining was, that Van Haubitz, although carried rapidly away by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... settled in the Phoenix Park. The last residence which I would choose would be a place with all the plagues, and none of the attractions, of a capital; a provincial city on fire with factions political and religious, peopled by raving Orangemen and raving Repealers, and distracted by a contest between Protestantism as fanatical as that of Knot and Catholicism as fanatical as that of Bonner. We have our share of the miseries of life in this country. We are annually baked four months, boiled four more, ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... Somewhat distracted by the desire to be brief, and yet to tell the whole story, I have sought, in what I fear is a very loose and disconnected way, to put in a new light some of the evils which are hurting the mothers of our race, and those which every day's experience teaches the doctor are gravely ...
— Wear and Tear - or, Hints for the Overworked • Silas Weir Mitchell
... purpose of the cartoon-poster was to demonstrate McClellan's availability. Lincoln, the Abolitionist, and Davis, the Secessionist, are pictured as bigots of the worst sort, who were determined that peace should not be restored to the distracted country, except upon the lines laid down by them. McClellan, the patriotic peacemaker, is shown as the man who believed in the preservation of the Union above all things—a man who ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... where a solitary lamp swung before the altar, and a flood of moonlight fell through the coloured panes of the clerestory windows. Dino stood passive in that flood of moonlight, almost forgetting why he had come. His brain was dizzy, his heart was sick. His mind was distracted with the thought of a guilt which he did not feel to be his own, of sin for which his conscience did not smite him. For, with a strange commingling of clear-sightedness and submission to authority, he still believed that he had done perfectly right in giving ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... person had however become emaciated and parched up. She readily sat with Mrs. Ch'in for a long while, and after they had chatted on one thing and another, she again reiterated the assurances that this illness involved no danger, and distracted her ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... her father rose in Dolly's heart. How could he have let her be ashamed of him? And then another thought darted into her head. Had not Mr. Shubrick a right to know all about it? Dolly was almost distracted ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... not go straight to the Baxendales'. In his distracted state he felt it impossible to sit through luncheon, and he could not immediately decide how to meet Mrs. Baxendale, whether to take her into his confidence or to preserve silence on what had happened. He was not sure that he would be justified in disclosing the details of such an interview; ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... of Friendship—To Murder any one is a Crime unpardonable! But a Friend!—And of all Friends the nearest to my Heart,—'Tis such an Imposition that Hell it self 'till now cou'd never parallel; And yet this Devil of a Woman has power over me beyond all Virtue. I am distracted in my Thoughts, and know not what to do; yet something must be done without delay, or else I lose her quite: And yet I fear 'tis most Impossible, for Friendship left the World, when Justice fled, and all who now do wear that Name ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... nothing of her to be seen. She had the option of two or three routes from this point to the post-office; yet he plunged at random into one, till he reached the office to find it quite deserted. Almost distracted now by his anxiety for her he retreated as rapidly as he had come, regaining home only to find that she ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... the genuine sympathy that was shown to the poor distracted Kenneth Burnside, but all attempts at consolation were received by him with a sad smile that conveyed the idea of an unhealing wound. He lived the life of a recluse and never went ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... Seeing she was distracted and hardly knew what she was saying, the man drew back, and Deborah ran up the stairs to Sylvia's room, where she found ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... it was said, by Caesonia, the wife of the murdered man. Caesonia had an infant daughter at this time, and she remained herself with the child, in a retired apartment of the palace while these things were transpiring. Distracted with grief and terror at the tidings that she heard, she clung to her babe, and made the arrangements for the interment of the body of her husband without leaving its cradle. She imagined perhaps that there ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... some time, taking, say the annalists, "hostages and treasure." By the year 1002 Ireland had a master, one whose influence made itself felt over its whole surface. For twelve years at least out of its distracted history the country knew the blessings of peace. Broken by defeat the Danish dwellers of the seaport towns began to turn their energies to the milder and more pacific activities of trade. The ruined ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... distracted between the scruples of his lawyer and Zada's lack of them that when Charity confessed how she had set detectives on him and had secured a dictagraphic record of his alliance with Zada ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... myself to become completely absorbed in what he told. But, unfortunately, I was never able for a single instant to forget the real purpose of our enterprise, and consequently I felt all my senses more keenly on the alert than usual, and my attention accordingly more or less distracted. It was, indeed, a revelation to hear Shorthouse unbosom himself in this fashion, and to a young man it was of course doubly fascinating; but the little sounds that always punctuate even the deepest silence out of doors claimed some portion of my attention, ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... indignation. The grimy and irate coalheavers were still being discoursed with, when a bevy of neat and polite individuals arrived from different quarters, bearing each under his arm a splendid ten-guinea wedding-cake. The maid grew distracted; her mistress was single, and had no intention of doubling herself; there must be some mistake; the confectioners were dismissed, in a very different humour to that with which they had come. But they were scarcely gone when crowds began to storm the house, all 'on business.' Rival doctors met in ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... 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 ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... doctor for his kind attention, I left the door to return home. The door closed, and my situation was a very painful one; the sudden change from light to utter darkness obliged me to stand still a few minutes before I could venture to move, but a world of sensations ran through my mind, and distracted me more than ever; the weakness of my body prevented my checking its sensations; and, could I have weighed in the balance of reason, to say nothing of religion, at this moment, all foolish, sinful pleasures—falsely so called—of drinking, with the distress of ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... finding myself standing in this place, where were collected together the wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion to principle, from which sprang the institutions under which we live. You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is the task of restoring peace to our distracted country. I can say in return, sir, that all the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in and were given to the world from this hall. I have never had a feeling politically, that did ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... intelligence through him of all that passed. This treason, it is supposed, he would not have yielded to but for the desperate situation of affairs. The country of Pase was now entirely in subjection to the Achinese, and nothing remained unconquered but the capital, whilst the garrison was distracted with internal divisions. ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... Distracted, not knowing what course to pursue, she paced the floor of the room. Through the closed door she could hear the music and the chatter of her guests. She must go to see Underwood at once, that was certain, and her visit must be a secret one. There was already enough talk. If her enemies ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... circumstance? (7) But that is not all. To place more confidence in foreigners than in your fellow-citizens, nay, in barbarians than in Hellenes, to be consumed with a desire to keep freemen slaves and yet to be driven, will he nill he, to make slaves free, are not all these the symptoms of a mind distracted and ...
— Hiero • Xenophon
... Malroy's been acting mighty queer ever since Charley Norton was shot—distracted like! He says he noticed it, and ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... moved as often as they pleased. There were to be speeches and singing, but no one had to listen who did not care to; if he wished, meantime, to speak or sing himself, he was perfectly free. The resulting medley of sound distracted no one, save possibly alone the babies, of which there were present a number equal to the total possessed by all the guests invited. There was no other place for the babies to be, and so part of the preparations ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... provinces. On every side Germany was broken up into petty principalities. The Holy Roman Empire of Germany, which was neither Holy nor Roman nor German, and which had ceased to be an empire, was only the shadow of a great name. Austria was perpetually distracted by internal and external dangers. Poland was an unruly republic. The very weakness of their neighbours was a ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... devotion to the Union, shone with additional brightness from its contrast with surrounding darkness. In all portions of the South were found examples of this patriotic devotion, and nowhere did it display itself more nobly than in the distracted city of Baltimore. The Union people were near enough to the North with its patriotic sentiment, and sufficiently protected by the presence of Union soldiery, to be able to act with the freedom and spontaneity denied ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... nor could he at such times at all control their trembling. At last, however, with a huge sigh, he aroused himself to some perception of his surroundings, which he acknowledged were of as dispiriting a sort as he could well have conceived of. His recovering senses were distracted by a ceaseless watery din, for the breaking waves, rushing with a prodigious swiftness from the harbor to the shore before the driving wind, fell with uproarious crashing into white foam among the rocks. Above this watery tumult spread the wet gloom of the night, full of the ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... 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
... distracted by the horse-flies. I took Jezebel into a stream to-day, but she started to sit down! So the flies must just bite, I fear. Large ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... covering—representing large bunches of roses scattered over a pale green ground. She tried to weary herself into drowsiness by counting over and over again the bunches of roses that were visible from her point of view. Twice her attention was distracted from the counting, by sounds outside—by the clock chiming the half-hour past twelve; and then again, by the fall of a pair of boots on the upper floor, thrown out to be cleaned, with that barbarous disregard of the comfort of others which is ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... in the early evening. Now that the work of the day was over Dave's mind went back to the scene of the morning, when he had handled his baby garments and the cork jacket. His manner must have been strange and distracted, for Mr. ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... be overthrown on the side of terrible calamity. I was thankful when he once more showed himself tractable by climbing on the driver's seat and turning our course homeward. It was the small hours of morning that found me under the lamp in my study, giving the distracted young man a narcotic. When his head was nodding, he struggled once ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... all in flames. The surrounding buildings were burning too, and the streets in the neighborhood were piled up with furniture and goods which the wretched inmates of the dwellings had vainly endeavored to save. These inmates themselves were standing around, distracted with grief and terror, and gazing hopelessly upon the ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... unless, indeed, it was inflicted after death. Another thing that we never ascertained was how the two women—She and the Egyptian Amenartas—were able to bear the corpse of the man they both loved across the dread gulf and along the shaking spur. What a spectacle the two distracted creatures must have presented in their grief and loveliness as they toiled along that awful place with the dead man between them! Probably however the passage was easier ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... was in the midst of a very able and voluble defense, when the attention of his hearers seemed distracted by something on the trail by which the original settlers had entered ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... in the composition of his work on the "Life and Reign of Charles the First," and the five volumes appeared at intervals between 1828 and 1831. It was feared by his publisher, that the distracted epoch at which this work was issued, and the tendency of the times, apparently so adverse to his own views, might prove very injurious to its reception. But the effect of these circumstances was the reverse. The minds of men were ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... In its midst, and through it, the merciless flames leapt up and up. The booming of falling timbers, and the roar of the flames smote painfully upon the hearts of the watchers. It was a spectacle to crush every earthly hope. It was a sight so painful as to drive the mind of man distracted. In all their lives these people had never imagined such a terror. In all their lives they could never ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... father so set upon your compliance, so much in hopes that you would have yielded, that you would have been prevailed upon by methods so condescending and so gentle; no wonder that he, in particular, was like a distracted man, when he heard of your flight—of your flight so premeditated;—with your ivy summer-house dinings, your arts to blind me, and all of ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... had she ever thought of flinging away the wreath of withered poppies, which she put on the very morning of Proserpina's disappearance. She roamed about in so wild a way, and with her hair so dishevelled, that people took her for some distracted creature, and never dreamed that this was Mother Ceres, who had the oversight of every seed which the husbandman planted. Nowadays, however, she gave herself no trouble about seed-time nor harvest, but left the farmers to take care of their own affairs, ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... from those who were in the secret, I returned home sad, and with feelings almost overwhelmed and distracted through grief. I sit down; my servants run to me; they take off my shoes:[24] then some make all haste to spread the couches,[25] and to prepare a repast; each according to his ability did zealously {what he could}, in order to alleviate ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... (alternatively, use of these constructions in a sarcastic tone before a paraphrase of someone else's argument suggests that it is a handwave). The theory behind this term is that if you wave your hands at the right moment, the listener may be sufficiently distracted to not notice that what you have said is {bogus}. Failing that, if a listener does object, you might try to dismiss the objection with a ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... thrills in fatal summons to hell or heaven, and resistlessly drags a spirit into the appointed receptacle. Shakspeare, whose genius seems to have touched every shape of thought with adorning phrase, makes Juliet, distracted with the momentary fancy that Romeo is a ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... leave you here, officer," he said. "I'll be down in the morning, sure. As for you," he continued to me, "I trust you will soon see the error of your ways and try to mend them, and—" he continued in a whisper, as the officer's attention was distracted for a moment, "never try to ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... am distracted. If I refuse her the visit, I foresee dissensions, tears, games at ball, romps, not one day of rest remaining to me. I could be of a mind with your Puritan, positively. If I allow it, so innocent a creature in the atmosphere of a place like this must suffer some corruption. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Where the calm triumphs of an honest cause? Where the delightful taste of just applause? Where the strong reason, the commanding tongue, On which the senate fired or trembling hung? All vanish'd, all are sold—and in their room, Couch'd in thy bosom's deep, distracted gloom, See the pale form of barbarous Grandeur dwell, Like some grim idol in a sorcerer's cell! 210 To her in chains thy dignity was led; At her polluted shrine thy honour bled; With blasted weeds thy awful brow she crown'd, Thy powerful tongue with ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... another cab distracted their attention. The bell rang loudly. As Carey opened the door, an old woman bounded in. Her hat was on one side of her head and ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... Blobbs, wondering whatever the boy's distracted fancy was running on. "Don't do it! Don't do it!" he then cried. "I'll have nothing to say to it. Let us stand our chance rather. Not that way; not that way; no, no, that's making bad ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... Police received many reports of "funny green and red lights" moving slowly around a television transmitter tower. And in Hartford, Connecticut, two amateur astronomers, looking at Saturn through a 4-inch telescope, were distracted by a bright light. Turning their telescope on it they observed a "large, whitish yellow light, shaped like a ten gallon hat." Many other people evidently saw the same UFO because the local newspaper said, "reports ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... evil they will work on my sons and on my people." His courtiers deemed they were Breton or Saracen pirates, but the emperor knew better. They were the terrible Northmen, soon to prove a bloodier scourge to Gaul than Hun or Goth or Saracen; and to meet them Charlemagne left an empire distracted by civil war, and a nerveless, feeble prince, Louis the Pious, Louis the Forgiving, fitter for the hermit's cell than for the throne and ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... the pitcher as well as feeding the child. But the little one was getting more content as the morsels of sweet pulp were repeated, and ceased to distress her with its cry, so that she could give a less distracted attention to the objects ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... there be at Washington, the poor man (ungoverned can govern himself) shoulders his age, and walks into the Western Woods, sure of a nourishing Earth and an overarching Sky! It is verily the Door of Hope to distracted Europe; which otherwise I should see crumbling down into blackness of darkness.—That too shall ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... his hat down from the peg, as if minded to make a second trip to the bank, and replacing it as he realised that patience was his part. He looked older and more worn than ordinarily, and seemed distinctly pleased to be distracted by ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... for wealth, with all the shocks That vex distracted millionaires, Plagued by their ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... morning he appeared in a morning-gown, still acting the madman, and carried it so far now, as to address himself to all the posts in the streets, as if they were saints, lifting up his hands and eyes in a fervent though distracted manner to heaven, and making use of so many extravagant gestures, that he astonished the whole city. Going through Castle-street, he met the Rev. Mr. B—-c, a minister of that place, whom he accosted with his arms thrown round him; and insisted, in a raving manner, he should tell ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... herd milled and eddied, revolving like a vast pool of deep, swift water. The bulls were quarrelsome, the steers were stubborn, and the wet cows were distracted. Motherless calves dodged about in bewilderment. In and out of this confusion the cowboys rode, following the animals selected for separation, forcing them out with devious turnings and twistings, and then running them madly in ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... supernatural scenes I have beheld, the question is more difficult. Of such I have heard from the mouth of the consecrated priests, but never till this day did I see them. At present however my mind is too much distracted, to be able to decide. I have already gone far enough; as far as my heart will permit me. I must ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... the stable, and while I am reading, the boy will see me, jump from his mother's lap, and run towards me to be danced on my knee. He will come too near the horse's hoof, and, full of anger, I shall call to my wife, 'Take the baby; take him!' But she, distracted by some domestic work, does not hear me. Then I get up, and give her such a kick with my foot." While he thought this, he gave a kick with his foot, and broke the pot. All the rice fell over him, and made him ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... recovered his senses when they brought him back to Melbourne. Mrs. Randolph was in a state almost as much beyond self-management. Daisy was out of the house. Mrs. Gary had left Melbourne; and till the doctor arrived Mrs. Randolph was nearly distracted. ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... labour trader; and then one day the schooner, in which I then served as supercargo, reached Samoa, and there I accepted the dignified but unsatisfactory financial position of inter-island supercargo to a firm of merchants doing business in Apia, the distracted little capital of the Navigator's Island. At this time, the late Earl of Pembroke, the joint author with Dr. Kingsley of "South Sea Bubbles," was in Apia Harbour in his schooner yacht Albatross, and ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... me, save me!" shrieked the distracted Agnes. Then, casting upon the abbot a frantic look, "Hear me," she continued, "man of a hard heart! Insolent in your yet unshaken virtue, your day of trial will arrive. Think then upon your cruelty; and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... for the American people to settle the slavery question forever and to restore peace and harmony to this distracted country! They, and they alone, can do it. All that is necessary to accomplish the object, and all for which the slave States have ever contended, is to be let alone and permitted to manage their domestic institutions in their own way. As sovereign ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... distracted from Clemmy's locket to a little ring which Lily had been persuaded by Mrs. Somers to try on, and which she now drew off and returned with a shake of the head. Mrs. Somers, who saw that she had small chance of selling ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... brother," cried George, in bitterness. A piercing shriek drew his eye to the door he had passed through—on its threshold lay the senseless body of his wife. The distracted husband forgot everything in the situation of his Marian, and raising her in his arms, ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... St Paul but just pop in, From higher scenes abstracted, And hear his Gospel now explained, By Heavens, he'd run distracted." ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... more ardent within me, to embrace that life to which, without a moment's vacillation, I have been for years inclined. It seems to me that, in those moments when I feel myself so near to the realization of the constant dream of my life, it is something like a profanation to allow my mind to be distracted by other objects. So much does this idea torment me, and to so many doubts does it give rise within me, that my admiration for the beauty of things created—of the heavens so full of stars, in these serene nights of spring, and in this favored region of Andalusia; of these ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... little voice that interrupted the distracted girl. Its owner had been into the room three times already, with the same object, ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... happy, quite, Until the toad for fun Said, 'Pray which leg comes after which?' This worked her mind to such a pitch She lay distracted in a ditch, Considering how ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... decked, flashed rays Of light. Three times around the island went They all, with sound of music and the noise Of bells. And all who heard in vain essayed To estimate the number. Everyone Ran forth to see the progress—men and women. Some tore their garments, some their children lost, Distracted by the pleasure and the noise. When ended the procession, the young prince At Princess Mendoudari's right was placed, Within the palace. Then to them was brought Rice called adapadap, and they became A wedded pair. And ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... intend to forsake me, why then dost thou point out to me the way to the country of the Vidarbhas? I know, O king, that thou wouldst not desert me. But, O lord of the earth, considering that thy mind is distracted, thou mayst desert me. O best of men, thou repeatedly pointest out to me the way and it is by this, O god-like one, that thou enhancest my grief. If it is thy intention that I should go to my relatives, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... fifty years after this Whittington leads an active, busy, prosperous life. It was a distracted time, full of troubles and anxieties. A Charter obtained in 1376, two or three years before he began business, was probably the real foundation of Whittington's fortune. For it forbade foreign merchants to sell by retail. This meant that a foreign ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... direction of the boudoir. I thought that her eyes looked red; certainly she was trembling very much; and with this poor preparation for an interview before which the strongest and most experienced man might quail, I advanced for the second time that morning to the door behind which the distracted mother awaited me. ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... Majesty's council proclaimed, within twenty-four hours after their arrival on the coast of Virginia, and not before. The council were then to proceed to the choice of a president, who was to have two votes. To this unaccountable concealment have those dissensions been attributed, which distracted the colonists on their passage, and which afterwards impeded the progress ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... trembled on Diana's lips, but her attention was distracted from her annoying guide to a collection of black specks far off across the desert. They were too far away for her to see clearly, but she pointed to them, peering at them intently. "See!" she cried. "Is ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... up and down throughout the town, Most frantic scenes were acted; And some ran here, and others there, Like men almost distracted. ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... Valentine, and, extraordinary as it seemed, each day found him less uneasy. Certainly, though Valentine still labored under dreadful nervous excitement, she was better; and moreover, Monte Cristo had told him when, half distracted, he had rushed to the count's house, that if she were not dead in two hours she would be saved. Now four days had elapsed, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... that. And can you wonder then my heart is full of fear, that I am distracted, that I asked you what I did? He is relentless and of all women he wants me. He would break me on the wheel of ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... which exist in the universe. A similar ambiguity occurs in the use of the favourite word 'law,' which is sometimes regarded as a mere abstraction, and then elevated into a real power or entity, almost taking the place of God. Theology, again, is full of undefined terms which have distracted the human mind for ages. Mankind have reasoned from them, but not to them; they have drawn out the conclusions without proving the premises; they have asserted the premises without examining the terms. The passions of religious parties have been ...
— Parmenides • Plato
... The distracted mother, to enforce obedience, added gestures to cries. The scared child, further agitated by these demonstrations, entirely lost self-control. His posture caused the unstable trough to topple over and the ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... the Esmeralda about a fortnight after Villari left there, and found Mrs. Raymond alone and distracted with fear for your safety. During the following week, one of the schooners which were out searching for you returned. Raymond was on board. He had been searching through the windward islands of the Fiji Group, but without of ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke
... communicate with a lady who lives behind a sash- window in a corner, and who appears to have to refer to several Ledgers before she can make it out—as if you had been staying there a year. You become distracted to get away, and the other waiter, once more changing his leg, still looks at you—but suspiciously, now, as if you had begun to remind him of the party who took the great-coats last winter. Your bill at last brought and paid, at the rate of sixpence a mouthful, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... bright-coloured rocks, contrasted with the quiet mountains of snow, all these together produced a scene no one could have imagined. Neither plant nor bird, excepting a few condors wheeling around the higher pinnacles, distracted my attention from the inanimate mass. I felt glad that I was alone: it was like watching a thunderstorm, or hearing in full orchestra a ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... profession. But early on the following morning a commissionnaire brought me a note from Nina. 'My father is very much worse. Can you come at once?' He was delirious. Poor Nina, white, with frightened eyes, moved about like one distracted. We sent off for Dr. Renoult, we had in a Sister of Charity. Everything that could be done was done. Till the very end, none of us for a moment doubted that he would recover. It was impossible to conceive that that strong, affirmative life could be extinguished. ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... to permit the body to be brought to the church, despite the distracted entreaties of the two women. The baron was interred at twilight without any ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... fortune favoured the voluntary sleuth. The station was well thronged, a circumstance which enabled him to keep inconspicuously close to his victim. Furthermore, Dupont was obviously looking for somebody, and so distracted. Presently a shabby, furtive little rat of a man nudged his elbow, and Dupont followed him to a corner, where they confabulated in undertones for many minutes; while Lanyard loitered just outside their ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... Maxwell's plant-stand, selected Romola from one of the bookcases, and sank into a seat by the window with a sigh of infinite content, She glanced at the clock now and then, remembering the day on which she had been so immersed in David Copperfield that the Riverboro train had no place in her mind. The distracted Emma Jane had refused to leave without her, and had run from the station to look for her at Miss Maxwell's. There was but one later train, and that went only to a place three miles the other side of Riverboro, so that the two girls appeared at their respective homes long after dark, having ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... which has continued to exist in Ireland since that question was carried must not be attributed to the King's Ministers: they have done every thing in their power to conciliate, and heal the divisions which distracted that country for so many years previously to the settlement of that question. It is not my duty, any more than my inclination, to cast imputation on any man; but this I will say, that if the King's Ministers ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... originating in his own house, and fomented by the agents of Antiochus, put an end to the life of Simon and of his eldest son, who had earned considerable reputation in the command of armies. The duty of avenging his death and of governing a distracted country devolved upon his younger son, afterward well known in history by the name of ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... All this distracted my brain entirely. To nothing could I give myself an answer, and no one came to me from whom I could have ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... this joined with an explicit ardent wish that, when he was to leave this world, he might be in the condition of a righteous man. Good God! what inconsistency, what perplexity is here! With what different views of things, with what contradictory principles of action, must such a mind be torn and distracted! It was not unthinking carelessness, by which he ran on headlong in vice and folly, without ever making a stand to ask himself what he was doing: no; he acted upon the cool motives of interest and advantage. Neither was he totally hard and callous to impressions of religion, what we ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... pursue every good object The admission of diverse purposes has blurred the purpose of Medical Missions The admission of diverse purposes has confused the administration of Educational Missions The admission of diverse purposes has distracted Evangelistic Missions Hence the absence of unity in the work Hence the tendency to support details rather than the whole The need for a dominant purpose and expression of relations The need for a statement of factors which govern action The need for a missionary survey which expresses the ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen
... of the hour before dawn something like quiet fell upon the distracted, breathless town. There was a pause in the coming of the boats. The wounded and the dying had been cared for, and the noise of the women and the children was stilled at last. All was well at the palisade; the strong party encamped upon the ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... it was out of touch with the rest of the division. It was, indeed, in an excellent position to be cut off and demolished by a dashing nightattack. And a report to this effect was delivered to a fumingly distracted German major general, who yearned for a chance to atone in some way for the day's ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... Alexander Fairford known the consequences of his son's abrupt retreat from the court, which are mentioned in the end of the last chapter, it might have accomplished the prediction of the lively old judge, and driven him utterly distracted. As it was, he was miserable enough. His son had risen ten degrees higher in his estimation than ever by his display of juridical talents, which seemed to assure him that the applause of the judges and professors of the law, which, in his estimation, was worth that of all mankind ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... for a while like a man distracted. He heaped himself with all manner of superfluous reproaches, for having (as he said) first brought the Rose into disgrace, and then driven her into the arms of the Spaniard; while St. Leger, who was a sensible man enough, tried in vain to persuade ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... distracted. TYND. His eyes strike fire; there's need of a rope, Hegio. Don't you see how his body is spotted all over with livid spots? Black bile ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted; And the remainder mourning over them, Brimful of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly He that you term'd the good old lord, Gonzalo: His tears run down his beard, like Winter's drops From eaves of reeds: your charm so strongly works 'em. That, if you now beheld them, your affections ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... the time when she began to feel herself at ease the entrance of the Emperor and his suite distracted her attention from herself. When the trumpet blew, announcing the approach of the Imperial party, a hush fell on the vast audience and all eyes turned towards the grand pavilion. When the trumpet blew the second time, just before the Emperor came in sight, the hush deepened and ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... no other in all the world—to keep him from avenging her wrongs upon the man who should have been her natural protector. Her brain swam as these thoughts crowded upon her; and she was glad to take refuge in the dimly-lighted church, and to quiet her distracted spirit in silent prayer ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... my child!" said the duchess, with a distracted air and voice; "it is well to remember one's friends when they are ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... it strikes me as a dream, that Lord Bacon belonged to this College. Don't laugh at me, Phil., if I'm wrong, and still less (because then you'll laugh even more ferociously) if I happen to be right. Can one remember everything? Ah! the worlds of distracted facts that one ought to remember. Would to heaven that I remembered nothing at all, and had nothing to remember! This thing, however, I certainly do remember, that Milton was not of Trinity, nor Jeremy Taylor; so don't think to ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... What is the matter?' he cried, and seized his friend by the arm. Christopher answered nothing, but hurried on like one distracted. 'He's mad,' said Carl within ...
— Cruel Barbara Allen - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... many fine things to England. But the wicked fairy was there with her gift: Pythagoras and Plato. We were not like the Italians who, after the first rapture of discovery was over, soon outgrew these distracted dialectics; we stuck fast in them. Hence our Platonic touch: our demi-vierge attitude in matters of the mind, our academic horror of clean thinking. How Plato hated a fact! He could find no place for ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... all,' he answered. 'But there is no room for two heads of a State, and in a State is room but for one army. I will have my King so strong that ne Pope ne priest ne noble ne people shall here have speech or power. So it is now; I have so made it, the King helping me. Before I came this was a distracted State; the King's writ ran not in the east, not in the west, not in the north, and hardly in the south parts. Now no lord nor no bishop nor no Pope raises head against him here. And, God willing, in all the world no prince shall stand but by grace of this King's Highness. This land shall have ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... of the emotional kind; he leaped to his feet and went to the rescue of his friend; but his first blow was wild. Seizing a chair, he swung it aloft—a manoeuver which more effectively distracted Bob's attention—but this attack also failed when Bob's fist buried itself in the spongy region of Mr. Armistead's belt-buckle, and that young man promptly lost all interest in Jimmy Knight's affairs. There had been a time when he might have weathered such a blow, but of late ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... "I think you are mistaken about Mlle, d'Aubray. You may see by her letter what are her feelings towards you, and you must pray with this rosary up to the very end. Let not your prayers be interrupted or distracted, for no guilty penitent must cease from prayer; and I, madame, will engage to deliver the rosary where ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... to-day another and a higher definition of womanhood, but to her contemporaries, and to many modern writers, she has seemed to be first of all woman—"woman to the tips of her rosy finger-nails," says Levy. Those who saw her were distracted by her loveliness. They say that no one can form any idea of her beauty from her pictures. "A veritable masterpiece of creation," she had been ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... how much external disturbance it would take to "wake" the Nipe, and as long as he was sitting quietly, the chances were greater that he would hear movement in the tunnel. If he were active, his senses might be more alert, but he would also be distracted by his own actions and ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... shaft that caused his grief: Shot him an arrow sped by eyes of mine, for he, * Wedded to burning love of ills hath no relief: He hath avowed a deed he never did, the while * Deeming this better than disgrace of lover fief: Bear then, I pray, with this distracted lover mine * Whose noble nature falsely calls ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... part in Turkey's destruction, partly because Marshall's attention in Mesopotamia had been distracted towards the Caspian. But in October he resumed his interrupted march up the Tigris: on the 25th his troops captured Kirkuk and forced the passage of the Lesser Zab; and on the 28th they took Kalat Shergat, and after a six days' battle forced ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... thinner and the shell grew looser and looser. After awhile he grew restless. Evidently his peace of mind and body was much disturbed, for he rolled about, scratched himself, and crawled here and there as if distracted. Soon after this his shell split clear up the back, and then such a wriggling, and tugging and squirming as there was until finally the whole outside shell of the lobster, legs, claws, and everything else was forced through the narrow slit ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater
... days of August, having been occupied, meantime, in reducing to order distracted and disaffected communities in Missouri, he was assigned to command of a military district embracing all southwestern Missouri and southern Illinois. He established his headquarters at Cairo, early in September, and from there he promptly ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen |
