"Distraught" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... battened hatch I leaned and caught Sounds from the noisome hold, — Cursing and sighing of souls distraught And cries too sad to be told. Then I strove to go down and see; But they said, "Thou art not of us!" I turned to those on the deck with me And cried, "Give help!" But they said, "Let be: Our ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... proffer a request, my lord," replied the monk, "it is that our poor distraught brother, William Haydocke, be spared the quartering block. He meant not ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... pleaded Marian; "she is distraught, and hath not command upon herself. I beg of you, sire, to forgive this; I have no quarrel ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... however, when she was left alone with the exhausted, almost senseless mother, that the tide of grief took its full course. Lucy wept like one distraught. Through the deep, black future which lay before her, she could see no gleam of hope or sunlight. She unjustly upbraided herself for having, however innocently, given Luke cause of suspicion. The weight of blame which she took to herself was almost ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... mightier in show, Than in effect, by which the prince was prest; So that poor Isabel, distraught with woe, Felt her heart severed in her frozen breast. The Scottish prince, all over in a glow, With anger and resentment was possest, And putting all his strength in either hand, Smote full the Tartar's helmet with ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... I exclaimed over and over again, like one distraught. My noble, my beautiful Louise, if anything could increase the fervor of my devotion or confirm my belief in your delicate moral intuitions, it would be the new light which your words have thrown upon my own feelings. Much in them, of which my mind was ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... "I was just distraught, Miss Kathleen," said Ben; "for it's nigh about twenty hour sin' he dropped asleep, and I was frighted ontil conshultin' ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... his own soul. He is a victim to the eternal struggle between good and evil without the strength and the unquenchable hope of Christianity. The Misanthrope is a shriek of despair uttered by virtue, excited and almost distraught at the defeat she forebodes. The Tartuffe was a new effort in the same direction, and bolder in that it attacked religious hypocrisy, and seemed to aim its blows even at religion itself. Moliere was a long time working at it; the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Ungainly, dirty, bare-footed, his ragged wool hat on the back of his unkempt woolly poll, his jaw dropping in idiotic amazement at sight of the party—he was a ludicrous figure in the bath of late sunshine that brought out every uncomely item of the picture. Preoccupied and distraught as I was, I saw how the dust from the stable floor floated in golden clouds to the cobwebbed rafters, as the sun struck past the man in the doorway and glorified ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... Montmartre. And when we penetrate further into the matter—or, to be more exact, as we ascend into the higher regions of La Butte—we find the elect, who form so stout a phalanx against the Philistinism of the Louvre, themselves subdivided into numerous sections, and distraught with internecine feuds concerning the principle of the art which they pursue with all the vehemence that Veronese green and cadmium yellow are capable of. From ten at night till two in the morning the ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... his own private quay, with the most chic of Virginian cigarettes smouldering between his aristocratic lips and the very latest and most elegant of Bond Street Khaki Neckwear distinguishing him from the mixed crowd about him. Every one else is distraught; even matured Generals, used to the simple and irresponsible task of commanding troops in action, are a little unnerved by the difficulties and intricacies of embarking oneself militarily. He on whom all the responsibility rests remains ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... that these experiences are given as those of a person whose will, whose very soul and proprium had been temporarily subjugated by some other will or wills; and whose natural powers of discrimination were as much distraught as are those of the subjects of the itinerant biologist; who are made to believe, most firmly, that cayenne pepper is sugar, that water is fire, that a cane is a snake. As for the readers of this periodical who still insist that even animal ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... to him. She was pale, but quite self-possessed. Indeed, the effort she had made to regain her self-control was so marked that it would have scarcely escaped the attention of the Inspector, even if he had not had a brief vision of her as she had stood for that instant at the library door, pale, distraught, and trembling. He was astonished to find her cool, collected, almost business-like in the way she sat down, motioned him to his seat, and expressed her readiness to tell him all ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... close by the window lay the little girl, heavy-eyed and crimson. The elder boy had come to the stupor that precedes death, the other was restless with a half delirium. Jenny Byrne's round rosy cheeks had vanished, and her eyes had a distraught look, the lurking fear of coming woe. She stared at Jack a moment, then stretched out her hand, but as ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... them there, Sped by wild paths away. They fled and left him there alone By longing love possessed; And with a heart no more his own He roamed about distressed. The aged saint came home, to find The hermit boy distraught, Revolving in his troubled mind One solitary thought. "Why dost thou not, my son," he cried, "Thy due obeisance pay? Why do I see thee in the tide Of whelming thought to-day? A devotee should never wear A mien so sad and strange. Come, quickly, dearest child, declare The reason of the change." And ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... all around her fades, Her listless ear no sound pervades. Her senses, wearied and distraught, Perceive not how the stream of thought, Rising from her distressful song, In hurrying tide has swept along, With startling and resistless swell, The panic-stricken Isabel! Who—falling at her father's feet, Like the most lowly ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... to clamber out, Queen Mab and all her Fairy rout, And come again to have a bout With Oberon yet madding: And with Pigwiggen now distraught, Who much was troubled in his thought, That he so long the Queen had sought, And ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... sent a shudder over the distraught man. Even in the starlight the expression of the villain's face was hideous ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... Saturday, came the climax. Early in the evening an urgent telegram summoned Mr. Pottigrew back from Brighton. Hastening home, he was received by a wife distraught. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various
... with Major March. A temporary hospital was established in the convent. There were two doctors and four or five nurses, with a dozen soldiers under command of Lieutenant Bray. It was while the apparently dead Bansemer was being moved to the improvised hospital that Jane presented herself, distraught with fear, to the young Southerner who had so plainly shown his love for her. She pleaded with him to start at once for Manila with the wounded, supporting her extraordinary request with the opinion that they could not receive proper care from ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... pierced * When thrall to care and dire despair I lay Knowst thou, O Fawn o' the palace, how for thee * I fared from farness o'er the lands astray? Then read my writ, dear friends, and show some ruth * To wight who wones black-faced, distraught, sans stay! ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... was happy at once; but the elder little one, then a child of about three and a half, was very sorrowful. She was so pitifully frightened, too, that at first we could do nothing with her; and there was a look in her eyes that alarmed us, it was so distraught and unchildlike. "My mother did her best for them," wrote the kind schoolmaster to whose house the children had been taken when the Temple woman gave them up; "but the elder one has fever. She is always muttering to herself, and can neither stand nor sit." She ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... seething and roaring from the Aesir's inverted bowl all seamen have heard his shouting and the cry that his mirth sends up: when the rim of the sea tilts up, and the world's roof wavers down, his face gleams white where distraught waves smite the Swimmer they may not tire. No eyes were allotted this Swimmer, but in blindness, with ceaseless jeers, he battles till time be done with, and the love-songs of earth be sung, and the very last dirge be sung, ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... unhappy and distraught, beseeches Uncle Bob to help her save Margaret Elizabeth; also how Mr. Gerrard Pennington comes to the rescue, and how in the end his wife submits gracefully to the inevitable, which is not so ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... only one thought—a thought lashed to the fore by his jealous rage, and defeated hopes. And poor Joyce, distraught and grief-crazed, realized not the terrible ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... know nothing of the precipices down which our virtue flings us when led by love," replied Sabine, making a sort of moral revelation, so distraught was she ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... Miss Prendergast. They were the longest twenty minutes I have ever spent. I was dead tired in any case, but my desperate position kept my thoughts so busy that, for all my endeavours to be polite, I fear my conversation was extremely distraught. ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... said, starting somewhat. "So that is where the young queen was hidden, after all? There was wailing when her men found that she was missing, and they said that she must have gone distraught in her grief, and wandered to the mountains. How was she ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... and papers, and the poor author on his return went mad, beating his head against the door of his palace, and raving blasphemous words. In vain his friends tried to comfort him, and the poor man wandered away into the woods, his mind utterly distraught by the enormity ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... Dene, for the day. She seemed almost distraught. Hadria could see her only at intervals. The sick children required all her attention. Valeria wished to visit them. She had brought the poor boys each ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... to pick up the bottle, but staggered and clutched a chair, and Lady Luce watched her with half-distraught gaze. ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... appealing, should be tied to such a being as was Charles Nagle—poor Charles, whom every one, excepting his wife and one loyal kinsman, called mad. And yet now it was for this very Charles that Catherine asked him to stay, for the sake of that unhappy, distraught man to whom he, James Mottram, recognized the ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... father had not yet made his appearance, and I grew ever more distraught as Francois signalled for the serving of the bouillon au madere. Had he changed his mind? Would I be left to explain my status without his help? I hadn't realized until this moment how difficult a task I had allotted for myself, and the fear of losing Joanna was ...
— My Father, the Cat • Henry Slesar
... and there was much kidding back and forth between the two crews. This was clearly no situation in which lives or property were at stake; it was rather in line with assisting distraught cats down from tops of telephonepoles or persuading selfimmolated children to unlock the bathroom door and let mommy in; an amusing interval in a tense day. Perhaps those manning the second truck were more naturally ingenious, possibly the original workers sought more diverting labor; ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... an authoritative tone of voice to see Xaxaguana. It was perfectly evident, even to one less experienced than Huanacocha in matters pertaining to the temple routine and its discipline, that some very unusual occurrence had happened, for everybody about the place seemed excited, agitated, distraught; but Huanacocha was, of course, well known to every inhabitant of the City of the Sun, and presently someone was found possessing enough authority to deal with the great man's request, or command, rather, and in the course of a few minutes ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... further care. What could one do when all means are lacking? Under those circumstances, it is almost useless to bring them in. Among the passersby, there are many who are uninjured. In a purposeless, insensate manner, distraught by the magnitude of the disaster most of them rush by and none conceives the thought of organizing help on his own initiative. They are concerned only with the welfare of their own families. It became clear to us during these days that the Japanese displayed little initiative, ...
— The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki • United States
... She was so distraught that she could not stay in the dining room. With a sudden violent movement she grasped his arm and dragged him away with her upstairs to the bedroom, where she threw herself exhausted on the sofa. Wilhelm stood before her, looking thoroughly crestfallen, and wishing devoutly that he had the ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... leave for Georgia shortly. She had not answered. He had wired again—when he received no word he imagined that she might be out of town. But it occurred and recurred to him that she was not out of town, and a series of distraught imaginings began to plague him. Supposing Gloria, bored and restless, had found some one, even as he had. The thought terrified him with its possibility—it was chiefly because he had been so sure of her personal integrity that he had considered her ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... thou art not thyself, son, for thou hadst no meat, but only stock-fish—and I never knew a man forget his supper on the night of its eating, except he was distraught ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... outcome, to the wreck of Jim's hopes. I did not take the matter at all seriously, in fact. I think we men must usually have such an affair worked out to some conclusion, for weal or woe, before we regard it otherwise than lightly. That was the reason that Giddings's distraught condition was only a matter of laughter to all of us. And as something like this passed through my mind, Giddings himself collared me as I crossed ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... Lord, Martin, when she waked from her swoon aboard ship and found I had sailed without you, she was like one distraught and was for having me 'bout ship that she might stay to comfort you in your solitude. And so I did, Martin, but we were beset by storm and tempest and blown far out of our course and further beset ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... mingled with the fear that was torturing her. She jerked her head angrily, fighting against the terror that was growing on her, and for a moment her lashes drooped and hid her eyes. When she looked up again the woman was still crouched at the old Arab's feet, imploring and distraught. ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... owner, so I fled, distraught with fear, To the Main Drain sewage-outfall while he snorted in my ear— Reached the four-foot drain-head safely and, in darkness and despair, Felt the brute's proboscis ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... moment with the wild, distraught look of one who sees a sight altogether beyond belief or reason, then he made to spring forward. But he was chained to the Kachins who stood upon either side of him, and two more leapt forward from their posts by the wall to check his movements. And again the mocking laughter ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... Joan, distraught though she was, felt that he had given way. Without another word she assisted in packing the carriage with their canvases and other belongings. The old Greek caretaker hobbled after them when he saw that they were going without depositing their ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... suddenly aware of his presence, Inga turned and saw Dirk and he realized, by the expression on her face, that she was distraught and nervous. She came toward him quickly, after a few words to Zitlan, and the face of the latter darkened. There was hatred in his expression as he stared malevolently ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... told the pastor of Benz, clenched my fists and answered, "What, thou arch-rogue, didst thou not crawl about the room in the shape of a reptile?" whereupon he would hearken to me no longer, thinking me distraught, nor would he make the constable take an oath, but left me standing in the midst of the room, and got into his ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... which I had existence. Everything around me seemed the shadows of somebody's dream, in which I had no part, and could take no interest. I had but two all-absorbing ideas; and these were—injustice and Josephine. So distraught was I with the vastness of the one and with the loveliness of the other, that, when the young and splendid reality stole into the apartment softly, and moved before my eyes in all the fascination of her gracefulness, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... with a sudden burst of energy, and before he could stop her she had left the room. In her place, the Baroness was standing upon the threshold, dressed in a wonderful blue wrapper, and with a cigarette between her teeth. She burst into a little peal of laughter as she looked into his distraught face. ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... he sought his uncle, and by him was again led before the Archbishop. His reticence and timidity dispersed by his great sorrow, the distraught boy faced the high ecclesiastic with ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Looking into her eyes I knew, on the instant, after having seen Miriam's eyes, that this tense, distraught woman had ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... itself to be borne along for a while on these currents of thought, then it reacted against them, repeating again the old formula that to think, here, on other things than the moment and the material was to die or go distraught. ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... extremity of the field—and this was the bottom of the hour-glass, so to speak—I was aware of a stir amongst them, and, advancing closer, that they were all intent upon the neighbourhood of the field I had left, staring like distraught creatures, and holding well together, as if in a panic. Therefore, following the direction of their eyes, and of one that pointed with rigid finger, I turned me about, and looked whence I had come; ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... join hands; [They join hands.] Fair fall the eyes Of any weary destinies! I bruise these flowers, and so set free Their virtue for adversity. Then, with my unguent finger tips, Touch twice and once on cheeks and lips. When this sweet influence comes to naught, Vexed she shall be, but not distraught. And now let music winnow thought: Bucolic sound of horn and flute, In distant echo nearly mute. Then louder borne, and swelling near, Make ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... "I will not vouch her guiltless in my thought, In fear to warrant what is false; but I Boldly maintain, in such an act is nought For which the damsel should deserve to die; And ween unjust, or else of wit distraught, Who statutes framed of such severity; Which, as iniquitous, should be effaced, And with a new ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... dead her sister heard, and rushed distraught and trembling there, With nail and fist befouling all her face and bosom fair: She thrust amidst them, and by name called on the dying Queen: "O was it this my sister, then! guile in thy word hath been! And ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... grievous perplexity," said he, "and I am sore distraught. If he have sworn his very soul to her, as this rhyme doth seem to intimate, I am miserably afflicted for his case. Doubtless 'tis some snare which hath unwillingly been thrown about him. Nevertheless, I will diligently and warily address myself to the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... hum, the old man paused, looking at first a little distraught, but settling at last into his usual self as he started forward upon his course. Did some whisper, hitherto unheard, warn him that it was the last time he would tread that weary round? Who can tell? He was trembling ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... answer. Foes distraught Pierced the thinned peoples in a brute-like blindness, Philosophies that sages long had taught, And Selflessness, were as an unknown thought, And "Hell!" and "Shell!" ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... father and another son were crossing the Channel at night. My mother, who was living in England, was roused up in the middle of the night by the apparition of my father. She declares that she saw him quite distinctly standing by her bedside, looking anxious and distraught. Knowing that at that moment he was in mid-Channel, she augured that some disaster had overtaken him or the boy. She said, 'Is there some trouble?' He said, 'There is; the boy——' and then he faded from her sight. The curious part of the story is that my father at that very time had been ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... "You have not one atom of Christian faith between you! To imagine that you can strike a bargain with the good God by letting a sick theory of expiation of a dying, fever-distraught creature besmirch his repute as a man and a gentleman, make his whole life seem like a whited sepulchre, and bring his name into odium,—as kind a man as ever lived,—and you know it!—as honest, and ...
— The Phantom Of Bogue Holauba - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... crossed a hand Athwart its beam, and stooping, truth maligned, Spake so thy spirit speech should understand, And with a dread "He's dead!" awaked a peal Of frenzied bells along the vacant ways Of thy poor earthly heart; waked thee to steal, Like dawn distraught upon unhappy days, To prove nought, nothing? Was it Time's large voice Out of the inscrutable future whispered so? Or but the horror of a little noise Earth wakes at dead of night? Or does Love know When his sweet wings weary and droop, and even In sleep cries ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... all incoherent, nearly incomprehensible, covered with blots, every other word scratched out. One could see that the girl was quite distraught, and Mrs Griffith's keen eyes saw the trace of tears on the paper.... It was a long, bitter cry of repentance. She begged them to take her back, repeating again and again the cry of penitence, piteously beseeching ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... she grew strangely terrified and distraught; she began to shift from foot to foot without moving from the place, and spluttered comically, as if she wanted to say something and couldn't. I waited to see what would come of all this, and I saw and felt that, apparently, I had made ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... thou mayest be, I beg of thee to pass in silence here And leave me with my empty sepulchre Beside the ceaseless turmoil of the sea; Pass me as one whom life's old tragedy Hath made distraught—who now in dreams doth keep His cherished dead, unmindful of her sleep In ocean's bosom locked eternally! Scorn not the foolish grave that I have made Beside the deep sea of my soul's unrest, But let me hope that ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... heaven it is you! I am so distraught with the doleful ringing of that bell that I am frightened at the sound of my own footsteps. Why ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... is my not having experienced conversion in those particular steps wherein the people of New England, and anciently the dissenters of old England, used to experience it." Poor Jonathan! How many have been so distraught! But the supreme folly of any man's spiritual life is to try thus to run himself into the mold of any other man's experience. There is no regular routine in spiritual transformation. Some men come in on a high tide of feeling, ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... Berkeley is indeed greater than anything that he did, and one wonders not as one explores the young preacher's noble and endearing character that the distraught Vanessa fastened upon him, though she knew him only by reputation, as one who would make it his sacred duty to do all in his power to set her memory right in a ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... appealingly round, the other old woman took her hand, and pressing it led her to a chair. Two of the men sprang quickly up the stairs. They were absent but a short while, and then they came down like men bewildered and distraught. No need to speak. A low wail of utter misery rose from the women, and was caught up and repeated by the crowd outside, for the only man who could have set their hearts at rest had escaped the perils of the deep, and died quietly in ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... that we could hear the water lapping the shore. A cadaverous, sandy-haired waiter brought things to eat, and we made brave efforts to appear hungry and hearty, but my high spirits were ebbing fast, and Von Gerhard was frankly distraught. One of the women singers appeared suddenly in the doorway of the pavilion, then stole down the steps, and disappeared in the shadow of the trees beyond our table. The voices of the singers ceased abruptly. There was a moment's hushed silence. Then, from the shadow of the trees came a woman's voice, ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... sate them down to rest and laid aside their swords and shields. But still the valiant minstrel stood guard before the hall. He waited, if any would perchance draw near again in strife. Sorely the king made wail, as did the queen. Maids and ladies were distraught with grief. Death, I ween, had conspired against them, wherefore many of the ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... BATH, November 1st.—Bath at last, which, must please poor Mrs. Hambledon exceedingly, for she certainly did not enjoy the transit. I cannot conceive how people can allow themselves to be so utterly distraught by illness. I feel I can never have any respect for her again; she moaned and lamented in such cowardly fashion, was so peevish all the time on board the vessel, and looked so very begrimed and untidy and plain when she was carried ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... it seems, of this order, has had made in readiness several large oval dishes and beautiful big- bellied jars: he gives one of each to each of his pupils,—to myself, to Berengario, to Tito, and Zenone. The master is sorely distraught that his eyesight permits him not himself to execute the duke's commands; but it is no secret that should one of us be so fortunate as to win the duke's approbation, the painter who does so shall become his partner ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... entered the Fort to fire his sunset gun, he was startled at seeing a muffled figure seated upon an empty powder keg in an angle of the works. As he appeared she rose, and pushing back her hood showed the beautiful face of Priscilla Molines, now strangely pale and distraught. ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... foot, for two weeks later all knew the match was broken off, Mistress Beaton went back to her estates in Scotland, his creditors descended upon him in hordes, such of his properties as could be seized were sold, and in a month his poor, distraught mother died of a fever brought on ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... know why you never visit them any more," said Jordan, weak and distraught as he now always was. "I told him you were busy at present with great plans of your own. Well, what does ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... false, and at a cast lost all. Gloomy, the long hair framing the distraught and unhappy face, she sat. "Unhappy the lot of this Kiku. The sisters left without a father's sanction, to witness the shadow on the mother's life; to know that father but as criminal ready to be ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... then narrated with many expressions of horror the cause of his distress. Bothwell had made a proposal to him to carry off the Queen and place her in Dunkeld Castle in Arran's hands (who was known to be half distraught with love of Mary), and to kill Murray, Lethington, and the others that now misguided her, so that he and Arran should rule alone. The agitation of the unfortunate young man, his wild looks, his conviction that he was himself ruined and shamed for ever, seem to have enlightened ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... wanting to make this scene bewildering in sublimity? One? No. The auditor is Job, sitting in the ruin of home and love, and friendships and consequence among men, and good repute, and if, bending low, you will hear him, you shall know he is sobbing for children that are not. One lonely, distraught, mystified, sorely-beleagured, and still surely-trusting man,—this is the audience. The scene is a tawny desert, once sown to oases of flowers, and billowing grain, and stately palm-tree, and olive-groves, now harvestless, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... heard no more, But spike: Alas! my heart is very weak, And but for—Stay! And if some dreadful morn, After great search and shouting thorough the wold, We found thee missing,—strangled,—drowned i' the mere, Then should I go distraught and be clean mad! ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... harp-string caught; Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thought As Hermes with his lyre in sleep profound The hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound; For I am weary, and am overwrought With too much toil, with too much care distraught, And with the iron crown of anguish crowned. Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and cheek, O peaceful Sleep! until from pain released I breathe again uninterrupted breath! Ah, with what subtile meaning did the Greek Call thee the lesser mystery at ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... out of harmony with its surroundings—which moves us; but whereas in the Spanish romance the simplicity is that of the incompris, in the English novel it is that of the man with whom the incompris consorts. If there is pathos as well as humour, and deepening the humour, in the figure of the distraught knight-errant talking so hopelessly over the head of his attached squire's morality, so too there is pathos, giving depth to the humour of the eccentric philosopher, shooting so hopelessly wide of the intellectual ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... privates suffer by comparison with the Germans. The soldiers one sees in the streets of Berlin are big, husky, strong, healthy creatures, with jowls hanging over their collars. The officers are clean-cut, keen-eyed, and in splendid health and training. Austria seems distraught and unready for emergencies, the people are not as keen for the war as the Germans and appear to be more indifferent as to its results. I am predicting that the end of the war will see Japan, Italy, and Roumania gainers, and Belgium, Turkey, and Austria losers, while Germany and England ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... pastoral composition, inferior to those of Vergil alone, were indeed any inferiority allowed. Starting with the simple theme of love, the author proceeds to depict its excess in the love-lunes of the distraught Amyntas. Thence he passes to one of those satires on women in which the fifteenth century delighted, so bitter, that when Thomas Harvey came to translate it in 1656 he felt constrained, for his credit's ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... Good Friend,—This comes from one nearly distraught with grief of mind and sickness of body. My boy, my boy! They have stolen him from me. Can you find him for me? He is in the hands of Jesuits—it may be at Douay—I dare say no more. I cannot say more. Good Ned, Heaven bless him, will find you out, and give you this. Pray to ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... Chevalier had fled. "No matter," said the doctor, "I will see McFeckless." He did. He found him gloomy, distraught, baleful. He felt his pulse. "The mixture as before," he said briefly, "and a little innocent diversion. There is an Aunt Sally on the esplanade—two throws for a penny. It will do you good. Think no more of this woman! Listen,—I wish you well; your family have always been good patients ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... uncertain in his mind whether to tell the distraught girl that her lover was not dead—that the murdered man was a rogue whom probably she had not seen or heard of in her life. He balanced the arguments mentally pro and con, and decided that at all hazards he would preserve his secret for the present. She took a step ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... unreasonable way of looking at things. My boy never thought of any girl but you, yet I could not expect you to go unmarried for his sake: indeed I would not have wished it. You and Shawn must forgive that old unreasonable bitterness of mine, the bitterness of a mother distraught by grief. ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... REEVE: Wherefore are we in mighty perturbation, Amazed, distraught and filled with consternation. Thus do our bells ring out their wild alarms, Our civic bands do muster under arms; Drums shall be drummed the countryside around, Until our truant Duchess we have found, And we ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... uncertainty, in a cloud, in a maze; bushed, off the track; ignorant.&c. 491; afraid to say; out of one's reckoning, astray, adrift; at sea, at fault, at a loss, at one's wit's end, at a nonplus; puzzled &c. v.; lost, abroad, dsorient; distracted, distraught. Adv. pendente lite[Lat]; sub spe rati[Lat]. Phr. Heaven knows; who can tell? who shall decide when doctors disagree? ambiguas in vulgum ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Pronoos with a shining spear, where the shield left bare the breast, and loosened his limbs, and he fell with a crash. Then Thestor the son of Enops he next assailed, as he sat crouching in the polished chariot, for he was struck distraught, and the reins flew from his hands. Him he drew near, and smote with the lance on the right jaw, and clean pierced through his teeth. And Patroklos caught hold of the spear and dragged him over the ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... learned that you were back out of sanctuary and also that you had quarrelled with your father who in his anger had imprisoned you in this poor place. An ill deed, as I think, but in truth he is so distraught with grief and racked with sickness that he scarce knows what ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... Comes H. Nevil all distraught to say that it is about at the clubs that my wife will have a divorce and marry the doctor, on the which hearing I much annoyed and summon Mrs. Badminton who denyeth the doctor but asserteth Lasselle ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... distraught at supper. Afterwards, when Mrs. Johnson had gone to bed with a slight headache, he ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... ear confess'd Its solemn sounds. "Thou man distraught! Say, owns the wind thy hand's arrest, Or fills the world thy ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... half distraught At his tricks as the days went by; "The most mischievous child in the world!" She said, with a ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... was herself wandering distraught, seated on her 'unhastie beast,' when with a fearful roar a lion rushed out from a thicket with eyes glaring and teeth gleaming, seeking to devour his prey. But at the sight of Una's tender beauty he stopped suddenly, and, stooping ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... of one who is trying to understand a puzzling proposition but cannot quite do it. She said, in a distraught fashion: ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... fire. Then the prince came in—oh! your excellency will see that God protects the poor. My darling mother, like a frightened dove, sheltered herself in the bosom of the princess, who pushed her away, laughing. The poor distraught girl, trembling, weeping, knelt down in the midst of that infamous room. It was St. Anne's Day; all at once the house shook, the walls cracked, cries of distress rang out in the streets. My mother was saved. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... idea," Ruth replied calmly. "But I think that when we are nervous and distraught as you are, we magnify our sins as ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... of sleep, one is called to face pressing, deadly, and undreamed of peril in the weird and chilling hour before dawn, was described by Napoleon as a most rare quality among soldiers, and such being the case it is hardly to be looked for among women. With chattering teeth and random motions, half-distraught with incoherent terrors, Desire made a hasty, incomplete toilet in the dark of her freezing bedroom, and ran downstairs. In the living-room she found her mother and the smaller children with the negro servants and Keziah Pixley, the white domestic. Downstairs in the cellar her father ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... their parting words I slipped out and set my course for Marget's house to see what was happening there. I met many people, but none of them greeted me. It ought to have been surprising, but it was not, for they were so distraught with fear and dread that they were not in their right minds, I think; they were white and haggard, and walked like persons in a dream, their eyes open but seeing nothing, their lips moving but uttering ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... distraught Mr. Sleuth! An overwhelming pity blotted out for a moment the fear, aye, and the loathing, she had ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... piteous to see, for he was half distraught with fear, and like as a mother whose child had been snatched from her and was being hurried to death, so he, with tears, sobs and screams, kept entreating one moment the crowd and the next beseeching heaven, saying, "Don't let him kill my dog," ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... inquisitive servitor. "The riderless horse of Sir Gottfried was seen to gallop by the outer wall anon. The Margrave's Grace has never quitted your lordship's chamber, and sits as one distraught." ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had read to him was one from Fisbee stating that the crippled forces left in charge had found themselves almost distraught in their efforts to carry on the paper (as their chief might conclude for himself on perusal of the issues of the first fortnight of his absence), and they had made bold to avail themselves of the services of a young relative of the writer's from a distant city—a capable journalist, ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... after she had given him to understand that his love was returned, she informed him one day that she was engaged to a fellow at Ealing West, he went right off his onion—I mean, he became completely distraught. I must say that he concealed it very effectively at first. We had no inkling of his condition till he came in with the pistol. And, after that ... well, as I say, we had to dismiss him. A great pity, for he ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... brother Husayn had described; so he presently passed it over to Prince Ahmad, who also looked and was certified that the Lady Nur al-Nihar was about to give up the ghost. So he said to his elder brothers, "We three are alike love distraught for the Princess and the dearest wish of each one is to win her. Her life is on the ebb, still I can save her and make her whole if we hasten to her without stay or delay." So saying he pulled from his pocket the Magical Apple ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... distraught with the passion of that parting, I sat that evening in the shadow of my box and waited for the curtain to rise upon "Francesca." The Coliseum was crowded to the roof, for it was known that Clarissa Lambert's illness had been merely a slight indisposition, ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... your wedding, naturally we chaffed, Knowing the length of time it takes to do A simple thing like that in this slow world. Indeed, Max, 'twas a dream. Forgive me then. I'll burn the drug if you prefer." But Breuck Muttered and stared,—"A lie." And then he hurled, Distraught, this word at Franz: "Prove it. And when It's proven, I'll believe. That thing shall be ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... looked at the gateway, then fixed his gaze on something that stood just above—something which the dusk half concealed, and by so doing made more impressive. It was the sculptured counterfeit of a human face, that of a man distraught with agony. The eyes stared wildly from their sockets, the hair struggled in maniac disorder, the forehead was wrung with torture, the cheeks sunken, the throat fearsomely wasted, and from the wide lips there seemed to be issuing a horrible cry. Above this ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... "The Soul, distraught by the joy of union, heart-broken at having still to live, only aspires now to escape for ever from the Gehenna of the flesh; thus it beseeches the Bridegroom with the uplifted arms of its towers, to take pity on it, to come to fetch it, to take it by ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... and bewrayes himself: Even soe my bigbond Daines, adrest to fight As though they meant to scale the Cope of heaven, (And like the Giants graple with the gods) At first encounter rush uppon theire foes But straight retire: retire? nay, run awaye As men distraught with lightninge from above Or dastards feared with ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... And the poor, distraught, unhappy young woman hung on his words with heaving breast and panting heart and tear-dimmed eyes and cheeks that flushed and paled. Glad she was that he had so loved her; sad that it could make no difference. Indeed, young Pierre served his master ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the dread of the penalty incurred by the sacrilege of the theft of the parts of one who might any day be King-God, Bakuma stared distraught. ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... sometimes to win the love of a cold or bashful beauty. Thus, to take an instance of the latter sort of charm, the following are the directions given for securing the soul of one whom you wish to render distraught. When the moon, just risen, looks red above the eastern horizon, go out, and standing in the moonlight, with the big toe of your right foot on the big toe of your left, make a speaking-trumpet of your right hand and recite through ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... always be there. School boys have limited imaginations. I suppose I thought it was an awfully jolly thing to have it there, to know my way back to it, but there was the school tugging at me. I expect I was a good deal distraught and inattentive that morning, recalling what I could of the beautiful strange people I should presently see again. Oddly enough I had no doubt in my mind that they would be glad to see me . . . Yes, I must have thought of the garden that morning just as a jolly sort of place to which one might resort ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... say," declared Katherine, "is: Blessings brighten as diplomas come on apace. Between trying not to miss any fun and doing my best to distinguish myself in the scholarly pursuits that my soul loves, I am well nigh distraught. Don't mind my Shakespearean English, please. I'm on the senior play committee, and I recite ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... be other than straightforward?" Thorpe said, breathing hard, and making an evident effort at self-control. "I have nothing to conceal, and if I seem distraught, it is, I dare ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... well dressed. She was indeed shabby—in a steerage style. Her hat was awry; her gloves miserable. No girlish pride in her distraught face. No determination to overcome Fate. No consciousness of ability to meet a bad situation. Just those sad eyes and ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... answered. Only distraught between conflicting charms of CALDWELL and SINCLAIR. There is a cold massivity about SINCLAIR, a pointedness of profile, when he declares "the Nose have it." But there is a loftiness about CALDWELL's tone, a subdued fire in his manner when he is discussing the difference between a rate of ten ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... stranger waited not to note The Baron's speech: like one distraught He struck the harp—a wild farewell Thus breathing ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... Christopher. I came because I am distraught, and you are a better friend than none at all, and—where else should I go? Also my poor father with his last words to me, although he was so angry with you, bade me seek your help if there were need—and—oh! Christopher, I came because you swore you loved me, ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... The distraught girl turned to her father and tried to get hold of the keynote of his life; "I want you to tell me things," she said, but the father not understanding only shook his head. It did not occur to him to talk to her as to a ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... Indeed, she closed the play each night with a sense of being more deeply indebted to him as well as a feeling of having been near him. Once she saw a face strangely like his in the upper gallery, and the blood tingled round her heart, and she played the remainder of the act with mind distraught. "Can it be possible that he is still in the ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... ordered a canoe to receive M. d'Artagnan and himself. At sight of this he became almost distraught ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... you shall know. I was absent when you were carried to my house—searching for my dear ones. But Dr. Gray tended you; alas! the good man is now a prisoner. I returned three days after, driven back from up the river by the advance of the Nawab's army. I was worn out, distraught; not a trace had I found of my dear wife; she had vanished; nor of my daughter; nor even of my ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... lights spilled themselves across his path, he got himself a glass of beer; he was feeling just such a thirst as a man knows after nervous and exacting labor. The blond, white-jacketed barman glanced at him curiously, marking perhaps something distraught and rapt in his demeanor. Goodwin, ignoring him, took his beer and leaned an elbow on the bar, looking round ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... hide in all conceivable folds of her white gown. And she was now congratulating herself on the end of the feast, which about this time should be somewhere in sight, when a goggle-eyed bug, at least so it seemed to her distraught vision, pranced with agile steps directly for her lap, to disappear at once. And it got ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... she looked all round about her, as one distraught by the anguish of fear. Walter, amidst of his wrath and grief, had wellnigh drawn his sword and rushed out of his lair upon the King's Son. But he deemed it sure that, so doing, he should undo the Maid altogether, and himself ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... accomplished, Jahveh Sabaoth was to be a crown of glory to those of His children who remained faithful to Him; but Judah, far from submitting itself to His laws, betrayed Him even as Israel had done. Its prophets and priests were likewise distraught with drunkenness; they staggered under the effects of their potations, and turned to scorn the true prophet sent to proclaim to them the will of Jehovah. "Whom," they stammered between their hiccups—"whom will He teach knowledge? and whom will ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... leaving about six inches for the captain's promenade. Behind the superstructure there was a sort of after-deck, nearly four feet of it. When my trunks and boxes had been piled up there, with the deck chair balancing precariously atop, and with Romoldo reclining luxuriously in it, his distraught pompadour was about on a level with ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... Toby Chubb's "Fly-by-day," as Dr. Travis called the one automobile that Miller's Notch boasted, chugged busily over the mountain roads. John Westley started out very early to find his friends at Cobble; then he had to drive back to Wayside to appease a distraught manager and half a dozen angry guides and also to pack his belongings; for the Allans would not let him stay anywhere else but with them at Cobble. Then, after he had been comfortably established in the freshly painted and papered ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... Foundryville by the first train, overtaken an outward-bound steamer by means of a small boat, and traversed England and France without delay. Arrived at the apartment in Rome which bore his wife's name, he was met by her, a pale, distraught creature, who clung to him with hysterical sobs, and searched his face ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... pulled this way and that, and is half distraught; but he has stated with as much positive assurance as such a man can assume, that the match must be regarded as broken off unless you will at ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... and Pacific would be sure to come back; nobody who had ever known it could live without this place. Miss Mary would find them. She would make everything right. The mere thought of Mistress Mary brought a strange peace into poor Lisa's over-wrought, distraught mind. ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... How dare you call me that—do you want to kill me!" But the expression in her eyes was not pleasant to see. For a moment she seemed almost distraught. ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... mad tale Of churchyard folk appearing in broad day, And drifting out at casement like a mist? Marry, not they who crowded up the stair In haste, and peered into that empty cell, And had half mind to buffet Master Nokes, Standing with finger laid across his palm In argumentative, appealing way, Distraught, of countenance most woe-begone. "See!—the two swords. As I 'm a Christian soul!" "Odds, man!" cried one, "thou 'st been a-dreamin', man. Cleave to thy beer, an' let ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... and look for him," she told her. "I expect he has only strayed away and lost sight of you amongst all these people. Four years old and wearing a little red coat, did you say? I'll find him for you; you sit down here." And she pushed the poor distraught creature down on a pile of shattered woodwork. "Don't be frightened," she added reassuringly. "I feel ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... marsh-grass in time to witness this lamentable disaster. His hoarse ejaculations were too dreadful for a Christian reader's ears. Dumfounded for an instant, he gathered his wits to fire another pistol at the pirogue. The ball flew wild, as was to be expected of a marksman in a state of mind so distraught. He had overlooked those two poor seamen of his who had been impressed to bury the treasure, after which they were presumably to be pistoled or knocked on the head. Dead men told no tales. Doomed wretches, they were quick to snatch ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... reward in the eternal world, she saluted me with such virtue that I knew all the depth of bliss." But never did Dante come to know her well, though she was ever in his thoughts, and though he must have watched for her presence in the street. Once she went upon a journey, and he was sore distraught until she came back into his existence; once he was taken to a company of young people, where he was so affected by sudden and unexpected sight of her that he grew pale and trembled, and showed such signs of mortal illness that his friend grew much ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... seas. But his thoughts were so centered upon the situation in which he found himself that he had not particularly noticed the vessel, although passing ships were infrequent sights off the port of La Guayra. Pale, haggard, and distraught from his mental struggle he had crossed the pass at the summit of the mountain and descended into the fertile valley now adrip with rain and looking almost cold under the gray sky, and had presented himself at the palace of ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... frivolous sons of Paris, the Queen of Vice, call it. It was moving with me, stopping when I stopped, galloping when I galloped, turning somersaults when I turned them. And then it spoke to me—spoke, yes, spoke, this thing of the desert—this wild phantasm of a brain distraught by over-indulgence in marrons glaces, the curse of ma patrie, and its speech was as the scent of scarlet poppies, plucked from the grave ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... of my old lips? How I have pitied you these months!" She tells him that she has not been unhappy. But perhaps, he says, she is of those who are unhappy without knowing it. Golaud enters, ferocious and distraught. He has blood on his forehead. It is nothing, he says—he has passed through a thicket of thorns. Melisande would wipe his brow. He repulses her fiercely. "I will not have you touch me, do you understand?" he ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... was nothing but the distraught fancy of a dying man. For many years his brother had brooded over this possibility of gaining riches, not for their own sake indeed, but that it might be the means of restoring the ancient family, which their father had brought to shame and ruin. It ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... their presence, she stepped into the heather as into a quickening bath that almost hurt. Her fingers moved over the clasped fingers of the child, she heard the anxious voice of the baby, as it tried to make her talk, distraught. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... Cheever was distraught. He had waited for the outbreak, and when it did not come he suffered from the recoil of ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes |
