"Diversion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Socialistic reign, the greater would be the danger to international peace. German contemporary history illustrates once more a general law of history, that the dread of a civil war is often a direct cause of a foreign war, and that the ruling classes are driven to seek outside a diversion from internal difficulties. Thus political unrest ushered in the wars of the Revolution and the Empire; thus the internal difficulties of Napoleon III. brought about the Franco-German War; thus the internal upheaval of Russia in our days ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... he may not be thought to conceive nothing but things inconceivable, he has, at last, thought on a way, by which human sufferings may produce good effects. He imagines, that as we have not only animals for food, but choose some for our diversion, the same privilege may be allowed to some beings above us, who may deceive, torment, or destroy us, for the ends, only, of their own pleasure or utility. This he again finds impossible to be conceived, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... asked Jennie, as a diversion. "It's one of the words I have seen so often and know perfectly to speak it and read it—but after all it's just a word, and ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... was only a diversion under cover of which we might have a chance to escape, but it was being executed with so much briskness and spirit that Bothwell could not ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... paper mechanically. He wanted it as a diversion to the conversation merely, for his interest in the doings of Surrey and Yorkshire had waned to the point of complete indifference in ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... genuine love-affair occurred when he was sixteen. The object of this affection, as all the world knows, was Miss Chaworth, whose estate adjoined Newstead. The lady was two years older than Byron, and being of a lively nature found a pleasant diversion in leading the youth a merry chase. So severe was his attack that he was alternately oppressed by chills of fear and fevers of ecstasy. He lost appetite, and the family began to fear for his sanity. Such a love ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... likewise kept the seventh day Sabbath. Franklin disliked both practices, but agreed to them on condition of their adopting a vegetarian diet, this whim suiting him at the time, both because he could save money by it and because he wished to give himself some diversion in half starving the gluttonous fanatic. Poor Keimer suffered grievously, grew tired of the project in three months, longed for the fleshpots of Egypt, and ordered a roast pig. He invited Franklin and two women friends to dine with him; ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... labour to be glad. What numbers, here, would into fame advance, Conscious of merit, in the coxcomb's dance; The tavern! park! assembly! mask! and play! Those dear destroyers of the tedious day! That wheel of fops! that saunter of the town! Call it diversion, and the pill goes down. Fools grin on fools, and, stoic-like, support, Without one sigh, the pleasures of a court. Courts can give nothing, to the wise and good, But scorn of pomp, and love of solitude. High stations tumult, but ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... the kingdom. After protesting against the jurisdiction of the court, he took his seat upon the sellette, although a chair had been prepared for him beside it. The interrogatories commenced. There were two principal charges against him. First, diversion of the public funds to his own use,—embezzlement or defalcation we should call it. Proof: his great expenditure, too large for any private fortune. Answer: that his expenses were within the income he derived from his salaries, pensions, and the property of himself and wife. He ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... the public if he had not counted among his resources certain papers belonging to the records of the Pansophian Society, which he can make free use of, either for the illustration of the narrative, or for a diversion during those intervals in which the flow of events is languid, or even ceases for the time to manifest any progress. The reader can hardly have failed to notice that the old Anchor Tavern had become the focal ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Basil also found diversion in the tender couples, who publicly comported themselves as if in a sylvan solitude, and, as it had been on the bank of some umbrageous stream, far from the ken of envious or unsympathetic eyes, reclined upon ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... driving the cattle toward the opening in the old volcano bowl. It was Dick's idea that if by a cross fire on the part of himself and his brother, hidden among the rocks, they could scare away the band besieging Bud and his friends, a diversion might be created which would rout the enemy. At any rate, it ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... Little Dorrit was nervously anxious to be gone. Maggy being broad awake, and in the act of distantly gloating over the fruit and cakes with chuckles of anticipation, Clennam made the best diversion in his power by pouring her out a glass of wine, which she drank in a series of loud smacks; putting her hand upon her windpipe after every one, and saying, breathless, with her eyes in a prominent state, 'Oh, ain't it d'licious! Ain't it hospitally!' When she ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... might be taken for it, her brother did every thing wrong; but, on the contrary, whatever she thought of doing was the masterpiece of reason and sound sense. If he proposed any kind of diversion, she was sure to consider it as dull and insipid; but it often happened, that she would herself the next day recommend the same thing, and, having forgotten what she had said of it before, consider it as the most ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... savages; and it was only after serious loss that they finally won their way back to the protection of the fort. Indeed, their return was due to the fierce dogs of the settlers, which were released at the most critical moment, and attacked the astounded Indians with such ferocity that the diversion thus created enabled the settlers to escape from the deadly trap. During the next two years the history of the Cumberland settlements is but the gruesome recital of murder after murder of the whites, ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... midst of his illness he called a council of war, in which the whole plan of operations was altered. It was determined to convey troops above the town, and endeavor to make a diversion in that direction, or draw Montcalm into the open field. Before carrying this plan into effect, Wolfe again reconnoitred the town in company with Admiral Saunders, but ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... Mr. Lincoln's feet. It was a little thing; but how it shook me! I was glad of the rush which followed the passing of the regiment; the rush of people eager to secure these bunches of flowers and evergreens for memorials; the diversion of interest for a moment gave me chance ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Notwithstanding this little diversion, we pay seven or eight millions of dollars annually of our public debt, and shall completely discharge it in twelve years more. That done, our annual revenue, now thirteen millions of dollars, which by that time will be twenty-five, will pay ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... of soil and groundwater with agricultural chemicals, pesticides; salination, water-logging of soil due to poor irrigation methods; Caspian Sea pollution; diversion of a large share of the flow of the Amu Darya into irrigation contributes to that river's inability to replenish ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... absence the triumphal return of the Guard brought a slight diversion to the Empress's anxiety and distress of mind. Though unhappy as a wife, she was at least happy as a Frenchwoman. She, alas! had a presentiment of divorce, but not of the invasion and dismemberment of France. ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... from those of our fellow-citizens who look to home production, or more consumption of the fabrics of the tariff States as a relief from our present burdens, we perceive in these expedients rather an ill-judged wasting of the public energy and diversion of the public mind than an adequate remedy for the true evil, the usurping of Congress, which (since that body will never construe down its own powers) can be checked, in our opinion, only by the action of ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... of the placenta and all the changes which the uterus undergoes in gestation. The absorption of nutriment from the walls of the uterus, and the chemical and mechanical stimulation of those walls, might well be the cause of the diversion of nutrition from the ovary, leading gradually to the decline of the process of secretion of yolk in ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... Idiot. "You just said that one of the things that has kept you lingering in this vale of tears was that you have always chewed tobacco. I never did that, and I never shall do it, because I deem it a detestable diversion." ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... sneered Lisner. He had no real desire to question Stella, but welcomed the change of venue as a diversion from his late indiscretion. "If, in the performance of my duty, I put a few civil questions to Miss Vorhis—in the presence of her ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... would have happened to Alexander Abraham just then if a diversion had not taken place. But the door opened and a dog came in—THE dog. I suppose he had got tired waiting under the cherry tree for William Adolphus and me to come down. He was ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Morley's was a new scene of amusement to Ferdinand, and he watched with great diversion the two evening papers portioned out among twelve eager quidnuncs, and the evident anxiety which they endured, and the nice diplomacies to which they resorted, to obtain the envied journals. The entrance of our two travellers so alarmingly ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... for what it's worth. I think we're going to do a sort of flank attack. The main landing will probably be down here at the Point. Then when the Turks are busy, trying to hold 'em up, we shall be slipped in somewhere up the coast so as to create a sort of diversion.' ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... "one confidant at a time; you will forgive me, for I see my guests coming across the lawn, and I may as well make a diversion in your favour. Ernest can consult me ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... said she to the squire, who was muttering ominously with a grim under-jaw, 'His private chaplain!' and for this once would not hear her, 'Grandada, I shall drive you over to see papa this afternoon.' She talked as if nothing had gone wrong. Peterborough, criminal red, attacked a jam-pot for a diversion. 'Such sweets are rare indeed on the Continent,' he observed to my aunt Dorothy. 'Our homemade dainties ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hotel, anxious for any diversion out of the ordinary, came flocking to the scene as the strains of the barrel organ reached their ears, and the bear, in a clumsy fashion, began to dance to the ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... of his own muscular powers; and if the duke of Lumber should think proper to challenge my lord Lath, to run four times round the canal in St. James's Park, for 10,000l. the contrast in their figure would only render the diversion more entertaining to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... on this little diversion. When they heard it they probably departed for other regions. They won't be coming around just yet, that's a safe wager. Mighty lucky, eh? Think what Ar targets we'd make, up here ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... of alcohol, and she was afraid that Eleanor Hubert would think her lacking in dignity. She regretted having succumbed to the temptation to answer him in his own tone; but, under her bravado, she was really somewhat apprehensive about this expedition, and she welcomed a diversion. Besides, the voluble young man showed not the slightest sign of noting her attempt to rebuff him, and she found quite unavailing all her efforts to change the current of the talk, the loud, free-and-easy, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... cannot in honour have any more to do with Morphew and Lillie, who have gone beyond the ordinary pitch of assurance, and transgressed the very letter of the proverb, by endeavouring to cheat you of your Christian and surname too. Wishing you, Sir, long to live for our instruction and diversion, and to the defeating of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... self-diversion were of the most limited description. Hers was a social, a wholly dependent nature; she could not, like Madeleine, create her own amusement, and make her own occupation. She tried to read, but could not fix her attention; she tried to embroider, but quickly threw ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... along this plain, and, though we saw several bears at a distance, we could never, with all our management, contrive to get within shot of them. Our diversion was therefore changed to spearing of salmon, which we saw pushing in great numbers through the surf into a small river. I could not help observing how much inferior our Kamtschadales were, at this method ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... a carpet of Turkey leather, and sit round it on the floor, eating, with wooden spoons, meat and rice stewed together, called pilau. They are not allowed to drink wine, or eat pork. A favourite diversion with them is playing on a kind of lute, and sometimes they amuse themselves with chess, draughts, and other games; but their principal amusement, like some of my little friends, is to sit and listen to stories, ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... effect has been produced on the romantic literature of Europe by those tales of fairy enchantment, so characteristic of Oriental genius, and in which it seems to have revelled with uncontrolled delight. These tales, which furnished the principal diversion of the East, were imported by the Saracens into Spain; and we find the monarchs of Cordova solacing their leisure hours with listening to their rawis, or ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... even looked on smilingly at a mock marriage, at one of her own entertainments, between the pair—"with ring and all other ceremonies of church service and ribands, and a sack-posset in bed, and flinging the stocking, evincing neither anger nor jealousy, but entering into the diversion with ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... much the custom to view life as if it were exactly ruled in two, like sleep and waking—the provinces of play and business standing separate. The business side of my career in San Francisco has been now disposed of; I approach the chapter of diversion; and it will be found they had about an equal share in building up the story of the Wrecker—a gentleman whose appearance may be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had been a weighty conference, resulting in the conclusion that I must have complete rest and diversion. But as my more recent letters home had expressed a determination to rush headlong into business—as a sort of fatuous panacea for jumpy nerves, no doubt—and since the conferees possessed an intimate knowledge of the mulish streak that coursed through ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... and there were quaint wildernesses and pleasaunces—clipped yews and oddly trained shrubs and flowers trying to make a diversion, but ever dominated by the huge woods, the straight avenues, the mathematical ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... have succeeded, great as his armament was, had it not been for the diversion effected in his favour by the landing of the Scandinavian pretender in the North, and the failure of provisions in Harold's Channel fleet, which compelled it to put into port. Louis of France was called in as ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... lady who receives has charge of arranging what the entertainment shall be,—whether charade, tableau, reading, recitation, or music; and the interest is much increased by the individual taste shown in the choice of the diversion and the ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... carried on with surprising volubility, gaiety, and delight; their time thus occupied is so seducing, that they separate with great reluctance, sometimes passing the entire day in this, pratling, smoaking, and diversion: night, however, terminates these amusements: They assemble in the open air during the dry season, and under the palaver-houses in the wet, where they form themselves into dancing companies, generally during half the night, and not unfrequently the whole of it. Their ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... lingered in the porch, waiting for the organist to descend the awkward little stair-case. In the weary trouble of his mind, and with the prospect of getting through the five hours in the best way he could, Mr. Audley was glad to cultivate any diversion of thought, however idle. He therefore freely indulged his curiosity ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... A. Hurlburt was ordered to make a strong demonstration from Bolivar, Tennessee, against Van Dorn, then near Grand Junction with about 10,000 effective men, and lead him to believe he was in immediate danger of an attack, and thus prevent him from making a diversion in aid of Price by marching on Corinth. This ruse was successful. Orders were given by Grant and preparation was made by Ord to attack Price at Iuka as soon as Rosecrans' guns on the Jacinto road were heard. About 4 P.M., September 19th, ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... achieved similar imbecilities; Germany was, if possible worse; Russia under the waste and stresses of militarism festered towards bankruptcy and decay. All Europe was producing big guns and countless swarms of little Smallways. The Asiatic peoples had been forced in self-defence into a like diversion of the new powers science had brought them. On the eve of the outbreak of the war there were six great powers in the world and a cluster of smaller ones, each armed to the teeth and straining every ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... As a consequence, she recalled, with rising feeling, how often he had refused to go to places with her, to share in little visits, or, indeed, take part in any of the social amenities which furnished the diversion of her existence. He had been seen at the theatre with people whom he called Moy's friends; now he was seen driving, and, most likely, would have an excuse for that. Perhaps there were others of whom she did not hear, or why should he be so busy, so indifferent, of late? ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... this time I had believed the sole effect of the rapid inhalation was due to mere diversion of the will, and this was the only way nature could so violently exert herself—that of controlling the involuntary action of the lungs to her uses by the safety valve, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... that of sport, the Negro was especially prominent. In pugilism, a diversion that has always been noteworthy for its popular appeal, Peter Jackson was well known as a contemporary of John L. Sullivan. George Dixon was, with the exception of one year, either bantamweight or featherweight champion for the whole of the period from 1890 to 1900; and ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... spring east winds the party were generally gone to some more genial climate, and the early autumn was often spent in Switzerland. Pictures, art, and scenery were growing to be necessaries of life, and to stay at home with no special diversion in view seemed unthought of. The season was spent in London, not dropping the artist society on the one hand, but adding to it the amount of intercourse into which she was drawn by the fact of her being a rich and charming woman, having a ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... accompanied though they were with a smile, she gave the baron such a sweet, wistful look that he could no longer resist; but the appearance of Pierre at this moment with a large omelette created a diversion, and interrupted this interesting conversation. They all immediately gathered round the table, and attacked the really good breakfast, which the old servant had somehow managed to put before them, with great zest. As to de Sigognac, he kept ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... necessity of his taking upon him the human nature, to wit, that he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver his people; for that would be here too much beside our matter, and be a diversion to the reader. We are now upon his High Priest's office, and of those natural qualifications that attend him, as to that; and I say, nature is a great qualification, because in nature there is sympathy; and where there is sympathy, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... look comfortable. It was to him an untimely intrusion of an unpleasant theme. "But what in the world set the doctor off on this subject?" he asked, trying to make a diversion. ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... from a feller in Limerick and chased that for a bit; then on a 'tween day, when I was away and the deer out grazing in the demesne, somebody slipped a brace of Mauser bullets into it, and that form of diversion was likewise at an end. As far as I could see an animal wouldn't stand a ten minutes' chance in my country unless ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... had been relieved, besieged, reduced, and finally remodelled by the grand Roads and Demolitions Scheme of his friend Napier, the latter came down to Allahabad, and he and Yule sought diversion in playing quoits and skittles, the only occasion on which either of them is known to have ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... of course as much alive as other people. 'There is in every constitution a certain solstice when the stars stand still in our inward firmament, and when there is required some foreign force, some diversion or alteration, to prevent stagnation. And as a medical remedy, travel seems one of the best.' He found it so in 1833. But this and his two other voyages to Europe make no Odyssey. When Voltaire was pressed ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... who received his portion with wordy gratitude and devoured it with seeming gusto. The pirates, full-fed, with pipes in mouths, were inclined to be affable and jocular. "Feeding the animals," as Slinker called it, seemed to afford them much agreeable diversion. Even Magnus had lost in a degree his usual sullenness, and was wreathed in simian smiles. The intense terror and revulsion which he inspired in me kept my unwilling eyes constantly wandering in his direction. Yet under all the terror ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... was dense. I picked out some of the smallest people, looked over their heads, and saw several young farmers, in parti-colored jackets, and very red in the face, bouncing up and down on handsome cart-horses. Satiated at last with this diversion, I turned away and wandered down the hill again; and after strolling through the streets of Fecamp, and gathering not a little of the wayside entertainment that a seaport and fishing town always yields, I repaired to the Abbey church, a monument of some importance, and almost as great an object of ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... as the Chiefs for that week were established, Uncle Teddy was immediately besieged with questions in regard to the Principal Diversion. "It's a—oh, my gracious!" said Uncle Teddy, catching himself hastily and winking mysteriously at Mr. Evans. "It's a secret!" And not another word would ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... what-not: and flocks of English accordingly rush to witness the benediction of droves of donkeys. In a word, the ancient city of the Caesars, the august fanes of the Popes, with their splendour and ceremony, are all mapped out and arranged for English diversion; and we run in a crowd to high mass at St. Peter's, or to the illumination on Easter Day, as we run when the bell rings to the Bosjesmen at Cremorne, or ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... accommodation; the license has been transferred. Many were the respectable parties of the olden time who used to amuse themselves with the attempt to gain the summit of the down,—sometimes successfully, but more frequently at the expense of a rather too precipitate descent, to the no small diversion of their friends who had less daring to make the experiment. In this age of refinement, such displays of rural agility would be regarded as "utterly vulgar!" there are however more circuitous and accessible paths by which we may ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... ran, and was humored to his bent. To one he seemed the son he had lost, to another the son he might have had, had the world gone differently. To others he served as a brief escape from the shadow of a future without hope; to others yet, the diversion of an hour. This last was especially true of the blind man who sat at the door of his old mother's cottage binding brooms. The presence of the child seemed to him like a warm ray of sunshine falling across his hand, and he would lure ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... A momentary diversion is caused by the entry of an elfin-tressed little girl, who stares at us half impudently, half shyly, with bright black eyes, hesitates at the botanist's clumsy smile and nod, and then goes and stands by her father and ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... daughters, getting to know the right people, patching up quarrels, and so on. The priesthood earn their salaries as the agents for these valuable social arrangements. Their theology is thrown in as a sort of intellectual diversion, like the ritual of a benevolent organization. There are some who get excited about this part of it, just as one hears of Free-Masons who believe that the sun rises and sets to exemplify their ceremonies. Others take their duties more quietly, and, understanding just what it all amounts ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... guns started shelling the German trenches, and knowing that the diversion would momentarily occupy the snipers' attention the others raced safely across in a body. The remainder of the journey was made in comparative safety, the only danger being from exploding shrapnel overhead. But one does not trouble very much about that after a time. Reaching the front trenches, ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... and charged to meet them. I happened to be first, and much to my discomfiture the enemy's phalanx parted in the middle, and I was rapidly passed down the stairs—a prisoner! Fortunately at the bottom I found a relieving party from the next house, making a diversion on the enemy's rear. With great valour we dragged down a foe, and toshed him in the bath that had been made ready ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... written, should have ever appeared in our columns; and this, not, as the agent of the Duke asserts, because it has been exposed, but because of the unhappy unsolidity of its facts, and because of that diversion of the public attention which it has effected from cases such as those of Canobie and Wanlockhead, and from such a death-bed as that of the Rev. Mr. Innes. Our readers are already in possession of our explanation, and have seen it fully borne out by the incidental ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... of the Whig populace knew no bounds. No longer would the shadows of dark despair and abandoned hope hang like a pall over the capital city. No longer would the stately residences of the Tory element be thrown open for the diversion and the junket of the titled gentry. No more would the soldiery of an hostile army loiter about the street corners or while away the hours at the Taverns or at the Coffee Houses. The Congress was ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... sordidness and the commonplace. She could imagine positively nothing less romantic. She thought of the ground floor on chill March mornings with no fires anywhere save a red gleam in the dining-room, and herself wandering about in it idle, at a loss for a diversion, an ambition, an effort, a real task; and she thought of the upper floor, a mainly unoccupied wilderness of iron bedsteads and yellow chests of drawers and chipped earthenware and islands of carpets, and her mother plaintively and weariedly arguing with some servant over a slop-pail in a corner. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... allied to philosophic and poetic thought is already known. It was always a refined diversion of poets and painters to unite in a quest for the beautiful. The poet wrote verses and the painter painted a picture suggesting, sometimes remotely, the thought enshrined in the poem. Such were the conditions upon ...
— Chinese Painters - A Critical Study • Raphael Petrucci
... diversion from politics was provided by a visit to the Polish Theatre, where Shakespeare's "Kuplec Wenecki" was being performed. The main interest was naturally in Shylock. The Polish actors made very attractive Italian signors. Portia was a full-bosomed Polish beauty, who, with a male voice, ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... consists of two large courts, in which are the lodgings for the masters and scholars, and in the centre a very noble chapel; beyond that, in the second court, are the schools, with a large cloister beyond them, and some enclosures laid open for the diversion of the scholars. There also is a great hall, where the scholars dine. The funds for the support of this college are very considerable; the masters live in a very good figure, and their maintenance is sufficient to support it. They have all separate dwellings in the ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... bombs had been used by the time both men vanished into the shelter of the woods a mile or so away from camp. The Lieutenant was laughing heartily as though he had enjoyed the diversion greatly. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... Consequently all the features of the pastime had become rude and imperfect, and, although very respectable gentlemen still gave it their countenance, there was a growing suspicion that it was a questionable, if not demoralizing diversion. It would be more agreeable if we could invest the present occasion with a little more pomp and dignity; but we must describe the event ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... hath troubled me ever since, so forlorn and forsaken did she seem. Major Pike (Robert's father), coming in this morning, says, next to the sparing of Goody Morse's life, it did please him to see the bloodthirsty rabble so cheated out of their diversion; for example, there was Goody Matson, who had ridden bare-backed, for lack of a saddle, all the way from Newbury, on Deacon Dole's hard-trotting horse, and was so galled and lame of it that she could scarce walk. The Major said he met her at the head of King ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... days after this, the Turks, having defeated a division of the Greek army destined to make a diversion from the plain of Eleusis, attempted to carry the camp of General Gordon by storm. Captain Hastings now entered the Piraeus again, even at the risk of exposing the Karteria to the Turkish shells; as he saw that by his powerful ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... it can be effected; if not, for as long a time as possible. These, with the militia in the vicinity, would answer the purpose I have last mentioned, and would in proper time make a useful body, either to form a diversion in favor of, or to cooperate with, a force upon ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... the London craftsmen followed the popular diversion of cock-throwing on Shrove Tuesday and tossing pancakes in the frying-pan—the latter custom is still kept up at Westminster School. Both bear allusion to the sufferings and torments of men who ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... and when the stress of her attention to household work, and her devotion to neighborly good deeds relaxed, she turned to knitting wash-rags as a sportsman turns to his gun, or a toper to his cups. She seemed to find more stimulus for thought and more helpful diversion in the production of one wash-rag than most persons ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... fashionable teachers have no interest in giving their passions exactly the same direction. Still, however, they find it their interest to keep the same savage dispositions alive. It was but the other day that they caused this very massacre to be acted on the stage for the diversion of the descendants of those who committed it. In this tragic farce they produced the Cardinal of Lorraine in his robes of function, ordering general slaughter. Was this spectacle intended to make the Parisians abhor persecution and loathe the effusion ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... appealed to, and then not over-zealously or over-intelligently; his application is short-lived and he hurries on; but the other hoodlum will stay with you all night if necessary, finding, no doubt, the automobile a pleasant diversion from a bed ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... not go to sleep again. Something was speaking to them from the next cell, something that whimpered and raised its hands in appeal, and they welcomed the daylight, but not the diversion which daylight brought. Again the door banged open, and this time a file of ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... both of health and successful industry is the absolute yielding up of one's consciousness to the business and diversion of the hour—never permitting the one to infringe in the least degree ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... pig I ivver set mi een on." And then the audience saw where the "war" pig came in, and they laughed heartily over the joke. It was a relief to me when they did put the best face on the affair. Under cover of the diversion I stole from the room, and prepared to leave the place. I met Mrs Stangcliffe at the foot of the staircase. She said "she did not know what to think about us, but there had been a fearful noise, and she took it that we had pleased the company." With this I left the inn, and got away ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... at the sound of a tumultuous summons at the street-door. As may be well supposed, his servant took more time than usual to answer it, resenting a noise so out of character with the house, during which John listened half-angrily, fearing, yet wishing for, a diversion. And then his own door burst open, not, I need not say, by any intervention of legitimate hands, but by the sudden rush of Philip, who seemed to come in in a whirl of long limbs and eager eyes, flinging himself into ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... erection is that which stands and feeds and silences a tin which is swelling. This makes no diversion that is to say what can please exaltation, ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein
... had a very hard pull, the Barrier surface being covered with prismatic crystals—without any glide we felt we might as well be hauling the sledges over ground glass, but diversion in the shape of Land-oh: I think I sighted Mount Hope refracted up, and pointed ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... [54] Formerly this diversion was as much followed in the evening, as it was at an earlier hour in the day. In "Laneham's Account of the Entertainment at Kenelworth Castle," we find that Queen Elizabeth always, while there, hunted in the afternoon. "Monday was hot, and therefore ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... there was a quick movement in the little group round the foot of the ladder, for, partly moved by the spirit of mischief, as well as by the intense desire to create a diversion, ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... his stiff temper; I couldna thole a man but had a mind of his own, my dear," ejaculated Lady Carnegie in unexpected, clear, cherry accents, as if her daughter's extremity was diversion ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... came in with the tea-tray, and the sight of the crackers and milk, the strawberries and little cakes, created a pleasant diversion. ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... hopes or previously recognised obligations. On the contrary, the ponderable and tangible realities of the immediate situation counselled neutrality. They were revolted by the hideous brutality of the war and its colossal waste. Participation must be purchased with a similarly colossal diversion of American energy from constructive to destructive work, the imposition of a similarly heavy burden upon the future production of American labour. It implied the voluntary surrender of many of those advantages which had tempted our ancestors to cross the Atlantic and settle ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... An unexpected diversion occurred at this moment. The pack-horse, that had been contentedly cropping the grass near at hand and paying no heed to what was going on about him, wandered toward the bank, and was in imminent peril of being shot by the vigilant Sioux before ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... whom he lived some years, in an easy and no contemptible service. Here by the indulgence of a kind master, he had sufficient leisure to apply himself to whatever learning his inclinations led him, which were chiefly history and poetry; to which, for his diversion, he joined music and painting; and I have seen some pictures, said to be of his drawing, which remained in that family; which I mention not for the excellency of them, but to satisfy the reader of his early inclinations to that noble art; for which also he was afterwards ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... the Maccabee did not readily forget. Since the girl had moved on to avoid him, he had become alive to a delinquency that was more of a sensation than an admission. His thought of her, that had been a diversion before, now seemed to be a transgression. An incident of this nature during the fourteen years of his life in Ephesus would have engaged his conscience only a moment if at all, but at this last hour it amounted to a deflection ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... the footman created a diversion by announcing that the sleigh was waiting to take Mr. Riatt to the train, and Riatt explained that he had decided not to take the train that day. Then Christine, on inquiring, found that Hickson ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... came a diversion. A burly, rough-clad man pushed his way through the crowd, and his keen eyes flashed a quick look over the whole outfit. He was the sheriff, and had been ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... survival of the fittest had wrought on this heterogeneous crew through countless generations; and with the primitive Indian, the fittest was the hardiest, fiercest, most adroit, and most wily. Baptized and heathen alike they had just enjoyed a diversion greatly to their taste. A young Pennsylvanian named James Smith, a spirited and intelligent boy of eighteen, had been waylaid by three Indians on the western borders of the province and led captive to the fort. When the party came to ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... weather-glass. John was quick and understood his business very well; but no man alive was more careless in looking into his accounts, or more cheated by partners, apprentices, and servants. This was occasioned by his being a boon companion, loving his bottle and his diversion; for, to say truth, no man kept a better house than John, nor spent his money more generously. By plain and fair dealing John had acquired some plums, and might have kept them, had it not been for his ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... accordance with the rules of the game. What mattered it that the luscious edibles existed only in the brain of the loyal old darky? The little pretense gave to each a delightful thrill—surely an adequate extenuation of the harmless diversion. As usual Colonel Fairfax found the key to the situation in the closing items ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple
... and truth-stamped manner began to create a diversion in her favor, and all near listened with her to what the dismissed girl might say. The latter did not in the least respond to Belle's energy, but after a long, weary sigh she began, without raising her head from her hand as she sat leaning on the counter, "Whether you're right or wrong, ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... A diversion occurred at this point. Charlie, who had long been eyeing Beale sourly, dashed at him with swinging fists and was knocked down again. The whole trend of the meeting altered once more. Conciliation became a drug. Violence ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... storm center of the infuriated masters, many of whom were loud in the demand that summary vengeance be wreaked upon them and that these two at least should be hung from the yard arm. It was easily possible that this demand might have been acceded to, had not a diversion been caused by some of the others who were ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... editorial demagogues also were under bit and bridle. It was hoped that now quiet would be restored. The German diet at Frankfort-on-the-Maine turned public attention for a time from the more purely internal Prussian politics. But this was a very insufficient diversion. In fact, the course of William I., in utterly refusing to have anything to do with the proposed remodelling of the articles of confederation, the object of which was to effect a firmer union of the German States, although no Prussian had the utmost confidence in the sincerity of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... saloons and on the promenade decks formed little knots and coteries for conversation, for reading, and for mutual diversion, or strolled about from side to side, watching the endless expanse of waters for the occasional appearance of some inhabitant of the deep that had wandered ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... A diversion in the shouts of the children up the mean street and a sudden furious barking of dogs drew Peter from the discussion. He looked up, and saw a negro girl of about fourteen coming down the curved street, with long, quick steps and an occasional glance ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... its practical aspect. If thought is not to stand forever pointing at the universe in wonder, if its movement is to be diverted from the issueless channel of purely theoretic contemplation, let us ask what conception of the universe will awaken active impulses capable of effecting this diversion. A definition of the world which will give back to the mind the free motion which has been blocked in the purely contemplative path may so far make the world ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... all projects of reform, etc. At the close of the Session of 1835, Mr. W. L. Mackenzie, as Chairman, brought in an elaborate Report which, without being read, was ordered to be printed. In that Report, Mr. Mackenzie endeavoured to create a diversion in his favour by showing that while Dr. Ryerson professed to be opposed to Government grants to religious bodies, yet he was willing to receive one for the Wesleyan Conference. The Report ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... she was not coming down, and anxious looks were exchanged, and dark ones cast on me. In return I winked at Jane, and frowned severely on Herbert, who intercepted the signal and began to grin. Mabel, who had seen it too, reproved me for setting the boy a bad example; and thus a diversion was effected. While she was seeing after the children, my sister carried me off to the library: I made her kiss me before I ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol |
