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More "Divert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Upon one occasion the planters of Antigua pleaded unsuccessfully to have Negroes furnished to them on credit.[43] At another time they asserted that the company treated them much worse than it did the planters of Barbadoes because the latter were able to use their influence with the company to divert the supply of slaves to Barbadoes. Their condition, they declared, seemed all the more bitter when they considered the thriving trade in Negroes which the Dutch carried on from ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... would hardly be tolerated, even as a foil to the virtue and generosity of the other characters in the play, but for its indefatigable industry and inexhaustible resources, which divert the attention of the spectator (as well as his own) from the end he has in view to the means by which it must be accomplished.—Edmund the Bastard in Lear is something of the same character, placed in less ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... the kind of ideal Sunday-class which she had in her mind all these months; indeed, this "Third Primer" was hardly orthodox food for Sunday at all, according to her ideas; and yet Geordie was laboriously travelling over the page with a dogged earnestness which she did not know how to divert into any other channel without doing harm in some shape or other. But presently help came to her from a quarter where she had ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... and alloy has it arisen that his pages bear so deeply the stamp of real life, and that in the works of no poet, with the exception of Shakspeare, can every various mood of the mind—whether solemn or gay, whether inclined to the ludicrous or the sublime, whether seeking to divert itself with the follies of society or panting after the grandeur of solitary nature—find so readily a strain of sentiment in accordance ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... melancholians, such as Blaise Pascal and John Foster and William Cowper. William Guthrie knew, by his temperament, and by his knowledge of himself and of other men, that he was a great melancholian, and he studied how to divert himself sometimes in order that he might not be altogether drowned with his melancholy. And thus, maugre his melancholy, and indeed by reason of it, William Guthrie was a great humorist. He was the life of the party on the moors, in ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... of that now, but think of yourself and of what you will do," said the man, soothingly, anxious to divert Toby's mind from the monkey's death as much ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... your guest, Harry," she urged at last, still determined to divert his thoughts from Willits and the loss of the dance—"OUR guest," she went on—"so is everybody else here to-night, and we must do what everybody wants us to, not be selfish about it. Now, my darling—you couldn't ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... had also, through the charity of individuals, such a number of minor institutions for education, that the persons intrusted to see them administered have, in very numerous instances, not scrupled to divert their resources to total different purposes, lest, perchance, the cause of damage to the people should change from a lack of knowledge to a repletion of it. Of England! so long after the Reformation, and all the while under the superintendence ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... gave a new impulse to the spirit of enterprise which had already been excited among the maritime nations of Europe by the discoveries of Columbus, and efforts to divert a portion of the golden current soon began to be made. The Spaniards, debarred from following the direct route of the Portuguese, by their own exclusive pretensions in the west, and the consequent decision of the Pope, granting to them the sole ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... manners of life which foster neither inertia, reverence, nor mystic meditation. Essentially man of action, in ideal action he finds his only true comfort; and no attempts to discover for him new gods and symbols will divert him from the path made for him by the whole trend of his existence. I am sure that padres at the front see that the men whose souls they have gone out to tend are living the highest form of religion; that in their comic courage, unselfish humanity, their endurance ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... water even in the cold season. The heat in summer is extreme, and the luh, a moving current of hot air, claims its human victims from time to time. The cultivation in the Sindh depends on the river floods and inundation canals, helped by wells. In the Pachadh dams are built to divert the water of the torrents into embanked fields. The cultivated area is recorded as 1723 square miles, but this is enormously in excess of the cropped areas, for a very large part of the embanked area is often unsown. The encroachments of the Indus have enforced the transfer of the district ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... Special privileges. Corruption of the mores. In every societal system or order there must be a ruling class or classes; in other words, a class gets control of any society and determines its political form or system. The ruling class, therefore, has the power. Will it not use the power to divert social effort to its own service and gain? It must be expected to do so, unless it is checked by institutions which call into action opposing interests and forces. There is no class which can be trusted to rule society with due justice to ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... that the whole scene by which we are here surrounded has over it an air of profound and deathlike stillness. The sea, where we behold nothing but water around us, presents more of life to divert the mind. The very rushing and splash of the wheels, the bounding waves, the bustle of bending or reefing sails, and the crowding of people on the steamer, brings varied pictures to temper the monotony around. Even the ride ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... "What can I decide upon alone? What do I know? What do I want? What is there I care for?" Again she felt that her soul was beginning to be split in two. She was terrified again at this feeling, and clutched at the first pretext for doing something which might divert her thoughts from herself. "I ought to see Alexey" (so she called Vronsky in her thoughts); "no one but he can tell me what I ought to do. I'll go to Betsy's, perhaps I shall see him there," she said to herself, completely forgetting that when she had told him ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... semi-farmers; and in the natural course of events, they must become more and more so.—As the greater quantity of rich western lands are appropriated to the production of the staple of our planters, that staple will become less profitable.—We shall gradually divert our lands from its production, until we shall become actual farmers.—Then will the necessity for slave labor diminish; then will the effectual demand diminish, and then will the quantity of slaves diminish, until they shall be adapted to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... piece of wood, he fastened them very firmly, crossing and re-crossing the thread round them; then wrapped them carefully and daintily in clean white paper and tied up the parcel so that it would be very difficult to untie it. This was in order to divert the attention of the old woman for a time, while she was trying to undo the knot, and so to gain a moment. The iron strip was added to give weight, so that the woman might not guess the first minute that the "thing" was made of wood. All this ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... declares a certain prominent political personage, who shall be nameless, to be also 'a pitiful sham,' why, then I think, like so many other and unscientific 'writers to the papers,' he needs the Conductor of cool Common Sense to divert, carry off, and disperse his too ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... chance? If we saw a faultlessly executed mathematical diagram illustrating a proposition in Euclid, should we really be satisfied with the statement that it represented the random pencil-strokes made by a blindfolded child ignorant of geometry? On the other hand, if a fretful baby is allowed to divert himself by hammering the piano keys, is the result ever remotely akin to a tune? We know perfectly well that we never get harmony, order, beauty, rationality by accident; and there is only one other alternative—design, purpose, guidance. Professor Fiske quotes a quaint observation of Kepler's ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... somewhat nervous and annoyed at this result. But what could be done? To divert his thoughts, he listened to his colleagues' communications. The Minister of War commenced to speak, and in a tone of irritated surprise, instead of the lofty, patriotic considerations that Vaudrey expected of him, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... mortgage. I called it Maryfield, after my parental home in Edinburgh, and revelled in grapes, plums, and peaches, and much other country happiness. When a host of visitors, on a bright summer day, would rather strain the narrow larder, I used to divert the party into the garden, where they could complete their meal, although at times with inconvenient demand, from the male section at least, upon the brandy. When, in 1854, I re-sold "the lot" to Mr. David Moore, under ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... not exist, than to try to trace them. A neighbourhood may have an excellent reputation as being likely to be a rising one, and yet may become suddenly eclipsed by another, which no one would have thought so promising. A fever hospital may divert the stream of business, or a new station attract it; so little, indeed, can be certainly known, that it is better not to try to know more than is in everybody's mouth, and to leave the ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... on a fine summer's evening when the school-hours were at an end, and the young ladies were admitted to divert themselves for some time, as they thought proper, in a pleasant garden adjoining to the house, that their governess, who delighted in pleasing them, brought out a little basket of apples, which were intended to be divided equally amongst them; but Mrs. Teachum being hastily ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... out of the same hill on which the town stands, and so runs down through it and falls into the Anider. The inhabitants have fortified the fountain-head of this river, which springs a little without the towns; that so, if they should happen to be besieged, the enemy might not be able to stop or divert the course of the water, nor poison it; from thence it is carried, in earthen pipes, to the lower streets. And for those places of the town to which the water of that small river cannot be conveyed, they have great cisterns for receiving the rain-water, which supplies the want ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... of the rustlers," spoke up an old friend, hoping to divert the angry flood. "Paul Caldwell there, he was one of them. The ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... which is usually justified on the ground that it affords excellent training for the intellect. But how about the feelings of admiration and enthusiasm which works of such great beauty were intended to inspire? Are they exercised to the same extent? Or is the tendency rather to trammel and divert them by so much ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... Hastings, and as Stephen's wife she should yet shine in the best society, for in case she married him she was resolved that he should take her at once to Philadelphia, where she would compel his proud mother to notice her. This helped to divert her mind, and in the course of the day she was talking gaily of the party, and wondering if she should be as intimate with the second Mrs. Hastings as she had ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... Connaught, Mayo beyond other counties. There it was, and in the county next adjoining, that Lord Altamont's large estates were situated, the family mansion and beautiful park being in Mayo. Thither, as nothing else now remained to divert us from what, in fact, we had thirsted for throughout the heats of summer, and throughout the magnificences of the capital, at length we set off by movements as slow and circuitous as those of any royal progress in the reign of Elizabeth. Making but short journeys on each day, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... of the two children; but, what affected him the most, both of his sons, although they were well-formed and beautiful, grew no more in stature, but remained children still. Every day they resembled each other more and more, and they never ceased to sport and divert themselves in the innocent ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... is a very reasonable suggestion. It will divert our thoughts. Here is the afternoon paper. Let us first see whether ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Jean Lacheneur, or divert him from his purpose. He uttered a hoarse, discordant laugh, then striking his gun heavily ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... hostilities both by sea and land." It is difficult for rude Americans to determine whether you are serious in this proposition or whether you mean to jest with their simplicity. Upon a supposition, however, that you have too much magnanimity to divert yourselves on an occasion of so much importance to America, and, perhaps, not very trivial in the eyes of those who sent you, permit me to assure you, on the sacred word of a gentleman, that if you shall transport your troops ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... a liberal supply of common sense in them!" cried the hostess, so delighted to have made a joke that she broke into cackling laughter, and laughed until failure of breath made her gasp and wriggle in her chair, an alarming spectacle. To divert attention, Constance began talking about the mill, describing the good effect it had wrought in certain families. Dyce listened with an air almost as engrossed as that of Mr. Gallantry, and, when his moment ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... divert their attention, Hugh made something like a horn to grow up out of the table, and then laid a spell on the robbers, so that they were kept gazing at the curious thing all night long, while he went to bed and ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... tube from which all the atmosphere has been extracted so that it is a practical vacuum. Within this are placed electrodes so as to divert the action of the electrical discharge in a particular direction, and this light, when discharged, is of such a peculiar character that its discovery made a sensation in the ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... kindling of the eye, no joy of soul at the thought, for Ruth knew that her earthly love was stronger and more absorbing than the heavenly. "There, now, we will go and see about Miss Agnes's dinner," she added, glad to divert his thoughts. ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... compel the cessation of hostilities within twenty-four hours, I"—there was a pause for nearly a minute, during which the ticking of the big clock sounded to Thornton like revolver shots—"I will excavate a channel through the Atlas Mountains and divert the Mediterranean into the Sahara ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... the Earth. The second class of people decide the conflict in a way that satisfies both themselves and society. They give the victory to the higher trends and at the same time make a lasting peace by winning over the energy of the undesirable impulses. By sublimation they divert the threatening force to useful work and turn it out into real life, using its steam to make the world's wheels go round. Their love-force, unhampered by childish habits, is free to give itself to adult relationships or to express ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... remained silent. He was anxious to hear all that was in the other's mind, and he feared lest any interruption might divert him. ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... her hands, she shuddered at the familiar mention by profane lips of one so hallowed in her estimation, and this vague threatening of danger to her mother sufficed for a time to divert her thoughts from the sorrow that for some days past had ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... have to corrupt, the majority is indeed so constantly deceived that, when one dwells only on this side of our political life, it is easy to arrive at the conviction that democracy is a myth and that, in fact, the end may never come of this power of the few to divert and pervert the institutions ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... of which I had frequently heard them lament, was capable of expressing any other matters than those which related to horses, mules, and Gypsy traffic. It was in this cautious manner that I first endeavoured to divert the attention of these singular people to matters of eternal importance. My suggestion was received with acclamations, and we forthwith proceeded to the translation of the Apostles' creed. I first recited in Spanish, in the usual manner and without ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... to the tombs yesterday. Fancy that Omar witnessed the destruction of some sixty-eight or so of the most exquisite buildings—the tombs and mosques of the Arab Khaleefehs, which Said Pasha used to divert himself with bombarding for practice for his artillery. Omar was then in the boy corps of camel artillery, now disbanded. Thus the Pasha added the ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... but that if such a hospital was erected within a mile or two of the city, one great circumstance would happen, viz., that the common sort of people, who are very much addicted to rambling in the fields, would make this house the customary walk, to divert themselves with the objects to be seen there, and to make what they call sport with the calamity of others, as is now shamefully allowed ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... clean her bottom, which, having been at sea so long, was very foul. The sloop washed and tallowed also, but was ready before us, and cruised eight or ten days among the islands, but met with no purchase; so that we began to be tired of the place, having little to divert us but the most furious claps of thunder that ever were heard or read of in ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... husband's ways and ideas, saw that he had long been wishing but had been unable to divert the conversation to another channel and express his own deeply felt idea for the sake of which he had gone to Petersburg to consult with his new friend Prince Theodore, and she helped him by asking how his affairs with ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... that it is no more than fact, that the larger portion of all truth has sprung from the collateral; and it is but in accordance with the spirit of the principle involved in this fact, that I would divert inquiry, in the present case, from the trodden and hitherto unfruitful ground of the event itself, to the contemporary circumstances which surround it. While you ascertain the validity of the affidavits, I will examine the newspapers more generally than you have as yet done. So ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... keep him out.] Among many of whom MR. MILTON comes on the stage in post haste and in this juncture of time, that he may, if possible, overthrow the hopes of all good men, and endeavours what he can to divert those that at present sit at the helm, and by fair pretences and sophisticate arguments would, &c ... Which I taking notice of, and meeting with this forementioned pamphlet of MR. MILTON'S, and upon perusal of it finding it dangerously ensnaring, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... careful student of History cannot fail to note that whenever the rottenness and inadequacy of a Government are most apparent, great 'shows' and Royal ceremonials are always resorted to, in order to divert the minds of the people from the bitter consideration of a deficient Exchequer and a diminishing National Honour. The authorities who organize these State masquerades are wise in their generation. They know that the working-classes very seldom ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... we read her history in her look, and in her walk. Her relations have all been smitten, swept away by the pestilence; her mind is made callous by utter misery; she wanders about careless, without any motive; a childish curiosity may be her pleasure, any incident to divert thoughts that make her sensible of her own bereavement. She stops to listen to the denunciations of the crazed prophet, and herself partakes, though callously, of his insanity—half believes, but scarcely feels. The sky is lurid, pestilential; it touches with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... have given me all that I crave. I have more than enough for my wants. Forgive me that I cannot stay; but I cannot. I have learned the limit of my power of endurance. I know that I cannot escape myself or my memories, but new scenes divert my thoughts. Here, I believe, I should go mad, or else do something wild and desperate. Forgive me, and do not judge me harshly because I leave you. Perhaps some day this fever of unrest will pass away, When it does, rest assured ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... and all move regularly to their respective Ends. The most verdant and fragrant Meadows may, from the too frequent Irruption of muddy Waters, degenerate into noxious Marshes, if some Care was not taken to divert those impure Gushings into their proper Channels. Hence it may be inferred, that laying open the most honorary, as well as important and useful Professions of Society, to the Intrusion, or rather pyratical Invasions, of the Scum and Dregs of the People, cannot, ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... temperature was frequently some degrees above freezing, and became sometimes quite pleasant as they gradually grew accustomed to the outer arctic atmosphere, those who had no particular occupation to divert their minds made frequent complaints of the cold. There were occasional snow-storms, but these did not last long, and as a ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... shouldest do as the merchants do and sell thy merchandise at credit for a fixed period, on a contract drawn up by a notary and duly witnessed; and employ a Shroff to take thy dues every Monday and Thursday. So shalt thou gain two dirhams and more, for every one; and thou shalt solace and divert thyself by seeing Cairo and the Nile." Quoth I, "This is sound advice," and carried the brokers to the Khan. They took my stuffs and went with them on 'Change where I sold them well taking bonds for the value. These ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... fall in with my humor in spite of all the emotions that worked in her breast, especially as my aunt and Pani Celina took part in the conversation. In this way the first awkward moments were tided over. Everything I said was intended to divert our attention from the real state of feelings. I kept on in the same strain all the evening, although at times I felt the perspiration breaking out on my forehead from the effort. I was still weak after my recent illness, and all this ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... To divert his mind from sad memories, Baldy would go to look at Mego's twelve, beautiful, fat new puppies, and then would dream of a comfortable serene old age when he would be given the tutoring of such promising ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... design must be modified to take this into account. Sometimes such water can be diverted by ditches well back from the road, and thus prevented from flowing into the side ditches along the roadway. It is especially desirable to divert water, which would otherwise flow down the slope of a cut, by means of a ditch on the hill-side above the upper edge of the slope ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg
... of being a chronic tipler and literary vagabond and sponger." When young he excited the interest of Hakluyt, who, in a dedication to the third volume of his, remarks: "Now, because long since I did foresee that my profession of Divinitie, the care of my family; and other occasions, might call or divert me from these kind of endeavour, I, therefore have, for these three years last past, encouraged and gathered in these studies of Cosmographia and former histories my honest, industrious and learned friend, Mr. John Porey, one of speciall skill and extraordinary ...
— Colonial Records of Virginia • Various
... prey he turned his bridle and rode in a direction parallel with that which was being followed by pursued and pursuer, and began to shout loudly, in the hope of again causing the elephant to hesitate, even if he could not altogether divert him from his pursuit of Grosvenor; but the ruse was vain, the monster glanced viciously once in Dick's direction, but refused to be diverted from ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... you feel. I've expected something like this a long time." He drew his hand across his eyes, and turned away. "I've had murder in my heart when I saw you, and hated myself. It's only in such places as this, where nothing happens to divert one's mind, that people get like you and me, Bert. We brood and brood, and it's love and insanity and a good deal of the animal mixed. Yes, you're right. It's between you and me, Bert,—but not to fight. One of ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... conjurer turns sharply to the person to his right, presuming correctly that the spectators will make the same movement, and will not notice what is going on in the left hand. . . . Every sharp, short remark will, for a moment, at least, divert the eyes from the hands and direct them to the mouth, according to ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... travelers came north by railroad. Harry made several stops by the way, in order to divert the thoughts of his beautiful young bride from dwelling too much on the fate of her aunt. He knew that home would revive all these recollections painfully, and wished to put off the hour of their return, until time had a little weakened Rose's regrets. For this reason, he passed a whole ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... more than six leagues from the North River, in which this island lies, on the east bank twenty-three and a half leagues above Fort Amsterdam.(1) This trading post was established for no other purpose than to divert the trade of the North River or to destroy it entirely, for the river is now quite free. They have also endeavored several times, during eight or nine years past, to buy of the Indians a large quantity of land, (which would have served ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... him into the ordinary notation of our day. But impassable obstacles intervened: the apathy and indifference of the Jesuits, and their fear lest such radical innovations should prove unpopular and divert the congregation of St. Joseph's elsewhere. He had abandoned hope of converting them from their error, but he was confident that reaction was preparing against the jovialities of Rossini, whose Stabat Mater, he said, still desecrated Good Friday, and against the erotics of M. Gounod ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... certain of the sirdars, who felt the pressure of the demands of the army to be so urgent, and its present attitude and temper so perilous to their existence, that they desired to turn the thoughts of the troops to objects which might divert their attention from making extortionate demands for higher pay, by employing their energies in hostile operations against the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... anxiety of mind, and the multiplicity of duty he had to perform, did not divert the attention of Sir James from the situation of the unfortunate crew of the Hannibal, especially the wounded, who were suffering as well from want of proper surgical care as from the treatment ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... tide of excitement running in his arteries. Why were this woman and her husband setting back the clock thirty-five minutes? Was it to divert suspicion from themselves? Was it to show that this stranger must have been in Cunningham's rooms for almost an hour, during which time the millionaire ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... that it would injure my health, and that I should then take a country-house in some village, a good way off of the city, where it should not be known who I was, and that he should be there sometimes to divert me. ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... cornice or sill course A, or other horizontal member which projects beyond the rest, so as to divert water. ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... the arid public domain chose their homes along streams from which they could themselves divert the water to reclaim their holdings. Such opportunities are practically gone. There remain, however, vast areas of public land which can be made available for homestead settlement, but only by reservoirs and main-line canals impracticable for private enterprise. ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt
... said Holmes, smiling. "It was a dangerous, reckless attempt in which I seem to trace the influence of young Alec. Having found nothing, they tried to divert suspicion by making it appear to be an ordinary burglary, to which end they carried off whatever they could lay their hands upon. That is all clear enough, but there was much that was still obscure. What I wanted above all was to get the missing part of that note. I was certain that Alec had torn ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... enthusiasms and absurdities. Humour, as he sees it, is that thrice blessed quality which enables us to laugh, when otherwise we should be in danger of weeping. "We are ridiculous animals," observes Horace Walpole unsympathetically, "and if angels have any fun in their hearts, how we must divert them." ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... particular as the average young woman over fashion. And anyone who offends in these respects has his name written upon the ostracisic shell. If it happens to be a master—well, his peculiarities are quite enough to divert the boy's attention successfully from the weightier matters in which the master is vainly endeavouring to ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... likely that the pale, wan look must still be upon Arthur's face. Mr. Howard perhaps divined her thought, for he watched her for a long time without speaking a word, and then at last he said gently, as if to divert her attention, "Miss Davis, I think that you are not the first one whom the sight of the wild rose ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... said Helen, who had managed to get it ready while they were talking. She gave it to the general, who thanked her, and was off directly. Cecilia then came to divert herself with looking at Beauclerc's scribbled plan, and she read the notes aloud for her mother's amusement. It was a sketch of a dramatical, metaphysical, entertainment, of which half a dozen proposed titles had been scratched out, and there was finally left 'Tarquin the Optimist, or the ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... a mile ahead, regulating his speed by that of the hound, occasionally pausing a moment to divert himself with a mouse, or to contemplate the landscape, or to listen for his pursuer. If the hound press him too closely, he leads off from mountain to mountain, and so generally escapes the hunter; but if the pursuit be slow, he plays about some ridge or peak, and falls a prey, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... cool off the blood which flows to the neck and head by short-time compresses on the neck and on the cervix. At the same time an attempt must be made to divert it through lengthier packs on the abdomen, the legs and the wrists, thereby to prevent a further delivery of diseased matter to the centre of inflammation. The solution and excretion of diseased matter from other points than the inflamed spots will thereby be effected, and these will be ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... to divert the attention of certain curious listeners, and perceiving that Athos had betaken himself to the embrasure of a window and remained there, he proceeded to join him, throwing out a few words carelessly as he ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... saloon below, anticipating perhaps some attempt to search his baggage, had deliberately provided himself, through Seltz, with a second package, containing a box of rice powder only, which he had placed in his satchel, in the belief that, if found, its innocent contents would divert from him further suspicion. The careless way in which he had thrown his satchel on the floor beside him, favored this theory. It seemed, on sober thought, extremely unlikely that the bearer of so valuable ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... woman well round the corner and into Park Avenue before she appreciated how interesting her tempestuous flight from that rather thoroughly burglarised mansion would be apt to seem to a peg-post policeman. And then she pulled up short, as if reckoning to divert suspicion with a semblance of ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... of Peter Taylor about flowers and fruit, or of Thomas Neal, concerning pet heifers, and new milk and butter and cheese, became tedious; the jokes and laughter of the farm-hands and dairymaids she heard with irritation; nor could the prattle and play of her romping boys divert her mind from the one absorbing theme—the descent of the Mississippi, the conquest of Mexico, the creation of a New World. In close daily communion with Theodosia, she dwelt not in a white frame house on a woody island of the Ohio River, ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... poetical selections and sentiments appropriate to each. That was her pastime for three winters, and it is now nearly done; but she has given that up, and all the rest, and sits there in the window and grows older and feebler until spring. It is only I who can divert her mind, by reading aloud to her and singing; and sometimes I paint the flowers she loves the best on card-board with water-colors. I have a poor skill in it, but Cousin Evelina can tell which flower I have tried to represent, and it pleases her ...
— Evelina's Garden • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... be, When he'd found the Golden Key. Multimillionaire is he, Many times more rich than we; But at that I wouldn't trade With the bargain that he made. Came here many years ago, Not a person did he know; Had the money-hunger bad— Mad for money, piggish mad; Didn't let a joy divert him, Didn't let a sorrow hurt him, Let his friends and kin desert him, While he planned and plugged and hurried On his quest for gold and power. Every single wakeful hour With a money thought he'd dower; All the while as he grew older, And grew bolder, he grew colder. And ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... favor of the 26th of October, did not reach my hands till the middle of December. Time enough, you will say, to have given an answer ere this. Granted. But a variety of important occurrences, continually interposing to divert the mind and withdraw the attention, I hope will apologise for the delay, and plead my excuse for the seeming, but not real neglect. I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me, in the elegant lines you enclosed; and ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... own dignity in their traffic with the continent of Europe. In that rude day, neither the life nor the property of the merchant who visited the ultramontane countries was safe; for the sorry device which he practiced, of taking with him a train of apes, buffoons, dancers, and singers, in order to divert his ferocious patrons from robbery and murder, was not always successful. The Venetians, therefore, were forbidden by the State to trade in those parts; and the Bohemians, Germans, and Hungarians, who wished to buy their wares, were obliged ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... therefore not enough when your false sense Hits the false judgment of an audience Of clapping fools assembling, a vast crowd, Till the thronged playhouse cracked with the dull load; Though even that talent merits, in some sort, That can divert the rabble and the court; Which blundering Settle never could obtain, And puzzling Otway labours at ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... Custine's raid into Germany did not divert the Convention from the design of attacking Austria in the Netherlands, which Dumouriez had from the first pressed upon the Government. It was not three years since the Netherlands had been in revolt against the Emperor Joseph. In its origin the revolt was ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... between his royal mistress and her loving brother, the great and mighty king of Achin. He was invited to a banquet prepared for his entertainment, in which the service was of gold, and the king's damsels, who were richly attired and adorned with bracelets and jewels, were ordered to divert him with dancing and music. Before he retired he was arrayed by the king in a magnificent habit of the country, and armed with two krises. In the present sent as a return for the queen's there was, among other matters, a valuable ruby set in a ring. Two of ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... you I will accompany you to the office at once. The bonds cannot be removed too soon. Then if anyone sees us entering, it will be thought that you are showing me the factory. It will divert suspicion, even if we are seen ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... the Bible is perhaps even more in danger of missing its real secret. An interest in the literature and history of Israel may divert the mind from that which is, after all, the heart of these "letters," and the core of ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... them. And perhaps—who knows?—her housemaid was the worst of the lot, for she affected an almost incredible stupidity with regard to the instrument, and pretended not to be able either to speak through it or to understand its cacklings. All that might very well be assumed in order to divert suspicion, so Miss Mapp paused by the door to let any of these delinquents get deep in conversation with her friend: a soft and stealthy advance towards the room called the morning-room (a small apartment opening out of the hall, and used chiefly for the bestowal of hats and cloaks ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... and looking round to try and divert her thoughts by fixing them on present object, she caught her cousin Manasseh's deep-set eyes furtively watching her. It was with no unfriendly gaze, yet it made Lois uncomfortable, particularly as he did not withdraw his looks after he must have seen that she observed him. ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... with trees and rocks—of course not one rational word, but mere idiotic stuff, to make one laugh to death. He continued, however, always moody and serious, in spite of the utmost pains that the squirrel, the monkey, the parrot, and the bullfinch could take to divert him, and set him in the right way. The goose told stories, the brook jingled a ballad between, a great thick stone cut ridiculous capers, the rose stole lovingly about him from behind and crept through his locks, while the ivy stroked his troubled brow. ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... there was still delay; there were the usual abortive attempts at a congress, which, as in 1859, broke down through the refusal of Austria to give way. There were dark intrigues of Napoleon, who even at the last moment attempted to divert the Italians from their Prussian alliance. In Germany there was extreme indignation against the man who was forcing his country into a fratricidal war. Bismarck had often received threatening letters; now an attempt was made on his life; as he was walking along Unter den Linden a young man ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... power to urge Macota to advance and divert the attention of the rebels from the party going up the mountain, but in vain: ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... in his History of the French Academy, says, that Menage did not compose that famous Requete des Dictionaires, in which he ridicules all the academics, on account of any aversion he had to them, but purely to divert himself, and not to lose the witty turns that came into his head upon that subject. In the same manner, I declare that I did not undertake this work on account of any zeal I have for wine, you must think, but only to divert myself, ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... alone, and made himself known only to his mother, declaring to her the manners, nature, and state of that people. Being desired by her to bring a present of gold, with which that region abounded, he stole, while at play with the king's son, the golden ball with which he used to divert himself, and brought it to his mother in great haste; and when he reached the door of his father's house, but not unpursued, and was entering it in a great hurry, his foot stumbled on the threshold, and falling down into the room where ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... too. Something's got to be done. It may take desperate measures, but if the Molicks have built a dam, to divert your water from here, we'll have ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... however, serve to divert the thoughts of the ministers from their desire to recall the absent Princes of the Blood; and it was finally arranged that as M. de Soissons had been the original cause of their absence, owing to his indignation at the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... answered Lloyd, "but they are engaged in serious business. You surely don't expect to divert their attention from the pursuit of their noble art. Why, who, or what do ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... woman, I could graze a cow in the lanes hereabouts, and feed a pig in the woods. Now you do that for the poor, Miss Vizard, and don't let my girl think for you. Breed your own ideas. That will divert you from self, my dear, and you will begin to find it—there—just as if a black cloud was clearing away from your mind, and letting your ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... transportable material, and if the valley is then left with solid walls, it will cease to furnish debris to be carried down by floods. If, in this state of things, a new channel be formed at an elevation above the head of the valley, it may divert a part or even the whole of the rain-water and melted snow which would otherwise have flowed into it, and the once furious torrent now sinks to the rank of a humble and harmless brooklet. "In traversing this department," says Suroll, "one often sees, at the outlet ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... don't suppose that many people have sung under such circumstances, but I managed to strike up a stave, one of those with which I had been accustomed to amuse my messmates in the Naiad's forecastle. It was not, perhaps, one of the merriest, but it served to divert Clem's thoughts, as well as mine, ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... not his friend, his favorite; and my mother would weep for me, and yet go about in mourning which he had presented to her, and she would esteem it a peculiar act of amiability if he should exert himself to divert her mind and raise her spirits. No voice would be raised against him, and no one would venture to accuse him, for my father himself would protect him, and the grace and favor of the Emperor would speak him clear of any suspicion. He is my master, my lord—that is what fills me with rage and ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... for the time being, and he began to urge the marriage of his niece with his favorite. Dr. Grimshaw's importunities were also becoming very tiresome. They were no longer a jest. She could no longer divert herself with them. She felt them as a real persecution, and expressed herself accordingly. To Grim ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... speaking occasionally so as to divert her mind, but for the most part, busily thinking and endeavoring to decide his next move. He sat facing the river, continually lifting his head to scan the opposite shore. There was probably a scouting detail somewhere ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... but did not speak, for he was afraid to interrupt or to divert the childlike man from the channel in which his thoughts appeared to ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... vessels themselves in gunboats and light-armed feluccas; but he said frankly that, important as was the duty of intercepting communications, the efficiency of the fleet was more important still, and that to divert their crews over-much to such objects would hazard the vessels themselves, and neutralize their proper work. The resort, therefore, could only be occasional. The general political complexion of affairs in the Mediterranean depended greatly upon the presence and readiness of the British ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... his breakfast early, and afterwards dozed awhile, resting his aching bones in a corner of the coffee-room. It was nine and after, and the tide of life was roaring through the channels of the city when he roused himself, and to divert his suspense and fend off his growing stiffness went out to look about him. All was new to him, but he soon wearied of the main streets, where huge drays laden with puncheons of rum and bales of tobacco threatened to crush him, and tarry seamen, their whiskers hanging in ringlets, ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... profoundly. Knowing how unshakable were her resolutions, he made a desperate attempt to divert her mind: "That is settled, Miss Grace, and it's too late now to alter the decision, for the school-board has already voted us a new superintendent—he has been sent his notification. Abbott Ashton is out of it, and it's all his fault Bob ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned; and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the vision's stony ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... herself in any shape ridiculous. It is true she had neither strong feelings to overcome, nor tender feelings by which to be miserably pained. It is true likewise that she had an important avocation, a real business to fill her time, divert her thoughts, and divide her interest. It is especially true that she possessed a genuine good sense which is not given to all women nor to all men; and by dint of these combined advantages she behaved ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... a theory that I believe will prove to divert a great deal of slide that does the damage, in a case like this one. And since looking around up on Top Notch, I'm sure my idea will ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... said Challis. "I made myself responsible for him up to a certain point. I gave him an occupation. It was intended, was it not, to divert his mind from speaking against ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... that moment he gave up all thoughts of recovery, but submitted with the utmost cheerfulness, and the most perfect complacency and resignation. Upon his return to Edinburgh, though he found himself much weaker, yet his cheerfulness never abated, and he continued to divert himself, as usual, with correcting his own works for a new edition, with reading books of amusement, with the conversation of his friends, and sometimes in the evening with a party at his favourite game ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... strikingly that puts a truth which siren voices are constantly trying to sing us out of believing! Every sin is a blunder as well as a crime. And that for two reasons, because, first, God has made us for Himself, and to take anything besides for our life's end or our heart's portion is to divert ourselves from our true destiny; and because, second, that being so, every attempt to win satisfaction or delight by such a course is and must be a failure. Sin misses the aim if we think of our proper destination. Sin misses its own aim of happiness. A man never gets what he hoped for by doing ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... fed, and fed well—and the people of Sweden had to pay the bill. It was but natural, therefore, that, Sweden being heavily involved in debt, the monarch should seek to stay this wasteful extravagance and divert a portion of the Church incomes ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... the armies of ants in warmer climates, and this proceeding in an invariable line irrespective of obstacles seems to be peculiar to many creatures, and is the reason why such 'plagues' were and are so dreaded. Nothing could divert the straight march of the locusts; nothing could divert the course of the millions of butterflies that sometimes cross the Channel and arrive here ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... superabundance. As inebriation is unknown, and music, singing, and dancing, are held in equal detestation, they never could fill all the vacant hours of their lives without the repast of the table. Thus these young people sit and talk, and divert themselves as well as they can; if any one has lately returned from a cruise, he is generally the speaker of the night; they often all laugh and talk together, but they are happy, and would not exchange their pleasures for those of the most brilliant assemblies ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... Relief was in sight, when the commotion visible in the enemy's laagers suggested a poked-up ant-hill, and seemed to confirm the report, there was a brief flicker of excitement. Mounted men rode out in force, guns were limbered up and galloped out north and west, to divert General Huysmans' attention, and give Grumer, conjectured to be waiting for it, the opportunity for an eagle-like swoop down upon the harassed tortoise sprawling on her sand-hills. But the rainy dark came down upon the clatter of artillery, and the shining dawn ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... of the life provides ample scope for indulgence in that direction. How we long for the settlement you cannot imagine, nor can you imagine with what disgust and impatience we regard every endeavour on the part of the pro-Boers, as they are called, to divert the natural and inevitable course of things. You will not be surprised at hearing this from a one-time Dutch Republican when you take into consideration that all of us who have surrendered are fully aware of ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of that; and yet I cannot forbear it. But upon enquiry, though I found no reason of doubtfulness, yet I could not bring my nature to any quiet or content in my wife all day and night, nor though I went with her to divert myself at my uncle Wight's, and there we played at cards till 12 at night and went home in a great shower of rain, it having not rained a great while before. Here was one Mr. Benson, a Dutchman, played and supped with us, that pretends to sing well, and I expected great matters but ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Palmes and Montgomery, after all the firing was over, as related by Mr. Palmes; and wro't up and embellished, in a manner in which Andrew was said to be capable of doing, and sometimes to have done upon occasions of mirth, and to divert company. ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... met, seemed to make swift, approbative note of every smallest particular of her appearance. "Mr. Halloway, here is a young lady who has just openly informed me that she prefers you to me, so I suppose I must resign her to you with what grace I can. Don't you think, Miss Vernor, you might try to divert my mind from dwelling too cruelly on Miss Masters' defalcation by showing me what Mr. Hardcastle's grand intellect has devised for my entertainment? That bonfire yonder has a sort of cannibalistic look about it suggestive of dancing ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... forcibly kept in the country to go on entertaining and playing the fool for the same sedative purpose. These youths are all healthy and fit, but it is held that their true function is to work in the theatres and halls to beguile the audiences and divert their thoughts from the terrible reality of German invasion. With each step that the Germans draw nearer the mummers redouble their efforts to excite laughter. Thus ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... of successive Unionist Governments from 1896 to 1906, have revolutionised the face of the country, and are bringing about a new Ireland. The chief danger now lies in the intrigues of discredited politicians, whose object is to divert the eyes of the people from practical, remedial, and constructive legislation, and to keep them fixed upon what Mr. John Morley has called "the phantom of Irish ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... on a spot recently occupied by some engineers of the United States Conservation Department, who had been trying to determine if it was feasible to dam the river at this place. The plan was to flood the hole of Brown's Park and divert the water through the mountains by a tunnel to land suitable for cultivation and in addition, allow the muddy water to settle and so prevent the vast amount of silt from being washed on down, eventually to the mouth of the Colorado. The location seemed admirably suited ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... and patted him. The intelligent brute knew that I suffered, and, in its own way, showed me that it participated in my affliction. My water, too, was boiling on the fire, and the bubbling of the water seemed to be a voice raised on purpose to divert my gloomy thoughts. "Aye, boil, bubble, evaporate," exclaimed I; "what do I care for water ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... consonant with important currents in human nature, and is anything but absurd. In fact. we all do cultivate it more or less, even when our professed theology should in consistency forbid it. We divert our attention from disease and death as much as we can; and the slaughter-houses and indecencies without end on which our life is founded are huddled out of sight and never mentioned, so that the world we recognize officially in literature and in society is a poetic fiction far handsomer ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... day in Redcar, dearest aunt Lizzie; and a most lovely one it is. The sea seems to reproach us for leaving it. But I am glad we are going, for I feel so homesick that I want constant change to divert my thoughts. How troublesome feelings and affections are! When one ought to ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... she's poor, people don't do such work for nothing; besides, it's wrong, gentlemen—I've given up all that,—I've a precious soul to look after, and I can't divert my attention from it. I ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... malady lay in the slave-markets of Cairo and Constantinople: the supply followed the demand. Gordon, after years of labour, might here and there stop up a spring or divert a tributary, but, somehow or other the waters would reach the river-bed. In the end, he himself came to recognise this. 'When you have got the ink that has soaked into blotting-paper out of it,' he said, 'then slavery will cease in these ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... to him and would have kissed his hand, but he forbade her; so she invoked blessings[FN9] on him and left the house. Next day she came again, in the absence of Ni'amah, and she addressed Naomi, saying, "We prayed for thee yesterday; but arise now and divert thyself and return ere thy lord come home." So Naomi said to her mother-in-law, "I beseech thee, for Allah's sake, give me leave to go with this pious woman, that I may sight the saints of Allah in the Holy Places, and return speedily ere my lord come back." Quoth Ni'amah's mother, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... bake bread or cook simple meals for the assistance of the indigent or the aged or the feeble, because they understand none of these things; but they can pay some one else to do them—that is, they can divert some of the money, which they have already taken from the workers, to setting the latter toiling again! But what use would that be on the day when our monetary system broke down—as it nearly did at the commencement of this war? What use ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... somewhat out of sleep. But the majority were glad to retire to their habitual quarters for a good rest after the day's exertions, and these woke up the following morning bright and active, as if nothing had happened to divert them from the duties and occupations of every-day life. To this majority ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... to notice the sadness of her countenance, sadder than he had seen it for many days, and he exerted himself to entertain her and divert her thoughts, calling her attention to some new plants and flowers, consulting her taste in regard to improvements he designed making, and conversing with her about a book they had ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... Magazine," and, immediately afterwards, on Newbery's "Public Ledger," a daily newspaper, for which he wrote two articles a week at a guinea for each article. Among the articles were the series that still divert and instruct us—"The Citizen of the World." This was the title given when the "Letters from a Chinese Philosopher in London to his Friend in the East" were republished by Newbery, at the end of the year. Goldsmith now began to know his own ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... particularly delighted with the poetry of our author, especially when he had the happiness to wait upon him, in Holland and Flanders; and he was pleased sometimes to give him arguments to write upon, and divert the evil hours of their banishment, which now and then, Sir John tells us, he acquitted himself not much short of his ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... returned to London. He was weary of Paris; every day he found it more difficult to be amused. Lucretia had lost her charm: they had been married nearly three years. The marquess, from whom nothing could be concealed, perceived that often, while she elaborately attempted to divert him, her mind was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... friends. His public character was unsullied; of the general belief in his integrity there is the highest evidence [263]; and even the few slanders afterward raised against him—such as that of entering into one war to gratify the resentment of Aspasia, and into another to divert attention from his financial accounts, are libels so unsupported by any credible authority, and so absurd in themselves, that they are but a proof how few were the points on which ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I found Governor Morton and all the State officials busy in equipping and providing for the new regiments, and my object was to divert some of them toward Kentucky; but they were called for as fast as they were mustered in, either for the army of McClellan or Fremont. At Springfield also I found the same general activity and zeal, Governor Yates busy in providing for ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Pandono, and the other, an Archbishop whose own name and that of his diocese I am unable to recollect, will bear me witness. We were together at Granada when it was captured from the Moors, and to divert ourselves we used to go to some wooded hills, whence a murmuring rivulet flowed across the plain. While our most illustrious Ludovico went bird-hunting with his bow along its banks, the two bishops and I formed a plan to ascend the hill to discover the source of ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... have started a Fund? Some minor fund guaranteed not to divert any money from the ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... language as they continually hear, and though they do not yet understand the meaning of the words they use, they can utter oaths and blasphemies almost as readily as their CHRISTIAN instructors. By-standers divert themselves with their attempts in this way, and think it is fine sport. But, my friends, the scripture declares they are fools who make a mock at sin.[Prov. xiv. 9.] But these things cause much sorrow to those who have ...
— An Address to the Inhabitants of the Colonies, Established in New South Wales and Norfolk Island. • Richard Johnson
... of the King of Rome was brought to Napoleon. He needed some gentle emotion to divert his mind from this state of anxious suspense. He held this portrait long on his knees, contemplating it with delight, and said that it was the most agreeable surprise he had ever received, and repeated several times in a low tone, "My good ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... asked them to go to the river bank and signal to his men on the barges to come ashore with baskets to take back the corn for which he had traded the kettle. Meanwhile he kept up a brisk conversation with the old Werowance to divert his attention, assuring him that on the next day he and his men would leave their firearms on the ships, trusting to Powhatan's promise that no harm ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... only to his mother, declaring to her the manners, nature, and state of that people. Being desired by her to bring a present of gold, with which that region abounded, he stole, while at play with the king's son, the golden ball with which he used to divert himself, and brought it to his mother in great haste; and when he reached the door of his father's house, but not unpursued, and was entering it in a great hurry, his foot stumbled on the threshold, and falling ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... of present pain. He feels his frame crushed by unaccountable pressure, he drags a galling and stubborn weight at his feet, and his track is marked with blood. The dazzling scene around him affords no rest to his eye, no object to divert his attention from his own agonizing sensations. When he arises from sleep, half his body seems dead, till quickened into feeling by the irritation of his sores. But fortunately for him, no evil makes an impression so evanescent ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... astonished at the man's affirmations, but they did not deceive him, nor divert him from ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... to refuse it.] Seeing my self brought unto this pass, wherein I had no earthly helper, I recommended my cause to God, desiring him in whose hands are the hearts of Kings and Princes to divert the business. And my cause being just and right I was resolved to persist in a denial. My case seemed to me to be like that of the four Lepers at the Gate of Samaria. No avoiding of Death for me: If out of Ambition and Honour, I should have embraced the Kings Service, ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... with a cocoa-nut in his hand, which he held out to him as a present, at the same time singing very loud. He was often desired to be silent, but in vain; he continued importunate and troublesome, and there was no such thing as getting rid of him or his noise; it seemed as if he meant to divert their attention from his countrymen, who were growing more tumultuous, and arming themselves in every quarter. Captain Cook being at the same time surrounded by a great crowd, thought his situation rather hazardous; he therefore ordered the lieutenant of marines to march his small party to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... and may be he called to mind his family and his mother, who is a woman in years, and bethought him that she weepeth for him all whiles of the day and watches of the night, ever mourning his loss; and we used to solace him with our society and divert him from thinking of her." When her sisters heard these words they wept in the stress of their distress for him and said, "Wa'llhi—'fore Allah, he is not to blame!" Then they went out to the army and dismissed it, after ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... king would speak to him about the kingdom of Naples, the conquest of which was evidently premeditated by the king; and when Francis I., having arrived at Rome, had already done half the journey, Leo X. feared that it would be more difficult to divert him. He resolved to make to the king a show of deference to conceal his own disquietude; and offered to go and meet him at Bologna, the town in the Roman States which was nearest to Milaness. Francis accepted the offer. The pope arrived ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... was not only intended to violate them all, but also to bring about, at an opportune moment, a hostile severance from England. In the meantime, the academic squabble was to serve as a decoy to hide Transvaal identification with any such sinister objects, and to divert attention and suspicion. ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... summoning the family to her bed-side, she proceeded in a most solemn manner to deliver a prophecy respecting the future inheritors of Tichborne—predicting its prosperity as long as the annual dole existed, and leaving her malediction on any of her descendants who should discontinue or divert it, and declaring that, when such event should happen, the old house would fall, the family would become extinct from the failure of heirs-male, and that—as a final warning of the approach of their decay—a generation would appear of seven sons, followed ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... of me, and you are the greatest of what there is of my life. It is about you that all my thoughts converge. I do not suppose there will be any happier, any dearer time ever than this we are passing together, with none to molest us, or divert us from each other. You know me well now. I am what I am, and never was a man of stronger personal moods or one who so hungered for the one woman. And you are the one woman, the one physical object in the world, I worship. There is no need that I tell you anything. ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... and begged to endorse what had been so very aptly and gracefully, and, might he add, truly said by the previous speaker. This was only the prelude to the real burden of his message; with the dexterity that comes of practice he managed, in a couple of hurried sentences, to divert the course of his remarks to his own personality and career, and to inform his listeners that he was an actor of some note and experience, and had had the honour of acting under—and here followed a string of names of eminent actor managers of the day. He thought he might be ...
— When William Came • Saki
... away her tears, and looking round to try and divert her thoughts by fixing them on present object, she caught her cousin Manasseh's deep-set eyes furtively watching her. It was with no unfriendly gaze, yet it made Lois uncomfortable, particularly as he did not withdraw ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... than now, the most important domestic news could be told in a few columns. All this tended to keep the newspapers within moderate proportions, and although they were numerous, it is safe to say that they did not make such a demand on the reader's time as to divert his attention from a more serious kind of literature. People had, therefore, plenty of leisure for careful perusal of the magazines, and these, by giving in many cases a summary of the news, decreased the necessity for the newspaper. For advertisements ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... her, when she had a fancy to do the torchlight dance; and in spite of his sciaticas, accretions, and rheumatisms, he was obliged to smile and say to her some gentle words and gallantries after all the evolutions, mummeries, and comic pantomimes, which she indulged in to divert herself; for he loved her so madly that if she had asked him for an impossibility he would have sought one for ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... bathing served to divert, temporarily, the girls' keen interest in holding a True Tred meeting immediately. Every one wanted to go straight back to the island—no dogs had devoured them, no lunatics were discovered up trees, no ghosts had been noticed ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... four feet high on either side, and the general, who was riding at the head of the party, drew his rein when he saw the mule coming along at a furious gallop. The staff did the same, and a general shout was raised to check or divert her wild career. The obstinate brute, however, maddened by the shouts which had greeted her from all sides, and the strange manner in which she was being ridden, never swerved from her course. When she was within ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... talk any more about me,'" he said to himself that night when alone in his cabin. "I wonder how long it would be before the other one did anything to divert the talk from herself. Some time, I fancy." He smiled rather grimly as he unbuckled his sword-belt. It is unlucky for a girl when she starts a train of reflection like this. Lilly's little attempt to pique her admirer had ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... roads and railways and sewers and water systems and lighting-systems and police protection, and a hundred other things, have made the individual's land more and more salable. If our fathers had been wise enough to divert a large percentage of this increase in value into the public coffers, no one would have been wronged, but many private fortunes would today be smaller, and the entire population could have been free from ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... blackbird that whistled tunes, lest, even in that full life, he should chance upon an empty moment. If he had to wait for a dish of poached eggs, he must put in the time by playing on the flageolet; if a sermon were dull, he must read in the book of Tobit or divert his mind with sly advances on the nearest women. When he walked, it must be with a book in his pocket to beguile the way in case the nightingales were silent; and even along the streets of London, with so many pretty faces to be spied for and dignitaries to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to Him an Unwelcome Necessity. Bold words. 'I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner.' 'He doth not willingly inflict.' The awful power of sin to divert the current of blessing. Christ's tears over Jerusalem. How unwelcome that work is to them is shown by the slowness of His judgments, by multiplied warnings. 'Rising up early,' He tells men that He will smite, in order that He may never ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... country being inhabited were found every where, but as yet there was nothing to indicate the presence of the natives in our neighbourhood; I therefore allowed a part of the ship's company to divert themselves on shore this afternoon; and the same was done every Sunday during our stay in this harbour. On Monday [14 DECEMBER 1801] the topmasts were struck, and our various duties commenced; the naturalists ranged the country in all directions, ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... find that they are hollow wind-bag affairs, tho' always held as holy of holies heretofore. To think, to speculate, to wonder, to query—these imply imagination, and the Devil has just one function in this Universe —to destroy, to kill, or suppress or to divert or prevent the imagination. Imagination is the Divine Spark, and old Beelzebub has had his hands full ever since that spark was born. "As you were," is his one military command. His diabolical energy is challenged to its utmost when ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... dissolution and I could hardly hope to reach him. Wild with frenzy, he seemed to pray and curse with the same breath. As a momentary interval occurred between the paroxysms, I sought to arrest his attention and divert his thought to Christ. He turned his piercing eyes on me and said, "Oh! it is too late. Last winter, if I had yielded to your kind admonitions, all would now be well, but it is too late, too late." Another paroxysm seized him, and he was lost to all consciousness, ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... unknown to him: Bob Clive had known them all. He feasted on the oft-told stories of Clive's boyish escapades: how he had bundled a watchman into the bulks and made him prisoner there by closing down and fastening the shutters; how he had thrown himself across the current of a torrential gutter to divert the stream into the cellar shop of a tradesman who had offended him; above all, that feat of his when, ascending the spiral turret stair of the church, he had lowered himself down from the parapet, and, astride upon a gargoyle, had ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... is, on effecting the liberation of the most true and illustrious of all men, still the nature of things would compel you inevitably sometimes to turn your thoughts to the idea of pursuing Antonius, and to divert some portion of your care and attention to Asia and Syria. But if it were possible, I could wish you to have more minds than one, and yet to direct them all upon Mutina. But since that is impossible, I do wish you, with that most ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... on this occasion was solemn and manly; an expressive silence marked his conduct throughout the scene; in fact we attended him as silently, and with close observation. He did not suffer any thing to divert him from the business he had in hand, nor did he seem to be in the least desirous to have it quickly dispatched, but paid this last rite with an attention that did honour to his feelings as a man, as it seemed the result of an heartfelt affection for the object ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... midsummer pace, and he had sat for one whole hour beside the window, with bowed head, and clasped hands building up a castle, which, perchance might fall; perchance might resist the shock of ages, and prove the admiration of every beholder. What mattered it to him, so long as it served to divert him from the one baneful subject—his distorted self—and place him for the time being at least, in an atmosphere of glory and delight! It was better by far than the boisterous mirth of the rude boys whose riotous sport ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... recall the principal events in Lord Roberts's operations near Modder River. The seizing of Koodoesberg was, of course, intended to divert the attention of the Boers from the points at which the real movement was taking place. On the 8th of the month General Macdonald was recalled to Modder River; on the 9th Lord Roberts arrived there and assumed command; on the ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... ecclesiastical benefices, it combines a brief but sufficient history of the temporal power of the Papacy, an inquiry into the arts whereby the Church's property had been accumulated, and a critique of various devices employed by the Roman Curia to divert that wealth from its original objects. In 'this golden volume,' to use Gibbon's words, 'the Papal system is deeply studied and freely described.' Speaking of its purport, Hallam observes: 'That object was neither more nor less than to represent the wealth and power ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Bucer is reported to have said, "Take but Thomas away, and I will overturn the church of Rome," and whom Hooker terms "the greatest among the school divines," (Eccl. Pol. b. 3. 9), was born of noble parents, who anxiously, but vainly, endeavoured to divert him from a life of celibacy and study; and died in 1274, at the age of fourty-seven. Echard and Quetif, ibid. p. 271. See also Purgatory Canto ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... forward of great sagacity, from her sad state of mind to divert her. Gudrun could not shed a tear, such was her affliction; ready she was ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... arid public domain chose their homes along streams from which they could themselves divert the water to reclaim their holdings. Such opportunities are practically gone. There remain, however, vast areas of public land which can be made available for homestead settlement, but only by reservoirs and main-line ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... see for ourselves how our pickets were disposed, but more that by action of any sort we might divert our thoughts from the sorrow that was gnawing at our hearts, we walked out together in the late afternoon to the rocky heights of the promontory that on the western side of the town extended far into the lake. From a military stand-point ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... instruction, and in the conduct of affairs. Women did not hold equal rank with men in the temples of male deities; they there formed a kind of harem whence the god took his mystic spouses, his concubines, his maidservants, the female musicians and dancing women whose duty it was to divert him and to enliven his feasts. But in temples of goddesses they held the chief rank, and were called hierodules, or priestesses, hierodules of Nit, hierodules of Hathor, hierodules ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... passed. There is danger, however, at the other extreme, namely, the attempt to discover totemism in impossible places in civilisation. Mr. Morgan has shown us totemic society in its highest form of development, untouched by other influences of sufficient consequence to divert its natural evolution. This, I think, is the merit of Mr. Morgan's great work, and not his attempt, his futile attempt as I think, to apply the principles of totemic society to the elucidation of societies that have long passed the stage of totemism. ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... with her hair down, beating her naked breast in sight of the onlookers! She followed the corpse, even into the tomb; and when the body had been placed in the vault, in accordance with the Greek custom, she began to stand vigil over it, weeping day and night! Neither parents nor relations could divert her from punishing herself in this manner and from bringing on death by starvation. The magistrates, the last resort, were rebuffed and went away, and the lady, mourned by all as an unusual example, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... this is impracticable, bathe the genital organs, and the spine (up to the base of the brain) in cold water, and rub down vigorously with a crash towel. Fifthly, resolutely form cleanly habits of mind, as well as body; take up a course of good reading to occupy the mind, and divert it into healthy channels, and shun all reading of a sensational nature. Sixthly, avoid thinking impure and lascivious thoughts, and do not allow your mind to dwell upon your condition, but cultivate self- control. The above treatment has cured hundreds of bad cases, ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... stations in Sumatra, that the ship has been here and, in that case, they would guess that we are thinking of establishing a trading station, and might send and make their own terms with the tumangong. There can be no doubt that, if we open a free port here, it will do great damage to them, and divert a large portion of the eastern trade here; being so much more handy for all the country craft trading with Siam and China, besides having the advantage of avoiding the heavy ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... caught is gone. We sent to see him at Battersea, and would have persuaded him to remove to Orchard Street; but he thinks the air does him good, and he seems with people where he is at home, and may divert himself, which, perhaps, will do him more good than the air,—but he is ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... procure any better usage for the unfortunate judge, whose health was suffering severely under his privations. Ivan, however, had recommended himself in the same way as Leo, by his perfections as a cook, and moreover he was a capital buffoon. His fetters were sometimes taken off that he might divert the villagers by his dances and strange antics while his master played the guitar. Sometimes they sang Russian songs together to the instrument, and on these occasions the Major's hands were released that he ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... modesty, parried his advances with light words and gay smiles. Once Neil passed, and his eyes asked a question. She shook her head, unnoticed by Leroy. She would fight her own battle as long as she could. It was to divert him that she proposed they go down to the corral and look at the wild cattle the men had driven down. She told him she had heard a great deal about them, but had never seen any. If he would go with her she would like to look ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... at Dieppe, a few summers ago, I happened to see my good friend Mme. Vezin registered at the Casino, where I recognised an acquaintance or two. That decided me to spend the night and call at her villa. Her salon never failed to divert me, for, drawing together the most disparate people, she handled them with easy generalship. Under her chandelier ardent art students from the Middle West and the poor relations of royalty might be heard exchanging confidences and foreign tongues. So, as I climbed ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... walked briskly down the street, his face very red. "Confound him!" he said. He was conscious of a desire to kick something. That evening, after a bleak supper at a marble-topped restaurant table, he tried to divert himself by going to see a play; he saw so many other things that he came out in the middle of it. "I guess I can get all the anatomy I want in my trade," he told himself; and sat down in the station ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... trade. The plant from which it is produced is a perennial, and for six or seven years is said to give two crops a year. Owing to the peculiarly favourable climate of Peru and the suitability of the soil, it is exceedingly improbable that any strong competitor will come to divert the Peruvian trade, so that for some time yet we may look to this country supplying the hosiery trade with rough Peruvian cotton. The importations of Peruvian cotton into the United States for 1894-95 were 24,000 bales; ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... this posted at a place some miles away," he whispered, exhausted by the effort of writing—"at Shottsford or Port-Bredy, or still better, Budmouth—it will divert all suspicion from this house as the ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... on other occasions, the Professor was very quick in rescuing himself from any dilemma into which he might be thrown. He saw an opportunity to divert attention from himself ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... reads; to come and go at his pleasure; to interrupt at his convenience. Something of these privileges should be shared by the narrator; and in this history we have taken them. You may swing your legs or divert your attention as you read; but we too must be permitted to swing our legs and slide off upon matters that interest us, and that indirectly are relevant to the history. Life is not compounded solely of action. One cannot rush breathless from hour to hour. And, since the novel aims to ape life, ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... go at that," he said. "Perhaps you had better follow the waiting course you seem to have decided on, but if suspicion gathers round Prescott it won't be a drawback and you needn't discountenance it. For one thing, it may divert attention, and after all he ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... heaven; in persuading them, that all their misfortunes are effects of divine anger; in providing none but ineffectual and futile means to put an end to their sufferings, we might justly conclude, that the only object of priests was to divert nations from thinking about the true sources of their misery, and thus to render it eternal. The ministers of religion conduct themselves almost like those indigent mothers, who, for want of bread, sing their starved children to sleep, or give them playthings to divert their ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... drive into Barchester she had not much opportunity of reflecting on Mr. Arabin. She had been constrained to divert her mind both from his sins and his love by the necessity of conversing with her sister and maintaining the appearance of parting with her on good terms. When the carriage reached her own door, and while she was in the act of giving her ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... estimation, you will judge me, in spite of my youth, capable of keeping a secret and worthy of being your wife. Certain that your heart is mine, I do not blame you for having made a mystery of certain things, and not being jealous of what can divert your mind and help you to bear patiently our cruel separation, I can only delight in whatever procures you some pleasure. Listen now. Yesterday, as I was going along one of the halls, I dropped a tooth-pick which I held in my hand, and to get it again, I was ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... around the room on other pictures, either to divert my attention, or to see whether the same effect would be produced by them. Some of them were grim enough to produce the effect, if the mere grimness of the painting produced it—no such thing. My eye passed over them all with perfect indifference, ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... fair mistress' opened a new chapter in Southampton's career, and life's tempests began in earnest. Either to free himself from his mistress's toils, or to divert attention from his intrigue, he in 1596 withdrew from Court and sought sterner occupation. Despite his mistress's lamentations, which the Court gossips duly chronicled, he played a part with his friend Essex ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... been as blind as Pauline must have supposed him when she bade him remember what their daughter was a year ago. He, too, had seen that the bloom was fading from her face, and by many a device he had striven to divert the gravity, descending upon her, from taking possession of her. Pauline's words revived every fear, every anxiety he had felt for their child. Generous as impetuous, he saw now only one thing to be done, one result to be accomplished. Elizabeth must sail in the next vessel, and he was not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... Magbabya in answer. The priest interpreted this to signify 15 pesos. As the priest continued to consult his familiar on various subjects, I proceeded to investigate and saw a young friend of mine seated in a hammock, his head bent down and his hand placed at his mouth in an effort to divert the direction of the sound. I was within a few feet of this young fellow and could plainly see by the light of the kitchen fire the attitude of the impersonator and distinctly hear his whistling. The seance continued for some 10 minutes, the impersonator ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... His bias toward the sea had strengthened with his advance to the years of manhood. From building a boat, he had now got on—with two journeymen at work under him—to building a decked vessel of five-and-thirty tons. Mr. Brock had conscientiously tried to divert him to higher aspirations; had taken him to Oxford, to see what college life was like; had taken him to London, to expand his mind by the spectacle of the great metropolis. The change had diverted Allan, but had not altered ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... for a seat in the Legislature. Late that month Harry walked with him to Pappsville where a crowd had assembled to attend a public sale. When the auctioneer had finished Abe made his first stump speech. A drunken man tried to divert attention to himself by sundry interruptions. Harry asked him to be quiet, whereupon the ruffian and a friend pitched upon the boy and began to handle him roughly. Abe jumped down, rushed into the crowd, seized ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... and was rather an incident in the rivalry between the duke of Gloucester and his half-brother, Cardinal Beaufort, than one involving any principle. Chicheley, by appointing a jubilee to be held at Canterbury in 1420, "after the manner of the Jubilee ordained by the Popes," threatened to divert the profits from pilgrims from Rome to Canterbury. A ferocious letter from the pope to the papal nuncios, on the 19th of March 1423, denounced the proceeding as calculated "to ensnare simple souls and extort from them a profane reward, thereby setting ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... supply of common sense in them!" cried the hostess, so delighted to have made a joke that she broke into cackling laughter, and laughed until failure of breath made her gasp and wriggle in her chair, an alarming spectacle. To divert attention, Constance began talking about the mill, describing the good effect it had wrought in certain families. Dyce listened with an air almost as engrossed as that of Mr. Gallantry, and, when his moment came, took up ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... her rival is engaged in digging a canal (to be filled, when finished, with dead, stagnant water) which is so designed that not only will no use be made by it of the life stream of the child's latent energies, but also costly culverts and other works will have to be constructed for it in order to divert and send to waste that ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... covering up the lode while I scrambled out to meet and divert the visitors. My first sight of Mary Everton, grown, made me gasp. There had been no promise of her womanly winsomeness and pulse-quickening beauty in the plain-faced little girl with large brown eyes—the little girl who used to thrust her hand into mine ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... of a new grandchild, could divert my father from his accustomed round of city sight-seeing. As in other times, so now he again demanded to be shown the Stockyards, the Wheat Pit, the Masonic Temple and Lincoln Park. I groaned but ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... for a riparian owner to divert water into another State does not deprive him of property without due process of law. "The constitutional power of the State to insist that its natural advantages shall remain unimpaired by its citizens is not dependent upon any nice estimate of the extent of present use or speculation as to future ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... gaiety or by the cheerful composure which she carried into all the ordinary duties that fell to her. She saw plainly enough that Ruth needed an entire change of scene and of occupation, and perhaps she believed that such a change, with the knowledge of the world it would bring, would divert Ruth from a course for which she felt ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... the great power-stations on the banks of the river above the Falls told me that the centre of the riverbed at the Canadian Falls is deep and of a saucer shape. So it may be possible to fill this up to a uniform depth, and divert a lot of water for the power-houses. And this, he said, would supply the need for more power, which will certainly soon arise, without taking away from the beauty of Niagara. This is a handsome concession of ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... are often to be preferred, for the reason that they divert the enemy from a march upon the capital of the state and the center of its power. The propriety of giving such a direction to a retreat must be determined by the configuration of the frontiers, the positions of the fortresses, ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... has tried in vain. Debtors are these on whom 'tis hard to press, 'Tis base, impolitic, and merciless. To these we add a miscellaneous kind, By pleasure, pride, and indolence confined; Those whom no calls, no warnings could divert, The unexperienced, and the inexpert; The builder, idler, schemer, gamester, sot, - The follies different, but the same their lot; Victims of horses, lasses, drinking, dice, Of every passion, humour, whim, ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... way of speaking was so new to Sylvia, that the tears sprang to her eyes, and her lip quivered. Philip saw it all, and yearned over her. He plunged headlong into some other subject to try and divert attention from her; but Daniel was too ill at ease to talk much, and Bell was obliged to try and keep up the semblance of conversation, with an occasional word or two from Kester, who seemed instinctively to fall into her way of thinking, and to endeavour to keep the dark ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... unfortunate a time it was to divert this money from its destination; and how, by so doing, we must lose the profit of our past economies, and plunge back the estate into the mire. I even took the liberty to plead with him; and when he still opposed me with a shake of the head and a bitter ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... broken,—they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay," (Dan. ii. 42, 43.) And doubtless these internal commotions among the common enemies of the saints of God, have tended, in divine mercy, to divert their attention occasionally from the witnesses. While they have been made the instruments of mutual punishment, the Lord's people have been "hid in the day of his fierce anger." ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... too. My personality had been discovered. People must have seen me before. I was known by, perhaps distant, sight, and Charlie was blamed for all my doings. It left me with a resolve to defend him to my utmost, all the more so that I was convinced in my mind that he was doing his utmost to divert suspicion from me to himself. Even his own brother believed ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... blessed quality which enables us to laugh, when otherwise we should be in danger of weeping. "We are ridiculous animals," observes Horace Walpole unsympathetically, "and if angels have any fun in their hearts, how we must divert them." ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... taxed the historical knowledge of most of the ladies, and to divert the talk Mrs. Monteith, a ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... a current which tended to draw us past the ice in what I supposed to be a southwesterly direction. This confirmed my worst fears. But now the labor of landing and building a fire on the ice served to interest us for a time and divert our thoughts. We brushed away the snow, and then broke up a box which was in the boat, and also the stern seats. This we used very sparingly, reserving the rest for another occasion. Then we cut portions from one of the seals, and laid them in thin strips ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... amend it by conferring upon women the enjoyment of the same right. Mr. Cowan was once a Republican. He abandoned his party, has been repudiated by his State, and may well be casting about for some new issue by which to divert attention from his faithlessness on the old. We have heard that Mr. Cowan affects the classics; we are sure, therefore, that he will thank us for reminding him of that familiar story out of Plutarch respecting Alcibiades. When the dissolute Athenian had cut off the tail of his dog, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... me now!" smiled Mrs. Meldrum. "I'm going to take her abroad; we shall be a pretty pair." I was struck with this energy and after a moment I inquired the reason of it. "It's to divert her mind," my friend replied, reddening again, I thought, a little. "We shall go next week: I've only waited, to start, to see how your mother would be." I expressed to her hereupon my sense of her extraordinary merit and also that of the ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... speech, Sir John," cried the lady, as though wishful to divert the subject. "My cousin tells me that you are a knight of great courage and renown, but he sayeth not aught of your disposition to outrival him in heroics. Good-bye—a promise made is a promise broken; therefore, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... to work, and just as interested in things as when they saw them through the natural medium, their handicap would be lessened and their lives much happier. Most people think all that can be done for the blind is to divert them, amuse them, provide for them in institutions, or encourage them to accept private charity. This lack of understanding on the part of the public is the greatest drawback to the advancement of the blind, and often leads to untold misery. Occupation the blind should have, must have, if ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... evidence to bring back the reality of each incident and to plunge Teeny-bits into a gloomy perplexity from which not even the crisp brightness of the November day or the prospect of the Jefferson game could divert his mind. ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... (excess of Tenderness, when abus'd, too often producing Hatred, and that Revenge) if they were not only very little inform'd as to what God requires of them; but also very Ignorant in regard of any kind of Ingenious Knowledge, whereby they might delightfully employ themselves, and divert those displeasing Thoughts which (otherwise) will incessantly Torment, and Prey upon their Minds. She who has no Inclinations unbecoming a Vertuous Woman, who prefers her Husbands Affection to all things in the World; and who can ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... be teased; it spoils his temper. If he be in a cross humour take no notice of it, but divert his attention to some pleasing object. This may be done without spoiling him. Do not combat bad temper with bad temper—noise with noise. Be firm, be kind, be gentle, [Footnote: "But we were gentle among you, even as a women cherisheth her children."—1 Thess. ii. 7.] be loving, speak quietly, ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... Each one of us had his own concluding adventures. Mine was what it should have been—exile; death having missed me. I am not going to relate it here, this book is not my biography, and I ought not to divert to myself any of the attention which it may excite. Besides, what concerns me personally is told in a narrative which is one of the testaments ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... a history to tell me, and a letter to—" said the generous youth, wishing to divert her thoughts from her grief; but she did not let ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... he received was imploring, and he instantly regretted that he had taken such means to divert his companion's sadness. Some consciousness of this regret probably passed through Mildred's mind, for she rallied her spirits, and made a partially successful effort to be ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in other quarters of the world, and believed that both the unwillingness of Rome to enter into the struggle, and her eagerness, when she had entered, to see it brought to a rapid close, were to some extent due to a feeling that an African war would divert resources that were sorely needed for the defence ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... a tool of my man's," said she. "Did he not ask me for it to kill the rats, which come and laugh at him in his cellar? Poor beasts!—not for him. They have only the old blind man to divert them, and keep them company! The least they can do is to nibble him a little. Hence I don't wish him to do any harm to the small deer, and I keep the tickler. Besides, I shall soon want it for the broker, perhaps. Thirty thousand ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... considered the most perfect which human genius ever planned and executed. Its dimensions were sufficiently large to produce an impression of grandeur and sublimity, which was not disturbed by any obtrusive subdivision of parts; and, whether viewed at a small or greater distance, there was nothing to divert the mind of the spectator from contemplating the unity as well as majesty of mass and outline; circumstances which form the first and most remarkable characteristic of every Greek temple erected during the purer ages ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... they divert themselves in our K—! Look: no laughter, no singing, no dances. Just like some herd that's been driven here, in order to be ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... which helped to divert Tom's thoughts from even this mystery, and to divide them between it and a new channel, which was ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... the will of the late Sir Henry Saville, his daughter's inheritance descends to you in the event of her marrying without your consent. May I ask whether there is not a certain contingency provided for, which might divert the property into ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... of this great picture of human mutability, as it is moved by the contrasted permanence of the abiding stars. The ceaseless conflict, the strange echoes of long-forgotten controversies, the confusion of purpose, the successes in which lay deep the seeds of future evils, the failures that ultimately divert the otherwise inevitable danger, the heroism which struggles to the last for a cause foredoomed to defeat, the wickedness which sides with right, and the wisdom which huzzas at the triumph of folly,—fate, meanwhile, amidst this turmoil and perplexity, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... extensive, it was difficult indeed to find any particular person, and two hours passed away in a vain search. But she was patient and determined, and there was but one idea in her mind. The music and the gayety of the assembled throng did not for one moment divert her, though this was the first scene of the kind that she had ever beheld, and its novelty might well have attracted her attention. The lights which flashed out so brightly through the gloom of night—the noisy crowds which ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... muttered Jack, triumphantly; "that'll do. Now for it, Thames! Make as great a row as you can to divert his attention." ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... liberal Mixture of white Horse-hair, which would make a fairer, and consequently a handsomer Appearance, while my Situation would secure me against any Discoveries. But the Passion to the handsome Gentleman seems to be so fixed to that part of the Building, that it will be extremely difficult to divert it to mine; so that I am resolved to stand boldly to the Complection of my own Eye-brow, and prepare me an immense Black Wig of the same sort of Structure with that of my Rival. Now, tho' by this I shall not, perhaps, lessen the number of the Admirers of his Complection, I shall ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... and were recalled. The Seventh and Fourteenth Iowa moved up to the left of the position reached by Colonel Veatch, and a detachment of sharpshooters was posted so as to reach with their fire the men in the trenches and divert their fire. At night Lauman withdrew his command to the place of the previous night's bivouac. Colonel Cook's brigade advanced, the morning of the 13th, on the right of Lauman's. The left of his line came also in front of Hanson's works. The valley ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force
... part was his true character; Here is another epitaph by Rolli;(952) which for the profound fall in some of the verses', especially in the last, will divert you. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... group of young men of whom Perkins was the centre, who, by means of the saccharine medium known as conversation lozenges, were seeking to divert the attention of the band of young girls sitting before them. Among these sat Mandy. As his eye rested upon the billowy outlines of her figure, struggling with the limitations of her white blouse, tricked out with pink ribbons, he was conscious of a wave of mingled pity and disgust. ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... by any single impulse of their imagination and emotions, the exact balance of the duties and claims of friendship, were as incapable of loading the scales to my prejudice. Even the injuries we do them will not easily divert from the path of their duty towards us those conventional natures of which my great-aunt furnished a type: who, after quarrelling for years with a niece, to whom she never spoke again, yet made no change in ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... real concern in their faces at Vienna till news came to court that the King of Sweden had entered into the union; but as this made them very uneasy, they began to move the powerfulest methods possible to divert this storm; and upon this news Tilly was hastened to fall into Saxony before this union could proceed to a conjunction of forces. This was certainly a very good resolution, and no measure could have been more exactly concerted, had not the diligence ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... Antwerp's 5,000: and these, though there were some esteemed wealthy, could not between them all raise a loan of even 10,000l. The King had to go abroad for the money and to pay 14 per cent. for it. Then he began to ask himself whether something could not be done to divert some of this ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... sail that was proportioned to her, made but very little way in the sea, and sailed heavily. We had, indeed, no great adventures happened in this voyage, being out of the way of everything that could offer to divert us; and as for seeing any vessel, we had not the least occasion to hail anything in all the voyage; for we saw not one vessel, small or great, the sea we were upon being entirely out of the way of all commerce; for the people of Madagascar knew no more of the shores of Africa than we did, ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... on his sisters' flannel wrappers, he set them down by the fire, telling stories in the meantime to divert their thoughts from the scene they had ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... force from right to left. Meantime the English, under Lord Raglan, were subjected to so fierce a fire from the Russian main position that they could make no headway. They lay passive upon the ground waiting for the French under Canrobert and Louis Napoleon to begin the attack in front, and thus divert the attention of Menzikov. Weary of their long delay, Lord Raglan took matters into his own hands. The English infantry rose from the field, advanced upon the Russian main position, and, under a hot fire, stormed the Russian redoubt with dreadful loss. Attacked on the one side by the ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... had happened in that morning she would have come to the conclusion that the eccentricity of genius led it to divert itself at times with the game of ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... subjects have their parts assign'd To unbend, and to divert their sovereign's mind: When tired with following nature, you think fit To seek repose in the cool shades of wit, And, from the sweet retreat, with joy survey What rests, and what is conquer'd, of the way. Here, free yourselves from envy, care, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... that he expected people to pass from wonder at his ministry to an opinion about himself. At Caesarea Philippi he showed to his disciples that this opinion about himself was the significant thing in his eyes. Throughout the ministry in Galilee, therefore, this twofold aim appears. Jesus would first divert attention from himself to his message, in order that he might win disciples to the kingdom of God as he conceived it. Having so attached them to his idea of the kingdom, he desired to be recognized as that kingdom's prince, the Messiah promised by God for his people. He retired behind his ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... Mesopotamia, Bagdad and the Persian and Indian kingdoms. Like Antioch it suffered from earthquakes, and late in the 12th century, after a terrible shock, had to be rebuilt by Nur ed-Din. But neither earthquakes nor the plague, to which it was also peculiarly liable, could divert trade and prosperity from it. It belonged to the Eastern Caliphate (the Hanidanids) until temporarily reoccupied by John Zimisces, emperor of Byzantium and a native of neighbouring Hierapolis (q.v.), A.D. 974, after an abortive attempt by Nicephorus thirteen years ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... walking to kill time, choosing the shady side and watching for any incident of city life that might divert his mind. He came to a bicycle emporium presently and stood for some time in front of it, trying to decide which wheel he should select when he came to purchase as he hoped to do very ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... the national representation. The Bill he handled with a severity that inflicted the keenest smarts on the self-love of its designers. A few days later, the Capucin Chabot, one of those weak and excitable natures that in ordinary times divert men by the intensity, multiplicity, and brevity of their enthusiasms, but to whom the fiercer air of such an event as the Revolution is a real poison, rose and in the name of the Committee of General Security called the attention of the Chamber to ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... had to do, made use of a trick by which he assured a deceitful victory. He sent his joangas in, one by one, giving out that they were traders, and under the security of friendship—excusing the above occurrence, in order to divert the attention [of the Dapitans], with the laws of punishment, deserved because of the boldness of their men. The Dapitans, seeing that the Ternatans were attending only to the sale of their goods, lost their caution, and came up with ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... married will divert me? I doubt it. Of course I ought to marry, but then it must be rather terrible to have a woman loitering around you for the rest of your life. She will probably expect me to talk to her; she will probably come into my rooms and sit there whenever the inclination prompts her,—in a sentence, ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... an Indian post-mark, which arrived that same evening, served for the present, at least, to divert the thoughts of Roger as well as of his ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... lay in the slave-markets of Cairo and Constantinople: the supply followed the demand. Gordon, after years of labour, might here and there stop up a spring or divert a tributary, but, somehow or other the waters would reach the river-bed. In the end, he himself came to recognise this. 'When you have got the ink that has soaked into blotting-paper out of it,' he said, 'then slavery ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... sellers of elixirs, fortune-tellers, keepers of bears and rattlesnakes, halted under his window. They were sure of a spectator. Watteau suddenly fell into a profound revery at the sight of Gilles and Margot upon the stage; nothing could divert his attention from this amusement, not even the smile of his female neighbor: he smiled at the grotesque coquetries of Margot; he laughed till out of breath at the quips of Gilles. He was frequently seen seated in the window, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... follow him,' said Bradley Headstone. 'He takes this river-road—the fool!—to confuse observation, or divert attention, if not solely to baffle me. But he must have the power of making himself invisible before he can shake ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... however, he adopts the tradition whereby Jerome, Lactantius, and others had identified the fallen angels with the gods of the heathen. Whether as conquerors or as corrupted guardians of the human race, they seek the same ends,—to divert worship from the true God, and by the destruction of man, to contrive a solace for their own perdition. They are the inventors of astrology, sooth-saying, divination, necromancy, and black magic; they were once the ministers ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... banquet will be spread in our mansion to-day, that exceptional bustle will prevail, and that you have, on account of this, Sir, come here to get out of the way. But as you're, after all, going to spend a whole day in peace and quiet in here, you should try and divert yourself as best you can. It won't, therefore, by any manner of means do for you to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... by the Secretary of the Interior herewith transmitted is the result of an examination made under his direction, which has developed, as it seems to me, the most unblushing frauds upon the Government, which, if remaining unchallenged, will divert several hundred thousand acres of land from the public domain and from the reach of honest settlers to those who have attempted to prevent and prostitute the beneficent designs of the Government. The Government sought ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... meat and drink and knew not the solace of sleep, till my colour paled and I lost my good looks; for I had never before been in love nor tasted the ardour of passion. So I fell sick and my cousin also sickened on my account; but every night she would divert me with stories of love and lovers, till I fell asleep; and whenever I awoke, I used to find her wakeful for my sake, with the tears running down her cheeks. Thus we did till the five days were past, when she rose and heating water, bathed me with it. Then she dressed me and said to me, "Go ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... of republished essays coming out with Chatto and Windus; I wish they would come, that my wife might have the reviews to divert her. Otherwise my news is nil. I am up here in a little chalet, on the borders of a pine-wood, overlooking a great part of the Davos Thai: a beautiful scene at night, with the moon upon the snowy mountains and the lights warmly shining in the village. ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... practised every art, To oblige, divert and cheer thy heart, To make me pleasing in thine eyes, And turn thy house to paradise, I had not ask'd 'Why dost thou shun These faithful arms, and eager run To some obscure, unclean retreat, With vile companions glad ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... worthy knight stuck to his house and home for a fortnight. His two gossiping friends, the curate and the village barber, did everything in their power to divert his thoughts from his fixed idea of a revival of the days of knighthood and chivalry. But the fire in Don Quixote's breast was smouldering: ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... men from such headlong folly; by first inducing them to feel a disgust for the filthy and degrading dissipation which they indulge in. But I have never been able to give any advice in the disposal of their means, from the fact that I know of no channels into which to divert them." ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... face with her hands, she shuddered at the familiar mention by profane lips of one so hallowed in her estimation, and this vague threatening of danger to her mother sufficed for a time to divert her thoughts from the sorrow that for some days past had engrossed ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... and, standing motionless, he continued his miniature bombardment as fast as he could shove the cartridges into the chamber of his weapon, aim, and fire. Surely the bullets, all of which found a lodgment somewhere in the anatomy of the monster, must have produced an effect, but they could not divert him from his main purpose. He bore down upon the apparently doomed Jack Dudley as if he ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... whole story, she laughing and weeping in turn. To her, as to him, it seemed incredible that such overwhelming disasters could have grown out of so small a cause, and, being a fluent French scholar, she demanded a sight of the fatal piece of pasteboard. In vain her husband tried to divert her by proposing a trip through Italy. She would consent to nothing until she had seen the mysterious card which Burwell was now convinced he ought long ago to have destroyed. After refusing for awhile to let her see ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... without telling any; and the doorkeeper was then at market and thus saw him not go out. Presently Abu Kir betook himself to the bazar and clad himself in costly clothes, at a price of five hundred half-dirhams; then he proceeded to walk about the streets and divert himself by viewing the city which he found to be one whose like was not among cities; but he noted that all its citizens were clad in clothes of white and blue, without other colour. Presently he came to a dyer's and seeing ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... stood of a sudden stone-still, as if rooted to the ground. His eyes widened, and stared, as if he saw something over and beyond me. I didn't dare turn my head. It might be a trick, to divert ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... different cases are closely analyzed we shall find that the explanation lies in the staying power of the seemingly dull boy, the ability to stand firm as a rock under all circumstances, to allow nothing to divert him from his purpose. ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden
... head and met the steady gaze of the detective. The last ounce of resistance had departed from his weak nature. He was ready to yield. But a sudden interruption occurred to divert the attention of those in the room. Someone was banging violently on the door. Britz motioned the others not to leave their chairs, hoping that whoever was seeking admittance would conclude that the apartment ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... will hasten to the end of this tragedy, which must be knit up in the person of our General. And as it was God's ordinance upon him, even so the vehement persuasion and entreaty of his friends could nothing avail to divert him of a wilful resolution of going through in his frigate; which was overcharged upon the decks with fights, nettings, and small artillery, too cumbersome for so small a boat that was to pass through the ocean sea at that season of the year, when by course we might expect much storm of foul weather. ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes
... interest to divert it, even Paradise failed to note the curious change that had come over the younger of the Gordons, dating from the night of burnings. But the few who came in contact with him in the business day saw and felt it. Miss Ackerman, ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... his mortgage, in 1469, at St. Omer, and returned home, as already stated, he was fired with zeal to divert some of the dazzling Burgundian wealth into the empty imperial coffers. An alliance between Mary of Burgundy and the young Archduke Maximilian seemed to him the most advantageous matrimonial bargain possible for the emperor's heir. He urged it upon ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... he would write one of his matchless editorial letters; at other times he would make a personal visit; if necessary, he would use any available friends in a wire-pulling campaign. At all odds he must "get" his man; once he had fixed upon a certain contributor nothing could divert him from the chase. Nor did the negotiations cease after he had "landed" his quarry. He had his way of discussing the subject with his proposed writer, and he discussed it from every possible point of view. He would take him to lunch or ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... such a work, sufficiently shows that he is not unwilling to drop real life, and turn, for a time, to something different. Yes, it is, indeed, strange that any one should clamor for the thing he is weary of; that any one, who, for any cause, finds real life dull, should yet demand of him who is to divert his attention from it, that he should ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... Fiume and Trieste. The Jugoslavs, recognizing that the possession of Klagenfurt would give them virtual control of the principal railway entering Austria from the south, and that such control would probably enable them to divert much of Austria's traffic from the Italian ports of Venice and Trieste to their own port of Fiume, which they confidently expected would be awarded them by the Peace Conference, lost no time in occupying the town with a considerable force of troops. They ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... a jest of her disasters. She therefore sent me first into the house, to wait for an opportunity of their being out of the way, that she might steal up stairs unobserved. In this I succeeded, as the gentlemen thought it most prudent not to seem watching for her; though they both contrived to divert themselves with peeping at her ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... be partly strong and partly broken,—they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay," (Dan. ii. 42, 43.) And doubtless these internal commotions among the common enemies of the saints of God, have tended, in divine mercy, to divert their attention occasionally from the witnesses. While they have been made the instruments of mutual punishment, the Lord's people have been "hid in the day of his fierce anger." ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... actually conversing with someone who claimed descent from those proud Incas, who appeared to have lived in a regal splendour only to be equalled by that of the potentates of the Arabian Nights, seemed to him to be a rare slice of good luck; he was therefore careful to say nothing calculated to divert the conversation from the channel in which it was so satisfactorily flowing, but, on the contrary, did everything he could to keep it there. He was, however, very much surprised to find his hostess looking forward so confidently ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... me your good opinions of Pierre, and I thanked you for it!" said he, taking her hand. "And now, darling, since you cannot with wine, words, or winsomeness divert me from my purpose in making you declare what you think of me also, let me tell you I have promised Amelie to bring ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... so prone to return to the old paths, that it seeks them of itself, the moment an energetic will does not stop it. Though no longer under any illusion with respect to it, Francis returned to his former life. Was he trying to divert his mind, to forget that day of bitter thought? We might suppose so, seeing the ardor with which he threw himself into his ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... sticks; he will hold these in readiness for use whenever he may observe the tiger. If he sees that the animal wishes to pass through the line, and thereby escape from the beat, he simply breaks a small stick in half; the sound of a snap is quite sufficient to divert the tiger from its course; it will generally stop and listen for a few moments, and then being alarmed by the unusual sound, it will again move forward, this time in the required direction, towards ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... spring, Keepum, who had been for several minutes keeping his eyes fixedly set upon Maria, and endeavoring to divert her attention, seized her arms, and was about to drag her down, when Snivel put out the light and ran to his assistance. "Never! never!" she shrieks, at the very top of her voice. "Only with my life!" A last struggle, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... add to my sorrows!" Quoth he, "Allah hath blessed me with six daughters, of whom five died and only one is left me, the youngest of all; and I came to ask thee if thou be of the folk of this city or a stranger; that I might take thee and carry thee to her, to bear her company so as to divert her from pining for her sisters. If thou have no kith and kin, I will make thee as one of them and thou and she shall be as my two children." Nuzhat al-Zaman bowed her head in bashfulness when she heard what he said and communed with herself, "Haply I may trust myself to this old man." Then she ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... attach myself to the science classes, but in that case I should have been compelled to specialize myself more than in any other branch, for in scientific literature the principle of a species of universality is admitted. And besides, that would divert me from my cherished ideas. No; I will draw as close as possible to the centre which is philosophy, theology, science, literature, etc., which is, as I believe, God. I think it probable, therefore, that I shall fix my attention upon literature, ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... we all need encouragement, and often characters that seem to require only repression are merely singing out of tune from the effort to hold out against blank discouragement at their failures to "be good," or to divert their mind forcibly from their fits of depression. To be scolded accentuates their trouble and tends to harden them; to grow a shell of hardness seems for the moment their only defence; but if some one will meet their efforts half-way, believing in them with a tranquil ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... spoken to you of my misfortunes, had you not piqued me a little, and if it were not customary to tell stories on board a ship in order to pass away the time. In short, Miss Cunegonde, I have had experience, I know the world; therefore I advise you to divert yourself, and prevail upon each passenger to tell his story; and if there be one of them all, that has not cursed his life many a time, that has not frequently looked upon himself as the unhappiest of mortals, I give you leave to throw ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... are your intentions about it all?" I inquired, to divert him from such a disagreeable recollection. "That is to say, how do you imagine it is going to turn out? Do you ever speak to her about the future, or about how your love or friendship ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... very fundamental indeed about the ancient showman's trick—divert their attention from the ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... quite another matter; but as to Harry, it is a good thing that Rose is coming home, to divert the attention of you two from him a while," added he, as his brother came into the room. "And you will do your best to spoil her, too, if some of the rest of us ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... him. The intelligent brute knew that I suffered, and, in its own way, showed me that it participated in my affliction. My water, too, was boiling on the fire, and the bubbling of the water seemed to be a voice raised on purpose to divert my gloomy thoughts. "Aye, boil, bubble, evaporate," exclaimed I; "what do I care for water or ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... returned toward Vienna. He states that the country beyond his picket lines affords every facility for such attacks, and that the commanding general must expect them to be frequent so long as the enemy continues in large force in his front and wishes to divert attention from other movements, that from the opposite hills his camp and movements are open to view ...
— A Virginia Village • Charles A. Stewart
... and taken advantage of it. It had served to divert the action of the savages, and the attention of all being occupied with their two prisoners, he managed with considerable difficulty to reach ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... a complete outfit of clothes at Havre. After listening to the tale of his woes, she had not the heart to stop his drinking and eating and amusing himself as a man just returned from the Champ d'Asile was likely to eat and drink and divert himself. It was certainly a fine conception,—that of conquering Texas with the remains of the imperial army. The failure was less in the idea than in the men who conceived it; for Texas is to-day a republic, with a future full of promise. This scheme of Liberalism under the ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... nature in this sort of conversation, as well as in other; and a certain regularity of thought which must discover the speaker to be a man of sense, at the same time he appears a man given up to caprice. For my part, when I hear the delirious mirth of an unskilful talker, I cannot be so barbarous as to divert myself with it, but am rather apt to pity the man than laugh ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... leads to a lower street, which is far larger than the high chiefe street, and it runs from the Kirkland to the Well Trees, in which there have been many pretty buildings, belonging to the severall gentry of the countrey, who were wont to resort thither in winter, and divert themselves in converse together at their owne houses. It was once the principall street of the town; but many of these houses of the gentry having been decayed and ruined, it has lost much of its ancient beautie. Just opposite ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... how drearily they divert themselves in our K—! Look: no laughter, no singing, no dances. Just like some herd that's been driven here, in order to ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... the priests," says Miss Beatrix, afterwards, "in order to divert my poor dear mother's anguish about Frank. Frank is as vain as a girl, cousin. Talk of us girls being vain, what are WE to you? It was easy to see that the first woman who chose would make a fool of him, or the first robe—I count a priest and a woman all the same. We are always caballing; ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... Europe, my Proclamation of the 22d of April, 1793, is the index of my Plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice, and by that of your Representatives of both Houses of Congress, the spirit of that measure has continually governed me uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... "the Dowager Strafford," writes Horace Walpole (Sept. 1745), "has already written cards for my Lady Nithesdale, my Lady Tullebardine, the Duchess of Perth and Berwick, and twenty more revived peeresses, to invite them to play at whist, Monday three months: for your part, you will divert yourself with their old taffetys, and tarnished slippers, and their awkwardness the first day they go to Court in clean linen."[415] "I shall wonderfully dislike," observes the same writer, "being a loyal sufferer in a threadbare coat, and shivering in an attic chamber at ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... the testimonies that Staplies was on both sides as to the guilt of goodwife Knapp, and when rumor and suspicion began to point to herself as a mischief-maker and busybody in witchcraft matters, to divert attention from his wife and set a backfire to the sweep of public opinion, Thomas sued Ludlow, and despite his strong and clear defense as shown on the record evidence, the court in his absence awarded damages against him for defamation and for charging ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... to my lips, at the same time burning them as if with a red-hot knitting-needle. I had often before heard of a bottle of whiskey freezing to a person's lips, but until that moment I had regarded the assertion as a base effort to deceive and to divert the mind from the actual cause of a too prolonged hold of the bottle. I found the whiskey a great comfort on the trip to Marble Island, and could not help feeling that our long winter journey would have been made much more comfortable by some form of ardent spirits, probably diluted ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... him, and the dinner-hour summoned him at length from the scene of disappointment. On the next it rained; but nothing, neither business nor weather, neither prospective poverty nor present hardship, could now divert the young man from the service of his lady; and wrapt in a long ulster, with the collar raised, he took his stand against the balustrade, awaiting fortune, the picture of damp and discomfort to ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... Wishing to divert my thoughts, Jose pointed out the beauties of the bay and the shore; but my gaze went far inland—to the lonely home where my mother sat with her grief, to the mighty cordillera where my father lay dead. Time softened the pain, and brought back the pleasures ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... yearly rent of L4,000: so, at least, it is stated on a print published in 1712, of which a copy may be seen in Mr. Crowle's "Pennant." Steele, in describing the adventures of a day, relates that, in the course of his rambles, he went to divert himself on 'Change. "It was not the least of my satisfaction in my survey," says he, "to go upstairs and pass the shops of agreeable females; to observe so many pretty hands busy in the folding of ribbons, and the utmost eagerness of agreeable faces in the sale of patches, pins, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... sight of the peacock opportunely spreading his tail on the stackyard wall, just as they reached Garum Firs, was enough to divert the mind temporarily from personal grievances. And this was only the beginning of beautiful sights at Garum Firs. All the farmyard life was wonderful there,—bantams, speckled and topknotted; Friesland hens, with their feathers all turned the wrong way; Guinea fowls that flew ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... loved. There were autographed portraits of many men whose names were names of achievement, and one, in a morocco frame surmounted by a gilt crown, attested the personal regard of a reigning monarch. With clenched hands and a grim determination to divert her mind from the danger of madness, she went about the walls, reading those brief tributes to the man she loved. Then she came back and picked up a gold frame which rested on his desk, where, as he worked, his eyes might never be long without its view—and ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... and contriving measures; to the other, that of carrying them into execution. Theories, he said, which did not connect men with measures, were not theories for this world: they were chimeras with which a recluse might divert his fancy, but they were not principles en which a statesman would found his system. He maintained, that by the negative vested in the commissioners, the chartered rights of the company, on which stress had been laid, were insidiously undermined and virtually annihilated. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... injustice," he admitted humbly. "But I was fearfully shocked by the scene. I strove to divert suspicion by insisting that Jimmie died from angina pectoris, and then you came, Helen, and ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... repeats in his whole book. A few old jokes of his, current in Court Street any time in the last twenty years, and some odd and extravagant expressions which Mr. Choate may have permitted himself to use in the courtroom to divert a sullen juror,—such turns of speech as he certainly never thought were witty, though they raised the desired laugh at the time,—to which he resorted only as a necessary, but to himself unpalatable part of the business of carrying the verdict, and which he of all men would desire to have forgotten,—make ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... said he, 'I have seen your uncle die in the wars of Italy; I witnessed your father's death at the battle of Minden; and I will not be accessary to the ruin of the only remaining branch of the family: He then used all his powers of argument and persuasion to divert Lafayette from his purpose, but in vain. Finding his determination unalterable, the Count de Broglie said, as he could render him no aid, he would introduce him to the Baron de Kalb, who he knew was seeking an opportunity to go to America, and whose experience ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... abroad in visiting the beautiful picture-galleries and other works of art in the towns to which his great work led him, but he never suffered himself to do so. He would not even read a newspaper, lest it should divert his thoughts from the one great purpose he had in view. I am not saying for a moment that he would have been wrong to indulge himself with relaxation in the shape of sight-seeing and reading the news; but surely when he made everything bend ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... the forces of U-Thor will enter the Gate of Enemies and as the warriors of O-Tar rush to repulse them the slaves from Gathol will fall upon them from the rear with the majority of their numbers, while the balance will assault the palace. They hope thus to divert so many from The Gate that U-Thor will have little difficulty in forcing an entrance ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... goes through a narrow pass known as Plessis Poort. Immediately French planned its capture. One detachment was sent to occupy Bastard's Nek, another defile to the west of Plessis Poort. Covered by a cross-fire from the artillery, the infantry were to move forward and seize the road. In order to divert the Boers' attention from these matters, a demonstration was ordered along the whole British line. Advancing carefully the infantry met with little opposition, a fact which made French suspicious. As the silence ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... found by the water-side or on board of the vessels. In the summer-time I was half the day in water, and was a very good swimmer. My mother perceived my fondness for the profession, and tried all she could to divert my thoughts some other way. She told me of the dangers and hardships which sailors went through, and always ended with my father's death ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... order for a guest, that, however welcome, as now my duty teaches me to say, is yet dreadful to me to think of. So I took refuge in my closet, and had recourse to pen and ink, for my amusement, and to divert my anxiety of mind.—If one's heart is so sad, and one's apprehension so great, where one so extremely loves, and is so extremely obliged; what must be the case of those poor maidens, who are forced, for sordid views, by their tyrannical parents ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... replied in kind, but soon had these gallants matters of more serious moment to divert them, for it began to be whispered about that Louis of Hochfels had determined to push forward. The unwonted activity in the camp ere long gave credence to the rumor; the troopers commenced looking ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... Welfare? or rather, Must they not own, that by the seeing of Plays they are more indisposed for Religious Performances; that the Awe and Reverence which they had for God and Religion, and the Horrour which they had at the Sins which they there see Men divert themselves with, and make a Jest of, does thereby wear off; that their sensual Desires are more heightned and enflamed; that they are more alienated from God, and more enamoured ...
— Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage (1704); Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage in a Letter to a Lady (1704) • Anonymous
... did not speak, for he was afraid to interrupt or to divert the childlike man from the channel in which his thoughts appeared to ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... nervous pain, or domestic unpleasantness, depressed her spirits; when she bore the not unfrequent ill-humour of her husband with patience, the heart of Jacobi melted in tenderness towards her, and he did all that lay in his power to amuse and divert her thoughts, and even to anticipate her slightest wishes. She could not be insensible to all this—perhaps also it flattered her vanity to observe the power she had over this young man—perhaps even she might willingly deceive herself as to the nature of his sentiments, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... distinction between the two. I agree with him that wealthy men like me should invest their capital in nothing which does not benefit mankind as well as themselves. I have realized with a shock of shame that my greed for cash to spend on jewels has led me to embark in ventures which merely divert into my coffers the proceeds of other men's efforts, without adding anything to the sum-total of usable wealth. I mean to withdraw from all such monetary acrobatics and utilize my surplus in extending my ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... useful and praiseworthy. Nevertheless some danger may perhaps exist lest the boys educated in its institutions may with youthful intemperance read into the instruction of their teachers more than it is meant to convey, and divert exhortations for social improvement and ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... which excite our wits and fancies be less reasonable than those whereby our grosser parts and faculties are exercised? Yea, why are not those more reasonable, since they are performed in a manly way, and have in them a smack of reason; feeling also they may be so managed, as not only to divert and please, but to improve and profit the mind, rousing and quickening it, yea sometimes enlightening and instructing it, by good sense conveyed in ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... of other things. I am sure if I had some one to speak to me in a cheerful, pleasant way, when poor dear Mr. Browne died, I should never have fretted after him as I did; but the children were too young, and there was no one to come and divert me with any news. If I'd been living in Combehurst, I am sure I should not have let my grief get the better of me as I did. Could you get up a quiet rubber in ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... forts at Charleston. Charleston, however, was threatened during 1863 by the sea and land forces of the North, in an expedition which was probably itself unwise, as Lincoln himself seems to have suspected, but which helped to divert a Confederate army. In the beginning of 1864 Davis still kept this force at Charleston; he persisted also in keeping a hold on his own State, Mississippi, with a further small army; while Longstreet still remained in the south-east corner of Tennessee, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... inhabitants of this city having determined to continue in their allegiance to the Romans, were afraid of my coming to them, and tried, by putting me upon another action, to divert me, that they might be freed from the terror they were in. Accordingly, they sent to Jesus, the captain of those robbers who were in the confines of Ptolemais, and promised to give him a great deal of money, if he would come with those ...
— The Life of Flavius Josephus • Flavius Josephus
... be repeated, knew how to use, and invariably used, his cavalry to good purpose, and in this emergency he resolved to employ some of it to divert from his own hazardous movement, and fasten upon some other quarter, the attention of a portion of the opposing forces. He hoped, not only to give them enough to do, to prevent them from annoying and endangering his retreat, ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... "Can it be, Signorina," says he, "that God, who has taken my father and mother, will also take from me the only protector I have left, and just as I arrive in this strange place, too?" After a few days he seemed more tranquil, and told me that, though he had felt as if it would console him and divert his mind to go to some places of entertainment, he had forborne and applied the money to have masses said for his uncle. "I feel," he said, "as if God would help me." Alas! at that moment the uncle was dying. Poor Germano came next day with a receipt for masses said for the soul of the ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... window and leaned out, seeking to divert my mind by view of the scene below, yet the stone walls were so thick that only a tantalizing glimpse was afforded of the pavement opposite. There were lines of people there, pressed against the side of a great building, and I knew from their gestures that troops were marching by. Once I had ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... Nature. Shenstone's friend Graves, who knew him in early life, and to his last days, informs us that these Elegies were written when he had taken the Leasowes into his own hands;[53] and though his ferme ornee engaged his thoughts, he occasionally wrote them, "partly," said Shenstone, "to divert my present impatience, and partly, as it will be a picture of most that passes in my own mind; a portrait which friends may value." This, then, is the secret charm which acts so forcibly on the first emotions of our youth, at a moment when, not too difficult to be pleased, the reflected ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... I think he gave the coachman an order to drive home in a round-about way, for we were a long time reaching it. I kept my face to the window, and he made no effort to divert my attention. When we came to a street whose thick rows of trees shut out the moonlight my eager soul longed to leap out into the dark and demand of him his ...
— Lemorne Versus Huell • Elizabeth Drew Stoddard
... this interval that Hump-back came half drunk before my shop, where he sung and taboured. I thought that, by carrying him home with me, I should divert my wife; therefore I brought him along. My wife gave us a dish of fish, and I presented Hump-back with some, which he ate without taking notice of a bone. He fell down dead before us; and, after having in vain essayed to help him, in ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... jedgmatically know," he made answer, seeking as he had often sought before to divert her thoughts from that question and its secret answer: "But so long es hit stands guard over us, I reckon no enemy won't ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... replied; but there was no kindling of the eye, no joy of soul at the thought, for Ruth knew that her earthly love was stronger and more absorbing than the heavenly. "There, now, we will go and see about Miss Agnes's dinner," she added, glad to divert his thoughts. ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... alive, he'd be to seek In all our Latin terms of art and Greek; Would never understand one word of sense The most irrefragable schoolman means: As if the Schools design'd their terms of art, Not to advance a science, but to divert; As Hocus Pocus conjures to amuse The rabble ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Babylon; There are, says [932]Strabo, almost over the face of the whole earth, vast [933]mounds of earth, and walls, and ramparts, attributed to Semiramis; and in these are subterraneous passages of communication, and tanks for water, with staircases of stone. There are also vast canals to divert the course of rivers, and lakes to receive them; together with highways and bridges of a wonderful structure. They built the famous terraces at [934]Babylon; and those beautiful gardens at Egbatana, after that city had fallen into their hands. To them was owing that cruel device of emasculating ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... ordeal on top of an agonizing day. Cloistered in her room with only her sad thoughts for company, she had been relieved to find that Miss Kiametia Grey had been prevailed upon by Mrs. Whitney to prolong her afternoon visit to include a family dinner. But the spinster's endeavor to divert her by relating society gossip finally palled, and! she permitted her thoughts to stray to ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... route is still the most important artificial one of its class in the country, and is only equaled by the Welland Canal in Canada, which is its closest rival. Now that it is free, it will retain its position as the most popular water route to the sea from the great West. The Mississippi River will divert from it all the trade flowing to South America and Mexico; but for the northwest it will be the chief water ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... page 186 will divert the young readers of to-day, when girls know as much about cricket (and sometimes play as well) as boys do. I must confess to much perplexity as to what part could be played in the manufacture of wickets by George's hammer and nails. Runs were called notches at that time ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... lowering of the bars into the richest market in the world. Every farm paper in Canada and all the important farm organizations supported reciprocity. Its opponents, therefore, did not trust to a direct frontal attack. Their strategy was to divert attention from the economic advantages by raising the cry of political danger. The red herring of annexation was drawn across the trail, and many a farmer followed it ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... Leonardo's or Raphael's, no statue of Michael Angelo's, has ever been worshipped, except by accident. Carelessly regarded, and by ignorant persons, there is less to attract in them than in commoner works. Carefully regarded, and by intelligent persons, they instantly divert the mind from their subject to their art, so that admiration takes the place of devotion. I do not say that the Madonna di S. Sisto, the Madonna del Cardellino, and such others, have not had considerable ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... difficulty in extricating itself. A pom-pom was lost in this affair. Crewe fell back upon Knox, and the combined columns made for Bloemfontein, whence they could use the rails for their transport. De Wet meanwhile moved south as far as Smithfield, and then, detaching several small bodies to divert the attention of the British, he struck due west, and crossed the track between Springfontein and Jagersfontein road, capturing the usual supply train as he passed. On February 9th he had reached Phillipolis, well ahead of the British pursuit, and spent a day or two in making his ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... bride was being brought into the house. Because of these two marriages there was feasting in the palace and kinsmen and neighbours were gathered there. A minstrel was singing to the guests and two tumblers were whirling round the high hall to divert them. ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... he managed to intrench himself in a position of actual authority over me not at all in accord with our purpose or our instructions. I swallowed my resentment, for it seemed rather petty, rather selfish, in a time like that, to divert my attention from the important work in hand to quarrel with him. You understand? Then, too, he was not making good and I was, and I thought time would surely cure the trouble. He must have appreciated my feelings—nevertheless, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... again and drove on; but she felt deeply grieved. Now and then her gauntleted hand even went up to her face to brush away a tear that had gathered. It was not exactly a new thing, nor was Daisy entirely surprised at the attempt to divert her from her purpose. She was wise enough to guess that Preston's object had been more than the pleasure of her company; and she knew that all at home, unless possibly her father might be excepted, neither liked nor favoured her kindness to Molly and would rejoice to interrupt ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... Iberia, whose brother, Mithridates, the Romans had (in A.D. 47) replaced upon the Armenian throne, had a son named Rhadamistus, whose lust of power was so great that to prevent his making an attempt on his own crown Pharasmanes found it necessary to divert his ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... much smaller than now, the most important domestic news could be told in a few columns. All this tended to keep the newspapers within moderate proportions, and although they were numerous, it is safe to say that they did not make such a demand on the reader's time as to divert his attention from a more serious kind of literature. People had, therefore, plenty of leisure for careful perusal of the magazines, and these, by giving in many cases a summary of the news, decreased the necessity for the newspaper. For advertisements ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... the pale, wan look must still be upon Arthur's face. Mr. Howard perhaps divined her thought, for he watched her for a long time without speaking a word, and then at last he said gently, as if to divert her attention, "Miss Davis, I think that you are not the first one whom the sight of the ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... which are meant to be ridiculed in most of our comedies are of fools so gross, that in my humble opinion they should rather disturb than divert the well-natured and reflecting part of an audience; they are rather objects of charity than contempt, and instead of moving our mirth, they ought very often to excite ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... can be arranged, or, in summer, a tent can be pitched in the yard. But, by all means, the sleeping room should be well ventilated. Windows should be thrown wide open. Avoid drafts. If the bed is in such relation to the windows as to cause the wind to blow directly on it, a screen can be used to divert it or a sheet hung up as protection. Good, fresh, cool air is a splendid tonic. In winter open windows are a splendid preparation for camping ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... one of the masts, and told me to hold it till he bade me pull. If I had considered the matter, I might have seen that this could not be of the least service; but his object was to keep me out of the way of those who were busy working the vessel, and at the same time to divert my fear, by employing me, and making me think that I was of use. Thus did I stand firm to my post, while the wind and rain beat upon me, always expecting a call to ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... good. The Wench gives it out only to vex thee, and to ruin me in thy good opinion. 'Tis true, I go to the House; I chat with the Girl, I kiss her, I say a thousand things to her (as all Gentlemen do) that mean nothing, to divert myself; and now the silly Jade hath set it about that I am married to her, to let me know what she would be at. Indeed, my dear Lucy, these violent Passions may be of ill consequence to a Woman in ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... some esteemed wealthy, could not between them all raise a loan of even 10,000l. The King had to go abroad for the money and to pay 14 per cent. for it. Then he began to ask himself whether something could not be done to divert some of this ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... between the duke of Gloucester and his half-brother, Cardinal Beaufort, than one involving any principle. Chicheley, by appointing a jubilee to be held at Canterbury in 1420, "after the manner of the Jubilee ordained by the Popes," threatened to divert the profits from pilgrims from Rome to Canterbury. A ferocious letter from the pope to the papal nuncios, on the 19th of March 1423, denounced the proceeding as calculated "to ensnare simple souls and extort from them a profane reward, thereby setting up themselves ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... the sergeant, with his soldierly salute; and a little later, as Captain Buxton was fretfully complaining to his subaltern of the ill fortune that seemed to overshadow his best efforts, the latter, thinking to cheer him and to divert his attention from his trouble, referred ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... been inveigled into measures odious to the community, if the proofs of that corruption should be satisfactory, the usual propensity of human nature will warrant us in concluding that there would be commonly no defect of inclination in the body to divert the public resentment from themselves by a ready sacrifice of the authors of their mismanagement ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... Convinced that the multitude, too much governed by the objects of sense to be sufficiently amused and entertained with the pleasures of the understanding, could be delighted only with sensible objects, both nations were studious to divert them with games and shows, and such external contrivances, as were proper to affect the senses; in the institution of which, each evinced and followed its ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... as so potent an emperor and Caesar to boot as the great Don of Germany, Charles the Fifth, was used to divert himself in his dotage by watching the gyrations of the springs and cogs of a long row of clocks, even so does an elderly Commodore while away his leisure in harbour, by what is called "exercising guns," ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... little pet on the spot. She isn't sorry to tally the pet (whose phonetics we employ) "dest wunced round the p on her soulders, only zis wunced." She is a little silent, is Sally, and preoccupied—perhaps won't object to a romp to divert her thoughts. Because she is afraid poor Prosy is in the tentacles of the Octopus. She evidently is not in love with him; if she were she would be feeling piqued at his not being in time to the appointment, not fidgeting about his losing the fun. She made some parade, at any rate, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... trifling obstacle with which I was about to come into collision, I was far more cast down than I ought to have been. Then I would devise vast plans, would dream of glory, and betake myself to work; but a pleasure party would divert me from the noble projects based on so infirm a purpose. Vague recollections of these great abortive schemes of mine left a deceptive glow in my soul and fostered my belief in myself, without giving me the energy to produce. In my indolent self-sufficiency I was in a very fair way to become ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... Force in the experiment, he might impress on all concerned the problems he considered certain to arise if any service attempted the integration of a large number of Negroes. An experiment involving the whole department might also divert the White House from trying to integrate the Army immediately. Besides, the scheme had an escape clause. If the Navy and Air Force refused to cooperate, and Royall thought it likely they would, given the shortage of skilled black recruits, the Army could then legitimately cancel its offer ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... these same unprincipled agents, with their hired accomplices and subsidised press, in order to hide the enormity of their crimes, and to divert attention from themselves and their crookedness, systematically and incessantly misrepresent and vilify ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... spoke to us as they came near, but we understood not their language; they climbed up the sides of the ship with such agility as surprised us. We beheld all this with dread, but without daring to defend ourselves, or to divert them from their mischievous design. In short, they took down our sails, cut the cable, and hauling to the shore, made us all get out, and afterwards carried the ship into another island from whence they had come. All voyagers carefully ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... of a dust-storm, or the vagaries of bits of straw caught up by the wind, unmistakably show us. Little hillocks or undulations, combined with the general lay of the ground, are a chief cause of these eddies; they entirely divert the current of the wind from particular spots. Such spots should be looked for; they are discovered by watching the grass or the sand that lies on the ground. If the surface be quiet in one place, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... retreats are often to be preferred, for the reason that they divert the enemy from a march upon the capital of the state and the center of its power. The propriety of giving such a direction to a retreat must be determined by the configuration of the frontiers, the positions of the fortresses, the greater or less space the army may have ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... engaged in the serious labour of collecting material for a book on a most serious subject," she replied. "We shouldn't dare to divert your mind; and besides I am told that Uncle Calvin intends to introduce you formally to the family by inviting you to dinner some evening next week. Do you think you ought to steal in by coming to a corn-popping beforehand? ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... October, behold Master Bert in a rather perturbed frame of mind trotting along beside his father, who pretended not to be aware of his son's feelings, although at the same time seeking in every way to divert him. But it was not with much success. Bert felt thoroughly nervous over the new experience that awaited him. He had never seen Mr. Garrison, who was to be his teacher, and imagined him as a tall, thin man with a long beard, a ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... 'all I can do for you is by our ordinary method—to throw some young man of worth and education in the way of your ward, and attempt to—divert ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... greedily attempted to be swallowed, one lump by this fowl, the other by that; but forever are kept reciprocally going up and down in them, by means of the cord; even so, my lord, do I sometimes fancy, that our theorists divert them-selves with the greediness of Mardians ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... well-bred young gentleman, made reply that he well knew that no discourtesy was intended, but Cis pouted and muttered, evidently to the extreme amazement of Mistress Alice Eyre; and Dame Susan, to divert her attention, began to ask about the length of their ride, and the way ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
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