"Distraught" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mantuanus. His eclogues, ten in number, were accepted by the sixteenth century as models of pastoral composition, inferior to those of Vergil alone, were indeed any inferiority allowed. Starting with the simple theme of love, the author proceeds to depict its excess in the love-lunes of the distraught Amyntas. Thence he passes to one of those satires on women in which the fifteenth century delighted, so bitter, that when Thomas Harvey came to translate it in 1656 he felt constrained, for his credit's sake, to add the note, 'What ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... if you like to call her that." The unfortunate young man was distraught between disappointment and anxiety. "Where is she? Has she come home ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... saved, 'the residue of the woefull people remaining yet aliue, being overburdened with extream sorrow, runs up and down the fieldes like distraught or franticke men.... Moreouer, they are so greatly distrest for lacke of food, that they seeme to each mannes sighte more liker spirits and ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... instant of rigid silence, and then Syme in his turn fell furiously on the other, filled with a flaming curiosity. The Marquis was probably, in a general sense, a better fencer than he, as he had surmised at the beginning, but at the moment the Marquis seemed distraught and at a disadvantage. He fought wildly and even weakly, and he constantly looked away at the railway line, almost as if he feared the train more than the pointed steel. Syme, on the other hand, fought fiercely but still carefully, in an intellectual ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... you never visit them any more," said Jordan, weak and distraught as he now always was. "I told him you were busy at present with great plans of your own. Well, what does the Frenchman think ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... at the white-faced, distraught girl pityingly. They remembered that she was to have been the dying man's wife. The whole thing had been so sudden, was so shocking and tragic. No wonder that she looked like death herself; they could not guess at the self-reproach, the ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... them: he looked only at what was going on in front of him—at the battery. He now saw clearly the figure of a red-haired gunner with his shako knocked awry, pulling one end of a mop while a French soldier tugged at the other. He could distinctly see the distraught yet angry expression on the faces of these two men, who evidently did not realize what ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... promenade. Behind the superstructure there was a sort of after-deck, nearly four feet of it. When my trunks and boxes had been piled up there, with the deck chair balancing precariously atop, and with Romoldo reclining luxuriously in it, his distraught pompadour was about on a level with ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... harassed railway officials and distraught Kestrel- Smiths, but he made no attempt to clothe his mental picture in words. The lady continued ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... with a shining spear, where the shield left bare the breast, and loosened his limbs, and he fell with a crash. Then Thestor the son of Enops he next assailed, as he sat crouching in the polished chariot, for he was struck distraught, and the reins flew from his hands. Him he drew near, and smote with the lance on the right jaw, and clean pierced through his teeth. And Patroklos caught hold of the spear and dragged him over the rim of the car, as when a man sits on ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... dearest. I shall not try to thank you. May the ineffable peace which you bring my aching heart return a thousand-fold into your own. Farewell. Ragobah may return at any moment. Let us not needlessly imperil your safety. Once more good-bye. The dew-drop now may freely fall into the shining sea." Poor distraught child! She had tried to adopt her lover's religion without abandoning her own. I bent over and kissed her. It was my first and last kiss and she gave it with a sweet sadness, the memory of which, through all these years, has dwelt in the better part ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... Nothing daunted, La Pommeraye determined to venture again, and Etienne stood by him; but when they came to look for their crew, they found that the fellows had all fled St Malo, and could not be found. No other men were willing to take their places; and through the winter, La Pommeraye, like one distraught, went up and down the streets seeking seamen. But none would join his expedition. The inhabitants of the town came to look upon him as mad, and wondered what evil influence there could be in the New World dragging him to ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... Father!" she cried, "what has happened to you? I have been nearly distraught with doubt and fear, hearing nothing of you ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... happiness, it must have been a cruel blow. He tells me that when he saw her that afternoon and found out his mistake, he had no thought except to recall me. He actually came to London for that purpose, vowed to her solemnly that he would bring me back; it was only in England, that, to use his own distraught phrase, the Devil entered into possession of him. His half-insane ramblings gave me a very vivid idea of that fortnight during which he lay hid in London, trembling like a guilty thing, fearful at every moment that he might run across me and yet half longing for ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... dread my words and wiles wherewith I had subdued all the Immortals to mortal women in love, my purpose overcoming them all; for now, lo you, my mouth will no longer suffice to speak forth this boast among the Immortals, {180} for deep and sore hath been my folly, wretched and not to be named; and distraught have I been who carry a child beneath my girdle, the child of a mortal. Now so soon as he sees the light of the sun the deep-bosomed mountain nymphs will rear him for me; the nymphs who haunt this great ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... Come Cousin, Canst thou quake, and change thy colour, Murther thy breath in middle of a word, And then againe begin, and stop againe, As if thou were distraught, and mad with terror? Buck. Tut, I can counterfeit the deepe Tragedian, Speake, and looke backe, and prie on euery side, Tremble and start at wagging of a Straw: Intending deepe suspition, gastly Lookes ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... safe voyage to Wreck Cove; and all that day, and all the next, while the gale still blew, my sister was nervous and downcast, often at the window, often on the heads, forever sighing as she went about the work of the house. And when I saw her thus distraught and colourless—no warm light in her eyes—no bloom on her dimpled cheeks—no merry smile lurking about the corners of her sweet mouth—I was fretted beyond description; and I determined this: that when the doctor got back from Wreck ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... tell a lie. And how terribly he suffered if he thought any one—she—was not being dead straight, dead sincere with him! "This is too subtle for me!" He flung out the words, but his open, quivering, distraught look was like the look ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... the fierce assaults of sea and of storm there had been built out from the shore a mole, and on to this barrier leapt the distraught Halcyone. She ran along it, and when the dead, white body of the man she loved was still out of reach, she prayed her last prayer—a wordless prayer of anguish ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... was very terrible, and the red dragon fought with him; but his pride had softened him, so he drew off. Then other red dragons came upon him in his wounds and beat him sore, which seeing, the white dragon dashed upon them all—and I awoke. Merlin, tell me what this may mean, for my mind is sore distraught with ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... neither steed nor chariot to go where she would. But her women and those that knew her best, deemed that whatso she were, she had slain herself, as they thought, for some unhappiness of love. For indeed she had long gone about sad and distraught, though she neither wept, nor would say one word of her sorrow, whatsoever ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... all supped full of sorrow for his sake. We have cursed and hated his enemies, and drawn and quartered their vile carcases, and have dug them out of the darkness where the worms were eating them. We have been distraught with indignation, cruel in our fury; and I look back to-day, after fifteen years, and see but too clearly now that Charles Stuart's death lies ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... you won't remember what I said. I did not mean it, and I was distraught." I did not make reply; but I held her hands and kissed them. There are different ways of kissing a lady's hands. This way was intended as homage and respect; and it was accepted as such in the high-bred, dignified way which marked Miss Trelawny's bearing ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... revolution and counter-revolution has distraught the neighboring Republic of Mexico. Brigandage has involved a great deal of depredation upon foreign interests. There have constantly recurred questions of extreme delicacy. On several occasions very difficult ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... twain of clouds that hold the stormy rain, They moved gently o'er the dewy meads To where Saint Alban's holy shrines remain. There did they find that both their knights were slain. Distraught they wander'd to swoln Redbourne's side, Yell'd there their deadly knell, sank in the waves, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... overcome our disgust; let us turn over the unclean refuse with our foot. What a swarming there is beneath it, what a tumult of busy workers! The Silphae, with wing-cases wide and dark, as though in mourning, flee distraught, hiding in the cracks in the soil; the Saprini,[4] of polished ebony which mirrors the sunlight, jog hastily off, deserting their workshop; the Dermestes, of whom one wears a fawn-coloured tippet flecked with white, seek to fly away, but, tipsy with the putrid ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... at me as if either he or I were mad. Then, of a sudden his face changed; and he nodded. I could see how distraught he was, ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... he had but been so, he would have been a great saint of Our Lord Jesus Christ, so good and pure was the life he led.[NOTE 3] And when he died they found his body and brought it to his father. And when the father saw dead before him that son whom he loved better than himself, he was near going distraught with sorrow. And he caused an image in the similitude of his son to be wrought in gold and precious stones, and caused all his people to adore it. And they all declared him to be a god; and so they ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Who so distraught could ramble here, From gentle beech to simple gorse, From glen to moor, nor cease to fear The world's impetuous bigot force, Which drives the young before they will, And when they will not ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... sobbed the distraught girl. "Yet stay, one moment more. Let she, who has received so much from her benefactor, at least know ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... Shakespeare when his mind conceived that monster of a poet's grand imaginings, Othello! There is the flavour of racking care in that mighty creation. The strong soul wantonly tortured by a sordid wretch; the noble spirit distraught, the honourable life wrecked for so poor a motive; that sense of the "something in this world amiss," which the poet, of all other ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... inclined to you; On you the snow her whiteness laid The rose her rich and radiant hue: Saint Magdalen her hair unbound, And Cupid taught you how to wound— How to wound hearts Dan Cupid taught: Your beauty drives me love-distraught. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... herself? What was her feeling on the subject? Whence did her unmistakable malaise, distraught behaviour in Ludovico's presence, paling cheeks, hours of reverie, when she should have been busily at work—whence did all this come? What was really in her mind when she told him that doubtless they both loved each other, and then ended her words with ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... had barely time to change for dinner. They entered the dining-room somewhat weary and distraught. They were awaited there by their father Rameyev, the two Matovs—the student Piotr Dmitrievitch and the schoolboy Misha, sons of Rameyev's lately deceased cousin to whom Trirodov's ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... once he sped the ship onward through the midst of the sea past the Bithynian coast. But Jason with gentle words addressed him in reply: "Tiphys, why dost thou comfort thus my grieving heart? I have erred and am distraught in wretched and helpless ruin. For I ought, when Pelias gave the command, to have straightway refused this quest to his face, yea, though I were doomed to die pitilessly, torn limb from limb, but now I am wrapped ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... Ziffak shown such fearful excitement. He swung his arms, and in his wild agitation uttered some of his words in Murhapa, but his meaning was caught by Ashman, who was infected by his overwhelming emotion. He was distraught for the moment, and stood ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... "if your Ned were alive, and you were in trouble, you would like him to hurry home to you, whatever it might cost! And if She were alive, and poor and distraught, you would rather he worked for her, than left her that he might fill the greatest post on earth. Judge us by that thought when you feel inclined to be hard! I know you don't like kissing people, so I am going to kiss you instead. There! ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... am to see you, Nellie!" exclaimed Mrs. Waldron, as all rose to greet her. An embarrassed, half-distraught reply was her only answer. She had extended both hands to the elder lady; but now, startled, almost stunned, at finding herself in the presence of the very man she most wanted to see, she stood with downcast eyes, irresolute. He, too, had not stepped forward,—had not ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... the Faithful, give me three days' delay," and the Caliph rejoined, "I have granted this to thee." Hereupon Ja'afar went forth like unto one blind and deaf, unseeing nor hearing aught, and he was perplext and distraught as to his affair and continued saying, "Would Heaven we had not forgathered with this youth, nor ever had seen the sight of him." And he ceased not faring till he arrived at his own house, where he changed his dress and fell to threading the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... 1st.—Bath at last, which, must please poor Mrs. Hambledon exceedingly, for she certainly did not enjoy the transit. I cannot conceive how people can allow themselves to be so utterly distraught by illness. I feel I can never have any respect for her again; she moaned and lamented in such cowardly fashion, was so peevish all the time on board the vessel, and looked so very begrimed and untidy and plain when she was carried out on Bristol quay. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... more, But spike: Alas! my heart is very weak, And but for—Stay! And if some dreadful morn, After great search and shouting thorough the wold, We found thee missing,—strangled,—drowned i' the mere, Then should I go distraught ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... retained hold of the door, and to the amazed minister she seemed for a moment to have stepped into the mud house from his garden. Her eyes danced, however, as they recognised him, and then he hardened. "This is no place for you," he was saying fiercely, when Nanny, too distraught to think, fell crying at the ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... at all well dressed. She was indeed shabby—in a steerage style. Her hat was awry; her gloves miserable. No girlish pride in her distraught face. No determination to overcome Fate. No consciousness of ability to meet a bad situation. Just those sad eyes and ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... have observed his manner, taciturn, thoughtful, gloomy, shadowed by habitual reserve, retiring always and jocund never, with a distraught air of reverting to a bygone place and time, or of listening to some old echoes in his mind, but might have said it was the manner of ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... the low, quick, nervous utterance that is often associated with intense repressed feeling; and his words were accompanied by his best possible counterfeit of the burning, piercing, distraught gaze of passion. Though he acted a part, it was not with the cold-blooded art of a mimic who simulates by rule; it was with the animation due to imagining himself actually swayed by the feeling he would ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... care whenever he entered the house. He even noted the door-handles, as to their brightness, rated poor Ike about the table appointments, and pointed out when and how work should be done—told how he managed in his business, and how we should manage in ours. I was almost distraught with annoyance; and, kind as my aunt had been, I wished for the time of her departure silently, but as earnestly as did my servants. Heaven pardon me for my ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... they were speeding north, Nancy Ellen moody and distraught, Kate as frankly delighted as any child. The spring work was over; the crops were fine; Adam would surely have the premium wheat to take to the County Fair in September; he would work unceasingly for his chance with corn; he and Polly would be all right; she could see Polly waiting in the stable ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... that same night, and the old woman fair distraught with fear. Soon along comes Conchubar to see Deirdre, for to marry her. And he had many men with him. When he finds Deirdre gone, 'It's that Naisi,' says he, 'that stole her away.' And he cursed him. And all his men and himself went out for to chase ...
— The Irish Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... himself; and I toward the ancient Poet turned my steps, reflecting on that speech which seemed hostile to me. He moved on, and then, thus going, he said to me, "Why art thou so distraught?" And I satisfied his demand. "Let thy memory preserve that which thou hast heard against thyself," commanded me that Sage, "and now attend to this," and he raised his finger. "When thou shalt be in presence of the sweet radiance of her whose beautiful eye sees ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... and little, by ones and twos, boats, battered and with sails torn to ribbons, with crews exhausted and distraught, kept arriving during the Saturday and Sunday, bringing men, as it were, back from the dead. One or two, under bare poles, had ridden the gale out at sea, lying up into the wind as near as might be, threshing through those awful seas hour after ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... "Fly-by-day," as Dr. Travis called the one automobile that Miller's Notch boasted, chugged busily over the mountain roads. John Westley started out very early to find his friends at Cobble; then he had to drive back to Wayside to appease a distraught manager and half a dozen angry guides and also to pack his belongings; for the Allans would not let him stay anywhere else but with them at Cobble. Then, after he had been comfortably established in the freshly painted and papered guest-room of the old stone house ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... he sought his uncle, and by him was again led before the Archbishop. His reticence and timidity dispersed by his great sorrow, the distraught boy faced the high ecclesiastic with ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Aeacus' aweless son: "Memnon, how wast thou so distraught of wit That thou shouldst face me, and to fight defy Me, who in might, in blood, in stature far Surpass thee? From supremest Zeus I trace My glorious birth; and from the strong Sea-god Nereus, begetter of the Maids of the Sea, The Nereids, honoured of the ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... her love and the dread of the penalty incurred by the sacrilege of the theft of the parts of one who might any day be King-God, Bakuma stared distraught. ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... temporary hospital was established in the convent. There were two doctors and four or five nurses, with a dozen soldiers under command of Lieutenant Bray. It was while the apparently dead Bansemer was being moved to the improvised hospital that Jane presented herself, distraught with fear, to the young Southerner who had so plainly shown his love for her. She pleaded with him to start at once for Manila with the wounded, supporting her extraordinary request with the opinion that they could not receive proper care from the two young surgeons. ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... owner, so I fled, distraught with fear, To the Main Drain sewage-outfall while he snorted in my ear— Reached the four-foot drain-head safely and, in darkness and despair, Felt the brute's proboscis fingering ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... gladful morn, that sendeth sick Dreams flying, and all shapes melancholic That vex the slumbers of the love-distraught. Unto his heart the merry morning brought Cheer, and forewhisperings of some far-off rest, When he should end in sweet that bitter quest. But going forth that morn, and with his feet Threading the murmurous maze of street and street, All strangely fell upon him everywhere The things ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... hour or two Truedale walked the city streets perplexed and distraught. He was being absorbed without his own volition. By a subtle force he was convinced that he was part of a scheme bigger and stronger than his own desires and inclinations. Unless he was prepared to play a coward's role he must adjust ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... all the sharpness of a nervous, distraught woman who has at last found an outlet for her exasperation. "It's shameful! What's more, I think it's a clear case of violation of the law;—those stairs are, certainly. I shall make it my business to see that he's brought to terms. What ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... that come With bells and bleatings of the sheep; And there, in yonder English home, We thrive on mortal food and sleep!' She laugh'd. How proud she always was To feel how proud he was of her! But he had grown distraught, because The Muse's ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... Doris were almost ready for bed when there was a little sound at the door, pushed open by Elizabeth, who stood there in her plain, scant nightgown with a distraught expression, as if she had seen ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... cousin, canst thou quake and change thy colour, Murder thy breath in middle of a word, And then again begin, and stop again, As if thou were distraught and mad with terror? ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Poor distraught Janet Merryweather! There were times when he was seized with a fierce impatience of her, for it seemed to him that her ghost stood, like the angel with the drawn sword, before the closed gates of his paradise. He remembered her as a passionate frail ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... The distraught girl besought her hostess to take her jewels and hand them out to the burglars and thus ensure peace and safety for all. The mistress of the house declared this would not satisfy the ruffians and once more assured her guest that, whatever happened, ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... tears over the love-distracted grandee, and die of laughing at the old Alcalde. The play is twice a success. The author, who writes it, it is said, in collaboration with one of the great poets of the day, was called before the curtain, and appeared with a love-distraught damsel on each arm, and fairly brought down the excited house. The two dancers seemed to have more wit in their legs than the author himself; but when once the fair rivals left the stage, the dialogue seemed witty at once, a triumphant ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... in, Snatched thee, o'er eager, with ungentle grasp. Ah! I remember me How once conspiracy was rife Against my life— The languor of it and the dreaming fond; Surging, the grasses dizzied me of thought, The breeze three odors brought, And a gem-flower waved in a wand! Then when I was distraught And could not speak, Sidelong, full on my cheek, What should that reckless zephyr fling But the wild touch of thy dye-dusty wing! I found that wing broken to-day! For thou are dead, I said, And the strange birds ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost
... Cheever was distraught. He had waited for the outbreak, and when it did not come he suffered from the recoil of his ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... The Princess answered: "Go, dear swan, and tell This same to Nala;" and the egg-born said, "I go"—and flew; and told the Prince of all. But Damayanti, having heard the bird, Lived fancy-free no more; by Nala's side Her soul dwelt, while she sat at home distraught, Mournful and wan, sighing the hours away, With eyes upcast, and passion-laden looks; So that, eftsoons, her limbs failed, and her mind— With love o'erweighted—found no rest in sleep, No grace in company, no joy at feasts. Nor night nor day ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... idea. How's the food holding out? There are lots of people you know up-stairs," she rattled on, for Nancy, who was getting more and more distraught with each disquieting detail, made no pretense of answering her. "Dolly has probably kept you informed. Dick's aunt is here, and that terribly highbrow cousin of Caroline's; and that good-looking young surgeon that suddenly got so famous last winter, and admired you so much. Dr. Sunderland—isn't ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... banks, and no sign of him had been perceived. However, they are searching the river down, and hope to come upon his body either floating or cast ashore. Robert went out again to try and gather more news, leaving me well-nigh distraught here." ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... gateway, then fixed his gaze on something that stood just above—something which the dusk half concealed, and by so doing made more impressive. It was the sculptured counterfeit of a human face, that of a man distraught with agony. The eyes stared wildly from their sockets, the hair struggled in maniac disorder, the forehead was wrung with torture, the cheeks sunken, the throat fearsomely wasted, and from the wide lips there seemed to be issuing a horrible ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... ever been called upon to bear. It was by the merest accident that I heard of you. I have been to the police; they cannot—will not—act without I furnish them with certain information which it is not in my power to give them. Then when I was half distraught with despair, a kindly agent there spoke to me of you. He said that you were attached to the police as a voluntary agent, and that they sometimes put work in your way which did not happen to be within their own scope. He also said that sometimes you ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... drifting back to him, and when she was at last restrained by that moral compulsion, by that overwhelming of another's will which is always so ruthlessly exerted by those who are conscious that virtue is struggling with vice, her mind gave way and she became utterly distraught. ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... think thou are distraught already," answered the Queen. "My Lord Hunsdon, look to this poor distrest young woman, and let her be safely bestowed and in honest keeping, till we require her to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... to obey without question her father's stern command not to enter again into communication with a man of whom he so strongly disapproved. But she was not content, for all that, and the dripping trees and rain-sodden flowers seemed now to accord with her distraught mood. The fine, though not bright, interval that had tempted her forth soon gave way to another shower, and she ran for shelter into the Charing Cross Station of the Metropolitan Railway. She stood in one of the doorways looking out disconsolately over the river, when a taxicab drove ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... to answer, but at that word it seemed that for the first time Beorn learnt into whose hands he had fallen, and he fell on his knees between his two guards, crying for mercy. I think that he was distraught with terror, for his words were thick and broken, and he had forgotten that none but I ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... cowardly that I did not descend to share your peril; but it was necessary that I should go to the storey above that you reached to bring down my wife, who, as you see, is grievously sick. Her two maids were very nearly distraught with terror, and, if left to themselves, would never have carried their mistress below. Having had some experience of popular tumults in Bruges, my native town, I had this hiding-place constructed when I first came here twenty years ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... keep the human ship moving; and the pressure of the judicious pilot's hand upon the tiller is a relatively insignificant energy. But the affections, passions, and interests are shifting, successive, and distraught; they blow in alternation while the pilot's hand is steadfast. He knows the compass, and, with all the leeways he is obliged to tack toward, he always makes some headway. A small force, if it never lets up, will accumulate effects more considerable ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... distraught that she could not stay in the dining room. With a sudden violent movement she grasped his arm and dragged him away with her upstairs to the bedroom, where she threw herself exhausted on the sofa. Wilhelm stood before her, looking ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... one of the boys or girls would have been ill at ease in a drawing-room; and I found their educational standard quite up to that of any Board school known to me. These nice little folk were certainly in no wise pallid or distraught; and, when they danced on the stage, the performance was a beautiful and delightful romp which suggested no idea of pain. To see the "prima donna" of the company trundling her hoop on a bright morning was as pretty a sight as one would care to see. The little lady was neither forward nor ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... ever looked into that little book, Charley?' I said, finding in my hands an early edition of the Christian Morals of Sir Thomas Browne.—I wanted to say something, that I might not appear distraught. ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... bosom's blue-veined swell. The right-hand fingers played amidst her hair, And with her reverie wandered here and there: The other hand sustained the only dress That now but half concealed her loveliness; And pausing, aimlessly she stood and thought, In virgin beauty by no fear distraught." ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... King, "thou art distraught; thou sayest what thou mean not. The world is better that this man be dead. He was an enemy of organized society, he preyed ever upon his fellows. Life in England will be safer after this day. Do not weep over the ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the distraught man, looking listlessly beyond her. "I am here to see Oliver—he is to give me ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... body told him to eat, and so he ate without knowing or caring what. His distraught mind was traveling swiftly through the barren paths of hopelessness and despair, while yet he had to keep his children in countenance under their fire of childish prattle. Many times he could have flung aside ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... a being distraught. His long brown hair was tossed over his blanched forehead and piercing black eyes. His head was thrown forward even more than his deformity compelled, his white teeth showed in a grimace of hatred; he was half-crouched, like an animal ready ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... these he was ignorant who they were, but he saw two or three that he knew, and tried to approach them and talk with them, but they would not listen to him, and did not seem to be in their right minds, but out of their senses and distraught, avoiding every sight and touch, and at first turned round and round alone, but afterwards meeting many other souls whirling round and in the same condition as themselves, they moved about promiscuously with no particular object in view, and uttered inarticulate ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... distraught Mr. Sleuth! An overwhelming pity blotted out for a moment the fear, aye, and the loathing, she had been feeling for ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Haggard and distraught was Leander as he went about his business that morning, so mechanically that one customer, who had requested to have his luxuriant locks "trimmed," found himself reduced to a state of penal bullet-headedness before he could protest, ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... madness, and is this picture of the distraught priest, setting forth to sail the seas with his dead lady, not an invention that Nanteuil might have illustrated, and the clan of ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... I felt distraught from gazing over-much At thy great beauty; and I fear'd to touch The dainty hand which Envy's self hath praised. I fear'd to greet thee; and my soul was dazed And self-convicted in its new design; For I was mad to hope to call thee mine, Aye! mad as he who claims a Virgin's love Because his ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... sorry," Nina faltered—Giovanni was looking at her intensely, pleadingly, his finger on his lips—"but I—never felt like that before. I got terribly—nervous, and I felt that if I did not get away from that house I should go mad." Even the recollection made Nina look so distraught that her aunt's indignation turned to anxiety, and she put her arm around the girl and led her into ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... story and his astounding news and drew a vivid enough picture of the havoc it had wrought in his simplicity. He used a lover's language, but his letter was as cold and lumpish as a golden ingot. And yet the writer was not cold. He was throbbing and distraught, confused and overthrown, a boy of fourteen beside himself at the prospect of a holiday ... It was a stolen holiday, to be sure, a sort of truancy from manliness, but none the less intoxicating for that. Cosme's Latin nature was on top; Saxon loyalty and ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... his, which was that of a man of men, splendid in his strong prime. And she told him who she was, and a few other things, as they stood on the pavement—she so graceful in her mature self-possession, he staring at her, stupidly distraught, like a ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... Pyrrha's time Return, with all its monstrous sights, When Proteus led his flocks to climb The flatten'd heights, When fish were in the elm-tops caught, Where once the stock-dove wont to bide, And does were floating, all distraught, Adown the tide. Old Tiber, hurl'd in tumult back From mingling with the Etruscan main, Has threaten'd Numa's court with wrack And Vesta's fane. Roused by his Ilia's plaintive woes, He vows revenge for guiltless blood, And, spite of Jove, his ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... He was glad to do a good deed in secret, and yet so near heaven. The man received it as his due, like a toll-keeper; and soon after departed, leaving the traveller alone. And the traveller went his way down the mountain, as one distraught. He stopped only to pluck one bright blue flower, which bloomed all alone in the vast desert, and looked up at him, as if to say; "O take me with you! ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... momentarily on his senses, his imagination was strangely affected, and as he began to appreciate the details of the scene he saw, his wonder rose to the point of a passion. He went about his business listless and distraught, thinking only of the time when he should be able to return to his watching. And then a few weeks after his first sight of the valley came the two customers, the stress and excitement of their offer, and the narrow escape of the crystal from sale, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... indebted to him as well as a feeling of having been near him. Once she saw a face strangely like his in the upper gallery, and the blood tingled round her heart, and she played the remainder of the act with mind distraught. "Can it be possible that he is still in the city?" ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... that curse fall upon mine enemies! I cannot aid you without risk of scathe, Nor scorn your prayers—unmerciful it were. Perplexed, distraught I stand, and fear alike The twofold chance, to do or not ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... my word, I only wish you could have heard The way he roared he did not think, And hoped that they might strike him pink! Lord Hippo simply turned and ran From this infuriated man. Despairing, maddened and distraught He utterly collapsed and sought ...
— More Peers Verses • Hilaire Belloc
... feel the effects of it in his life, and almost in his own soul. He is a victim to the eternal struggle between good and evil without the strength and the unquenchable hope of Christianity. The Misanthrope is a shriek of despair uttered by virtue, excited and almost distraught at the defeat she forebodes. The Tartuffe was a new effort in the same direction, and bolder in that it attacked religious hypocrisy, and seemed to aim its blows even at religion itself. Moliere was a long time working at it; the first acts had been played in 1664, at court, under the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... soon enveloped his books and papers, and the poor author on his return went mad, beating his head against the door of his palace, and raving blasphemous words. In vain his friends tried to comfort him, and the poor man wandered away into the woods, his mind utterly distraught by the enormity ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... king?"—Kurwenal points overboard. Tristan stares landward, not comprehending. The men shout and wave their caps. "Hail, King Mark!"—"What is it?" Isolde inquires, reached in her trance by the clamour; "Brangaene, what cry is that?"—"Isolde, mistress," the distraught Brangaene implores, "self-control for this one day!"—"Where am I?" the bewildered lady asks helplessly. "Am I alive?..." What, the question asks itself, what is this still familiar surrounding scene, when they ought, by true working of the drug, to be dead? ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... the track; ignorant, &c 491; afraid to say; out of one's reckoning, astray, adrift; at sea, at fault, at a loss, at one's wit's end, at a nonplus; puzzled &c v.; lost, abroad, desoriente; distracted, distraught. Adv. pendente lite [Lat.]; sub spe rati [Lat.]. Phr. Heaven knows; who can tell? who shall decide when doctors disagree? ambiguas in vulgum spargere ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... isn't happy," returned his sister, with a gesture toward the study where Cousin Jasper, distraught, worried, and forlorn, must even ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... for me to write. I am distraught, my mind is gone. Write to the grand duchess that I no longer ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... which met his eye at every turn, outraged his reason and made his heart sick. He felt like a sane man shut up by accident in a madhouse. After a day of this wandering he found himself at nightfall in a company of his former companions, who rallied him on his distraught appearance. He told them of his dream and what it had taught him of the possibilities of a juster, nobler, wiser social system. He reasoned with them, showing how easy it would be, laying aside the suicidal folly of competition, by means of fraternal ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... it; you shall not do it!" she cried, and her face looked drawn, her eyes distraught. "It is murder—murder, you curs!" And the memory of how that dainty little lady stood undaunted before so much bared steel, to shield him from those assassins, was one that ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... knight did fondle, / and straightway saw him not, Unto her maids attendant / spake the queen distraught: "Meseemeth a mickle wonder / where now the king hath gone. His hands in such weird fashion / who now from out mine own ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... she looked all round about her, as one distraught by the anguish of fear. Walter, amidst of his wrath and grief, had wellnigh drawn his sword and rushed out of his lair upon the King's Son. But he deemed it sure that, so doing, he should undo the Maid altogether, ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... which Elsa was to be wedded to her tyrant. She had spent the night in tears and bitter lamentations, and now, weary and distraught, too hopeless even for tears, she looked out from the bars of her prison with dull, despairing eyes. Suddenly she heard the melodious strains and a moment later saw the approach of a swan-drawn boat, wherein lay a sleeping knight. Hope ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... Katherine, "is: Blessings brighten as diplomas come on apace. Between trying not to miss any fun and doing my best to distinguish myself in the scholarly pursuits that my soul loves, I am well nigh distraught. Don't mind my Shakespearean English, please. I'm on the senior play committee, and I ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... in a dream, Miss Lady followed Decherd to the entrance, near which stood a carriage in the narrow little street. She scarcely looked at his face, and did not note his hurried words to the driver. Silent and distraught, she took no note of their direction as the wheels rattled over the rude flags of the medieval passageway. The carriage turned corner after corner in its jolting progress, and finally trundled smoothly for a time, but Miss Lady, hoping ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... him, the tale he had unfolded, his distraught actions. I am fairly familiar with psychopathic symptoms and my summary of all that I had observed in him indicated clearly enough that he was as sane as any one of us. But for the first time in my life I realized the feeling of uncertainty about a physician's ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... gone. I understood Emily's distraught condition. You can replace a diamond tiara; money won't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... herself wandering distraught, seated on her 'unhastie beast,' when with a fearful roar a lion rushed out from a thicket with eyes glaring and teeth gleaming, seeking to devour his prey. But at the sight of Una's tender beauty he stopped suddenly, and, stooping down, he kissed her feet ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... Angel! I mustn't lose her!" cried Take-a-Stitch, distraught at seeing her treasure swept off her tiny feet in ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... fancy's then a burden to my mind; Mine anxious thought Betrays my reason, makes me blind; Near dangers drad dreaded. Make me distraught; Surprised with fear my senses all I find: In hell I dwell, Oppressed with ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... and undreamed of peril in the weird and chilling hour before dawn, was described by Napoleon as a most rare quality among soldiers, and such being the case it is hardly to be looked for among women. With chattering teeth and random motions, half-distraught with incoherent terrors, Desire made a hasty, incomplete toilet in the dark of her freezing bedroom, and ran downstairs. In the living-room she found her mother and the smaller children with the negro servants ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... existence. Everything around me seemed the shadows of somebody's dream, in which I had no part, and could take no interest. I had but two all-absorbing ideas; and these were—injustice and Josephine. So distraught was I with the vastness of the one and with the loveliness of the other, that, when the young and splendid reality stole into the apartment softly, and moved before my eyes in all the fascination of her gracefulness, yet was I scarcely conscious of the actual presence of her whose ideal ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... also, that if it were necessary to have skilled advice, the doctor had better be sent for when Mavis was at the boot factory; otherwise, he might ask questions bearing on matters which, just now, Mavis would prefer not to make public. Mrs Trivett had much trouble in making the distraught mother appreciate the wisdom of this advice. She only fell in with the woman's views when she reflected, quite without cause, that the doctor's inevitable questioning might, in some remote way, compromise her lover. Late in the evening, when it was dark, Miss Toombs came round to ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... all distraught to say that it is about at the clubs that my wife will have a divorce and marry the doctor, on the which hearing I much annoyed and summon Mrs. Badminton who denyeth the doctor but asserteth Lasselle whereupon ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... from villages lying in the path of the advancing hordes to the neighboring towns, and there separated, crowding into the nearest Caves Voutees. Most of these poor women carried a baby and were distraught with fear besides; the older children must cling to the mother's skirts or become ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... disturbed, distraught, and it was very evident to her that she neither saw nor heard the rest of the service. Even when the benediction had been pronounced and hosts of friends gathered about her to express their delight at her presence with them once more, ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Lysander was in turn distraught; after a short delay, however, he managed to answer: "His face is dark, almost black; his head is covered with a great cloth of silk and gold; a gown hides him from neck to heels; in his girdle there is a dagger. He has a lordly air, and does not seem in the least afraid. In brief, my ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... thought—a thought lashed to the fore by his jealous rage, and defeated hopes. And poor Joyce, distraught and grief-crazed, realized not the ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... fiercely upon her and bent forward, his hand falling upon his sword-hilt; then he grew red at his hot action, and looked about to see if 'twas noticed. "Get thee gone, thou saucy, lisping minx." The poor thing was well-nigh distraught with fear of this man whose anger came like a thunderbolt, and she fell heavy upon the lackey who conducted her forth. She slipped through the corridors like a fast fleeting shadow, and Janet followed her close and saw her enter a certain chamber apart where she was met by one ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... you believe that I lost my intellectual poise and composure. Without, I may have appeared distraught; within, my brain continued its ordained functions. Indeed, my mind operated with a most unwonted celerity. Scarcely a minute passed that some new expedient did not flash into my thoughts; and only the inability to carry them out, ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... done and suffered, loved and hated, learnt and taught This—there is no reconciling wisdom with a world distraught, Goodness with triumphant evil, power with failure in the aim, If (to my own sense, remember! though none other feel the same!) If you bar me from assuming earth to be a pupil's place, And life, time,—with all their chances, ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... reached indeed what the doleful balladists would call "the parting of the ways," though no poet has yet chosen for his heroine the distraught wretch who is driven to ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... and slim, on stilts; scaffolding; pipes; chimneys; tramways; surface railways. His eyes leaped from moundlike piles of tailings, the powdery crush spit out by the concentrating mills, to boulder-like heaps of rocks that had been wheeled away to save the teeth of the mills, and his ears turned distraught from the groaning clank of unwieldy iron tubs, swinging up through skeleton shafts, to the sputtering plunk-plunk of drill engines and ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... be distraught, poring over these matters that were never meant for lads like us! Do but come and drive them out for once with mirth and ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and unrealized vanity which had helped to destroy her past. She shrank back in blind misunderstanding from him, for she scarcely heard his words. She mistook what he meant. She was bewildered, distraught. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... him now, standing self-confidently on his own private quay, with the most chic of Virginian cigarettes smouldering between his aristocratic lips and the very latest and most elegant of Bond Street Khaki Neckwear distinguishing him from the mixed crowd about him. Every one else is distraught; even matured Generals, used to the simple and irresponsible task of commanding troops in action, are a little unnerved by the difficulties and intricacies of embarking oneself militarily. He on whom all the responsibility rests remains aloof. A smile, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... lights spilled themselves across his path, he got himself a glass of beer; he was feeling just such a thirst as a man knows after nervous and exacting labor. The blond, white-jacketed barman glanced at him curiously, marking perhaps something distraught and rapt in his demeanor. Goodwin, ignoring him, took his beer and leaned an elbow on the bar, looking round ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... their united hum, the old man paused, looking at first a little distraught, but settling at last into his usual self as he started forward upon his course. Did some whisper, hitherto unheard, warn him that it was the last time he would tread that weary round? Who can tell? He was trembling very much when with his task nearly completed, he stepped out again into the ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... began this tale, (See the first canto if ye will), A ball in Peter's capital, To sketch ye in Albano's style.(60) But by fantastic dreams distraught, My memory wandered wide and sought The feet of my dear lady friends. O feet, where'er your path extends I long enough deceived have erred. The perfidies I recollect Should make me much more circumspect, Reform me both in deed and word, And this ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... place, as though seconds were important to him. He would look at his watch with accuracy, and measure his pace from spot to spot, as though minutes were too valuable to be lost. But now he wandered away like one distraught, and the stable boy knew that something was wrong. 'I thout he was a thinken of the white cow as choked 'erself with the tunnup that was skipped in the chopping,' said the boy, as he spoke of his master afterwards to the old groom. At last, ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope |
