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More "Diversion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whites. Col. Brodhead was in command at Fort Pitt until the end of 1781. At the time that General Sullivan ravaged the country of the Six Nations, he had led a force up the Alleghany and created a diversion by burning one or two Iroquois towns. In 1781 he led a successful expedition against a town of hostile Delawares on the Muskingum, taking it by surprise and surrounding it so completely that all within were captured. Sixteen noted warriors ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... relief from the long strain of the trenches was a bathe in the sea, but any diversion while in rear of the firing line was exhilarating. We used to gather on the moors that lay between Geoghegan's Bluff and Bruce's Ravine, Turkish cartridge boxes made by the Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken at Karlsruhe and labelled with inscriptions in German and Turkish, innumerable spent ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... stranger's appearance; and so the better to take in all the points of the magnificent horse which the young Californian was riding, not to mention a commendable desire to give his only passenger a bit of pleasant diversion on the long journey, he slowed his horse ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... over India would be established, and the power of the English in India destroyed. The great deed to be done was to raise the siege of Trichinopoly. This Clive coolly proposed to do by effecting a counter-diversion in besieging Arcot, the favored home of the Nabobs. With a little handful of an army—200 Europeans and 300 Sepoys—Clive marched through the wildest weather to Arcot, captured it, and prepared to ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... has been servant rather than helpmeet. Upon her have fallen the reproaches of the unbridled temper of other members of the family; upon her have rested the burdens that others have shirked. Husband and children have been free to find diversion elsewhere; family responsibilities or broken health have confined her at home. Her husband might even find sex satisfaction away from home, but public opinion would be more lenient with him than with her if she offended. The time has come when it is right that these ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... neglect, as if it came in part, perhaps, from a reluctance to disturb old associations. It was significant of the national character, that a sort of elegant gentleman farming, as we say, had been much affected by some of the most cultivated [15] Romans. But it became something more than an elegant diversion, something of a serious business, with the household of Marius; and his actual interest in the cultivation of the earth and the care of flocks had brought him, at least, intimately near to those elementary conditions of life, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... dropped her long eyelashes, and examined the toe of a smart brown shoe with a wistful resignation. Courtenay was politely incredulous, but the arrival of the steward with the replenished tea-tray created a diversion. ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... taking place. A backward glance showed him that Fraser had drawn his pursuers to the street. He had broken away and dodged out into the open, where the other officers responded at a call and seized him as he apparently undertook to break through the cordon. This diversion served an unexpected purpose. Not only did it draw attention from Emerson's retreat, but it also gave the mob its long-awaited opportunity. Recognizing in the officers' quarry the supposed figure of Emerson, the hated cause of all this strife, ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... world, my lord, would be content to allow you a seventh day for rest; or, if you thought that hard upon you, we would not refuse you half your time: if you came out, like some great monarch, to take a town but once a year, as it were for your diversion, though you had no need to extend your territories. In short, if you were a bad, or, which is worse, an indifferent poet, we would thank you for our own quiet, and not expose you to the want of yours. But when you are so great, ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... and refinements; often challenging each other out of a vain emulation, till at length they degenerated into a profession of people, who, without any other employment or merit, exhibited themselves as a sight for the diversion of the public. Our dancing-masters are not unlike them in this respect, whose natural and original designation was to teach youth a graceful manner of walking, and a good address; but now we see them mount the stage, and perform ballets in the garb of comedians, capering, jumping, skipping, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... a diversion. Leaving, she wished to consult about the purchases for to-morrow's work, and madame moved towards the hall with her, talking in her careful English, while Miriam bent towards the ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... hard task to keep up their fighting spirit. It was rumored that Gage was preparing an aggressive movement from Boston, which might mean pillage and massacre in the surrounding country, and it was decided to draw in closer to Boston to give Gage a diversion and prove the mettle of the patriot army. So, on the evening of June 16, 1775, there was a stir of preparation in the American camp at Cambridge, and late at night the men fell in near ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... Diversion came at a moment when he was never more thankful for it. The shrill treble of the boy reached them across the stretch ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... pronounce these women bright, cultivated, and often remarkably handsome. They would not require to be amused or even entertained after the manner of his own countrywomen; they would appear before him amply capable of yielding rather than exacting diversion, and often through the mediums of nimble wit, engaging humor, or an audacity at once daring and picturesque. But after a little more time our titled stranger would begin to perceive that behind all this feminine sparkle and freshness, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... amount transferred to other purposes. The interest of the Bureau of Municipal Research in municipal budgets that tell for what purposes money is voted and then prevent transfers without full publicity, preserved this particular fund. Moreover, the discussion that prevented its diversion from physical examinations strengthened the health department's interest in this important responsibility. Neither physicians nor nurses have been adequately supervised. Instead of seeing that defects were removed, ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... his happiness carved out of the labour and ruin of a thousand such reptiles as myself I might with satisfaction exclaim, Sic, sic juvat: but when I behold one GREAT MAN starving with hunger and freezing with cold, in the midst of fifty thousand who are suffering the same evils for his diversion; when I see another, whose own mind is a more abject slave to his own greatness, and is more tortured and racked by it, than those of all his vassals; lastly, when I consider whole nations rooted out only to bring tears into the eyes of a GREAT MAN, not indeed ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... fort on its territory—induced the Lacedaemonians to send their fleet to Pylus, instead of Corcyra. Forty-three triremes, under Thrasymelidas, and a powerful land force, advanced to attack Demosthenes, intrenched with his small army on the rocky promontory. When the news of this new diversion reached the Athenian fleet at Corcyra, it returned to Pylus, to succor Demosthenes. Here a naval battle took place, in which the Lacedaemonians were defeated. This defeat jeopardized the situation of ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... felt unutterably bored. The sensation of lassitude, even in its less acute degrees, was rare with her; for she possessed a nature of so fresh a buoyancy that she was able, as a rule, to extract diversion from any environment. Her mind took impressions with the vivid clearness of a mirror, and also, it should be owned, with a mirror's transient objectivity. To-day, however, the mirror was clouded. She looked out of the window; a level row of grey houses frowned at her across the ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... Spain in one word and two motions, that all of this preparation for threatened conflict with Spain is much ado about little; that the United States will get up early some morning and administer the paternal slipper to the Spanish pantaloon, simply by way of diversion or to get up an appetite for breakfast. The result of the scrap may show that the job had best be ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... unfriendly to any portion of the community is a wrong thing, however great may be the threats and promises by which it is commended. And still worse, the reference of right and wrong to his arbitrary will as a standard, the diversion of the allegiance of the moral sense from the community to him, is the most insidious and fatal of ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... at Basle until the 1st of the Tenth Month, and then returned by way of Berne to Neufchatel. At Berne a sudden diversion was given to the current of their thoughts by the intelligence of the death of Thomas Yeardley. J.Y. has left a memorandum of the occurrence, and of the singular foreshadowing of it upon his own mind ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... a Tuesday club at the "Cross-keys" in Crossmichael, where the young bloods of the country-side congregated and drank deep on a percentage of the expense, so that he was left gainer who should have drunk the most. Archie had no great mind to this diversion, but he took it like a duty laid upon him, went with a decent regularity, did his manfullest with the liquor, held up his head in the local jests, and got home again and was able to put up his horse, to the admiration of Kirstie ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... letter will be in the nature of a confession. Last spring, discovering by accident that I could mesmerize, I took up mesmerism as a diversion for the amusement of myself and friends. I had long believed in it entirely and carefully watched its processes, but I wished to study its philosophy and find out, if I could, the cause and the limits of ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... was growing tired of his Duke of Marlborough and his State secrets, and seeking diversion. "Odds fish, it's a hard road that leads to fortune. You are happy, Mr. Waverton. You ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... country are very pleasant and merry, especially the young ones, and delight in singing and dancing, taking this diversion only at night by moonlight; and their manner of dancing is very different from that of the Italians. Many things in our ships seemed wonderful to the Negroes, particularly our cross-bows; but much more our artillery. When some of them were on board my ship, I caused one of the guns ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... the contrary, the ponderable and tangible realities of the immediate situation counselled neutrality. They were revolted by the hideous brutality of the war and its colossal waste. Participation must be purchased with a similarly colossal diversion of American energy from constructive to destructive work, the imposition of a similarly heavy burden upon the future production of American labour. It implied the voluntary surrender of many of those advantages which had tempted ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... walking to Markton, when, passing Myrtle Villa, he saw Sir William De Stancy ambling about his garden-path and examining the crocuses that palisaded its edge. Sir William saw him and asked him to come in. Somerset was in the mood for any diversion from his own affairs, and they seated ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... between the Venetian Ambassador and Grotius, when they both were waiting in a hall for the King, the Introductors of Ambassadors placed their seats in such manner, that the Swedish Ambassador might be dissatisfied. They expected a quarrel, which would have afforded them diversion. Grotius disappointed them by chusing rather to stand, than take the seat intended for him. It was on this occasion he wrote to the High Chancellor, desiring him to consider, whether, to avoid all those ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... yet with cunning, running forth and back into our ranks as each was delivered; and between the blows he capered, uttering shrill inarticulate cries. This diversion indeed saved us. For the rabble, pressing up to see the fun, left a space more or less clear on the far side of the Market Strand, and for this space we stampeded, dragging ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... is, I think, a powerful one; indeed, he does write very strongly. I am quite proud of his editorials; they are well studied, earnest, and dignified. I think he will make a first-rate writer. Both our pieces have gone to press to-day, with Charles's article on music, and we have had not a little diversion about ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... rector of St. Antipas paced the floor with nicely measured steps, or sat at his desk to make endless squares, circles, and triangles. He was engrossed in the latter diversion when he heard the bell sound below. He sat back to hear the steps of the maid, the opening of the door; then, after an interval, her steps ascending the stairs and stopping at his own ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... trust me. Good Lord you surely can trust me with her! Let me teach her and bring a little diversion into her life. What she wants is what all young things want—freedom and fun—pure, simple fun. Don't let her think you are expecting evil of her; ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... colleges in England, nor wear gowns; they lodge and diet in the town, as at the colleges in Holland, and are required to attend at their several classes from eight in the morning till twelve, and from two to four. I wonder how a college in a town used to so much business and diversion to take off from the study of youth, should ever produce ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... Yet St. Lubin brings me full many a sad And weary hour. I, therefore, thought to gain Some slight diversion and amusement too To soothe my woe. Thou know'st the joy I have Of mingled masses of bright colored things Both ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... defend La Guillette's fireside. The huge spit was twisted like a screw in the powerful hands that struggled for possession of it. A pistol-shot set fire to a small store of hemp in skeins that lay on a shelf suspended from the ceiling. That incident created a diversion, and while some hastened to smother the germ of a conflagration, the grave-digger, who had climbed to the attic unperceived, came down the chimney and seized the spit, just as the drover, who was defending it near the hearth, raised it above his head to prevent its being snatched ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... (Chancellor of Oxford), and other great personages, presented an address to her majesty, congratulating her on her arrival. The prince, having read the address, retired with the usual profound obeisances, which not only amused the spectators, but afforded much diversion to her majesty, whose mode of smiling indicated how much she enjoyed the burlesque of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... o'clock, and Fanny was so interested in the five girls that she persuaded them to go home with her to enjoy the evening together. It promised a pleasant diversion, for the five girls had been hard at work several days and had not met a single ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... taking another lady to bear her company, repaired, by way of diversion, to Federigo's little house and enquired for the latter, who, for that it was no weather for hawking nor had been for some days past, was then in a garden he had, overlooking the doing of certain little matters of his, and hearing that Madam Giovanna asked for him ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... steps were heard approaching at the expected hour; and the boys stood in ambush to enjoy the diversion of the sight. It was a dark night; the fiery eyes of the skeleton glared suddenly upon the dancing-master, who was so terrified at the spectacle, and in such haste to escape, that his foot slipped, and he fell down the stone steps: his ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... where he goeth when he comes thus abroad, is to a Bankqueting-house built by a Pond side, which he has made. It is not above a Musquet shot from his Palace. Where he goeth for his diversion. Which I shall by and ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... lose much of their ideal value. A nation bent upon a policy of social invention would make its tools an incident. But just this perception is lacking in many propagandists. That is why their issues are so sterile; that is why the absorption in "next steps" is a diversion ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... garden, where two cross-looking children, a boy and a girl, about the same age as Jean-Christophe, were apparently sulky with each other. Jean-Christophe's advent created a diversion. They came up to examine the new arrival. Jean-Christophe, left with the children by the lady, stood stock-still in a pathway, not daring to raise his eyes. The two others stood motionless a short distance away, and looked him up and down, nudged ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... reached the Contarini secretly from Rome," said one senator to another, as the Consultore passed them, "that they have found themselves a new diversion before the palace of the Vatican, and that some of our great ones here are burned in effigy to instruct the populace. A pile of Fra Paolo's writings doth light the funeral pyre; and all that he hath written or may hereafter write is placed ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... faltered presently, when this little diversion appeared to be ended. As I led the way into the parlour my heart was in my ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... by Don Egidio, the parocco of the little church across the street. The doctor and his wife came only on feast days, but the overseer and Don Egidio were regular patrons. The former was a quiet saturnine-looking man, of accomplished manners but reluctant speech, and I depended for my diversion chiefly on Don Egidio, whose large loosely-hung lips were always ajar for conversation. The remarks issuing from them were richly tinged by the gutturals of the Bergamasque dialect, and it needed but a slight acquaintance with Italian types to ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... fondness for this sort of diversion lasted until he was thirteen years old. In the mean time, however, his chosen career was kept steadily in view. He was sent to the Latin school, from which, if his marks should be good, he might hope to advance in about five years to one of the so-called convent schools ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... after two o'clock a diversion occurred. Henriques succeeded in crossing the road three miles east of Main Drift. He had probably left the kraal early in the night and had tried to cross farther west, but had been deterred by the patrols. East ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... in excellent trim again, only, however, to see and attend to Shaw, who was in turn taken sick. By the 22nd July Shaw was recovered, then Selim was prostrated, and groaned in his delirium for four days, but by the 28th we were all recovered, and were beginning to brighten up at the prospect of a diversion in the shape of a ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... of the broken cart wheel, or hide-and-seek by moonlight, that I wish to speak here, but of another diversion next day, and of a mysterious stranger who arrived at nick of time ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... discovered. Neither were there any indications of a struggle. Yet it was Toby's firm conviction that the ruffians had entered the house, and seized him; that Pepperill was in the plot, the object of whose visit was merely a diversion, while Ropes and the rest accomplished the abduction. This could not, of course, have been done without the aid of magic and the devil; but Toby believed in magic and the devil. The fact that Dan had taken advantage of the confusion ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... toward the door, pulled up, and hung in hesitation, frowning absently at the woman; who, without moving, laughed quietly and watched him with a twinkle of malicious diversion. ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... diversion was made in his favour. The native woman had crouched stolidly in rear of the combat, until she saw the Kachin about to empty his weapon into his English foe. Now she rose swiftly to her feet, a heavy stone in ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... were leaving the chateau a pleasant diversion came in the form of a call from M. La Tour, who had motored over from his father's country seat to dine with us to-night. I was glad to see him, as I wished to thank him for a book which we found at the hotel, when we reached here yesterday, which has added so much to our ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... those terrible creatures that are killed the better, at all events," said John Mangles, "so let's seize the chance, and it will not only give us a little diversion, but be doing a ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... be discovered its mountain basin. Such EXTINGUISHED torrents, if I may use the expression, are numerous." [Footnote: Surrell, Les Torrents des Hautes Alpes, chap. xxiv. In such cases, the clearing of the ground, which, in consequence of a temporary diversion of the waters, or from some other cause, has become rewooded, sometimes renews the ravages of the torrent. Thus, on the left bank of the Durance, a wooded declivity had been formed by the debris brought down by torrents, which had extinguished themselves after ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... cure to you, you bloody thief; you didn't spare me with my arm broke'—(Another general shout.) 'Bad end to it, isn't it a poor case entirely, that I can't even throw up my caubeen, let alone join in the diversion.' ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... to appease the bitterness of the good man; while the memories of his escape, offering a diversion to Henri's mind, put him in sympathetic humor ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... the paper mechanically. He wanted it as a diversion to the conversation merely, for his interest in the doings of Surrey and Yorkshire had waned to the point of complete indifference in competition ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... reckon on this little diversion. When they heard it they probably departed for other regions. They won't be coming around just yet, that's a safe wager. Mighty lucky, eh? Think what Ar targets we'd make, up here in ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... Verneuil, whither he had been accompanied by the Marquise. It was in vain that M. de Sully—to whom the King had given strict charge to endeavour by every method in his power to reconcile the Queen to his absence, and to provide for her amusement every diversion of which she was in a condition to partake—exerted himself to obey the command of the monarch; Marie was too deeply wounded to derive any consolation from such puerile sources, nor was it until the return of her royal consort, when his evident anxiety ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... former. The Germans had collected their military powers, and moved along the opposite banks of the river, with a design of destroying the bridge, and of preventing the passage of the Romans. But this judicious plan of defence was disconcerted by a skilful diversion. Three hundred light-armed and active soldiers were detached in forty small boats, to fall down the stream in silence, and to land at some distance from the posts of the enemy. They executed their orders with so much boldness and celerity, that ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... about thy business, for we are none of the woman-tribe who are neither thine nor another's.[FN310]" And he answered, "O my lady, I said nothing ill." Quoth she, "Thou soughtest to divert thyself[FN311] and thou hast had thy diversion; so wend thy ways." Quoth he, "O my lady, belike thou wilt give me a draught of water, for I am athirst." Whereupon she cried, "How canst thou drink of a Jew's water, and thou a Nazarene?" But he replied, "O my lady, your water is not forbidden to us nor ours unlawful to you, for we are all as ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... followed by black coffee. When it was finished we spent the evening by the camp fire, smoking and talking of the three men retreating down our old trail, and trying to calculate at which one of the camping places they were bivouacked. Every night since our parting this had been our chief diversion, and I must confess that with each day that took us farther away from them an increased loneliness impressed itself upon us. Solemn and vast was the great silence of the trackless wilderness as more and more we came to realize our utter isolation from all the rest of the ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... production, distribution, and exchange. On questions of production not much advance has been made since his day; and his rules of taxation are now classic. He attacked vigorously the balance-of-trade theory, and the unnatural diversion of industry in England by prohibitions, bounties, and the arbitrary colonial system. In brief, he held that a plan for the regulation of industry by the Government was indefensible, and that to direct private persons ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... international peace. German contemporary history illustrates once more a general law of history, that the dread of a civil war is often a direct cause of a foreign war, and that the ruling classes are driven to seek outside a diversion from internal difficulties. Thus political unrest ushered in the wars of the Revolution and the Empire; thus the internal difficulties of Napoleon III. brought about the Franco-German War; thus the internal upheaval of Russia in our ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... A splendid diversion was caused one day when the Huns came over in full force (thirty to forty Gothas) in a daylight raid. I was delighted! This was something I really did understand. It was topping to hear the guns blazing ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... letter to Hunter comprised my written instructions. A junction with this general was not contemplated when the expedition was first conceived, but became an important though not the paramount object after the reception of the later information. The diversion of the enemy's cavalry from the south side of the Chickahominy was its main purpose, for in the presence of such a force as Lee's contracted lines would now permit him to concentrate behind the Chickahominy, the difficulties of crossing ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... The other diversion, which the Turks were used to create against the Entente, was in Egypt. British rule, in spite of the vast benefits it conferred, was not universally acceptable to the Egyptian people and still less to Egyptian officials; and chief among those who resented their restriction to the straight ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... was an agent of the other side) and ... he is an old man, not very strong. Once indoors, I had little trouble with him. He's now enjoying perfect peace, with a gag to insure it, beneath his own charpoy. Ram Nath happened along opportunely and created a diversion with his gin-bottle. That seems to be all, and I'm afraid we mayn't talk much longer. I must be going—and so ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... sake, and not the music which is imported like the Paris fashions. This winter it will be a question between whether we can afford to pay for it, and whether we can afford to do without it. We think the absolute necessity of some diversion, something to lift the leaden cloud, and keep us in a state of natural buoyancy and courage, already settles the question. Music we shall have, simply because we need it. Or view it from the opposite side, from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... functionally very active after the first year, or in precocious animals after the first few months of life. The breeding cow, on the other hand, is subjected to all the disturbances attendant on the gradual enlargement of the womb, the diversion of a large mass of blood to its walls, the constant drain of nutrient materials of all kinds for the nourishment of the fetus, the risks attendant and consequent on abortion and parturition, the dangers of infection from the bull, the risks of ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... recourse to, when tired with his other studies. What an Idea does it raise of His abilities, to find that a Work of such labour and learning, as would have been a sufficient employment and glory for the whole life of another, was to him diversion only, and amusement! The Subject is in its nature incapable of that demonstration upon which his other writings are founded, but his usual accuracy and judiciousness are here no less observable; And at the same time that he supports his suggestions, with all ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton
... work, provided my pen do not for a moment cease writing." And Vyasa said unto that divinity, 'Wherever there be anything thou dost not comprehend, cease to continue writing.' Ganesa having signified his assent, by repeating the word Om! proceeded to write; and Vyasa began; and by way of diversion, he knit the knots of composition exceeding close; by doing which, he dictated this work according ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... amply rewarded. People who require the household cat to rear her offspring in some remote attic or dark corner of the cellar have no idea of all the diversion and pleasure that they lose. It is delightful to watch the little, blind, sprawling, feeble, helpless things develop swiftly into the grace and agility of kittenhood. It is delightful to see the mingled ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... towards Mdlle. C—— C—— as an honest man nor as a libertine. I could not hope to obtain her hand, and I almost fancied I would stab anyone who advised me to seduce her. I felt that I wanted some diversion: I went to the gaming-table. Playing is sometimes an excellent lenitive to calm the mind, and to smother the ardent fire of love. I played with wonderful luck, and I was going home with plenty of gold, when in a solitary narrow street I met a man bent down less by age ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Boulogne! It's always Salvat! He's the inexhaustible subject for articles. The mere mention of him suffices to send up a paper's sales! The bribe-takers of the African Railways shout 'Salvat!' to create a diversion. And the battles which wreck ministers are waged round his name. One and all set upon him and make use of him and ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... finest fugues for a stipend of sixteen pounds a year." He lingered in the porch, waiting for the organist to descend the awkward little stair-case. In the weary trouble of his mind, and with the prospect of getting through the five hours in the best way he could, Mr. Audley was glad to cultivate any diversion of thought, however idle. He therefore freely indulged his curiosity about the ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... months believed the Baroness to be amusing herself with his society. He had not flattered himself that a woman of her age, who had seen so much of the world, and whose ambitions were so unmistakable, could regard him otherwise than as a diversion. ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... he spoke with a certain doggedness. Maurice, he scarcely knew why, felt slightly uncomfortable and longed to create a diversion. He looked at the book he was holding in his hand and saw that it was The Thousand and One Nights, in Italian. He wanted to do something definite, to distract his thoughts—more than ever now after his conversation with Gaspare. An idea occurred ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... next method therefore that I would propose to fill up our time, should be useful and innocent diversion. I must confess I think it is below reasonable creatures to be altogether conversant in such diversions as are merely innocent, and having nothing else to recommend them but that there is no ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... wish that many of his rhymes were not merely difficult but impossible. At a dinner given by Sir Leslie Stephen he met successfully the challenge to produce a rhyme for "rhinoceros," and for Tennyson's diversion he delivered himself of an impromptu in which rhymes were found for "Ecclefechan" and "Craigenputtock." But in rhyming ingenuity Browning is inferior to the author of "Hudibras," in a rhymer's elegant effrontery he ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... answer posed the American, and Barny took advantage of the diversion in his favor, and changed ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... to remain up long; and though Katherine was less than an hour from her chamber, the day was much shortened by the diversion. As night approached she became more and more anxious about Christopher. Indeed, it seemed to her as if the moments were hours after candle-light. And she moved restlessly about her chamber and listened and sighed for the return ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... expected to obey her. He then resolved to prepare, in a day or two, an autobiography full of details that should satisfy Zoe's curiosity, and win her admiration and her love. But he could not do it all in a moment, because his memory of his real life obstructed his fancy. Meantime he operated a diversion. He said, "Set a poor fellow an example. Tell me something about yourself—since I have the bad taste, and the presumption, to be interested in you, and can't help it. Did you spring from the foam of the Archipelago? ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... the landowner's daughter. The priest was longing feverishly for the moment of departure, for lie had been left to himself for several days. He could hardly bear the look of his snow-covered courtyard any more, having no diversion except watching a man chop wood, and hearing the cawing of rooks. He paced to and fro, thinking that another quarter of an hour must have gone, and was surprised to find it was only a few minutes since he had last looked at his watch. He ordered the samovar and lit his pipe. Then ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... perhaps he guessed at her reference, or perhaps he saw her too feeble to be attacked with exciting topics. He shut his mouth and said nothing; and just then the servant entered bearing the tray with Matilda's supper. That made a nice diversion. I think David was glad of it. At any rate he made himself useful; brought up the little table to Matilda's side; set the tea-pot out of her way and spread her napkin on her lap. Then, hearing that Mrs. Laval was detained ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... had believed the sole effect of the rapid inhalation was due to mere diversion of the will, and this was the only way nature could so violently exert herself—that of controlling the involuntary action of the lungs to her uses by the safety valve, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... youth, ordered a deer hunt to be prepared in the Escorial grounds; and during the diversion His Majesty happened to shoot Valenzuela in the muscle of his arm, whether intentionally or accidentally is not known. However, the terrified Queen-mother fainted and fell into the arms of her ladies-in-waiting. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... nightly in the studied simulacrum of her former self, was no part of her code. She felt she should tell every man that came near her that she hated him, and the reason why. Nor was hers the temperament for suspense without diversion. She could live through the next six weeks with change of scene, but not otherwise. She made a full confession to her father and received the severest reprimand of her life; but Colonel Belmont took ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... found leisure to write fourscore books, some of which occasioned diversion enough in their time, and were thought worthy to be collected in a folio volume. Mr. Wood observes, that had he had learning equal to his natural genius, which was excellent, he might have equalled, if not excelled, many who claim a great share in ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... his prey was practically within his clutches. The idea that the harmless clicking of the hammer had frightened him was too ridiculous to entertain. However, we had not long to wait before we could at least guess at the cause of the diversion, for from without came mingled growls and roars and the sound of great bodies thrashing about until the earth shook. The bear had been attacked in the rear by some other mighty beast, and the two were now locked ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and adjusted, proved to be the best part of the wagon, and, better than all else, had provided a season of mirth to the whole company, which, considering the all too serious environments of our march, was really a much needed tonic and diversion. ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... take up this subject a second time would be distasteful to both of us. So let's finish what we've started. I repeat: it isn't just for myself that I raise this issue. To me, research is a relief, a potent diversion, an enticement, a passion that can make me forget everything else. Like you, I'm a man neglected and unknown, living in the faint hope that someday I can pass on to future generations the fruits of ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... is in every constitution a certain solstice, when the stars stand still in our inward firmament, and when there is required some foreign force, some diversion or alternative, to prevent stagnation. And, as a medical remedy, travel seems one of the best. Just as a man witnessing the admirable effect of ether to lull pain, and, meditating on the contingencies of wounds, cancers, lockjaws, rejoices in Dr. Jackson's benign ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... often met in the world young men who were absolutely starlings in love and complete dupes of a friendship which women pretended to show them, women who felt themselves obliged to make a diversion and to apply a blister to their husbands as their husbands had previously done to them! These poor innocents pass their time in running errands, in engaging boxes at the theatre, in riding in the Bois de Boulogne by the carriages of their pretended ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... spirited encounter between Don and Billykins, who had taken to what they called wrestling, but which in reality amounted to a lively round of punching each other black and blue. Both small boys were considerably upset at being stopped in this entirely novel diversion, and declared that Rupert was neither public-spirited nor sporting to put a veto upon it; but he was firm, and threatened to send one of them to bed if they did not desist, and so they had been forced to find some ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... officers' houses on the post on Saturday or Sunday afternoon if invited; he was at liberty to take a walk—within cadet limits. Or, if he felt the need of something really "wild" in the way of diversion, the lucky plebe was permitted to go over to the Academic Building and examine the mineralogical or ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... of soil and groundwater with agricultural chemicals, pesticides; salinization, water-logging of soil due to poor irrigation methods; Caspian Sea pollution; diversion of a large share of the flow of the Amu Darya into irrigation contributes to that river's inability to replenish the ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... could say what they must do, there was a diversion in our proceedings which took all interest in them clean away from me, and made me forget whatever mystery there was about Carstairs, Smeaton, or anybody else. A page lad came along with a telegram in his hand asking was there any gentleman there of the ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... by getting into action, our artillery was now focusing the attention and drawing the fire of the Russian guns, for most of the latter's shells whined harmlessly above us, being aimed at the batteries in our rear. Considerably relieved by this diversion, we resumed our forward movement after about fifteen minutes of further rest, our goal being the little chain of hills which our advance guard had previously occupied pending our arrival. Here we were ordered to take ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... slightest suspicion. Equitan, far from being startled at this atrocious proposition, assured her of his concurrence, and she continued thus: "Return, sir, for the present, to your court; then come to pursue your diversion in this forest, and again take up your abode under our roof. You must once more pretend to be indisposed; cause yourself to be blooded; and on the third day order a bath, invite my husband to bathe and ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... officers for the ships are made in Mexico, thus causing great and unnecessary expense. The ships lost in the Philippine trade, and the causes of such loss are enumerated; and the kinds of merchandise therein are mentioned. The citizens of the Philippines are discontented at the partial diversion of their trade to the American colonies. A violation of the royal decrees is interpreted by the Mexicans to be not a mortal sin, accordingly they disregard them; Castro advises more leniency in both the prohibition and the penalty. Some ecclesiastics recommend that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... to dig holes in the carefully groomed lawn. It is as natural for them to delve for underground animals as for a setter or spaniel to flush birds. Retrievers are usually gentle, well disposed animals and not only make good pets but are excellent in a family where hunting is a diversion. Very popular just now in this class are the spaniels, especially the cockers. They have beauty, an affectionate disposition, are most intelligent and are excellent watch dogs. They fit into nearly any household large ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... existence when, during the first years of Cristina's Regency, Mendizabal, the patriotic merchant of Cadiz and London, then First Minister of the Crown, carried out the dismemberment of the religious orders, and the diversion of their enormous wealth to the use of the nation. Don Carlos, the brother of Ferdinand VII., thereupon declared himself the Defender of the Faith and the champion of the extreme clerical party. Hinc illae ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... the Merry-Lwyd was by no means a diversion exclusively Welsh is corroborated by the fact noticed in your Number of the 23rd of Feb., of its being found to exist in Cheshire. And we know that many ancient customs lingered in the principality long after they fell into disuse ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 20, March 16, 1850 • Various
... thought; but as Kate collected herself, and regained contact with the outer world, her preoccupation yielded to surprise. It was unusual for Mrs. Peyton to pay visits. For years she had remained enthroned in a semi-invalidism which prohibited effort while it did not preclude diversion; and the girl at once divined a special ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... and that's all I care about. They are my pupils, I tell you, and I've brought them here with their mother for a little diversion. I've the training of them every morning for a couple of hours, and thirty pounds a year paid every month. Jack and I make enough between ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... shot-gun against the large creature, whose attention it was his duty to attract, he staked all on the marksmanship of his friends. Not considering this, however, he stood his ground, having the thumb-piece on his Winchester magazine shoved up and ready to make a noisy diversion if necessary in behalf of either wing. Having aroused the monster's curiosity, Cortlandt sprang up, waving his arms and his gun. The dinosaur lowered his head as if to charge, thereby bringing it to a level with the rifles, either of ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... Grandval I saw through a whole play without suspecting it was he. Alas! four-and-twenty years make strange havoc with us mortals! You cannot imagine how this struck me! The Italian comedy, now united with their opera comique, is their most perfect diversion; but alas! harlequin, my dear favourite harlequin, my passion, makes me more melancholy than cheerful. Instead of laughing, I sit silently reflecting how everything loses charms when one's own youth does not lend it ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... shed tears much more than any grief—-that husband so dear to me, and of whom thou hast heard me speak so much, is one of the captives whose lives I have saved—-the other is my father, and the young lad my brother. The horror of seeing my father die for the diversion of a people to whom I am Queen, has pierced me with so lively an affliction, that I wonder the apprehension of it did not a second time deprive me of my reason—-my husband, partaker of the same fate, his melancholy, his ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown
... own pleasant self, and she defended Patricia so stoutly against this statement that Ted declared he was green with jealousy and began a counter-charge of neglect of his talents, which moved Judith to swift retort and afforded great diversion to ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... the island. The rats gnawed his feet and clothes when he was asleep, which obliged him to cherish the cats, by feeding them with goats flesh, so that many of them became so tame that they used to lie beside him in hundreds, and soon delivered him from the rats. He also tamed some kids, and for his diversion would at times sing and dance with them and his cats: So that, by the favour of Providence and the vigour of his youth, for he was now only thirty years of age, he came at length to conquer all the inconveniences of his solitude, and to be ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... Under cover of this diversion Duncan was making one last effort to slip away; but before he could gather together his impedimenta and get to the door ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... I had of Germany in the early period of the war; but I was never with the German army, which made Americans particularly welcome for obvious reasons. Between right and wrong one cannot be a neutral. In foregoing the diversion of shaking hands and passing the time of day on the Germanic fronts, I escaped any bargain with my conscience by accepting the hospitality of those warring for a cause and in a manner obnoxious to me. I was among friends, living ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... the Countess gave her attention once more to the crystal. For a time she could see nothing. The mysterious current had been severed by the diversion, and had slowly to be rewoven by ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... they been given the opportunity. It was a small division, divided into two brigades. General Davies led one of them, but General Custer was taken away and entrusted with the command of an important diversion designed to attract the attention of the enemy by an attack on his left flank, while Kilpatrick passed around his right and by a quick march reached the confederate capital. That portion of Custer's brigade ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... boast is the possession of one million idols, which, of one kind and another, I can well believe. The great Hindoo festival of the Holi was now celebrating, and the city more than ordinarily crowded; throwing red powder (lac and flour), with rose-water, is the great diversion at a festival more childish by far than ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... perpetuation, that they are utterly powerless in the presence of a system which imposes great and needless burdens upon their patrons, but which will die the day the Government takes possession of the railways, as then there will be no corporations ready to pay for the diversion of traffic. ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... I couldn't possibly do nothing—I do not mean this in the ungrammatical sense in which it is so often used—I thought I would be obliged to take up some new calling or diversion. Time hung heavily on my hands and I thought too much about myself, as usual. A mental healer had told me that I was too imaginative and thought of too many different things. He said: "A part of the time try to think of absolutely nothing; ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... the mob of Paris will be stirring. Let us go down towards the Hotel de Ville; that is always the centre of mischief. If all is quiet there, it may be that this story is correct, and that it is really only a court diversion. But that does not explain why the streets should be lighted ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... and therefore also of labor, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and diversion of labor increases, in the same proportion the ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... amphitheatre. West of the city was a sort of Water Park, enclosed by a wall 30 li in circumference, full of lakes, tanks, and canals from the Wei, and within this park were seven fine palaces and a variety of theatres and other places of public diversion. To the south-east of the city was an artificial lake with palaces, gardens, park, etc., originally formed by the Emperor Hiaowu (B.C. 100), and to the south of the city was another considerable lake called Fan. This may be the Fanchan Lake, beside which Rashid says that Ananda, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... a happy diversion for Lucy. She assented gayly. David ran for his fiddle, and then for Pepper. Pepper wagged his tail, but, strong as his musical taste was, would not follow the fiddle. But at this juncture Master Reginald dawned on the stable-yard with a huge slice of bread and butter. Pepper ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... something of which a Mendoza or a Belcher might have been proud. He fought strongly and silently, inspiring his fellow townsmen by his example. The new leader had entirely turned the tide of battle, but just as the defeat of the men of Menheniot seemed certain, a diversion was created by the arrival of the local constables. Now that their own villagers were on the verge of disaster, there was no longer any reason why they should remain in the background. They made a determined effort to arrest the leader of the ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... side lay his servant, who had died in the attempt to drag him out to the comparative safety of the open trench. Nearly two years since another friend gave up his life for his country; nearly two years since another mother in England learned that her son had been killed in a "slight diversion ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... two vessels the fire-ships were to be conducted. The "Imperious" and three other frigates anchored about a gun-shot and a half from the boom to support the boats accompanying the fire-ships. Five or six sloops-of-war and brigs were placed near the east end of the island to make a diversion, while a bomb-vessel and several small craft, supplied with rockets, took up their stations ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... at times by having Mr. Baker into his rooms of a morning, that the management of the estate might be discussed with his friend; and he also expressed his wish to see the family solicitor, as he desired to draw his will. Thinking that any diversion of this nature could not but be beneficial to him, we sent to Dorchester for our solicitor, Mr. Jeffreys, who together with his clerk spent three nights at Worth, and drew up a testament for ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... cheerful notary and the daily visits of the leech, an elderly man, who had depressed rather than cheered him by informing him of many cases like his own which all proved incurable, had been his sole diversion. True, the heads of the Greek residents of Tennis had also sometimes sought him: the higher government officials, the lessees of the oil monopoly and the royal bank, as well as Gorgias, who, next to Archias the Alexandrian, owned the largest weaving establishments, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... situation recognized in the course of the attempt during the war to standardize the wages of the stevedores and longshoremen employed in the South Atlantic ports. Here straightforward and unmodified standardization would have caused, it was judged, the diversion of certain freight carrying steamship lines from ports in which they ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... During this diversion of the Mongol arms, Bajazet had two years to collect his forces for a more serious encounter. They consisted of four hundred thousand horse and foot whose merit and fidelity were of an unequal complexion. We may discriminate ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... This diversion had cost me a good fifty yards. I knew well enough that the lane sooner or later must lead out into the high-road, and made sure that if my fellows gained it first they would head back for Farnham. (What would ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... 'tis neither wit nor diversion to tell you every day where I dine; neither do I write it to fill my letter; but I fancy I shall, some time or other, have the curiosity of seeing some particulars how I passed my life when I was absent from MD this time; and so I tell you now that I dined ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... conferred on them, and fled either to be the companions of the monks in the desert or elsewhere so as to be safe from the crushing load of Imperial distinction. Mr. Hodgkin and others have pointed out that the diversion of local funds to the Imperial Exchequer was one of the proximate causes which led to the downfall of the empire. Whilst the municipal system lasted, it produced admirable results. Dealing with Northern Africa, whose progress was eventually arrested by the withering hand of Islam, Mr. Reid speaks ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... see you take on so, dear Belle," said I. "I really have given you no cause to be so unhappy; surely teaching you a little Armenian was a very innocent kind of diversion." ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... as an Historian, for our improvement and diversion, how glorious an account could he give us of Noah's Voyage round the world, in the famous Ark! he could resolve all the difficulties about the building it, the furnishing it, and the laying up provision in it for all the collection of kinds that he had made; He could tell us whether all the ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... gallows liberally applied availed naught to check the popular licence. Every prohibitory edict became a dead letter. In such a season the Jews might well tremble, made over to the facetious Christian; always excellent whetstones for wit, they afforded peculiar diversion in Carnival times. On the first day a deputation of the chief Jews, including the three gonfaloniers and the rabbis, headed the senatorial cortege, and, attired in a parti-colored costume of red and yellow, marched across the whole city, from ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the Socialistic reign, the greater would be the danger to international peace. German contemporary history illustrates once more a general law of history, that the dread of a civil war is often a direct cause of a foreign war, and that the ruling classes are driven to seek outside a diversion from internal difficulties. Thus political unrest ushered in the wars of the Revolution and the Empire; thus the internal difficulties of Napoleon III. brought about the Franco-German War; thus the internal upheaval of Russia in our days ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... he may not be thought to conceive nothing but things inconceivable, he has, at last, thought on a way, by which human sufferings may produce good effects. He imagines, that as we have not only animals for food, but choose some for our diversion, the same privilege may be allowed to some beings above us, who may deceive, torment, or destroy us, for the ends, only, of their own pleasure or utility. This he again finds impossible to be conceived, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... asked Jennie, as a diversion. "It's one of the words I have seen so often and know perfectly to speak it and read it—but after all it's just a word, and ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... was only a diversion under cover of which we might have a chance to escape, but it was being executed with so much briskness and spirit that Bothwell could not ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... paper mechanically. He wanted it as a diversion to the conversation merely, for his interest in the doings of Surrey and Yorkshire had waned to the point of complete indifference in ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... genuine love-affair occurred when he was sixteen. The object of this affection, as all the world knows, was Miss Chaworth, whose estate adjoined Newstead. The lady was two years older than Byron, and being of a lively nature found a pleasant diversion in leading the youth a merry chase. So severe was his attack that he was alternately oppressed by chills of fear and fevers of ecstasy. He lost appetite, and the family began to fear for his sanity. Such a love ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... likewise kept the seventh day Sabbath. Franklin disliked both practices, but agreed to them on condition of their adopting a vegetarian diet, this whim suiting him at the time, both because he could save money by it and because he wished to give himself some diversion in half starving the gluttonous fanatic. Poor Keimer suffered grievously, grew tired of the project in three months, longed for the fleshpots of Egypt, and ordered a roast pig. He invited Franklin and two women friends to dine with him; ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... labour to be glad. What numbers, here, would into fame advance, Conscious of merit, in the coxcomb's dance; The tavern! park! assembly! mask! and play! Those dear destroyers of the tedious day! That wheel of fops! that saunter of the town! Call it diversion, and the pill goes down. Fools grin on fools, and, stoic-like, support, Without one sigh, the pleasures of a court. Courts can give nothing, to the wise and good, But scorn of pomp, and love of solitude. High stations tumult, but ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... the kingdom. After protesting against the jurisdiction of the court, he took his seat upon the sellette, although a chair had been prepared for him beside it. The interrogatories commenced. There were two principal charges against him. First, diversion of the public funds to his own use,—embezzlement or defalcation we should call it. Proof: his great expenditure, too large for any private fortune. Answer: that his expenses were within the income he derived from his salaries, pensions, and the property of himself and wife. He ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... the public if he had not counted among his resources certain papers belonging to the records of the Pansophian Society, which he can make free use of, either for the illustration of the narrative, or for a diversion during those intervals in which the flow of events is languid, or even ceases for the time to manifest any progress. The reader can hardly have failed to notice that the old Anchor Tavern had become the focal ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Basil also found diversion in the tender couples, who publicly comported themselves as if in a sylvan solitude, and, as it had been on the bank of some umbrageous stream, far from the ken of envious or unsympathetic eyes, reclined upon ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... driving the cattle toward the opening in the old volcano bowl. It was Dick's idea that if by a cross fire on the part of himself and his brother, hidden among the rocks, they could scare away the band besieging Bud and his friends, a diversion might be created which would rout the enemy. At any rate, it ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... Little Dorrit was nervously anxious to be gone. Maggy being broad awake, and in the act of distantly gloating over the fruit and cakes with chuckles of anticipation, Clennam made the best diversion in his power by pouring her out a glass of wine, which she drank in a series of loud smacks; putting her hand upon her windpipe after every one, and saying, breathless, with her eyes in a prominent state, 'Oh, ain't it d'licious! Ain't it hospitally!' When she ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... might be taken for it, her brother did every thing wrong; but, on the contrary, whatever she thought of doing was the masterpiece of reason and sound sense. If he proposed any kind of diversion, she was sure to consider it as dull and insipid; but it often happened, that she would herself the next day recommend the same thing, and, having forgotten what she had said of it before, consider it as the most ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... savages; and it was only after serious loss that they finally won their way back to the protection of the fort. Indeed, their return was due to the fierce dogs of the settlers, which were released at the most critical moment, and attacked the astounded Indians with such ferocity that the diversion thus created enabled the settlers to escape from the deadly trap. During the next two years the history of the Cumberland settlements is but the gruesome recital of murder after murder of the whites, ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... midst of his illness he called a council of war, in which the whole plan of operations was altered. It was determined to convey troops above the town, and endeavor to make a diversion in that direction, or draw Montcalm into the open field. Before carrying this plan into effect, Wolfe again reconnoitred the town in company with Admiral Saunders, but ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... Mr. Lincoln's feet. It was a little thing; but how it shook me! I was glad of the rush which followed the passing of the regiment; the rush of people eager to secure these bunches of flowers and evergreens for memorials; the diversion of interest for a moment gave me chance ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Notwithstanding this little diversion, we pay seven or eight millions of dollars annually of our public debt, and shall completely discharge it in twelve years more. That done, our annual revenue, now thirteen millions of dollars, which by that time will be twenty-five, will pay ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... absence the triumphal return of the Guard brought a slight diversion to the Empress's anxiety and distress of mind. Though unhappy as a wife, she was at least happy as a Frenchwoman. She, alas! had a presentiment of divorce, but not of the invasion and dismemberment of France. ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... from those of our fellow-citizens who look to home production, or more consumption of the fabrics of the tariff States as a relief from our present burdens, we perceive in these expedients rather an ill-judged wasting of the public energy and diversion of the public mind than an adequate remedy for the true evil, the usurping of Congress, which (since that body will never construe down its own powers) can be checked, in our opinion, only by the action of ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... of the placenta and all the changes which the uterus undergoes in gestation. The absorption of nutriment from the walls of the uterus, and the chemical and mechanical stimulation of those walls, might well be the cause of the diversion of nutrition from the ovary, leading gradually to the decline of the process of secretion of yolk in ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... Idiot. "You just said that one of the things that has kept you lingering in this vale of tears was that you have always chewed tobacco. I never did that, and I never shall do it, because I deem it a detestable diversion." ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... sneered Lisner. He had no real desire to question Stella, but welcomed the change of venue as a diversion from his late indiscretion. "If, in the performance of my duty, I put a few civil questions to Miss Vorhis—in the presence of her ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... would have happened to Alexander Abraham just then if a diversion had not taken place. But the door opened and a dog came in—THE dog. I suppose he had got tired waiting under the cherry tree for William Adolphus and me to come down. He was ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Morley's was a new scene of amusement to Ferdinand, and he watched with great diversion the two evening papers portioned out among twelve eager quidnuncs, and the evident anxiety which they endured, and the nice diplomacies to which they resorted, to obtain the envied journals. The entrance of our two travellers so alarmingly ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... for what it's worth. I think we're going to do a sort of flank attack. The main landing will probably be down here at the Point. Then when the Turks are busy, trying to hold 'em up, we shall be slipped in somewhere up the coast so as to create a sort of diversion.' ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... "one confidant at a time; you will forgive me, for I see my guests coming across the lawn, and I may as well make a diversion in your favour. Ernest can consult me ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... said she to the squire, who was muttering ominously with a grim under-jaw, 'His private chaplain!' and for this once would not hear her, 'Grandada, I shall drive you over to see papa this afternoon.' She talked as if nothing had gone wrong. Peterborough, criminal red, attacked a jam-pot for a diversion. 'Such sweets are rare indeed on the Continent,' he observed to my aunt Dorothy. 'Our homemade dainties ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hotel, anxious for any diversion out of the ordinary, came flocking to the scene as the strains of the barrel organ reached their ears, and the bear, in a clumsy fashion, began to dance to the ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... of his own muscular powers; and if the duke of Lumber should think proper to challenge my lord Lath, to run four times round the canal in St. James's Park, for 10,000l. the contrast in their figure would only render the diversion more entertaining to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... on this little diversion. When they heard it they probably departed for other regions. They won't be coming around just yet, that's a safe wager. Mighty lucky, eh? Think what Ar targets we'd make, up here ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... of alcohol, and she was afraid that Eleanor Hubert would think her lacking in dignity. She regretted having succumbed to the temptation to answer him in his own tone; but, under her bravado, she was really somewhat apprehensive about this expedition, and she welcomed a diversion. Besides, the voluble young man showed not the slightest sign of noting her attempt to rebuff him, and she found quite unavailing all her efforts to change the current of the talk, the loud, free-and-easy, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... cannot in honour have any more to do with Morphew and Lillie, who have gone beyond the ordinary pitch of assurance, and transgressed the very letter of the proverb, by endeavouring to cheat you of your Christian and surname too. Wishing you, Sir, long to live for our instruction and diversion, and to the defeating of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... self-diversion were of the most limited description. Hers was a social, a wholly dependent nature; she could not, like Madeleine, create her own amusement, and make her own occupation. She tried to read, but could not fix her attention; she tried to embroider, but quickly threw ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... along this plain, and, though we saw several bears at a distance, we could never, with all our management, contrive to get within shot of them. Our diversion was therefore changed to spearing of salmon, which we saw pushing in great numbers through the surf into a small river. I could not help observing how much inferior our Kamtschadales were, at this method ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... a carpet of Turkey leather, and sit round it on the floor, eating, with wooden spoons, meat and rice stewed together, called pilau. They are not allowed to drink wine, or eat pork. A favourite diversion with them is playing on a kind of lute, and sometimes they amuse themselves with chess, draughts, and other games; but their principal amusement, like some of my little friends, is to sit and listen to stories, ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... effect has been produced on the romantic literature of Europe by those tales of fairy enchantment, so characteristic of Oriental genius, and in which it seems to have revelled with uncontrolled delight. These tales, which furnished the principal diversion of the East, were imported by the Saracens into Spain; and we find the monarchs of Cordova solacing their leisure hours with listening to their rawis, or ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... even looked on smilingly at a mock marriage, at one of her own entertainments, between the pair—"with ring and all other ceremonies of church service and ribands, and a sack-posset in bed, and flinging the stocking, evincing neither anger nor jealousy, but entering into the diversion with ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... much the custom to view life as if it were exactly ruled in two, like sleep and waking—the provinces of play and business standing separate. The business side of my career in San Francisco has been now disposed of; I approach the chapter of diversion; and it will be found they had about an equal share in building up the story of the Wrecker—a gentleman whose appearance may be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had been a weighty conference, resulting in the conclusion that I must have complete rest and diversion. But as my more recent letters home had expressed a determination to rush headlong into business—as a sort of fatuous panacea for jumpy nerves, no doubt—and since the conferees possessed an intimate knowledge of the mulish streak that coursed through ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... and there were quaint wildernesses and pleasaunces—clipped yews and oddly trained shrubs and flowers trying to make a diversion, but ever dominated by the huge woods, the straight avenues, the mathematical ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... have succeeded, great as his armament was, had it not been for the diversion effected in his favour by the landing of the Scandinavian pretender in the North, and the failure of provisions in Harold's Channel fleet, which compelled it to put into port. Louis of France was called in as ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... lady who receives has charge of arranging what the entertainment shall be,—whether charade, tableau, reading, recitation, or music; and the interest is much increased by the individual taste shown in the choice of the diversion and the ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... carried on with surprising volubility, gaiety, and delight; their time thus occupied is so seducing, that they separate with great reluctance, sometimes passing the entire day in this, pratling, smoaking, and diversion: night, however, terminates these amusements: They assemble in the open air during the dry season, and under the palaver-houses in the wet, where they form themselves into dancing companies, generally during half the night, and not unfrequently the whole of it. Their ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... lingered in the porch, waiting for the organist to descend the awkward little stair-case. In the weary trouble of his mind, and with the prospect of getting through the five hours in the best way he could, Mr. Audley was glad to cultivate any diversion of thought, however idle. He therefore freely indulged his curiosity ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... A. Hurlburt was ordered to make a strong demonstration from Bolivar, Tennessee, against Van Dorn, then near Grand Junction with about 10,000 effective men, and lead him to believe he was in immediate danger of an attack, and thus prevent him from making a diversion in aid of Price by marching on Corinth. This ruse was successful. Orders were given by Grant and preparation was made by Ord to attack Price at Iuka as soon as Rosecrans' guns on the Jacinto road were heard. About 4 P.M., September 19th, ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... achieved similar imbecilities; Germany was, if possible worse; Russia under the waste and stresses of militarism festered towards bankruptcy and decay. All Europe was producing big guns and countless swarms of little Smallways. The Asiatic peoples had been forced in self-defence into a like diversion of the new powers science had brought them. On the eve of the outbreak of the war there were six great powers in the world and a cluster of smaller ones, each armed to the teeth and straining every ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... As a consequence, she recalled, with rising feeling, how often he had refused to go to places with her, to share in little visits, or, indeed, take part in any of the social amenities which furnished the diversion of her existence. He had been seen at the theatre with people whom he called Moy's friends; now he was seen driving, and, most likely, would have an excuse for that. Perhaps there were others of whom she did not hear, or why should he be so busy, so indifferent, of late? ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... this time I had believed the sole effect of the rapid inhalation was due to mere diversion of the will, and this was the only way nature could so violently exert herself—that of controlling the involuntary action of the lungs to her uses by the safety valve, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... that of sport, the Negro was especially prominent. In pugilism, a diversion that has always been noteworthy for its popular appeal, Peter Jackson was well known as a contemporary of John L. Sullivan. George Dixon was, with the exception of one year, either bantamweight or featherweight champion for the whole of the period from 1890 to 1900; and ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... spring east winds the party were generally gone to some more genial climate, and the early autumn was often spent in Switzerland. Pictures, art, and scenery were growing to be necessaries of life, and to stay at home with no special diversion in view seemed unthought of. The season was spent in London, not dropping the artist society on the one hand, but adding to it the amount of intercourse into which she was drawn by the fact of her being a rich and charming woman, having a ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... accompanied though they were with a smile, she gave the baron such a sweet, wistful look that he could no longer resist; but the appearance of Pierre at this moment with a large omelette created a diversion, and interrupted this interesting conversation. They all immediately gathered round the table, and attacked the really good breakfast, which the old servant had somehow managed to put before them, with great zest. As to de Sigognac, he kept ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... necessity of his taking upon him the human nature, to wit, that he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver his people; for that would be here too much beside our matter, and be a diversion to the reader. We are now upon his High Priest's office, and of those natural qualifications that attend him, as to that; and I say, nature is a great qualification, because in nature there is sympathy; and where there is sympathy, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... look comfortable. It was to him an untimely intrusion of an unpleasant theme. "But what in the world set the doctor off on this subject?" he asked, trying to make a diversion. ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... from a feller in Limerick and chased that for a bit; then on a 'tween day, when I was away and the deer out grazing in the demesne, somebody slipped a brace of Mauser bullets into it, and that form of diversion was likewise at an end. As far as I could see an animal wouldn't stand a ten minutes' chance in my country unless ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... had been relieved, besieged, reduced, and finally remodelled by the grand Roads and Demolitions Scheme of his friend Napier, the latter came down to Allahabad, and he and Yule sought diversion in playing quoits and skittles, the only occasion on which either of them is known to have ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... of course as much alive as other people. 'There is in every constitution a certain solstice when the stars stand still in our inward firmament, and when there is required some foreign force, some diversion or alteration, to prevent stagnation. And as a medical remedy, travel seems one of the best.' He found it so in 1833. But this and his two other voyages to Europe make no Odyssey. When Voltaire was pressed ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... who received his portion with wordy gratitude and devoured it with seeming gusto. The pirates, full-fed, with pipes in mouths, were inclined to be affable and jocular. "Feeding the animals," as Slinker called it, seemed to afford them much agreeable diversion. Even Magnus had lost in a degree his usual sullenness, and was wreathed in simian smiles. The intense terror and revulsion which he inspired in me kept my unwilling eyes constantly wandering in his direction. Yet under all the terror ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... was dense. I picked out some of the smallest people, looked over their heads, and saw several young farmers, in parti-colored jackets, and very red in the face, bouncing up and down on handsome cart-horses. Satiated at last with this diversion, I turned away and wandered down the hill again; and after strolling through the streets of Fecamp, and gathering not a little of the wayside entertainment that a seaport and fishing town always yields, I repaired to the Abbey church, a monument of some importance, and almost as great an object of ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... as the Chiefs for that week were established, Uncle Teddy was immediately besieged with questions in regard to the Principal Diversion. "It's a—oh, my gracious!" said Uncle Teddy, catching himself hastily and winking mysteriously at Mr. Evans. "It's a secret!" And not another word would ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... what-not: and flocks of English accordingly rush to witness the benediction of droves of donkeys. In a word, the ancient city of the Caesars, the august fanes of the Popes, with their splendour and ceremony, are all mapped out and arranged for English diversion; and we run in a crowd to high mass at St. Peter's, or to the illumination on Easter Day, as we run when the bell rings to the Bosjesmen at Cremorne, or ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... accommodation; the license has been transferred. Many were the respectable parties of the olden time who used to amuse themselves with the attempt to gain the summit of the down,—sometimes successfully, but more frequently at the expense of a rather too precipitate descent, to the no small diversion of their friends who had less daring to make the experiment. In this age of refinement, such displays of rural agility would be regarded as "utterly vulgar!" there are however more circuitous and accessible paths by which we may ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... ran, and was humored to his bent. To one he seemed the son he had lost, to another the son he might have had, had the world gone differently. To others he served as a brief escape from the shadow of a future without hope; to others yet, the diversion of an hour. This last was especially true of the blind man who sat at the door of his old mother's cottage binding brooms. The presence of the child seemed to him like a warm ray of sunshine falling across his hand, and he would lure ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... A momentary diversion is caused by the entry of an elfin-tressed little girl, who stares at us half impudently, half shyly, with bright black eyes, hesitates at the botanist's clumsy smile and nod, and then goes and stands by her father and ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... daughters, getting to know the right people, patching up quarrels, and so on. The priesthood earn their salaries as the agents for these valuable social arrangements. Their theology is thrown in as a sort of intellectual diversion, like the ritual of a benevolent organization. There are some who get excited about this part of it, just as one hears of Free-Masons who believe that the sun rises and sets to exemplify their ceremonies. Others take their duties more quietly, and, understanding just what it all amounts ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... guns started shelling the German trenches, and knowing that the diversion would momentarily occupy the snipers' attention the others raced safely across in a body. The remainder of the journey was made in comparative safety, the only danger being from exploding shrapnel overhead. But one does not trouble very much about that after a time. Reaching the front trenches, ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... and charged to meet them. I happened to be first, and much to my discomfiture the enemy's phalanx parted in the middle, and I was rapidly passed down the stairs—a prisoner! Fortunately at the bottom I found a relieving party from the next house, making a diversion on the enemy's rear. With great valour we dragged down a foe, and toshed him in the bath that had been made ready ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... written, should have ever appeared in our columns; and this, not, as the agent of the Duke asserts, because it has been exposed, but because of the unhappy unsolidity of its facts, and because of that diversion of the public attention which it has effected from cases such as those of Canobie and Wanlockhead, and from such a death-bed as that of the Rev. Mr. Innes. Our readers are already in possession of our explanation, and have seen it fully borne out by the incidental ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... of the Whig populace knew no bounds. No longer would the shadows of dark despair and abandoned hope hang like a pall over the capital city. No longer would the stately residences of the Tory element be thrown open for the diversion and the junket of the titled gentry. No more would the soldiery of an hostile army loiter about the street corners or while away the hours at the Taverns or at the Coffee Houses. The Congress was ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... sordidness and the commonplace. She could imagine positively nothing less romantic. She thought of the ground floor on chill March mornings with no fires anywhere save a red gleam in the dining-room, and herself wandering about in it idle, at a loss for a diversion, an ambition, an effort, a real task; and she thought of the upper floor, a mainly unoccupied wilderness of iron bedsteads and yellow chests of drawers and chipped earthenware and islands of carpets, and her mother plaintively and weariedly arguing with some servant over a slop-pail in a corner. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... allied to philosophic and poetic thought is already known. It was always a refined diversion of poets and painters to unite in a quest for the beautiful. The poet wrote verses and the painter painted a picture suggesting, sometimes remotely, the thought enshrined in the poem. Such were the conditions upon ...
— Chinese Painters - A Critical Study • Raphael Petrucci
... consists of two large courts, in which are the lodgings for the masters and scholars, and in the centre a very noble chapel; beyond that, in the second court, are the schools, with a large cloister beyond them, and some enclosures laid open for the diversion of the scholars. There also is a great hall, where the scholars dine. The funds for the support of this college are very considerable; the masters live in a very good figure, and their maintenance is sufficient to support it. They have all separate dwellings in the ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... bombs had been used by the time both men vanished into the shelter of the woods a mile or so away from camp. The Lieutenant was laughing heartily as though he had enjoyed the diversion greatly. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... Consequently all the features of the pastime had become rude and imperfect, and, although very respectable gentlemen still gave it their countenance, there was a growing suspicion that it was a questionable, if not demoralizing diversion. It would be more agreeable if we could invest the present occasion with a little more pomp and dignity; but we must describe the event ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... hath troubled me ever since, so forlorn and forsaken did she seem. Major Pike (Robert's father), coming in this morning, says, next to the sparing of Goody Morse's life, it did please him to see the bloodthirsty rabble so cheated out of their diversion; for example, there was Goody Matson, who had ridden bare-backed, for lack of a saddle, all the way from Newbury, on Deacon Dole's hard-trotting horse, and was so galled and lame of it that she could scarce walk. The Major said he met her at the head of King ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... days after this, the Turks, having defeated a division of the Greek army destined to make a diversion from the plain of Eleusis, attempted to carry the camp of General Gordon by storm. Captain Hastings now entered the Piraeus again, even at the risk of exposing the Karteria to the Turkish shells; as he saw that by his powerful ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... it can be effected; if not, for as long a time as possible. These, with the militia in the vicinity, would answer the purpose I have last mentioned, and would in proper time make a useful body, either to form a diversion in favor of, or to cooperate with, a force upon ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... the London craftsmen followed the popular diversion of cock-throwing on Shrove Tuesday and tossing pancakes in the frying-pan—the latter custom is still kept up at Westminster School. Both bear allusion to the sufferings and torments of men who ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... and when the stress of her attention to household work, and her devotion to neighborly good deeds relaxed, she turned to knitting wash-rags as a sportsman turns to his gun, or a toper to his cups. She seemed to find more stimulus for thought and more helpful diversion in the production of one wash-rag than most persons ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... fashionable teachers have no interest in giving their passions exactly the same direction. Still, however, they find it their interest to keep the same savage dispositions alive. It was but the other day that they caused this very massacre to be acted on the stage for the diversion of the descendants of those who committed it. In this tragic farce they produced the Cardinal of Lorraine in his robes of function, ordering general slaughter. Was this spectacle intended to make the Parisians abhor persecution and loathe the effusion ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... appealed to, and then not over-zealously or over-intelligently; his application is short-lived and he hurries on; but the other hoodlum will stay with you all night if necessary, finding, no doubt, the automobile a pleasant diversion from a bed ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... not go to sleep again. Something was speaking to them from the next cell, something that whimpered and raised its hands in appeal, and they welcomed the daylight, but not the diversion which daylight brought. Again the door banged open, and this time a file of ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... both of health and successful industry is the absolute yielding up of one's consciousness to the business and diversion of the hour—never permitting the one to infringe in the least degree ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... pig I ivver set mi een on." And then the audience saw where the "war" pig came in, and they laughed heartily over the joke. It was a relief to me when they did put the best face on the affair. Under cover of the diversion I stole from the room, and prepared to leave the place. I met Mrs Stangcliffe at the foot of the staircase. She said "she did not know what to think about us, but there had been a fearful noise, and she took it that we had pleased the company." With this I left the inn, and got away ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... at the sound of a tumultuous summons at the street-door. As may be well supposed, his servant took more time than usual to answer it, resenting a noise so out of character with the house, during which John listened half-angrily, fearing, yet wishing for, a diversion. And then his own door burst open, not, I need not say, by any intervention of legitimate hands, but by the sudden rush of Philip, who seemed to come in in a whirl of long limbs and eager eyes, flinging himself into ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... erection is that which stands and feeds and silences a tin which is swelling. This makes no diversion that is to say what can please exaltation, ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein
... had a very hard pull, the Barrier surface being covered with prismatic crystals—without any glide we felt we might as well be hauling the sledges over ground glass, but diversion in the shape of Land-oh: I think I sighted Mount Hope refracted up, and pointed ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... [54] Formerly this diversion was as much followed in the evening, as it was at an earlier hour in the day. In "Laneham's Account of the Entertainment at Kenelworth Castle," we find that Queen Elizabeth always, while there, hunted in the afternoon. "Monday was hot, and therefore ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... there was a quick movement in the little group round the foot of the ladder, for, partly moved by the spirit of mischief, as well as by the intense desire to create a diversion, ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... his stiff temper; I couldna thole a man but had a mind of his own, my dear," ejaculated Lady Carnegie in unexpected, clear, cherry accents, as if her daughter's extremity was diversion ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... came in with the tea-tray, and the sight of the crackers and milk, the strawberries and little cakes, created a pleasant diversion. ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... hopes or previously recognised obligations. On the contrary, the ponderable and tangible realities of the immediate situation counselled neutrality. They were revolted by the hideous brutality of the war and its colossal waste. Participation must be purchased with a similarly colossal diversion of American energy from constructive to destructive work, the imposition of a similarly heavy burden upon the future production of American labour. It implied the voluntary surrender of many of those advantages which had tempted our ancestors to cross the Atlantic and settle ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... An unexpected diversion occurred at this moment. The pack-horse, that had been contentedly cropping the grass near at hand and paying no heed to what was going on about him, wandered toward the bank, and was in imminent peril of being shot by the vigilant Sioux before ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... whom he lived some years, in an easy and no contemptible service. Here by the indulgence of a kind master, he had sufficient leisure to apply himself to whatever learning his inclinations led him, which were chiefly history and poetry; to which, for his diversion, he joined music and painting; and I have seen some pictures, said to be of his drawing, which remained in that family; which I mention not for the excellency of them, but to satisfy the reader of his early inclinations to that noble art; for which also he was afterwards ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... the Maccabee did not readily forget. Since the girl had moved on to avoid him, he had become alive to a delinquency that was more of a sensation than an admission. His thought of her, that had been a diversion before, now seemed to be a transgression. An incident of this nature during the fourteen years of his life in Ephesus would have engaged his conscience only a moment if at all, but at this last hour it amounted to a deflection ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... the footman created a diversion by announcing that the sleigh was waiting to take Mr. Riatt to the train, and Riatt explained that he had decided not to take the train that day. Then Christine, on inquiring, found that Hickson ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... came a diversion. A burly, rough-clad man pushed his way through the crowd, and his keen eyes flashed a quick look over the whole outfit. He was the sheriff, and had been ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... survival of the fittest had wrought on this heterogeneous crew through countless generations; and with the primitive Indian, the fittest was the hardiest, fiercest, most adroit, and most wily. Baptized and heathen alike they had just enjoyed a diversion greatly to their taste. A young Pennsylvanian named James Smith, a spirited and intelligent boy of eighteen, had been waylaid by three Indians on the western borders of the province and led captive to the fort. When the party came to ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... weather-glass. John was quick and understood his business very well; but no man alive was more careless in looking into his accounts, or more cheated by partners, apprentices, and servants. This was occasioned by his being a boon companion, loving his bottle and his diversion; for, to say truth, no man kept a better house than John, nor spent his money more generously. By plain and fair dealing John had acquired some plums, and might have kept them, had it not been for his ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... accordance with the rules of the game. What mattered it that the luscious edibles existed only in the brain of the loyal old darky? The little pretense gave to each a delightful thrill—surely an adequate extenuation of the harmless diversion. As usual Colonel Fairfax found the key to the situation in the closing items ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple
... and truth-stamped manner began to create a diversion in her favor, and all near listened with her to what the dismissed girl might say. The latter did not in the least respond to Belle's energy, but after a long, weary sigh she began, without raising her head from her hand as she sat leaning on the counter, "Whether you're right or wrong, ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... A diversion occurred at this point. Charlie, who had long been eyeing Beale sourly, dashed at him with swinging fists and was knocked down again. The whole trend of the meeting altered once more. Conciliation became a drug. Violence ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... storm center of the infuriated masters, many of whom were loud in the demand that summary vengeance be wreaked upon them and that these two at least should be hung from the yard arm. It was easily possible that this demand might have been acceded to, had not a diversion been caused by some of the others who were ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... editorial demagogues also were under bit and bridle. It was hoped that now quiet would be restored. The German diet at Frankfort-on-the-Maine turned public attention for a time from the more purely internal Prussian politics. But this was a very insufficient diversion. In fact, the course of William I., in utterly refusing to have anything to do with the proposed remodelling of the articles of confederation, the object of which was to effect a firmer union of the German States, although no Prussian had the utmost confidence in the sincerity of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... saloons and on the promenade decks formed little knots and coteries for conversation, for reading, and for mutual diversion, or strolled about from side to side, watching the endless expanse of waters for the occasional appearance of some inhabitant of the deep that had wandered ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... its practical aspect. If thought is not to stand forever pointing at the universe in wonder, if its movement is to be diverted from the issueless channel of purely theoretic contemplation, let us ask what conception of the universe will awaken active impulses capable of effecting this diversion. A definition of the world which will give back to the mind the free motion which has been blocked in the purely contemplative path may so far make the world ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... all projects of reform, etc. At the close of the Session of 1835, Mr. W. L. Mackenzie, as Chairman, brought in an elaborate Report which, without being read, was ordered to be printed. In that Report, Mr. Mackenzie endeavoured to create a diversion in his favour by showing that while Dr. Ryerson professed to be opposed to Government grants to religious bodies, yet he was willing to receive one for the Wesleyan Conference. The Report ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... she was not coming down, and anxious looks were exchanged, and dark ones cast on me. In return I winked at Jane, and frowned severely on Herbert, who intercepted the signal and began to grin. Mabel, who had seen it too, reproved me for setting the boy a bad example; and thus a diversion was effected. While she was seeing after the children, my sister carried me off to the library: I made her kiss me before I ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
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