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More "Divert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... other vessels, the appearance of strange birds and fish, the passage into different climates, the excitement of a storm, or the opportunity which a calm gives for general junketing; all such incidents are looked upon as a real gain by the voyagers, while there is always something stirring on board to divert ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... about six o'clock in the evening when the sea-breeze is making its final efforts, I have perceived it to blow with a considerable degree of warmth, owing to the heat the sea had by that time acquired, which would soon begin to divert the current of air towards it when it had first overcome the vis inertiae that preserves motion in a body after the impelling power has ceased to operate. I have likewise been sensible of a degree of warmth on passing, within two hours after sunset, to leeward ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... died out of that proud, passionate heart—as well hope to divert a tiger from its helpless prey as expect Lester Stanwick to relinquish any plans he had ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... arm, nor his services in respect to the coffee, but he was mute on the subject on which his companion was bent. He tried to divert her attention by some questions on the subject of ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... nursery rime Who Killed Cock Robin? It is written in the form of a dirge, and many people were shocked at that, for they said that it was but another form of mockery that this jesting priest had chosen with which to divert himself. But I think that little Jane Scoupe at school in the nunnery at Carowe would dry her eyes and smile when she read it. She must have been pleased that the famous poet, who had been the King's tutor and friend and who had ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... to console him with a turn. She pleaded weariness. He proposed to sit beside her and divert her. She smiled, but warned him that she was English in every vein. He interjected: 'Irish men and English women! though it's putting the cart before the horse—the copper pennies where the gold ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... you against your own ardour. Ardour in well-doing is a misleading and a treacherous thing. It cries out loudly for employment; you can't satisfy it at first; it wants more and more; it is eager to move mountains and divert the course of rivers. It isn't content till it perspires. And then, too often, when it feels the perspiration on its brow, it wearies all of a sudden and dies, without even putting itself to the trouble of saying, "I've ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... replied Peg, "and this is her hat I've got an' here's her bag—" Peg was striving her utmost to divert Mrs. Chichester's attention from Ethel, who was in so tense and nervous a condition that it seemed as if she might faint at any moment. She thrust the dressing-bag into the old lady's hand. Mrs. Chichester ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... about business and find him gadding in the mountains for his pleasure. At that rate what would become of his government? In good truth, sir, hunting and such like pastimes are rather for your idle companions than for governors. The way I mean to divert myself shall be with brag at Easter and at bowls on Sundays and holidays; as for your hunting, it befits neither my condition ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... these chicaneries that I despised them; but I must own that I used to think within myself that, in the main, to be a prisoner of State was of all others the most afflicting. All the relaxation I had from my studies was to divert myself with some rabbits on the top of the donjon, and some pigeons in the turrets, for which I was indebted to the continual solicitations of the Church of Paris. I had not been a prisoner above nine days when one of my guards, while his comrade who watched me ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... such sudden, inconsequent decisions, influenced perhaps by the merest trifles, that a man's life is made great or small; just such narrow forkings of the trail may divert him into strange adventurings, or into worlds undreamed of. Kirk Anthony, twenty-six years old, with a heritage at hand, and with an average capacity for good or evil, chose the turning that led him swiftly from the world he ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... He attacks oppression, meanness and fraud as if they were offences not only against the public, but against himself. He has never strayed from the profession to engage in any speculations or occupations to divert his thoughts from pure law, except for two years from 1840, while he held a seat in Congress. In 1848, the Legislature elected him judge of the Superior Court of Cuyahoga county, a place he continued to hold till ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... grasshoppers stopped in turn. "Let us rest," said they; "the heat will overpower us if we struggle against the noonday sun. It is so pleasant to live in sweet repose! Come, Graceful, we will divert you and you shall sing ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... by some Castilian soldiers, who, recognizing his person, would at once have despatched him. But the wounded chief, having rallied from the first effects of his blow, had presence of mind enough to divert them from their purpose by pointing out the place below where he had deposited his money and jewels, and they hastened to profit by the disclosure before the treasure should fall into the hands ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... now in the house; and, that I may not lose my temper and my spirits, I shut my ears against the sophisms and rant against the treaty, and divert my ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... opposite the Stone Bridge consisted of a whole division; and its commander, General Tyler, had been instructed to divert attention, by means of a vigorous demonstration, from the march of Hunter's and Heintzleman's divisions to a ford near Sudley Springs. Part of the Fifth Division was retained in reserve at Centreville, and part ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... with you, and get rooms at some pleasant house before the rush of winter visitors. We shall not be able to go into general society, but there is a great plenty of sightseeing in the national capital with which to divert the mind of my poor little girl. Her old guardians, the Pendletimes, are there also, and it will comfort her to see them. With them she will be able to let you depart without breaking ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... come my kittens," said Madame de Pompadour; "all that we are about is Greek to them; but their gaiety restores my tranquility, and enables me to attend again to serious affairs. You, Sire, have the chase to divert you—they answer the same purpose to me." The King then began to talk about his ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... that which is, or that which he believes to be, essential to his happiness? Must he not fear and avoid that which he judges injurious or fatal to him? Excite his passions by useful objects; let him attach himself to these same objects, divert him by sensible and known motives from that which can do him or others harm, and you will make of him a reasonable and virtuous being. A man without passions would be equally indifferent to ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... Bonaparte strove to divert the thoughts of the soldiers by various expeditions, and soon made them forget this disaster. On the festival of the foundation of the republic, he endeavoured to give a new stimulus to their imagination; he engraved ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... him how unfortunate a time it was to divert this money from its destination; and how, by so doing, we must lose the profit of our past economies, and plunge back the estate into the mire. I even took the liberty to plead with him; and when he still opposed me with a shake of the head and a bitter dogged ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... their terror was much increased on being told that one cannon-shot could kill an hundred men. On which account, they alleged that it must be something belonging to the devil. They were likewise greatly astonished at a bag-pipe, which, one of our sailors played upon to divert them; and, on examining the several parts and ornaments of the instrument, they conceived that it was a living animal, which sung in different voices. Observing their simplicity, I told them it was a musical instrument, and put it into ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... already had allowed to slip the chance at New York,—shows a decisive superiority in the British officers and crews. The incontestable merits of the rank and file, however, must not be permitted to divert attention from the great qualities of the leader, but for which the best material would have been unavailing. The conditions were such as to elicit to the utmost Howe's strongest qualities,—firmness, endurance, uninterrupted persistence rather than ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... To divert his mind, he began next morning to make an inventory of the goods in the store. It was high time, too: thanks to the recent disturbances he did not know where he stood. And while he was about it, he gave the place a general clean-up. A job of this kind was a powerful ally in keeping ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... one endeavour to divert attention from his own person. The fat boy, accompanied by a complacent ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... kind of a vessel along the coast, in which we could make a journey from island to island, and so reach the nearest Russian port. Having thus made our plans, the first thing we determined to do was to divert the attention of the Japanese from us, by assuming a cheerful demeanor, and suffering no complaint to escape us. To our great joy, we were successful. It is true that the soldiers, who mounted guard, did not sleep at their posts during the night, but they troubled themselves ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... coming up from Fiume and Trieste. The Jugoslavs, recognizing that the possession of Klagenfurt would give them virtual control of the principal railway entering Austria from the south, and that such control would probably enable them to divert much of Austria's traffic from the Italian ports of Venice and Trieste to their own port of Fiume, which they confidently expected would be awarded them by the Peace Conference, lost no time in occupying the town with a considerable force of troops. They further justified this occupation ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... at her return to captivity in the car, and demanded to be released with a teasing persistence from which nothing she was shown out of the window could divert her. A large man leaned forward at last from a seat near by, and held out an orange. "Come here to me, little Trouble," he said; and Flavia made an eager start toward ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... the stranger will never notice: for their triennium is spent mostly in the lecture-room or at home; and their conviviality—for there are neither disciples nor apostles of temperance in this beer-drinking land—is of a nature not to divert ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... unfavorably. But his heart and mind were far more occupied with the humbler property he had already secured in the town: that was now to be fortified against the incursions of the river, with its attendant fevers and agues. A survey of the ground had satisfied him that a wall at a certain point would divert a great portion of the water, and this wall he proceeded at once to build. He hoped in the end to inclose the ground altogether, or at least to defend it at every assailable point, but there were many other changes ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... and idleness, of that soul defenselessly abandoned to its gloomy reveries, of that poor heart maddened, and pouncing upon itself as upon a prey; self-devouring, constantly reopening his wounds and inflaming them, without work or study to divert him a single instant from his monotonous torment. Oh! Count Kostia, how refined ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... I found Governor Morton and all the State officials busy in equipping and providing for the new regiments, and my object was to divert some of them toward Kentucky; but they were called for as fast as they were mustered in, either for the army of McClellan or Fremont. At Springfield also I found the same general activity and zeal, Governor Yates busy in providing for his men; but these men also had been promised to ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... sent for William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris, together with Peter de Cuisy, Bishop of Meaux, in whose diocese he happened to be, and requested them 'to place upon his shoulder the cross of the voyage over the sea.' The two bishops tried to divert him from this idea, and the two queens, Blanche and Marguerite, conjured him on their knees to wait till he was well, and after that he might do as he pleased. He insisted, declaring that he would ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... some, by a cunning protestation against all reading, and false venditation of their own naturals, think to divert the sagacity of their readers from themselves, and cool the scent of their own fox-like thefts; when yet they are so rank, as a man may find whole pages together usurped from one author; their necessities ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... negotiate, to live, and to quarrel when necessary, on terms of amity; but this black "swine," as he termed him in his wrath, prinked out in a masquerade of a white man's clothes.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} He jammed his heel down savagely upon the thorn to divert the southern passion. After all it was not the man's fault but zu Pfeiffer's. Put a white man in a uniform and he becomes a beast; put a nigger in a uniform and he becomes a devil, Birnier forced ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... to the evidence. Stopping over a boat at Dieppe, a few summers ago, I happened to see my good friend Mme. Vezin registered at the Casino, where I recognised an acquaintance or two. That decided me to spend the night and call at her villa. Her salon never failed to divert me, for, drawing together the most disparate people, she handled them with easy generalship. Under her chandelier ardent art students from the Middle West and the poor relations of royalty might be heard exchanging confidences and foreign tongues. So, as I climbed ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... north by railroad. Harry made several stops by the way, in order to divert the thoughts of his beautiful young bride from dwelling too much on the fate of her aunt. He knew that home would revive all these recollections painfully, and wished to put off the hour of their return, until time had a little weakened Rose's regrets. For this reason, he ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... has been paid to protective devices at Zui than at Tusayan. This is undoubtedly due to the prevalent use of adobe in the former. This friable material must be protected at all vulnerable points with slabs of stone in order quickly to divert the water and preserve the ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... stand in line for breakfast. After breakfast we muster again and a gentleman talks to us in a voice that would lead you to believe that he thought we were all in hiding somewhere in New Rochelle. Then there are any number of things to do to divert our minds—scrub hammocks, pick up cigarettes, drill, hike and attend lectures. As a rule we do all of these things. From 5 p.m. until 8:45 p.m. if we are unfortunate enough not to have a lecture ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... House of Bread long ages before the birth of Him who said, "I am the bread of life." Even on the hypothesis that Adonis followed rather than preceded Christ at Bethlehem, the choice of his sad figure to divert the allegiance of Christians from their Lord cannot but strike us as eminently appropriate when we remember the similarity of the rites which commemorated the death and resurrection of the two. One of the earliest seats of the worship ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the French-Italian troops on their left wing, while at Solferino itself the Austrian army was destroyed. So it would be here. It was supposed that this slight victory was allowed to the Prussians, so as to divert their attention from the movements of MacMahon and Bazaine, who were certain to crush them all at ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... originally in the adjacent chapel of St. John the Baptist, but was moved, and thus mutilated, in the eighteenth century to make way for the colossal monument of General Wolfe. We avert our eyes with a shudder from the marble group which represents Wolfe's death above, and divert our party's attention to the bronze bas-relief below, where the British troops are depicted landing on the river bank, then scaling the heights of Abraham, and finally drawn up on the plain before Quebec. {109} In an unmarked grave near ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith
... discriminations based on nationality, means of transport or place of entry or departure. Goods in transit shall be assured all possible speed of journey, especially perishable goods. Germany may not divert traffic from its normal course in favor of her own transport routes or maintain "control stations" in connection with transmigration traffic. She may not establish any tax discrimination against the ports of allied or associated powers, must grant the latter's seaports all ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... belongs to himself. He has put on a mask, beneath it his real face still exists; he has thrown himself into a foreign individuality, which in some sense forms a shelter to the integrity of his own character; he may indeed wear festive attire, but his mourning is beneath it; he may smile, divert, act, his soul is still his own; his inner life is undisturbed; no indiscreet question will lift the veil, no coarse hand will burst open the gates of the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... as a soldier and as a man, Miss Naida. I am glad to get into the field again with my regiment, to do my duty under the flag, and I am equally rejoiced to have something occur which will tend to divert my thoughts. I had not intended to say anything of this kind, but now that I am with you I simply cannot restrain the words. This past month has been, I believe, the hardest I have ever been compelled to live through. You simply mystify me, so that I alternately hope ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... divert Egede from his purpose by picturing to him the dangers of his enterprise; the miseries he must endure; the cruelty of endangering the lives of his wife and children; and lastly, by pointing out the madness of relinquishing ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... It was her custom when he began to bestow knighthood upon common clay to divert him with some new and irrelevant subject. "Here's an item in the Times this morning I fancy you didn't read. After describing the bride's dress and her beauty, it says, 'And the bride is a daughter of the late H. M. Von Mueller, who was an exile from his native land and gave up a large ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... frankly courageous to match a government of guile. Tone was far more dangerous. He realized that foreign invasion was necessary to successful rebellion, and he allowed no scruple or obstacle in his path. He washed his hands of law and politics entirely. To divert Napoleon to Ireland was his object and the total separation of Ireland his ambition. The United Irishmen favored the invasion, which the Volunteers had been formed to repel. The feud between moral and physical force broke out. The failure of the sterner ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... retorted. "It will be a good experience for him, besides David is so amusing when he tries to be, I thought he could divert her ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... in which the gentleman allowed his servants to walk and divert themselves at all proper seasons. A pleasant garden surrounded the castle, and a thick hedge separated it from the wilderness, which was infested by the robbers. In this garden they were permitted to amuse themselves. ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... herself to the cause of peace, persuading herself that Thomas had left it as a legacy to her and Angelina. She resolved to use all her best endeavors to promote its advancement, and daily prayed for a blessing on her exertions and for the success of the cause. This at least served to divert her thoughts from herself, and no doubt helped her to the belief which now came to her, that at last Satan was conquered, and ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... a formidable war with Macedonia threatened them, when with difficulty bearing up against the Punic war; yet so far were they from sinking under their calamities, that they immediately began to consider how they might divert the enemy from Italy, by commencing hostilities themselves. After ordering the prisoners to be confined in chains, and selling their attendants by public auction, they decreed, that twenty more ships should be got ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... constantly in his thoughts, more especially as the time approached in which he had promised his friends he would return to them. He took no pleasure in the chase, with which his father sought often to divert him, nor in any of the convivial meetings of that hospitable city. All kinds of amusements wearied him, and the best enjoyments that could be offered to him were not to be compared, he thought, with those he had known at the tunny fisheries. His friend Avendano, finding him often ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... telephone with a contemptuous sneer on her face; but Leslie's gay laugh persisted in her ears. Restlessly she moved through her rooms thinking what she might do to divert herself, and shrinking from all the tiresome things she had been doing for years until there was not a drop of the fresh juice of life to be ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... counsel given only as a matter of policy, and was not capable of being wilfully unjust. Palmerston, essentially superficial, delighted in banter, and knew how to divert grave opposition by playful levity; LINCOLN was a man of infinite jest on his lips, with saddest earnestness at his heart. Palmerston was a fair representative of the aristocratic liberality of the day, choosing for ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... head. "No—you've got to go, to divert suspicion. It will be all right here. I'll keep both eyes open. Don't forget that I'm going to be on ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... laughter spread, then grew into a bellow, for the nature of "Happy Tom's" illness had long since become a source of general merriment, and O'Neil's timely reference served to divert the crowd. It also destroyed ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... were already filled with farmers and their families, adorned as for a holiday. The entire population of Shellfish Canyon had assembled, voicing high indignation at the ranger's interference. Led by Abe and Eli, who busily proclaimed that the arrest of Henry and his companions was merely a trick to divert suspicion from the Kauffman woman, they advanced upon ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... meanness, the generality of the upper and middling classes were inviting. There wanted, only, what their subtle invaders well knew was never far distant, some plausible artifice suddenly to prevail over the simplicity of the honest but credulous vulgar, which could not fail to divert that powerful torrent, into whatever channel should most rapidly lead them ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... other the stormy and uncertain Charybdis of his clamouring regiments. Slowly the idea must have began to dawn upon him that unless he found employment for the army, which, besides being disgusted with his inactivity, was somewhat wearied with his cruelties, for domestic slaughter had ceased to divert and had begun to irritate: the army, or some enterprising members of it, might put it beyond his power ever to find employment for it at all, and bring one of his brothers to ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... appears by my journal of that summer. The only way that I can at all account for this fact - - for such it is — is that, on that quarter, between us and the sea, there are continual mountains, hill behind hill, such as Nore-hill, the Barnet, Butser-hill, and Ports-down, which somehow divert the storms, and give them a different direction. High promontories, and elevated grounds, have always been observed to attract clouds and disarm them of their mischievous contents, which are discharged ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... possible; that is to say, he took her into his arms and soothed her with many tender and loving words. And as soon as she was calm enough to eat and drink, he placed food and wine before her, and set her a good example by eating and drinking heartily himself, chattering trivialities all the time to divert her mind, so far as he could, from her recent terrible adventure. Then, when she had taken all that he could persuade her to swallow, he insisted that she must lie down and endeavour ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... interspersed with rocks; the bed of the Wady was covered with white sand. A few trees of the species called by the Arabs Talh, Tarfa, and Adha (Arabic), grow in the midst of the sand, but their withered leaves cannot divert the traveller's eye from the dreary scene around him. At six hours the valley again becomes narrower; here are some more tombs of Bedouins on the side of the road. At the end of six hours and a half we came to the mouth of the Wady, where ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... And pray tell us, to what you think it owing, that your man seems so careful to adorn that self-adorned person of his! yet so manages, that one cannot for one's heart think him a coxcomb?—Let this question, and the above tasks, divert, and not displease you, my dear. One subject, though ever so important, could never yet engross your capacious mind. If they should displease you, you must recollect the many instances of my impertinence which you have forgiven, and then ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... hopes of the nation, in terms too contemptuous to be heard without indignation; he has amused himself with displaying their ignorance and their effeminacy, and has indulged his imagination in a malignant kind of gaiety, which, however it may divert himself, is very far from contributing either to the reformation or prevention of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... judge me, in spite of my youth, capable of keeping a secret and worthy of being your wife. Certain that your heart is mine, I do not blame you for having made a mystery of certain things, and not being jealous of what can divert your mind and help you to bear patiently our cruel separation, I can only delight in whatever procures you some pleasure. Listen now. Yesterday, as I was going along one of the halls, I dropped a tooth-pick which I held in my hand, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... are directed to watch unto prayer. When you approach the mercy seat, watch against a careless spirit. Suffer not your mind to be drawn away by anything, however good and important in itself, from the object before you. If the adversary can divert your mind on the way to that consecrated place, he will be almost sure to drive you away from it ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... horrible reptile that had scared me from my friend's corpse. Pointing to that part of the drawing, Taee put to me a few questions respecting the size and form of the monster, and the cave or chasm from which it had emerged. His interest in my answers seemed so grave as to divert him for a while from any curiosity as to myself or my antecedents. But to my great embarrassment, seeing how I was pledged to my host, he was just beginning to ask me where I came from, when Zee, fortunately ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Besides, those who accuse the consulate and the municipality of the Havannah of obstinate resistance forget that, in the year 1799, the same authorities proposed fruitlessly that the government would divert attention to the state of the blacks in the island of Cuba (del arreglo de este delicado asunto.) Further, we are far from adopting the maxims which the nations of Europe, who boast of their civilization, have regarded as incontrovertible; that, for instance, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... of the sick and ailing is unchristian. Infinitely more important were it to keep the gates of birth free from undesirables. As for the exclusion of the able-bodied, whether illiterate or literate, that is sheer economic madness in so empty a continent, especially with the Panama Canal to divert them to the least developed States. Fortunately, any serious restriction will avenge itself not only by the stagnation of many of the States, but by the paralysis of the great liners which depend on steerage passengers, without whom freights and fares will rise ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... I lacerate their little souls with a useless leave-taking? Go to them and comfort them; divert their minds with an expedition ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... occasion was solemn and manly; an expressive silence marked his conduct throughout the scene; in fact we attended him as silently, and with close observation. He did not suffer any thing to divert him from the business he had in hand, nor did he seem to be in the least desirous to have it quickly dispatched, but paid this last rite with an attention that did honour to his feelings as a man, as it seemed the result of an heartfelt affection for the object of it, of whose person nothing ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... constantly removing effete particles and building up new, and therein giving its hue to the flesh. But sculpture supposes the current checked, and one aspect fit to stand for all the rest. The statue is not only a particle, but an isolated particle, and must first of all divert attention from its fragmentariness. Mr. Garbett has remarked that plants should not be copied in sculpture, because the plant is not seen entire, but is partly hidden in the ground. But the point is not the being seen or not, but the suggestion ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... been sufficient had he not, momentarily, been so disturbed by the wreck of his pacific policy toward the South, and as yet so ignorant of the strength of Lincoln's quiet persistence. As it was, he yielded on the immediate issue, the relief of Sumter (though attempting to divert reinforcements to another quarter) but did not as yet wholly yield either his policy of conciliation and delay, nor give up immediately his insane scheme of saving the Union by plunging it into a foreign war. He was, in fact, still giving assurances ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... that she could obtain, constantly listened for his voice, and filled her letters to her mother with questions and details on his health, and descriptions of his small person. Alick was amused whenever he glanced at his strong-minded woman's correspondence, and now and then used to divert himself with rousing her into emphatic declarations of her preference of this delicate little being to "great, stout, coarse creatures that people call fine children." In fact, Alick's sensitive tenderness towards ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the southern ridge of Glen Urquhart with the Mackenzies close in the rear. Allan casting an eye behind him and observing the superior numbers and determination of his pursuers, called to his band to disperse in order to confuse his pursuers and so divert the chase from himself. This being done, he again set forward at the height of his speed, and after a long run, drew breath to reconnoitre, when, to his dismay, he found that the avenging Mackenzies were still upon his track in one unbroken ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... thus alone on the mountain top. She had a sense of security there which she had never felt in the years since she had been taken from the convent to share her parents' wanderings. She made an earnest effort to divert and arouse her mother and succeeded until Madam Manovska talked much and volubly in Polish, and revealed more of the thoughts that possessed her in the long hours of brooding than she had ever told Amalia before. It seemed that she confidently expected the return of the men ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... he can, and the wicked glee with which he groups persons incongruous and antipathetic and shows them doing things impossible to them, and makes pictures of them, is a thing to shock the Gradgrinds and dismay the Chadbands. The book is printed in two colors to divert the reader's mind from the jokes, lest laughter be fatal to him."—New ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... loss of the two hundred pounds. But a little careful explanation on my part, and a little attentive listening on hers, ultimately changed her opinion. She now agrees with me that there is nothing in this unexpected circumstance of the clandestine marriage which absolutely tends to divert suspicion from Mr. Jay, or Mr. "Jack," or the runaway lady. "Audacious hussy" was the term my fair friend used in speaking of her; but let that pass. It is more to the purpose to record that Mrs. Yatman ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... people, but I would cheerfully gratify their humours. We are all a sort of children that must be soothed and managed. I think I am not austere or formal in my nature. I would bear, I would even myself play my part in any innocent buffooneries to divert them. But I never will act the tyrant for their amusement. If they will mix malice in their sports, I shall never consent to throw them any living, sentient creature whatsoever—no, not so much as ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... cried, with a very Highland accent, 'See such pretty goats!' Then he whistled, WHU! and made them jump. Little did he conceive what Doctor Johnson was. Here now was a common ignorant Highland clown imagining that he could divert, as one does a child, DR SAMUEL JOHNSON! The ludicrousness, absurdity, and extraordinary contrast between what the fellow fancied, and the reality, was truly comick. It grew dusky; and we had a very tedious ride for what was ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... who wished to divert Mosely from the plan which the faithful servant could see he had ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... Expectation in the air, And hides a sword from hilts unto the point With crowns imperial, crowns, and coronets, Promis'd to Harry and his followers. The French, advis'd by good intelligence Of this most dreadful preparation, Shake in their fear, and with pale policy Seek to divert the English purposes. O England! model to thy inward greatness, Like little body with a mighty heart, What mightst thou do, that honour would thee do, Were all thy children kind and natural! But see thy fault! France hath in thee found out A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills With ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... that the conversation is taking a painful direction, I try to divert it by telling my news; but the bloom is again taken off it by the old man, who declines to be disabused of the idea that the Peninsular is still raging, and that it is Roger's grandfather who is returning from that field of glory. After a few more ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... passed away at the castle of Justinian, in which Nicaeus used his utmost exertions to divert the anxiety of Iduna. One day was spent in examining the castle, on another he amused her with a hawking party, on a third he carried her to the neighbouring ruins of a temple, and read his favourite AEschylus to her amid its lone and ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... was postponed for more than twenty years, and even then it was only accomplished by the stern will and unbending policy of President Jackson, who made its payment a leading measure of his Administration. He resisted the attempts which were made to divert the public money from that great object and apply it in wasteful and extravagant expenditures for other objects, some of them of more than doubtful constitutional ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... interested in this one-act piece as if it had been a five-act drama. His absorption in it helped to divert his mind from the pain that had sadly ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... showeth you the way, he informeth you of the particularities, as well of the tediousness of the way and of the pleasant lodging you shall have when your journey is ended, as of the many by-turnings that may divert you from your way; but this is to no man, but to him that will read him, and read him with attentive, studious painfulness; which constant desire whosoever hath in him, hath already passed half the hardness of the way, and ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... advances. For the destined bridegroom is at this time leading a life of stern austerity and self-denial upon a mountain peak. Himalaya therefore bids his daughter wait upon Shiva. She does so, but without being able to divert him from ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... but that it would range itself with the old feelings of simple reverence and sympathy and friendship, that I should love you as much as I supposed I could love, and no more) but in the confidence that nothing could occur to divert me from my intended way of life, I made—went on making arrangements to return to Italy. You know—did I not tell you—I wished to see you before I returned? And I had heard of you just so much as seemed to make it impossible such a relation could ever exist. I ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... that of this unhappy lady, who had, I imagined, much to console her. It even seemed to me that the grief I had witnessed was somewhat morbid and overstrained; and, thinking that it would perhaps divert her mind from brooding too much over her own troubles, I ventured, when she had grown calm again, to tell her some of my memories. I asked her to imagine a state of the world and the human family, in which all women were, in one sense, ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... and into Park Avenue before she appreciated how interesting her tempestuous flight from that rather thoroughly burglarised mansion would be apt to seem to a peg-post policeman. And then she pulled up short, as if reckoning to divert suspicion with a semblance of nonchalance—now that she ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... to divert the train Of one of the most circulating scandals That had for centuries been known in Spain, At least since the retirement of the Vandals, First vowed (and never had she vowed in vain) To Virgin Mary several pounds of candles; And then, by the advice of some old ladies, She ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... time it occurred to Joe that he might divert the creature's attention by throwing out some of the dead martens. Cutting one of them loose, he slung it as far as he could into the woods. Immediately the panther stole forward, seized the carcass of the little animal in its mouth and ran off. ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... seems to me, is more legitimate to acquire. The Russian Ministries of Commerce and Finance always imagined that they could overrule economic laws by decrees and stratagems. For instance, they were perpetually endeavouring to divert the flow of trade from its accustomed channels to some port they wished to stimulate artificially into prosperity, by granting rebates, and by exceptionally favourable railway rates. Large quantities of jute sacking were imported from Dundee to be made into bags ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... talk in such unrestrained fashion that "Mr. Karlbeck" looked as if he would faint with apprehension, while His Royal Highness sought by every possible means to divert Edestone's attention from the broad hints and imprudent revelations that were ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... all these months; indeed, this "Third Primer" was hardly orthodox food for Sunday at all, according to her ideas; and yet Geordie was laboriously travelling over the page with a dogged earnestness which she did not know how to divert into any other channel without doing harm in some shape or other. But presently help came to her from a quarter where she ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... upper schoolroom with another boy, and, looking out of the window, had an opportunity of watching all that took place for a considerable space. There was a good deal of merriment to divert our attention, for there were clowns and merry-andrews passing along the highroad, with singlestick players, Punch and Judy shows, and other public amusers. Every one knows that the smallest event in the country will cause a good deal of excitement, even if it be so ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... for the climbers who seek the precious stone up to the very tops of the mountains, but also for the smugglers who fraudulently export it. But the work in the mines is not so pleasant, and the two thousand negroes employed in that work by the government are obliged even to divert the watercourses to get at the diamantiferous sand. Formerly ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... political personage, who shall be nameless, to be also 'a pitiful sham,' why, then I think, like so many other and unscientific 'writers to the papers,' he needs the Conductor of cool Common Sense to divert, carry off, and disperse his too ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... aspired to fill the highest places. One of them, named Glaucon, took it so strongly in his head that he had a peculiar genius for public affairs, although he was not yet twenty years of age, that no person in his family, nor among his friends, had the power to divert him from a notion so little befitting ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... opening of the Ferrarese academy, the marriage of Leonora's sister Lucrezia with the Prince of Urbino, and the society of Leonora herself, who led the retired life of a person in delicate health, and was fond of the company of men of letters, helped to divert him from melancholy recollections; and a journey to France, at the close of the year following, took him into scenes that were not only totally new, but otherwise highly interesting to the singer of Godfrey of Boulogne. The occasion of it was a visit of the cardinal, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... the end of the Flemish campaign of 1794 Pitt sought to divert the energies of England to a more promising field. Thwarted on the Lower Rhine by the vacillations of the German Powers and the torpor of the Dutch, he hoped for success among the Royalists of Brittany and la Vendee. He framed this decision reluctantly; for it involved ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the troops that could be spared. The danger of two points like Vicksburg and Port Hudson, both of such vital importance, and both being besieged at the same time, aroused every latent energy of the Confederacy, and set in motion every armed man of whom it could dispose. To divert and distract the attention of the Union generals, to induce them to abandon their efforts or diminish the forces at the front, no means were so ready nor so sure as an attack upon their communications, or a threat directed against their ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... banquet will be spread in our mansion to-day, that exceptional bustle will prevail, and that you have, on account of this, Sir, come here to get out of the way. But as you're, after all, going to spend a whole day in peace and quiet in here, you should try and divert yourself as best you can. It won't, therefore, by any manner of means do for you to have nothing ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the rooty thicknesses of the sedge-grown banks, startling the little birds bathing there into darting to the nearest, highest rush-top, where, without losing their hold on their swaying, balancing perches, they burst into all sorts of incoherent songs, in their excitement to divert attention from the near-hidden nests: bird mothers are ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... they will eventually be forced by the conditions of public life to yield their positions to those who merit public confidence. If it should ever happen in Canada that public opinion has become so low that public men feel that they can, whenever they choose, divert it to their own selfish ends by the unscrupulous use of partisan agencies and corrupt methods, and that the highest motives of public life are forgotten in a mere scramble for office and power, then thoughtful Canadians might well despair of the future ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... relate. A trifling theme provokes my humble lays. Trifling the theme, not so the poet's praise, If great Apollo and the tuneful Nine First, for your bees a proper station find, 10 That's fenced about, and sheltered from the wind; For winds divert them in their flight, and drive The swarms, when loaden homeward, from their hive. Nor sheep, nor goats, must pasture near their stores, To trample underfoot the springing flowers; Nor frisking heifers bound about the place, To spurn the dew-drops off, and bruise the rising grass; Nor must ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... rendered him an easy dupe of Spanish artifice. While his son-in-law was ruined, and the inheritance of his grandson given to others, this weak prince was imbibing, with satisfaction, the incense which was offered to him by Austria and Spain. To divert his attention from the German war, he was amused with the proposal of a Spanish marriage for his son, and the ridiculous parent encouraged the romantic youth in the foolish project of paying his addresses in person to the Spanish princess. But ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... Hayes), to God, who only knoweth the truth thereof, I will hasten to the end of this tragedy, which must be knit up in the person of our General, and as it was God's ordinance upon him, even so the vehement persuasion of his friends could nothing avail to divert him from his wilful resolution of going in his frigate; and when he was entreated by the captain, master, and others, his well-wishers in the 'Hinde,' not to venture, this was his answer—'I will not forsake my little company going homewards, with ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... was not to be the case. Finding he could not free himself, but must endure his bonds till the end of All Things, Loki tried to divert himself by enticing the earth people to him and teaching them to do every manner of evil. And so fast did knowledge of this evil spread, that the whole world soon became full of wickedness. Brothers fought and killed each other, ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... rivers, vallies, See my love returns to Calais, After all their taunts and malice, Ent'ring safe the gates of Calais, While delay'd by winds he dallies, Fretting to be kept at Calais, Muse, prepare some sprightly sallies To divert my dear at Calais, Say how every rogue who rallies Envies him who waits at Calais For her that would disdain a Palace Compar'd to ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... and a half years he had lived in suspense, while everything he loved had lain behind the German lines. The woman contributed no suggestions to his brilliant plans. She clung to him, but she tried to divert his affection. When she spoke it was of small domestic abuses: the exorbitant prices she had had to pay for food; the way in which the soldiery had stolen her pots and pans; the insolence she had experienced when she had lodged complaints against the ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... reproached him were, in his estimation, acts of duty. Whatever he had done, either in the last or present reign, had been done with the sanction of the sovereign. If he had formerly taken up arms, it had been to divert his countrymen from the impious war which they waged against the royal authority in England; if now, his object was to accelerate the existing negotiation between them and their new king. As a Christian, he had always supported that ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... But partly to divert Madeline's mind from her own woes, partly to enable the unfortunate girl to feel less a stranger among them, she has talked to her of Doctor Vaughan, of her sister, ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... hundred temptations, many of them by no means ignoble, to divert the Imperial administrator from keeping the narrow path exactly. In certain circumstances it may seem a positive virtue to exploit some province of the Empire for the Mother Country, or for the Empire as a whole—to forget the interests of ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... said Knops. "Pardon me for wearying you. I am more scientific than hospitable. Come to our sleeping apartment. I think I shall allow Paz to see you, for, as he is so unhappy, it will divert him to serve you while you remain with us, and perhaps, too, he can suggest something suitable for your food. I ought to have thought of ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... low whisper to her ear. "When I hear his step in the study—that monotonous tramp, tramp, which we both dread, I feel such an ache here, such a desire to comfort him, that I try the one little means I have to divert him from his thoughts. He must ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... covering up the lode while I scrambled out to meet and divert the visitors. My first sight of Mary Everton, grown, made me gasp. There had been no promise of her womanly winsomeness and pulse-quickening beauty in the plain-faced little girl with large brown eyes—the little girl who used to thrust her hand into mine on the way home from school and tell ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... incredible stories are the best adapted to the genius of an enraged people, it was gravely reported, and firmly believed, that Nero, enjoying the calamity which he had occasioned, amused himself with singing to his lyre the destruction of ancient Troy. To divert a suspicion, which the power of despotism was unable to suppress, the emperor resolved to substitute in his own place some fictitious criminals. "With this view," continues Tacitus, "he inflicted the most exquisite tortures ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... stimulated, Alfred bent himself to the task with all that steady ardor which so strongly characterized him in after-life, and easily won the prize from his tardy competitors. This gave a fresh impulse to his natural appetite for learning; even his passion for the chase could not divert him from earnest study; nor was he to be deterred by what might have been a better excuse for indolence, the incessant tortures of the secret malady which had attacked him while yet a child, and which never left him but with life. What this secret disease was, the old chroniclers have ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... without humor. "That's one of I-A's answers to those fat-keistered politicians. We're setting up our own search system to find the planets before they do. We've managed to put spies in key places at R&R. Any touchy planets our spies report, we divert the files." ...
— Missing Link • Frank Patrick Herbert
... huge mustachios had excited some degree of terror among those who were in the salon. He described his exploits on the march, and did not disguise his intention of bringing his troops into Hamburg next day. He talked of the Bank and of pillage. I tried for some time to divert him from this idea, but without effect, and at length said to him, "Sir, you know that this is not the way the Emperor wishes to be served. During the seven years that I have been about him, I have invariably heard him express his indignation against ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... sequel, has no backward pages whereon, if you choose to turn them, you will find records such as might justly cause you either bitterness or shame. I await the expression of your sentiments with an anxiety which it would be the part of wisdom (were it possible) to divert by a more arduous labor than usual. But in this order of experience I am still young, and in looking forward to an unfavorable possibility I cannot but feel that resignation to solitude will be more difficult after the ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the mores. In every societal system or order there must be a ruling class or classes; in other words, a class gets control of any society and determines its political form or system. The ruling class, therefore, has the power. Will it not use the power to divert social effort to its own service and gain? It must be expected to do so, unless it is checked by institutions which call into action opposing interests and forces. There is no class which can be trusted to rule society with due justice to all, not abusing ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... scandalous; and for the Generality of the Town, I found by my Receipts it was not thought so Criminal. However, that shall not be an Incouragement to me to trouble the Criticks with new Occasion of affronting me, for endeavouring at least to divert; and at this rate, both the few Poets that are left, and the Players who toil in vain will be weary of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... cheery respect—the man was delighted to have seen the last of his hard master for some months to come. Amelius stopped and turned round, smiling grimly. He was in such a reckless humour, that he was even ready to divert his mind by astonishing a footman. "Richard," he said, "are you engaged to be married?" Richard stared in blank surprise at the strange question—and modestly admitted that he was engaged to marry the housemaid next door. "Soon?" ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... afraid," he said gently. "And here! Catch it if you can." He tossed a coin across the road. It struck at her feet and rolled into the high grass. She did not divert her gaze for the fraction of a second. "I'm a stranger up here and I want to find some place to sleep for the night. Surely you have a tongue, haven't you?" By dint of persuasive smiles and smirks that would have sickened him at any other time he finally induced ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... the Austrian line held was near Kolki in northern Volhynia, south of the Styr. There attempts by the Russians to cross that river failed and some 2,000 men were captured by the Austro-Hungarians. In the north Field Marshal von Hindenburg's efforts to divert the Russian activities in the south by a general offensive along the Dvina line had not developed beyond increased artillery bombardments which apparently exerted no influence on the movements of the Russian armies in Volhynia, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... that," he said. "Perhaps you had better follow the waiting course you seem to have decided on, but if suspicion gathers round Prescott it won't be a drawback and you needn't discountenance it. For one thing, it may divert attention, and after all he may ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... contested the line of the Monocacy with obstinacy, but had to retire finally toward Baltimore. The road was then open to Washington, and Early marched to the outskirts and began against the capital the demonstrations which were designed to divert the Army of the Potomac from its main purpose in ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan
... to supply me with plants, was a total stranger. There are thousands of pioneers such as I was. It is well for them that the light they need is not hidden under the bushel of any one churlish individual. But there were ample expedients remaining, and it required more than one discouragement to divert me from the object ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... in silent sympathy, and then to divert his thoughts from a subject fraught with so much ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... the interview is given in his diary: 'Letters from home; thank God, all well, but evidently anxious. I am glad they do not know how this day's work may affect their fortunes. Read letters and papers and try to divert myself till hour for ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... passion, And that must not divert the course of Justice; Don Henrique, take your Son, with this condition You give him maintenance, as becomes his birth, And 'twill stand with your honour to doe something For this wronged woman: I will compel nothing, But leave it to your will. Break up the ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... have given me all that I crave. I have more than enough for my wants. Forgive me that I cannot stay; but I cannot. I have learned the limit of my power of endurance. I know that I cannot escape myself or my memories, but new scenes divert my thoughts. Here, I believe, I should go mad, or else do something wild and desperate. Forgive me, and do not judge me harshly because I leave you. Perhaps some day this fever of unrest will pass away, When it does, rest assured you shall ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... things before the problems are all solved, the difficulties all met. As a slight relief, and to answer a question raised a little earlier in the paper, I am suggesting the sports—those activities that both rejuvenate the physical man and also "divert and make mirth." Into these we can not carry our teaching and our preaching and our making of social calls. The goods of the merchant, the notes of the banker, the briefs of the lawyer, the annoyances of the teacher, and the cares of the housewife, alike, would all have to be left behind. The mind ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... What he hoped, what he expected, was to make his escape and get back before any one learned of the charges. That hope was frustrated. In his wrath and perplexity he resorted to the invariable device of the cowardly and the low. He must divert their sympathy for Ray into distrust of him, and before he had fully considered his words they were ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... under a smile—laughed, was confused, bowed, and left the Queen's barge to go on board my Lord Burleigh's. Leicester, who endeavoured to divert his thoughts from all internal reflection, by fixing them on what was passing around, watched this circumstance among others. But when the boat put off from the shore—when the music sounded from a barge which accompanied them—when the shouts of the populace were heard ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... man would think. You may take sufficient water to run your trains, to fill your tanks, to use in any way in connection with your business of transportation, and nobody will object to that; but when you undertake to divert a whole river to irrigate lands in order to sell them, you go too far. That is the business of a real-estate company, and not ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... a walk. He was bleeding in many places, and he was sore and burning in many others. But he did not permit these things to divert him from his task. He went on steadily, going he knew not whither, until he felt his master become inert in the saddle. This troubled him, and, without knowing precisely why he did it, he freshened his gait and continued at a fox-trot well into ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... God, how drearily they divert themselves in our K—! Look: no laughter, no singing, no dances. Just like some herd that's been driven here, in order to ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... impelled by a hatred for Whiggish principles; but he undoubtedly accomplished it in the spirit of a broad-minded and far-seeing statesman. The pressing needs of Ireland were too urgent and crying for him to permit his personal dislike of the Irish natives to divert him from his humanitarian efforts. If he hated the beggar he was ready with his charity. The times in which he lived were not times in which, as he told the freemen of Dublin, "to expect such an exalted degree ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... Custom with the Northern Lovers to divert themselves with a Song, whilst they Journey through the fenny Moors to pay a visit to their Mistresses. This is addressed by the Lover to his Rain-Deer, which is the Creature that in that Country supplies the Want of Horses. The Circumstances which successively ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... ones in disgrace; even Elinor was present. Their faces fell when they saw her. They had built great hopes on having at least Elinor's company in their disgrace. The swift thought had darted through both their minds that she would be safe to be extra naughty that morning, and in consequence would divert some of the storm of Jane Macalister's wrath from their devoted heads; but no, there she sat in her accustomed place, her hymn book open on her knee, marks of tears on her cheeks, it is true, but in all other respects she ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... Homer; and learned folks tell me that we know no more who and what Homer was, if there was ever a single Homer at all, or rather, a whole herd of Homers, than we know about the man in the moon,—if there be one man there, or millions of men. Now, my dear Miss Brabazon, it will be very kind in you to divert our thoughts into channels less gloomy. Some pretty French air—Dr. Fenwick, I have something to say to you." She drew me towards the window. "So Annie Ashleigh writes me word that I am not to mention your engagement. Do you think it quite prudent to keep ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the length and bearing of the hoof may make a straight leg crooked and a crooked leg worse, just as intelligent care during the growing period can greatly improve a congenitally crooked limb. If breeders were more generally cognizant of the power of overgrown and unbalanced hoofs to divert the lower bones of young legs from their proper direction, and, therefore, to cause them to be moved improperly, with loss of speed and often with injury to the limbs, we might hope to see fewer knock-kneed, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... strike; then, at the next election, when the excitement has had time to subside, he will usually return to his political normality. Moreover, should labor discontent attain depth, it may be safely assumed that either one or the other of the old parties or a faction therein will seek to divert its driving force into its own particular party channel. Should the labor party still persist, the old party politicians, whose bailiwick it will have particularly invaded, will take care to encourage, by means not always ethical but nearly always effective, strife ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... reached its height in "Gulliver's Travels," surely the severest of all satires upon humanity, and writ, as he tells us, not to divert, but to vex the world; and ultimately, in the fierce attack upon the Irish Parliament in the poem entitled "The Legion Club," dictated by his hatred of tyranny and oppression, and his consequent passion for exhibiting human nature ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... from the beginning. The command consisted of all the State troops, Lee's legion, and a detachment of artillery, with one field piece; in all about a thousand men. The object of this movement was not only to strike at the British line of posts, but to divert the attention of Rawdon from the Congaree, where it was his policy ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... fishy stink like that of long-standing urine; and whenever it was possible he subjected himself to this unpleasant odour. To mortify the taste he practised strict habits at table, observed to the letter all the fasts of the church and sought by distraction to divert his mind from the savours of different foods. But it was to the mortification of touch he brought the most assiduous ingenuity of inventiveness. He never consciously changed his position in bed, sat in the most uncomfortable ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... upon the railroad for fuel and food and causing disorder in the towns where the idle workmen congregated. Powderly and the other chief officials of the Knights tried to stop the strike, but were ineffective, while the railroad managers shaped events so as to divert the sympathies of the Western people against the strikers. The Knights never recovered from the blow which the loss of the strike inflicted ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... poetry and wit. 'Tis therefore not enough when your false sense Hits the false judgment of an audience Of clapping fools assembling, a vast crowd, Till the thronged playhouse cracked with the dull load; Though even that talent merits, in some sort, That can divert the rabble and the court; Which blundering Settle never could obtain, And puzzling Otway labours at ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... speak, though briefly, of his political sympathies in this period, for they were exceedingly deep and strong. His position as a judge gave him the solace of an employment which could divert his mind from annoying reflections. It may be held that it should also have restrained him more completely than it did from taking any part in party controversies. I confess that to be my own opinion. He felt that he ought to keep within ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... must have a good rest. Keep the rooms warm, so that you will not take any more cold, and before long you will be able to rattle the type-writer at a greater speed than ever. That reminds me, mother," he continued—seeing that she was beginning to recover herself, and wishing to divert her thoughts,—"one of the things we have to be thankful for is that this house is easily heated. It beats all the way coal does last here! The ton we got two months ago isn't ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... had kept him for months in a constant state of ferment. His business must come first, he decided. Having settled this point to his temporary satisfaction, he opened his afternoon paper and leaned back in his seat, meaning to divert his mind from personal matters, by learning what was going on ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... throat when I remember how those dear boys worked to divert me, until my strength revived. They rigged up a battered steamer-chair with furs and bath robes, put me in it, promising that as soon as I was rested they would see what could be done to get me up to the monastery. But I was not to worry. All of them ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... the storm broke. M. de Grammont raved like a madman. He said Lucas was the thief and had put half the sum in his chest to divert suspicion. He said it was a plot to ruin him contrived between Monsieur and his henchman, Lucas. It is true enough, certes, that Monsieur never liked him. He threatened Monsieur's life and Lucas's. He challenged Monsieur, and Monsieur declined to cross swords ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... Dictionary in case you come into these Parts. I read very very little: and get very desultory: but when Winter comes again must take to some dull Study to keep from Suicide, I suppose. The River, the Sea, etc., serve to divert one now. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... of his purpose became almost a substitute for action in it. While he was yet uninformed of the traitor's retreat, it served to divert his mind from his own calamity, and to entertain it with another prospect. The brother and sister of his false favourite had no such relief; everything in their history, past and present, gave his delinquency a more afflicting ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Ghausgarh, and from the frontiers of Rohilkand. Why he did not, on leaving Dehli, march due north to Ghausgarh cannot be now positively determined; but it is possible that, having his spoil collected in that fort, he preferred trying to divert the enemy by an expedition in a more easterly direction; and that he entertained some hopes of aid from his connection, Faizula Khan of Rampur, or from the Bangash ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... "has the tendency to divert attention from general principles and to concentrate it on concrete questions."[175] But if the Socialists cannot educate the masses to know what they want concretely, how much less will they understand general principles? If they cannot judge such concrete and ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... will give you the most solemn promise never to marry him, nor any other, while my papa lives, without his consent. Let me dedicate my whole life to your service; let me be again your poor Sophy, and my whole business and pleasure be, as it hath been, to please and divert you." "Lookee, Sophy," answered the squire, "I am not to be choused in this manner. Your aunt Western would then have reason to think me the fool she doth. No, no, Sophy, I'd have you to know I have a got more wisdom, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... no more than fact, that the larger portion of all truth has sprung from the collateral; and it is but in accordance with the spirit of the principle involved in this fact, that I would divert inquiry, in the present case, from the trodden and hitherto unfruitful ground of the event itself, to the contemporary circumstances which surround it. While you ascertain the validity of the affidavits, I will examine the newspapers more generally than you have as yet done. So far, we have only ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... but poor consolation, if they had not had a better friend than music to have relied upon in the hour of their distress. And here I think the Quakers would particularly condemn music, if they thought it could be resorted to in the hour of affliction, in as much as it would then have a tendency to divert the mind from ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... bill was to divert the trade of southern and south-western Queensland to the Queensland Railways. The pastoralists of those districts obtained supplies, and sent their wool from and to the southern Colonies, where the rates were lower than those charged over the ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... estate was entailed. The old gentleman could not divert it from me if he would, and I rather suspect that fact must have been the cause of some worry ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... fierce and oratorical gesture of command, all the listening Germans laughed uproariously at his first words, like men who knew how to appreciate the sacrifice of a Herr Comerzienrath when he deigns to divert ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... but money, your best friend, whom you treat with inhumanity. Be assured I will hire people to watch all your motions, and to return me a faithful account. Tell me, have you cured your absence of mind? can you attend to trifles? can you at Amesbury write domestic libels to divert the family and neighbouring squires for five miles round? or venture so far on horseback, without apprehending a stumble at every step? can you set the footmen a-laughing as they wait at dinner? and do the duchess's women admire your wit? in what ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... of such powerful allies, and without competition in tropical cultivation, has become the sole reliance of KING COTTON. Lest the sources of his aggrandisement should be assailed, we can well imagine him as being engaged constantly, in devising new questions of agitation, to divert the public from all attempts to abandon free trade and restore the protective policy. He now finds an ample source of security, in this respect, in agitating the question of slavery extension. This exciting topic, as we have said, serves to keep ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... and looking round to try and divert her thoughts by fixing them on present object, she caught her cousin Manasseh's deep-set eyes furtively watching her. It was with no unfriendly gaze, yet it made Lois uncomfortable, particularly as he did not withdraw his looks after he must have seen that she observed ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... distinction between the Law of Persons and the Law of Things, which though extremely convenient is entirely artificial, has evidently done much to divert inquiry on the subject before us from the true direction. The lessons learned in discussing the Jus Personarum have been forgotten where the Jus Rerum is reached, and Property, Contract, and Delict, ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... your lack of information, comrades workers and soldiers, in questions of finance and banking, you are being incited against workers like yourselves, because it is desirable to divert the responsibility for the starving and dying brother-soldiers at the Front from the guilty persons to the innocent workers who are accomplishing their duty under the burden of general poverty ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... old word for sea-weed. Also, a fishing inclosure; and again, a dam, or strong erection across a river, to divert its course. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... the arms had all returned to the button banks. Then it dawned on me that Keston's master machine was directing all the destruction I was watching, that the intelligence he had given it was being used to divert the machines from their regular tasks to—conquer the world. "You sure ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... Book of Sports, for allowing the peasantry of England to divert themselves with certain games in the open air, on Sundays, after evening service, was published by Charles the First, it is needless to say the English people were comparatively rude and uncivilised. And yet it is extraordinary ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... repeated, knew how to use, and invariably used, his cavalry to good purpose, and in this emergency he resolved to employ some of it to divert from his own hazardous movement, and fasten upon some other quarter, the attention of a portion of the opposing forces. He hoped, not only to give them enough to do, to prevent them from annoying and endangering his retreat, but, also, to draw off a part of their forces from the great ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... achievements, the work of successive Unionist Governments from 1896 to 1906, have revolutionised the face of the country, and are bringing about a new Ireland. The chief danger now lies in the intrigues of discredited politicians, whose object is to divert the eyes of the people from practical, remedial, and constructive legislation, and to keep them fixed upon what Mr. John Morley has called "the phantom of ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... for you. I'll love to do it. Mother Bab——" She hesitated. Should she broach the subject of the operation now? Perhaps it would be kind to divert the thoughts of the mother from the recent parting. "Mother Bab, I've thought about what you said, and I think you should have that operation. The doctor said there ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... the seeking of worth-while truth, are ever profitable employments, paying present and future dividends, and meanwhile those acts positively divert the thought from ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... even blushed and cast down his eyes, as he answered that that morning the princess had been taken to the prison La Force. Then, in order to divert conversation from this channel, Manuel told the prisoners about the tidings which had recently reached Paris, and had thrown the city into such excitement ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... "follow me into my cabinet. As we are dull, the most advisable thing for us to do is to divert ourselves while we occupy ourselves with the weal of our beloved subjects, and consult concerning their happiness and what is conducive to their welfare. Follow me then, and we will ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... indispensable to water communication between our Atlantic and Gulf seaboards in time of war. In case of war in the direction of the Caribbean, Key West is the extreme point now in our possession upon which, granting adequate fortification, our fleets could rely; and, so used, it would effectually divert an enemy's force from Pensacola and the Mississippi. It can never be the ultimate base of operations, as Pensacola or New Orleans can, because it is an island, a small island, and has no resources—not even water; ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... I, compose yourself, I beseech you. Sosie, spare Sosie a little, and do not divert yourself by knocking ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... in order to divert himself, reads an inspiring book; the motive is accounted, perhaps, a good one; at any rate, not a bad one. 2. He sets his top a-spinning: the motive is deemed at any rate not a bad one. 3. He sets loose a mad ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... already drunk a glass too much, and turned from her coaxings with an obstinate smile. The more she drank, she thought, the less she would care for what Jonah said when she got home. Mrs Herring felt annoyed with her for threatening to spoil a pleasant afternoon, but she talked on to divert her ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... it, and said she should die if she had to stay in the back store alone so much, sorting spices and writing labels, for she was constantly thinking of Dick, who used to be with her. She must have something to divert her attention; and, at length, Mrs. Salsify hit upon the project of sending her to school at the seminary one term. It was fitting that the daughter of the rich Mr. Mumbles that was to be, should be possessed of suitable ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... to impart to the bullet a spiral motion, as it moves through the air. Metals have not the same density on all sides and this is particularly true of molded balls. As a result, when projected from the gun, the heaviest side has a tendency to divert the ball and make it more or less erratic in its motion, and, therefore, inaccurate. The spiral motion has the effect of minimizing this difficulty. The cavity formed at the rear of the projectile was devised particularly to cause the thin lip of the bullet ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... sisters' flannel wrappers, he set them down by the fire, telling stories in the meantime to divert their thoughts from the scene ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... and to purling brooks, Old-fashion'd halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks... (To) divert her eyes with pictures in the fire, Hum half a tune, tell ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... only our enemies who, by their underground intrigues, have sought to divert from us the sympathies of other peoples. If we would speak frankly, we must admit that we ourselves are partly to blame in the matter. A great part of the blame is due to our insufficient self-esteem and self-valuation—an inveterate German failing.—PROF. ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... was unwise to divert her mother's attention from the main narrative, her whole body ached with the longing to hear what George had said of her, and she felt that it was impossible to resist the ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... riding comfortable to an inexperienced rider. But our way led through such a beautiful valley, and on either hand were mountains so suggestive of Bible narrative that there was much in the earlier part of the afternoon to divert my attention from any physical discomfort. Where we were riding there was no road,—simply bridle-paths, and frequently ...
— My Three Days in Gilead • Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal
... talked with Anna, the better she liked her, and the feeling was mutual. This wholesome woman of forty-one, with abundant vitality, unmarried and without pressing family ties to divert her, seemed particularly well fitted to assist Susan in the arduous campaigns which lay ahead. A natural orator, she could in a measure take the place of Mrs. Stanton, who could no longer undertake western tours. Before the International Council adjourned, Susan had Anna's promise ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... of the French Academy, says, that Menage did not compose that famous Requete des Dictionaires, in which he ridicules all the academics, on account of any aversion he had to them, but purely to divert himself, and not to lose the witty turns that came into his head upon that subject. In the same manner, I declare that I did not undertake this work on account of any zeal I have for wine, you must think, but only to divert myself, and not to lose a great many curious ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... about being faint it will go off. Faintness is such a queer thing that to think of it is to have it. Let us talk as we were talking before—about your young man and other indifferent matters, so as to divert my thoughts from fainting, dear Berta. I have always thought the book was to be forwarded to that gentleman because he was a connection of yours by marriage, and he had asked for it. And so you ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... we should have all heard on't before now: But, pray God Monsieur Loveby has no other haunts to divert him, now he's ransomed! What a kind of ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... dear, that is a story!' exclaimed Lady Palliser, nodding her head with intense significance, and pleased at being able to divert Ida's thoughts from her husband's miserable end; 'I never did! You will be surprised! Oh, my dear, I thought it was all over with you! All the gardeners and stablemen were there—and Rogers—and John and William—and Henry—half dressed and in slippers, poor creatures; and I begged and implored ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... joking. That's true. The question is still fretting your heart, and not answered. But the martyr likes sometimes to divert himself with his despair, as it were driven to it by despair itself. Meanwhile, in your despair, you, too, divert yourself with magazine articles, and discussions in society, though you don't believe your own arguments, and ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Ohio the leaders of the Peace Democracy intend to carry on one more campaign on the old and rotten platform of prejudice against colored people. They seek in this way to divert attention from the record they made during the war of the rebellion. But the great facts of our recent history are against them. The principles of the fathers, reason, religion, and the spirit of the age are ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... him, Mr. Farnshaw dropped from the wagon and went to fill the swill pails. The hogs knew they were to be fed and set up their usual noisy clamour. It was his purpose to divert their attention till the boys could drive the wagon into the corral, hoping also to leave his daughter where she could not approach him. Mr. Farnshaw delighted in making people wait. With a pail in either ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... smile so condescendingly, and keep up such a conversation with her eyes, now and then glancing at the Earl, who dozed at a respectful distance in the rear. If unexpectedly he exhibited signs of consciousness, Bolt would immediately divert the subject by passing some facetious criticisms on the rotundity of the primadonna. And then my lady would chime in, having enjoyed her laugh: 'Your lordship never did enjoy anything.' The Earl's nap over, and the last act near its close (her highness never condescended to remain for the vulgar ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... to the treasury, and is to have the garter too On Thursday with Prince William. Of your cousin I hear no more mention, but that he returns to his island. I cannot tell you exactly even the few changes that are to be made, but I can divert you with a bon-mot, which they give to my Lord Chesterfield. The new peerages being mentioned, somebody said, "I suppose there will be no duke made," he replied, "Oh yes, there is to be one."—"Is? who?"—"Lord ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... from their farms and their businesses to destroy and be destroyed for no good purpose that might not have been achieved better and sooner by neighborly means. I am thinking of the authentic news that no papers dare publish, not of the lies that they all publish to divert attention from the truth. In America these things can be said without driving American mothers and wives mad; here, we have to set our teeth and go forward. We cannot be just; we cannot see beyond the range of our guns. The roar of the shrapnel deafens us; ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... fear and ignorance of the Turks and Arabs, has not even the semblance of truth. The rains of Aethiopia do not, in the increase of the Nile, consult the will of the monarch. If the river approaches at Napata within three days' journey of the Red Sea (see D'Anville's Maps,) a canal that should divert its course would demand, and most probably surpass, the power of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... enemies by his insolence, and Coventry was deeply involved in charges of malversation in dealing with the monies of the navy, and in selling offices in the Admiralty. Clarendon's friends urged him to divert the storm from himself by betraying the misdeeds of these his foes. The suggestion was made in vain. "No provocation," he declared, "should dispose him to do anything which would not become him." These men were Privy Councillors, and of what he saw amiss in them, he could inform the King. ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... her face as she spoke and, to divert her, he began to speak of Jose. "Doesn't he make you laugh?" he asked. "He keeps everybody else on ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... even to Seward would have been sufficient had he not, momentarily, been so disturbed by the wreck of his pacific policy toward the South, and as yet so ignorant of the strength of Lincoln's quiet persistence. As it was, he yielded on the immediate issue, the relief of Sumter (though attempting to divert reinforcements to another quarter) but did not as yet wholly yield either his policy of conciliation and delay, nor give up immediately his insane scheme of saving the Union by plunging it into a ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... is as great as in the matter of the taille, the vexations are ten times greater, for these are domestic, minute and of daily occurrence.—It is forbidden to divert an ounce of the seven obligatory pounds to any use but that of the "pot and the salt-cellar." If a villager should economize the salt of his soup to make brine for a piece of pork, with a view to winter consumption, let him look out for the collecting-clerks! His pork is confiscated and the fine ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Ernest; but since I had become keeper of men, mice, and morals in Sir Marcus Lark's floating zoo, Monny's craze for Egyptianizing everything had suggested the nickname of Men-Kheper-Ra. She sometimes called me Ra for short, therefore I now ventured to divert to my own uses a sign and cartouche once the property of a "son of the Sun," and King ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... all, though Simon Bradstreet's name occurs often in the records of the Court, it is usually as asking some question intended to divert attention if possible from the more aggressive phases of the examination, and sooth the excited feelings of either side. But naturally his sympathies were chiefly with his own party, and his wife would share ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... of one of the great power-stations on the banks of the river above the Falls told me that the centre of the riverbed at the Canadian Falls is deep and of a saucer shape. So it may be possible to fill this up to a uniform depth, and divert a lot of water for the power-houses. And this, he said, would supply the need for more power, which will certainly soon arise, without taking away from the beauty of Niagara. This is a handsome concession of the utilitarians to ordinary sight- seers. Yet, I doubt ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... should provide for them ample room and congenial employment, whether profitable to the State or not, and the labor should be induced, not enforced, and always timed and suited to their malady. A variety of interesting occupations tends to divert from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... vessel, and to dreamily envy the wealth of the English Herren who could afford to pass the summer months in such luxury and idleness. Thelma seated herself at once by Duprez, and seemed glad to divert ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... to use the expression of the first Duc de Biron, the old cuirassier sought to divert his mind, by occupation, from dwelling on his fall. Though he had yielded his "corps d'armee" to the Bourbons, that duty (performed by other generals and termed the disbanding of the army of the Loire) could not atone for the crime of having followed the man of the Hundred-Days ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... not the least, who endeavoured to soothe his distracted mind with sympathetic tenderness. Indeed, his Majesty considered him not only an agreeable companion, but a valuable friend; and was so much interested in his behalf, that he was determined, if possible, to divert his immoderate grief. But neither the promises of promotion, or the threats of disgrace, could draw him from his retirement. At length, after many zealous efforts had proved ineffectual, a plan was suggested by the King himself, which promised ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... matters into his own hand. Beckoning to some friendly Indians, he asked them to go to the river bank and signal to his men on the barges to come ashore with baskets to take back the corn for which he had traded the kettle. Meanwhile he kept up a brisk conversation with the old Werowance to divert his attention, assuring him that on the next day he and his men would leave their firearms on the ships, trusting to Powhatan's promise that no harm should come ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... disasters at the end of the Flemish campaign of 1794 Pitt sought to divert the energies of England to a more promising field. Thwarted on the Lower Rhine by the vacillations of the German Powers and the torpor of the Dutch, he hoped for success among the Royalists of Brittany ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... related that the Caliph Harun al-Rashid, was one night restless with extreme restlessness, so he summoned his Wazir Ja'afar the Barmecide, and said to him, "My breast is straitened and I have a desire to divert myself to-night by walking about the streets of Baghdad and looking into folks' affairs; but with this precaution that we disguise ourselves in merchants' gear, so none shall know us." He answered, "Hearkening and obedience." They rose at once and doffing the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... be termed the garden spot of the reservation, there are diminutive farms and splendid peach orchards irrigated with freshet water. The canon drains an extensive region, and even a light rain causes the stream which flows at the base of its lofty walls to become swollen. This water the natives divert to their miniature cornfields and orchards, one or two freshets ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... at this juncture something occurred calculated to divert not only Mr. Furlong's sentence, but the fortunes and the surplus of St. Asaph's itself. At the very moment when Mr. Furlong was speaking a newspaper delivery man in the street outside handed to the sanctified boy the office copy of the noonday paper. And the boy had no sooner looked ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... the Bollandists, who yet could make time carefully—far more carefully than most modern historians—to investigate the sources of European history. But then the Bollandists were real students, and had neither lawn tennis nor politics to divert them from their ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... these same unprincipled agents, with their hired accomplices and subsidised press, in order to hide the enormity of their crimes, and to divert attention from themselves and their crookedness, systematically and incessantly misrepresent and ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... positive to be affected. From innumerable sources it is subtly suggested to us that disease, sickness, infection are realities that cannot be evaded, and to which we are prone. The effect of all this, putting it in simple and elementary language, is to divert the life power into wrong channels, thus producing disease and ill-health in place of perfection. The normal state of health has to give place to an abnormal state of disease or sickness. The normal health-state ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... tabor, and let us go and divert our master and his son's friend, as we sometimes do ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... extremity of the valley of Assam, and this, in Chinese eyes, is of considerable value. If the Serpentine is found, specimens should be sent to Mogoung. As the Shan-Chinese are reported to be a most penurious race, a small reduction in the price below that of the Burmese, would suffice to divert the current of the trade into Assam. Another interesting product, although of no value, exists in the shape of an Alkaline spring on the Sapiya Khioung, which hence derives its name. The water of this spring bubbles up sparingly and quietly from under the rocky bed of the above mountain ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... in his companion's eyes. It suggested that the last thing her hostess had expected her to do was to keep out of the way of the man who had followed her on to the veranda. He accordingly endeavoured to divert her ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... time while this was doing, I went out once, at least, every day with my gun, as well to divert myself as to see if I could kill anything fit for food, and as near as I could to acquaint myself with what the island produced. The first time I went out, I presently discovered that there were goats ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... and there are the consequences to which it leads. We can easily detect the wisdom of the requisition that the teachers of it shall handle it with "special caution," and account for their studiously keeping it out of sight during revivals, and in their ordinary ministrations, and then seeking to divert attention from its practical tendencies by denying that the decrees of God are to be taken as the rule or test ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... in now and then, trying to soothe her by supporting her to a certain extent, and so divert the conversation. But Marcella was soon too excited to be managed; and she had her say; a very strong say often as far as language went: there could be no ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Summary. In this section those priests are blamed by Jerome, who cause their sons and nephews to read comedies and the verses of the poets; because also to this purpose and to other base purposes they divert the money of the church. Wherefore he says that such priest should be punished as was Eli who fell prostrate from his seat and died because he did not correct his sons. The statements which follow are clear ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... to have anything to do with Bezukhova and don't advise you to; however, if you've promised—go. It will divert your thoughts," she added, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... was that with the vicious young lunatic, Don Carlos, the heir of Philip of Spain. The match with Darnley, too, as he was in the English succession, was distasteful to Elizabeth; but in order to divert the Spanish match—which, really, though she knew it not, was out of the question—she pretended to favour ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... and exhibited some trait of excellence,—some rare wit or solid sense. But the fact is he was dull and stupid to the last degree. He persisted in keeping the conversation upon the subject of the lost baggage-checks, and every bright attempt of the lady to divert him failed signally. At last, to everybody's relief, he rose, and leaning over her ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... she replied; but there was no kindling of the eye, no joy of soul at the thought, for Ruth knew that her earthly love was stronger and more absorbing than the heavenly. "There, now, we will go and see about Miss Agnes's dinner," she added, glad to divert his thoughts. ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... while the rain compelled her to draw the hood forward, but rain or shine she was always there, her lips silently moving as the beads slipped through her withered fingers, nor could any question divert her attention from her devotions. She never looked up, never took the slightest notice of remarks addressed to her, nor was she ever heard to speak aloud. Once a week provisions were sent to her house from the nearest police station; they were left within, and those who brought them went ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... consonance with the magnificence of the edifice. Afterward he made gardens, according to a plan drawn by himself. He took in a large extent of ground, which he walled around, and stocked with fallow deer, that the princes and princess might divert themselves with ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... generals here. This is a fresh joke of mine; but those who saw it almost died with laughing. But alas, there are days when not two words can be got out of me, nor can anyone find out what is the matter with me; then, to divert myself, I generally take a thirty-kreuzer drive to Hietzing, or somewhere else ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... the spelling of the manuscripts would only have served to divert attention from Shelley's poetry to my own ingenuity in disgusting the reader according to the rules of editorial punctilio. (I adapt a phrase or two from the preface to "The Revolt of Islam".) Shelley was neither very accurate, nor always consistent, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... bridge a long timber wharf upon the river, but that is only a guess. There must have been some local accumulation of wealth or of traffic or it would not have been chosen as a site for the new bridge which was somewhat to divert the ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... coldness and lifelessness is the result of forcing your mind to one set of thoughts and feelings. You become worn out—your feelings exhausted—deadness and depression ensues. Now, turn your mind off from these subjects—divert it by a cheerful and animated conversation, and you will find, after a while, that it will return to them with new ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... woman. If she's poor, people don't do such work for nothing; besides, it's wrong, gentlemen—I've given up all that,—I've a precious soul to look after, and I can't divert my attention from it. ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... of the same hill on which the town stands, and so runs down through it and falls into the Anider. The inhabitants have fortified the fountain-head of this river, which springs a little without the towns; that so, if they should happen to be besieged, the enemy might not be able to stop or divert the course of the water, nor poison it; from thence it is carried, in earthen pipes, to the lower streets. And for those places of the town to which the water of that small river cannot be conveyed, they have great cisterns for receiving the rain-water, ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... telling you a thousand agreeable and surprising things, that you say you are sure I have seen and heard. Upon my Word, madam, 'tis my regard to truth, and not laziness, that I do not entertain you with as many prodigies as other travellers use to divert their readers with. I might easily pick up wonders in every town I pass through, or tell you a long series of popish miracles; but I cannot fancy, that there is any thing new in letting you know that priests will lie, and the ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... the room, bowing to those she knew, and seating herself on the sofa, very near St. Leon. The angry blood rushed in torrents to Lucy's face, and St. Leon, who saw something was wrong, endeavored to divert her mind by ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... was beautiful, I declare," answered the pleased spectator readily. "Why, I didn't see you, nor Mis' Brown. Yes; I felt it best to refresh my mind an' wear a cheerful countenance. When I see 'Liza Jane I was able to divert her mind consid'able. She was glad I went. I told her I'd made an effort, knowin' 'twas so she had to lose the a'ternoon. 'Bijah left property, if he did die away from home on ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... suggestions of these awful events, their inspirations, exhortations,—that she had wept as became the horror of the tragedy. No: the curtain had not yet fallen, yet our young lady had begun to yawn. To yawn? Ay, and to long for the afterpiece. Since the tragedy dragged, might she not divert herself with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... the brandy and Freddy lit her cigarette. With a tact she little dreamed of he contrived to divert her thoughts into a channel far removed from the eastern desert and ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... character of the most excellent Lady, Lucy, Countess of Carlisle," writes that she will "freely discourse of love, and hear both the fancies and powers of it; but if you will needs bring it within knowledge, and boldly direct it to herself, she is likely to divert the discourse, or, at least, seem not to understand it. By which you may know her humour, and her justice; for since she cannot love in earnest she would have nothing from love." According to him she filled her mind "with gallant fancies, ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... themselves cur'd: They have told me frequently, that sleeping and sweating would cure the most stubborn Diseases in the World. When they are so weak that they cannot get out of Bed, their Relations come and dance and make merry before 'em, in order to divert 'em. To conclude, when they are ill, they are always visited by a sort of Quacks, (Jongleurs); of whom 't will now be proper to subjoin two or ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... second actor [14]; he curtailed the choruses, connected them with the main story, and, more important than all else, reduced to simple but systematic rules the progress and development of a poem, which no longer had for its utmost object to please the ear or divert the fancy, but swept on its mighty and irresistible march, to besiege passion after passion, and spread its empire over the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to acquire a great number of creatures, ready to undertake any thing to serve her; she caused several favours to be conferred on them, through the interest the Count had with the Sultan. He was now grown prodigiously in his favour—The Sultan used frequently to divert himself with hunting, it was an exercise he extremely loved, and the Count understanding it perfectly, was always one of the party.—The expresses which were continually brought of the victories Thibault had gained over the enemy, increased the Sultan's esteem ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown
... no objective point and was merely an aimless cruise in search of solitude and forgetfulness. The solitude I had found, the forgetfulness, of course, I had not. And now, when the solitude was more complete than ever, surrounded by this gray dismalness, with nothing whatever to look at to divert my attention, I knew I should be more bitterly miserable than I had been since I left that wedding. And I had been miserable and bitter enough, ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... on the arid public domain chose their homes along streams from which they could themselves divert the water to reclaim their holdings. Such opportunities are practically gone. There remain, however, vast areas of public land which can be made available for homestead settlement, but only by reservoirs and main-line canals ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt
... was received from Rear-Admiral Milne, requesting that a frigate might be sent to divert from the Impregnable some of the fire under which she was suffering. She had anchored more to the northward than was intended, and consequently became exposed to the heavy battery on the point of rock beyond the lighthouse, and which was covered ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... cold, and before long you will be able to rattle the type-writer at a greater speed than ever. That reminds me, mother," he continued—seeing that she was beginning to recover herself, and wishing to divert her thoughts,—"one of the things we have to be thankful for is that this house is easily heated. It beats all the way coal does last here! The ton we got two months ago ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... resolution, as much as possibly I could, to avoid all manner of concern in affairs, and to spend in privacy and repose the little remainder of time I have to live, I fancied I could not more oblige my mind than to suffer it at full leisure to entertain and divert itself, which I now hoped it might henceforth do, as being by time become more settled and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... appears to have been occasionally employed by vaulters, to enable them to jump safely from great heights. Father Loubre, in his curious account of Siam, relates, that a person famous in that country for his dexterity, used to divert the King and Court by the extraordinary leaps he took, having two Umbrellas with long slender handles, fastened to his girdle. In 1783 M. le Normand demonstrated the utility of the Parachute; by lifting himself down from the windows of a high house at Lyons. ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... special cause is your exposure to bad weather on your journey, which my experience clearly proves to be very severe on defective nerves. The second is the absence of all business and conversation of friends, which might divert your mind, give it occasional rest from the intensity of thought which will sometimes wear the sweetest idea thread-bare and turn it to the bitterness of death. The third is the rapid and near approach of that crisis on which all your thoughts ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... sight the marquise reddened with shame, and turning to the doctor, said, "Is this man to strip me again, as he did in the question chamber? All these preparations are very cruel; and, in spite of myself, they divert my thoughts, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... interrupted in the course of his present mission; "a mission," he said, "highly honourable for himself, and likely to prove most advantageous to the King's cause. He expected his brother would hold no communication with him upon other subjects, nor stir up any cause of dissension, which might divert his mind from a matter ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... manners, nature, and state of that people. Being desired by her to bring a present of gold, with which that region abounded, he stole, while at play with the king's son, the golden ball with which he used to divert himself, and brought it to his mother in great haste; and when he reached the door of his father's house, but not unpursued, and was entering it in a great hurry, his foot stumbled on the threshold, ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... the conscience of a boy generally tender, so that he shrinks instinctively from the monstrous injustice of contributing for the sake of his own pleasure to the ruin of another. As soon as manhood dawns, he must also have his attention absorbed on some object which will divert his thoughts intellectually or ideally; and by slight yet constant pressure, exercised not by fits and starts, but day after day, directly and indirectly, his father must form an antipathy in him to brutish, selfish sensuality. Above all, there must ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... defence to make, and would no doubt make it at the proper time and in the proper place. We must hear both sides." One may see by this that the spirit which animates a great nation (the desire, namely, to divert itself with the contentions of those who come before the public eye), animates also the smallest communities in the realm. The great passion-stirring process, Hens versus Crows, lasted for some seven months. Over and over again the ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... original of our nursery rime Who Killed Cock Robin? It is written in the form of a dirge, and many people were shocked at that, for they said that it was but another form of mockery that this jesting priest had chosen with which to divert himself. But I think that little Jane Scoupe at school in the nunnery at Carowe would dry her eyes and smile when she read it. She must have been pleased that the famous poet, who had been the King's tutor and friend and who had been both the friend and enemy of the great Cardinal, should ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... fight Japan on China's behalf, and without that nothing more could be done. They pursued, indeed, a policy of playing off Japan against China, in order to keep those two powers occupied with each other, and so to divert Japan ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... found an Entertainment in it very far from scandalous; and for the Generality of the Town, I found by my Receipts it was not thought so Criminal. However, that shall not be an Incouragement to me to trouble the Criticks with new Occasion of affronting me, for endeavouring at least to divert; and at this rate, both the few Poets that are left, and the Players who toil in vain will be ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... greatest private entertainer of the eighteenth century, and he ridiculed the great, as people say, for the love of diversion. "I always write the thoughts of the moment," he told the dearest of his friends, Conway, "and even laugh to divert the person I am writing to, without any ill will on the subjects I mention." His letters are for the most part ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... role. With peasants who know only the traditional costume of their province, the task must often be done in spite of the costume, which is picturesque or grotesque, inconvenient, even impossible; but long may it linger to divert the eye! Russia, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Scandinavia,—all have an endless variety of costumes, rich in souvenirs of folk history, rainbows of colour and bizarre in line, but it is costuming the woman of fashion which claims ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... with the object of attaining salvation desires to destroy me, I frolic and laugh in the face of such a man intent on salvation. I am the everlasting one without a compeer, whom no creature can kill or destroy. For this reason thou too, O prince, divert thy desires (Kama) to Virtue, so that, by this means, thou mayst attain what is well for thee. Do thou therefore make preparations for the due performance of the horse sacrifice with presents, and various other sacrifices of great splendour, and accompanied with presents. Let not therefore grief ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... by sea and land." It is difficult for rude Americans to determine whether you are serious in this proposition or whether you mean to jest with their simplicity. Upon a supposition, however, that you have too much magnanimity to divert yourselves on an occasion of so much importance to America, and, perhaps, not very trivial in the eyes of those who sent you, permit me to assure you, on the sacred word of a gentleman, that if you shall transport your troops to England, ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... with a suitable head-dress like a dancer, girded her waist with a silver-gilt girdle, to which there hung a poniard with a hilt and guard of the same metal, and put a handsome mask on her face. When she had thus disguised herself, she said to Abdalla, "Take your tabour, and let us go and divert our master and his son's friend, as we do sometimes when ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... "permit me to tell you, that your reasoning, though specious in appearance, nevertheless wants consistency, as regards me. I have remained, you say, to divert suspicion. Well! on the contrary, suspicions arise in me as well as in you; and I say, it is impossible, gentlemen, that the general, on the eve of a battle, should leave his army without saying anything to at least one of his officers. Yes, there is some strange event connected ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and went on talking, as if nothing untoward had been said. He was one of the band impossible to snub, not because they are endowed with superior moral courage, but because their easy self-importance is so great that an insult rarely pierces it enough to divert them from their purpose. They walk through life wrapped comfortably round in the wool of their own conceit. Gourlay, though a dull man—perhaps because he was a dull man—suspected insult in a moment. But it rarely entered Wilson's brain (though he was cleverer than most) that the ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... she was with Mrs. Wilson in her chamber, and this good lady, being fatigued and sleepy, gave Mary a book of pretty stories to divert her, and begged the little girl would make no noise while she slept. Mrs. Wilson lay down on the bed, and Mary sat on a stool at some little distance. All was as still as possible. After some time, as Mary chanced to lift her eyes from her ...
— The Bad Family and Other Stories • Mrs. Fenwick
... most of the captives, had acquired some knowledge of the Egyptian language. Jethro had from the first impressed upon the young prince the great advantage this would be to them. In the first place, it would divert their thoughts from dwelling upon the past, and in the second, it would make their lot ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... of it than the Hindoos, but a disposition on the part of private individuals to combine their efforts and means in effecting great objects for the public good. With this disposition they will be, in time, inspired under our rule, when the enemies of all settled governments may permit us to divert a little of our intellect and our revenue from the duties of war to ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... thought. "What can I decide upon alone? What do I know? What do I want? What is there I care for?" Again she felt that her soul was beginning to be split in two. She was terrified again at this feeling, and clutched at the first pretext for doing something which might divert her thoughts from herself. "I ought to see Alexey" (so she called Vronsky in her thoughts); "no one but he can tell me what I ought to do. I'll go to Betsy's, perhaps I shall see him there," she said to herself, completely forgetting ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... I must leave thee before day." Quoth she, "Doth it not suffice her that she tricked thee into marrying her and kept thee prisoner with her a whole year, but she must also make thee swear by the oath of divorce, that thou wilt return to her on the same night before morning, and not allow thee to divert thyself with thy mother or me, nor suffer thee to pass one night with either of us, away from her? How then must it be with one from whom thou hast been absent a full year, and I knew thee before she did? But Allah have mercy on thy cousin Azizah, for there befel her what never befel any ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... ranging about in helpless desperation, saw, some distance beyond, a rise of dry ground. The sight appeared to divert him, and he stood looking at it. He had the appearance of having forgotten Tito, and the child, uneasy at this sudden stillness as he was ready to be at anything the tramp did, said ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... will be spread in our mansion to-day, that exceptional bustle will prevail, and that you have, on account of this, Sir, come here to get out of the way. But as you're, after all, going to spend a whole day in peace and quiet in here, you should try and divert yourself as best you can. It won't, therefore, by any manner of means do for you to have ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... parents. She would not reason nor notice where filial tact taught her that it was best to be ignorant; she charged all tracasseries on the Peruvian republic, and set herself simply to ameliorate each vexation as it arose, and divert attention from it without generalizing, even to herself, on the state of the family. The English comfort which she brought into the Limenian household was one element of peace; and her brisk, energetic habits produced an air of ease and pleasantness that did much to make home agreeable to her ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there's a liberal supply of common sense in them!" cried the hostess, so delighted to have made a joke that she broke into cackling laughter, and laughed until failure of breath made her gasp and wriggle in her chair, an alarming spectacle. To divert attention, Constance began talking about the mill, describing the good effect it had wrought in certain families. Dyce listened with an air almost as engrossed as that of Mr. Gallantry, and, when his moment came, took up ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... maketh her to feel so good she cannot tell how much. 'Tis a sort of goodness I covet not. It were like murdering the Son of God over again, to see His blessed name taken upon himself of a sinful man, and His bitter passion set forth to divert men. Gillian saith none will see the thing as I do; but that cannot I help. Perchance He may, when He looketh down ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... feel the silence oppressive; he wanted to say something, no matter what, first, in order to be polite, and more especially to divert her attention from her pose. But cudgel his brain as he would, he could only think of asking: 'Pray, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... disappearance from her native land, and lived quite comfortably with a comrade-in-arms of her husband. The general has been unable, up to this day, to forget his unfaithful wife, and he comes here, every night, to endeavor, by gambling, to divert his mind from grief. ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... her last stratagem against the Suitors. Now she must choose one of them, her parents urge it, her son demands it; there seems no escape, though she hates the marriage like black Death. In such a frame of mind, the disguised Ulysses is to divert her thoughts with a story, to gain her confidence in his honesty, and to give a strong promise of her husband's speedy return. The manner in which he puts these three points in succession is ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... little encampment we have described, when night fell, and warrior and dame would assemble, in various picturesque groups, on the grassy mound, the king, seated in the midst of them, would read aloud, and divert even the most wearied frame and careworn mind by the stirring scenes and chivalric feelings his MSS. recorded. The talent of deciphering manuscripts, indeed of reading any thing, was one seldom attained or ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... has supposed that man can avert the eruption of a volcano or diminish the quantity of melted rock which it pours out of the bowels of the earth; but it is not always impossible to divert the course of even a large current of lava. "The smaller streams of lava near Catania," says Ferrara, in describing the great eruption of 1669, "were turned from their course by building dry walls of stone as a barrier against them. ... It was proposed to divert the main current from ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... not duly returned. The institution soon manifested its utility, was imitated by other towns, and in other provinces. The libraries were augmented by donations; reading became fashionable; and our people, having no publick amusements to divert their attention from study, became better acquainted with books, and in a few years were observ'd by strangers to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same rank ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... level of the sea throughout its entire length. Owing to the fact that the Atlantic and the Pacific have a difference in extreme level of twenty feet, an automatic tide-lock will have to be installed. A small lake will also be built, merely to divert the Chagres and ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... try, and they will be close on his heels; yet men have escaped such odds before this. But here comes Master Clarke. Heaven be praised that they have not spoken of him in this matter. Perchance the hunt after Garret will divert their minds from the question they have raised about the lectures ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... shook his head gloomily. "You wish to divert me from my question," he said, "which proves that you have heard it. I will repeat it. What were you doing with that dress ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... they could spake to each other, whereas I could not have a word of conversation, for the ould thaif of a rector had ordered them to send me to 'Coventry,' telling them that I was a gambling cheat, with morals bad enough to corrupt a horse regiment; and whereas they were allowed to divert themselves with going out, I was kept reading and singing from morn till night. The only soul who was willing to exchange a word with me was the cook, and sometimes he and I had a little bit of discourse in a corner, and we condoled ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... one of Boviano, Silvio Pandono, and the other, an Archbishop whose own name and that of his diocese I am unable to recollect, will bear me witness. We were together at Granada when it was captured from the Moors, and to divert ourselves we used to go to some wooded hills, whence a murmuring rivulet flowed across the plain. While our most illustrious Ludovico went bird-hunting with his bow along its banks, the two bishops and I formed a plan to ascend the hill to discover the source of the ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... Barchester she had not much opportunity of reflecting on Mr. Arabin. She had been constrained to divert her mind both from his sins and his love by the necessity of conversing with her sister and maintaining the appearance of parting with her on good terms. When the carriage reached her own door, and while she was in the act of giving ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... the rudiments,' I began; and with that he led me on to talk of her, but with some cunning. For now he would divert me to another topic and again bring me back to her, so that it all seemed the vagrancies of ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... pursued with resolute ardour, the two traditions of Hellenism and Hebraism were fused together: Homer and Virgil were much to him; but the Bible, above all, nourished his imagination, his conscience, and his will. The celebrity of his scholarship and the flatteries of Parisian salons did not divert him from his course. At twenty-five he was a priest and a doctor of the Sorbonne. Six years were spent at Metz, a city afflicted by the presence of Protestants and Jews, where Bossuet fortified himself ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... relaxation and amusement, just as he would advise a poor devil whose blood is impoverished by bad food to strengthen himself with a generous diet and good wine. The poor man could not afford to get the good living, and I do not know what could enliven or divert me. Travel? I like nothing so well as sitting quietly in my arm-chair. New faces? They would not interest me—yours is the only company I prefer to solitude. Books? I am too old to take pleasure in learning new things, and what I have learned has ceased to interest ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... compliments of Jacques with a flitting blush, and says, in order to divert him from ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... actual situation, was well calculated to attract immigration to this region. It was written in a year of great activity in that line. Gold had been discovered in California, and the thoughts of the pioneer were attracted in that direction, and it needed extraordinary inducements to divert the stream to any other point. It was extensively quoted in the eastern papers, and much commented upon, and succeeded beyond all expectations in awakening interest in the Northwest. It was particularly attractive in Maine, where the people were experienced in ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... an American flag for the use of the school had long been talked of, and it occurred to her now that if she could stimulate a friendly rivalry among her pupils, in an effort to obtain funds for the purchase of a flag, it might divert their minds from thoughts of hostility to each other, into channels where a laudable competition would be provocative of harmony. So she decided, after consultation with the two grade teachers, ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... farms and their businesses to destroy and be destroyed for no good purpose that might not have been achieved better and sooner by neighborly means. I am thinking of the authentic news that no papers dare publish, not of the lies that they all publish to divert attention from the truth. In America these things can be said without driving American mothers and wives mad; here, we have to set our teeth and go forward. We cannot be just; we cannot see beyond the range of our guns. The roar of the shrapnel deafens us; the black ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... Strafford," writes Horace Walpole (Sept. 1745), "has already written cards for my Lady Nithesdale, my Lady Tullebardine, the Duchess of Perth and Berwick, and twenty more revived peeresses, to invite them to play at whist, Monday three months: for your part, you will divert yourself with their old taffetys, and tarnished slippers, and their awkwardness the first day they go to Court in clean linen."[415] "I shall wonderfully dislike," observes the same writer, "being a loyal sufferer in a threadbare coat, and shivering in an attic chamber at Hanover, or reduced ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... aunty! I do believe it is Mr. Bullen!' She seemed so distressed, that I hastened not only to assure her of my identity, but that with the exception of a few blisters I was quite well. I also attempted to divert her mind by praising the wonderful sea-going qualities of my tub; but all ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... speak such language as they continually hear, and though they do not yet understand the meaning of the words they use, they can utter oaths and blasphemies almost as readily as their CHRISTIAN instructors. By-standers divert themselves with their attempts in this way, and think it is fine sport. But, my friends, the scripture declares they are fools who make a mock at sin.[Prov. xiv. 9.] But these things cause much sorrow to those who ...
— An Address to the Inhabitants of the Colonies, Established in New South Wales and Norfolk Island. • Richard Johnson
... agitation, diverting it, in seeming to yield to it and then cheating it, tiring it out or evading it. But the end, whether it comes soon or late, is quite certain to be the same.' While the government has endeavored to parry, tire, divert, and cheat us of our goal, the country has risen in protest against this evasive policy of suppression until to-day the indomitable pickets with their historic legends stand triumphant ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... the landing of old Battle be delayed another minute; "for," said he, "if it be necessary to make an impression on these savages, then let me have my horse, and you shall see how quick I will do it." As these little evidences of his weakness only served the more to divert the officers, they proceeded forthwith to effect the landing. Scarcely had he set foot on shore, however, when he was surrounded by a swarm of tawny beings, naked almost to the buff, and so eager to get a sight at so great an ambassador, that ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... extremely busy in the north at Ypres, and were making every effort to drive that attack home. The probabilities were, therefore, that the line in front of the Arras-Loos position was none too strong, and that such reserves as could be spared had been sent north. Then, again, it would tend to divert attention from the Ypres line, and so relieve somewhat the pressure on the British lines ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... measures to provide aid in so urgent a necessity, with all possible haste and efficiency. For this end I was commissioned to go immediately to the port of Cabite, and place and keep it in a state of defense; and to arm several ships, with which to meet the pirate and divert him from his intention. Accordingly, I did so to the best of my ability, and put two ships of moderate size in readiness in a short time, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... men, newspapers would be as welcome as anything. I think Papa might divert those weekly papers from Agra here, as they get a large supply in the Regimental Reading ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... better for it will raise my character for generosity to the skies." In a letter to his daughter, he writes thus: "I have sent you two hundred and fifty denarii, which I gave to every one of my guests; in case they were inclined at supper to divert themselves with the Tali, or at the game ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... truth when he declared that he was not disposing of his sister's estate for his own benefit. In his opinion, Marie-Anne's fortune must be consecrated to one sacred purpose; he would not divert the slightest portion of it ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... cheaply purchas'd: Mr. Johnson [London] will make considerable advances, but I believe this can't arrive in time for the Market, as aplication has not yet been made to Monsr. la force [Paris Mont Martell]. I think I can easily divert them from this, as I can convince St. Sebastien [Young Pretender] in case I see him, that they would leave him in the lurch. This proposal comes from your side the watter. I find Mrs. Strange [Highlanders] will readly except of any offer from Rosenberge ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... myself to blame not to try to divert you, when you tell me I can. From the air of your letter you seem to want amusement, that is, you want spirits. I would recommend to you certain little employments that I know of, and that belong to you, but that ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... with about five hundred men from our rear, having made a three day march through what had been reported as impassable swamp. He occupied our rearmost village, which was undefended, and attacked our hospital. This forward attack was merely a ruse to divert the attention of our troops in that direction, while the enemy directed his main assault at our rear and undefended positions for the purpose of gaining our artillery. Hundreds of the enemy appeared as if by magic from the forests, ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... confined to Kentucky. He gave Morgan carte blanche to go where he pleased in that State and stay as long as he pleased; suggesting, among other things, that he capture Louisville. Morgan urged that while by such a raid he might so divert to himself the attention of General Henry M. Judah and the cavalry of Rosecrans that they would not molest General Bragg's retreat, he could do nothing, in this way, in behalf of the other equally important feature of the plan—the detention of troops ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... just like yourselves?" But the strong, sensible faces looked almost frightened at the words. "Hush," they answered all in a breath, "no such thoughts may be even thought here. He is not just like us." And as if to divert us from the expression of such sentiments, they moved a little from the door, and said, "You may look, if you do not speak," and knowing such looks are not often allowed, I looked with interest, and saw all there ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... of a cornice or sill course A, or other horizontal member which projects beyond the rest, so as to divert water. ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... enemy reached the ditch in front of the American breastwork, half of whom were killed and the other half captured. A detachment of British troops had penetrated into the wood toward our extreme left, to divert attention by a feint attack. The troops under General Coffee opened on these with their rifles, and soon forced ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... rigor is as great as in the matter of the taille, the vexations are ten times greater, for these are domestic, minute and of daily occurrence.—It is forbidden to divert an ounce of the seven obligatory pounds to any use but that of the "pot and the salt-cellar." If a villager should economize the salt of his soup to make brine for a piece of pork, with a view to winter consumption, let him look out for the collecting-clerks! ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... declining to the south-west, and leads to a lower street, which is far larger than the high chiefe street, and it runs from the Kirkland to the Well Trees, in which there have been many pretty buildings, belonging to the severall gentry of the countrey, who were wont to resort thither in winter, and divert themselves in converse together at their owne houses. It was once the principall street of the town; but many of these houses of the gentry having been decayed and ruined, it has lost much of its ancient beautie. Just opposite to this vennel, there ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... This would divert J. P.'s attention from his victim long enough to allow one of the other men to break in with a remark designed to draw J. P.'s fire. It worked once in a while, but as a rule it had no effect whatever beyond making J. P. hurry through the course so that he could renew his attack at the point ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... needed help. Should Mother Anastasia choose to close the doors of the House of Martha against me, what could I do? It might divert this lady to act on my behalf. If she procured an interview for me with Sylvia, I would ask no more of her. There was nothing to risk except that Sylvia might be offended if she heard that she had been the object of compacts. But something must ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... seeing what a formidable war with Macedonia threatened them, when with difficulty bearing up against the Punic war; yet so far were they from sinking under their calamities, that they immediately began to consider how they might divert the enemy from Italy, by commencing hostilities themselves. After ordering the prisoners to be confined in chains, and selling their attendants by public auction, they decreed, that twenty more ships should be got ready, in addition to the twenty-five ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... past I have been rambling over the country, but I am now confined with some lingering complaints, originating, as I take it, in the stomach. To divert my spirits a little in this miserable fog of ennui, I have taken a whim to give you a history of myself. My name has made some little noise in this country; you have done me the honour to interest yourself ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... crooked and a crooked leg worse, just as intelligent care during the growing period can greatly improve a congenitally crooked limb. If breeders were more generally cognizant of the power of overgrown and unbalanced hoofs to divert the lower bones of young legs from their proper direction, and, therefore, to cause them to be moved improperly, with loss of speed and often with injury to the limbs, we might hope to see fewer knock-kneed, bow-legged, "splay-footed," "pigeon-toed," ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... energies whose existence had not before been suspected. Alfieri was first drawn with passion to literature by reading 'Plutarch's Lives.' Loyola, when a soldier serving at the siege of Pampeluna, and laid up by a dangerous wound in his leg, asked for a book to divert his thoughts: the 'Lives of the Saints' was brought to him, and its perusal so inflamed his mind, that he determined thenceforth to devote himself to the founding of a religious order. Luther, in like manner, was inspired to undertake the ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... station; but it was a question whether we could reach the place before the tide turned, and whether we should get near enough to it to make our cries heard. These discussions occupied us for some time, and perhaps assisted to divert our minds from the very awful position in which we were placed. Jerry and I were sitting near each other astride on the keel at the after-part of the boat. Cousin Silas had climbed up over the bows, while Burkett and Kilby hung on, lying their ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... Sea, and Svishtov, Rustchuk, Nikopolis, Silistria, Rakhovo, and Vidin on the Danube. The chief centres of distribution for imports are Varna, Sofia, Rustchuk, Philippopolis and Burgas. About 10% of the exports passes over the Turkish frontier, but the government is making great efforts to divert the trade to Varna and Burgas, and important harbour works have been carried out at both these ports. The new port of Burgas was formally opened in 1904, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Lady, who was seated on the Bench, did seem to arrange everything. And many beauties there, who I did gaze upon with satisfaction. To see them in such gay attire was a pretty sight, and did put my heart in a flutter. And I was pleased when the Court adjourned for luncheon; and it did divert me much to see what appetites they all had! Some had brought sandwiches, and, how they did eat them! But the Lord Chief Justice soon back again, and more witnesses examined until four of the clock, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... said, "to have my friends die with me." Some of his expressions discover, not only composure, but good humor, in this melancholy extremity. The day before his execution, he was seized with a bleeding at the nose. "I shall not now let blood to divert this distemper," said he to Dr. Burnet, who attended him; "that will be done to-morrow." A little before the sheriffs conducted him to the scaffold, he wound up his watch: "Now I have done," said he, "with time, and hence forth must think ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... off, and about equi-distant from Dehli, from Ghausgarh, and from the frontiers of Rohilkand. Why he did not, on leaving Dehli, march due north to Ghausgarh cannot be now positively determined; but it is possible that, having his spoil collected in that fort, he preferred trying to divert the enemy by an expedition in a more easterly direction; and that he entertained some hopes of aid from his connection, Faizula Khan of Rampur, or from the Bangash ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... given to this man; a man in a low and ordinary and desperate situation; and it is stated, that Lord Cochrane, Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, and Mr. Butt, would give L.3,000 among them. Why should they give that? If, indeed, they could thereby mislead and draw away the public attention, and divert it to the pursuit and hunting down of M'Rae, as the sole artificer and perpetrator of the fraud, and could thereby turn aside observation and suspicion from themselves (supposing them to be properly charged with this offence), L.3,000 would be well paid, and cheaply ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... the city itself was laid out, watermains installed, and paving and grading begun. It was no great feat to divert the now aimless Colorado River aqueduct to the site nor to erect thousands of prefabricated houses. The climate was declared to be unequalled, salubrious, equable, pleasant and bracing. Factories were erected, airports laid out, ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... Titchfield Street, Gertie tried to divert her mind from personal anxieties by throwing energy into work, with more than common resolution. A large commission arrived from a ruler of an Eastern nation, who considered a new and elaborately ornamental sash would revive a feeling of loyalty in his army and patriotism in his country. The ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... William King, he walked briskly down the street, his face very red. "Confound him!" he said. He was conscious of a desire to kick something. That evening, after a bleak supper at a marble-topped restaurant table, he tried to divert himself by going to see a play; he saw so many other things that he came out in the middle of it. "I guess I can get all the anatomy I want in my trade," he told himself; and sat down in the station ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... the house whenever possible; avoided their father with an almost physical effect of dodging an expected blow; when with him, watched his mood to forestall with hasty attention or divert with strained wit, with timorous hilarity when he proved complaisant. The possibilities for harm to them were numberless. She and Sam were losing the children, and the children ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... it is not more in our power to divert you; I could wish, indeed, that our entertainments were a little more polite, or your taste a little less refined. But, pray, madam, how came the poets and philosophers, that laboured so much in hunting ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... a higher object than his own or the children's amusement: he was trying to divert their thoughts from the doings of the Ku Klux, lest they should ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... assumed grotesque proportions. As for me, they gave me a grandson instead of two granddaughters, and a Catholic baptism instead of a Protestant. That does not make any difference. One really has to lie a little to divert oneself. ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... way lighting fixtures are links between the construction and decoration of a room, and can contribute to, or seriously divert ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... to the minister, "are like schoolboys. If you want them to work well you must divert their minds, and give them something to think about and look at. Give me leave to fight ennui, and the despondency it brings with it, by taking the squadron about, showing fresh ground to my young fellows, and taking them into ports where I shall be able to send ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... either her gaiety or by the cheerful composure which she carried into all the ordinary duties that fell to her. She saw plainly enough that Ruth needed an entire change of scene and of occupation, and perhaps she believed that such a change, with the knowledge of the world it would bring, would divert Ruth from a course for which she felt she was physically ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the pretty river Pasig. I there passed whole days in looking at the graceful Indian canoes gliding over the water, and receiving the visits of my friends, who came with eagerness to endeavour to divert my thoughts, and to afford sources of ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... courtiers avoided passing under her windows, above all when the King was with her. They used to say it was equivalent to being put to the sword, and this phrase became proverbial at the Court. It is true that she spared nobody, often without other design than to divert the King; and as she had infinite wit and sharp pleasantry, nothing was more dangerous than the ridicule she, better than anybody, could cast on all. With that she loved her family and her relatives, and did not fail to serve people for whom ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... smiled Weil. "I will let you know, by mail or otherwise. And now, this story of yours," he added, thinking it a shrewd plan to divert her attention from the other matter while it was still warm in her mind. "Though I have read it through, and think I understand it fairly well, I am all the more anxious to hear it from your lips. You will put into the text new ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... himself, by office, with the Ministry of Mr. Addington, (and proposals to this effect were, it is certain, made to him,) his knowledge of the existence of such feelings as prompted this answer to Mr. Erskine would, of course, have been sufficient to divert him from the intention. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... tool of my man's," said she. "Did he not ask me for it to kill the rats, which come and laugh at him in his cellar? Poor beasts!—not for him. They have only the old blind man to divert them, and keep them company! The least they can do is to nibble him a little. Hence I don't wish him to do any harm to the small deer, and I keep the tickler. Besides, I shall soon want it for the broker, perhaps. Thirty thousand francs' worth of diamonds—a treasure ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... a mere by-product; and though it was gradually taking such hold of me as to become a purpose in itself, it was but a minor purpose. The discovery of that unknown wretch was the Mecca of my earthly pilgrimage, from which no difficulties or obstacles should divert me. ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... young gentleman, made reply that he well knew that no discourtesy was intended, but Cis pouted and muttered, evidently to the extreme amazement of Mistress Alice Eyre; and Dame Susan, to divert her attention, began to ask about the length of their ride, and the ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in my memory a long, long time—the people, paired off at the tables of the sidewalk cafes, drinking drinks of all colors; a little shopgirl wearing her new, cheap, fetching hat in such a way as to center public attention on her head and divert it from her feet, which were shabby; two small errand boys in white aprons, standing right in the middle of the whirling, swirling traffic, in imminent peril of their lives, while one lighted his cigarette butt from the cigarette butt of his friend; a handful ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... luck desert him again? Would Sylvester be away, or refuse to see him? or, while receiving him, contrive by some sinuous legal device, adroitly to divert his attack? The mere contemplation of any such ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
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