"Divert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... them seven times. They rub vermilion on the wooden images and then on each other's foreheads. It is probable that the wooden images are made and set up in the centre of the shed to attract the evil eye and divert it from the real bride and bridegroom, and the goat may be a substituted sacrifice on their behalf. Divorce and the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... the inhabitants of this city having determined to continue in their allegiance to the Romans, were afraid of my coming to them, and tried, by putting me upon another action, to divert me, that they might be freed from the terror they were in. Accordingly, they sent to Jesus, the captain of those robbers who were in the confines of Ptolemais, and promised to give him a great deal ...
— The Life of Flavius Josephus • Flavius Josephus
... King Beder, 'persuaded as I am that what your majesty did was only to divert yourself, yet I could not help being surprised. But, madam,' continued he, 'let us drop this, and since I have eaten your cake, would you do me the ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... generosity deserved trust; however, we women could not be persuaded to render it. We got out and admired, from afar, the process. Left by our guide—and prop! we found ourselves in a wide field, where, by playful quips and turns, an endless "creek," seemed to divert itself with our attempts to cross it. Failing in this, the next best was to whirl down a steep bank, which feat our charioteer performed with an air not unlike that of Rhesus, had he but been as suitably furnished ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... she might try to divert her little boy, he was only indifferently amused; but presently he remembered something which, for the time being, caused him to forget the broken ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... 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 |
