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More "Diversion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the full effect of her peculiarly thrilling intonation, and Grandma listened with rapt attention; but, meanwhile, Grandpa Keeler and the two little Keelers found time surreptitiously to dispose of nearly a whole pie, with the serious aspect of those who will not allow a mere fleeting diversion to hinder them in the improvement ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... can afford upon the mind of primitive man. At first the collection of national stories was undertaken merely for the purpose of affording amusement. Folk-tales were diverting, so they found their way into print, and were issued as curious literary matter fitted to supply diversion for a vacant hour. Many of the tales are very beautiful, and their mere literary merit sufficed to make them sought for. But legendary lore was soon observed to possess much more value than could attach to ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... of operations under Brown."[278] On the present occasion Wilkinson explained that, hearing of Brown's march by common report, and having ascertained that the enemy was sending re-enforcements up the St. Lawrence, he undertook an incursion into Lower Canada as a diversion against such increase of the force with which Brown must contend.[279] His enterprise was directed against La Colle, a few miles from Plattsburg, within the Canada boundary; but upon arriving before the ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... since, so forlorn and forsaken did she seem. Major Pike (Robert's father), coming in this morning, says, next to the sparing of Goody Morse's life, it did please him to see the bloodthirsty rabble so cheated out of their diversion; for example, there was Goody Matson, who had ridden bare-backed, for lack of a saddle, all the way from Newbury, on Deacon Dole's hard-trotting horse, and was so galled and lame of it that she could scarce ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... remember more than a third of their tales by reason of the forgetfulness of age, but whatever they tell write it down on the boards of the poets and in the words of the poets, for it will be a diversion to the companies and the high people of the latter times to listen to them."[8] So spoke the angels, and Patrick did as he bade them, and the stories are in the ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... bed-steads without heads, in all stages of disability, and never the same on two consecutive days. Mrs. Simpson was seldom at home, and even when she was, had little concern as to what happened on the premises. A favorite diversion was to make the house into a fort, gallantly held by a handful of American soldiers against a besieging force of the British army. Great care was used in apportioning the parts, for there was no disposition to let anybody win ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... have come only by the recommendation of the boatman, Fritz Killner?" she asked. "No doubt he wished to give you the diversion of the long passage ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... houl, and make Grimaces and Wry Faces, as if they were possess'd. When all the Bustle is over, they demand a Feast of a Stag and some large Trouts for the Company, who are thus regal'd at once with Diversion and Good Cheer. ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... when Lake Michikamau was likely to be impassable on account of the storms. It had been regularly travelled in the old days when the Indians of the interior traded at Northwest River post; but since the diversion of their trade to the St. Lawrence it had ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... says,—"I maintained the wars which were of your formation, or that of others, not of mine. I won one member of the great Indian confederacy from it by an act of seasonable restitution; with another I maintained a secret intercourse, and converted him into a friend; a third I drew off by diversion and negotiation, and employed him as the instrument of peace. When you cried out for peace, and your cries were heard by those who were the objects of it, I resisted this and every other species of counteraction by rising in my demands, and accomplished ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to-morrow," Claire suggested in a careful undertone. Priscilla's face flushed, and Peggy seeing her look of annoyance, created a diversion by springing ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... in their place; Evening to ) supper; music or diversion or [Question, What good 9 ) conversation; examination of have I ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... his other studies. What an Idea does it raise of His abilities, to find that a Work of such labour and learning, as would have been a sufficient employment and glory for the whole life of another, was to him diversion only, and amusement! The Subject is in its nature incapable of that demonstration upon which his other writings are founded, but his usual accuracy and judiciousness are here no less observable; And at the same time that he supports his ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton
... others, who for that very reason disapproved it, were too shallow to understand the influence of little over great things. The women and the young men did not bestow a thought on the subject, but yielded willingly to the attractions of pleasure. Bonaparte, who was delighted at having provided a diversion for the gossiping of the Parisian salons, said to me one day, "While they are chatting about all this, they do not babble upon politics, and that is what I want. Let them dance and amuse themselves as long as they do not thrust ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... which the company seeming to wonder, "Don't you know," said he, "how dangerous of itself the madness of Metellus is? and now that he comes armed with the support of Pompey, he will fall like lightning on the state, and bring it to utter disorder; therefore this is no time for idleness and diversion, but we must go and prevent this man in his designs, or bravely die in defense of our liberty." Nevertheless, by the persuasion of his friends, he went first to his country-house, where he stayed but a very little time, and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... man with a ball through his head. Then for two minutes, perhaps, a hell of fierce hand-to-hand battle raged, cowboy skulls crunching beneath fierce blows, circus men falling like autumn leaves before the cowboys' fire. And so the fight might have lasted till all were down but for a startling diversion. ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... wonderful eyes, lustrous, deep, thoughtful and kind. He was music mad, and read all the poetry in the Nesbit library—and the Doctor loved poetry as many men love wine. Hero-tales and mythology, romances and legends Kenyon read day after day between his hours of practice, and for diversion the boy sat before the fire or in the sun of a chilly afternoon, retailing them in such language as little Lila could understand. So in the black night of sorrow that enveloped her, Laura Nesbit ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... A diversion came, nevertheless, from without. Christian IV, king of Denmark, invaded northern Germany in 1625 with a view of relieving his fellow Protestants. In addition to the army of the League which was dispatched against him, ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... the readiest means of literary success in England was to visit the Americans and abuse them in a book. Mr. Paulding's parody gives the idea that their lies were rather dull and foolish, and that the parodist's work was not so entirely a diversion as one might think. He wrote for a generation now passing away, and it is all but impossible for us to enter into the feeling that animated him and his readers. For this reason, perhaps, we fail to enjoy his book, though we are not entirely persuaded that we should ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... attempt be made on the Coast from La Teste to Bourdeaux, an immediate diversion should be made on this side; the success ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... recreation, diversion, sport, disport, gambols, frolic, jest, merriment; action, use, employment, practice, exercise; comedy, drama, melodrama, farce, burlesque; dalliance, toying, twiddling; liberty, scope, swing. Associated Words: dramaturgy, dramaturgist, dramatic, dramatize, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... through the so-called Council of Peers was held last night outdoors in the public market. The rival orators exceeded one another in dullness and hoarseness. The attendance was very slight. The general public takes little interest in these proceedings, knowing as it does that they are merely a diversion for the scions of old families whose energies are unemployed except in time of war. It is the general feeling, moreover, that the King may be depended upon to govern the kingdom properly without the interference of ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... That diversion being ended, I joined Kennedy in his scrutiny of Harris and his choice friend. Of course at our distance it was absolutely impossible to gain any idea of what they were talking about, and indeed our chief concern was not to attract any attention. ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... developed as Garibaldi had suspected—the man was a degenerate scion of Spanish aristocracy. He seemed too stupid or too indifferent to know who his visitor was, or what he stood for. He brought out strong drink and then suggested cards as a diversion. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... in these brand-new opinions. But some of them are right enough, durable even for life; and the poorest serve for a cock-shy—as when idle people, after picnics, float a bottle on a pond and have an hour's diversion ere, it sinks. Whichever they are, serious opinions or humours of the moment, he still defends his ventures with indefatigable wit and spirit, hitting savagely himself, but taking punishment like ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... which Paul Jones loved it was to fight. It was simply diversion for him to capture merchantmen or vessels that could make only a weak resistance, and he longed to give the enemy a taste of his mettle. It may be said that his situation grew more dangerous with every hour. His presence was known and a score of cruisers ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... the hands upon me was adoing, Mr. Given, minister of Lugton, a jocose man, who could not get near, stretched out his staff and touched my head, saying, to the great diversion of the rest, "This will do ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... forbidden all conversation and writing concerning government of the State. They would soon (accustomed as they are, since the Revolution, to verbal and written debates) be tired of talking about fine weather or about the opera. To occupy them and their attention, some ample subject of diversion was necessary, and religion was surrendered to them at discretion; because, enlightened as the world now is, even athiests or Christian fanatics can do but little harm to society. They may spend rivers of ink, but they will be unable to shed a ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... been with us. The German colonist in America has been confronted from the start by a civilization fully equal to his own. In the Danubian principalities he would rise at once to a position of superiority. The cessation of German immigration would be undoubtedly a loss to America, but its diversion to the south-east would be a great gain to Europe. It would settle, perhaps, for ever, the grave question of race-supremacy—it would enable Austria to become a really German power, and Vienna a really German city. Last, but not least, it would reclaim from Mohammedanism ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... with his self-imposed task when a diversion was created by the entrance of a new arrival. A short, stout man stood for a moment with the handle of the door in his hand, and then came in, carefully bearing before him a glass of gin and water. It was the first time that he had ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... of his illness he called a council of war, in which the whole plan of operations was altered. It was determined to convey troops above the town, and endeavor to make a diversion in that direction, or draw Montcalm into the open field. Before carrying this plan into effect, Wolfe again reconnoitred the town in company with Admiral Saunders, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... encounter with the plain-clothes men was taking place. A backward glance showed him that Fraser had drawn his pursuers to the street. He had broken away and dodged out into the open, where the other officers responded at a call and seized him as he apparently undertook to break through the cordon. This diversion served an unexpected purpose. Not only did it draw attention from Emerson's retreat, but it also gave the mob its long-awaited opportunity. Recognizing in the officers' quarry the supposed figure of Emerson, the hated cause of ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... from door to door. And the people usually took him in at public houses where they knew him, and would give him drink and victuals, and sometimes farthings; and he in return would pipe and sing, and talk simply, which diverted the people; and thus he lived. It was but a very bad time for this diversion while things were as I have told; yet the poor fellow went about as usual, but was almost starved: and when anybody asked how he did, he would answer, the dead cart had not taken him yet, but that they had promised to call for him ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... wealth. Rose was a young woman of fashion and her whole aspect seemed to repudiate any closeness of tie between herself and Mary, who passed her time in caring for General Colton, her invalid father, attending committees, and, as a diversion, going to "sewing-circles" and symphony concerts; but she was fonder of Mary than of any one else in the world. Rose, who had, as it were, been brought up all over the world, divided her time now between two continents and quaintly diversified ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... what he would do, after he had boiled me in oil or given me some other pleasant diversion. No, I reckon I'll not give myself up. I'll join ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... troubles, and indeed from himself entirely. He had a few books, and he became fond of reading them. Sometimes Mrs. Martin would ask him to read aloud, and though she seldom wished to hear any thing but newspapers, that was a diversion of his thoughts. Arthur had a clear, pleasant voice, and read very well for a child of his age; and every time he read aloud, he was improving himself in this part of education. Another pleasant change was, going to school. Arthur had dreaded this very much, because all the ...
— Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog • Anonymous
... the whole morning to public affairs, in order to receive petitions, give audience, pronounce sentences, and hold his councils; the rest of the day was given to pleasure, and as Amasis, in hours of diversion, was extremely gay, and seemed to carry his mirth beyond due bounds, his courtiers took the liberty to represent to him the unsuitableness of such a behaviour; when he answered that it was impossible for the mind to be always serious and intent ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... offices! One feels quite a novice beside these venerable million-year-old boulders. On last New Year's eve I was reading the book, and had lost myself in it so completely, that I forgot my usual New Year's diversion, namely, the wild hunt to Amack. Ah, you don't know what ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... brought with it a country lad's holiday, a funeral may also be reckoned among the events which varied his life, if not with gaiety, at least with pleasing diversion. As a very young child I was present at two funerals which for special reasons have impressed themselves upon my memory. I had heard much of a widowed sister of my father, supposed to be rich; this proved to be a fable. Her husband had left the bulk ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... you will get more by the book than the jaunt will cost you; so you will have your diversion for nothing, and add ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... it his duty to combat Edward's purposes as long as it was possible; and now he changed the mode of his attack and tried a diversion. He seemed to give way, and only spoke of the form of what they would have to do to bring about this separation, and these new unions; and so mentioned a number of ugly, undesirable matters, which threw Edward into the worst ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... consequences might not have arisen at that moment it is hard to tell, had not Orion caused a sudden diversion. He fell off his chair in a heap ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... fires. And in Wales, a body of forces, sent to the relief of Ireland, had been recalled by the King, whose urgent necessities compelled him to employ them to support the loyal Welsh, who, with this aid, surprised several Parliamentary holds, and for some time operated as a diversion to the army of Fairfax, preventing him from joining the Scotch to crush the noble Newcastle. The King's cause at this time wore a fair aspect; and no better proof could be given of his having a chance of ultimate success, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... that the ape-man had loosed a famishing man-eater among the superstitious and terror-stricken blacks. The Second Rhodesian Regiment had immediately taken possession of the abandoned trench and from this position their flanking fire had raked contiguous sections of the German line, the diversion rendering possible a successful night attack on the part of the balance of the ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... set mi een on." And then the audience saw where the "war" pig came in, and they laughed heartily over the joke. It was a relief to me when they did put the best face on the affair. Under cover of the diversion I stole from the room, and prepared to leave the place. I met Mrs Stangcliffe at the foot of the staircase. She said "she did not know what to think about us, but there had been a fearful noise, and she took ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... Seibei, who, horror-stricken, had seen both murders, came up and began to upbraid him for his wickedness. But Gompachi was so smooth-spoken and so well liked by his comrades, that he easily persuaded Seibei to hush the matter up, and accompany him to the Yoshiwara for a little diversion. As they were talking by the way, Seibei said ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... one's hand and playing with it. Corydon, nervous and sick and wrestling with melancholia, would have to lie awake for uncounted hours and submit to this torment. The infant had invented a name for the diversion; he called it "Hoodaloo mungie"—which being translated signified "Hold your finger". To the mother this was like the pass-word of some secret order of demons, who preyed upon and racked her in the night; so that never after in her ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... Human Affairs;" but the music, and the crowd, and the spectacle of six hundred ladies all fanning themselves at once, were entertaining, and the girls would not have missed them for the world. Later in the day another diversion was afforded them by the throngs of pink and blue ladies and white-gloved gentlemen who passed the house, on their way to the President's Levee; but they were not allowed to enjoy this amusement long, for Miss Jane, suspecting what was ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... than the foot of the staircase. Coroner Price, by an extra effort which seemed to be called for by the circumstances, had succeeded in picking up a jury from the people collected on the street, and entering at this moment, created a diversion which effectively postponed the detective's examination of his ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... wagonette, she walked bravely beside me with the puppet-box under her arm. The occupants of the vehicle began to evince great curiosity as we drew nearer, but their mare caught sight of my nose at the critical moment and provided an opportune diversion. ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... two companies of the regiment, and a detachment of cavalry, and one piece of artillery, made a diversion on Shawnee, Mo. attacked and dispersed a small opposing force and captured ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... that it turned out to be a magnificent success. But this is different. The knicker was practical; this thing's absurd—it's impossible! This is an age of activity. In Civil War days women minced daintily along when they walked at all. They stitched on samplers by way of diversion." ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... relieve your mind at any time, of any intellectual bile, by correspondence. ... If you wish something serious to do, I will formally direct you to make a report upon Railway Rates and Railway Service in Europe. This will give you some diversion in between your attacks ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... was hastening to Chattanooga, and the chances for making the diversion against Burnside profitable to the Confederate cause were rapidly diminishing. They soon vanished entirely, and Grant's great opportunity came instead. Longstreet's corps consisted of nine brigades of infantry in two strong divisions under Major-General McLaws and Brigadier-General ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... unholy laughter. Summer has come, and my groom and countryman has started to whistle again, sure sign that Winter is over, for it is only during the Summer that he reconciles himself to the War. War, he admits, serves very well as a light gentlemanly diversion for the idle months, but with the first yellow leaf he grows restless and hints indirectly that both ourselves and the horses would be much better employed in the really serious business of showing the little ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various
... him, heart and soul, as it might be. The uninitiated reader is not to imagine the laughter of those blacks to be very noisy, or to be raised on a sharp, high key. They could make the welkin ring, in sudden bursts of merriment, on occasion; but, at a time like this, they rather caused their diversion to be developed by sounds that came from the depths of their chests. A gleam of suspicion that these blacks were acquainted with some fact that it might be well for him to know, shot across the mind of Spike; but he was turned ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... and the witness of one of the unpleasant domestic scenes which happened often in those days, before Reginald Mallett's wife had learnt forbearance, she had noticed her father's face twitch as though in pain. Glad of a diversion, she had asked him with eager sympathy, 'Is it toothache?' and he had answered acidly, 'No, child, only the mutilation of our language.' She remembered the words, and later she understood their meaning and the flushing of her mother's face, ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... who, during the few minutes thus occupied, had bustled in and out of the vestry—"really, are we never intending to come home? Somebody must make a diversion here. Major Harper, will you take my wife? ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... diversion may be made, by railway, to Crewe, and from thence the journey, along the North-Western line, passing Northwich (Cheshire) and Warrington (Lancashire), via Parkside, to Preston, Garstang, and Lancaster, is rapid and agreeable. The ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... same, Aoooya continued to be a tempting morsel, and sooner or later, he feared, he would not be able to resist her. And then the planet itself provided a diversion. ...
— Divinity • William Morrison
... Corny a snob—preferably by means of a telephone. His chief interest in life, his chosen amusement, and his sole diversion after working hours, was to place himself in juxtaposition—since he could not hope to mingle—with ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... language of the other, and all the art of love. I have often envied him. The Head-Waiter's life is a "happy one." He is ubiquitous; Egypt, The Riviera, Switzerland, and Italy, see him by turns; in each he has a white waistcoat, of which Mr. CHAMBERLAIN might be proud, infinite occupation, and infinite diversion; his nimbleness, his light-heartedness, his languages, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... divulged it, the others sat on the terrace, and Mr. Kennaston read to them, as he had promised, from his "Defense of Ignorance." It proved a welcome diversion to more than one of the party. Mr. Woods, especially, esteemed it a godsend; it staved off misfortune for at least a little; so he sat at Kathleen's side in silence, trying desperately to be happy, trying desperately not to see the tiny wrinkles, the faint crow's feet Time had ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... clumsy, from the performers being mostly dressed according to the Chinese costume, one inseparable part of which is a pair of heavy quilted boots with the soles of an inch thick. The wrestlers, however, seemed to be pretty expert and afforded much diversion to such as were admirers ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... performed at the Leeds festival of 1877. Lormian thought it necessary to introduce a love episode into his tragedy, but Alexander Duval, who wrote the book for Mehul's opera, was of the opinion that the diversion only enfeebled the beautiful if austere picture of patriarchal domestic life delineated in the Bible. He therefore adhered to tradition and created a series of scenes full of beauty, dignity, and pathos, simple and strong ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... quarrel? What profit do we derive from the L340,000 paid to the Landgrave of Hesse for the hire of troops? The naval war has brought a rich return; on the continent we have nothing to gain by victory. As for the argument that the German war is one of diversion, why should we divert a war from the sea, where we are supreme, to land, where we must necessarily be inferior to France? To fight in Germany for Hanover is to surrender the advantages of an insular position. Better let France ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... so much silver together for nearly a year, half crazy, in company with his money, stayed out three days, and on the fourth came home alone! Thereupon the uncle, who was in haste to have his "Manual" finished inasmuch as he hoped to get a patent for it, dreading some new diversion on his nephew's part, determined to make him work by preventing him from going out. To this end he carried off his garments, and left him instead the disguise under which we have seen him. Nevertheless, the famous "Manual" continued to make very slow progress, for Rodolphe ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... questions. Was he ill? What had happened to him? Was he consuming himself with grief? No, the valet thought not. He had been much better in Paris and had seen some old friends there. What harm was there in that? A bereaved man needed diversion. The change had come suddenly, when he had decided to return to Rome, and he had eaten nothing for thirty-six hours. The valet asked if the youth at the hospital, of whom Corbario had told him, were really Marcello. The footman answered that ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... survival of the fittest had wrought on this heterogeneous crew through countless generations; and with the primitive Indian, the fittest was the hardiest, fiercest, most adroit, and most wily. Baptized and heathen alike they had just enjoyed a diversion greatly to their taste. A young Pennsylvanian named James Smith, a spirited and intelligent boy of eighteen, had been waylaid by three Indians on the western borders of the province and led captive to the fort. When the party came to the edge of the clearing, his captors, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... "Imperious" and three other frigates anchored about a gun-shot and a half from the boom to support the boats accompanying the fire-ships. Five or six sloops-of-war and brigs were placed near the east end of the island to make a diversion, while a bomb-vessel and several small craft, supplied with rockets, took up their ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... laborious annual diversion Fleeming's part was large. I never thought him an actor, but he was something of a mimic, which stood him in stead. Thus he had seen Got in Poirier; and his own Poirier, when he came to play it, breathed meritoriously ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... would perish, and French influence would become supreme. As the distance of Trichinopoly from Fort St. George was so great as to preclude the possibility of marching directly to the assistance of their ally, he advocated the bold project of making a diversion by a sudden attack upon Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic, and the favorite residence of the Nabob. His plans were approved, and he was appointed commander to carry them ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... have not served the same apprenticeship which he had, are not advised to follow his example. Surely he was better employed in plying the trades of tinker and smith than in having recourse to vice, in running after milk-maids for example. Running after milk-maids is by no means an ungenteel rural diversion; but let any one ask some respectable casuist (the Bishop of London for example), whether Lavengro was not far better employed, when in the country, at tinkering and smithery than he would have been in running after all the milkmaids in Cheshire, though tinkering ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... of the service had compelled him to rise and walk up and down in front of his men under a desultory shower of jezail-bullets. He seemed to hear the damned things whop-whopping now . . . and almost wished that he could really hear them. One or two good bullets just now would be a welcome diversion. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... of our blockaders, finding time banging heavy upon their hands, had essayed a little diversion by knocking Forts Jackson and Bledsoe—two small forts defending the passage of the Savannah—about their defenders' ears. After capturing the forts our folks desisted ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... only a diversion, while the stream of invective against horseflesh went on like the brook for ever. It is an ill wind that blows nobody good; the truth of this was well exemplified in the luck of the dogs. The poor animals looked shockingly thin and wasted, and had for a long time ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... labour and ruin of a thousand such reptiles as myself I might with satisfaction exclaim, Sic, sic juvat: but when I behold one GREAT MAN starving with hunger and freezing with cold, in the midst of fifty thousand who are suffering the same evils for his diversion; when I see another, whose own mind is a more abject slave to his own greatness, and is more tortured and racked by it, than those of all his vassals; lastly, when I consider whole nations rooted out only to bring tears into the eyes of a GREAT MAN, not indeed because he hath extirpated so ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... age, of extraordinary agility and no mean skill with the sword. He was giving a good account of himself against the four assailants who hemmed him against the wall, his point flashing here and there with swift irregularity to daunt their valiancy. At the moment when I appeared to create a diversion one of the four had flung himself down and forward to cling about the knees of their victim with intent to knife him at close quarters. The young man dared not shorten his sword length to meet this new danger. He tried to shake off the man, caught ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... the ground, etc. Some present, who had some small degree of humanity in their Composition, were so good as to favor them (the prisoners) with some old durty worn Garments, just sufficient to cover their nakedness, and in this Situation (they) were made Objects of Ridicule for ye Diversion of those ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... Belle—everybody seemed to know everybody else—and learning she was headed for the Reservation, possibly to teach school, hired her on the spot away from the job, to go back to his eating-house at Sleepy Cat Junction. No sooner was this arranged, and Bradley told to take her luggage off the stage, than a diversion occurred. ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... the question in a final manner legislatures now began to propose constitutional amendments to the people of their several States which forbade a division or a diversion of the funds, and these were almost uniformly adopted at the first election after being proposed. No State admitted to the Union after 1858, except West Virginia, failed to insert such a provision in its first ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... the end of suspended. Initial preparation for such renewed aggressiveness was contemporary with the fall of Vicksburg and lay in the failure of the Confederate attack upon Helena, an attack that had been projected for the making of a diversion only. The failure compelled Holmes to draw his forces back to ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... was deeply embarrassed and troubled, much more so than the occasion required; so much so, indeed, that I turned the conversation back upon the manuscripts as a diversion. "I cannot stand that doctor of yours," I said, indicating the prose story; "no one would. ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... was a fine gentleman and lived in great magnificence, and was much honoured by his own and foreign princes; who was a courtier, a statesman, and a painter; and so much all these, that when he acted in either character, that seemed to be his business, and the others his diversion. I say when one thus reflects, besides the pleasure arising from the beauties and excellences of the work, the fine ideas it gives us of natural things, the noble way of thinking it suggest to us, an additional pleasure results from the above considerations. But, oh! the pleasure, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... They had played together several times before. He had formed a habit of visiting her every evening, and though her skill at the game was far from great, it had been a welcome diversion from the constant anxiety that pressed so heavily upon her. Nap was an expert player, yet he seemed to enjoy the poor game which was all she had to offer. Perhaps he liked to feel her at his mercy. She strongly suspected that ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... myself, Sir Charles Wolseley and Thurloe, and would be shut up three or four hours together in private discourse, and none were admitted to come in to him. He would sometimes be very cheerful with us, and, laying aside his greatness, he would be exceeding familiar with us, and by way of diversion would make verses with us, and every one must try his fancy. He commonly called for tobacco, pipes, and a candle, and would now and then take tobacco himself: then he would fall again to his serious and great business." At length, on Friday, May 8, the Parliament, assembled ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... dropped her chin to an abnormal length; the youngest, Susan, bit nervously at her lips; Mary cleared her throat and showed signs of returning to the attack, but Dreda was already tired of the subject, and made a diversion by leaping from her seat and approaching the table where piles of blue-covered exercise books were neatly arranged at intervals of about ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... everybody recollects, the most severe of this generation. My frogs sang merrily through the summer; but all in a neighbour's garden. I am not acquainted with that family; but it is cheering to think how much innocent diversion I have provided for ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... the hammock on the porch, the fascinating novel that we have placed on our bedside table, the happy company of friends that are talking and laughing in the next room; or how we long for the green fields and the open road; how seductive is that siren call of change and diversion,—that evil spirit of procrastination! How feeble, too, are the efforts that we make under these conditions! We are not making progress in our art, we are only marking time. And yet the psychologists ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... forward to the hike in the snow as a diversion that would rest their tired nerves and help them to see more clearly ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... struck on entering the Pantheon with the beauty of the building, which greatly surpassed whatever I could have expected or imagined. Yet it has more the appearance of a chapel than of a place of diversion; and, though I was quite charmed with the magnificence of the room, I felt that I could not be as gay and thoughtless there as at Ranelagh; for there is something in it which rather inspires awe and solemnity than mirth and pleasure.' Ranelagh was at Chelsea, the Pantheon was in Oxford-street. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... Once, many years before, he had been given a week off, and had gone to Nantasket; but his principal diversion had been to take the morning steamboat thence to the city, and gaze into the office ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... in the nature of a confession. Last spring, discovering by accident that I could mesmerize, I took up mesmerism as a diversion for the amusement of myself and friends. I had long believed in it entirely and carefully watched its processes, but I wished to study its philosophy and find out, if I could, the cause and the limits of its ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... indebted to a lucky accident for a momentary diversion of his thoughts from the danger which threatened him in regard to Juno. Amongst other visitors to the baths, who were passing by at this early hour, happened to be the Princess of * *. Her carriage drew ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... offer them diversion in the shape of a theatrical entertainment. Your friends, the Thespians, would be only too happy to disport themselves in return ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... precipitously to a considerable altitude. It had been wisely chosen for defense, and the opposite high ground was lined with infantry and crowned with batteries. As it was impossible to dislodge the enemy until some diversion should be created on one of his flanks, our men lay prone upon the ground, while bullets and shells hurtled among us and above us. At length seeing a brigade on our left rapidly advancing where the enemy's position was less formidable, we rose up and, with the inspiring "rebel yell," ran ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... breath of air that might be stirring in the dark garden. Max had retreated to the empty fireplace, finding the bricks cooler than the carpeted floor. All was very still, save when the emphatic sweep of a trump card made the candle flames flicker. But the deals were a diversion. Then the rector, who had tiptoed about, to look over the shoulder of each player, might say, "You didn't answer Miss Ruth's call, Denner;" or, "Bless my soul, Dale, what made you play a ten-spot on that second hand round? You ought not ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... its yield. Mr Bruce, on his part, regarded the widow with somewhat jealous eyes, because he very much doubted whether, when the day arrived, she would be able to pay him the money she owed him. That day was, however, not just at hand. It was this diversion of his resources, and not the moral necessity for a nest-egg, as he had represented the case to Margaret Anderson, which had urged him to show hospitality to Annie ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... mind Donal did not know which way to look; physically, he regarded the ground. Happily at that very moment Hornie caused a diversion, and Gibbie understood what Donal was feeling too well to make even a pretence of going after her. I must, to his praise, record the fact that, instead of wreaking his mortification upon the cow, Donal spared her several blows out of ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... taken by Storm, and was written by Mr. Thomas Watson. Guessing by the title of it that he should find some phrases of his own profession spiritualized in a manner which he thought might afford him some diversion, he resolved to dip into it; but he took no serious notice of any thing he read in it; and yet, while this book was in his hand, an impression was made upon his mind, (perhaps God only knows how,) which drew after it a train of the most ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... formed of six or seven intimate friends, who proposed to make themselves acquainted {p.185} with the German language. They were in the habit of being much together, and the time they spent in this new study was felt as a period of great amusement. One source of this diversion was the laziness of one of their number, the present author, who, averse to the necessary toil of grammar, and the rules, was in the practice of fighting his way to the knowledge of the German by his acquaintance with the Scottish and Anglo-Saxon dialects, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... way of the Yorktown Peninsula, a swampy wild region over which it was difficult, indeed, to move an army. He commanded 125,000 men, and 40,000 more were in the neighborhood of Washington to make a diversion in his favor in case of necessity. Joseph E. Johnston, who had held chief command in Virginia since Bull Run, shifted his position promptly from northern Virginia to Richmond to meet the threatened attack. ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... most active cannot be without interest to pedagogy, and it would not be without value to inquire what has been the result of the universal neglect of language-teaching in the primary and lower grade grammar schools—whether the profusion of secret languages runs parallel with this diversion of the child-mind from one of its most healthful and requisite employments, or whether it has not to some extent atrophied ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... year opened the way into the heart of Samnium. From this time the Romans were uniformly successful; and it seemed probable that the war was drawing to a close, when the Etruscans created a powerful diversion by declaring war against Rome in B.C. 311. But the energy and ability of Q. Fabius Maximus averted this new danger. He boldly carried the war into the very heart of Etruria, and gained a decisive victory over the forces of the League. The Samnites also were repeatedly defeated; ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... whereof was relieved only by woman's homely resource, needlework. Even if Mrs. Whitelaw had been fond of reading, and she only cared moderately for that form of occupation, she could hardly have found intellectual diversion of that kind at Wyncomb, where a family Bible, a few volumes of the Annual Register, which had belonged to some half-dozen different owners before they came from a stall in Malsham market to the house of Whitelaw, a grim-looking old quarto upon domestic medicine, and a cookery-book, ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... from Panna, and hastened to her son, on whom she flung herself, wailing aloud and weeping. The girl took advantage of the diversion to leave the room slowly, unnoticed. She had seen enough; Pista was alive; but he must be badly injured, for his whole head was wrapped in bandages, and he had evidently neither seen nor heard anything of ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... ne'er was sung before. No path appears: yet resolute I stray Where youth undaunted bids me force my way. O'er rocks and cliffs while I the task pursue, Guide me, ye Nymphs, with your unerring clue. 10 For you the rise of this diversion know, You first were pleased in Italy to show This studious sport; from Scacchis was its name, The pleasing record ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... not obtain from McClellan permission to carry out his own scheme. He did, however, obtain permission for Halleck, if he consented, to send flotillas up the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers to make a diversion while Buell, as Lincoln had proposed and as McClellan had now ordered, marched upon Eastern Tennessee. Halleck would not move. Buell prepared to move alone, and in January, 1862, sent forward a small force under Thomas to meet an ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... Teresita was in one of her mischievous moods. The mother who had reared her sighed resignedly and poured the wine into the small glasses with a quaint design cut into their sides, perfectly unconscious of the good the little diversion had done. ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... engine stopped at once, for it was very hot there, and the diversion was acceptable; so, leaving the fine rain dripping from the hop-bine, three men came, dragging their legs after them, threading their way through the poles till they all stood together, wiping their streaming faces with their bare arms, and gazing down at the recumbent figure, ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... of the smile that, in season or out of season, it often finds its way to the most pallid lips, in the midst of the greatest disasters and the deepest grief. It appears as if always listening at the door ready to take its place on the slightest notice. This diversion had the good effect of mixing a little honey with—if the expression may be used—the bitterness of the parting adieus. Becker took the lead in hiding his sorrow; the three young Greenlanders tore themselves from the maternal embrace, and affectionately kissed the hand held ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... offered him) and joined the troop of hunters. The Duchess issued forth magnificently attired, and Don Quixote, out of pure politeness, would hold the reins of the palfrey, though the Duke was unwilling to allow it. Having arrived at the proposed scene of their diversion, which was in a wood between two lofty mountains, they posted themselves in places where the toils were to be pitched; and all the party having taken their different stations, the sport began with prodigious noise and clamor, insomuch that between the shouts of ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... drawing down his lip. And the look in his eyes showed what he thought of such of us as had descended to such low ways of pleasing the public that paid to see us and to hear us: "But I shall very gladly do something to bring a little diversion into the sad lives of the poor boys in ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... had heard of Washington's intended attack upon the British at Trenton, and to assist him sent Colonel Griffin, at the head of four hundred and fifty militia, across from Philadelphia to New Jersey with directions to make a diversion in favor of the Americans by marching to Mount Holly as if intending an attack upon the British troops under the command ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... the English mastiff, and as remarkable for his good-nature as for his great strength and courage. Rambling out one day, accompanied by this trusty friend, they came upon a group of rustics engaged in the ignoble diversion of baiting a badger, an animal much in request among English dog-fanciers as a test for the pluck of their terriers. "Drawing a badger" is the proper sporting-phrase,—the animal being chained to a barrel, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... Osteopathy how to hunt for and find the local causes of diseases, not contagious, or infectious, I have succeeded in planning and suggesting a method, which I am sure the doctor can easily follow, and find any diversion from the normal, that would interfere with the nerves, veins, and arteries, of any organ or limb of the body. I have formulated a simple mental diagram that divides the body into three parts, chest, upper and lower limbs. ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... if some one whom they had known all their lives, quite familiar in their daily life, should suddenly have stood up and declared himself to have been an eye-witness to most marvellous proceedings. The hazy blue with its floating clouds was no longer a diversion from the subject in hand. Their eyes were riveted with mysterious thoughts as they lay and listened, astonished, fascinated. It was the first time it had ever really entered into their consciousness that there had been a time when there was no blue, no firm earth, no anything. Whether it were ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... so much of earnestness in the expression of the last sentence, it was said with such a deferential contrition, if I may so speak, that Diana's thoughts experienced a diversion from the subject that had occasioned them. The contrition came more home than the fault. By common consent they went off to other matters of talk. Diana explained and commented on the history and features ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... Amusements were few in those dull, monotonous days, when there were neither theaters, books, moving pictures, railroads, or automobiles. One day was much like another. Therefore even the clergy welcomed a diversion and devoted so much time to cards that the recreation had to be forbidden them. Now and then some great religious movement would sweep over the land and break up card-playing; but after a little respite people always returned to it with even greater zest than before. Nor ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... The amusement and diversion they speak of was the suggestion of a treaty proposed by the enemy, and announced from the throne. Thus the people of England felt in the eighth, not in the fourth year of the war. No sighing or panting after negotiation; no motions from the opposition to force ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... whether I should or should not accept Lillian Gale as an intimate friend that I did not know that the curtain had fallen on the second act, nor did I know how the act had ended. My problem was still unsolved. I welcomed the diversion of a turn in the ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... her forces mobilized before Russia, a diversion was created by the Austrian invasion of south Poland, in which the Germans also took the offensive. Under these circumstances the Russian plan of campaign resolved ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... examined the rooms, no sign of any depredations could be discovered. The burglar did not appear to have lunched in the pantry where some choice viands had been placed. The robber had certainly been very considerate, and had done no mischief either for plunder or diversion. He had evidently, in the opinion of Mrs. Passford and her son, ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... ever surprised so much as a passing shadow upon her face. The young man's untiring pursuit of managers and of players had left her continually alone, but she busied herself cheerfully about her housekeeping, and found diversion in yielding to an inordinate curiosity concerning her neighbours. Once or twice she had questioned him about his absence, and this was especially so the morning after his meeting ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... to create a diversion, "incidentally I've discovered the secret of his 'enormous appetite.' It is explained in three words, ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... heed of the more important political changes that were in progress. The eyes of the rabble were easily turned from the movements of the government by horse-racing, theatres, largesses. Yet already this diversion of ambition into new fields gave tokens of dangers to the state in future times. The Donatists, whom Constantine had attempted to pacify by the Councils of Rome, Arles, and Milan, maintained a more than religious revolt, and exhibited the bitterness that may be infused among competitors for ecclesiastical ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... the main because of the diversion of our economic strength from permanent construction to manufacturing of consumable commodities during and after the war, we are short about a million homes. In cities such a shortage implies the challenge of congestion. It means ...
— Better Homes in America • Mrs W.B. Meloney
... looks at our little diversion in the benevolent spirit of the giant whose daughter brought home ploughman, oxen, and all in her apron for playthings," said Viola, who with Eustace had found her way to us, but we were all divided again, Viola being carried off by some ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Smithiana in the Himalayas. This species occurred at an elevation of 8,000 feet. The leaves become reduced in length one-half, curved, and sprinkled, sometimes in double rows, with the large sori of this species, which gives the tree a strange appearance, and at length proves fatal, from the immense diversion of nutriment requisite to support a parasite so large and multitudinous. The dried specimens have a sweet scent resembling violets. In Northern Europe Caeoma pinitorquum, D. By., seems to be plentiful and destructive. All ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... clouds. We trudged up one of the steepest ascents we have ever made with a wheel. The scenery was grand, but lonely. The wild tulips, pinks, and verbenas dotting the green slopes furnished the only pleasant diversion from our arduous labor. Just as we turned the highest summit, the clouds shifted for a moment, and revealed before us two Kirghiz horsemen. They started back in astonishment, and gazed at us as though we were demons of ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... the hills, let the militia cross two difficult ravines, and then occupied these, cutting off the Taranaki contingent. The militia officers, however, kept their men together, and passed the day exchanging shots with their enemy and waiting for Colonel Murray to make a diversion by assailing Waireka. This, however, Colonel Murray did not do. He sent Lieutenant Urquhart and thirty men to clear the ravines aforesaid, and give the militiamen a chance of retreat. But when the latter, still expecting him to attack the pa, did not retire, ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... forever pointing at the universe in wonder, if its movement is to be diverted from the issueless channel of purely theoretic contemplation, let us ask what conception of the universe will awaken active impulses capable of effecting this diversion. A definition of the world which will give back to the mind the free motion which has been blocked in the purely contemplative path may so far make the ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... business very well, but no man alive was more careless in looking into his accounts, or more cheated by partners, apprentices, and servants. This was occasioned by his being a boon companion, loving his bottle and his diversion; for, to say truth, no man kept a better house than John, nor spent his money more generously. By plain and fair dealing John had acquired some plums, and might have kept them had it not been for his ...
— English Satires • Various
... walked up and down three or four times, when a desire for a different species of diversion began to overtake the Baron. It was the one kind of desire that the Baron never even ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... to Richard Peeke. After the army had all landed he thought that 'the late storms had beaten all the Spaniards in' for a time, and that he would go on shore for a little diversion. Meeting some Englishmen coming back to the ships, laden with 'Oranges and Lymons' which they had taken from some gardens not far off, he set off to find some fruit for himself, the men assuring him that there was no danger. Less than a mile away, however, he came, '(for ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... the funnel moving about their trench. One day a line was stretched from this funnel to a pole and German officers' uniforms were hung out on the line to dry over the stove. It made us a lovely target. Shooting at officers' uniforms was a pleasant diversion, and they had been well pierced with bullets ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... the talk was at its height, there was a diversion. Billy Trenwith, his clothes torn, his hands chafed and bleeding, ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
... upset my host, who, throughout the meal, kept continually rising and walking to the open window and back again, in an evidently uneasy state of mind; so much so that I was about to propose an adjournment to the garden, when a diversion was created by the entrance of a servant with a dish of "Sklitch," which he had no sooner placed on the table, than he rapidly withdrew. Sklitch is peculiar to this part of Persia. It is made of a kind of moss gathered on the ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... rendered him very interesting. In the present instance it happened that, while Coningsby was watching his grandfather, he observed a gentleman advance, make his bow, say and receive a few words and retire. This little incident, however, made a momentary diversion in the immediate circle of Lord Monmouth, and before they could all resume their former talk and fall into their previous positions, an impulse sent forth Coningsby, who walked up to Lord Monmouth, and standing before ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... after retired within the caravan, where they could hear her singing snatches of a rollicking street song as if for her own diversion; then—with only the dwarf, the bear, and the monkey to witness their distress—Darby and Joan threw themselves on the grass, where, wrapped in each other's arms, they gave free vent to ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... lecture at the Friendly Union [The Sheffield Friendly Union is the name of an association for purposes of social entertainment and culture, which meets one evening in the week, during winter, at a hall in the village, to enjoy music, lectures, reading, dramas, or whatever diversion its managers can procure or its members offer. Dancing and cards are forbidden, but other games are played in the latter part of the evening; and there is a small but good library, slowly enlarging, and much used and valued ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... Benningsen, seeing his left beaten and his rear menaced by the audacious Davout, resolved to crush him, and directed the greater part of his force against him. It was then that Napoleon, with the object of preventing this movement by creating a diversion against the enemy centre, ordered Augereau to attack, although he foresaw the difficulties of ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... for not answering that seemingly natural question, and he was glad of the diversion, though he was not at once aware of what had caused it. But he followed the direction of the foreman's gaze, and, like him, saw arising in the still air, about two miles away, a thin thread of smoke—a mere ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... military weapon was the long-bow, at which our English nation in some measure excelled the whole world, the meanest countryman was a good archer; and that which qualified them so much for service in the war was their diversion in times of peace, which also had this good effect—that when an army was to be raised they needed no disciplining: and for the encouragement of the people to an exercise so publicly profitable an Act of Parliament was made to oblige every parish to maintain butts for ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... between Succotash Hill and South Asphyxia is a little open field which once contained a shanty known as Pete Gilstrap's Place, where that gentleman used to murder travelers for a living. The death of Mr. Gilstrap and the diversion of nearly all the travel to another road occurred so nearly at the same time that no one has ever been able to say which was cause and which effect. Anyhow, the field was now a desolation and the Place ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... and though, at the last heavy heave with which the enormous anchor was catted up to the bows, the mate tried to create a diversion in the feeling by a cheery "Saat 'kjelimen—hal' paa," the concluding ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... with arms lowered, while the officers were waving their swords. The crowd around the entrance fell back, and the next moment a passage was being cleaved through the mass of raving humanity. This sudden appearance of extra force created a diversion of which our escort took advantage. We slipped through the gap which had been cut in the crowd, and the next moment were in the prison. As the gate closed with a resounding bang I gave a sigh of relief. We were safe from mob violence whatever other fate might be in ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, commanded a considerable army as general of the Church, and was now acting for Venice. Why he effected no diversion while the Imperial troops were marching upon Rome, and why he delayed to relieve the city, was never properly explained. Folk attributed his impotent conduct partly to a natural sluggishness in warfare, and partly to his hatred for the house of Medici. Leo X had deprived ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... dead leaves, front doors were opening and women were coming out to watch the fire; and, by their interest-lit eyes and by what they called to each other across the slumberous afternoon air, were showing that they were skilled in getting diversion out of smaller things than bonfires. It was the neighbourhood of Canaan's biggest and best. The doors that had opened had shown glimpses of the finest three-ply carpets in all Tigmore County, and though the women who had come out on the porches had grammatical peculiarities ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... were heard approaching at the expected hour; and the boys stood in ambush to enjoy the diversion of the sight. It was a dark night; the fiery eyes of the skeleton glared suddenly upon the dancing-master, who was so terrified at the spectacle, and in such haste to escape, that his foot slipped, and he fell down ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... give portraits of the individuals at our hotel. My chance acquaintance with them confers on me no right to appropriate their several characteristics for my own convenience and the diversion of the public. I will give only such general sketches as one may make of a public body at a respectful distance, marking no features ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... much approved of at Court, and I believe is not dissatisfied with his reception. We have not very much variety of divisions; what we did yesterday and to-day we shall do to-morrow, which is to go to Court and walk in the gardens at Herrenhausen. If I write any more my letter will be just like my diversion, the same thing over and ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... lost. His lofty purposes were unsettled, and he began to seek diversion for his mind, especially at ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... business of the actor, and into the management of dress and stage. Solon was said to have disliked the art of Thespis, regarding as dangerous the violent excitement of feelings by means of phantastic representation; the Tyrants, on the other hand, encouraged this new popular diversion; it suited their policy that the poor should be entertained at the expense of the rich; the competition of rival tragic choirs was introduced; and the stage near the black poplar on the market-place became a centre of the festive merry- makings ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... and diversion they speak of was the suggestion of a treaty proposed by the enemy, and announced from the throne. Thus the people of England felt in the eighth, not in the fourth year of the war. No sighing or panting after negotiation; no motions from the opposition to force ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... never necessarily seemed deception; she had grown up among things as to which her foremost knowledge was that she was never to ask about them. It was far from new to her that the questions of the small are the peculiar diversion of the great: except the affairs of her doll Lisette there had scarcely ever been anything at her mother's that was explicable with a grave face. Nothing was so easy to her as to send the ladies who ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... itself in hand. It would allow of some response to a reasonable appeal from outside. And all the time the first principles of ethics would refuse to be killed in the mind, and would continue to bear witness against the waste of existence and the diversion of life from ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... meantime, in this interplay, these shifting lights and shadows which played upon the history of the life of Roger's home, there came to him a diversion from an unexpected source. Laura and Harold returned from abroad. Soon after landing they came to the house, and talking fast and eagerly they told how they had eluded ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... handia from her head, embraces her, and gives her one rupee. From that time during the whole of the feast the girl remains sitting at the feet of her father-in-law. The whole party meanwhile continue drinking and talking; and voices rise so high that they cannot hear one another. As a diversion the old women of the village all come tumbling in, very drunk and wearing fantastic hats made of leaves, gesticulating like devils and carrying a straw manikin representing the bridegroom. They all look like old witches, and in their drunken ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... was, a diversion of a different order broke in upon the next song which, so soon as he had picked up his nerve, he adventured. One of the Maids of Honour looked quickly over her shoulder, and "Hist, Madama! The Duke!" she said, with ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... to lose the present favorable moment, and to keep the Indians as cheerful as possible, the violins were brought out and our men danced, to the great diversion of the Indians. This mirth was the more welcome because our situation was not precisely that which would most dispose us to gayety; for we have only a little parched corn to eat, and our means of subsistence or of success depend on the wavering temper of the natives, who may change their ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... and unnecessary expense. The ships lost in the Philippine trade, and the causes of such loss are enumerated; and the kinds of merchandise therein are mentioned. The citizens of the Philippines are discontented at the partial diversion of their trade to the American colonies. A violation of the royal decrees is interpreted by the Mexicans to be not a mortal sin, accordingly they disregard them; Castro advises more leniency in both the prohibition and the penalty. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... made love to me last spring. I loved him from the first. I can hear your cruel laugh and see your contemptuous face as I write. But the information is necessary, and I can bear your scorn because this is the last opportunity for such diversion which I shall afford you, and because I mean that you shall pay dearly for it. I loved Don Orsino, and I love him still. You, of course, have never loved. You have hated, however, and perhaps one passion may be the measure of another. ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... and who, by twenty years or so of parental spoiling, had come to regard herself as the feminine equivalent of the Tsar of All the Russias. Such women are only made in America, and they only come to their full bloom in Europe, which they imagine to be a continent created by Providence for their diversion. ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... ever. Do you know I 'm rather disappointed in Fanny, for she don't seem to improve with her years," said Sydney, as if he accepted the diversion and ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... there was a curious diversion to Doris. A beautiful sleek tiger cat entered the room, and, walking up to the fire, turned and looked at the child, waving his long tail majestically back and forth. He came nearer with his ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... the dismissed groom of the Colonel, who made the diversion, and an angry and heated discussion followed. Wee Willie Winkie, standing over Miss Allardyce, waited the upshot. Surely his 'wegiment,' his own 'wegiment,' would not desert him if they knew ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... on my way westward. A copy of his letter to Hunter comprised my written instructions. A junction with this general was not contemplated when the expedition was first conceived, but became an important though not the paramount object after the reception of the later information. The diversion of the enemy's cavalry from the south side of the Chickahominy was its main purpose, for in the presence of such a force as Lee's contracted lines would now permit him to concentrate behind the Chickahominy, the difficulties ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... progress on the Niagara frontier, the danger of invasion was just as imminent at many other points along our border line, and excitement was consequently as intense. It was felt at the time, and subsequently confirmed as correct, that the diversion of Gen. O'Neil at Fort Erie was only a prelude to cover more formidable attacks along the line of the St. Lawrence, and the frontier of the ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... her how it all befell. "Verily, lord," said she, "what sort of garments are there upon the boy?" "A mantle of satin," said he. "He is then a boy of gentle lineage," she replied. "My lord," she said, "if thou wilt, I shall have great diversion and mirth. I will call my women unto me, and tell them that I have been pregnant." "I will readily grant thee to do this," he answered. And thus did they, and they caused the boy to be baptized, and the ceremony was performed there; and the name which they gave unto him ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... wholesome for children, should be sweetened with sugar, and such as are dangerous to them, embittered with gall. 'Tis marvellous to see how solicitous Plato is in his Laws concerning the gaiety and diversion of the youth of his city, and how much and often he enlarges upon the races, sports, songs, leaps, and dances: of which, he says, that antiquity has given the ordering and patronage particularly to the gods themselves, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... well supplied. Having put five thousand land forces on board, he intrusted it to the marquis of Hamilton, who had orders to sail to the Frith of Forth, and to cause a diversion in the forces of the malecontents. An army was levied of near twenty thousand foot, and above three thousand horse; and was put under the command of the earl of Arundel, a nobleman of great family, but celebrated neither ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... for concerts, lectures, and moving pictures. This should be in charge of a trained social leader who would direct entertainments and stimulate wholesome interests. With an establishment of this kind we should not find so many of our girls on the streets or seeking diversion in cheap theaters and dance halls. When girls are able to live,—not simply exist in the deadening monotony of alternation between work and sleep,—their heightened mental activity, interest, and enthusiasm will prove ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... nothing for him to say. He was in a position in which he could not possibly explain; he could only sit there, looking into the barrel of the deadly weapon, and praying for some diversion which might be the means of saving his life. It came presently in a strange and totally unexpected fashion. Upon the tense, nerve-breaking silence, a voice suddenly intruded like a flash of light in a dark place. It was a sweet and girlish voice, singing ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... increased to a moderate gale with a remarkably heavy sea, and violent rain-squalls passing at intervals over the vessel. The little Sumter rolled and pitched about as though she, too, were weary of the long period of inaction, and determined to effect some kind of diversion on her own account. Morning broke heavy and threatening, with the barometer at 29-87; and by noon it was blowing a whole gale, and the ship labouring so heavily that the ceremony of mustering the hands ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... hopefully interested, and in the end rather mournfully unconvinced. Her regret seemed so genuinely on her own account as well as theirs that they usually carried off a very kind feeling for her. She was equally open to enlistment in any other proposed diversion. For Bessie lived in a constant state of great expectation that something really nice would really happen to-morrow. There ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... he was taking his diversion with some Greek women, aboard his vessel, which lay in the Bosphorus, having put out too far to sea, he was captured by pirates and carried prisoner to Egypt, though, by rare good fortune, his gold and merchandise were in a safe place all the while. The pirates sold him to a Saracen ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... committing him to mother earth, and caused read twenty perlections of the Koran, and bestowed for him in alms a mighty matter. I abode a-mourning for him a month full told, and when the term was ended my heart turned to diversion and disport and eating and drinking, and I made presents and gave away and doled charities of that my property, and I bought other tenements at the highest price. After this I purchased me singing damsels of the greatest value, and whosoever ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... by its business. It is a pitiable case; but the poor landlord must not attempt to be an innkeeper without business, for then he would be a misapplied human being, and would starve. Now the world uses him a little hardly in the diversion of his customers; that may be allowed: we must all lay our account with such hardships so long as each person is left to see mainly after himself. But if he were to persist in keeping his house open, and thus reduce ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... June, which threatened to end in a riot—insults exchanged, fisticuffs succeeding the insults, cane thrashings succeeding the fisticuffs, revolver shots succeeding the cane thrashings—when at thirty-seven minutes past eight there occurred a diversion. ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... uncle, Tommy," said Tuppence, hastily creating a diversion. "By the way, what are you going to do, accept Mr. Carter's offer of a Government job, or accept Julius's invitation and take a richly remunerated post in America ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... for the moment, in the abstract, and was donning his armor for a battle with Kenny upon the "fundamentals." Hence he was not too well pleased with Yankee's interruption. But Donald Ross gladly welcomed the diversion. The subject was to ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... marry a widow managed with the idea of her children by another marriage; but if Kenby was honest; it was much simpler than he had supposed. He could not say this to him, however, and in a certain embarrassment he had with the conjecture in his presence he attempted a diversion. "We're promised something at the Volksfest which will be a great novelty to us as Americans. Our driver told us this morning that one of the houses there ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... (?) the day previous. Took coffee with the Third Regiment. At the request of Major Brown, we took his sister-in-law (a squaw by the name of Sinte, the wife of Captain James Gorman of the Renville Rangers) into our wagon. In order to have a little fun as a side diversion, a race with our mules was commenced, the tailor George driving. His position was lubricous as he drove over the rough ground, shaking the squaw and the old man well. Having gotten some distance ahead, ...
— History of Company E of the Sixth Minnesota Regiment of Volunteer Infantry • Alfred J. Hill
... create a diversion, and give hope to the poor creatures who are making so brave a struggle. What do you ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... stormy soul of Herod were alike without bound: from violent love and violent resentment he sank into as violent remorse and despair. Everywhere by day he was haunted by the image of the murdered Mariamne; he called upon her name; he perpetually burst into passionate tears. In vain he tried every diversion,—banquets, revels, the excitements of society. A sudden pestilence broke out, to which many of the noblest of his court, and of his own personal friends, fell a sacrifice; he recognized and trembled beneath the hand of the avenging Deity. On pretence of hunting, he sought out ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... moments of life in something serious and worthy the great end of her creation. She remained in that house an accomplished model of all virtues, till her parents married her to Henry, son of Otho, duke of Saxony, in 913. Her husband, surnamed the Fowler, from his fondness for the diversion of hawking, then much in vogue, became duke of Saxony by the death of his father, in 916; and in 919, upon the death of Conrad, was chosen king of Germany. He was a pious and victorious prince, and very tender of his subjects. His solicitude in easing their taxes, made them ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... ennui, and indulging rather his propensities as a gallant than promoting his more serious objects as a man of the world. By degrees, and especially at Knaresdean, Vargrave himself became deeply entangled by an affair that he had never before contemplated as more important than a passing diversion; instead of securing a friend to assist him in his designs on Evelyn, he suddenly found that he had obtained a mistress anxious for his love and jealous of his homage. With his usual promptitude and self-confidence, he was led at once to deliver himself of all the ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sight, but he did not disturb himself, nor make any remarks to the dogs on the subject. They however soon pricked up their ears, and sprang to their feet, excited and pleased. They were hospitable souls and welcomed the diversion of a visitor. As the wagon drew nearer, Stanwood observed that there was a woman sitting beside the driver; whereupon he repaired to his own room to give himself a hasty polish. The dogs began to bark in a friendly manner, and, under cover ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... before she stirred a feather, but I was not lonely. A mourning-warbler came about, eating and singing alternately, after the manner of his kind, and the pretty trill of the black-throated green warbler came out of the woods. Then a crow mamma created a diversion by helping herself to an egg for her baby's breakfast, when a robin and a vireo—curious pair!—took after her with loud cries of ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... the company made a motion for adjourning into another apartment, where they might enjoy their pipes and bottles, while the young folks indulged themselves in the continuance of their own favourite diversion. Thus rescued, as it were, from a state of annihilation, the first use the two lads of the castle made of their existence, was to ply the bridegroom so hard with bumpers, that in less than an hour he made divers efforts to sing, and soon after was carried ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... conversation. Living, as he habitually had done from his boyhood, always in society, he derived no little amusement from watching the foibles and manoeuvres of those around him, and occasionally indulged himself by gently pulling the strings for his own diversion. It was a secret that had been penetrated by only a few of his intimates, but there was lurking in Pansey Cottrell a spirit of mischief that sometimes urged him to contravene the schemes of his associates. It was never from any ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... linger for another fifty years; but it will grow continually weaker, and can never recover the position of easy dominance which it held in the nineteenth century. To attempt to bolster it up is a useless diversion of energies which might be expended upon building something new. Whether the new thing will be Bolshevism or something else, I do not know; whether it will be better or worse than capitalism, I do not know. But that a radically new order of society will emerge, ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... pleasant to be a princess. Other girls of our age are at liberty to indulge in a little pleasure, to attend balls, concerts, and parties, where they see new faces and interesting persons. We are forbidden all this. We must wait until diversion comes to us, and unfortunately we are not thought of at all! We are never allowed to pay visits or accept invitations. A formal court ball, where we may appear for a few hours, and dance with the most aristocratic cavaliers, is our only amusement, ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... Canary; which being brought, after two or three Glasses a piece, and as many more Kisses, he began to take up my Petticoats; and I seeming a little coy, putting of 'em down, he grew more eager; and was for a little diversion upon the Tavern Chairs; and whilst he was eager in finishing what he was about, I began to dive into his Fob, which I found well furnished with Guineas, besides a Gold-Watch, which I took out, and look'd upon it, and put it up into his Pocket again very carefully; and this I so often repeated, ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... Antoinette had succeeded in imbuing her with her own forgetfulness of self. As she has recorded the occurrence in her journal, "Fortunately her affliction increased her illness to so serious a degree as to cause a favorable diversion to her mother's despair.[3]" ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... facts which are very interesting to us. The familiar distinction between work and play has no root in nature. Animals do not look upon their labours as a painful task, only to be endured for a time and then to be rewarded by an interval of diversion; to the horse or the dog the day's work is the day's treat; and so with those men whom we contemptuously call "savages." It is the same with artists; no artist has mastered the technique of his work until it has become a pleasure and a plaything ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... for he planted them for their Fruit, as he did it in the Provision he was making for his Subsistence, and the Subsistence of his Family: and if he did not know what they were, he would not have set them, for he was not planting for Diversion but for Profit. ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... wait to see the rest. Taking advantage of this momentary diversion in our favour, we rode on at full speed to the top of the slope—I never knew before how hard I could pedal—and began to descend at a ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... had done it better than they did. He wore the same pants they wore, the same hearty woolens and heavy shirts. He sported as good a watch as they, parted his short hair on the side, and ate the same food—bacon, beans, and flour; and yet he was denied their greatest diversion and reward; namely, whiskey. Cultus George was a money-earner. He had staked claims, and bought and sold claims. He had been grub-staked, and he had accorded grub-stakes. Just now he was a dog-musher and freighter, charging twenty-eight cents a pound ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... on the island, buried, as he said, with no other diversion than nights of gambling in the Casino and afternoons on the Paseo del Borne, sitting around a table with a company of friends, sedentary islanders who reveled in the stories of his travels. Misery and want—this ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... they had known all their lives, quite familiar in their daily life, should suddenly have stood up and declared himself to have been an eye-witness to most marvellous proceedings. The hazy blue with its floating clouds was no longer a diversion from the subject in hand. Their eyes were riveted with mysterious thoughts as they lay and listened, astonished, fascinated. It was the first time it had ever really entered into their consciousness that there had been a time when there was no blue, no firm earth, no anything. ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... it successfully. The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature. But it may be questioned if the comparison is a happy one. Life is not a game in this sense, a diversion, an aside, or a contest for victory over an opponent, except in isolated episodes now and then. Mastery of chess will not help in the mastery of life. Life is a day's work, a struggle where the forces to be ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... girl went to the wardrobe, and, taking out her hat, picked up a pair of scissors, and proceeded to curl the feathers. The hat was already in so deplorable a condition that this belated home treatment was not likely to help it, but the diversion served its purpose, which was to distract the agent's attention away from ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... another influence was working its inward way. My paramount interest had always been literary, though regarded as a gentle diversion, not degraded to a bread-and-butter concern. Ever since I had fallen under the superlative spell of R.L.S., in whom the cunning enchantment of the written word first became manifest, I had understood that books did not grow painlessly for our amusement, but were the issue of ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... Tuesday club at the "Cross-keys" in Crossmichael, where the young bloods of the country-side congregated and drank deep on a percentage of the expense, so that he was left gainer who should have drunk the most. Archie had no great mind to this diversion, but he took it like a duty laid upon him, went with a decent regularity, did his manfullest with the liquor, held up his head in the local jests, and got home again and was able to put up his horse, to the admiration of Kirstie and the lass that helped her. He ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The huge spit was twisted like a screw in the powerful hands that struggled for possession of it. A pistol-shot set fire to a small store of hemp in skeins that lay on a shelf suspended from the ceiling. That incident created a diversion, and while some hastened to smother the germ of a conflagration, the grave-digger, who had climbed to the attic unperceived, came down the chimney and seized the spit, just as the drover, who was defending it near the hearth, raised it above his head to prevent its being snatched from him. ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... his stand in the middle of the road, looking uphill with a gleam of interest in his eyes. He knew horses so well that his opinion arrested the attention of his hearers. Tomaso had always said that the diversion of his mill-stream would be dangerous to the traffic on the new road. But it was ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... dinner-party had been an expedition into the artistic fakery of London, and he would have dismissed the whole affair as a stimulating and amusing diversion from the ultra-aristocratic rut if the personality of Elise Durwent had not remained with him like a ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... expression on her face could by no means be described as bored or scornful—liked the stranger's appearance; and so the better to take in all the points of the magnificent horse which the young Californian was riding, not to mention a commendable desire to give his only passenger a bit of pleasant diversion on the long journey, he slowed his horse down ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... an interest in every unusual feature of the country through which the train was speeding, and noted each stop or increase of speed. She found a certain diversion, as she had often done before, in watching for the mile-posts and in keeping count of the miles. She even asked the conductor at what time the train would reach the City, and uttered a little murmur of vexation when she was told that it was a half-hour ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... of a digression, as I have known some authors enclose digressions in one another like a nest of boxes, I do affirm that, having carefully cut up human nature, I have found a very strange, new, and important discovery: that the public good of mankind is performed by two ways—instruction and diversion. And I have further proved my said several readings (which, perhaps, the world may one day see, if I can prevail on any friend to steal a copy, or on certain gentlemen of my admirers to be very importunate) that, as mankind ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... Wellington (Chancellor of Oxford), and other great personages, presented an address to her majesty, congratulating her on her arrival. The prince, having read the address, retired with the usual profound obeisances, which not only amused the spectators, but afforded much diversion to her majesty, whose mode of smiling indicated how much she enjoyed the burlesque ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... hawthorn bush where Emlyn had been found. For Stead and Ben were alike in feeling the bright, merry, capricious, laughing, teasing Emlyn the charm and delight of home. In trouble, or for real aid, they went to Patience, but who was like Emlyn for drollery and diversion? Who ever made Stead laugh as she could, or who so played with Ben, and never, like Rusha, tried to be maidenly, ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... By way of diversion he then took hold of the beds and started upsetting them, rolling the patients out on to the floor, causing a tremendous amount of excitement, as well as pain and suffering to the men upset who, some of them, like myself, had casts on their limbs. In the midst of his mad capers the guard and orderlies ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... patients did not come. He remained seated for hours without speaking, went into his consulting room to sleep, or watched his wife sewing. Then for diversion he employed himself at home as a workman; he even tried to do up the attic with some paint which had been left behind by the painters. But money matters worried him. He had spent so much for repairs at Tostes, ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... the opposite side of the desk promised a diversion of his thoughts. Bean was a hireling and the person who rustled the papers was his master, but the youth bestowed upon the great man a look of profound, albeit not unkindly, contempt. It could be seen, even as he sat in the desk-chair, that he was a short ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... won their way back to the protection of the fort. Indeed, their return was due to the fierce dogs of the settlers, which were released at the most critical moment, and attacked the astounded Indians with such ferocity that the diversion thus created enabled the settlers to escape from the deadly trap. During the next two years the history of the Cumberland settlements is but the gruesome recital of murder after murder of the whites, a few at a time, by the lurking Indian foe. Robertson's dominant ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... Colligation or Assemblage of Cheerful Writings brought together from many quarters into this one compass for the diversion, distraction, and delight of those who lie abed,—a friend to the invalid, a companion to the sleepless, an excuse to ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... the holidays to the house of his master, an adventure befel him, which afterwards was made the ground-work of the plot in one of his comedies. Journeying along leisurely, and being inclined to enjoy such diversion as a guinea, that had been given him for pocket-money, would afford him on the road, he was overtaken by night at a small town called Ardagh. Here, inquiring for the best house in the place, he was ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... which leads the judgment toward the allowance of every claim alleged to be founded upon patriotic service in the nation's cause; and yet I neither believe it to be a duty nor a kindness to the worthy citizens for whose benefit our scheme of pensions was provided to permit the diversion of the nation's bounty to objects not within its ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... Diversion came at a moment when he was never more thankful for it. The shrill treble of the boy reached them across the ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... art, is testimony to its inherent value as a means of satisfying the universal desire for human expression of the beauty of form and harmonious movement. It is not a mere coincidence that the most enlightened peoples of all ages have regarded the dance not only as an amusement or diversion, but as exemplifying the eternal laws that bind mankind to its earthly environment. Poets, philosophers, scholars, leaders and teachers of men, have at the times that they have been most highly regarded because of their special qualities or abilities, joined in rendering homage to the dancer ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... the paper mechanically. He wanted it as a diversion to the conversation merely, for his interest in the doings of Surrey and Yorkshire had waned to the point of complete indifference in competition with Mrs. ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... Dawn, glad of any diversion, gladly assented, and they went into her room, where they sat together, while Edith ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... introduced in the first chapter, the cry was for "more ship," until the work has become "all ship;" it actually closing at, or near, the spot where it was originally intended it should commence. Owing to this diversion from the author's design—a design that lay at the bottom of all his projects—a necessity has been created of running the tale through two separate works, or of making a hurried and insufficient conclusion. The former scheme has, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... to make a diversion; proposed to read the speech he had prepared to serve as preface to the decree to be read at the Bed of justice, abrogating the Parliament decrees; as he was finishing it, some one entered to say he was ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... Here Sahwah created a diversion by dropping her hat overboard, and the artist was forgotten in the exciting business of rescuing it from the swiftly ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... lightly, and as a means of creating a diversion while preparing a retreat it was useful; but it can hardly be supposed to have been an agreeable occupation to barber a group of aboriginals. What the heads were like that received Flinders' ministrations, may be gathered from the description by Clarke, ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... along the horizon, while some fair damsel sits close by, reading ancient ballads of a simple metre, or older legends of love and romance—tell me, my eater of the fashionable lotos, is not this a diversion well ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... three children, Christiana, Isaac, and Mary Ann, there was little variety in the commonplace life at Griff. Twice a day the coach from Birmingham to Stamford passed by the house, and the coachman and guard in scarlet were a great diversion. She thus describes, the locality in Felix Holt: "Here were powerful men walking queerly, with knees bent outward from squatting in the mine, going home to throw themselves down in their blackened flannel, and sleep through the daylight, then rise and spend much of their high wages ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... while pressing the screw, drew the juice off into the vat, looked after the bung-holes, with heavy wooden shoes on their feet; and in all this they found a huge diversion. ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... Percival's chief diversion. In them he expressed his unqualified disapproval of the Western Hemisphere. The assurance that they would be read by an adoring group of feminine relatives gave wing to an imagination that was not wont to soar. Today, however, inspiration was lacking. On opening the drawer ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... its encouragement in this Populous City: If there were no Politick Reasons, yet the Good to Religion that may be done by it, is a convincing Argument at once for its Lawfulness and Use. I know the Gravity of some can't dispense with so much time to be spent in Diversion, tho' I can't think this a reasonable Objection where so much Profit may attend our Delight. If it be lawful to recreate our selves at all, it can never be amiss to frequent such a Diversion, that only takes up our Time to make us wiser. I wou'd to God all of ...
— A Letter to A.H. Esq.; Concerning the Stage (1698) and The - Occasional Paper No. IX (1698) • Anonymous
... romance, like the ladies' embassy in Love's Labour's Lost; but neither is it allowed to become grave or menacing. Berthold's arrival to present his claim to the government of this miniature state affects us somewhat like the appearance of a new and formidable player in some drawing-room diversion; and the "treason" of the courtiers like the "unfairness" of children at play. Nevertheless, the victory of love over political interest which the motto foreshadows is not accomplished without those subtle ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... irritation, checking both the development of the country and the growth of solid character among the colonists. Absentee ownership was a grave economic evil, though happily it was not complicated and embittered by a vicious system of tenure. Education suffered severely through the diversion of the income from public lands to ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... flinging open the window, I perceived that indefatigable young gentleman employed in performing some incomprehensible manouvres with two sticks and a large flint stone, occasionally varying his diversion by renewing the rough music which ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... quote the lex talionis for deceiving others, as they themselves have been deceived. These gentry are to be met with at horse-races, cock-fights, the billiard and hazard tables, and at all public places of diversion. On your entering the coffee-house, tavern, or gaming-house, the Sharper views you with attention, and is not long before he becomes acquainted and very intimate with you; if you agree to his proposal to play, if he cannot beat you by fair, he will by foul means. Rather than lose, he will elude ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Pontiac. The law of the survival of the fittest had wrought on this heterogeneous crew through countless generations; and with the primitive Indian, the fittest was the hardiest, fiercest, most adroit, and most wily. Baptized and heathen alike they had just enjoyed a diversion greatly to their taste. A young Pennsylvanian named James Smith, a spirited and intelligent boy of eighteen, had been waylaid by three Indians on the western borders of the province and led captive to the ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... I not died before this time?" she exclaimed, unheeding my attempt at diversion. "This is too ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... the more that she was right in this decision, when she encountered her father's broad grin of surprise and diversion, at seeing the young Baron help her to dismount. It was a look of receiving an idea both new, comical, and flattering, but by no means the look of a father who would resent the indignity of attentions to his daughter from a man whose rank formed ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and ravines of the neighboring mountains, was unsuitable for cavalry charges, when one of the infantry squares was broken, the cavalry advanced, and one squadron of the 10th Hussars, dismounting, helped to create a favorable diversion by pouring fire into the flanks of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... began to appease the bitterness of the good man; while the memories of his escape, offering a diversion to Henri's mind, put him in sympathetic ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... air that might be stirring in the dark garden. Max had retreated to the empty fireplace, finding the bricks cooler than the carpeted floor. All was very still, save when the emphatic sweep of a trump card made the candle flames flicker. But the deals were a diversion. Then the rector, who had tiptoed about, to look over the shoulder of each player, might say, "You didn't answer Miss Ruth's call, Denner;" or, "Bless my soul, Dale, what made you play a ten-spot on that second hand round? You ought ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... the 7th of July. It was at once decided that the king must move on Elsass to defend his threatened provinces. The King of Prussia promised to enter Bohemia immediately with twenty thousand men, as the diversion was sure to be useful to France. Louis XV. had already arrived at Metz, and Marshal Noailles pushed forward in order to unite all the corps. On the 8th of August the king awoke in pain, prostrated by ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... a word of Samoan, was fond of attending the native church at Apia—always in the wake of Luisa, Toe-o-le-Sasa, and other young girls. His solemn, wrinkled visage, with deep-set eyes, ever steadily fixed upon the object of his affection, proved a source of much diversion to the native congregation, and poor Luisa was subjected to the usual Samoan jests about the toe'ina and ulu tula (old man and bald head), and would arrive from the church at her father's hell in a state of ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... very angry, and he was about to give vent to his feelings in a furious outburst. But the stopping of an auto on the road near by suddenly arrested his attention, causing him to stare hard at the driver who had just alighted. Glad of this timely diversion, the captain moved away and made toward the store. In passing the car, he did not recognise the driver, who, with his back toward him, was examining the engine, and seemed to be heeding nothing else. But no ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... few followers, distinguished by small leather caps, and the wretchedness of their attire; their number did not exceed twenty men and boys, some white, some black, and all mounted, but most of them miserably equipped; their appearance was in fact so burlesque, that it was with much difficulty the diversion of the regular soldiery was restrained by the officers; and the General himself was glad of an opportunity of detaching Col. Marion, at his own instance, towards the interior of South Carolina, with orders to watch the motions of ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... replied the Idiot. "You just said that one of the things that has kept you lingering in this vale of tears was that you have always chewed tobacco. I never did that, and I never shall do it, because I deem it a detestable diversion." ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... for the most extravagant nation in the world, if you like," Kate replied. "Men seem to think that shopping is a mere feminine diversion. They forget that it's what supports their business and supplies their homes. Not to speak of any place beyond our own town, think of the labor involved in buying food and clothing for the two million ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... been when he would have attempted comfort; when he would have tried mocking; but that time was long past; he could only pray inwardly for some sort of diversion, but what it was to be in their barren circumstance he was obliged to leave altogether to Providence. He ventured, pending an answer to his prayers upon the question, "Don't you think I'd better see the doctor, and get you ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... meals were a diversion. She became quite expert with the can-opener and the corkscrew. The empty cans, since there was no way to get them out of her suite, she stacked on the side of the bathroom opposite her provisions; and daily the ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... pitilessly ridiculed the idea of rebirth, and denied the separation of the soul from the body as well as the influence of the former upon the latter. We prefer to believe that we are dealing with two writers, or else that some literary forger, anxious to create a diversion, deliberately made Tertullian responsible ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... she enjoyed them immensely. They were all interesting; all "did things"; widely various things, yet, somehow, related. There was a red-haired fire-brand whose specialty seemed to be bailing out girls arrested for picketing and whose Sunday diversion consisted in going down to Paterson, New Jersey, making the police ridiculous and unhappy for an hour or so, delivering herself of a speech in defiance of their preventive efforts and finally escaping arrest by a hair's breadth. They got her finally but since ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... took up, in 1864,[1205] the dropped thread of inquiry. The son of a mathematical mother, he attained, at the age of twenty-five, to the dignity of Professor of Mathematics in Yale University, and occupied the post until his death in 1896. The diversion of his powers, however, from purely abstract studies stimulated their effective exercise, and constituted him one of the founders of ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... rain. The surface of the lake was but slightly agitated, as the wind gradually fell and a thick mist settled on the water. Hour after hour passed away, as we rushed onward through the blank, and we naturally turned to our fellow-passengers in search of some interest or diversion to beguile the time. The heavy-bearded, peasants and their weather-beaten wives were scattered around the deck in various attitudes, some of the former asleep on their backs, with open mouths, beside the smoke-stack. There were many picturesque figures among them, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... will he help you unless strongly appealed to, and then not over-zealously or over-intelligently; his application is short-lived and he hurries on; but the other hoodlum will stay with you all night if necessary, finding, no doubt, the automobile a pleasant diversion from a bed on ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... rabbit which some one may have started. They will run for several hundred yards whooping and yelling and laughing, and come back to camp feeling as if they had had lots of fun, the white soldier, even if not tired, would never see any joke in rushing after a rabbit. To the colored man the diversion is ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... very differently employed: feasting, revelling, amusements of all sorts were pursued with more eagerness than ever, and the alarm which so lately threatened their destruction, seemed now merely to heighten the avidity with which they were sought. Yet never was the disunion of happiness and diversion more striking and obvious; Mr Harrel, in spite of his natural levity, was seized from time to time with fits of horror that embittered his gayest moments, and cast a cloud upon all his enjoyments. Always an enemy to solitude, he now found it wholly insupportable, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... on the Coast from La Teste to Bourdeaux, an immediate diversion should be made on this side; the success ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... in the East, and all Oriental traffic by way of the Black Sea was practically stopped. It was the Dutch cities which inherited the wealth and influence of the German towns when Vasco da Gama's discovery of the Cape route to the East began to have its influence on the trade of the world. This diversion of Oriental traffic from the old overland route was the starting-point of the modern merchant navy, and it must be placed amongst the most potent causes of the break-up of mediaeval civilization. The above change, ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... experiences had taught him long ago that every affair of that kind, at first a divine diversion, a delicious smooth adventure, is in the end a source of worry for a decent man, especially for men like those at Moscow who are slow to move, irresolute, domesticated, for it becomes at last an acute and extraordinary complicated ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... accidental home-shot, but kept still; he was learning his part; and he was playing it well, too, for a pretty dull beginner. I struck up a diversion. I offered the woman food and liquor, but she refused both. She would allow nothing to come between her and the release of death. Then I slipped away and brought the dead child from aloft, and laid it by her. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... hard to tell what this singular captivity of Elwood Brandon's would have eventuated in had not an unexpected diversion occurred in his favor. Just as it was getting dark, the two Indiana who had gone out at the close of the storm returned. They had a companion with them, and we leave our readers to imagine what the boy's ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... of soil and groundwater with agricultural chemicals, pesticides; salination, water-logging of soil due to poor irrigation methods; Caspian Sea pollution; diversion of a large share of the flow of the Amu Darya into irrigation contributes to that river's inability to replenish the Aral ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... read off the prisoners' numbers, as it had when Barrent had disembarked. He listened, knees slightly bent, waiting for the beginning of the diversion. ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... his time with his friends, or the magistrates in public business. What he got in the wars, he laid out on horses, or arms, or in ransoming captives; but endeavored to improve his own property the justest way, by tillage; and this not slightly, by way of diversion, but thinking it his strict duty, so to manage his own fortune, as to be out of the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... The avidity with which his Serene Highness was swallowing the bait promised much. I thought it advisable, however, to create a little diversion, something that would drive away a possible suspicion that this was a "plant." It was perfectly obvious to all that the Prince was becoming fascinated. Also, he was losing his head, for he was showing ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... a diversion, for she was taken in by quite a nice red-headed boy, a little younger than herself, who, after a manful effort to talk up to her supposed level, thankfully relapsed into details of football-matches. Being a nephew of the house, he proved an adept ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... such reptiles as myself I might with satisfaction exclaim, Sic, sic juvat: but when I behold one GREAT MAN starving with hunger and freezing with cold, in the midst of fifty thousand who are suffering the same evils for his diversion; when I see another, whose own mind is a more abject slave to his own greatness, and is more tortured and racked by it, than those of all his vassals; lastly, when I consider whole nations rooted out only to bring tears into the eyes of a GREAT MAN, not indeed because he hath extirpated so many, ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... under a thin crust of snow, which was beginning to melt in the chill rain that was falling. Raising her umbrella, Virginia picked her way carefully over the icy streets, and Miss Priscilla, who was looking in search of diversion out of her front window, had a sudden palpitation of the heart because it seemed to her for a minute that "Lucy Pendleton had returned to life." So one generation of gentle shades after another had moved in the winter's dusk under the ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... well as among the Shakers, religious meetings are the principal recreations; though the Shaker union meetings, where the members of a family visit each other in small groups, may be called a kind of diversion. At Economy, in the summer, the people enjoy themselves in flower-gardens, where they gather to be entertained by ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... attending upon him, but the King he never hit. It is almost a pleasure to record that when he tried it again, in another fight, Christian caught him and dealt with him as the traitor he was, though the rough justice of those days is not pleasant to dwell on. The besieged tried to create a diversion by sneaking into camp at night and burying wax images of the King and his generals in the earth, where they were afterwards found and spread consternation through the army; for such things were believed to be wrought by ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... by the other's immobility and quiet, a gradual sense of awkwardness grew up between them, and this was becoming acute when Ezra appeared, and afforded a diversion. Under cover of his uncle's arrival Reuben ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... constructed a sort of floating bridge, or long raft, by means of which he hoped to cross the moat, in despite of the resistance of the enemy. This was a work of some time, which the leaders the less regretted, as it gave Ulrica leisure to execute her plan of diversion in their favor, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... of Lamar has invented a new kind of social diversion. It is the "progressive peanut party." Four guests are seated about each table, and on the table is placed a crock full of peanuts. Each guest is provided with a hatpin, and when the word is given all begin jabbing ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... Desierto, but well directed, was seen every evening from Campvey. It will easily be imagined what must be the ennui experienced by a young and active astronomer, confined to an elevated peak, having for his walk only a space of twenty square metres, and for diversion only the conversation of two Carthusians, whose convent was situated at the foot of the mountain, and who came in secret, infringing the rule ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... people of Scranton, whom fortune had not treated so kindly, since they had formerly been compelled to trudge several miles to Hobson's mill-pond when they wished to skate, swim, or fish; though now, of course, they had the newly flooded area in the baseball park for diversion. ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... a sigh of relief, she shook hands with Dove, and Dove—to Madeleine's diversion and Maurice's intense disgust—introduced Maurice to her as his friend. She looked full at the latter, and held out her hand; but before he could take it, she withdrew it again, and put both it and her left hand ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... Mother's illness progressed, she could neither sleep, save by the use of opiates, nor rest, except in a sloping posture, propped up by many pillows. It was my great joy, and a pleasant diversion, to be allowed to shift, beat up, and rearrange these pillows, a task which I learned to accomplish not too awkwardly. Her sufferings, I believe, were principally caused by the violence of the medicaments to which her doctor, who was trying a new and fantastic 'cure', thought it ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... immediate adversary, he saw the peril of the "Reale." Manning all his oars, he drove the bow of his flagship deep into the stern of Ali's ship, swept her decks with a volley of musketry, and sent a storming-party on to her poop. The diversion saved the "Reale." The Spaniards hustled the Turks over her bows at point of pike, and Ali, attacked on two sides, had now to ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... his men under a desultory shower of jezail-bullets. He seemed to hear the damned things whop-whopping now . . . and almost wished that he could really hear them. One or two good bullets just now would be a welcome diversion. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... this amount transferred to other purposes. The interest of the Bureau of Municipal Research in municipal budgets that tell for what purposes money is voted and then prevent transfers without full publicity, preserved this particular fund. Moreover, the discussion that prevented its diversion from physical examinations strengthened the health department's interest in this important responsibility. Neither physicians nor nurses have been adequately supervised. Instead of seeing that defects ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... effected a diversion by the announcement of the famous lottery to take place in her apartments on the following evening. With this object in view, she saw the young queen, whom, as we have already seen, she had invited to pay her a visit in the morning. ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... night, at a suitable distance from the enemy's main work, the citadel, two twenty-four pounder howitzers, and a ten-inch mortar, with a view to open a fire on the following day, when I proposed to make a diversion in favor of General Worth's movement. The 4th Infantry covered this battery during the night. General Worth had, in the mean time, reached and occupied for the night a defensive position just without range of a battery above the Bishop's Palace, having made a reconnoissance as ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... with the "colony" of Bellevue, and were easily accepted as members of that supposedly exclusive society. Archie rapidly made a place for himself at the club. Having no regular occupation he could devote himself to polo with the exclusiveness of a single passion. For diversion he motored up to the city frequently, where he became a member of several clubs, and for business there was always the ranch to worry about. In this way he kept up a current of movement in his daily life, which for persons like the Davises takes ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... before. No path appears: yet resolute I stray Where youth undaunted bids me force my way. O'er rocks and cliffs while I the task pursue, Guide me, ye Nymphs, with your unerring clue. 10 For you the rise of this diversion know, You first were pleased in Italy to show This studious sport; from Scacchis was its name, The pleasing record of your ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... out in the open facing the bridge was Maude, with two light guns straight in front of the battery. In a bend of the road on one side some of the Madras Fusiliers supported him, and on the other side, a little way off, stood Neill and his detachment, waiting for the diversion to be ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... gates of Aghyohillbeg are well behind them do the Misses Blake sufficiently recover themselves for speech. Terence, who has been a silent witness of the whole transaction, creating a diversion by making some remark about the day generally, breaks the spell that binds them. His remark is passed over in silence, but ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... upstairs again, and the arrival of the ale made an agreeable diversion; for Adam had to give his opinion of the new tap, which could not be otherwise than complimentary to Mrs. Poyser; and then followed a discussion on the secrets of good brewing, the folly of stinginess in "hopping," and the doubtful economy ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
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