"Diversion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... diversion, amusing as it was, did not have the effect of allaying my anxiety to hear something ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... 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
... diversion; and Bob speedily recovering the use of his faculties, and rapidly explaining the intentions of those on board the smack, a strong hawser was soon stretched from the Seamew to the wreck, a "bo'sun's chair" slung thereto; and the transport of the shipwrecked ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... 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 |
