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Distraught   /dɪstrˈɔt/   Listen
Distraught

adjective
1.
Deeply agitated especially from emotion.  Synonym: overwrought.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Distraught" Quotes from Famous Books



... at all well dressed. She was indeed shabby—in a steerage style. Her hat was awry; her gloves miserable. No girlish pride in her distraught face. No determination to overcome Fate. No consciousness of ability to meet a bad situation. Just those sad ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... for him among the folk round the card-table at the Luttrell Arms, was not to be, even there, attributed to King Charles the Second, nor even to his counsellors, but to my own speed of travelling, which had beat post-horses. For being much distraught in mind, and desperate in body, I had made all the way from London to Dunster in six days, and no more. It may be one hundred and seventy miles, I cannot tell to a furlong or two, especially as I lost my way more than a dozen times; but at any rate ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... after this evening that Landor came to Casa Guidi, desolate and distraught, declaring he had left his villa on the Fiesolean slope never to return, because of his domestic difficulties. The Brownings were about leaving for Siena and Mr. Browning decided to engage an apartment for the venerable poet, ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting

... presence, she stepped into the heather as into a quickening bath that almost hurt. Her fingers moved over the clasped fingers of the child, she heard the anxious voice of the baby, as it tried to make her talk, distraught. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... said the distraught man, looking listlessly beyond her. "I am here to see Oliver—he is to ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... why you never visit them any more," said Jordan, weak and distraught as he now always was. "I told him you were busy at present with great plans of your own. Well, what does ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... others, at opposite angles of the walls, are practicing signals with flags, the maneuvers of the latter being quite entertaining as they wave the banners, now slowly, now rapidly, diagonally, vertically, horizontally, or frantically overhead, as if suddenly distraught. Probably this exercise could be seen in any of our forts; but as we are now beyond the borders of the United States, every detail interests us, and we have become astonishingly observant. The gloomy and massive bomb proof ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase

... fled. "No matter," said the doctor, "I will see McFeckless." He did. He found him gloomy, distraught, baleful. He felt his pulse. "The mixture as before," he said briefly, "and a little innocent diversion. There is an Aunt Sally on the esplanade—two throws for a penny. It will do you good. Think no more ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte

... heard that bird (O King of men!) The Princess answered: "Go, dear swan, and tell This same to Nala;" and the egg-born said, "I go"—and flew; and told the Prince of all. But Damayanti, having heard the bird, Lived fancy-free no more; by Nala's side Her soul dwelt, while she sat at home distraught, Mournful and wan, sighing the hours away, With eyes upcast, and passion-laden looks; So that, eftsoons, her limbs failed, and her mind— With love o'erweighted—found no rest in sleep, No grace in company, no joy at feasts. Nor night nor day brought peace; always she heaved Sigh upon sigh, till ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... a ship at some eastern port. Well, I came here last night, and learned that you were back out of sanctuary and also that you had quarrelled with your father who in his anger had imprisoned you in this poor place. An ill deed, as I think, but in truth he is so distraught with grief and racked with sickness that he scarce knows what ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... frenzy) I came out amid those vines and bushes that bordered the lake of the waterfall, and right over against the great rock I have mentioned. But from where I was (the place being high) I could see over and beyond this rock; and as I stood panting and well-nigh spent, mighty distraught and my gaze bent thitherward, I shivered (despite the sweat that streamed from me) with sudden awful chill, for from those greeny depths I heard a scream, wild and heartrending, and knowing this voice grew sick and faint and sank ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... o'er eager, with ungentle grasp. Ah! I remember me How once conspiracy was rife Against my life— The languor of it and the dreaming fond; Surging, the grasses dizzied me of thought, The breeze three odors brought, And a gem-flower waved in a wand! Then when I was distraught And could not speak, Sidelong, full on my cheek, What should that reckless zephyr fling But the wild touch of thy dye-dusty wing! I found that wing broken to-day! For thou are dead, I said, And the strange birds say. I found it with the ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost

... towards the door, but I caught her back with a sudden mind-vision of Aunt Olivia flying bareheaded and distraught across the fields. ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... to think favourably of his suit. But a man makes many a mistake as to women, and one of the most frequent is that the hearts of them are like wax, to be moulded into this and that shape. That morning, when I met Mistress Mary at the breakfast table, she was pale and distraught, and not only did not speak to me nor look at me, but when I ventured to speak in praise of Sir Humphrey's gallant looks at the ball, she turned upon me so fiercely with encomiums of my Lord Estes, whom I knew to be not worthy of her, that I held my tongue. But when Sir Humphrey ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins

... to their united hum, the old man paused, looking at first a little distraught, but settling at last into his usual self as he started forward upon his course. Did some whisper, hitherto unheard, warn him that it was the last time he would tread that weary round? Who can tell? He was trembling very much when with his task nearly completed, ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... vision came; mine ear confess'd Its solemn sounds. "Thou man distraught! Say, owns the wind thy hand's arrest, Or fills the world ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... Berkeley is indeed greater than anything that he did, and one wonders not as one explores the young preacher's noble and endearing character that the distraught Vanessa fastened upon him, though she knew him only by reputation, as one who would make it his sacred duty to do all in his power to set her memory right in a ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... died in the reign of Ptolemy Auletes, who is named the Piper, so did the old wife, Atoua, told me, my mother took a golden uraeus, the snake symbol of our Royalty of Egypt, from a coffer of ivory and laid it on my brow. And those who saw her do this believed that she was distraught of the Divinity, and in her madness foreshadowed that the day of the Macedonian Lagidae was ended, and that Egypt's sceptre should pass again to the hand of Egypt's true and Royal race. But when my father, the old High Priest Amenemhat, whose only child I was, she who was his ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... the young man, and suddenly ran his fingers through his hair with a distraught gesture. "I'm in the deuce of a jam—! Aunt ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... entered the house. He even noted the door-handles, as to their brightness, rated poor Ike about the table appointments, and pointed out when and how work should be done—told how he managed in his business, and how we should manage in ours. I was almost distraught with annoyance; and, kind as my aunt had been, I wished for the time of her departure silently, but as earnestly as did my servants. Heaven pardon me for my ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... 6th of August, the Austrians reentered Milan. They themselves said that the Milanese seemed distraught. The Municipality was to blame for having concealed from the people the real state of things, by publishing reports of imaginary victories. Had the unthinking fury of the mob ended, as it so nearly ended, in an irreparable ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... fled from villages lying in the path of the advancing hordes to the neighboring towns, and there separated, crowding into the nearest Caves Voutees. Most of these poor women carried a baby and were distraught with fear besides; the older children must cling to the mother's skirts or become ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... organization it is; no confusion, no distraught men, no human voice raised except in ribald song. From the ends of the earth have come all these men, all these munitions, all this food and tents and iron and steel and rubber and gas and oil. And there it centers for the hour of its need on this one small sector of the front; indeed on every ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White

... round the tottering, distraught figure, drew it gently back into the room, and closed ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... the composer's exasperated mental condition. This tendency to return upon himself, a tormenting introspection, certainly signifies a grave state. But consider the musical weight of the work, the recklessly bold outpourings of a mind almost distraught! There is no greater test for the poet-pianist than the F sharp minor Polonaise. It is profoundly ironical—what else means the introduction of that lovely mazurka, "a flower between two abysses"? This strange dance is ushered in by two of the most enigmatic pages of Chopin. The A major intermezzo, ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... labour: and without any helpe but onely the keeping of the sunne still vpon one side, to direct mee streight forwarde: I grewe extreamely hoate and faynte, not knowing what to doe, but onely in a wearye body, to conteine a minde distraught through troublesome thoughts, breathing out hollow and deepe sighes, desiring helpe of the pittifull Cretensian Ariadne, who for the destroying of hir monstrous brother the Mynotaur[A] gaue vnto the deceitfull Theseus a clew of thred, to conduct him foorth ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna

... to be borne along for a while on these currents of thought, then it reacted against them, repeating again the old formula that to think, here, on other things than the moment and the material was to die or go distraught. ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... accustomed, and as plows and harrows are greatly more in accord with my disposition, I hope that for a long time I shall not see the interior of a shop again; and I trust that the quarrels which have brought such trouble into this realm, and have well-nigh made my father and mother distraught, will at least favor my sojourn in the country, for I am sure that my father will not venture to traverse England for the sake of bringing ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... emissary converted and passed over to the makers of pilgrimages? M. Kostka also at this time was so wicked as to be guilty of a pact, but he reserved two points, "the person of Christ and His mother." The reservation of these sacraments is not specialised as to its kind, but, mon Dieu, how distraught was Lucifer to be so palpably tricked by a trente-troisieme! Both these matters were, however, personal to the seer, and the lodges, whether red or blue, seem to have been quite unconscious that ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... had heard that saying Merapi grew even sadder and more distraught than she was before, and from her the trouble crept to Seti. He too became sad and ill at ease, though when I asked him why he vowed he did not know, but supposed it was because some ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard

... Bedford's house lately builded nigh to Iuy Bridge, and so on the north side, to a lane that turneth to the parish church of S. Martin's in the Field, in the liberty of Westminster. Then had ye an house, wherein some time were distraught and lunatike people, of what antiquity founded, or by whom, I have not read, neither of the suppression; but it was said that some time a king of England, not liking such a kind of people to remaine so neare his pallace, caused them ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke

... papers, and the poor author on his return went mad, beating his head against the door of his palace, and raving blasphemous words. In vain his friends tried to comfort him, and the poor man wandered away into the woods, his mind utterly distraught by ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... the feast so gay as might have been. Will Green had me to sit next to him, and on the other side sat John Ball; but the priest had grown somewhat distraught, and sat as one thinking of somewhat that was like to escape his thought. Will Green looked at his daughter from time to time, and whiles his eyes glanced round the fair chamber as one who loved it, and ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris

... a swearing, some an arbitrating, some a lecturing, some a caucussing, some a preaching, some a faith- healing, some a miracle-working, some a hypnotising, some a writing to the daily press; and while they were thus busy, like folk distraught, "reforming the island," Pantagruel burst out a laughing; whereat they were greatly dismayed; for laughter killeth the whole race of Coqcigrues, and they may ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang

... I live She would abuse me as before. Give me One maid-companion here to be with me," She asked. "My child, trust not," he said, "in slaves, Nor servants, for they only follow pay." Then Bidasari silence kept, and they, The father all distraught and mother fond, Wept bitterly at thought of leaving her. Fair Bidasari bade them eat, before They started. But because of heavy hearts They but a morsel tasted. At the dawn Young Bidasari swooned again. They made All ready to return to town. With tears The father said: ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors

... off the lights with an air that implied reproof, or could not have failed of that effect if the man at the desk had been conscious of the act. He was hopelessly distraught and his face appeared no less pallid in daylight than in the electric glare in which Rose had found him. As the girl warmed her hands at the radiator in the reception room the telephone chimed cheerily. The telephone provides a welcome ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... as though her dreams had taken substance. She saw pale faces staring at her; she saw on the rusty truckle-bed a figure which rose up and held out frantic, desperate arms toward her. But it was no dream—no phantom. Mrs. Cary, wild-eyed and distraught, struggled to rise to her feet and ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... solemn aristocracies of German Grand-Duchies (who, if they be despots, are extremely amiable) when, poor people, they are in the least put out of their way: they are so dreadfully fussy, so fearfully piteous, so distraught, so inconsolable. I was glad therefore that, the revolution being put down, they could retire in peace to their coffee, their picquet, and their metaphysics. Doubtless Thalermacher (some Hebrew millionaire, perhaps) ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... down the drive to look into the matter, and was coldly greeted. Ginger, for all his love of dogs, had never been able to bring himself to regard Toto with affection. He had protested when Sally, a month before, finding Mrs. Meecher distraught on account of a dreadful lethargy which had seized her pet, had begged him to offer hospitality and ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... a general dance. The hall was cleared, and soon all the guests were breathlessly dancing to the divine lilt of the fiddler's melody. All except Elisinde who, when her betrothed came forward to lead her to the dance, pleaded fatigue, and remained seated in her chair, pale and distraught, and staring at the fiddler. This did not, to tell the truth, displease her betrothed, who was a clumsy dancer and had no ear for music. Breathless at last with exhaustion the guests begged ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring

... up again. Antony had been unable to continue the conflict when parted from me. Now he sat in front of the cabin with his head resting on his hands, staring at the planks of the deck like one distraught. He, he—Antony! The bravest horseman, the terror of the foe, let his arms fall like a shepherd-boy whose sheep are stolen by the wolves. Mark Antony, the hero who had braved a thousand dangers, had flung down his sword. Why, why? Because a woman had yielded ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... end of a great career and of a great romance of love. Leonie Leon was half distraught at the death of the lover who was so soon to be her husband. She wandered for hours in the forest until she reached a convent, where she was received. Afterward she came to Paris and hid herself away in a garret of the slums. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... me... I have a right to shout: Vive Jules Favre! excuse me, I have a perfect right——" But his voice was drowned in a chorus of yells. Men in kepis shook their fists at him, shouting: "Traitor! no surrender! down with Badinguet!" His broad face, distraught with terror, still bore traces of its erstwhile look of smug effrontery. A girl in the crowd shrieked: "Throw him in the river!" and a hundred voices took up the cry. But just at that moment the crowd swayed back violently ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... of you, the night he stole you away from me? Or was he content to spend the night like a chaste widow?" Wiping his eyes the lad, in carefully chosen words took oath that Ascyltos had used no force against him. (The truth of the matter is, that I was so distraught with my own misfortunes that I knew not what I was saying. "Why recall past memories which can only cause pain," said I to myself. I then directed all my energies towards the recovery of my lost manhood. To achieve this I was ready even to devote myself to the gods; accordingly, I went ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... ministers and prefects and surveyors and engineers to judge of, not for him or you. Be reasonable, Adone; do not speak or act like a fool. This is the first grief you have known in your life, and you are distraught by it. That is natural enough, my poor boy. But you exaggerate the danger. It must be far off as yet. It ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... and the conversation drifted off into other channels. For several days neither of us made any allusion to the subject, though my companion was perhaps a little more dreamy and distraught than usual. The incident had almost vanished from my remembrance, when one day young Brodie, who is a second cousin of mine, came up to me on the university steps with the face of a ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... few days. Mrs. Morton quite forgot how badly she had wanted Ernest to have an education, when she learned that he could only come home once a year, and then only for a short month. She sighed so much and was so distraught, that the family were almost afraid to rejoice with Ernest, when he came home jubilantly waving his ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... as to place her hand so she felt the great bayonet hole in his back. Her silence then was more expressive than any speech. She had the look of a woman in whom conscience was a reality. And Lane divined that she felt she and her daughter, and all other women of this distraught land, owed him and his comrades a debt which could never be paid. For once she expressed dignity and sweetness ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... made his heart sick. He felt like a sane man shut up by accident in a madhouse. After a day of this wandering he found himself at nightfall in a company of his former companions, who rallied him on his distraught appearance. He told them of his dream and what it had taught him of the possibilities of a juster, nobler, wiser social system. He reasoned with them, showing how easy it would be, laying aside the suicidal folly of competition, by means of fraternal co-operation, to make ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... General eyed me coldly, greeted me in rather haughty fashion, and dismissed me to pay my respects to his sister. It was clear that from SOMEWHERE money had been acquired. I thought I could even detect a certain shamefacedness in the General's glance. Maria Philipovna, too, seemed distraught, and conversed with me with an air of detachment. Nevertheless, she took the money which I handed to her, counted it, and listened to what I had to tell. To luncheon there were expected that day a Monsieur Mezentsov, a French lady, and an Englishman; for, whenever money was in hand, a ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... thus amid the desert dark We passed on with steps and pace unmeet, A rumbling roar, confused with howl and bark Of dogs, shook all the ground beneath our feet, And struck the din within our ears so deep, As half distraught unto the ground I fell; Besought return, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... existence. Everything around me seemed the shadows of somebody's dream, in which I had no part, and could take no interest. I had but two all-absorbing ideas; and these were—injustice and Josephine. So distraught was I with the vastness of the one and with the loveliness of the other, that, when the young and splendid reality stole into the apartment softly, and moved before my eyes in all the fascination of her gracefulness, yet was I scarcely conscious ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... friend proves himself to be distraught, the proper friendly thing to do is to think for him, became eminently clear in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... thou 'rt dreaming or wild," said the Captain soothingly. "She, poor maid, is distraught, and took me for her mother. She loves me not, nor dost thou, nor do ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... enough—from a distance; but when you've said that you've said everything. The situations were impossible and absurd. The speeches were bombast. The sentiment was silly and untrue. And Sardanapalus himself was none so distraught by his unpleasant dream and all his other troubles but that he was looking forward to his glass of whiskey-and-water between the acts. No, he didn't impose on me one bit. I didn't believe in Sardanapalus for a moment, even before I had the privilege ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... steps I would retrace. These walls, this melancholy room, O'erpower me with a sense of gloom; The space is narrow, nothing green, No friendly tree is to be seen And in these halls, with benches filled, distraught, Sight, hearing fail me, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... made a few notes on his writing pad. His face in the light of his shaded reading lamp had lost its distraught expression, his hand fingered ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... waited not to note The Baron's speech: like one distraught He struck the harp—a wild farewell Thus breathing ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper

... come back; nobody who had ever known it could live without this place. Miss Mary would find them. She would make everything right. The mere thought of Mistress Mary brought a strange peace into poor Lisa's over-wrought, distraught mind. ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... not melodious madness, and is this picture of the distraught priest, setting forth to sail the seas with his dead lady, not an invention that Nanteuil might have illustrated, and the ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang

... thought—a thought lashed to the fore by his jealous rage, and defeated hopes. And poor Joyce, distraught and grief-crazed, realized not the terrible blunder he ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... the son find cause to be ashamed of his father had been shoved into the background by a stronger, more natural emotion. But he well knew that he ought not to invade the training quarters in these last crucial moments. Ernest must not be distraught by a feather's weight of any other interest than the task in hand. The coaches would be delivering their final words of instruction and the old Yale guard could picture to himself the tense absorption of the scene. Like one ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... me,' she pleaded; 'I have not left my convent walls for many years and I am distraught with grief. I seek a poison of the deadliest. I will ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... to her room, or write any letters. She dawdled about, started the phonograph going, read a little in a magazine, and seemed generally distraught. ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells

... I want,' said Darco, 'is just this: It is Binda's endrance. She is a leedle vat you would call distraught, not mat, but ankrished. She is very pretty, she is very bale. She stands at the door, and Raoul does not see her. She is there for vive zeconds to a tick, not more, not less—vive zeconds; write it down. Enter Binda, pause, unobserved, vive ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... saw him; he spoke to her; she heard nothing, and she went on quickly up the stairs, breathless, distraught, dumb, and ever holding this horrible piece of paper, that crackled between her fingers like a plate of sheet-iron. On the second floor she stopped before the attic door, ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... him continually. Since that time I have seen a number of other pictures either in the artist's possession or elsewhere: "Death on the Racetrack," "Pegasus," canvases from The Tempest and Macbeth in that strange little world of chaos that was his home, his hermitage, so distraught with debris of the world for which he could seem to find no other place; I have spent some of the rare and lovelier moments of my experience with this gentlest and sweetest of other-world citizens; I have ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... Mad and distraught with the passion of that parting, I sat that evening in the shadow of my box and waited for the curtain to rise upon "Francesca." The Coliseum was crowded to the roof, for it was known that Clarissa Lambert's ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... home after the preaching, and calling out "I am treacherously betrayed," burst into tears. He then narrated with many expressions of horror the cause of his distress. Bothwell had made a proposal to him to carry off the Queen and place her in Dunkeld Castle in Arran's hands (who was known to be half distraught with love of Mary), and to kill Murray, Lethington, and the others that now misguided her, so that he and Arran should rule alone. The agitation of the unfortunate young man, his wild looks, his conviction that he was himself ruined and shamed for ever, seem to have enlightened Knox at once as ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... recognized here or elsewhere in my society. That was essential, if there was the slightest chance of your even listening to my proposition, as indeed you are doing now. Last night I told you nothing, because that's always easier than telling only a little; moreover, you were so distraught that you would possibly have gone right away without benefiting even to the slight extent of the comfortable night's rest you so badly needed; but this morning I am prepared to put it to the touch. And let me begin by saying, that if circumstances would permit me to continue ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... whose meek graces were sufficiently attractive, or whose dowries were sufficiently large. Meantime the nine olive-branches grew wild, the servants revelled, the ministerial digestion suffered, the sacred shirts went buttonless, and their wearer was wellnigh distraught. At this crisis he saw Prudence, and fell into a way of seating himself before the well-endowed spinster, with a large cambric pocket-handkerchief upon his knee, a frequent tear meandering down his florid countenance, and volcanic sighs agitating his capacious waistcoat ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott

... pale and distraught, ate hardly anything, and her faculties were subjected to a strain so extraordinary that I thought she would not escape a serious, perhaps a fatal illness. Sleep had long since deserted her, and whenever I brought ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... now sate them down to rest and laid aside their swords and shields. But still the valiant minstrel stood guard before the hall. He waited, if any would perchance draw near again in strife. Sorely the king made wail, as did the queen. Maids and ladies were distraught with grief. Death, I ween, had conspired against them, wherefore many of the ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown

... comprehending. The men shout and wave their caps. "Hail, King Mark!"—"What is it?" Isolde inquires, reached in her trance by the clamour; "Brangaene, what cry is that?"—"Isolde, mistress," the distraught Brangaene implores, "self-control for this one day!"—"Where am I?" the bewildered lady asks helplessly. "Am I alive?..." What, the question asks itself, what is this still familiar surrounding scene, when they ought, by true working of the drug, to be dead? If any thought ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... want the owner, so I fled, distraught with fear, To the Main Drain sewage-outfall while he snorted in my ear— Reached the four-foot drain-head safely and, in darkness and despair, Felt the brute's ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... half distraught At his tricks as the days went by; "The most mischievous child in the world!" She said, with a shrug ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools

... like questions beset her the whole way home to Quebec, amid the frequent pauses of the talk, and underneath whatever she was saying. Half the time she answered yes or no to them, and not to what Dick, or Fanny, or Mr. Arbuton had asked her; she was distraught with their recurrence, as they teased about her like angry bees, and one now and then settled, and stung and stung. Through the whole night, too, they pursued her in dreams with pitiless iteration and fantastic change; ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells

... Haggard and distraught was Leander as he went about his business that morning, so mechanically that one customer, who had requested to have his luxuriant locks "trimmed," found himself reduced to a state of penal bullet-headedness before he could protest, and another sacrificed his whiskers and part of one ear to the ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey

... some reason hidden in the general mysteriousness of the event, I did not dawdle. And yet I was not in a hurry. I pulled the cord casually, and while the faint tinkling somewhere down in the basement went on, I charged my pipe in the usual way and I looked for the match-box with glances distraught indeed, but exhibiting, I am ready to swear, no signs of a fine frenzy. I was composed enough to perceive after some considerable time the match-box lying there on the mantelpiece right under my nose. And all this was beautifully and safely ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad

... boldly answered. Only distraught between conflicting charms of CALDWELL and SINCLAIR. There is a cold massivity about SINCLAIR, a pointedness of profile, when he declares "the Nose have it." But there is a loftiness about CALDWELL's tone, a subdued fire in his manner when he is discussing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various

... of her deductive logic she had it. The look of absolute horror which suddenly leaped into Eve's drawn face was overwhelming. Annie's arm tightened round her shoulders, for she thought the distraught woman ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... chlorine-water, and carbolic acid washes. Mrs. Mallowe kept to her own rooms she considered that she had made sufficient concessions in the cause of humanity and Mrs. Hauksbee was more esteemed by the Doctor as a help in the sick-room than the half-distraught mother. ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling

... tears were now flowing, kept crying, as one distraught that his dream of happiness was vanishing with ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... distraught, Miss Kathleen," said Ben; "for it's nigh about twenty hour sin' he dropped asleep, and I was frighted ontil conshultin' ye ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... stable door. Ungainly, dirty, bare-footed, his ragged wool hat on the back of his unkempt woolly poll, his jaw dropping in idiotic amazement at sight of the party—he was a ludicrous figure in the bath of late sunshine that brought out every uncomely item of the picture. Preoccupied and distraught as I was, I saw how the dust from the stable floor floated in golden clouds to the cobwebbed rafters, as the sun struck past the man in the doorway ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland

... poor, distraught, unhappy young woman hung on his words with heaving breast and panting heart and tear-dimmed eyes and cheeks that flushed and paled. Glad she was that he had so loved her; sad that it could make no difference. ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... from the door, and in his last position it would have required the most delicate of scientific instruments to measure the distance between his ear and the keyhole. He heard nothing save the wail of a Bones distraught, and the firm "No's" of a ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace

... whoever thou mayest be, I beg of thee to pass in silence here And leave me with my empty sepulchre Beside the ceaseless turmoil of the sea; Pass me as one whom life's old tragedy Hath made distraught—who now in dreams doth keep His cherished dead, unmindful of her sleep In ocean's bosom locked eternally! Scorn not the foolish grave that I have made Beside the deep sea of my soul's unrest, But let me hope that when the storms are stayed My phantom ship shall sail from out the west Bringing ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove

... she was left alone with the exhausted, almost senseless mother, that the tide of grief took its full course. Lucy wept like one distraught. Through the deep, black future which lay before her, she could see no gleam of hope or sunlight. She unjustly upbraided herself for having, however innocently, given Luke cause of suspicion. The weight of blame which she took to herself was ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various

... that she was undone; Nonna, who had flown back into the kitchen, returned with a lamp. I saw my beautiful mistress distraught and ran forward to comfort her. She shrank from me with horror, as well she might. "Farewell, lady," I said, "I will go ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... the bridge, where he stopped by some fatal impulse and leaned near a bleak abutment that overlooked the river—gazing, gazing, gazing in a blank stare at the driving channel below. The thought, the lurking purpose was shadowed dimly on his distraught mind. The cold, rolling river once passed, the seething cakes of ice once passed, and it would soon be over, soon be over. Life had been a worthless gift to him. His youth had been falsely colored by the visions of childhood; his age had been falsely colored by the ambitions ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... and decided that to this extent she was right. With one hand gripping the sovereign, and the other lifted to his distraught brow, the Commandant strode to the room where Vashti sat at breakfast. She looked up and welcomed ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... she wanted, and he had promptly married her. To-night a very different sort of girl—driven wild by doubts and youth, by poverty and riches—had let him see the fierceness of her nature. She went out still distraught, not knowing or caring what she had shown him. But to Archie knowledge of that sort was obligation. Oh, he was ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... answer. Foes distraught Pierced the thinned peoples in a brute-like blindness, Philosophies that sages long had taught, And Selflessness, were as an unknown thought, And "Hell!" and "Shell!" were yapped ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy

... sat through the interview somewhat distraught, as well he might be; but when it was over, and he had taken his leave and kissed her forehead, as he went home in his cab, he told himself that he had got through that little adventure ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope

... distraught, seated on her 'unhastie beast,' when with a fearful roar a lion rushed out from a thicket with eyes glaring and teeth gleaming, seeking to devour his prey. But at the sight of Una's tender beauty he stopped suddenly, and, stooping ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various

... speeding north, Nancy Ellen moody and distraught, Kate as frankly delighted as any child. The spring work was over; the crops were fine; Adam would surely have the premium wheat to take to the County Fair in September; he would work unceasingly for his chance with corn; he and ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... dark, Byway, where the ears may hark; Live and fierce when day is done, You, that do without the Sun:— What's this game you bring to nought?— Muttering like a thing distraught, Reckoning like a simpleton? (Since the hearing must be brief,— Living or a dying thief!) Cobbled with the anguished stones That the thoroughfare disowns; Stones they gave you for your bread Of the disinherited! Where the Towers of Hunger loom, Crowding in the dregs of doom; Where the lost ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody

... know nothing of the precipices down which our virtue flings us when led by love," replied Sabine, making a sort of moral revelation, so distraught was ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... "Curse!—curse!—curses on myself! I am a dainty morsel for a fair girl's love! Ah! ah! ah! a dainty morsel!" he repeated, and covered his face with his broad palms. Thus, shutting out the sight of his own deformities, and rocking himself backwards and forwards, moaning and jibbering like one distraught, he remained for several minutes. At length poor Crisp, who had been a most anxious spectator of the scene, ran timidly to his master, and, standing on his hind legs, began licking his fingers with an affectionate earnestness, more soothing to his agitated feelings than all the sincere ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... went forth to shrive the sick, And give the hungry grave its dead,— Only Jerome, he went not forth, But hiding in his dusty nook, "Let come what will, I must illume The last ten pages of my Book!" He drew his stool before the desk, And sat him down, distraught and wan, To paint his darling masterpiece, The stately figure of Saint John. He sketched the head with pious care, Laid in the tint, when, powers of Grace! He found a grinning Death's-head there, And ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... bullock hugs the sheltering stack, With cringing head and closely gathered feet, And waits with dumb endurance for the morn. Deep in a gusty cavern of the barn The witless calf stands blatant at his chain; While the brute mother, pent within her stall, With the wild stress of instinct goes distraught, And frets her horns, and bellows through the night. The stream runs black; and the far waterfall That sang so sweetly through the summer eyes, And swelled and swayed to Zephyr's softest breath, Leaps with a sullen roar the dark abyss, And howls its hoarse responses ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland

... to meet him. He looked distraught, as though just awakened out of sleep. He beckoned Heppner into the kitchen. Heppner entered and shut the door behind him. The light blinded him; he blinked stupidly, and thought he saw in the lamp-light two shining revolvers lying ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... the Faithful, give me three days' delay," and the Caliph rejoined, "I have granted this to thee." Hereupon Ja'afar went forth like unto one blind and deaf, unseeing nor hearing aught, and he was perplext and distraught as to his affair and continued saying, "Would Heaven we had not forgathered with this youth, nor ever had seen the sight of him." And he ceased not faring till he arrived at his own house, where he changed his dress and fell to threading the thoroughfares ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... Carew, with all the sharpness of a nervous, distraught woman who has at last found an outlet for her exasperation. "It's shameful! What's more, I think it's a clear case of violation of the law;—those stairs are, certainly. I shall make it my business to see that he's brought ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter

... thoughtfully. "Of course, I didn't know then that it wouldn't always be there. School boys have limited imaginations. I suppose I thought it was an awfully jolly thing to have it there, to know my way back to it, but there was the school tugging at me. I expect I was a good deal distraught and inattentive that morning, recalling what I could of the beautiful strange people I should presently see again. Oddly enough I had no doubt in my mind that they would be glad to see me . . . Yes, I ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... other saw that, he laid hold on Lord Denbeigh's arm, saying, "What mean you? are you distraught? There is but scarce time by ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives

... these high officials with all state Unto our presence, when I will undo The mischief, by soft words clothed with a smile. (Enters Quezox: Speaks): Most honored Francos, I had closed mine ear But Seldonskip like to a jackass brayed And I perforce did catch his words distraught, Which seemed to fling an insult in thy face. And cast contempt upon our worthy sons. If concord sweet shall lend us helping hand I fear me much this yokel must go hence For he doth gag us with his silly tongue! Francos: Patience, good Quezox. ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... to the back porch. Such intensity of attention to detail could not long fail to make this degenerating neurotic take note of her own body, which gradually became more and more sensitive, till she was fairly distraught between her fear of draughts and her mania for ventilation. It was windows up and windows down, opening the dampers and closing the dampers, something for her shoulders and more fresh air. Church, lecture-halls and theaters gradually became impossible. ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... anger; his countenance was pale and distraught, and a quiet fury burned in his eyes. He could not speak, and the women regarded him with fear and wonder. Presently he managed to articulate ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr

... the sick general who lay within the castle. His terrible news of Drogheda had created consternation, but already O'Neill's forces had been sent to join the royalists against the common foe. All Ireland was distraught by war. Royalist, patriot, and Parliament man fought each against the other, and the only man who could have faced ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones

... Who so distraught could ramble here, From gentle beech to simple gorse, From glen to moor, nor cease to fear The world's impetuous bigot force, Which drives the young before they will, And when they will ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... summer in his house of treasure in the rue Fortunee, he again left, in September, 1848, for Wierzchownia, this time determined to return with his shield or upon it. During his prolonged stay of eighteen months, while his distraught mother was looking after affairs in his new home, his health became so bad that he could not finish the work outlined during the summer. No sooner had he recovered from one malady than he was overtaken by another. Unable to work, distracted by bad news from ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd

... smarting under the jealous conviction that John Walden was secretly enamoured of the Lady of the Manor, had heard the strange story of his having so far forgotten his usual self as to wander out bareheaded in the evening air and recite the commencement of the burial service like a man distraught when Maryllia's crushed body had been brought home, and she thought of it often with an inward rage she could scarcely conceal. Almost,—such was her acrimony and ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... he wandered, half-distraught, about the streets of Paris and in the open country beyond. In the morning he went to an hotel and sent the incriminating note to his wife, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... to the telephone. "What? But they're not here! Very strange! They should have been here half an hour ago. Send some one—yes, at once." In the ensuing silence he repaired to the buffet and drank a glass of vodka. Quite distraught he was. ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... thousand-fold into your own. Farewell. Ragobah may return at any moment. Let us not needlessly imperil your safety. Once more good-bye. The dew-drop now may freely fall into the shining sea." Poor distraught child! She had tried to adopt her lover's religion without abandoning her own. I bent over and kissed her. It was my first and last kiss and she gave it with a sweet sadness, the memory of which, through all these years, has dwelt in the better part of me, like a fragrance ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy

... Then a father Priest they sought, The Priest that taught her all she knew, And they told him of her loss. 'For she is mild and sweet of will, She loved him, and his words are peace, And he shall heal her ill.' But her watch she did not cease. He bless'd her where she sat distraught, And show'd her holy cross,— The cross she kiss'd from year to year— But she neither saw nor heard; And said he in her deaf ear All he had been wont to teach, All she had been fond to hear, Missall'd prayer, and solemn speech, But she answer'd not a word. ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... so well balanced but that he bores my Lady, who, after a languid effort to listen, or rather a languid resignation of herself to a show of listening, becomes distraught and falls into a contemplation of the fire as if it were her fire at Chesney Wold, and she had never left it. Sir Leicester, quite unconscious, reads on through his double eye-glass, occasionally stopping to remove ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... perceived she was alone. She rose, went to the door and locked it, standing for a moment trembling, until of a sudden she fell a-crying piteously, and began to walk to and fro across her chamber, wringing her hands like one distraught, and sometimes throwing herself upon the bed, wailing and moaning all the while as if her heart would break indeed. And, truly, she had some reason for the violence of her grief. Not being a thoughtful person, nor given to meditation, she had never before duly considered that her maintenance ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... sturdily persisted Rob. "'Tis well known that the King never looked at him the first time he was shown the little imp, and next time, when he was not so distraught, he lifted up his hands and said he wotted nought of the matter. Hap what hap, King Harry may roam from Church to shrine, from Abbey to chantry, so long as he lists, but none of us will brook to be ruled or misruled by the foreign woman and the Beauforts ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... intensely, pleadingly, his finger on his lips—"but I—never felt like that before. I got terribly—nervous, and I felt that if I did not get away from that house I should go mad." Even the recollection made Nina look so distraught that her aunt's indignation turned to anxiety, and she put her arm around the girl and led ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post

... engaged?" Harry Gaynor cried, one morning. "I never was so beat in my life! Jim, maybe this will hit you hard. Seems to me you've been rather distraught of late and sighing like ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... always the name of a gentleman. And this is one I know well, for I have heard more than one poor soul mumbling it and raving at him in her last hours. One there was, and I knew her, a pretty rosy thing in her country days, not sixteen, and distraught with love for him, and lay in the street by his door praying him to take her back when he threw her off, until the watch drove her away. And she was so mad with love and grief she killed her girl child when 'twas born i' the kennel, sobbing and crying that it should not live to be like her and bear ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... The distraught creature's sobs prevented further speech, and she dropped down on the ground, weak and exhausted; her poor twisted body shaking and writhing with the emotion she ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright

... once; but the elder little one, then a child of about three and a half, was very sorrowful. She was so pitifully frightened, too, that at first we could do nothing with her; and there was a look in her eyes that alarmed us, it was so distraught and unchildlike. "My mother did her best for them," wrote the kind schoolmaster to whose house the children had been taken when the Temple woman gave them up; "but the elder one has fever. She is always muttering ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... be distraught, poring over these matters that were never meant for lads like us! Do but come and drive them out for once with mirth and ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... vision or reflection, or whatever it was, startled me so much that I came to a halt under the lee of one of the monoliths, and found myself unable even to call to the distraught man whom I pursued. ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard

... and that, and is half distraught; but he has stated with as much positive assurance as such a man can assume, that the match must be regarded as broken off unless you will at once ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... then a burden to my mind; Mine anxious thought Betrays my reason, makes me blind; Near dangers drad dreaded. Make me distraught; Surprised with fear my senses all I find: In hell I dwell, Oppressed with horror, pain, and ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... distraught with business cares, leave her hurriedly and without the customary morning kiss? Woman, on her way to market, rapidly reviews similar instances in fiction, in which this first forgetting proved to be "the little rift ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed

... to have spring with us again," answered his wife. "I think, though, that in winter I am happier. In summer I am always worried. I am afraid for the children to be out of my sight, and when you are away on a hunt I am distraught until you are ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... the convent. There were two doctors and four or five nurses, with a dozen soldiers under command of Lieutenant Bray. It was while the apparently dead Bansemer was being moved to the improvised hospital that Jane presented herself, distraught with fear, to the young Southerner who had so plainly shown his love for her. She pleaded with him to start at once for Manila with the wounded, supporting her extraordinary request with the opinion that they could not receive proper care from the two young surgeons. Bray was surprised and ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... by her two slender shoulders; she bent her merciful, loving face close to the younger one, distraught, and full of longing, primeval passion. "Lucy," she whispered, "your ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... the play each night with a sense of being more deeply indebted to him as well as a feeling of having been near him. Once she saw a face strangely like his in the upper gallery, and the blood tingled round her heart, and she played the remainder of the act with mind distraught. "Can it be possible that he is still in ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... metropolis gradually gave place to green fields, she endeavoured to compose her mind and collect her thoughts for her coming interview with the daughter of the murdered man. But her mind was in such a distraught condition that she could think of no plan but to sacrifice herself in order to save her husband. With cold hands pressed against her hot forehead, she muttered again and again, as if offering up an invocation ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... writes," she commented, "since the mad often see well in their dreams, though these are not sent by a god as he imagines. The mind in its secret places knows all things, O Allan, although it seems to know little or nothing, and when the breath of vision or the fury of a soul distraught blows away the veils or burns through the gates of distance, then for a while it sees and learns, since, whatever fools may think, often madness is true wisdom. Now follow me with the little yellow man and the Warrior of the Axe. Stay, let ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... harp-string caught; Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thought As Hermes with his lyre in sleep profound The hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound; For I am weary, and am overwrought With too much toil, with too much care distraught, And with the iron crown of anguish crowned. Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and cheek, O peaceful Sleep! until from pain released I breathe again uninterrupted breath! Ah, with what subtile meaning did the Greek Call thee the lesser ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... residue of the woefull people remaining yet aliue, being overburdened with extream sorrow, runs up and down the fieldes like distraught or franticke men.... Moreouer, they are so greatly distrest for lacke of food, that they seeme to each mannes sighte more liker spirits ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... hours to the distraught girl she paced the floor of her apartment, awaiting the final summons to the presence of the mad king. Darkness had fallen and the oil flares within the palace had been lighted long before two messengers appeared with instructions that Herog demanded ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Mrs. Gerrard Pennington, unhappy and distraught, beseeches Uncle Bob to help her save Margaret Elizabeth; also how Mr. Gerrard Pennington comes to the rescue, and how in the end his wife submits gracefully to the inevitable, which is not ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard

... matter—or, to be more exact, as we ascend into the higher regions of La Butte—we find the elect, who form so stout a phalanx against the Philistinism of the Louvre, themselves subdivided into numerous sections, and distraught with internecine feuds concerning the principle of the art which they pursue with all the vehemence that Veronese green and cadmium yellow are capable of. From ten at night till two in the morning the brasseries of the Butte are in session. Ah! the interminable bocks and the reek of the cigars, ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... cry of pain and staggered to her feet. She turned upon Count Victor a face distraught and eyes that were wild with the wretchedness of the disillusioned. Her fingers were playing nervously at her lips; her shoulders were roughened and discoloured by the cold; her hair falling round her neck gave her the aspect of a ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... as one distraught, Would blindly, stumbling, seek the watery verge And sink, nor rise again. But when, untaught In craft, the mourners raised the untimely dirge, Lo! otherwhere himself would swift emerge Incontinent, and crisp his tasselled ears; And, all vivacious, ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)

... Wordsworth confessed it was; while as for the history of the matter, there are who hold that 'Sir Patrick Spens,' for example, is the work of Lady Wardlaw, which to others, myself among them, is a thing preposterous and distraught. ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various



Words linked to "Distraught" :   overwrought, agitated



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